Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Deathbybunnies]

On the topic of AV I wonder if we've included a warning to never bring it into the Grey College given that it's inside a liminal realm and the moment AV touches one of the hidden wormholes leading into it it'll dissolve into Primordial Winds and then the Primordial Winds into more reality, wasting the AV unless you deliberately wanted to conduct this experiment and possibly causing issues for the Grey College since the structures it's composed of within the liminal realm are presumably designed for a certain shape and size of the liminal realm and expanding it might change its shape and definitely its size meaning the structure might not fit properly, if it's designed to sit on a flat surface and the additional of AV expands the realm in such a way that it becomes closer to spherical and slightly curves the ground the College sits on that's a problem. We might also want to include a warning not to take it onto the grounds of the Amethyst College, it's located in a cathedral that appears abandoned if you're uninvited but if you are you enter an alternate version filled with people, Teclis might have used liminal realm shenanigans to pull that off as well.

The hard part would be doing it in such a way that it doesn't give away the secret of the Grey College's location while still being stern enough that people will take the warning seriously and doesn't engender enough curiosity that people will do so anyway. Maybe something as simple as "due to reasons that are beyond the classification level of the expected reader of this book under no circumstances should Aethyric Vitae should under no circumstances be allowed to enter the grounds of the Grey College or Amethyst College, if you are unsure of whether your clearance is sufficient to be allowed to learn said reasons it is insufficient, if it were we will let you know." backed up by official policies from Algard and Elspeth forbidding bring AV onto their College grounds on pain of severe punishment. Plus even if it doesn't get turned into new liminal realm upon touching the entrance due to some quirk of how Teclis set up the realm we don't want people creating new liminal realms inside existing liminal realms, there's an unknown but finite number of layers between reality and the Aethyr and if you punch through too many you're going to get an entrance to the Warp even without Daemonic meddling involved, and since we don't know what that number is it may be as small as one, trying to create a liminal realm inside a liminal realm might already be enough to create a literal portal to hell.

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I don't think this is an issue. They aren't portals or wormholes, they're just gaps in the wall of reality. If AV doesn't touch the edges of any entrance it should be fine?

 

[MiracleGrow]

One of the biggest parts of the Waystone Project was just getting everyone to the damn table. Mathilde was in the unique position to pull that off.

 

[NexusEye]

I don't think this is an issue. They aren't portals or wormholes, they're just gaps in the wall of reality. If AV doesn't touch the edges of any entrance it should be fine?

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The liminal realm from our second experiment (the one we didn't implode to close a hole in reality) still triggered the transformation of AV into more liminal realm when it touched the surface of the "slit" leading into it, if the entrances to the Grey College are anything like that slit it'll likely catalyze the transformation of AV into additional liminal realm, Mathilde herself believes it may be impossible to bring AV into the Grey College.

you've theorized three possible results: either nothing happens, or it dissolves into Winds, or it dissolves into Winds and then dissolves away into a size increase of the liminal realm. At first you were hoping for the third of those options, and that the reaction is possible indefinitely instead of only in the initial moments after it is created, before you realized that if that was the case, it might make it impossible to bring any of the Vitae into the grounds of the Grey College without it dissolving, since it occupies a liminal realm of its own.

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One of the biggest parts of the Waystone Project was just getting everyone to the damn table. Mathilde was in the unique position to pull that off.

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Unfortunately not quite everyone, Brettonia demanded that we do a favor first and after two years our already acquired recruits were starting to get impatient so we had to start the project without them and afterwards we made progress at such a blazing rate that we didn't have the time or the incentive needed to recruit them after the fact.

 

[Glau]

I think we should design another, cheaper/faster/simpler waystone without any dwarven components before we head to elfcation. On our way in, leave word at the embassy of Yvresse in Lothern that we have an updated design we'd like to pass along, after we are done fighting druchii. My bet is that elven R&D cycles are slow enough that the prince might invite us up to Yvresse, and then we'd get to see two kingdoms.

Also, if and when we actually get interested in exploring Nexuses or repairing/expanding in the more dangerous forests, we might want to reconsider recruiting the Ambers for the specific task of Waystone mapping and wilderness exploration, as we thought about back in the day. Given that their leader is Dragomas, their useful involvement would be specific and the Project is advanced to its late/end stage, I expect that their ask will be very cheap or even free.

