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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Does Cython have any books in their hoard? If so, I wonder if it'd be feasible to enter a book-copying agreement with them?

They already have access to K8P's books, presumably, but maybe we could agree to go out and buy a bunch of divinity-related books for them in exchange for copying rights?
 
Mopman43 said:
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).

In Realm of the Ice Queen in the section on Dazh on page 38, there is this sentence:

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)
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In some places it's said to be the moon, in others it's a lost or forgotten Scythian mother-goddess, possibly the being depicted by ancient Scythian cave paintings of a winged centaur.

Deathbybunnies said:
Does Cython have any books in their hoard? If so, I wonder if it'd be feasible to enter a book-copying agreement with them?

They already have access to K8P's books, presumably, but maybe we could agree to go out and buy a bunch of divinity-related books for them in exchange for copying rights?
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Cython's idea of a reciprocal arrangement is one where Cython gets everything it wants and the other party gets to give Cython everything it wants.
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
Does Cython have any books in their hoard? If so, I wonder if it'd be feasible to enter a book-copying agreement with them?

They already have access to K8P's books, presumably, but maybe we could agree to go out and buy a bunch of divinity-related books for them in exchange for copying rights?
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I feel like we would need to actually get to know Cython better before that. Like, we've not actually ever spent any actions with them, it's all been social actions. While that's fine for friendly neighbors, it's not really enough to establish a... more involved, relationship.

On that note, I wonder if Cython has taken a look at some of the divinity books we obtained from the Elementalists. They asked about the possibility of learning more of Hashut at one point, I'm pretty sure. And we also have some basic stuff on some of the Kislev pantheon.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Does Cython have any books in their hoard? If so, I wonder if it'd be feasible to enter a book-copying agreement with them?

They already have access to K8P's books, presumably, but maybe we could agree to go out and buy a bunch of divinity-related books for them in exchange for copying rights?
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Boney's already answered, but here's another, older quote:
Boney said:
StormySky said:
@Boney Would doing a book exchange with Cython be a viable way to get copies of their books, wherein we provide the scribes for everything involved, and Cython gets a copy of everything in KAU? It does seem like they're just getting early patron access right now, being allowed to borrow and read our books but not own them.
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No. If you want access to Cython's books, either rope it into the library or come up with something that it actually wants and cannot get. Cython does not value knowledge in the abstract, it values knowledge that is directly related to the questions it currently has, and it knows that it is capable of getting access to books on those subjects because it is large and terrifyingly powerful and its goodwill is a valuable commodity.
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Any books we acquire for it are things that fall under 'capable of getting access to,' so we'd need to offer it something both interesting and difficult to acquire.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Melkoth, who somehow twisted the forgetfulness mark into making people forget his age.
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Wait is this one canon to the quest? I missed that completely if so. That's actually really clever, especially since there seems to be a thread hesitation at the risk of getting that particular mark (and rightfully so, honestly). Nice!

Might not be utility, but narratively/character wise that could be huge.
 
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 know that our shadow can kill, it's already done so in quest canon. Also, the beard seems to be a 'naturally' weird one.

Imugi said:
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.
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Completely different sources of light. It didn't flicker the last time it happened.

ReImagined said:
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.
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We have the Unseen trait. People not prepared for magical infiltration can't find us, so this isn't my highest priority (though upcoming elfcation makes it more important).

I don't think our shadow gives us away more than flicker, also. The shadow could cause similar problems with being spotted. A light flickering could be anything (the wind, etc). A moving shadow? That's something. Our fog is worse than either in terms of stealth, but I'm unsure that however we get in control of it will solve our stealth problem (it could do something totally different).
 
QuietlyObserving said:
Wait is this one canon to the quest? I missed that completely if so. That's actually really clever, especially since there seems to be a thread hesitation at the risk of getting that particular mark (and rightfully so, honestly). Nice!

Might not be utility, but narratively/character wise that could be huge.
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It's not confirmed, IIRC, but it is player speculation on How He Did That. I think I'm the biggest proponent of the idea? but I can't recall anyone really arguing against it. Notably, my own idea on the matter was that it didn't just make it easy for other people to forget his age, but quite literally and in a physical law sense made his age indeterminate, Quantum Uncertainty Principle style. At least it lines up with people who get close to deducing Mekoth's age losing their own sense of time as a result.

I also think that it seems to tie heavily into Melkoth's own personal understanding of Ulgu, given the timey-wimeyness of Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma, so would any arcane mark Mathilde tried to tame would probably tie into Warrior of Fog in the same way.
 
Abhorsen said:
We know that our shadow can kill, it's already done so in quest canon. Also, the beard seems to be a 'naturally' weird one.


Completely different sources of light. It didn't flicker the last time it happened.


We have the Unseen trait. People not prepared for magical infiltration can't find us, so this isn't my highest priority (though upcoming elfcation makes it more important).

I don't think our shadow gives us away more than flicker, also. The shadow could cause similar problems with being spotted. A light flickering could be anything (the wind, etc). A moving shadow? That's something. Our fog is worse than either in terms of stealth, but I'm unsure that however we get in control of it will solve our stealth problem (it could do something totally different).
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Definitely less, if at all. I don't think our shadow can hamper stealth if we don't cast a shadow, which we shouldn't while invisible.
 
