Well if we're talking about statistics
Statistically only 1 in 3 people who have the ability to do magic, or "channel", end up in the Colleges.
The remaining 2/3rds either never touch magic despite having the ability to use it, touch it once and then slam a mental block over it, or become divine casters
It's not known how those three groups divide the remaining magic capable populus amongst themselves, but I personally think it makes sense that divine casters would be the rarest
Unlike the Colleges there is no legal funnel directing them to the priesthood, nor are there any noted programs scouring the population specifically for recruits like how the Light College picks through orphanages
If the Colleges actively take measures to funnel in people with magic and still only end up with 1/3rd of them, then the various Cults would logically have even less than that
Particularly because the Cults tend to get testy about the idea that Miracle wielders are in any way related to Magickers, especially Sigmarites and Ulricans
Regardless, the majority of potential Wizards do not become Wizards
And a very significant portion, if not the outright majority, either never channel despite having the ability to or channel once and then don't do it again
Which doesn't fit with your assertion that anyone with the ability to channel is going to be constantly shifting the winds around subconsciously and presenting a constant danger to themselves or others
And that's not just Mathilde talking, that's Boney communicating world building and back of envelope maths through her
As for whether someone can regularly touch magic subconsciously in the manner of Someone Who Is Better at the Local Superstition
That's a bit fuzzier but Mathilde does mention Minor Talents. Magickers who can only do one specific thing
Which implies that you could actually meet Mystic Margaret, the Seer who really can actually read your tarot to tell you what stocks you ought to invest in tomorrow
Minor talents are not Magikers, that is a specific (somewhat derogatory) name the Colleges give the self-taught, or even other full traditions. A member of the Celestial Order with no deeper knowledge of the Hedgefolk would probably call Askel a bumpkin Magiker or the like. That said I do agree that some people just don't do magic after a bad experience and that some have a talent so narrow they can only say read the weather and so are in no danger of setting people's hair on fire without meaning to, but the conversation started with talk of Hedge Mages, those who have the proper talent, those who could with training become wizards of at least some ability. @Glau contended that the ones the Colleges do not get, that no one gets to are the majority to which I replied that I do not think so because they would die or go insane too fast from the relatively strong and very much not suppressed uncontrolled magic.
Here is a handy-dandy table with how I think talent in imperial humans is likely to go.
Witch-sight
Aetheric Attunement
Channeling
Likely Fate
Yes
No
No
This is Wilhemina and her husband, they are not even aware anything mystical is going on. You could also have someone with very strong magesight who does know it's mystical but none of the other skills, especially with use.
Yes
Yes
No
Would make a very good alchemist since they can both see the Earthbound magic and 'taste' it by proximity but unless the alchemy gets them in trouble they should be fine.
Yes
Yes
Yes
These are your priests, your wizards, your Hedgewise, they have the full suit which means if they do not get training or shut down their magic entirely they will eventually go mad
No
Yes
Yes
These people are kind of screwed, they can't consciously see the magic outside themselves to draw it in, but winds will get drawn to them in moments of high emotion or if like Roswita when she thought she was going to die they are constantly in a Wind-conductive state. Since they cannot really practice magic the only times they are going to cast is unintentionally. It's suppress, seal or they become perpetuals unable to leave the premises of a College for them
No
No
Yes
Even more messed up since they do not feel themselves doing magic in those moments of emotional highs. Since they would not know it's coming from them they would not know there's anything to suppress
Yes
No
Yes
This is basically being a pianist without feeling in your fingers, they can see the magic, they can grab it and use it, but they have no feedback of what they are doing. Someone like this could probably be trained, especially in divine magic that is more forgiving than the arcane, but they would always be in more danger than their peers of messing something up. Also they could of course also suppress their talent since they would be conscious of what they are doing
No
Yes
No
Odds are good they would go through life never realizing there is anything magical about them. They would just be more sensitive to magic being cast on them. Might be somewhat useful for say a witch hunter or other people who could have spells surreptitiously cast on them
No
No
No
This is a non-magical person
I recognize there is a lot more complexity than this since these abilities themselves come on a gradient. Someone might have channeling and very poor wind-sight, just enough to realize what they are doing. An alchemist might have a very low channeling threshold which they allow to atrophy since they do not want to use magic that way etc... But in terms of broad strokes I think this is how the population is divided.