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Absolutely yes. It occurs to me that we should be able to give them maps of the nexi and active ley lines, with the instructions 'here is the last active waystone, work outward from here' along with the activation commands. Get them to identify gaps where a stone has been removed between two strings of intact ones, build a count of how many will be needed to allow full re-activation of the network.

Also, are there any places we can cut off beastman strongholds? Reroute around the pool of dhar that the herdstones create- although that might require diverting into a river? It would be a good use of the riverine waystone we've got, and the ambers would know where to put them if we told them what they could do.

I would have liked to do something similar with the Taalites, but I don't expect it to be anywhere as simple or for there to only be upsites, so it might be too late in the game for them joining to be worth it.

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We're in good with them, I think- the knights and the interactions we had while stealing alric's thunder. So they'd probably give escorts to the ambers if we asked, and the ambers might actually accept taalite escorts.

On the topic of AV I wonder if we've included a warning to never bring it into the Grey College given that it's inside a liminal realm and the moment AV touches one of the hidden wormholes leading into it it'll dissolve into Primordial Winds and then the Primordial Winds into more reality,

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It occurs to me that we've found the purpose of WEBMAT after the waystone project.

"Oh, no, the source is here and it's really fragile to move, and you can't even take it into the colleges to study it! It'll explode if it gets too near a concentration of a wind you know. Or crosses into a pocket dimension- did you hear we know how to do those now? Yep, you guessed it, AV. So if you want to study it, come down to Eightpeaks where we have nice laboratories (all elven glassware! Had to move the lab in Laurelorn somewhere after the project wrapped up) and arguably the greatest library in the world. Oh, and hot baths at very competitive rates; my old master runs a chain of inn, did you know?"

They will be knocking out doors down after the demo we are about to drop, and it turns out you really do need a branch college environment for it.

So let's give egrimm and the golds first crack at this, because every college is going to want someone on site where orbs of sorcery are being created so being the only ones who are is a big political reward to then for sticking with us.

It also sets them up to transition into something else if they don't like the new direction that WEBMAT is going to go in. We are, maybe, about to go from a situation where we point our minions at cool things we want to mess with, to one where we approve research proposals with an attached ration of AV.

Which could be a very cool way to run it- the tradeoff would be dwarf war potential against the potential of each proposal, with a fixed budget, uncertain time commitments, and sudden events changing priorities. But it wouldn't be "hey guys! I've got these chickens!" any more.

So they might want to reap the profits of their employment and finally devote themselves to personal ambitions. Or not, they might have IDEAS about how to use AV and because they're our boys of course they'd have priority over newbs to the team.

We could wrap it up with finally closing out our involvement with the EIC- it's done most of what we wanted it to do, although we've leveraged it a few times now to put a logistics train out to some exotic new destination in support of our other efforts. Eightpeaks, and thus Barak Var and Blackfire pass, Talabheim, and now Laurelorn.

I'm pretty sure that the human traders don't come in to Laurelorn proper though? It seems like there'd be a place where the elves would balance convenience and security in terms of cargo being unloaded from human crews and elves taking it the final distance.

It would probably help the houses keep control over their trade niches too- and an offer of a post in a human city might tempt an elf who was thinking of going to the forest for the freedom but wanting a big house and prestige more than bark and hunting.

Anyways: we now, with the mist paths done, have connected dwarves, elves, and humans along one main trade route, just as we bring a new source of silk online. (And now I'm thinking about what sorts of tenstegrity structures the forest born could do with cheap bulk spidersilk cables.)

We could even stylize the EIC logo as Branahlune, Roswtia's Runefang, and an Eonir greatsword for dwarf, human, and elf, three swords representing the three races' goods on offer.

 

[Rafin]

We're in good with them, I think- the knights and the interactions we had while stealing alric's thunder. So they'd probably give escorts to the ambers if we asked, and the ambers might actually accept taalite escorts.

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If it's just for escorting we may not need to make them official Project members, or at least not insofar research and a permanent representative in Tor Lithanel is concerned. But I have long suspected that they have additional insights into Waystone stuff. However it is quite late to add someone to the research team and the Taalites would be excluded from the paradigm alignment work. They might also be a risk to our Hedgewise member, even if mostly a political one. Which is why I am conflicted.

It occurs to me that we've found the purpose of WEBMAT after the waystone project.

