Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I mean, kind of? The thing is though that while necromancy can make a single minor practitioner an outsized threat, it does so by tapping into a finite resource. Spread the secrets around and the total level of threat will plateau as the supply of undead to raise and control dries up.

Still an existential threat, mind you. But not "can pick a fight with the entire world and maybe win" level.
At the same time, an army of undead tends to make its own resupply.
 
I hate to disagree with Boney, but the description of the first secret was described as winding strands of rope together so as to use the instability to create dynamic stability under tension.

If there is no rope made, no tension being held within the dhar structure, what does the second secret act on? It would be like cutting tar and cutting a tight-wound spring and expecting the same reaction. I suppose that it could be the spellform itself that is holding dhar under tension, but in that case the second secret is not actually any different than just counter spelling it- and that does not create chain reactions.

So I think that WoG is a strong candidate for getting retconed.

The tension being exploited is that between the nature of Dhar and the ends it is being put to. Dhar is corruption, chaos, decay, entropy. It can be turned towards various sorcerous constructions by exertions of will but its nature is still to deconstruct. Something based on Dhar can never be truly stable because it contains Dhar. The first secret suppresses that, the second expresses it.
 
I cant help but notice a real lack of noticeable enemy action up to this point in the Waystone project.

I cant really tell if that's because it hasn't started or because its already started.

both are worrying.
 
I cant help but notice a real lack of noticeable enemy action up to this point in the Waystone project.

I cant really tell if that's because it hasn't started or because its already started.

both are worrying.
The project hasn't exactly been public to anyone associated with Chaos (sit the fuck down, Egrimm!) up until deployment. While the Four are presumably aware, that doesn't mean they'll do anything about it, especially since Tzeentch will be screwing with the others' plans because Mathilde is part of his plans.

From a Tzeentchian perspective, Mathilde gaining the knowledge that she has through the project could be a much bigger win if she falls than whatever the expanded network achieves in a handful of years. Hypothetical Everchosen Mathilde now knows how to crash the entire Old World network by attacking Fort Solace or Los Cabos.
 
The project hasn't exactly been public to anyone associated with Chaos (sit the fuck down, Egrimm!) up until deployment. While the Four are presumably aware, that doesn't mean they'll do anything about it, especially since Tzeentch will be screwing with the others' plans because Mathilde is part of his plans.

From a Tzeentchian perspective, Mathilde gaining the knowledge that she has through the project could be a much bigger win if she falls than whatever the expanded network achieves in a handful of years. Hypothetical Everchosen Mathilde now knows how to crash the entire Old World network by attacking Fort Solace or Los Cabos.

Big bird gonna be chugging that Hope and Change for decades while flexing on the other Three.
 
The project hasn't exactly been public to anyone associated with Chaos (sit the fuck down, Egrimm!) up until deployment. While the Four are presumably aware, that doesn't mean they'll do anything about it, especially since Tzeentch will be screwing with the others' plans because Mathilde is part of his plans.

From a Tzeentchian perspective, Mathilde gaining the knowledge that she has through the project could be a much bigger win if she falls than whatever the expanded network achieves in a handful of years. Hypothetical Everchosen Mathilde now knows how to crash the entire Old World network by attacking Fort Solace or Los Cabos.
True, deploying in Praag is certainly going to be a shot across the bow against Chaos.

I expect we'll see more of a response after that.
 
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Is there any particular reason to pick things up for more research? It kinda feels like make-work that we are mostly doing because we've got the tower of serenity and the need to fill WebMat slots so we don't waste them.

After waystones and AV I'm also expecting much smaller returns to researching everyday stuff like magic weapons.

Exactly, side adventures should guarantee consequences (fire dragons? Iron orcs?).
Researches should be aimed and targeted (Silk? Plague prevention?).

Make work research can still be narratively rewarding if minor in consequences (gauntlet/seed/maps). I just prefer not to rely on dice to tell us what to do.
 
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I cant help but notice a real lack of noticeable enemy action up to this point in the Waystone project.

