Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Alliterate]

Remember when we took the list to Regimand? We asked to get involved in what came next. Recall what happened.

But if you insist..." he gives the list another look through. "Here. A peer of yours. Dame Sofia Hoffman, right here in Altdorf."

---

You did this a hundred times in your teenage years. Your Master picked a random citizen, and you tailed them for a week or two, learning as much as you could about them and then coming up with plans to kidnap, kill, or suborn them. But you never actually went through with it.

You've seen a lot of bloodshed since then, and caused your fair share of it and then some. Cold-blooded murder was not that far from the evils you'd paid unto evil in the past. You remind yourself of this often as you tail the young noblewoman, learning every intimate detail of her life. Her oddly formal and stilted relationship with her husband, her mornings sharing breakfast with young ladies of similar stature in the cafes of upper-class Altdorf, the needlework she's terrible at but perseveres at gamely. Nearly every detail of her life speaks of a normal girl of the middle nobility living a normal middle nobility life. The only missteps in her act are when she takes one of her friends aside for a brief but intense conversation, or the letters she pens in the middle of the night and then leaves wedged in a crack in the brickwork of her husband's manor.

You don't even know what crime she's complicit in, save that it snared a Grey Wizard and forced him to send his apprentice to Stirland to act as their catspaw. You spend many days wondering whether that's enough, and in the end, you decide that it is. That, and that this is what Abelhelm knew would happen when he gave you that list of names.

Luckily she doesn't share a bedroom with her husband. That would make things difficult.

It had been some local festival or another, celebrating Sigmar if you had to guess, and she had partaken rather heavily in Bretonnian wines. There were a thousand different ways you could gain entry, but in the end you opted for walking on thin air up to a third-floor window that had been left open. The house staff were all out enjoying the festival in their own way, and the guards were all at the entrances. The only ones within the depths of the house were you and your target. You walk the halls of the manor like a ghost, pausing to admire the occasional painting.

Finally, you reach the bedroom she has ensconced herself within, led by the sound of light singing. You slip silently into the room and observe your target as she tries clumsily to undo the intricate style her hair is bound in, and when she finally spots you in the mirror it's far too late. She tries to shriek, but Ulgu shrouds her in silence for just long enough. She stares at you in terror.

"Tell me of your society and of your fellows within it, and you can live," you lie.

Thankfully, she's too terrified to deny it. Information tumbles out, and you take mental notes. At first, a social club. Deeper, an organization for the mutual benefit of its members, trading favours in society. Deeper still, odd little rituals that bring luck and favour from frowned-upon Gods, tip-toeing on the edge of blasphemy in a manner designed to thrill, and you frown to hear Ranald mentioned. And deepest yet, the layer this woman exists within: scandalous and titillating rituals to a grab-bag of truly forbidden gods, to Khaine, to Stromfels, to Gunndred and Ahalt. What next, you wonder? Do they take the final terrible step into the worship of Chaos, or is all this designed to filter out those who would balk and drag people deep in before revealing to them their vampiric masters? Or is this a strange hybrid of chaotic and vampiric, or an intersection of two separate societies? Or did one suborn the other?

It doesn't matter, not really. The cure is the same. The woman spills names and levels in the cult, and you memorise them eagerly. And as the last name hangs in the air and the woman is babbling pleas for her life, you inhale Ulgu and exhale forgetfulness.

The woman freezes, then looks around the room, wiping confusedly at tears running down her face as her eyes slide right by you. She shakes her head and mutters something about wine before coming to her feet and staggering towards the bed, collapsing into it facedown. She's wriggling deeper into the sheets in an effort to get comfortable when your sword slices cleanly through her neck and deep into the mattress below.

---

The next day, as the city swarms with alarmed activity at the murder of so many members of high society, you pass on the names extracted to your Master, get a nod of recognition of a job well done, and disappear from Altdorf without any of its citizens knowing you were there. By midsummer, the entire society will be eradicated root and branch, and you will be free of their damned instructions.

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It wasn't immediate execution merely on the basis of a name appearing on the list. Instead, we investigated the person we were assigned in depth, interrogated her for further information on the cult to proscribed gods and co-conspirators, corroborated her guilt via confession, and only then made the judgement and then carried out the mandated death sentence.

To suggest Regimand did any less due diligence before sentencing the most significant name on the list, an Empress, to death is frankly beyond belief.

 

[Thomasfoolery]

If you roll the dice often enough, you get unlucky.

