Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[WestOrEast]

[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)

 

[chocolote12]

I think the maximum overstones are going to be pretty great, actually, even with the high requirements, just because waystones in general aren't a thing with a ten year shelf life, riverine transport is very comfy, and what elves and dwarves lack in speed they make up for in not dying of old age in twenty years after getting good enough to contribute. The logistics are there to get this product out eventually, and the important polities involved -- the important specific individuals who will be doing the work -- have survived for millennia. It'll be harder to forget this time.

I have sensed on the horizon a more interesting possible stretch; a purely mundane waystone.

[?] [CAPSTONE] [Sky Metal]
The original material from the golden age, but strictly speaking a purely mundane alloy that's merely very precious. The advancement of material science might eventually allow for the production of these without the help of magical forces.

[ ] [RUNE] Carved
Requires a mason. Trivial, negligible cost.
[ ] [STORAGE] [Cheap/Moderate/Expensive] Material
No requirements. Trivial, low/moderate/high cost.
[ ] [FOUNDATION] Clockwork
Required an engineer or clockmaker. Moderately difficult, low cost.

[?] [TRANSMISSION] Leyline
Requires a speaker of Anoqeyån or Lingua Praestantia. Simple, trivial cost.
[?] [TRANSMISSION] Riverine (Spirit)
Requires negotiation with the river's spirit. Reduces difficulty and cost of Foundation. ? difficulty, ? cost. Reduces difficulty and cost of Foundation

I thought there would be more remaining, but after eliminating the options that require the creator to be entirely a wizard I think we're just left with a goal (of finding out how to manufacture titan metal) and a question (of if you need to be magical in order to speak the magical languages involved with setting up leylines, or else magical in order to communicate with the spirits of the rivers).

You know how we didn't need to worry about the logistics of the canal because it was a manpower thing and that meant that the Tzar could just do it on a scale we had no way of influencing?

Imagine that, but every stoneworker in the Empire setting up rocks as a hobby -- or a form of prayer.

 

[Alratan]

The idea that every single elf in Laurelorn is a potential caster of the reverse engineered storage method is... rather dubious.

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I'm not saying that every single elf is. Your post I was replying to was comparing the number of dwarves (of whole runesmiths are an unknown subset) to the number of elves in Laurelorn (of whom those who can learn to enchant to the required standard are an unknown subset).

As both proportions are unknown it's near impossible to judge this. It could be that nearly all elves can learn to make this enchantment. It could be very few can. We just have no idea.

 

[MrHobbit]

I'm clearly not explaining this very well; I may need a diagram.

My point is that sections of the Waystone network can get cut off from the wider network because of a downstream blockage. Just because all the Waystones in an area are still intact doesn't mean the Waystones are able to drain Dhar from the region if there's nowhere for the Dhar to go.

The dual purpose Waystones would allow us to get isolated sections of the network like that working again by installing a single such Waystone on a river and allowing the Dhar to drain out through there.

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Yes, I am aware of that. I know what you said. Do you know where you are still erecting the waystone if you put it in the middle of an active leyline that goes over a river?

A place that is covered by waystones. That is a waste of time. There are literally thousands of waystones we will need to build and these waystones won't be cheap.

And I'm not confident that it would work that way. The scenario you propose would see the waystones cut off from the network entirely. Caledor can't tell those waystones to do anything unless you go inland and replace the waystone that cuts them off from the network. In which case, the riverine leylines are a waste of time.
Edit: I've reread the leyline action and I'm not sure whether those commands work if the waystone is cut off from the network or not. But you can at least turn the waystone off with it being disconnected.

 

[DragonParadox]

I'm not saying that every single elf is. Your post I was replying to was comparing the number of dwarves (of whole runesmiths are an unknown subset) to the number of elves in Laurelorn (of whom those who can learn to enchant to the required standard are an unknown subset).

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Fair enough, to be more clear then I think there are vastly more actual and potential runesmiths than there are elves with the potential to be archmages (which is what you need for reverse engineering) particularly in the short to mid term. To be even more blunt I think the thread will get tired of the Waystone project as a whole before the reverse engineered storage will become meaningfully more easy and I would kind of like to see meaingful roll-out while Mathilde is at the helm

 

[Parabola]

How many areas near rivers need to be covered though? Obviously everywhere in Sylvania and Troll Country. But beyond that? Waystones near rivers are some of the least likely waystones to have fallen. The majority of fallen waystones will be away from rivers, where the Empire can't deploy armies.

