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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Quest said:
Hmm looking at Alharad's setup the difference between Dhar and normal wind spells seem to be that Dhar gives you battle magic from the start and training only reduces the chance and effects of a miscast. This probably doesn't include the First Secret, but it still seems like Dhar isn't something we want to rely on.

I think it might be worth practicing the Second Secret so that we can use the tongs version reliably to defeat other dhar users but otherwise I don't see any reason to come back to it any time soon.
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Practicing Second Secret is a big old bundle of nope, even the indirect method. Mathilde's convinced herself that reading the Liber Mortis is okay within the rules (if only via a very specific interpretation of them), but Second Secret involves manipulating Dhar which is explicitly forbidden. And that's without getting into all the myriad of issues messing around with Dhar can cause, even if we're protected from direct corruption.

Second Secret. Just say no.
 
Nix's Warden said:
Look mate. She's married to The Emperor. That means she got married by the Grand Theogonist himself in the Grand Temple Of Sigmar. The same one that they use to keep Vlad's casket sealed up. If she was a vampire she would have gotten lit up like a stock of gunpowder in the middle of the Bright College. She MIGHT be a mortal Von Carstein yes, we have no way of knowing, but she is NOT a Vampire. Ranald wouldn't have stuck with her in that case.
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As I said, some vampires give not a single shit about the religious symbols or the disapproval of the gods. Sigmar can get as pissy as he wants and a vampire with the right Blood Gift or alternative weakness would be completely unaffected.

Just like some vampires can walk about in sunlight with no problem, others are no more affected by divine magic than a mortal would be. Just as it doesn't matter how the sunny a day is, it doesn't matter if it's a village priest or the Grand Theogonist himself in the Grand Temple Of Sigmar. They simply lack that particular one of Nagash's Curses that makes them susceptible.
 
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Andmeuths said:
You know, the future Branch College might become the premier center for learning Runic magic among the Colleges of Magic. Naturally, all who are enrolled in those Runic courses are forced to take serious oaths of secrecy, where the breaking of these oaths would lead to their ostracism and expulsion from all of Karaz Ankor.
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Learning? Hell no. Now, Collaborating on projects? That would be far more viable. Way back in the day, the Dwarves and Elves collaborated on stuff and did amazing projects. Obviously, they will never trust the elves again. But humans? Humans can earn trust.
 
chocolote12 said:
With the expansion of Mathilde's No Fun Allowed Field, this is unlikely to ever be required, unless Mannfred shows his nerdy face again. We're rolling >+40 against necromancers and orcs, which is more than what the Patriarch of the Amethyst college was managing. Mathilde is ridiculous at kicking people in the magical shins.
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Now we just need to study theurgy so we can stuff Skaven nerds in lockers and complete the trifecta.
 
prince84 said:
How would that be viewed by the Grand Theologian and the Emperor? I know the Witch Hunters would shit brick houses at the mere thought of wizards out of their direct line of sight.
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As a total, utter embarrassment on the side of Sigmarite Church. Emperor is probably going to ok it if we invest a Gread Deed into it, and will get some Dwarf favour out of it since Wizards are, strictly speaking, his.

More sane witch hunters - of which in Boney's canon there is a fair great number - will reason that if anything, dwarves are good people for handling wizards. Other will petition to extend their rights and infrastructure into K8P. The nutsos are nuts, you can guess about their reaction.
 
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SITB said:
Second Secret isn't tongs, it's a 'spell' where you use a bit of dhar to cause a chain reaction. Using it means breaching the articles and using dhar.
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Second secret has two versions. One is done directly using dhar, the other is done by using using ulgu/wind as tongs. The second is harder but far less corrupting.
 
Slamming a thumbtack into a bit of cardstock on my conspiracy board that reads "Ranald has manifested a sliver of himself as the Empress' baby???"

Red line connects to another card which reads "Baby!Ranald grows up to scam Shallya again and now there's two of Him!?!?!?"
 
BoneyM said:
Frederick's predictions and Vlad's notes indicate that it's the Dhar exposure that did it, and that there's no practical way to use Necromancy on a large scale without suffering from Dhar exposure.
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Unless you happen to have a Dhar-burning belt from Kragg the Grim. Well, good to know that necromancy remains an incredible bad idea we shouldn't do unless the fate of the Empire and/or the world is on the line, and not something we shouldn't do ever, period. More options are rarely a bad thing.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Prince Gotri, who will seize any excuse to talk about his gyrocopters.
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).
[X] Roswita, as she tries to wrap her head around the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.

[X] On display in the Duckling Club.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.


[x] The best reading chair ever.
[x] A bathtub, an even better place for reading.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).
[X] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiousity about Prince Ulthar.

[X] On display in the Duckling Club.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiousity about Prince Ulthar.
[X] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to pry a shipwright loose from Barak Varr.
[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
[X] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X]Write-In: Panoramia, because you appreciate her starry-eyed wonder and never got to do the big sister thing with your actual siblings
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).

