She's the sister of one Sienna Fuegonasus of Vermintide fame, who in her backstory murdered a Witch Hunter who was claiming Sophia to be a Necromancer... and then it, rather awkwardly, turned out she was a Necromancer, and it's implied Sienna then took it upon herself to kill her by herself.
So it isn't really what she's done, but what she might go on to do by OOC knowledge. A bit like Horstmann.
She's the sister of one Sienna Fuegonasus of Vermintide fame, who in her backstory murdered a Witch Hunter who was claiming Sophia to be a Necromancer... and then it, rather awkwardly, turned out she was a Necromancer, and it's implied Sienna then took it upon herself to kill her by herself.
well, she would have been. but because of us, a lot of the necromancers in sylvania are dead, so she was brought to the colleges instead of being thought by them. Here she is addicted to her wind, and hasn't had a master that could properly prepare her for journying.
well, she would have been. but because of us, a lot of the necromancers in sylvania are dead, so she was brought to the colleges instead of being thought by them. Here she is addicted to her wind, and hasn't had a master that could properly prepare her for journying.
"this is not a vampire quest" - one of the thread tags up top.
(Fun trivia: Becoming a vampire was an option at chargen, unlocked by choosing the "Corruption" Motivation. Instead, Sleeper Agent won... with 6 votes. Corruption had 0 votes.)
"this is not a vampire quest" - one of the thread tags up top.
(Fun trivia: Becoming a vampire was an option at chargen, unlocked by choosing the "Corruption" Motivation. Instead, Sleeper Agent won... with 6 votes. Corruption had 0 votes.)
The standard progression is that being able to cast those spells is the point where one is ready to Journey and they head off with one or two freshly learned, but a Master has full authority over how and what they teach their Apprentice, and it's not entirely unknown for individuals to advance their grasp of magic faster than their grasp of all the other Grey Order basics and be casting Relatively Simple spells for years of their Apprenticeship while they catch up everywhere else. It is a threshold you might want to delay crossing if you think your Apprentice is particularly antsy about getting out there and proving themselves.
How long are apprenticeships usually? Assuming Mathilde began at the same age as Eike and ended as soon as she was off to stirland approximately 5 years?
The idea that we blitzed Eikes apprenticeship and booted her off to go journeying in just 2 years leaving her more confused than ever about how Lord Magisters operate does have a certain appeal
People often theorize that earthbound magic is like, the magic of the planet? But the slann comment of "ever since the incursion of chaos slann don't step on the ground to not get contamimented"
Would kinda imply that earthbound magic is new, only caused by the collapse of the Old one's portal. Since earthbound basically is the ground of the earth.What that means exactly I'm unsure but it's interesting.
This may also means runes are not carved from actual old ones power. If contaminated earthbound magic didn't exist untill after invasion. This might be why ancient dwarves from before Ancestors God co didn't use runes. Just straight up wasn't possible.
"They gave me an Apprentice," she says after she gathers enough will to lift her head once more. "One who'd be Journeying now if there wasn't concerns about her losing herself to magical addiction."
She was also found in circumstances that indicate she might have been on her way to be trained as a necromancer in the Black College that Mathilde shut down, though possibly not by her own choice:
"Her name is Sofia," Panoramia says distractedly. "She's Estalian. She ended up with us after a chartered Witch Hunter caught her in southern Stirland." You wince. Anyone that arrives at the borders of the Empire and claims magical ability can get transport to Altdorf, so for her to be travelling within the Empire with magical abilities raises serious questions as to what she's up to. For her to be in Stirland only adds to those questions, because she would have had to travel through quite a lot of the Empire to get there, even if she arrived via the Border Princes. "When was that?" you ask, counting back the years worriedly.
"Early eighties, probably."
"Ah," you say again. So just after the stamping out of the Black College. That adds an extremely bad answer to why a foreign magic-user might have been travelling through the eastern provinces. Though it might not have been her choice - necromancers, being in the business of not taking 'no' for an answer from death, aren't in the habit of taking it from prospective recruits. Perhaps she'd been abandoned in Stirland after some wretched kidnapper had found that their customer base had come down with a bad case of Battle Wizard.
