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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BurnNote said:
It's a detonation produced by evaporation. Or, well, technically it's sublimation, since it's solid to gas, and evaporation means liquid to gas. But it goes from something dense to something that really doesn't want to be dense (gas) and so it pushes all the surrounding stuff away. Gunpowder works the same way. Solid thing becomes a cramped gas and is mad about it.
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I mean, sure. But 'warpstone can be forced to flash-decay into Dhar' isn't evaporation in the same way burning gunpowder isn't evaporation, even though the end result is a gas.
 
pucflek said:
Well probably not quite then. Until all the weird beasties die of dhar starvation or what have you. There is shit up there thats really ,really scary, and far more likely to venture out of the deep than the stuff thats in middle of the ocean.
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Parabola said:
Given the Black Water's population of Dhar-affected water-life, that might have to wait a few decades before it's deemed safe enough even for Umgi... though certainly, humans have settled in worse locations over the years.
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I think people will start TRYING basically the moment the regular fishing haul seems pretty normal, honestly. "Yeah, sometimes dangers come out of the Deep" isn't all that different from what a logging town deals with.
 
People live in Pigbarter. A place within the Empire where Dwarves are building near a waterway is all that they need to hear.

That the casualties will go down after the first decade is just the icing on the cake.
 
You know, I think Black Water is going to be rather popular with wizards. It's a cornucopia of potential research papers on the effect of Warpstone on animal and waterlife.
 
Asheram said:
You know, I think Black Water is going to be rather popular with wizards. It's a cornucopia of potential research papers on the effect of Warpstone on animal and waterlife.
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Even if researching animals and gribblies that have been affected by Dhar isn't studying Dhar in and of itself, I have to imagine most wizards who aren't named Mathilde Weber aren't going to be super interested in getting that close to that research topic, honestly.
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
Ah, I hadn't realised that the Leyline component was so cheap to include. Okay, it's not worth making a rivers-only version. A cheap Leyline-only version and an expensive Leyline-only version should be good enough, unless the thread unexpectedly decides to look into Material transmission.

(Which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, mind you - even if we never make a Waystone with it, the chance to learn how these various extremely knowledgeable magic-users manage that could be extremely useful for enchanting someday.)
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Cheap and expensive are typically associated with cost rather than time or complexity. This is just ambiguous phrasing that will confuse readers. Simplified and complex will give less incorrect impressions.

But I just cannot see making a less-complicated waystone as anything but a boring waste of time. I'd prefer not making an elf waystone, but as I've already explained to you, it is... unlikely that the dwarfs will sell runes to them. But at least an elf waystone lets us deploy waystones on Ulthuan! A leyline variant cuts out a large chunk of needless work. But a simplified waystone will cut down how many golden age storage waystones end up getting used, thus dragging out the time for it to be simplified. And why spend an action on that?

Come to think of it, it would be really funny if Ulthuan actually could make waystones with a Dwarf rune. But if it could it probably would be a poor idea to deploy it to Ulthuan for obvious reasons. :V
 
Asheram said:
You'd imagine so, but the black water runs downstream to the border princes. There should be plenty of opportunities to find the same species of waterlife.
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Not the point. If your paper finds that the effects on the wildlife is negative everyone wonders why you even bothered studying a well known and obvious fact.

If the effects are positive people start to get worried about you.
 
chocolote12 said:
People live in Pigbarter. A place within the Empire where Dwarves are building near a waterway is all that they need to hear.
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Iirc the sort of monster that lives in black water is entirely capable of depopulating a town (thought i can´t recall if thats because of evacuation or because it would just straight up destroy it) so its a little bit different trying that shit there is a bit different i think.
 
MrHobbit said:
Cheap and expensive are typically associated with cost rather than time or complexity. This is just ambiguous phrasing that will confuse readers. Simplified and complex will give less incorrect impressions.
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Given the previous back and forth on this, and the complete lack of anyone in the conversation indicating any level of confusion, I think it'll be fine.

MrHobbit said:
But I just cannot see making a less-complicated waystone as anything but a boring waste of time. I'd prefer not making an elf waystone, but as I've already explained to you, it is... unlikely that the dwarfs will sell runes to them. But at least an elf waystone lets us deploy waystones on Ulthuan! A leyline variant cuts out a large chunk of needless work. But a simplified waystone will cut down how many golden age storage waystones end up getting used, thus dragging out the time for it to be simplified. And why spend an action on that?
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I think that chasing the relatively minor complexity decrease in making the fancy Waystones - that only matters in that it limits the rate at which we can make them - by refusing to make a bargain-bin Waystone that can be more easily deployed in areas that can't be easily defended, thereby massively increasing the number of expensive Waystones we need to make, is absurdly self-defeating.
 
