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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Mopman43 said:
Is it an alloy or is it spewed out directly by the volcano?
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There's a vein of some key metal called ithilmar, but it's also an alloy:
Article:
Under its steam-clad slopes can be found the world's sole vein of the metal known as Ithilmar...

...Ithilmar can only be forged with the addition of other mineral ores found uniquely on the slopes of the Dragonspine Mountains.
Source: High Elves 5E, p55

So at the least whatever properties the finished metal exhibits should be something to do with the alloy. That or the metal has those properties but it's literally impossible to work without those other minerals, which might make more sense actually.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
There's a vein of some key metal called ithilmar, but it's also an alloy:
Article:
Under its steam-clad slopes can be found the world's sole vein of the metal known as Ithilmar...

...Ithilmar can only be forged with the addition of other mineral ores found uniquely on the slopes of the Dragonspine Mountains.
Source: High Elves 5E, p55

So at the least whatever properties the finished metal exhibits should be something to do with the alloy. That or the metal has those properties but it's literally impossible to work without those other minerals, which might make more sense actually.
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"Ithilmar is the name for both the metal itself and one of the metals that are used to make Ithilmar"

Gods dammit Elgi...
 
Speculation: Maybe the reason Ithilmar (or apparently, its components) is only found in one location on the planet is because one of the Old One's silver ships crashed into a volcano, and the elves have been harvesting the scraps ever since. (Unlike Gromril, which is natual, what if Ithilmar is both artificial and not something the elves can reproduce?)
 
Derpmind said:
Speculation: Maybe the reason Ithilmar (or apparently, its components) is only found in one location on the planet is because one of the Old One's silver ships crashed into a volcano, and the elves have been harvesting the scraps ever since. (Unlike Gromril, which is natual, what if Ithilmar is both artificial and not something the elves can reproduce?)
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It's possible I guess. Worth pointing out that gromril comes from a meteor though, so that would make neither of the metals native.
 
Derpmind said:
Speculation: Maybe the reason Ithilmar (or apparently, its components) is only found in one location on the planet is because one of the Old One's silver ships crashed into a volcano, and the elves have been harvesting the scraps ever since. (Unlike Gromril, which is natual, what if Ithilmar is both artificial and not something the elves can reproduce?)
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Alternatively, it's dragon related- Ulithan has no physical connection to the rest of the world's crust, mantle, and core, so it makes sense that it can have utterly unique materials. But the way it has been described as being made was normal rock mixed with draughir's corpse, right?

So my bet is it's something like igneous dragon blood.
 
Glau said:
Alternatively, it's dragon related- Ulithan has no physical connection to the rest of the world's crust, mantle, and core, so it makes sense that it can have utterly unique materials. But the way it has been described as being made was normal rock mixed with draughir's corpse, right?

So my bet is it's something like igneous dragon blood.
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Asuryan created the mountains of Ulthuan with Draugnir's bones, yes.
 
Mopman43 said:
Had a random thought- so the training blade has the Rune of the Unknown on it (because that was the whole point)

So does Mathilde always have the training blade on her now? I wonder how she distinguishes between summoning the training blade and Branulhune.
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Kragg said not to have multiple, because summoning both at the same time to the same place would be Bad.

FallenPears said:
For a translation spell I wonder if instead we could create a spell to tell if a given translation is false, something like testing how confused you are about a given translation, so the correct translation of a word gives a negative for the spell. If the spell is of fairly low complexity such that perpetuals and such can use it, even if they can only safely do it a few times a day (as consequential casting is dangerous) combining that with typical attempts at translation narrowing down likely translations and it seems it could be pretty useful for some of our recent archaeology as an example. Not an immediate tool, but a useful one for academia out of the field. Higher complexity could make it worse, but even if Mathilde had to do it an actions worth over a six month turn of a couple attempts a day could still be valuable if we really need a translation.
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No, because any spell that determines objective truth is a philosophical nightmare. How does measuring confusion levels in the caster determine the intention of the writer? What if the writer meant one thing but wrote another by mistake? What if it's a pun? What if it's deliberately ambiguous? What if the copy of the text you have was duplicated by someone who doesn't actually speak the language and was just copying the shape of letters, is the spell still somehow able to determine the intended meaning? Where in the universe does this information reside, and how is the spell accessing it?

