- Location
- Earth
Can someone translate that?
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Norway
The large prominent snake feels like it's representing Mathilde. I had imagined that it was supposed to be subserviently getting stabbed and losing to the more important sword. This coat is better drawn, but I'd prefer the previous take for posting on the charsheet.
Tao
Skirmisher
- Location
- Australia
The main issue with that is a dark blue or purple blend into the black background for the darker parts, and to avoid this the snake would have to be a bit brighter to compensate. It might be possible if I had more practice with the drawing tablet I am using and the program.
I agree somewhat it is mainly what came to mind with you mentioned the empty space so I gave it a go, overall it is qms choice or a vote if it puts it at one. I am mainly giving options cause i am in the mood for a little bit of drawing.
Rearranged a bit snake less prominent prob a better option.
I'll do a vote for an 'official' one once enough candidates come forward, but the 'official' version in-universe would not be a drawing but the formal description, known as the 'blazon'. It was in the snippet above, using the hilariously difficult to understand blazon jargon:
Sable, bend argent, sword argent bendwise inverted, base dexter serpent supine vert and or.
To translate into English: Black, with a white stripe going top-left to bottom-right, and a sword going top-right to bottom-left, and on the bottom-left a green and yellow serpent lying prone.
(there's no silver or grey in blazon terminology)
Sable, bend argent, sword argent bendwise inverted, base dexter serpent supine vert and or.
To translate into English: Black, with a white stripe going top-left to bottom-right, and a sword going top-right to bottom-left, and on the bottom-left a green and yellow serpent lying prone.
(there's no silver or grey in blazon terminology)
Edit: Disregard my post, I typed the highlighted section while thinking something completely different.
[*][Action] In The Darkness We Watch
-[*] Rewrite the relevant part of the legal code of Stirland so that the Watch reports to you, personally. (will face pushback from existing Watchmen; will take two turns; the Watch will come permanently under your control)
-[*] Spread some coin around so that a cross-section of the Watch passes on information to you as well as their superiors.
-[*] Investment: Wilhelmina has offered you the limited-time chance to become a founding shareholder in the EIC; the buy-in will be a cool 1000 crowns, but with Van Hal's permission, Wilhelmina has offered you an interest-free loan from the Stirlandian Treasury to cover it, and promises that unless something goes terribly wrong, the dividends will more than pay for it. (NEW)
-[*] Knighthood: There's a ceremony, of course. And a number of oaths to make. And you'll have to visit your 'estate'. But gosh. Dame Mathilde. (NEW)
-[*] Enchantment: So far you've failed to find suitable equipment (damn Wizard Chic) but you could always try again with local goods. (-discretionary gold, action required to set up and learn to use equipment)
--[*] If unable to buy the stuff(again) do this instead of setting it up:
---[*] Final Round-up: You're so close to mastering all the lesser magics. Just one final push and you'll have them all. (NEW)
-[*] Weber's Box: It has a nice ring to it, but you've got no idea what 'Weber's Box' actually is, or what's going on in there. Have a very, very careful look at it. (NEW)
--[*] Ranald's Blessing on Weber's Box
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- Location
- Norway
If it takes an action to even attempt to set up enchantment laboratory and fail, I'd say to attempt that and ignore magic study, the sub-5 conditional is only what to do if Mathilde can tell in advance that main-5 is off.
Edit: wow, ninja'ed and illusion of transparency simultaneously.
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Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
So we basically just need to use an action next turn to finish it, simple.
I actually assumed that was how it worked....
Turn 8 Results - 2473.5
Winning votes:
---
Dame Weber. Gosh.
You sleepwalk through the next few days, unable to shake the amazement from your mind. Knighthood. The actual knight part of things was going to be pretty straightforward, since Ulgu could supply the horse and armour at a moment's notice and you were in the habit of going around with your sword anyway, but the fact that you were being elevated to actual nobility...
After wallowing in the thoughts for a few days, you force yourself to shake them off. Knight or not, you've still got a job to do, and it's time to take the Wurtbad Watch in hand. That jumped-up Brettonnian peasant didn't take kindly to being ordered to report to you, so you would make it his legal duty to do so and then he'll either fall in line or you could force him out of the position and replace him with someone more pliable. So you make your way to the castle archives and start digging for the formative documents of the Wurtbadian Watch.
And you dig. And dig. And dig.
Over three hundred years of paperwork and weeks of digging later, you finally find it. Early in the 2130s, during the Third Vampire War against Mannfred von Carstein, the modern iteration of the Wurtbad Watch was founded, superseding a previous organization of the same name. They were given the remit to pursue corruption both mundane and supernatural, were to be funded from the purse of the City of Wurtbad, and no man without military service was permitted to join its ranks. The document also states the authority they were to report to: 'The Elector Count, or designated military subordinate thereof'. Which would definitely discount you; you play with the idea of using your new status as a Knight of Stirland to qualify, but you want to be able to act as the Spymaster of Stirland while commanding the Wurtbad Watch, rather than having to act as two separate legal entities.
So you get to work writing up a new document. It takes you days to get used to the jargon of legal documents, but you copy sentences from here and there and piece them together like a puzzle. And since you're already making a document, you decide, you may as well go all in and remould the foundation document of the Wurtbad Watch to your purposes. Weeks more pass in a manic haze of editing and revisions, as you craft a document that takes the existing loose gang of thief-takers, bellringers and busy-bodies and turns them into what could very well be described as your personal army.
Or, at least, the founding company of it.
When you present the document to Van Hal, he reads it three times before he signs it. When you take the signed document to the Watch's headquarters, 'Lefty' Ragnier resigns on the spot after reading it. But that doesn't even slow you down, and you plump the rolls of the Watch with veterans willing to swear loyalty to you personally as well as adding a number of existing members to your informant network. All in all, a good result for a few months' work. Now you just have to rebuild it in your image.
[Finding the document: Req 40, Stewardship, 67+10=77.]
[How restrictive is it? Roll, 26. Technically excludes you; new document required.]
[Writing a new document: Breakpoints 40/70, Stewardship, 97+10=107.]
---
After so long dealing with paperwork, you need to toy with the Winds of Magic once more to cleanse your palate. So you turn to the strangest creation of your Wizarding career: 'Weber's Box'. If you're going to call it that with a straight face, you need to understand what's happening in it, surely. So you tilt it on its side, let the liquid drain out into a bottle, and take a glimpse into the inner workings of the device.
It's structurally unchanged. It's still a series of concentric mirror cubes with gaps in the 'top' to let in light and a mirrored lid to trap it. But now, intersecting those mirrors, is a mess of butchered snakeflesh, constantly writhing. It's quite disturbing to look at, and difficult to figure out what it is that you're looking at. You stare at it with mundane and magical senses, trying to figure out what it is you're seeing, but none of it makes sense. So you stop staring and instead try to reason it out. And once you do, a theory emerges.
The most basic fact of the Thorned One: it can pass through mirrors. To it, the mirrorcatch box isn't solid, it's a tangle of overlapping portals.
So, you reason, when it tried to move through one of the mirrors to reach you, it can't have moved more than an inch or so before running into another mirror, and then it would have passed back into the demon realm. And, if the portals possess the same relative location in the Warp as they do in realspace, maybe it passes through a second portal to appear back in the box while its back half is still in there, and intersects itself. And then add in that the smallest cube within the box is made of mirrors too small for the snake to pass through - or, at least, for all of the snake to pass through...
