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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Abhorsen said:
Okay, this is actually evidence, thanks for pointing it out. If we know about the spell IC, then I'd be fine not double checking. I don't think we know about it though?
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Boney has already stated that due diligence can be assumed and that this is in fact Boris.

But to ease your mind, yes, in the RPG they have the spell Whispers of Taint, which lets them listen to the whispers of spirits whenever servants of the Dark Gods or things tainted by their evil draw near. Mechanically it grants them a +20% to any relevant Magical Sense Test near them... Though presumably it wouldn't reveal anything if Boris is 'merely' a possible Everchosen candidate like Mathilde is.

On that note, this is a great opportunity to inform people OOC that Hag Witches have a spell that lets them try to divine the past via a weird spirit vision, which may or may not be end up getting used if it's a sufficiently obvious assassination, the Hag Witches want to try it out, and Boris can't make up an appropriate excuse.

Whispers of Taint
Casting Number: 12
Casting Time: Full action
Duration: 1 hour/Magic
Range: 12 yards (6 squares)
Ingredient: The hand of a worshipper of the Dark Gods (+2)
Description: The spirits whisper dire warnings whenever servants of the Dark Gods or things tainted by their evil draw near. Whenever such a creature, thing, or area moves within range of the spell, you gain +20 to any relevant Magical Sense Test.
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Past Revealed
Casting Number: 20
Casting Time: 3 full actions
Duration: Special
Range: You
Ingredient: An item directly applicable to the question asked (+2)
Description: Your eyes turn red as you enter a trance and see the past through a crimson haze. Whilst in the trance, you are helpless. To receive a vision, you must first ask a question of the spirits (e.g. What happened here three years ago? or How did this man die?). However, as the vision comes from the point of view of local spirits (which may include the dead, nature spirits, malignant spites, or similar), the results are often confusing and unsure. The exact details of the vision are left in the hands of the GM, who is encouraged to be inventive with his descriptions of the trance vision (which lasts as long as the GM determines necessary or until you end the spell). If you have Fortune Told cast when you use this spell, one eye will be red and the other blue.
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(Fortune Told is their relevant spell to try to divine the future.)
 
Ericwinter said:
The sheer disparity in votes really makes me wonder what Mathilde's thought process will be like. For all that a lot of the yes votes recognize that this is a really shitty prospect, she still seems to have very little doubt about its necessity.
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prob a mix of poor boris, it the necessary thing to do even if it sucks and some giddiness over finally getting to use her assassination skills for once

Ericwinter said:
…Goddamit, it's the dwarves all over again. Mathilde has got to stop being the best Imperial diplomat to foreign nations somehow. Diplomacy is literally her weakest stat!
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[X] Yes

Still catching up so maybe someone made this argument, but about accepting payment .... I'd argue that sending magical boys to the Empire is good for both the Empire and Kislev, at least long term.

Male magic user's are legal in Kislev as long as their trained by the Imperial school of magic, and nothing is stopping them from coming back to Kislev as Journeymen and later on. This grants more wizard for both the Empire and Kislev.

There's the obvious downside of "maybe people in Kislev won't like this, maybe there will be pushback" .... but there's also upsides I haven't mentioned yet, such as "some people in Kislev will like this, as it gives them an official state sanctioned response to children, maybe even their own children, having magic that isn't killing them."
 
BurnNote said:
Mathilde's first really good impression on Kislev was when she stuck around to help Ice Granny during the bearzzard. She could've fled, but she stuck around, risked her live, and saved the equivalent of a LM. She also saved a whole bunch of dwarves, adding protection to one of Kislev's borders, and she didn't just take the convenient option of letting the daemons search out some Kislev peasants, instead facing them in battle. Later, she came to tell of a brewing problem, then stood by his side in battle to face it. She saved many lives during this, both by delivering the information, by getting massive amounts of reinforcement, and by fighting and killing the enemy leader in battle (preventing an attack on Ice Granny again). And of course, in between those two things, she's working on pushing back Za, something he really, really wants, and also proofs she share his view for the long term, and actually making things better. And she's succeeded at it. And she offered it to Kislev, nearly as soon as it was developed. I rather doubt there's another Imperial who has done so much for Kislev in so little time. She has, on multiple occasions, taken risks for the betterment of Kislev. For a country that expects to stand alone, that matters.

And you know, she's proven a steadfast ally to not only Kislev, but the dwarfs. Dwarfs have standards about integrity, yet they think Mathilde is the best thing since Sigmar. That's a pretty solid attestation of character right there, and it also means that Mathilde can be trusted to work for allies of the Empire and produce excellence.