Usually about 10 years, though it can vary quite a bit. Generally though it's junior apprentice 3-4 years (Need to be completely immersed in one wind) regular apprentice 3-4 years (This is what Eike hit when we took her on) senior apprentice 3-4 years (At this point the apprentice is almost like a mini-journeyman, Eike is a massive overachiever so in terms of capabilities if not experience she's kind of already at this point in some respects)
Usually about 10 years, though it can vary quite a bit. Generally though it's junior apprentice 3-4 years (Need to be completely immersed in one wind) regular apprentice 3-4 years (This is what Eike hit when we took her on) senior apprentice 3-4 years (At this point the apprentice is almost like a mini-journeyman, Eike is a massive overachiever so in capabilities she's kind of already at this point in some respects)
[*] Plan Redshirt v1
-[*] Introduce yourself as Panoramia's romantic partner, and mention that between WEB-MAT and Panoramia, you'll be coming in and out of K8P pretty regularly. You're pleased to meet Panoramia's apprentice.
-[*] Explain that Karak Eight Peaks is generally very welcoming of wizards and has been a good place for a lot of wizards who didn't "fit in" in the Empire to get a fresh start. You hope that Sofia can benefit from that as well.
--[*] Ask if Panoramia has given her the overview of the facilities yet - if she hasn't, run her down the basics the same you did for the ducklings - where the labs are, where the practice range is, how to access the library, etc.
---[*] Include your own recommendations on the best shops and restaurants in Karag Nar and the Valley.
--[*] Just as it was for the other wizards who came to Karak Eight Peaks, your door is open if she wants information or advice from you.
"I'm Mathilde Weber," you say, after a moment of thought to recalibrate your words. Her eyes flick to the linings of your robes, which as always are stating your rank to anyone with the understanding to see them. "I'm Panoramia's paramour, which makes me something of a bystander to this chapter of your saga."
No part of her body language, which is entirely appropriate to that of a suitably respectful Apprentice, changes in response to your words, but you can see the fear in her soul diffuse very slightly. "A pleasure, Lady Magister."
"Karak Eight Peaks has been a sanctuary of sorts to Wizards on an atypical career trajectory. Three have become de facto knights, two of the Knights of Taal's Fury and one of the Winter Wolves of Ulrikadrin. Three are now involved in the business with Laurelorn, one is part of the Imperial Gunnery School, and one is a Border Princess. I've no doubt you'll meet some or even all of them during your stay here, and I'd be very happy if you were to add to this tapestry of..." You hesitate, trying to find a less dramatic phrasing than 'redemption'. "Of Wizards finding their way."
Someone this cautious won't take your words at face value, but you'd chosen them with enough care to give her something palatable to read into them: that you're less interested in being her executioner than you are in taking credit for her becoming a credit to the Order of Life, and to that end you'll tolerate deviance from the traditional means and method of the Order. "I will endeavour to do so, Lady Magister," she says to you.
"Has Panoramia shown you around the Karak?"
"Yes, Lady Magister."
"That's good. The EIC has a strong track record of cooperating with College business, so they'll go the extra mile to acquire anything you might need at a reasonable price. The Library in Kvinn Wyr is still being developed so the selection is a bit eclectic, and the staff take some getting used to, but it can be a very useful resource." You don't mention that both belong to you. A charitable reading of your intentions would be to keep from overwhelming her, but another way to see it is that if she later discovers that both are under your control, she'll assume that your strings are connected to all things in Karak Eight Peaks. The ideal is that a Wizard will walk the path of righteousness because the right attitudes and morals have been instilled in them, but if they do so because they think a Grey Wizard with a sword is watching every other path, then that works too. "I'm often away on business, but if there's anything you'd like to discuss with me, you can send word via Panoramia or the Halflings and I'll make myself available next time I'm in the Karak."
"Yes, Lady Magister. Thank you, Lady Magister."
You nod, and let her remove herself from your presence at a controlled pace that speaks well of her force of will, as does that she doesn't visibly turn to glance back at you as she goes. Something of a one-sided conversation, but you'd learned all you needed to of her at that very first glance, and the rest of it was about making her first impression of you at least neutral, rather than petrifying. If approached from the wrong direction the Colleges can seem a terrifying and monolithic institution that exist to bring death and suffering to those whose first few steps with magic go down the wrong path, and there are those within it who would call that the good and proper way for the Colleges to go. But those who are both willing and able to wield magic are rare enough that it's silly to let perfect be the enemy of good.
