I vaguely recall that one of the spiders is pretty abnormal and hits on you.
Don't kinkshame the spooder!
Not quite, no copy save the one we have is complete, because this is the one Vanhells made, the next one was made by his murderous apprentice, who did not want to be murdered in turn so he added in some errors and traps, but of course it was not enough and the process repeats itself again and again and again...
Somewhere along the line, probably reasonably close to the original, the cult of Sigmar gets a copy. That is what the Empire has.
My guess is when the Van Hals hunted down his apprentice, they turned his copy over to the Church and kept the Original.
The coin allows to perfectly lie, once we finally publish that damn Waaagh paper, together with our experience in Stirland and our sight, we have a solid base for discovering the weakness of Dhar on our own.
Reminder of the dangers of pitting the Coin's absolute confidence against the Grey College's absolute suspicion.
Critting the scouting got you a roll against a list of possible opportunities, and though it was a possibility, for once you managed to sneak into somewhere without killing its military leader.
Mathilde marks down as "needs Improvement".
Belegar is just wondering if its a good thing or bad.
A Greatsword is not a stealthy weapon. Even if we could have faced a boss, we wouldn't be attacking them by charging an entire hive of Skaven with our sword in our lonesome.
I could see your argument for a 25 favor pistol, sniper rifle, throwing knife or something that is stealthy. But a greatsword, no.
Edit: Also, you're talking about a single possible opportunity from a list of opportunities, a list that was only rolled on because we critted.
Being able to use the sword only sometimes when a specific action rolls a specific crit is not a good argument for it being really useful often.
Greatsword is actually much more stealthy than our gun. When we kill somebody with it nobody knows except the somebody.
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.
...is that a Fission supercriticality?
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?
We know this one, we'd have the option to try to hire on Esbern and Seija before they leave. If the Spiders become a permanent fixture putting them on permanent retainer is good sense.
No. But isn't immersion its own reward?
Well, I expect it might be usable as a bonus on social actions with Romance Enthusiasts...
Dhar is horrifically powerful, but unreliable and unstable. The First Secret of Dhar removes everything after the 'but'.
It just puts the onus on the user to be reliable and stable instead huh?
BoneyM previously said that getting more reputation doesn't decrease favour gain, but, IIRC, higher reputation itself had diminishing returns.
My recommendation would be that Mathilde doesn't get favour for things that are her job usuch as the spiders, but does for things that aren't, such as recovering the gromil armour.
IIRC its not that favor gain drops, so much as with high reputation a lot of things that need favor no longer need Favor, until you reach the point of spending Favor to make people do things they don't want to do, in which case it might become more in depth regarding what KIND of faction owes you that favor.
Guys, I understand the desire for a 25 favor sword, but for those arguing that that's the path to getting Kragg's unfair S10 rune...I really don't think so. That's his personal Mastery Rune, and it's still a dangerous prototype (only a few centuries old). I really don't think he's going to put it on a greatsword as a gift to a manling, even one he likes disapproves of less than most things.
Arguably giving a dangerous prototype to a known manling master of dangerous unpredictable forces is a valid testing process!
I disagree vehemently with the idea that Dhar can be in anyway controlled in a stable fashion.
If that were the case, why in Kroaks name wouldnt have any of the older, more magically attuned races picked it over High Magic. It doesnt seem plausible that Van Hal was the first to realize this. Unless Im mistaking your message, that seems to fly in the face of most what canon magic implies or tells us.
Power isn't everything. Dhar is good if you want maximum biggatons for minimum investment, but we've already established its kind of shit for making anything lasting, and it just likes to destroy, so using it for anything other than killing lots of your enemies is just to show off.
You can get better function for less squeeze if using a more appropriate Wind. Or Qhyash if you want high complexity, stable functionality that uses Skill rather than Will.
Y'know, is it ever explained in canon how Nagash got so good at using Dhar without being driven completely insane? (IIRC, Nagash doesn't really suffer from Dhar insanity so much as Pre-existing Extraordinary Hubris)
Edit: I also kinda wonder what percentage of Delves go mad (or rather, get killed the moment dhar breaks out of their willpower meme cage) in training?
What we know is basically:
-Uncontrolled Dhar - You become erratic, and arbitrary.
-Controlled Dhar - You become arrogant and absolutely certain(which you need to be to wield it in controlled form)...which he already is.