Anyone who's spent a significant amount of time in a fanfiction niche will be familiar with this dynamic: a piece of canon (sometimes literally!) is used as a basis for writings, but later writings are more based on those original writings than they are the actual canon, and things iterate in that matter until it's basically unrecognizable.
In Divided Loyalties it's very much an intentional choice. Warhammer is a setting where the generals are also pretty famous for being hella good fighters, so having Martial govern both command and combat fits very well.
In Divided Loyalties it's very much an intentional choice. Warhammer is a setting where the generals are also pretty famous for being hella good fighters, so having Martial govern both command and combat fits very well.
In Divided Loyalties it's very much an intentional choice. Warhammer is a setting where the generals are also pretty famous for being hella good fighters, so having Martial govern both command and combat fits very well.
I'm very dubious. Generals in Warhammer are also generally excellent warriors, but the reverse is not necessarily true at all...there are a significant number of skilled warriors with no real skill as commanders.
I'm very dubious. Generals in Warhammer are also generally excellent warriors, but the reverse is not necessarily true at all...there are a significant number of skilled warriors with no real skill as commanders.
I'm not actually arguing for a system change, it's far too late for that and there are certainly plenty of workarounds, I'm stating that the current system is not somehow superior to having separate Prowess and Martial stats, not even for Warhammer.
There may be a few edge cases like, say, a military historian being put in charge of an entire province's army, but really, how often is that going to come up?
But honestly, it's the sort of discrepancy that comes in skills and talents. Having a better martial score doesn't mean much when the enemy commander has a +10 leadership skill and you have a -5 armchair general skill.
There may be a few edge cases like, say, a military historian being put in charge of an entire province's army, but really, how often is that going to come up?
Prowess and Combat being two separate things is objectively better.
It's not that pressing in a medieval historical setting, because individual fighting ability is not that important (and doesn't vary that much, compared to fiction), and the ability to fight a war and the ability to fight were closely related too.
It gets a bit sketchier in warhammer, where fighting ability has a bigger range, though it's still closely correlated. Boney doesn't use a separate score, but skills and traits mean the two outcomes are very different anyway. In this case, prowess doesn't get a seperate score just like many other sub abilities don't (naval vs land, accounting is a subfield of stewardship, crafting, etc), and adding the full breadth would balloon the bookkeeping. DL characters are (at least these days) more detailed than the typical CK2 based model, in that skills and such have a big impact not just on the numerical value of the roll, but also how it gets interpreted.
Finally, a lot of quests did actually add in combat ability as a separate stat before prowess became a thing in CK2. Often on the basis of martial (something like a default of 1/2 martial, with various modifers. Most commonly a contribution from learning for mage types). That give you the good leader = good fighter trope. But it also allows for more flexibility, and makes it clear what actually contributes to fighting ability.
It's not objectively better, thats not how games work. It makes sense, but it's also more bookkeeping, which is a much bigger problem for a quest than a video game
It's not objectively better, thats not how games work. It makes sense, but it's also more bookkeeping, which is a much bigger problem for a quest than a video game
[*] Plan You Must Deploy Additional Waystones v2
-[*] Overwork: Yes
-[*] COIN: The Gambler
-[*] SERENITY: Aethyric Vitae 2/2
-[*] Waystone: Deploy in Kislev (Praag Region) (Niedzwenka, Zlata) (do this first)
-[*] Waystone: Deploy in the Empire (Sylvania) (Elrisse, Tochter)
-[*] Waystone: Deploy in the Karaz Ankor (Black Water) (Thorek)
-[*] Tributary: Dreaming Wood (Nordland/Laurelorn) (Hatalath, Sarvoi, Cadaeth, Tochter, Elrisse, Aksel)
-[*] JOHANN: Waystone: Seek the lost Black Fire Pass Nexus (The Gambler)
-[*] MAX: Write two papers: Linguistic Drift in Lizardmen Glyphs; The Polyphenic Theory of Lizardmen Society
-[*] EGRIMM: Auditory Seviroscope ("Wind chimes") (Spend 2 CF for a Journeyman with Auditory Magesight to assist)
-[*] KAU: Seek an exchange arrangement with another Library or a Karak's archives to be able to make copies of their corpus (Karak Vlag)
-[*] EIC: Assist in the creation of the magical route through the Schadensumpf, both personally and with the EIC's influence and resources
-[*] Eike Actions: Auditory seviroscope, EIC magical route
-[*] Eike Study: Learn spells, enchanting lessons from the Grey College (1 CF)
As used as you are to simply dropping by people whenever you want a word with them, that tends to be more frowned upon at the echelons of power you're currently dealing with, especially with foreign rulers. And considering your history of dropping by Kislevite rulers, Boris might take it as some sort of veiled message. So you suppress your normal impulses and send word through the proper channels, and word comes back through the proper channels. Boris' response to your announcement that Praag is going to be the first beneficiary of the Waystone Project's greatest success spends only one line on gratitude, but the length of the rest of the letter is, if anything, even more fulsome than if he'd spent several paragraphs on it. That Boris is taking the time to personally brief you on the political situation of Praag instead of leaving it to an underling or simply letting you figure it out for yourself speaks to how seriously he is taking this.
