Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[qwolfs]

You could argue that the sword will be different because it expands our killiness and thus lets us do more/opens up our actions, while the belt and seed primarily allow us to survive our latest stunt rather than opening up new alternative actions, but I'm not sure I agree with it.

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There is however no evidence for this.

We could have spent the last five updates trying to murderhobo our way through K8P, we didn't.
We could have tried to murder the spiders, we voted not to.
We could have tried to murderhobo at almost every point in this quest and we've never chosen to do that.

People want a killy greatsword because it's useful to have and because we have a chance to tick that equipment slot permanently off the list without needing to compromise on quality. Also, it's cool and fits in well with the narrative of honouring Mathilde's contributions to the reclamation and her returning the gromril armor.

Fear of the sword turning everything into a hammer isn't based on precedent, it's based on fear.

 

[NavySeel]

On an unrelated note to the update other than the possibility of spooder friends.

Spidersilk could be the perfect material to make our next set of robes from, with the hell drake scales used to carve the runes for the enchantment into.

 

[MacroDaemon]

In general, it seems like the Liber Mortis creates an interesting trap with its sincerity as a source of forbidden knowledge.

You now know how to dispel Dhar and Dhar constructs. Except these methods need you to use Dhar. So what do you do in situations where you can save lives or triumph in battle? Do you use your new abilities, but expose yourself as a practitioner of Dhar or do you let people die or lose the battle to remain safe?

I imagine that's what it does. You gain more and more useful knowledge, but all of it requires you to use Dhar and have a high chance of failure if you're ever inattentive.

 

[edofthesquid]

[X] [SPIDER] The We can be a powerful military ally against the greenskins.
[X] [SPIDER] The We can be a powerful military ally against the Skaven.
[X] [SPIDER] The We can be a welcome addition to the multispecies community of Karak Eight Peaks.

Honestly, I just really want to keep the spiders involved in some capacity. They're fascinating OOC and IC, and might help us hold on to the Amber Journeymanlings. Also, they seem like some pretty solid tunnel fighters. Could be useful against any enemies in the underway.

[X] [UNDUMGI] Soizic, Bretonnian Questing Knight

No strong feeling here, but I thought she seems kind of like early Mathilde. The Ranald vs Bretonnia thing might be an issue, but given she's been a victim of someone not accepting that polite fictions are a thing I think we'd come out OK.

[X] [ARMOUR] It should be returned to the Hold it was stolen from, to build strong ties among the Karaz Ankor.
[X] [ARMOUR] Make no recommendation.

I think we should either stay out of this or recommend it's return. Recommending repurposing it seems unnecessarily radical.

 

[Alratan]

It was suprisingly often, but we've switched from campaign mode to councillor mode. It's not going to happen as often (if at all) in the near future.

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Why not though? The dwarves are at perpetual war, and it's Mathilde's job to deal with magical threats. A lot of those magical threats are going to be enemy casters, and it's going to be a lot easier to deal with them like we dealt with the black orc great shaman rather than having to face them on the field of battle. We can't always rely on everything going perfectly - it's much nicer to be able to kill even tough enemies with a single blow, as if we get stuck in combat with a black orc warboss after an initial assassination attempt failed we'd be seriously screwed.

No, it would not. Mathilde was wielding a Runeblade and smacking skeletons as soon as she hit them. There were still too many of them.

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If Mathilde had a super-sword all the way through, before he fell, he'd probably never have been swamped in the way he was.

A: Near misses and situations we got out of scot free don't count as places where we needed a better sword. Had we had a better sword then, we still would've had the exact same situation. The goblins especially run into the same problem that the skeletons did, they'd already die to a single strike (Mathilde wounds on a +2).

B: The trolls I will give you, but I am not sure how the new options we'd have would actually have a better outcome than what we did. It is needless to have more options if said options are inferior to what you already do.

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Near misses we escaped through chance count as situations we were in where a sword would have been incredibly valuable. Risk reduction is important, as even with Ranald's +20, if you keep on rolling the dice, eventually you'll get unlucky..

So yeah, if we had +7 instead of +4 on Skaven lore, we would have cleared 2nd roll's 80 threshhold, by the way.

It's probably important to keep in mind as an example of even tiny bonuses from lore being meaningful.

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Yes, a 6% chance of being useful on a roll it happened to apply to, usually 3%.

 

[ctulhuslp]

Books: We should perhaps purchase Dawi and maybe even human books on Waaagh! if we're going to try and write our paper on dispelling it.

[] LIBRARY: Dwarven Extensive on Waaagh! and disrupting Waaagh! Energy

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I think we might want a book on "how to write papers" more . Mathilde knows a lot about Waaagh energy and their gods, she just has no clue how to put it into human words.
There must be some manuals on proper writing and research procedure out there.