I cant really tell if that's because it hasn't started or because its already started.

both are worrying.

The flipside about it being hard to get the good guys to care about gradual solutions to invisible stochastic problems is that the bad guys have the same issue. A huge amount of them will see it as a win that Mathilde is playing with rocks instead of doing more direct Wizard things and not think about it any further.
 
The flipside about it being hard to get the good guys to care about gradual solutions to invisible stochastic problems is that the bad guys have the same issue. A huge amount of them will see it as a win that Mathilde is playing with rocks instead of doing more direct Wizard things and not think about it any further.

Good guys winning because bad guys don't think humans can cause (Chaos) climate change would be great.
 
The flipside about it being hard to get the good guys to care about gradual solutions to invisible stochastic problems is that the bad guys have the same issue. A huge amount of them will see it as a win that Mathilde is playing with rocks instead of doing more direct Wizard things and not think about it any further.
[Killer Croc]It was a big rock![/Killer Croc]
 
the hypothetical skaven necromancer
But the first secret is used as part of the ammo supply mechanism of rattling guns, and the second secret is used as part of the firing mechanism, right?

I don't see a good way to say that a society so very full of stark raving mad innovation (MAD SCIENCE!!) in all its forms would not have found that one easy trick to decompose Dhar constructs many times over, not when they engage in both so much use of Dhar and use of Dhar engineering.

I do like the idea of each one who discovers it, taking it to their grave, though. That seems plausible.
 
I can totally buy Chaos being blindsided by waystones. It's not just that Chaos tends to prioritize their entertainment over victory, but war also demands that you focus your attention on the most pressing things you need or want, not the things you already have and mostly take for granted.

If you already have good roads, you don't worry about how your troops might not advance at the speed you'd want them to. If your army is fully outfitted with weapons and armor, you don't have to worry about benching some of them or unarmored troops being deathly vulnerable. If you have enough medicine and healers, you don't need to worry about your army catching or spreading dysentery or infections and losing troops or slowing down. If your army has a steady supply train and sources of food and water, you don't have to worry about the entire army either dying or needing to pillage innocent villages before you get to the battle you need to get to.

And I imagine that generals who fight in places that aren't Dhar-filled wastelands simply don't have to worry about the dead rising from being buried without a Morrite on hand, needing to watch out for ambient undead or Dhar-corrupted gribblies, or be strategically aware that users of dark magic are more likely to be around than normal and have a steady supply of magic.

...Between waystones, the RoW towers, and the Kislev canal, I think Mathilde will yet again be offered the Logistician trait at the end of arc.
 
@Boney when the romance votes were still a thing someone asked if a possible social action of introducing Regimand to Panoramia, you said that it was a bit to early into the relationship for that.

has enough time passed that it Is now a viable social action?
 
So when a newbie necromancer is strugling to raise a dozen skeletons, they are basically trial and erroring binding dhar, with it sometimes working and sometimes not without necromancer understanding why? And figuring out the first secret is what makes a scrub necromancer a real threat?

Is this understanding of why all dhar constructs share a weakness correct? There is only one real way to bind down dhar as far as second secret is concerned, and necromancer training is just gradually moving their methods closer to the one secret trick.
 
So when a newbie necromancer is strugling to raise a dozen skeletons, they are basically trial and erroring binding dhar, with it sometimes working and sometimes not without necromancer understanding why? And figuring out the first secret is what makes a scrub necromancer a real threat?

Is this understanding of why all dhar constructs share a weakness correct? There is only one real way to bind down dhar as far as second secret is concerned, and necromancer training is just gradually moving their methods closer to the one secret trick.

The novice necromancer uses his will to impose order on screaming Chaos, no matter how they do it it's still screaming Chaos. The second secret is just throwing more unstable Dhar at it in just the right way to contaminate the construct.
 
You also have to assume the game mechanics accurately represent the setting

I mean, in a videogame or miniature wargame that is a pretty safe assumption, assuming no maximum ludonarrative is going on there (which a lot of games actually do go for, but to be fair its still a pretty small number percentage-wise).

