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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Alratan, the problem as you yourself acknowledged is that we're pre-photography.

The only people who recognize Mathilde's face are those who've seen her before. And anyone close enough to see the Rider's face can tell that it's not her, because it doesn't fight like her. It doesn't fight like a teleporting grey wizard with a throttling shadow and an arsenal of spells; it fights like heavy cavalry:

Boney said:
The Red Rider delivers a sword to the face. You're stuck with variations on that theme.
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Anyone else nearby can be convinced that it's Mathilde by the simple expedient of the grey wizard responsible for the Rider telling them so. I find it difficult to believe that the Grey Order would have any difficulty faking a Mathilde sighting if it suits them. The Rider just needs to look close enough that Sudden Mathilde Intervention is a reasonable explanation on the minds of the onlookers.

The face doesn't add anything to the Rider that can't be done by playing the rumor mill. A shadowy rider of some sort is more than close enough without necessitating our exact face and appearance on an Ulgu staple for all of posterity.
 
Andres said:
I went looking to see what a hexwraith looks like and found this:
That's a very distinct image beyond "horse rider in cloak". So long as we don't replace the sword with a scythe and don't go for a specifically, heavily skeletal look, our Nazgul-looking apparition would be pretty unlike a hexwraith in appearance.
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The trouble is that Mathilde already called the nazgul look easily mistakeable:
Boney said:
"The classical application of Ulgu aesthetics would be a cloaked rider on a shadowy horse, but summoning something so easily mistakable for a Hexwraith might not be the best of ideas.
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"Cloaked rider on shadowy horse" is close enough to cause problems. We can debate the reasons why, I imagine most people don't have a reference image on hand of an actual hexwraith or that hexwraiths like our riders in red vary in appearance, but ultimately there's no loophole that says making something that looks like one of the iconic horsemen of Sauron will avoid the problems Mathilde is thinking of.
 
Boney said:
After the first twenty minutes or so of being punched back into quiescence every time it tried to haul itself upright or swing a weapon at one of you, it was either too damaged to continue trying or, more promisingly, had learned that there was no escaping from these circumstances.
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I'm starting to have doubts about this thing's capability as a superweapon, this is just sad.
 
Personally I want to maximize the effectiveness of the main purpose of the Rider, namely the sheer shock it causes and fear it generates in the enemy. As such I want to go with the Wraith option, maybe even tie a dread aspect spell to them to further increase the pants shitting terror they would cause.
 
Hmm, @Boney, as the Rider has a tail, which was mentioned to be able to control an dragon or similar's tail, could we have a Mathidle Rider not have a tail on the Shadowsteed, and instead have that control a solidified shadow, something that looks like Mathilde's Rolling Shadows Mastery?

And actually, thinking some more, I dimly remember you telling us long ago that a shadow steed was only corporeal to Mathilde, and this was why it couldn't attack (or carry saddlebags?).

If that's the case, could we skin the Shadowsteed from something like the cloud of smoke the Apparition usually breathes out, and have the other four limbs plus tail of the horse part control more limbs or simply more of the rolling shadows, so it can attack more?
 
Sinsystems said:
Personally I want to maximize the effectiveness of the main purpose of the Rider, namely the sheer shock it causes and fear it generates in the enemy. As such I want to go with the Wraith option, maybe even tie a dread aspect spell to them to further increase the pants shitting terror they would cause.
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...If that is the main purpose of the rider, we should have gotten the whispering darkness. The main purpose of the rider is to do cavalry charges and hit people in the face with a sword.

The wraith option makes it harder to do those things when you have allies to worry about. It puts stress on the credibility of the colleges, who already have trouble explaining the difference between daemons and apparitions to the point that the golds asked us to not cite them. The resemblance is not a net positive.
 
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picklepikkl said:
I feel like it kind of limits its accessibility the rest of the Greys, though? I don't really see Melkoth teaching the new Battle Wizards of the Grey to summon copies of Mathilde, that doesn't seem like something the College would be excited to do.

Like, as a trick for Mathilde, it's great, but I was hoping to introduce Apparition-based magic to the College in general, not just have a cool trick. "A copy of a specific wizard" feels like a difficult thing to sell as an Ulgu-based combat summon.
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It's not unprecedented to have a spell that looks like you're summoning a specific person - users of Shyish battle magic can summon something that looks very much like a specific ancient witch (Caress of Laniph). And they get on fine with that one despite the public explanation of how they're doing it being "yeah, we're literally bringing the dead back as an evil ghost - we're just not using dhar for it so it's okay".

