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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Blackout said:
Putting him with the Brights so that he can learn the non-fireballing side of Aqshy sounds like wishful thinking, because he'll be taught by fireball wizards, read books about fireballing, and be expected by both his peers and society around him to shoot fireballs
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Well this is the stupidest thing you could have written.
Who else would teach the non fire ball side of Aqshy except the... Aqshy wizards? There is only one college that does this. Do you think they just tore those spells out of the grimoire after Teclis left?

Seems like the issue is that you have a pretty flanderised impression of what the Brights do, if you think they only use half the tricks that you say are in their tool box.
 
A thought: the Greys are probably the best choice for encouraging his connection to Ranald.

The Greys gel best with Ranald, and the Greys are probably also the most Ranald-friendly College. (not that that's a high bar to clear)

Can't really know how important and/or desireable that is before we've seen more of what Mandred is like, though. I don't think I can come down on favoring any particular College until we know him a little better. (presumably in the next update)
 
Blackout said:
Putting him with the Brights so that he can learn the non-fireballing side of Aqshy sounds like wishful thinking, because he'll be taught by fireball wizards, read books about fireballing, and be expected by both his peers and society around him to shoot fireballs. If Mathilde was in the Bright College she could maneuver to get him as her apprentice and influence him towards the track that the thread desires, but if we put him in the Fireball College he will learn to shoot fireballs.

It would be interesting to have him focus on the other aspects of the Red Wind, yeah, but Mathilde is not in a position to decide what he will focus on.
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I wouldn't bet my house on it, but at the same time I feel like people at the bright college will have basically the same information we do regard "Hey this kid is going to be elector count some day" and "wow some of these non-fireball spells would be incredibly useful to someone in a high leadership roll."

They're the most military-connected college and a lot of these non-fireball spells we're talking about aren't "no military purpose" but rather "this is a general's spell instead of a soldier's spell."
 
Mopman43 said:
I think Heidi's influence was in him getting 4d6 to Piety instead of 3d6.

Pity he rolled 2 ones.
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That was certainly some of Heidi's influence, but I wouldn't assume it's all of it. Like, the rolling 4d6 drop the lowest on Martial and Diplomacy was likely also from his education as a royal, but I wouldn't assume it's the sum total of the effects that has either.

Dark as Silver said:
Well this is the stupidest thing you could have written.
Who else would teach the non fire ball side of Aqshy except the... Aqshy wizards? There is only one college that does this. Do you think they just tore those spells out of the grimoire after Teclis left?

Seems like the issue is that you have a pretty flanderised impression of what the Brights do, if you think they only use half the tricks that you say are in their tool box.
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The Bright College pretty explicitly lean hard into the purely 'burn things with physical fire' side of Aqshy...Mandred would likely need an exceedingly foreign or maybe Elven instructor to go very far into the emotional side of that Wind.
 
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Dark as Silver said:
Well this is the stupidest thing you could have written.
Who else would teach the non fire ball side of Aqshy except the... Aqshy wizards? There is only one college that does this. Do you think they just tore those spells out of the grimoire after Teclis left?

Seems like the issue is that you have a pretty flanderised impression of what the Brights do, if you think they only use half the tricks that you say are in their tool box.
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No, the issue is that you haven't read the quest you're commenting on, you know where Mathilde explicitly says that the Bright College focuses on using Aqshy for brute force and magical artillery.

