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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Boney said:
Physics don't care about maintaining suspension of disbelief.



Once, to glare suspiciously at the Rune Magic section. Any Empire-published books on the subject spends an entire chapter making it clear that there are no secrets of Dwarven Runesmithing contained within and scrupulously cites everything as coming from legit sources, so he went away no more annoyed than he entered.
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has Belgar visited our library?
 
Boney said:
Once, to glare suspiciously at the Rune Magic section. Any Empire-published books on the subject spends an entire chapter making it clear that there are no secrets of Dwarven Runesmithing contained within and scrupulously cites everything as coming from legit sources, so he went away no more annoyed than he entered.
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Sounds like the Empire's foresight and due diligence is working as intended.

...Are these books actually helpful in any way to Runesmiths? I can't imagine that they actually grant anyone the usual mechanical +5 given that they're mere observations (let alone to someone as knowledgeable as Kragg), but does it help narratively? Do these books, like, have records of what historical rune weapons have been able to do, or things of the sort?

Like how we don't actually use a lot of the books we have for their mechanical bonus, but they do tell us stuff we didn't previously know?
 
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CornyBones said:
has Belgar visited our library?
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Yes, he has a look in whenever something major is added because he's the one paying for it all.

Parabola said:
Sounds like the Empire's foresight and due diligence is working as intended.

...Are these books actually helpful in any way to Runesmiths? I can't imagine that they actually grant anyone the usual mechanical +5 given that they're mere observations (let alone to someone as knowledgeable as Kragg), but does it help narratively? Do these books, like, have records of what historical rune weapons have been able to do, or things of the sort?

Like how we don't actually use a lot of the books we have for their mechanical bonus, but they do tell us stuff we didn't previously know?
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Not really, the Empire's academic history doesn't go back far enough to cover anything from lost holds, so all the information in them is information Dwarves already have. It might be useful to non-Runesmiths, since Runesmiths tend to be habitually tightlipped about everywhere whereas the Empire books speak freely on matters that don't cross into forbidden zones.
 
I'm considering switching back to New Town. Old Town emphasises the good it does for the common people, but literally, who cares about them? Nobles don't, merchants don't, priests would prefer for commoners to rely on priests alone, and it's not in the nature of the common people to have sensible attitudes towards their own interests.

If we make it so the first chapter of the story of waystones is helping people, who would be impressed besides Shallyans and some Ranaldans?
 
The EIC might, and that's a big might, get a contract to supply the fleet. A proper waystone barge fleet would guaranteed be either a governmental body explicitly established for such, or a proper military fleet. An external company would not and should not be trusted with something that important.
 
rocketroland999 said:
The EIC might, and that's a big might, get a contract to supply the fleet. A proper waystone barge fleet would guaranteed be either a governmental body explicitly established for such, or a proper military fleet. An external company would not and should not be trusted with something that important.
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They're not external. They're government owned. We are literally nobility.
 
rocketroland999 said:
The EIC might, and that's a big might, get a contract to supply the fleet. A proper waystone barge fleet would guaranteed be either a governmental body explicitly established for such, or a proper military fleet. An external company would not and should not be trusted with something that important.
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The EIC could get a government contract to manage a Waystone fleet if they're both trusted enough to do the job and are cheaper than getting someone else to do it, this is an era where government granted monopolies on things are the norm, not the exception. And the EIC has the trait "Patriots: The EIC knows that the Empire's long-term financial well-being is utterly vital for the EIC." as a Bone-Deep Truth meaning they are very disinclined to screw over the Empire for their own financial gain and has a plurality of it owned by a Grey Lady Magister who could use her influence to get a hypothetical Waystone fleet to be run at breakeven pricing with no profit margin, making it cheaper than its alternatives.
 
chocolote12 said:
They're not external. They're government owned. We are literally nobility.
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We don't own a majority of it, AFAIK, and we control it even less than that. The fact that a noble owns part of it is irrelevant

Even if we owned it completely, giving a noble something this important isn't a great idea. We could probably be trusted with it, don't get me wrong, but the lowest on the rung that would be trusted with that would is straight up an elector count. Minor nobles (like us) fall to chaos, get bribed by various factions, and enstrung in Lahmian schemes way too often. It probably wouldn't happen for decades, but why take the risk at all.

