Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[IronFist]

You are kinda falling into the IC hype the Brights have for themselves. Sure, they are the college that considers life as a weapon the default path, but does that automatically make them better at fostering a martial talent than the more flexible colleges? Especially a talent that is predestined to be a leader rather than a mere soldier. Those are different things. You call out the art of war but I don't really get the vibe that the Brights are preparing their children for being someone who is in charge of anything.

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It's not "just" hype though.

The Bright college is the one that does the most conventional fighting, because their current paradigm doesn't lend itself to anything else.

They have the closest relationship with the soldiery of the empire, because they actually train with them. And that close relationship can possibly be translated to more easily getting the most talented military minds in the empire to tutor mandred in military leadership.

When you ask an average Joe in the empire to describe a battle wizard, they will most often describe one of the Bright Wizards.

 

[picklepikkl]

Being mentally inflexible seems like something that a College of alchemists would have relatively few problems with.

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I understand where you're coming from, but this contradicts the text of the quest.

The Gold Order in particular is known for becoming more rigid and uncompromising as they advance, and less able to connect emotionally to others.

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Now, that's not a 100%. Feldmann is a notable exception. But he's a notable exception, and we should take it into account -- from where I'm sitting, it's the major drawback to the Golds.

 

[Eisenhelm]

I will vote gold. His affinity for chamon and his martial prowess makes me want to see karl franz and baltazar gelt fused into a single gold plated badass. "welcome to Reikland gentleman"

 

[Ergosum]

Mathilde is actually very good at Diplomacy now. 18 is easily high enough to take an advisory role in places that aren't Stirland.

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She is exceptionally good at dealing with Elves and especially Dwarves. Like, the Chamberlain of the Seal, the Empire's top diplomat, went to her specifically because everyone else he asked didn't give a satisfactory answer - and Mathilde helped so much that the Chamberlain eventually offered to appoint her Ambassador to the Karaz Ankor. She's built goodwill with the Karaz Ankor, Laurelorn, Kislev and even to some degree Ulthuan. She could arguably be a valid (if not optimal) option for Chamberlain of the Seal herself if the current one retired.

And she had Diplomacy as her dump stat.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

I think I'm happy with everything except the Jades - as others have said, their pitch was really what Manfred can do for them, and for Reikland. And even as a non-Jade, I doubt Manfred's going to be entirely incurious about the major magical infrastructure they're working on in his province.

Less sure about the others. I like the Indic investigation write-in for the Brights, with the understanding that it doesn't tie their hands too heavily if it doesn't seem like it'll work out. On the other hand, if we can't think of a write-in for the Golds, I'm absolutely not above horse trading with them - we'll only pick them if we vote for them as the best pick anyway, but they don't know that, and the winner here is walking away with a big prize.

I'm also surprisingly fine with Grey Manfred. The Grey college might have a reputation as secret police, but Ulgu is the magic of showmanship, which thinking about it seems ideal for a politician! The update shows that he's entirely willing and able to change his mindset from black and white to shades of grey - I think he'd be a good fit for the Wind itself, and the College is demonstrably fine with members not cleaving closely to the College stereotype.

 

[Kornet]

You are kinda falling into the IC hype the Brights have for themselves. Sure, they are the college that considers life as a weapon the default path, but does that automatically make them better at fostering a martial talent than the more flexible colleges? Especially a talent that is predestined to be a leader rather than a mere soldier. Those are different things. You call out the art of war but I don't really get the vibe that the Brights are preparing their children for being someone who is in charge of anything.

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This is not so much about command as it is about institutional culture. Brights borrowed a lot of theirs from regular military and, as far as I understand, there is a significant overlap between state troop officer and bright wizard cirriculum.


They may not be trained for command that well, or not that good at tactics, but they are very much a military academy from the point of education. Of the professional, disciplined, regeminted, regular and decidededly post-feudal kind.

