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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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So maybe I am missing something regarding the fog road idea/project, so maybe someone here could explain my issue:
The RIte of Way is battlemagic, right? and battlemagic allways carries a risk of a misscast, right? So, if we used the rite 100 times, we would have 100 rolls with a chance of misscasting, right?
So why is a trading route that relies on this spell a good idea again? By making the spell essential to the trade route, we basically assure that a misscast will happen eventually, right?
Are we fishing for that one arcane mark that gives +1 magic that we are still missing, iirc? or if not, why do we think this is a good idea?
 
Zero Gravitas said:
They don't. The authority rests in the Elector Count.

What they do have is a lot of influence but it remains to be seen if they can bring it to bear.
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overriding from a higher authority does not remove authority, it only stymies it in that instance.

and you can't really say they don't have authority, they can judge and execute you in many towns, they have force of arms independent of higher polities and they are considered to be in good standing with said polities. that is authority.
 
naths said:
So maybe I am missing something regarding the fog road idea/project, so maybe someone here could explain my issue:
The RIte of Way is battlemagic, right? and battlemagic allways carries a risk of a misscast, right? So, if we used the rite 100 times, we would have 100 rolls with a chance of misscasting, right?
So why is a trading route that relies on this spell a good idea again? By making the spell essential to the trade route, we basically assure that a misscast will happen eventually, right?
Are we fishing for that one arcane mark that gives +1 magic that we are still missing, iirc? or if not, why do we think this is a good idea?
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The idea is to build a chain of towers enchanted to permanently produce the spell effect reliably at a vast scale in between them, not to have the spell manually cast by battle mages.
 
naths said:
So maybe I am missing something regarding the fog road idea/project, so maybe someone here could explain my issue:
The RIte of Way is battlemagic, right? and battlemagic allways carries a risk of a misscast, right? So, if we used the rite 100 times, we would have 100 rolls with a chance of misscasting, right?
So why is a trading route that relies on this spell a good idea again? By making the spell essential to the trade route, we basically assure that a misscast will happen eventually, right?
Are we fishing for that one arcane mark that gives +1 magic that we are still missing, iirc? or if not, why do we think this is a good idea?
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battle altars do not suffer that risk iirc. it will carry out the spell repeatedly without issue.

also, for us, it is merely fiendishly complex.
 
We absolutely don't want widespread institutional tension between LK8P and the Cult of Verena.

Doubling down on pissing off the Cult of the Goddess of Books is kinda just blatantly a bad idea when you're trying to run a library.

That doesn't mean we have to go and beg forgiveness in Nuln - if we just keep reasonably running our library and don't blatantly go over the head of future Verenan cults when it comes to future expansions the issue will slowly simmer down, and there's plenty of room to compromise with other, potentially more reasonable Verenan cells.
 
DragonParadox said:
I think you are blowing this out of proportion not least because many low level rivalries exist in the Empire. Do you really think for instance the Elementalists do not go looking for people who dislike the Colleges, that priestesses of Myrmidia do not seek out those nobles who are not that into Sigmar?
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why is that relevant? of course the groups that don't like other groups, professionally and possibly personally, will recruit like minded people. those people will also often squabble and introduce many inefficiencies for the sake of whatever they are disagreeing about. that is how humans do things.

we arn't in the same category as verenans. they are a cult, we are (for these purposes) a library. that rivalry is incredibly balanced against us.
 
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Alratan said:
The idea is to build a chain of towers enchanted to permanently produce the spell effect reliably at a vast scale in between them, not to have the spell manually cast by battle mages.
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Feim said:
battle altars do not suffer that risk iirc. it will carry out the spell repeatedly without issue.

also, for us, it is merely fiendishly complex.
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thanks for the explanation, that sounds much better
 
I mean I was the one arguing that the gods are inhuman beings (and not in the different species kind of way) that lord their power and position over the mortal races in order to elicit worship and obedience. The cults are just Human organizations aiding them in that and occasionally getting their own slices of pie in return. It's why I considered studying their basic nature with AV not just a neat idea but the ethical choice even despite their protestations.
But that's not the way Mathilde sees it and it's not the world she thinks she lives in. We have repeatedly voted to keep her as a devoted friend-believer of Ranald and generally as respectful of other deities as her culture and position would expect. Except Sigmar specifically.
And if one accepts the premise that the gods and their cults are a rightful part of the Empire (and that the Empire is a positive institution in the first place) then it follows that the Verenans are not unjustified in their ire.
 
DragonParadox said:
I think you are blowing this out of proportion not least because many low level rivalries exist in the Empire. Do you really think for instance the Elementalists do not go looking for people who dislike the Colleges, that priestesses of Myrmidia do not seek out those nobles who are not that into Sigmar?
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As long as we keep it to a low level rivalry, that's fine. That's what I would characterize the "do nothing" option as.

Nuln is basically the biggest centre of learning in the empire, so the Nuln branch of the Cult of Verena is the center of gravity when it comes to the "knowledge safekeeping" portions of Verena's cult in the Empire. Them denouncing us is actually already kinda a big deal.

