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I thought about that as well, but now that she's rich enough the tradeoff between a bit more money in return for more guild expectations maybe doesn't seem so appealing as when she was broke.

If it was a flat rate, I'd agree. But it is a percentage, that means it makes a dent no matter how much you make.

Getting from Journeywoman to Lady Magister is a big jump.

Magisters pay the same tithe as Journeymen, iirc.

IIRC, they pay 5%, while journeymen pay 10%.
 
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,
A crystal blade emerges from beneath the Sorcerer's cloak with amazing speed and just barely manages to halt the falling halberd, tiny crystalline shards pinging off the walls from a tiny shatter at the point of impact. You'd expect the Sorcerer to backpedal and it seems so would the Stormvermin, because he steps forward for a follow-up blow and steps into the Sorcerer skittering forwards, and the crystal blade slips through the Stormvermin's breastplate as if it presented no obstacle at all. Malign energies pulse and the blade snaps off where it meets flesh, and the Stormvermin shrieks as the shard within him fills with Dhar and then splinters, fragments burrowing through flesh and muscles and organs.

The documents are folded up and go into an internal pocket, the Sorcerer's cloak removed and wrapped around the crystal blade, which has begun to regrow to its full length
Man, I'm really not sure. My best guess is that it utilizes Cathayan magical axioms which we don't quite understand? Wish they hadn't fuckin shattered it, I suspect Mathilde could've gotten far more out of it.

Edit: it could be relying on the Yin-Yang dynamic to do the restructuring which would make sense.
 
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If it was a flat rate, I'd agree. But it is a percentage, that means it makes a dent no matter how much you make.
Sure, but that's only an issue if you either really want the money itself or are spending to the limit in the first place, which Gretel doesn't really come across as? She's more indulgent than greedy, she likes having creature comforts, good food, comfy sheets, her own house, all that jazz, and she seems to consider money itself more of a vehicle to get those things.
 
While not a social action, I would really enjoy one of Mathilde's old classmates from her apprentice days approaching her and trying to ask for a favor or something like that...only for Mathilde to just nod along, say something vague while trying to remember who this person was and how do they know her?
 
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.

...

"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 - more if we can push the Forest back to the tributary - then you start looking at enough to sustain the forces capable of holding this land.

If the range of emotions that Gretel's visitors experience are anything like the range of emotions that I'm feeling upon reading that description of Gretel, she could probably make a respectable side-income for herself by charging a fee to people who want to be her personal cattle.

"Step on me, Mommy Gretel."
 
Poor Sofia. It's hard to feel out of control of your own life, and harder still when the only avenue to asserting that control is to do dangerous or self-destructive things. I've seen relatives go down that path and been powerless to help them; I hope that the example of the Wizards of Karak Eight Peaks, and Panoramia's guidance and support, leads her to happier trails.

Speaking of which, I'm glad we voted for Gretel this turn because it was nice to check in to one of the Wizards of Karak Eight Peaks having made something unconventional of herself and being perfectly happy with the results. I'm glad her Border Princessing is working out so far, but the thing about the Border Princes is that it always works out right up until the point when it doesn't. Hopefully between their planning and the Waaaghbane lessons, "so far" is something that people are saying in a hundred or two hundred years.

(Also wait she hit a growth spurt in the last four years, how fucking young was she when she showed up at Karak Eight Peaks? Or did her Arcane Mark fuck with things until she forced the issue calorically?)

Fun times with the Golds. No farsqueakers, but they've figured out like 80% of how gas masks work, which is impressive as hell at their tech level. And they've not just figured out how the stuff works, but done R&D on making weapons that the Empire can field that don't have "AND THEN TAKE A HUGE HONKING RIP OF WARPSTONE COCAINE" as a step in the process. And hooray for the Warp Lightning countermeasures! And it occurs to me that if we do take the Apparition action this coming turn, from a narrative perspective it very easily dovetails with having taken this social action -- it was our price, after all.
Warp Lightning canon
canon -> cannon
'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
Oof at the lack of ideas, but I think the approach you settled on is a reasonable one, and I can't fault prioritizing wrapping up the turn. For what it's worth, we've had a number of bonus interludes that didn't come out of our social action budget, so I for one will not feel shorted if nothing turns up this turn.
Ok, enough is enough. Sod the AP hell, next turn we are investigating the hold-up with the spiders.
Not a thing Mathilde can usefully contribute to, per Boney:
It's not Mathilde's problem.
If it becomes relevant enough to the main story, I'll put in the research to come up with a convincing explanation.
For the sake of our QM's sanity, let's all just accept that background rolls gonna background roll and take his word that it's not a plot hook or something interesting to write about. If that changes, I'm sure an option will appear in our social turns, but until then it's a gameplay abstraction, and we shouldn't do a write-in for the sake of poking those.
Correction, I'm 24. I'm already getting to the point where I'm unconciously shaving one year off my age. Damn.
Oh man, I remember the time when my age switched from being "a number I automatically and reflexively knew and stored in cache" to "something I had to calculate and occasionally messed up." For me it was my late 20s, well done on hitting it earlier. It just stopped mattering once I was out of formal education with an age cohort.