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Personally I was hoping to actually do some of the stuff that's written in the charter. And maybe transition to facilitating autonomous work under the same charter. Namely collaboration between different magical and (semi-)divine paradigms, especially in order to create more complicated and powerful enchantments and artifacts.

We have had exactly one dedicated Windherder experiment and it happens to have failed. We also will be able to actually supply Orbs of Sorcery to more ambitious projects. And we may even open up to offering bespoke projects to allied nations (mostly ECs, Dwarf Holds and Kislev). Like the old "put up a shingle" action, except writ much much larger.

We could wrap it up with finally closing out our involvement with the EIC- it's done most of what we wanted it to do, although we've leveraged it a few times now to put a logistics train out to some exotic new destination in support of our other efforts. Eightpeaks, and thus Barak Var and Blackfire pass, Talabheim, and now Laurelorn.

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I would not want to give it up before we know what the next major chapter in Mathilde's life will be about. For anything at all that has us inside the Empire in a more traditional CKII capacity, the EIC would be a major asset.

 

[Sparsebeard]

@Boney I wonder. Are the Black Water Cleansing waystones plugged into the Karaz Ankor's network?

 

[NexusEye]

It occurs to me that we've found the purpose of WEBMAT after the waystone project.

"Oh, no, the source is here and it's really fragile to move, and you can't even take it into the colleges to study it! It'll explode if it gets too near a concentration of a wind you know. Or crosses into a pocket dimension- did you hear we know how to do those now? Yep, you guessed it, AV. So if you want to study it, come down to Eightpeaks where we have nice laboratories (all elven glassware! Had to move the lab in Laurelorn somewhere after the project wrapped up) and arguably the greatest library in the world. Oh, and hot baths at very competitive rates; my old master runs a chain of inn, did you know?"

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I think AV could be studied in most of the Colleges, their ambient Wind levels are high but what truly makes them special is that they're monowind so there's no risk of creating Dhar by screwing up a spell in a way that makes you lose control of the Wind in such a manner that it accidentally mixes with another different Wind that happens to be nearby, making it a good teaching and practicing environment. It takes a lot of ambient magic to destabilize AV, it can withstand the touch of Petty and Lesser magic, requires the direct touch of weaker Wind-exclusive spells, can be triggered by strong Wind-exclusive spells at a distance but only if it has line of sight, and is only destabilized by ambient magic levels associated with recent Battle Magic use at least in the case of Dhar and it's probably a similar case with the other non-Dhar Winds.

We could wrap it up with finally closing out our involvement with the EIC- it's done most of what we wanted it to do, although we've leveraged it a few times now to put a logistics train out to some exotic new destination in support of our other efforts. Eightpeaks, and thus Barak Var and Blackfire pass, Talabheim, and now Laurelorn.

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We could bow out, delegate all control to the Hochlander, and simply use the EIC as a source of income but I personally don't want that, I think it still has a lot of potential to grow and become more useful. It has dominance in Stirland and a few major trade routes but it could be more, it could expand into other provinces expanding our information network along with it and with enough time and effort become something approaching an early modern period megacorp, but one which isn't shortsighted but focuses on longer-term often pro social and mutually beneficial investments and deals and is not selfishly monofocused on its own profits over all else but instead also possesses an intense loyalty to the Empire (for admittedly selfish reasons, we taught them if the Empire falls every one of them will die but enlightened self-interest is better than unenlightened self-interest and sufficiently enlightened self-interest can be indistinguishable from altruism) and will support the Empire in times of peace and doubly so in times of crisis. But it will likely only grow if we support it's growth with personal involvement.

We have had exactly one dedicated Windherder experiment and it happens to have failed.

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Actually it succeeded, we miscast in the process but in the end we successfully Windherded two enchantments from different Winds onto the same item in such a way they could work synergistically. Unless you're talking about the Wind tongs experiment in which yeah that was a failure for what we wanted to achieve although we did gain some interesting theoretical knowledge about how it could be accomplished albeit not a method we can use unless we're willing to break the Articles.

 

[Prime 2.0]

I still want that auditing division at the EIC. In the coming turn if we can, the new influx of business with the canals, silk, and Laurelorn's new bridge will be a heady time for people trying to divert funds to bad places.

If we're not following the money, we're not finding the corruption. If our anti-corruption office was good at following the money, we wouldn't have the option to make an auditing division.

