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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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"Mathilde asked the Bright College to teach Indic style Aqshy" possibilities:

1. Mathilde asked them to do something so obvious her mystique was shattered and she ended up looking like a fool.

2. Mathilde asked them to do something Thyrus wanted but didn't have the political capital for and ended up looking like an angel.

3. Thyrus is visibly Indic and he's marveling at how not racist Mathilde is. Like how in the first 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea book it was an intentional mystery what nationality Nemo was, so every character guesses where he's from, mostly guessing European countries. And when subsequent materiel revealed he was visibly Indian the whole time, all those guessers accidentally became the most PC 1800's book characters ever.

4. Thyrus has dealt with too many Grey Magisters and reached enlightenment. "What is she after, why is she saying this?" Who? Thyrus isn't even listening anymore. He's in his happy place, burning Beastmen. He's looking forward to burning Beastmen besides a Wizard Count. Thyrus has let go. He is unbound from baffling Grey Wizards and unbound from his earthly existence.
 
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Dermonster said:
Having zero experience with WH:F's source material outside of SV quests, I feel like I'm missing a cool reference with the entire Gretel section. I will take a shot in the dark and guess this Witch Hunter is a significant character in some manner of adventure that we have completely derailed as per usual?
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It's a reference to Karitamen, a Tomb King whose reawakening is detailed in Lure of the Liche Lord. There are some Nehekharan wards on his tomb that prevent him from leaving. Karitamen ruled over the Border Princes in life and wants to do so again in undeath. Said rule would be rather paternalistic.

He planned to break out of his tomb by sending dreams to the local border princes to get them to retrieve an object that would help them and adventurers to get them to break the seal. I imagine that he is still going to try to break out, but he'll certainly act differently with Gretel in charge.
 
Boney said:
"You can tell me what's hiding nearby or I can be back next week with a score of student archaeologists to find out myself. We'll take whatever's in there back to Altdorf and if it hasn't got pointy teeth we'll put it in a museum."
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Altdorfers are truly a different breed - threatening to put themselves in danger as an ultimatum like a reverse hostage situation :V

Typos @Boney:
Boney said:
An overzealous Hunter being righteously slain would not even be sees as entirely negative
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sees -> seen

Boney said:
Petty fiefdoms sprout up everyone like mushrooms after rain and are just as easily eaten or trampled, and then the cycle starts anew.
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everyone -> everywhere

Boney said:
Though the Morrites that considered medicine to be a sin against Morr were in the minority, the tension that arises from indicates to her that it would be hard to reconcile a life dedicated to prolonging with the wielding the energy of endings.
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arises from (it)
arises from (that)
the wielding (of) the energy of endings

Boney said:
And even if it is just a normal Tomb King in there, better in the ground than getting dug up and send off to an Altdorf museum to get the city sacked by them again.
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send off -> sent off

Boney said:
But just do completely remove temptation, you nod to the leader of the mercenaries and they obediently file out of the room.
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just do -> just (to)
 
Going back to proper disposal of pointy-toothed-skulls for a moment, I wonder what would happen if you tossed one into the AoE of the Sword Of Gazul? Given that it uses divine intention to remove the targets soul from their body and send it to the next world, could it give a vampire true death?
We need to do Science on this.
 
AsuraAtlas said:
"Mathilde asked the Bright College to teach Indic style Aqshy" possibilities:

1. Mathilde asked them to do something so obvious her mystique was shattered and she ended up looking like a fool.

2. Mathilde asked them to do something Thyrus wanted but didn't have the political capital for and ended up looking like an angel.

3. Thyrus is visibly Indic and he's marveling at how not racist Mathilde is. Like how in the first 40,000 Leagues Under the Sea book it was an intentional mystery what nationality Nemo was, so every character guesses where he's from, mostly guessing European countries. And when subsequent materiel revealed he was visibly Indian the whole time, all those guessers accidentally look like the most PC 1900's book characters ever.

4. Thyrus has dealt with too many Grey Magisters and reached enlightenment. "What is she after, what is she saying with this?" Who? Thyrus isn't even listening anymore. He's in his happy place, burning Beastemn. He's looking forwards to burning Beastmen beside a Wizard Count. He is unbound from Grey Wizards and their intentionally confusing, earthly existence.
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Given what we know about Ulgu's place in the Indic paradigm, it's also possible he's reveling in the contrast between Mathilde and a theoretical Indic Ulgu user?
 
It would be hard to explain to Mathilde why you might suspect Thyrus is Indic without her thinking you're trying to recruit her into an Ulrican heresy. The whole concept of race is an idea that a few weirdo naturalists have only just started playing with, and while they do vaguely understand that people from distant places often look different, the Old World is a very swarthy place. The Tileans and Estalians came from the south, the Imperial Tribes came from the southeast, the Kislevites came from the northeast.
 
