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Is there a way to make the matrix look Dhar-tainted without ourselves turning to it?
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Too many 'ifs' and 'consider'. Lay out exactly what Mathilde is going to do if all goes according to plan, don't include conditionals and backups and things Mathilde might consider doing.
An hour or so.
She'd need actual line of sight, but there's ways to make it work. Break one pane that someone couldn't fit out of, for example, or substance of shadow through a wall that she's checked is pitch black on the other side.
Only if she has access to the corpse after the Matrix has triggered.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Morrites wouldn't like it, but Kislevites hold little regard for Morr.
Akasha
The Only Truth
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- 「̛̛́́ ͏̨҉̕͏ ͏̶̴」
I feel like the Matrix is a bit much. We literally wrote a paper on the subject. If we use it to make a Tsar die from a shadow knife - something we also use - we are leaving a lot more clues to the involvement of a Grey Wizard - maybe even us specifically - than we would to Lahmian involvement. In fact, a show like that would be sooner ascribed to Dark Elves than Lahmians. Even the dramatics resemble us and Dark Elves more than Lahmians, who prize secrecy and subtlety.
Edit: I think you guys are putting too much effort into being clever. We can achieve the exact same effect by just using the shadow knife on him while he's asleep, slitting his throat to "cover up" the cause of death, and make sure all of the doors and windows are locked. As Boney wrote, we can just make sure there is darkness on the other side of one of the walls, and phase through it to leave.
People find the dead Tsar and think it's an assassin, but then someone asks how they got in or out. No exit is found, so magic is suspected. They examine the body and, sure enough, it looks like someone ripped his heart to shreds without touching his skin. Death magic? Shadow magic? Undeath magic? Who knows; most Kislev nobles and guards would have no idea. But it sure sounds like something a some gribbly would do.
Edit: I think you guys are putting too much effort into being clever. We can achieve the exact same effect by just using the shadow knife on him while he's asleep, slitting his throat to "cover up" the cause of death, and make sure all of the doors and windows are locked. As Boney wrote, we can just make sure there is darkness on the other side of one of the walls, and phase through it to leave.
People find the dead Tsar and think it's an assassin, but then someone asks how they got in or out. No exit is found, so magic is suspected. They examine the body and, sure enough, it looks like someone ripped his heart to shreds without touching his skin. Death magic? Shadow magic? Undeath magic? Who knows; most Kislev nobles and guards would have no idea. But it sure sounds like something a some gribbly would do.
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The way I'm reading Boris is that our primary objective is to kill as cleanly as possible, and our secondary objective is to make it look like a Lahmian trying to be mundane.
The first thing that immediately comes to mind is that secondary objective or not, killing him in the night is easily the best option for achieving the primary request, with hunting accident and spectacle behind in that order.
As for the Lahmian deal, this is going to be a three-layered murder: A grey wizard pretending to be a Lahmian pretending to be mundane. The final result should look mundane on the surface, then look Lahmian if you dig into it. The easiest way to achieve this imo is to either kill him with a regular knife, but let a little noise slip and maybe let a servant see some bats fly out the window or something along those lines, or "fail" to make it look like a natural death by making it too unnatural via strangulation or whatever.
The first thing that immediately comes to mind is that secondary objective or not, killing him in the night is easily the best option for achieving the primary request, with hunting accident and spectacle behind in that order.
As for the Lahmian deal, this is going to be a three-layered murder: A grey wizard pretending to be a Lahmian pretending to be mundane. The final result should look mundane on the surface, then look Lahmian if you dig into it. The easiest way to achieve this imo is to either kill him with a regular knife, but let a little noise slip and maybe let a servant see some bats fly out the window or something along those lines, or "fail" to make it look like a natural death by making it too unnatural via strangulation or whatever.
[ ] The Locked Room Murder
-Kill the Tzar in his sleep as if it was a mundane murder, but lock all the doors and windows from the inside before using Substance of Shadow through a wall that she's checked is pitch black on the other side/Break one pane that someone couldn't fit out of. That way someone sharp will realise it would be impossible for a normal person to do it.
there is a bit of a risk of no one noticing the trick, but the strength of this is that when someone does, they will feel to clever to notice that we wanted them to notice.
-Kill the Tzar in his sleep as if it was a mundane murder, but lock all the doors and windows from the inside before using Substance of Shadow through a wall that she's checked is pitch black on the other side/Break one pane that someone couldn't fit out of. That way someone sharp will realise it would be impossible for a normal person to do it.
there is a bit of a risk of no one noticing the trick, but the strength of this is that when someone does, they will feel to clever to notice that we wanted them to notice.
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I meant just move a blob of Death magic or something over the wound to sweep the ulgu aside or disrupt the signature of which spell was used, like when we gathered clumps of magic to test our apprentice.
I dont want to create Dhar either.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
We wrote a paper on it decades ago and it was explicitly reverse engineered from a vampire spell. Even if the nobles know about a paper that likely is not disseminated outside of the colleges there is plenty of evidence to point at the vampires regardless.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Mmm, maybe Smoke and Mirrors would work too?
