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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Somic said:
Counterpoint: the Waaagh field. Orcs have an inbuilt "ASSEMBLE INTO AN ARMY" instinct with each other (occasionally fighting for leadership when it's unclear who's da biggest baddest orc in the Waaagh), but not with other species.
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That's quitter talk
 
Somic said:
Counterpoint: the Waaagh field. Orcs have an inbuilt "ASSEMBLE INTO AN ARMY" instinct with each other (occasionally fighting for leadership when it's unclear who's da biggest baddest orc in the Waaagh), but not with other species.
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That does not imply orcs prefer fighting non orcs, it implies that the Waaaagh field only works for orcs, which in turn does not necessarily imply preference for who to fight, just preference for who to ally with when trying to find a propa fight .
 
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storryeater said:
That does not imply orcs prefer fighting non orcs, it implies that the Waaaagh field only works for orcs, which in turn does not necessarily imply preference for who to fight, just preference for who to ally with when trying to find a propa fight .
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An orc that meets a non orc will almost always fight.

An orc that meets another orc might team up for a Waaagh against someone else.

Any circumstance in which an orc would fight another orc is one in which an orc would fight a non orc (absent factors that have nothing to do with species), but the reverse is not true. Ergo, orcs have a preference for fighting non orcs.
 
Boney said:
No. Spell creation is a very long, personal, unreliable and sometimes dangerous process. And there is no world in which I start fielding spell ideas for all eight Winds.
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And there's no prexisting information storage/illusion structure storage spell in any of the other lores, so we can't use windherder in combination with someone else to produce a camera effect that can store many images.

So I guess we'd be down to taking conventional or semiconventional tracings of scroll contents.
Press our own paper up against whatever we're stealing, shine a light through, trace by hand.
And speeding that up with magic is dubious.
We do know there are wind-reactive inks, but I can't think of a reliable way to go from that to a rapid full tracery of a design without it being just as laborious as tracing by hand.

I ... suppose, if there was a spell to make ink temporarily bulge out from the page or scroll it was on, it would make it easy to take charcoal rubbings of whatever we were stealing. But I also can't think of a way to do that.

Next idea, someone casts Law of Form in such a way that they only affect the ink on a scroll or page.
We put the scroll or page on top of a soft surface, with another page for charcoal rubbings overtop.
Then we make a charcoal rubbing.

Somic said:
Counterpoint: the Waaagh field. Orcs have an inbuilt "ASSEMBLE INTO AN ARMY" instinct with each other (occasionally fighting for leadership when it's unclear who's da biggest baddest orc in the Waaagh), but not with other species.
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I think 40k Orks do, but I'm not sure that Fantasy orks do.

Consider that goblins and orcs can and sometimes will refuse to join eachothers' Waaaghs.
And if they even have a friend or foe identification instinct, they seem to include Black Orks as being on the friend side of it.

I don't think fantasy orks have any instincts regarding their own species beyond just being more comfortable living among their own kind, and thinking that the bigger members of their group should be in charge.
In which case the 'group into waaagh' action is less directly instinctual and more a result of culture and indirect effects of instincts.
 
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Somic said:
An orc that meets a non orc will almost always fight.

An orc that meets another orc might team up for a Waaagh against someone else.

Any circumstance in which an orc would fight another orc is one in which an orc would fight a non orc (absent factors that have nothing to do with species), but the reverse is not true. Ergo, orcs have a preference for fighting non orcs.
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If you assume that correlation equals causation, sure.

Consider, however, the following: if an orc meets an orc, banding up in order to go to a bigger fight is on the table. If an orc meets a non-orc, this kind of diplomacy is inconceivable. So its is not a preference of orcs for fighting other orcs, but an innate capability of orcs to do diplomacy with other orcs, because orcs know how orcs think and can communicate via Waagh in a level deeper than other species can communicate with orcs, while other species would find orc thinking insane even before you factor in the Waaagh.
 
Codex said:
There was a Goblin Mage in Grom the Paunch's retinue who was able to topple over the Waystones in Yvresse and use their power to enchance his magic, making himself powerful enough to take out Eltharion's father, so I wouldn't put it past the Greenskins to be able to meddle with Waystones somewhere in their racial memory (Da Great Green as they call it, which Greenskin Shamans can channel).

I will note that there was nothing particularly constructive there. The Mage was destorying and disrupting waystones rather than taking them over. Not a good sign if the Greenskins were doing that to their own Waystones.
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Did the writing suggest he only took in their energy once or that he was siphoning continually even post toppling? Because if it was post toppling, thats some bull.
 
storryeater said:
If you assume that correlation equals causation, sure.

