I would imagine that reclaiming the Black Fire Nexus and activating the Barak Varr one would solve the energy problem. That hooks up the Karaz Ankor network to the main one. There would still be a problem of actually having enough dwarves to properly settle it though.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
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I would imagine that reclaiming the Black Fire Nexus and activating the Barak Varr one would solve the energy problem. That hooks up the Karaz Ankor network to the main one. There would still be a problem of actually having enough dwarves to properly settle it though.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
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One of the arguments for choosing Laurelorn as the headquarters of the WP was explicitly that infiltration by cultists is basically impossible, and that only a major military campaign could take it head on.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
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- She/Her
More points against Chaos or dark magic users in general conspiring against the Waystone Project:
Overall... in the same way normal people can so often go "well, I got my own, I don't really care if things are bad elsewhere" and neglect that things being bad elsewhere will eventually come back to bite them in the ass because we all live in the same world... a lot of Dark magic users usually won't care if other places get cleansed of Dhar as long as their own personal fiefs or bases remain intact.
- Would Beastmen even hear about it? I'm given to understand that Beastmen with human agents or cults are extremely rare. And if they did hear about them, would they not just think "oh sweet, more waystones to corrupt into Herdstones", out of hubris?
- Necromancers like to plug up waystones to have a ready-made source of Dhar for spells and rituals, but the living ones still need to live and the vampire ones usually still want living and non-mutated agents/servants/cattle. So they wouldn't wipe them out, they would just try to take advantage of them to some extent - we learned just this turn that there's a surprisingly surviving amount of waystones in Sylvania, after all.
- The Chaos Dwarfs still turn to stone like regular dwarfs, and seem to want to rule the world, not destroy it, so they would probably keep the infrastructure intact and just try to suborn it to some extent.
- Chaos: It's not that you couldn't convince people here to join your anti-Waystone-wizard squad or whatever, but a lot of them would probably rather be doing their own thing spreading disease or debauchery or spilling blood or mutating people rather than try to assault a city that has never fallen in its history or try to somehow assassinate a Grey wizard with really sharp Magesight and who moves around faster than anyone else on the continent and who is no slouch herself in combat.
Overall... in the same way normal people can so often go "well, I got my own, I don't really care if things are bad elsewhere" and neglect that things being bad elsewhere will eventually come back to bite them in the ass because we all live in the same world... a lot of Dark magic users usually won't care if other places get cleansed of Dhar as long as their own personal fiefs or bases remain intact.
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
Chaos vs Chaos is one of the situations about the waystones, I think. Every magician benefits from casting near a big rock in the 2e rules, just because the density is so much higher, and it's a safe bonus that doesn't increase your chances of miscasting.
But that said, what other people and events could have stabbed us about it?
Well, pretty much any of the murder cults could have tried to go after the more sedentary members who aren't always somewhere else.
The magic itself could have been more difficult, requiring scarcer resources from specific locations or else the agreement of supernatural creatures as a requirement rather than an alternative.
We could have had actual spies show up and try to apply and we could try to figure out if anyone was secretly using dhar on the side. For a double serving, they could have been chaos cultists (& etc) who were legitimately trying to make the network work better for the aforementioned casting benefits and the increased prestige wizards will get across the empire, which would make them more powerful and revered. Double bonus points if they actually had a necessary key to the process.
Praag could have revolted when we started implementation, with an inexplicable magical threat pulling itself out of the walls.
We could have just been spammed with dream messages. Those could be from Morr or from other people who know that lesser spell that lets them fake Morr's dream messages. It could have been very mysterious. Maybe they want us to handle a secretly very corrupted location, or maybe they want a waystone placed somewhere that they could secretly corrupt it to do something very bad.
Maybe Mathilde could have faced more opportunities for corruption. Like lying to a great house to get a (Significantly! Very, very attractive! Because if it was just a little bit risk averse voters wouldn't blink) better deal on something we couldn't get otherwise, or having the opportunity to take more immoral actions in order to generate more support for finicky parts of the process (like we did with assassinating the Tzar to get one that was more willing to allow waystone placement).
