I think our relationship with the Cult of Sigmar might be best depicted as an ambiguous thing that a citizen of the Empire doesn't get to give a number to - just like how dwarfs don't get Dwarf Rep or Favors, they only get Boons, because they're already respected in a certain way and Boons are the best way to represent going above and beyond what is expected of you.
Similarly, well, Mathilde's a citizen of the Empire, even if she's a wizard, so certain things are expected of her - loyalty to the Empire and by extension, acknowledging Sigmar's role in it.
And... well, the things the Cult of Sigmar likes are things that the provinces and nobles and secular organizations of the Empire already like - beating up Greenskins or vampires or dark magic users, stomping down on forbidden cults, etc. When you do stuff like that, you'd have to be specifically and intentionally helping out the Cult of Sigmar to get reputation from them and not from the associated province or nobles nearby.
So yeah, I'd say the current Boon system is probably better for most Empire-related things.
Edit: That said, foreigners who help out noticeably without formally joining any one organization of the Empire probably gets some sort of Rep equivalent.
Deep in the Reikwald Forest, where two dirt tracks meet at a crossroads, a tall wooden pillar soars 25 feet into the air. Jutting from the base is a small niche, its cracked and weathered timber carved with twin-tailed comets and hammers. Mechtilde the Devout sits at the top of the pillar, a Sigmarite fanatic who has chosen to show her dedication as a stylite — living, fasting, and praying high above the earth. She has not touched the ground for seven years. She swears that she will not do so until the Empire is swept clean of its enemies, or the End Times come about — whichever comes first.
...
Mechtilde is a vibrant woman of indeterminate age with streaming red hair and a thick Stirland accent.
The Secret
There are currently five 'Mechtildes' of roughly similar appearance, but given the height of the pillar, nobody has noticed any differences yet. This is a scam, created by the actress Silvia Wittiger. When one Mechtilde has finished her shift on the pillar, she climbs down and enjoys a hearty meal and smoke in the warmth of a nearby cottage in the woods.
Accomplishments:
Stirland Tributaries, via Aethyric Impluvium by Jade Journeymen. Estimated completion date: late 2493. Praag Citadel - Lynsk River Waystone Expansion, via Riverine Waystones. Began 2491, focused on cleansing of Chaos taint from Praag.
Bit of a random thought but I was going over the organizational sheet. Do we want to resolve the institutional tension with Verena? If so how should we go about doing so? I personally think we should do something late 2493, there is a reason that they are in most libraries. Perhaps having them as guards there and giving them access? Maybe gifting one of the many, many frowned upon texts we are keeping, big fan of gifting the Creeping Flesh book, for all the reasons listed when we took it from Slyvania.
EDIT:
Damn end of this turn is looking interesting, Stirland tributary completing, the schadensumpf (if I spelt correctly) towers being raised, which I'm guessing Tor Lithanel will expand the city walls at the same time... Lot's of action, very exciting!
Bit of a random thought but I was going over the organizational sheet. Do we want to resolve the institutional tension with Verena? If so how should we go about doing so? I personally think we should do something late 2493, there is a reason that they are in most libraries. Perhaps having them as guards there and giving them access? Maybe gifting one of the many, many frowned upon texts we are keeping, big fan of gifting the Creeping Flesh book, for all the reasons listed when we took it from Slyvania.
The words 'institutional tension' were carefully picked. It's not 'ticked off' or 'damaged reputation' or 'sworn enmity' or 'a Verenan death squad is, at this exact moment, about to burst into the room' or anything like that. There is tension that exists, and that tension is likely to have an effect on future negotiations. That effect is unknown, probably negative, but unlikely to be all-encompassing. It is very likely to dissipate over time and practically guaranteed to disappear if you manage to build good relations with some other branch of the Cult.
We can proooobably make it up to the Verenans overall by letting them make many copies of our books. The Cult of Verena isn't going to make inroads with Laurelorn anytime soon so 'hey I have a bunch of unique Elven books' is likely to smooth over existing tensions.
I'm pretty sure we can't outright give away the Creeping Flesh, though - Boney was very clear on how the time to launder that was when we got it. It'd also be relitigating a vote, which Boney generally does not like. Letting them copy ours is probably doable, though.