So parts of it are obliterated as different parts of its anatomy tries to exist in the same place as other parts of it, and other parts are sliced neatly off by the edges of portals where they meet entirely different portals, and the portals too small for the snake to fit through. But the snake doesn't just die - it's not that fortunate. Half of it is still within the realm of unreality where demons (you theorize, far beyond the limits of your knowledge) cannot die, and the energies of that place are drawn into it to repair the damage done. But before those energies can become snakeflesh, the part of it that was in the warp has passed through the snarl of mirror-portals into reality, and the raw energy, suddenly subjected to the laws of reality instead of the non-laws of the warp... well, apparently it pours out of the box in the form of what you theorize is raw, liquid Qhaysh. Or at least an untainted and balanced combination of every colour of magic at the same time - isn't that what Qhaysh is? Or is there more to so-called 'high magic' than that? You don't know. You're not sure if any human knows.
And it just keeps on happening, because to the snake there is no solid surface in the box. The parts of it in reality are subject to gravity, but can never stop falling because the closest thing to a bottom is a portal into the warp. It is suspended in an eternal free-fall, forever unable to either heal or die. And in that state it constantly drains magical energies into reality.
That realization sends a shudder through you. If the demon that pursued you was any other warp-entity, the energies leaking out would... well, you'd be lucky if they were only Dhar. But this is the All-Knowing Serpent, Wisdom's Asp, and apparently the ever-shifting hue of its scales is mirrored by the pure combination of magical energies that it is formed from. Instead of liquid corruption pouring forth, this is pure, untainted, liquid magic.
[What's in the box? Learning, Req 50, 34+16+20(Ranald's Blessing)=70.]
---
Finally, the Big Day is upon you. You wear your greyest robe, polish your sword until it shines, make good use of your newly restored ability to safely look in mirrors to make sure your hair is cooperating, and summon a horse and wrap Ulgu around you to ride into Eagle Castle in a manner at least vaguely reminiscent of a Knight. The ceremony, it was decided, is going to be fairly low-key, and nobody would be invited on the grounds that any protests would be a lot less effective after the fact than if they occurred before or during. But even so, there'd be plenty of people there - Van Hal himself, of course, and Wilhelmina, Anton, Julia, and Markus. Kasmir had returned from Leicheberg to act as the ecclesiastical witness. On top of all those, there were the usual courtiers, a representative from the Wurtbad City Council, a visiting diplomat from Talabecland, representatives from a half-dozen barons and counts who were in Wurtbad at the time... by the time it was all added up, it was quite the crowd for an event that was supposed to go unnoticed.
And then as you enter the Great Hall, you see someone among the chatting crowd that completely derails your train of thought - your Master, shamelessly looting a plate of entrees from a plate held by a hapless servant.
"What are you doing here?" you ask as you sidle up to him, half enthused and half suspicious.
"When a pawn reaches the end of the board," he says through a mouthful of cold meats, "it turns into a different piece. The question to ask is, what piece shall it become?" He smiles that infuriating smile of his, the one you spent years practising until you could project mysterious smugness as well as him. You also learned the counter to it: deliberate obtuseness.
"I can clear that up for you," you say brightly. "I'm being made a knight." He opens his mouth, gives you an annoyed look, and then closes it with a snap. "I am glad you're here, though," you say, and his expression softens.
"Wouldn't miss it, my girl," he says gruffly. "You were thrown in to the great wide ocean to sink or swim, and by Sigmar you swam." He clears his throat. "That said, I'm not just here to celebrate with you."
"Ah," you say. Grey Order business? No, he'd send that business encrypted, standard procedure and besides, all the better to show off his encryption with. Sent either by post if it was business as usual, or pinned to your nightgown when you woke in the morning if you'd done something to irk the Order. For him to deliver it in person... "The other business."
Without seeming to move or speak, he shapes Ulgu around the two of you. An illusion wrapped in ignorability, the show-off. "Afraid so. There's whispers of a campaign into Sylvania in the air, and it seems to have drawn the attention of our mutual acquaintance." He produces an envelope from his robes. "I took the liberty of reading it - I've got a different cipher glued to my eyelids than you do, but I haven't met a cipher yet I couldn't crack."
"Except one-time pads," you note as you take it, ignoring his scowl, opening the already-broken seal and skimming the contents, the cipher burning to life once more. With ease of long practice you tune out his usual spiel about the problems with pseudorandomness and the in-his-opinion crippling handicap of key distribution.
Have means in place to gather information re: undead types and density in Sylvania if and when Stirland forces sally across the border. When information is acquired, send via your Master. If possible, collection of live samples will be rewarded; send news of any you secure via same and we will arrange collection.
"Troubling," your Master says, neatly summarizing your thoughts on the matter.
"Seventh Article," you reply.
"Applies only to the Orders," he responds.
"Are they?"
"Good question."
You brood over the wording of the message. "Will be rewarded. A test? Or an acknowledgement?"
"Carrot and stick, perhaps. Handling 101."
You scowl. "I am not handled. I am the one who handles."
"Not quite yet, Journeywoman," he says.
You mull that over. "Journeywoman, yes. But also Spymistress. And now: Knight."
He smiles indulgently. "Dame Weber. But still; spite alone is poor reason. It chafes, yes - but it does not throttle."
"Yet," you say darkly.
"Today has enough problems without borrowing tomorrow's," he replies, and you subside. "This is a grand day. You'll regret it if you let this taint it."
---
In the privacy of Ulgu, you hug your Master, and resolve to follow his advice. The illusion shimmers and Ulgu shifts as you walk away, and you don't bother to look around, knowing that your Master would not be visible. You make your way to the head of the hall, where Van Hal is deep in discussion with Talabecland's diplomat, who is sketching figures on a slate. As you approach, he wraps up the conversation, pats the diplomat on the back, and turns to you.
"Mathilde," he says in greeting. "You're looking..." he thinks for a moment. "You're looking very you, only more so than usual."
"Thank you, your Grace," you reply politely, falling back on formulae for lack of a better response.
"If you're finished saying farewell to the origins you've thoroughly outgrown, we can begin the ceremony."
You nod, and he makes his way to the throne, standing before it. He does not call for silence, but he receives it nonetheless, conversation trailing to a halt all over the hall as all eyes move to him. Anton hurries out of the crowd and takes up position next to the throne - Van Hal never bothered to appoint an envoy, but the ceremony demands one so Anton is it - and he calls out, "The Count now calls Mathilde Weber to come before this Court."
Okay. Just like Anton taught you.
You walk forward and stand before Van Hal. You notice all over again just how tall the man is.
"Mathilde Weber, have you undertaken to accept the accolade of Knighthood that was offered to you at Eagle Castle?"
"I have."
Without turning, Van Hal addresses Anton. "Sir Anton Kiesinger II, as a member of the Peerage, do you now affirm that Mathilde Weber has grown in virtue and honour, the hallmarks of a true and faithful Peer?"
Unable to keep the smile from his face or his voice, Anton recites: "May it please my Liege to know that having heard the counsel of my Peers, and from my own certain knowledge, I am able to affirm that Mathilde Weber is a worthy lady whose achievements on the field of honour have been matched by her services to the Empire."
"Mathilde Weber," Van Hal intones, "you have been deemed fit for this high estate. Do you now swear, by Sigmar and all the Gods of the Empire, that you will honour and defend the Empire of Man?"
"This day do I render homage and fealty to my Lord, the Elector Count Abelhelm Van Hal of Stirland, who will, from this day forward, be my Liege. I will remain true in all ways, serving him faithfully - this do I swear, by my life and by my Gods. So say I, Mathilde Weber."
"I accept your homage and fealty, and pledge to you that from this day forward until the end of my reign, you are my Liegewoman, and that I will honour and defend your rights as a Knight." You brace yourself, knowing what's coming next. "Let this be the last blow you receive unanswered." And with that, he delivers a heavy blow to your face that near sends you sprawling and marks the culmination of the ceremony.