Several days later, you ask Panoramia for her thoughts on her unasked-for Apprentice, and she sighs. "Of course she's addicted to magic," she says to you. "It's the only time she's in any sort of control. This is never going to resolve itself while she has other people telling her where to live and what to do. If they'd let her go off Journeying, it probably would already have solved itself."
"Can you just send her on her way, then?"
"No, if I do that they'll put the Magisters Vigilant on her tail and they'd be interpreting everything she does in the worst possible light. She's going to cut loose once she's finally free, and the last thing she needs is to be run in for suspected Vylmaric sympathies. I've given her the run of the Karak and a fair bit of free time, and I'm teaching her techniques for improving a harvest and rejuvenating the soil. If she can have a nice, peaceful Journey through ideally the Moot, or somewhere like Vorbergland or Sudenland or the Veldt, then she might be able to unclench enough to figure out what she actually wants, rather than just trying to survive."
You nod and put your arm around her in commiseration.
---
Doyenne Gretel Maurer of the Cessationary Princessipality, Huntsmistress of the Howling Skull Plains, Guardian of the East Trail, Cleanser of Vitrolle, and Barak Varr's chosen implement in securing the road between them and Mad Dog Pass, has made herself quite at home in Vitrolle. Or more specifically, in the newly-built town of that name just across the river of the ruins of the previous Vitrolle, before Gretel and the Besiegers had slaughtered the Cult of the Jade Sceptre that had occupied it and levelled every stick of that previous incarnation of what would become her capital. A wooden palisade with a few towers is far from the most impressive defensive fortifications you've seen, but when two sides are against deep, swift waters, the other two are against an open plain, and the towers are manned by the finest pavisiers money can buy, you have the Border Princes equivalent of a citadel.
You find the woman herself in the main hall within the wooden walls, though it takes you a moment to recognize her. Either out of an attempt to outrun her unnatural gauntness or just out of personal inclination towards indulgence, she's gained more than a few pounds that have arranged themselves quite obligingly on her frame. But Arcane Marks are not so easily escaped, and the extra length her limbs have taken on in response has her at well over a foot taller than you even before you add in the extra couple inches provided by her amethyst-topped crown. The overall effect is rather striking, and combined with the combined ossuary and throne room she's turned the main hall into, there's probably not many in the Border Princes who won't be at least a little intimidated, and probably a range of other emotions as well.
"I'm leaning into it, like you do with yours," she says to you after you exchange greetings. "I'm never going to be able to escape the reputation that comes with the aesthetics of Shyish, but a double-edged sword in my hands is still better than a single-edge sword in someone else's. Pretty much every Vampire Hunter and Witch Hunter in the Borderlands pays me a visit, which just means that all the most competent and determined humans in the area bring themselves to me. Those that are open to a little work on the side are a huge help, and those that aren't can be pointed at anything untoward that I haven't been able to investigate myself. And the Amethyst Order got a fair bit quieter about my flaunting when they realized I could act as a point of contact to would-be allies in this corner of the world. It's funny how much can be overlooked if you're useful enough." She looks at you thoughtfully. The words 'like you do with yours' don't come to her lips a second time, but you can still hear her thinking it.
"A great many character flaws can become mere eccentricities in such a framing," you observe, not quite admitting it, not quite denying it.
She smiles and casts an eye over the racks of skulls. "Besides that, there's a surprising amount of people out here that have the foresight to be concerned about the fate of their soul, and there's not a lot of other Border Princes that can compete with me in that regard. To the eyes of the average citizen of the Empire this would be horrific, but there's very few Gardens of Morr in the Border Princes, fewer still actually maintained. The people here have learned to value security, rather than aesthetics, in their final abode, and an ossuary overseen by an Amethyst Wizard is a big improvement over a few inches of unsanctified dirt."
"Is that how you're working yourself into the Border Princes? Filling the niche that the Cult of Morr fills in more civilized realms?"
