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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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NSMS said:
Not what I was getting at. On the campaign trail, in our former job in Stirland, and when it comes to our master, none of them involved the explicit job of 'be the person who pokes magical weirdness'. In those roles, we were a spy and sneaky person who used magic to enhance our sneakiness- and the same appears to be true for our master, from the little we've seen of him. Here, however, our role is first and foremost to be the authority on and deal with problems of a weird and mystical nature, not be the sneaky person who sneaks.

Or to put it another way: in the past we've been a stealth expert and spymaster who happens to use magic to enhance those roles, whereas now we're expected to be a magic expert and we also happens to be good at stealth and being a spymaster. So while there will undoubtedly be times when being stealthy is ridiculously useful, it's not our primary role. Our job isn't to go out into the world and preemptively deal with or identify emerging threats, it's to look at the weird stuff and say 'yup, that green glowy stuff is evil, set fire to it'.
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Given Karak Eight Peaks position, we don't have the strategic depth to be purely reactive against magical threats. Mathilde needs to be proactively going out looking for magical threats and defusing/killing them before they go off.
 
I really like Soizic but would like to do other stuff with her. In the "found our own knightly order" kinda way. We are a lady knight our last prospective liege disregarded and now we are down here kicking ass and mugging greenskins. She also has taken a peculiar path to knighthood. Let's enchant her up some shadowsteed spurs and blessed weapon Gauntlets and start the Shadow Knights of Karag Nar. Mhorn az Vengryn Karag Nar "the Shadowy Vengeance of Karag Nar...we should probably have a dwarf translate my Khazalid sucks.
 
Thats why im recommending either getting a short sword or a killy dagger with like 5 to 10 favors for sneaking weapon since greatsword isnt pratical always
 
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Valarauko said:
This is a dwarf matter. Not our place to make recommendations.
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Remember that Mathilde is part of the government of Karak Eight Peaks. Based on this logic, almost nothing is her business, as literally everything about the place is dwarf business in some way or other.

BoneyM has also confirmed that Mathilde will make recommendation directly to Belegar if appropriate, and we know Belegar is a radical pragmatist. He won't be offended. He might disagree, but I think he'll value honestly given advice.

Mathilde is an adviser, it's her job to advise her king, not to abdicate her responsibilities. He can choose to ignore her if he thinks she doesn't know what she's talking about, but not giving the advice at all is her just not doing her job.
 
Awetduck said:
I really like Soizic but would like to do other stuff with her. In the "found our own knightly order" kinda way. We are a lady knight our last prospective liege disregarded and now we are down here kicking ass and mugging greenskins. She also has taken a peculiar path to knighthood. Let's enchant her up some shadowsteed spurs and blessed weapon Gauntlets and start the Shadow Knights of Karag Nar. Mhorn az Vengryn Karag Nar "the Shadowy Vengeance of Karag Nar...we should probably have a dwarf translate my Khazalid sucks.
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I like the cut of your jib. I hope we get the chance to adopt her in some capacity, or at least support her in whatever independent efforts she makes to kick ass.

Also, I updated my earlier post with my followup votes, but I feel the need to take this particular bit of commentary and put it in the current portion of the thread:

picklepikkl said:
[X] [LIBRARY] Imperial Texts: Extensive/Esoteric Skaven, Extensive Skaven Magic, Extensive Greenskin Magic, Antiquarian Grey Magic (2 College Favor), Extensive Amber Magic, Extensive/Esoteric Romance Novels, Extensive/Esoteric Linguistics, Extensive Warpstone, Extensive Morr, Extensive Karaz Ankor. Dwarf Texts: Extensive Greenskin Magic, Extensive Skaven Magic, Extensive Romance Novels, Extensive Linguistics, Extensive Daemons. Brettonian Texts: Extensive Romance Novels. Tilean Texts: Extensive Romance Novels.

It is deeply, profoundly important to me that we be 1) a well-equipped court wizard 2) low-key horny on main.
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Alratan said:
On the other hand, an axe for each of the new holds that contributed would be a very nice gesture to them, along with a gromil cavalry hammer for Wolfhart, and a shortsword for Titus. Mathilde's greatsword would just fit in with that.

