Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Tomcost]

I've some objections:

• While making a big map of all the waystones of the Old World - not just nexuses - might be doable (if highly classified), a MMAP by itself wouldn't tell anyone whether a particular waystone has fallen more than any regular map would.
• There's a lot of humans, but there aren't that many human wizards. I'd question just how much of a dedicated team we'd be able to put together.
  • Though, at the very least, it seems like there's a good number of Jades and Ambers predisposed to doing so.

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I am talking about a MMAP that interfaces with the Waystones to determine the active, inactive and damaged ones. A pretty big project all on its own.

The wizards might be limited, but you just need them to make repairs. The rest could simply be professional warriors.

 

[Tasoli]

@LightLan IT seem our plans are identical. Which name has primacy?

 

[K von Carstein]

From when we looked at the capital, the big problem was that there wasn't enough jobs to go around, that's why so many were unemployed. It was also more a connections thing. Also, I think a fair guess is that there's going to be at least a few hundred able to cast, similar to the mages able to enchant moderately complicated stuff.

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My point was that there's not that many elf mages, so any one of them wouldn't be unemployed. Magic is very valuable, and you don't want powerful people sleeping in dorm rooms where they can cause troubles. It's also a big stretch to assume the Eonir have hundreds of casters, let alone that aren't already doing something. And Hysh is the most difficult Wind to use for humans, it's very possible it's the same for elves.

Boney has mentioned preciously that it would be politically unfeasible to talk to the tomb kings because while they are not animated by Dhar they look like scary skeletons and it would be too hard to explain that point to the elites never mind the populace. I wanted to bring Khatep in but alas ignorance reigns.

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It's a shame. I would have loved to chat with an immortal Egyptian wizard.

 

[LightLan]

@LightLan IT seem our plans are identical. Which name has primacy?

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I honestly don't care much?

Who posted first?

 

[Tasoli]

My point was that there's not that many elf mages, so any one of them wouldn't be unemployed. Magic is very valuable, and you don't want powerful people sleeping in dorm rooms where they can cause troubles. It's also a big stretch to assume the Eonir have hundreds of casters, let alone that aren't already doing something. And Hysh is the most difficult Wind to use for humans, it's very possible it's the same for elves.

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We already made a deal with House Tindome for work. I imagine finding more wizards would be their responsiibility and they can likely recruit more as needed or get temp workers from allied houses.

I have a feeling you are either underestimating their influance and resources or overestimating the number of Waystones we are going to create. A few dozen or so won't cause them to get overwhelmed considering it doesn't need archmage or anything, just a smidge of High Magic.

I honestly don't care much?

Who posted first?

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Bit Fuzzy, you have a post about the options you want but I named my plan first. So how about a roll of? Roll 1D100 higher wins.

Edit: Meh roll. But lets Ranald Decide.

Tasoli threw 1 100-faced dice. Reason: Plan name Total: 39

 

[Parabola]

I am talking about a MMAP that interfaces with the Waystones to determine the active, inactive and damaged ones. A pretty big project all on its own.

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And how exactly do you intend to make MMAP interface with waystones to determine the active, inactive and damaged ones?

The Teclis interlude makes it sound like even he doesn't have something like that.

 

[BeepSmile]

Imo, the clockwork Foundation and fish Riverine Leyline are the worst choices by far. They require regular maintenance, and the places where waystones are the most needed are the ones where ensuring permanent maintenance will be the most difficult. And we run into the risk of people simply forgetting in a few decades or centuries to continue maintaining it.

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I don't disagree, but I really need us, as a thread, to figure out how we can reasonably involve fish somehow.

 

[LightLan]

Bit Fuzzy, you have a post about the options you want but I named my plan first. So how about a roll of? Roll 1D100 higher wins.

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*shrugs*

alright. Let's do that.

LightLan threw 1 100-faced dice. Reason: Tasoli roll off Total: 94

 

[Alratan]

My point was that there's not that many elf mages, so any one of them wouldn't be unemployed. Magic is very valuable, and you don't want powerful people sleeping in dorm rooms where they can cause troubles. It's also a big stretch to assume the Eonir have hundreds of casters, let alone that aren't already doing something. And Hysh is the most difficult Wind to use for humans, it's very possible it's the same for elves.

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To be honest, we don't know how many elf spellcasters there are. If every elf has the potential to learn to be at least a basic spellcaster, unlike the say, one in a thousand humans, and every elf in Laurelorn has the opportunity to get a magical education, then it's possible that the majority of elves are mages by human standards, capable of casting a small handful of relatively minor spells that help with their general lifestyle or the professions they've worked in.