 

[Prime 2.0]

EDIT: Fundamentally, Indic fire traditions are not quite as far away to what Cathay are from Empire, but they still are. If you bank on Bright college being capable of teaching something not of their own that they might have couple of books on at best as curiosity, then i dunno what to tell you.

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Many problems such as "only having a couple books" can be solved with the resources of an empire doing the solving.

To be clear this means they could get actual practitioners to consult, not just more books.

 

[Alratan]

As far as nature of the Wind goes, mental inflexibility is a side effect of one of the spells in their spellbook. I find that rather telling.

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Of one specific spell that has a specific effect that's desinged to slow the process of change, for a Wind that's about controlling processes. It's like saying that because the Grey College teaches Shadowsteed Ulgu turns you into a horse.

Well, then it's good that we aren't asking for a single spell, but to examine available material on a different yet compatible magical paradigm, and see if they can take away applicable lessons or inspiration to create spells. The way I see it, it'll almost certainly be a roll. And "a single new spell" will be one of the possible results on it. And I won't be too sad if it gets rolled, because it's still an addition to an already solid corpus, but I'll be even happier if a better result comes out, and I want to take this shot.

Absolute worst thing that can happen, barring unrelated untimely miscast death, is nothing. Which is basically "Bright on merit".

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Absolute worst that can happen when making him a living experiment in combining two paradigms could well be a fate much worse than death, a medium option could be something that strongly resembles 'We trained him wrong. As a joke.' as he falls between two stools.

Agreed.
I think it's more important that he actually enjoy the wind, and what it provides him.
And i think Mandred would love what Bright college will teach him, he will want to be good at it, he will want to learn, and be willing to spend the effort to get past the bare minimum.
Sure, he might be good at elemental chamon, and not complete suck at rest of it, but i'm not sure he would love it the way he would Aqshy.

As for Jades, they're good wizards, effective, they could do plenty for him and he could do plenty with their teachings.
But i just don't see the connection there for him specifically.

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I disagree here. I think that's what affinity with elemental Chamon means, that he'll enjoy learning and using it. Not having particular affinity with Aqshy means that his personality isn't that well suited to learning it so he won't enjoy it that much. Affinity=personality to my mind.

Because it's self evident that the Bright college is best for warriors. Yes, every college trains for war—but only the Bright College trains it's wizards as Soldiers. Grey's are assassins, diplomats, and spies. Golds are alchemists, metalsmiths, and engineers. Jade's are farmers.

But Brights? They are soldiers, champions, and commanders. Sure, you get outliers—Adela is a mechanic, but even then her main focus is the creation of new weapons. But on the whole, the Brights teach the art of war as part of the main curriculum. For everyone else, it's optional.

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I don't see much evidence that it trains them as champions or commanders. And all Colleges prime duty is to train its wizards to serve on the front lines in the army. We've been told that. Golds are soldiers. Greys are soldiers. Jades are soldiers. They're just not only soldiers.

And I think this is important for Mandred. He's not going to be a soldier. He's going to be an Elector Count. It's important for him to be taught that there are diversity of approaches to win. The Bright's focus on war alone would make it a bad environment for him to grow up in.

This is not so much about command as it is about institutional culture. Brights borrowed a lot of theirs from regular military and, as far as I understand, there is a significant overlap between state troop officer and bright wizard cirriculum.


They may not be trained for command that well, or not that good at tactics, but they are very much a military academy from the point of education. Of the professional, disciplined, regeminted, regular and decidededly post-feudal kind.

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I don't think there is a state troop officer curriculum. State troop officers are the local nobility whose families trained them.

 

[Prime 2.0]

Absolute worst that can happen when making him a living experiment in combining two paradigms could well be a fate much worse than death, a medium option could be something that strongly resembles 'We trained him wrong. As a joke.' as he falls between two stools.

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Good thing he has the focused attention of ranald and all 8 colleges checking in to make sure it doesn't then, right?

