Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[BurnNote]

Thinking about it, there's actually a good deal of use to no more CF. We don't typically spend that much, but that's because CF is a precious resource. With this boon, we could use it a lot more.

Like, windherding. We could just go and hire the best enchanters for collaboration. Melkoth when trying to write down the knightbringer, or when we're trying to do develop a new spell (I still want Cloudkill). We've seen how incredibly useful that sort of collaboration can be (the waystone project is basically collaboration is awesome). And this way, we could have that fire off with every turn. We could very easily have 10CF usage per turn, and potentially much higher for complex wind-herding projects (just getting three LMs would reach 30CF) or such.

Actually, maybe that deserves checking.
@Boney: Would we be able to hire LMs and people of that caliber every turn? That seems like it might be too much of an ask in-story. Also the Doylist concern, it would require a fair amount of characters.

I have doubts about the viability of turning a giant flying enchantment into something stealthy.

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Just paint it purple. Nobody would believe there's actually a flying purple tower.
Except the Orks, but they know the score and to properly be surprised by the purple tower.

 

[Valmond]

This seems... somewhat out of character?

As far as I know, there are little to no limits of what weaponry a dwarf can own. Why would they limit throughput of their industries and limit the honest work that can empower their people? It used to be pretty legal to own all sorts of weaponry, warships among them.

If it's a supply and stockpiling issue then maybe, but is Barak Varr really that in desperate need of more material?

This feels like a decision was made somewhere by someone high on their own supply or on a power trip.

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There is a major difference between a handgun and a warship.

 

[Mopman43]

Fear.jpg

I would hope that Nordland is legalizing the Nordland Hedgewise to help take the Forest of Shadows, because there's very few other palatable options to what they could be legally doing about a grey-space group of magic-users.

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The Nordland Cult of Ulric seeking allies in the newly-influential Cult of Haletha?

 

[SaltyWaffles]

This seems... somewhat out of character?

As far as I know, there are little to no limits of what weaponry a dwarf can own. Why would they limit throughput of their industries and limit the honest work that can empower their people? It used to be pretty legal to own all sorts of weaponry, warships among them.

If it's a supply and stockpiling issue then maybe, but is Barak Varr really that in desperate need of more material?

This feels like a decision was made somewhere by someone high on their own supply or on a power trip.

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Barak Varr is currently scrambling to rapidly expand their riverine navy by a lot, so much so that they're building new shipyards as fast as they can. They've got an entire network of trade routes just opened up to them, all of which needs to be prepared for banditry and goblin raids and even nasty lake monsters. This means that building a substantially-sized ship for a private citizen is very definitely a lesser priority for the foreseeable even if they might normally be willing if you would pay them enough money.

There's also the whole "steam engines are a guild secret", and Barak Varr only builds iron ships using steam engines. Don't know if the riverine navy will be different in that regard, but I doubt it, since steam power to go up-river is all the more valuable.

 

[Valmond]

A tower is probably a much. much better mobile weapon platform than a airship though in terms of volume of destruction it can throw out.

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But also much less mobile, and artillery is at its best when you can move it at a moments notice.

Is that the elven attitude to the question or the College attitude toward the question?

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Remember Mathilde's conversation with whatshisface elfnerd about how college wizard method was like what the wind attuned dragons were doing?

So i would suspect it is partially college attitude, and at least partially Boney attitude.
And frankly either way i kinda agree.
College's have their own identity, a theme, and trying to turn them into something else feels lot like a mutated strain of the train zombie virus.

 

[Ragnar]

There is a major difference between a handgun and a warship.

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Yeah, the price and supply issue.

Anything else is probably modern politics seeping into the story.

Barak Varr is currently scrambling to rapidly expand their riverine navy by a lot, so much so that they're building new shipyards as fast as they can. They've got an entire network of trade routes just opened up to them, all of which needs to be prepared for banditry and goblin raids and even nasty lake monsters. This means that building a substantially-sized ship for a private citizen is very definitely a lesser priority for the foreseeable even if they might normally be willing if you would pay them enough money.

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Ah, now this, I could fully understand and makes perfect sense. Closing down outside business to focus on Hold issues and expansion is just common sense. But during times without such an expansion going on?

That doesn't make sense.

 

[Sinsystems]

But also much less mobile, and artillery is at its best when you can move it at a moments notice.

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It is a balancing act. Personally I prefer the tower for the sheer brute force and stuff we can fit in it, but I can see the reason why someone would prefer the mobility of the flying ship.

Although regardless of what we go for, I want to attach a group of highly skilled warriors to act as the thing's defensive forces.

 

[avatar11792]

Though if it's an empty liminal realm instead of a world filled with nasties, it might be possible to build something like a railroad connecting the two points.