The Drakwald doesn't have major rivers either.

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Mordheim is right next to the Stir and according to one map, has a river going right through its middle too. It may take a ring of (leyline) waystones to fully clear that out, but funneling the energy through the river would be a great start for any hypothetical campaign to clear it out fully.

Though I guess its location makes people fold it in alongside Sylvania.

 

[Alratan]

Yes, I am aware of that. I know what you said. Do you know where you are still erecting the waystone if you put it in the middle of an active leyline that goes over a river?

A place that is covered by waystones. That is a waste of time. There are literally thousands of waystones we will need to build and these waystones won't be cheap.

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The kind of place I'm suggesting is one where there may be Waystones physically present but they're not doing anything because their connection to the Vortex is blocked and so nothing is pulling on the Dhar. As the flow of Dhar is what pulls along the Winds to make them flow, then the Waystone won't do its job of draining magic from the area.

If you connect a riverine Waystone there part way along a Leyline on a river the correspondence based transmission mechanism will start pulling on the Dhar, so it will start flowing down river, and hopefully start pulling down the leyline as well, making the upstream Waystones start working.

If, one day in the future you manage to locate, conquer and secure the location where the original downstream Waystone was and build a new Waystone there so the original flow can resume, then you can pick up the dual purpose Waystone you put on the river and move it somewhere else you need it. It isn't wasted.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Fair enough, to be more clear then I think there are vastly more actual and potential runesmiths than there are elves with the potential to be archmages (which is what you need for reverse engineering) particularly in the short to mid term

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In that case... perhaps we ought to show more love for the Collegiate Fascis?

Ultimately we can either try to make as much stuff College friendly as possible or we can go for the high end options that require Runesmiths and Archmages - meaning that the Colleges will be by far and away the more junior partners and the whole infrastructure will be dependent on a handful of super experts.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Okay, brace yourselves, because I'm going to start pulling numbers out of my backside.

We know that it took two grey lords <6 months to completely reverse engineer the storage mechanism and produce the schematics for recreating it. Let's say that a less skilled mage, following those schematics exactly, can produce two storage mechanisms per turn, or four per year.

If we find 25 mages across the Empire and Laurelorn and employ them as enchanters, that's 50 waystones a year we can make.

A province needs about 200 additional waystones for full coverage. Our 25 enchanters can complete a province every four years. That's roughly the same amount of time it's taking the journeyman trio to cover Stirland with tributaries—and tributaries extend the reach of each waystone, reducing the amount actually needed for full coverage.

And frankly, my completely made up numbers of 4 components multiplied by 25 enchanters per year feels really low to me.

 

[glyph]

[X] Plan Near-Original+
[X] Plan: Repairing The Network First

 

[DragonParadox]

In that case... perhaps we ought to show more love for the Collegiate Fascis?

Ultimately we can either try to make as much stuff College friendly as possible or we can go for the high end options that require Runesmiths and Archmages - meaning that the Colleges will be by far and away the more junior partners and the whole infrastructure will be dependent on a handful of super experts.

Click to shrink...

I'm honestly not sure if there are eight enchanters for every runesmith and even if they were, they probably have other hats in at least some of those colleges. For better or for worse runesmiths are full time 'enchanters'.

 

[Prime 2.0]

[X] Plan Building A Better Future

One deluxe waystone for deep Sylvania deployment, coming right up!

 

[Ergosum]

Okay, brace yourselves, because I'm going to start pulling numbers out of my backside.

We know that it took two grey lords <6 months to completely reverse engineer the storage mechanism and produce the schematics for recreating it. Let's say that a less skilled mage, following those schematics exactly, can produce two storage mechanisms per turn, or four per year.

If we find 25 mages across the Empire and Laurelorn and employ them as enchanters, that's 50 waystones a year we can make.

A province needs about 200 additional waystones for full coverage. Our 25 enchanters can complete a province every four years. That's roughly the same amount of time it's taking the journeyman trio to cover Stirland with tributaries—and tributaries extend the reach of each waystone, reducing the amount actually needed for full coverage.

And frankly, my completely made up numbers of 4 components multiplied by 25 enchanters per year feels really low to me.

Click to shrink...