I don't think what you're talking about is a very realistic outcome, even if I suppose some nat 1s could make it happen.

 

[Valmond]

I'm not sure that the patron deity of theft, lies, gambling and revolution has much interest in restraint as a guiding principle either.

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Got to know when to hold, got to know when to fold them, got to know when to walk away and when to run.
I'd say good Ranaldite is very big on restraint.
Yes, even the luck ones, Ranald helps those who help themselves, and rigging the game is perfectly acceptable for the most part.

Restraint the brights teach is not about self denial, it is waiting for the right moment.
Not the restraint of an ascetic, but an ambusher, of a hunter, an officer or a conman.

 

[Somic]

Absolute worst that can happen when making him a living experiment

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Why do people keep assuming that the Brights are gonna shove two unfiltered magic paradigms at him and let him figure himself out? It's getting tiring. The College will have three to five years to have any number of interested adult wizards attempt to apply the Indic paradigm to their own experience and get results before Mandred learns enough basic control to be allowed outside the College building.

 

[Kornet]

I don't see much evidence that it trains them as champions or commanders. And all Colleges prime duty is to train its wizards to serve on the front lines in the army. We've been told that. Golds are soldiers. Greys are soldiers. Jades are soldiers. They're just not only soldiers.

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No, they are not. At best, they are fighters and warriors, useful in battle, but not really part of the regular army structure with little understanding of it - unless it is learned afterwards in the field.


At worst, they are effectively non-combatants. Starting Mathilde is a great example.


Now, all *battle wizards* are primarily military assets, but that is very much not in the cards.

Outside of battle wizard each colleges except the Bright one is only tangentially connected to military.

 

[Alratan]

I understand where you're coming from, but this contradicts the text of the quest.

Now, that's not a 100%. Feldmann is a notable exception. But he's a notable exception, and we should take it into account -- from where I'm sitting, it's the major drawback to the Golds.

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That's Mathilde's IC stereotypes, of which not a single one of the Golds we've ever met has fit. It could also be something that's not metaphysical, but social, something that comes from many Gold Magisters being nerds who spend too much time either in their laboratories or focusing on being proto-capitalists.

Most importantly, it's a drawback that we can take account of and should be able to avoid. We know that paradigm is passed on from master to apprentice, and paradigm reflects the way a human wizard interacts with a Wind. If Mandred is apprenticed to Fledman (or Gehenna, or Johann), he should be taught their conception of Chamon, which doesn't have this drawback.

We don't know how to so reliably mitigate the potential downsides of other Colleges, such as the possibility that the Brights would tend to teach that every problem can be solved by an appropriately sized Fire Ball (or Fireball), or more seriously lean into his preference to solve problems with violence in a way that's detrimental to his ability to be a good Elector Count.

 

[Valmond]

I disagree here. I think that's what affinity with elemental Chamon means, that he'll enjoy learning and using it. Not having particular affinity with Aqshy means that his personality isn't that well suited to learning it so he won't enjoy it that much. Affinity=personality to my mind.

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Even if true, and i am not sure it is true.
That's only elemental chamon, which is only part of chamon.
And having talent for something is not the same as enjoying it.

 

[Alratan]

Why do people keep assuming that the Brights are gonna shove two unfiltered magic paradigms at him and let him figure himself out? It's getting tiring. The College will have three to five years to have any number of interested adult wizards attempt to apply the Indic paradigm to their own experience and get results before Mandred learns enough basic control to be allowed outside the College building.

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Because three to five years are nothing. I'd expect trying to synthesis two paradigms to take decades and quite likely kill many apprentices along the way.

We don't even know the name of the Indic magical language, I think!

No, they are not. At best, they are fighters and warriors, useful in battle, but not really part of the regular army structure with little understanding of it - unless it is learned afterwards in the field.


At worst, they are effectively non-combatants. Starting Mathilde is a great example.


Now, all *battle wizards* are primarily military assets, but that is very much not in the cards.

