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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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SaltyWaffles said:
I don't think that's the only post on the subject. I think the windherded combination was specifically approved somewhere. Either way, its entire purpose is protective; if protective only covered things that directly physically mitigated damage, the only protective Ulgu enchantment would be Aethyric Armor, and that doesn't seem like Boney's intent.

Cloak Activity as a protective enchantment is such a perfectly-themed Grey Wizard thing. Ulgu sucks at directly blocking damage, but it can confuse the enemy into striking at where you aren't or deflecting a blow that isn't actually coming. Being a human wizard is all about making your one Wind do as much as you can get away with and getting creative.

As for Windherding enchantment restrictions, the general limitation is that it has to all fit together as a single purpose. As in, you can make three enchantments on one item so long as they all do something in synergy--so you couldn't create an item that cures poisons and also shoots fireballs, because those are two completely separate applications. But a robe that tricks the opponent's mind into striking where you aren't and also has a protective orb of light that deflects incoming blows is two enchantments doing the same thing: protecting the wearer from incoming attackers.

It's also something we could do with just Mathilde and Egrimm once Mathilde learns Cloak Activity, meaning no CF spent and only two variables to account for. Bonus points for using We-silk as the base material, so even if the wearer is caught completely by surprise by a competent attacker the robes would still somewhat mitigate the blow by likely preventing the blade from piercing the robe (it'd still be a wound, but a significantly lesser one, and slashing attacks might not break skin)--plus being fire-resistant, which is definitely a plus because the last thing you want to deal with in combat is your clothing being on fire.

I'm not saying we *have* to do it next turn, but it's definitely something we should strive for because it's very useful and easily within our means. We plan on delving into fantasy Chernobyl soon (after the elfcation); having much better protective enchantments would be very welcome.
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My point is not that Cloak Activity can't be used protectively, it's the specific use case I quoted (wherein the spell tricks an opponent into not seeing an attack) that I don't think is protective.
 
Mopman43 said:
Given that Nagash learned Dhar from the Druchii, I do not think that we're going to 'one neat trick' Malekith. He'd have been dead long ago if it was that easy.
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The thing about the Second Secret is that there is no counter to it. The First Secret means using Dhar-based magic in a complex way requires twisting it together in a way that leaves it vulnerable to being untwisted violently.

That being said, Malekith is of a caliber of spellcasters that getting close enough to even try the Second Secret on him would be extremely dangerous, and that's before you consider the fact that he'd be surrounded by an elite guard specifically looking out for stealth assassins. It's not that he's above the vulnerability, it's that he's well aware of it and takes measures to cover for that vulnerability with the wealth and influence of a millennia-old emperor leading highly trained troops.

As proof of this, when Teclis dueled Malekith in the decisive battle of Malekith's invasion of Ulthuan during the Great War Against Chaos, even Teclis couldn't just use the Second Secret to counter what Malekith was doing. It's entirely possible that Malekith doesn't use Dark Magic by default; he's probably a master of all eight Winds too (whether he knows Qhaysh is another matter). If he thinks he's going up against someone who could threaten him with the Second Secret, he might just use non-dark magic instead. He's certainly got the power to be a terrifying menace with normal magic alone.

---

Clan Eshin also skirts around the vulnerability of the Second Secret--whether they know it even exists--by virtue of using stealth and speed. It's hard to counterspell someone you don't even know is there, after all. And a quick projectile spell might be hard to use Second Secret on because it occurs so quickly. Second Secret is most useful against Necromancy because Necromancy requires an active spell be maintained for a long time and across long distances to project power, often with lots of instances of it grouped together. It's thus vulnerable to a Second Secret attack starting a chain reaction amongst an army of undead, because there are countless targets sitting there waiting to be unraveled.
 
Frederick Van Hel: "there are two secrets of Dhar"

Nagash: "I think you'll find that I wrote nine books on the topic"

Malekith: "Insolent cur! Your special 'nine books' are less than half of what there is to be known about Dhar"

Morathi: "it's cute that you think there is only a double digit number of secrets"
 
deathofrats0808 said:
My point is not that Cloak Activity can't be used protectively, it's the specific use case I quoted (wherein the spell tricks an opponent into not seeing an attack) that I don't think is protective.
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Only if you're getting too literal. Aethyric Armor protects the user as they go in for a melee attack, allowing them to hit the target even if a dagger is coming their way to try to stop them with a counter-blow. Defense paired with offense is still defense, even if that defense synergizes with the offense (as defense often does).