"No, that's just a side business, I still need something to keep the population busy and making at least some money - Barak Varr will pay some bills, but they don't want it to be too obvious. So I've gotten into the cattle business. The thing you have to understand is that the Border Princes isn't pasture or even grazeland, this is rangeland, and even then only just. An amount of land you could run a herd on in the Empire will be picked clean within a year if you try the same here, and if you spread the herd out to what the land can sustain, then they're spread too thin to protect against the greenskins. But you keep them in large enough herds that you can afford to keep an eye on them around the clock, and you rotate around the place, so the land has a year or more to regenerate. That's how you get what little value there is out of every acre, and when you multiply it by almost a million acres - and that's just what we've secured now, there's a lot more to grow into before we hit the natural borders - then you start looking at enough to sustain the forces capable of holding this land.
"That's the thing with this land, you can almost make the numbers work right up until you factor in the once-per-lifetime Waaaghs. Then the population has to retreat all the way to the Vaults and leave behind damn near everything they've been working to build, and the Greenskins won't leave one stone on top of another. But if you've got shelter rights secured with Barak Varr and the Watchtower Clans, there's a bit of wriggle room. If you also get vault space - which they weren't originally that sure about, until they realized that the Besiegers are basically taller Quarrelers and the cattlemen are growing into decently skilled light cavalry, and if all their stuff is tucked away in Barak Varr then they'll fight to the death to defend Barak Varr - then you've got a lot of wriggle room. The cattle themselves are trickier, of course, being not so well suited to a long stay in a Dwarven vault, but one thing I can do that most in the Border Princes can't is strike a deal with Averlanders and have them stick to it, so we can drove them up Black Fire Pass to wait things out. They'll still gut us on the grazing fees or silage costs, of course, but they won't pretend they never made any deal and that they've always owned those cattle, which is what they'd usually do."
"Any idea how long you have until the next one?"
"I'm hoping that between the Errantry War, the purging of Karak Eight Peaks, and the destruction of Waaagh Birdmuncha, the next time they reach critical mass will still be years away. Or that the next one will be drawn into the Silver Road War instead of sweeping through the Border Princes. If we can push the Black Spider Forest Goblins north of the Skull River tributary then I'll have enough breathing space to turn my attention south and work with Ulrikadrin to finally do something permanent about Iron Rock and start settling all the land between Blood River and the Forest of Gloom. At that point we'd be looking at tens of million of acres of rangeland framed by rivers, and any direction a Waaagh comes in, they can be held back for just long enough to get not just the people, but also the herds and valuables to safety. There's talk about turning the caldera of Eight Peaks into pasture, and that plus a few silos of silage means that would work as well as Averland to shelter the herds."
"Put like that, it almost seems viable."
"If it wasn't all being weighed down by Dwarven steel and silver and stone, it'd be the highest-risk, lowest-reward investment out there - for the amount of cumulative time and effort it would take to actually make all this work, you could practically carve out the Drakwald or rebuild Solland. But it suits me. I'm far from all the troubles of the Empire, but all its luxuries are just down the road. Oh, and speaking of luxuries," she says, leaning forward, "when are those spiders of yours actually going to produce something wearable?"
You groan, and return fire with a barrage of your own complaints on the matter.
---
The Gold Order maintains several workshops and laboratories in the Workstette, Altdorf's tannery district, where experiments deemed too dangerous, unpalatable, or fragrant for the more upmarket and populated surrounds of the Gold College, and it is in the most fortified and well-guarded of these that the investigation into the Skaven artefacts you supplied has been underway. You are introduced to a series of Wizards whose robes could only be called gold once you discount the various stains, scorch marks, and patches that adorn them. Each of them is responsible for their own narrow slice of the materials, and each of them is as willing to talk your ear off about their pet project as they are eager to interrogate you for any experiences in the field you may have had with what it is they're studying.
The first stop is perhaps not the most important discovery, but it's certainly the most impressive. The Battle Altar named Sylphic Wrath is clearly based on the design of the steam tanks, but instead of a turret, it is topped by a ball with two protruding nozzles - a horizontal sheirripile, a very early demonstration of steam principles that spins when the water inside it is heated. Two long cords interwoven with metal extend from the nozzles, and you presume that when the ball is moving at speed, the cords would strike anyone unfortunate enough to be within several yards of the altar. That would be ordinarily rather painful, but this being a Battle Altar, the cords would be delivering a magical payload. "It's a variation upon Law of Form that was never able to be scaled down or delivered at range," one of the Gold Order researchers explains to you, "but instead of steel, it gives the material properties of quicksilver - only for a couple of seconds, but that's enough. The spell turned out to be surprisingly compatible with our adaptation of the transmission method the Skaven whip used, too."