Boney said:
"We have fragmented records of someone identified only as the 'Vulture Lord' who attempted to conquer the Old World. There are some that theorize that this could be a Nehekharan perspective of the Great Necromancer's invasion of the Old World during the time of Sigmar. The records mention a lieutenant of his, the 'Death Scarab', who is buried in this area. Considering the damage done to the world by the known Vampire progenitors, we see it as our duty to prevent anyone from discovering and inadvertently resurrecting another."
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*reads wiki results for Death Scarab*

So I am assuming that dealing with this Karitamen fellow was one of the planned plot threads if the thread had decided to go Border Princess.

A nehekharan necromancer who is a would-be conqueror but not the usual kind of moustache twirling malefactor fits the early tone of the thread, I reckon.
 
Boney said:
"How did you know who she was and what she wanted, then?"

"I thought about it and figured it out."
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Mathilde showing that 29 Learning stat isn't just for show is a very neat character beat, too - especially with how she pulled together some pretty obscure trivia about Tilean geography and Morrite theological history to crack the case.

It's a bit of an affirmation that Mathilde is exceedingly well educated even by College of Magic standards, which is perhaps to be expected given her enormous and still growing pile of books.
 
Genderite said:
What is that again?
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Here it is:
Boney said:
While you're not the most versed in Collegiate Aqshy theory, you spot a few key differences immediately, with the eight Teclisean Winds being split into five 'positive' Winds - Hysh, Azyr, Aqshy, Ghyran, and Chamon - and the three 'negative' Winds of Ghur, Ulgu, and Shyish. According to Indic philosophy - or at least what you understand of the portion of it you're able to glimpse through these few books - the presence of instinct, confusion, and fatalism are unnatural states to be minimized, while the presence of inspiration, passion, foresight, nurturing, and logic are natural states to be encouraged. This means that under Indic doctrine, their equivalent of Amethyst, Amber, and Grey Wizards are Battle Wizards, while practitioners of the other five Winds give rise to what you might recognize as more typical Magisters.
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As mentioned by Redshirt, it's mostly the realm of Battle Wizard equivalents.
 
AsuraAtlas said:
1. Mathilde asked them to do something so obvious her mystique was shattered and she ended up looking like a fool.
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I don't think it's something that'd be considered very obvious to most wizards. Most wizards in good standing have a good relationship with their College, and might think it's vaguely patronizing that instead of the usual way they teach things, that they should take a look at a magical tradition on the other side of the Dark Lands to help teach Reikland's future ruler.

Besides a few exceptions like Paranoth, I don't imagine most wizards have an entire trait like Xeno-Affinity representing their interest in foreign cultures.

Boney said:
It would be hard to explain to Mathilde why you might suspect Thyrus is Indic without her thinking you're trying to recruit her into an Ulrican heresy.
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Remembers how Hatalath took one look at Mathilde and guessed she was from Stirland

Dear Ranald... does this mean... Of course! Hatalath is a secret Ulrican who converted while he was traveling the early Empire! As a Grey Lord who spends most of his time in a liminal realm, he has more reason than most to care about self-sufficiency like Ulric. That's why he got chosen by Queen Marrisith to join the Project! If any of the isolationist houses had joined the Project, he'd be able to counterbalance their influence! Incredibly 5D chess move from the centuries-old queen. Truly, Isha's wisdom shines upon her.

/jk
 
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Parabola said:
Remembers how Hatalath took one look at Mathilde and guessed she was from Stirland

Dear Ranald... does this mean... Of course! Hatalath is a secret Ulrican who converted while he was traveling the early Empire! That's why he got chosen by Queen Marrisith to join the Project! If any of the isolationist houses had joined the Project, he'd be able to counterbalance their influence! Incredibly 5D chess move from the centuries-old queen. Truly, Isha's wisdom shines upon her.

/jk
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It's great that you were joking, because that would be quite the embarrassing mistake to make.

Because the answer obviously is that Hatalath could sense the warm beer Mathilde drinks. Such an atrocity against cuisine is something any could sense.
 
AsuraAtlas said:
1. Mathilde asked them to do something so obvious her mystique was shattered and she ended up looking like a fool.
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I don't think it was this one - if it was really that obvious, then I suspect the Bright Order would have brought up "yeah Aqshy has some damn good leadership applications too" during their sales pitch, and they didn't.

Combined with how Gormann explicitly overcommitted compared to Mathilde's actual request - going from merely "please look into this" into "we are committed to actively including this in his education" - and I suspect Gormann intends to use use the "Grey Order's demand" as a rhetorical sledgehammer within the Bright Order to get his own way.
 
