Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Garlak]

One action is not some huge amount of time investment for this. Also, it is literally one of the most incredibly efficient actions to take -- one upgrade to the tower, if it succeeds, can guard 6-8 more hours of a day. Every single day.

1 action, for 6 hours more protection? For each day? That's pretty much the most efficient thing ever.

... I mean. I'm not saying that that's exactly how it's going to turn out. It might require multiple actions, or retrying it because the rolls fail. It might require pivoting to an engineering or another Wind to come up with a solution -- heck, if we could somehow scrabble together enough College Favor to shell out for Light Magisters and Magister Lords to come out and build a second tower to supplement the Burning Shadows tower, to collect or redirect all the light needed, I would do that -- perhaps.

But my point is that the assertion of "This is not efficient" is, erm... incorrect.

Like, efficiency -- specifically --is actually one of the things that this, specific, upgrade has going for it?

 

[Shadowatcher]

I think we are at that point actually, but the way I think we should improve our killiness next would take no time at all. Namely, I think we should buy an item bound with either Burning Vengeance or some kind of large area of effect damage spell. If used right, Burning Vengeance could end up pitting to enemy armies against each other, ultimately saving thousands of lives in the ongoing Reclamation. An AoE damage spell on the other hand would greatly enhance Mathilde's ability to do damage to both masses of enemies as well as structures, which let Mathilde have more of an impact overall and would garner her greater glory on the battlefield. (And thus favour.)

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Not a terrible argument, at least in my eyes, but I see two sets of problems: a) the problems raised earlier with Burning Vengeance such as language and finding out the names of our enemies. neither of those are easy, though any Queekish may help somewhat. But already many of our enemies ARE fighting each other, and Burning Vengeance does not work AOE, so we'd have to rely on follow-the-leader for actions without much reasoning; and b) College Favor cost, though also monetary costs. Money we have an OK amount of, though always wise to consider when to spend it, but C. Favor (as I noted) we are in the negative for, which IIRC affects College Rep, which is hard enough to build as-is, and is something I value fairly highly.

 

[BungieONI]

A fair point, though I'm going to have to check whether it is 6 or 8 hours (I just want to reply quickly before more input piles up)

Honestly, 1 action to do that? Yeah, sure. Excellent, honestly. But... I am unconvinced that it will take only 1 action. I'm expecting 3-4, maybe 2 if we are lucky. I'll admit to being able to be convinced on this point moreso than the other points I raised in my huge post earlier.

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In terms of this its pretty easy to buy help with Favor, we're going to be posting a paper shortly and that is nigh certain to generate more favor and solve the negative favor issue. If we get even to one favor we can spend down to -9 next turn to hire a Lord Magister to help and then have three turns to generate that favor back before our Rep starts depleting to fill it back in, when we are drowning in paper subjects. But more than that with Algard's help what we have here is a very useful masterwork to file the edges off of and I expect that since Kragg helped us for free on his own volition here that we have his help with any further actions.

Runecraft light is one of the solutions to the "Magical Light and Burning Shadows don't mix" problem.

 

[Nix's Warden]

personally speaking for Social Votes, I'm going to suggest Belebro, King Kazador, The Human Leader who's name I'm too tired to remember to figure out whats going on with them, Gunnars, and I don't know who else.

 

[BungieONI]

personally speaking for Social Votes, I'm going to suggest Belebro, King Kazador, The Human Leader who's name I'm too tired to remember to figure out whats going on with them, Gunnars, and I don't know who else.

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That'd be Francesco of Tilea, unless you mean the guy who came in chasing that cat when we built the shrine to Ranald in which case that guy's name is Oswald Oswaldson.

 

[NuclearConsensus]

that said, since I am an old man (30 years old! Shock, horror), cannot in fact stay up forever, and have already hit the "extremely punchy" phase of sleepiness, I would like to make the following plea regarding the social turn vote, since I may not be awake to agitate for it when the update hits: please let us hang out with Oswald Oswaldson. He is an interesting human and his cat might be an avatar of Ranald. Mostly, I would like to get to know him a bit more as a person, so we as a thread can see if there's, like, something to him that we might want to engage with on an ongoing basis, or if he's just a meme character.

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Oswald has my vote at least. I feel Matty needs to interact more with the humans in Eight Peaks, the Undumgi especially so we can at least get an idea of how the Dwarf infection has progressed.

 

[HeWhoAdds]

personally speaking for Social Votes, I'm going to suggest Belebro, King Kazador, The Human Leader who's name I'm too tired to remember to figure out whats going on with them, Gunnars, and I don't know who else.