---
To all nobles to whom these present letters shall come. Abelhelm Van Hal, Elector Count of Stirland, sends greetings. Whereas Mathilde Weber has shown excellence in her feats on the field of honour, rendering high and noble service to the Empire in war and in peace, I am minded to elevate her to the rank of Knight. We do hereby elevate and affirm the attached Arms by these Letters Patent, to wit: Sable, bend argent, sword argent bendwise inverted, base dexter serpent supine vert and or, which Dame Mathilde Weber shall hold for her sole and unique use throughout the Empire. To which I set my hands this 9th day of Brauzeit, 2473. Abelhelm Van Hal, Elector Count.
---
As the various coworkers, courtiers and visitors mingle and accept food from circulating servants, you find your way to Kasmir as he signs off on the papers marking you as a Knight. "A great honour," he notes without looking up.
"One I will prove myself worthy of," you reply, just a touch of defensiveness in your tone. Then you wince at yourself. "Kasmir, I wanted to apologize. That business with the infiltrators, what I said-"
But Kasmir has looked up from his papers, and shakes his head firmly. "You were right to make my failure known. One cannot serve Sigmar at the expense of Sigmar's Empire, and Sigmar is not the only God of Sigmar's Empire. I had forgotten that." He runs a finger along the spine of the Deus Sigmar strapped to his belt. "Had but one of them claimed to hold Sigmar as their patron God, I would have uncovered them in moments. But Morrites? Shallyans?" He sighs. "You succeeded where I failed." He seems to struggle with himself for a moment, then offers, "will you pray with me, Dame Mathilde?"
That's as close to an apology from him as you're likely to get. You reach back to the prayers of your childhood, and intone with him:
Lord Sigmar, hear my prayer. Let not my weapon fail me, but strengthen it against the foe. Give my blade your wisdom, to cleave the guilty from the innocent. Let your holy fire infuse the powder to burn in the eyes of the heretic. Keep your hand on mine, Sigmar, so that my grip and my faith will not slip. My arm shall strike in Thy name, against the heretic, the witch, the unclean. Amen.
---
To anyone else, your estate would be an inconvenient distance from Wurtbad, up treacherous slopes and along paths riddled with potholes. But your horse, formed of Ulgu and shaped by your will, cares not for the conditions of the roads, and you contemptuously gallop across terrain that would cripple any flesh-and-blood horse attempting the same. When you arrive deep in the hills around Sonningwiese, you find an estate consisting of hill and rock and scrub. The local peasants are a scattered and hardy lot, so different to the lowland peasants of your youth. Instead of spending lifetimes working the same plot of land season after season, they drive herds of sheep over land too steep and rocky for crops and flocks of goats over land too steep for sheep. In times of war they muster with slings, and though it certainly doesn't sound like much, a chunk of rock the size of a man's fist delivered at speed to the skull deters a great many of the enemies of the Empire. It is, you ponder, a tough land; not a rich land, never a rich land, but never a poor land either. Not a threat in the Empire will ever choose to climb up the rocky foothills to chase sheep, not when there's leagues of farmland and town all around, and the hardy hill sheep ignore droughts that would leave farmers ruined. It is a land that you could ignore for a century and still be much the same as you left it.
The closest thing the locals have to a leader (apart from yourself, of course) is a man with a slightly larger herd and a slightly larger hut, and representatives from the hill clans gather there to give you their oaths. The reception they give you is muted but not hostile; the general consensus seems to be that yes, you're a witch, and therefore probably a dangerously insane meddler in powers man was not meant to meddle in - but at least you're not a merchant. You ride a horse of shadow, but at least you can ride, and that sword on your back sends a clear message; you're an odd sort of knight, but you're infinitely more a knight than those of the Stirlandian League that 'owned' the land previously, so you'll do, seems to be the general consensus.
Your position as lesser evil secured and your right to taxation acknowledged, you bid your subjects farewell and head back to civilization, where you're greeted with something you didn't expect: you've received mail. You've gotten letters from your Master before, and from whoever it is that's pulling your strings, but there's more in front of you now than you've received in all the years you've served as Spymaster. You sort through the envelopes, noting the ornate seals on them. You recognize one as belonging to Anton's family, and a second from your little romp through Leicheberg. Each of them, you discover, contains congratulations from the ruling classes of Stirland, welcoming you to their ranks, all stock phrases and rote best wishes. You frown, your well-honed cynicism doubting their sincerity.
Okay, you grant, maybe not all of them. Anton's father is probably being sincere, or at least Anton writing on his father's behalf - you're pretty sure you recognize the handwriting. Okay, and maybe the Stirlandian League business might have won over Franzen and Wolfsbach, and considering you've got his daughter on your payroll, maybe the Grand Mayor of Flensburg is sincere too.
You re-read the well-wishes from them, and smile.
---
With that emotional roller-coaster out of the way, it's time to deal with cold, impersonal business. You sit in a townhouse not too far from that of your deputy spymistress, at a table that already has the EIC logo carved into it. Around the table, at the three hilts of the logo, sits three people: Wilhelmina, Markus, and you.
(technically Wilhelmina is present not only as herself but also as Stirland, so in a business sense there's actually four people at the table. You're already confused.)
Wilhelmina has tabulated a list of the ongoing contracts inherited from the Stirlandian League, sorted first by profitability and second by their likelihood to survive a newly reopened market; a quarter are to be dissolved by mutual agreement, a further third will be renegotiated with less profit per weight but a much higher throughput, and half of what's left are being auctioned off to the other traders of Stirland, who are eager for part of the North-South trade now that the way is clear. This leaves... a fraction, possibly, that the EIC will inherit unchanged, and the first order of business is filling them. To do this, the EIC is buying the transport infrastructure of the Stirlandian League off of Stirland; 'buying' is apparently the correct term for it even though no money is moving. The loan you took out, Wilhelmina explains, is remaining in the Stirland treasury because the funds are being used to purchase said infrastructure, so Stirland's 'loan' to you is actually in the form of what you worked so hard to have confiscated off the Stirlandian League.
Are you being conned? This feels like a con. But it can't be, right? Wilhelmina's heard your reports to Van Hal. She wouldn't dare.
Days pass in an ocean of numbers and terminology and jargon. As far as you can tell, things are moving back and forth, and being sold and bought, and money is changing hands, and everything's going well. The first contract is completed, and payment arrives in Wurtbad, and there's wine for the three of you and you get your first dividends, except you don't, what you get is a piece of paper saying that your dividends were used to repay your loan to Stirland, except the 'loan' never left Stirland's treasury, it's still there, and so are your dividends. What? And then Wilhelmina explains that the client in Talabheim didn't actually send money from Talabheim to Wurtbad. They sent a piece of paper to a bank in Wurtbad, and the bank has given the EIC money, except it's actually the client's money because the bank, which holds all the client's money, now owns some of that money it was holding anyway?
You are so confused.
[Contributing to the EIC: Stewardship, Roll, 9+10=19.]
---
You finally escape from the EIC offices after what feels like the eternitieth time you tried to figure out what the hell is going on. After all that, you need a break. You'll go shopping. Finally buy that enchantment gear you wanted, surely fashion has moved on, right?
[Mathilde vs Wizard Chic: Req 40, Stewardship, 10+10=20.]
It hasn't. It's gotten worse.
And you are to blame.
Stirland's newest knight has inflamed the imagination of the feckless youths of Wurtbad, and somehow the availability of magical equipment has fallen from its previous level of zero. Everywhere you look, some twit is using something that would be very useful for your magical experiments as a necklace. And the worst part is you can't even be mad at them because whenever you go to yell at them, they notice you and start squealing in excitement and ask for you to sign their wizard hats! How can you be mad at someone that's idolizing you so thoroughly?
So after your encounters with business and fashion, you retreat to something that's actually understandable: bending the very fabric of reality to your will. You write to your Master and have the last few tomes sent over, and you shut yourself away from the oh-so-frustrating world for a while and make the physical realm your plaything. Among a pair of new spells you finally pick up Magic Alarm again, and try to develop the habit of setting it on the entrance to your Buried Palace, which is instantly stymied because every single time you cast the spell, a cat wanders over and sits directly in it. The world is conspiring to drive you insane, you're sure of it.