If we decide to double down on aggravating them, then they can double down on hitting us with their sticks, and when it comes to books, the Cult of Verena's stick is much, much bigger than ours - frankly, it's probably larger than the Colleges of Magic as a whole.
 
Redshirt Army said:
As long as we keep it to a low level rivalry, that's fine. That's what I would characterize the "do nothing" option as.

Nuln is basically the biggest centre of learning in the empire, so the Nuln branch of the Cult of Verena is the center of gravity when it comes to the "knowledge safekeeping" portions of Verena's cult in the Empire. Them denouncing us is actually already kinda a big deal.

If we decide to double down on aggravating them, then they can double down on hitting us with their sticks, and when it comes to books, the Cult of Verena's stick is much, much bigger than ours - frankly, it's probably larger than the Colleges of Magic as a whole.
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especially in this specific matter, where the colleges largely do not care. it's the personal matter of a single lord magister acting on their own project that is without any direct tie to the colleges, they ain't putting their stick in unless they have to.



and incase people don't know, not antagonising someone does not mean 'do it behind their back'. it means 'don't do it'. if you're going to act in a manner hostile to and against something, call it what it is.


there is, also, the thing that can be said about a grey lord magister sympathising with anti-cult sentiment held by rich and reasonably powerful people being somewhat dangerous. you, know. since that is absolutely going to be encouragement. for what? depends on the person.

maybe they'll become more vocal. which is bad for us. cat's gonna leave that bag pretty quick.
 
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Like we are not offending Verene herself or anything like that. It is just subset of its cult that is throwing a shit fit because they seem to assert authority without putting the work of being a major cult and worse, they seem to think that they can tell Gery Order and its members what they can and can't do. They are at the fault of trying to cross a major Empire instution backed by and EC. That is a loosing proposition from get to go and even Sigmarites would think twice about it.

We should just reach out to other parts of the cult and ask them wheter they want to work with us or against us. And before we do it we can ask Hoclander to take a look at to the cult and give us a breifeing about who are the power players we can reach out for it.

This might just flameout without us doing anything at all so keeping an eye on them makes sense to me as well.

Edit: There is also the fact that our library is backed by K8P and I think our library is already dedicated to Valaya(I think?).
 
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in normal fantasy* largely, as the cults are by the nature of both the people who make them up and the teachings of their god, they are against centralising and the things that spawn form that. such as, you know, having a head of religion that isn't verena. or having one temple with authority over other temples.

which means usually they don't have a unified opinion**. at all. every location is effectively its own individual sect.


*don't know specifically for here as we havn't looked.
**except in matters where their god directly takes action. and even then.
 
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The thing is, Elector Counts aren't absolute monarchs. They're merely the aristocrat with a hereditary right to vote in the elections of an Emperor. The amount of formal or informal power they have over their provinces is completely dependent on them persuading the various guilds, cults and other rival aristocratic families to listen to them rather than ignore them or get annoyed and kill and replace them with someone more amenable.

These are pre-modern states. The Elector Count is best seen as organiser of a coalition of interest groups, dependent on them not only for authority but the practical state capacity to actually do anything. If the Elector Count wants a functioning judicial system or what poor excuse for a government bureaucracy Wissenlanr has to pay any attention to him, he probably needs the Verenans on side.

Yes, he backed us because the situation with the forges was so urgent, but he may well live to regret it if his 'allies' come calling in a couple of years with a bottle of whisky and a revolver.
 
mathymancer said:
The latest of those things - Waaagh Birdmuncha - happened 16 turns ago, which is exactly my point. Is there any sort of action we're planning anytime soon that'll benefit from those sort of books?
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The actual latest time Mathilde was involved in a military operation was not at all Waaagh Birdmuncha, it was literally two turns ago when we led a Throng into the ruins of Drakenhof. Or if we don't count that on account of being only a small operation, five turns ago when we participated in the Battle of the Shirokij, and made strategic decisions regarding which reinforcements to speed up with RoW.
 
Tasoli said:
Edit: There is also the fact that our library is backed by K8P and I think our library is already dedicated to Valaya(I think?).
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Yup.
Boney said:
You can understand why this is. You don't want the entire corpus of the Colleges of Magic to be easy pickings for any sneak-thief or warband that happens to be in the area of an official library, so it makes sense to properly vet applications for that status to make sure they're sufficiently secure and well-protected. But the process of acquiring official recognition was made with the assumption that the libraries would be within the borders of the Empire, so it takes some creativity on your part to answer a number of them. One particular sticking point is that of religious dedication, and eventually you settle for Valaya, which the mountain itself is named for and was once dedicated to. It's as correct as if you had put 'none', and you're trying to emphasize 'it's in a Dwarfhold' as much as you can. No, you haven't reached a formal agreement with a nearby population centre for their militia to come to the defence of your library, because the entrance to it is within Karak Eight Peaks. You could make a strong case that Kron-Azril-Ungol is more heavily defended than the Colleges themselves, it's just the answers don't fit the format that this paperwork was expecting.
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Kvinn-Wyr means 'White Lady', so I presume Valaya had beautiful white hair.
 
Parabola said:
Yup.