Oh no doubt, the point I am driving towards, and definitely taking the scenic route is that tensions can either dissipate or build. I was probably reading a bit too much into the whole Verenan's willing to die on a pyre because the straight up corrupting book holds knowledge, and all knowledge is sacred bit of their logic. Fair point on the Creeping Flesh, would probably raise some uncomfortable questions that we really don't need right now.
I do like the Elven book idea, especially the mental image
"That new library fail yet? We hold the keys to half the repositories of knowledge that exist, the least they could have done is say hello..."
*Mist explosion*
"Hi I'm the owner of that library, here is a giant pile of books that you would otherwise have no access to, well got a world to save, hope I saved enough of your ego to help. Toodles!!"
Just the pure rage of someone who wants to be angry, knows they have no reason to be and everyone around them will kick their shit in if they raise a fuss.
All very interesting - especially so to Eike, apparently, who explained all that to you and finds every opportunity to slip away and bombard the shipwrights with further questions over the next few weeks - but you're less interested in the how than you are the why. The quantities of marble involved here are far in excess of any conventional need, so there must be some sort of grand-scale construction project in the works. Are they building a road? Rebuilding Kor Immarmor or the Path of Stone? Expanding the Tower of Se-Athil? Adding a fourth tower to Tor Lithanel's undercrowded skyline? Every possibility has knock-on effects on the internal politics of Laurelorn, and possibly the external politics with the provinces neighbouring it.
The answer, as it turns out, is both simpler and more complicated than you expected: Tor Lithanel will, at some point in the near future when the time is right and sufficient political capital is brought to bear, expand its walls for the first time in its history.
There are mentions of theoretical 'new' liminal realms that seem to match what Mathilde has made, but they only really come up during high-level theorizing. It seems to be thought pointless to figure out how to create a liminal realm from scratch when you can just isolate part of an already-existing one.
I hope Mathilde didn't write the liminal realm chapter of the AV book yet, because she should definitely throw in a line like "this realm, the existence of which has so far only been theorized by the Eonir" in there, heavily implying that Mathilde outdid an entire elven polity.
I hope Mathilde didn't write the liminal realm chapter of the AV book yet, because she should definitely throw in a line like "this realm, the existence of which has so far only been theorized by the Eonir" in there, heavily implying that Mathilde outdid an entire elven polity.
Rivers in the empire are truly a marvel: almost universally navigable human factors notwithstanding with huge ships and little mention of sediment and flood management. flooding is also not a constant theme. You would think tzeentch (or some god of change, and moon) would have flooding and tidal waves as his domain. The river spirits do a good job prevent
Ing that.
More interestingly, they are stationary. "Conceptually solid" in a manner that allows riverine transmission, as opposed to roads. Irl humans tamed rivers, made them more linear and held them still.
My guess is that the magical concept of the river, that can create gods (grandfather Reik), or leylines, hold rivers in place.
Note that the rivers of the Old World are also people. You can go and talk to the Naiad of the Reik and hear her grief and rage about how her husband returned to Ulthuan to fight during the Sundering and never came home to her.
Given river spirits can teleport objects around their interior, then if the river doesn't want to shift its course, it won't, as the spirit can teleport suspended sediment around to reverse erosion.
I had figured that the river's stationarity was because of Old Ones design of rivers (they seemed to care a ton about things being "regular."), as well as high levels of forestation.
Well one of those is small, clever, independ minded, somewhat affectionate to their friends even if they sometimes act grumpy about it but can be vicius to things they don't like, whereas the other is Cats.
Well one of those is small, clever, independ minded, somewhat affectionate to their friends even if they sometimes act grumpy about it but can be vicius to things they don't like, whereas the other is Cats.
Not to mention that they're similarly hairy, prideful, share a burning hatred of rodents, both species can hold petty grudges for thousands of years, and if you rub their bellies without permission you will die.
I think I made a 'Urmskaladrak was just trying to get his lost cat back but Grimnir did not want tuna' joke before, so I'll just leave this space intentionally blank.
My thinking, as the SHADOW WIZARD MURDER GANG planmaker, is that it really depends on how Waystone deployments go this turn. If they all go super well and there are no problems, then hell yeah let's roll out some more of the hybrid waystones to Mordheim or something. If we start running into scaling issues of "there are not enough Waystones to go around," then I'd say we should make a new Waystone that is slightly simpler (dropping the dual-channel transmission for starters) in order to support the existing deployments. I'd also really like to start getting into a rhythm of investigating Nexuses, since now that we're deploying Waystones it's really important to know where the power is going and how we can deal with it. SWMG 2.0 might end up borrowing an action from T46 to compensate for the lack of Overwork.
