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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Parabola said:
Going to the Forest of Shadows to go kill a necromancer within his own home base (which we know is the location of a nexus), to steal his Big Book of Bad Magic... is definitely something we can do.

...I'm actually totally behind the idea, but I'm phrasing it like that to highlight the danger. I think we'd see very decent support from the idea if we use the Gambler (or the Father) while doing so, and maybe bring Johann and/or Egrimm as backup. Mathilde's a lot stronger as a wizard and as a swordswoman than she was when she took down Alkharad's college... But he still very nearly killed her. A certain level of caution is warranted.

And depending on what canon Boney's using, the master of the Tower of Melkhior is separated somewhere between one and three degrees from Nagash. Canon originally is that W'soran got ganked by his apprentice, Melkhior the Ancient, who drained him dry of blood and then ate him. Several thousand years later, Melkhior got ganked by his apprentice, Zacharias the Everliving (though in canon he does that around 2506 IC). One accounting of canon says that W'soran transmitted his spirit to Melkhior, though, so... shrug. Who knows which interpretation Boney is going for.

...Well, regardless of danger to actually assaulting the Tower, the first step is to merely scout it out from a distance, alongside the other Forest of Shadows nexuses. That part we're definitely doing no matter what, I imagine, and I will continue to support the notion of doing so as part of a Father-plan. Haletha is the goddess of Protection from the Forest of Shadows, so who knows - perhaps she'll look kindly upon us and give us a greater narrative benefit than the Gambler's. We'd be acting directly in Her interests, after all.
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I agree that it is dangerous, I would argue too dangerous for us to do now. It is a fun idea to be certain, and actually one that definitely needs considering. I have three reasons outside of the ones you have listed and one hypothesis that makes me want to do something else first.

1. Best case is Zacharias and his Dragon. (assuming he has it at this point) Worst case is the standard bevy of necromantic and vampire servants with what could most likely be called an army.
2. It's in the middle of the forest of shadows. Zacharias is not the only player in that neck of the woods. Orcs, beastmen and more hang around there, not to mention quite close to the north. Any army would lose half it's numbers before the walls and any strike group needs to balance at least a half dozen combatants against things known to be skilled.
3. It's a solid strike (especially with our advantages against dhar) but it would require a lot of people knowing the whole we read the Liber Mortis enough to challenge a vampire in his home lair powered by a nexus.

Onto hypothesis. I would like to do the Elven adventure in Nagarythe first to learn more about the way they work Ulgu and their viewpoint on gods. During the bringing of the Hedgewise in and Haletha was mentioned as "stealing the shadows from the forest of shadows for us." or something to that effect.
A viewpoint on gods and magic from the Elves. A local goddess who has a myth related to stealing shadows. A grey wizard who worship's a god of thieves who seems to be related to the local goddess... Oh how I love some thematic vibes that scream pick me!
 
Bucolic said:
By my reckoning, M. is at +2 Martial and +3 Learning since the fight with A., which still leaves her solidly behind at a -3 and -5 respectively. Granted, there are new nifty tricks versus humanoid casters, but I wouldn't take any ancient necromancer lightly. We know for sure they can prep their own nifty tricks.
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I mean, absolutely, but it's not just the raw stats that we have to consider.

When we fought Alkharad, Mathilde hadn't yet obtained Necromantic Insight (+20 to dispelling/inducing miscasts against Necromancy), or Dhar Insight (+10 to countering any Dhar-based magic), and her Greatsword skill was at Advanced, whereas now it is at Master and she has a specific trait for negating most humanoid opponents' raw Martial skill, as long as she's the one attacking. And when we attacked him, it was without any backup whatsoever - nowadays, we could not only bring the entirety of WEB-MAT if we really really wanted to (and probably Elrisse and Tochter and Aksel), but we also specifically got ourselves a bodyguard-in-can that is not going to be harmed by conventional weaponry.

We also did not have the Gambler against Alkharad, which we would probably want against a dude who is probably a lot scarier.

...Like, yes, it's absolutely still risky. But I think the risk here can be mitigated tremendously.
 
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I think scouting the forest of shadows should be attempted after elfcation and Mathilde can always up her scouting skill, or use money to hire other people to help scout. Mathilde is not 1 percenter rich but she is still rich. It is dangerous but the Forrest can be reclaimed that is like 3 provinces that would be grateful and potentially 2 or more threats to the empire dealt with.
 
Nurgle said:
Mathilde is not 1 percenter rich but she is still rich.
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Technically speaking I think Mathilde is easily a 1 percenter. She owns over a third of of a major trade company, has her own personal fiefdom, and the threshold of wealth needed to be a 1 percenter is much lower in the Empire's economic era because a massive amount of the population are dirt poor peasants. Hell she's probably a 0.1 percenter.
 