Praag's status as one of the three major cities of Kislev makes it a major piece on the political board, and for that reason it's something of a surprise that it's not only under the control of an Ungol leader, but that it has been in an unbroken chain dating back to before the arrival of the Gospodars and the birth of Kislev. When the Gospodars arrived, they took the Ungol capital of Norvard and renamed it to Erengrad, and rebuilt the sometimes-Ungol town of Dorogo, sometimes-Ostermark town of Pelzburg into Kislev City. But while they established an iron grip on their new frontier with the Empire - well, technically the Ottilian Empire, as this was in the early stages of the Time of Three Emperors - they were unable or unwilling to do the same to Praag. Initially it would likely have been largely about not wanting to disrupt the flow of silver out of the mines Praag controls, and later it may have been out of a caution towards further aggravating what had unofficially become the Ungol capital, and with it all of the Ungol settlements and nomadic groups that had been displaced to the colder, harsher, less fertile lands of the north. Even after two secession attempts over the centuries, Praag remains ruled by an Ungol Z'ra rather than a Gospodar Boyar.
Of course, the dynamic changed after Praag's near-destruction in the Great War Against Chaos, and though Tzar Alexis did make some attempts to rebuild it, Tzarina Kattarin was too busy tormenting the southern cities to care much about the ruins of the northern one. Towards the end of her reign it seems to have rebuilt enough to be desirable again, and the Kalishinivik family seems to have been established in Praag as part of some attempt to suborn it, but that was foiled first by the dethroning of the Tzarina and later by the family's purging after the Battle of the Shirokij. Praag seems to have benefited from what might charitably be called the hands-off ruling style of Tzar Vladimir, and with Tzar Boris' powerbase having been established as a good relationship with the Ungols rather than dominance over them, it seems primed to do even better. Praag's state is dire at a glance, but when looked at from far enough back, you can see it clawing its way slowly but surely out of the devastation left by the Great War. The current Z'ra, Rudolf III, is new to the throne and looking to establish himself, and Boris believes that securing his cooperation should be simple as long as your Waystone can perform as promised.
You, Niedzwenka, and Zlata arrive in Praag aboard a captured longship that Zlata managed to borrow from Erengrad and Niedzwenka has piloted in defiance of current and wind, its threatening silhouette rather disrupted by it being full of a massive stone obelisk rather than Norse raiders. Someone under the Tzar has been talking to someone under the Z'ra to get everyone on the same page, and you're expected and awaited by a representative of the Z'ra. What you don't expect is someone wearing the robes of a Magister of the Gold Order, who looks deeply intimidated and is making no attempt to conceal it. "Lady Magister Mathilde Weber?" he asks as you step up onto the wharf, and at your affirmative he hands over a set of papers containing his Wizarding credentials. His papers are in order, but a supplement to them answers one question and raises several more - Magister Conrad Becher is banished from the Empire. Banishment as a punishment is most common for Wizards who haven't done anything wrong themselves, but whose former Apprentices have done something very wrong indeed. Banishment from Altdorf is the most common and banishment from Reikland isn't unknown, but banishment from the Empire is much rarer, as it's a rather narrow slice of offences bad enough to get one banished entirely from the Empire without crossing a line into earning execution or Pacification.
