Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Exmorri]

For some reason people are acting like baseline humanity has worth in a world where literally damn near everything else is better.

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Average beastman or orc is dumber, average skaven is weaker, average vampire has a bad case of Dhar-induced insanity, average dwarf is mad about stuff that happened before the Empire was founded, average elf is an elf.

 

[WorldSlayer]

We should consider that the Vampire may not have had our best interests at heart when talking to us. He may have lied partially or entirely. It's entirely possible he's willing to screw us over, maybe mixing in fact and fiction to hurt both us and the other vampires.

The only thing I have to suspect this is metaknowledge but it's a good idea to keep in mind he's as likely to be lying to us as telling the truth.

But your suspicions must be visible on your face, because her smile suddenly widens. "I know that look," she says suddenly. "It's a 'I'm going to check the records when I get back home and see how long there's been a Countess Gabriella in Nachthafen' sort of look."

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Countess Gabriella von Nachthafen was the vampire who taught Ulrika in the Gotrek and Felix series.

Basically if Gabriella was indeed a human who replaced a dead vampire that means this has been quite heavily butterflied. Not impossible of course but it does lend weight to the idea he may have been selling bullshit.

 

[Rafin]

and she killed the noble without knowing the reason why she should kill her,

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We interrogated her in detail and she turned out to be guilty.

 

[Prospalz]

Vampires also get periodically revived if not guarded sufficiently enough, and, lets be honest, nowhere in Sylvania is guarded sufficiently enough.

In forty something years between canonish timeline and now, a lot could have happened; from revival of the old vamp gabriella, to the Mortal Gabriella impressing someone sufficiently to turn her.

 

[ninjafish]

Average beastman or orc is dumber, average skaven is weaker, average vampire has a bad case of Dhar-induced insanity, average dwarf is mad about stuff that happened before the Empire was founded, average elf is an elf.

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Beast men and orcs are stronger, tougher, and live longer, skaven have better technology, magic, and massively better number's.

Vampires are immortal have better magic, have better strength, speed and healing.

Dwarf's are smarter, stronger, longer lived, and have ungodly good crafting.

Elves are mary sues that are better at everything for no reason.

So are lizard men.

Human's only realy advantage is thier ability to be transformed into other better things via exposure to warpy stuff, but most human factions are dumb and refuse to use that ability to the fullest.

A bit of insanity doesn't really seem like a bad downside for immortality and super powers.

I mean it's not like they can't function in society, they are just bit erratic in their emotions, I'm already like that and i function just fine.


I mean the only reason not to be a vampire is if you like dying after less than a century.

 

[Rafin]

Because as it do, not everyone wants every Mystery Box option. I want the shyish books for example but I don't want the other two to win at all, to the point of wanting them less than the other options.

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I meant more in general and for people who are supposedly Mystery Box voters. I also voted only for the Shyish books. But the two of us are not the type of voters @Andmeuths was talking about, at least this time around. Our vote wasn't split off of other mystery box options due to too many options. If the necromancy or the vampire books had been the only mystery option, then we would still not have voted for it.

 

[atrophy]

[X] Proof of the 'College of Necromancy'.
[X] Detailed trade ledgers.

wouldnt mind dragon bones to be honest . And just giving it away for kragg and thorek to create awesome items for eight peaks and some dwarf favor would be reward enough.

Dragon bones are gettable in the future as people have said is the main point against going for them and that they are shyish tainted already.

While sacking the college gets us alot further along the way of wizard lordship and alot of favor and rep and i have already mentioned the trade ledgers points , of money to stirland , corruption purge, eic expansion and weakening the vampires are the main points to be honest. Also we can ask for anything interesting confiscated as long it isnt chaos i think as the reward for turning over the info since stirland favors wont be super useful to us to be honest altough that might be useful for belegar i guess.

 

[Andmeuths]

Because as it do, not everyone wants every Mystery Box option. I want the shyish books for example but I don't want the other two to win at all, to the point of wanting them less than the other options.

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Precisely. But we aren't having much of Shyish Book debate versus Vampire Books, because there really are two very messily tangled up debates happening right now, the first more than the other:

1. Should we even loot any type of Books, to begin with, at the expense of a seemingly more certain reward (ie: Ledgers).
2. What type of books should we loot, to begin with?

In fact, most arguments have been pointed at Type 1 for obvious reasons, when Type 2 is probably the more interesting and unique debate to be had. Presumably, the fun part of multiple Mystery Boxes is the Type 2 Debate, since the Type 1 Debate is actually very much a rerun of the Avatar versus Dis-spell debates, with many of the same arguments being used again (rarity, uniqueness of opportunity, etc), which will definitely crop up the next time another Mystery Box is offered. Multiple Mystery Boxes as it's set up right now is not very conducive to Type 2 debates.