Honestly? We should have Mathilde thinking about this explicitly if we can, going into the elf trip.

If she has a goal in her conversations with the shadow walkers, ie 'get advice on how to operate in the forest of shadow' then she can prioritize her questions to them. I think they might appreciate the little human mage having big human dreams as a sort of wistful vision outside their eternal war- similar enough that they can recognize it and go 'ah, if only we had already killed all the druchii, then we took might...' But also definitely not their thing.

I think it makes for a great excuse to wander up to random elves during missions and say 'hey, this is what I'm going to try and do, can you teach me anything useful for it?'
 
Parabola said:
I mean, absolutely, but it's not just the raw stats that we have to consider.

When we fought Alkharad, Mathilde hadn't yet obtained Necromantic Insight (+20 to dispelling/inducing miscasts against Necromancy), or Dhar Insight (+10 to countering any Dhar-based magic), and her Greatsword skill was at Advanced, whereas now it is at Master and she has a specific trait for negating most humanoid opponents' raw Martial skill, as long as she's the one attacking. And when we attacked him, it was without any backup whatsoever - nowadays, we could not only bring the entirety of WEB-MAT if we really really wanted to (and probably Elrisse and Tochter and Aksel), but we also specifically got ourselves a bodyguard-in-can that is not going to be harmed by conventional weaponry.

We also did not have the Gambler against Alkharad, which we would probably want against a dude who is probably a lot scarier.

...Like, yes, it's absolutely still risky. But I think the risk here can be mitigated tremendously.
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I don't disagree that's it's possible, But!

As some minor quibbles, her Greatsword skill turned Master in the same post as the fight, and I believe a necromancer is going to have many non-conventional weapons. My major quibble is underselling what a great advantage stealth is and was; it bypasses the necromancers minionmancy and reduces the chance for unfortunate rolls, something that won't happen if we bring a much bigger posse.
 
Bucolic said:
As some minor quibbles, her Greatsword skill turned Master in the same post as the fight,
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Boney said:
[Skill acquired: Advanced Greatswords]
[Trait acquired: Master Swordswoman]
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The Greatsword skill is the first one—evidently, it wasn't even at Advanced yet during that fight. Master Swordswoman is its own independent trait, also acquired at the same time. We didn't get Master Greatswords until Branarhune.
 
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Unless the Grimoire Necronium is noted to be safe to read the way the Liber Mortis was, I'm not really interested in tracking it down? We're not lacking in avenues for self-improvement.
 
ReImagined said:
The Greatsword skill is the first one—evidently, it wasn't even at Advanced yet during that fight. Master Swordswoman is its own independent trait, also acquired at the same time. We didn't get Master Greatswords until Branarhune.
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I mean, no, as the bit you quoted says, Mathilde did reach Advanced from training with Gunnars (alongside the Master Swordswoman trait) in the same turn as we killed Alkharad. Though, admittedly, from a narrative point of view she was just barely there.
 
I feel that the Tower of Melkhior—and the other Nexuses—are the sorts of things where we should be bringing a small army along with us. It shouldn't be too hard to rope in Ostland's state troops or something.
 
Yeah, the thing about Melkhior's Tower is that we have a perfectly legitimate reason to go there with an army, namely "it's one of the lost Nexuses in the Forest of Shadows, capturing it will allow us to start healing the place through mass Waystone deployment". If during the battle some of these necromantic tomes are 'misplaced', or if Mathilde takes them to properly* dispose of them, I doubt anyone is going to ask many questions.

*of course, we'd just let everyone assume 'dispose' meant 'burn' and not 'put them into the Super Duper Secret Section of the library for safekeeping'
 
Ergosum said:
Yeah, the thing about Melkhior's Tower is that we have a perfectly legitimate reason to go there with an army, namely "it's one of the lost Nexuses in the Forest of Shadows, capturing it will allow us to start healing the place through mass Waystone deployment". If during the battle some of these necromantic tomes are 'misplaced', or if Mathilde takes them to properly* dispose of them, I doubt anyone is going to ask many questions.

*of course, we'd just let everyone assume 'dispose' meant 'burn' and not 'put them into the Super Duper Secret Section of the library for safekeeping'
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The issue is that if we're going up against Melkhior, I would very much prefer if we have at least one Patriarch level Mage with us. That guy is no joke.

And if we do that, I highly doubt Mathilde alone can take care of any discreet materials without supervision.
 
Codex said:
The issue is that if we're going up against Melkhior, I would very much prefer if we have at least one Patriarch level Mage with us. That guy is no joke.