Grey Wizards seem to be comfortable with a tremendous amount of institutional arrogance, and I think some of it is earned. But there aren't many Grey Wizards, and the public does not like them. If you live in a society where a very large minority is looking for an excuse to kill you, why would you risk giving them a reason?

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Here's the thing though, as Boney has mentioned before, if you're not comfortable rolling the dice... you don't become a wizard. A population subset that is willing to risk getting sucked into hell for practicing their craft is going to have a certain amount of acceptance for blowback baked into their decision making.

 

[DragonParadox]

If you roll the dice often enough, you get unlucky.

Grey Wizards seem to be comfortable with a tremendous amount of institutional arrogance, and I think some of it is earned. But there aren't many Grey Wizards, and the public does not like them. If you live in a society where a very large minority is looking for an excuse to kill you, why would you risk giving them a reason?

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What's the risk? I mean let's look at it. Articles go poof, you are now hunted by all imperial faiths and institutions, or as the founders of the Colleges would call it last Tuesday. As far as they know it might well be next Tuesday as well so you might as well build a system with as little accountability as you can get away with to get as much done in your favor while the going is good.

Now say you are some patriarch or matriarch after the first, say you are Algard and you want to change that, you think this 'being legal thing' is pretty neat and it seems to be a long term gig. How in the ever-damned Aethyr do you do that? How do you take away the culture of 'going rogue in secret' from a bunch of hyper-independent super-spies with paranoia grafted to their souls?

 

[Parabola]

I feel that there's a tremendous amount of institutional arrogance here. Plans go wrong, especially when you're conducting assassinations against royalty. The basic assumption of both Regimand and Mathilde is that they would succeed, or if they somehow failed they would take all the blame. This is very unlikely in the case of the Empress, and it is absolutely false with Vladimir. If Mathilde had failed to kill Vladimir, then all of his suspicions against the Empire would be redoubled, and he would immediately take steps to further limit Kislev's ties.

Regimand and Mathilde both assumed that they're good enough that it wouldn't matter. This was true. It will keep being true until it isn't.

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It's not institutional arrogance at all, it's a quite simple fact that wielders of Ulgu are more suited to assassinating people than almost anyone else.

We made no 'assumptions'. We scoped out Vladimir pretty thoroughly before assassinating him and concluded it'd be of minimal risk to go with the route we did. I'm sure Regimand took more precautions for the Empress, whose death would absolutely need to look more natural and to have it be corroborated by an Amethyst in a high position.

If there ever again is a time that a Grey Magister or higher wants to assassinate royalty, the person in question will almost certainly take whatever precautions they need to, and they'll measure up whatever risks there are with the necessity of the job.

As for the Vow of Poverty, Mathilde is absurdly rich. Like so many things about the Grey College, the Vow is focused on keeping up appearances and manipulating legal loopholes. "The good of the Empire" means whatever the Grey College wants it to mean, just as the laws and ideas of Sigmar's Holy Empire mean that Regimand can murder his boss's wife without telling him.

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That's not the point. The point is that if a baby wizard looked at Ulgu from the outside and thought 'oh sweet I could totally join up with the Greys and make a lot of money by stealing people', then taking a superficial outsider look at the Vow of Poverty would dissuade them of that notion and probably encourage them to pick a different College that has a more obvious and direct way of making money, like the Golds with alchemy, the Celestials with fortune-telling, or the Jades with herbalism.

And for those who do join and are tempted anyway, the fear (and possible actual supervision) of the Bursar can go a long way to curbing that desire.

The Vow isn't about 'you actually cant make money' but rather 'dont abuse your easily-abusable magic against the citizens of the Empire for the wrong reasons', the former of which filters out the wrong kinds of recruits, and the latter of which reminds the Greys that in theory they're all watching one another and that maybe they shouldn't risk it.

The problem is that Boris is hardly a disinterested witness. He's the greatest beneficiary of his father's death. He and his father had different views on what the Tzar's job was. His father thought that it was better for the Tzar to be a figurehead and general while devolving most of the governing. That isn't a completely indefensible position. Boris disagrees because Boris has grand plans that require a powerful central autocrat to impose on the nation.

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We went over this extensively before and during the assassination: Literally every context we'd heard the Tzar in before didn't paint him in a very positive light. Ljiljana, that one Boyar in the Shirokyv forest, Boris himself, and even Algard - none of them had very positive things to say.