[] Locked Room Murder v2
-[] Kill the Tzar as per Nighttime Visit, then lock all doors and windows, and get out via Smoke and Mirrors.
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- Here and There and Back When
this has already been stated multiple times, but it's worth repeating. we need to keep this in mind. we need this to be quiet. in that vein (heh), spectacle and hunting incident are failure states. our objective is a quiet kill, not a loud kill. implicating the lahmians is a bonus, but we shouldn't forget what boris said we should do here.
- Location
- Canada
Overthinking it
Nightime visit is the sort of thing that makes it possible for a mundane assassin to have accomplished
But doing it perfectly is what tips it into the realm where it looks magical
"The Tzar goes to bed and is found in the morning dead in his bed, and none of the guards saw anybody approach his bedroom the entire night and the intruder left literally no evidence whatsoever, (no unlocked windows, no footprints, no noise, no sign of struggle, nothing" is the sort of thing that the thread would turn and say "a Lahmian did it" if we received a report
If you must make the magic obvious it's better to make it obvious in ways that aren't obvious screw ups
Lahmians are not incompetent, and would not send someone incompetent to assassinate the Tzar
Something like a bunch of guards at the Tzar's bedroom all being unconcious unconscious (A single guard falling asleep on the job is an incompetent guard, every guard falling unconcious is spooky shit) and when they break down the door the Tzar's dead in bed with no sign of struggle maybe
But this is risking complications for minimal gain in my opinion, or even counterproductive gain
The goal is to make it so it looks like
And the best way to do that I think
Is to do the job so perfectly that it looks utterly unbelievable
Not a single intruder seen, not a single alarm raised
No traces and no tracks
Too clean to have been anything but a Lahmian
Shadowknives leave external wounds
They bypass armor, not skin
Though that presumably includes the Tzar's pyjamas?
So that probably works as a magical tell that's not too obvious
Killing him in a way that even his clothes are all unruffled despite stab wounds
Especially since Mockery of Death will keep him stock still and prevent any death throes
Yeah, a Shadow Dagger to the heart after Mockery of Death (while invisible) leaves the Tzar in unnaturally peaceful repose
That could work
Definitely overthinking it
A Lahmian who's trying to make it look like a Lahmian didn't do it would not kill the Tzar by biting him and then try and fail to cover it up
Because a Lahmian trying to hide that a vampire did it would not bite him at all
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Boney literally said that smoke and mirrors needs line of sight and gave SoS as a better option.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
Which would help us achieve the goal of this seeming mundane but is actually magical. It's not like they would be able to pin it directly on use just because they saw some magic.
- Location
- Sweden
That's something we want, so if that happens it's good.
Plan proposal
[] Nighttime Visit
- [] Sneak in, cast Sleep on the guards outside the Tzars chambers, Shadow Dagger to the heart, then Skywalk out.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
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- The Destination of Fate
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Oh, I missed that post. The thread's going a bit fast.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Breaking a glass pane to get out might make them think that a vampire did it and got out by turning to smoke.
- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
IDK if MMM can be applied while another spell is active. I'm pretty sure it triggers on spells. @Boney, do we know if it can be applied onto a subject while another spell (like Mockery of Death) is applied?
Not inside the body, I'd say. And it's based on a Dhar construct that the vamps used for spying, so Vamps could definitely have done it.
- Location
- Canada
This, pretty much. The correct plan here is not to directly do spooky magic shit to the Tsar; because that's too obvious for it to really be the Lahmians. The correct plan is an exceptional, flawlessly perfect mundane assassination... which could not actually have been done by a mundane assassin, thus implicating the Lahmians.
this is why I like the Locked Room Murder: it looks mundane until it doesn't, that way it looks like a magical person/vampire made the mistake of making it to perfect.
[] The Locked Room Murder
-Kill the Tzar in his sleep as if it was a mundane murder, but lock all the doors and windows from the inside before using Substance of Shadow through a wall that was checked to be pitch black on the other side/Break one pane that someone couldn't fit out of. That way someone sharp will realise it would be impossible for a normal person to do it.
They'd be in separate parts of the body, so that would work.
- Location
- Oklahoma
We're supposed to make it look like a lahmian who's trying to make it not look like a lahmian, so all the incredibly obvious routes are out.
This is actually a pretty hard thing to accomplish, but luckily we don't have to work out the specifics. We can write in a specific method if we want, but the baseline vote is just for the broad strokes.
Considering that the Grey College could very well have classes on the exact subject of "how to assassinate people in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that [insert enemy of the empire] did it but were trying to be subtle about it", I think I'd like to leave the minutiae up to Mathilde here.
This is actually a pretty hard thing to accomplish, but luckily we don't have to work out the specifics. We can write in a specific method if we want, but the baseline vote is just for the broad strokes.
Considering that the Grey College could very well have classes on the exact subject of "how to assassinate people in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that [insert enemy of the empire] did it but were trying to be subtle about it", I think I'd like to leave the minutiae up to Mathilde here.
so again, the Locked Room Murder.