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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Random shadowrunning thought... I know that the lack of description of Vlad's paramour probably just means Boney chose not to describe them for some reason (to emphasise Mathilde trying to distance herself from what she was doing, or because they were someone we'd OOC recognise, for example), but is there any chance that it indicates Mathilde's perception was being fucked with? That the companion was under a spell to fuzz their identity?

Stupidly unlikely, I know, but my mind couldn't help but wander in this direction...
 
NSMS said:
Random shadowrunning thought... I know that the lack of description of Vlad's paramour probably just means Boney chose not to describe them for some reason (to emphasise Mathilde trying to distance herself from what she was doing, or because they were someone we'd OOC recognise, for example), but is there any chance that it indicates Mathilde's perception was being fucked with? That the companion was under a spell to fuzz their identity?

Stupidly unlikely, I know, but my mind couldn't help but wander in this direction...
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This is an interesting theory.

I don't know if it is likely, but its possible. And if it is true one has to wonder what their agenda was.
 
B_omega said:
Should there BE a suspicion on our person?

Mat's Matriks is originally a vampire spell, so it should support the Lamian theory.

Come to think of it..its our one flaw.. no Dhar.
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She didn't put another matrix in there. Theres no way for someone tell what weird way someone used magic to get a knife into this guys chest.
The matrix itself is probably one of half a dozen ways, known by plausibly anyone who could have read or heard about Mathildes paper. However only someones who's actually done specific testing would identify how the shadow knife spell behaves.
There isn't actually a real reason to suspect that Ice Witches are among those people who know of the spell though as the Colleges and the Grays especially, probably don't advertise their new spells.
And if whoever has to investigate this does send off a request to the college for "Do you know what might have caused this" they're definitely not going to respond "Ah yes, that sounds like one of our spells, you should ask master assassin L.M Weber who invented it for more details."
E:
NSMS said:
Random shadowrunning thought... I know that the lack of description of Vlad's paramour probably just means Boney chose not to describe them for some reason (to emphasise Mathilde trying to distance herself from what she was doing, or because they were someone we'd OOC recognise, for example), but is there any chance that it indicates Mathilde's perception was being fucked with? That the companion was under a spell to fuzz their identity?

Stupidly unlikely, I know, but my mind couldn't help but wander in this direction...
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Stone is an excellent insulator of magic.

Spotting mental contamination is something Grays explicitly train in and Mathilde in particular has at least one impressive feat in handling it personally.
 
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NSMS said:
Random shadowrunning thought... I know that the lack of description of Vlad's paramour probably just means Boney chose not to describe them for some reason (to emphasise Mathilde trying to distance herself from what she was doing, or because they were someone we'd OOC recognise, for example), but is there any chance that it indicates Mathilde's perception was being fucked with? That the companion was under a spell to fuzz their identity?

Stupidly unlikely, I know, but my mind couldn't help but wander in this direction...
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It's not a perception filter thing. I thought about rolling for the Tzar's sexuality but then decided it didn't matter for story purposes, it fit Mathilde's mindset to be deliberately avoiding paying too much attention to the Tzar's personal life, and that if the dice did come up gayly it'd kinda suck to introduce a nonhet character a paragraph before their assassination.
 
NSMS said:
Random shadowrunning thought... I know that the lack of description of Vlad's paramour probably just means Boney chose not to describe them for some reason (to emphasise Mathilde trying to distance herself from what she was doing, or because they were someone we'd OOC recognise, for example), but is there any chance that it indicates Mathilde's perception was being fucked with? That the companion was under a spell to fuzz their identity?