You consider that. "That would render any armour and weapons struck completely useless."
"Ah, yes, that would be a correct, but another way it differs from Law of Form is that its effects are not limited to inanimate objects. It's yet to be trialled in combat, but it's expected to be as effective as Final Transmutation for a fraction of the investment of effort or Chamon."
You're not entirely sure what state someone would be in after their body was partly or entirely converted to liquid for several seconds, but the idea makes for a series of horrific mental images.
The second is a much more prosaic room filled with books and chalkboards around the central exhibit of the remnants of a Warp Lightning cannon, but also even more heavily fortified than the rest of the room combined, with doors laced with magical defences and alarms that will summon all sorts of retribution down on any unauthorized entry. Within it a great deal of care and study has gone into the remains of the Warp Lightning cannons and the other mechanisms based on the Dhar-tainted lightning that so much Clan Skryre artifice is based upon. "To direct it, they have to provide a path of least resistance," you're told. "In the same way that water runs downhill or Wind energies will more readily spread along certain metals than through the air, the lightning energies need to be provided a path to travel that is amenable to it. While this does, of course, mean that any metal implement struck into a Warp Lightning cannon in the correct place will disrupt its proper working, this does not really provide a novel solution to the problem. The interesting part is that the same applies to the projectiles, if that is the correct word, that the cannon fires, or unleashes, or whatever the correct terminology might be. With a proper application of sufficient magical energies, you can create a lattice of energies in front of a Warp Lightning battery that will direct any shots it might fire straight into the ground, rather than into our troop formations or fortifications."
Though stated rather dryly, this is a big deal, and the self-satisfied expression on the Wizard's face made it clear that they were aware of it. The mechanisms of Clan Skryre are one of the biggest advantages the Skaven possess in a field battle, and between this and your own studies into the Ratling Gun, two of the biggest threats can be completely negated if there are sufficiently skilled Wizards present. You pass on your congratulations, which they happily accept.
The next room is almost as well fortified, save for the very light roof that shows evidence of having been repaired several times. In it are the several varieties of Skaven firearm and several attempts at incorporating elements of their design, as a breech capable of containing and directing the force of warpstone-laced blackpowder reliably enough for Skaven would be capable of the same for regular blackpowder reliably enough for humans. Some of the design decisions identified and duplicated seem rather similar to the designs of your own Dwarven-made firearms, but anything in regular use by the Skaven is fair game for humans to reverse-engineer, even if they might have originally been stolen from Dwarven designs. When the researchers here mention that one bottleneck to rolling the improvements out was finding sufficiently trustworthy gunsmiths, you take the opportunity to point them towards Blutdorf.
"The sword," it's explained to you as you go round the other, less fruitful studies, "ended up shattering during experimentation, but we were able to harvest vast amounts of data from it before then. There were patterns in the shapes formed that were suggestive of an underlying order that resonates very interestingly with some other lines of study into elemental theory, and though the trajectory of these studies are very long indeed, their eventual importance might outweigh everything else we have achieved here.
"The masks are a field of study that were almost written off, until it was observed that there have been no sightings of Clan Pestilens or their many thralls in recent years, and they may have been driven off or even entirely exterminated during the recent civil war. That means that instead of a thousand ever-changing strains of disease, we need only concern ourselves with the strictly chemical avenues that Clan Skryre favours for their globadier payloads. While several of the components are made of entirely unknown materials that we haven't been able to replicate, the basic mechanism seems to consist of no more than forcing air through layers of finely-ground charcoal. We've built a variety of prototypes based on this design, but actually testing how effective they may be will have to wait until our next series of skirmishes in the War Below.
"The brass orb, which we've found mention of in the Skaven writings under the imaginative name of 'Brass Orb', is basically a Pit of Shades except, uh, worse in every conceivable way. It cracks open a rift all the way to the Aethyr which sucks in everything and everyone in the vicinity, which is only most of the time clogged with viscera and debris before anything nasty can make its way through from the other side. The intended use is as something like a grenade, except the activation sequence makes its weight and inertia impossible to predict from moment to moment, so half the time it ends up overshooting or undershooting the mark. There was some discussion of using it to get rid of some things we really don't want to remain in reality any more, but most of them would be even worse in the hands of some of the denizens of the other side, so in the end we just had the navy drop it on a rocky outcrop off Norsca and blew it up with a barrel of gunpowder. Just seemed like it would be tempting fate to do anything else with it.