Parabola said:
Remembers how Hatalath took one look at Mathilde and guessed she was from Stirland

Dear Ranald... does this mean... Of course! Hatalath is a secret Ulrican who converted while he was traveling the early Empire! That's why he got chosen by Queen Marrisith to join the Project! If any of the isolationist houses had joined the Project, he'd be able to counterbalance their influence! Incredibly 5D chess move from the centuries-old queen. Truly, Isha's wisdom shines upon her.

/jk
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Hatalath has a deep well of knowledge about the Empire that was fresh just yestermillennium. There was a time when you could generally tell apart the descendants of the different Imperial tribes - there's an infographic floating around somewhere of what the ''''standard'''' person from each province looks like - but it's a much less reliable trick in an era of roads and boats and cities and a united Empire. If Mathilde was from a city or even a moderately large town he probably would have guessed completely wrong.
 
Boney said:
It would be hard to explain to Mathilde why you might suspect Thyrus is Indic without her thinking you're trying to recruit her into an Ulrican heresy. The whole concept of race is an idea that a few weirdo naturalists have only just started playing with, and while they do vaguely understand that people from distant places often look different, the Old World is a very swarthy place. The Tileans and Estalians came from the south, the Imperial Tribes came from the southeast, the Kislevites came from the northeast.
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...Looking back on it, I knew that historical societies were like that. Like, that was a fact I knew. I guess after decades of media depicting ancient and fantasy Europe as looking like the palest parts of the dairy aisle I had some internal bias. This is why representation and diversity in media is so important, and I really appreciate how consistently you've upheld it in your own work, Boney.
 
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Murazor said:
*reads wiki results for Death Scarab*

So I am assuming that dealing with this Karitamen fellow was one of the planned plot threads if the thread had decided to go Border Princess.

A nehekharan necromancer who is a would-be conqueror but not the usual kind of moustache twirling malefactor fits the early tone of the thread, I reckon.
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...man, now I'm genuinely curious as to how that would play out. He seems like the kind of guy Mathilde might actually get along well with, apart from the whole "undead conqueror" thing. A fellow scholar, nearly as altruistic as a warlord can really be, staunchly opposed to Chaos, believes in the well-being of the people he rules (insofar as rulers do that in Warhammer).

This Tomb King has some personality.

A hypothetical Omegahugger Necromancer Mathilde might have this guy as a major ally/contact.
 
Boney said:
"Right," you say, interrupting Alonza and Gretel as you step forward from the mercenaries, Doppelganger dissipating in a cloud of Ulgu, "I think I've allowed this to go on for long enough."
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Oh this was a delicious scene, Mathilde gets to bring down a mercifully soft hammer of authority on the woman fucking about, solving the mystery inside a couple of minutes, appearing like she knows everything, and then instituting a mutually beneficial solution.

Boney said:
It's almost a shame that this is so easily reparable. If the Priory was to be a permanent enemy, dropping a few quotes from your own copy of the Vampire Prophecies would have them tearing themselves apart with paranoia.
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Mathilde just aching to flex her Psychological Warfare, that things been at 2/3 for ages and needs some practice.

Boney said:
Gretel nods. "You've encountered this person before?"

"The Vampire Hunter? I'd never heard of her before all this."

"Her organization, then?"

"Never come across them." You think for a moment. "Well, I think they might have had someone at a conference I went to."

"How did you know who she was and what she wanted, then?"

"I thought about it and figured it out."

"When?"

"When you and her were talking."

"You were, what, invisible in the hall the first time she-"

"No, just now." Gretel's look is searching, and you can feel your smile growing smugger as she fails to spot any sign of a lie. If there's one thing that your experiences with Dwarves and Elves have taught you, it's the power of accumulated experience, and how easy it is for those who lack it to underestimate it.
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My sword is big, my magic is bigger, but my Learning stat reigns supreme.
 
Boney said:
"Are you sure there isn't anything that would have given them legitimate reason to dig deeper," you had asked her. "Keep in mind, this is me asking. I'm not going to overreact to the small stuff, and I'm your best hope if there's any big stuff."
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"Have you ever been tempted by Necromancy? Please tell me if you have been tempted by Necromancy. Or at least let me hook you up with the good stuff instead of whatever southern swill you may have come across down here."
 
Murazor said:
*reads wiki results for Death Scarab*

So I am assuming that dealing with this Karitamen fellow was one of the planned plot threads if the thread had decided to go Border Princess.

A nehekharan necromancer who is a would-be conqueror but not the usual kind of moustache twirling malefactor fits the early tone of the thread, I reckon.
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This guy is so, so close to being a possible ally. His main goals are permanently killing Nagash and permanently stopping chaos, which are pretty good choices. If Gretel hadn't become a princess here, I could almost see his need to reconquer the border princes not being a deal breaker. After all, having a permanent and stable leader there would be pretty tempting for the dwarves, and I doubt he'd be high on the Empire's to do list despite being an openly undead king.
 
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