Outside of battle wizard each colleges except the Bright one is only tangentially connected to military.

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Mathilde isn't a great example for someone whose been properly trained before being sent out into the field.

Also, what regular army structure? This is a premodern army. There are some individual regiments of state troops with traditions, but there isn't a single unitary army to my knowledge.

Good thing he has the focused attention of ranald and all 8 colleges checking in to make sure it doesn't then, right?

I don't think what you're talking about is a very realistic outcome, even if I suppose some nat 1s could make it happen.

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I'm not sure it would even be possible to tell in advance, and even Ranald's blessing only goes so far when taking risks like creating novel hybrid magical pradigms.

Even if true, and i am not sure it is true.
That's only elemental chamon, which is only part of chamon.
And having talent for something is not the same as enjoying it.

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Talent quite posisbly has nothing to do with this. Gehenna never mentioned talent. She said 'I've only ever encountered one more suited for the manipulation of elemental Chamon than he is'

That's not a question of some metaphysical talent. It's a holistic judgement from an expert about all the factors of suitability. That will inlcude enjoying it.

Note that the Bright Lord Magister says nothing about enjoyment of personality fit. He's the one who talks about 'affinity', although it's 'affinity for war'.

 

[WestOrEast]

It would be difficult to find an organism on this world more useless than the juvenile human.

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Snotlings

which Ulric could not see was really the eldest and largest of the Dragon Ogres, which allowed Ranald to hide a terrible Daemon-Sword beneath the sleeping giant so that none could wield it.

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Where it will surely stay safe and unclaimed for all time!

that of the Clever Wizard who stole power from Gork and Mork so that it could be used to steal a Princess from the clutches of the Vampires

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"That of the Clever and Brave Wizard. That of the Clever and Brave and Beautiful Wizard. That of the Clever and Brave and Beautiful and Well-Read Wizard. That of the-"

"Mathilde, please."

 

[Somic]

Because three to five years are nothing. I'd expect trying to synthesis two paradigms to take decades

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I will just...

We have seen time and again how ideas circulate and inspire clever inventions and insights into magic. See the Matrix (cribbed from Dhar to Ulgu), see the MAP (invented by a Grey, turned into the MAPP by a Bright), see the recent papers that came from putting a Waystone together and added knowledge to two different colleges from dissecting an Elven, universally compatible spell. It's normal. This, honestly, is easy mode.

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None of that took decades. The quest hasn't even been running for all that many decades.

 

[MrHobbit]

I'm not sure it would even be possible to tell in advance, and even Ranald's blessing only goes so far when taking risks like creating novel hybrid magical pradigms.

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Why would it cause insanity or something like that? This isn't like the example of raising a kid in an isolated room to think that Ulgu is about telling the truth or that Aqshy is about water or whatever that was. (@picklepikkl do you remember the quote?) Even that didn't really fuck over the child from what I recall. Just the person who taught them like that. And the Bright College would be clear that they were drawing inspiration from Indic traditions to Mandred.

The risk is fairly simple. That it will end up like what happens when you have western professors teaching Chinese history. Either that or it just ends up as nothing because Ind doesn't want to share and, to what should be no one's surprise, the Bright College can't reverse engineer a magical tradition older than the Empire from all of a 1-point bonus.

None of that took decades. The quest hasn't even been running for all that many decades.

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Where are these Indic spells? As far as we know the books we have about Aqshy are about theory. And there's not much reason to think the Elementalists were very interested about the practice.

 

[AsuraAtlas]

[] Brights, for investigation into incorporating the Indic paradigm of Aqshy

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I would hesitate to use words like "Indic paradigm," primarily because I've seen more than one person who didn't know/forgot what we mean by that; But also because whatever books we can scrounge up would likely only offer a starting point, unlikely to end up looking like what Ind does. Maybe we could say "leadership paradigm" or something?

