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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Hmmm... wonder if part of the reason the reason Mathilde is such a polymath and the grey college is so top heavy compared to most colleges is because Ulgu, being the wind of doubt, increases brain plasticity when used constantly.
 
storryeater said:
Hmmm... wonder if part of the reason the reason Mathilde is such a polymath and the grey college is so top heavy compared to most colleges is because Ulgu, being the wind of doubt, increases brain plasticity when used constantly.
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Ehh, then you'd expect something similar from the wind of revelation and the wind of logic (them being top heavy and lots of polymaths). Arguably the wind of life too, that's probably good for your brain too. Which I don't think we've got evidence for? And you'd expect the Greys as a whole to be polymaths, which I also don't think we've seen evidence for?

My opinion: Mathilde is a polymath because she's smart, very driven, and too busy with adventures and adventure loot to get stuck to any given topic. She can't just focus on X to the exclusion of everything else, because she's also got Y, Z, and some additional letters. In this, Ulgu might actually contribute, making her look for new questions, but Light Mathilde would come to the same result from the opposite direction. And so would other Mathildes, if maybe to a lesser degree.

And the Grey college is top heavy, because they focus on quality over quantity, and also put their wizards under greater stress. You either become skilled or die trying.
 
Mathilde's an overachieving polymath because we don't need to stay up late, get up early or learn a bunch of different unconnected skills. We just put an X in the Overwork box. It's the usual reason why quest protags are the way they are.
 
Mathilde also becomes bored unless she has about five schemes cooking, and why I suspect there's no turner for the Greys despite there begin at least two people who could do it.

BurnNote said:
Ehh, then you'd expect something similar from the wind of revelation and the wind of logic (them being top heavy and lots of polymaths). Arguably the wind of life too, that's probably good for your brain too. Which I don't think we've got evidence for? And you'd expect the Greys as a whole to be polymaths, which I also don't think we've seen evidence for?

My opinion: Mathilde is a polymath because she's smart, very driven, and too busy with adventures and adventure loot to get stuck to any given topic. She can't just focus on X to the exclusion of everything else, because she's also got Y, Z, and some additional letters. In this, Ulgu might actually contribute, making her look for new questions, but Light Mathilde would come to the same result from the opposite direction. And so would other Mathildes, if maybe to a lesser degree.

And the Grey college is top heavy, because they focus on quality over quantity, and also put their wizards under greater stress. You either become skilled or die trying.
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This Light Mathilde exists, his name is Egrimm van Horstmann.
 
This may be splitting hairs over definitions, but I'm not sure I'd really call Mathilde a "polymath" so much as someone who has very successfully dabbled on a lot of topics. Polymath carries the connotation of actually being an expert in several areas, while Mathilde and her publishing history doesn't really focus on any one thing, honestly.

It's very easy to forget because we as questers are naturally inclined to highlight the successes and cool parts of being a protagonist, but Mathilde lives in a world where most of the things that she touches on only briefly typically already have professional experts who've dedicated their lives to them.

Asides from obviously needing to only practice Ulgu, and asides from being naturally gifted at Enchanting, Mathilde's actually quite a magical generalist. She hasn't really spent very long on any single topic or area to be considered an expert at it, as can be evidenced from her having a number of skills that she's used at most once, such as staff-making, powerstone-making, and ritualism.

Overall, Mathilde's specialty might as well be 'doing unconventional things', which is what made her such a good Loremaster for K8P while it wasn't fully retaken.

Not many diplomats would consider going making friends with giant spiders or making a ceasefire with an Emperor Dragon. The average general thrust in her position might have been a bit less bold during the Battle of the Caldera. The average linguist would have probably tried to actually figure out Queekish the normal way, not tried to complicate the matter by getting a prisoner to help out. And the average wizard might have not spent years investigating the blood of the snake daemon that was trying to kill them for the past several years.
 
Parabola said:
This may be splitting hairs over definitions, but I'm not sure I'd really call Mathilde a "polymath" so much as someone who has very successfully dabbled on a lot of topics. Polymath carries the connotation of actually being an expert in several areas, while Mathilde and her publishing history doesn't really focus on any one thing, honestly.
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Mathilde is probably not a polymath in terms of magic, but she is in terms of literally everything else. Like, we've seen other people's stats and Mathilde's lowest stats are on par with the highest stats most other people have in their specialties. She is a skilled diplomat and accountant and businesswoman, and a beyond-expert level general, scholar, priest (well, champion of her deity, anyway), scout, assassin, and spymaster.

Like...name a mundane skill and she's a legitimate expert probably qualified to advise an Elector Count in it.
 
Parabola said:
This may be splitting hairs over definitions, but I'm not sure I'd really call Mathilde a "polymath" so much as someone who has very successfully dabbled on a lot of topics. Polymath carries the connotation of actually being an expert in several areas, while Mathilde and her publishing history doesn't really focus on any one thing, honestly.

It's very easy to forget because we as questers are naturally inclined to highlight the successes and cool parts of being a protagonist, but Mathilde lives in a world where most of the things that she touches on only briefly typically already have professional experts who've dedicated their lives to them.

Asides from obviously needing to only practice Ulgu, and asides from being naturally gifted at Enchanting, Mathilde's actually quite a magical generalist. She hasn't really spent very long on any single topic or area to be considered an expert at it, as can be evidenced from her having a number of skills that she's used at most once, such as staff-making, powerstone-making, and ritualism.

Overall, Mathilde's specialty might as well be 'doing unconventional things', which is what made her such a good Loremaster for K8P while it wasn't fully retaken.

Not many diplomats would consider going making friends with giant spiders or making a ceasefire with an Emperor Dragon. The average general thrust in her position might have been a bit less bold during the Battle of the Caldera. The average linguist would have probably tried to actually figure out Queekish the normal way, not tried to complicate the matter by getting a prisoner to help out. And the average wizard might have not spent years investigating the blood of the snake daemon that was trying to kill them for the past several years.
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She absolutely is a polymath. She's done research at the front of knowledge, and pushed that border. Even today she'd be respectably broad.

The thing is: the borders of this world are a lot less pushed. Today, there aren't really fields were you can spent half a year reading and working on something and produce important results. Because literally millions of people have already done that, so the half year topics have been covered.

That's the biggest reason there aren't really Renaissance men anymore, because things are further along so getting to the top of any field takes longer, and doing it for a while bunch just isn't in the cards for even a very smart person.
 
Yeah just off the top of my head Mathilde has claims to be (one of if not the) College's foremost expert on the Waaagh, Dwarves and the Karaz Ankor, the Eonir, *Dispelling* Dhar and Necromancy (and nothing more Herr Theogonist), Waystones, soon-to-be Aethyric Vitae…
 
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Alliterate said:
Yeah just off the top of my head Mathilde has claims to be (one of if not the) College's foremost expert on the Waaagh, Dwarves and the Karaz Ankor, the Eonir, *Dispelling* Dhar and Necromancy (and nothing more Herr Theogonist), Waystones, soon-to-be Aethyric Vitae…
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Does it count as being the foremost expert of a field if you invented said field wholesale and there are no other experts?
 
The Lone badger said:
On Mallus people stand on the shoulders of dwarves. Much sturdier platform.
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That's one of those things that makes dwarves grumble, but approvingly. Standing on the shoulders of older dwarfs is most proper. It's good that humans recognise this, and shows why humans are worthy allies despite their many, many, many, many flaws. Truly, can they be blamed when their own ancestors are so tall and wobbly?
 
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