Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Avoozl]

[X] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to pry a shipwright loose from Barak Varr.
[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] 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] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.

[X] The best reading chair ever.

 

[Omegahugger]

Omegahugger is legion, for Omegahugger is many.

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Maybe we will reach double digits this time!

 

[BungieONI]

I'm pretty sure I remember how this discussion usually goes. Somebody notes that indirect casting is not channeling dhar, some people agree, some people don't, than we ask Boney and they answer "try and find out".

At least it went this way the last time.

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Pretty much, and that's where it is now. And I'm of what I think is the reasonable opinion that trying it out is also reasonable in the right circumstances, but pretty low on the priority list when we have a bunch of other stuff to do and if we do I'm not going to be voting for it because I had an original intent and am trying to stick to it.

 

[TempestK]

But Ranald is a civilized god, not a paragon. Something being especially dark doesn't leave it out of the range of possibility for him.

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There's dark, and then there's a conspiracy that led to the murder of a mother and her unborn child. Which goes straight against Ranauld's aspect of the Protector.

 

[EVA-Saiyajin]

Found the relevant comparison:

. Thankful you erred on the side of comprehensiveness, you put aside all your tomes on known spiders and instead take up Dzierzon's Ants, Termites and Bees, Lorraine's A New Relation With The Hives, the Anonymous Formicidaemon - Possible Parallels Between Insects And Warp Entities, and manage to be only temporarily sidetracked by jotting in corrections in the margins of Waaagh And Hive, which started with half an interesting idea and then flailed helplessly with it for the length of a tome.

With Esbern and Seija only there to cast the spell and take fascinated notes, you have a breakthrough when you finally figure out what it means by Echo. It seems that the intelligence is distributed rather than centralized, which means that if something is to be remembered for longer than the lifetime of a single node, it needs to be told back and forth - hence, Echo, the period before the birth of the current eldest individual (or this-We). With that you're able to get at least a vague account of its origins - for as far back as it knows, it lived around and preyed upon the furred-four-legs who are usually-food, and it would relocate regularly to prevent an organized retaliation. Then one day it must have passed from the Skaven-occupied Underway to the greenskin-occupied Karag Lhune, and found that while the green-four-legs were less reliably prey, they were also less prone to organizing, so it could build up a nest/web/nursery/home to its liking without being dislodged.

A lexicon builds up and a hesitant understanding takes shape. The We is very logical and straightforward - the smaller-not-green-four-legs have taken over from the green-four-legs, and they were not-food, ergo, a no-food was required - a migration. If the Dwarves would allow it to pass, it seems, then it would happily skitter off into the dark to seek new prey. But you also discover the word for an alliance, or at least a non-aggression pact - 'many-food'. When there's plenty of food to go along, We and other-We - other hives of the creature - need not fight. Very straightforward, or at least you think so - Esbern and Seija seem utterly lost. You're quite pleased that you'll be able to present not only victory but a range of options to Belegar when next the Council convenes.

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[ctulhuslp]

There's dark, and then there's a conspiracy that led to the murder of a mother and her unborn child. Which goes straight against Ranauld's aspect of the Protector.

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Death of a noble, if justification is "protection of lower classes" or something, is plausibly within his ballpark. It's not like God of Thieves has too many moral scruples.

edit: like, Protector is

And finally, there is the most thoroughly and enthusiastically suppressed face of Ranald: Ranald the Protector. He is the God of Freedom, of defending the defenceless, assisting the poor, and standing up for the rights of the common man. But when taken to extremes, he is also the God of revolution, equality, and democracy, and as such is a constant danger to the status quo of the Empire. He is worshipped by rabble-rousers, democrats, cells of would-be revolutionaries and groups of brigands that steal from the wealthy to give to the impoverished. These worshippers are much of why the worship of Ranald is outright forbidden in Bretonnia, and viewed with so much suspicion elsewhere.

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It's more of Robin Hood way of protection...or Robespierre way, mayhaps.

 

[chocolote12]

There's dark, and then there's a conspiracy that led to the murder of a mother and her unborn child. Which goes straight against Ranauld's aspect of the Protector.

