Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Alratan]

For those voting for the Jade riverie enchantment, I do ask you to consider the issues with making flows of dhar that will likely pass through the ceilings of major skaven lairs, ripe for them to tap into...

Although it's dependent on negotiating with spirits, if that is done the spirit riverine option should be significantly superior, requiring less work for the Waystone itself and producing a better result as the dhar is teleported away rather than passing through the earth where skaven or enterprising necromancers can get their grubby paws on it.

May I ask you to spoiler that? IT is a bit big.

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I have, but the problem is that now lots of people may not realise it's even there.

Waystones. And there seem to be something like roughly 20 enchanters that can do the work with no answers given how many actually they have. Thinking about it if they can creat 10 stones per year that is 200 stones per year and in 10 years Empire would be covered which is fairly reasonable timeline. We might want to create Dwarven variation to increase the output if we want that.

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And we probably aren't limited to Laurelorn's high mages either.

 

[Ergosum]

The Empire alone is going to need between one and two thousand new Waystones. Add Kislev. Add Bretonnia. Add Estalia and Tilea and as much of the Border Princess as Gretel can conquer. Ballpark it as ten thousand. Ten Thousand Waystones. Just for the Old World.

And Laurelorn can scrape together 20 people capable of making Stone Flowers. The only other potential source is Ulthuan, except they have their own concerns and their own Waystones.

If we want enough progress to matter within the next few decades we are going to need the more mass-production friendly option.

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It's a relatively simple enchantment though. If we had five mages with each doing five of these every day, we'd be finished in just 400 days. About a year and a month of work. Ten mages doing two each day, and we'd be done in less than a year and a half. I don't think that's much of a bottleneck.

 

[Tasoli]

And we probably aren't limited to Laurelorn's high mages either.

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I doubt we can get Ulthan to work with us on this. Eonir has to teach them how to make Stone Flower first after all. But we can create another Waystonde design with Runic cap and practially double the output by undoing the bottleneck.

 

[Tobtorp]

For those voting for the Jade riverie enchantment, I do ask you to consider the issues with making flows of dhar that will likely pass through the ceilings of major skaven lairs, ripe for them to tap into...

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The skavens are ambitious yes, but their not stupid enough to dig their tunnels a meter under the nearest river... Or if they are that's a self-solving problem in that their tunnels get flooded...

 

[Alratan]

Facis is better how? You need 8 enchanters to do the work I doubt collages can spare even 16 of them and we don't know how many Eonir can scrape up. I don't think Fascis is that much faster than Stone Flower.

20 enchanters can create 200 stones per year and can cover Empire in 10 years.

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That's a good point, Laurelorn has twenty high mages willing to make Stone Flowers, but there may be Colleges that don't have twenty enchanters who can be dedicated to make their portion of the Facis enchantment.

The skavens are ambitious yes, but their not stupid enough to dig their tunnels a meter under the nearest river... Or if they are that's a self-solving problem in that their tunnels get flooded...

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I'm pretty sure the skaven are in fact that 'stupid'. And probably capable of doing so with what they consider an acceptable degree of safety if thr reward is tapping into an ever renewed flow of Dhar. These are skaven that can build lairs underground within marshes, it's where they come from, so by their standards this is something of a solved problem.

Remember that we prototyped these components by digging just such a tunnel underneath the riverbed to put the menhir and pile of rocks in place. If we can do it, so can they. In fact, there's a chance that everytime we put a riverine waystone in place we'll have to dig another such tunnel beneath the riverbed.

As a result, I think that we can be confident that the skaven can dig beneath the riverbed to intercept the dhar flow.

Edit: also, where do you get that the flow of dhar is one meter below the riverbed?

 

[Deathbybunnies]

Did Boney say Waystones, or did he say tributaries?

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It was in the last couple of days - they estimated the Empire as a whole needed 4000, and that half to three quarters of that currently exist. I'm pretty sure it was Waystones, I'll go find the quote.

 

[K von Carstein]

Keep in mind this is for absolutely full coverage... We really don't need full coverage in a decade... Hell as long as all population centers are protected we still did excellent...