Consider, however, the following: if an orc meets an orc, banding up in order to go to a bigger fight is on the table. If an orc meets a non-orc, this kind of diplomacy is inconceivable. So its is not a preference of orcs for fighting other orcs, but an innate capability of orcs to do diplomacy with other orcs, because orcs know how orcs think and can communicate via Waagh in a level deeper than other species can communicate with orcs, while other species would find orc thinking insane even before you factor in the Waaagh.
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That is semantics though. Orc has the ability to be diplomatic with other orcs but not non-orcs is functional identical with having a preference for diplomacy with other orcs, an absolute preference in fact (it can only happen with orcs) . Or reading is the other way, since orc and non orc are the only two type of beings and diplomacy and war the only outcomes orcs have a preference for fighting non orcs.

Now look at this from an orc's point of view, they can see the pattern and they would rather be fighting more than striking deals (even if there is some physical fighting in that as well) so they would prefer to have a non-orc to unite against
 
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DragonParadox said:
That is semantics though. Orc has the ability to be diplomatic with other orcs but not non-orcs is functional identical for having a preference for diplomacy with other orcs, an absolute preference in fact (it can only happen with orcs) . Or reading is the other way since orc and non orc are the only two type of being and diplomacy and war the only outcomes orcs have a preference for fighting non orcs.

Now look at this from an orc's point of view, they can see the pattern and they would rather be fighting more than striking deals (even if there is some physical fighting in that as well) so they would prefer to have a non-orc to unite against
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Hey, I pointed out from the start that I was nitpicking :whistle: .
 
pucflek said:
Did the writing suggest he only took in their energy once or that he was siphoning continually even post toppling? Because if it was post toppling, thats some bull.
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I think the idea is that smashing the stones made the environment more turbulent and magical which suited his brute force approach to magic, less that he was pulling the stream towards him and more that he liked living in a magical swamp.
 
DragonParadox said:
That is semantics though. Orc has the ability to be diplomatic with other orcs but not non-orcs is functional identical with having a preference for diplomacy with other orcs, an absolute preference in fact (it can only happen with orcs) . Or reading is the other way, since orc and non orc are the only two type of beings and diplomacy and war the only outcomes orcs have a preference for fighting non orcs.

Now look at this from an orc's point of view, they can see the pattern and they would rather be fighting more than striking deals (even if there is some physical fighting in that as well) so they would prefer to have a non-orc to unite against
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Orcs are capable of diplomacy with non-orcs. If i am not mistaken, there are Orc mercenaries and Dogs of War.
 
DragonParadox said:
I think the idea is that smashing the stones made the environment more turbulent and magical which suited his brute force approach to magic, less that he was pulling the stream towards him and more that he liked living in a magical swamp.
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As described he seemed to be pulling magic directly from the stones they toppled.

Mystic Pentagram said:
Orcs are capable of diplomacy with non-orcs. If i am not mistaken, there are Orc mercenaries and Dogs of War.
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Just the one in modern canon- Ruglud's Armored Orcs, who originally hail all the way from 2nd edition before being brought in to 6th edition for Dogs of War.
 
storryeater said:
Huh, that means that as long as you promise a propa fight, they are game. So the difference may actually be more than semantic, if it has the practical application of getting orc fighters, as long as you know how to communicate with them.
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You'd need to be dealing with a very particular Orc in charge for him to be able to handle the delayed gratification of 'If I fiaght who this git wans me ta fiaght, I'll get a good krumpin and a pile a' loot without havin' ta krump 'im.'
 
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Shard said:
You know what would be a great battle magic spell? One that just outputs a lot of fog. Specifically, fog that can be seen through by allies, but not by enemies. Apply, and FOW is turned on selectively in effect.
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That'd be the Fog Bank Battle Magic idea on the Approved Spells threadmark. I really like the idea, and hope we get around to it eventually.
 
storryeater said:
Huh, that means that as long as you promise a propa fight, they are game. So the difference may actually be more than semantic, if it has the practical application of getting orc fighters, as long as you know how to communicate with them.
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I think you also need a particular unorthodox orc leader, or at least one who can think outside the box and see that fighting as a mercenary can be better than begin hunted by everyone.

Mopman43 said:
You'd need to be dealing with a very particular Orc in charge for him to be able to handle the delayed gratification of 'If I fiaght who this git wans me ta fiaght, I'll get a good krumpin and a pile a' loot without havin' ta krump 'im.'
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That is true, but orcs seem to enjoy other things beside fighting (but they don't enjoy them AS MUCH as fighting).

They enjoy food, some of them enjoy riches and wealth, most seem to love well crafted weapons. We also have many exemples of orcs bonding with their pets.