They wouldn't be wizards by elven standards, people whose main profession was magic, but they still might be capable of making minor enchantments to aid in their day jobs, just like Dragon Princes learn Aqshy spells without it defining who they are.

There may also be many elves who currently haven't chosen to develop their magical talents in that direction because the capability to create minor magic enchantments isn't actually valuable enough in Laurelorn to invest the effort to learn, but if there's suddenly significantly increased demand then the supply of elves capable of it would expand to meet it.

 

[Tasoli]

*shrugs*

alright. Let's do that.

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Ranald has spoken. Neat.

And cheers mate.

 

[Tomcost]

And how exactly do you intend to make MMAP interface with waystones to determine the active, inactive and damaged ones?

The Teclis interlude makes it sound like even he doesn't have something like that.

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I do not know. We did not know how to create a seviroscope either because Mathilde knows, not us.

And Teclis might not have a map because he only has jurisdiction over Ulthuan and if they have not managed to repair their own network then it would be a stretch too far to assume that he could do it abroad.

Still, if it is not feasible we could always have a system of periodic patrols.

 

[deathofrats0808]

My point was that there's not that many elf mages, so any one of them wouldn't be unemployed. Magic is very valuable, and you don't want powerful people sleeping in dorm rooms where they can cause troubles. It's also a big stretch to assume the Eonir have hundreds of casters, let alone that aren't already doing something. And Hysh is the most difficult Wind to use for humans, it's very possible it's the same for elves.

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While it's true that there aren't that many mages, it's worth poitning out that typically speaking there will be a rough parity between the number of Elven Mages and Human Wizards. A higher percentage of their popualtion can wield magic compared to humans.

I don't disagree, but I really need us, as a thread, to figure out how we can reasonably involve fish somehow.

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Nah, that's a bad idea. If you involve fish, at some point it becomes So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

 

[chocolote12]

And how exactly do you intend to make MMAP interface with waystones to determine the active, inactive and damaged ones?

The Teclis interlude makes it sound like even he doesn't have something like that.

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You can at least determine active or inactive with multi-cabling if you're using a physical medium.

Just have a separate status cable alongside the main, and if it's transmitting then the node it's connected to is alive. It could converge tributary information on the local way stones, and way stone information to local monitoring stations.

With the auditory seviroscope a similar phenomenon becomes possible by monitoring ley line activity, and once that information gets transferred into the physical realm we're off to the races on communicating it to central locations.

 

[Redshirt Army]

If the Runic Inductor is really such a sticking point, then I suppose I could go for something like:

[ ] Plan Better Than The Golden Age (Flower Cap)
-[] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[ ] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[ ] [STORAGE] Runed, Moderate
-[ ] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[ ] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Riverine: Jade)

It's important to have the Dwarves on more than just the basic Rune, for politics reasons, and the next best component to push to rune is the storage system, as that seems like something Runecraft should be very well predisposed towards. The main issues here are that it's harder to find a High Magic caster than a runesmith, so it'll limit production, and it doesn't let us get a headstart on working with the reconstructed storage system, but in exchange it most likely will function slightly better and have one fewer potential issue.

...Which, looking at the other plans @picklepikkl has compiled, looks extremely similar to @Derpmind's existing "Building A Better Future" draft - so while I'll still put together my Runic Inductor plan forward, consider me a +1 to that plan once voting starts, rather than further splitting the vote with minor tweaks. In general, I think going for "we can actually surpass the Golden Age collaboration" is the right direction to take this whole project if we can pull it off.

I would like to stay away from the "Expensive" Runed components if we can, though - even beyond the cost savings, that feels like it's going to rely on more exclusive and rare runes, and thus be at significantly greater risk of being lost and not recoverable if the institutional slide of knowledge loss among Runesmiths continues. A more "moderate" runic solution seems like it would still be able to function well and reliably, without being the sort of thing where only a handful of runesmiths can actually produce it. I don't suppose I can convince you to tone that down, @Derpmind ?

 

[Thomasfoolery]

The Teclis interlude makes it sound like even he doesn't have something like that.

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The Teclis interlude indicates to me it's likely the best way to monitor the network is by just stationing people with the necessary senses (Which might not even need to be casters, it seems potentially plausible that windsight alone might be enough) at all the nexuses and have them report on fluctuations.

This won't really work all that well while the network is actively being expanded, but after that, once there's a decent baseline to work with dropoff can probably be reported, which can be collated with information about activity in the region to establish likely causes, and a team can then be sent to investigate.

