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[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
[X] Prince Gotri, who will seize any excuse to talk about his gyrocopters.
[X] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.

[X] The best reading chair ever.
 
Or everyone thinks that you're not an idiot and the dead Emperor was, because it's such an obviously bad idea to have a hereditary Emperor if you're an Elector.
Elector-Counts absolutely do not care about having effective dynasties of the Emperors. Why should they? They are practically rulers of their own countries, and the Emperor's authority over them is quite limited, and any attempt to expand that authority is going to be met with a united front of all other Elector-Counts resisting, which the Emperor can't overcome. So I see no reason why they wouldn't get favors from the Emperor for voting for his heir, and then abiding that deal when the time comes, because it's actually not that big of a deal.
 
[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] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
[X] Wilhelmina, to see how she's going when she's not a terrifying financial juggernaut.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).

[X] On display in the Duckling Club.
 
But on the other hand, I don't see why it would so hard to prove she was Countess Gabrielle. I'll remind you,, Gabrielle wasn't a recluse! She openly held court on a daily basis, settling the complaints of sheep farmers and townsfolk. There are literally thousands of people who could testify, "Yeah, the Empress looks exactly like our former Countess!"

I suspect that if you were to try you'd find that their memories of their facewere such that they couldn't make a positive identification.

Elector-Counts absolutely do not care about having effective dynasties of the Emperors. Why should they? They are practically rulers of their own countries, and the Emperor's authority over them is quite limited, and any attempt to expand that authority is going to be met with a united front of all other Elector-Counts resisting, which the Emperor can't overcome. So I see no reason why they wouldn't get favors from the Emperor for voting for his heir, and then abiding that deal when the time comes, because it's actually not that big of a deal.

Because having a hereditary Emperor eliminates the chance that one of their descendants will sit on the throne, and very predictably leads to them becoming just Counts, not Elector Counts, over the medium term. Particularly as this Emperor has apparently claimed the authority to appoint Elector Counts, which is also a severe threat, as that's the wrong way around.
 
Not and also be old enough to be capable of impersonating a vampire eighteen years ago in quest. Also, good makeup requires knowledge that hasn't been developed yet. Look at what Renaissance makeup could actually do. It's very artificial looking.

No, it's really not that incredible. Especially when you remember that in Warhammer world, Hero-level people tend to age really, really well anyway, Not immortal, but stay very strong and vital for a long time. A touch of divine favor weighing the scales and it just doesn't seem that implausible to me.

Remember, we're talking about seeming as little as 15 years younger than she actually is. That's not such a crazy thing.
 
@BoneyM, does Mathilde believe that she would be able to pass enough of the resquisite tests to become a Magister Lord roght now if she expeneded the great deed to do so?
 
Boney, you magnificent Bastard! Same to you, Ranald, and double for "Heidi"´!

The rantings are cut off mid-sentence, and only a single line appears below:

The results are conclusive. Nagash's Art cannot be safely wielded by even the best of mortals. May his Morr be more merciful than Usirian.
Also from what I can tell he basically mercy killed Frederick at the end, at least judging by how the writing cuts off.
Would be my understanding as well. And can I just say called it? I theorized about something like this two-three chapters ago? I guess about 1000 pages ago, considering thread speed...


[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
I am willing to tactically purge everything beneath this line, if need be, because holy [bleep]. THankfylly, you guys seem to agree so far, so there will probably be no need ;) . And having the ear of the empress can't be bad, no matter the details (but msotly, I just want to know more).
_________________________________________________________

[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Roswita, as she tries to wrap her head around the influx of Battle Wizards.
I want something with Roswita. Will probably return and remove whichever isn't winning, because there are too many choices to go double on little Rose.

[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
SOmeone else I want to know more about
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
Gloating and grumpy, the best kind of grumpy.
[X] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania
If alive, to talk with. If dead, to bury in hallowed ground and give a worthy farewell.
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, Grand Master of the Winter Wolves of Ulrikadrin
To keep him just a bit on his toes, and remind him that there's still a Grey Mage in town.
[X] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiousity about Prince Ulthar.
Ulthar. What are you doing? And have you met my awesome friend, I think you'd like him XX

Some less important votes, but I try not to forget anything
[X] The best reading chair ever.
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping
 
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[X] The best reading chair ever.
[X] A bathtub, an even better place for reading.


[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Roswita, as she tries to wrap her head around the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
 
Vote updated:

[X] Loremaster: Expert on weaving

[X] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiousity about Prince Ulthar.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).
[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] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to pry a shipwright loose from Barak Varr.
[X] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.
[X] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.

[X] On display in the Duckling Club.
 
Just as a reminder....





The implication here would be that the original Countess Gabriella von Bundebad was indeed a vampire, but that since '62 (it is now '80 so 18 years ago) a mortal took over and faked being her. If true, that mortal would be the supposed "Countess Gabriella" we met back in Sylvania and who is now the Emperor's wife.

A Chosen Priestess of Ranald with access to miracles from Ranald would seem just about the sort of person with the magical mojo and Intrigue ability to pull that off outside of a Grey Wizard.

That said, it must have been a tense moment for her! Remember that at last meeting she had been smugly pretending to be a vampire to Mathilde. If she hadn't managed to get in the literal secret handshake before Mathilde's befuddled mind made the connection, Mathilde might have said something... deeply unfortunate and blown the whole deal.