The problem is, there are lots of journeymen in the Empire. Once we're done with Stirland, if the results are as good as they seem they'll be, we can get a bunch of electors onboard and build tributaries across a few provinces at the same time more or less easily. It's... probably not that easy to find more sets of 25 mages skilled enough to do the enchantment and willing to spend several years doing it.

 

[Alratan]

Okay, brace yourselves, because I'm going to start pulling numbers out of my backside.

We know that it took two grey lords <6 months to completely reverse engineer the storage mechanism and produce the schematics for recreating it. Let's say that a less skilled mage, following those schematics exactly, can produce two storage mechanisms per turn, or four per year.

Click to shrink...

The issue we currently have is that no one who isn't an archmage or a once ever human genius at enchanting can currently follow those schematics, and the only way we know to improve the instructions is for archmages to iterate through the process and gradually refine the manufacturing instructions in the hope of making it easier.

At the moment a less skilled mage can make zero of them by following the instructions, because they can't comprehend them.

Our challenge is that we don't know how long it will take to improve the instructions to the degree that non-archmages can follow them, or what their productivity rate would then be.

Unfortunately, we also don't know how many runesmiths have the capability and willingness to make runic storage batteries and where that fits into their priority queue compared to things like gearing up for the Silver Road war.

Essentially, we're comparing one unknown with another unknown, with the complexity that both unknowns may varying considerably over time, both because the first will hopefully get easer but also because the competing demands on the time of the people involved will also change.

Generally, I think we can say that right now there are more runesmiths who can make runic storage mechanisms than enchanters who can make reverse engineered ones, but whether that will stay the case forever, or if not how long it would stay the case and how many Waystones would be built by then we have basically no way of predicting.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

We know that it took two grey lords <6 months to completely reverse engineer the storage mechanism and produce the schematics for recreating it. Let's say that a less skilled mage, following those schematics exactly, can produce two storage mechanisms per turn, or four per year.

Click to shrink...

That is I feel pretty optimistic. The Grey Lords are the peak of elven mages with the exception of one in a thousand or more year genius like Teclis, Morathi and the original Caledor.

The people capable of duplicating their work can very well be Collegiate LMs or just very skilled elven mages. Can't imagine we'll have the resources to churn out Waystones no matter what we pick; if we reach 10 per year and can replace damaged Waystones in critical spots then that's already a big win.

I'm honestly not sure if there are eight enchanters for every runesmith and even if they were, they probably have other hats in at least some of those colleges. For better or for worse runesmiths are full time 'enchanters'.

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Fair, fair but what about elven High Mages? They're probably an even more limited resource: not to mention we'd essentially be entirely dependent on Ulthuan and/or the Eonir for deployment (considering the Network is a network we can expect a good amount of cooperation however they're still likely to prioritise their needs over the Colleges').

 

[MrHobbit]

Mordheim is right next to the Stir and according to one map, has a river going right through its middle too. It may take a ring of (leyline) waystones to fully clear that out, but funneling the energy through the river would be a great start for any hypothetical campaign to clear it out fully.

Though I guess its location makes people fold it in alongside Sylvania.

Click to shrink...

Mordheim is close enough to Sylvania to just include it in that. But we definite need to investigate Mordheim at some point. I want to know where southern Ostermark's waystones are sending their energy.

Though I have to wonder where do you dump the accumulated corruption of Sylvania and Mordheim? And how do you get the poor bastards that live there to be even remotely okay with that?

The kind of place I'm suggesting is one where there may be Waystones physically present but they're not doing anything because their connection to the Vortex is blocked and so nothing is pulling on the Dhar. As the flow of Dhar is what pulls along the Winds to make them flow, then the Waystone won't do its job of draining magic from the area.

If you connect a riverine Waystone there part way along a Leyline on a river the correspondence based transmission mechanism will start pulling on the Dhar, so it will start flowing down river, and hopefully start pulling down the leyline as well, making the upstream Waystones start working.

If, one day in the future you manage to locate, conquer and secure the location where the original downstream Waystone was and build a new Watytone there so the original flow can resume, then you can pick up the dual purpose Waystone you put on the river and move it somewhere else you need it. It isn't wasted.

Click to shrink...