I meant more in general and for people who are supposedly Mystery Box voters. I also voted only for the Shyish books. But the two of us are not the type of voters @Andmeuths was talking about, at least this time around. Our vote wasn't split off of other mystery box options due to too many options. If the necromancy or the vampire books had been the only mystery option, then we would still not have voted for it.

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On an aggregate level though, given this is a 300+ vote thread, the result of being averse to other types of Mystery Box is that no Mystery Box Option really has any realistic chance of winning when multiple Mystery Box options are in play.

Basically if Gabriella was indeed a human who replaced a dead vampire that means this has been quite heavily butterflied. Not impossible of course but it does lend weight to the idea he may have been selling bullshit.

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This was the relevant roll:
[Spite against you vs spite against others: 51 vs 66]

I'm not sure what the breakpoint was for 100% truth, but something tells me that a difference of +15 is more likely to be a mixture of bullshit mixed with truths.

 

[Prospalz]

If we are to be an undead, I'll settle for being an adopted daughteru of Settra The Imperishable.

Tomb Princess Quest ftw. His own kids were a disappointment by all accounts anyway.

/this is a joke

 

[BungieONI]

It actually sounds a bit like degenerate matter to me.

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Its definitely some kind of unusual structure. I'd hesitate to actually call it matter at all like a sword or ore or such. It was never real to begin with and its unreality is fighting with reality after crossing the Snake Bridge. This is also in large part why I think and suppose it wouldn't give a single wit about pressure or temperature changes since its not actually real enough for those to matter.

 

[FlyingScanian]

Beast men and orcs are stronger, tougher, and live longer, skaven have better technology, magic, and massively better number's.

Vampires are immortal have better magic, have better strength, speed and healing.

Dwarf's are smarter, stronger, longer lived, and have ungodly good crafting.

Elves are mary sues that are better at everything for no reason.

So are lizard men.

Human's only realy advantage is thier ability to be transformed into other better things via exposure to warpy stuff, but most human factions are dumb and refuse to use that ability to the fullest.

A bit of insanity doesn't really seem like a bad downside for immortality and super powers.

I mean it's not like they can't function in society, they are just bit erratic in their emotions, I'm already like that and i function just fine.


I mean the only reason not to be a vampire is if you like dying after less than a century.

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I can't tell how serious you are, or just joking, but could you please stop it? It gets tiresome to hear all the time how we should all just lie down and surrender to der übermensch.

Humans might be weak, but humanity, when united against one of these supposedly "superiors"? Yeah, much better odds, and you're not even treated as cattle.

 

[SCO]

Becoming a vampire is pedestrian. Until you're better at magic than the 15 foot tall mutated skeleton-man, you don't get to call yourself a 'transhumanist'. Preferably while looking less grimdork edgelordish.

 

[NSMS]

If we do stop being human, I think it's obvious what we're going to end up as. After all, Mathilde's dwarven infection has already gotten pretty serious- soon it'll be outright irreversible.

 

[Copperscale]

Anyone want to come up with a cunning plan to get all of them?

Like... umm...
[] guard the place with Hammerers so no one gets in, and send for personnel to help transport everything.

 

[BungieONI]

If we're going to stop being human, I think it's obvious what we're going to become. After all, Mathilde's dwarven infection has already gotten pretty serious- soon it'll be outright irreversible.

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A grumbling shade, sometimes a dwarven lass, sometimes a manling woman stalks the Halls of Karag Nar on Ar'Uzkul.

Keep your books close, lest they be taken.

 

[Rafin]

Beast men and orcs are stronger, tougher, and live longer,

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Live longer on average? I'm gonna need some source for that. The average beastman seems to get eaten by a minotaur according to that lore video I saw. Or simply die due to being an average soldier in an endless war against superior foes. And orcs krump orcs all the time.

I mean it's not like they can't function in society, they are just bit erratic in their emotions

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Are you talking about vampires? Because if you're talking about Chaos worshippers, the only ones in lore that have anything resembling a content society are the Southern Norscans. It's actually why I kind of dislike Chaos factions in Warhammer despite being a-okay with grimdark evil factions in many cases. There doesn't seem to be anything interesting or functional in the lore when it comes to their every day life. Kurgans and other barbarians literally seem non-functional beyond sustenance and raiding while chaos cults that are successful seem to inevitably end in bad endings for 99% of their members.

 

[BungieONI]

Anyone want to come up with a cunning plan to get all of them?