I'm honestly shocked by how little traction the knight has gotten and how enthusiastic everyone is about Badass Merchant Guy. This is probably a combination of "people who know more about the setting have reservations about the Brettonian thing" and "people who were hyped about Steward and expanding the EIC wanting another mercantile type around."
But she's so cool. Mad respect for someone whose response to society censuring her for trying to be a good person was to flip them off and do the same thing, only harder and for other people.
She'd still be around even if not the leader. Just outside our purview. I expect she'd wind up being outrider leader by dint of qualifications.
Problem with going for a legend is that Mathilde will not be doing anything that needs legendary item. No heroic battles. No personal defence against of great evil. No changing tide of battle. Getting something like that and not putting it to suitable use is a bit of insult. Having legendary weapom will make people expect Mathilde to do legendary deeds. Not something we would want.
...but we've been doing those deeds without a legendary item to begin with? We don't expressedly seek out such things but when opportunity presents itself we seize the moment.
Brave + Blooded + Practical means that if Mathilde sees a target she could kill, is worth killing, and not outright suicide she'd take a shot.
Once it's properly established I'll probably hold a vote to decide access policy.
Looking at her collection thus far, it probably shouldn't be a problem to allow on-request access for our minions or fellow councilors.
Broader access than that would be a tough sell though.
Actively inviting Chamon to rearrange your thought patterns is perhaps something that should be considered carefully, after all the time and effort Mathilde has gone through to align her mind with Ulgu.
It'd probably be a better purchase if we hired a trusted non-mage to be our scribe or secretary first. The boost would be useful then.
Not sure if worth it though!
The reality of the situation is that this particular king has deployed us to scout, sabotage and assasinate behind enemy lines multiple time to great effect, and during the reclamation campaign us assasinating enemy leadership was critical to sucess of several operations.
There is no reason for him not to deploy us in the future just because we now sit on the council. This is war, and we are good at it, so he will use us.
I fully expect that his first action during a major offensive would be
[Y] deploy Weber to soften the enemy before the attack
As we are not in the military, we will not be used as a field commander. But no matter where we are serve, we will still be used as a hero unit.
For instance, take Wilhelmina back during Abelhelm's rule. She was the Steward, but when he goes out to kick ass he takes her along to use her gunnery skills.
When shit goes down the Council goes to war.
A longsword is a two-handed sword, and they were used perfectly well on battlefields throughout history. Same goes for arming swords (one-handed swords). Larger swords have their place, but they're not automatically better and they come with their own problems- you can't use them with a shield, they're more fatiguing to use, etc. Though honestly, on a battlefield? You probably don't want a sword as a primary weapon anyway, especially not if you're going up against armoured enemies. Axes, polearms, etc, might not be a pretty or easy to carry, but they tend to be more lethal against any enemy with decent protection.
Yeah, the longsword is an amazing secondary weapon, because its okay at basically everything, if your main weapon isn't applicable a longsword usually is.
Which is how it fits in for Mathilde. Its the weapon she uses when "things have gone tits up" and she needs a reliable, universally applicable tool.
My interpretation of Mathilde's combat toolkit:
Primary weapon - Surprise/Stealth. When Mathilde CHOOSES a fight, its usually with this in mind.
-Magic - When dealing with multiple opponents and she can set up a good casting to take maximum advantage of environmental features.
-Pistol - When dealing with a single opponent at a time and she has time to aim and shoot.
-Sword - When silence is needed and she can get right up to the target, the sword does reliable, almost always lethal damage on hit with minimal noise.
Backup weapon - When things have gone to shit.
-Magic - Ulgu is very bad as a backup weapon. Most of the spells are to construct or function in specific circumstances. Shadow Knives would help a bunch.
-Pistol - She could get eight shots out of this quickly...then she'd need to reload and theres not usually time for it.
-Sword - Reliable and devastating when things have gone to shit. Sometimes she need to stab hard targets, sometimes she needs cleaving blows through multiple soft targets, sometimes she's using a kilo of edged metal to pound through wood.
Mmm, well, so long as the Skaven can't do the same, or the damn rats don't go to them for whatever reason. The relationship between "regular" rats and Skaven is uncertain but it's there.
Last we know the Skaven lack the spell to enable diplomacy.
Certainly with their culture they aren't likely to try.
I got the phrase "warpstone hurts spider tummys" stuck in my head.