FallenPears said:
Encryption on the other hand, something like 'confuses attempts to learn the truth of a given message for everyone except the holder of a given key' which could be doubled up on with mundane encryption? By key I'm thinking a literal enchanted object, it would be better if we could simply go 'except for the intended recipient' but I think that's probably pushing it a bit. This feels it would be really useful for the Grey Order in general. Then again, remembering the very beginning of the quest with the eyelid cypher they could well already have better.
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If you can supply a key to someone in advance, it's possible to send uncrackable messages with entirely mundane methods.

Parabola said:
Given some comments that Boney has said before, I'm inclined to think Ulgu could easily permanently render texts illegible, scrawled, nonsensical or in the wrong order, but that trying to make them encrypted instead would be a lot more work.

... @Boney given how Hysh can make complicated things simple and Ulgu can confuse and disorient, could a hypothetical Windherding spell or enchantment with Egrimm encrypt texts? As in an actual encryption that could be decrypted later on?
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If your spell idea requires spells to be Turing machines, the answer is automatically no.

Retrueno said:
Thinking about buying Ilthimar, is it possible for Thorek or Kragg to make runecraft equipment out of it? Or maybe get the Vaul Priests in collaboration with Thorek to forge us a new equipment?
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Any Dwarven techniques to work Ithilmar that might have once existed have been lost. The only source of Ithilmar is on Ulthuan and the last time the two were on speaking terms was 4500 years ago, so there's been no way to keep that information alive in the Dwarven master-apprentice paradigm. You might be able to find someone willing to experiment with entirely new techniques to try to make something of them, or to try to recreate ancient techniques from only written sources and surviving examples, but that would be a process of centuries.

Retrueno said:
I am not sure that is the case. Unless I misremember nothing can recharge Anvils of Doom (except a Storm of Magic) and Thorek would have never seen AV (and it isn't even a metal!).

I don't think working out the properties of a new material for runesmithing is that much harder than figuring out an use for AV.
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Thorek's use of AV is based entirely on turning it into Winds, which the Dwarves already have millennia of uninterrupted experience with handling.
 
Boney said:
Kragg said not to have multiple, because summoning both at the same time to the same place would be Bad.
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Ya know, mucking about with magic can lead to miscasts and deamons and warprisfts, oh my.

But that's all high-fantasy nonsense.


Mucking about the wrong way with certain runes is a much more terrifying idea, because frequently it ' large number of atoms are suddenly occupying the same space. Regular physical laws then apply', and I still know enough about what might happen to be alarmed in a very specific manner.
 
The more I think about it, the more I love the idea of Ulgu-enchanted floating sailboats. Just imagine a fleet of those silently gliding through morning fog...
 
BeepSmile said:
Ya know, mucking about with magic can lead to miscasts and deamons and warprisfts, oh my.

But that's all high-fantasy nonsense.


Mucking about the wrong way with certain runes is a much more terrifying idea, because frequently it ' large number of atoms are suddenly occupying the same space. Regular physical laws then apply', and I still know enough about what might happen to be alarmed in a very specific manner.
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Ehh, I don't think it'd work that way. The Rune of the Unknown probably operates using a liminal realm and/or extradimensional pocket. So trying to put two objects in the same 3D location by moving them through 4D (or more) space means you could get a multi-dimensional collision and get weird geometry problems. Basically tearing a (very messy) hole through multidimensional space - and good luck trying to pull that off on an enemy without also getting squelched yourself.
Jyn Ryvia said:
What about if you don't care to unscramble it?

like, sneak into the enemy general's/officers section of a camp, set of your WMD (word, mass, destruction) spell so that all the letter, messages and maps are scrambled and no way to fix it and then leg it.
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Traditionally this is done using a match.
 
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Somic said:
The more I think about it, the more I love the idea of Ulgu-enchanted floating sailboats. Just imagine a fleet of those silently gliding through morning fog...
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Ulgu really is the most magical of the winds. In the do something that breaks my understanding of how the world works sort of way.
 
Boney said:
If your spell idea requires spells to be Turing machines, the answer is automatically no.
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Fair enough, that does sound like a nightmare.

