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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Boney said:
1. How many high mages willing to enchant are there?
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You might be able to scrape up 20 at a given time from Laurelorn.

2. How many elves in Laurelorn are there that can currently (or at least quickly learn to) enchant the grey lord foundation compared to the Collegiate foundation?
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The best guess Mathilde would have access to would be that there'd be more for Collegiate, but not hugely so. For some reason Laurelorn gets squirrely when humans ask them for exact numbers and skill levels of their mages.
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Where did the estimate about how many Archmages Laurelorn has access to come from? This is the only post I know from Boney that mentions Eonir numbers. It's not about archmages, but elves who can enchant High magic.

I'm trying to figure out what foundation would be best if we wanted to send a Waystone version that Ulthuan could build on its own. The Collegiate option seems like the easiest option. Though the downsides of clockwork would be even less severe on Ulthuan than in the Old World. There would be much less deliberate sabotage or bad weather.
 
Alratan said:
One thing we're assuming here, which is fair as it isn't called out as an issue, is that there are no similar constraints on production of expensive runic storage by the number of runesmiths who currently know or can be quickly taught those runes and are willing to craft them on a novel hybrid device that combines elven and human magic and dwarven runes.

Presumably Thorek has it handled.
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Honestly, commissioning high value runes for the waystones sounds like an excellent carrot for Thorek to use to reshape the Runesmiths guild. He's bludgeoned them with our Dum paper, and now he gets to reward his faction with consistent, well paying work.
 
Just a thought, but we've been patting ourselves on the back about potentially making a superior to Golden Age Waystone, and I had a thought.

The elves were noted Pre-War of the Andients to be close friends, allies, and even married to river spirits.

Is it possible that Golden Age Waystones on rivers already have riverine transmission mechanisms built in but that component doesn' is inactive as the deals with the river spirits lapsed after the elves left?

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Honestly, commissioning high value runes for the waystones sounds like an excellent carrot for Thorek to use to reshape the Runesmiths guild. He's bludgeoned them with our Dum paper, and now he gets to reward his faction with consistent, well paying work.
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Given the noted rarity of runesmitus, I doubt any runemsith in the Karaz Ankor is ever short of consistent, well paying work.

Particularly now, with the High King having opened his coffers to prepare for the Silver Road War, they're probably drowning in offers of work.

I did mention this before, but the runic options do have a real opportunity cost because every rune struck for a Waystone is a rune not struck on an axe or helmet for a dwarf in that war.

There could be a real trade off here. We may not care very much about what an Eonir archmage isn't doing because they're making Waystones but care a lot more about what a runesmith is not doing.
 
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Alratan said:
There could be a real trade off here. We may not care very much about what an Eonir archmage isn't doing because they're making Waystones but care a lot more about what a runesmith is not doing.
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Or Thorek could end up conscripting the Rhunkit of Vlag for the task, finding them an acceptable position within the guild.

Kindof like perpetual apprentice type thing. The cat's out of the bag with the Rhunkit, so might as well find a useful place for them while he's taking a wrecking ball to the guild.
 
[X] Plan Simple and Functional

If we are building something scalable and not a showpiece then best practices are to find bottlenecks and avoid them, not find bottlenecks and include all of them in your workflow.
 
LockedMind said:
If we are building something scalable and not a showpiece then best practices are to find bottlenecks and avoid them, not find bottlenecks and include all of them in your workflow.
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I'm inclined to agree, but if you feel this way, given how the votes stand, adding an approval vote for the basic Better Future plan might also be a good call. It at least has one less bottleneck than the currently winning 'reverse engineering' version.
 
Alratan said:
Just a thought, but we've been patting ourselves on the back about potentially making a superior to Golden Age Waystone, and I had a thought.

The elves were noted Pre-War of the Andients to be close friends, allies, and even married to river spirits.

Is it possible that Golden Age Waystones on rivers already have riverine transmission mechanisms built in but that component doesn' is inactive as the deals with the river spirits lapsed after the elves left?
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I very much doubt it, given that there's absolutely nothing suggesting anything of the sort.
 