When the vote happens I'm probably gonna be spending most of my energy on this, both because I genuinely like it and because I'm pretty much the only person advocating for Jades. However, as the only person advocating for Jades, I feel honor-bound to try to scrounge up at least a few more votes.

I think that rather than just argue the merits of one college of another directly, I think it would be very useful for people to figure out how they want Mandred's education to be tilted for each of the options. The Bright lobby has a great one at the moment. The Gold and Jade lobbies would be well-served in coming up with something similarly impactful without being a huge lift.

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[ ] Jade, for ensuring the Druids won't be a problem

@Boney will this be okay?

 

[The Void]

[ ] Grey

Placing this here and now in case I miss the initial wave of voting, because I stand in firm support of Grey Mandred and what his perspective on the boundaries of history and stories would become, especially with a martial inclination to tie it to the blade.

 

[Somic]

[ ] Jade, for ensuring the Druids won't be a problem

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The question is, a problem with what? If Mandred goes to them, they will do their damndest to not be a problem. Even the most matriarchal Jades should understand that messing with the prince is just Not Done. What else are they a problem for?

Edit:

I would hesitate to use words like "Indic paradigm," primarily because I've seen more than one person who didn't know/forgot what we mean by that; But also because whatever books we can scrounge up would likely only offer a starting point, unlikely to end up looking like what Ind does. Maybe we could say "leadership paradigm" or something?

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"Indic paradigm" was what Boney said when he said it's an option. And it's not about leadership; the magical tradition of Ind, specifically, sees Aqshy as the Wind of passion and joy, with applications in that sphere beyond what the Bright College is currently capable of.

 

[Tomcost]

I am convinced for the Greys, and taking the job of bodyguard to the maybe future emperor once the Waystone project ends.

 

[AsuraAtlas]

The question is, a problem with what? If Mandred goes to them, they will do their damndest to not be a problem. Even the most matriarchal Jades should understand that messing with the prince is just Not Done. What else are they a problem for?

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I've seen half a dozen arguments against Jade Mandred for this reason, ranging from "they might bully him" to "the politics are too messy." This is more of a question to the Jade representative and to Boney than an itemized wishlist. I'm asking if the Greys throw their support behind the Jades, can they ensure the Druids can't/won't do anything to make them a less appealing prospect than they otherwise would be.

 

[Tasoli]

I feel like we are ignoring part of the question which is about the collages themselves and how they can benefit Mandred. For example as a Bright wizard, Mandred would be peers and collagiates with large number of Bright wizards that is spread around the armies of the Empire and likely to be introduced to offices in said armies by his peers giving him an easy access to the pulse of Empire Military on tap. That is easy for him to leverage for all manner of things in the life of EC. (most of those officers are likely to be nobles as well just in case it was not clear)

Jades means half of the collage probably won't want anything to do with him so their alumni value is much diminished.

Golds will introduce him to traders and craftsmen.

Celestials is rather good compatation for Brights in that they are connected among nobility and can introduce him around.

In counterpoint Grey wizards are spread among the gangs and cults. That is very hard to leverage without having really good Intrigue education because holy shit if some nobles were to get an idea that Mandred is involved with cults, and even leveraging gangs is a bad look. It is not like Mandred is going to want to be known as having Baron So-so's legs broken by fish and hooks in the streets of Altdorf.

All told I like Brights best in that perspective but arguments for Gold and Celestials i prettty decent as well but Greys are no go.

 

[DragonParadox]

I've seen half a dozen arguments against Jade Mandred for this reason, ranging from "they might bully him" to "the politics are too messy." This is more of a message to the Jade representative than an itemized wishlist. I'm asking him that if the Greys throw their support behind the Jades, can they ensure the Druids can't/won't do anything to make them a less appealing prospect than they otherwise would be.

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The Jade College is not a hive mind, the representative cannot stop the internal politics of the Colleges from existing nor from impacting Mandred. All in all I think they are the least suitable just because they are a giant mess of politics to add to the politics that being EC or Raikland will involve.