Quite explicitly, Vladimir wasn't even 'just' being a figurehead, he was letting the Boyars do whatever they wanted, and didn't delegate important duties to his actual heir. That's not "he thought it'd be better to be a figurehead", that's actively detrimental to a nation that is actively seeing signs of another Everchosen in the distance.

 

[DragonParadox]

The problem is that Boris is hardly a disinterested witness. He's the greatest beneficiary of his father's death. He and his father had different views on what the Tzar's job was. His father thought that it was better for the Tzar to be a figurehead and general while devolving most of the governing. That isn't a completely indefensible position. Boris disagrees because Boris has grand plans that require a powerful central autocrat to impose on the nation.

From the perspective of an ambitious autocrat it makes a lot of sense to seize control of more resources they can personally direct in accordance with their vision, but it's quite possible that those resources could be more productively directed at a more local level with a greater understanding of their specific situations

It's easy for Boris to point to the big things that he'll get done that his father won't. It's much harder to account for the many small things that won't get done because Boris has redirected the resources that would have been used to do them.

This is the standard self-justification of the autocrat, and I think it usually falls apart when you dig into it and look at the unspoken opportunity cost.

For example, Boris' answer wasn't to form a pro-development faction in court and persuade the Boyars he was right and collaborate with each other to implement his proposals. His father clearly wouldn't have cared to block them. He didn't believe in that approach or had failed to convince them. His answer was to murder his father and then use state power to compel the Boyars to obey (with the implicit threat of further murder). That doesn't suggest the kind of mindset that's actually very good at efficiently implementing grand plans in a cost effective way which requires gracefully responding to unexpected obstacles or opportunities.

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That is not actually true though, at least looking at our history, centralization of power away from the local strongmen and into the hands of the monarch means into the hands of a bureaucracy that can actually use economies of scale and specialized skills, it is good for the middle and even lower classes because they often get favored as a way to cut out the large landholders.

I am not going to be losing any sleep over the gods given feudal rights of Boyar Heap Big the Third. The unspoken opportunity cost is more often than not 'idiot does not get to make vanity project or war with his neighbor'. There is no guarantee that the nobles at the local level are any more competent than the sovereign, but since the sovereign lives in the capital and has access to more information and more resources he is more likely to do something worthwhile with the power

 

[MrHobbit]

For example, Boris' answer wasn't to form a pro-development faction in court and persuade the Boyars he was right and collaborate with each other to implement his proposals. His father clearly wouldn't have cared to block them. He didn't believe in that approach or had failed to convince them. His answer was to murder his father and then use state power to compel the Boyars to obey (with the implicit threat of further murder). That doesn't suggest the kind of mindset that's actually very good at efficiently implementing grand plans in a cost effective way which requires gracefully responding to unexpected obstacles or opportunities.

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The idea that Boris can't implement grand plans efficiently runs counter to canon. Boris was such a good Tzar because he was capable of managing Kislev so impressively.

Boris is capable of building alliances. Why do you think Mathilde met him in Erengrad? Who do you think would be providing the soldiers during the civil war Boris was planning? The problem is that a faction of boyars could never supply sufficient resources to throw back the coming of the Thirteenth Everchosen. He needed the resources of the entire nation at his calling.

We went over this extensively before and during the assassination: Literally every context we'd heard the Tzar in before didn't paint him in a very positive light. Ljiljana, that one Boyar in the Shirokyv forest, Boris himself, and even Algard - none of them had very positive things to say.

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I think it should also be mentioned that Boyar Yevschenko, the preeminent boyar of Erengrad, agreed with Boris. The Streltsi were guarding the meeting Boris had with Mathilde for a reason. Theoretically the Boyar of one of Kislev's cities would benefit significantly from the Tzar taking a light touch on the Boyar. Evidently that was not to his satisfaction to the point that he was willing to join Boris in throwing Kislev into a civil war.

 

[DragonParadox]

I think it should also be mentioned that Boyar Yevschenko, the preeminent boyar of Erengrad, agreed with Boris. The Streltsi were guarding the meeting Boris had with Mathilde for a reason. Theoretically the Boyar of one of Kislev's cities would benefit significantly from the Tzar taking a light touch on the Boyar. Evidently that was not to his satisfaction to the point that he was willing to join Boris in throwing Kislev into a civil war.