Honestly, I'd even call most nobles external factors, from the governments point of view

NexusEye said:
they're both trusted enough to do the job
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And my point is that they wouldn't be trusted to do the job. They're better than most companies, obviously, but better than most companies isn't enough
 
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so, do the library We have the right to detain/attack people who are mishandling the books?, they fall into a bit of a grey area in terms of citizenship so i am curius.
 
Boney said:
Yes, he has a look in whenever something major is added because he's the one paying for it all.
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Looks over at the copied Library of Mournings

He's paying for most of it, definitely.

Eisenhelm said:
so, do the library We have the right to detain/attack people who are mishandling the books?, they fall into a bit of a grey area in terms of citizenship so i am curius.
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I recall a statement along the lines of how, given how the We view some of their bodies as a way of storing knowledge, and books also store knowledge, they would take an attack on the libary's books as an attack on themselves.

But mere mishandling is probably not punishable with attack.
 
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rocketroland999 said:
And my point is that they wouldn't be trusted to do the job. They're better than most companies, obviously, but better than most companies isn't enough
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It's de facto run by a Grey Lady Magister, someone who's as close to being above suspicion as you can get, and has patriotism towards the Empire as a core tenet of its corporate culture, it literally cannot become any more loyal than it already is. If that isn't enough then what is? That isn't a rhetorical question, what is it that some other organization would have that would make it more loyal and trustworthy than the EIC is currently is?
 
NexusEye said:
It's de facto run by a Grey Lady Magister, someone who's as close to being above suspicion as you can get, and has patriotism towards the Empire as a core tenet of its corporate culture, it literally cannot become any more loyal than it already is. If that isn't enough then what is? That isn't a rhetorical question, what is it that some other organization would have that would make it more loyal and trustworthy than the EIC is currently is?
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The other thing that said body would have is literally being part of the government.

The EIC is a trading company, divorced from the government in the vast majority of ways. The problem isn't the fact that the EIC is positioned against the empire, the problem is that the EIC is a separate entity from the government of the empire in a way a military fleet or specially constructed governmental organization wouldn't be. Unless we want to tie the EIC significantly more to the upper echelons of the empire's government than it currently is, the EIC is not going to get a contract that would give them significant military power and control over the governments response to scenario's that would appreciate the prescience of waystone barges

Also, it's not de facto run by a grey magister. We pop in sometimes to make sure they're still doing what we tell them to, but the majority of management comes from Wilhelmina
 
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Andres said:
I'm considering switching back to New Town. Old Town emphasises the good it does for the common people, but literally, who cares about them? Nobles don't, merchants don't, priests would prefer for commoners to rely on priests alone, and it's not in the nature of the common people to have sensible attitudes towards their own interests.

If we make it so the first chapter of the story of waystones is helping people, who would be impressed besides Shallyans and some Ranaldans?
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Everyone cares what the common people think. Nobles, merchants, and priests do not have commoner immunity. These lofty positions only last so long as the commoners don't decide they aren't going to put up with them anymore.

There's a reason propaganda and other methods of manipulating public perception are so highly valued.
 
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Andres said:
I'm considering switching back to New Town. Old Town emphasises the good it does for the common people, but literally, who cares about them?
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I know this probably isn't how you intended this comment but now I'm wondering if there's any characterization that runs counter to Mathilde just being a next level elitist because part of me really likes the idea :lol2:
 
friget234 said:
I know this probably isn't how you intended this comment but now I'm wondering if there's any characterization that runs counter to Mathilde just being a next level elitist because part of me really likes the idea :lol2:
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mathilde is new money through and through, she had a taste of the good life and dove head first without looking back once; i have a feeling she would be the kind of person who looks down at someone who chose not to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
you know, barring acts done by the enemie's of the empire .
 
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Derpmind said:
Everyone cares what the common people think.
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But no one cares about helping them, which was the point I'm getting at. This helps common people, but outside of Praag, Eight Peaks, and our own fief, it's not in a way that they care about. They enjoy evil and ignorance too much to do so - this is easily proven by how joyfully they burn children. The other classes, full of greed that they are, have no inherent reason to care about the wellbeing of commoners, so if commoners themselves don't care, why should they?
 