"I primarily serve Praag's silver industry," he says, in response to some of your unspoken questions and while carefully sidestepping some of the others, "though I also serve as an advisor regarding combatting the endemic Za beasts, as well as matters regarding the Fire Spire and the Deep City. It was decided that I would be the point of contact regarding this matter."
"Oh?" you say neutrally.
He very visibly weighs up who he's most intimidated by in this moment, and decides that it's you. "I described to them the services that Grey Wizards are known for performing for the Empire, and that may have been a factor in the Z'ra leaving this matter in my hands, rather than addressing it personally" he admits, "but it is also true that the Z'ra does not speak Reikspiel and knows little of matters of magic."
You stare the man down for a moment, then nod. "That will have to do," you say. In truth having a cowed Magister as your point of contact will probably be a great deal easier than dealing directly with a foreign ruler, but there's no need to let him relax just yet, at least not until you write back to the Colleges and find out what mischief this Magister got up to. "This is Ice Maiden Zlata and Baba Niedzwenka, serving as representatives of their traditions."
"A privilege," he says, bowing lower than the circumstances call for.
"What is the Z'ra's position regarding the deployment of Waystones in their lands?"
"Though I have endeavoured to impress up on the Z'ra that your reputation is beyond doubt, time and harsh experience has taught Praag wariness regarding promised solutions to the taint that bedevils it. You have the same terms available to any that claim to bring miracles - you may attempt whatever you wish to attempt in the worst corners of Praag, and any talk of bankrolling that solution begins only with proven results."
You smile in anticipation. "That sounds very acceptable to me."
A few days later, you receive word from Altdorf in response to your request for information on Magister Conrad Becher's current standing. It seems he got himself involved in a counterfeiting ring that itself was later suborned by some sort of heretical organization, and then became an informer for the proper authorities and was instrumental in bringing that organization down. Though it did all work out in the end, the adulteration of specie is a very serious crime and using the Wind of Metal to make it impossible to identify is not the sort of purpose that the Colleges have in mind for their graduates.
Reading between the lines, the impression you get of Conrad Becher is someone who either has a stunted but not completely disabled sense of morality, willing to perform moderate misdeeds but with a line he will not cross, or someone who completely lacks morality but who does possess common sense. Not ideal, perhaps, but you can work with this. Your cause is righteous and you have the backing of the majority of the continent behind you, so the same impulses that led him to report his former employees will make sure that if push comes to shove, he'll side with you over the Z'ra. The 'or else' is already hanging very loudly in the air without you having to do something as gauche as actually say it.
---
With Conrad's nervous guidance, you're able to identify multiple different approaches that could be taken in Praag. While eventually the plan would be to have Waystones everywhere you can think of and everywhere that anyone else can think of too, the first Waystone is going to attract significantly more attention than the twentieth, and establishing the right sort of reputation with it could make your future endeavours a great deal easier.
The first, and also the least offensive and most politically resonant, is to place the first Waystone underneath the Karlsbridge - named after Z'ra Karl the XII, beloved by the locals of Praag and everywhere else remembered only as a failed secessionist - to service Old Town. On one side will be the ruins of the Fire Spire, a monument to Praag's past fruitful cooperation with foreign magical traditions, and the Magnus Gardens, the only wholesome place to be found within Praag's cursed walls and named for Magnus the Pious. Its connection point to the greater network will be a Waystone within the gardens, the centrepiece of the Celestial Observatory, now bereft of those attuned to Azyr but still faithfully reporting the position of the planets, with the Waystone representing Söll. Future Waystones will be established in Old Town, which is the least tainted but most densely-populated quarter of Praag. Least tainted in Praag is still fairly tainted by any sane estimation, and taming the oddities that disquiet the densest (albeit least-threatened) portion of the local population will be a crowd-pleaser and will ideally generate a quiet acceptance for future, more ambitious deployments.