[Rounding out the last few spells, Req 50, Learning, 62+16=78.]
---
TITLE, RIGHTS, AND DUTIES ACQUIRED: Knight
APOLOGY NOT ACTUALLY NEEDED: +2 to relationship with Kasmir
BUSINESS PARTNER: +1 to relationship with Wilhelmina, Markus.
STAKE ACQUIRED IN EIC.
ANOTHER MASSIVE DEBT ACQUIRED.
SPELLS LEARNED: Move, Skywalk, Magic Alarm
ALL LESSER SPELLS KNOWN!: +1 Magic
CURRENT QHYASH-JUICE STOCKPILE: 1 gallon
Discretionary Income: +150g
Embezzlement: -35g
Veteran informants: -60g
Watch informants: -10g
EIC informants: -20g
Julia: -30g
Townhouse staff: -20g
---
Net: -25g
Personal Income: +50g
Estate Profit: +10g
Embezzlement: +35g
Tithe: -6g
Student Loans: -35g
---
Net: +54g
---
Once more, you're all gathered around the council table. Anton sits with a look of concentration on his face, trying to think of a new pretence to ask you something just so he can call you Dame Mathilde; you'll tell him to stop it as soon as you get tired of hearing it, which will probably be never. Wilhelmina looks smugger than usual, or maybe you're just projecting that onto her after your failure to even begin to understand what it is she's doing with the EIC. Kasmir's looking serene; you actually heard word from your friends in the Thieves Guild that he's been asking around for a Priest of Ranald, putting word out that there's a chaplaincy open for one. You doubt it would ever be filled, but it's more evidence of his newfound openness to non-Sigmarite faiths. Schultz is missing an ear, but actually doesn't seem that put out about it - he's recently taken to hauling around what looks like a genuine Hochland long rifle and is animatedly engaged in conversation with Gustav about the interplay between height and range.
---
The Wurtbad Watch has been completely subsumed, and you personally rewrote the document they draw their legitimacy from. What, exactly, did you write into this document?
[ ] Pick a new name to reflect your Stirland-wide ambitions for the force (optional)
Pick one of the following to be explicitly named in the founding documents, giving you the opportunity to shape the Watch into a force that can perform this as well as their regular duties:
[ ] Underground: Absorbing the Sewer Jacks and rat-catchers into the Watch will allow you to make the underways of the city as safe as the streets above.
[ ] Road Network: Bringing the Road Wardens under the Watch's banner will allow them to project force along the roads connecting the towns, not just within the towns themselves.
[ ] Riverwardens: With the addition of a fleet of very small warships, the Watch extend their reach onto the waterways of Stirland, fighting piracy and smuggling in the rivers that are the Empire's lifeblood.
[ ] Self-Sustaining: If the Watch took on officially sanctioned side jobs protecting caravans and merchant ships between cities, they could basically fund themselves instead of being a constant drain on Stirland's coffers, effectively fueling their own growth.
[ ] Sally Force: Small unit tactics and woodsman training makes the Watch able to sally forth in strength to combat hotspots of corruption, crime and restless dead in the woods and hills of the countryside on top of their city duties.
[ ] Siege Training: Training with ranged weapons and the basics of siege engineering will turn the Watch into a ferocious force multiplier if their city comes under siege.
[ ] Militia: Focusing on military training will allow the Watch, in times of war, to join battlefields and give a showing equal to that of any full-time military unit.
[ ] Other (write in)
Note: while you could, at a later date, fold groups like the Road Wardens or Sewer Jacks into the Watch, they would act as a special branch of the Watch rather than something the mainstream Watch can do. This is a unique opportunity to create a second purpose for the organization that it can perform just as well as the first. They will not have this capability immediately, of course, but the goal of being capable of it will be written into their founding document.
Public Report: Write in (optional; can write in word for word, or just outline what is focused on)
Private Report: Write in (optional; the private meeting is traditional at this point and will take place, simply say whether there's anything specific you want to bring up here)
Potential Orders:
Investigation:
[ ] There's definitely evil afoot in Drakenhof. Perhaps there's a way to survive investigating this.
[ ] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, but according to the Stirlandian League he's pulled out of the game with all his ill-gotten gains. If you're not willing to let that go, maybe you could track him down anyway.
[ ] You kind of regret learning exactly what you did to the Thorned One, but you did it. But the liquid leaking out? That's still an unknown. Will Van Hal let you look into it on the clock?
[ ] The spell used by the informants is like nothing you've heard of before. You want to see if you can detect or replicate it.
[ ] Something your new Lieutenant said gave you an idea. Investigate the shores of the Black Water, see if it can truly be tamed.
[ ] If we've got vampire troubles, maybe you should spend some time investigating how to counter vampiric infiltration.
[ ] Wilhelmina said a lot of really complicated words at you. Maybe she's up to something. Or maybe you just don't know a goddamn thing about large-scale inter-provincial trade. Either way, something to look into.
Infrastructure:
[ ] Your intelligence infrastructure is becoming worthy of the title; perhaps you could dedicate some time to expanding it. And, ideally, Stirland could pay for it directly instead of it eating your discretionary income.
[ ] The Wurtbadian Watch is now your pet. Given more time, you can make it your attack dog.
[ ] You've got the town of Biderhof eating out of your hand. If you could think of a reason to justify it, maybe all the taxes from it's lumber sales could flow into your pocket instead.
[o] The Wurtbad Thieves Guild, despite barely being a loose gossip network, really came through during the take-down of the Stirlandian League. Maybe you should cultivate this useful tool. (Van Hal has said: not until the Watch is greatly scaled up)
[ ] For no particular reason, it'd be a good idea to see about informants within the military.
[ ] Also for no particular reason, how about I see about building a unit in the army dedicated to catching terrible necromantic gribblies?
[] Other/s (write in)
---
- The Knighthood Ceremony owes more to SCA tradition than Warhammer lore; I make no apologies.
- This may be the longest chapter to date of this Quest; it certainly feels like it.
- Plan for the Watch and for the Reporting are separate.
- Your increase in income and continued payment of the tithe means I finally have to surrender my dedication to multiple-of-5 gold amounts.
[*] [Surname] Weber
[*] [Motto] Unseen, but not Unfelt.
[*] [Coat]:
[*][Action] In The Darkness We Watch
-[*] Rewrite the relevant part of the legal code of Stirland so that the Watch reports to you, personally. (will face pushback from existing Watchmen; will take two turns; the Watch will come permanently under your control)
-[*] Spread some coin around so that a cross-section of the Watch passes on information to you as well as their superiors.
-[*] Delegation - Ground Floor: Start putting people on your payroll into the EIC before it even begins, so you'll have information flowing right from the start. (NEW)
-[*] Investment: Wilhelmina has offered you the limited-time chance to become a founding shareholder in the EIC; the buy-in will be a cool 1000 crowns, but with Van Hal's permission, Wilhelmina has offered you an interest-free loan from the Stirlandian Treasury to cover it, and promises that unless something goes terribly wrong, the dividends will more than pay for it. (NEW)
-[*] Knighthood: There's a ceremony, of course. And a number of oaths to make. And you'll have to visit your 'estate'. But gosh. Dame Mathilde. (NEW)
-[*] Enchantment: So far you've failed to find suitable equipment (damn Wizard Chic) but you could always try again with local goods. (-discretionary gold, action required to set up and learn to use equipment)
--[*] If unable to buy the stuff(again) do this instead of setting it up:
---[*] Final Round-up: You're so close to mastering all the lesser magics. Just one final push and you'll have them all. (NEW)
-[*] Weber's Box: It has a nice ring to it, but you've got no idea what 'Weber's Box' actually is, or what's going on in there. Have a very, very careful look at it. (NEW)
--[*] Ranald's Blessing on Weber's Box
-[*] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (no action required) (NEW)
--[*] Kasmir
---[*] Apologize for your previous sharpness, which was partly due to finding out just how badly the castle was infiltrated and having spent nearly the whole year on rooting them out.