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We can hope. However, the god of revolutions isn't the god of gentle disagreements that don't get people hurt.

Also, I don't think there's a 'u' in his name, sorry.

 

[Godwinson]

I have to admit that the concept of aggressively befriending someone out of spite so as to engender regret that they weren't immediately your friend the first time around so that you can then take that regret and rub their faces in it is a novel tangle of emotions and drives the likes of which I haven't seen much of before

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Clearly you haven't read PMAS.

 

[BungieONI]

Yea but the people who note that using Wind tongs to manipulate dhar isn't channelling dhar are completely correct. Channelling involves pushing and pulling the wind through your soul. The mindset to use the Tongs is the Ulgu mind set if you're using Ulgu tongs. The dhar exposure from ambient dhar is what corrupts, and the last WoG from BoneyM is whilst not completely conclusive good enough for my purposes. It's the Dhar exposure that fucked up Fredrick, not the fact that he used Shyish tongs. With Kraggs belt we don't have that risk at all.

That's still not a reason to use necromancy though, it is a reason to see if we can pull off Ulgu tongs with other winds.

@BoneyM

Will future turns have options for trying to use Ulgu tongs to learn manipulate other mono-winds with out creating dhar?

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Yeah. Ulgu tongs would be a bit like using waldoes, to extend the hazmat suit metaphor.

 

[Quest]

And I have read it multiple times and my reading of that comparison is establishing the fact that to use Dhar you have to enter a special mindset, like you do to to use the winds.

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He says practicing Dhar takes you to a dark place. "But so does Shyish." He compares the mindset of dhar to shyish. He doesn't say like Shyish. He uses 'but so does Shyish.' He's assuring us that the mindstate isn't inherently harmful to us.

If dhar is researching serial killers for a week, then shyish is working in the morgue for a week. Ghur is literally living in the wild for a week. Gold is becoming a dwarf for a week. All of these are canonical tendencies of those winds if you question where I got those examples from. Check the wiki.

The Dhar mindstate? Not so special.

And you bring up the final line? That's the solution for the normal mental effects from the winds not something specific to dhar. Mathilde does this anyway and all the time for Ulgu anyway.

This is all without taking into account using Ulgu as a mental insulation which the Liber Mortis taught us. Boney has already confirmed that there is no theoretical reason we couldn't manipulate the other winds with ulgu which means that the same must be true for dhar since that is where Mathilde's knowledge in this comes from.

So any needed mental immunity = ulgu-dhar manipulation.
Any other immunity = belt.

 

[NSMS]

Death of a noble, if justification is "protection of lower classes" or something, is plausibly within his ballpark. It's not like God of Thieves has too many moral scruples.

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Even violent muggings are contrary to Ranald's portfolio, IIRC. Murder of an innocent should never be acceptable to him.

 

[BungieONI]

So any needed mental immunity = ulgu-dhar manipulation.
Any other immunity = belt.

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Yeah? I say that.

At least the any other immunity stuff, and I say the ulgu-dhar stuff on this page.

By the way, since we finished Liber Mortis, will we consider having an apprentice?

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After we finish the FC spell book like you mention. Maybe, I'm a bit iffy on it right now since it just doesn't feel like the right time.

 

[Night]

[X] The best reading chair ever.

[X] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.
[X] Prince Gotri, who will seize any excuse to talk about his gyrocopters.
[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
[X] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to pry a shipwright loose from Barak Varr.
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).

As much as I want to know about Heidi, I'm concerned that turning over that rock may lead to consequences or large creepy-crawlies we have to deal with. We don't have to charge into every mystery. We aren't actually the most heavily armed Velma or Daphne ever. We can just drop a note to Regimand or something.

 

[Alratan]

I do wonder what will happen now that the Cult of Ranald has gotten into the highest court.

Like, Ranald isn't a bad god, but he is not really a good one either. (despite our own loyalties)

He is the better side of neutral most of the time. but his worshipers understand that his favour is whimsical and prone to turning at a bad time.

