Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Reader mode
Abby Normal said:
-Storage-to-Orbital transfer (Quick edit: this is actually only decent i forgot about the need for a mainspring to be wound regularly, which limits things)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's actually not quite true about the mainspring - a while back some very clever wizards (M.Gold and M.Grey) put out a very comprehensive analysis of the inner workings of a Skaven Ratling gun, and part of that involves exploiting natural mechanics of Dhar interacting with itself to rewind a mainspring used to start up a process.

Just need to be sure we never, ever, tell anyone we're copying a Skaven idea/process, but apart from that I'm sure nothing could go wrong...
 
Being able to cobble together a waystone as a proof of concept is still a pretty big deal. It shows that all this work can sure as hell bring about something.

Then it becomes important to refine the entire process so it can be easily rolled out.
 
Aura said:
I think we wait a bit before we come back to talk to Boris. Don't reallllly want to bracket the assassination tooooo closely.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We're witnessing the coronation of someone we fought alongside to secure magical support for the Waystone Project. It'd be looking into the scapegoats that'd be suspicious.
 
Has anyone done a list of the component options we have for each piece of the waystone? I figure it would be handy to have all in one place for planning, but don't want to duplicate work if someone else has already done it.
 
Boney said:
"Meanwhile, Lord Elrithish and I," Hatalath continues, "have reverse-engineered and replicated the original storage mechanisms - though I very much doubt we've recreated the way they were originally made. Even by the standards of that time, this would be a nightmare to have to create in any substantial number." The second schematic covers three and a half scrolls, and you feel a headache brewing before you finish skimming the second. This shows none of the elegance and efficiency of the other schematic, instead being a brute-force piece-by-piece recreation of every individual component of the enchantment, with a great deal of struts and scaffolding to prevent it all from collapsing in on itself before its completion. This might make a starting point for further refining - hopefully a great deal of refining - and perhaps as a basis for theoretical research into Elven enchanting techniques, but unless you stumble upon a few thousand underemployed Archmages its current form is not going to be usable for creating new Waystones in any usable number.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Even if we don't know how to properly make the old enchantments, understanding how they work is Very useful for the waystone repair side of the project.

Boney said:
Egrimm says with a grimace. "But we did find a few relevant treatises on the subject of moving Dhar from place to place. Including, interestingly, a paper from your former colleague, Jovi Sunscryer, and a few collaborators
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Should this be our, or is it supposed to be your? Cause he could be referring to Jovi being a fellow Light mage, or referring to Mathilde working with him in Stirland.


If we make a cludge waystone, even if it doesn't work for mass deployment, proving we can make one at all will be amazing for getting more people on board for working with the project.
 
Saidoro said:
Has anyone done a list of the component options we have for each piece of the waystone? I figure it would be handy to have all in one place for planning, but don't want to duplicate work if someone else has already done it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

According to my notes it's something like this:

Capstone
Collegiate Fascis
Stone Flower
Runic Inductor

Rune
Carving
Dwarven
Eonir
Collegiate

Storage
Material
Enchantment (Collegiate)
Material + Collegiate Enchantment
Enchantment (Reverse-Engineered, Unrefined)
Runes

Orbital Mechanism
Dwarven Clockwork
Grey Lord Enchantment

Leyline
Riverine - Hedgewise
Riverine - Jade
Riverine - Spirit

dinomannitro6 said:
Should this be our, or is it supposed to be your? Cause he could be referring to Jovi being a fellow Light mage, or referring to Mathilde working with him in Stirland.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It is supposed to be 'your'.
 
Last edited:
I'd like to note that the method by which we create liminal realms is to use Vitae to weaken a part of the barrier around reality and cause it to balloon out into a new bubble of reality. There's already a phenomenon in real life that's very similar to this, weakening a barrier in such a way that it creates a bulge which can potentially burst to horrific consequences. It's called an aneurysm.


Do you know what that means? It means we've graduated beyond just causing Belegar aneurysms, now we're giving reality itself aneurysms with our Zhufokri antics.
 
Boney said:
You frown and climb up the ladder to turn off the drip - if it gets much bigger, then you'd face the real danger of someone who enters it being unable to reach the slit to leave it again. You make a note to bring a ladder and some rope with you for tomorrow's testing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Local woman investigates eldritch extradimensional space "I'll need to remember to bring a ladder and some rope" she says.

Boney said:
You begin to wonder how many forgotten liminal realms there might be out there, the entrances healed over but their contents remaining preserved, like an insect in amber or a pearl within an oyster.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Someone talk to the Hag witches about this.
It sounds like the sort of thing where the most impressive ancient wizards are going to use artificial liminal realms as storage, but unless the things can be found with magesight, you'd need to rely on local spirits remembering where it was to figure out where the entrance used to be.
I guess if Mathilde runs out of experiments to conduct on an open liminal realm, she's going to need to conduct another set of experiments on whether it's possible to reopen a closed hole to a liminal realm?
 