[X] The best reading chair ever.

Edit: Added some dwarves, removed Anton.
 
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chocolote12 said:
Vampires aren't intrinsically anti-divine, you know; only certain weaknesses cause those sorts of reactions. With a sufficiently advanced aethyric cipher, and a far greater expenditure of divine power by the actual god of trickery and deception, putting one over on the Deiter IV of Grand Theogonists wouldn't have been impossible.
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Yes, but I'm pretty sure that Ranauld wouldn't back a vampire, and we got legitimate Godly vouching for her.
 
chocolote12 said:
I'm baffled, but not positively. Given her possible connections with the conspiracy, she might yet have a sword coming her way.
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TempestK said:
Counterpoint. She's pregnant.
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ADarkerPorpoise said:
Slamming a thumbtack into a bit of cardstock on my conspiracy board that reads "Ranald has manifested a sliver of himself as the Empress' baby???"

Red line connects to another card which reads "Baby!Ranald grows up to scam Shallya again and now there's two of Him!?!?!?"
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Everyone about the Empress at the moment:



"IS SHE A VAMPIRE OR NOT?!"
 
Quest said:
Second secret has two versions. One is done directly using dhar, the other is done by using using ulgu/wind as tongs. The second is harder but far less corrupting.
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The second secret came immediately after learning the first and only required manipulating dhar. You can probably achieve the same effect by using Ulgu tongs, but it only serves to make the user more resistant to eating dhar corruption by using a proxy. It still remains a bad idea.
 
noliar said:
Individual bees are dumb
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Individual bees demonstrate color discrimination, memory, cognitive mapping of their surroundings, and even abstract conceptualization i.e. recognizing several different examples of something as having a common nature. While I have not read the book myself (I would like to, but it's a textbook and therefore horrifyingly overpriced), I am informed that the reference work The Long Evolution of Brains and Minds by Gerhard Roth makes a convincing argument that bees are more intelligent than octopuses.

Bees are damn smart.

Edit: found the relevant quote:
twocubes on SB said:
To quote the specific passage of The Long Evolution of Minds and Brains (pp. 108-109)

Finally, honeybees are capable of categorical learning, i.e., they learn to assign differently shaped objects to certain basic forms (oval or rectangular, symmetric or asymmetric) or to group together objects with the same pattern (e.g., vertical or horizontal stripes) or assign novel objects to one of the two categories—tasks that animals with giant brains, such as elephants, master only with difficulty or not at all (see Chap. 12). In the same way, bees are able to learn the category ''same–different'' and to transfer this concept to novel stimulus arrangements. Giurfa, Menzel, and their colleagues demonstrated that in the process of such categorical learning, a prominent ''eureka effect'' happens, i.e., after an initially slow learning effect, there is a sudden leap to high learning success (cf. Giurfa 2003).
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This type of learning — where you have sudden ex-nihilo insights as to the nature of a problem — is extraordinarily rare in nonhuman animals. And, in humans, it is seen as having... something of a mystical nature, if you're into that sort of stuff.

I mean. People call it divine inspiration when it happens in humans. Bees also have it.
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Alratan said:
As I said, some vampires give not a single shit about the religious symbols or the disapproval of the gods. Sigmar can get as pissy as he wants and a vampire with the right Blood Gift or alternative weakness would be completely unaffected.

Just like some vampires can walk about in sunlight with no problem, others are no more affected by divine magic than a mortal would be. Just as it doesn't matter how the sunny a day is, it doesn't matter if it's a village priest or the Grand Theogonist himself in the Grand Temple Of Sigmar. They simply lack that particular one of Nagash's Curses that makes them susceptible.
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Adding to this if she is a Lahmian, having the blessing of a god of deception is one of the few things that I could imagine would make one of Neferata's brood confident in betraying her. Even the Queen of Vampires is not a god, nor can she easily match the might of the Empire of Man, that is now protecting 'Heidi'.

Just to be clear I'm not saying she is a Lahmian, just that she could be.
 
Having a grand old time thinking about how inauspicious it might seem to Roswita that so shortly after she says this
BoneyM said:
She looks down at the ledger again, and then at the head. "I'm beginning to understand what he saw in you. In what Magnus saw in your kind."
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this happens
BoneyM said:
WHEREAS, it has come to the attention of His Majesty Emperor Luitpold I that the Imperial Citizens of Eastern Stirland are suffering under the yoke of Vampiric Oppression;
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Roswita: Hmm. Perhaps my father was correct, and some of you daemon wind using mages are not so nefarious in all respects as I had once believed.

Emperor Luitpold I, loudly, all the way from Altdorf: OH, SO YOU'RE SAYING YOU LOVE WIZARDS NOW? YOU'RE SAYING YOU WANT ME TO SEND A WHOLE BUNCH OF WIZARDS WIELDING DANGEROUS AND UNSTABLE MAGIC TO YOUR LAND? WELL, IF YOU INSIST, ELECTOR-COUNTESS.
 
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