And if we do that, I highly doubt Mathilde alone can take care of any discreet materials without supervision.
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Patriarch level mage doesn't just mean actual Patriarchs, though. We could ask, say, a couple of the Grey Lords if they're interested. Granted, depending on who it is we'd risk them stealing our evil magic book loot, or at least asking for a copy...
 
Ergosum said:
Patriarch level mage doesn't just mean actual Patriarchs, though. We could ask, say, a couple of the Grey Lords if they're interested. Granted, depending on who it is we'd risk them stealing our evil magic book loot, or at least asking for a copy...
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It would be pretty funny if while we try to smuggle away a Dhar book we are caught by a Grey Lord.

And the price for their silence is sharing our loot.
 
Glau said:
It seems like the trick to really working with dhar would be to use it in ways that are not unnatural for it- which would mean somehow casting defined effects without an imposed structures on the dhar.

The unstructured stuff does not decompose, after all.
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Working "naturally" with Dhar makes me think of Conway's Game of Life. Structures that are always in motion, constantly devouring and renewing themselves, but that have recognizable purpose and continuity from a distance.

I wonder if a Third Secret would involve something similar. In an environment rich with unstructured Dhar (say, because someone blew it all up with the Second Secret), introduce a spell made of Dhar, that fuels itself by devouring that Dhar. Something that straddles the line between spell and creature, almost, a self-perpetuating wave that consumes anything in front of it. And if it comes for you? Just poke a few strategically-placed holes in its apparent chaos, and watch it evaporate or turn back.
 
Darth Crater said:
Working "naturally" with Dhar makes me think of Conway's Game of Life. Structures that are always in motion, constantly devouring and renewing themselves, but that have recognizable purpose and continuity from a distance.

I wonder if a Third Secret would involve something similar. In an environment rich with unstructured Dhar (say, because someone blew it all up with the Second Secret), introduce a spell made of Dhar, that fuels itself by devouring that Dhar. Something that straddles the line between spell and creature, almost, a self-perpetuating wave that consumes anything in front of it. And if it comes for you? Just poke a few strategically-placed holes in its apparent chaos, and watch it evaporate or turn back.
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Sounds like some kind of Dhar elemental.

Which, given the power of the existing elementals, sounds fairly frightening.
 
Darth Crater said:
Working "naturally" with Dhar makes me think of Conway's Game of Life. Structures that are always in motion, constantly devouring and renewing themselves, but that have recognizable purpose and continuity from a distance.

I wonder if a Third Secret would involve something similar. In an environment rich with unstructured Dhar (say, because someone blew it all up with the Second Secret), introduce a spell made of Dhar, that fuels itself by devouring that Dhar. Something that straddles the line between spell and creature, almost, a self-perpetuating wave that consumes anything in front of it. And if it comes for you? Just poke a few strategically-placed holes in its apparent chaos, and watch it evaporate or turn back.
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Could "naturally occuring" undead be evidence for that? Unstructured Dhar that encounters a dead body sometimes decides to make that body walk, with no spellcaster required. That's not quite what you're talking about, but it could be an echo of something Nagash did; some way to raise undead that is so self-perpetuating that the reverberations it created in the Aethyr made making undead part of the nature of Dhar.
 
mathymancer said:
Could "naturally occuring" undead be evidence for that? Unstructured Dhar that encounters a dead body sometimes decides to make that body walk, with no spellcaster required. That's not quite what you're talking about, but it could be an echo of something Nagash did; some way to raise undead that is so self-perpetuating that the reverberations it created in the Aethyr made making undead part of the nature of Dhar.
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Nagash's last book: "The Final Secret of Dhar is that I'm so damn good I changed the fundamental nature of Dhar. Such is the power of Nagash."
 
Mathilde is a 1%er in the literal meaning just because she is a knight. There's certainly more than 100 people for every titled knight.

Among knights, her lands are quite poor. She's got no big expenses or debts, which will be better than even some much richer knights, because armor and horses are expensive, not to mention keeping up with Sir Jones.

But the majority of her wealth is in the EIC, so the question is how big that makes her. And I think people are overestimating it a little. The EIC has tremendous potential. The channels opening up will upend existing trade routes, and they're just waiting on it, though so are others. They're very well positioned to trade with all the neighboring polities getting up to stuff, because Mathilde is directly connected to the stuff being gotten up to, and a trusted partner to them in general. And of course, the silk, of and when it comes, will make everyone connected to it unfashionable amounts of money.

Thing is, that's all potential. The stock market tries to price that in. There's no stock market in the Empire though. So right now, the EIC isn't producing that much money yet, and it's reinvesting most of it. And Mathilde would not be able to sell her percentage for anything like they're worth, especially since the silk thing isn't really known.

I'd say right now Mathilde is like someone holding a ton of Apple stock, waiting for release of the first iPhone.
 
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