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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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storryeater said:
If we go for maximum rule of cool and ignore all the impracticality in giving him a humongous longsword, one can argue it will be safer because his attacks have more range, and he can always drop it and fight at close combat.
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If we're operating out of some bizarre artificial hypothetical where for some reason he absolutely needs to be on a battlefield and can't be replaced by literally anyone else for some reason, and also this scenario where it's super important for Wolf to be fighting, for some reason Mathilde doesn't need her sword, and we're prioritizing safety by way of range instead of safety by way of him not being on the battlefield in the first case, he's a dog, why is he on a battlefield, then it would still be better to give him a gun or a crossbow or a bound spell or something, which would very easily outrange a sword and be a lot easier to rig up for Wolf to use and would leave Wolf's mouth free to bite if necessary.

And let's just do away with the core pivotal assumption that rule of cool even applies here in the first place by saying no the fuck it doesn't. You don't just say oh wolf cool sword cool wolf plus sword equals two cool, there's more to creativity than just going down a checklist of preapproved concepts. It might be cool if Wolf was some sort of warrior dog and this was an expansion of his killing ability and him surpassing the abilities of his form, but he's extremely not! It's been very important to the characterization of Mathilde that Wolf is not a murderbeast, he's a companion! He's friendly, he's nice, he likes playing games and making people happy! He's an expression of Mathilde's inner joy and positivity and optimism and desire to believe the best of others that still lives on despite her hefty responsibilities and often grim work! Him taking up a sword would be a tragedy, it would be a symbolic abandonment of Mathilde being able to balance her responsibilities with her personal happiness!
 
Boney said:
If we're operating out of some bizarre artificial hypothetical where for some reason he absolutely needs to be on a battlefield and can't be replaced by literally anyone else for some reason, and also this scenario where it's super important for Wolf to be fighting, for some reason Mathilde doesn't need her sword, and we're prioritizing safety by way of range instead of safety by way of him not being on the battlefield in the first case, he's a dog, why is he on a battlefield, then it would still be better to give him a gun or a crossbow or a bound spell or something, which would very easily outrange a sword and be a lot easier to rig up for Wolf to use and would leave Wolf's mouth free to bite if necessary.
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He just want the Good Boi to be a Sif reference.
 
It's always a bit depressing to be following these threads but not keeping up with the conversation, and then I get an author alert and it's just the author scolding a bunch of readers for some dumb idea.

I mean, I know objectively I wasn't the one making the dumb argument and getting scolded, but it still sort of feels like I'm getting scolded.
 
Boney said:
And let's just do away with the core pivotal assumption that rule of cool even applies here in the first place by saying no the fuck it doesn't. You don't just say oh wolf cool sword cool wolf plus sword equals two cool, there's more to creativity than just going down a checklist of preapproved concepts. It might be cool if Wolf was some sort of warrior dog and this was an expansion of his killing ability and him surpassing the abilities of his form, but he's extremely not! It's been very important to the characterization of Mathilde that Wolf is not a murderbeast, he's a companion! He's friendly, he's nice, he likes playing games and making people happy! He's an expression of Mathilde's inner joy and positivity and optimism and desire to believe the best of others that still lives on despite her hefty responsibilities and often grim work! Him taking up a sword would be a tragedy, it would be a symbolic abandonment of Mathilde being able to balance her responsibilities with her personal happiness!
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Panpan coming to understand this being what made her come to see Mathilde as a person instead of Scary Grey Magister, would be extra heartbreaking for her.
 
Boney said:
It's been very important to the characterization of Mathilde that Wolf is not a murderbeast, he's a companion! He's friendly, he's nice, he likes playing games and making people happy! He's an expression of Mathilde's inner joy and positivity and optimism and desire to believe the best of others that still lives on despite her hefty responsibilities and often grim work! Him taking up a sword would be a tragedy, it would be a symbolic abandonment of Mathilde being able to balance her responsibilities with her personal happiness!
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But have you considered that Wolf could make more money if he worked professionally? :p
 
Broke: Wolf With A Sword.
Woke: Wolf Having Carefree Fun
Bespoke: Wolf Having Carefree Fun, Getting Into The Dragon Flask, Accidentally Bringing Mountain Down On Big Bad Who Was Never In Range To Threaten Him.
Baroque: The Above Being Thanquol's Lame Excuse For The Failure Of His Latest Flawless-Brilliant Plan Being Thwarted by Borek, Yes-Yes
 
Boney said:
The swords are your next priority. You can't drag a metal crate of swords to the Badlands with you, and you've never been able to find the time to focus on them, and since you stumbled on them you've found other, more promising leads to research. You'll take a look at them now, and then turn them over to the Amethyst Order and have a favour to call in later. A bird in the hand, and all that.