They also have beliefs and spirituality beside Gork and Mork, since they have shamans and shamanistic rituals.

And in the city of Pigbarter, humans and goblins live side by side. Not exactly peacefuly, since goblins are treated as second class citizens and often become brigands to survive, but they managed to make it work for a long time.
 
Mopman43 said:
It'd be a bit difficult at the moment, given that Mathilde considers Albion a myth.

Even seeing a stream of Magic going west from L'Anguille is more likely to provoke questions then to have her specifically guessing that the Albion myth is true.
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We have a Gyrocopter, and I think the Albion defense isn't properly calibrated to work against flying travellers.
I think it only works against ships.

So if we start following the flow via Gyrocopter from L'Anguille I think we can just reach Albion before the halfway point on our range.

And even if we can't, I'm not sure that the elves know the range of a Gyrocopter, if flying out is a non-starter I think we'd still be able to use the existence of our Gyrocopter to bluff them into giving a proper explanation.
 
Boney said:
It's a paper that can be written but it is a bit icky. Mathilde isn't contributing any evidence or experimentation or insight, she's just the first within the Colleges to get access to this breadth of books.
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Boney said:
If there was a scenario where there was only a little bit of Ulgu and a lot of Earthbound magic, you might be able to use something based of Elementalist techniques to eke a little bit of extra oomph out of the Ulgu you do have. But on every battlefield the Colleges have ever fought on, you can just reach out and grab more Ulgu instead. The Elementalists are mastering every little trick of rowing when the Colleges have an outboard motor and the ocean is made of diesel.
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Thought: it was mentioned that elementals are hard to fit into the teclisian framework, because each of them resonates with different winds under unique circumstances, yet elementalists are able to make use of all the types of elemental without going especially insane.
With Ulgu resonating with water elementals under only specific circumstances.
And stone elementals being magically null.

Suppose someone did go to the effort of figuring out how to use wind magic to manipulate Earthbound magic.
Would the lack of any wind-magic-assocation make stone elementals easier to summon using such a paradigm? Because the lack of association means that an area of dense Earthbound magic would take longer to sublimate back into wind magic?

From what Boney has said the power throughput of the resulting elemental would be unimpressive compared to what simple direct manipulation of Ulgu could accomplish.

I suspect the only practical value of such a wind-based stone elemental summoning spell would be as a proof to the colleges of the theory that elementalism uses Earthbound magic to function.
Well, that and providing Kragg with reagents for any future effort to reverse engineer the Elemental-gronti hybrid.

But at the same time, that's kind of in-keeping with the stated purpose of our branch college which our contribution to the waystone project is operating under, 'to investigate collaborations between runesmithing and the Colleges magics'.

If it's actually possible it might be worth doing later, partly to help Kragg, partly to provide enough experimental data to allow us to publish our theory of why Elementalism works.

It's a shame we're not an Earthbound magic caster with the Windherder trait./the whole tongs research avenue.
It sort of sounds like if you used Earthbound magic to manipulate Wind magic you wouldn't have the Dhar problem where the two interact, instead your Earthbound magic would only transmute into wind magic whenever you fail to keep the two separate.
Potentially allowing an Earthbound Windherder to cast a very wide range of spells.

But to some extent we literally are Ulgu at this point with the arcane marks. There's no chance that we could directly touch Earthbound magic.
 
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If Albion was easily accessable from air, with something like a gyrocopter, there's nothing stopping the eager chaos lord from just jumping atop a flying mount of some kind and doing an air to surface missile impresion. Or for any Elven dragon from casually strolling by while flying, or the Bretonian pegasus from seeing something if they were doing something high up in the air.

I think it's safe to assume that as long as the mist is properly up, there isn't gonna be easy trick to come casually walking in. For both people outside and inside the island. Of course, if they fail or you happen to come with a huge power resevour that calcus is probaly gonna change.
 
Mystic Pentagram said:
Gnoblar County is near Pigbarter, but i think that those in Pigbarter proper are either Goblins, Hill Goblins or both.
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The wiki page for Pigbarter only mentions Gnoblars, and I believe it's accurate.

guyfromtheplace1 said:
We have a Gyrocopter, and I think the Albion defense isn't properly calibrated to work against flying travellers.
I think it only works against ships.

So if we start following the flow via Gyrocopter from L'Anguille I think we can just reach Albion before the halfway point on our range.

And even if we can't, I'm not sure that the elves know the range of a Gyrocopter, if flying out is a non-starter I think we'd still be able to use the existence of our Gyrocopter to bluff them into giving a proper explanation.
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Flying a Gyro to try to find Albion feels like it's practically begging for us to get Amelia Earharted.
 
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