"Studies will, of course, continue on the other avenues these artefacts uncovered, and they will remain in our archives in case other discoveries or trophies are able to fill in enough gaps for future studies. But those are the high points, and though many of us dreamed that we'd be able to fully replicate everything the Skaven do except with wholesome energies, we consider this to be a bountiful crop of advancements that greatly benefit the Empire and burnish the good names of our Colleges."
Papers added:
Chamon/Enchantment/Altar: Sylphic Wrath, by L.M. Eldrick (Gold), M.P. Manning Feldmann (Gold), L.M. Mathilde Weber (Grey)
A Treatise on the Vanquishment of Dharic Lightning, by M. Gold (Gold), M.P. Gold (Gold), L.M. Grey (Grey)
Firearm Breech Design with an Eye to Safety and Reliability, by M. Daegal (Gold), M.P. Manning Feldmann (Gold), L.M. Mathilde Weber (Grey), J. Christa Feldmann (Gold)
Library Purchases:
[ ] [LIBRARY] Colleges of Magic
Name four magical, non-divine topics to acquire all available Empire books on.
[ ] [LIBRARY] Barak Varr booksellers
Name three public topics to acquire all available Empire and Dwarven books on.
[ ] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings
Name two non-magical topics to hire Cityborn scribes to copy all available Laurelorn books on.
[ ] [LIBRARY] Back-fill.
Instead of seeking books on specific topics, give a very broad direction and have your bookselling contacts grab everything on it that you don't already have, with special attention to existing but incomplete topics. Possible categories: Dwarven religion, human religion, geography, war and combat, social science, natural science, applied science.
Dwarf Favour Purchases
Aethyric Vitae can be spent instead of favour at an exchange rate of 3 favour per gallon; for Rune-related purchases, this will also guarantee the cooperation of Runelords who may otherwise be disinterested. To use this, simply add 'paid by Vitae' or similar to an item you are voting for.
[ ] [DWARF] No purchase.
[ ] [DWARF] Write-in.
College Favour Purchases
[ ] [COLLEGE] No purchase.
[ ] [COLLEGE] Write-in.
Other Purchases
[ ] [PURCHASE] No purchase.
[ ] [PURCHASE] Write-in.
- There will be a four hour moratorium.
- 'Social interaction initiated by someone else' has been shelved for now for lack of ideas and an unwillingness to further delay updating when everything else is good to go; I will be keeping my eyes open in the coming turn for good points for an aside or an interlude or something to serve the same purpose. I will ask that people not talk of this as a debt I've incurred or a failing I must make up for, even in a joking manner, because doing so would aggravate me.
- I haven't actually added those papers to Mathilde's character sheet yet, if I haven't by about this time tomorrow, someone please remind me.
Thanks for the update Boney. I think the conversation with Sofia went as well as could be expected. Gretel is doing pretty well for herself though I don't know if I agree with her comparisons between her and us. It's cool to see what has been done with the skaven loot, though I wonder how much we will see it on screen in the future. I think we might want to buy one of the gas masks.
Huh, feels kinda redundant to censor this when there's only one Gold Patriarch/Matriarch that would immediately give away their identity lol
It's really great to see Gretel's found her niche and is flourishing, very interested to see how she'll develop further. Kinda feel like we can vicariously experience the Border Princess job we didn't take through her
You know it does kind of defeat the purpose of replacing your name with the your College's pseudonym when there's only one Gold Magister Patriarch in existence.
I seem to recall arguing for the nomadic Border Prince life back in the day, not sure if it was my idea or something I just advocated (it has been a long time), but either way it is good to see that it is working out so far. Of course the big test will be when a Waagh hits. In fact we might want to go help with our Waaghbane trait when that happens since once they have weathered it once they are more likely to do it again as they will have veterans for the job.
Boney, may I suggest that the next time you don't have an idea for a social interaction by someone else, one solution would be to just go for the sixth option in the votes? It would make sense to me narratively - if no one is coming to Mathilde with anything, she has more time to go interact with someone else on her own.
