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.
Thinking about actions for Eike what do you guys think about these:
Try to infiltrate KAU and steal some books. Basically an Eike vs the We (obviously we would have warned the We about this so they don't worry and don't use lethal force)
Give Eike some money and send her to try to gain money at our Ranald Temple. How she does it is up to her.
Try to infiltrate KAU and steal some books. Basically an Eike vs the We (obviously we would have warned the We about this so they don't worry and don't use lethal force)
Give Eike some money and send her to try to gain money at our Ranald Temple. How she does it is up to her.
AzrielIlluminare
Mothman Cultist
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Mathilde's Merry Men? Or the Mmm... like just imagine grey wizards looking at people and going "Get'em Mmm." Just make the sound not actually say the letters for maximum confusion, and to confuse them even more make it sound like you got cut off mid-sentence or something.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
the thread's desire to avoid altdorf politics is going to come to a screeching halt the moment algard starts vetoing our increasingly silly names and we resolve to become magister matriarch so no one can tell us no
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That might be easier from an engineering perspective, but as a matter of fitness for purpose and orb of sorcery powered version would be vastly preferable if that lets the power source be located solely inside of Laurorn. Security is the primary concern after all, we're just seeing how much convenience of travel we can offer without compromising it.
Either that or we collectively realize that taking the head spot would let us force silly names on everyone else's stuff. 🤔
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- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
Unless the name is used near a Bright Wizard, then there is a significant chance in a severe decrease of Ulgu wielders in the local area.
AzrielIlluminare
Mothman Cultist
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Change the Screaming Towers to Algard's Screaming Spires just to spite him.
- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Gehenna's Golden Kitties.
When anyone asks why they're neither Golden nor Kitties, tell them we're still working out the kinks in the spell.
When anyone asks why they're neither Golden nor Kitties, tell them we're still working out the kinks in the spell.
Not gonna happen, if it's difficult to get the empire to let go of a battle magic spell then letting a separate nation hold control over a orb is a non starter.
- Location
- Aotearoa
Yeah, personally I feel rite of way is a good middle point. It's still a pun but it's actually sensible and somewhat cool.
We could probably literally call the the dark riders and no one would have a problem.
AzrielIlluminare
Mothman Cultist
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yeah, in all seriousness I'd probably vote for Twilight or Dusk Riders though. It's a nod to Mathilde, and sounds suitably Grey Wizard-ish.
Laurelorn is too far for any of the infrastructure I think. Looking at the map it seems like the most logical route is skirting along the edge of the schadensumpf with the fog path to the pass of stone, and then go by boat from there.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
I'd love to make a spell and while sending it in, attach a note that Mathilde had some difficulty picking one name from a bunch of ideas and hope that the college would pick something appropriate from the list. That way we players would get to send in the full list of every we name come up with, because so many of these are so terribly painfully awesome that it breaks my heart that we can only inflict one upon the Grey College.
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[I'd be fully ok with Boney saying we actually have to pick "What the Grey College ended up choosing"[1] rather than leave it up to him, I just want to play-act that we sent in a full list as I find the idea of doing such delightful.]
[1] Demotion
As I understand it, the advantage an Orb has over a regular array of powerstones is density [or volume]. That matters when it comes to battle altars, but for towers one could just build bigger to allow for moar powerstones to be included[1]
[1] Even in Laurorn where height is an issue ,the 'tower' could just be bigger horizontally now they are expanding their walls.
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It might also be reasonable to have one or two 'relay'/'repeater' towers built, specifically designed to have security stationed at them at all times, and for it to be possible to have the powerstones removed and the towers disabled with not too much effort in the event of a massive invasion so they do not represent a vulnerability.
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- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
For the sake of of idly wasting time, here's an analysis-speculation-thingy about what my gut feelings say regarding potential The Gambler usage on various actions for the currently winning plan. To be clear, this is largely unserious and more of a thought exercise than anything else. I could easily be wrong on many or most of these.
[] Plan Bring Running Shoes with Seviroscope
-[] JOHANN: Hunt an apparition (Rider in Red)
--[] The Gambler
Risk Mitigation: Low. Apparitions mainly hunt apprentice mages. Mathilde is not an apprentice. She's a fully-equipped Lord Magister and Master Swordswoman. I'm confident she can both find and outfight a Rider in Red, and that's before taking punch-buddy Johann along for backup.
Success Enhancement: Medium. Why stop at finding and capturing only one? It should be possible to capture multiple Riders, and the Coin seems ideal for increasing the chances of that. However, past that, it's hard to see much else a crit success could give here.
