For the danger I meant the part where Chaos ends the world and eats everyone yes. Vladimir was making that meaningfully more likely with his dereliction of duty as the leader of the Kingdom on the front line.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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For the danger I meant the part where Chaos ends the world and eats everyone yes. Vladimir was making that meaningfully more likely with his dereliction of duty as the leader of the Kingdom on the front line.
I'm not sure if pushing for publicly acknowledged Ranald in the wake of a Tzar's death is wise.
That is why it is part of Boris boon. The limit is really what Boris can do and the money is to help sooth egos and help Kislev poor academic institutions. We have access to the religious institutions in Nuln because we have the elector count. Now imagine what Boris as Tzar can do.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It is easy to kill people, unfortunately. Mathilde's done this innumerable times. Now, if you mean 'it should not be easy to kill people who are supposed to be on our side and havent really done anything wrong per se', I definitely agree.
But I would consider all the orcs and Skaven we've killed people, too. The necromancers and vampires as well, even though they were forsaken by the gods. People, all of them. I will refuse the argument that violence against them was 100% free of morality questions. 99%, perhaps, because they were causing active harm to people we care about and also they are in thrall to dark powers, but still: people.
Again, I would consider these extraordinary circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated. Boris basically told us he'd start a civil war for the sake of preparing Kislev for Chaos. If we'd stayed out of it, innocents would in fact have died and suffered and we could have felt quite guilty from that too. I would consider this minimizing suffering.
If Boris wasn't so explicit in all meetings we've had with him about repelling Chaos and strengthening Kislev, and we didn't know an Everchosen was coming, I really don't think we'd have gotten involved.
Like, let's say we'd gone to Bretonnia and one of the lords was saying that the current Royarch was bad, and he'd do a better job? I'd have voted 'no', even if it was an accurate assessment, because Bretonnia is not the first defense against Chaos - a Bretonnian civil war, while bad, would not so terrible that it could spell doom for the Empire, and it wouldn't be worthwhile getting our hands dirty for it.
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- Location
- Oklahoma
To be fair, violence and killing has long been part of our diplomatic strategy.
Just think back on how many of Mathilde's greatest diplomatic successes came about by killing the enemies of the people she's befriending.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
That's totally fair, but the odds of the next everchosen hitting Kislev as opposed to Cathay or Naggaroth do make that argument easy to overplay, as opposed to avoiding the civil war.
I do think we made the right choice, and did the best thing possible. I just also think that doing the best possible thing can still feel wrong and leave scars.
I do think we made the right choice, and did the best thing possible. I just also think that doing the best possible thing can still feel wrong and leave scars.
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Though in the case of Bretonnia that would also be an easier decision because OOC we know it's the Fay Enchantress's job to step in in such circumstances, and Mathilde might well know that IC too. If she isn't doing it, I'd certainly want to know why before getting in the business of Bretonnian kingslaying.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We don't actually have any contacts in Bretonnia. Any Bretonnian books we buy are via Barak Varr, because our salesman friend has contacts literally all over the Empire and some Empire booksellers have Bretonnian books (a truly blessed nat 100, that was). I imagine that normally we wouldn't have access to that much, and that the "[ ] Seek the publishing contacts to start acquiring large amounts of books from a nearby realm (specify which: Bretonnia, Kislev, Tilea/Estalia, Araby)" action would be necessary to get anything at all.
...That said, yes, if we want to ask Boris for books then we should probably ask him to directly send copies of everything in all of Kislev's libraries to K8P rather than to indirectly have the EIC buy books however they can.
- Location
- Somewhere between the stars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They might be kinda fine with it? Like, it's a common theme that all the general good Cult leaders went ahead and fought the invasion of Chaos...Meaning that all of the competent leaders where dead, and Kislev never really recovered from that. Up and including to this day, where Boris started to slowly revive the cults from their previous stagnacy?
So, in this case it might be something they support, in order to get the more worship-active/friendly guy on the throne...Granted, this is same world where two priest can call upon the divine power of Sigmar against each other, so who can fully knows how the Gods feel about having their cult be in decline
I think that IC Mathilde is inclined to believe that they will hit Kislev and act accordingly because the consequences of thinking and crucially acting otherwise, would be a dereliction of duty on her part. For all the things the Orders of Magic have grown into over the years their primary function is to defend against Chaos as the first of them did against Kul.
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Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, and in fairness, I don't imagine any would-be Bretonnian monarch would ask a Grey Wizard for something as dishonorable as assassination. For a Bretonnian especially, that might be way too damaging to one's reputation to risk even asking. And as others have noted, even Boris must have been desperate, to basically place Kislev on the line for whatever the Emperor could ask for.