---
Dame Weber. Gosh.
You sleepwalk through the next few days, unable to shake the amazement from your mind. Knighthood. The actual knight part of things was going to be pretty straightforward, since Ulgu could supply the horse and armour at a moment's notice and you were in the habit of going around with your sword anyway, but the fact that you were being elevated to actual nobility...
After wallowing in the thoughts for a few days, you force yourself to shake them off. Knight or not, you've still got a job to do, and it's time to take the Wurtbad Watch in hand. That jumped-up Brettonnian peasant didn't take kindly to being ordered to report to you, so you would make it his legal duty to do so and then he'll either fall in line or you could force him out of the position and replace him with someone more pliable. So you make your way to the castle archives and start digging for the formative documents of the Wurtbadian Watch.
And you dig. And dig. And dig.
Over three hundred years of paperwork and weeks of digging later, you finally find it. Early in the 2130s, during the Third Vampire War against Mannfred von Carstein, the modern iteration of the Wurtbad Watch was founded, superseding a previous organization of the same name. They were given the remit to pursue corruption both mundane and supernatural, were to be funded from the purse of the City of Wurtbad, and no man without military service was permitted to join its ranks. The document also states the authority they were to report to: 'The Elector Count, or designated military subordinate thereof'. Which would definitely discount you; you play with the idea of using your new status as a Knight of Stirland to qualify, but you want to be able to act as the Spymaster of Stirland while commanding the Wurtbad Watch, rather than having to act as two separate legal entities.
So you get to work writing up a new document. It takes you days to get used to the jargon of legal documents, but you copy sentences from here and there and piece them together like a puzzle. And since you're already making a document, you decide, you may as well go all in and remould the foundation document of the Wurtbad Watch to your purposes. Weeks more pass in a manic haze of editing and revisions, as you craft a document that takes the existing loose gang of thief-takers, bellringers and busy-bodies and turns them into what could very well be described as your personal army.
Or, at least, the founding company of it.
When you present the document to Van Hal, he reads it three times before he signs it. When you take the signed document to the Watch's headquarters, 'Lefty' Ragnier resigns on the spot after reading it. But that doesn't even slow you down, and you plump the rolls of the Watch with veterans willing to swear loyalty to you personally as well as adding a number of existing members to your informant network. All in all, a good result for a few months' work. Now you just have to rebuild it in your image.
[Finding the document: Req 40, Stewardship, 67+10=77.]
[How restrictive is it? Roll, 26. Technically excludes you; new document required.]
[Writing a new document: Breakpoints 40/70, Stewardship, 97+10=107.]
---
After so long dealing with paperwork, you need to toy with the Winds of Magic once more to cleanse your palate. So you turn to the strangest creation of your Wizarding career: 'Weber's Box'. If you're going to call it that with a straight face, you need to understand what's happening in it, surely. So you tilt it on its side, let the liquid drain out into a bottle, and take a glimpse into the inner workings of the device.
It's structurally unchanged. It's still a series of concentric mirror cubes with gaps in the 'top' to let in light and a mirrored lid to trap it. But now, intersecting those mirrors, is a mess of butchered snakeflesh, constantly writhing. It's quite disturbing to look at, and difficult to figure out what it is that you're looking at. You stare at it with mundane and magical senses, trying to figure out what it is you're seeing, but none of it makes sense. So you stop staring and instead try to reason it out. And once you do, a theory emerges.
The most basic fact of the Thorned One: it can pass through mirrors. To it, the mirrorcatch box isn't solid, it's a tangle of overlapping portals.
So, you reason, when it tried to move through one of the mirrors to reach you, it can't have moved more than an inch or so before running into another mirror, and then it would have passed back into the demon realm. And, if the portals possess the same relative location in the Warp as they do in realspace, maybe it passes through a second portal to appear back in the box while its back half is still in there, and intersects itself. And then add in that the smallest cube within the box is made of mirrors too small for the snake to pass through - or, at least, for all of the snake to pass through...
So parts of it are obliterated as different parts of its anatomy tries to exist in the same place as other parts of it, and other parts are sliced neatly off by the edges of portals where they meet entirely different portals, and the portals too small for the snake to fit through. But the snake doesn't just die - it's not that fortunate. Half of it is still within the realm of unreality where demons (you theorize, far beyond the limits of your knowledge) cannot die, and the energies of that place are drawn into it to repair the damage done. But before those energies can become snakeflesh, the part of it that was in the warp has passed through the snarl of mirror-portals into reality, and the raw energy, suddenly subjected to the laws of reality instead of the non-laws of the warp... well, apparently it pours out of the box in the form of what you theorize is raw, liquid Qhaysh. Or at least an untainted and balanced combination of every colour of magic at the same time - isn't that what Qhaysh is? Or is there more to so-called 'high magic' than that? You don't know. You're not sure if any human knows.
And it just keeps on happening, because to the snake there is no solid surface in the box. The parts of it in reality are subject to gravity, but can never stop falling because the closest thing to a bottom is a portal into the warp. It is suspended in an eternal free-fall, forever unable to either heal or die. And in that state it constantly drains magical energies into reality.
That realization sends a shudder through you. If the demon that pursued you was any other warp-entity, the energies leaking out would... well, you'd be lucky if they were only Dhar. But this is the All-Knowing Serpent, Wisdom's Asp, and apparently the ever-shifting hue of its scales is mirrored by the pure combination of magical energies that it is formed from. Instead of liquid corruption pouring forth, this is pure, untainted, liquid magic.
[What's in the box? Learning, Req 50, 34+16+20(Ranald's Blessing)=70.]
---
Finally, the Big Day is upon you. You wear your greyest robe, polish your sword until it shines, make good use of your newly restored ability to safely look in mirrors to make sure your hair is cooperating, and summon a horse and wrap Ulgu around you to ride into Eagle Castle in a manner at least vaguely reminiscent of a Knight. The ceremony, it was decided, is going to be fairly low-key, and nobody would be invited on the grounds that any protests would be a lot less effective after the fact than if they occurred before or during. But even so, there'd be plenty of people there - Van Hal himself, of course, and Wilhelmina, Anton, Julia, and Markus. Kasmir had returned from Leicheberg to act as the ecclesiastical witness. On top of all those, there were the usual courtiers, a representative from the Wurtbad City Council, a visiting diplomat from Talabecland, representatives from a half-dozen barons and counts who were in Wurtbad at the time... by the time it was all added up, it was quite the crowd for an event that was supposed to go unnoticed.
And then as you enter the Great Hall, you see someone among the chatting crowd that completely derails your train of thought - your Master, shamelessly looting a plate of entrees from a plate held by a hapless servant.
"What are you doing here?" you ask as you sidle up to him, half enthused and half suspicious.
"When a pawn reaches the end of the board," he says through a mouthful of cold meats, "it turns into a different piece. The question to ask is, what piece shall it become?" He smiles that infuriating smile of his, the one you spent years practising until you could project mysterious smugness as well as him. You also learned the counter to it: deliberate obtuseness.
"I can clear that up for you," you say brightly. "I'm being made a knight." He opens his mouth, gives you an annoyed look, and then closes it with a snap. "I am glad you're here, though," you say, and his expression softens.
"Wouldn't miss it, my girl," he says gruffly. "You were thrown in to the great wide ocean to sink or swim, and by Sigmar you swam." He clears his throat. "That said, I'm not just here to celebrate with you."
