Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[LilyWitch]

I agree in principle with Lupercal's version, though I'm unsure about telling him about Ranald though. It's not something he strictly needs to know and our faith is kinda something private...but eh, it might be better to tell him now than if it comes up in a sticky situation at some point down the line. Any input on this?

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My reasoning behind admitting our faith, is to emphasise that we are a religious and loyal citizen of the Empire but also low-key, along with the quote, let our boss (who I have grown to think it is probably on the level and who I like as a character so far, or rather I like Wilhamina and therefore him by extention) know that he is not our only master without outright lying to him and getting caught, since I suspect a successful Witch Hunter is going to be quite good at telling when someone with our amount of Intrigue is lying. I don't want to get caught betraying our mysterious sponsors later either if they send anyone to check up on/interrogate us. In other words, I'm trying to balance good tradecraft with being honest to an Elector Count who seems to be a decent boss at least.

 

[Boney]

Ranald the Deceiver is the god of lies, illusions, luck and irony. He is a god of the common people, and most people in the Empire will invoke him when they need luck on their side. He's also the patron god of spies and Grey Wizards, and if that was all there was to Ranald it wouldn't just be acceptable but expected for you to venerate him. But Ranald has other guises.

Ranald the Night Prowler is the god of thieves, patron of criminals, and veneration to him is tied into the very language of the thieves cant.

Ranald the Protector is the god of democracy, revolution, and freedom from tyranny. Every year tax collectors are murdered in his name, every revolt against Imperial authority has him as a patron god.

Ranald is eternally on the knife edge between 'frowned upon' and 'actively suppressed'. Admitting that you worship him is not likely to make you friends.

(I say this not to encourage you to act one way or another, only to give you information that you would possess in-character)

 

[vsh]

To be fair, we don't absolutely know that the Emperor is the one twisting our arm. It's a likely subject, because the only ones who have the authority to order the Grey Order like this are the Supreme Patriarch and the Emperor, but that assumes that there's no favor repaying going on either.

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Honestly, the only things we know about our... assignement are from our teacher, and I find him being compromised to be more likely than insignificant journeywoman to be a target of Emperor himself strongarming Grey Order.

 

[SAGrognard]

Honestly, the only things we know about our... assignement are from our teacher, and I find him being compromised to be more likely than insignificant journeywoman to be a target of Emperor himself strongarming Grey Order.

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Indeed, one alternative to the uber-powerful and shadowy cabals that the orc fears so much, is a grey wizard with dirt on our Master.

 

[Siual]

Honestly, the only things we know about our... assignement are from our teacher, and I find him being compromised to be more likely than insignificant journeywoman to be a target of Emperor himself strongarming Grey Order.

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Indeed, one alternative to the uber-powerful and shadowy cabals that the orc fears so much, is a grey wizard with dirt on our Master.

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Keep in mind, we did get a very critical position in Imperial politics imposed onto us, without a lick of experience or any connections whatsoever, with our only qualification being a Grey Mage. Our patron might not have uprooted the entire Grey Order, they do seem to have at least some considerable pull.

 

[vsh]

Keep in mind, we did get a very critical position in Imperial politics imposed onto us, without a lick of experience or any connections whatsoever, with our only qualification being a Grey Mage. Our patron might not have uprooted the entire Grey Order, they do seem to have at least some considerable pull.

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That certainly is true; but that is something a competent and established grey magister can pull off on their own if they are willing to call in favors, use long-conserved blackmail and take some risks. "Our master is dirty" is more believable than "our patron is emperor himself".

 

[DocMatoi]

I think, regarding ourselves, we should tell him that we have another master and their hold on us, but make it clear that we don't know who they are, and that we are going to keep him appraised of the situation. if he so wishes, we can attempt to find out who they are.

 

[vsh]

I think, regarding ourselves, we should tell him that we have another master and their hold on us, but make it clear that we don't know who they are, and that we are going to keep him appraised of the situation. if he so wishes, we can attempt to find out who they are.

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God no, whoever owns us is a thousand times better at this game than we are. Let's not be rash until we have at least some idea what situation we're in.

 

[Atam the Ork]

I think, regarding ourselves, we should tell him that we have another master and their hold on us, but make it clear that we don't know who they are, and that we are going to keep him appraised of the situation. if he so wishes, we can attempt to find out who they are.

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And if the person who had put us here finds out we just let that information out what are we going to do when they think it would be better to eliminate us than keep us around let's wait and try to find who it is first before we tell anyone about it and then have nothing to go on

The person who put us here can still be a good guy but we have no idea who it is or who to trust so please don't rush to anything drastic

 

[Pyro Hawk]

[X] Report: This deal's getting worse all the time!