I mean, I'm still up for some murder hoboing- had the Idol even partially activated during our assasination we'd have been in a really bad way. Had the Black Orc figures out we were krumping his gits that would have been a tough fight etc.

We've already taken a few risks in order to waltz into the enemy's stronghold and kill major figures. Using favors to make that safer, make us punch up harder, and be quicker about it just doesn't seem a bad idea when you realistically look at how many actions it would take to use those favors for other things like training. And no, I don't consider pissing away all of our favors on library percentile bonuses a competitive alternative.

I never said we can't be good in sneaking into places and killing people, I'm just intensely skeptical we can be the best at it, or that we can kill the guy who built an entire civilization around assasinating one another and still confidently sits on top of it.

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Yeah, I don't mind it occasionally either - I was pretty excited about option of speccing into Assassin from there on.

And I've already said my piece about libraries earlier - it literally this update, we could have cleared 80 threshhold instead of 60 on a Skaven roll if we had +7 bonus instead of +4 from Lore. With literally an example of where higher bonus would have made for a better result right in the last update, I find it hard to agree with you about the bonuses' usefulness.

 

[NSMS]

There is however no evidence for this.

We could have spent the last five updates trying to murderhobo our way through K8P, we didn't.
We could have tried to murder the spiders, we voted not to.
We could have tried to murderhobo at almost every point in this quest and we've never chosen to do that.

People want a killy greatsword because it's useful to have and because we have a chance to tick that equipment slot permanently off the list without needing to compromise on quality. Also, it's cool and fits in well with the narrative of honouring Mathilde's contributionsin the reclamation and her returning gromril armor.

Fear of the sword turning everything into a hammer isn't based on precedent, it's based on fear.

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As I said, you could argue that way, and I think it's what people have been trying to get at with that line of argument. I'm just not sure I agree with it.

 

[chocolote12]

Well, whatever the mechanics of the Second Secret are, it probably doesn't involve using Dark Magic directly, otherwise the Grand Theogenist wouldn't have been able to do it.

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Casting Priests are usually just a little bit wizard; it probably worked the same way petty or lesser magic can be cast using Godly Lores.

Yes, a 6% chance of being useful on a roll it happened to apply to, usually 3%.

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They do add up; it's basically a traits for gold system. It's just not really worth spending any favors on.

 

[Boney]

Does it? I got the impression that it was closer to what we did with the Orc Waaaagh! field- we poke it in juuuust the right way with our regular magic to make it self-destruct.

@BoneyM, can you clarify this?

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Either way would work. You could create a big chunk of Dhar and use it as the centre of a large radius chain reaction, or you could prod existing Dhar to get it to begin that same reaction.

 

[Mopman43]

Yes, a 6% chance of being useful on a roll it happened to apply to, usually 3%.

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There's a lot of Skaven in the 8 Peaks, and that would apply to every single roll involving them.

 

[ctulhuslp]

Yes, a 6% chance of being useful on a roll it happened to apply to, usually 3%.

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Which is better than sword's 0% chance to apply on any roll which does not involve stabbing - which, incidentally, was entirety of last turn and probably will be fairly typical unless we randomly decide to veer hard into a frontline combatant.
edit: and yeah, +7 to every roll involving Skaven - a big faction under K8P and one of most dangerous Chaos factions in the setting - is useful.
Especially for a grey wizard - they often are participants of shadow wars, and probably encounter Skaven more often than wizards of other colleges. That's more of my supposition though.

 

[NavySeel]

Could we write to the Amber college to try to get someone placed here, semi permanently to study the spiders and act as a sort of ambassador?

 

[10ebbor10]

Anyway, we should not use any Dhar knowledge till we read the entire book. It's a diary. It's extremely possible that the warnings telling you not do something are written after the section that tells you how.

 

[Chronic]

Either way would work. You could create a big chunk of Dhar and use it as the centre of a large radius chain reaction, or you could prod existing Dhar to get it to begin that same reaction.

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Ah okay, that is much better. If we can get the chain reaction by poking another mass of Dhar, we may be able to mask what we are doing as counterspelling / inducing a misscast.

Keep the big chunk of Dharsplosion thing for when Nagash returns and tries to reenact the Night of the Living Dead.

 

[Muninn]

Calling it now, Belegar Is going to end up tragically dying by our side in the battle for the last of the eight peaks, after which the new king will throw us and our spider friends out of the Karag. Newly directionless in her life and with a new hat Mathilde goes on some sort of zany spider related campaign and ends up as councilor for a new spider nation.

 

[Alratan]

Regarding the greatsword vote. I don't want this spectacular and unique quest to turn into a murderhobo quest.

And it will, if we commission a super weapon.

Having a super weapon, a "hammer" if you will, and not using it would feel really wasteful, right?

And when you have such a "hammer", all the myriad problems and obstacles start looking awfully like nails.