What if we got to have divided loyalties again, and the waystone project was more explicitly set up for the political benefits, and we had to take underhanded actions and politicking in order to fast-forward the actual research part? Like if convincing the Grey Lords to show up and help required us meeting them surreptitiously because the people who were supposed to be helping our research were basically just seat-fillers who didn't know anything good, while members of the other houses tried to get in our way, and we had to get them out of the way with bribes or weird concessions?
What if Waystones genuinely needed warpstone to function and we had to illegally smuggle that stuff? Mathilde might be able to get dispensation, but what if she genuinely had the belief that either the colleges or the elves wouldn't let her, and asking would alert them to the possibility that she would want to try? Would it be better to ask forgiveness than permission?
There's plenty of ways to lay a few bars on the difficulty scale. Not all of them have to be lethal or debilitating, either -- there's plenty of ways for losing to help the story go forward.
But that said, what other people and events could have stabbed us about it?
Well, pretty much any of the murder cults could have tried to go after the more sedentary members who aren't always somewhere else.
The magic itself could have been more difficult, requiring scarcer resources from specific locations or else the agreement of supernatural creatures as a requirement rather than an alternative.
We could have had actual spies show up and try to apply and we could try to figure out if anyone was secretly using dhar on the side. For a double serving, they could have been chaos cultists (& etc) who were legitimately trying to make the network work better for the aforementioned casting benefits and the increased prestige wizards will get across the empire, which would make them more powerful and revered. Double bonus points if they actually had a necessary key to the process.
Praag could have revolted when we started implementation, with an inexplicable magical threat pulling itself out of the walls.
We could have just been spammed with dream messages. Those could be from Morr or from other people who know that lesser spell that lets them fake Morr's dream messages. It could have been very mysterious. Maybe they want us to handle a secretly very corrupted location, or maybe they want a waystone placed somewhere that they could secretly corrupt it to do something very bad.
Maybe Mathilde could have faced more opportunities for corruption. Like lying to a great house to get a (Significantly! Very, very attractive! Because if it was just a little bit risk averse voters wouldn't blink) better deal on something we couldn't get otherwise, or having the opportunity to take more immoral actions in order to generate more support for finicky parts of the process (like we did with assassinating the Tzar to get one that was more willing to allow waystone placement).
What if we got to have divided loyalties again, and the waystone project was more explicitly set up for the political benefits, and we had to take underhanded actions and politicking in order to fast-forward the actual research part? Like if convincing the Grey Lords to show up and help required us meeting them surreptitiously because the people who were supposed to be helping our research were basically just seat-fillers who didn't know anything good, while members of the other houses tried to get in our way, and we had to get them out of the way with bribes or weird concessions?
What if Waystones genuinely needed warpstone to function and we had to illegally smuggle that stuff? Mathilde might be able to get dispensation, but what if she genuinely had the belief that either the colleges or the elves wouldn't let her, and asking would alert them to the possibility that she would want to try? Would it be better to ask forgiveness than permission?
There's plenty of ways to lay a few bars on the difficulty scale. Not all of them have to be lethal or debilitating, either -- there's plenty of ways for losing to help the story go forward.
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The goal isn't to connect the Karaz Ankor network to the main one, while that would allow some energy to be diverted from the Vortex to the Karaz Ankor network as Thorek put it,
The real goal is to take control of a large disconnected portion of the network that would supply enough energy to activate multiple ancient wonders and allow the survival of the Karaz ANkor even if multiple Holds were to fall.