Note that spiders eat by liquifying their prey's innards with poison/acid and then sipping at the slurry. It SHOULD be relatively safe for them to eat Skaven, because most Skaven don't have enough Warpstone to eat that their innard juices are going to have a significant warpstone charge. Most of the crap would be on their fur.
Even if the sword wasn't up to receiving it, I would still vote for Reforging.
Reforging is what Belegar stands for. It's what Karak Eight Peaks stands for.
And I heartily agree with his stance that the future can be salvaged, that old glories can be regained.
And making a physical symbol of his victory gives weight to his claims. A symbol is something you can rally behind, and a gromril symbol is a statement in and of itself.
This isn't "make a nice statue". It's "show the goddamn world you were right. That it can be done."
It's not remotely the same.
This fellow has been dead three thousand years and counting.
That was giving a grieving father his daughter's things.
You are voting for a random clan in a random Hold suddenly getting a gift.
Argument has swayed me. Vote edited.
If she's actually on the Quest, she can't be the leader.
We don't actually know enough about the Bretonnia of this quest to say for sure. Its a possibility however, because
she considers herself on Quest.
You think the guy who takes every opportunity possible to talk about his Morrite Priestess Great-something-or-other Grandmother is going to be Sigmarite?
I think he's Imperial and the Imperial average is to follow every Imperial god at different times, but Sigmar more than most.
Most people don't have a strong personal relationship with their god.
I wonder if it would do anything bad to dwarves to melt down an Ironbreaker's armor, thereby invalidating the Grudge- that is, there is now some dwarf out there who will never be able to fulfill their Grudge to recover their X person's armor from the Skaven?
It's not like Belegar is buying Throgrim's party line and there are so many Grudges this one is chump change besides, but it sounds like an awkward thing for a Dwarf King to do.
If I got my dwarf interpretation right the Grudge is against the Skaven who took it to begin with(unidentifiable), the Skaven warlord they were fighting for(unclear), or the Skaven Empire in general. Melting down the armor to make stuff may require compensation, dwarfs rarely refuse such things to each other.
But I wouldn't worry too much, Belegar knows these things even if we don't, we can advise, but he would take what he decides.
Two bottom rooms might be a library and a storage room for any spare junk that isn't critical (or maybe a second bedroom for any Journeymanlings that stay the night.) Further up will probably be dedicated labs and possibly a Vault Of Things We Really Want To Be Kept Sealed.
My thoughts is probably:
Up(Tower 1):
-Study. We want a bonus to book research and while we don't want the library proper to be exposed to elements, reading would probably be nicer in the Tower portion. ALSO backup sleeping area if we're renovating our sleeping area.
-Workshop. Where we work on enchanting and stuff. I'm not sure if we want it in Tower 2 where we're focusing a lot of magic or if we want to separate our magical mishap zones physically.
-Eight Peaks Observation Point. We'd probably want magically projected zoom lenses here and a LOT of open space in every direction to maximize the optics.
Up(Tower 2)- Waystone network extension goes here:
-Laboratory. Next floor up, we want this as far from the rest of the mountain as we can after all, and easy access to air to vent, without simultaneously having to vent stray magic through more delicate stuff or worse, venting anywhere past the vault.
-Ritual chamber. Next floor up. High energy magic goes here if we do those. Got a nice commanding view of the area to target things with. I'm not sure if we want it to be a third tower or part of the second.
Penthouse: Sitting Room/Audience chamber. This is where we'd let other people in.
Down1:
-Library. The topmost 'down' floor so we can set up mirrors to bring natural light inside without exposing it to the elements.
Down2:
-Vault. Where we secure our important stuff, nobody but the builders ever see it. No branches from this, and it should be hidden behind our smut.
-Residence. Where we sleep. If we have more people living with us like an apprentice or Wolf grows big enough we'd convert this into a living room/hub and dig further down.
If I recall correctly, this is not quite the case; rather, it was mentioned that we could spend additional favor to request that it be made of Gromril, and that we would have to wait until new Gromril was discovered before the weapon could be created (what with Gromril being so rare that there is simply not any ore that has not already been allocated for one use or another, hence this vote to reforge the armor). If we were to request the sword anyway, it is possible that it might be made out of a substandard material were Gromril not available.
Naw, Gromril is strictly "you want it you go find it" and "don't waste it". The dwarves won't MAKE a gromril weapon at below 10 Favor quality
