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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Thomasfoolery said:
I mean, what the bounty would be was explicitly "Details To be Determined" If we wanted it to be about trying to entice Ranaldian grandmaster thiefs to infiltrate vampire hideouts for rewards to the tune of 1000s of crowns,... we could probably do that, it would just be a pretty inefficient use of our budget.
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And since the thief will not be an expert on magical secrets you might end up stealing their cookbook anyway. :V
 
DragonParadox said:
Here:



Sorry this took so long, it was really late for me when we talked and I had gone to bed
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As has already been stated, we know that the Waystone in Pragg is online because Mathilde personally watched the magic flow from Kislev City towards Pragg.
Boney said:
About an hour later, halfway between Kislev City and the village of Ardkha, you halt your Shadowsteed in consternation at the leyline you've discovered. As you might have guessed, there was a leyline between Kislev City and Praag, Kislev's third major city. What you hadn't guessed was that the leyline would be flowing northwards, taking power from Kislev to Praag. While you're relieved that all that power isn't gathering and curdling under Bokha Palace, it makes as little sense as water flowing uphill.
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And I really doubt their magical infrastructure was located in the Fire Spire.

Both because I think the Ice Witches would have made a considerably bigger fuss if the Z'ra had placed the Fire Spire college where their Waystone was, and because I'd expect the Waystone is probably in the most defensible part of Pragg- the Citadel.
The defensive bastion of Praag is an imposing fortress across the river. Its lead-lined, rune-scored defences bear countless scars of war, but the structure remained solid. Its cannons still function with loud and terrible force, and pulks still barrack within its walls. Its stone exterior is carved with bestial gargoyles to match the gate opposite, adding to its grim appearance. Perched up so high, it casts a dark shadow over the streets and provides visitors with all the evidence they need that Praag is a haunted city.
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(Realm of the Ice Queen page 73)

The entire point of the 4-node system is that the 4th node can be lost and retaken without compromising the integrity of the system.

Pragg has been in Kislev hands for the last ~190 years, if the Waystone was damaged it has been repaired or replaced.
 
"Any books taken from Marienburg institutions that we don't currently have" is my current favourite bounty. Sure, it gets Marienburg hating us, but that's almost a positive.

It's not really necessary though with as many copying options as we currently have.
 
BurnNote said:
At that point it gets people wondering why we're asking for naughty books. And the typical thief isn't going to steal from Vampires, Skaven and Chaos Cultists. Because those are hard to find and extremely dangerous to fuck with. And if he found them, they could probably just sell the information of their whereabouts to a Witchhunter or Grey Magister at no risk to themselves, and without having to move extremely illegal goods about.

No, the bounty is for normal humans who are disinclined to cooperate. Religious secrets, the prized possessions of nobles, restricted books of other magical traditions, that sort of thing. There will probably also be some really naughty books eventually, because the seller didn't realise it, but I'd guess most would cap out at the creeping flesh level.
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I find it hard to believe there isn't any underground smuggling of illegal books involving cultists and vampires in the Empire, when they use human pawns and cat-spaws. Let's not forget the Southern Stirland merchants that provided Alkharad with magical reagents and supplies for his budding College of Necromancy and Roswita's aptly named 'Economic Warfare on Vampiric Bloodlines'.

The only issue would be "people wondering why we're asking for naughty books" which shouldn't be one, if the arrangement properly maintains anonymity, since it's a no questions asked bounty system.
 
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LadySerpentine said:
And Srebrograd doesn't seem to have ever been an alternative name for Praag (which appears to have been around as Praag since before Norvard or Dorogo were settled).
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It's a Kislevarin translation of a canon nickname for Praag I believe. Srebro means silver and grad is city (in a number of languages, though I suspect Boney went with Polish, I can't be sure), so Srebrograd is Silver City, which happens to be a name for Praag and I suspect Boney is using it as an older name in this case.
 
