Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[BungieONI]

I think he's got something of a point. Five elf favors would get a better lab than five college favors. Dwarf favors aren't useless for this, but they'll probably only do a niche thing really well.

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Oh yeah if we had elf favors for the lab I'd be screeching from the rooftops to dump literally all of them into there, but the idea that the dwarves have to be niche about this when they've been messing with Runelore for something like three times as long as the Empire has existed doesn't sit well. Ya know?

 

[BurnNote]

You...

Do realize that the "hubris is a coward's word" thing falls in the category of "famous last words" unless the GM is deliberately writing a power fantasy, right?

It's not a blessing, it's a warning.

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I'm willing to take risks, it makes for a more enjoyable story. I was happy to gamble with Ranald. We shoudn't be stupid about it, but I don't think what I outlined is beyond Mathilde. It'll take a good lone while, sure. But we clearly, manifestly have the option of getting freaking fantastic gear. Mathilde is already a powerful mage, and we haven't even gotten all the low hanging fruit.

It won't be risk free, but I fully believe it can be done.

 

[BurnNote]

Oh yeah if we had elf favors for the lab I'd be screeching from the rooftops to dump literally all of them into there, but the idea that the dwarves have to be niche about this when they've been messing with Runelore for something like three times as long as the Empire has existed doesn't sit well. Ya know?

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Sure, burning a few favors on safety is a good idea. I support that. I just don't think we'll need all that many, but that's better resolved by just asking the GM.
EDIT: Sorry about the double post. I'm used to the thread moving so fast it can't even happen.

 

[Yeangst]

The image of a five foot nothing woman sneaking around and backstabbing people with a five and a half foot long sword is amusing and memeworthy, but I'm not sure I really want to double down on it by investing 25 favor points into a bigger Runefang.

Mathilda is also an excellent researcher, administrator, and a wizard who's just shy of being being a battlemage. We can invest in that stuff into awesome tunes for the wizard's tower or an awesome wizards staff. While Dwarven runelord's aren't used to making a traditional caster item, I'm sure they could devise something that could drastically reduce the chances or consequences of a miscast.

As for learning various skills, it really doesn't seem worth it when we have once-in-a-lifetime simultaneous access to the two greatest runelords in the world. There are humans who can teach us how to shoot a rifle or plant demolition charges.

 

[Lealope]

The reason I'm okay with it is that if a 10 point sword is comparable to a Runefang in cost and thus effect, that a 15 point expenditure is equivalent to the Belt which is mindblowing to me then a 15 point lab and sword are going to be two sources of amazingly mindblowing potency shoved directly into our eyeballs.

I adhere big time to the "do it right the first time" for all of this myself, its just my scale is adjusted lower than yours to find the Belt's level of play satisfies "doing it right". If it didn't then that means Kragg the fucking Grim didn't do something right the first time, and the universe will promptly crack in half

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More than 15 doesn't fit, you know? We're already looking at near Runefang quality there, Mathilde doesn't need the capacity to be the killiest thing in the world, just killy enough to pop anything we're likely to get in melee with, and to help us cheese it if things go wrong.

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15 is also equivalent to the favour we earned from the sabotage actions we had taken during this. A sword that hits with S10 and has two other equally explosive effects would be a great weapon for direct combat but even better as an asset denial tool while also being useful for assassinating high value targets.

Imagine enemies cornering Mathilde she's destroyed a shitload of their warmachines and infrastructure, precisely calculated for maximum damage. Naturally, they'd assume she was carrying explosives or used some kind of magic, right?

But no, as it turns out this hobbit wizard nerd was actually hitting things with her sword, the same sword she's wielding right now while you're in melee range.

Glorious.

Says you. I'm looking a Nagash. The guy can murder most everything in melee, and cast like a mofo. My ambition isn't to be some girl who's kinda decent, I guess. My goal is to be great. So if I plan to have a personal Ghal Maraz, it's not monofocus. It's ambition to match it in every other regard.

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I mean, all of this stuff is gonna be post-Ulgu ascension or some equivalent. Mathilde doesn't even have the genius of Gelt, let alone ya boy Nagash. That's very long term, if it even happens within the scope of the quest.

In the meantime, a legendary weapon but not absurd would be more than enough to serve our purposes. If nothing else, you'd want to wait for the dwarves to reclaim more of their lost glory and lore if you want the absolute best weapon theoretically possible.

 

[WorldSlayer]

As an alternative to getting a super melee weapon right now we might be able to go another way. Remember we just had the new Runelord brought in and new Runesmiths and have lots of favor to spend. If we don't want to invest immediately in a melee weapon or simply want to try something innovative we do have options available to make scouting and fighting more survivable.

