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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Sculpt0r said:
On the subject of duels, when Eike's getting close to journeymanlinghood, would it make sense to put together a series of challenges to assess her readiness? Kind of like a 1-woman Magister exam?

Spitballing:

Dip: ???

Mar: painted (dulled) sword duel, 'draw blood' against us while we're blindfolded?

Ste: EIC thing? Ask Wilhelmina? Idk.

Int: With EIC support, create a spy network in the region or organization of your choice

Pty: Find a maximally useful thing for a Shallyan chapter, and help them with it?
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I like the tone of these but I think that asking her to make her own spy network is a little too advanced for a starting Journeyman.

Sculpt0r said:
Lrn: Learn a Relatively Simple or Moderately Complicated spell of your choice, but surprise us (Johann to help vet her choice).

Mage: Successfully cast the above RS/MC spell, and also Shadowsteed.
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There really aren't enough low level Ulgu spells to surprise anyone with and Johann would not know enough to advise anyway
 
I honestly think trying to steal the coin from us is a cool test for Eike. The point is not succeeding, the point is her trying her best against a seemingly impossible opponent.
 
Spend the Orb credit and both great deeds on changing the names of the colleges. Going forwards, they're now officially:
College of...
GoldMetal
AmberAnimals
LightTruth
BrightHeat
GreyIllusion
JadeLife
AmethystDeath
CelestialEmpyrean
 
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DragonParadox said:
I like the tone of these but I think that asking her to make her own spy network is a little too advanced for a starting Journeyman.



There really aren't enough low level Ulgu spells to surprise anyone with and Johann would not know enough to advise anyway
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1) She is scheduled to start developing a working relationship with the Hochlander this turn, and I did say 'with EIC support' :p.

2) it's less about advising and more about him making sure she has carte blanche within reason. She has a small tendency towards hubris (as per her inner dialogue), and I'd be a bit wary of her trying to learn Dread Aspect and turning her brain inside out
 
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Gavin Prince said:
Spend the Orb credit and both great deeds on changing the names of the colleges. Going forwards, they're now officially:
College of...
GoldMetal
AmberAnimals
LightTruth
BrightHeat
GreyIllusion
JadeLife
AmethystDeath
BlueEmpyrean
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Took me a moment, well done.

Whoever suggested "Mathilde" as the character name deserves an award, we've got many jokes out of it.
 
Alratan said:
It's massive counting of chickens, but I was wondering what we might ask for as favours from the Colleges if they do reward us for the Orbs:

Light: Partner agreement with the Ancient Library of Carroburg
Gold: Alchemy lessons for Eike
Jade: instruction on how Dwellers Below work
Celestial: ?
Grey: ?
Amethyst: ?
Bright: Any information they have on von Tarnu enchanting and turning techniques
Amber: instruction on how the various summoning spells they know work

The summoning spells is to see if they have other variants on summoning than apparitions or other techniques which can be combined with the ones we learned from the Golds to improve Apparition binding.
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Boney has stated before that the Golds will never give away their knowledge of alchemy, since it's basically the main source of power/wealth of their Order, much like the Grey Order's spy networks is one of the things that makes them so scary.

And I'm not sure I'd be fully behind getting the knowledge of the Dwellers Below or the various crow spells. If they're Apparition-based too then it might help a bit with making further Apparition spells, but I feel like the benefit might be marginal; if they're not Apparition-based, then it's possible their insights are not applicable to what we want (i.e. maybe the Ambers really did make a pact with a weird spirit called Corvus the Crowlord and that only works because the Amber wind is related to animal spirits). On top of this, we'd probably have to spend actions learning these secrets just as we did with Gehenna's Hounds. That's quite an investment. And I think I'd prefer asking the Jades to prioritize Sylvania for draining it of taint - we know they have such methods, and even after installing waystones we're still looking at a province's worth of horrors.

Re: the Brights, I was under the impression Von Tarnus was just a really good enchanter and staff-turner in general, I don't think the Brights necessarily have some super secret hidden techniques that they never shared with anyone. I would push for the idea of super-enchanting our Gyrocarriage. Make it the reddest flying machine to ever exist - with an inexhaustible engine, immunity to fire attacks or overheating, capacity to shit out fireballs as commanded by Adela, and generally making it inspiring to allies and terrifying to enemies.

I agree with getting the Ancient Library of Carroburg, though, and with Ergosum's suggestion of asking what the hell Hexensohn was up to in Drakenhof. That's not quite a white whale, but it's definitely been bugging us since forever.

If we can't agree on anything for some of the orders, we could always go 'hey please lend us military support for when we take back the lost nexuses'. Some of these locations could really use a lot of wizardly firepower.
 