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Jyn Ryvia said:
like, sneak into the enemy general's/officers section of a camp, set of your WMD (word, mass, destruction) spell so that all the letter, messages and maps are scrambled and no way to fix it and then leg it.
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That's a great name.

Derpmind said:
Traditionally this is done using a match.
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Fire is not exactly subtle, but it's true enough that if Mathilde is in the enemy camp she probably has better options on hand to disrupt their actions.

Also, I'm not sure her book-loving soul could stand to make a spell that could destroy libraries if used unwisely. It would only take one formerly-Grey Black Magister to be incredibly destructive to the Empire's knowledge bases.
 
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Jyn Ryvia said:
What about if you don't care to unscramble it?

like, sneak into the enemy general's/officers section of a camp, set of your WMD (word, mass, destruction) spell so that all the letter, messages and maps are scrambled and no way to fix it and then leg it.
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Theoretically possible but also seems like it could easily result in being deservedly smote by Verena. The possibility of some Black Magister learning the spell and casting it in the Great Library of Altdorf is not a pleasing one.
 
BeepSmile said:
Mucking about the wrong way with certain runes is a much more terrifying idea, because frequently it ' large number of atoms are suddenly occupying the same space. Regular physical laws then apply', and I still know enough about what might happen to be alarmed in a very specific manner.
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Realistically speaking I think you're unlikely to get MUCH nuclear fission and/or fusion - though you'll definitely get some - because nuclei are really really small, so there'll be relatively little overlap; and there's no indication that Gromril is in any way radioactive, so the default assumption is that it's mostly stable.

But the more mundane effects will be explosive enough on their own. You'd have just doubled the density of some Gromril, effectively putting it under ludicrous internal pressure. To double the density of mere Iron takes more pressure than the entire weight of the Earth provides (Iron in the Earth's core is something like 1.7 times more dense than on the surface) and I can't imagine that Gromril is more compressible than Iron.

My prediction would be superheated, somewhat radioactive, shards of Gromril exploding in every direction.
 
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Boney said:
Theoretically possible but also seems like it could easily result in being deservedly smote by Verena. The possibility of some Black Magister learning the spell and casting it in the Great Library of Altdorf is not a pleasing one.
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Heck, if Mathilde wasn't the one (hypothetically) inventing it, seems to me she'd be lining up right behind the Verenans to make sure they finished the job on whichever fool created a mass-Book-destroying spell.
 
Boney said:
Theoretically possible but also seems like it could easily result in being deservedly smote by Verena. The possibility of some Black Magister learning the spell and casting it in the Great Library of Altdorf is not a pleasing one.
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Also depending on how indiscriminate the spell is, specifically whether it's able to scramble mediums of information the caster doesn't know are mediums of information, you're going to end up with a lot of scrambled DNA with symptoms similar to extreme radiation poisoning. Plus if it can scramble the information encoded in the neural networks of brains you have an instadeath spell. Either of which would be a very good reason for every god other than the Four to try and suppress such a spell since while Chaos may call a world with everybody dead a win the others need worshippers to survive and such a spell getting out could very easily turn into a MAD scenario if it gets reverse engineered by an enemy faction.
 
NexusEye said:
Also depending on how indiscriminate the spell is, specifically whether it's able to scramble mediums of information the caster doesn't know are mediums of information, you're going to end up with a lot of scrambled DNA with symptoms similar to extreme radiation poisoning. Plus if it can scramble the information encoded in the neural networks of brains you have an instadeath spell. Either of which would be a very good reason for every god other than the Four to try and suppress such a spell since while Chaos may call a world with everybody dead a win the others need worshippers to survive and such a spell getting out could very easily turn into a MAD scenario if it gets reverse engineered by an enemy faction.
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That seems more like something you'd get if you used Dhar while making the spell, or miscasting it badly enough. Powerful, but also really dangerous.
 
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Invent a spell that scrambles all writing in an area until the original caster undoes it. Something like the dragon altar where trying to dispel it leaves it stuck in scrambled form.

Why yes, you just invented magic ransomware.
 
So this is probably a very bad idea. But what do you think would happen if we invited the Druchii Sorceress to give a lecture at the Colleges? And then made sure the Asur ambassador went.
 
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