-[] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm (Seviroscope)
Risk Mitigation: High. Magical experimentation is always dangerous, and we've used the Coin's +20 (and the earlier +10 from Ranald's Blessing) to blunt or prevent bad rolls from causing a disaster multiple times.
Success Enhancement: Medium. We've sometimes used the Coin's +20 to succeed at spell learning and magical experimentation where we otherwise would have failed. But combing through DragonParadox's analysis post, it's hard to say that this enhanced the outcome so much as prevented a failure. (Though perhaps not needing to spend an AP redoing an action is its own reward.)
-[] MAX: Study an artefact (Books and rubbings from an Asur explorer of Lustria and the Southlands)
Risk Mitigation+Success Enhancement: Low. These are books and rubbings. Unless there's a hidden code or invisible ink here, there's little at risk here, and not much extraordinary (beyond what's already written down) to gain either.
-[] Attempt to create a liminal realm
Risk Mitigation: High? Unfortunately, the dangers of this action are a bit of an unknown unknown.
Last time, it was only rolling a natural 1 that caused the disaster of a demon showing up and whispering inthe thread's Mathilde's ear. If we roll another natural 1, Ranald's personal intervention would be the ideal way to defend Mathilde from Chaos. Warhammer deities are the best direct counter to Chaos, after all, and we've seen that Ranald has the ability and gumption to throw down against evil gods and Chaos directly before.
But... is that small 1/100 chance really worth worrying about? Here's where we run into our lack of information: Will there be subsequent rolls for this action? How dangerous is this past the initial creation of the Liminal Realm? Does Mathilde have Chaos's direct attention and/or how much does this action attract their direct intervention? While I think it's unlikely, it could be that this action is 99/100 times perfectly safe. We just don't know.
Success Enhancement: Medium. This is once again magical experimentation, and a choice +20 somewhere could give us a success at experimenting and/or learning something we otherwise wouldn't.
-[] Waystone: Foundation (Thorek, Hatalath, Sarvoi, Egrimm, Elrisse, Niedzwenka, Zlata)
Risk Mitigation: Low. Our Waystone actions so far can be arbitrarily divided into two parts. For the first half, our researchers compare notes and figure out what everyone knows or can figure out through examination. There's not much randomness here, and we already did the prep work of recruiting a wide and varied set of magical experts.
Success Enhancement: High. The other half is figuring out what to do with that all that collated information. This is where attempts at constructing and/or testing prototypes happens, and we even saw an un-hidden +20 for successfully casting the 4th and final version of the Liminal Germination tributary ritual. Thus, there are multiple avenues for an exceptional result due to good rolls.
-[] Tributary: International (Kislev) (Zlata, Niedzwenka, Aksel, Tochter, Cadaeth)
Risk Mitigation: High. Now this isn't a dangerous action. But it is a risky one, since Kislev's leader doesn't care much for magic (among other things) and has a mercurial mood besides. A bit of good luck could see us approach him on a good day and get the rubber stamp approval needed for official support and resources.
Success Enhancement: Medium. As we saw in Stirland last turn, who ends up being hired to build tributaries is up in the air. The Coin could tip the balance and get people who'll be faster and/or more through with making tributaries. But it doesn't seem like there's much room for spectacular results here.
-[] EIC: Negotiate and plan a magical route through the Schadensumpf to allow for easier trade with the Eonir without compromising their defenses
Risk Mitigation: Low. Either the Eonir are open to this idea, or they aren't. I don't see luck ultimately making or breaking success here.
Success Enhancement: High. We've seen from similar negotiation actions that the Coin can give us favorable circumstances and, seemingly, better outcomes from those negotiations. It's hard to judge how impactful this has been in the past, (did Parnoth turning up personally mean he gave us a better deal, or was the benefit for Panoramia?) but it seems likely we could end up with some kind of better outcome here than we'd otherwise get.
-[] KAU: Begin copying the full corpus of a Partner Library (Grand University of Nuln)
Risk Mitigation: None. I don't think there's anything mechanically that could go wrong here. Maybe last turn we wouldn't have ticked off the Cult of Verena, but it's too late for that now.
Success Enhancement: Low. Does the Grand University have some hidden chambers? Otherwise, the most the Coin is likely to turn up here might be a few Romance novels.
-[] SERENITY: Observations on the Windfall north of the Dark Lands (Egrimm as primary author)
Risk Mitigation: None. As we saw just this turn, sitting down at a desk and writing something is so not-random that there's hardly anything for Ranald to do.
Success Enhancement: Medium. Egrimm might get more Favor from this. The paper might also have some narrative effect. Maybe this data will be exactly what some Celesitial magister needs for an important project or similar.