"Ah," you say. Grey Order business? No, he'd send that business encrypted, standard procedure and besides, all the better to show off his encryption with. Sent either by post if it was business as usual, or pinned to your nightgown when you woke in the morning if you'd done something to irk the Order. For him to deliver it in person... "The other business."
Without seeming to move or speak, he shapes Ulgu around the two of you. An illusion wrapped in ignorability, the show-off. "Afraid so. There's whispers of a campaign into Sylvania in the air, and it seems to have drawn the attention of our mutual acquaintance." He produces an envelope from his robes. "I took the liberty of reading it - I've got a different cipher glued to my eyelids than you do, but I haven't met a cipher yet I couldn't crack."
"Except one-time pads," you note as you take it, ignoring his scowl, opening the already-broken seal and skimming the contents, the cipher burning to life once more. With ease of long practice you tune out his usual spiel about the problems with pseudorandomness and the in-his-opinion crippling handicap of key distribution.
Have means in place to gather information re: undead types and density in Sylvania if and when Stirland forces sally across the border. When information is acquired, send via your Master. If possible, collection of live samples will be rewarded; send news of any you secure via same and we will arrange collection.
"Troubling," your Master says, neatly summarizing your thoughts on the matter.
"Seventh Article," you reply.
"Applies only to the Orders," he responds.
"Are they?"
"Good question."
You brood over the wording of the message. "Will be rewarded. A test? Or an acknowledgement?"
"Carrot and stick, perhaps. Handling 101."
You scowl. "I am not handled. I am the one who handles."
"Not quite yet, Journeywoman," he says.
You mull that over. "Journeywoman, yes. But also Spymistress. And now: Knight."
He smiles indulgently. "Dame Weber. But still; spite alone is poor reason. It chafes, yes - but it does not throttle."
"Yet," you say darkly.
"Today has enough problems without borrowing tomorrow's," he replies, and you subside. "This is a grand day. You'll regret it if you let this taint it."
---
In the privacy of Ulgu, you hug your Master, and resolve to follow his advice. The illusion shimmers and Ulgu shifts as you walk away, and you don't bother to look around, knowing that your Master would not be visible. You make your way to the head of the hall, where Van Hal is deep in discussion with Talabecland's diplomat, who is sketching figures on a slate. As you approach, he wraps up the conversation, pats the diplomat on the back, and turns to you.
"Mathilde," he says in greeting. "You're looking..." he thinks for a moment. "You're looking very you, only more so than usual."
"Thank you, your Grace," you reply politely, falling back on formulae for lack of a better response.
"If you're finished saying farewell to the origins you've thoroughly outgrown, we can begin the ceremony."
You nod, and he makes his way to the throne, standing before it. He does not call for silence, but he receives it nonetheless, conversation trailing to a halt all over the hall as all eyes move to him. Anton hurries out of the crowd and takes up position next to the throne - Van Hal never bothered to appoint an envoy, but the ceremony demands one so Anton is it - and he calls out, "The Count now calls Mathilde Weber to come before this Court."
Okay. Just like Anton taught you.
You walk forward and stand before Van Hal. You notice all over again just how tall the man is.
"Mathilde Weber, have you undertaken to accept the accolade of Knighthood that was offered to you at Eagle Castle?"
"I have."
Without turning, Van Hal addresses Anton. "Sir Anton Kiesinger II, as a member of the Peerage, do you now affirm that Mathilde Weber has grown in virtue and honour, the hallmarks of a true and faithful Peer?"
Unable to keep the smile from his face or his voice, Anton recites: "May it please my Liege to know that having heard the counsel of my Peers, and from my own certain knowledge, I am able to affirm that Mathilde Weber is a worthy lady whose achievements on the field of honour have been matched by her services to the Empire."
"Mathilde Weber," Van Hal intones, "you have been deemed fit for this high estate. Do you now swear, by Sigmar and all the Gods of the Empire, that you will honour and defend the Empire of Man?"
"This day do I render homage and fealty to my Lord, the Elector Count Abelhelm Van Hal of Stirland, who will, from this day forward, be my Liege. I will remain true in all ways, serving him faithfully - this do I swear, by my life and by my Gods. So say I, Mathilde Weber."
"I accept your homage and fealty, and pledge to you that from this day forward until the end of my reign, you are my Liegewoman, and that I will honour and defend your rights as a Knight." You brace yourself, knowing what's coming next. "Let this be the last blow you receive unanswered." And with that, he delivers a heavy blow to your face that near sends you sprawling and marks the culmination of the ceremony.
---
To all nobles to whom these present letters shall come. Abelhelm Van Hal, Elector Count of Stirland, sends greetings. Whereas Mathilde Weber has shown excellence in her feats on the field of honour, rendering high and noble service to the Empire in war and in peace, I am minded to elevate her to the rank of Knight. We do hereby elevate and affirm the attached Arms by these Letters Patent, to wit: Sable, bend argent, sword argent bendwise inverted, base dexter serpent supine vert and or, which Dame Mathilde Weber shall hold for her sole and unique use throughout the Empire. To which I set my hands this 9th day of Brauzeit, 2473. Abelhelm Van Hal, Elector Count.
---
As the various coworkers, courtiers and visitors mingle and accept food from circulating servants, you find your way to Kasmir as he signs off on the papers marking you as a Knight. "A great honour," he notes without looking up.
"One I will prove myself worthy of," you reply, just a touch of defensiveness in your tone. Then you wince at yourself. "Kasmir, I wanted to apologize. That business with the infiltrators, what I said-"
But Kasmir has looked up from his papers, and shakes his head firmly. "You were right to make my failure known. One cannot serve Sigmar at the expense of Sigmar's Empire, and Sigmar is not the only God of Sigmar's Empire. I had forgotten that." He runs a finger along the spine of the Deus Sigmar strapped to his belt. "Had but one of them claimed to hold Sigmar as their patron God, I would have uncovered them in moments. But Morrites? Shallyans?" He sighs. "You succeeded where I failed." He seems to struggle with himself for a moment, then offers, "will you pray with me, Dame Mathilde?"
That's as close to an apology from him as you're likely to get. You reach back to the prayers of your childhood, and intone with him:
Lord Sigmar, hear my prayer. Let not my weapon fail me, but strengthen it against the foe. Give my blade your wisdom, to cleave the guilty from the innocent. Let your holy fire infuse the powder to burn in the eyes of the heretic. Keep your hand on mine, Sigmar, so that my grip and my faith will not slip. My arm shall strike in Thy name, against the heretic, the witch, the unclean. Amen.
---
To anyone else, your estate would be an inconvenient distance from Wurtbad, up treacherous slopes and along paths riddled with potholes. But your horse, formed of Ulgu and shaped by your will, cares not for the conditions of the roads, and you contemptuously gallop across terrain that would cripple any flesh-and-blood horse attempting the same. When you arrive deep in the hills around Sonningwiese, you find an estate consisting of hill and rock and scrub. The local peasants are a scattered and hardy lot, so different to the lowland peasants of your youth. Instead of spending lifetimes working the same plot of land season after season, they drive herds of sheep over land too steep and rocky for crops and flocks of goats over land too steep for sheep. In times of war they muster with slings, and though it certainly doesn't sound like much, a chunk of rock the size of a man's fist delivered at speed to the skull deters a great many of the enemies of the Empire. It is, you ponder, a tough land; not a rich land, never a rich land, but never a poor land either. Not a threat in the Empire will ever choose to climb up the rocky foothills to chase sheep, not when there's leagues of farmland and town all around, and the hardy hill sheep ignore droughts that would leave farmers ruined. It is a land that you could ignore for a century and still be much the same as you left it.
