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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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I don't care if they look like hexwraiths, I want my Nazguls. If amethyst wizards get to dress in dark colours, carry around scythes, adorn all their property in skulls, and practice death magic, we can have this one spell.
 
DragonParadox said:
We are talking about 8 different enchanters and dwarf quality manufacturing, no witch hunter is going to have the resources to buy thing thing.
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Maybe not the one built to fully detect all eight winds. But one specialized for the wind of Death? Or Black Magic? Or Waagh magic? Though the last is more a warning that a Bomb is inbound on your location ^_^
 
T_of_A said:
Visual Windsight Seviroscope is by far the best.

Reasons:
  1. The whole "auditory seviroscope could be useful to non-magicals" thing is absurd. This item is going to need enchanters from each College, there is zero chance of it being mass-produced.
  2. When your tools are being used to study incredibly esoteric phenomena, they should be as user-friendly as possible to decrease the risk of user error.
  3. Understanding the winds is already hard enough without needing to learn to use a whole new tool.
  4. The update describes the visual Seviroscope as being good for observations, so if we want a precise examination we should just go with that instead of convincing ourselves that the auditory version will be good enough for imaging.
  5. A detailed visual examination of something in lab conditions sounds very useful to Dwarves, but also to Collegiate wizards whose Windsight isn't quite at our level.
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You should reread the update, because you're making this way simpler than it is, and in some cases outright contradicting it.
  1. The update outright says that it might not require any enchantments. It could be done with materials from wizards, but the crafting plausibly does not require it. It's the best chance for any sort of mass production
  2. Winds are everywhere. The update even mentions some common uses cases as warnings. And the visual is a complex apperatus. There'll be plenty of user errors because the plates weren't fixed properly, or misordered, or overexposed, or underexposed, or whatever.
  3. Sure, learning a new tool sucks. But you have to learn a bunch of tools, and one that extends your capabilities like that is pretty damn useful. Dwarfs will invest the time. Hell, high-end blacksmiths and crafters might do so as well. Even merchants might. And you still have to learn to interpret the visuals too, which also takes time and training. Probably easier, though someone musically trained might actually have a better time with the auditory version
  4. The visual version can do more precise snapshots. But it can't handle phenomena where the time evolution is important. Which is rather common. So while it has a clear advantage in one regard, it has a disadvantage in another.
  5. Broadly agree, though the auditory version has the big advantage of portability. So you could give it to someone who isn't a wizard at all to take measurements somewhere.

I do think we should go for the visual seviroscope. But it's far from a clear cut, and I kind of want to do both.
 
I have to say, I really like the idea of an auditory magic detector, but I do think we should stick to visual for the moment. We can make the auditory one later, maybe even next turn? It's a web-mat action, so it doesn't cost us too much time.

Also, I have to admit I've been wrong about the Sevirscope. I thought it either wouldn't be possible, or would be a clunky, experimental enchantment that no dwarf would want near his beard. I was wrong on both counts, and this update has eliminated all my concerns with it.
 
Wait, why're people saying Apparition spells can't miscast? They're less likely to, but said less likely miscast has solid odds they get free:
Boney said:
Much less likely to get a regular miscast, but when you factor in the possibility of the critter going rogue and seeking revenge and possibly needing to be replaced if it can't be brought back under control, it works out to about the same.
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I think the value of this for Mathilde in particular as a distraction/Kage Bunshin is too good to ignore.

We would need to create a more generally useful skin when we share the binding spell with the Grey College, since I agree with @picklepikkl that having every usage of the spell ever summon Mathildes isn't what we want, but for our own purposes, a Dämmerlichtreiter summon seems perfect.
 
Well, we know what we will be working on with Egrimm next turn. The fact that normal artisans can make audible seviroscope is really cool.
 
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My mind is playing with arrangements of wind-reactive materials being moved in order to produce sounds and using the fact what each wind repels every wind apart from itself and dhar attracts every wind, to come up with a 'dhar detector/measurer'. It's tremendously enjoyable.
T_of_A said:
Visual Windsight Seviroscope is by far the best.

Reasons:
  1. The whole "auditory seviroscope could be useful to non-magicals" thing is absurd. This item is going to need enchanters from each College, there is zero chance of it being mass-produced.
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Just because I like the idea of the auditory seviroscope later on [though I will be voting for visual here], I'd like to respond to 1. by pointing out that each will be made via small amounts of wind-reactive materials provided by the gold college.

We have no information on how much each seviroscope would require, and we have no idea on the amount of each material the gold college can produce, and my takeaway is that it 'material infused with a bit of wind' was basic in that there isn't any sort of enchantments or complexity beyond putting some wind in something and have it stick there.
 
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Redshirt Army said:
I think the value of this for Mathilde in particular as a distraction/Kage Bunshin is too good to ignore.