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Alratan said:
It's massive counting of chickens, but I was wondering what we might ask for as favours from the Colleges if they do reward us for the Orbs:

Light: Partner agreement with the Ancient Library of Carroburg
Gold: Alchemy lessons for Eike
Jade: instruction on how Dwellers Below work
Celestial: ?
Grey: ?
Amethyst: ?
Bright: Any information they have on von Tarnu enchanting and turning techniques
Amber: instruction on how the various summoning spells they know work

The summoning spells is to see if they have other variants on summoning than apparitions or other techniques which can be combined with the ones we learned from the Golds to improve Apparition binding.
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Here's a list I came up with months ago but shared recently:
LawsOfRobotics said:
For the Morb boon/reward I was thinking we might get a moderate boon from each college. Here are some ideas I brainstormed a while back:
KAU access to the Ancient Library of the Light Order
Money to buy everything we want in Lothern from the Golds
The Celestials enchant our gyrocopter
The Jades develop a mushroom for a Waaagh detector
Help from the Brights developing Incite Conflict
The Greys stop charging us favor for the Hochlander
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But the most important one is from an older version:
LawsOfRobotics said:
Literal headpats from Dragomas in Dragon form
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Alratan said:
It's massive counting of chickens, but I was wondering what we might ask for as favours from the Colleges if they do reward us for the Orbs:

Light: Partner agreement with the Ancient Library of Carroburg
Gold: Alchemy lessons for Eike
Jade: instruction on how Dwellers Below work
Celestial: ?
Grey: ?
Amethyst: ?
Bright: Any information they have on von Tarnu enchanting and turning techniques
Amber: instruction on how the various summoning spells they know work

The summoning spells is to see if they have other variants on summoning than apparitions or other techniques which can be combined with the ones we learned from the Golds to improve Apparition binding.
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We could ask for a crash course on cathyan diplomacy from Dragomas, rather than the amber order's summoning spells.

That seems like something which would be worth spending a portion of our favor on, if we ever plan on working with the Cathayans. (And given our xeno-diplomacy and desire to spread waystones knowledge everywhere I really hope we do)
 
It's possible that it ends up being a basketload of College Favour rather than a premium currency. A great exchange rate on the conversion the first time around, and a more reasonable bounty going forwards.

I don't know what we'd do with 100+ CF, though, if an orb is worth three or more powerstones. Beyond maybe hiring a bunch of magisters to throw at something. Pegasus petting zoo?
 
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Sculpt0r said:
1) She is scheduled to start developing a working relationship with the Hochlander this turn, and I did say 'with EIC support' :p.

2) it's less about advising and more about him making sure she has carte blanche within reason. She has a small tendency towards hubris (as per her inner dialogue), and I'd be a bit wary of her trying to learn Dread Aspect and turning her brain inside out
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Oh you want him to be the one to sign over the spells? I think for that we can just leave a note with the Greys about what class of spell Eike is allowed to pull. Or hell we can just make her scrolls of all the spells we deem safe enough.
 
French Cowboy said:
We could ask for a crash course on cathyan diplomacy from Dragomas, rather than the amber order's summoning spells.

That seems like something which would be worth spending a portion of our favor on, if we ever plan on working with the Cathayans. (And given our xeno-diplomacy and desire to spread waystones knowledge everywhere I really hope we do)
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I'm pretty sure Boney has stated before that while we may be capable of going to Cathay, we at least need a hook to justify the investment of time and effort on his end. Even just the preparations for going are probably worth a turn or two's worth of actions.

I wouldn't support Cathayan diplomacy unless Boney gave the okay of going somehow. Maybe as our next big story arc?
 
Parabola said:
Regardless of whether or not we would have the capacity to obtain a full-on airship either via deeds or via wealth, I don't think it'd be worth it for Mathilde specifically. An airship might have more carrying capacity, but Mathilde doesn't exactly need to transport large amounts of people that often - the gyrocarriage has been more than enough so far

Also, I feel like we'd probably need a dedicated crew for it, not just a single pilot. I'd rather improve our gyrocarriage first.

Speaking of which... @Boney if we wanted to enchant the gyrocarriage, does it all count as one large object that needs to be enchanted in one go, or does Mathilde think we could enchant multiple parts of it separately (such as, say, putting Stoke the Forge on the engine, and then on a later turn, creating some sort of Fireball-mechanism usable from the pilot cabin so Adela can use fire while piloting)? Or is this something that may require an action to fully investigate?

My instinct is 'as every other enchantment, you enchant everything you want all at once', but for something like this I feel like it may be worth asking anyway.
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It could be done either way, but not both ways. The two approaches would have different advantages and disadvantages.

Parabola said:
On a related note, do we know if there's a formal place the Patriarchs/Matriarchs use as a neutral meeting ground (outside of the Obsidian Hall, which is only for the Supreme duels)?

Most of the time we meet our colleagues either in their own Colleges or in casual settings - for instance, we met Choirmaster Stephen in a cafe near the Light College, and Mira in the Tempelgarten.
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There's a lot of reasons not to have all eight leaders of the Colleges of Magic meet somewhere outside of the defences of any of the individual Colleges. If necessary the Supreme Patriarch can borrow a room from the Palace.