Hell, even her early career of fucking over vampires and freeing an country from their grip would resonate, given Kislev's own recent past.

No doubt it was still a difficult decision. But it's based on more than just a single interaction. It's based on twenty years of success and making the world better.
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Don't forget what we done for Gotreks widow. We made a promise that one of the gods of Kislev would have a vast interest in making sure we properly come through. While small I think it matters a absolute ton to the Ancient Widow.

[X] Yes

While not a nice thing to point out. We will have Boris by the balls for as long as he lives. This goes above the biggest boons we could usually get out of a person. If we ask for something in good faith that won't harm Kislev? There is little reason he isn't gonna do his damnedest to see it happen. And it isn't a one time thing.

Of course this isn't a pleasant thing to point out. But the man damn well knows he is asking something that can MASSIVELY fuck her over.
 
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Maybe it's not that we suck the integrity out of the authority figures we like, but that we gravitate towards the ones who would have had doubts on their own. It might be that we're not the instigator of moral decay, but its witness.

Like Mothman.

MothMathilde.
 
Mopman43 said:
Unless we say no and Boris tries another way- one which is loud and messy and leaves Kislev much worse off. Which he's basically said he feels he needs to do.
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It would leave Kislev worse off, but it would not leave the Empire or Mathilde worse off, at least directly. With that said, and while I don't like voting based on OOC information...
Byzantine said:
Yes. It may even be how he actually died in canon, given he apparently died fighting goblins about a year from our current point in the timeline.
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This is fairly convincing in that it's happening either way.
 
Ericwinter said:
…Goddamit, it's the dwarves all over again. Mathilde has got to stop being the best Imperial diplomat to foreign nations somehow. Diplomacy is literally her weakest stat!
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I mean, weakest is relative. It's still a highly impressive 18. That's only 1 less than our Intrigue when we assassinated a whole bunch of burgeoning necromancers!

Parabola said:
On that note, this is a great opportunity to inform people OOC that Hag Witches have a spell that lets them try to divine the past via a weird spirit vision, which may or may not be end up getting used if it's a sufficiently obvious assassination, the Hag Witches want to try it out, and Boris can't make up an appropriate excuse.
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I think most Hag Witches might look at their options and lie their asses off about what they saw, but precautions are good to take, yeah.
 
King Arthur said:
[X] Yes

Still catching up so maybe someone made this argument, but about accepting payment .... I'd argue that sending magical boys to the Empire is good for both the Empire and Kislev, at least long term.

Male magic user's are legal in Kislev as long as their trained by the Imperial school of magic, and nothing is stopping them from coming back to Kislev as Journeymen and later on. This grants more wizard for both the Empire and Kislev.

There's the obvious downside of "maybe people in Kislev won't like this, maybe there will be pushback" .... but there's also upsides I haven't mentioned yet, such as "some people in Kislev will like this, as it gives them an official state sanctioned response to children, maybe even their own children, having magic that isn't killing them."
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I think the biggest factor would be if we can convince the Ice Witches that a trip to the Colleges really is the best alternative.

Maybe if we formally establish that Kislev males would only be able to return once they have at least one Arcane Mark?
 
Abhorsen said:
Wow, again, 'reasonably sure' that he's had decent vetting. Sounds a lot like 'most likely'. Great, it's almost like I've addressed this before. We can improve certainty to "we're sure he's had decent vetting, we did it ourselves". All that we know Kislev checks for seems to be Vamps. Who does the Chaos checks? How good are they? Etc. We don't know.

Also, stop shouting about fallacy when you aptly demonstrated the fallacy of the excluded middle time and time again.
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The same way you are reasonably sure that the emperor has had decent vetting, this will go on forever because you seem unwilling to think he can meet the burden of proof you lay on him.

Reasonably is the most we are ever going to get its the most we can get from the emperor, Alagard or anyone else. A reasonable degree of certainty, not certainty.

And to answer your question people like Baba and the ice witches, this is known information to Mathilde, its one of the reasons he recommended the hag witches to the project.

No that's not how this works. A false dilemma (which is the real name for not the excluded middle) requires me to have been deliberately limiting the potential answers. I had one answer. You proposed the idea that he might be a chaos cultist and thus we must investigate. You are the proposer, you are the one who has the onus to pony up an explanation.

If your reasoning is just "I think he's dodgy" fair enough, but it isn't backed by what we know IC or what we can reasonably deduce from IC.

Ultimately, if you're going to accuse me of a fallacy point out what you think is specifically fallacious don't just say fallacy as I am sure you will disagree with my assessment.

