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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Wiggy said:
The idea that religion is something super private and personal and should never be discussed with anyone feels pretty toxic honestly. Religion is a really important part of people's lives, even if the modern day pushes back against it more and more. It can be *uncomfortable*, sure, but that's because people have strong opinions and its a topic that matters to them.
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Yeah, it's one of the thread's bugaboos that I really don't get. I've been putting it down to cultural differences, but there's definitely an underlying assumption that religion is inherently an extremely private thing never to be discussed with anyone that strikes me as more intensely alien than any of the other topics that commonly make the rounds.

Buuuut, it's very clear that this assumption is deeply and authentically held, and that elements of religious instruction in the story would make an apparently sizeable part of the voting readership uncomfortable. There's really no reason to push at that spot, then, when there's so much else to be done.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Well, Mathilde seems to have a lot of general knowledge about the Druchii, up to recognising Malekith's portrait on a gold coin. It seems likely that there has been a lot of exchange of knowledge about the Druchii between Ulthuan and the Old World to me—I honestly can't see why they would keep it a secret, especially considering what happened the last time the Asur tried to keep it a secret.
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Sure, but also, as you mentioned, a member of the Grey Order was in Naggaroth fairly recently. The Empire also probably had more contact with the Druchii than the Asur up until relatively recently, as the Asur only really started bothering with the Old World again 250 years ago,w hile teh Druchii ahve been raiding for basically ever.

Not keeping it secret is rather different from undertaking a propaganda campaign.
 
@Boney Do we need to do Tributary: International (Kislev) again next turn for Kislev to start putting up their own tributaries, or will they start doing that on their own as soon as Boris gets settled?
 
Wiggy said:
The idea that religion is something super private and personal and should never be discussed with anyone feels pretty toxic honestly. Religion is a really important part of people's lives, even if the modern day pushes back against it more and more. It can be *uncomfortable*, sure, but that's because people have strong opinions and its a topic that matters to them.
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Probably I should have deleted that part of my post. I didn't need to get a very mild qualm labeled "toxic" and it's not that relevant anyway.

I'm not much of an Eike fan and was one of the few who voted against taking her as an apprentice, but I was curious if there was some greater goal in mind. Lots of people say there is and checking out her piety is part of the long term "Project Eike". Okay fine, thanks for answering everybody.
 
Gavin Prince said:
Man, it'd kind of suck if we've had an entirely wrong read on Boris and he's just completely played us. Turns around and denies we did anything in his favour, and sets about on his own agenda. Sure, we can claim we assassinated the Tzar on his orders but a) what proof do we have and b) holy shit what a shitstorm that would create for no actual benefit to us.

A lot of OOC information went into the thread's read on the guy; in character we've only met him a couple of times and he's a high-level politician used to bullshitting and putting on the face he needs to in front of a given audience.
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Doesn't entirely hang together even just from IC info, I don't think. Bare minimum, we know he was offering a pretty hefty commitment to the Waystone Project if we based it in Kislev, which (a) is the kind of promise it's super awkward and super obvious to just bail on when it's time to pay up (so doesn't fit as a lie by hypothetical Smooth Operator Boris) and (b) is only really beneficial to an agenda that's seriously concerned about the threat of Chaos. So even leaving aside our reasonable confidence in Mathilde's ability to read people, we've got reasonably solid evidence that his priorities are aligned with his claims.

Theoretically, I could believe in a world where we don't specifically manage to get our promised payment out of him for this particular job, but considering there were segments of the thread advocating for turning it down on principle anyway I don't think that'd be the end of the world.
 
Gavin Prince said:
Man, it'd kind of suck if we've had an entirely wrong read on Boris and he's just completely played us. Turns around and denies we did anything in his favour, and sets about on his own agenda. Sure, we can claim we assassinated the Tzar on his orders but a) what proof do we have and b) holy shit what a shitstorm that would create for no actual benefit to us.

A lot of OOC information went into the thread's read on the guy; in character we've only met him a couple of times and he's a high-level politician used to bullshitting and putting on the face he needs to in front of a given audience.
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I'd be very surprised if his theoretical politicking ability could trick Mathilde's windsight emotion reading in a land where magic users have minimal political power. Frankly, if he has that level of skill, Kislev was doomed anyways and he could've removed the already fairly unpopular Tsar whenever he wanted.
 