It's not that it would prevent an opponent from seeing an attack coming, it's that it would make their brains instinctively conclude that an attack was not coming even as their senses saw the attack coming. It's possible to overcome that with a disciplined mind and especially if you know to be wary of that very problem, but in combat you probably don't have the time to recognize what's going on and compensate for it before that strike has hit home.

Would you rely on that against a swordmaster like Asarnil? I certainly wouldn't bet that it would work, and definitely not if he survived the first instance of it throwing him off. But against all but the best? Probably.

But Cloak Activity is...well, Cloak Activity. It doesn't say that the spell breaks if you make an aggressive action. It just has a harder time tricking people into believing the falsehood their brain is telling them the more egregious the difference between the illusion and reality is. The difference between someone swinging a sword they have ready and not swinging it is small, and only needs to be convincing enough for long enough to throw the enemy off for a second or two. Grey Wizards generally don't use Cloak Activity like this because Grey Wizards generally don't engage in melee combat face-to-face if they can at all help it, but we are a pretty unconventional Grey Wizard. Our main weapons are a greatsword and a pair of loud revolvers, not a dagger or even a spell.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
The thing about the Second Secret is that there is no counter to it. The First Secret means using Dhar-based magic in a complex way requires twisting it together in a way that leaves it vulnerable to being untwisted violently.
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Do we know that? Or is there a Third Secret out there that makes, say, a Dhar construct that is a dynamic, self-correcting equilibrium rather than the unstable static equilibrium of the First Secret?

Unless Boney has confirmed OOC that there's not, I don't know how we'd know.
 
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SaltyWaffles said:
The thing about the Second Secret is that there is no counter to it. The First Secret means using Dhar-based magic in a complex way requires twisting it together in a way that leaves it vulnerable to being untwisted violently.
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*taps the sign*
picklepikkl said:
This is a common thread misconception, but:
Boney said:
Second Secret works on all Dhar constructs, not just First Secret ones.
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Here's a way to think of it: the First Secret exploits a particular property of Dhar to make it significantly more stable. The Second Secret exploits the same property in a different way to make it significantly more unstable. They are linked because if you know one of the Secrets deriving the other is trivial, not because the Second only works against the First.
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Boney said:
The tension being exploited is that between the nature of Dhar and the ends it is being put to. Dhar is corruption, chaos, decay, entropy. It can be turned towards various sorcerous constructions by exertions of will but its nature is still to deconstruct. Something based on Dhar can never be truly stable because it contains Dhar. The first secret suppresses that, the second expresses it.
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Alratan said:
Do we know that? Or is there a Third Secret out there that makes, say, a Dhar construct that is a dynamic, self-correcting equilibrium rather than the unstable static equilibrium of the First Secret?

Unless Boney has confirmed OOC that there's not, I don't know how we'd know.
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I'd be surprised if there were a way to stabilize Dhar, because then I feel like it loses a lot of what makes it itself, but you're correct that it's not impossible that Morathi and Malekith know ways around the Second Secret. Even if they don't have a "haha fuck you" Secret that outright trumps it, I'd cheerfully bet at great odds that they are prepared for someone to Second Secret their shit, it won't be a surprisedpikachu moment.
 
picklepikkl said:
I'd be surprised if there were a way to stabilize Dhar, because then I feel like it loses a lot of what makes it itself, but you're correct that it's not impossible that Morathi and Malekith know ways around the Second Secret. Even if they don't have a "haha fuck you" Secret that outright trumps it, I'd cheerfully bet at great odds that they are prepared for someone to Second Secret their shit, it won't be a surprisedpikachu moment.
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I mean, a hypothetical way around the 2nd Secret may be to not actually create Dhar constructs. Just do what the Eshin sorcerer was doing and have a Wind construct containing and directing unstructured Dhar.

A hypothetical 3rd Secret could be to use something based on Qhaysh techniques to weave something based on it that instead uses nine ingredients, not eight, with the ninth being tiny pieces of finely divided but internally unstructured Dhar suspended within the weave as a payload and modifier to the behaviour of the Winds wrapped around but not touching it.