[...]

The mind boggles at the amount of care and attention it would take to make just one of these, let alone the dozens that you found in the burial mound. As an thaumato-archaeological artifact it's likely of interest, but as a piece of enchantment it really is much more effort than it's worth. Sure, it is a clever design for the storage of magical energy that any apprentice could manage if given enough time but you could think of better ways to achieve the same result with only slightly more advanced techniques - and you could work in a filter so that it would only absorb the desired Wind.

A curiosity, but far too primitive to be useful. The Amethyst Order could still make use of the stored energy, but the structure of the enchantment itself? Useless to you. You feel a lot better about giving them away now.

[...]

[Sword Study: Learning, 76+19=95]
[Possible applications: Learning, 7+19=26]
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Damn it young Mathilde you bloody academic and your low application roll, you missed the forest for the trees! What you have are artefacts that theoretically take more effort to make than contemporary Shyish swords, but you have a barrow full of the stuff! Dwarfs associate magic weapon-equipped regiments with their Golden Age, and yet these primitive, crude-armoured barbarians are somehow pumping them out every generation across an entire continent. Something's going on.

Incidentally, maybe that something has something to do with the Amethyst Armoury? They're the only other elite human force I can think of that has standard-issue magic weapons (well, magic munitions, but potato potato), and the wind used also happens to be Shyish.

EDIT: For elite human forces with standard-issue magic weapons, there's also Tomb Guard as mention by Mopman below, and there's also Grail Knights and Ice Guard.
 
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Andres said:
Damn it young Mathilde you bloody academic and your low application roll, you missed the forest for the trees! What you have are artefacts that theoretically take more effort to make than contemporary Shyish swords, but you have a barrow full of the stuff! Dwarfs associate magic weapon-equipped regiments with their Golden Age, and yet these primitive, crude-armoured barbarians are somehow pumping them out every generation across an entire continent. Something's going on.

Incidentally, maybe that something has something to do with the Amethyst Armoury? They're the only other elite human force I can think of that has standard-issue magic weapons (well, magic munitions, but potato potato), and the wind used also happens to be Shyish.
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It's not an uncommon phenomenon, I believe these would be 'Wight Blades'. Standard issue for Grave Guard, Black Knights, and Wight Kings from 4th to 7th edition.

(Also for Tomb Guard)

(8th edition basically kept them, they just didn't give them an explicit name like that)
 
Andres said:
What you have are artefacts that theoretically take more effort to make than contemporary Shyish swords, but you have a barrow full of the stuff! Dwarfs associate magic weapon-equipped regiments with their Golden Age, and yet these primitive, crude-armoured barbarians are somehow pumping them out every generation across an entire continent. Something's going on.
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Wight blades are magical because they've spent the last couple thousand years moldering inside of a barrow crammed full of Shyish. It was said back then by... Regimand, IIRC, that the actual enchantment that makes them store the Winds is honestly pretty useless outside of a historical novelty, because in anything other than a mono-Wind environment it just turns into a mass of Dhar.
 
There's still the fact that they were mass producing these blades. Sure, the actual enchantment isn't very useful—but they might have been something in the process of making them that could have been useful.

Like how archeologists are trying to figure out how to make Damascus steel—not because modern armies need swords, but because they were made with carbon nanotubes.

Which is why I think we should look at the Kul weapons as well—we recovered an awful lot of those from a single battle. Either they were easy to make, or they were the product of a Thorek level enchanter who just made weapons and got very good at it.
 
Mopman43 said:
It's not an uncommon phenomenon, I believe these would be 'Wight Blades'. Standard issue for Grave Guard, Black Knights, and Wight Kings from 4th to 7th edition.