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Or... he was just promised more stuff in the aftermath, it should be noted that being in the position of Boyar Yevschenko is a bit of a zero sum game, wealth comes from domain and there is only so much domain to go around so being on the winning side of a civil war is always desirable. All the land the victorious true tzar confiscates from traitors has to go to someone. Not saying Boris is not a good tsar, just that of all the oppinions of people who support him I take the least account of Boyar Yevschenko's.

 

[MrHobbit]

Or... he was just promised more stuff in the aftermath, it should be noted that being in the position of Boyar Yevschenko is a bit of a zero sum game, wealth comes from domain and there is only so much domain to go around so being on the winning side of a civil war is always desirable. All the land the victorious true tzar confiscates from traitors has to go to someone. Not saying Boris is not a good tsar, just that of all the people who support him I take the least account of Boyar Yevschenko's.

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There would be considerably less land to be redistributed in the aftermath of an assassination though. I doubt that Boyar Yevschenko thought that Mathilde would fail at it, or even deny the request. Whatever method Boris used to convince Boyar Yevschenko to support him, it still suggests that Yevschenko didn't approve of Vladimir.

Also there is only so far that increased possessions can tempt someone. Yevschenko is already the ruling Boyar of Erengrad.

 

[Andres]

@picklepikkl can you grab me the post where Boney said why he nixed the therapy spell from the Lore of Death? Grief's End is what it's called.

 

[GrimTheMad]

@picklepikkl can you grab me the post where Boney said why he nixed the therapy spell from the Lore of Death? Grief's End is what it's called.

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Not pickel, but here-

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I ditched all the insanity point removing spells. I felt like it would cheapen things a whole lot to be able to magic away traumas or phobias.

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Toyed around with rephrasing it for a bit before removing it entirely. It is thematic but I couldn't find a way to phrase it that didn't make me really uncomfortable with it.

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[Andres]

Spoiler

Where does Warhammer Fantasy fit into this?

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Where does Warhammer Fantasy fit into this?

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All of them, depending on the writer.

 

[Wiggy]

Where does Warhammer Fantasy fit into this?

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Probably Neutral Evil given how much it contradicts itself.

All of them, depending on the writer.

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Well, or that lol.

What's the OA thing a logo for under Lawful Good?

 

[Snootleboop]

I've been pondering a bit about Mathilde's aesthetic preferences. Specifically colour. I'm trying to think back to all the times she's expressed a particular preference for her or other people's outfits, home decor, hair presentation, etc. i remember she was glad that wizard robes count as formalwear as it meant she didnt need to figure out a new outfit, but also that she appreciated the imposing effect the helldrake scale pauldrons added to her silhouette, and of course the awesome dragon skull reading chair.

She never seems to wear anything other than grey wizard robes (which, frankly, must make laundry absolutely hell. What are you meant to do when your enchanted helldrake scale robes are drying on a line, does she have spare non-enchanted robes maybe?) What does casual friday look like for a wizard?

And very tangentially related, we've been salivating over the possibility of silk sheets for literal years now, but do we have any preference in terms of what form those sheets take? A particular colour or style? Does mathilde actually like the colour grey or is she committing to the ulgu aesthetic for the bit.

 

[Wiggy]

She never seems to wear anything other than grey wizard robes (which, frankly, must make laundry absolutely hell. What are you meant to do when your enchanted helldrake scale robes are drying on a line, does she have spare non-enchanted robes maybe?) What does casual friday look like for a wizard?

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I mean, I generally assume Mathilde has an entire wardrobe of mundane clothes for disguise purposes. Speaking of laundry, does Warhammer have a prestidigitation equivalent that can clean things? I guess it'd probably be Hysh that found something like that given the purity connotations. That'd make laundry easier if you can just magic your clothes clean. Though it might have issues with an enchanted item and wind mixing.

 

[Halocon720]

What's the OA thing a logo for under Lawful Good?

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Orion's Arm Universe Project

 

[DragonParadox]

I was just doing a reread and I got to the debate on the Skaven loot and what we should trade it for. Reading the passionate arguments, including form myself, for and against sevirosope and Golden Hounds info is kind of funny. Everyone turned out to be wrong.

We could in fact do the seviroscope in a single AP and the 'AI' was too limited to be of any use past the same one the Golds put it to.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

I've been pondering a bit about Mathilde's aesthetic preferences. Specifically colour. I'm trying to think back to all the times she's expressed a particular preference for her or other people's outfits, home decor, hair presentation, etc. i remember she was glad that wizard robes count as formalwear as it meant she didnt need to figure out a new outfit, but also that she appreciated the imposing effect the helldrake scale pauldrons added to her silhouette, and of course the awesome dragon skull reading chair.

