I can get behind that, but we would be doing research in our own shoddy lab (in the corner of our own living room), not in a communal one. I'd say we're fine opsec-wise.
Poking with potentially dangerous (when prodded) Wisdom Asp Juice in our own living room, full of our very expensive book collection creates a really iffy mental image.....
While I understand the benefits of a bonus grey wizard, I'm far too paranoid to ever allow one near us for a prolonged time while we are reading Liber Mortis.
Then a Julia figure from another College, or even the EIC will suffice. Ideally, it isn't a fellow Magister, but a Journeyman instead. I would love it if Panaromia could serve as one, but I'm not sure if she has what it takes for it. IIRC, Julia saved Mathilde quite a good chunk of AP back in Stirland.
Then a Julia figure from another College, or even the EIC will suffice. Ideally, it isn't a fellow Magister, but a Journeyman instead. I would love it if Panaromia could serve as one, but I'm not sure if she has what it takes for it. IIRC, Julia saved Mathilde quite a good chunk of AP back in Stirland.
Alas poor Collegiate, if only we'd taken it and pushed hard on overstocking our wizards so that it'd be eligible for upgrading to a 1:4 ratio on actions to wizards! A mere 2 actions to cast our magical web over K8P is honestly Pretty Amazing sounding haha.
Alas poor Collegiate, if only we'd taken it and pushed hard on overstocking our wizards so that it'd be eligible for upgrading to a 1:4 ratio on actions to wizards! A mere 2 actions to cast our magical web over K8P is honestly Pretty Amazing sounding haha.
Alas poor Collegiate, if only we'd taken it and pushed hard on overstocking our wizards so that it'd be eligible for upgrading to a 1:4 ratio on actions to wizards! A mere 2 actions to cast our magical web over K8P is honestly Pretty Amazing sounding haha.
I'm sure the push for Collegiate would be stronger this time around, unless there's another shiny Mystery Box like Avatar dangled infront of us. But yes, a few turns of grappling with AP starvation probably would start to make Collegiate a very attractive prospect. IIRC though, the battle-lines were already drawn by the time I got to voting, but Collegiate was one of the very tempting options.
You know, if we can somehow crit the Johann situation and establish a strong working relationship with him (acknowledged, much of the thread disagrees that it's possible, but I presume that those that voted for the two Gold Wizards at least think it can be done), I wonder whether we'd get a bonus progression to the Collegiate Skill-tree line.
I would welcome tips on how to write/format fragments with a lot of direct speech in them. Mashing them in one big block makes it impossible to understand who says what and formatting like I did below transforms a text into pile of spaghetti.
Second question - should I format internal thoughts (Mathilde's musings on Elspeth's Unraveling) as a direct speech?
In the bowels of castle Templehof two figures sneaked from shadow to shadow. Mundane eyes would struggle to distinguish between them in such a poor lightning, but to a more sophisticated form of perception one would appear grey and other amethyst.
"I really appreciate your help in this task, Dame Mathilde," said one of them, "This necromancer was a thorn in the side of our Order for a long time."
"It is an honor to help you, Lord Magister," the other replied, "And I still remember my time in Stirland fondly, I'm glad for the opportunity to further cleanse Sylvania from taint."
"Please, call me Elspeth, there is no need to stand on formalities in this place. And Colleges would be better of if we had more wizards with your attitude," Elspeth added with a slight smile.
"As you wish, Elspeth. But only if you will drop the "Dame"," Mathilde answered.
After some minutes of silent advance, they hit a snag - a group of wights blocking their way, illuminated by torches on the walls.
"Can you sneak us past that, Mathilde?" asked Amethyst Matriarch.
"Not easily," Mathilde grimaced, "Too little space, too much lightning. Significant chance for this to go wrong."
"Well, we are close enough anyway. Time to go loud," said Elspeth, forming some kind of Shyish weave and hurling it at the undead.
The one impacted fell immediately, all traces of Dhar violently expunged from his body. Some kind of Shyish wave rippled outwards, replicating the effect on his comrades nearby. Wights fell one after another, but each one struggled longer before falling and Mathilde quickly realized that those on the fringes of the groups will likely able to resist it entirely. Not waiting for them to gather their bearings she rushed forward, runic blade slicing metal and bone with equal ease. In a handful of seconds it was over and only inanimate bones remained where elite warriors previously stood.