We would need to create a more generally useful skin when we share the binding spell with the Grey College, since I agree with @picklepikkl that having every usage of the spell ever summon Mathildes isn't what we want, but for our own purposes, a Dämmerlichtreiter summon seems perfect.
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Might take another action if we wanna codify it with a different skin, but otherwise I'm cool with this as long as people agree to follow it up.
Boney said:
Sure, but angels aren't a thing in the setting so it'd make people think of harpies or furies or spites.
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…mark that down for something I've never thought about.
 
I want to bind this one Rider to look like Mathilde we can recodify it to look different to share with collages if we want to but also leaving Mathilde Shaped Appartion to Eike make sense to me aswell. So she can always call upon her master to help her out.
 
Regarding the "mounted wraiths" option, Mathilde already has a reputation for codifying dark magic into not-dark magic. If she takes a "necromantic" spell, and turns it into a non-necromantic spell, well, it's not the first time she's done this. It all builds into her legend of stealing secrets from the enemy.
 
W00KY said:
Maybe not the one built to fully detect all eight winds. But one specialized for the wind of Death? Or Black Magic? Or Waagh magic? Though the last is more a warning that a Bomb is inbound on your location ^_^
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Quoting Boney.

Once a design is nailed down, it could be made by entirely non-magical artisans using materials the Gold Order can supply in bulk.

So, yes, if Mathilde and Egrimm can deliver a good enough design, the audio version could be made in bulk and at comparatively modest costs.
 
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Redshirt Army said:
I think the value of this for Mathilde in particular as a distraction/Kage Bunshin is too good to ignore.

We would need to create a more generally useful skin when we share the binding spell with the Grey College, since I agree with @picklepikkl that having every usage of the spell ever summon Mathildes isn't what we want, but for our own purposes, a Dämmerlichtreiter summon seems perfect.
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Question for Boney: If, at some point after acquiring our new Pokemon, we want to develop a new skin for it, would that require going out and capturing and binding a whole new Rider in Red, or could we just take an action to experiment with the one we've got?
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Regarding the "mounted wraiths" option, Mathilde already has a reputation for codifying dark magic into not-dark magic. If she takes a "necromantic" spell, and turns it into a non-necromantic spell, well, it's not the first time she's done this. It all builds into her legend of stealing secrets from the enemy.
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This is a good point, but doesn't do much for the soldiers on the battlefield who see something they think is a necromantic monster.
 
BurnNote said:
You should reread the update, because you're making this way simpler than it is, and in some cases outright contradicting it.
  1. The update outright says that it might not require any enchantments. It could be done with materials from wizards, but the crafting plausibly does not require it. It's the best chance for any sort of mass production
  2. Winds are everywhere. The update even mentions some common uses cases as warnings. And the visual is a complex apperatus. There'll be plenty of user errors because the plates weren't fixed properly, or misordered, or overexposed, or underexposed, or whatever.
  3. Sure, learning a new tool sucks. But you have to learn a bunch of tools, and one that extends your capabilities like that is pretty damn useful. Dwarfs will invest the time. Hell, high-end blacksmiths and crafters might do so as well. Even merchants might. And you still have to learn to interpret the visuals too, which also takes time and training. Probably easier, though someone musically trained might actually have a better time with the auditory version
  4. The visual version can do more precise snapshots. But it can't handle phenomena where the time evolution is important. Which is rather common. So while it has a clear advantage in one regard, it has a disadvantage in another.
  5. Broadly agree, though the auditory version has the big advantage of portability. So you could give it to someone who isn't a wizard at all to take measurements somewhere.

I do think we should go for the visual seviroscope. But it's far from a clear cut, and I kind of want to do both.
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I will reread the update, but I want to point out that the "incredibly esoteric phenomena" was not just the Winds themselves - it was whatever weird thing you are using this expensive equipment to study.
For example an Elemental Golem with 5 runes on its soul.

And when studying *weird shit* (our job description), I think it's useful to reduce the odds of misinterpreting the readings.
Interpreting visual readings will definitely be easier, if only because IIRC more people have basic visual Windsight.

Edit : I also think we will do a better job on visual than auditory, if only because our project team contains mostly visual Windsight people who are used to interpreting the winds that way.
 
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The winged angel look is most closely achieved by Amber Wizards who use that one spell to grow angel wings from their back. They're not too common but I think they'd most likely to be thought of than bird-women from two continents away or actual daemons.
 
[ ] [RIDER] Mathilde on a Shadowsteed

This is a great idea because decoys of yourself are endlessly useful.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
@Boney

could we set the look to be 'The caster on a horse?' rather then Mathy

as in the rider looks like a shadow version of the caster of the spell.
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Already asked and answered.
Execute/Dumbo said:
Okay, @Boney, might be pushing it a little, but is 'the personal binder on a shadowsteed' viable as a skin? Or is that too variable to really work?
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Boney said:
Way too variable. Closest you could do is make it look like a stereotypical Grey Wizard on a Shadowsteed with a face that looks like nobody in particular.
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