Stupidly unlikely, I know, but my mind couldn't help but wander in this direction...
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Or maybe she simply didn't look too closely while focused on the Tzar. Maybe all she saw was a body underneath the sheets and the only sign of gender was their hair and hair length wasn't enough to point at either gender, lots of men have long hair and lots of women have short hair and enbys don't have any length of hair stereotypically associated with them, so since she didn't know their gender for certain she just defaulted to they. The most likely candidate for disguising their identity would be a Vampire and per Mathilde's own words,
Boney said:
"In my experience, yes. I suspect that there are some who may be able to make their soul look like that of a regular human, but it would take constant concentration and an extremely deft hand to be able to make ambient Winds react normally to it, and that's only if they knew they needed to do so."
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It takes considerable effort to disguise their soul from someone with Mathilde's Windsight and they would only do it if they thought they might be under scrutiny, they would have no reason to do it in the middle of the night when no one should be looking. It's not impossible but it's very improbable.

Edit: Mathilde'd even harder than the Tzar.
 
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I wonder whether we accidentally framed the Ice Witches with this. A Mastery over freezing stuff seems like a plausible way to make a sharp object appear within a body.
 
CeBrudras said:
I wonder whether we accidentally framed the Ice Witches with this. A Mastery over freezing stuff seems like a plausible way to make a sharp object appear within a body.
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I don't think their ICE magic, works that conceptually, if nothing else, I'd expect to see freezing damage in addition to the knife wounds internally. Using the word "Freeze" to justify this sounds a lot like Burrito thinking to me.
 
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CeBrudras said:
I wonder whether we accidentally framed the Ice Witches with this. A Mastery over freezing stuff seems like a plausible way to make a sharp object appear within a body.
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I'd think of icicles if there was a deep stab with no trace of whatever made it, but freezing a blade-shape inside a body and leaving it there... nah, that's very far from intuitive, and more likely to be accomplished by other kinds of magics (like, say, Ulgu that already has a habit of selectively passing thr-)

oh gods

imagine a spell like shadowknife that selectively passes not just through armor but also part pf the body, and only becomes tangible while already inside

or a shadowknife that passes through walls
 
Somic said:
I'd think of icicles if there was a deep stab with no trace of whatever made it, but freezing a blade-shape inside a body and leaving it there... nah, that's very far from intuitive, and more likely to be accomplished by other kinds of magics (like, say, Ulgu that already has a habit of selectively passing thr-)

oh gods

imagine a spell like shadowknife that selectively passes not just through armor but also part pf the body, and only becomes tangible while already inside

or a shadowknife that passes through walls
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I think a shadow knife can pass though walls, there is no real difference between wall and armor unless one of them is enchanted. You would need some way to see through the wall though which is probably why it is not used like that.
 
Somic said:
I'd think of icicles if there was a deep stab with no trace of whatever made it, but freezing a blade-shape inside a body and leaving it there... nah, that's very far from intuitive, and more likely to be accomplished by other kinds of magics (like, say, Ulgu that already has a habit of selectively passing thr-)

oh gods

imagine a spell like shadowknife that selectively passes not just through armor but also part pf the body, and only becomes tangible while already inside

or a shadowknife that passes through walls
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Erm...
Article:
Shadow Knives - Conjures up a number of shadowy projectiles that can be hurled at one or more opponents nearby. Furthermore, their shadowy nature means that all non-magic armour is ignored.[1d]

Yeah I dunno if they pass through walls, I can't think why they wouldn't however seems hard to aim, but they do ignore armour.
 
DragonParadox said:
I think a shadow knife can pass though walls, there is no real difference between wall and armor unless one of them is enchanted. You would need some way to see through the wall though which is probably why it is not used like that.
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It would depend on whether the Shadow Knives intangibility keys off of the casters perception (in which case sufficient amounts of psychoactive drugs/insanity/deliberate cognitive dissonance would do the trick) or if it relies on the conceptual properties of armor which are presumably distinct from the conceptual properties of walls, in which case you wouldn't be able to use it to pierce walls unless you found a way to make the entire population of Mallus consider armor and walls to be the same thing conceptually.
 