At worse, even if you can use the Second Secret on one of those bits of Dhar then because it's so small its detonation doesn't produce enough to set off a big chain reaction, or the surrounding Winds buffer the other Dhar in the spell so the explosion can't reach them, or even at best the Winds around each bit of Dhar act as a barrier to stop someone reaching any Dhar to trigger the Second in the first place
 
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One way around Dhar deconstruction might be use of regular winds as a stabiliser. There's likely entire theses of magic using the properties of Winds and Dhar in highly dangerous manners. The Skaven Sorcerer we killed used Ulgu-Dhar, for example. It's not implausible that if you're already using Dhar, some sort of horrific multiwind Dhar Construct spell thing could be cast.
 
picklepikkl said:
I'd be surprised if there were a way to stabilize Dhar, because then I feel like it loses a lot of what makes it itself, but you're correct that it's not impossible that Morathi and Malekith know ways around the Second Secret. Even if they don't have a "haha fuck you" Secret that outright trumps it, I'd cheerfully bet at great odds that they are prepared for someone to Second Secret their shit, it won't be a surprisedpikachu moment.
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Tbf to the druchii iirc they don't field great armies of dhar constructs. This might be for this reason or some others
 
picklepikkl said:
*taps the sign*



I'd be surprised if there were a way to stabilize Dhar, because then I feel like it loses a lot of what makes it itself, but you're correct that it's not impossible that Morathi and Malekith know ways around the Second Secret. Even if they don't have a "haha fuck you" Secret that outright trumps it, I'd cheerfully bet at great odds that they are prepared for someone to Second Secret their shit, it won't be a surprisedpikachu moment.
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I can pretty easily imagine constructs of reactive dhar armor that disperse any attempt to start a second secret reaction. Or ablative layers of dhar somehow held separate from the primary construct that absorb any attempt to do so before you get exploded, imploded, turned inside out, and compelled to sign bad checks by the primary effect. Or that there's something I haven't imagined that can be done as a counter.
 
The issue is that a vortex is always spinning, always unraveling, it's not a solid thing you can pick apart and collapse. It's be like trying to stop the whirling of a drain by shooting a water gun at it.
 
consequences said:
I can pretty easily imagine constructs of reactive dhar armor that disperse any attempt to start a second secret reaction. Or ablative layers of dhar somehow held separate from the primary construct that absorb any attempt to do so before you get exploded, imploded, turned inside out, and compelled to sign bad checks by the primary effect. Or that there's something I haven't imagined that can be done as a counter.
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That's not how the Second Secret works. All dhar magic that doesn't fall apart very quickly has to be twisted together to be at all stable. Reactive armor? That's vulnerable to the Second Secret because it's twisted dhar just waiting for the right twist to tear it apart. And all that nearby dhar that it's "protecting" as reactive armor? Would just be fuel for the fire started with the Second Secret. It causes a chain reaction on all nearby dhar that's woven together to form a spell.

Besides, reactive armor requires a solid layer of tough conventional armor behind it to work. Otherwise, the explosion of the reactive armor would just wreck the inside of whatever it's protecting along with all of its occupants. Dhar reactive armor would blow up the spell it's protecting because there is no armor, only more unstable dhar.
 
OneofMany said:
I was looking at the K8P map and I was wondering, what are The Barrows and has anything with them and Uzkul Mines ever come up?
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Edda started reopening the Barrows silver mine on Turn 25, and they were fully cleared by Turn 26 without issue. Mathilde and Johann's mining date was there on Turn 28. Uzkul was also put on the list to be reopened on Turn 26, though at a lower priority.
 
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The Lie of Omission New
  • Apocrypha
    • ReImagined said:
    Secondly, because Grey Wizards swear a Vow of Poverty, and are not permitted to accumulate property or wealth not of direct and practical use to their cause. Ostensibly, this vow acts as a safeguard against the easily abusable powers of cryptoclastic thaumaturgy—or so the Magisters of the Grey Order claim. In practice, the Order allows a great deal of wiggle room for the enterprising Grey to accumulate tidy sums, so long as they are suitably subtle about it and do not draw any attention that would disrupt that illusion. Unfortunately for you, directing the EIC is not a role well suited for subtlety, and so the side-eyes of the Grey Order are upon you with a clear message: Do not mess this up. Maintaining the facade will require toeing a very careful line, lest you serve as an example for the ire of Bursar Wilhelmine von Bucht.
    Objective revealed: Maintain the illusion of the Vow of Poverty. You do not want to anger the the Grey Order.
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    AN: Just a little blurb I thought of reading this.