"They didn't exaggerate your prowess, did they?" Elspeth asked, "Sight good enough to understand what Unraveling does, mind clever enough to calculate which ones would be unaffected and reflexes quick enough to do something about it. A pity you aren't an Amethyst, you would go far in our Order. By the way, what do you think of my invention?"
"It is certainly an impressive bit of spellwork, although I couldn't help but notice that it requires a great deal of power to be as effective as you just demonstrated" Mathilde half-lied.
It would be impressive in the eyes of any other wizard, she thought to herself running after Elspeth through the halls of Templehof, but after reading Liber Mortis she could only think of it as crude. It looked like someone tried to recreate Grand Theogonist's feat from hearsay without actually understanding Second Secret and theorizing that his results were only possible because Sigmar granted him enough power to do so. The fruit of that research was a brute force method that pitted wizard's Wind against Dhar in targets. It was clever in its ability to transfer surplus power from target to target until it was exhausted, but exhausted it will be. If Second Secret was a gunpowder explosion, then this method was more alike to ripples in the pond caused by a thrown stone. Bigger stone will cause bigger disturbance, but it will still fade with distance and time.
Mathilde's musings were cut short by their arrival at the heart of the castle - the throne room which necromancer used as his lair. It was full to bursting with all kinds of undead - skeletons and zombies milling on the floor, wights standing near the throne as a honor guard, ghosts flying in the air, even two Vargheists chained to the throne. And the necromancer himself, cackling on the throne while giving the signal for his forces to attack, no doubt preparing for some gloating speech.
"Shit," hissed Mathilde cutting down a group of zombies, "Whoever told you that this place is nearly unguarded is either a blind moron or a traitor who really didn't want you to return."
"A succinct summation," Elspeth answered, "and since blind idiots rarely become Lord Magisters it seems I'll need to clean house after that expedition is over. Returning to the problem at hand - can you snipe the loon from here?"
"Not with all these ghosts in the air," Grey wizard scowled, "They will ablate any shot not made from a cannon and we sadly forgot to bring one with us. What about your battle magic?"
"Same problem. And Unraveling his horde would take too long and leave me completely exhausted. It seems we'll have to retreat while we still can," Elspeth concluded sourly.
The thought of this didn't sit well with Mathilde. The necromancer was right here - a blight on the face of the Empire, the face of the world. Another just like this one took Abelhelm from her and who knows how many will die at the hands of this madman's minions if they retreat now. She didn't want to reveal, but sometimes you do what you must, not what you want. It was time to take the plunge.
"I'll take care of the undead, ready your best shot at the necromancer," Mathilde whispered, "Three seconds."
And then it happened. Mortal human used the Second Secret of Dhar first time since Vampire Wars. It was just as impressive in practice, as it was in theory. In a couple of seconds a hall full of undead became a hall full of charred bones in a giant conflagration of Dhar. Elspeth's eyes widened in astonishment while the necromancer choked on his inane ramblings and frantically tried to summon more help. Unfortunately for him Amethyst Matriarch was much faster on the draw and forewarned besides. One incantation later and his lifeless husk slumped motionless on the throne. After that the most powerful human wielder of Shyish turned to Mathilde and all casualness was gone from her manner. It was not just "Elspeth" anymore, but Lord Magister Elspeth von Draken, Matriarch of the Amethyst Order.
"I take my words back, " she said musingly, "It is a good thing you are not in my Order. Because if you were, I would have to conclude that you are the most talented necromancer of our age and hunt you down. And it would be such a waste. Fortunately for you, you wield Ulgu, not Shyish, and thus, taking into account all you did for the Empire and its allies, I am willing to let it slide... On one condition."
"What condition?" Mathilde squeaked, her voice betraying her.
"You'll teach me how to do that," answered the Matriarch, gesturing at the throne room.
"Well," Mathilde thought, "It could have been worse."
AFAIK, Elspeth's Unraveling is my own invention and is not supported by canon. But I thought that Amethysts would certainly try to replicate Grand Theogonist's trick, but without knowing enough of Dhar the reasonable (but mistaken!) assumption is that Sigmar supplied the power and the real "trick" is in figuring power transference - how to apply that power to dispel whole army instead of a single undead. In this omake's timeline Elspeth came with such a method. It depends heavily on the wizard's power, but allows strongest of them to reliably destroy undead en mass without risks associated with battle magic. IF you back this method with a power of a god, you could theoretically destroy whole army that way.