-[] Eike Actions: Lustrian books and rubbings study, Windfall paper, Windherder enchanting, EIC negotiation
N/A: I don't think we could put the Coin here specifically, as this is multiple actions.
-[] Eike Study: Enchanting class at the Grey College (1 CF)
Risk Mitigation: Medium. If we really wanted to be sure Eike successfully learned something from a college class, this would be a good way to stack the deck for her. Though it wouldn't be as effective as having Mathilde teach her directly.
Success Enhancement: High. As an Apprentice, it's much easier for Eike to learn things and aquire new skills and traits than it is for Mathilde. And new skills and traits can be very beneficial in the long term.
In conclusion, from this objectively correct data we can see that optimal Coin usage is to help Eike learn enchanting. I expect everyone to adjust their votes immediately.
[] Plan Bring Running Shoes with Seviroscope
-[] JOHANN: Hunt an apparition (Rider in Red)
--[] The Gambler
Risk Mitigation: Low. Apparitions mainly hunt apprentice mages. Mathilde is not an apprentice. She's a fully-equipped Lord Magister and Master Swordswoman. I'm confident she can both find and outfight a Rider in Red, and that's before taking punch-buddy Johann along for backup.
Success Enhancement: Medium. Why stop at finding and capturing only one? It should be possible to capture multiple Riders, and the Coin seems ideal for increasing the chances of that. However, past that, it's hard to see much else a crit success could give here.
-[] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm (Seviroscope)
Risk Mitigation: High. Magical experimentation is always dangerous, and we've used the Coin's +20 (and the earlier +10 from Ranald's Blessing) to blunt or prevent bad rolls from causing a disaster multiple times.
Success Enhancement: Medium. We've sometimes used the Coin's +20 to succeed at spell learning and magical experimentation where we otherwise would have failed. But combing through DragonParadox's analysis post, it's hard to say that this enhanced the outcome so much as prevented a failure. (Though perhaps not needing to spend an AP redoing an action is its own reward.)
-[] MAX: Study an artefact (Books and rubbings from an Asur explorer of Lustria and the Southlands)
Risk Mitigation+Success Enhancement: Low. These are books and rubbings. Unless there's a hidden code or invisible ink here, there's little at risk here, and not much extraordinary (beyond what's already written down) to gain either.
-[] Attempt to create a liminal realm
Risk Mitigation: High? Unfortunately, the dangers of this action are a bit of an unknown unknown.
Last time, it was only rolling a natural 1 that caused the disaster of a demon showing up and whispering in
But... is that small 1/100 chance really worth worrying about? Here's where we run into our lack of information: Will there be subsequent rolls for this action? How dangerous is this past the initial creation of the Liminal Realm? Does Mathilde have Chaos's direct attention and/or how much does this action attract their direct intervention? While I think it's unlikely, it could be that this action is 99/100 times perfectly safe. We just don't know.
Success Enhancement: Medium. This is once again magical experimentation, and a choice +20 somewhere could give us a success at experimenting and/or learning something we otherwise wouldn't.
-[] Waystone: Foundation (Thorek, Hatalath, Sarvoi, Egrimm, Elrisse, Niedzwenka, Zlata)
Risk Mitigation: Low. Our Waystone actions so far can be arbitrarily divided into two parts. For the first half, our researchers compare notes and figure out what everyone knows or can figure out through examination. There's not much randomness here, and we already did the prep work of recruiting a wide and varied set of magical experts.
Success Enhancement: High. The other half is figuring out what to do with that all that collated information. This is where attempts at constructing and/or testing prototypes happens, and we even saw an un-hidden +20 for successfully casting the 4th and final version of the Liminal Germination tributary ritual. Thus, there are multiple avenues for an exceptional result due to good rolls.
-[] Tributary: International (Kislev) (Zlata, Niedzwenka, Aksel, Tochter, Cadaeth)
Risk Mitigation: High. Now this isn't a dangerous action. But it is a risky one, since Kislev's leader doesn't care much for magic (among other things) and has a mercurial mood besides. A bit of good luck could see us approach him on a good day and get the rubber stamp approval needed for official support and resources.
Success Enhancement: Medium. As we saw in Stirland last turn, who ends up being hired to build tributaries is up in the air. The Coin could tip the balance and get people who'll be faster and/or more through with making tributaries. But it doesn't seem like there's much room for spectacular results here.
-[] EIC: Negotiate and plan a magical route through the Schadensumpf to allow for easier trade with the Eonir without compromising their defenses
Risk Mitigation: Low. Either the Eonir are open to this idea, or they aren't. I don't see luck ultimately making or breaking success here.