This would be diplomatic, would make a powerful and useful statement about allies that help from the start being rewarded, and would also mean that Mathilde wasn't asking for herself.
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how big was this dwarf, that you can make like 6 weapons (including a greatsword) from his armor
 
[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.
-[X] [SPIDER] Given a few decades to test the military alliance first, of course.

[X] [ARMOUR] It should be returned to the Hold it was stolen from, to build strong ties among the Karaz Ankor.
[X] [RUNE] No purchase.
[X] [RUNE] 15 point Ranger Weapon

[X] [ENCHANTMENT] Grounding Rod
[X] [LIBRARY] Extensive Romantic Library
 
Guile said:
how big was this dwarf, that you can make like 6 weapons (including a greatsword) from his armor
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Dwarfs are around 4'6 to 5 foot tall wear incredibly thick plate (by human standards) armour and are usually built like brick shit houses. They're not actually that much shorter than humans but they are significantly broader in musculature. G
 
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DiceOfStupidity said:
And then wizard prepares mighty poison - and gives it to brave knight to slay a dragon or to spymaster to poison its food. But it's that brave knight or spymaster that does the deed. As Court Wizard our job is to prepare poison.
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Ask the Balrog about how grey wizards deal with monsters under the mountain. They tell the dwarves to run away, then they take out their swords and proceed to kick its ass up one side of the mountain and down the other.

Guile said:
how big was this dwarf, that you can make like 6 weapons (including a greatsword) from his armor
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What's important is how thick dwarven armour is. There's lots of metal in a suit of dwarven full plate. Greatswords also aren't that heavy,
 
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Zaratustra said:
Did you somehow miss the action just this turn were we keep infiltrating and had a chance to kill the military leader ?
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I could ask whether did You somehow missed vote we had few turns ago. It had rather explicit description of responsibilities. We are learning advisor. It will focus on solving mysteries noone have answer to and dealing with strange things. Whether Mathilde capabilities are it does not change the fact is NOT her job responsibility or focus to scout, sabotage of assasinate. And sure, she is great at doing it. But it does not change the fact that it is very explicitly not her job.
 
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I kinda think it's more thematically appropriate for our stealthy-stabby assassination dagger thing should be enchanted by us; like our staff, when we get around to finally making it.

Speaking of the staff, I don't really have a good grasp on just how good we are at enchanting; we have innate talent in the art, we can see the winds of magic almost as good as Volans, and we've got a pretty damn respectable Magic stat, but we haven't really done much enchanting, and I don't know what a "standard" Aetheric Armour robe looks like mechanically.

What I'm trying to get at, is, are we good enough at enchanting for our staff to have some bells and whistles on it while being maybe a size category down from the usual great big stonking two-hander? (IIRC, most wizards, even those with no interest whatsoever in enchanting, do their own staff, basically just by grabbing some of their color ingrained wood, and soaking it in/shoving in it magic)
 
@BoneyM
Is it known what god does Oswald follow?

As of now, I could see him as a Sigmarite or a Mortite, but I may be mistaken.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Note, it sort of relies on reforging the armor into a symbol of the reconquest.
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I don't actually agree with this. I think that repatriating the armor to its home Hold and waiting in the queue for a turn or two longer for spare gromril to become available is just as good symbolically. Also, as people have pointed out, the first half of the vote are recommendations to our liege, not unilateral actions. If he thinks it's logistically necessary to reforge the armor to honor us appropriately, he'll do that.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
I ask that you, who's made so far into the discussion, bear with me for a minute.

There are two ways to approach the Sword issue: mechanics and narrative. Some points blur the line, but I will try to start with the former and end up with the later.

The fist thing one realizes upon comparing the WHFB stats of humans and virtually everything else, is that humans suck.

Their Strenght and Toughness caps at a measly 4, Karl Franz, the goddamn designated-protagonist and Emperor, has a Weapon Skill of 6. Their Initiative is low to middling, their movement nothing to talk about.