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Johann

 

[B_omega]

I didn't know Malekith selfcest was a popular topic in Drucchi circles.

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As long as its not dicussing Malekith's Mom...

 

[Andres]

Not a terrible argument, at least in my eyes, but I see two sets of problems: a) the problems raised earlier with Burning Vengeance such as language and finding out the names of our enemies. neither of those are easy, though any Queekish may help somewhat. But already many of our enemies ARE fighting each other, and Burning Vengeance does not work AOE, so we'd have to rely on follow-the-leader for actions without much reasoning; and b) College Favor cost, though also monetary costs. Money we have an OK amount of, though always wise to consider when to spend it, but C. Favor (as I noted) we are in the negative for, which IIRC affects College Rep, which is hard enough to build as-is, and is something I value fairly highly.

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Spoiler: Burning Vengeance

All we require is the names, not the languages the targets speak. Getting the names is easy, because these are greenskins and skaven, not daemons. A lack of AoE doesn't matter, as targeting the inevitably well-known generals is all that's required. The items don't cost money at all, just college favour. College favour and rep is easy to get thanks to the Tower of Serenity, which gets us college favour and rep every turn. Negative favour only affects reputation if it stays negative after a certain period of time, so you really really shouldn't worry about it going down, much less vote for anything based on that irrational fear.

 

[picklepikkl]

Oswald has my vote at least. I feel Matty needs to interact more with the humans in Eight Peaks, the Undumgi especially so we can at least get an idea of how the Dwarf infection has progressed.

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That is a really good point.

But, like, I just am now really, really curious about him. Is he a Baron Munchausen type? Is he just a brotastic warrior-goof a la Anton's father or Kazador? Does he have a connection to Ranald, or did his cat just happen to walk in when we were consecrating the shrine? Is there a man behind the memes?

Johann

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He's getting our Duckling action, socialing him on top of that seems kind of redundant.

 

[Shadowatcher]

I mean, I don't think we need magic to do it. "Creating a bright light on short notice," though easier with various forms of magic (though keep in mind that Wind-produced lights and Burning Shadows explicitly do not necessarily get along) is something the Engineers probably have some ideas about. Patching the nighttime hole was only marked as Tricky rather than Very Tricky.

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Ah, ok. Tricky, not very tricky, good point, messed that up. Though it occurs to me that we might want to figure a way, should we do this, to also have the light come from anywhere, a la our "move-the-sun" trick.

I don't think that's likely; I suspect the way Boney will play it is that we will be given an option before the council meeting to say "we're done, give me the next thing" or "no, I'm still working on it." Passing the buck to our boss to make the decision for us is something that's gotten repeatedly shot down; Belegar would be quite justified in saying "look, I'm not qualified to tell you how to prioritize this weird thing you think might be possible, that is literally your job."

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True, but he might have insight into how useful it would be at night: basically, "look, I can either keep working on it, which will take a while, or we can leave the night hole in.
He has a lot more experience than we do (or at least I think he does) in fighting most of these people. Though I will cede the "boney doesn't like that" point, my only defense is midnight brain ain't always the brightest (bah dum tish).

But my point is that the assertion of "This is not efficient" is, erm... incorrect.

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mostly quoting this so someone (theoretically) can follow the conversation trail, but I from mulling on this that you (both you individually and more in general as a group) and I might not be seeing things the same way. I see this as an anti-siege weapon. This isn't something you pull out for much less than an existential threat, at least not the power stones (which you might always need for a surprise crises). And I'm pretty sure this is incredibly draining to use (could be wrong); I do not see this as something that would be of much use against a raid, even a large one. Perhaps very useful, but not vital. This is a secret that is worth saving, in my mind, for the time we cannot otherwise win. We lose a lot of effectiveness should anyone figure out what it does. Once we've used it a few times, TBH, I think the night use gets more important as people learn to work around it.

Also, on a personal note, please either ping or (preferably) quote me, so I know you have referred to my point. I miss things a lot, and it can be a really busy thread.

Congrats, Y'all, you've moved me to mostly ambivalent. mostly. Im still stuck in my ways on the other things from my original post, though.

Edit: I can't spell, nothing vital misspelled though

 

[Karugus]

Oswald just isn't interesting enough for me to care. His cat is privy to Ranald's whims, so what? What cat isn't. It's practically what makes them cats. Meanwhile, we've got joking about grand theft silk sheets with Johann, Kazador, Belebro, Edda so we can feel her out, Gunnars so we can do a sick bro-five over making the greatest Greatsword that's ever been a mountain, Regi so we can tease him about Okkam's Razor...