Super Gun: It's been brought up before and I think a super gun could work well if we can get a runsmith to work on it. I think we'd be limited to less than 10 favors due to how traditional our runelords are though. Still there are some nice engineering runes we might be able to get placed on a gun such as Rune of Penetrating, Rune of Accuracy and Master Rune of Disguise.
We did some great work by assassinating with our gun once and we can likely do so again.

Fiery Ring of Thori: It was also previously mentioned that instead of getting stuck in a fight we might instead attempt to escape. The ring of Thori (or similar items) is capable of blasting a power blast of fire that would stop our enemies long enough for Mathilde to take escape, take cover and cast her concealment spells.

Dagger with 2x Rune of Burning: Same as the Fiery Ring of Thori it's capable of unleashing powerful fireblasts (breath-weapon S4). Also it's a flaming dagger which is nice backup weapon.

 

[spiritualatheist]

15 is also equivalent to the favour we earned from the sabotage actions we had taken during this. A sword that hits with S10 and has two other equally explosive effects would be a great weapon for direct combat but even better as an asset denial tool while also being useful for assassinating high value targets.

Imagine enemies cornering Mathilde she's destroyed a shitload of their warmachines and infrastructure, precisely calculated for maximum damage. Naturally, they'd assume she was carrying explosives or used some kind of magic, right?

But no, as it turns out this four foot nothing smoll wizard nerd was actually hitting things with her sword, the same sword she's wielding right now while you're in melee range.

Glorious.

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Even better if the we go with @DarkLight140's idea and the sword is literally named Shenanigans.

 

[Reynal]

I mean, my take on Dwarven tradition for magic is basically like they use oil for chemistry—making synthetic fabrics, lubricants, solvents, plastics, etc. They're good at safe handling of it where they use it (keep well away from flame, ensure good ventilation, don't drink it) and are frankly amazing at turning it into exactly what they want.

Human/elf tradition is burning it. There's some tangential relevance to the Dwarvish strengths in what we do—some stuff burns faster, or hotter, or is easier/harder to light on fire—but an awful lot of their expertise provides benefits at a steep discount and while we can get some actual mileage out of their safety equipment most of it just isn't set up with the assumption that things being on fire is the goal.

 

[Guile]

Y'know what else dwarves do really well, besides forging weapons?

Holding grudges.

But also, building stuff.

As for learning various skills, it really doesn't seem worth it when we have once-in-a-lifetime simultaneous access to the two greatest runelords in the world. There are humans who can teach us how to shoot a rifle or plant demolition charges.

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Remember that 10 Favour will get us the literal best-in-the-world at whatever it is to train us up to his standards.

 

[veekie]

Usually for an assassin, we get to chose when to kill the warboss (i.e. 2 weeks before the war begins).

Also, the forgetfulness/crazyness charm helps us escape in general from being mobbed, something our seed is very vulnerable to (There's WoG noting that if your body keeps getting stabbed, you will run out of charge and die for real.)

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Well, its mostly about finding the right opportunity. One of the big ones is being able to kill fast so you can pull out after one exchange

One important note on favor expenditures is that if we want the full +5 bonus from dwarf books in our library, we need to spend either 2 or 4 favor per topic (I'm not clear if you have to buy the rare, very rare, and extremely rare categories all individually at 1/1/2 favor each or can just jump to the most expensive category and have it cover the other two). My guess would be that we have at least three categories in which we'll want the +5 as quickly as we can get it; "magical principles" for example would be applicable to a hell of a lot of what we do, and "necromancy" or "the undead" would be a good buy for reference material before reading Liber Mortis. Everything dwarfdom knows about greenskins could be pretty useful if we're writing up a paper on sabotaging and resisting greenskin magic for our new trait, too. These bonuses can stack with human library bonuses, and high research/study/paper-writing rolls are more likely to give us better traits and effects, so we want them very, very badly.

Reserving a large chunk of our accumulated favor for this would be prudent.

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I wouldn't be so sure. Anything not actually secret or forbidden should be available for gold at this point on reputation alone.

Separately, if we do make a super-late game weapon for ourselves, I think a chaff-threasher would fit better than a lord-hunter. Once we get Smoke and Mirrors, we can effectively fight low and mid tier enemies forever, and just escape whenever a serious threat approaches us. We have a counter to almost everything; massed range fire? Block LoS with Pall of Darkness. Cavalry charge? Smoke and Mirrors behind them on shadowsteed, see how fast they can turn around from full speed. Massed low weapon skill troop wave? Good luck landing enough hits to put us down in a single turn through our massive collection of defenses, we can just warp away if you don't, plus they probably die before us from the retribution rune alone. Magic assaults are a thorny issue, but a sword is a moot point against, say, a headbutt spell. With our new mastery, we don't even get fatigued from any of this. Thus, the only ways we would be removed from the field would be a magic attack or us intentionally charging into a melee opponent who could kill us really quickly.

