Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Alratan]

It's not a perfect match for generic nomadism, but I doubt it's something that can't be adapted to if stakes are this high. Like, we might get a bunch of cool government-sanctioned cowtroutboys out of the deal.

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The thing is, steppe nomads don't move because they like the lifestyle. They move because their herds eat the vegetation and if they stay in one place their herds and then they will starve, and they can only come back when the land has had the seasons (or years) to recover from their presence.

In Warhammer, the steppe nomads also need safety in numbers. Scattering the tiny penny pockets of men that can permanently live off a settled location in steppe across the land seems like an invitation for them to be eaten by roaming norscan/greenskin/skaven/beastmen raiders.

This makes our Waystones far less vulnerable to several really bad failure conditions. If the forces of chaos destroy all the waystones connecting the empire to Ulthuan by leyline, our Waystones could still function on a backup system. Redundancy is *very important* when dealing with things as critical as this. The Hedgewise method, as much as I love the bag of rocks, isnt the best because it needs upkeep - though I suppose if its just a backup system its not *as* crucial to lack upkeep... the spirit method would also work but I think "Jade Wizard" is easier to access/scale across the continent than "Hag Witch capable of negotiating with riverine spirits", and there is also the unpredictability of exactly what the spirits would demand for this service.

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Note you don't need a Hag Witch to negotiate with a riverine spirit. Priests of a river god can negotiate with their god, and anyone can go and have a chat with a naiad.

Importantly, you only need to negotiate once for each river, while I think you need a Jade Wizard to go to the location of the Waystone to be installed and perform a ritual there as it's being installed. That's a much greater logistical burden than negotiating once with the river as a whole and then install Waystones along the length of it.

The Hedgewise and Jade riverine options have the unique disadvantage that they need a specialist spellcaster from a particular tradition on the ground in the possibly dangerous location the Waystone is being raised. The other options can seemingly be erected by anyone, with only the construction in central locations needing specialsits, which is much easier and less dangerous.

 

[FallenPears]

in addition to a heavy duty one being a potentially more effective proof of concept, I imagine we're also putting the first ones down in crisis points. Your Sylvanias and Praags, your Mordheims and Mousillons. Over engineered, sturdy and fast acting is probably what we want here.

Pointing this out and then designing a cheaper one later for more widespread, low throughput use would seem sensible and straightforward I feel to pretty much anyone.

…and tbh I expect many might shell out for the better one anyway, as a status symbol if anything.

 

[Haerdalas]

Note you don't need a Hag Witch to negotiate with a riverine spirit. Priests of a river god can negotiate with their god, and anyone can go and have a chat with a naiad.

Importantly, you only need to negotiate once for each river, while I think you need a Jade Wizard to go to the location of the Waystone to be installed and perform a ritual there as it's being installed. That's a much greater logistical burden than negotiating once with the river as a whole and then install Waystones along the length of it.

The Hedgewise and Jade riverine options have the unique disadvantage that they need a specialist spellcaster from a particular tradition on the ground in the possibly dangerous location the Waystone is being raised. The other options can seemingly be erected by anyone, with only the construction in central locations needing specialsits, which is much easier and less dangerous.

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Good point on the Spirit method, that makes it much more workable. The main problem there is then what the river spirits would want. I could see this being a decent secondary design option for places where it makes sense and the river spirit isnt asking for anything unreasonable.

That being said, the Jade method doesnt need someone from the Jade college specifically - just someone capable of wielding the Jade wind. The Jade college can do that, but so can elven mages, and so can (iirc) Bretonnian Maidens. Basically anyone with a wind magic tradition that doesnt specifically exclude the Jade Wind for some reason.

 

[DocMatoi]

I just want the bag of rocks
I'm good with most everything else, I just want to fuck with people more. The bag of rocks you slap with a fish will never not be the greatest achievement of all humanity.

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Okay youve sold me on this, I'm now fishpilled. Add in that this provides the hedgewise with the grounds for imperial sanction/official tolerance that they were looking for

 

[mastigos]

[ ] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
Requires a Wind-based Wizard. Moderately difficult, low cost.

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Does this run an increased risk of quality issues slipping through because if the caster misremembers they have no underlying understanding to spot the mistake?