You still do not get it. You are pointing to a hyper-specific circumstance that probably exists all of twenty times through out the entire Empire. We have somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 waystones to raise. That is absurd to point to as a reason to do riverine leylines. Point to the ease of doing it in Sylvania. Not this. (also it won't work in the Drakwald)

And yes, it is wasted. What method did the thread choose to do riverine leylines? The Jade method. The one where the Jades spend a very long time throwing rocks with very complex enchantments off of boats into a river until you get to the place where you take it out of the river.

 

[DragonParadox]

Fair, fair but what about elven High Mages? They're probably an even more limited resource: not to mention we'd essentially be entirely dependent on Ulthuan and/or the Eonir for deployment (considering the Network is a network we can expect a good amount of cooperation however they're still likely to prioritise their needs over the Colleges').

Click to shrink...

They can probably churn out one optimized stone flower faster than eight college enchanters can get together and make a eight-part enchantment and even if they are a little slower the stone flower is qualitatively better since it also moves dhar without counting on the network.

 

[LittenLeKitten]

[X] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)
[X] Plan Keep It Simple

 

[Parabola]

...I must say, I do really like chocolote12's idea of getting a titan-metal supply and eventually putting out an almost entirely mundane waystone that only requires either negotiating with a river spirit or someone with the Caledor password. Would really cut down on the limitations of how many wizards or runepriests we have available at any time.

I'm not sure how much enthusiasm there might be for it, but it's an interesting idea to consider. Lot easier to put up, too, if we got a good enough supply of titan-metal.

 

[Alratan]

You still do not get it. You are pointing to a hyper-specific circumstance that probably exists all of twenty times through out the entire Empire. We have somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 waystones to raise. That is absurd to point to as a reason to do riverine leylines. Point to the ease of doing it in Sylvania. Not this. (also it won't work in the Drakwald)

And yes, it is wasted. What method did the thread choose to do riverine leylines? The Jade method. The one where the Jades spend a very long time throwing rocks with very complex enchantments off of boats into a river until you get to the place where you take it out of the river.

Click to shrink...

Remmeber that the Empire doesn't actually control much of the land between its borders. Even if the scenario of having a cluster of isolated Waystones is rare now (which I doubt it would be as much as you say), the Riverine Waystones allows us to build what are effectively sub-networks in populated areas around the rivers without having to conquer and secure the wilderness in between to build and protect lines of new Waystones.

And even after we restore more of the network, temporary leyline blockages can still easily happen as large amounts of the leyline network will be passing through the wilderness where the greenskins and beastmen often rule. If they knock out a Waystone the river can keep on carrying the Dhar away until forces are mustered to restore the connection.

 

[Prime 2.0]

To be frank, we're making these things with the explicit goal of them continuing to serve their purpose for millennia. We can't be sure of what conditions they will face - who the hell could know thousands of years in advance about the warpstone meteors and ensuing hot spot of necromancy Sylvania would become?

The benefit of an extra robust design is that we don't have to know about shit like that. We don't have to hope that, if it happens, people will still remember how to make waystones. We've helped to cover them already.

On the reverse engineered foundation - actually, I think the main benefit of those is that the component can be sourced from Sapphery while everything else is handled elsewhere. But, presuming that benefit would make the assumption that Sapphery will be willing to do that.

Meanwhile...

I think the maximum overstones are going to be pretty great, actually, even with the high requirements, just because waystones in general aren't a thing with a ten year shelf life, riverine transport is very comfy, and what elves and dwarves lack in speed they make up for in not dying of old age in twenty years after getting good enough to contribute. The logistics are there to get this product out eventually, and the important polities involved -- the important specific individuals who will be doing the work -- have survived for millennia. It'll be harder to forget this time.

I have sensed on the horizon a more interesting possible stretch; a purely mundane waystone.

[?] [CAPSTONE] [Sky Metal]
The original material from the golden age, but strictly speaking a purely mundane alloy that's merely very precious. The advancement of material science might eventually allow for the production of these without the help of magical forces.

[ ] [RUNE] Carved
Requires a mason. Trivial, negligible cost.
[ ] [STORAGE] [Cheap/Moderate/Expensive] Material
No requirements. Trivial, low/moderate/high cost.
[ ] [FOUNDATION] Clockwork
Required an engineer or clockmaker. Moderately difficult, low cost.