She never seems to wear anything other than grey wizard robes (which, frankly, must make laundry absolutely hell. What are you meant to do when your enchanted helldrake scale robes are drying on a line, does she have spare non-enchanted robes maybe?) What does casual friday look like for a wizard?

And very tangentially related, we've been salivating over the possibility of silk sheets for literal years now, but do we have any preference in terms of what form those sheets take? A particular colour or style? Does mathilde actually like the colour grey or is she committing to the ulgu aesthetic for the bit.

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The thing with wizard robes is that it is the uniform of the colleges. Now I don't think there's a specific rule stating that she has to wear that uniform at all times, but wearing them does mean that when someone looks at her, they know exactly what she is—whereas if they saw her in normal clothes, and she was casting magic at the time, then out come the torches and pitchforks.

So in a way, the uniform is the first line of defence and offence—it clearly states to the world who Mathilde is, with all of the accompanying context, both good and bad. Mathide has learned to use that to her advantage, keeping people off balance when it suits her.

Now I think someone in the past posted an excerpt from 4e about how different wizards styled their robes, so no two looked alike, but in Divided Loyalties the name of the game seems to be accessorising. From Algard's blue scarf, to Goendul's many belts, Adela's flight goggles, Hubert's sword, and yes, Mathilde's helldrake scales and templar hat—accessories are what makes the wizard.

So I would imagine that Mathilde's unfortunately still hypothetical silk robes would continue to be grey in the general college style, but it would be all the accoutrements added around it that would be how she expresses her sense of fashion.

I was just doing a reread and I got to the debate on the Skaven loot and what we should trade it for. Reading the passionate arguments, including form myself, for and against sevirosope and Golden Hounds info is kind of funny. Everyone turned out to be wrong.

We could in fact to the seviroscope in a single AP and the 'AI' was too limited to be of any use past the same one the Golds put it to.

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Now I'm wondering what the thread would pick now if one of the colleges came to us with a blank check.

More waystone support? Books? Canals? An airship? As many secrets as we can stuff into our pockets?

 

[Mopman43]

The thing with wizard robes is that it is the uniform of the colleges. Now I don't think there's a specific rule stating that she has to wear that uniform at all times, but wearing them does mean that when someone looks at her, they know exactly what she is—whereas if they saw her in normal clothes, and she was casting magic at the time, then out come the torches and pitchforks.

So in a way, the uniform is the first line of defence and offence—it clearly states to the world who Mathilde is, with all of the accompanying context, both good and bad. Mathide has learned to use that to her advantage, keeping people off balance when it suits her.

Now I think someone in the past posted an excerpt from 4e about how different wizards styled their robes, so no two looked alike, but in Divided Loyalties the name of the game seems to be accessorising. From Algard's blue scarf, to Goendul's many belts, Adela's flight goggles, Hubert's sword, and yes, Mathilde's helldrake scales and templar hat—accessories are what makes the wizard.

So I would imagine that Mathilde's unfortunately still hypothetical silk robes would continue to be grey in the general college style, but it would be all the accoutrements added around it that would be how she expresses her sense of fashion.



Now I'm wondering what the thread would pick now if one of the colleges came to us with a blank check.

More waystone support? Books? Canals? An airship? As many secrets as we can stuff into our pockets?

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Probably depends on the College.

Light College would definitely see a strong push for 'library agreement'.

 

[Parabola]

Now I'm wondering what the thread would pick now if one of the colleges came to us with a blank check.

More waystone support? Books? Canals? An airship? As many secrets as we can stuff into our pockets?

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I've said this before, but I feel that in such an event, we should at least consider asking for further help with the Project.

I don't think we'd want to spend many AP personally trying to get tributaries set up on each and every province, for instance.

Otherwise (if we feel we could accomplish the aforementioned with a Great Deed or something), probably access to some of their libraries or something along those lines.

 

[Valmond]

Pretty sure it is not our job to personally setup the tributaries and/or waystones to each province.
Once we have the designs, and proven their effectiveness, setting them up becomes a job for the elector counts, or the emperor, like any other part of infrastructure.

 

[DragonParadox]

Now I'm wondering what the thread would pick now if one of the colleges came to us with a blank check.

More waystone support? Books? Canals? An airship? As many secrets as we can stuff into our pockets?