It would, of course, be possible to create several different Waystone designs if you think it would be easier to make multiple Waystones to fit into the varying political and magical requirements of the continent and possibly beyond, but the necessity of making sure each of the components will work in harmony indefinitely means that each one would take just as much effort as this one will.

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I think we probably ARE going to want 3: riverine, leyline, and both. With the combo stones acting as junction points between the two networks of cheaper/easier mono-typed waystones

 

[Somic]

For the very first Waystone, the proof-of-concept one that every member of the Project is engaged in designing, the one made at the (hopefully) lowest point for the nations of Order, I do not mind high costs and cooperation.

Expensive storage makes it faster and more effective at clearing high-chaos areas, and there's a lot of high-chaos areas we would like to clear before the coming Chaos War.

Requiring High Magic and Runesmithing is a bottleneck on numbers, but numbers are less of a problem when we're going for quality, high-impact Waystones.

Requiring friendship is, perhaps, retreading the same path that had eventually led to the loss of knowledge in the war between elves and dwarves, but I like to think that lessons have been learned from that, and more importantly, that right now everyone involved understands the value of cooperation. We can (and I want to) design the cheap version and the single-nation versions after, as much as this is possible, and patch the smaller holes, but this first complete Waystone design is not only a functional solution; it's a symbol. And I want it to be a damn inspiring one.

 

[qwolfs]

Upkeep kills infrastructure. Losing a crucial network node because the local ruler decided to cut maintenance costs or because people forgot where the node was isn't a risk worth taking.

In a similar vein, using Both transmission methods dramatically enhances the resilience of the network. As long as a river or leyline node exists the entire subnetwork connected to it continues to function, if likely at reduced throughput. In theory, it also allows for throughput management, by displacing traffic onto different routes. That is a massive improvement.

Put a different way, every river located way stone should be a Both waystone.

 

[henkalv]

If we make a [ ] [TRANSMISSION] Both stone, then we could line the Reik with it, and if Marienburg ever gets the bright idea to break their nexus in some political brinksmanship then we just flush the continents dhar downriver to Marienburg.

 

[Tobtorp]

while I think you need a Jade Wizard to go to the location of the Waystone to be installed and perform a ritual there as it's being installed.

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I think your wrong on this, I recall the jade option being literally just dropped into the river.

Found the quote:

The Jade Order's showing, appropriately enough is a man-sized menhir that seems like it took more effort to move down here than carving the pattern of flowing lines that covers it, though probably not more than the enchantment within it. When the menhir is planted into the mud at the bottom of the tunnel, the first indication that it's working is the mud drying out as the water from it tries to obey the flow of the river above and pools against the tunnel wall. Dhar, when released, obeys the same inexorable pull and disappears much faster into the wall than previously

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Tochter wasn't even there for the experiment because it involved moving dhar.

 

[DragonParadox]

If we make a [ ] [TRANSMISSION] Both stone, then we could line the Reik with it, and if Marienburg ever gets the bright idea to break their nexus in some political brinksmanship then we just flush the continents dhar downriver to Marienburg.

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I don't think that is likely to happen unless the city gets taken over by Chaos cultists, in which case we have bigger problems. The High Elves will murder any and all people involved in such a decision.

 

[Alratan]

Good point on the Spirit method, that makes it much more workable. The main problem there is then what the river spirits would want. I could see this being a decent secondary design option for places where it makes sense and the river spirit isnt asking for anything unreasonable.

That being said, the Jade method doesnt need someone from the Jade college specifically - just someone capable of wielding the Jade wind. The Jade college can do that, but so can elven mages, and so can (iirc) Bretonnian Maidens. Basically anyone with a wind magic tradition that doesnt specifically exclude the Jade Wind for some reason.

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There is a question about what the river spirits/gods would want, but I think that's something states can and presumably do already manage, as they need to propitiate those gods to stop them messing with riverine trade, etc.

I think your wrong on this, I recall the jade option being literally just dropped into the river.

Found the quote:

Tochter wasn't even there for the experiment because it involved moving dhar.

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Right, I was confusing it with the Tributary.

 

[Tobtorp]

I don't think that is likely to happen unless the city gets taken over by Chaos cultists, in which case we have bigger problems. The High Elves will murder any and all people involved in such a decision.

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It's the good and the bad side of the elf's in Marienburg, that nexus is about as safe as they can manage it but doing that helps the Marienburgers and those bastards are smug about it.