There are some obvious benefits that might get dispensation even if there are Article issues - I could see papers like "Detection of Natural Dhar Exposure in Wildlife" where the end goal is to be able to use less resistant, faster-breeding wildlife as an early warning system to catch corruption issues before they start affecting the human populace, for instance. Research into how to accelerate the post-suppression decontamination of the area seems like it would have obvious benefits, too. And there's some potential for trying out experimental treatment methods on contaminated wildlife, which might then be applicable to livestock, or maybe even people.
 
fictionfan said:
Not the point. If your paper finds that the effects on the wildlife is negative everyone wonders why you even bothered studying a well known and obvious fact.

If the effects are positive people start to get worried about you.
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No, the papers will likely be focused upon the evolution and mutation of waterlife in proximity Dhar contamination, a study that you otherwise only will able to be perform in the Chaos Wastes, and nobody wants to go there. (edit: Or Mordheim, I suppose)
Yes, studies upon mutations are likely to be found on humans, but the Black Water is unique in that it's a heavily contaminated area that fish can access by a river, meaning that it's possible that entirely new sub-species of true-breeding sealife can be found there. Species that can be traced back to regular river species.

It's a petri-dish of possibility and you doesn't even have to interact, cause interaction, or subject things to Dhar at all since it's all been contaminated beforehand.

Edit: Think of it like a field study to Chernobyl. While radiation is foul and dangerous, studying the effects of it on life is very important.
 
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It feels like a "look at what I did to this chicken" sort of paper, except instead of a chicken it's "a dhar warped monstrosity" and instead of "look at what I did" it's "I killed".

Which is a perfectly valid avenue of research, but probably not as groundbreaking as one would hope.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
It feels like a "look at what I did to this chicken" sort of paper, except instead of a chicken it's "a dhar warped monstrosity" and instead of "look at what I did" it's "I killed".

Which is a perfectly valid avenue of research, but probably not as groundbreaking as one would hope.
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Closer to the paper of volcanic lightning's effect on those dracotaurs we sent back in the day, but yes. The important research would of course be if the mutations are true-breeding or not.
 
DragonParadox said:
Good thing someone is watching Seilph, he sounds like the kind of guy who would kidnap a necromancer for study and bring them back home if left to his own devices.
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I wonder what he'd pay for a copy o he Liber Mortis that he promises to keep secret.

ReaperofInterest said:
Honestly, I think that we should create a new variant of Waystone or two, but it's probably best to limit it to the leyline version. Riverine is good for dumping Dhar in the ocean, but I consider the leyline version to be more useful in general.
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Basically all rivers we care about have a nexus along their length, or the length of a river they flow into, so this isn't an issue.

Deathbybunnies said:
Ah, I hadn't realised that the Leyline component was so cheap to include. Okay, it's not worth making a rivers-only version. A cheap Leyline-only version and an expensive Leyline-only version should be good enough, unless the thread unexpectedly decides to look into Material transmission.

(Which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, mind you - even if we never make a Waystone with it, the chance to learn how these various extremely knowledgeable magic-users manage that could be extremely useful for enchanting someday.)
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The big advantage of the riverine only version is that it doesn't require any storage.

The other advantage, of specifically the spirit riverine only version is that they can be portable, so can be surged to critical locations and withdrawn if they'd be in danger.
 
A bit of at-work wiki-walking leads me to ask; do any cultures on Mallus (or in The Empire) have any Anchoritic traditions? Most religions in the setting (understandably) are very action focused, but I could see a Celestial or a Light Wizard doing something like that if they're really craving some focus-time.

I don't think Qrech counts since he's a prisoner...
 
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Alratan said:
I wonder what he'd pay for a copy o he Liber Mortis that he promises to keep secret.
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I'd be willing to throw a social action at him to see if he bites.

@Boney is 'Talk to Lord Seilph about your experience with necromancy and his interest in it' a valid social action? I ask because this is the first hint we got of a Grey Lord wanting something we might be able to provide and they certainly have plenty of things we are interested in.
 
Sculpt0r said:
A bit of at-work wiki-walking leads me to ask; do any cultures on Mallus (or in The Empire) have any Anchoritic traditions? Most religions in the setting (understandably) are very action focused, but I could see a Celestial or a Light Wizard doing something like that if they're really craving some focus-time.

I don't think Qrech counts since he's a prisoner...
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Reasonably confident there's elements of that in there.

I know that the whole 'sit on a tower exposed to the elements and consume very little food' is a thing.

(The example I saw it used was actually a scam with 4 different people swapping out on shifts)
 
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