So this is just me being dramatic, but I can't help but imagine Boris using his father's funeral to bring together all the nobles he wants to purge and dropping the evidence/accusation there before having the guards seizing all the "conspirators".

It would play nicely with the narrative he is going for. Plus it would be the perfect way to get the majority of them all in one place and would allow him to send a very clear message to the remaining nobles about how he deals with treachery.
 
Sinsystems said:
So this is just me being dramatic, but I can't help but imagine Boris using his father's funeral to bring together all the nobles he wants to purge and dropping the evidence/accusation there before having the guards seizing all the "conspirators".
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I'd be unsurprised to see Vladimir's funeral as an option for the upcoming Social Turn, so I guess we'll find out.
 
NexusEye said:
It would depend on whether the Shadow Knives intangibility keys off of the casters perception (in which case sufficient amounts of psychoactive drugs/insanity/deliberate cognitive dissonance would do the trick) or if it relies on the conceptual properties of armor which are presumably distinct from the conceptual properties of walls, in which case you wouldn't be able to use it to pierce walls unless you found a way to make the entire population of Mallus consider armor and walls to be the same thing conceptually.
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If it gets stuck on a wall, and you then put armor (like, sheets of metal or something) on the wall, will it pass through the armor and get stuck in the wall, or will it treat the armor as part of the wall?
 
For cultural reasons there probably won't be a funeral, right? Because in Kislev it already happens when you become an adult. I imagine any such mass arrest will happen during the coronation instead.
 
Dark as Silver said:
She didn't put another matrix in there. Theres no way for someone tell what weird way someone used magic to get a knife into this guys chest.
The matrix itself is probably one of half a dozen ways, known by plausibly anyone who could have read or heard about Mathildes paper. However only someones who's actually done specific testing would identify how the shadow knife spell behaves.
There isn't actually a real reason to suspect that Ice Witches are among those people who know of the spell though as the Colleges and the Grays especially, probably don't advertise their new spells.
And if whoever has to investigate this does send off a request to the college for "Do you know what might have caused this" they're definitely not going to respond "Ah yes, that sounds like one of our spells, you should ask master assassin L.M Weber who invented it for more details."
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Will be very hillarous if they ask our Old Master to check this out.
 
Gavin Prince said:
I'd be unsurprised to see Vladimir's funeral as an option for the upcoming Social Turn, so I guess we'll find out.
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NuclearConsensus said:
For cultural reasons there probably won't be a funeral, right? Because in Kislev it already happens when you become an adult. I imagine any such mass arrest will happen during the coronation instead.
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In addition, it'd feel a bit gauche to turn up at the funeral of the guy you assassinated.

I at least wouldn't vote to go unless Boris explicitly invited us.

Also I think funerals for heads of state usually happen before the coronation of their successor, so we couldn't show up anyway or else Mathilde would make a liar out of herself. :V

I imagine the coronation would be a social option, or maybe even the one initiated by someone else.
 
Attending Vladimirs funeral seems ill advised. We don't have any attachment to him and showing up is the classic "returning to the scene of the crime". Also pretty tasteless, can't imagine Boris would want us there.
 
Gavin Prince said:
I'd be unsurprised to see Vladimir's funeral as an option for the upcoming Social Turn, so I guess we'll find out.
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henkalv said:
Attending Vladimirs funeral seems ill advised. We don't have any attachment to him and showing up is the classic "returning to the scene of the crime". Also pretty tasteless, can't imagine Boris would want us there.
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Mathilde going full serial killer and showing up to her victims funeral feels too far even for her.
 
B_omega said:
Will be very hillarous if they ask our Old Master to check this out.
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If any Grey is asked to check things out, it'd honestly probably be us; we're pretty senior in the colleges, and unlike almost all other Greys we actually have a pre-existing public relationship with Kislev.

Not that I expect us to be asked. Investigating the assassination of your leader seems very much like an internal politics sort of matter, not the sort of thing you bring foreign magical users in on.
 
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