Success Enhancement: High. We've seen from similar negotiation actions that the Coin can give us favorable circumstances and, seemingly, better outcomes from those negotiations. It's hard to judge how impactful this has been in the past, (did Parnoth turning up personally mean he gave us a better deal, or was the benefit for Panoramia?) but it seems likely we could end up with some kind of better outcome here than we'd otherwise get.
-[] KAU: Begin copying the full corpus of a Partner Library (Grand University of Nuln)
Risk Mitigation: None. I don't think there's anything mechanically that could go wrong here. Maybe last turn we wouldn't have ticked off the Cult of Verena, but it's too late for that now.
Success Enhancement: Low. Does the Grand University have some hidden chambers? Otherwise, the most the Coin is likely to turn up here might be a few Romance novels.
-[] SERENITY: Observations on the Windfall north of the Dark Lands (Egrimm as primary author)
Risk Mitigation: None. As we saw just this turn, sitting down at a desk and writing something is so not-random that there's hardly anything for Ranald to do.
Success Enhancement: Medium. Egrimm might get more Favor from this. The paper might also have some narrative effect. Maybe this data will be exactly what some Celesitial magister needs for an important project or similar.
-[] Eike Actions: Lustrian books and rubbings study, Windfall paper, Windherder enchanting, EIC negotiation
N/A: I don't think we could put the Coin here specifically, as this is multiple actions.
-[] Eike Study: Enchanting class at the Grey College (1 CF)
Risk Mitigation: Medium. If we really wanted to be sure Eike successfully learned something from a college class, this would be a good way to stack the deck for her. Though it wouldn't be as effective as having Mathilde teach her directly.
Success Enhancement: High. As an Apprentice, it's much easier for Eike to learn things and aquire new skills and traits than it is for Mathilde. And new skills and traits can be very beneficial in the long term.
In conclusion, from this objectively correct data we can see that optimal Coin usage is to help Eike learn enchanting. I expect everyone to adjust their votes immediately.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Boney has told us that we should train Eike by bringing her along against real threats:
This was in response to an idea to have Eike practice infiltration against the EIC, which seems pretty similar. My thinking on giving Eike experience with Intrigue and other non magic grey wizard things is that we should either just have her trained in the subject, or think about what intrigue actions we want to do in general, and then consider how Eike can participate. I think there is an opportunity for her to work with the EIC to do infiltration related to the Schism in the Cult of Ulric for example.
For Piety actions, we tend to take fewer actions focused on that, so to me it makes some sense to find more contrived scenarios where it would be relevant.
AzrielIlluminare
Mothman Cultist
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm convinced, but uh is there anyway to quickly check the plans or something? Because I don't know which plans have the coin on Eike.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Not a single plan has that.
- Pronouns
- He
Panoramia has strong views on how many people should be riding Mathilde.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
I have updated my, and everyone else's, plans to include
[*] Eike studies enchanting using Ranald's Coin.
I see no ambiguity in or possibility for confusion arsing from that line.
Every plan has that. Well, every plan has that as of 70 seconds ago
/j
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Just letting you know, you just wiped out your previous vote.
I just want to say the moment we show Algard the Orbs of Sorcery and our Liminal Realm will be glorious. Sure we could show the Orbs to Dragomas and that would probably be the smarter move but I just really want to show it to Algard to see his reaction.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
checks vote tally
oh, wtf?
I used ' at the start of that line just to avoid that very thing happening, cheers for letting me know, I really appreciate it
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm sorry, but that was meant to be a joke.
I might like dry humor too much, especially since it doesn't communicate well through forum posts.
- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
One thing I'd like to point her to, that's a little lower risk than Nordland or Ulric, is [ ] Investigate (one of the Isolationist Houses of Laurelorn), with an eye to finding out what would be needed to swing them away from the Isolationist faction.
Boney has noted that we can give Eike practical solo tasks with her Study slot, provided we're okay with getting back subpar results relative to what we'd get if we took the action ourselves. This is a very low stakes solo task - if she flubs it and somehow pisses off the House we point her at, well, as part of the Isolationist bloc they were already voting to kick us out of the country anyway. We lose very little. On the other hand, we know literally nothing about these people. Who the important individuals within the Houses are, what they want and how we can swing them to our side. If she finds anything, we can follow up ourselves later if the political situation necessitates firming up the voting base. I picked the Intrigue action ("Investigate") rather than the Diplomacy one ("Ingratiate") because her Intrigue cannot possibly be as bad as her 8 Diplomacy. But if we want to shore up weaknesses rather than build on strength, Ingratiate is also an option.
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