 

[chocolote12]

It's important to have the Dwarves on more than just the basic Rune, for politics reasons

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It feels like it's deliberately not as good as it could be in pursuit of that effort. I'm certain that we could swing it to salve egos, so I'm not saying that anyone would be mad, but I'm not certain that that's in line with the dwarven ethos.

"I chose the best results for our first run and refused to compromise" would salve their egos just as well, if the result is something a little bit better than the Golden Age works.

 

[Gavin Prince]

It's high magic, but that just means Elves

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Back when it was just Tor Lithanel in the project, the number of high magic wielders available was the twelve Grey Lords and a handful of the Integrationist Houses' most magically-adept retainers that would maybe double that number at best. A substantial bottleneck when we want hundreds of the things.

Now that Ulthuan's on board that number is a fair bit higher. Especially when accounting for Archmages who had previously been working on components for the Saphery Waystones that might be convinced they'd have more free time for personal research if they switch over to doing the same number of Project capstones instead.

Which is to say, Yeah, High Magic!

 

[Derpmind]

If the Runic Inductor is really such a sticking point, then I suppose I could go for something like:

[ ] Plan Better Than The Golden Age (Flower Cap)
-[] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[ ] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[ ] [STORAGE] Runed, Moderate
-[ ] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[ ] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Riverine: Jade)

It's important to have the Dwarves on more than just the basic Rune, for politics reasons, and the next best component to push to rune is the storage system, as that seems like something Runecraft should be very well predisposed towards. The main issues here are that it's harder to find a High Magic caster than a runesmith, so it'll limit production, and it doesn't let us get a headstart on working with the reconstructed storage system, but in exchange it most likely will function slightly better and have one fewer potential issue.

...Which, looking at the other plans @picklepikkl has compiled, looks extremely similar to @Derpmind's existing "Building A Better Future" draft - so while I'll still put together my Runic Inductor plan forward, consider me a +1 to that plan once voting starts, rather than further splitting the vote with minor tweaks. In general, I think going for "we can actually surpass the Golden Age collaboration" is the right direction to take this whole project if we can pull it off.

I would like to stay away from the "Expensive" Runed components if we can, though - even beyond the cost savings, that feels like it's going to rely on more exclusive and rare runes, and thus be at significantly greater risk of being lost and not recoverable if the institutional slide of knowledge loss among Runesmiths continues. A more "moderate" runic solution seems like it would still be able to function well and reliably, without being the sort of thing where only a handful of runesmiths can actually produce it. I don't suppose I can convince you to tone that down, @Derpmind ?

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Similar plans, but I arrived at mine by trying to aim for the most effective Waystone design we could manage. So the expensive runes is part of the intention I was aiming for. Still, it's pretty much splitting hairs, so I'll approval vote this plan here... and regardless, @TotallyNotEvil ended up making the same plan as mine over in this post. Not much point in me changing my plan when I'm not the only one who'll be pushing for that specific set of options.

 

[Alratan]

One thing I've noticed looking at the plans is that I think the spirit options for the riverine Waystones seem very unpopular.

I think that they deserve more consideration. In terms of difficulty we were told:

"Get the river spirit to handle it," Niedzwenka says. "They exist everywhere along it at once, so they can move things from one end to another without having to go through the points in between. Very useful for smuggling. They'd probably ask something that'd be expensive or annoying for an individual, but easy enough for a country."

"It would be easy enough to get the cooperation of the Cults of Grandfather Reik and Altaver," you muse, and Niedzwenka wrinkles her nose in distaste. There are a lot of lesser Gods in the Empire that would be considered merely very powerful spirits in Kislev. "Taal for the Talabec, too. I don't know about the Stir - the River Patrol venerates Manann, so it might be Him, but Manhorak might be making a claim too."

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In terms of outside the Empire, I think Kislev isn't an issue, and for the future the Damsels are probably uniquely capable of wrangling Bretonnian water spirits.

The big thing is that while the Jade or Hedgewise options probably need something to be done at least at each Waystone along the river to push the dhar along beneath it, and may well require tunnelling beneath the river bed, which can be very expensive and difficult depending on the terrain, making a deal with the spirit of a river should be once and done, no matter how many Waystones there are.

This should make a general rollout easier, as we're operating on the scale of a state. Our local experts have told us that it should be easy enough for them.

The other advantage is that the spirit option may produce a better result. With the Jade and Hedgewise options, there'll be a current of dhar flowing in the riverbed beneath the river. That's something that our enemies (skaven and necromancers with the undead labour to dig tunnels in particular) may be able to tap into. That's impossible for the spirit option, as the dhar goes from the source to the destination without passing through the points in between.