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Why on earth would we ever become a murder hobo? Mathilde is deeply embedded in the society of Karak Eight Peaks. She's started building a home here. I'm sure there'll be plenty of murdering if she gets the sword, but no hobo-ing, as she'll be murdering the enemy of her states as part of the government.

Which is better than sword's 0% chance to apply on any roll which does not involve stabbing - which, incidentally, was entirety of last turn and probably will be fairly typical unless we randomly decide to veer hard into a frontline combatant.

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If we had the sword Mathilde might have taken different choices, because she had a wider range of options, and Clan Mors might currently be tearing itself apart in an order of backstabbing when she returned the day after her first visit and decapitated the more competent three quarters of its leadership. We don't know the full counterfactual, but we know combat was a possibility.

The fact that we only made one scouting action and had a single magical problem to work on that could be resolved diplomatically is also very unlikely to be typical. We're in the World's Edge Mountains. We've just spoken to the one friendly magical incident we're likely to ever meet our here.

 

[NSMS]

Either way would work. You could create a big chunk of Dhar and use it as the centre of a large radius chain reaction, or you could prod existing Dhar to get it to begin that same reaction.

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Cool, so second secret can be used safely.

Well. Sort of. So long as we have an explanation ready for how we knew how to do that-

-why hello there, magic coin of deceitfulness! So nice to see you!

 

[EVA-Saiyajin]

On page 1692 at the moment.

I would argue that as a former spymaster and member of the Grey College, Mathilde is going to take exceptionally good care of her sword, as far as not losing it or letting it get stolen.

Moreover, the idea of "expensive/awesome stuff is more likely to get stolen" can apply to anything. Doesn't stop people from making and using such stuff.

 

[qwolfs]

Which is better than sword's 0% chance to apply on any roll which does not involve stabbing - which, incidentally, was entirety of last turn and probably will be fairly typical unless we randomly decide to veer hard into a frontline combatant.

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Not true, the sword would, to those in the know, be a visible sign of our Dwarf rep. That's likely to assist us in negotiations where, for example, we represent Bellegar.
Also, having a super stabby sword on hand tends to deter people mucking about, see us cowing the umgi during the election process for that principle in action.

 

[Guile]

I'd like to point out that a Weapon 25 Favor is not just a chance to build Mathilde's legend, it's a chance to build Kragg's.

How often do you think Kragg gets the opportunity to completly guilt-free say "And on this day, I'm going to take my skill to its limit and show those whippersnappers what real runecraft looks like!"

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"And then I'm going to put it on a sword, and give it to a manling!"

Remind me again, has Mathilde ever been in a situation where she needed something better than a regular greatsword?

And no, the fall of Abel doesn't count. What was lacking there was defensive capability, not offensive.

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No. But someday, we probably will. And on that day, perhaps 5 years further into the quest, perhaps 10 years, perhaps 20, who knows? But someday, we will be able to pull out our runed-to-hell greatsword and bitchslap some poor dragon into next week.

Every time she charged into mass combat alongside her allies and failed to make a significant impact due to lacking in killiness? Every single time she is in open combat with a greatsword and is not dispelling/spellcasting, which is suprisingly often?

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When Mathilde has failed to meaningfully affect a battle, it's usually because she can't get to the enemy before it gets filled with bullets and arrows from 20 different units. I don't think a better sword will help with that.

 

[spiritualatheist]

It's kinda hard to take "we aren't going to be doing much assassination now that we are a councilor" seriously when we have WOG that one of the options on our scouting mission involved fighting a boss.

Plus, we have WOG that Kragg won't put his 'hits with the force of a cannonball's rune on anything less than a 20 favor weapon, iirc; and that's what I'm really looking for, because it opens up so many more narrative possibilities for sabotage.

 

[NSMS]

"And then I'm going to put it on a sword, and give it to a manling!"

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Thorek: "HAHAHAHAHA!!! And people say you have no sense of humour, Kragg old pal!"

 

[Chronic]

Also, the Second Secret of Dhar makes me much more excited for our eventual experiments with the Snakeblood. We may be able to find out how Daemon bodies are made up. If they are careless in the make-up of their corporeal magics, we may be able to apply the principle to them!

 

[NavySeel]

Ah okay, that is much better. If we can get the chain reaction by poking another mass of Dhar, we may be able to mask what we are doing as counterspelling / inducing a misscast.

Keep the big chunk of Dharsplosion thing for when Nagash returns and tries to reenact the Night of the Living Dead.

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It would be hilarious to see his reaction to Mathilde dispelling his entire army.
Of course it would only take him a little while to build it back up but still that first encounter would be great.

 

[TheWoo]

[X] [SPIDER] The We can be a welcome addition to the multispecies community of Karak Eight Peaks.

[X] [UNDUMGI] Francesco Caravello, Tilean ex-merchant

[X] [ARMOUR] Make no recommendation.