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Resonant said:
I find it hard to believe there isn't any underground smuggling of illegal books involving cultists and vampires in the Empire, when they use human pawns and cat-spaws. Let's not forget the Southern Stirland merchants that provided Alkharad with magical reagents and supplies for his budding College of Necromancy, and Roswita's aptly named 'Economic War on Vampiric Bloodlines'.

The only issue would be "people wondering why we're asking for naughty books" which shouldn't be one, if the arrangement properly maintains anonymity, since it's a no questions asked bounty system.
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This is actually a pretty interesting thought, while like you say a no questions asked system wouldn't give anything directly actionable, just seeing what kind of volume various tomes are circulating at on the black market would be an interesting intelligence indicator. I almost want to do it just for the thought that every organization Mathilde runs eventually evolves into another portion of her intelligence network.
 
Resonant said:
I find it hard to believe there isn't any underground smuggling of illegal books involving cultists and vampires in the Empire, when they use human pawns and cat-spaws. Let's not forget the Southern Stirland merchants that provided Alkharad with magical reagents and supplies for his budding College of Necromancy and Roswita's aptly named 'Economic Warfare on Vampiric Bloodlines'.

The only issue would be "people wondering why we're asking for naughty books" which shouldn't be one, if the arrangement properly maintains anonymity, since it's a no questions asked bounty system.
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There definitly is. But Ranald is not involved. Because he's also the protector. And while not all faithful follow all aspects, you can't be a faithful and completly go against them.

Another, though lesser, issue is this: If you ask for a bounty on rat tails, you get rat farms. If you ask for a bounty on bad books, you get...?
 
BurnNote said:
There definitly is. But Ranald is not involved. Because he's also the protector. And while not all faithful follow all aspects, you can't be a faithful and completly go against them.

Another, though lesser, issue is this: If you ask for a bounty on rat tails, you get rat farms. If you ask for a bounty on bad books, you get...?
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Ranaldian thieves would be totally willing to infiltrate these illegal smuggling rings if they had the proper incentive to do so, which is our anonymous bounty system backed by Ranald since He will understand our intentions.

I don't see this bounty system as boosting the ecosystem of illegal books when it's directly removing them from existing circulation, and we can stop providing that incentive if it seems like it's growing out of control, after which the faithful will immediately stop since the cost-benefit ratio is no longer worth it.
 
Resonant said:
I assume this is specifically for trying to extract the Chamon using those enchanted items, and direct attention from a High Mage is still a potential solution? Since IIRC you hinted at the possibility that an Elven Archmage could help.
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Okay, it's about time everyone just drops this line of inquiry altogether and leaves the guy alone. He hasn't asked for help or given any indication that he needs it.

Resonant said:
@Boney Just to check, does the Imperial Gunnery School have any books we can copy? Perhaps they're still excavating/recovering them from the sinkhole, or did they make a back-up of their entire corpus in K8P? Also, shouldn't they be listed as one of the institutions we have 'Copy Agreements' with in the Informational post?
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I've added them to the list, but they wouldn't really have anything left that couldn't also be found in one of the other libraries.

Resonant said:
How do we become the College Turner, and does it offer College Favor and privileges? Are we obligated to make a new staff for existing Magisters or just new graduates?
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You don't become the College Turner. It's a job for someone who yearns for the most boring life imaginable, which makes it a bad fit for a quest protagonist. It's going to be a struggle to make it interesting to read or write even one more staff turning scene, let alone something like three a turn forever.

Resonant said:
Is there any room in the Imperial/Dwarven mindset for a "good vampire" situation a la Genevieve? Like say, if Mathilde was unwillingly transformed into a vampire but tries to do good despite that. Or is becoming a vampire essentially a death sentence in their view?
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The Empire and the Dwarves alike would see Mathilde's swift and permanent death as the greatest and only favour they could do for her. A stranger to both could be left alone by the Empire and Dwarves by staying away from the Empire and Dwarves.
 
