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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Sparsebeard said:
While Mathilde is somewhat protected from chaos' temptations and effects due to player agency, the belt and high piety, Mathilde's friends don't have any of those advantages and could much more easily be tempted by chaos... Perhaps even in an attempt to get to us.
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Out of her immediate friend group, I'd say Johann was probably the most vulnerable (wizard frustrated with his own magical ability and feeling like the College he's part of sees him as crippled, prime candidate for Tzeentch to unlock the magical potential within him), but he's pretty thoroughly found his own path towards self-actualization over the course of the quest.
 
GrimTheMad said:
... I know we like to meme about Mathilde doing it all for BOOK, but no, I don't think Mathilde would be willing to deal with Chaos for a history book. Or any other kind of book, really.

It doesn't really matter how non-offensive the deal is on the surface when she knows its just to soften her up for further deals later. That's what I mean by her being too well educated.

(Besides, when it comes to acquiring BOOK the backing of a forever grateful dwarf king is honestly much better than Chaos anyways.)
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The point isn't that we love books. The point is that selling our soul isn't the only goal they can want to shoot for. They can desire small things, and offer reasonable rewards. They're capable of good faith negotiation and attempts at persuasion more subtle than "Hey You, give me Everything and I'll give you Something Cool, I Promise".

Because they're demons. It's their thing. If it doesn't hurt to say no, every time, then they're asleep on the job.
 
...I wonder, had Mathilde actually lost the roll to not drink from the forbidden sippy cup, would there be great dismay from the readers? Probably not, that'd take a roll even lower than the (iirc) 15 she got, but I've frequently been surprised by what other people think is important or fair.

Hm. Now I'm remembering the "a nat 1 would've ended the quest right there" chaincasting episode. A nat however low it takes to sip from the forbidden cup would've probably ended the quest as we know it (and started a Try To Live With What Happened quest, unless Liljana still won the battle and then the Kislev gods reversed the corruption somehow). I don't see people really worrying about that, I guess we don't handle forbidden sippy cups very often, but the danger very much exists.
 
Somic said:
...I wonder, had Mathilde actually lost the roll to not drink from the forbidden sippy cup, would there be great dismay from the readers? Probably not, that'd take a roll even lower than the (iirc) 15 she got, but I've frequently been surprised by what other people think is important or fair.

Hm. Now I'm remembering the "a nat 1 would've ended the quest right there" chaincasting episode. A nat however low it takes to sip from the forbidden cup would've probably ended the quest as we know it (and started a Try To Live With What Happened quest, unless Liljana still won the battle and then the Kislev gods reversed the corruption somehow). I don't see people really worrying about that, I guess we don't handle forbidden sippy cups very often, but the danger very much exists.
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IIRC if she'd failed that roll there'd be a roll for mutation, so I think there would, in fact, be great dismay.
 
Mopman43 said:
Out of her immediate friend group, I'd say Johann was probably the most vulnerable (wizard frustrated with his own magical ability and feeling like the College he's part of sees him as crippled, prime candidate for Tzeentch to unlock the magical potential within him), but he's pretty thoroughly found his own path towards self-actualization over the course of the quest.
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Slaneesh then? Johann's goal to "become the best version of himself" seems right in his wheelhouse.

But even then, my point was more that our friends are much more vulnerable to failed rolls for chaos temptation:

First, the problems with player agency don't exist, if they fail their rolls then they succumb to temptation and act accordingly, contrary to players who might find it harder.

Second, they don't have as high a piety score (and a god in their corner) so protecting themselves might be MUCH harder and rolls might be very defavorable to them. And if doesn't take an artefact on the level of the Za Goblet to introduce important risk.

Third, effects of failed rolls are likely to be much more physical and permanent since they don't have a magic belt and a god protecting them.
 
chocolote12 said:
The point isn't that we love books. The point is that selling our soul isn't the only goal they can want to shoot for. They can desire small things, and offer reasonable rewards. They're capable of good faith negotiation and attempts at persuasion more subtle than "Hey You, give me Everything and I'll give you Something Cool, I Promise".

Because they're demons. It's their thing. If it doesn't hurt to say no, every time, then they're asleep on the job.
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Right, but you said it yourself- the point is to get their foot in the door.

