- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is a very good plan, and I agree with your reasoning completely. It's also the same plan I made, though perhaps with a better name.
Wanna settle on your plan name, or mine? Rock paper scissors, maybe?
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
... But they wouldn't be. It'd just be the elves responsible for it.
It doesn't add one, it swaps one for three. The Light college wouldn't be responsible anymore. And for mass deployment, having something be simple instead of moderately complicated is a huge win.
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Not sure we even need wizards. Anyone can just go up to the naiad of the Reik and ask for her permission, the same as anyone can ask a dryad something. Similarly, any priest and probably any worshipper of a river god can just pray to them.
The other advantage of the spirit approach is that it doesn't seem to require digging a tunnel under the river bed to keep the dhar away from the water, which the other two seem to. That's actually a very challenging and incredibly expensive thing to do in many terrains, and would make it take much longer to install a Waystone than the other approachs, where they can just be dropped off the side of a boat.
There also isn't a 'human side'. There's an Empire side, with its internal factions, a Kislev side, with its, and in future other human nations like Bretonnia.
Both Kislev and Bretonnia are probably just as unhappy or more to have a dependency on the Empire as they would be to have one on Ulthuan or Laurelorn, neither of whom they share a border with, as they are to be dependent on the Empire, particularly given that the Empire ruled or claimed parts of their countries in the memories of some of their leadership.
In particular, Damsels can build a Grey Lord foundation. They can't build a Light magic one.
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Im in the camp of trying for a river-based prototype for immediate deployal. The two areas in most need of waystone right now are Kislev, especially the troll country and Sylvania.
Its the most good we can do in the shortest time and the thing that produces the most immediate results that keep people invested. Especially those taking a shorter view regarding potential payoffs and needing help right now.
Its the most good we can do in the shortest time and the thing that produces the most immediate results that keep people invested. Especially those taking a shorter view regarding potential payoffs and needing help right now.
Also of note, it's 'bad juju' for Collegiate Wizards. The Damsels, for example, may not care.
She isn't the only person who can beat the shit out of a river spirit. There are Magisters and other heroes in the Empire who could probably bully the naiad of the Reik, for example, into compliance.
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- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If we had a means of manufacturing waystone gold, we could replace the Vlag-sourced runesmiths and have a method to create waystones without needing any magical expertise at all. No idea if a non-magical or scalable means of making that material is even possible, but it'd look something like this:
[] Not-Plan Mass Production Version
-[N/A] [CAPSTONE] Waystone Gold Capstone
-[] [RUNE] Carved
-[] [STORAGE] Material (Cheap)
-[] [FOUNDATION] Clockwork
-[] [TRANSMISSION] Leyline
- Location
- Space
I feel like the play for the Light College option is to have the college itself retain the knowledge somewhere secret, but only ever have elves do the labor for it for as long as that remains possible. It's not collegiate wizards working with dhar, it's elves doing it which is fine.
The problem with your example is that a) you wouldn't deal with the nayads but grandfather reik himself which might be better or worse depending how you see it and b) that quite a few river Spirits in the empire are seen as minor gods, and beating them up gets the local population riled up i think.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
It's bad because it restricts the ability to make it to 1/8th of all human and elf mages, except for the Bretonnians who have 0% of their mages that can cast that.
The big flaw is the need for weekly update, which is something that any army of gribblies can disrupt by its very presence.
Yeah, but then yo would tell to the Lights "well, you see the technique you invented? You can't use it ever, but we will teach it tp elves and make them do it instead". It also doesn't resolve the problem of diminishing the available manpower to do it.
Yeah, but less mages who can do it is a huge loss.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
If the pile of rocks could work all by itself it would be a fairly clear winner. However if the cheap and easy option has to be a attached to a complex and expensive option that really limits the value.
Grandfather Reiks may well be Lorili, Naiad of the Reik, wearing a false beard, and so be accessible for someone going to the island of Lorlay she apparently lives on and dealing with her in person. Whether that's by paying or not.
Of course that may annoy the local population, but then again, given the rest of the naiad entry in WFRP Companion 2E, they may applaud. ANd that goes for making peace or war.
The other disciplining factor on river spirits of the Empire is that (the Cult of ) Taal has a history of liquidating and assimilating nature gods including river gods, and with more imperial support may feel like reviving the practice. You don't need to threaten that, but a guarantee that it won't be allowed in future may be valuable to them.
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
In most sources, he's also the guy that made Volans' staff, the +2 Magic Staff that's effective for wizards of any Wind.
(And he made the Silver Seal that's now part of the imperial regalia)
The Colleges have had many accomplishments in the last 2 centuries but I'm not sure they've had another enchanter the equal of Von Tarnus.
- Location
- Finland
So now you are suggesting we try to bully Taal?
It's a bold strategy Cotton, let's see if it pays off for them.
And 0% of Kislevite mages.
No, I'm suggesting that the historical threat of Taal eating them/their cults acts as an implicit restraint on how far other river gods/spirits can push things.
I think that Taal's Cult would be willing and able to persuade their god to play ball, given both of their characters and history.
Given all the places we want to put waystones, we're going to need more than one design. Lets plan them out, then try to make the most reasonable one. Here's the options I see, sorted by where they would go
1. Empire/Elvish waystone, leylines.
2. Kislev waystone
3. Dwarf waystone
The goal with the dwarf waystone is to extend the Karaz Ankor network out to the new holds, maybe give them tributaries if they want them. Regardless, we can't make that yet. So we're left with the other two.