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BY THE GODS, WE HAVE FINALLY UNLOCKED FUNCTIONAL RAILROADS IN WARHAMMER FANTASY!!!

Titanic Dwarf forged, Orb-powered locomotives! Absolutely, 100% security proof! No Beastmen ripping up the rails here! Completely invisible to normal senses, even most magical ones!

At long last, the Empire will finally have secured, peace, and total absolute Order! Mwahahaha!!!
*lightning flashes*

 

[Humbaba]

Thinking about it more…

I didn't really want a tangible reward for doing the morbs, I wanted a vague collegiate equivalent to the "you have broken the dwarf favor system" in terms of headpat scale.

It almost feels like it reduces the scale of the achievement in some ways to request something that can be framed as a "payment" for the Orbs - like it makes it merely transactional, where what Mathilde really wants is to be enshrined in the mythos of the colleges for all time, the same way Volans or Tarnus or Puchta were.

For me, I think the way to look at this boon that's most congruent with Mathilde's character is to think about legacy. To ask for something where if Mathilde gets got by an Eshin assassination tomorrow, the requested boon would still be shaping the world a century from now.

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I'll be honest, Mathilde has already built a tonne of "Grand Legacy" stuff.

The Tower of Gazul - Guards Karak 8 Peaks against Sieges, opening a huge new trade route. Yes it's super cool and we own it for now, but it's a legacy.
The Rooms of Serentity - Making Battlwizard training much safer
Queekish
Karak Vlag - Asking for Survivor Testiomony.
Our great library
The Waystone Project
Arcane Vitae - Literally in this update it was put as "Solving two of the foundational questions of the colleges"
Magical Photography and Mechanical Detection

Mathilde's legacy is pretty darn secure. It's time for her to have something selfish and cool.

 

[The Phoenixian]

Personally, I think the airship and the tower are really cool, but fundamentally, my attraction to them beyond that factor is more that they at least to some degree advance the cause by being tools for furthering the capacity to attain such results: When I actually settle down and back away from the cool factor, then I'm still okay with them, but I'm also of a mind to vote for a nexus reclamation support and the Silver Road Wars assistance by the same token.

There may be more thematically fitting rewards in that vein, such as somehow making a lab as far beyond what we've made as what Mathilde has is beyond her journeyman days, but those are at least in the general thematic space to me.

Just breaking the CF system and getting tenure doesn't have the same shine to me. It may be a mark of how things change after a major result, but it doesn't feel like a means for feeding success into more success in the same way.

 

[Valmond]

Yeah, the price and supply issue.

Anything else is probably modern politics seeping into the story.

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If there is modern politics here, i suspect it is from your end.

There have been limits, and/or requirements, on weapons and ownership thereof, as long as governments have had the ability to enforce them.
Dawi do not sell weapons openly.
The guns they sell are limited in what gets sold to dawi and what gets sold to humans, and that has been the DL canon since Sylvanian campaign.
Gyrocopters are always built for military purpose (with literally one huge exception).
And warships built by Karaz Ankor, are built for Karaz Ankor, not any random person with money to pay, and anyone trying to steal one is going to get a punch of very angry dawi warships coming ater them because dawi do not share their secrets freely.

 

[Humbaba]

Also, given Mathilde is now in her 40s, and we're asking for a big honking flying machine, I must ask.

Is this Mathilde's Midlife Crisis?

Also, I have an argument for making it a tower because then it can be: Mathilde's Midlife Milestone.

Look the Thesarus could only help so much.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

I'm always down to make complex systems less complex.

Also it just vibes as a reward for being the person that did the magic version of a Millennium Prize Problem

[] Break the CF system

Or, let's call a cat a cat

[] Tenure

 

[A_Somebody]

Okay while I'm increasingly down for Flying Tower/Ship I do wanna propose the individual college Secret Shakedown. We can't get them to give all their secrets but we could get some!

• Amethysts: What the hell happened to Hexenholsen? Or asking Elspeth about the dead god dust or samples of it. Boney confirmed this investigation into the divine is still open!
• Greys: ohhh this one could be sensitive as they're our direct colleagues, but Algards knowledge of Liminal realms, somehow pressuring Kurtis into revealing the deets on Hedgemagic or access to Fozzriks book
• Golds: Alchemical Thaumaturgy is one I've seen lying around? Also maybe the periodic table for Eike. Maybe Johann or Max has something they wanna bulli out of people
• Jades: no seriously what's up with Dwellers Below. Could also but idk if worth to push for knowledge of Earth Mother stuff
• Ambers: what's the deal with that crow god. Or idk that Cathayan introduction letter even though not really a secret persay
• Lights: ...what are they using their orb for anyways? Or maybe something insight into the whole "pyramid" thing, though that might be too broad. I'm sure there's some specific heavy tomes we could ask for? Idk if I want general book but some personal enchanting notes could be cool
• Celestials: uhhh I'm sure someone could think of some specific thing here but I can't help but meme promoting Hubert. Then again he's really not actually qualified from a magical puissiance point so prob not.

