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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Rotekian said:
Why go to Slaanesh when the Changling could instead impersonate Boris asking for an assassination.
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Why would the Changeling ask for an assassination?

It makes much more sense for the Changeling, disguised as Boris, to just launch into civil war against Vladimir and destroy Kislev that way.

And it would be much funnier for the Changeling to instead disguise themselves as Vladimir and then through poor rulership drive Boris into thinking his only solution is declare a coup against his father.

It is much more likely that if the Changeling is involved (and I don't think they are), they are actually disguised as the Tzar and their "incompetence" is actually a cunning plot to create a civil war, with Boris as the aggressor.
 
Prime 2.0 said:
It's even worse than that - word of boney is that battlemages aren't just more reliable at casting BM because they do it a lot, it's because they're raised from childhood with the deliberate goal of them being a battlemage, and everything about how they're raised is bent towards that end.

There is nothing Mathilde can do to become as inherently (ie, ignoring equipment) reliable at casting that stuff as an actual on paper battle mage. They're minmaxed for it, we're not.
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I do like the idea of a downscaled Cataclysm spell more than a slightly-downscaled-but-still-dangerous existing Battle Magic, though. Yeah, it's dangerous to cast and will never ever not be dangerous to cast. But casting it is likely to save *several* combat rolls that are individually only a bit less risky and in aggregate are likely more. And by being Cataclysm magic that requires setup and circumstances, we are way more likely to keep voting-control over exactly when Mathilde breaks it out, as it's not something she can do off-the-cuff mid-update if she sees the opportunity.

The main issue with it is that by the numbers shown for the Riders, creating that spell will take effectively an entire turn's AP to capture and bind enough Whispering Darkness.

Though, now that I think about it...in some ways that's not too bad either. By setting aside an entire turn for what is going to be effectively one extended scene, the amount of RL time spent is actually pretty short. It'd go "Social/Purchase turns" - "Apparition Wrangling" - "KAU/EIC" - back to Social/Purchase turns; an in-quest six months likely taking only a week or two of writing updates before letting everyone get right back to regular AP-wrangling.

Of course, that could only realistically be done when Mathilde can actually set aside half a year on a task. So between jobs, basically.
 
myrix said:
@Boney, now that the Linking rune has been discovered, could we attempt creation or attempt researching creation of a composite runesmithed enchanted item, with a Runesmith runesmithing a runed item with rune payload and a Linking rune, and Mathilde enchanting an additional enchantment holding part to seemlessly work together as a whole, using her windsight, windherding and enchanting traits?

If it couldn't be done because that's too untraditional or too fast, needs more preparation / research / adoption time, or other Runesmith-related reasons, could our Moderate Runesmiths Guild boon be used help?
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The word 'discovered' has many meanings, and you're taking the least of them to mean the most. Having identified an example of something is not the same as being able to perfectly replicate it.

StormySky said:
@Boney Is Lathruai's book going to count for anything mechanically in our library once we file it away after writing the paper, or would it only warrant maybe a mention in the notable tomes section?
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A book has to be an utter behemoth of a tome to give a point on its own, and It's not the original copy of the book, which the author presumably left at home, so it's not a notable tome either.
 
Gavin Prince said:
The main issue with it is that by the numbers shown for the Riders, creating that spell will take effectively an entire turn's AP to capture and bind enough Whispering Darkness.
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The biggest problem I see is that apparition based spells are less likely to miscast in general, but trade that risk for the risk of the Apparition(s) escaping and causing havoc. Ignoring the in-combat effects of a miscast, which are roughly comparable, that means we would need to spend all that AP again each time to regain the use of the spell.
 
Sparsebeard said:
Fighting Vladimir head on seems like a good way to fail our assassination and very risky in general. He's been rushing from fight to fight for decades and is probably a monster in combat.

I'm somewhat confident we could defeat him if we ambush him and use Branalhune and our magic. However, any situation where we don't use our very distinctive sword style, magic and/or the element of surprise, things might get touchy.

To me, the real question in that case is just how dangerous is the Tzar. Heroes in the setting get pretty ridiculous and the Tzar seems pretty badass from a martial perspective.
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Using the sword stile that makes his skill meaningless since the plan with that would be to vanish the body. All the other options are meant to render his martial skill moot in their own way.
 
[X] Yes

I vote to do the assassination, for all the reasons previously stated plus it's the most interesting choice narratively.

We've done some sneaky stuff before, but now it's time to really put the Grey in Grey Wizard.
 
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Gavin Prince said:
I do like the idea of a downscaled Cataclysm spell more than a slightly-downscaled-but-still-dangerous existing Battle Magic, though. Yeah, it's dangerous to cast and will never ever not be dangerous to cast. But casting it is likely to save *several* combat rolls that are individually only a bit less risky and in aggregate are likely more. And by being Cataclysm magic that requires setup and circumstances, we are way more likely to keep voting-control over exactly when Mathilde breaks it out, as it's not something she can do off-the-cuff mid-update if she sees the opportunity.

The main issue with it is that by the numbers shown for the Riders, creating that spell will take effectively an entire turn's AP to capture and bind enough Whispering Darkness.

Though, now that I think about it...in some ways that's not too bad either. By setting aside an entire turn for what is going to be effectively one extended scene, the amount of RL time spent is actually pretty short. It'd go "Social/Purchase turns" - "Apparition Wrangling" - "KAU/EIC" - back to Social/Purchase turns; an in-quest six months likely taking only a week or two of writing updates before letting everyone get right back to regular AP-wrangling.