As a result I think that a successfully deployed design working with river spirits is strictly superior to the other riverine options as it has one less potential point of failure/weakness to enemy exploitation, if one is disregarding the cost.

 

[Redshirt Army]

As a result I think that a design using the spirit design is strictly superior to the other riverine options as it has one less point of failure/enemy exploitation.

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Hm. It's certainly worth considering - at the very least, it gives an obvious thing for *Kislev* to point to as "their contribution", which would otherwise be missing from the options, so it plays well politically. My real concern is that if we do that... doesn't that mean that the Colleges didn't contribute anything? Although I suppose we could just say "our contribution was that it happened at all, since the project leader was a Lady Magister"...

There's also the concern that the spirit might ask for something to be done over and over again, instead of a "one-and-done", at which point it may inherit all the maintenance issues that we're concerned about regarding the Hedgefolk ritual.

 

[Tasoli]

Back when it was just Tor Lithanel in the project, the number of high magic wielders available was the twelve Grey Lords and a handful of the Integrationist Houses' most magically-adept retainers that would maybe double that number at best. A substantial bottleneck when we want hundreds of the things.

Now that Ulthuan's on board that number is a fair bit higher. Especially when accounting for Archmages who had previously been working on components for the Saphery Waystones that might be convinced they'd have more free time for personal research if they switch over to doing the same number of Project capstones instead.

Which is to say, Yeah, High Magic!

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I think you are overestimating the number of Waystones we are going to build per year. I would be suprised if we ever get over a dozen in a year and that number is well within the means of any single High Magic user which House Tindomiel alone should have tens of on hand before you get to their allies that might help them. More to point if we ever outpace them aswell nothing stopping us bringing more houses or wards to the project.

 

[Alratan]

Hm. It's certainly worth considering - at the very least, it gives an obvious thing for *Kislev* to point to as "their contribution", which would otherwise be missing from the options, so it plays well politically. My real concern is that if we do that... doesn't that mean that the Colleges didn't contribute anything? Although I suppose we could just say "our contribution was that it happened at all, since the project leader was a Lady Magister"...

There's also the concern that the spirit might ask for something to be done over and over again, instead of a "one-and-done", at which point it may inherit all the maintenance issues that we're concerned about regarding the Hedgefolk ritual.

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As you say, the project happened because of the Colleges in the first place. In a sense, they don't need a component to their name, as the overall design as a whole exists because of them.

In terms of what a spirit may ask for, it may effectively request maintenance, but it's less likely to need such regular and such distributed maintenance as the Hedgefolk option rather than something a state can offer something in a more centralised fashion. The other important thing is that it would be a negotiation with the spirit. If they ask for something problematic, we can explain why it's a problem, and offer something else. It's in the interests of the river spirits, I think, for their banks not to be corrupted, and instead be hospitable for potential worshippers/supplicants, and for that to stay the case even if the current population is wiped out so they can more easily be replaced. They're basically people, for example Lorili, the spirit of the Reik seems to have once been married to a high elf, and is recorded as talking to an Imperial scholar about how pissed off with them she is for leaving her.

 

[DragonParadox]

Incidentally we should start thinking of how to explain Hekrati to people in the Empire, at least people who know enough about elf stones to care. In that sense it is very helpful that the Queen put her on the treaty, that means the introduction would be as 'an Eonir Goddess' not 'the Druchi Goddess of magic', but still we are going to have to get ahead of this before we deploy any stones.

 

[Tasoli]

Incidentally we should start thinking of how to explain Hekrati to people in the Empire, at least people who know enough about elf stones to care. In that sense it is very helpful that the Queen put her on the treaty, that means the introduction would be as 'an Eonir Goddess' not 'the Druchi Goddess of magic', but still we are going to have to get ahead of this before we deploy any stones.

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Boney already said that House Tindomiel is going to handle that. Apperantly there is an Empire god out there that is Hekarti in a wig.

 

[Alratan]

Incidentally we should start thinking of how to explain Hekrati to people in the Empire, at least people who know enough about elf stones to care. In that sense it is very helpful that the Queen put her on the treaty, that means the introduction would be as 'an Eonir Goddess' not 'the Druchi Goddess of magic', but still we are going to have to get ahead of this before we deploy any stones.

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The Eonir Goddess who warns of the dangers of magic? That's why she carries a vial or orphans' tears.

Edit: Actually, this has been covered:

The implication is that Hekarti's already worshipped by another name as an accepted God or Goddess of the Empire.

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Hekarti is apparently already legally worshipped in the Empire under another name, and we're probably about to find out who's Hekarti-in-a-hat.