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Shit I know it's passe to quote myself but I forgot

Brights: Ming spilling the tea on Manaan? And/or does "Addidoth" mean anything to you?

Yeah this is probably edging very close on "this won't let you make mystery cults not a mystery cult," but some more lore could be interesting?

I should be clear I don't view Secret Shakedown as something primarily meant to get useful or actionable info. That would be a bonus. My intention is satisfy Mathilde (and mines) general curiosity and desire to obtain ever more secrets/tidbits she can smugly lock away in her mind.

In that vein:

Celestial: how does that star writing spell actually work? Stars are like super far (IC I think she might kinda know via Deathfang) and magic has a canonical propagation speed. Is it some shared hallucination with global range???

 

[SaltyWaffles]

I personally am not too keen on this "flying wizard tower/airship" thing, given that it sounds like a further investment of our time and driving us to find ways to use it to justify its existence rather than something that would actually help us out a bunch.

Having a College Favor of "Yes, provided it's for practical purposes" seems more readily useful and convenient. Need some power stones for making an enchanted item? Done. Need an enchanted item made, like enchanting our Dwarf Marksman's Pistol to be silent and produce no light when firing? Done. Want a magical familiar for Eike as her graduation present? Done. Want the Gold College to further develop the seviroscope into something more widely usable and useful? Done.

The Armor of Von Tarnus...I don't know anything about it beyond the fact that it would stack with Aethyric Armor. It'd depend on how much protection it actually offers, but it would be really useful to have in those situations where you really want every advantage possible because it's life or death.


[] Break the CF system
[] The Armor of Von Tarnus

seem like the most useful options to me.

 

[Natch]

The fact travel times are mechanically handwaved makes it really easy for people to forget just how far away K8P is from everything else. Right now Mathilde is, multiple times a turn, commuting a distance of something like 1.5x the breadth of the Empire to get from Laurelorn to K8P and back.

Even after being custom built for personal use, her gyrocopter is still constantly mentioned as being noisy and uncomfortable, it has limited cargo capacity, and everyone else associated with Mathilde has to either hitch rides with her, travel the long way, or just relocate entirely according to the current project.

A mobile base that is simultaneously faster, more comfortable, much more spacious, doesn't need to refuel at Dwarfholds, and has any number of magical bells and whistles thrown in by the combined work of all the Colleges, is entirely worthwhile purely on its own merits. Even if it doesn't (though it totally might!) have purely mechanical benefits.

(Also, let's be real, combat has been just as much obfuscated away as travel times. Mathilde hasn't had a substantial fight in two real-AND-in-game years, haven't even seen the results of Branalhune-fu or the Red Rider yet, and armor is basically flavor for the d100s.)

 

[Techmarine]

Personally i find the idea of breaking the CF system sounds kinda unrewarding

an airship or tower on the other hand is a tangible reward, not just for us but for everyone who sees it and mathilde can smugly look back at.

Yes, please do ask where i got this incredible thing you didn't think was possible.

 

[Boney]

This seems... somewhat out of character?

As far as I know, there are little to no limits of what weaponry a dwarf can own. Why would they limit throughput of their industries and limit the honest work that can empower their people? It used to be pretty legal to own all sorts of weaponry, warships among them.

If it's a supply and stockpiling issue then maybe, but is Barak Varr really that in desperate need of more material?

This feels like a decision was made somewhere by someone high on their own supply or on a power trip.

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Even if the engines and cannons weren't extremely closely guarded secrets of Dwarven engineering, I still think it would be extremely reasonable to not sell warships to private citizens. I mean, I'm sorry, is this a bit?

Yeah, the price and supply issue.

Anything else is probably modern politics seeping into the story.

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Oh my god, I don't think it's a bit. No, the past was not a capitalist hellscape where it was somehow reasonable for literally anyone to be able to trivially commit mass murder if they had the money to buy the implements that would allow them to do so. You thinking that it was is the modern politics seepage. In reality, it was an entirely different type of hellscape where government was a more naked monopoly on violence, and it did not freely distribute the tools of that violence to anyone with cash. There's a reason that if you ever see a cannon on display somewhere, it almost always has a crown or a national coat of arms on it.

Is that the elven attitude to the question or the College attitude toward the question?

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It's the me attitude toward the question.