An assassin style sword would give us a decent chance against such foes, but we will gain the skills to avoid having to do that, and could instead chose a sword optimized for cycle-charging the enemy backline forever while running from anything heavy.

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Eh, massed mooks is something theres a lot of solutions for. Herokilling is rarer.

The Enchanting Nexus: A magical locus is an immense asset and once we find one we'll want to lay claim to it. Once we have a claim we should be able to actually gain favor for offering it to the College and have them help set the place up into an amazing asset for wizards (the most important wizard with first dibs here being Mathilde). This is something that Wizards are more qualified to do than Dwarfs.

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No need to. BoneyM confirmed just about anywhere in Eight Peaks would not be too difficult to set up an outrigger to the main network. Just needs to survey first.

Mmm, I find the idea that an elder race whose entire magical tradition is about harnessing and making safe to use the fuel we use can't help us out in making a safe and effective lab(which is the point of spending 15 favors on it) a bit... yeah. You get the idea, I don't really agree.

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BoneyM DID say dwarf stuff should be pretty good at studying and research. Probably should be pretty good at absorbing fail states too.

 

[CelestialJade]

What options do we have to increase Mathilde's stewardship, diplomacy, martial. While we act as an adviser for the Dwarf King, perhaps we should study dwarf war throngs, mining, architecture, troop deployment. Even it its while we work with his other advisers. Might be a good paper to publish.

 

[spiritualatheist]

What options do we have to increase Mathilde's stewardship, diplomacy, martial. While we act as an adviser for the Dwarf King, perhaps we should study dwarf war throngs, mining, architecture, troop deployment. Even it its while we work with his other advisers. Might be a good paper to publish.

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Finishing up our economics trait, getting Diplo training from the Grey College, Ranger training from Ulthar... We have a lot of options.

 

[Andres]

What options do we have to increase Mathilde's stewardship, diplomacy, martial. While we act as an adviser for the Dwarf King, perhaps we should study dwarf war throngs, mining, architecture, troop deployment. Even it its while we work with his other advisers. Might be a good paper to publish.

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Options for diplomacy could be something as simple as acting as a diplomat. We have our Shadowsteed, we know Khazalid, and we have significant dwarf reputation. That makes us ideal for talking to dwarf holds as a representative of Karak Eight Peaks, the Empire, or the Colleges of Magic, which would sharpen up our Diplomacy through experience.

Stewardship would probably come from managing the various investments we're imminently going to make as Dawongr in the Undumgi and the Ulrikadrin. We'd probably also up our Stewardship setting up and managing Ranaldian buildings that cater to the humans and halflings of K8P, such as a tavern, gambling den, and brothel. Finally, we've got our extant merchant enterprises from Stirland who with our aid will establish trade networks in, through, and adjacent to Karak Eight Peaks.

As for improving Mathilde's Martial, there's still six more peaks in Karak Eight Peaks to go. Could increase Martial by stabbing and shooting people until we get very good at it. Thanks to our previous experience, another option is open to us in the form of proper command of troops, improving Mathilde's strategic and tactical capabilities.

 

[Aegon Targaryen]

At the same time, I'm pretty sure he's also said that no Dwarf alive would be able to make the Runefangs? (Also, I think they were made using the power of a Storm of Chaos? I think that's something I've heard before?)

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Sorry to answer so late, but he said no one can make the Runefangs, not Runefang-level swords. There's a difference

 

[WorldSlayer]

No need to. BoneyM confirmed just about anywhere in Eight Peaks would not be too difficult to set up an outrigger to the main network. Just needs to survey first.

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I definitely recall it being possible to do so. I don't recall it being called out as easy though, have you got the quote?
Also would it really be as effective as having it set up at the main network?

I would have thought making a tributary would be less effective and more work than just setting up in the proper location but it'll be good if I'm recalling incorrectly.

 

[DragonParadox]

Sorry to answer so late, but he said no one can make the Runefangs, not Runefang-level swords. There's a difference

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No, it's that no one can make something of that level, Alaric the Mad was just better than any Runesmith alive today.

 

[LightMage]

Today I realized that Mathilde is basically Thief combined with Red Mage in terms of how we go about things. Munchking our way through and also literally stealing impossible things including power ups.

Anyway I support a 15 favor point gear or higher, because I'd like our weapon to be at least as ridiculously good as our belt.

 

[Andres]

@BoneyM, if we get a rune greatsword, would the runes still work if we bash people with the pommel or guard? Mainly this would be relevant for sabotage, when you want to break something rather than cut something.

 

[CelestialJade]

Bound Familiars

Animals that possess the potential to be familiars are incredibly rare. They can be regularly found for sale in Altdorf for prices beginning at an exorbitant 500 gc for the least impressive of specimens. Alternately, one can search for them, a process that typically takes months.