I'm not saying it is a bad thing he is getting more powerful, or a good thing.

just that its a THING

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I'd argue that of his aspects, two are pretty unambiguously bad (Deceiver and Night Prowler), one's neutral tending bad (the Gambler), and ones context dependent (the Protector). On balance, he's not one of the good guys, but it's better to have him in the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent with Khaine and the other proscribed gods, because while he's generally an anti-social parasite on civilization, he's a minor enough problem that it's not worth the cost uproot his cult and worship.

So you mean the dwarves and halflings? Because they're definitely a part of Karak Eight Peaks now. Excluding them from the K8P culture is kinda weird.

And well *gestures at my vote* I'm certainly voting for the dwarves.

Like, look, I'm trying to help you out here by getting you to explain or put out an argument for why people like Edda or Kazrik or Gotri or Belegar or Dreng or Hloudwica are better options than the current winners instead of what reads as not that. I'm sympathetic to the issue because I to actually care about her staying the course because holy cow does that get difficult in some quests and I'm trying to encourage it more in what quests I play in.

Your concern is actually valid, but to get people to accept that you need to argue for it.

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Local and foreign Dwarves, Halfling settlers, Arabyan, Tileans and Estalians merchants and mercenaries, Bretonnian adventurers, Ogres, Cathyans, and the inhabitants of Ind off the caravans from the East. All the world that Mathilde doesn't know and isn't familiar with will be passing through her new home, and it feels like Mathilde hasn't even started getting to know the place or the people there. She knows Stirlanders and wizards, she grew up with first one and then the other, but despite growing to become truly powerful it seems that Mathilde hasn't lifted her eyes to the horizon and seen the true scope of the world she's living in, with the partial, limited exception of Belegar personally, and is still focusing on those people she literally grew up with.

 

[Ganurath]

Gabriella the vampiress was on the list. Gabriella the identity thief, though? She could be innocent, at least where the conspiracy is concerned.

[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[+] The Wizards of Karak Eight Peaks (locked in)
[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, 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] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.

[X] On display in the Duckling Club.

 

[Nahden]

[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
This is basically one of Mathilde's books, only in reality...

[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
Yiisss...

[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.
I like the interactions between Mathilde and Roswita, sue me.

[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
As Redshirt Army memed, 'excuse me what the frick'...

 

[Robotninja]

That's still not a reason to use necromancy though, it is a reason to see if we can pull off Ulgu tongs with other winds.

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Bad idea. I doubt it is possible and it will likely just lead to Dhar.

 

[notanautomaton]

Some more specific analysis on the road to Wizard Lord.

Diplomacy:
Colleges of Magic: You're a native of the academic ecosystem of the Eight Colleges of Altdorf. +1 Diplomacy
Karaz Ankor: You've grown familiar with the ways of the Dwarves. +1 Diplomacy
Advanced Karaz Ankor (1/3)
Stirland: You were raised among the peasants of Stirland, and know their quirks and habits. +1 Diplomacy

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Our Diplomacy is low, both for a Grey Wizard and for a Wizard Lord. This goes doubly for a Grey Wizard Lord. We'd probably want Advanced Karaz Ankor, and training to Advanced Imperial Nobility with the Grey College. That would be a +5, putting us to the level where it's not a liability, and cover the most likely areas we'll need.

Intrigue:
Assassination: You know many ways to end the unsuspecting. +1 Intrigue
Advanced Assassination (1/3)
Advanced Infiltration: It takes significant effort to make it even slightly difficult for you to enter somewhere. +3 Intrigue
Interrogation: You know how to extract information from those that don't wish to give it. +1 Intrigue

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With Advanced Infiltration, our Intrigue is much closer to where we'd want to be as a Wizard Lord. I'd say we're fine for promotion after getting Advanced Assassination, though more skills here would still be significant bonuses for our troubleshooting. In particular, I want Sabotage and Psychological Warfare to increase the enthusiasm of our walks.

Dwarf Reputation: 55
Dwarf Favours: 10
Due to the icy relationship between High King Thorgrim and King Belegar, favours cannot be spent at Karaz-a-Karak.