Mathilde would know the point is to get their foot in the door.

So why would she let them get their foot in the door?

The cost of dealing with Chaos isn't just whatever they asked of you, its the fact that you've now dealt with Chaos. And Mathilde knows this.
 
The less hedonistic and more perfection/abstract desire focused parts of Slaanesh and Tzeentchian ambition can kind of get blurry next to each other.
 
Redshirt Army said:
Slaneesh is the Chaos God that I feel Mathilde herself is most susceptible to.

It's really not that hard to draw a though-line of "obsession with reaching perfection" when looking at Mathilde's driving motivations.
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She's never really had any kind of obsession with perfection. The closest she got was with the matrix, and that was more an obsession with reaching adequacy. If Slaanesh were to tempt her, it'd be with either obsession with knowledge or desire for praise and respect. Whether it's bosses, the goat fief, or Kragg the Grimm, Mathilde's gone to great efforts to help those who properly appreciate her.

EDIT: And on that desire for praise and respect, I imagine she's grown to deeply appreciate the Protector side of the Coin.
 
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Omegahugger said:
Chaos doesn't tempt good people by just offering them what they want. It tempts them by offering what they cannot refuse to accept.
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I think people saying that only a fool would accept Chaos are kinda overestimating the level of choice characters have. Yes, someone like Mathilde can Just Say No to Dhar, but for others it isn't as simple.
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Extremely good argument. In the RPG, you basically have to claw out every single advantage you can to cast something. There, you can't really 'reliably' cast something, and the amount of dice you have to cast at all are pretty limited. There's your raw power as a wizard, but there's also circumstantial bonuses like how variable the Winds are, any ingredients you may have, and that's just getting into the common stuff. For rarer stuff, there's Power Stones, but those are called out as needing weeks or months to make. And there's also the familiar bond possibly granting a +1 to Magic.

And finally, we have the forbidden method. A player may feel the need to get a +1 to Magic from boosting a spell with Dhar via the Dark Magic talent, even though that explicitly means it's more likely to miscast, and turns regular miscasts into more dangerous ones.

It's not hard at all for me to imagine a desperate player feeling the need to use that temptation. What if you're in a really desperate situation and you've had a string of bad rolls while casting, where you didn't have enough juice? And well, maybe you'll just use it here and there, it's not like you're going to be embracing Chaos anytime soon. You just need a bit more power to your spells, is that so much to ask? And nobody needs to know. Nobody but you, and perhaps your companions, if they know enough of magic to even realize...

Mathilde certainly went through the trial of temptation of using Dhar back in Sylvania, and before she had the chance to worry about it again, she was lucky enough to get the +1 to Magic from Wolf, and also, cashed in her Drakenhof deeds from Kragg. Most people do not get so lucky as with the former, or have that opportunity with the latter.
 
GrimTheMad said:
Right, but you said it yourself- the point is to get their foot in the door.

Mathilde would know the point is to get their foot in the door.

So why would she let them get their foot in the door?

The cost of dealing with Chaos isn't just whatever they asked of you, its the fact that you've now dealt with Chaos. And Mathilde knows this.
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Not all bargaining comes from a place of perfect character agency.

There's plenty of situations we could get in where we couldn't afford to refuse.

Scooting straight to the end, "Hey, I noticed you were about to fall into the Warp there. Care to get out of ending a years old quest for the low low cost of a plot hook?".

Do you think everyone would agree to end it dogmatically?

Season it to taste. Johann has fantasy cancer. Panoramia got captured by Khaine Cultists. We got a mutation that replaced our head with a small rude person and they're offering to replace that mutation with two much more comfortable and subtle mutations. So on and so forth.

It's easy to say you don't want to eat when you've just had dinner, but the need in this moment isn't the need at that moment.
 
GrimTheMad said:
I would, because I know that it will only ever end worse for all the people you think you might be helping- and so would Mathilde.

I'd absolutely rather see her dead than see this become a chaos quest.
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Again, not for the whole enchilada. A whole lot of the spine goes out of arguments like that when the entire point is that it can't be characterized as "Lol, you might as well just die".