(Also for Tomb Guard)

(8th edition basically kept them, they just didn't give them an explicit name like that)
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8th also didn't make their swords magical.

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
There's still the fact that they were mass producing these blades. Sure, the actual enchantment isn't very useful—but they might have been something in the process of making them that could have been useful.

Like how archeologists are trying to figure out how to make Damascus steel—not because modern armies need swords, but because they were made with carbon nanotubes.

Which is why I think we should look at the Kul weapons as well—we recovered an awful lot of those from a single battle. Either they were easy to make, or they were the product of a Thorek level enchanter who just made weapons and got very good at it.
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It's probably less mass-produced than you might think. Like, the burial mounds are for Kings. And you're probably looking at maybe a dozen blades per mound. That's not nothing, but frankly Mathilde or any ohter half-decent enchanter could probably output a similar number of blades with a fairly simple enchantment. It's just not worth it, because simple enchantments don't help that much for the time and effort.
 
Boney said:
It's been very important to the characterization of Mathilde that Wolf is not a murderbeast, he's a companion! He's friendly, he's nice, he likes playing games and making people happy! He's an expression of Mathilde's inner joy and positivity and optimism and desire to believe the best of others that still lives on despite her hefty responsibilities and often grim work! Him taking up a sword would be a tragedy, it would be a symbolic abandonment of Mathilde being able to balance her responsibilities with her personal happiness!
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i never realized that symbolism until just now oh wow
 
CornyBones said:
i never realized that symbolism until just now oh wow
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It's not really brought up overtly in story, yeah. I think the only time it is might be in that first date with panoramia? Otherwise, like many things, mathilde just kinda doesn't acknowledge it in her narrative, her friends dont see the need to bring it up and/or know it would embarrass her, and outsiders aren't likely to notice and even less likely to be brave enough to bring it up in front of her if they do :p (Quick edit: oh, and her colleagues in the gray college are too busy with their own subtle secrets and shenanigans and wouldn't dare to poke holes in a colleague's mystique without cause, that's just rude and unprofessional)
Boney said:
You smile. "It's fun. And most people are taken in by it. Why aren't you?"

"Wolf," she says simply.

You sigh. "He told you?"

"No, this was long before he was talking. Familiars are tricky, but he's a dog, and dogs are what their masters make them. You could have made him sneaky and sly, or you could have made him vicious and intimidating. But you didn't. Even after he was fully grown, he stayed a happy, playful puppy."

"Maybe I use him to throw people off," you say, but it's clear she's not buying it. "Okay, fine. It's true, and it doesn't take much more than basic Wind theory to spot it. Ulgu doesn't make for terrifying ethereal assassins unless you really put your mind to it. It makes mystics and showmen."
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Sir_Travelsalot said:
Wight blades are magical because they've spent the last couple thousand years moldering inside of a barrow crammed full of Shyish. It was said back then by... Regimand, IIRC, that the actual enchantment that makes them store the Winds is honestly pretty useless outside of a historical novelty, because in anything other than a mono-Wind environment it just turns into a mass of Dhar.
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@picklepikkl can you please get the appropriate quote?
 
Andres said:
@picklepikkl can you please get the appropriate quote?
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I'm not pickle, but I think you're looking for this?

Boney said:
"Hmf. Found in Stirland, I take it? So Asoborn construction... oh, I know what this is. Bloody primitives. There was a belief back then that the Winds of Magic were the souls of the dead, so some twit wizards put enchantments on the weapons to absorb ambient winds thinking that would mean it would eat the souls of those killed with it. Nasty stuff, except wrong in literally every way." He closes the case with a click. "So instead you end up with the swords sucking in all sorts of magic and it ends up mixing and curdling and next thing you know it's Dhar. At that point the best thing to do is find a nice volcano to drop it into. You've got the exception to the rule, though - looks like it's been soaking up nothing but Shyish, so it hasn't been tainted." He shrugs. "Not that it's any good. The enchantment itself is lost and could be interesting to work with, but you can't reverse-engineer the enchantment without grounding the Shyish, and unless you do it right the first time, that takes the blade and thus the enchantment with it and you're left with nothing."
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