I once read a short story in which a nation was governed by an oppressive ruling class of wizards. Magic was a genetic talent but spellcraft was still complicated and required intelligence. So over time the development of new spells was more and more outsourced to scientists of the muggle underclass while wizards were just lazy nobility/warriors rote learning increasingly complicated spells.
Glass is very easily recycled. Near 100% recycled, even at Renaissance tech. You just toss it back in to be re-melted and it joins the next batch of same-colour glass that you make.
For some reason I was very surprised that mirrors would reflect Windsight. Not sure why though. It already works more through the conception of sight and light and colors than through actual physics. So why not be reflected by mirrors as one would naively expect?
I'm curious if this will lead to any Colleges requesting to join the Waystone Project or any individual Wizards requesting to join WEB-MAT. Because thinking that those are the obvious source for her sudden advancing of the fundamentals of magic would be an obvious conclusion to make.
I guess "we/Mathilde got flensed" was the wrong way to put it anyway. An exclusive trade deal with the Colleges is massive and even the chance at it is definitely worth more than some recyclable glass. But Mathilde isn't the one actually paying for that. In fact she may well personally profit because more demand for glass means more demand for her fief's flint and more Stirlander flint going to Nuln will also mean more tariffs in Western Stirland, where the EIC has bought taxation rights. So actually we did give those glassmakers more than what they gave us, but we gave them other people's money and took a cut.
I think that comes up in story at onr point, saying that it reflects windsight because your brain believes it should or something like that.
I don't think she actually made an exclusive deal for the Colleges- for that matter, I don't think she could.
I really appreciate how this neatly sidesteps the need to invent photography. Not only is freezing an image a far more difficult problem than Mathilde would expect, but there's also no funny business with Mathilde pulling a schizio-tech on the setting.
With the initial prep-work done, the Sevirophone has transformed from "Windherding Action that may get us Kragg headpats" to "General Research Topic for College Favour". Unfortunately we're rather slow at getting to the latter, and it's now competing with, for example, a scene shared with Panoramia where we look at the Nut together, or with publishing the results of our shiny new fresh papers, or with codifying our new spell. I think without a specific use-case that's immediately relevant to us, and without the boost that "Ooh, Windherding!" grants, it may be a while before we come back around to it.
Would you happen to remember the name of that story?
Basically, but not entirely:
Liminal Realm Tunnel Vision probably keeps me from getting the 100% grade.
And who deserves the credit?
Sadly I can't find it right now. I'll try to remember you if I find it.
Mathilde is harder to impress than we are.
I'm gonna be reasonable and set my sights on the long-term goal of Kroak headpats.
I know we didn't pick the project for it and that there probably won't be any opportunities for a long while, but I'm crossing my fingers that Mathilde eventually interacts with the Lizardmen and gets the chance to meet a Slann in person, because they would absolutely blow her mind (let alone if she meets Mazdamundi or Kroak).
A printing in Reikspeil?
In the academic world, it's publish or perish. It just happened to be a bit more literal in this case.
I can think of a few small outposts that could really use a better warning system: every wizard-less village and town in the Empire. An auditory sevirscope could become an Empire-wide improvement, not just a general research topic.
Though it will have the substantial hole of not being able to detect Greenskins.
Everything I have seen says the Southlands lack Slann entirely, was that a change to 5th Ed or did later Editions change from it?
This would be because Hags explicitly have access to a spell that can flat-out remove mutations, and the slavery is more or less "payment for services rendered".
I'd settle for Mazdamundi, personally. At least he's not mostly dead.