IronFist said:
Or Thorek could end up conscripting the Rhunkit of Vlag for the task, finding them an acceptable position within the guild.

Kindof like perpetual apprentice type thing. The cat's out of the bag with the Rhunkit, so might as well find a useful place for them while he's taking a wrecking ball to the guild.
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That's almost certainly not happening. Thorek is very conservative. Thorek's goals aren't necessarily to make Runesmithing more common. It is to make the Runesmithing Guild more involved in the Karaz Ankor. He can't and won't let a third of a Karak into the Guild trying to do that. It would cheapen Runesmithing if anything.

Also, I really don't want the Rhunkit anywhere near the Project. They are only capable of rote, repeated actions. They do not have any understanding of the fundamentals of Runesmithing. I'm sure that the Rune is a lot more complex than light runes and breathing runes. Having them near the Project risks the Runesmithing Guild throwing a fit about Waystones in general depending on how they try to process them.

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
I'm inclined to agree, but if you feel this way, given how the votes stand, adding an approval vote for the basic Better Future plan might also be a good call. It at least has one less bottleneck than the currently winning 'reverse engineering' version.
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Reverse-engineering is at least promised to reduce the severity of the bottleneck. Doing both leylines is not something that can be simplified. It also limits where you can deploy the waystones without wasting a lot of effort. You can place them off of rivers to my understanding, it's just that the riverine leyline won't work. Getting both to work in the same waystone is a lot more effort than just one leyline method. So if you want to place waystones in areas where there aren't rivers, either do a lot of work you don't need to do, or you have a keyphrase leyline waystone.
 
IronFist said:
Or Thorek could end up conscripting the Rhunkit of Vlag for the task, finding them an acceptable position within the guild.

Kindof like perpetual apprentice type thing. The cat's out of the bag with the Rhunkit, so might as well find a useful place for them while he's taking a wrecking ball to the guild.
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That assumes the runepokers are capable of making batteries.

It also assumes that if the runepokers are legalised, the same won't apply to them as probably currently applies to the runemsiths, with demand for their services vastly exceeding supply thanks to the build up for the Silver Road War.

Whatever plausible capacity the runesmiths + runepokers have, if you were Thorgrim there's a strong argument to say they should spend the next decade focusing on arming the Throngs, as that's more urgent, and they can switch to making Waystones after the war is won, as in the end the same amount of Waystones could be produced. We're just assuming there will be a so much greater availability of runesmiths with capacity to work on runic storage in the short run. We don't know what their order books look like.

Also, Thorek isn't guaranteed to win if he picks a fight with the other runelords of the Karaz Ankor while simultaneously backing a group of heretics
 
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[X] Plan Building A Better Future (With reverse engineering)

[X] Plan Building A Moderately Expensive Future
[X] Plan Building A Relatively Cheap Future
[X] Plan Spend Money Not Effort
[X] Plan Simple and Functional
[X] Plan: The FEMA Model
[X] Plan The Hinterlander
[X] Plan: The FEMA Model (Collegiate Foundation Edition)
 
MrHobbit said:
Reverse-engineering is at least promised to reduce the severity of the bottleneck. Doing both leylines is not something that can be simplified. It also limits where you can deploy the waystones without wasting a lot of effort. You can place them off of rivers to my understanding, it's just that the riverine leyline won't work. Getting both to work in the same waystone is a lot more effort than just one leyline method. So if you want to place waystones in areas where there aren't rivers, either do a lot of work you don't need to do, or you have a keyphrase leyline waystone.
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If there were a plan with even one quarter the votes of the two leading plans that both had Reverse-Engineering and did not have Both under methods of transmission, this would be a fine point. However, there isn't. My point is not a rousing endorsement for Building A Better Future, it is noting that if one wants to minimize bottlenecks and has only that and the Reverse-Engineering variant to choose between (the current situation in many ways), then Reverse-Engineering is removable by voting for the base Better Future, removing one bottleneck...there is not such an option to vote to remove only the dual transmission method among the top few plans.
 