- Location
- Canada
A problem is that a lot of those steps for deescalating don't work if the Dwarves are just wrong about the grudge
Because the steps assume at base that the Dwarf declaring the wrong committed against them has has the right idea about how events transpired and the onus is on the accused to prove their innocence
Especially when the accused is not a Dwarf, as Dwarves are considered inherently more trustworthy just by virtue of being a Dwarf
Even amongst two Dwarves, a natural reaction to being accused of stuff you didn't do is to call the other guy out for smearing your name, and so the situation escalates with both parties convinced the other guy is in the wrong and a malicious liar
Because Dwarves pathalogically cannot let things go, someone is always in the wrong after an accusation is put forth
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NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As seen in the quote I provided in the post of mine you're quoting, if the result of discussion between the Elders of the Clans is that one Dwarf is in the wrong they will accept that result and not escalate the situation further even if they may grumble quietly about it.
I'm less worried about a vague "Chaos" acting against the WP than Slaneesh itself being fed up of Mathilde fucking with it's plans and toys.
Just like Nurgle seems almost absent from the quest, it feels like half the chaos ploys we twart are Slaneesh's.
Just like Nurgle seems almost absent from the quest, it feels like half the chaos ploys we twart are Slaneesh's.
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If you can't agree, you escalate to a higher, uninvolved authority, up to the High King if necessary (if you disagree with a previous authority, it's not uninvolved anymore, though if it's for bullshit reasons people won't be amused). And no, the onus isn't on the accused to prove innocent. The dwarf does have to prove their accusation. Humans would get less trust in this, but probably would also be much more willing to fuck around with the process, and as things escalate and higher authorities get involved, you're going to find someone who isn't going to lie, because the dwarf alliance is simply too important. Even if that means the Emperor has to kick some Elector Counts ass.
Well, Khorne isn't exactly one for scheming, and Tzeentch has declared in favor of a Mathilde Corruption Arc.
Total headcanon, but I like to think Ranald would have shared what winnings he could from his wild string of successes with Shallya, who as Nurgle's Biggest Hater would spend it opposing Nurglish schemes.
Adrian XXIV
Average User, from Poland
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- Poland
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- He/Him
Also, there is certain "Big Blue Bird", that literally "rewired Mathilde's brain" to insert his "speech" into it
Mathilde (and the thread) seem to have dealt with this by ignoring it.
My own bet is that Nurgle went ALL IN on the Pestilens Clan of the Skaven and lost big. So now his power is at a low point explaining his relative absence compared to other Chaos Gods.
It really depends on how much Pestilens is Nurgle rather than the Horned Rat trying to steal some of Nurgle's thunder, in the same way that the anti-social human gods like Khaine and Ranald do to Khorne and Tzeentch.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
On the one hand, there's explicit text that Pestilens made deals with Nurgle daemons and are apostates.
On the other hand, Verminlords can use the Lore of Plague. So you'd certainly think the Horned Rat is still involved in that.
- Location
- Who knows?
I remember someone else saying if they were a Chaos Baddie tasked with assassinating Mathilde due to Everbowl or whatever, they'd probably try camping out in one of the mountains she'd been observed crossing semi regularly and then mass spamming flying gribblies at her. Not all the mountains are actually under Dwarf control, though I presume the issue is how long you could keep a large group of mundane flying creatures or summoned daemons under control if worst case you have to wait months.
Actually yeah, the instruments getting corrupted seem like a bigger risk since I agree with thread consensus that Chaos tends to self select against attracting people interested in infrastructure causing long term gradual change. I mean thematically its fits closest with Nurgle, but the cultists Nurgle attracts seem to want to do their own thing versus just responding to what someonelse is doing (corrupting a whole city's water supply versus idk following after Mathy to knock down waystones) and are predisposed to the more dramatic parts of Nurgle, ie the horrific "bleeding from every orifice and then some" pus monster viruses et al, versus actually sitting around to slowly watch things fall apart.
I mean, the fact that the other clans turned against Pestilens in a civil war that rocked the Underempire does point to the Horned Rat turning against Pestilens for their disloyalty. It's not everyday one of the 13 big clans gets utterly eradicated.
Perhaps Pestilens was eradicated against the Horned Rat's will, but my bet is that the reason why Pestilens got ganged up so bad is that they turned on the Horned Rat.