The closest thing the locals have to a leader (apart from yourself, of course) is a man with a slightly larger herd and a slightly larger hut, and representatives from the hill clans gather there to give you their oaths. The reception they give you is muted but not hostile; the general consensus seems to be that yes, you're a witch, and therefore probably a dangerously insane meddler in powers man was not meant to meddle in - but at least you're not a merchant. You ride a horse of shadow, but at least you can ride, and that sword on your back sends a clear message; you're an odd sort of knight, but you're infinitely more a knight than those of the Stirlandian League that 'owned' the land previously, so you'll do, seems to be the general consensus.
Your position as lesser evil secured and your right to taxation acknowledged, you bid your subjects farewell and head back to civilization, where you're greeted with something you didn't expect: you've received mail. You've gotten letters from your Master before, and from whoever it is that's pulling your strings, but there's more in front of you now than you've received in all the years you've served as Spymaster. You sort through the envelopes, noting the ornate seals on them. You recognize one as belonging to Anton's family, and a second from your little romp through Leicheberg. Each of them, you discover, contains congratulations from the ruling classes of Stirland, welcoming you to their ranks, all stock phrases and rote best wishes. You frown, your well-honed cynicism doubting their sincerity.
Okay, you grant, maybe not all of them. Anton's father is probably being sincere, or at least Anton writing on his father's behalf - you're pretty sure you recognize the handwriting. Okay, and maybe the Stirlandian League business might have won over Franzen and Wolfsbach, and considering you've got his daughter on your payroll, maybe the Grand Mayor of Flensburg is sincere too.
You re-read the well-wishes from them, and smile.
---
With that emotional roller-coaster out of the way, it's time to deal with cold, impersonal business. You sit in a townhouse not too far from that of your deputy spymistress, at a table that already has the EIC logo carved into it. Around the table, at the three hilts of the logo, sits three people: Wilhelmina, Markus, and you.
(technically Wilhelmina is present not only as herself but also as Stirland, so in a business sense there's actually four people at the table. You're already confused.)
Wilhelmina has tabulated a list of the ongoing contracts inherited from the Stirlandian League, sorted first by profitability and second by their likelihood to survive a newly reopened market; a quarter are to be dissolved by mutual agreement, a further third will be renegotiated with less profit per weight but a much higher throughput, and half of what's left are being auctioned off to the other traders of Stirland, who are eager for part of the North-South trade now that the way is clear. This leaves... a fraction, possibly, that the EIC will inherit unchanged, and the first order of business is filling them. To do this, the EIC is buying the transport infrastructure of the Stirlandian League off of Stirland; 'buying' is apparently the correct term for it even though no money is moving. The loan you took out, Wilhelmina explains, is remaining in the Stirland treasury because the funds are being used to purchase said infrastructure, so Stirland's 'loan' to you is actually in the form of what you worked so hard to have confiscated off the Stirlandian League.
Are you being conned? This feels like a con. But it can't be, right? Wilhelmina's heard your reports to Van Hal. She wouldn't dare.
Days pass in an ocean of numbers and terminology and jargon. As far as you can tell, things are moving back and forth, and being sold and bought, and money is changing hands, and everything's going well. The first contract is completed, and payment arrives in Wurtbad, and there's wine for the three of you and you get your first dividends, except you don't, what you get is a piece of paper saying that your dividends were used to repay your loan to Stirland, except the 'loan' never left Stirland's treasury, it's still there, and so are your dividends. What? And then Wilhelmina explains that the client in Talabheim didn't actually send money from Talabheim to Wurtbad. They sent a piece of paper to a bank in Wurtbad, and the bank has given the EIC money, except it's actually the client's money because the bank, which holds all the client's money, now owns some of that money it was holding anyway?
You are so confused.
[Contributing to the EIC: Stewardship, Roll, 9+10=19.]
---
You finally escape from the EIC offices after what feels like the eternitieth time you tried to figure out what the hell is going on. After all that, you need a break. You'll go shopping. Finally buy that enchantment gear you wanted, surely fashion has moved on, right?
[Mathilde vs Wizard Chic: Req 40, Stewardship, 10+10=20.]
It hasn't. It's gotten worse.
And you are to blame.
Stirland's newest knight has inflamed the imagination of the feckless youths of Wurtbad, and somehow the availability of magical equipment has fallen from its previous level of zero. Everywhere you look, some twit is using something that would be very useful for your magical experiments as a necklace. And the worst part is you can't even be mad at them because whenever you go to yell at them, they notice you and start squealing in excitement and ask for you to sign their wizard hats! How can you be mad at someone that's idolizing you so thoroughly?
So after your encounters with business and fashion, you retreat to something that's actually understandable: bending the very fabric of reality to your will. You write to your Master and have the last few tomes sent over, and you shut yourself away from the oh-so-frustrating world for a while and make the physical realm your plaything. Among a pair of new spells you finally pick up Magic Alarm again, and try to develop the habit of setting it on the entrance to your Buried Palace, which is instantly stymied because every single time you cast the spell, a cat wanders over and sits directly in it. The world is conspiring to drive you insane, you're sure of it.
[Rounding out the last few spells, Req 50, Learning, 62+16=78.]
---
TITLE, RIGHTS, AND DUTIES ACQUIRED: Knight
APOLOGY NOT ACTUALLY NEEDED: +2 to relationship with Kasmir
BUSINESS PARTNER: +1 to relationship with Wilhelmina, Markus.
STAKE ACQUIRED IN EIC.
ANOTHER MASSIVE DEBT ACQUIRED.
SPELLS LEARNED: Move, Skywalk, Magic Alarm
ALL LESSER SPELLS KNOWN!: +1 Magic
CURRENT QHYASH-JUICE STOCKPILE: 1 gallon
Discretionary Income: +150g
Embezzlement: -35g
Veteran informants: -60g
Watch informants: -10g
EIC informants: -20g
Julia: -30g
Townhouse staff: -20g
---
Net: -25g
Personal Income: +50g
Estate Profit: +10g
Embezzlement: +35g
Tithe: -6g
Student Loans: -35g
---
Net: +54g
---
Once more, you're all gathered around the council table. Anton sits with a look of concentration on his face, trying to think of a new pretence to ask you something just so he can call you Dame Mathilde; you'll tell him to stop it as soon as you get tired of hearing it, which will probably be never. Wilhelmina looks smugger than usual, or maybe you're just projecting that onto her after your failure to even begin to understand what it is she's doing with the EIC. Kasmir's looking serene; you actually heard word from your friends in the Thieves Guild that he's been asking around for a Priest of Ranald, putting word out that there's a chaplaincy open for one. You doubt it would ever be filled, but it's more evidence of his newfound openness to non-Sigmarite faiths. Schultz is missing an ear, but actually doesn't seem that put out about it - he's recently taken to hauling around what looks like a genuine Hochland long rifle and is animatedly engaged in conversation with Gustav about the interplay between height and range.
---
The Wurtbad Watch has been completely subsumed, and you personally rewrote the document they draw their legitimacy from. What, exactly, did you write into this document?
[ ] Pick a new name to reflect your Stirland-wide ambitions for the force (optional)
Pick one of the following to be explicitly named in the founding documents, giving you the opportunity to shape the Watch into a force that can perform this as well as their regular duties:
[ ] Underground: Absorbing the Sewer Jacks and rat-catchers into the Watch will allow you to make the underways of the city as safe as the streets above.
[ ] Road Network: Bringing the Road Wardens under the Watch's banner will allow them to project force along the roads connecting the towns, not just within the towns themselves.
[ ] Riverwardens: With the addition of a fleet of very small warships, the Watch extend their reach onto the waterways of Stirland, fighting piracy and smuggling in the rivers that are the Empire's lifeblood.
[ ] Self-Sustaining: If the Watch took on officially sanctioned side jobs protecting caravans and merchant ships between cities, they could basically fund themselves instead of being a constant drain on Stirland's coffers, effectively fueling their own growth.