Like... umm...
[] guard the place with Hammerers so no one gets in, and send for personnel to help transport everything.

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No.

Because the QM explicitly said No to such plans.

I swear this update is a great showcase for how people don't read everything in an update.

 

[NSMS]

Anyone want to come up with a cunning plan to get all of them?

Like... umm...
[] guard the place with Hammerers so no one gets in, and send for personnel to help transport everything.

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Throw them towards Stirland really really hard.

 

[SCO]

The QM is not one of those wilting flower QMs that bends to asking nicely. Haven't you wondered why the reward options are always 'two options for two rewards of some kind of build out of many'?

It's so the QM can enjoy the blood spilled in his name when one faction (currently the 'i wanted capitalism, not magic' and 'i'm a empire lackey in spite of moving from the empire' alliance) knife fights the rest for supremacy. If it was 1 option for each and 2 rewards, or 2 for 3 rewards, the factions could compromise, but as it is, there is only war.

Just as planned. So nope, you don't get them all with a clever plan.

 

[Boney]

So turning this the other way around: would the Grey College be interested in learning more about the Skaven?

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Absolutely.

@BoneyM if we wanted to use the Deceiver to sneak into Skaven (and/or Greenskin) bases and weave a bunch of lies in order to make them blame each other for all the sabotage we do, or convince them that their fellows are about to backstab them, or just generally cause chaos and disruption using lies... Would that fall under "Psychological Warfare" or would it fall under something like... I don't know. Plotting or Conspiracy or something? Lying? Deception? Just having a high Intrigue in general?

Or if we had to use Night Prowler to sneak in, and thus would have to use raw skills to seed doubt and suspicion, what Skill would we want for that?

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Skaven culture and diplomacy for the former, skaven culture and intrigue for the latter.

@BoneyM

I have some thoughts on the matter of multiple mystery boxes pit against multiple other more conventional rewards (favor, gold, resources, artefacts). In general, I think that there is always going to be a significant proportion of voters who are unlikely to choose a Mystery Box over a conventional option. Meanwhile, there usually isn't a similar contingent of voters rallying against conventional options with seemingly clearly defined rewards. The main reason for this, is that the larger the voter base becomes, the more likely it is that the tendency of voters towards risk aversion becomes increasingly pronounced. And because Mystery Boxes are always "risky" and "uncertain", this means that Mystery Boxes always have to contend with this uncertainty, which means it is very unlikely a thread will ever achieve consensus in privileging a Mystery Box over well-designed conventional options. If I recall correctly, the Avatar trait won with a plurality, not a majority.

Now, if there was only one Mystery Box, as was the case when the Avatar trait was offered at the end of the Karak Eight Peaks Expedition, Mystery Box advocates usually are able to rally enough voters behind that single Mystery Box, to give that Mystery Box a chance of winning. This ironically creates a certain bias in the vote - because there are many more conventional options to a single Mystery Box, most Mystery Box voters rally behind that single Mystery Box, and that is often enough to create a tightly contested vote where the Mystery Box has a chance of winning. But it also means that a second conventional option is often left out in the cold.

When there are multiple Mystery Boxes in play, however, the odds of a Mystery Box winning drops significantly, because the debate over the Mystery Box splits into two very confusing levels that make for messy discussions that usually don't get resolved early within the first few hours of a vote:
1. Should a Mystery Box be chosen in the first place?
2. If so, which Mystery Box should be chosen over others, and why?

What then tends to happen then, is that all Mystery Box options tend to fall far behind. The already limited voter base for a Mystery Box becomes split across the multiple Mystery Box. Now, it might be nice if all Mystery Box voters can be convinced to rally behind one Mystery Box. And in a smaller quest, this is probably much more achievable. But in a very large quest such as this, the odds of such a consolidation happening falls dramatically, because of just how hard it is to coordinate 100 plus voters (the three mystery Boxes in the current vote have 144 votes between them right now).

It also doesn't lead for particularly interesting debates, because alot of these debates basically boil down to rolling the Gatcha for something fun and unique versus going for much more concretized rewards; rather than actually debating and speculating on the unique merits between multiple Mystery Boxes. I don't personally think that relitigating the Avatar vs Dispel debate again with every Mystery Box vote is necessarily going to fun or healthy discussions, given how repetitive such debates are.

In short, if you throw multiple Mystery boxes in play against conventional options, chances are very high that whatever fun stuff you are embedding in these options is going to be passed over, and it's going to happen on very repetitive argumentation lines. Maybe the next vote might play out differently. Maybe mystery box voters might rally behind a single Mystery box the next time you throw multiple Mystery Boxes in the arena early on. I personally think it's unlikely though, because rallying behind a single Mystery Box is always going to take time.