The second is going right for the throat of the taint within Praag, by placing the first Waystone underneath the Bridge of Death - so named because it's the bridge that many crossed to sign up for Praag's defence at the Citadel and few of them ever returned. Situated at the heart of Old Town and in the shadow of the Citadel of Praag, a Waystone placed here will be safe from retaliation by any thinking servants of Chaos that might be found within Praag, allowing for further Waystones to be deployed one by one upstream in New Town. New Town is where the streets bleed pus, the walls rearrange themselves at night, and the bodies of those slain in Praag's sacking somehow still linger to disgorge disease and insects and worse. This will undoubtedly do the most good for Praag in the long run and will be looked well upon by the kind of person who has a Wizard in their employ to explain that to them, but in the immediate term most citizens of Praag will only know of riled-up denizens of Chaos and the inevitable death toll that taking and holding parts of New Town to establish Waystones within them will reap.
The third route is to overlook Praag entirely to get the ball rolling on pushing back the Chaos Wastes, by placing the first Waystone underneath Praag's River Gate with an eye to establishing Waystones in the headwaters of the Lynsk. When the Chaos Wastes crept south during the Great War and only partially receded, the new foreshore of Chaos encompassed previously-productive grazelands, forests, and mines, as well as forward outposts to guard against incursions and waypoints for trade with Karak Vlag and Cathay. Reclaiming those will not just make Chaos' position slightly less advantageous should there be another Great War, but will also benefit the economy of Kislev as those industries can be restored and cattle, lumber, ore, and trade can flow south once more. But all that might fall on deaf ears for people whose lives and livelihoods are contained within the walls of Praag.
A fourth possibility does present itself, which wouldn't please any of the major groups as much as the other options but would earn a potentially very useful ally in taming Praag and its surrounds: the northern end of the West Side, where an empty piece of land that was once the city commons and graveyard. It was where the refugees of the Great War made camp, and their slaughter when the walls were breached has left such a mark on the area that no seed planted in the soil will sprout, and every body planted in it will rise again, earning it its new name of the Bleakness. The Cult of Dazh is very prominent in Kislev, and their Temple of Dazh's Blinding Luminescence directly overlooks the Bleakness, so they intervened with the establishment of a crematorium to process the city's dead. The grim practicality of the Kislevites and the fact that it's the holy flames of Dazh being used to cremate the dead mean that this practice is not quite as upsetting to the locals as it would be in a city of the Empire, but it would still please the locals in general and the Cult of Dazh in particular if this necessity was banished. That said, it would mean that the Waystone's riverine capabilities would not be on display for its first introduction to the world.
Flanked by a Hag Witch from Erengrad and an Ice Witch from Kislev City, and with your point of contact more focused on what the attention of a Grey Wizard would usually mean for the likes of him, there's nobody present who is both willing and able to opine strongly on the subject. The decision is entirely yours.
[ ] Karlsbridge and Old Town This will please the citizens of Praag.
[ ] Bridge of Death and New Town This will please the Z'ra.
[ ] River Gate and Northeastern Kislev This will please the Tzar.
[ ] The Temple of Dazh and the Bleakness This will please the Cult of Dazh.
[ ] Other (write in)
- There will be a six hour moratorium.
- In the long run, all three four approaches and all other approaches imaginable will be taken. This is about how the Waystone Project will be perceived, not about what it will accomplish. It will affect not just how the locals feel about it and how they help or hinder it, but will also be a factor in what other rulers might expect if the Waystone Project came to their lands.
- If there's another approach to this that you think has a different set of trade-offs to the given options, feel free to suggest or ask questions about it. Maps being used for this portion of the quest can be found here: Map of Kislev, Map of Praag.
Since this is a political choice I'd say go for the River Gate or the Bridge of Death. The citizens will get the same benefit in the end, what we are trying to do here is advertise to the nobility and to royalty.
There is space for write ins? We are going to need more info and discussion on that. Maybe a plan that takes the best of all worlds or a better compromise?
There is space for write ins? We are going to need more info and discussion on that. Maybe a plan that takes the best of all worlds or a better compromise?
I do not think such a placement exists. At the end of the day one stone isn't actually going to do that much, what we are choosing here is the perception of where we put the first one symbolism doesn't do middle grounds.