Doesn't mean, that the Horned Rat didn't initially plan to do as you say, but it could have gone wrong with the Pestillens realising that if they wanted to play with pathogens, Nurgle was a more specialized and powerful god...
- Location
- Canada
Not every problem can be kicked up the chain infinitely, when it doesn't contain matters worth the effort and attention
Bokri the cobbler isn't going to present his case over whether he was shortchanged by a shilling by a couple travellers in Middenheim who left the city that same day and are now who knows where, to the whole of the Karaz Ankor, they have much bigger concerns to occupy their available time with
He's not even going to present his case before the local town guard, because what are they supposed to do about it? Go haring off into the countryside shaking down every pair of travelers they see?
Nor for the matter would having the matter escalated to a higher court do much to actually determine guilt in the matter, in this case
Because this is entirely in the realm of "he said, she said"
Did he get shortchanged? Was it deliberate? Did they actually hand over the correct amount of money but then it got swiped by someone else who nobody noticed somewhere down the line? Did he accidentally drop an extra coin when paying his tab and come to the wrong conclusion when he was counting his ledgers the next morning? Was he shortchanged by someone else that same day but assumes the missing money must be because of those two because they just seemed shifty to him?
This case isn't getting solved, it's too inconsequential, the details are too far in the past by the time attention will be drawn to it, and that money might as well have vanished into thin air
This is just going to go into Bokri's personal shitlist, and if he ever sees those two bastards again (or possibly two people who have the misfortune of being mistaken for them) he'll be having words with them on his own
It just goes straight into The Book
Not The Big Book, probably not even The Moderately Sized Book
His own personal Small Book
Someone is still wrong in the event a mistaken accusation, that person is either a third party who deceived them, or it's the Dwarf themselves
A very considerable amount of Dwarven pride means that they are very loathe to believe that it's themselves who were in the wrong, and the more they entrench the greater the shame if it were to be proven that they are mistaken
Even in the case of accepting your Elders working out a way to bury things on your behalf (something that is not always going to be an option), in your mind the other guy is still in the wrong
You're just a noble martyr for bearing this burden for the good of your clan
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Absolutely not. Spellcasting is incredibly complicated and a spell cannot be transcribed onto a page of sheet music. Each pipe only has volume as its single axis to communicate information, and what a Wizard is doing with magic when they are casting a spell is far too complicated to fit into a single dimension of data.
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
In that sort of situation, you might want to look at other means of stopping her instead, especially if you had some sort of forewarning. Maybe you could try sabotage some magical experiments that she's been doing or shake her beliefs in some way, maybe even make an attempt at recruiting her.
...oh hi there tzeentch, such a coincidence that one of your demons had a chat with her early enough to stop the whole project if Mathilde made bad choices.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
I don't think we have any indication that Pestilens was wiped out? Mors was pretty much wiped out, but K8P was their main base. Pestilens' strength is in the Southlands and Lustria, even if they were wiped from below the Empire we'd have no way to know if they were wiped out.
Also, there aren't '13 big Clans'. The Council of 13 doesn't contain 13 clans, not least of which because one seat is the Horned Rat's, another goes to the Grey Seers, and then there's still one or two more that goes to important figures in Skavendom.
There's the 4 Great Clans (Moulder, Skryre, Eshin, Pestilens), then there's the Warlord Clans, then the Thrall Clans. But there's Warlord Clans with seats on the Council, and also Thrall Clans (because that gives the Great Clan rules them an extra vote)
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I know this topic was a little bit back, but I put some thinking into it, and...
Mathilde Weber, Unique Hero Unit for the Empire (Total War Warhammer III):
The basics of designing a unique hero: remember that a unique hero has to do what existing heroes can't do almost as well, and their abilities have to fit within the existing game mechanics (or be feasibly implemented into existing game mechanics).
So forget Mathilde the infiltrating assassin; other heroes can perform assassinations, sabotage settlement walls, and assault armies to damage units before a battle. Granted, there is a difference here in that existing assassin units tend to not have good odds at assassination or sabotage against higher level lords or heroes...except unique hero units.