Boney said:
The inevitable result of this is that these Indic books on Aqshy are very different to Collegiate ones. Where the Colleges focus on the brute force that the fires of Aqshy can bring to bear, these books focus on the ability of the Wind of Fire to instill bravery and passion. An Indic Bright Wizard would be more of a leader than an artillery piece on the battlefield, and outside of it their most visible roles would be as leaders of festivals and counsellors against melancholia. There's also a bodily component of all this you don't quite understand that says that Aqshy concentrates most readily in the thumb, the eyes, and the stomach, and references to a pair of deities apparently associated with the Wind of Fire. You don't know if any of this would be compatible with the Collegiate use of Aqshy, but you shrug and send a note to the Bright College letting them know where to find the books if they're interested.
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Yeah, Mandred could become a Bright Wizard that focuses on the emotional side of Aqshy instead of blowing shit up, but Mathilde has no way of deciding what part of Aqshy Mandred focuses on, and given that the Bright College explicitly focuses on blowing shit up, and that the vast majority of the Bright Magic spellbook used by the Bright College is "blow shit up" spells, it's much more likely that if Mathilde influences the panel to put him into the Bright College he will become a wizard focused on blowing shit up.
 
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Blackout said:
Putting him with the Brights so that he can learn the non-fireballing side of Aqshy sounds like wishful thinking, because he'll be taught by fireball wizards, read books about fireballing, and be expected by both his peers and society around him to shoot fireballs. If Mathilde was in the Bright College she could maneuver to get him as her apprentice and influence him towards the track that the thread desires, but if we put him in the Fireball College he will learn to shoot fireballs.

It would be interesting to have him focus on the other aspects of the Red Wind, yeah, but Mathilde is not in a position to decide what he will focus on.
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To be fair, Bright Lord Magisters are awe inspiring leaders of men, in every possible connotation of the word.

Dark as Silver said:
Who else would teach the non fire ball side of Aqshy except the... Aqshy wizards? There is only one college that does this. Do you think they just tore those spells out of the grimoire after Teclis left?
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Yeah, no, he is right. People keep mentioning the Cathay side of things, about how lore of fire there means something else. Not only is that not applicable to whatever Bright College has to teach, one has to also remember that the Colleges are not academic institution by heart. They behave that way, but they were founded for one purpose only, to train battle capable magickers to stem the tide of chaos. Other colleges may act as if this is no longer true and they can devote themselves to academia unless everchosen is marching, but i really doubt that Brights in general of all people cleaved far from the original purpose.

Teclis taught war wizards and little else. That has an emotional application, its right there in the spell list, but thats also the sum total of its ability to do so.
 
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Godwinson said:
This whole discussion is very premature, given that we're presumably going to have at least one update that's about getting more details that would be useful for exactly this topic.
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People will talk about something. An action that has already been voted for is uncommonly on point. Compare that to some of the perpetual everburners who are saved from being baseless speculation by the technicality of being based on on hundreds of pages of previous baseless speculation... this is nice.

Not that you are, factually speaking, wrong.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I don't really know what point I'm making with this, but a thought occurred to me that Mandred doesn't really need to reach Magister. Sure, if he has the ability to, he definitely should, but he could also stop at Journeyman or even Perpetual and that would be fine.
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DragonParadox said:
I think we need to reel in expectations for the kid a bit, we do not really need him to be a legendary hero, a great wizard knight and general or anything of the sort. I mean it would be nice, but as far as wizard representation goes it's more:
  1. Don't get corrupted
  2. Don't die trying to learn magic
  3. Don't dive so deep into a wind as to be off-putting
This is what the Orders of Magic need out of this kid which means he needs to have various holy books applied to his brain until one sticks, he needs to be taught magic with kid gloves since unlike normal competence is very much optional as long as he knows enough to be safe. Really for most political purposes him being a perpetual is fine.

Edit: Mathilde'd by @Nerdasaurus Rex above.
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Mandred absolutely does need to become a Magister. From our perspective inside the college there's nothing wrong with knowing your limits, from the perspective of other nobles failing to "complete his education" will be seen as a major embarrassment for both Mandred and the colleges.