So, ah, on that note... Promised I was working on a framework for a 'Nagarythe-maxing' plan! Includes the potential for a couple more actions (actually only one more if we don't want to incur an Overwork penalty the turn afterwards; need to learn to count, apparently), depending on how many we want to steal for next turn - those could be Waystone establishment or design, Bretonnian adventures or any number of other things. Would be eager to see discussion and consideration of those, of any of the below and/or, in particular, of the decision points marked by yellow text!
(Also, came up with a half-decent name for it.)
[ ] Plan: Shadow Wizard Murder Gang, Variant - The Sword of Judgement, Honed
- [ ] [COIN] The Protector / The Father / The Gambler
Good arguments for Father and Protector were made during the previous plan vote. Considering Nagarythe alone, this ultimately comes down to how much of an impact we believe Mathilde's actions there will have on the people of Ulthuan and how likely Lileath, Ladrielle or anyone else is to be a daughter of Ranald. This decision will, of course, be affected by further choices of where to go and what to do; Father, as has been staunchly argued, makes good sense for actions in Bretonnia, for example. Gambler, as ever, is a reliable default if neither of the other options proves attractive.
- [ ] [RECEIVE TRAINING] Scouting
-- [ ] With: Kazador
-- [ ] Keep an eye out for potion and poison materials for Panoramia?
- [ ] [RECEIVE TUTORING] Druchii (?)
-- [ ] With: Walter Kupfer
Scouting training was part of just about every Nagarythe-oriented plan in the previous vote. As for the possibility of learning more about the Druchii from Kupfer, while it's sensible and something I have total confidence we'll have the CF for after the megaflex, the question is what to learn! Druhir is broadly intelligible to a speaker of Tar-Eltharin, so I would imagine that Tactics, Strategy and/or general Lore would be most useful. (I'm genuinely unsure how much progress in any of these Mathilde would be able to make with a single action; would welcome clarification from those with more experience! Alternatively, we could leave it up for Kupfer to decide based on Boney's comment here.)
- [ ] [PERSONAL RELATIONS] Make potions / poisons with Panoramia for use in Nagarythe
The possibility of delving into potions as preparation for Nagarythe was first brought up here; reception was mixed to negative right up until it was realised that Panoramia might be motivated by Mathilde's departure to lend her expertise, at which point it (quite reasonably) received widespread favourability and warmth! Boney's response to the concept did suggest the use of multiple actions; perhaps the concept of looking for ingredients could be combined with scouting with Kazador (whether for flavour alone or for a mechanical benefit), as on the initial journey to Karak Eight Peaks, or maybe we feel this is worth burning another action on. Could even be a purchase at the end of this turn! Worth noting that taking potions to Nagarythe would mean giving up one of our item slots - perhaps the Grounding Rod - but probably only one regardless of the number of potions.
It occurs to me that poisons might be another option that Panoramia has experience with and could be just as applicable to fighting on Nagarythe, so I've included the possibility.
- [ ] [?] [?] [FOREIGN RELATIONS] Travel to Nagarythe at the invitation of Ambassador Daroir and join their eternal war against Naggarothi invaders for three months.
The whole point of the exercise! The main question here, of course, is how many actions to poach from the next turn. There's plenty already that could fit into the remaining actions – investigation of the Iron Orcs in Bretonnia, looking into lost Nexus, building a leaner Waystone model, writing papers or (yes, I know, at least one mention of this was inevitable) my pet option of gifting Orbs to Teclis – but we could go the other way and opt to take care of heading to Nagarythe to free up options on the turn afterwards. Note that doing so while fulfilling all of the actions proposed above would require a point of Overwork, which would (if my understanding of the mechanic is correct), in combination with our current Overwork, result in a -10 penalty to all actions on the following turn.
As a separate point, if we were to opt for Gambler, I should think that this would make most sense to use it on.
- [ ] [SERENITY] One of the two Lizardman papers?
So… Which one? Something else? Answers on a postcard!
- [ ] [EIC] Attempt to establish a trade route with the Eonir (Ore, via Kalitan traders / New options opened up by the Schadenweg?) / Improve and expand the EIC's paramilitary river navy.