We can't currently connect new waystones to the Kislev network, so we can either try to figure it out or use the riverine. Either way, let's try to make a 'standard' one first.
That leaves us with the empire version, which I like this variant of.
[] Political success, moderate cost
-[ ] [CAPSTONE] Collegiate Fascis
-[ ] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[ ] [STORAGE] [Moderate] Runed
-[ ] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[ ] [TRANSMISSION] Leyline
It's a good 'production" waystone that gets tiled across the empire and a bit beyond, letting us get started before we move to the more advanced applications.
1. Empire/Elvish waystone, leylines.
2. Kislev waystone
3. Dwarf waystone
The goal with the dwarf waystone is to extend the Karaz Ankor network out to the new holds, maybe give them tributaries if they want them. Regardless, we can't make that yet. So we're left with the other two.
We can't currently connect new waystones to the Kislev network, so we can either try to figure it out or use the riverine. Either way, let's try to make a 'standard' one first.
That leaves us with the empire version, which I like this variant of.
[] Political success, moderate cost
-[ ] [CAPSTONE] Collegiate Fascis
-[ ] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[ ] [STORAGE] [Moderate] Runed
-[ ] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[ ] [TRANSMISSION] Leyline
It's a good 'production" waystone that gets tiled across the empire and a bit beyond, letting us get started before we move to the more advanced applications.
Just to highlight something, I think that we've historically underestimated the contribution of the Grey Lords. It seems like they've developed two enchantments (and spells those enchantments are based on?), both their reverse engineered storage and their foundation, that are polyseveric. That's an astonishing achievement.
There's another potential benefit to choosing them here. If they teach humans how to do these, and the storage enchantment is eventually refined to be more accessible to human enchanters, those same components may become very valuable to use within large scale magic items like towers and battle altars - and would be available to enchanters from all the Colleges.
I'm less sure how the foundation can be adapted, but I can certainly see how the enchanter or just about any tower would really value being able to make what's effectively a battery enchantment. Yes, it wouldn't be accessible immediately, but after multiple generations of refinement it could become a core part of advanced Collegiate enchanting practice.
There's another potential benefit to choosing them here. If they teach humans how to do these, and the storage enchantment is eventually refined to be more accessible to human enchanters, those same components may become very valuable to use within large scale magic items like towers and battle altars - and would be available to enchanters from all the Colleges.
I'm less sure how the foundation can be adapted, but I can certainly see how the enchanter or just about any tower would really value being able to make what's effectively a battery enchantment. Yes, it wouldn't be accessible immediately, but after multiple generations of refinement it could become a core part of advanced Collegiate enchanting practice.
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K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Yeah, it's a good thing we did the Project in Laurelorn. They were hugely helpful.
Did Zlata was of any help? I don't remember her contributing.
She acted as someone who Baba Niedzwenka could dunk on without offending members of the project with larger and more delicate egos?
- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The maintenance of the rocks/fish option is a big negative in the large-scale and the long-term, but some are over-catastrophising it a little as being disastrous on the small scale and short term too. "An army passing through" stops it, yeah, but an individual waystone being turned off for a few weeks isn't a disaster, so long as the army moves on again. The ritual can be resumed and it'll start right back up again. An area won't go from regularly-drained to Sylvania in that span.
To be clear, I still don't think it's the best option, for the aforementioned large-scale/long-term issues.
To be clear, I still don't think it's the best option, for the aforementioned large-scale/long-term issues.
Her main achievement was supporting Aksel in making the Hedgewise Tributary. We don't know how she helped or how useful she was, because those rolls were hidden, but we do know that Ranald also helped them, because that's where the Gambler bonus went to on that action.
Also someone is going to make a comment about Zlata and Aksel being involved with each other, and I just want to get ahead of that by saying that I'm fairly sure Aksel is old enough to be Zlata's father, and that I think their main connection was their shared faith in Haletha/Kalita (Zlata comes from a merchant family and thought she was going to be a trader before she joined the Ice Court).
I'd still rather take the simple Light Magic based enchantement!
There are plenty of other things to do for other colleges be it : other parts of the Waystone, Tributaries, Possible parts of nexuses or even just their normal waystone non-related activities.
Sure, it gives quite a bit of prestige and political power to the Light College. But then, the WERE one of the main participants to the project in term of contribution, so I don't mind rewarding them. Hell, leading such a project might be a nice sinecure for Egrimm as a capable enchanter. I'd rather have one dedicated college getting all the credit for that part but being fully dedicated to it than having a vague enchantement that anyone talented enough to cast medium complexity enchantements (those people are valuable ressources) can do but no one really responsible for it.
Plus, it's not like depending on Light Wizards is such a huge liability anyway. The Light College won't stop to exist for no reason and I don't see why they would try to sabotage an endeavour that would get them plenty of prestige and funding.
TLDR : The Light Enchantement rewards an important contributor of the WP by providing them with prestige and influence. In exchange, the Light College has to dedicate/grow their enchanting capabilities but this can use potentially low-leveled enchanters.
The bigger issue is, I think, things like seasonal changes, when every winter the Ungols move their herds south to pasture where the temperature is high enough for grass to grow, and then that entire region of the Waystone network stops working for months.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Do we have any evidence either way of if this is a thing?