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That last part is incorrect. The entire point of the Network is to be spread as far and wide as possible, to catch a maximum of Dhar. It's better if it covers more area, not more people. And it's a pre-industriaal world, most of the population doesn't live in cities but in villages read around the countryside.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

Did Boney say Waystones, or did he say tributaries?

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Here:

Do we have an idea of how many waystones we need for a given area? Because if the average province has like 20 waystones, that very different from it having 200 or 2000.

If we only need to make like 25 waystones for all of Sylvania then only having like 20 elves capable of making the capstone is way less of a big deal than if we need to make 2000.

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Back-of-the-envelope maths say the Empire would need about four thousand total for full coverage, so about 300-400 per province. It's probably safe to assume that somewhere between half to three quarters of those are already in place.

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So yeah, we're not getting that done within the decade. We can comfortably make a specialised Waystone and assume that its niche won't be filled for the Empire alone in the next few years, never mind everyone else as well.

 

[henkalv]

The stone flower can only be made by high mages, while the college fascies can be made both by high mages and human enchanters, while being somewhat more difficult and costly.

 

[DragonParadox]

It's a relatively simple enchantment though. If we had five mages with each doing five of these every day, we'd be finished in just 400 days. About a year and a month of work. Ten mages doing two each day, and we'd be done in less than a year and a half. I don't think that's much of a bottleneck.

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Keep in mind Mathilde, a wizard with both the skill and the trait to be a good enchanter makes one Ulgu Enchantment per month (it costs an AP). Even if 'simple' high magic enchantments are faster I do not expect they are orders of magnitude faster, maybe one per week if we are lucky.

 

[Tasoli]

The stone flower can only be made by high mages, while the college fascies can be made both by high mages and human enchanters, while being somewhat more difficult and costly.

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Human wizards are few in number so I can't for example claim that Collages can spare more enchanters than Eonir can spare High Mages. So I don't think number wise difference is going to be that big.

We need different designs that uses all 3 if we want maximum waystones.

 

[Tobtorp]

That last part is incorrect. The entire point of the Network is to be spread as far and wide as possible, to catch a maximum of Dhar. It's better if it covers more area, not more people. And it's a pre-industriaal world, most of the population doesn't live in cities but in villages read around the countryside.

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Yes, that's the end goal... But that's a distant end goal. Our first goal is protecting as many human life's with our waystones, then roads and rivers, then fields, then forests then further out.

 

[Boney]

Ten Waystones could put an expiry date on Mordheim or Mousillon or Praag being Like That. Twenty could carve the Drakwald in half. Fifty could ring the Middle Mountains or the Black Water and put a doomsday clock on the bad guys for a change.

A Waystone in Troll Country today is five thousand acres of grazeland next year. A Waystone in your village is a neighbour not burned at the stake, an infant not left out for the Beastmen, a Geheimnisnacht without anything clawing at your door.

There are successes to be found short of fully replicating the Golden Age.

 

[Lokimotion]

[X] Plan Building A Better Future
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] [Expensive] Runed
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)

[X] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] Reverse-engineered
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)

[X] Plan: Repairing The Network First
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] Reverse-engineered
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Leyline

 

[Alratan]

Keep in mind Mathilde, a wizard with both the skill and the trait to be a good enchanter makes one Ulgu Enchantment per month (it costs an AP). Even if 'simple' high magic enchantments are faster I do not expect they are orders of magnitude faster, maybe one per week if we are lucky.

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Note that the College Fascis isn't one enchantment, it's eight, each made from a different Wind. In order to make a complete Fascis, you need an enchanter from each College. I'm not sure that every Colleges has twenty enchanters that can make moderate difficulty enchantment, and certainly not sure they can be dedicated to the project rather than doing whatever else they're needed for.

 

[henkalv]

Human wizards are few in number so I can't for example claim that Collages can spare more enchanters than Eonir can spare High Mages.

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But if you are drawing from both pools of labour instead of just one then you probably end up with more capstones.