So, how do human heroes kill dragons and daemons and Giants and Orc Bosses and all sorts of monsters?

Gear. Most notably, Ghal Maraz and the Runefangs. Their weapons turn a statline that, in another army, would be a elite mook/low level hero, and turn them into Everchosen killers.

That's how humans, elves and dwarves do it. Their equipment makes the monster's tough hide irrelevant, its towering constitution worthless, and might well slay them in a single blow.

Now, Mathilde already has Hero-level stats for a human. When we reach Advanced Greatswords, she will be sitting in human Lord range. She is perfectly worthy, skill-wise, of the sort of gear that elevates humans to monster slayers.

Now, like I said, gear adresses the fundamental imbalance between humans and monsters. How it does that is simple: Strenght.

Or, more accurately, they make it so the human's low Strenght is either remedied, or made irrelevant. Runefangs, Ghal Maraz, Teclis' sword- they all do it.

Problem is, it's flat out impossible to make more Runefangs or Ghal Marazes, and Teclis isn't about to sit in a workshop all day turning out magic swords.

Besides that, the dwarves need gromril to put their strongest runes in, and that's very, very hard to come by.

These day's best runesmithing is only capable of a third rate imitation of what those weapons of legend can do. They are nice, but not even in the same neighborhood.

Enter Kragg's Master Rune: all attacks are made at Strenght 10. For those who don't know, that's a ten out of ten.

It's brilliant, because you effectively ignore armor, as there is no armor capable of providing resistance against that much Strenght, and almost wound automatically: even against ancient dragons, you only need a 2+ on a d6.

For a wimpy S4 human (or an even windier S2 Elf, like Teclis, whose sword does exactly that, ignore armor and wound on 2+), that rune alone is a dream come true. And, due the magic of runesmithing, that's only a third of the weapon's potential runeslots used.

You might be thinking, "but TNE, we just need that S10 thingy and we are fine, right? Kragg steps in at 15, so that's good enough". Yeah, that'd be true... If Boney hadn't said that a 15 favor weapon, on a Kragg scale, is merely average, something he bangs out in a long afternoon. Does that sound like a product that'd bear his masterwork?

Consider furthermore that we want a sword. That's another tick on the "this is on the mediocre side of average", again on the Kragg scale.

Lastly, the weapon would be made out of steel. And I doubt the finest steel in the world would tolerate the kind of abuse a S10 rune would cause. Another ding against a fifteen favors weapon cutting it.

So, 20 favor? It's a big maybe, on one hand, this is one of his finer works, on the other, his rune is considered "experimental" by himself, and the metal issue arises again. And, at that point, it's a short hop to 25.

It's fundamentally a good investment to spend favor in big items whenever we can: we have very limited item slots, and things like the sword can only be bought in singular lump sums. We can spend twenty five favor on a library without blinking, but that's going to be not only a very small incremental bonus, but it will end up exactly the same as twenty five purchase of one favor.

Whenever we are comitting more than a tiny bit of favor to something, we should weight it against just taking the plunge and getting top-shelf, because the penny-pinching is enormously costly in opportunity cost. Because anything better has to retread ground.

Think of the possibilities the ability to shatter a fortress' gates with the pommel of our sword would bring. The mayhem we could cause, the targets we could take.

There's more. The assassination angle is so often brought up because it causes a disproportionate amount of damage to the enemy, but not only that, it's by far a more dangerous proposition than an open battle.

Conterintuitive? Maybe, but the Seed changes the equation. On a battlefield, there's no shortage of allies to fight at our side, or for the enemy that fells us to focus on. It gives time and room for the Seed to bring us back. On an assassination gone wrong, unless we are very lucky, our target who turned the tables on us would just keep stabbing our twitching corpse until the Seed runs out.

And Mathilde has never shied away from either battle or infiltration. The later is how we've made such enormous contributions to the campaign. So every little bit that might help her survive the incredibly dangerous task she so often assigns to herself is worth it.

Now, if you aren't interest in mechanics beyond "it will be killy", there's the narrative side to consider.