Once our own house is in order though, I have some interest in this:

[ ] EIC: Reach out to Roswita, and have the EIC start passing on tips about any tax evasion or other naughtiness by the EIC's rivals.

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Though mainly from the perspective of further propping up Roswita as a leading candidate for Empress.

 

[K von Carstein]

((I am assuming that the Wastelands problems are treatable with Waystones I guess))

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The wasteland is just a big swamp, not something like the Wastes. But I agree with the rest of your post.

Snip

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At first I thought you were talking about Egrimm

 

[Curtains]

@Boney I wonder. Are the Black Water Cleansing waystones plugged into the Karaz Ankor's network?

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Which waystone/Nexus the Black Water deployment is connected to and how the Praag waystones actually connected are still open questions. They're both smaller parts of the larger problem: we can't make any leylines without Caledor, but Caledor's not a part of those networks*.

Thogrim's throne might be able to make new leylines and connect the new waystones to Zhufbar. I wouldn't put it beyond the Ancestor Gods and their students to have that level of foresight. If his throne doesn't have that function, the canal might pick up enough world habit for the magic to flow down towards Barak Varr and dump it in the skull river for Barak Varr's Nexus to pick up. Worst case they can waystone-chain through Sylvania to the Moot.

With the Praag waystones, it might be that Caledor has backdoor access to the Kislev network. Or maybe the Widow had to adopt Caledor's mantle in Kislev when she got that piece of the network and she's the one who responds to waystone passphrases in Kislev.

Speculating on leyline creation, the new Asteraceaetena variant of Liminal Germination is the closest we've gotten to making leylines. Jade Wizards can draw Ghyran out of waystones, and they can push Ghyran through tree roots, and the next waystone over might be able to take the magic from the tree roots and pass it along. If Jade Wizards can do it for Ghyran, then the elves might be able to do it for all the winds. Dhar will be a problem, nobody knows what will happen to the trees if enough magic is pushed through them, and it's horribly inefficient and vulnerable because you need to plant a line of trees or windsoak mushrooms between waystones, and maybe it won't even work unless a Wizard is there to push magic for months on end until a natural flow forms. But it's the closest thing so far.

*Edit: IC these issues have probably been dealt with. It's just we haven't been shown the details OOC.

 

[DragonParadox]

Speculating on leyline creation, the new Asteraceaetena variant of Liminal Germination is the closest we've gotten to making leylines. Jade Wizards can draw Ghyran out of waystones, and they can push Ghyran through tree roots, and the next waystone over might be able to take the magic from the tree roots and pass it along. If Jade Wizards can do it for Ghyran, then the elves might be able to do it for all the winds. Dhar will be a problem, nobody knows what will happen to the trees if enough magic is pushed through them, and it's horribly inefficient and vulnerable because you need to plant a line of trees or windsoak mushrooms between waystones, and maybe it won't even work unless a Wizard is there to push magic for months on end until a natural flow forms. But it's the closest thing so far.

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Even aside from Dhar this would not work, the mushrooms cannot handle several winds.

 

[pucflek]

With the Praag waystones, it might be that Caledor has backdoor access to the Kislev network. Or maybe the Widow had to adopt Caledor's mantle in Kislev when she got that piece of the network and she's the one who responds to waystone passphrases in Kislev.

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Its extremely fucking clear that Caledor does not give two whole shits about anything. Give him a booty call and he will show up anytime, anywhere, as long as there is waystone involved.

Uncaring of both common sense and the less common sort that can quote the propagation speed of magic through various mediums, a wave of magic approaches that makes visible the thin layer of power that sheaths the magic flowing through the leyline. That invisibly thin layer of power suddenly swells and stretches and shoots out a new tendril, pushing through the resistant rock below without any care for inefficiency in the direction you have indicated. As the tendril reaches the river it almost seems to hesitate for a moment before it continues, acting with caution that was absent a moment ago, and with oozing slowness it engulfs the Waystone, energy moving to and fro as it explores this new addition to the network. Then it fades away again to almost nothing, and the scraps of ambient magical energy that the new Waystone had already absorbed from the Lynsk begin to flow underground towards you. For now the flow is aggravatingly molassic, but with time the stone below the city will adapt in nature.

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[NexusEye]

The wasteland is just a big swamp, not something like the Wastes. But I agree with the rest of your post.