[X] One-on-One Report: Trust no one!
-[X] After the council is finished, wait until roughly an hour has passed then approach Van Hel and request a private meeting. "I have information for your ears only." Explain what you have discoved about your fellow councillors, minus Anton's family history of magic, their Loyalties and Flaws. Don't revel your own divided loyalties explicitly but do admit that you are a devot follower of Ranald. "Trust no one, my count... accept maybe Wilhmina and Anton." Explain about Wurtbads undercity and that you've, legally, acquired some (but down play how great a find it was) for business that a Spymaster and Wizard can't be seen performing in the Elector Count's seat of power. Bare in mind, and admit if pressed, that as a prefessional Witch Hunter he is likely already aware of some or all of this but you felt that full discloser was neccessary.

I think that we CAN'T just admit that we have an unknown backer... Because I'm near certain that that's a trigger for a BAD END.

That said, I'm not sure this is the best vote, though it's better than the others.

 

[atrophy]

if we find bad information or they ask us to do things beyond the pale or just get straight undead/chaos vibes we shouldnt do stuff.

 

[Atam the Ork]

[X] Report: This deal's getting worse all the time!

I'm not willing to make enemies with so many powerful people at the same time and are going to make our jobs a living hell in the long run

 

[Exmorri]

Vehemently disagree with informing Van Hal about our mysterious benefactor. If we get an order that he doesn't want us to follow, it's game over. We picked the sleeper agent option, weaselling out of it now is trying to have our cake and eat it too.

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This is nagging at me now that you mention it. How much is obligation and how much is mind games?

On the one hand, I agree that it shouldn't be so easy to weasel out of it.
On the other hand, I'm not convinced we'd be doing that.
Because we'd still have the obligation to send reports, taking up our time. And I wonder if the Sleeper Agent might be one of those things where the biggest penalty is what you do to yourself while worrying about it, like a secret test of character where the trick answer is to simply be honest to our liege-lord who turns out to be on the same side as our string-puller (both seem to be on the side of Good)
Possible Bad Ends seem to be everywhere here, whether our string-puller or our liege-lord gets upset at either course of action.

 

[Atam the Ork]

This is nagging at me now that you mention it. How much is obligation and how much is mind games?

On the one hand, I agree that it shouldn't be so easy to weasel out of it.
On the other hand, I'm not convinced we'd be doing that.
Because we'd still have the obligation to send reports, taking up our time. And I wonder if the Sleeper Agent might be one of those things where the biggest penalty is what you do to yourself while worrying about it, like a secret test of character where the trick answer is to simply be honest to our liege-lord who turns out to be on the same side as our string-puller (both seem to be on the side of Good)
Possible Bad Ends seem to be everywhere here, whether our string-puller or our liege-lord gets upset at either course of action.

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I'm sorry but that would be then most convoluted and stupidest test ever and what would it teach anyways? Always tell your lord the truth without question even if your lord was a bad person and it would be better if they didn't know something?

And why would they teach a Grey wizard to be a shit spy isn't that opposite of what their job is supposed to be?

 

[Exmorri]

I'm sorry but that would be then most convoluted and stupidest test ever and what would it teach anyways? Always tell your lord the truth without question even if your lord was a bad person and it would be better if they didn't know something?

And why would they teach a Grey wizard to be a shit spy isn't that opposite of what their job is supposed to be?

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I said "like", and I was thinking more on the quest level than in-game. In-game it might be a severe case of Poor Communication Kills.

But as to your question which may or may not have been rhetorical: Unless your lord is obviously evil - which Abelheim is very much not - yes, do always tell your lord the truth without question! That is one of the basic moral duties around here. We have sworn an oath to serve our lord. Oathbreakers are pretty much the worst thing in a Warhammer-like society.
(At least, assuming @BoneyM hasn't snuck in a Nuremberg-expy or similar modernization into the backstory.)

 

[Atam the Ork]

which Abelheim is very much not - yes,

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How do you know this we've barely met the man on screen we don't know his motivations or his goals we don't know the type of shit he has seen when he was a witch hunter that might of corrupted him.

Until we know more about him I don't feel like it would be wise to tell him everything without question

Also we are already breaking an oath with him we are stealing money from the budget he intrusted us with so it doesn't really make much of a difference if we lie to him on other things

 

[Exmorri]

I have withdrawn my private report proposal Discreetly Cooperate while I reconsider what to do (and also how to format vote this turn), text is still there if anyone wants to crib from it.

 

[LilyWitch]

I'm considering editing [] One-on-One Report: Trust no one! to remove the mention of Ranald. If anyone can think of a way to imply (with at least a little sublty) that we are loyal to the Empire and Stirland but have masters other then Van Hel I would be interested in replacing it with that. Otherwise I'll either leave it as is or remove warning Van Hel about ourselves entierly. I'm going to be AFK till ~8am GMT now so I can't reply till then.

 

[Heretek]

You could say that whoever ultimately decided to appoint us has enough sway in our order to get our master to assign us this task at all.