In portuguese, we have a saying: "fechar com chave de ouro", which roughly translates to "to close it with a gold key", or "to end it on a high note", but perhaps more intense.

This entire Expedition has been nothing short of record breaking. It's been legendary deed after legendary deed, it exceed the expectations of the most hopeful of optimists to such a degree that it shifted the entirety of the Dwarven political landscape.

And, in one of the sweetest GM comments, on answering "what does our 57 reputation mean", he explained it beautifully and succintly: "to anyone who knows about it, it's a tale of Belengar Ironhammer, Kragg the Grim and Mathilde Weber".

I don't know about you, but reading that felt awesome.

And now, it's seems that by divine providence, things have aligned: we've found a big chunk of ancient gromril.

Consider the following QM statements:
- Gromril, while insanely valuable, is worth the most as a symbol.
- Weapons are what legends are built upon.
-- The sort of weapon that does that is the sort that's forged by a master among masters, a legend himself, using legendary materials.
- One of the three members of the legend of Retaking of Karak 8 Peaks is a legendary runesmith.
- The Human Hero of K8P just found an ancient, battered set of gromril armor. A chunk of legendary material, fit to be reforged.

I don't think I have to spell out any further. "The Dwarven King commissions a legendary weapon out of gratitude to his unexpected friend, the Human Hero" is literally the founding legend of the Empire.

A 25 favor weapon is a legendary piece of artifice, requiring a legendary smith and legendary materials. Most of all, a legendary weapon requires a legend.

We have the Legend of Mathilde Weber, Hero of Karak 8 Peaks. We have a legendary smith, Kragg the Grim, also a hero of the reclamation. And we have King Belengar Ironhammer, filled with gratitude so deep that he, a Dwarven King, swore to move mountains to see a wish of ours come true, whom was just handed a significant amount of legendary material by Mathilde.

This is how you turn a success story into a legend that will be spoken for the rest of Karaz Ankor's existence. The story of reclamation, unlikely valorous allies, heroic deeds and legendary feats, a sweeping victory of such magnitude that it gave a spark of hope to an entire race.

You tie the cornerstones of said legend into the making of a weapon, because nothing stokes the fires of the heart like a legendary weapon that ties the tale together.

It's the chave de ouro, the golden key, the perfect high note. I urge you, vote to reforge the glory of the past into a symbol of the future. Vote to found a legend.
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This has a certain compelling poetry.
I'll give it some thought.
 
Alratan said:
Given Karak Eight Peaks position, we don't have the strategic depth to be purely reactive against magical threats. Mathilde needs to be proactively going out looking for magical threats and defusing/killing them before they go off.
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To an extent, yes, but the identification of those threats- or likely areas where they might be- is going to be primarily a job for the Karak spymaster. They point us to the problem and we go deal with it or provide them with the means to deal with it, and that's not actually something we'd necessarily need to be good at sneaking around to do. Meanwhile, the rest of the time we'll probably be pointed at less stealth-requiring stuff like the spiders or what-have-you.

Basically, in our current role we're a wizard first, and a sneak-thief second.
 
[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

[X] [LIBRARY] No purchase.
 
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Also to throw my hat in, the scouting and thus "we get the opportunity to assassinate" options by word of Boney only really count as job actions if we're doing something else like Chiselwards + Citadel this turn.

And as an aside I'm sure a loooooooot of folks will be kinda annoyed if we don't hardly ever use the swag tower we just set up, which was intended to be a research station when we were in the epilogue, to actually research. Its there and its a really nice place to live, but is a bit of a waste if we don't do research in it.
 
Alratan said:
Ask the Balrog about how grey wizards deal with monsters under the mountain. They tell the dwarves to run away, then they take out their swords and proceed to kick its ass up one side of the mountain and down the other.
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Analogy was for a dragon. Please do not mix LotR with it. We also are not on the epic journey, and don't have enough beard to be compared to Gandalf. We are court wizard, part of ruling counsil under the king. We are aiming to help with ruling and to solve mysteries. That is reality of situation.
 
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