Abhorsen said:
Okay, this is actually evidence, thanks for pointing it out. If we know about the spell IC, then I'd be fine not double checking. I don't think we know about it though?
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We know they're a part of Kislev's anti chaos apparatus, that he knows Baba Nitzwenvich personally and we've got those books on hag witches.
 
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One thing we should definitely make sure we do is establish an alibi. I don't know that it's very likely that Boris flips this all on us, but we need to have some way of making that not be very appealing outside of Kislev.
 
Ericwinter said:
The sheer disparity in votes really makes me wonder what Mathilde's thought process will be like. For all that a lot of the yes votes recognize that this is a really shitty prospect, she still seems to have very little doubt about its necessity.
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I don't think it's surprising. My first post on the matter was basically "it's a choice with a clear answer, but it's still a really interesting vote", before the vote was opened.

Like, it promises great rewards (carte blanche from Kislev, unreserved support for the project, making Kislev stronger for the coming storm, preventing a nasty civil war, helping Boris who is a really cool character and just got cooler and more interesting, getting to do a cool assassination) for something at comparativly minimal risk, because Mathilde is actually really well suited to it. And we get to plan a cool assassination. And it doesn't cost AP.

It's offering a reward for something people want to do (assassinating a foreign leader is cool) for good reasons and good results, while still being a really interesting decision.
MiracleGrow said:
Don't forget what we done for Gotreks widow. We made a promise that one of the gods of Kislev would have a vast interest in making sure we properly come through. While small I think it matters a absolute ton to the Ancient Widow.
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A good point. I wouldn't overblow it, because Gotrek's widow Helga? is neither in Kislev nor a faithful, but it probably does incline the Ice Witches just a little more positively towards Mathilde.
MiracleGrow said:
While not a nice thing to point out. We will have Boris by the balls for as long as he lives. This goes above the biggest boons we could usually get out of a person. If we ask for something in good faith that won't harm Kislev? There is little reason he isn't gonna do his damnedest to see it happen. And it isn't a one time thing.

Of course this isn't a pleasant thing to point out. But the man damn well knows he is asking something that can MASSIVELY fuck her over.
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I mean, kind off. It definitely changes their relationship a lot. But it's not the be-all-end-all. For one, it's mutually assured destruction. Boris asking isn't ok, Mathilde doing it isn't either. Actually, once he's established himself, he's probably in a better situation to ride out the fallout of a reveal.

I think you're right, that he'd do what he can to fulfill Mathilde's request. But not because he's afraid of blackmail. He came to her because he thinks she's trustworthy. No, simply because if Mathilde is asking, it must be for the good of all. Kind of like Belegar (who, incidentally, we also have a decent amount of dirt on).
chocolote12 said:
Maybe it's not that we suck the integrity out of the authority figures we like, but that we gravitate towards the ones who would have had doubts on their own. It might be that we're not the instigator of moral decay, but its witness.

Like Mothman.

MothMathilde.
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I think it's something like this: If you never make difficult decisions, you're not a good leader. If you never have doubts about your difficult decisions, you're not a good person. We like to hang out with people who are both.

(That isn't always the case, see Kazador, and Rosi's conflict is along a different axis, but I think that still is at the heart of it)

Although, with Belegar we absolutly were contributor to the "moral decay", because we kept doing underhanded shit and it kept working. And Belegar oked it, and then did some himself, and that also worked, and he really started questioning things. And of course, pondering the price of victory is only possible if you have victory, which OTL Belegar never got to.
 
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NSMS said:
He was so impassioned and devoted it actually turned a bunch of people off voting for him, out of fear we wouldn't be able to live up to his hopes and expectations- me included. The idea of disappointing someone so obviously willing to give their all to their country and people after they've invested that faith in you personally is a hard one.
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I really didn't want that sort of pressure hanging over us when we had no idea how difficult or easy any of it would be. The Enoir seemed much more chill about the project.
Also Library of Mourning. Must have BÖÖK.
 
BurnNote said:
Actually, once he's established himself, he's probably in a better situation to ride out the fallout of a reveal.
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Nah.

Mathilde is under no obligation towards Kislev nor does she really have to be in Kislev and she has the position and reputation to ride out the controversy in the Empire and the Karaz Ankor.

Boris has to lead Kislev which would be immensely problematic if the truth got out.
 
Now that Mathilde's gotten a taste for regicide, maybe it's time to start writing in more plans that include:

[ ] Involve yourself in foreign affairs (specify where and how): Murder the King of X

whenever we have an AP to spare.
 
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