Like, there's an argument to be made that he doesn't need to meet the normal qualifications to get the rank, but imo that's gross enough to just want to avoid the question by ensuring he's trained right.
 
pucflek said:
Yeah, no, he is right. People keep mentioning the Cathay side of things, about how lore of fire there means something else. Not only is that not applicable to whatever Bright College has to teach, one has to also remember that the Colleges are not academic institution by heart. They behave that way, but they were founded for one purpose only, to train battle capable magickers to stem the tide of chaos. Other colleges may act as if this is no longer true and they can devote themselves to academia unless everchosen is marching, but i really doubt that Brights in general of all people cleaved far from the original purpose.
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No, people are mostly just talking about the emotional aspects that are literally already part of the curriculum, which already have a clear military application in generalship.
 
The weakest spells of the blue college are [Polish, Clean, and Gleam], [First Portent], and [Omen]. Those are respectively a cleaning spell, a free reroll, and a spell that lets you make an intelligence check to see if something is a good idea in the next few hours.

Getting to reroll any time you get a natural 1 on a roll you care about outside of a surprise attack is insane. It's the sort of thing that has massive warping effects on statistics. It's the sort of thing the GM starts reaching for the Apparition section to slap you for because you deserve punishment for your hubris.

On the other hand, the Bright College can canonically mind control anybody you want into a deadly grudge with anybody else you want. There's a check to resist it, but there's nothing stopping you from doing it once a day for a week at some place that makes casting easy (like a waystone, while loaded up with money to make casting circles, and with support wizards to help you cast better using the relevant rules).

Both are pretty scary.
 
reignonyrparade said:
No, people are mostly just talking about the emotional aspects that are literally already part of the curriculum, which already have a clear military application in generalship.
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I may have missed some parts of the discussion, but the Ind interpretation of Lore of Fire got floated across last few months and like nah. Bright Magister does fire good and is either inspiring/girding or terrifying depending on the spell. Not much nuance, and probably not applicable in day to day running of the province.

Gonna make him hell of a general tho.
 
reignonyrparade said:
No, people are mostly just talking about the emotional aspects that are literally already part of the curriculum, which already have a clear military application in generalship.
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There are exactly five spells in the Aqshy spellbook that effect emotions, and only two are directly useful for a general (Crown of Fire and Hearts of Fire). All are below Battle Magic level (at least as far as we know), and only Crown of Fire is likely to effect more than a handful of people. They are as follows:

Boney said:
Relatively Simple:
Choleric: Creature near you becomes annoyed at another creature nearby and may attack it. Can be resisted with Willpower
Crown of Fire: You are better at inspiring and intimidating (that is the spell bound in the Torc)

Moderately Complicated:
Consuming Wrath: Target goes berserk but is also slowly consumed by fires from within.
Hearts of fire: Makes your allies resistant to fear

Fiendishly Complex:
Burning Vengeance: One target wants to kill another target. Can be resisted on cast and each month, lasts a year, can be recast, you require names of both targets
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Literally everything else in the spellbook is about physical fire (as is Consuming Wrath, honestly). Saying he's not gonna get much in the way of emotional Aqshy is not baseless, it's almost certain unless he goes to Ind or something. Certainly not positive or general-based spells...Choleric and particularly Burning Vengeance are, frankly, something I'm not sure I want a political leader to even have access to. That's some messed up stuff.

Inasmuch as there are emotional effects, they're mostly about anger, which is not a direction I think we want Mandred taking.
 
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I'm lightly leaning towards Celestial. Normally Celestials have to be careful about acting on their foreknowledge lest they disrupt the future and make things even worse. Mandred could intentionally interfere with futures he doesn't like and rely on Ranaldian luck to make sure the new unforeseen future works out for the better anyway.
 
I think people saying that Mandred has to become a Magister have the idea in their heads that Magister is like, a masters degree or PhD to the Journeyman B.S..

It isn't. The Colleges are war institutions that happen to incidentally do research, as was said, and beyond the tradition of having to present a masterwork, there's also a hard power requirement. My recollection of Boney's write up of wizard demographics (when Mathilde is lecturing Wilhelmina on it) is that frankly the majority of wizards don't become Magisters.
 