Ergosum said:
Speaking of the Supreme Patriarch/Matriarch: any LM can challenge Dragomas during the 'election' and if they win, they become SP/SM. Do they become Magister Patriarch/Matriarch of their own Order? As in, if (say) Mathilde won the duel, would Algard step down and put her in charge of the Greys?
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Not automatically.
 
Parabola said:
I'm pretty sure Boney has stated before that while we may be capable of going to Cathay, we at least need a hook to justify the investment of time and effort on his end. Even just the preparations for going are probably worth a turn or two's worth of actions.

I wouldn't support Cathayan diplomacy unless Boney gave the okay of going somehow. Maybe as our next big story arc?
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That's fair, with elfcation coming up, a Cathay trip doesn't look like it's in the cards for a while.

I hope it's something we can do a while after Elfcation, because I really would like to see Boney's take on it especially with the new lore from total war. But it is a lot to ask for a DM to do so much world building, and I suspect it's part of why we've not really interacted a ton with Araby or Ind either.

In a lot of ways, for me, this quest is more Warhammer fantasy than any of the other books on it I've read. It just makes more internal sense and yet still feels like the world is expansive and full of conflict. (And generally better written.)
 
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GrimTheMad said:
I highly doubt we'll get individual favors from each college, that sounds like a voting and book keeping nightmare.
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Admittedly, it does seem like the sort of thing where we'd get a vote like with Feldmann or Boris/Eltharion, where the more things we ask for, the less impressive each thing is.

That's the sort of vote that would lend itself well to asking for something huge like 'hey help me reclaim nexuses' or 'please save me up ten actions in covering the rest of the provinces with tributaries'.
 
Ergosum said:
Speaking of the Supreme Patriarch/Matriarch: any LM can challenge Dragomas during the 'election' and if they win, they become SP/SM. Do they become Magister Patriarch/Matriarch of their own Order? As in, if (say) Mathilde won the duel, would Algard step down and put her in charge of the Greys?
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Mopman43 said:
Canon-wise at least, Gelt became Supreme Patriarch several years before he became Patriarch of the Gold Colleges (which happened when Feldmann disappeared).
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Canon flip-flops on the subject, because while Realms of Sorcery says that Gelt was Supreme Patriarch while Feldmann was Gold Patriarch Winds of Magic says that Gelt was already Gold Patriarch at the time when Gormann was Supreme. As far as I know there are no other examples of someone being Supreme Patriarch but not Patriarch of their own order.
 
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Parabola said:
Admittedly, it does seem like the sort of thing where we'd get a vote like with Feldmann or Boris/Eltharion, where the more things we ask for, the less impressive each thing is.

That's the sort of vote that would lend itself well to asking for something huge like 'hey help me reclaim nexuses' or 'please save me up ten actions in covering the rest of the provinces with tributaries'.
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I mean if they could cover ten provinces with tributaries wouldn't they already be doing it? I hasten to add that I am not suggesting compilation, just pointing out that this is easy, highly profitable work since a lot of imperial stakeholders of various kind have a vested interest in ensuring that said ten provinces are not filled with Dhar. I think the things that make the most sense to ask for would be low maintenance like knowledge.

That said it will probably be a while until that vote comes up as the winning plan this turn only does 1/2 of the book so the conversation is pretty premature. We do not know that kinds of things Mathilde will want in a turn and change.
 
DragonParadox said:
That said it will probably be a while until that vote comes up as the winning plan this turn only does 1/2 of the book so the conversation is pretty premature. We do not know that kinds of things Mathilde will want in a turn and change.
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That's assuming the thread votes to hold off on presentation til we finish writing the book on Aethyric Vitae. Otherwise, orb presentation could happen as soon as immediately after the next update.
 
DragonParadox said:
True, but given how hard the push-back was to get some help with the AV book, I don't think handing those out without the book being done has any chance at passing.
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I don't know, there might be an upwelling of thread frustration that wants it over with and the headpats now, rather than maybe next turn.

Like, I'm fully on board with waiting a turn for maximum flex (I'm a little sad we couldn't finish the book on the same turn we're making a waystone, that's the real villainy of the birb, he delayed our flex by a turn and messed up the timing), but I'm aware that my viewpoint probably isn't universal.
 
French Cowboy said:
That seems like something which would be worth spending a portion of our favor on, if we ever plan on working with the Cathayans. (And given our xeno-diplomacy and desire to spread waystones knowledge everywhere I really hope we do)
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There´s been some impetus in trying to keep away from Cathay, because that means Boney would have to start laying groundwork to go there, and thats a pretty tall ask if we are not really interested on going full fucking hog on that.

Also, i think Dragomas´s insight into Cathayan diplomacy is just "be as dragon like as possible"

Edit: Well now i see someone already brought it up. dang.
 
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