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The current lead, Reverse Engineering, seems to leave almost everything up to elven magic. Let's see:

[CAPSTONE] Stone Flower - Can only be done by eleven high mages, no one else.

[RUNE] Dwarven - Dwarven runes, but the least important part, you could replace this with a mason and the waystone would still work fine.

[STORAGE] Reverse-engineered - Can only be done with elven high magic.

[FOUNDATION] Grey Lord - Can be done by the colleges as well as elven mages, so there's finally a place where humans can say "I'm helping".

[TRANSMISSION] Both (Jade Riverine) - Uses the elven system, adding a college specific one as backup.

I don't know, if I'm Thorek I'm wondering why I even needed to show up at all. They could have basically done this without me.
 
Looking at the short run availability of runesmiths compared to Eonir archmages, I think the following factors are relevant:
  1. The important question isn't how many runesmiths/archmages there are, but how many that are available to work on Waystone storage components.
  2. What's particularly important is how many of each are available in the short run before the enchantment process for reverse engineered storage is required.
  3. It's quite plausible that the normal state of affairs is for both runesmiths and archmages to have a large order book so their time is committed years in advance. It's very often the case for elite human specialists in the real world.
  4. In the short run, the archmages are likely to be unusually available thanks to the recent treaty with Middenland freeing from up from their previous duties. This likely won't last forever, as even elves will eventually realise this is the new normal and find new long term commitments, but mitigates the first factor.
  5. In the short run, runesmiths are likely to be unusually busy thanks to the build up for the Silver Road War. This also temporary, but could significantly delay production in the short run by compounding the first factor.
  6. As time passes, the dependence on archmages for their storage option reduces or goes away, but the dependence on runesmith availability never gets any better.
  7. As runesmith availability is likely to be particularly constrained in the short run, which is also when the reverse engineered storage is particularly likely to be constrained by lack of archmages.
  8. The opportunity cost that we care abut for runesmiths is likely to be higher than for archmages, and this is also likely to be the case even more so for important dwarves, who may consider the Silver Road War a higher immediate priority than we do.

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
If there were a plan with even one quarter the votes of the two leading plans that both had Reverse-Engineering and did not have Both under methods of transmission, this would be a fine point. However, there isn't. My point is not a rousing endorsement for Building A Better Future, it is noting that if one wants to minimize bottlenecks and has only that and the Reverse-Engineering variant to choose between (the current situation in many ways), then Reverse-Engineering is removable by voting for the base Better Future, removing one bottleneck...there is not such an option to vote to remove only the dual transmission method among the top few plans.
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Switching from reverse engineering to runic storage just changes the nature of the bottleneck/rate limiting factor from archmage availability to a combination of cost or runesmith availability. It doesn't necessarily remove it.

Briefvoice said:
[STORAGE] Reverse-engineered - Can only be done with elven high magic.
...
I don't know, if I'm Thorek I'm wondering why I even needed to show up at all. They could have basically done this without me.
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For reverse engineered storage, you don't need high magic, you need archmage level skill. That difference may become important when we reduce the skill, or if there are enchanters out there, perhaps in Ulthuan, who are as good as an archmage at enchanting without being a high mage.

And in terms of Thorek's view, ou could say the same for for of the Kislevite traditions, who aren't contrinuting anything to this design. The winning design does at least use one dwarven component. And from what we can tell it's important enough that back in the Golden Age the elves paid a significant price to have dwarven runesmiths carve the Waystone rune.
 
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chocolote12 said:
I think we could actually add a few new waystone components, if we wanted to.

Information and Defense are two pretty big categories that could see straightforward uses. The use of information is clear; some way to know if a waystone is being messed with without having to be near it would be a life saver. This wouldn't normally be something so casually suggested, but given that the whole point of waystones is sending stuff down to other waystones you kind of have to admire the synergy.
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Actually, a map with waystone dots has another nice use-case: Magic Measurement.

It's a large scale detection system that drains magic. That means it not only has built in transmission, but the quantity should be measurable as well.