College Reputation: 37
College Favours: 16
Pending College Favours: Lustrian Eggs, MAP (other Colleges, potentially Lesser Magic)

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We're poised to easily hit 40 College Rep over the next few turns, even ignoring the pending things.

@BoneyM should the Jade and Amber's being interested in adapting the Matrix, the economic benefits of K8P, and the strategic benefits of K8P be under the Pending Favors? And should Great Deeds be tracked in this section?

Moderately Complicated - Magic 3 required to learn, Magic 5 to cast reliably.
U / Cloak Activity: Allows you to perform an action while appearing to perform something entirely different for up to half a minute.
U / Shadow of Death: Makes you seem fearsome to all those who look upon you for one minute.
U / Shroud of Invisibility: Makes you invisible for up to half a minute.

Fiendishly Complex - Magic 5 required to learn, Magic 7 to cast reliably.
P / Illusion: You create an illusion at short range that can look, sound, and smell like anything you want. Requires near-constant concentration to maintain.
U / Shadow Knives: You conjure and throw several knives (scaling with magical ability and mastery of the spell) at a target at short range that passes through any non-magical armour.
P / Universal Confusion: Bewilder, but applies to a whole group at once, up to about a ten meter diameter. Short range.

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We have 5 spells to learn before hitting our next Magic rank, with two of them learnable in a single action and the other three possible in a single college training action.

The only remaining thing we lack is experience, and with a few years of that even not getting the things I've pointed out here probably won't matter.

 

[ctulhuslp]

Even violent muggings are contrary to Ranald's portfolio, IIRC. Murder of an innocent should never be acceptable to him.

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Revolutionaries are plausibly under umbrella of Protector, and those are, uh, never bloodless and at least some blood of revolutions always comes from innocents.
like, Protector aspect is "freedom, equality, liberty", and nothing stops people (or Ranald himself, who knows) from adding to that "by any means necessary".

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

So heading to bed soon, can I say that I'm glad that

[] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.

is making a serious come back for being one that didn't start out early

help it up, people!

FIND WOLDO KASMIR!

 

[soulcake]

Why are people wanting to use the stuff of evil and madness. You are immune to enriched uranium but no one said shit about how other people would feel if they found out youre walkin around throwing irradiated material everywhere.

This is the height of hubris.

 

[Redshirt Army]

I mean, I can't speak for everyone, but I'm totally 100% on board with Ranald. If that requires keeping secrets from the Empire/Grey College/K8P, so be it. I know where my loyalty lies.

 

[Alratan]

There's dark, and then there's a conspiracy that led to the murder of a mother and her unborn child. Which goes straight against Ranauld's aspect of the Protector.

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Not really. She was the ultimate example of an aristocrat. The Protector is the god of revolution as much as protecting the lower classes from the oppression of the upper class. At best Ranald the Protector probably wouldn't care about the Empress or her unborn child, and at worst he'd applaud her death. Remember the extreme branch of Ranaldites who arrange the ruination and death of powerful people for the lulz.

For a given definition of a god having intentions that allows two priests of the same god to call on him to create miracles to help them kill the other in furtherance of a doctrinal dispute. To a certain degree a god has a character based on what their priest believes they are like, as they probably draw on those parts of the god which are compatible with him.

 

[NSMS]

Revolutionaries are plausibly under umbrella of Protector, and those are, uh, never bloodless and at least some blood of revolutions always comes from innocents.
like, Protector aspect is "freedom, equality, liberty", and nothing stops people (or Ranald himself, who knows) from adding to that "by any means necessary".

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As I said, it's my understanding that Ranald doesn't condone violence towards innocents (and even if the Empress didn't count, her child definitely would have), and the new Empress has his favour. The first point makes me very doubtful Ranald would be willing to go along with it, and that means if a cult following him tried it then they wouldn't have his blessing and we know the new Empress does.

 

[Quest]

Yeah? I say that.

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So we are agreed that if Mathilde theoretically wants to learn to dhar she has the tools needed to do so without any personal direct repercussions? (excluding social consequences and dhar exposure to those around us)