    How does the Grey College mantain highly visible rolls such as these, it's with the most simple lie. The lie of Omission. They would stand next to very visible truths that cast extremely stark shadows.

    "Explain it to me. One more time." Wilhelmine von Bucht spoke slowly, glaring at Magister Eike as she handed over the ledger.

    "Well you see, as someone operating under the vow of Poverty I in the very visible role of Governess simply cannot be compensated for such an act." She sniffed and had that smug smile painted upon her lips. "Therefore my position of Governess has the publicly stated income of a single shilling per day. However it is recognized that the personage of the Governess needs to be able to move amongst high society and attach a vested interest in the well-being of the company." Her face could have made the most cutthroat Altdorf factor run for the hills.

    "25% of profits generated are placed at the Governesses discretion for living expenses and the funding of either the expansion or sustaining current operations." She finished, idly spinning one of the very expensive star jewels of the Asur that were all the rage amongst the Marienburg elite. Least of all because they came from the Fortress of the Dawn, and they were cheapest in Altdorf.

    Wilhelmine raised a singular eyebrow at the singular profit margin, especially because it was inaccurate according to the public ledger that was in her hands and filed within the Imperial Archive's being constructed somewhere secret. The master records of thousands of institutions, guaranteed by the Empire and woe to those who tread on it's good name. "According to the documents before me and inside the Archives, the Governess is entitled to 30% of profits before the shareholder payouts. Lying to me is a very poor decision, lying to the Empire means you will not be leaving these grounds again." A standard threat, but this hook was too deliciously baited, it had to be a trap.

    Magister Eike Hochschild nodded as she set her teacup down. "Of course, the EIC understands that's it's interest must always be aligned with the Empires, in recognition of this fact a 5% tithe is expected to the Emperor's coffers of course."

    She could only look with dawning horror and begrudging respect for the sheer gall of the move this Magister was making, worthy of her Master to say the least. "Well Magister Eike." She had to crack at a smile, it was galling and a fait accompli to the Empire when they noticed it. "It appears you learned a important lesson from our first meeting. When someone finally notices," Wilhelmine withdrew the bottle of Riek shandy made by the ill fated Free bottled brother cartel. "You cut them in."

    Thus the Imperial black budget was born, a desperately needed cash reserve to the imperial budget and a ready source of soft influence that saw a very unignorable message sent through very unofficial channels. The EIC is what it is, don't fuck it up and everything will go perfectly normal.
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • Just to clarify, the Tower of Serenity can assist with any writing task, not just research. So collating intelligence reports, checking accounting, creative writing or any other sort of similar thing?

    Are the journeyman's quarters and labs part of her home or considered separate?
     
    OneofMany said:
    Just to clarify, the Tower of Serenity can assist with any writing task, not just research. So collating intelligence reports, checking accounting, creative writing or any other sort of similar thing?

    Are the journeyman's quarters and labs part of her home or considered separate?
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    Narratively, the Tower of Serenity applies whenever Boney feels it'd be appropriate for Mathilde to use it. We used it when trying to control Mathilde's Unnatural Shadow Arcane Mark, for example. I wouldn't expect those to work as Serenity Tasks in turn plans though, if they fall under other action categories.

    If by creative writing you mean fiction, Boney's cautioned us against expecting results to come from that:
    Boney said:
    Protip: writing fiction isn't actually easy. It's a bunch of interwoven skillsets that take a fair bit of time and effort to get even kind of good at. If anyone is expecting any actually useful results out of Mathilde trying to go from zero to Tolkien, you should probably reconsider. If you're expecting it to be an immediate money-printer you should really reconsider.
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    Wizard Quarters are separate. You can see everything that's considered part of the penthouse in the character sheet, under 'Spoiler: Home in Karak Eight Peaks.'
     
    Talon TigerDino said:
    The issue is that a vortex is always spinning, always unraveling, it's not a solid thing you can pick apart and collapse. It's be like trying to stop the whirling of a drain by shooting a water gun at it.
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    Yes, but the vortex may be made of the vampire's soul, and when the vampire's well fed, it may just be spinning bits of other people's soul around as it digests them, and it only sucks in the Winds of Magic when it's empty, and that's when it produced Dhar
     
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