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Depends on which one as others have said above.

1. If it were the Celestials I have to admit I would be tempted by an airship, one large enough to serve as a carrier for the Gyrocoper
2. Golds... Well they are the College of money so maybe sponsor something costly that we want done
3. For the Order of Light I'd say library pass, they probably have some cool Nekekaran insights as well as other magical tomes they do not want to share
4. Amethysts... Honestly not sure, aid for an expedition into Nehekara maybe
5. Ambers... we might as well ask them about Corvus the Crow Lord, it is probably bunk to hide apparitions, but if there is any hint of Sorcery in college magic it would be interesting to know. Boney did once say that if we wanted to work out theurgy we would have to do more than look at gods and look at priests
6. For the Bright College I'd go with some help on the Silver Road expedition, that is the best use of the combat mages probably.
7. Finally the Jades... is the utter humiliation of anyone who ever annoyed Panoramia on the table? Seriously though I think we should just ask for more journeymanlings to raise tributaries

 

[Parabola]

Pretty sure it is not our job to personally setup the tributaries and/or waystones to each province.
Once we have the designs, and proven their effectiveness, setting them up becomes a job for the elector counts, or the emperor, like any other part of infrastructure.

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This is both right and wrong. In the long term, yes, the rollout of tributaries will happen on its own as the rituals get spread and codified and people understand its importance and are more capable of convincing the higher-ups of their necessity to shore up the weakest parts of the network.

Is there a reason why Tributaries creation methods aren't available as a subject to write an article on?

Seems like a good way to codify the knowledge and make it available for selected others to use.

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Mathilde doesn't know those rituals. Papers on them will be written by others as they're rolled out.

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But in the short term, just as with every other action involving the Project, if we want to see it happen, we can't just delegate away and leave people to do their own things. We have to spend the AP on coordinating with the people who know the tributaries to roll them out and hammer in the fact that they're a good magical infrastructure idea. And there is practical value to doing so at this stage, even if the Empire isn't so starved for tributaries as Kislev: it'd have political value to convince people.

The purpose at this stage isn't to achieve 100% saturation across the entire province, it's to shore up the Waystone Network where it's needed, to demonstrate the value of Waystones to Elector Counts that are currently varying levels of ignorant to apathetic about them, and to build up a proven track record to help with future negotiations.

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We started out with Stirland and Roswita, and surely once it's finished and people notice a severe downtick of gribblies, it'll get more attention, but right now? We're still at the stage where most Elector Counts are probably skeptical of the idea of letting wizards do wizard things in their provinces without a Lady Magister personally vouching for them. A 'natural' spread of tributaries will be faster if we put in personal effort ourselves.

 

[dinomannitro6]

I've been pondering a bit about Mathilde's aesthetic preferences. Specifically colour. I'm trying to think back to all the times she's expressed a particular preference for her or other people's outfits, home decor, hair presentation, etc. i remember she was glad that wizard robes count as formalwear as it meant she didnt need to figure out a new outfit, but also that she appreciated the imposing effect the helldrake scale pauldrons added to her silhouette, and of course the awesome dragon skull reading chair.

She never seems to wear anything other than grey wizard robes (which, frankly, must make laundry absolutely hell. What are you meant to do when your enchanted helldrake scale robes are drying on a line, does she have spare non-enchanted robes maybe?) What does casual friday look like for a wizard?

And very tangentially related, we've been salivating over the possibility of silk sheets for literal years now, but do we have any preference in terms of what form those sheets take? A particular colour or style? Does mathilde actually like the colour grey or is she committing to the ulgu aesthetic for the bit.

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Searching through my big list (really need to get around to collating that into a post) heres various things that have been mentioned:

her mentioning sticking to grey for everything:

Also occupying your tragically limited time is a shopping trip. After the... robe incident, you're determined to never be caught out like that again, so you buy up a wardrobe's worth of suitably grey breeches and tunics to wear underneath your robes.

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Though you are quite pleased that you managed to get your hands on a bolt of naturally silver-grey wool, a rarity in this modern age of animal husbandry that has lead to pure-white sheep becoming the norm.

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Her thoughts on her appearance when she regained access to mirrors:

Unhappy with her ears, and thinking she should probably do something with her hair.