Mopman43 said:
Forgeries of bad books, presumably.

I don't really see any other way to 'game the system'.
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Even better, flood the market with rip-offs while removing the actually harmful books. Though... it would affect the bounty system too, hrm.

Boney said:
Okay, it's about time everyone just drops this line of inquiry altogether and leaves the guy alone. He hasn't asked for help or given any indication that he needs it.
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Sorry for relitigating the topic, didn't actually mean to suggest pushing Johann or anything. I just have a bad habit of trying to clarify minor details and pedantry.

Boney said:
I've added them to the list, but they wouldn't really have anything left that couldn't also be found in one of the other libraries.
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Case in point: now I'm wondering if this part implies the Imperial Gunnery School did lose parts of their library, or if they never had any unique books to copy at all (even before sinking).
 
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Resonant said:
Case in point: now I'm wondering if this part implies the Imperial Gunnery School did lose parts of their library, or if they never had any unique books to copy at all (even before sinking).
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Speaking from a bit of experience with this quest and others this... this is below the level of abstraction. It will never meaningfully matter to the story this quest if the barely named gun school in the only slightly more fleshed out city lost some of their thoroughly abstracted books. Sorry if this comes off too blunt but I felt like a reminder of the limits of the simulation here matter especially since pushing them is taking up GM attention that he could use for more relevant things.
 
If I had a question- which I would like to make clear I don't- it would be something along the lines of "how does one maintain seemingly bottomless reserves of patience whilst fielding endless questions regarding edge cases pushing the margins of Quest relevance." :)
 
DragonParadox said:
Speaking from a bit of experience with this quest and others this... this is below the level of abstraction. It will never meaningfully matter to the story this quest if the barely named gun school in the only slightly more fleshed out city lost some of their thoroughly abstracted books. Sorry if this comes off too blunt but I felt like a reminder of the limits of the simulation here matter especially since pushing them is taking up GM attention that he could use for more relevant things.
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I had assumed there was the potential for the Imperial Gunnery School to have made a back-up of their library in their K8P branch, since the Gunnery School was specifically mentioned as one of the libraries we gained access to. Which is what prompted the question originally; I wasn't sure why it was mentioned if there weren't any books to copy from them.
 
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BurnNote said:
There definitly is. But Ranald is not involved. Because he's also the protector. And while not all faithful follow all aspects, you can't be a faithful and completly go against them.
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I mean they could infiltrate it because of our bounty, in fact Heidi herself pretended to be a Vampire for years. I am sure if she wanted she could have had some contacts in said rings. And in the same way I don't see why they couldn't be other Ranald followers doing something similar or willing to do the same for money.
 
Ah, perhaps Mathilde isn't one to pay heed to Doomings, then.
Boney said:
"They try to Skin The Sheep," she says, nodding. "Oma says not to, and that when my Dooming said to 'beware the cloven hoof' it wasn't talking about sheep, and it's a metaphor anyway."

"She's probably right." You consider all the other possible cloven-hoofed dangers, and decide to move the conversation along.
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"Beware the Cloven Hoof."
 
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Resonant said:
I had assumed there was the potential for the Imperial Gunnery School to have made a back-up of their library in thK8P branch, since the Gunnery School was specifically mentioned as one of the libraries we gained access to. Which is what prompted the question originally; I wasn't sure why it was mentioned if there weren't any books to copy from them.
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One assumes that they have some kind of books in Nuln or in K8P, if we want to find out which we can take the action to copy the stuff over at which point the GM would presumably sit down and consider what books they have in light of their history (collapse and all). Whether they specifically lost books in the collapse is not relevant now and is barely relevant after we take the action (it seems vanishingly unlikely Mathilde will rappel down the hole looking for lost Gun Books)

Just to be clear I have been guilty of this in the past, I asked about the number of Kurgan weapons when there wasn't really much of an expectation that we would do the action for instance, it is just something to look out for as a player because in every quest the GMs time should be respected.
 
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