I think a big part of why people are reflexively hesitant for Mathilde broach the topic about religious stuff is that IRL religion is very often a minefield, especially for people of gender and/or sexual minorities, and that the easiest way to not have to walk through that minefield is to push a social norm of it being a private matter. It can be difficult to unwind that defensive mechanism even when faced with a very openly polytheistic setting where the major good guy gods include a Goddess of Being Gay and a God of Doing Crime.

StormySky said:
@Boney Do we need to do Tributary: International (Kislev) again next turn for Kislev to start putting up their own tributaries, or will they start doing that on their own as soon as Boris gets settled?
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It looks like Boris is going to win the social turn, which is probably going to answer questions about his coming plans. If anything's left unclear after that, let me know.
 
Boney said:
The only part of you able to do that is your soul, which exists partially in the Aethyric realm and is able to delve deeper into it, most commonly during dreams. When magic enters a soul, it gets closer to the realm that birthed it, which is what makes magic so powerful and dangerous. Which means that if you pass magic back and forth between your soul and your body at the edge of the slit, sawing back and forth like a cheesewire, then...

With an indescribably unpleasant noise that echoes off the mountains, the tear grows unevenly and jerkily in the direction of your effort of will, widening the hole between reality and the liminal realm. As you circle around it you wince at the uneven shape of it compared to the slit that it had been, but at least it works. It's slightly alarming to create a rent in reality with such a small effort, though it makes sense that it's so much easier to enlarge an existing hole than to tear a new one.
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So @Boney
I've gotten the impression from discussion around the matter that we know that ensouled creatures passing through the entrance regularly, or for example a plant poking from the interior out, will stop a liminal realm from decaying closed.

Do we know that that's the only way to keep the entrance from closing?
For example could an enchanted item pass wind magic back and forth from the outside to the inside and keep it open as long as the item lasts?

I know that there was a single-word answer that accessing closed liminal realms is Daemonology, but do we actually expect that Daemons would be able to get into them?

(I'd started thinking of dumping dangerous stuff in them then closing it off, or dumping immortal or resurrecting enemies in one and sealing it, but that ran into the concern over whether Daemons could easily break in.)
 
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guyfromtheplace1 said:
So @Boney
I've gotten the impression from discussion around the matter that we know that ensouled creatures passing through the entrance regularly, or for example a plant poking from the interior out, will stop a liminal realm from decaying closed.
Do we know that that's the only way to keep the entrance form closing?
For example could an enchanted item pass wind magic back and forth from the outside to the inside?
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Mathilde hasn't tested it, but it doesn't seem likely. One of the major properties of the liminal barrier is that souls can pass through it, this is what dreaming and dying is and how miracles work. The Winds cannot pass freely through the liminal barrier, they require a preexisting hole, and if magical energy passing through a hole was enough to keep it open then any portal to the Warp would be permanent.

guyfromtheplace1 said:
I know that there was a single-word answer that accessing closed liminal realms in Daemonology, but do we actually expect that Daemons would be able to get into them?
(I'd started thinking of dumping dangerous stuff in them then closing it off, or dumping immortal or resurrecting enemies in one and sealing it, but that ran into the concern over whether Daemons could easily break in.)
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Major Daemons would certainly know how, but if they could do it trivially there wouldn't be a reality any more.
 
[X] The Black Water Canal
[X] Druchii Diplomats
[X] Eonir Tourism
[X] Tzar Boris Bokha
[X] Kalishiniviks
[X] Nordland
[X] Middenland
[X] Niedzwenka
[X] Skull River Ambush
 
Boney said:
Major Daemons would certainly know how, but if they could do it trivially there wouldn't be a reality any more.
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This makes the prospect of sealing up stuff in this way as a mini-bolthole or vault slightly more appealing. Just a tad bit, and only probably for nonthinking objects.
 
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Regarding religion, there's also the fact that not having a very developed personal spiritual/religious system IRL at most leads to some depression and/or feeling lost, which can often be offset by having a strong/well-developed general outlook on life, whereas in Warhammer it's directly and quantifiably your primary means of resisting literal hell corruption and/or getting your soul stolen by daemons.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
The Asur would probably press for them to get handed that information honestly. And frankly, they're better situated than the Empire is to use it.
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The asur really are not particularly better suited for ambushing ships right off the coast of the empire and also, quite frankly, the first time it looks like that information is getting to the Asur instead of the empire is the last time we get any of that information because betraying their fellow druchii for a profit is one thing, but betraying their fellow druchii TO THE ASUR is a very different matter that is getting into Actual Treason.