It's like constantly moving the argument's head away from the Barber clippers, honestly. Move it low, it's trivial so they wouldn't touch it, move it high and it's important so obviously they'll take everything. There's an eye to the needle and they can thread it. The answer is self evident and that's why it's being avoided; there's a certain minimum level of urgency and maximum level of cost within which Mathilde would make a deal with Chaos, and it's similarly easy to describe.

Even on the Catastrophic Miscast tables we can find an example. One option is to be sucked into the Warp and lose the character. Another is to receive 1/13th of a demonic text which when completed and not a moment before promises one's soul to a specific daemon. Both are terrible, but let's be clear; one ends a five year old quest, and the other moves us 1/13th of the way to ending a five year old quest.

If a Daemon sees us having trouble and says "I can give you a helping hand by choosing this one for sure, or else leave you to your fate" that vote wouldn't be trivial.
 
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chocolote12 said:
It's like constantly moving the argument's head away from the Barber clippers, honestly. Move it low, it's trivial so they wouldn't touch it, move it high and it's important so obviously they'll take everything. There's an eye to the needle and they can thread it. The answer is self evident and that's why it's being avoided; there's a certain minimum level of urgency and maximum level of cost within which Mathilde would make a deal with Chaos, and it's similarly easy to describe.
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I am not moving the argument at all. I am being extremely consistent and entirely unambiguous when I say I would not take a deal with chaos at all, for any reason, in any circumstance, ever.

I see I'm in the minority on that, but it doesn't change my opinion on the matter.
 
StormySky said:
The less hedonistic and more perfection/abstract desire focused parts of Slaanesh and Tzeentchian ambition can kind of get blurry next to each other.
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Meanwhile drug-induced indolence and nihilistic pleasure-seeking ("My life is shit; I'd rather get high than work on getting better") form the border of Slaanesh/Nurgle territories, and sadomasochistic violence frenzy is the transition space between Slaanesh and Khorne.
 
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Parabola said:
In the RPG, you basically have to claw out every single advantage you can to cast something.
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Mhm... reminds of the time I was playing with some friends, and I forget what spell it was, but it was like the most basic and simple spell of his lore. Poor guy miscast, and ending rolling the worst result on the table, which was to roll on another table, and once again rolled the worst result. Which if I recall correctly was summoning a Greater Daemon, in the middle of our party, during a battle, plus side though, the bandits we were fighting didn't survive either.
 
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So, uh, while we're on the topic of mathilde messing with dark forces, anyone else *kinda* want to mess around trying to figure out how Ulgu/dhar works? Purely to figure out what Eshin can do with it of course! Well, unless there's something interesting... we *do* have the belt...
 
Wiggy said:
So, uh, while we're on the topic of mathilde messing with dark forces, anyone else *kinda* want to mess around trying to figure out how Ulgu/dhar works? Purely to figure out what Eshin can do with it of course! Well, unless there's something interesting... we *do* have the belt...
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I don't think the belt protects against Dhar in our literal soul that we manually pulled in. Well, either that, or it lights our soul on fire.
 
Boney, thought you might appreciate this- somebody's attempt to create a Zharralid (Chaos Dwarf language in Total Warhammer 3) lexicon, based on lines from the game.

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Guide :: Zharralid: A guide to understanding the Chaos Dwarf Language

Hello, I have a lot of spare time and I absolutely love to do some independent research on fantasy languages. So we know from some other sources that Zharralid resembles Khazalid grammatically (which
steamcommunity.com steamcommunity.com
 
StormySky said:
I don't think the belt protects against Dhar in our literal soul that we manually pulled in. Well, either that, or it lights our soul on fire.
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See, it's like necromancy: Mathilde touches the Ulgu, Ulgu gets enhanced by Dhar, and the only thing to suffer is the environment! After all, she's explicitly said that necromancers don't touch Dhar directly for spellcasting, and only go mad after years of living in Dhar-poisoned environment :V
 
Wiggy said:
So, uh, while we're on the topic of mathilde messing with dark forces, anyone else *kinda* want to mess around trying to figure out how Ulgu/dhar works? Purely to figure out what Eshin can do with it of course! Well, unless there's something interesting... we *do* have the belt...
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well yes, I am a bit interested. I am also much more interested in not breaking the Articles.
 
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