[?] [TRANSMISSION] Leyline
Requires a speaker of Anoqeyån or Lingua Praestantia. Simple, trivial cost.
[?] [TRANSMISSION] Riverine (Spirit)
Requires negotiation with the river's spirit. Reduces difficulty and cost of Foundation. ? difficulty, ? cost. Reduces difficulty and cost of Foundation

I thought there would be more remaining, but after eliminating the options that require the creator to be entirely a wizard I think we're just left with a goal (of finding out how to manufacture titan metal) and a question (of if you need to be magical in order to speak the magical languages involved with setting up leylines, or else magical in order to communicate with the spirits of the rivers).

You know how we didn't need to worry about the logistics of the canal because it was a manpower thing and that meant that the Tzar could just do it on a scale we had no way of influencing?

Imagine that, but every stoneworker in the Empire setting up rocks as a hobby -- or a form of prayer.

Click to shrink...

I like this. I like it a lot. Seems worth doing at a later date.

 

[MrHobbit]

Remmeber that the Empire doesn't actually control much of the land between its borders. Even if the scenario of having a cluster of isolated Waystones is rare now (which I doubt it would be as much as you say), the Riverine Waystones allows us to built what are effectively sub-networks in populated areas around the rivers without having to conquer and secure the wilderness in between to build and protect lines of new Waystones.

And even after we restore more of the network, temporary leyline blockages can still easily happen as large amounts of the leyline network will be passing through the wilderness where the greenskins and beastmen often rule. If they knock out a Waystone the river can keep on carrying the Dhar away until forces are mustered to restore the connection.

Click to shrink...

I'm not saying that clusters of isolated waystones are rare, I'm saying that clusters of isolated waystones that go over rivers that it would be easier to go through all the effort to set up a riverine leyline with the Jade menhirs and the dual leyline waystone than to just set up normal waystones is rare. The option does not mention being able to connect waystone clusters to the network. It mentions that the benefit is redundancy.

I am still not convinced that new waystones can be connected to leylines that aren't connected to the vortex proper.

Your second paragraph is mentioned by the post, but it is not the argument you have been making. It is not the assertion I am arguing against.

 

[DragonParadox]

To be frank, we're making these things with the explicit goal of them continuing to serve their purpose for millennia.

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No, we really should not be doing that, that's a model that is in the process of failing. What we should plan for is preserving the knowledge of how to make more stones for millennia and plan on them being replaced, that is much more sane when you are counting on humans to do a significant part of the work anyway.

 

[Alratan]

They can probably churn out one optimized stone flower faster than eight college enchanters can get together and make a eight-part enchantment and even if they are a little slower the stone flower is qualitatively better since it also moves dhar without counting on the network.

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Note that I think we're comparing the time for an elven High Mage making a simple enchantment to, I think, the time for eight different College Enchanters can each make a moderate Enchantment for their own Wind.

The High Mage has the advantage that they only need to make one enchantment rather than eight, that their enchantment is simple rather than moderate (I think), and they probably have a lot more practice than most Collegiate enchanters. Their disadvantage is that they're probably a lot more safety conscious.

On the reverse engineered foundation - actually, I think the main benefit of those is that the component can be sourced from Sapphery while everything else is handled elsewhere. But, presuming that benefit would make the assumption that Sapphery will be willing to do that.

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That's a fair point. While we don't know the proper way to make the design and have to brute force it using superlative skill, the Sappherians may know the proper construction process and be able to make it with much less skilled labour.

I'm not saying that clusters of isolated waystones are rare, I'm saying that clusters of isolated waystones that go over rivers that it would be easier to go through all the effort to set up a riverine leyline with the Jade menhirs and the dual leyline waystone than to just set up normal waystones is rare. The option does not mention being able to connect waystone clusters to the network. It mentions that the benefit is redundancy.

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The big difference I see is that the Empire generally controls the rivers so can relatively easily set up riverine leylines. It generally does not control the hinterlands, so can't set up unbroken straight lines of normal Waystones along the leylines because it would need to reconquer the land from the greenskins and beastmen, fell the forests/drain the swamps and recolonise them to stop their enemies coming back.

 

[LightLan]

The reverse-engineered enchantment has one advantage: It's dirt cheap.

Only low cost.

Requires Von Tarnus or an Elven Archmage. Very difficult, low cost. Difficulty and requirements will reduce over time if built in large numbers.

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Requires a Runesmith. Simple, low/moderate/high cost.

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