Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
Personally I think Rivers are a good path to investigate and trust that if we are worried about someone corrupting them then the characters are as well and will take steps to mitigate the risk.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
I would still prefer whatever it is that the original waystones have, but its good to investigate all options.
EDIT: However, i do feel the need to adress this.
EDIT: However, i do feel the need to adress this.
The problem is that Rivers feed the entire Empire, whereas Sylvania was "just" one Province.
The difference is that you have to somehow infuse and/or biologically pollute the river first, whereas pumping it full of magic as part of network is just putting a primed poison in just waiting for the first person with enough know how to trigger it. The river comes pre-poisoned, as it were. I think that makes a fuckton of difference.
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NavySeel
"I don't know what I'm doing."
- Location
- Places
Sure there is magic in them, but if it's literally the same as the ambient magic normally there I'm not sure what the point of using Rivers is.
They'd literally be the same as using Air but far less flexible.
Not necessarily the end, just somewhere downstream of where the magic is going in. Most of the Empire's rivers are upstream of Altdorf.
Mathilde founding the Empire branch of Mak Attax is a novel and intriguing crossover premise.
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It's not the same as ambient magic. It's significantly more concentrated.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
For those of us not in the know, what is this reference to. Mac Attax turns up some toys on google search.
I misspelled it. Mak Attax is a faction in Unknown Armies, a modern-day urban fantasy setting, that seeks to pave the way to revealing magic to the general public by exposing random everyday people to hopefully benign magical phenomena. They do this by getting jobs fast food chains and spiking the products with magical energy.
Turn 41 Results - 2490 - Part 1
[*] Plan Codifying and Swords
-[*] Overwork: Yes
-[*] COIN: The Gambler
-[*] Attempt to codify Rite of Way so that others can learn it. (The Gambler)
-[*] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them. (Hand-switching)
-[*] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them. (Double-tap)
-[*] Waystone: Capstone (Hatalath, Thorek, Elrisse, Egrimm, Max, Johann)
-[*] Waystone: Leyline Prototype (River) (Sarvoi, Cadaeth, Baba Niedzwenka, Elrisse, Aksel, Tochter)
-[*] Tributary: Water Spirit (Stirland) (Baba Niedzwenka, Zlata, Max)
-[*] KAU: Seek an exchange arrangement with another Library or a Karak's archives to be able to make copies of their corpus (Nuln; use KaK Metalsmithing Guild Boon)
-[*] EIC: Attempt to establish a trade route with the Eonir (charcoal)
-[*] SERENITY: The Black Orc Warboss' worship of Only Gork, and what you saw of the Rogue Idol ritual (FADED)
-[*] Eike Actions: Branulhune training, EIC action
-[*] Eike Study: Study Petty spells
Tally
-[*] Overwork: Yes
-[*] COIN: The Gambler
-[*] Attempt to codify Rite of Way so that others can learn it. (The Gambler)
-[*] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them. (Hand-switching)
-[*] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them. (Double-tap)
-[*] Waystone: Capstone (Hatalath, Thorek, Elrisse, Egrimm, Max, Johann)
-[*] Waystone: Leyline Prototype (River) (Sarvoi, Cadaeth, Baba Niedzwenka, Elrisse, Aksel, Tochter)
-[*] Tributary: Water Spirit (Stirland) (Baba Niedzwenka, Zlata, Max)
-[*] KAU: Seek an exchange arrangement with another Library or a Karak's archives to be able to make copies of their corpus (Nuln; use KaK Metalsmithing Guild Boon)
-[*] EIC: Attempt to establish a trade route with the Eonir (charcoal)
-[*] SERENITY: The Black Orc Warboss' worship of Only Gork, and what you saw of the Rogue Idol ritual (FADED)
-[*] Eike Actions: Branulhune training, EIC action
-[*] Eike Study: Study Petty spells
Tally
The first step in developing a hand-switching technique for Branulhune is to develop at least a basic ability to fight with your offhand. There are techniques within the Imperial half of the style you currently practice that already utilize this, based on the idea of gaining momentum with the dominant hand and then switching to the offhand to transfer that momentum into a strike from an unexpected direction. They're also from the part of that style only used when fighting out of formation, so it's not a skill you maintained as you started to incorporate Dwarven techniques, which as a rule avoid any sort of wide sweeps that would be impossible in a narrow tunnel. While that means starting from scratch, it also means you have a clear foundation to work with, as Branulhune doesn't preserve momentum when dismissed and resummoned.
It is, you quickly discover, very difficult, and you're thankful that Kragg had Branulhune scaled down for you instead of making it the standard size of the Empire's Greatswords. You shelve the matter and see to your other business for several weeks as you alter your regular practice to emphasize building up strength and dexterity in your offhand, and when you turn your full attention back to the matter you've only just developed enough skill to threaten an untrained child. Luckily for you, there is just such a child available to match this level of ability.
Or so you thought.
"Okay, Apprentice," you say as your training sword clatters across the room for the third time. "It's time to talk about which extracurriculars you took back at Altdorf."