Anyway, regarding book vote, I did a giant effortpost a while back that I recommend people check out. For my part, here are several [LIBRARY] votes based on that I think are good options:

[ ] [LIBRARY] Colleges of Magic: Shyish, Ghur, Chamon, Hysh

[ ] [LIBRARY] Barak Varr booksellers: Druchii of Naggaroth, Ten Kingdoms of Ulthuan, Kingdom of Nehekhara

[ ] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings: Linguistics, Hoeth

[ ] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings: Linguistics, Ladrielle

[ ] [LIBRARY] Back-fill: Social sciences

And here are my actual votes:

[X] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings: Linguistics, Hoeth

[X] [DWARF] No purchase.

[X] [COLLEGE] No purchase.

[X] [PURCHASE] No purchase.

As much as I look longingly for more BOOK, I have been convinced that the benefits are marginal compared to keeping our eyes on the prize of the markets of Lothern, perhaps in only a few more turns, especially when we have giant Nuln libraries to steal copy-paste.
 
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Gretel's situation reminds me of the posts a while back about banished wizards and Perpetual Journeymen. Of course, so did Mathilde's situation, at least as of her graduation and the initial Eight peaks expedition.

Like the pre-Teclisean Empire, there's a number of insular magical traditions that self-police, and Cult-backed Witch Hunters go after anyone using the Bad Magic. Most Estalian Kings have a magic-user in their court, and ones trained by the Empire's Colleges are considered the most prestigious. A lot of banished or disgruntled College Wizards end up in Tilea and Estalia, and some find and train their own Apprentices without any involvement of the Colleges, so you also end up with sort-of Teclisean Wizards who've never stepped foot in the Empire.
The Colleges as a whole can't pick and choose their recruits, they need to make the best of everyone they get. Banishing is seen as a preferable alternative to execution for someone who can't or won't be a useful members of the College ecosystem but hasn't actually crossed any lines, and a lot of the type that won't play nice with others end up working really well as a big fish in a realm of small ponds.
A lot of them don't. 'Perpetual Journeyman' isn't an official designation, but it's definitely a thing. Others benefit from an overly-lax or optimistic Master with influence, or from a hope that they'll grow into the role, or from an ability to fake it convincingly.

It feels like, between how Panoramia, Gretel, Hubert, Johann, Max, Adela, Esbern, Seija, and Mathilde herself all ended up, so far Karak Eight Peaks in general and the former Duckling Club in particular kind of goes for wizards that are close to banishment and then lands thoroughly mixed on the result. Some of whom end up coming back to the Empire in full, but just as many ending up making a place on its periphery.

The Badlands and border princes feel they're developing into variant of the a Tilea/Estalia situation. Just in a form with much more of a mutual understanding with the colleges and the Empire at large. If serving as a Tilean mercenary is what you do when you want nothing to do with the Empire, or are banished from it entirely, then the badlands are becoming the place to go for the sort who find distance makes the heart grow fonder, so to euphemize.

EDIT:

[X] [LIBRARY] Back-fill: Social sciences

No opinion on other purchases or lack thereof. Part of me kind of wants to spend some AV just to help fuel the Silver Road Wars but it's sort of a question of "What would it even go to?"
 
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Man, I'm really not sure. My best guess is that it utilizes Cathayan magical axioms which we don't quite understand? Wish they hadn't fuckin shattered it, I suspect Mathilde could've gotten far more out of it.

Edit: it could be relying on the Yin-Yang dynamic to do the restructuring which would make sense.
Yeah, now that I'm thinking about I'm dead certain it's using the lore of yin somehow.

