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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Apparition based magics have a problem in that they require, well, apparitions, to be glued to the casters soul.
That is a downside, sure the spell might be more powerful (or possibly not, we don't know until we try both), but it is going to limit the number of mages willing to go for it, even beyond any potential attempts to limit the people who know about apparitions.
 
Personally, if we've got spare AP for self-improvement next turn between Waystone stuff and the Gigaflex, I would like to turn away from "get more killy" for a little while. Between finishing Branarhune and (unless this vote does a massive swing) having a ready-to-go "say hello to my little friend" spell, I feel like we're in really good shape for the foreseeable future in terms of personal combat and even larger-scale battlefields. I'd rather like to experiment with our Arcane Marks and see what insights we can glean in that, or see if we can manage to make our Pall of Darkness not blind us, or get to Advanced Eonir Diplomacy, or even just pick up a new language.

This might be Warhammer, but we don't need to be all murder all the time. We can, in fact, take time to explore other forms of power.
 
Not that I'm opposed to any of those even if they don't make us more lethal, but given what our shadow is like I feel that there's a decent possibility we're going to get at least a bit of a boost in killiness from more thoroughly exploring our Arcane Marks anyway. And of course, if we can learn to see through Pall of Darkness, being able to make everyone else blind while we can see fine has obvious combat applications.
 
chocolote12 said:
The Whispering Darkness manifestations mess with the Hedgewise.

(We could turn the Protector Coin on for some easy public relations, I guess).
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DragonParadox said:
The Whispering Darkness is drawn to Hedge magic, we know plenty of Hedgewise.
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I don't think that the Hedgewise like Mathilde well enough to tell her where the usually congregate so that she could hunt an apparition there for some unknown purposes. :V
 
picklepikkl said:
Personally, if we've got spare AP for self-improvement next turn between Waystone stuff and the Gigaflex, I would like to turn away from "get more killy" for a little while. Between finishing Branarhune and (unless this vote does a massive swing) having a ready-to-go "say hello to my little friend" spell, I feel like we're in really good shape for the foreseeable future in terms of personal combat and even larger-scale battlefields. I'd rather like to experiment with our Arcane Marks and see what insights we can glean in that, or see if we can manage to make our Pall of Darkness not blind us, or get to Advanced Eonir Diplomacy, or even just pick up a new language.

This might be Warhammer, but we don't need to be all murder all the time. We can, in fact, take time to explore other forms of power.
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I have a personal preference, and a very serious plan to go with it:

[ ] Plan Cunning Linguist
-[ ] Receive training: specify who and what. (The Colleges, Kislevarin)
-[ ] Receive training: specify who and what. (The Colleges, Tilean)
-[ ] Receive training: specify who and what. (The Colleges, Estalian)
-[ ] Receive training: specify who and what. (The Colleges, High Nehekharan)
-[ ] Receive training: specify who and what. (Laurelorn, Anoqueyan)
-[ ] Receive training: specify who and what. (Thorek Ironbrow, Arcane Khazalid)
 
When I made the plan last turn to finish up Branarhune, it was because I felt people would be very likely to delay it if we tried to advance it one action per turn at a time. Personal actions are at a premium, and we have a bad habit of leaving things unfinished in our backlog. We are free from the burden of thinking 'we should really finish the style up to Master'.

So I see no impetus to immediately try to reach greater swording heights. It'd probably take upwards of 5 actions to reach the next level after Master anyway (which I don't think we even know what it's named; Grandmaster?).

And picklepikkl's right: I find trying to get a hold of our Arcane Marks more generally interesting. Controlling our Mantle of Mist will be useful if we ever have problems with smoke or noxious fumes; and understanding our shadow seems like it'd possibly improve its lethality.

Though it's all up in the air anyway. New actions always pop up every turn, and with them, plans tend to change.
 
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LancyIain said:
At least some would if we used the Father to approach them. Now, that might not be the best idea, but it should work.
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Boney said:
"Gods no. If we pull it off I'm definitely painting us all as the equal of Caledor Dragontamer." He chuckles and nods at that. "So, bit of a strange question, but does Halétha have any siblings?"

He gives you a considering look. "We're not the Ostermarkers, but that doesn't mean our faith is a completely open book," he says, his tone neutral.
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This was on the Father turn. The fact that they trust Mathilde doesn't necessarily mean that they trust her with their important secrets, and where they train new Hedgewise is one of the things I think they/Askel won't share.
 
It would be like having a letter of recommendation from Dragomas/Emperor and going up to the Grey collages. Sure, they'll work closer with you then most, probaly let you know whom a few of the Lord and Lady Magisters are while working with them, but they aren't gonna drop down the book of deep and terrible Grey collages secret. Even if you do have a letter of "trust" with you.

Or more personally. If Belegar comes up to us and gives us a personal recommendation, it doesn't mean Matthilde is gonna invite them into her room and go "So, have you heard about the Liber Mortis"
 
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MiracleGrow said:
Fastest way to either accidentally kill Teclis or fix him is introducing him to some hafling lady with a interest in sickly nerds. He has tried tons of alchemical potions but has he ever truly tried eating an excessive number of pies?
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Okay so I was reading the 4E Core Book as one does and the one group that the High Elves talked no (real) shit about was the halflings.

:thonk:
 
I'm also in favor of working with the arcane marks. We've not even dropped a single action on that, and I think it's a very promising avenue.

That said, I think seeing through Pall of Darkness is also cool and we should do that soonish.

Also, I do want to do whispering darkness into a killing fog or something, because that's cool and I do eventually want a damage fog-BM spell. But that's more a midterm thing.
 