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fictionfan said:
They likely are. Waystones despite being super valuable aren't something that you can really resell after stealing.
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You can't even break them up and sell them piecemeal at any sort of real profit. It's a big chunk of enchanted stone, the enchantment isn't good for anything but being a Waystone, and it is the very definition of "hot goods" if anyone recognizes any part of it as being government property.

And that's not even accounting for the "weird wizard stuff" done to the rock. Can you safely take it apart without making the enchantment explode or something? Or triggering some curse? The random mercenary with no magical education doesn't know, and isn't going to risk criminal charges on top of the magical risks to find out over a hunk of literal rock.
 
Eisenhelm said:
mathilde is new money through and through, she had a taste of the good life and dove head first without looking back once; i have a feeling she would be the kind of person who looks down at someone who chose not to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
you know, barring acts done by the enemie's of the empire .
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The way we handle the fief we got when knighted does fit the mold of absentee landlord. Combine that with the obsession with accumulating resources for a library 99.9% of the Empire minus a few upper class wizards and the like will never even see and a few other things and I think there's strong support for an Elitist trait or some variant of that for the character sheet somewhere
 
rocketroland999 said:
We don't own a majority of it, AFAIK, and we control it even less than that. The fact that a noble owns part of it is irrelevant
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There is no separation of the public and private sectors, if you think they could somehow ignore us. It's a holistic mass that works based on the directions of the people at the top, who are us and our fellow former government official Wilhelmina and her heir and our apprentice Eike, our other fellow current government official Baron Anton, and a gaggle of Stirlandian nobles who get to sit quietly and reap the almost supernaturally bountiful fruits of the opportunities we toss as them as long as they stay smart about it.

"Mathilde only owns a third of the EIC" is the sort of paper mache excuse that doesn't even fool our business rivals, who had to spend a few months quietly inquiring with us if trying to out-trade us wasn't going to end with us putting a horse's head in their beds or causing them to dramatically and mysteriously disappear with a faint but echoing screaming noise in the middle of their dinners.
rocketroland999 said:
The EIC is a trading company, divorced from the government in the vast majority of ways.
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What do you think the government of the Empire is?

It's not elected bureaucrats. It's nobility. Hereditary bureaucrats. All the higher bureaucratic positions are just hats the nobility wears. Even the Elector Counts are just kings with a vote for who gets to be the king of the kings. The Elector Counts don't have a separate stable of incorruptible people, they just have their local nobles they know personally who they hope do what they say. For Stirland, that's us -- we're on a first name basis with Roswita, and we know a lot of the other people she knows and they know us too.

We are also a wizard lord. A lord of the wizards. That's not a high society aesthetic, it's a position where we can pass judgement over life and death, enact new wizard laws, and create new wizard offices and initiatives. As a wizard lord, we are the one who created the modern waystone initiative. As the one who created the modern waystone initiative, we are the highest human expert on the matter in all the Empire (and a solid +44 is pretty nuts to roll about it).

We are not the one the Emperor asks to choose somebody to manage any other waystone initiatives. That is because that question is not a question the Emperor is expected to choose somebody to find an answer for. It is our responsibility from top to bottom.

If the duty was given to an Elector Count, it'd be given to one with a clear track record against the forces of evil and excess resources to help with it, and who knows the most people involved with the magical side of things, and who also can't maneuver out of having to do the extra work. That's Roswita. She'd turn to her local nobles and choose from them the one with the most loyalty, boats, and magical expertise. That's us, Dame Mathilde Weber.

As a magical matter it's staying in the colleges, though, and that means with us, LM Mathilde Weber. Nobody outside the colleges even has the eyeballs to see the thing they'd be making decisions about. Nobody inside the colleges is yet willing to step on our murdery toes about it.
 
friget234 said:
The way we handle the fief we got when knighted does fit the mold of absentee landlord.
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There are almost no nobles in existence as benevolent and good as Mathilde. Every noble has the opportunity to improve the lives of their people as tremendously as Mathilde has hers, but as a rule they don't, because they despise the idea of helping the poor whenever they aren't obligated to do so.

Mathilde may be absentee, but that doesn't matter since the little governance she has done has done so much good. She breaks the mold of absentee landlord by treating her fief as more than a piggy bank.

EDIT: Most nobles have MORE opportunity to help their people than Mathilde. Mathilde's fief was poor by average standards, making it harder to make things better, but she still did.
 
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