Now, I think you should keep offering multiple Mystery Boxes. There is a potential for very fun debates to be had there. But I think if you want those fun debates to happen on the unique merits of a Mystery Box, rather than on the premise of a Mystery Box itself, the best option would be to firewall multiple Mystery Boxes from conventional options. In other words, split the Multiple Mystery Boxes into a separate reward pool from non-Mystery Box options. A future vote might look like this:

1. Regular Rewards: Choose normal traits from the following list of possible traits. The two highest votes will win.
2. Bonus Rewards: Choose a Mystery Box reward from the following list of Mystery Box. The Mystery Box with the highest votes will win.

That way, I think it makes it so that the debate becomes significantly more interesting because we move on from the level of Mystery Box good or Mystery Box bad, to which of the three or four mystery boxes we ought to choose. Anyway, just some thoughts and suggestions on running Multiple Mystery Box votes in the future. I don't know for sure whether future Mystery Boxes votes will play out the way I've described, but if they do, I think that Firewalling Mystery Boxes is one of the methods to make a Multiple Mystery Box vote an interesting, tight contest as opposed to a landslide built on risk aversion.


Finally, congratulations on reaching the 300 vote count mark! Onwards to 400. Thanks for running this amazingly engaging quest!

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Previous experience had convinced me that mystery boxes were catnip for questers. The learning process truly never ends.

 

[ninjafish]

I can't tell how serious you are, or just joking, but could you please stop it? It gets tiresome to hear all the time how we should all just lie down and surrender to der übermensch.

Humans might be weak, but humanity, when united against one of these supposedly "superiors"? Yeah, much better odds, and you're not even treated as cattle.

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Eh fine, can you blame me for singing the song of my people tho?

Anyway's snake juice!

Anyone wanna try to figure out how to make more of it?

Or how to use it to create our own magitech?

Seriously? why the fuck aren't the humies industrializing? this was the i win button for humans IRL!

Fuck nature, it's produces naught but beast men and orcs anyway! Burn it all and replace it magical gun factories!

 

[NSMS]

Absolutely.

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In general terms, how much does the college actually already know about the Skaven? We know they know about the major clans and their focuses, but what do they know beyond that?

 

[BungieONI]

Heh, something else fun fun for many who might have thought about it but Mathilde's style is very well suited to reenacting the Bridge of Khazad-dum. Holding a thin stone bridge over an endless chasm against a Demon from ancient days, is basically one of those things that can leverage her style to its utmost.

Yet more things for the people tracking our Gandalf comparisons can add on.

Absolutely.



Skaven culture and diplomacy for the former, skaven culture and intrigue for the latter.




Previous experience had convinced me that mystery boxes were catnip for questers. The learning process truly never ends.

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Cool!

 

[ChronOblivion]

You resolve to intervene, and watch closely until the most precarious moment and then interrupt with the slightest jolt of Ulgu, which disperses within moments of its work being done.

"Doina," the voice scolds as the ghoul that was rising to its feet shudders as Dhar runs rampant through it. "I know you know better than that. What just happened?" Whatever answer the apparition gets, it doesn't satisfy it, and it reaches out and squeezes the unlife from one of the previously-raised ghouls in frustration. "Just put a rag over it until it stops bleeding! Next up, let's go." Another well-timed nudge, another spell tears itself free of its owner's control. "Ionuţ! Someone check the chart, I'm sure he's on his last chance." One of the ghouls crumples, presumably as its controller abandons it to consult said chart. "That's what I thought. Hold him down- I said hold him! If I have to come over there myself-" The rest of the reanimated ghouls crumple and the silhouette shrinks back in on itself, and as soon as it is reduced to the size of a fist, it shoots off into the sky, heading east.

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On another note, this scene is pretty hilarious to me. Basically, Mathilde is engaging in high school pranking and sabotaging school projects to get them in trouble with the teacher. What a rascal.

 

[Boney]

In general terms, how much does the college actually already know about the Skaven? We know they know about the major clans and their focuses, but what do they know beyond that?

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As far as you know, very little, beyond what can be gleamed from eyewitness accounts of battles and the dissections of a few clanrats. More information might exist but it'd be eyes-only because of the Conspiracy of Silence. Knowing things about the Skaven makes them a greater existential threat to the Empire if they find out you know it.

Seriously? why the fuck aren't the humies industrializing? this was the i win button for humans IRL!

Fuck nature, it's produces naught but beast men and orcs anyway! Burn it all and replace it magical gun factories!

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There's a lot of very good reasons, but one particularly tricky one is that the Warhammer world has almost no fossil fuel deposits.