But in a tabletop rpg, ludo-narrative IS the assumption, barring silly stuff like "talking is a free action so you can talk forever" or "peasant railway canon" that came about from the rules not bothering to simulate stupid edge cases any sane DM would veto in order to avoid clutter combined with extreme rules lawyering.
 
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@Boney when the romance votes were still a thing someone asked if a possible social action of introducing Regimand to Panoramia, you said that it was a bit to early into the relationship for that.

has enough time passed that it Is now a viable social action?

The thing is that you're not going to get the scenes I think you're looking for if you pick at the scars of Mathilde's parental trauma. Regimand was Mathilde's Master, not her father. In Mathilde's mind, the difference is that a Master will actually do something if you're about to be burned to death. There is genuine love between the two of them, but that manifests as professional fondness because that is what both of them are comfortable with. The underlying logic that Mathilde is probably only just conscious enough of to do her best not to think any further about it, is that she would not insult Regimand by slotting him into the role of a father.

As such, Regimand would interact with Panoramia as he would any other Wizard, and so that scene would only be a few sentences long. It might be interesting in a psychological sense but wouldn't really be all that, well, fluffy.
 
The thing is that you're not going to get the scenes I think you're looking for if you pick at the scars of Mathilde's parental trauma. Regimand was Mathilde's Master, not her father. In Mathilde's mind, the difference is that a Master will actually do something if you're about to be burned to death. There is genuine love between the two of them, but that manifests as professional fondness because that is what both of them are comfortable with. The underlying logic that Mathilde is probably only just conscious enough of to do her best not to think any further about it, is that she would not insult Regimand by slotting him into the role of a father.

As such, Regimand would interact with Panoramia as he would any other Wizard, and so that scene would only be a few sentences long. It might be interesting in a psychological sense but wouldn't really be all that, well, fluffy.

This actually makes the scene sound extremely interesting for me. To be fair, I was not interested until this comment, so I may be a different demographic to the person being replied to.
 
The thing is that you're not going to get the scenes I think you're looking for if you pick at the scars of Mathilde's parental trauma. Regimand was Mathilde's Master, not her father. In Mathilde's mind, the difference is that a Master will actually do something if you're about to be burned to death. There is genuine love between the two of them, but that manifests as professional fondness because that is what both of them are comfortable with. The underlying logic that Mathilde is probably only just conscious enough of to do her best not to think any further about it, is that she would not insult Regimand by slotting him into the role of a father.

As such, Regimand would interact with Panoramia as he would any other Wizard, and so that scene would only be a few sentences long. It might be interesting in a psychological sense but wouldn't really be all that, well, fluffy.
I think it sounds fascinating. If there's enough there that you can write a scene, I'd be happy for it. For me, it's not about Mathilde's parental trauma (though that obviously is going to lurk in the background, like some sort of hidden, obscured thing. Dunno how to describe that), but about her personal relationship to Regimand. I'd like to see more of it, in a personal context (all the other stuff has been professional, though I realise keeping a sheen of proffesionalism probably is a big part of their relationship).

Anyway, Regimand wants to spent time with his daughter Mathilde, and I support that. And I also think that's quite fluffy.
 
They have actually met, during the second-date social turn in fact when we tested Regimand's Grey Wizard unflappability with this little routine.
"First matter is the only piece of unfinished business I was nervous about leaving behind - the Ice Dragon question."

"Ice Dragon?" Regimand asks.

"It's going by the name of Cython, and it's happy to leave us alone as long as we leave it alone. I'm hoping that in the long run we can talk it into something more mutually defensive, but for the short term, I'm happy with nonaggression and loaning it the occasional book."

"As in, a Hysh Emperor Dragon?" Regimand asks.

"Handy sort," Johann says, with deliberate casualness. "Wiped out its share of the local foes and then some."

"Far from the worst neighbour we've had," Panoramia agrees.
 
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