I think that is unlikely, primarily because that would mean stealing the work of a Grey Wizard who is your boss and casually goes for walks in enemy territory while he himself is doing something that is potentially rather questionable in enemy territory.
Basically if Mathilde wanted to she could make him disappear without any issues.
I think that is unlikely, primarily because that would mean stealing the work of a Grey Wizard who is your boss and casually goes for walks in enemy territory while he himself is doing something that is potentially rather questionable in enemy territory.
Basically if Mathilde wanted to she could make him disappear without any issues.
While that's true but I wonder how long he have the rank of Magister and does he have a strong network across the Collages, sure we have powerful friends but magic academia would be a cut-throat world.
While I understand the benefits of a bonus grey wizard, I'm far too paranoid to ever allow one near us for a prolonged time while we are reading Liber Mortis.
That's why we need to get to the scale where we can found a College Chapterhouse, at which point it's an organisation we can run for half an action as we no longer have to give individual instructions and just give it a broad mission.
While that's true but I wonder how long he have the rank of Magister and does he have a strong network across the Collages, sure we have powerful friends but magic academia would be a cut-throat world.
But that would mean he would have to get out of K8P because there is no way he'd be allowed to stick around afterwards which would mean he can't do his main avenue of research. Plus if it is found out that he stole the research his reputation within the Collages would tank, since no wizard would want to work with someone who is known to steal research.
This is completely mental, but once we're done everything we possibly can with the snake juice, and have a huge sealed vat of it somewhere, I want to do a stupid, destructive experiment.
We take the mirrorbox, and put it in a sealed glass or metal box, and see what happens as the box keeps trying to drip blood into a quickly pressurising container.
Will it explode, sending snake juice miles around, or will it eventually stop producing blood?
This is completely mental, but once we're done everything we possibly can with the snake juice, and have a huge sealed vat of it somewhere, I want to do a stupid, destructive experiment.
We take the mirrorbox, and put it in a sealed glass or metal box, and see what happens as the box keeps trying to drip blood into a quickly pressurising container.
Will it explode, sending snake juice miles around, or will it eventually stop producing blood?
No destructively testing the snake juice maker. It's a one of a kind item and Snake juice is likely to be a consumable used to make magic items capable of doing things that all of the winds individually can and more besides.
No destructively testing the snake juice maker. It's a one of a kind item and Snake juice is likely to be a consumable used to make magic items capable of doing things that all of the winds individually can and more besides.
It's amazing how much better than Belegar our stats are. He has two stats that are better than us, each only by two. We have three stats that are better than his, with our stat total being 28 points higher than him. Then you get into our magic, which adds a ton of power to our character as well.
Over in Belegar Quest, players are tearing their hair out about Mathilde's secret drawback. What is it? Is she a sunlight-resistant vampire? A chaos worshipper? A Nagaroth spy? (Actually, she has the Liber Mortis in her back pocket.)
A Magister does not hide their status without a very good reason. Why did he do it? Why didn't he reveal his status, even in private, once he knew a fellow Magister had taken command of the group?
I'd have to track it down, but I swear that Boney said something along the lines of plausible deniability? Like Journeyman Johann could publish a paper on the technology of a species of nonexistent ratmen and people could scoff and shake their heads at the foolishness of youth and maintain the Conspiracy, while behind closed doors Magister Johann gets slaps on the back.
I'd argue that Dwarfs, Lizardmen, and Elfs are successful finished products, though we don't know enough about the Old Ones to know what they were successes at. Halflings would then be Alpha stage proof of concepts, with Ogres being Beta stages that still needed some fine tuning before completion. I'd put humans at alpha stage as well, though we can't know exactly what the Old Ones were aiming for.
No, all were failed though finished products. Lizardmen lacked initiative, elves were too frail (or too few, forgot their weakness), dwarves too susceptible to daemonic trickery, humans too susceptible to corruption, and halflings too physically weak and magically impotent.
IIRC, Orges were supposed to be physiologically the perfect product, but the Polar Gates exploded and everything went to shit before the Old Ones could give them society and whatnot.
A mere 2 actions to cast our magical web over K8P is honestly Pretty Amazing sounding haha.