Instead, lean in to Mathilde's other characteristics to provide desirable things on the campaign map and in battle: she's an Ulgu battle wizard with high melee attack and high melee defense, as well as solid armor with strong spell resistance. She has an effect similar to the Master Rune of Spite, where enemy units that attack her are damaged in turn, though this effect would have a limit so as to not be overpowered. She's got high spell resistance so spells that are effective against characters are way less efficient or effective against her, and magical attacks are not especially threatening to her.
She has passive regen when equipped with her Seed of Regrowth, which is powerful and highly useful for a melee-capable hero.
Her unique ability (since Smoke and Mirrors isn't present as a spell in-game already for Ulgu wizards) is to teleport across the battlefield, but it costs Winds of Magic and has a cooldown. This is where her assassin specialty comes into play: she can teleport behind the enemy army to get into melee with their artillery or high-value units, and then eventually teleport out of the blob that will surround her afterwards.
Her unique arcane item will be the Staff of Mistery, which reduces the Winds of Magic cost of her spells and greatly lowers miscast chance. It also makes Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma substantially cheaper on top of the broader discount, which wouldn't be OP because the spell is not particularly strong in the first place and does no damage.
She has the attribute of Stalk, reflecting her stealth abilities, and has a special Shadowsteed mount that provides substantially greater speed than a normal warhorse.
Has a character ability that can summon a shadowy rider unit temporarily near her. It deals significant but not major damage to targets, and is ethereal, meaning it is resistant to purely physical attacks, but its duration is limited before it withers away. This ability would not cost Winds of Magic but would have a limited number of uses and a cooldown.
Her weakness in battle would be vulnerability to missile attacks; she would have no ranged weapon (Branulhune is powerful enough, and if she's strong in melee it's best for animation simplicity and balance to not incorporate a staff, a greatsword, and a pistol in one character), and her armor would be good but not "dwarf in gromril armor" good. She's strong in melee and has the ability to escape sticky situations (or get herself into sticky situations), but she is still relatively squishy when up against strong melee units with armor-piercing attacks or missile units. Putting her up against Legendary Lords that are strong in melee is probably a bad idea.
In terms of unique Skills in her skill tree, one (at higher rank) would provide a global bonus to Winds of Magic amount (symbolic of the Waystone Project) and another would provide a bonus to purification (removing corruption) globally (also symbolic of the Waystone Project). Another skill at high rank would provide a small bonus to faction relations with Laurelorn, all Kislev factions, and all dwarven factions.
Waaaghbane would manifest in the form of a passive debuff across the battlefield against greenskin spellcasters, massively increasing their miscast chance. This effect would also be present against all undead factions, under a different name (probably Second Secret of Dhar).
Branulhune would be her unique weapon, lowering the melee attack and melee defense of enemy units that are engaged in melee with her, while providing a large buff to her weapon damage, which is mostly armor-piercing with Branulhune. It counts as magical attacks, and also majorly reduces the Spell Resistance of enemy units that are damaged by it (temporarily). However, these debuffs can only be applied to one enemy unit at a time, so being mobbed by enemy units would be dangerous to her. Alternatively, the debuff effects could be limited to an activated character ability with a limited duration and a significant cooldown for balance reasons.
Balancing out this strong melee wizard with high mobility would be an inability to get a pegasus mount and, possibly, an inability to cast Penubral Pendulum and Pit of Shades. This would dramatically reduce her utility as a wizard, but she'd make up for it with her deadly melee, utility, and stealth/mobility options.
Mathilde Weber, Unique Hero Unit for the Empire (Total War Warhammer III):
The basics of designing a unique hero: remember that a unique hero has to do what existing heroes can't do almost as well, and their abilities have to fit within the existing game mechanics (or be feasibly implemented into existing game mechanics).
So forget Mathilde the infiltrating assassin; other heroes can perform assassinations, sabotage settlement walls, and assault armies to damage units before a battle. Granted, there is a difference here in that existing assassin units tend to not have good odds at assassination or sabotage against higher level lords or heroes...except unique hero units.