The idea of trying to secure contracts with Kislevite ore traders worshipping Kalita has been on the table for a fair while, and obviously makes use of the Father more attractive; on the other hand, making preparations for the opening of the Schadenweg could be useful if they arise. To my mind, however, the most interesting option is expansion of the EIC paramilitary fleet's capabilities with an eye to experimenting with Waystone-carrying barges, as first proposed by Alratan and confirmed as a possibility by Boney. This could, of course, be deferred to a later turn when we've got the time to do said experimenting!
- [ ] [KAU] Seek the publishing contacts to start acquiring large amounts of books from a nearby realm (Eataine / Ulthuan)
The opportunity should be taken while on Ulthuan, of course, to pillage it for books! While the wiki does note the existence of a large library in Lothern (with the Blood of Aenarion novel as its source), I suspect that trying to negotiate an exchange between said library and a library in a dwarfhold would be a non-starter, so finding contacts for book purchasing is to be preferred. I imagine that Eike could be a great help here; there's a real possibility that enough rumour of Mathilde, between the publication of Asarnil's memoirs and being a human declared a dwarf and granted the title of Loremaster, has reached Lothern for her to be identifiable and her loyalties to the dwarves to be known, whereas Eike is both far less identifiable and has plenty of skill in the matter. The only real question is whether to focus on the surely considerable concentration of publications from across the world in Lothern or to shoot for the moon and see if there's any chance of putting out feelers towards Saphery.
- [ ] [EIKE ACTIONS] Scouting Training, Druchii Tutoring, Potion Making, EIC action, Publishing Contacts
- [ ] [EIKE STUDY] Compile a dossier on trade goods and trade flows in, around and through Lothern, as well as opportunities for the EIC, Colleges and Empire as a result of how the new canals will affect those trade flows (Eike should also feel free to show initiative regarding opportunities that jump out at her while in the city)
A fair few actions here; scouting and potion-making are just the standard picking up of skills and Eike's talents would be useful in any of the EIC actions mentioned above; the reason behind her involvement in publishing contacts on Ulthuan is discussed in the thoughts on that. Learning about the Druchii is less intuitive than the rest but I would argue it's well-placed, giving Eike context for why Mathilde's sailing halfway across the world and encouraging her to think ambitiously, as is only right for an apprentice of Mathilde, about her remit and impact as a wizard of the Grey Order.
I've argued for the value of Eike preparing a report on Lothern's trade networks before and I don't think that the rationale has changed. Its broader utility would be as an up-to-date resource for anyone invested in the various canal-building projects in the Old World; for Eike, it would be a step up in task scope, freedom and responsibility from the charcoal trading with the Eonir and might even allow her to put her name to her first publication.
I am not sure what's the end point for the academic pursuit of lizardmen studies. The old one link per WoB has to be earned and we are not going to Lustria. Let's see what this turn might give us for new prompts.
Scaling up deployment so it becomes an organization should also be investigated as soon as it is possible. I do see having to build more kinds of waystones as necessary. In the ideal world the organization just chugs along, leaving us to investigate and establish the nexuses.
The middle mountain's three nexuses remains a mystery, as Boney pointed out a while back. Thorek's expedition may prove very useful. Might accidentally conquer the bloodkeep on the way.
I imagine after this year of test deployments, we'll have something more solid in the form of "we produce [x] waystones per year, and [w,y,z] are going to ongoing network expansion in [Kislev, Sylvania, Karaz Ankor]" at which point we'll know if it's feasible to develop more regions or if work needs to go into upping production/acquiring new partners.
Regarding elfcation I'll just repeat that The Father should be tested against as many possibilities at once as feasible, so fit some pokes at Bretonnia in there alongside it. Waystone Mapping seems like a good existing option, it inherently involves wandering all over the Bretonnian countryside and seeing if they're naturally distrusting or suspiciously not so, and it covers two nations for one action so we can throw in Tilea or Estalia and look for obscure regional female deities we've missed if neither Lady nor Lileath pass the paternity test.
Nothing is known about Caledor Dragontamer's past before the Great Catastrophe, but during it he became famous as the greatest Mage Ulthuan has ever seen and the only mortal that the dragons have ever truly respected, rather than merely indulged. Thus, they named him Kalamn-Kavannaen, which means "Great Lord" in their tongue. He established the kingdom that was later named after him, and was also the first to bow to Aenarion and swear his fealty to the Phoenix King, becoming his closest friend and advisor.