 

[Tasoli]

Note that the College Fascis isn't one enchantment, it's eight, each made from a different Wind. In order to make a complete Fascis, you need an enchanter from each College. I'm not sure that every Colleges has twenty enchanters that can make moderate difficulty enchantment, and certainly not sure they can be dedicated to the project rather than doing whatever else they're needed for.

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We might have to become Supreme Matriarch if we want to bend all collage resources like that.

IT is actually fairly decent platform to run on. You could politic collages in to not challanging you overmuch in the duels with a platform like that. Provided you win against Dragomas.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Note that the College Fascis isn't one enchantment, it's eight, each made from a different Wind. In order to make a complete Fascis, you need an enchanter from each College. I'm not sure that every Colleges has twenty enchanters that can make moderate difficulty enchantment, and certainly not sure they can be dedicated to the project rather than doing whatever else they're needed for.

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In fairness, the Eonir are also able to contribute here. Probably significantly. All of those 20 High Mages could do this just for one thing, to say nothing of all the non-High mages among the Eonir.

I think the stone flower is worth shooting for, personally, but it probably does slow the rollout somewhat.

 

[Alratan]

But if you are drawing from both pools of labour instead of just one then you probably end up with more capstones.

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In fairness, the Eonir are also able to contribute here. Probably significantly. All of those 20 High Mages could do this just for one thing, to say nothing of all the non-High mages among the Eonir.

I think the stone flower is worth shooting for, personally, but it probably does slow the rollout somewhat.

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Only if you can draw from both pools of labour. If the capstone doesn't need high magic then the Eonir high mages may instead work on something else with their likely precious AP.

 

[Tasoli]

But if you are drawing from both pools of labour instead of just one then you probably end up with more capstones.

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In fairness, the Eonir are also able to contribute here. Probably significantly. All of those 20 High Mages could do this just for one thing, to say nothing of all the non-High mages among the Eonir.

I think the stone flower is worth shooting for, personally, but it probably does slow the rollout somewhat.

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The way I would do that would be designing another 2 Waystones with Fascis and Rune cap allowing all pools of labor to work.

 

[DragonParadox]

Note that the College Fascis isn't one enchantment, it's eight, each made from a different Wind. In order to make a complete Fascis, you need an enchanter from each College. I'm not sure that every Colleges has twenty enchanters that can make moderate difficulty enchantment, and certainly not sure they can be dedicated to the project rather than doing whatever else they're needed for.

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That is a fair point, though to be honest it feels more like a point for a runic inductor.

 

[Ergosum]

Anyways, we're not limited to one Waystone model. Ten enchanters with each making a Flower every two weeks could take ten years, but if we design another model with the runic inductor and make these separately we could be done in about half the time. Same about the other components: if any one would be a bottleneck, we can make more designs to sidestep it.

Also, remember that this is a mid to long term project. The Stirland tributaries will take about 3 years. Other provinces might take more. It's fine if we don't do everything right now, and in fact it gives us flexibility to design models that are more suitable for each region's needs

 

[Alratan]

That is a fair point, though to be honest it feels more like a point for a runic inductor.

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Not necessarily. Given the hoops that runelords make junior runesmiths jump through to learn runes and the high quality standard runesmiths demand of themselves, it may take many, many years before there are that many runesmiths who have earned the right to make these runes for deployment.

We also don't know, I think, how long runesmiths not called Kragg need to make runes of a quality they deem acceptable.

The production rate for runic inductors in the short-medium term is something that's near impossible to estimate.

As to be honest, is the rate for runic storage, as I don't think we have any information on how many runesmiths are capable and willing or how long each one would take.

 

[DXCS]

[X] Plan Building A Better Future
-[X] [CAPSTONE] Stone Flower
-[X] [RUNE] Dwarven
-[X] [STORAGE] [Expensive] Runed
-[X] [FOUNDATION] Grey Lord
-[X] [TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine)

 

[Thomasfoolery]

I feel like my expectations for deployment schedules are pretty out of sync with the threads here. I've sort of been assuming this would be a generational project from the start, if the old world is fully saturated in 100 years? That seems like a pretty quick turnaround for this kind of infrastructural investment to me. This is a time when a single cathedral might take 60 years to finish after all.