Right, I was confusing it with the Tributary.

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Personally the jade Menhir is just the best option for a dual use waystone, if we are already building on a river we will need to barge up there anyway so bringing the Menhir isn't a big ask. And it's literally just a big rock with carvings at the bottom of the river, hard to steal, hard to destroy, hard to even find.

 

[DocMatoi]

If we make a [ ] [TRANSMISSION] Both stone, then we could line the Reik with it, and if Marienburg ever gets the bright idea to break their nexus in some political brinksmanship then we just flush the continents dhar downriver to Marienburg.

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Ah, Point One of imperial Marine policy rears it's head once more

 

[Alratan]

If riverine waystones are used in the Waystones and it flushes large amounts of magic downstream to Marienberg, their local magical college (and possibly their engineers) may take advantage of the sudden surplus of magic.

Having talked about deliberately induced zhuf-logic before, I do wonder if we make rivers magically saturated whether that will have effects beyond the risks of Dhar. Would it soften reality on and between their banks, possibly passively empowering magical entities or making physical laws work on a more narrative basis?

 

[Boney]

Does this run an increased risk of quality issues slipping through because if the caster misremembers they have no underlying understanding to spot the mistake?

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Maybe, maybe not. Any sort of problems like that would be best revealed by actually building it.

Having talked about deliberately induced zhuf-logic before, I do wonder if we make rivers magically saturated whether that will have effects beyond the risks of Dhar. Would it soften reality on and between their banks, possibly passively empowering magical entities or making physical laws work on a more narrative basis?

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Only at truly bonkers saturation levels, such as in the wake of a storm of magic upstream. Otherwise the amount of Winds present at any given time would be similar to that of ambient levels without Waystones.

 

[Sinsystems]

One thing that should also be kept in mind is that this will also be the thing we can hold over other polities and force them to pay use for.

Which means that once this is done we can basically get Brettonia, Estalia and Tilea to cough up some nice stuff to get their hands on this.

 

[reignonyrparade]

The next portion of the Waystone is the storage mechanism, where Winds are kept before being relayed out. The necessity of this is a product of how Winds are relayed through the Waystone Network, where multiple Winds are put into a stable orbit around a small amount of Dhar, which is then subject to the pull of the Great Vortex, and so a single Wind cannot be sent until a second arrives to counterbalance it. A Waystone that doesn't use the Waystone Network would therefore not require a storage mechanism, which on top of the effort and money savings would result in a Waystone much less able to accumulate dangerous amounts of Dhar if disconnected or malfunctioning. It's also one that would have no stored magic for Wizards to take out of them for their own purposes, but as far as you know only the Jade Wizards have techniques to do so.

Failing that, you have a range of options at different levels of cost and effort required, based on the natural properties of various materials and optionally improved by enchantments or runic enhancements. Egrimm and Elrisse were quite exhaustive in their investigations and there are an uncountably large number of possible combinations, but you can broadly break the options down into a few price points with roughly correlated abilities to absorb magical energies. The greater the storage capacity, the greater an effect the Waystone will have during times of high magical saturation - the cheapest options might have no noticeable effect during a storm of magic and only return things to normality over time, while the dearer options might make an area more able to withstand the immediate effects of a storm of magic or a full Morrsleib.

Finally, the Grey Lords Erithish and Hatalath have recreated the original enchantment of the Waystones, albeit in a monstrously ungainly form. While it is currently a barely-functioning mess, it is likely that cumulative iterations and improvements over the construction of dozens or hundreds of Waystones will make it a lot more manageable.

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Wait a minute. Does this suggest that the FASTEST method of "get rid of the winds during a storm of magic" would be a storageless riverine waystone?

 

[Derpmind]

In any case, the Waystone you design today will hopefully be dotting the landscape of the Old World for centuries to come.

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In complete contrast to this line, I for one am not only willing, but eager to have this merely be the first of several Waystone designs. A Waystone designed to be cheap and mass-produceable, a durable design meant to be deployed into dhar-blasted hellscapes, a reliable design incorporating two transmission methods, a design for the Old Dwarf Road... If this ends up being a one-off or overly expensive/difficult prototype, we still succeeded in our goal and took one step further along this path.

 

[Boney]

Wait a minute. Does this suggest that the FASTEST method of "get rid of the winds during a storm of magic" would be a storageless riverine waystone?