Boney said:
In some places it's said to be the moon, in others it's a lost or forgotten Scythian mother-goddess, possibly the being depicted by ancient Scythian cave paintings of a winged centaur.
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Interesting. Anyone knows of any being like a winged centuar in the lore?

Lileath is said to have a "celestial steed" called Cindermane, who is depicted as a white horse with a sort of firey mane. Lileath Herself is often depicted with wings. A winged female rider kind of resembles a female winged centaur, Lileath is a moon Goddess, the fire associations of Cindermare kind of fit Dazh, and Cindermare supposedly carries Lileath across the sky not unlike how Dazh rides across the sky. If some or all of those things are canonical to the quest then Lileath is a pretty likely candidate for Dazh's love.
 
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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The bursar also has something going on with her hair.

But we haven't dueled any of them, or fought besides them, so we wouldn't know even if it does have obvious effects. Personnaly, I think learning to control the expression of the innate magic of your soul is going to make you better at magic. Especially since several of those effects are the result of different spells or tie into them.
 
Tbh, I'm more interested in stuff like learning High Nekheran and working on Servioscopes and weird gyhran seeds before doing arcane marks.
 
Planting a seed of the Oak of Ages in the middle of Karak Eight Peaks, one of the biggest Waystone Nexus in the known world, might lead to some pretty crazy possibilities.

Some of my ideas are : an instant connection to the worldroots, an insanely vast battery for storing Gyhran, the tree growing super fast, a small dreaming wood sowing up as soon as the seed sprouts...

Or it might just not gtrow, but that would be pretty boring.
 
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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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Cython's appearance as a dragon made of light is one hell of an aesthetic tho.
 
flogoyog said:
Planting a seed of the Oak of Ages in the middle of Karak Eight Peaks, one of the biggest Waystone Nexus in the known world, might lead to some pretty crazy possibilities.

Some of my ideas are : an instant connection to the worldroots, an insanely vast battery for storing Gyhran, the tree growing super fast, a small dreaming wood sowing up as soon as the seed sprouts...

Or it might just not gtrow, but that would be pretty boring.
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I don't, love, the idea of giving wood elves and crazy nature spirits a direct line to the center of eight peaks. And I suspect Belegar would like it even less.
 
Studying Nehekharan and properly befriending our shadow both seem like cool actions to do soon. I am mostly speculating about Swording because that is what inspires my imagination.
 
Wiggy said:
I don't, love, the idea of giving wood elves and crazy nature spirits a direct line to the center of eight peaks. And I suspect Belegar would like it even less.
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Personally, I expect the nut to be a scam the Druchii was pulling. I'm mostly hoping we can figure out how they packed more magic into a small space than Mathilde thought was possible, and that we can copy the technique for use in future enchantments.
 
So, in looking up stuff on necrosphinxes I saw they are believed to be animated by a couple evil deities that got literally buried underground by the other gods for being evil. Which is, interesting when you consider the theory that Morghur/Horned rat/Hashut might have once all been part of the nehekharan pantheon and the chaos dwarves supposedly dug down to free Hashut. Probably come up before, but still interesting.
 
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ReImagined said:
Definitely less, if at all. I don't think our shadow can hamper stealth if we don't cast a shadow, which we shouldn't while invisible.
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The One Ring cast a shadow, we might, IDK. But I highly doubt we can stop lights flickering. We get control over the mark, is my bet, not an off switch. More likely is that we can enhance the flickering to put out the light. The same holds for Fog: somethings gonna be foggy (though the fog might be invisible if we cast invisibility, as it is our soul. Another question).

@Boney, do we cast a shadow when invisible like the One Ring does? And how visible is our fog when we cast invisiblility?
 
Voting says it's still open, so if I'm at risk of re-litigating things that have been discussed 100 pages ago because this story is so popular (which is awesome, if sometimes inconvenient) please let me know.

[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
[X] [NUMBER] One

These options seem best for two reasons:

1) Potentially getting the spell down to 'fiendishly complicated' is insanely powerful. A Grey Wizard's greatest weakness is that they don't have a powerful personal protection/assassination tool; nearly every other College of Magic has Fiendishly Complex/Battle Magic spells that let them survive hostile attention- the Grey Order's traditional 'survival' spell is 'Needing a survival spell is a failure condition- our Order is supposed to ambush our targets; if you're ambushed, you either teleport away, or die'.

Thus, having an inbuilt failsafe hexwraith equivalent as a backup plan instead of 'lol, guess you die' in a combat scenario should make Grey Wizard Magisters a lot more survivable (and *much* more dangerous against most supernatural opponents, who now have to fight a supernatural, magic-resistant, resummonable apparition instead of a squishy mortal whose best defense is teleportation).

2) If the dice Gods (Ranald, hear our prayers) happen to be against us for this roll, it sucks but is recoverable, as we can wipe the original spell, and scale the number of riders upwards for the same cost- but we only get this single shot at making a sub-Battle Magic spell that fills a niche the Grey Order desperately needs- that of a supernatural protector *and* assassination aide.
 
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