Ulgu casters can easily sell the same thing as either bilocation (yes, this is the real Mathilde Weber, she made a very weird pseudo-teleportation/duplication effect, and now we can summon the aspect of her that's mid-teleport to wherever we like) or illusion (it's not the real Weber, it's just a solid illusion of her).

And personally I see it being Mathilde as 100% upside: Mathilde has styled herself as the Grey Wizard warrior, the one that could be anywhere at any time and if she is you really need to be paying attention to her because she hits like a cannonball.

Being able to have something that appears to be her show up on any battlefield is therefore a potent distraction against those foes who are aware of her. And against anyone who isn't aware of her, the fact it looks like her is basically irrelevant.

I'm just not sure what the downside is meant to be?
 
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Mopman43 said:
Is this part in the book?
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Absolutely none of it. If it's in a real WHF source, it's not one cited on the page.
8E Vampire Counts said:
The origins of the Hexwraiths are shrouded in mystery, but it is said that they are created on Hexensnacht, tearing their way into the mortal realm from the very bowels of the underworld. Their single-minded purpose seems to be the pursuit of those evil men who have cheated their rightful fate, for a Hexwraith's shade-like existence leaves it with a hunger only the succour of a damned soul can sate. Once the curse of the Hexwraiths has been laid upon their prey, there can be no escape -- the spectral horsemen can hurtle across rivers and pass through mountainsides on their incorporeal steeds without slowing down their headlong charge.

Often, the quarry will hide in a brightly lit tavern or well defended fortress, hoping to escape the robed figures that gallop through his dreams and maybe drown his sorrows into the bargain. This is no defence; sooner or later, the Hexwraiths will charge straight through the thickest walls with a ripple of cruel laughter, cutting the soul from their prey and riding out through the other side in one terrifying instant. The only proof that the cloaked and burning apparitions were not figments of the imagination is the rapidly cooling corpse left in their wake, and perhaps a patch of sulphurous soot where the creatures passed through the walls.

Hexwraiths are able to move from the realm of spirits to the mortal world and back again at will. They share many similarities with Cairn Wraiths, though they are not bound to places of death and grief, instead able to ride abroad swiftly at the command of their Undead masters. The scythe-like weapons they use to slay their prey would be lethal enough in the material realm, but because the Hexwraiths shimmer between worlds, their spirit scythes are able to pass through gromril armor or scaled Dragon-hide without hindrance. A single blow from a spirit scythe can snatch away a mortal's essence whilst leaving his physical form completely unharmed. It is these strange weapons that earn the Hexwraiths their nickname of 'reaper knights', for they harvest the souls of the living just as a farmer reaps his crop. A soul taken by a Hexwraith does not dissipate altogether, but it is instead absorbed by the spectre that took it. These dread reapers hence burn with a flickering flame: all that is left of the horrified spirits they have stolen from the mortal realm.

The arcane bloodline of the Necrarchs was the first to bind Hexwraiths into their armies -- some say they learnt the art of their summoning from the stolen Book of Arkhan, others that the legendary Melkhior was the first to master their control. In recent years, however, they have been seen in Undead armies all across the land. When bound into a Vampire's service and commanded by their Hellwraith leaders to ride into battle, whole packs of these apparitions hurtle across the field, plunging headlong through the swiftly dwindling ranks of the foe.

In recent years, the Vampires of Sylvania have learned to bind these creatures of shadow to their service, using them as weapons of war. The sight of a pack of cackling Hexwraiths approaching fast, spirit scythes held high and unnatural soulfires flickering from their eye sockets, is enough to chill the blood of even the most seasoned warriors. It is small wonder that these deathly riders are amongst the most feared of all the minions of the Vampire Counts.
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Takeaways:
  • Absolutely no tie to Morr or "the Death God" the way the wiki has it, that was just entirely made up
  • Wow these things sound like Apparitions for necromancers rather than general wizardry
  • They seem to have a lot of ties to flame specifically, so if we just avoid that then someone who has actually seen a hexwraith, rather than just heard about them, would probably not confuse them with a shadowy rider
Rafin said:
@Boney Is the mist obscuring distinct features a viable option? The idea would be that a Grey Wizard could summon a Decoy Rider while using Smoke & Mirrors. It's not a real decoy under any kind of close scrutiny but it should be more than enough on the battlefield or from any kind of distance, even if the enemy has seen the caster's face before. Yet the actual coating is always the same, just a human in Grey robes riding a standard Shadowsteed, with their face and other parts of their body obscured by roiling mists, the face itself being the kind of uncanny that just makes you think even more that you didn't see it correctly through the fog and the distance.
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I like this idea a lot, come up with a write-in wording for it and I'll vote for it.
 