WhiteNights said:
I think these are new Lords, is anyone keeping a list of all the Gray Lords mentioned?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Codex used to, but that's out of date to November 2022, almost a year ago. Assuming she caught everything before then, from a comb of what came after, we have:

Hatalath: Grey Lord participant in Waystone project. Sometimes called the Wanderer, being more comfortable going out and about than his peers, but still out of date about things due to being too absorbed in research, just presumably less so than his peers.

Thanan brothers: A pair of brothers

Sarumar: Told Hatalath about the Dwarves messing with their Waystone network

Harathi: Marrisith's great-great-uncle. Son of Morelion (first son of Aenarion), (presumably younger) brother to Maruviel (first queen of Laurelorn and handmaiden to the Everqueen Yvraine, who was also her aunt). Got exiled after the Sundering because of his heritage and because he was a teenager with no political power or allies at the time. Still salty about the whole thing. Marrisith doesn't like dealing with him

Turuquar: Metallurgist who got banished after his obsession with the origins of ithilmar led to him repeatedly trying to sneak into Vaul's Anvil. Also worked on an impractical golden dome for the capstone replacement

Mal: Worked on impractical capstone replacement with Turuquar. Wouldn't be dissuaded despite it not working well

Elrithish: Worked on the Stone Flower with Seilph. Later recreated magic storage mechanism for Waystone foundation with Hatalath, though in a more awkward fashion than the original creators presumably used.

Seilph: Worked on the Stone Flower with Elrithish

Skathrai: Worked with Yngra on Waystone foundation orbital mechanism. Has a history of creating things for military use, and understands the need to keep things simple for mass production. More willing to work on dryad-binding than Eonir are comfortable with (considering how dryads are citizens and allies of Laurelorn)

Yngra: Worked with Skathrai on Waystone foundation orbital mechanism. Has a history of creating things for military use, and understands the need to keep things simple for mass production.

???: The twelfth Grey Lord, who we still haven't heard about. This is assuming that neither of the Thanan brothers are also one of the other names mentioned, since we have no clue what's a first or last name.
 
Last edited:
Boney said:
According to my notes it's something like this:

Capstone
Collegiate Fascis
Stone Flower
Runic Inductor

Rune
Carving
Dwarven
Eonir
Collegiate

Storage
Material
Enchantment (Collegiate)
Material + Collegiate Enchantment
Enchantment (Reverse-Engineered, Unrefined)
Runes

Orbital Mechanism
Dwarven Clockwork
Grey Lord Enchantment

Leyline
Riverine
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh boy. This is gonna be hard to try to cludge together.
 
Boney said:
"It seems to me that the most appropriate design would be based on a mainspring that would need rewinding once a month, but it could also work with vanes or a millrace or similar."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hmmm. If we worked out the noise-wind measurement system, I wonder if the vibrations from taking on the input of an entire active waystone might be enough to keep the mechanism wound?

Barring that, a perpetual motion enchantment should work. It's not like they're unknown.
Boney said:
It seems like a liminal realm, or at least one created in the way you created this one, requires at least semi-regular comings and goings by living beings to maintain its entrance.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hey Boney, this is an actual question that shouldn't take Mathilde long to check, if my reading of her not letting the liminal realm close entirely was correct (sorry to bother you if she let it close); if we placed a living plant across the gap, would that have any effect on the closure rate?

Because it would explain a lot about natural liminal spaces like haunted forests and groves.
 
chocolote12 said:
Hey Boney, this is an actual question that shouldn't take Mathilde long to check, if my reading of her not letting the liminal realm close entirely was correct (sorry to bother you if she let it close); if we placed a living plant across the gap, would that have any effect on the closure rate?

Because it would explain a lot about natural liminal spaces like haunted forests and groves.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That would keep the slit open while the plant lived.

StormySky said:
I thought we just had the one "carve the thing onto magically conductive material; we have no idea how or why it works, but it works" thing Hatalath gave us. Are those notes for the results of the "Experiment with alternatives to the Waystone Rune" action?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The 'carving' option is that. The other options are to yolo one of the other possibilities without testing it first.
 
Boney said:
Leyline
Riverine
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is actually three things, all of them having the Winds go straight in the river and the Dhar being processed/moved via induced correspondence three ways: a Hedgewise rock pile, a Jade menhir, and bargaining with the river spirit.

Boney said:
That's if Mathilde doesn't contribute anything further and leaves the Fanpatar Mages to figure it out.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Would further AP on this to speed things up still be an EIC action?
 
Last edited:
Boney said:
The 'carving' option is that. The other options are to yolo one of the other possibilities without testing it first.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ah, that explains why they weren't brought up in the original rune investigation action.

fictionfan said:
Bit longer than I would have expected considering how long it took us to make a burning shadow mountain. But I suppose this project has more political obstacles.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This also isn't a superweapon that has the full and enthusiastic support of the leader of a polity, who would very much like to have an at-will overland superweapon to deal with the enemies of his currently-at-war home.
 
Last edited:
Given that we picked the location specifically because it isn't close to anything interesting I don't think that we are going to be investing much more into the current pocket. Might as well just fill it with warp stone and let it seal itself.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top