[ ] Sally Force: Small unit tactics and woodsman training makes the Watch able to sally forth in strength to combat hotspots of corruption, crime and restless dead in the woods and hills of the countryside on top of their city duties.
[ ] Siege Training: Training with ranged weapons and the basics of siege engineering will turn the Watch into a ferocious force multiplier if their city comes under siege.
[ ] Militia: Focusing on military training will allow the Watch, in times of war, to join battlefields and give a showing equal to that of any full-time military unit.
[ ] Other (write in)
Note: while you could, at a later date, fold groups like the Road Wardens or Sewer Jacks into the Watch, they would act as a special branch of the Watch rather than something the mainstream Watch can do. This is a unique opportunity to create a second purpose for the organization that it can perform just as well as the first. They will not have this capability immediately, of course, but the goal of being capable of it will be written into their founding document.
Public Report: Write in (optional; can write in word for word, or just outline what is focused on)
Private Report: Write in (optional; the private meeting is traditional at this point and will take place, simply say whether there's anything specific you want to bring up here)
Potential Orders:
Investigation:
[ ] There's definitely evil afoot in Drakenhof. Perhaps there's a way to survive investigating this.
[ ] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, but according to the Stirlandian League he's pulled out of the game with all his ill-gotten gains. If you're not willing to let that go, maybe you could track him down anyway.
[ ] You kind of regret learning exactly what you did to the Thorned One, but you did it. But the liquid leaking out? That's still an unknown. Will Van Hal let you look into it on the clock?
[ ] The spell used by the informants is like nothing you've heard of before. You want to see if you can detect or replicate it.
[ ] Something your new Lieutenant said gave you an idea. Investigate the shores of the Black Water, see if it can truly be tamed.
[ ] If we've got vampire troubles, maybe you should spend some time investigating how to counter vampiric infiltration.
[ ] Wilhelmina said a lot of really complicated words at you. Maybe she's up to something. Or maybe you just don't know a goddamn thing about large-scale inter-provincial trade. Either way, something to look into.
Infrastructure:
[ ] Your intelligence infrastructure is becoming worthy of the title; perhaps you could dedicate some time to expanding it. And, ideally, Stirland could pay for it directly instead of it eating your discretionary income.
[ ] The Wurtbadian Watch is now your pet. Given more time, you can make it your attack dog.
[ ] You've got the town of Biderhof eating out of your hand. If you could think of a reason to justify it, maybe all the taxes from it's lumber sales could flow into your pocket instead.
[o] The Wurtbad Thieves Guild, despite barely being a loose gossip network, really came through during the take-down of the Stirlandian League. Maybe you should cultivate this useful tool. (Van Hal has said: not until the Watch is greatly scaled up)
[ ] For no particular reason, it'd be a good idea to see about informants within the military.
[ ] Also for no particular reason, how about I see about building a unit in the army dedicated to catching terrible necromantic gribblies?
[] Other/s (write in)
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- The Knighthood Ceremony owes more to SCA tradition than Warhammer lore; I make no apologies.
- This may be the longest chapter to date of this Quest; it certainly feels like it.
- Plan for the Watch and for the Reporting are separate.
- Your increase in income and continued payment of the tithe means I finally have to surrender my dedication to multiple-of-5 gold amounts.
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In_lurk_shadow
[ ]
- Location
- here and there
Is it bad that I kinda want to fix this?
- Location
- Norway
I like the update! And hmmmmm.
Pro: Back to only one debt hanging over our heads, gain what would have been the difference in interest
Con: Less personal wealth for situational emergencies
Is this something to consider?
Entirely tangentially to the various reporting and proposed actions to give the count, we're about to be able to pay off the college debt early. We're four years into paying it, which means the currently outstanding amount is something like 8 turns * 35 gold ~= 280 gold, minus interest.
Pro: Back to only one debt hanging over our heads, gain what would have been the difference in interest
Con: Less personal wealth for situational emergencies
Is this something to consider?
- Location
- Earth
Well we've learnt all of the petty and lesser spells, so we could train greatswording next turn.
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The two main options for me is the roadwardens or the sewermen. The roads makes the watch our official arm throughout the province, the sewers locks down Wurtbad tightly. Given Gustav's interest in the roadwardens and the fact that a lot of of our business outside the capital will be in other towns rather than the roads I'm inclined to let them stay military - although we'll want an official liasion to to pass us reports and unofficial eyes in their ranks. Controlling the sewers gives us eyes on a major avenue of sneaky shit that might target the castle or us and gives us more leverage over the thieves.
[x] Underground: Absorbing the Sewer Jacks and rat-catchers into the Watch will allow you to make the underways of the city as safe as the streets above.
[x] If we've got vampire troubles, maybe you should spend some time investigating how to counter vampiric infiltration.
[x] Your intelligence infrastructure is becoming worthy of the title; perhaps you could dedicate some time to expanding it. And, ideally, Stirland could pay for it directly instead of it eating your discretionary income.
[x] For no particular reason, it'd be a good idea to see about informants within the military.
[x] Underground: Absorbing the Sewer Jacks and rat-catchers into the Watch will allow you to make the underways of the city as safe as the streets above.
[x] If we've got vampire troubles, maybe you should spend some time investigating how to counter vampiric infiltration.
[x] Your intelligence infrastructure is becoming worthy of the title; perhaps you could dedicate some time to expanding it. And, ideally, Stirland could pay for it directly instead of it eating your discretionary income.
[x] For no particular reason, it'd be a good idea to see about informants within the military.
- Location
- Estonia
enchantment lab is probably a better investment since it can cost up to 300g. Probably will have to go to the colleges to get proper gear and will eat a action ?
if we can use high magic enchantments thanks to our silly luck instead of ulgu it will make our weapon making profits in the future truly tremendous guys.
and i still adovcate to hire a dwarf to finih off our lair as a action since we are kinda close to zhufbar and southern empire is the dwarf availability aswell should be posible . Get a dwarf oath for it and it is secret forever forever more or less. @BoneyM
if we can use high magic enchantments thanks to our silly luck instead of ulgu it will make our weapon making profits in the future truly tremendous guys.
and i still adovcate to hire a dwarf to finih off our lair as a action since we are kinda close to zhufbar and southern empire is the dwarf availability aswell should be posible . Get a dwarf oath for it and it is secret forever forever more or less. @BoneyM
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Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
So looking at the land we now own, I sort of want to see about turning it into what is essentially a secret ninja village only instead of training ninja it trains our elite Smoke Knights.
For the options; I really think we should mention our subordinates idea even if we don't necessarily want to take actions towards it, as right now is the perfect time to suggest it given the Trading Company that's just been set up and Wilhelmina's focus. After all it'd be poor form to suggest something after actions have already been taken that reduces the potential of the idea.
maximillian
Civilised Sheep
- Location
- Ranch
The Stirland Inquisition.
The Counts watch.
His Electoral Dignity's Civic Enforcers.
Has a nice ring to it.
I'd say fold the ratcatchers into them, so that they are an allrounded urban peace keeping, enemies of simars empire executing, electors law enforcement unit.
Road and river security is better left with dedicated military, since bandits are the least of possible road evils in warhammer.
Same applies with Sally, militia and siege training, the army is already doing such things and a militia already exists, it better to specialise the guards into a better urban "police" force, rather than try to have them become a half assembled mixture of multiple different roles.
The Counts watch.
His Electoral Dignity's Civic Enforcers.
Has a nice ring to it.
I'd say fold the ratcatchers into them, so that they are an allrounded urban peace keeping, enemies of simars empire executing, electors law enforcement unit.
Road and river security is better left with dedicated military, since bandits are the least of possible road evils in warhammer.
Same applies with Sally, militia and siege training, the army is already doing such things and a militia already exists, it better to specialise the guards into a better urban "police" force, rather than try to have them become a half assembled mixture of multiple different roles.
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