Making it similar to the Dämmerlichtreiter now for Mathilde's eventual apotheosis into pseudo ulguhood later!

We just need to get enough folks to believe she can not perish for something to stick. I bet Ranald would give her a nudge too for the joke and the protector.
 
I think a generic appearance is the most practical option here, whether it's a generic (non-Nazgul) knight or terrifying spider.
 
Andres said:
Hmm... Demigryph Nazgul?

@Boney, I think a demigryph's body shape is better for fighting than a horse's body shape, but are there any particular downsides?
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A horse is good for bulldozing through a group of people, a murderkitty is good for absolutely ruining one person at a time.

cog-nito said:
If we went for the Purple Warboss idea, how large of a Warboar and Ork would that translate to?
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Mathilde would be able to shift enough bulk around that it wouldn't look completely ridiculous, but you'd still be looking at an absolute megachonker of a boar and a bit of a naff Orc.

Alratan said:
Hmm, @Boney, as the Rider has a tail, which was mentioned to be able to control an dragon or similar's tail, could we have a Mathidle Rider not have a tail on the Shadowsteed, and instead have that control a solidified shadow, something that looks like Mathilde's Rolling Shadows Mastery?
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No, you can't take a tail that only does simple movements and turn it into a fully prehensile tentacular murdershadow.

Alratan said:
And actually, thinking some more, I dimly remember you telling us long ago that a shadow steed was only corporeal to Mathilde, and this was why it couldn't attack (or carry saddlebags?).

If that's the case, could we skin the Shadowsteed from something like the cloud of smoke the Apparition usually breathes out, and have the other four limbs plus tail of the horse part control more limbs or simply more of the rolling shadows, so it can attack more?
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By 'on a Shadowsteed' I mean it would look like it was on a Shadowsteed. It wouldn't be riding on the actual spell, so it would still rely on the rules of physics for locomotion, so it'd still need those legs.
 
infinityDivided said:
I'm starting to have doubts about this thing's capability as a superweapon, this is just sad.
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I guess we can't count on it when fighting hand-to-hand specialised Lord Magister-level fighters who have invented their own syncretic martial arts style around their inherently magical metal fists. (Yeah, Johann is only a Magister, but his Martial is on par with ours and Egrimms)
 
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I guess we're going to have to disagree, because creating a decoy isn't a big benefit, it's a minor utility that several of her spells can already do (doppleganger or invisibility on ourselves, illusion on the rider), and creating the impression that there's an extra lord magister on the field only works right up until they don't cast any spells at all.
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Lots of Grey Magic spells are subtle; and a lot of what Mathilde has done on battlefield lsnis hit things with her sword. That's one reason a Lord Magister Weber duplicate is more plausible than copies of the other Lords Magister.

A decoy is a big benefit. It significantly increases the range of scenarios where we'd use the spell.

Not only would it be useful for deception purposes on every battlefield, there are many scenarios where we might want to, say lite out an enemy to attack Mathilde while she lies in wait to counter ambush.

It's also valuable off the battlefield. If we're running from guards or bodyguards; a decoy that looks like Mathilde would be very handy.

It just opens up so many options for when we're in a tight spot. An autonomous solid clone, even one that can't cast spells, is a valuable tool.

Doppleganger and invisibility and similar just aren't doing the same thing whatsoever
 
I'm tentatively becoming warmer to the idea of a demigryph nazgul. It preserves the important part of the aesthetic - the nazgul itself - while distancing itself from the hexwraith look and also improving its anti-hero power.
 
IronFist said:
Oh no, it can be beaten by two hero level characters tag teaming it.
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It's not that it was beaten, it's that it was beaten so casually by people trying not to kill it. It was beaten so thoroughly it sat there for twenty minutes, occasionally getting punched in the faces while Mathilde fucked around trying to bind it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm aware that in most cases it won't go down so easily, but I'm not confident that this is worth utilizing as Battle Magic.
 
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