I'm not saying we want to blackmail the Empress exactly. I'm just saying we have access to damaging information that could destroy her if we decided to throw it around and she should therefore think hard about being our friend.
GIven how much of an unknown she is, how skilled a socialite she probably is, and quite possibly how much pull she has with Ranald I am not at all a fan of the idea of trying to match up our reputation and goodwill against hers
Lets not
 
No, it's really not that incredible. Especially when you remember that in Warhammer world, Hero-level people tend to age really, really well anyway, Not immortal, but stay very strong and vital for a long time. A touch of divine favor weighing the scales and it just doesn't seem that implausible to me.

Remember, we're talking about seeming as little as 15 years younger than she actually is. That's not such a crazy thing.

I'm not sure that human heroes do age slower than normal. Magisters apparently do, but they're special.

I think we're looking at her looking more like twenty plus years younger.
 
Let's stop this train before it even starts. We are absolutely and unambiguously immune to the corruption of dhar. There have been multiple explicit WOG on this. I don't support learning dhar ourselves, but there are no ifs and buts about it.

This just means that our belt is far better than anything Vlad had access to in the Dhar protection area. Maybe he should have hit up the dwarves rather than messing about in Sylvania. It certainly worked for us.

I'm pretty sure that @BoneyM told us "Mathilde won't suffer poison or corruption from using dhar, but running dhar through your mind as you need to to manipulate it is going to leave a mark"

But in the end, even if our immunity is absolutely comprehensive, we Still shouldn't touch it, because it's a breach of Article Seven, and at this point we can't let our legacy be cast into doubt.

Anyway, on the topic of the Great Deed, I'm in favor of keeping it in our pocket while we round our build up, pick up the skills we need, and then if we still haven't been promoted, we use it for that. Becoming a Wizard Lord is the next big step in our career, and it opens up a lot of doors that are currently closed--like access to the magic concealment stuff that we theorized existed.

Oh, huh, another question @BoneyM. While spending Favor to get a wizard staff isn't viable at the moment, would spending it to get a suitable material to make our own be viable?
 
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[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).
[X] Barak Varr, to watch the progress of the canal.
[X] Roswita, as she tries to wrap her head around the influx of Battle Wizards.
[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 Amber College, to see how your donation of Lustrian eggs is going.
[X] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[X] Wilhelmina, to see how she's going when she's not a terrifying financial juggernaut.
[X] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.
[X] Check in on the Gong Farmers and the Niter Factory.
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.
[X] A bathtub, an even better place for reading.
 
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The results are conclusive. Nagash's Art cannot be safely wielded by even the best of mortals. May his Morr be more merciful than Usirian.

The most important line in the entire Liber Mortis. If we ever end up fighting Vlad (and thus likely to need to use the Second Secret or else probably lose) I feel like he'd go "ah you've read my co-authored book, what part of it did you think was the best, there's not many I can ask about it, you know." and I totally see Mathilde quoting this line to him.

Anyway the Second Secret is one of those 'In case of necromatic apocylpse' sort of uses. We should spend an action on it just to know how it goes, but other than that we save it for 'And then 10 elder vampires show up with their zombie armies' sort of situation. Or we end up fighting Vlad. I'm pretty certain from the discussion about it that using the Second Secret once is 'fine' and people won't really notice, but we can't use it in our fighting style because people will absolutely notice 'hang on you're breaching the article'.

Now I'm pretty sure people are far more forgiving of breaking the rules when we uh, wipe out an entire army of elder vampires+zombies marching down the streets.
 
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It's almost like Vlad isn't a legendary runelord.
Yeah, if you replaced 'Kragg' with 'RuneKing Superman' it'd be about as accurate. Thorek took centuries to develop his experimental rune, and Kragg knocked out an arguably better one in a year or two, and it wasn't even a Master rune or anything. It's a bit weird to think about, but Kragg isn't a Magister Lord equivalent, he's like the Supreme Patriarch.

His belt won't save us from Dhar-based supervillainy by dint of supervillainy being how you get better at Dhar, but that's the point of Ulgu Tongs (or the even better option of just not descending into villainy at all, given that the approved colleges can still do basically everything else, up to and including human sacrifice and daemon summoning, apparently).
 
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We should spend an action on it just to know how it goes
No we shouldn't. We know it's effective. It'd still be breaching Article 7 to practice.

For the pure pragmatics among you, there's also the fact that the only realistic place to find Dhar constructs we can just Second Secret at is Sylvania, which is now going to be inundated with wizards.
 
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Because having a hereditary Emperor eliminates the chance that one of their descendants will sit on the throne, and very predictably leads to them becoming just Counts, not Elector Counts, over the medium term.
First, again, being the Emperor is not actually that big of a deal. It's prestigious, sure, and you are technically in command of the whole of the Empire, but your actual authority outside of your province is very much limited. Second, like I said before, heir being elected is not an assured thing, merely a likely one. There's always grudges, ambitions, changes in politicking, a heir being unfit and so on, so there's always a chance for the position to change - not a huge one, but that suits the Electors fine, because they keep getting favors from the sitting Emperor as long as uncertainty remains. Third, trying to make Elector-Counts just Counts is exactly kind of overreach that would see everyone uniting and rejecting the change, so Electors are obviously not very worried about the Emperor attempting that.
 
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