Thinking about it, there's actually a good deal of use to no more CF. We don't typically spend that much, but that's because CF is a precious resource. With this boon, we could use it a lot more.

Like, windherding. We could just go and hire the best enchanters for collaboration. Melkoth when trying to write down the knightbringer, or when we're trying to do develop a new spell (I still want Cloudkill). We've seen how incredibly useful that sort of collaboration can be (the waystone project is basically collaboration is awesome). And this way, we could have that fire off with every turn. We could very easily have 10CF usage per turn, and potentially much higher for complex wind-herding projects (just getting three LMs would reach 30CF) or such.

Actually, maybe that deserves checking.
@Boney: Would we be able to hire LMs and people of that caliber every turn? That seems like it might be too much of an ask in-story. Also the Doylist concern, it would require a fair amount of characters.

Click to shrink...

I really don't think you should be doing the same thing every turn in the first place. It doesn't seem like a very interesting path to take the story down.

Celestial: how does that star writing spell actually work? Stars are like super far (IC I think she might kinda know via Deathfang) and magic has a canonical propagation speed. Is it some shared hallucination with global range???

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When Celestials concern themselves with stars, it's not really the stars themselves they're concerned with. Azyr tends to float about at extremely high altitudes, so if you want to see what it's up to, the best way to do that is to get a telescope and look at it backdropped against something bright. The star writing spell doesn't actually move the stars around, it's altering the way the stars appear when looked at through Azyr.

 

[Zaratustra]

The Barak Varr shipyard doesn't build warships for private citizens.

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I fell that this has just opened more question to me.
Do Dwarven shipyards build ships for private citizens at all ?
If yes what are the limits on comissions ?
Could you hire a dwarven guild to build something on your own shipyard ?

 

[Parabola]

One word: Elfcation.

We're basically signing up to go hunting Druchii invaders for three months. And that's also not counting the always possible "sudden Chaos/greenskin/beastmen/skaven/Drachenfels invasion" event where even if the entire College roster wasn't called up for action, we'd certainly be inclined to go help out.

We also have helping out Bretonnia with their chaos orcs problem on the backburner.

Lastly, remember that brushes with death can come without a lot of warning. Belegar asked us to go help out Roswita and we were promptly engaged with Alkharad in a duel where we came worryingly close to dying. The riverine ironclad rescue involved a dice roll where a 1 would have instantly killed us, and our input in that event was a single decision to engage in rescue operations. And while it might be a long while until we engage with a severe threat, the opportunity to get a unique set of magical armor like this probably only comes once, if we want to go for that.

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I mean, I certainly won't be objecting to getting the Armor of Von Tarnus if that wins, but I'm just saying, I prefer the idea of an airship that all the Colleges put the peak of their current knowledge and skill into.

Besides which, an airship wouldn't exactly be bad for the Elfcation, if we would be allowed to take it along with us.

I think that, sadly, they're not Grey space, they quite unambiguously black listed and should be on the pyre or at the Colleges. They're just at the bottom of the list for the pyre and top of the list for conscription because of their very low rate of causing problems or of being corrupt.

Unfortunately, the same reason means that many of the Colleges won't want to legalise them, as they such a good target for conscription.

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Personally, I think that being far enough down the black list, you start looking at a dark sort of grey for political purposes, but yeah, you're totally right. Legally we're looking at something a bit dangerous.

The Nordland Cult of Ulric seeking allies in the newly-influential Cult of Haletha?

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That'd be deeply ironic given Nordland's history, but it'd definitely be preferable to some other alternatives, particularly if it's treating them as an actual ally rather than forcing their hand.

The potential knock-on effects to other Hedgewise communities might be scary regardless of what they're doing and how they're doing it, honestly.

 

[Boney]

I fell that this has just opened more question to me.
Do Dwarven shipyards build ships for private citizens at all ?

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No. For Clans, yes.

Could you hire a dwarven guild to build something on your own shipyard ?

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No.

 

[Sinsystems]

So to further clarify details, @Boney how much space is available between the ship and the tower. Lets assume the ship has about 4 slots for the point of this comparison.

 

[DragonParadox]

On the contrary: if we break the CF system, maybe the thread will finally be willing to let Max actually do other things.

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Max isn't very good at doing other things, he has a fair learning score and access to Gold magic. The only other thing he is good at is mundane smithing and dwarfs are and will continue to be better at that.

 

[fictionfan]

@Boney So we have been given a 90 day visa for going to ulthuan and fight dark elfs. Would coming in a giant flying warship make us more or less welcome?

 

[DragonParadox]

Yeah, the price and supply issue.

Anything else is probably modern politics seeping into the story.

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States do not like private citizens owning warships, there is a word for where that can lead and it starts with a P.