Kvinn-Wyr means 'White Lady', so I presume Valaya had beautiful white hair.
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Though I will note that the quote you supply mentions that this is as correct as saying "none": the library isn't dedicated to any religious institution, the mountain used to be dedicated to her. Mathilde was jumping through bureaucratic hoops which assumed certain things to be true about the library which aren't really true for a library in a dwarfhold.
 
Boney said:
Any progress on that front [Bok] would require Kragg to be able to view Runes that don't exist in the material world.
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to continue counting chickens before they're hatched, a sevirscope is a great use of orbflex college favor. We're never going to get out of AP hell, so making one ourselves would be hard.
Boney said:
"Aye, and build I will. That Gotri does his best but his heart is in the sky, he's more familiar with a swashplate than an inclined plane. The way of the future is in Dwarf-portable weaponry, and Zhufbar's Drakegun is just the start. I had a few ideas to start with, but having seen some of the reading material you managed to nab from the former inhabitants of here, I've got much more than a few now. Been working with the manling engineers here, including that Zharrzhufokri of yours, and have been exchanging letters with the Gorlzhufokral to hammer out a few ideas. We refound Karak Eight Peaks Ironbreakers, give 'em something that holds real punch but can still be carried around, and pile 'em into those flying machines of Gotri's, and we'll be able to deliver a proper kicking to anywhere that needs it on a moment's notice."

You allow him to talk your ear half off about said ideas, including an entirely mechanical equivalent of the Ratling Gun, an explosive charge launcher based on Adela's design but not reliant on being carried by a Bright Wizard, and refinements to be made to the current Drakegun designs to extend their range and increase the damage inflicted upon those caught on the wrong end of them, before you thank him for his time and escape. He's clearly ambitious and seems to know what he's talking about, but you can't help but feel he might be biting off more than he can chew. You're intimately familiar with the inside of a Ratling Gun and the many insane yet inspired ways it exploits the nature of warpstone to function. Is there really any chance of a machine so portable as to be carried to be able to replicate its functioning? Surely not.
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Was doing a reread, and came across this info about Okri's plans:
Boney said:
You've met Loremaster Okri of Karak Eight Peaks once before. Pay him a visit and see how his great ambitions for heavily-armed Ironbreakers delivered by Gyrocarriage are going.
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By heavily armed, he means machine guns.
 
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Alratan said:
The thing is, Elector Counts aren't absolute monarchs. They're merely the aristocrat with a hereditary right to vote in the elections of an Emperor. The amount of formal or informal power they have over their provinces is completely dependent on them persuading the various guilds, cults and other rival aristocratic families to listen to them rather than ignore them or get annoyed and kill and replace them with someone more amenable.

These are pre-modern states. The Elector Count is best seen as organiser of a coalition of interest groups, dependent on them not only for authority but the practical state capacity to actually do anything. If the Elector Count wants a functioning judicial system or what poor excuse for a government bureaucracy Wissenlanr has to pay any attention to him, he probably needs the Verenans on side.

Yes, he backed us because the situation with the forges was so urgent, but he may well live to regret it if his 'allies' come calling in a couple of years with a bottle of whisky and a revolver.
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I agree with you in principle, but I do not think the cult of Verena of all gods can be a serious threat to an elector count, a really annoying impediment, no doubt the lawyers, the banisters and the scribes can hold up the system for a long time, but at the seventh and last most of the swords are in the hands of the Sigmarites and other more militant cults. Only so many knights of the Scroll to go around.

More broadly what strikes be as... well a little disappointing in this instance as in others that came up in warhammer quests over the years is that quest protagonists seem to end up never forming rivalries with others on 'Team Good Guy'. Don't get me wrong I think that collaboration is the key to the setting and we should have more of it, but it would be nice to have rivals that are not various kinds of monster, raise some interesting moral quandaries. Maybe we can come to change and grow by them, aid our rivals in our hour of need or kick them when they are down, both would be interesting narrative beats, but even trying to bad mouth people who rivaled us out of nowhere got this much pushback, I do not even want to imagine what a vote would look like. Guess we will do the optimal thing yet again (and I say this as someone who pushes for optimal paths regularly ) it would be nice if we could meander a bit.
 
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DragonParadox said:
More broadly what strikes be as... well a little disappointing in this instance as in others that came up in warhammer quests over the years is that quest protagonists seem to end up never forming rivalries with others on 'Team Good Guy'. Don't get me wrong I think that collaboration is the key to the setting and we should have more of it, but it would be nice to have rivals that are not various kinds of monster, raise some interesting moral quandaries, maybe come to change and grow by them, aid our rivals in our hour of need or kick them when they are down, both would be interesting narrative beats, but even trying to bad mouth people who rivaled us out of nowhere got this much pushback, I do not even want to imagine what a vote would look like. Guess we will do the optimal thing yet again (and I say this as someone who pushes for optimal paths regularly ) it would be nice if we could meander a bit.
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while wanting a few petty rivalries for extra narrative complexity is all well and good, we are in AP hell and most of the things many want to see happen would be actively hindered by rivalries with polities that are several weight classes above us.

honestly, if you want a rivalry you should probably angle for a person. an entire massive cult is a bit much.
 
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