It's not a perfect answer, but it is honest. We don't know who was behind our appointment, but we do know that one note was enough to, apparently legitimately, ship us off. It's not necessarily a higher imperial authority, but it probably is and we're just a lowly Journeywoman who wouldn't be expected to be told such things.

 

[Dutch]

But as to your question which may or may not have been rhetorical: Unless your lord is obviously evil - which Abelheim is very much not - yes, do always tell your lord the truth without question! That is one of the basic moral duties around here. We have sworn an oath to serve our lord. Oathbreakers are pretty much the worst thing in a Warhammer-like society.

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The Grey Order's motto is pretty much "You can't tell us what to do!" and they have strict rules about sticking their noses into politics.

Even the Emperor's hold over the order is shaky at best.

 

[Heretek]

The Emperor's hold is absolute... as much as he knows to keep hold over them.

 

[Exmorri]

Maybe we can have a micro-poll to estimate the thread's view on what to disclose, then work out nice wording afterwards. Attempting to rank the disputed items by roughly how sensitive they are:

[o] We should privately tell the Elector Count about...
-[o] Brother Kasmir (Faith) being more loyal to Cult of Sigmar than the office of Elector Count
-[o] Architect Schultz (Learning) being loyal to Talabecland in exchange for vote
-[o] Professor Verezzo (Martial) being a fired fraud embezzler, mind that signing bonus
-[o] Imperial Intelligence knows this too, and has used it to threaten Verezzo into reporting to them
-[o] Anton (Diplomacy) and Wilhelmina (Stewardship) are either very honest loyal people, or better than us at our own job (note: this is ranked medium sensitive because it casts some suspicion on those we don't describe)
-[o] Us buying a covert shack-office in the city. You should probably know where it is in case of emergency, but please try not to go there casually or it'll attract attention, mmkay?
-[] Anton's Auntie Julia
-[] Us worshiping Ranald
-[] Us having an underground palace-shrine to Ranald in the city
-[] We were sent here by our master and not on our own initiative (but now that we're here we totally like it, we swear)
-[] And it wasn't our master's idea to send us here either, it was someone who can arm-twist a Magister and threaten to have us declared rogue, so probably Imperial Intelligence
-[] We're telling probably-Imperial-Intelligence about how well you are running things

Do not use X for this or it will throw off the real vote. Use O.

 

[King Arthur]

To be fair, we don't absolutely know that the Emperor is the one twisting our arm.

Click to shrink...

We could always just mention that ambiguity if we do tell our boss about this.

Just change it from is the Emperor to "Is almost definitely the Emperor" or "I believe is the Emperor" followed by a list of the reasons why we believe this.

 

[veekie]

[X] Report: This deal's getting worse all the time!
[X] Private Report: Professor Lucrezio de Verezzo and Anton Kiesiner II
[x] A dozen centuries of tax ledgers and records don't just vanish. And I may have found them. Let's go raid a tomb.
[x] Count Petr is definitely tied up in the ledger theft. I can go get him for you, and bring him back in chains.
[x] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, especially since he's actively trying to sabotage the hunt for him. He must be found, and I've got a lead: Julbach.
[x] I need a proper information network. Please fund me wandering around making friends.

For our private report, please report only things we can verify AND don't report on our own hooks unless we know who they are and can pry them loose.
You don't play chicken in a spy game when you're the minor disposable asset man.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

[X] Report: This deal's getting worse all the time!


[X] Private report: Sensible
-[X] "My Count, I believe there are some facts you should be made aware of. First of all, Professor de Verezzo is here due to being found out by Imperial Intelligence running a truly staggering embezzlement scheme. He apparently forcibly failed fully half of his students, retroactively removing the from the ledgers and stealing what had been paid for their tuition from the University itself. While I have not investigated the claims he has made while in your service, I note all of his proposals seem... A tad expensive. Still, I'm not exactly an expert in managing soldiers. He is also throughly under the imperial spymaster's thumb. Something to consider."
-[X] "On Detlef Schultz I've happened upon little, except that he was the compromise that won Talabecland over and consequently tipped the vote in your favor."
-[X] "About Young Anton, the good news is that he seems to be exactly what he appears to. The bad news is that he appears to be throughly innocent when it comes to politics, such making him great at making friends, but completely blind that those he are talking to are shrewd foxes and old wolves. He seems ignorant when it comes to doublespeak or anything of the sort. Certainly something to keep in mind."
-[X] "While I don't personally believe it will be a problem, considering who I am talking about and who I'm talking to, Brother Kasmir was chosen by the Grand Theogonist himself, which is good news come to think of it, but was chosen due his loyalties ultimately being to the Cult of Sigmar itself rather than any secular authority."
-[X] "And finally, I've bought a cheap residence in the city from which to carry out business of the sort that needs to be carried in a discreet location."

I don't think we should bring into question the veteran WH's one chosen councilor. And our current best friend in Stirland.

Worded our supposition as "seems", covered our ass a bit.

Not risking setting off the probable-bomb that lives in our eyelids.