She lowers her sword from the point-out guard that had looked awkward right up until you tried to hit her. "Well, it wasn't Greatswording exactly, Master," she says. "The Carroburg Greatswords weren't willing to spare someone just to train one person. But Oma was able to organize someone from Bergo Academy to train me in the basics of the spadone."
You frown as you walk over to and recover your sword, trying to recall what little you'd read of it in Imperial-written books. "Sweeping vertical slashes and pommel strikes, right?"
"Not exclusively, Master, the sweeping is for the killing strike with the stercke, after a parry or flick with the schweche. But yes, that's the style."
With a sliver of willpower you surround yourself in Aethyric Armour. "Demonstrate."
To her credit, she doesn't hesitate, and you have only a moment to wonder whether that's due to trust in you, or her intuitive Windsight telling her it's safe to do so. She batters her way past your offhanded guard, flicks the tip of your blade across your face - that would have taken at least an eye in actual combat - and then whirls into an underhand swing that connects with your gut hard enough to send you a step backwards, and you smile to yourself as the next stage of practice starts to look a lot more interesting.
---
[Eike studying the blade: Martial, 47+10+10(Library: Greatswords)=67.]
A week of training allows you to get the measure of Eike's ability with a blade, and if she's not quite at the level you were when you joined the Karak Eight Peaks Expedition, she probably soon will be, as you find her spending a fair amount of her free time in drills and delving into your books on the subject. Certainly good enough to leave a few bruises on you when you face her wielding a two-handed blade in just your offhand. You leave her to that as you move on to the next stage of your own development: battering away at training dummies with a blade that flickers from hand to hand. The first drill you settle on is one that would probably be horrendously likely to get you killed if you tried it against any but the most passive or unaware of opponents, but raising both hands above your head and then raining a series of blows with alternating hands in something like a double-time cadence serves as a good first foray into the idea as well as being viscerally satisfying. As you'd expected, it is much more straining to bring a greatsword to swinging speed with your offhand than it was with both hands, even if you stick to downward swings. What you hadn't expected was how unintuitive it is to split off enough of your attention to bring your empty hand into position for the next swing.
It occurs to you that what you're trying to achieve is very much like one of the advantages of a two-weapon style, but the only two-weapon styles you have access to are the sword-and-dagger style of Tilean duelists and the dual axe techniques of the Slayers, neither of which align with what you're hoping to achieve here. Dual sword styles would likely be much more useful, but the only ones you're even vaguely aware of are those of the Wardancers of Athel Loren and the Shadow-walkers of Nagarythe, neither of which are currently accessible to you. So you press on and do your best to develop from scratch what you're sure they've already mastered.
[Mathilde studying the blade: Martial, 79+23+10(Library: Greatswords)=112.]
But develop you do, apart from losing most of a day from discovering that Eike has moved her own modest collection of books about greatswords into the Library and being subsequently ensnared by the concept of feigned thrusts. Once you manage to free yourself and settle on a few drills that allow you to alternate swings without leaving yourself open to being gutted, you bring in your Apprentice once more, and though she adapts impressively fast and manages to reliably parry at least the first two swings of any given flurry, that it's impossible to judge the arc of a swing before the sword appears means that it's not something that she can maintain. Before long you've moved on to more skilled opponents, and find that while some of the most skilled of the Undumgi and Ulrikadrin are able to develop counters to the technique, they're only able to do so after they're exposed to and defeated by it several times - a learning opportunity that you don't intend to offer to any of those who might find themselves on the wrong side of Branulhune. You're very pleased with yourself as you take notes and sketches of the drills you've developed.
[Branarhune aspect developed and mastered: hand switching.]
[Greatsword, Master (4/?)]
So far you've burned through less than half of the time you set aside for training, and the remaining matter concerns the subject of your previous sessions that wasn't quite so fruitful - the guard bypass, which was greatly hindered by Branulhune's sheer destructive power, which you weren't able to turn off without also turning off the ability to be dismissed and resummoned that the technique relied upon. But now you have the training blade Branithune, the blunted steel of which leaves dummies intact and sparring partners merely bruised. But it has occurred to you that an alternative to the guard bypass technique exists that might be its equal and should present fewer difficulties in developing - the double-tap.
The double-tap would start with a normal swing that would be allowed to impact the target's defences, ideally shattering whatever blade or shield or limb tried to obstruct it and dispelling any magical defences they possess, and then use what you have learned from developing the momentum dump and the hand switch to immediately make another swing at the same angle. If done correctly, this should result in the target being struck twice, first by the shrapnel of their shattered weapon or shield and a second by your sword. Even in a worst case scenario, against an opponent fast enough to catch or deflect your blade or holding something durable enough to withstand the impact, it forces them to repeat that feat a second time almost immediately. In contrast, a properly-developed guard bypass would, as its name suggests, slip straight past any attempt to block or deflect or otherwise impede your swing and directly impact the target once. For most imaginable targets, either would be devastating enough to remove them from the battle and very likely from life. For the very few exceptions - and for most of those exceptions, you really should avoid crossing blades with them in the first place - the double-tap would be better against those who depend on armour or raw endurance to withstand blows, while the guard bypass would be better against those few who may possess magical weapons or shields able to stand against Branulhune.