Instead, lean in to Mathilde's other characteristics to provide desirable things on the campaign map and in battle: she's an Ulgu battle wizard with high melee attack and high melee defense, as well as solid armor with strong spell resistance. She has an effect similar to the Master Rune of Spite, where enemy units that attack her are damaged in turn, though this effect would have a limit so as to not be overpowered. She's got high spell resistance so spells that are effective against characters are way less efficient or effective against her, and magical attacks are not especially threatening to her.
She has passive regen when equipped with her Seed of Regrowth, which is powerful and highly useful for a melee-capable hero.
Her unique ability (since Smoke and Mirrors isn't present as a spell in-game already for Ulgu wizards) is to teleport across the battlefield, but it costs Winds of Magic and has a cooldown. This is where her assassin specialty comes into play: she can teleport behind the enemy army to get into melee with their artillery or high-value units, and then eventually teleport out of the blob that will surround her afterwards.
Her unique arcane item will be the Staff of Mistery, which reduces the Winds of Magic cost of her spells and greatly lowers miscast chance. It also makes Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma substantially cheaper on top of the broader discount, which wouldn't be OP because the spell is not particularly strong in the first place and does no damage.
She has the attribute of Stalk, reflecting her stealth abilities, and has a special Shadowsteed mount that provides substantially greater speed than a normal warhorse.
Has a character ability that can summon a shadowy rider unit temporarily near her. It deals significant but not major damage to targets, and is ethereal, meaning it is resistant to purely physical attacks, but its duration is limited before it withers away. This ability would not cost Winds of Magic but would have a limited number of uses and a cooldown.
Her weakness in battle would be vulnerability to missile attacks; she would have no ranged weapon (Branulhune is powerful enough, and if she's strong in melee it's best for animation simplicity and balance to not incorporate a staff, a greatsword, and a pistol in one character), and her armor would be good but not "dwarf in gromril armor" good. She's strong in melee and has the ability to escape sticky situations (or get herself into sticky situations), but she is still relatively squishy when up against strong melee units with armor-piercing attacks or missile units. Putting her up against Legendary Lords that are strong in melee is probably a bad idea.
In terms of unique Skills in her skill tree, one (at higher rank) would provide a global bonus to Winds of Magic amount (symbolic of the Waystone Project) and another would provide a bonus to purification (removing corruption) globally (also symbolic of the Waystone Project). Another skill at high rank would provide a small bonus to faction relations with Laurelorn, all Kislev factions, and all dwarven factions.
Waaaghbane would manifest in the form of a passive debuff across the battlefield against greenskin spellcasters, massively increasing their miscast chance. This effect would also be present against all undead factions, under a different name (probably Second Secret of Dhar).
Branulhune would be her unique weapon, lowering the melee attack and melee defense of enemy units that are engaged in melee with her, while providing a large buff to her weapon damage, which is mostly armor-piercing with Branulhune. It counts as magical attacks, and also majorly reduces the Spell Resistance of enemy units that are damaged by it (temporarily). However, these debuffs can only be applied to one enemy unit at a time, so being mobbed by enemy units would be dangerous to her. Alternatively, the debuff effects could be limited to an activated character ability with a limited duration and a significant cooldown for balance reasons.
Balancing out this strong melee wizard with high mobility would be an inability to get a pegasus mount and, possibly, an inability to cast Penubral Pendulum and Pit of Shades. This would dramatically reduce her utility as a wizard, but she'd make up for it with her deadly melee, utility, and stealth/mobility options.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Well, sort-of.
It's technically implemented in game, but it's just a lore attribute giving bonus movement speed to units when casting spells.
I don't think the TW engine can handle units teleporting.
Adrian XXIV
Average User, from Poland
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Like, "No Teleports in Battle" is one thing that creators of TWW are consistent about (even Snikch's smoke bombs only "teleport" him short distance and have relatively long cooldown)