Lammen Gorthaur said:
I think people saying that Mandred has to become a Magister have the idea in their heads that Magister is like, a masters degree or PhD to the Journeyman B.S..

It isn't. The Colleges are war institutions that happen to incidentally do research, as was said, and beyond the tradition of having to present a masterwork, there's also a hard power requirement. My recollection of Boney's write up of wizard demographics (when Mathilde is lecturing Wilhelmina on it) is that frankly the majority of wizards don't become Magisters.
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This is true, but Mathilde also stated to Wilhelmina that Eike has the potential for Magister judging by her level of Magesight at her age (10? 11?), whereas Mandred actually managed to start shaping the magic of a very small enchantment at age 7 - I'd say he also has similar potential.

IMO he is more likely to end up as a perpetual Journeyman like Hubert currently is than a Perpetual Apprentice. So really, the trick here isn't 'which spells are best for a ruler' or 'which Marks are the ones we want him to avoid', it's 'which Wind will he jive with the most'. I'm sure that if Hubert liked the mystical aspects of Azyr he'd be more willing to make it to Magister.
 
Jreengus said:
I feel like the concern around Grey Arcane marks is massively overblown. They are no worse than any of the other winds marks. The two that always get brought up are the impossible to remember face and the appearing shady one but both neither of those is any worse than for example the brights bad temper.

The shady thing will automatically be countered just by people being forced to deal with him, and can be further countered by just not being shady so he has an established reputation to draw on. Like imagine if upon meeting Boris we'd gotten a feeling that he was kinds shady but he had a reputation for being honest with his dealings, would we have acted any differently? Would we have walked away and ignored the resources Kislev could bring to the waystone project? Like I'm not saying it will have no effect but it's not going to be any worse than any of the other orders bad arcane marks.

As for the unrememberal face one:
"Hey who's that guy sat in the elector count's chair?"
"The one wearing the elector count's clothes, holding the elector count's runefang, shadowed by the elector count's greatswords who looks just like the portrait of the elector count hung directly behind him?"
"That's the one"
"Not a clue. I really hope the elector count shows up soon though."
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Really faceless is useful for a elector count. It means that you actually have the option to go incognito if you want to. And when you want people to know that you are the Elector Count you have at least a dozen symbols of office to use.
 
fictionfan said:
Really faceless is useful for a elector count. It means that you actually have the option to go incognito if you want to. And when you want people to know that you are the Elector Count you have at least a dozen symbols of office to use.
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Ulgu as such is pretty solid for a ruler in a lot of ways. The Grey College's reputation, however, is not conducive to successful or steady rule. It's unfortunate, and societal rather than a limitation of the Wind, but it's true nonetheless.
 
Lammen Gorthaur said:
I think people saying that Mandred has to become a Magister have the idea in their heads that Magister is like, a masters degree or PhD to the Journeyman B.S..

It isn't. The Colleges are war institutions that happen to incidentally do research, as was said, and beyond the tradition of having to present a masterwork, there's also a hard power requirement. My recollection of Boney's write up of wizard demographics (when Mathilde is lecturing Wilhelmina on it) is that frankly the majority of wizards don't become Magisters.
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No, I absolutely get that and it's an even stronger reason why he's going to need to be a magister. It is not the opinion of the empire at large that wizards having a space to exist and live their lives is something they obviously should have for their own sake. We, who do believe that, see imperial magister as one of many valid specialties for a wizard to have, for imperial citizens it's what wizards are ultimately for, the bit that pays for the rest. Most wizards won't have any problems with this because the people evaluating their performance are other wizards who get that not everyone wants to kill orcs or whatever, but Mandred will have other eyes on him, if he stops at apprentice or journeyman that will be viewed as a failure at the central point of being a wizard.
 
Having got the new dlc for total warhammer I wish for an airship so that Mathilde can bomb her enemies. And I guess for trade and go to Dum.
 
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