So again, if the asur do try to insist on that, which I do not think they will, I would quite happily write the Asur off.
 
I would like to shill for hitting up at least one of Nordland or Middenland this turn. They've sat on our list of social opportunities for ages, which makes them feel less important, but I think they're getting more important by the turn. Nordland, in particular is a potato hot enough that people were debating spending an EIC AP on infiltrating them, despite having zero network in the area to piggyback off. If we can get intel for the low cost of a social action, I think we should.
BurnNote said:
A very impressive display of skill that also leaves you wondering why anyone would choose to display their skill like that?
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"But that was the bargain - you shod anything they brought to you, anything, and the payment was that you could shoe anything."
 
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reignonyrparade said:
The asur really are not particularly better suited for ambushing ships right off the coast of the empire and also, quite frankly, the first time it looks like that information is getting to the Asur instead of the empire is the last time we get any of that information because betraying their fellow druchii for a profit is one thing, but betraying their fellow druchii TO THE ASUR is a very different matter that is getting into Actual Treason.

So again, if the asur do try to insist on that, which I do not think they will, I would quite happily write the Asur off.
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The Asur have the single greatest navy to sail the Great Ocean, and the Empire's fleet is kind of shit. Plus, the information was supposed to be about the Druchii's enemies, not raiders heading for the Empire specifically, so a lot of what the Empire could do would be "selll the information to the actual target". Also, as logn as the Druchii don't sell it to the Asur directly, I don't think they'll care. It wouldn't even surprise me if the Druchii have done similar thigns before, usign spies in Ulthuan to arrange for their rivals to cross the Asur and get destroyed. The raids are private business after all, not a military operation Malekith would want kept secret.
 
Boney said:
Mathilde hasn't tested it, but it doesn't seem likely. One of the major properties of the liminal barrier is that souls can pass through it, this is what dreaming and dying is and how miracles work. The Winds cannot pass freely through the liminal barrier, they require a preexisting hole, and if magical energy passing through a hole was enough to keep it open then any portal to the Warp would be permanent.
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Could an Elementalist do it with earthbound magic energy instead of wind magic energy?

I mean, I think we know that the holes at the poles are being kept open by something. But those are to the warp, so the rules may be different for warp holes VS liminal holes.

It's occurring to me that if the river bringing fresh water into Karak Vlag was their link to reality their hold's isolation may have been within a liminal realm open to the warp. And I'm wondering whether it was the fish(I think I remember?) they occasionally caught in their underground river, or whether it was some property of the water itself(materiel substance in constant motion? Earthbound magic that's taken the characteristics of materiel substance?), that maintained the connection.
 
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BurnNote said:
A very impressive display of skill that also leaves you wondering why anyone would choose to display their skill like that?
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picklepikkl said:
"But that was the bargain - you shod anything they brought to you, anything, and the payment was that you could shoe anything."
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What Sarvoi will likely never know is that the centipede-shoes are a smokescreen for how we are capable of shoeing a rider-horse so well that you wouldn't believe it's not Daemonology :V.
 
Boney said:
I tried it and it became an uneditable tag so I guess the Gods have spoken, it's there forever now.
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Strange, I've refreshed the page several times, including right before I posted this, but I can't see it on my end. Maybe tags take a while to get out?


On another note, I've found a mention of a young Hedgewise apprentice described as "she's only a child, barely a witness to Halétha's Tears" on p55 of Shades of Empire. Is Halétha's Tears supposed to be some kind of coming-of-age ceremony like the Quickening and Dooming? A reference to the menstrual cycle? Something else? In any case, it does sound kind of Shallya-like.
 
StormySky said:
On another note, I've found a mention of a young Hedgewise apprentice described as "she's only a child, barely a witness to Halétha's Tears" on p55 of Shades of Empire. Is Halétha's Tears supposed to be some kind of coming-of-age ceremony like the Quickening and Dooming? A reference to the menstrual cycle? Something else?
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Yeah, I'd assume something along the lines of the menstrual cycle. The Hedgecraft spell Halétha's Joy makes someone supernaturally fertile and can guarantee a child will be conceived - if it exists here then I'd assume it's related as a figure of speech. Your period as something that's painful, but being able to conceive a child as something to celebrate.
 
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