Anyway;

[X] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings: Linguistics, Hoeth

[X] [DWARF] No purchase.

[X] [COLLEGE] No purchase.

[X] [PURCHASE] No purchase.
 
(Also wait she hit a growth spurt in the last four years, how fucking young was she when she showed up at Karak Eight Peaks? Or did her Arcane Mark fuck with things until she forced the issue calorically?)
Gretel put on weight from eating a bunch of food, but her Arcane Mark said she should be gaunt and thin. Instead of simply making her lose weight, it instead made her taller in an attempt to make her gaunt and thin by stretching her out. She's currently winning the race.

IIRC farsqueakers involve turning a living skaven into a telephone, so no surprise there.
 
[X] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings: Ladrielle, Hoeth
[X] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings: Linguistics, Ladrielle
[X] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings: Linguistics, Hoeth
[X] [DWARF] No purchase.
[X] [COLLEGE] A translation of the Indic Aqshy books obtained from the Elementalists (1 CF)
[X] [PURCHASE] Trade (Eonir Esoteric, 150 gc)
 
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Gretel put on weight from eating a bunch of food, but her Arcane Mark said she should be gaunt and thin. Instead of simply making her lose weight, it instead made her taller in an attempt to make her gaunt and thin by stretching her out. She's currently winning the race.
That's a really funny "DOCTORS HATE HER! 5 QUICK TIPS TO MAKE YOU TALLER" trick. Good for her.
 
[X] [LIBRARY] Back-fill: Social sciences
[X] [LIBRARY] Barak Varr booksellers: Druchii of Naggaroth, Ten Kingdoms of Ulthuan, Kingdom of Nehekhara

[X] [DWARF] No purchase.
[X] [COLLEGE] No purchase.
[X] [PURCHASE] No purchase.
 
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Oh btw @picklepikkl in case you missed it, Gretel has turned exactly into Mathilde's type.
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.
Like damn, the last time she waxed poetic about someone like this was the Dreadlord and the Sorceress.
 
- '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.
Honestly if it gets us updates faster I don't mind social actions getting cut down to 3-4 actions. Not at all. Always felt 6 was a big number and felt impressed that you were able to keep writing it without compromising the quality.
 
Gretel put on weight from eating a bunch of food, but her Arcane Mark said she should be gaunt and thin. Instead of simply making her lose weight, it instead made her taller in an attempt to make her gaunt and thin by stretching her out. She's currently winning the race.
Given how the narrative describes her, (extra pounds sitting rather obligingly on her frame, Border Princes feeling intimidated and possibly a range of other emotions, when the arcane mark still has her having to fit in to the gaunt and thin aesthetics of Shyish) It sounds like she ended up looking like a supermodel. At least, for now.
 
And what you're missing is that this is too damn close to mutation - it is no fucking accident that all of the spells Empire Wizards use steer well damn clear of permanent physical changes to the bodies of others' bar healing, because the one thing every person in the Empire fears more than death is mutation.
A grey wizard uses shadow knives and stabs someone the wound heals later scarring, permanent physical change that isn't healing.
A bright wizard burns someone, to a crisp, permanent physical change.
A jade wizard summons thorns inside of someone's body, permanent physical change.

You've just weirdly decided this thing is different from the million other things the college do, for an incredibly arbitrary reason.

The change isn't permanent either, the spell wears off, and any changes in form in any incredibly unlikely survivors are no different than a normal scar healed from another spell.
 
[X] [LIBRARY] Barak Varr booksellers: Druchii of Naggaroth, Ten Kingdoms of Ulthuan, Kingdom of Nehekhara

The first two polities can force interactions upon us at basically any time that we will have to respond to. The latter we now have several hooks into wanting to poke at.

[X] [COLLEGE] A translation of the Indic Aqshy books obtained from the Elementalists (1 CF)

Seems a reasonable use of 1CF

[X] [PURCHASE] No purchase.

Paying Gotrek's widow depleted the war-chest, and it needs time to rebuild. I kinda want to take the Ithilmar action to do so sooner or later.

[X] [DWARF] No purchase.

The only things to be bought here would be for Eike, and she doesn't need spoiling. We could upgrade Cactus-Fief a bit, with some of the Dwarf options put forward during the early years of owning it. But at this point it's clear that it really doesn't need Dwarven fortifications or infrastructure.
 
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