So if some region starts to light up, you know shit is going down on a large enough scale that the network is notably picking up the pace.

Like, if the entire northern coast lights the fuck up, the Emperor has a good reason to start mustering armies because odds are, another Storm of Chaos is about to hit.

But that might be better built as add-on features
 
Alratan said:
You could say the same for for of the Kislevite traditions, for whom it is actually true. The winning design does at least use one dwarven component. And from what we can tell it's important enough that back in the Golden Age the elves paid a significant price to have dwarven runesmiths carve the Waystone rune.
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This is what I keep coming back to:

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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I hate so much that the winning Waystone, the one that will dot the Old World for centuries to come, will only be buildable with elven High Magic, but also the High Elves don't need anyone else to build it. (Again, they can just leave the Rune off, whatever.)
 
Briefvoice said:
This is what I keep coming back to:



I hate so much that the winning Waystone, the one that will dot the Old World for centuries to come, will only be buildable with elven High Magic, but also the High Elves don't need anyone else to build it. (Again, they can just leave the Rune off, whatever.)
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I think Boney said that any changes to any component would require a new design, so if this design is used then you do actually need a dwarf runesmith to carve the rune, or it's back to the drawing board.

Presumably the difference in Wind flow rate due to a less effective rune would mean the whole design including the details of the other components would need to be rejigged to compensate. It's not plug and play.
 
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Boney? What happens to riverine leylines when a river changes course? The Nile changed course somewhat frequently. The Yellow River is famous for that too. The Spirit option would probably be the most durable in that case. It would be more difficult to adjust the jade leylines. But the waystones themselves might end up not near rivers.

The Old Ones might have engineered the landscape so rivers wouldn't do that. Or the presence of spirits and the yngra elthrai inhibits significant changes. I assume Mathilde would have brought it up if it were a problem.

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
If there were a plan with even one quarter the votes of the two leading plans that both had Reverse-Engineering and did not have Both under methods of transmission, this would be a fine point. However, there isn't. My point is not a rousing endorsement for Building A Better Future, it is noting that if one wants to minimize bottlenecks and has only that and the Reverse-Engineering variant to choose between (the current situation in many ways), then Reverse-Engineering is removable...the dual transmission method is not.
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Yeah, the bottleneck that reverse-engineering represents is reducible. :V

I was saying that from the perspective of someone who wants to avoid bottlenecks in general, the differences between the top two plans aren't that significant. The waystones will be deployed over the timespan of decades. We have thousands of waystones to deploy. That's enough time to simply the Golden Age storage enchantment.

Briefvoice said:
I don't know, if I'm Thorek I'm wondering why I even needed to show up at all. They could have basically done this without me.
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That's how they did it during the Golden Age. I don't think Thorek would be unhappy about the results.

Briefvoice said:
This is what I keep coming back to:

I hate so much that the winning Waystone, the one that will dot the Old World for centuries to come, will only be buildable with elven High Magic, but also the High Elves don't need anyone else to build it. (Again, they can just leave the Rune off, whatever.)
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Boney explicitly said that the Waystone components are not Legos. They cannot just leave the Rune off and expect it to work just fine.

I intend to make a waystone the Elves can build on their own, that way we can get more waystone secrets out of Ulthuan, but the one going up around the Old World will need Dwarf Runesmiths.
 
Briefvoice said:
I hate so much that the winning Waystone, the one that will dot the Old World for centuries to come, will only be buildable with elven High Magic, but also the High Elves don't need anyone else to build it. (Again, they can just leave the Rune off, whatever.)
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They can't, actually

Boney said:
These aren't lego, you can't just snap them together. There's going to be a lot of work needed to get everything to play nice together and that's work that has a lot better results when there's experts from a number of different traditions able to troubleshoot and workshop different solutions.
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That quote is in direct response to someone asking what's stopping polities from taking a Waystone design and just swapping out parts such that they don't need to rely on other members to build it

They explicitly can't just take a design and interchange parts willy nilly
Because how those parts interact with each other is different and requires separate work and research to fit together properly
 
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