Valmond said:
Apparition based magics have a problem in that they require, well, apparitions, to be glued to the casters soul.
That is a downside, sure the spell might be more powerful (or possibly not, we don't know until we try both), but it is going to limit the number of mages willing to go for it, even beyond any potential attempts to limit the people who know about apparitions.
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If you're a Battle Mage, the risk of stuffing an Apparition in your soul isn't that much worse than the risk of going to Hell (the Warp) every time you cast a spell. Maybe the spell would be less desirable for a standard Magister, but most of them don't go for Battle Magic. Regimand is our respected and extremely proficient and skilled mentor, and even he refused to learn anything beyond Smoke and Mirrors.
 
Apparitions have different risks and rewards, and appeal to a different set of people as a result. I wouldn't consider them necessarily an upgrade or a downgrade in that regard so much as a sidegrade - which is valuable in itself, because at the Battle Magic level, there are already good options for those inclined to learn traditional Battle Magic. As much as I think that the risks of us learning Battle Magic tend to be overblown in a way that I frequently find quite frustrating, providing choices for those who might otherwise be disinclined to is good.
 
I want to prioritise Arcane Mark training at this point.

With that said the whispering darkness would also be a nice apparition to use in enchanting experiments. If we could shadow-bind whispering darkness to a location, we could work on creating a place filled with lying shadows.
 
For those interested in Arcane Marks, but also want a better voting block, I'll again suggest Controlling our shadow to tack on some people from the 'getting more killy side'. It covers us in melee vs mobs (it's already crushed throats of skaven in it's Original appearance), and turning our shadow into an autonomous melee defense/attack sounds great on the killy side. And it's investigating an arcane mark, which is what we've wanted to do forever.
 
I'm going to be honest, whilst I think arcane mark actions will be interesting from a lore/magical research perspective, I'm not convinced that it'll result in an actual, practical effect, especially a battlefield one.

In quest, we only really know of two people who have controlled their arcane marks—Regimand, who was able to turn the smoke perpetually floating around his face into a semblance of the beard it replaced, and Melkoth, who somehow twisted the forgetfulness mark into making people forget his age.

Neither of those have any utility, they are purely aesthetic.
 
LadySerpentine said:
Apparitions have different risks and rewards, and appeal to a different set of people as a result. I wouldn't consider them necessarily an upgrade or a downgrade in that regard so much as a sidegrade - which is valuable in itself, because at the Battle Magic level, there are already good options for those inclined to learn traditional Battle Magic. As much as I think that the risks of us learning Battle Magic tend to be overblown in a way that I frequently find quite frustrating, providing choices for those who might otherwise be disinclined to is good.
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There are three paths for graduating apprentices: Journeymen -> Wizards, following the normal path of magical development. Battle Mages, taking a focused and accelerated course to cast powerful and dangerous Battle Magic on the battlefield. And Pokémon Apparition Trainer -> Apparition Master: Gotta Catch 'Em All!
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I'm going to be honest, whilst I think arcane mark actions will be interesting from a lore/magical research perspective, I'm not convinced that it'll result in an actual, practical effect, especially a battlefield one.

In quest, we only really know of two people who have controlled their arcane marks—Regimand, who was able to turn the smoke perpetually floating around his face into a semblance of the beard it replaced, and Melkoth, who somehow twisted the forgetfulness mark into making people forget his age.

Neither of those have any utility, they are purely aesthetic.
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We've only interacted with other Wizards who have arcane marks socially, it's not really indicative of anything that we've only seen the social effects of arcane mark mastery. I'm not too fussed about it as an option, but it'd be silly to write off practical effects when we've never been in a position to see any.
 
I'm all for Mathilde learning to control her flicker arcane mark. Applying AV to powerstones is very bright, a stronger or more controlled flicker should be able to reduce that brightness and allow Mathilde to view the creation of Primordial Winds.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I'm going to be honest, whilst I think arcane mark actions will be interesting from a lore/magical research perspective, I'm not convinced that it'll result in an actual, practical effect, especially a battlefield one.

In quest, we only really know of two people who have controlled their arcane marks—Regimand, who was able to turn the smoke perpetually floating around his face into a semblance of the beard it replaced, and Melkoth, who somehow twisted the forgetfulness mark into making people forget his age.

Neither of those have any utility, they are purely aesthetic.
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At minimum, two of our marks currently make our stealth less reliable, with Flicker dimming lights and Mantle of Mist attracting smoke and gases to us. In terms of utility I'd rate investigating those above Unnatural Shadow.
 
Hey Boney, completely random question about Dazh, which I'm hoping Mathilde knows the answer to thanks to her Kislevite books (thank you to the generous patronage of the Elementalists).
Boney said:
Dazh, God of Fire and Sun +2 - Extensive Kislevite
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In Realm of the Ice Queen in the section on Dazh on page 38, there is this sentence:
Likewise, he travels to the other side of the world every year to pursue his winged love, leaving Humans to survive as best they can.
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RotIQ does not exactly provide any guidance about who that 'winged love' is, unless it's one of the Arari/Alari that are mentioned a few times. (Stated to be his 'warrior-consorts' that seem to be associated with the northern lights, which Priests of Dazh can actually call on to happen with the prayer Dance of the Alari)

Do our books on Dazh mention anything about Dazh's winged love?

(Apologies if this is a 'several hours of research and reasoning' sort of question, feel free to not answer it if so, I was just looking for your thoughts on it because the best guesses I have are the Alari, a Moon Goddess to fit with him being the Sun God, or whoever the Princess mentioned in this passage on page 136 about Frostfiends is)

"When the frost spirit saw he had lost the love of the princess, he rose up in great fury to destroy her. But Dazh was swifter and cut the spirit down with his blade and threw his body onto the earth. But the frost spirit was not dead. Lost in a terrible rage, he sought to destroy all the children of Dazh. We have lost many sons to his claws, and we will lose more."—Baba Olna
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