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The Wasteland is mostly wetlands and thus 'a waste of land' even if it weren't corrupted but while it isn't as bad as the waste a quick skim of the wiki page seems to indicate it's still pretty bad. After the War of Vengeance when new Waystones stopped being constructed in mass quantities there was a war between the Fimir and the Skaven, that probably involved a lot of destruction or corruption of the areas Waystones, then the Jutones came and inhabited the more fertile and livable parts of it and may have improved the situation by adding tributaries and possibly even home-grown Waystones, then Nagash came along and assaulted the area and then the Norscans came and occupied the area for a while neither of which were likely good things for the local Waystone network, there's apparently a "Demon Swamp" that swallowed up most of a town called Halsdorph and a town called Almshoven that was destroyed a couple centuries ago by a Champion of Nurgle and whose ruins are still diseased.

It isn't the worst place in the world, certainly nothing like the Chaos Wastes, but it could do with some more Waystones even if the current tensions between the Empire and Marienburg make that a political impossibility at least for now and if it were cleansed you could probably do irrigation projects to drain significant parts of it and turn it into useful land, I say as I internally suppress the part of my brain screaming at the horrific loss of biodiversity in such a scenario and how it would be an ecological atrocity on par with the Aral Sea.

 

[Curtains]

Its extremely fucking clear that Caledor does not give two whole shits about anything. Give him a booty call and he will show up anytime, anywhere, as long as there is waystone involved.

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We'll have to see if Caledor will turn up to push a leyline through the Karaz Ankor Waystone Network.

Actually, Thorek's idea of using rope as transmission will probably work just fine for the Karaz Ankor. Might not work for humans, but the dwarves can protect it if it's buried underneath their front doorstep.

 

[NexusEye]

We'll have to see if Caledor will turn up to push a leyline through the Karaz Ankor Waystone Network.

Actually, Thorek's idea of using rope as transmission will probably work just fine for the Karaz Ankor. Might not work for humans, but the dwarves can protect it if it's buried underneath their front doorstep.

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Mathilde suspects that the Karaz Ankor Network effectively already is using material transmission, the Mountain-Runes may have started the process but so much energy has been traveling through the stone long enough that its underlying nature has changed and likely doesn't need the Runes anymore.

Thorek might actually be understating the effect it would have had. If huge amounts of magical energy have been travelling through the same path for thousands upon thousands of years, then you suspect that every mountain with this Rune upon it could be levelled and the flow would continue uninterrupted. But Dwarves place a lot of metaphorical weight on the unchanging nature of stone, and so would be uncomfortable with the idea that it is quite possible for what amounts to a very large amount of stone to be permanently and irreversibly changed.

You'd very much like to be able to take a sample of that stone. You'd even more like to have a very large amount of it to experiment with.

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[Boney]

@Boney I wonder. Are the Black Water Cleansing waystones plugged into the Karaz Ankor's network?

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No, they're hooked into southern Stirland. There are no connections between conventional Waystones and the Karaz Ankor network. The most promising way to change that would be re-erecting Barak Varr's nexus so it can serve as a junction, and from there either the Border Princes part of the network could be annexed, Waystones could be set up in the Badlands to funnel new energy in, or the Forest of Gloom nexus could be hooked up to it.

 

[Rafin]

Actually it succeeded, we miscast in the process but in the end we successfully Windherded two enchantments from different Winds onto the same item in such a way they could work synergistically. Unless you're talking about the Wind tongs experiment in which yeah that was a failure for what we wanted to achieve although we did gain some interesting theoretical knowledge about how it could be accomplished albeit not a method we can use unless we're willing to break the Articles.

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I kind of forgot that it technically succeeded because it failed in the eyes of the voter base. It didn't result in an item worthy of on-screen relevance and most players lost the interest or will to try again (which to me was the most important consequence of the failure). The latter thing IMO was unwarranted though. Nothing in that action's results indicated that a subsequent attempt would be negatively influenced by our lackluster first attempt, be it narratively or due to lingering mechanical effects of low rolls.

 

[NexusEye]

I kind of forgot that it technically succeeded because it failed in the eyes of the voter base. It didn't result in an item worthy of on-screen relevance and most players lost the interest or will to try again (which to me was the most important consequence of the failure). The latter thing IMO was unwarranted though. Nothing in that action's results indicated that a subsequent attempt would be negatively influenced by our lackluster first attempt, be it narratively or due to lingering mechanical effects of low rolls.