Of course, that could only realistically be done when Mathilde can actually set aside half a year on a task. So between jobs, basically.
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I would be okay with taking a turn to go hunting Whispering Darkness and create a Cataclysm summoning spell.

This would be a really epic adventure and it would immortalize Mathilde in the annals of the Grey Order.
 
It's an honestly interesting idea. We talk about AP crunch a lot, but the notion that so much of the delay is down to AP variation rather than strict AP volume provides hope for a lot of intensive but more focused plans that wouldn't fly under the current paradigm.
 
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F.I.R.E.BALL
  • Apocrypha
    • Mathilde strode through the camp, the only trace of her presence one more set of footprints marring the muddy snow. A thousand horrors surrounded her, and yet more arrived with every moment, but she paid them no mind. And as she walked, she considered the past six months that had led her here.

    When reports came in that the Everchosen had arisen and was on the march, she had almost too many options for how to contribute. The armies of the Empire would have welcomed her aid moving north faster than they could unaided. But other wizards could cast Rite of Way. She could have flown north and offered her services as a Battle Wizard. But the Empire already had many wizards far superior to her in battle magic. The dwarves would have welcomed her to their throngs, but their armies were moving even slower than the Empire's. Perhaps she could have slipped into the enemy column as they marched, sown discord and confusion and assassinated leaders as she had in Eight Peaks. She'd considered it. But there were other assassins. Instead, she'd chosen something only she could do.

    Six months. Six months of Kislev burning to buy time for reinforcements, while she scoured the old world for every sighting, every rumor, every hint of them. Refining her spell with every one she bound, more and more until she could hardly see her own soul beneath them. Whispering Darkness. Dozens of them, altered to eat away at everything they touched. And they did so love to seek people out. She'd had plans for this spell for years, but she hadn't felt the need before. Well. Now there was need.

    Returning her thoughts to the present, she saw the central tent ahead of her, and the man himself next to it if those horns were anything to go by. He'll probably survive this, she thought, but without an army it won't matter much.

    He seemed to sense something, turning her way, but she was already in motion, her staff raised in one hand and her Orb in the other. She dropped the spells that had hid her from sight, shouts and roars of surprise and rage rising around her, but they were too slow. This better be worth a statue at least, was her last errant thought.

    She cast F.I.R.E.BALL.

    And the world.

    Turned.

    Black.


    (*Friendly Intangible ruinous entity ball)
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • Literal shower thought: Matrix a Sleep on the Tzar's horse to facilitate an 'accident' while hunting/fighting. Activating it while the horse is at full gallop will effectively cause the horse to stumble hard, which could easily kill the Tzar in the right circumstances. There are drawbacks to this approach, but one big upside that I can think of is that failure isn't as disastrous as it is for a similar scheme that targets the Tzar directly; the Tzar will likely realize that he was under some sort of magical effect and could tell others if he survives, the horse probably won't rise the alarm.
     
    mathymancer said:
    Literal shower thought: Matrix a Sleep on the Tzar's horse to facilitate an 'accident' while hunting/fighting. Activating it while the horse is at full gallop will effectively cause the horse to stumble hard, which could easily kill the Tzar in the right circumstances. There are drawbacks to this approach, but one big upside that I can think of is that failure isn't as disastrous as it is for a similar scheme that targets the Tzar directly; the Tzar will likely realize that he was under some sort of magical effect and could tell others if he survives, the horse probably won't rise the alarm.
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    Only problem with this plan is I'm pretty sure that Sleep is a spell that requires you to touch the target. Which might be a bit difficult with a galloping horse, let alone in the middle of combat.
     
    mathymancer said:
    Literal shower thought: Matrix a Sleep on the Tzar's horse to facilitate an 'accident' while hunting/fighting. Activating it while the horse is at full gallop will effectively cause the horse to stumble hard, which could easily kill the Tzar in the right circumstances. There are drawbacks to this approach, but one big upside that I can think of is that failure isn't as disastrous as it is for a similar scheme that targets the Tzar directly; the Tzar will likely realize that he was under some sort of magical effect and could tell others if he survives, the horse probably won't rise the alarm.
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    The problem with that is twofold:
    1. Vlad is probably trained on what to do if his horse falls under him, this is a setting with magic 'horse suddenly dies/is turned into a squig/Chaos Spawn' is a pretty common problem
    2. We have no guarantee that the monster will go for the armed man and not the horse that just fell down and is helpless
     
    DragonParadox said:
    The problem with that is twofold:
    1. Vlad is probably trained on what to do if his horse falls under him, this is a setting with magic 'horse suddenly dies/is turned into a squig/Chaos Spawn' is a pretty common problem
    2. We have no guarantee that the monster will go for the armed man and not the horse that just fell down and is helpless
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    I actually quite like this idea. Yes, Vlad can probably recover somewhat from it, but an attempted charge leading to a stumble right in front of the enemy he was riding towards will never be anything less than ruinous for his safety.

    There's a chance he survives, of course, if his guards are on the ball or whatever he was charging goes for the horse or whatever, but it really does seem to have a high chance of success and a relatively low chance of discovery even if it fails.
     
    Redshirt Army said:
    I actually quite like this idea. Yes, Vlad can probably recover somewhat from it, but an attempted charge leading to a stumble right in front of the enemy he was riding towards will never be anything less than ruinous for his safety.

    There's a chance he survives, of course, if his guards are on the ball or whatever he was charging goes for the horse or whatever, but it really does seem to have a high chance of success and a relatively low chance of discovery even if it fails.
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    There's also certain parallels at play here with another ruler leading a charge they didn't realize was doomed.
     
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