When a suitable animal is found, binding is a gradual process that requires the Wizard to remain in close proximity to the would-be familiar for a prolonged period, spending no more than an hour or two per day away from it. The binding process can be as quick as a few days or as long as several months. When bound, familiars tend to develop a distinct personality and increase massively in intelligence until they approach that of a human. They also can gain strength and durability beyond that of a normal example of their species. Some develop sharper senses, the ability to speak in Lingua Praestantia or to read and write, and often develop deep interests in subjects ranging from the everyday to the esoteric.

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Powers

There are a range of Powers that familiars can develop; one will appear as the bond is formed and others can be developed over time.

Aethyric Reservoir: The Familiar can absorb a spell targeted at itself or its master, holding it for up to several days and disgorging at will at a new target.
Link of Psyche: The Familiar and the Master have their minds linked, giving them the ability to communicate without words and increasing the cognitive ability and willpower of both as long as they are both conscious.
Lucky Charm: The Familiar and Master both tend to be more fortunate.
Magic Focus: Spells can be amplified through the Familiar, doubling one of its quantitative effects - range, duration, area of effect, and so on.
Magic Power: As long as the Familiar lives, the Master is more magically puissant.
Master's Touch: Spells can be cast through the Familiar - touch spells can target what the familiar is touching, the familiar's eyesight can be used to target spells, and so on.
Master's Voice: The Master can speak through the Familiar's mouth, both as a means of communicating and to cast spells if the Master is somehow prevented from speaking.
Voice of Reason: The Master becomes less prone to miscasting.

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Any current plans for a familiar? Increase into intelligence seems great, but I am wondering if we want something that will help for spying, or if we want a beast of war. Any input?

 

[veekie]

What options do we have to increase Mathilde's stewardship, diplomacy, martial. While we act as an adviser for the Dwarf King, perhaps we should study dwarf war throngs, mining, architecture, troop deployment. Even it its while we work with his other advisers. Might be a good paper to publish.

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For our lower stats we'd probably be better off purchasing lessons from the College I think.

Especially in Diplomacy, where picking up dwarf style diplomacy too early could actually be a detriment in other areas, most of the dwarf diplomacy we've seen revolves around what a human would probably consider Stewardship/Piety, as their diplomatic scene revolves around debts, duty, tradition and wealth.

Stewardship...the dwarf method is likely more meticulous and they're well known for good stewardship.

Martial wise, we're good enough that I'm not sure formal training is going to do much. Most of the money there is in traits like Warrior of Fog.

I definitely recall it being possible to do so. I don't recall it being called out as easy though, have you got the quote?
Also would it really be as effective as having it set up at the main network?

I would have thought making a tributary would be less effective and more work than just setting up in the proper location but it'll be good if I'm recalling incorrectly.

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Searching for quotes on mobile is a bit of a special hell, but I recall the phrasing was "without much trouble"
A tributary has advantages in that all other qualifications being met, you can have the right amount of power.

Building on the site itself is likely to be fairly inconvenient, if they're still intact its probably due to isolation.

Any current plans for a familiar? Increase into intelligence seems great, but I am wondering if we want something that will help for spying, or if we want a beast of war. Any input?

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We already have one

 

[CelestialJade]

For our lower stats we'd probably be better off purchasing lessons from the College I think.

Especially in Diplomacy, where picking up dwarf style diplomacy too early could actually be a detriment in other areas, most of the dwarf diplomacy we've seen revolves around what a human would probably consider Stewardship/Piety, as their diplomatic scene revolves around debts, duty, tradition and wealth.

Stewardship...the dwarf method is likely more meticulous and they're well known for good stewardship.

Martial wise, we're good enough that I'm not sure formal training is going to do much. Most of the money there is in traits like Warrior of Fog.


Searching for quotes on mobile is a bit of a special hell, but I recall the phrasing was "without much trouble"
A tributary has advantages in that all other qualifications being met, you can have the right amount of power.

Building on the site itself is likely to be fairly inconvenient, if they're still intact its probably due to isolation.
We already have one

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We do? I read this quest twice over, I don't remember a familiar any where. You messing with me?

 

[Quest]

Any current plans for a familiar? Increase into intelligence seems great, but I am wondering if we want something that will help for spying, or if we want a beast of war. Any input?

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We already have a wolf familiar. It gives us increased magic power.

 

[veekie]

Ranald heard we like cats so he gave us a pupper

 

[Andres]

Especially in Diplomacy, where picking up dwarf style diplomacy too early could actually be a detriment in other areas, most of the dwarf diplomacy we've seen revolves around what a human would probably consider Stewardship/Piety, as their diplomatic scene revolves around debts, duty, tradition and wealth.

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I disagree with this. Dwarf diplomacy evidently involves a substantial degree of social protocol and etiquette, which falls squarely under the Diplomacy stat.

 

[Prospalz]

Yes, our puppy.

Familiars can grant more than one trait, but that is a pretty slow process, iirc.