Yeah, that's why I was wondering. Gods have their own interests too, and Kislev's gods seem pretty willing to fight Chaos directly.
The obvious counterargument, of course, being that if we were wrong then that'd be pretty yikes for the whole of the Old World.
It's also possible that even if the main forces are on Naggaroth or Cathay, other Chaos armies or tribes will take advantage of the waxing of the Wastes to assault Kislev.
It is a much easier choice when it comes to Bretonnia because the king of Bretonnia is definitionally a Grail Knight and trying to assassinate a Grail Knight is just a recipe for getting our ass kicked.
Plenty of people here believe we can asssassinate Chaos Champions mid battle, and they are very much on the same power level.
- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
I think we are well passed that IMO. It's more like, to a carpenter, maybe every problem isn't a carpentry problem, but then you aren't going to be dealing with the non-carpentry problems because that isn't your specialty. You go where carpentry is needed. Same with us: we go where murder, killing, magic and skullduggery is needed. Because otherwise why bother? There are people more suited to deal with it.
As a side note, this is one of the reasons I'm less interested in being SP: because there are better people at it. And yes, we could get better at doing it, but I'm of the belief that we are firmly in the exploit period of exploit/explore. We've learned a ton, and are really good at a lot of stuff, we should be focusing on contributing, rather than getting ready to contribute.
This turn has been a great example of that. We created a spell that helps the Empire (or at least the Grey College) at large (not just something that specifically expands our abilities), advanced the Waystone project, helped out Kislev, and helped Kragg. The Orbs of Sorcery are another example, when that happens.
But they will probably be cool with the idea of asking a just and noble knight to confront and overthrow a corrupt Duke, and if their honourable duel took place where none could see them, well that's a shame, but one can't always pick the time and place for battle, and it would be bad form to slander the good knight by claiming they used underhanded methods.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
I am sure this is actually the best time and I don't think there will be any better. Ice Witches already offered a way in and Hag Witches wouldn't care, normally the problem would be priests of the other gods and nobles connected to them but those people is just about to get a Boris to the face and will be busy defending their position anyway. So if not now when? If not us who?
And I think Ranald would help against Chaos because when you think about it Luck and Fate can't really exist in the world at the same time. So Ranald should be a good counter to Tzeenech schemes. After all Luck never goes according to the plan.
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NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
We have seen in the quest that there's a certain amount of 'we don't speak of this' and rules-lawyering that goes into the Bretonnian system working, so it could happen. Hiring someone to perform an outright assassination is definitely stretching things, but I wouldn't think it's impossible.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's a real stretch, though if the Duke was actually corrupt enough and not just incompetent, I might consider it.
This means I shouldn't try to poke at the specific obstacles mentioned in the post, and should instead assume we can't get meaningful information there in practical amounts of time, right? It's not worth poking you with ideas based different modes of Magesight (scent can reach some distance into the past but presumably wouldn't get anything out of it, for instance), optical tricks (mirrorcatch box to catch the instant and show it over a longer period of time? I don't even know if that would work on other things, honestly...), or such? (Because I couldn't figure out how to phrase it to be clear, I'm perfectly happy to read this as a "not worth poking at" rather than a "try to be Clever™, I just want to be sure that's what's intended.)
Yeah, it probably would be less suspicious to go for things that don't look like they might be "payments for service rendered" but rather things that at least seem win-win deals for both parties. For example :
- Exchange agreements between KAU and all kislevite libraries,
- Improved funding for the Waystone Project,
- A military outpost in the pass near Karag Vlag,
- A military alliance between the Empire and Kislev,
- A trading agreement between the Empire and Kislev (with a headstart for the EIC if we want to be sneaky but even then...),
- Etc.
Although, I must say, I'm somewhat tempted to ask for a fief in Kislev to add the title of Boyar to our numerous accolades (Lady Magister, Thane, Knight, owner of a Great House of Laurelorn). Being some kind of noble equivalent in all countries we interact with does hold some appeal to me I'll admit.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
Is Ranald actually proscribed in Kislev? Does he need anything more than the Widow's forgiveness?
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
Why would anybody think it was payment at all? Boris is just about to reform all the religons so tacking Ranald at the end of that process would draw no eyes. So this is not a real concern.
More to point nobody in this deal is stupid, they will figure it out a way.
I mean by that logic asking anything looks like payment especially those military outposts that would make boyars scream bloody murder and probably rebel against Boris on the spot.
That is a questio for Boney I think but we know Ranald has no temples there and Widow doesn't like him so he might be supressed by the Ice witches as well.
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