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leans towards practicality in her outfits:

Though a pair of under-robe shoulder holsters had some popularity amongst the Grey College, ever since you began learning the greatsword you've favoured practical snug tailoring secured with belts instead of the loose and billowy robes that would allow easy access to a hidden arsenal, though your accurate and conveniently slim Marksdwarf's pistol does find a home within an inner pocket. Some pistoliers favour a one-on-each-hip arrangement of holsters, while those that fight with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other prefer both pistols on one side, as only their off-hand would need access to them. That Branulhune takes only a thought to draw clinches the argument in favour of the former, as you could unload a revolver with your dominant hand and then summon Branulhune to it and draw the second revolver with your offhand during combat, and the overall effect is pleasingly symmetrical.

While you're considering your growing collection of belts, holsters and scabbards, you finally give in to practicality and remove the back scabbard that you've worn for about a decade and entrust Branulhune to the Rune of the Unknown. With a revolver on each hip you're no less visibly armed, and an enemy that doesn't know you've a greatsword on hand is that much more easily dispatched. And you don't have to worry about getting it caught while clambering into gyrocopter seats.

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Though not entirely:

So true, and speaking of Dwarf Infection @BoneyM Does Mathilde still keeps her hair loose? or is she using braids?

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It keeps her hair secure when it could be a safety hazard.

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And uncut these last few years, perhaps?

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She's a busy woman, haircuts would just be a waste of time.

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She always goes as a wizard, no casual Fridays:

She's never not broadcasting with her appearance that she's a wizard and that's terrifying to some and intimidating to others, even among those that don't know her reputation.

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but there is more to that look than just the robes:

The robes of a Grey Wizard just look like regular robes if you can't make out the details of the trim

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While she doesn't participate in it much, she does know about fashion:

wearing clothes only half a decade out of fashion

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For most occasions, Mathilde would be fine dressed in her robe as long as she cleaned it, as being a Magister is itself a title and the robe is the appropriate uniform. If she was attending somewhere specifically as a Knight, again she would usually be fine, as she's not part of a Knightly Order, and Stirlandian nobles aren't expected to meet the standards of fashion and deportment that one might expect of, say, a Reikland noble. The only edge case is if there was a formal occasion that Mathilde was expected to attend explicitly as a Knight and not as a Wizard, but with the eternal mutability of fashion, trying to plan ahead for that would be impossible, so she'd be best off visiting a tailor and getting something made specifically for it should such a situation arise. Horse fashion specifically is only really a thing for Knightly Orders and elite mounted units. That said, if Mathilde ever spends much time in Bretonnia, that's an entirely different story.

For Loremaster and Thane, the Dwarves are a militarized society. Anything you fight in is perfectly acceptable, just scrub off the blood and leave off the helmet for fancy occasions.

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[MrHobbit]

But in the short term, just as with every other action involving the Project, if we want to see it happen, we can't just delegate away and leave people to do their own things. We have to spend the AP on coordinating with the people who know the tributaries to roll them out and hammer in the fact that they're a good magical infrastructure idea. And there is practical value to doing so at this stage, even if the Empire isn't so starved for tributaries as Kislev: it'd have political value to convince people.

We started out with Stirland and Roswita, and surely once it's finished and people notice a severe downtick of gribblies, it'll get more attention, but right now? We're still at the stage where most Elector Counts are probably skeptical of the idea of letting wizards do wizard things in their provinces without a Lady Magister personally vouching for them. A 'natural' spread of tributaries will be faster if we put in personal effort ourselves.

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I'm definitely not looking forward to spending the AP on erecting tributaries in every province. Boney also mentioned that each province will need to be surveyed so we know how functional the waystone network is in the province and where the functional waystones are. I assume it'll look similar to the tributaries. We deploy waystones to the Empire by province and internationally by nation. Unlike with tributaries we can't just leave waystones off large sections of the map.

How many actions is that? Thirteen actions at least? It'd be the same for deploying tributaries too.

Tributaries are useful, but they aren't quite that dramatic. If they were it would have been easier for Boris to convince Vladimir to deploy them across Kislev. They give improvements over long periods of time. Waystones will give severe downturns in the number of gribblies, tributaries will pick away at that number over a period of years.

If nothing else I guess we could spend a Great Deed either on the surveys or the tributaries.

On another note, I wonder what would be the best place to deploy new waystones at first. Laurelorn might not the most threatened section of the network, but it did start the Project and is the host. It might not be a good idea to snub it by not deploying waystones there first. We haven't even deployed tributaries to it. Though that probably would be a good idea to do fairly soon.