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For a given value of 'get rid of' that doesn't pay any attention to matters downstream, yes.

 

[Alratan]

Wait a minute. Does this suggest that the FASTEST method of "get rid of the winds during a storm of magic" would be a storageless riverine waystone?

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I think, based on what Boney just said, is that you may instead get a localised and concentrated 'Flood of Magic' flowing downstream inside the river, with 'interesting' effects for anyone in or on the banks of the river in question. As major rivers in the Old World are often on or between the banks of rivers, that could tend to move Storms of Magic from locations you don't care about to locations you do.

If we do the riverine approach, we may also need to build Waystones with large amounts of storage inside those cities to act as buffers in case their are sudden surges of magic from Storms of Magic upstream.

 

[DocMatoi]

Wait a minute. Does this suggest that the FASTEST method of "get rid of the winds during a storm of magic" would be a storageless riverine waystone?

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Kislev will love that, then. Probably yvresse too, even though that wouldn't feed the vortex.

In complete contrast to this line, I for one am not only willing, but eager to have this merely be the first of several Waystone designs. A Waystone designed to be cheap and mass-produceable, a durable design meant to be deployed into dhar-blasted hellscapes, a reliable design incorporating two transmission methods, a design for the Old Dwarf Road... If this ends up being a one-off or overly expensive/difficult prototype, we still succeeded in our goal and took one step further along this path.

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The more designs there are, the wider spread the knowledge of creating "A Waystone" will be. The wider spread the knowledge is, the less likely it is to be lost again.

 

[Tobtorp]

Personally I'm not willing to vote to make seven different kinds of waystones for every occasion. A) will that be boring as all hell to read and B) is that spreading resources thin for not much gain.
We do actually need to build all those waystones that dot the landscape and making 7 different designs is bad for how fast and cheaply we can do that.
Standardization is the name of the game with this shit.

 

[picklepikkl]

If you assume that your understanding of the matter is complete and accurate, then you would be correct.

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You did and they shrugged. They probably wouldn't be here if they still had the level of understanding that completely rebuilt the Waystone network within Kislev.

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Hrm. I'm beginning to feel that if we wanted to prioritize Kislev, we may have erred by not checking out their network. Ah well, spilt milk.

Consequently, I think the best approach for our first Waystone is a relatively simple and cheap Leyline model. That way, we can take one and just check if it works in Kislev, and if it does then we're in great shape to just roll out tons. If not, then we need to take a closer look in the future and in the meantime can deploy it in other places.

Most of the time the Winds' tendency to naturally repel each other would be sufficient to prevent the creation of Dhar, when multiple Winds are present in large amounts and being absorbed by a Waystone incorporating this component, more of it would be transmitted downstream as Dhar than would be the case for the other two components.

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Missing "but" before "when multiple Winds"

or a full Morrsleib

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Morrslieb

unload that task unto someone else.

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unto->onto

incorporate a number of Wind-sensitive materials to do fulfil the purpose

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Extraneous "do"

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Personally I'm not willing to vote to make seven different kinds of waystones for every occasion. A) will that be boring as all hell to read and B) is that spreading resources thin for not much gain.
We do actually need to build all those waystones that dot the landscape and making 7 different designs is bad for how fast and cheaply we can do that.
Standardization is the name of the game with this shit.

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Seven is definitely too many, but coming up with a couple of different designs for different areas or situations still seems reasonable...especially if the version we come up with this time doesn't go combined Riverine/Leyline.

 

[reignonyrparade]

For a given value of 'get rid of' that doesn't pay any attention to matters downstream, yes.

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I think, based on what Boney just said, is that you may instead get a localised and concentrated 'Flood of Magic' flowing downstream inside the river, with 'interesting' effects for anyone in or on the banks of the river in question. As major rivers in the Old World are often on or between the banks of rivers, that could tend to move Storms of Magic from locations you don't care about to locations you do.

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Obviously not without consequence, but as a strategic considering, might be selectively worth it.

Broadly speaking the forces of chaos get more of a boost from a storm of magic than the forces of order do, whether or not a bunch of "no storm of magic for you" leylines across Northern Kislev is worth an increased rate of mutation in erengrad is a decision best made by the institutions of kislev itself, but as an informed decision there's value in giving them the option.