Or you could spend twice as much time and effort to develop both, despite the fact that being capable of both would only represent a very marginal increase in your deadliness.
[ ] Double-tap
[ ] Guard bypass
[ ] Both
Eike charsheet updated:
Martial: 8+1+1+1=11
Greatsword (2/3)
Eike has learned:
Greatsword: Eike has developed a basic understanding of the Tilean spadone style, with a few Imperial flourishes. +1 Martial
- A short update today, to let this matter be hashed out while I work on the rest of the turn. There will be a one hour moratorium.
- If 'both' is chosen, then Mathilde will attempt to finish one this turn, which will leave the skill at 5/6 and it will need to be completed on a future turn.
- Eike's Martial of 11 is after adding the +1 from completing Greatsword.
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I know completionism and SV are like rocket fuel and big booms but I would like to attract attention to the following thought:
Or you could spend twice as much time and effort to develop both, despite the fact that being capable of both would only represent a very marginal increase in your deadliness.
One AP for very marginal increases to our deadliness does not sound like a good use of our time, especially since we are planning to do the Iron Orcs next turn so we would have to take the training on the same turn and hope we do not roll low and just fail to get the trait at all in time.
Or you could spend twice as much time and effort to develop both, despite the fact that being capable of both would only represent a very marginal increase in your deadliness.
One AP for very marginal increases to our deadliness does not sound like a good use of our time, especially since we are planning to do the Iron Orcs next turn so we would have to take the training on the same turn and hope we do not roll low and just fail to get the trait at all in time.
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I'm in favor of the Guard Bypass, would be easier to adapt to a potential Grey Sword Spell style. If we are ever able to develop such a spell and it works like I think it does. A very marginal increase in deadliness isn't worth an AP right now in my opinion.
Every time I read about her, I like Eike even more. It's awesome that our apprentice is also a sword nerd.
Every time I read about her, I like Eike even more. It's awesome that our apprentice is also a sword nerd.
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I want to restate that connecting to the Vortex is not actually necessary. It's just cleaner. There's nothing stopping us from using pseudo-Waystones to dump magic by the gallon on real Waystones, who then naturally absorb it. Nothing but making sure we don't accidentally corrupt everything in between and then downstream, that is. But it is an option and the solutions for problems that come up with this method might not be too hard either.
Nordland seems difficult since the EIC doesn't trade there. Cult of Ulric sounds fun and useful, if risky. I'd be willing to vote for that next turn.
My point was a quibble over a minor detail. Whether we do or don't do that action shouldn't hinge on the availability of bored Battle Mages, of all things.
Make a hole in the rock, stick the sword in carefully, fill the gaps with concrete.When in doubt, just jab it into a random rock. That always works out for the better.
Problem is finding a good enough rock that does not explode. I got a plan to fix that and we only need to dedicate a measly 4 ap.
Somic
It's meow or never
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm in favor of doubletapping. Mathilde is very magic, much Lord Magister, wow so sneaky and skilled - she CAN deal with magical defenses, I think. Branulhune is her biggest stick with great direct offensive power, and doubletap emphasizes that.
Edit: whoops, forgot about the possibility of developing a spell for this. Bypass would be better for that, yeah.
Edit: whoops, forgot about the possibility of developing a spell for this. Bypass would be better for that, yeah.
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Dermonster
The Shittiest Wizard
I'm in favor of Guard Bypass personally.
It's just feels very dramatic. And in theory it is more useful for if we ever codify a shadow sword and distribute manuals on our sword style.
It's just feels very dramatic. And in theory it is more useful for if we ever codify a shadow sword and distribute manuals on our sword style.
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Chlof
Her Ladyship
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So here are the two example where Branulhune hasn't just gone straight through whatever we hit with it;
This one would have been a perfect opportunity for the double-tap.
The guard bypass might have helped here but it's kinda hard to tell. Edit: It's also kind of a unique situation so it might not be very relevant to this vote.
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I would say the bypass is the way to go, as I think the issue of gear is probably more likely to come up (In what is an incredibly rare scenario either way). Also, it's just straight out got more style points.
Overall though, as long as we don't pick both I'm not too fussed either way. They're both cool.
Overall though, as long as we don't pick both I'm not too fussed either way. They're both cool.
Pride...
...comes before the fall. That'll teach you to bully your apprentice, Mathilde!
(why does Mathilde walk over to pick up her sword? she can flicker it to her hand with the Rune of the Unknown)
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
While this would still be a win, it would fail to accomplish our greater goals. If we cannot link to the vortex, then while we introduce something of a redundancy, the loss of the original waystones will still be almost as crippling a blow as it was before.
She was not using either Branulhune or the Branthunki (i hope i did not misspelt it too much)
[] Both
Also voting for Both. We will need one or two more actions, but i absolutely refuse Mathilde to be a lesser swordswoman than she could be.
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She was using a wooden sword at that point so that if she accidentally bonked her Apprentice too hard while she was still learning how to control it with just her offhand, she'd break the sword instead of the Apprentice.