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People lost the will to try again because of the proven potential for a miscast and the decreasing amount of arcane marks that are not at least somewhat detrimental. Whether that's fair and Windherding is more dangerous than our other magical experiments or if it is the same level of risk and just had the misfortune of its risk becoming realized is unknown. At least the Arcane Mark we got out of it was purely beneficial, although it does mean the chances of us rolling a bad or mixed bag Mark in future miscasts are higher.

 

[Shard]

What are the remaining Arcane Marks can Mathilde potentially roll for?

 

[NexusEye]

What are the remaining Arcane Marks can Mathilde potentially roll for?

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Looking at the wiki the remaining marks are:

• Trickster: You cloak yourself in deception and misdirection, making you untrustworthy to others.
  • Probably a Diplomacy penalty, low chance of an Intrigue bonus, either purely detrimental or mixed bag
• Aspect of Ulgu: Your frame lightens and tightens whilst your hair colour changes to grey.
  • Possibly a Martial penalty and I can't see how this would be beneficial, probably purely detrimental.
• Forgettable: People can't seem to remember your face.
  • Probable Intrigue bonus, possible Diplomacy penalty, probably a mixed bag mechanically but the one people are the most afraid of getting because narratively it means Mathilde's friends and lover will forget her face and that's sad.
• Disturbing Eyes: Your eyes become grey and swirl with unnatural darkness.
  • Probable Diplomacy penalty, possible Intrigue penalty due to being very recognizable and obviously not a normal human, purely detrimental.
• Insubstantial: Your body becomes slightly insubstantial.
  • Near certain Martial penalty due to being weaker, possible Intrigue bonus if being insubstantial means being harder to see, either detrimental or mixed bag.
• Mark of Ulgu: The rune of Ulgu appears somewhere on your body.
  • Gives us +1 Magic, very desirable, no downsides unless it appears somewhere weird like on our face in which case it might give us a Diplomacy and/or Intrigue penalty, almost certainly purely beneficial and the only Arcane Mark left with that property, this is the only Arcane Mark we actively want to get.

 

[Talon TigerDino]

Being more insubstantial does not mean weaker in warhammer. Often times it's an improvement.

 

[NexusEye]

Being more insubstantial does not mean weaker in warhammer. Often times it's an improvement.

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IIRC in the original tabletop RPG it gave you a strength penalty, can't check right now though due to computer problems involving hard drives one of which contains my PDF copies of the RPG books, if I tried I'd be risking further degradation and data loss, I'm currently using an Ipad to type this.

 

[Andres]

<Dwarf Calendar>

@Boney what the heck is hek Since the Reikspiel word for witch would've followed the Khazalid one, does 'hek' come from contact with Hekarti or some other "heky" thing like 'bok' comes from the sound of hitting your head? Also, why do they use 'zhuf' when referring to magic instead of something derived from 'hek'?

 

[Boney]

<Dwarf Calendar>

@Boney what the heck is hek Since the Reikspiel word for witch would've followed the Khazalid one, does 'hek' come from contact with Hekarti or some other "heky" thing like 'bok' comes from the sound of hitting your head?

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It could be a cultural import from the time of their close relationship with the Elves, it could be a root word that both 'hekes' and 'Hekarti' descend from, or it could be a false cognate and it's just an arbitrary sound associated with a meaning.

Also, why do they use 'zhuf' when referring to magic instead of something derived from 'hek'?

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To avoid the negative connotations that Khazalid words that explicitly refer to magic have accumulated.

 

[Alratan]

• Aspect of Ulgu: Your frame lightens and tightens whilst your hair colour changes to grey.
  • Possibly a Martial penalty and I can't see how this would be beneficial, probably purely detrimental.
• Disturbing Eyes: Your eyes become grey and swirl with unnatural darkness.
  • Probable Diplomacy penalty, possible Intrigue penalty due to being very recognizable and obviously not a normal human, purely detrimental.
• Insubstantial: Your body becomes slightly insubstantial.
  • Near certain Martial penalty due to being weaker, possible Intrigue bonus if being insubstantial means being harder to see, either detrimental or mixed bag.

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In the RPG:

• Aspect of Ulgu was purely cosmetic.
• Disturbing Eyes was a penalty to regular Diplomacy but a bonus to Intimidation
• Insubstantial gave a bonus to Stealth and penalty to Toughness