It's all about priorities. Got to keep what's important in life in mind.

 

[Oksbad]

We could gain an action by winding down our interactions with the EIC, right? Especially since we seem to have nipped some problems in the bud...

 

[Andres]

We could gain an action by winding down our interactions with the EIC, right? Especially since we seem to have nipped some problems in the bud...

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There is to be no relitigation of that argument.

EDIT: Also no, because the EIC stuff is only half an action. We'd also need to disband the duckling club to get back an action.

 

[LeafBug]

Their existence and deeds is recorded historical fact. If anything, the question is whether they can be considered Gods, rather than just very impressive early figures in Dwarven history.

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I'd make the argument that it's something similar to Sigmar, who was most assuredly a mortal before ascending to godhood in some manner. Maybe he really did ascend through his deeds and such, or maybe after he left people just believed enough that they made a god named Sigmar, either way Sigmar's a god. Of course, the existence of that god as a god is hard to dispute since he regularly intervenes though his faithful, and I'm really not sure if the same could be said of the Ancestor-Gods. I haven't heard anything to that effect, at least.

 

[picklepikkl]

Oswald just isn't interesting enough for me to care. His cat is privy to Ranald's whims, so what? What cat isn't. It's practically what makes them cats. Meanwhile, we've got joking about grand theft silk sheets with Johann, Kazador, Belebro, Edda so we can feel her out, Gunnars so we can do a sick bro-five over making the greatest Greatsword that's ever been a mountain, Regi so we can tease him about Okkam's Razor...

It's all about priorities. Got to keep what's important in life in mind.

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So the disconnect here, I feel, is that you're listing entirely characters whose deals we already know. The people you listed we know the least about are Edda, who is on the council and so who we see at least some of every turn, and Gunnars, who we've had a bunch of interactions with but just keep failing at getting information out of. This seems like a rich-get-richer situation, where the only characters who get our social actions are the ones we have preexisting relationships with.

I want to social Oswald because we don't know much about him. Like, yes, I will agree with you 100% that I am certain I will find interactions with Kazador interesting in a way that I am not certain I will find interactions with Oswald interesting (except insofar as I trust Boney to write interesting stuff all the time forever), but I feel that with five social actions a turn, we can afford to spare one on the "explore" side of the "explore-exploit" strategic dichotomy. The dude has had all of two paragraphs, only one of them onscreen. I want to give him a chance to impress us.

 

[BungieONI]

I understand this reasoning, however I admit I simply do not see the threat that could overcome the 6 hour off-time that could not overcome it at any time.

The marginal benefit of investing what would likely be a significant amount of time into patching that 6 hour hole (after all, it was marked as very tricky, and though the College Favors spent probably helped, probably not a absolute ton) when we could be doing other things with those actions seems inefficient to our already crunched actions, at least to me. Ulgu is not the right wind for the job when it comes to this sort of thing. A celestial or fire wizard might help, though.

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A simple answer to this is a Vampire army using a tide of dead Greenskins. Vampires don't like the Sun and do not give a toss about the restrictions imposed on mortals by night time like sleep or seeing in the dark and their armies also don't care.

In daylight we would laugh at this hypothetical army, and rightfully so, we can deal with a tide of living Greenskins in the day with it. The Undead are strong because they can be endless. Getting attacked by an Undead horde coming from the Plain of Bones, which is rather close to us would be very costly to rebuff for the East Gate in the hours they have to attack. We probably could rebuff it and then fry it when the sun reaches two hours beneath the horizon.

The point then is to close this vulnerability that risks the lives of those who stand at the East Gate and guard its walls.

This same reasoning applies to armies that know of the capabilities of the Tower in the daylight. Take for example an attack by Chaos Dwarves who interrogated Greenskins fleeing the first use of the Tower after they run into the Dark Lands or just general Greenskin rumors filtering out from Karak Drazh which has a prime time front row seat to its first firing. They have a good chance to figure it out, and they have armies of enslaved beings and armies of things called Forgebound Daemons. Which are basically Daemons bound to living beings in welded shut suits of armor. And other terrible examples of Daemonsmithing.

And Karak Eight Peaks as a progressive resurgent Hold is a giant middle finger to their entire philosophy that they needed to do what they did and the other Dawi are doomed to die.

 

[Boney]

Of course, the existence of that god as a god is hard to dispute either way since he regularly intervenes though his faithful, and I'm really not sure if the same could be said of the Ancestor-Gods. I haven't heard anything to that effect, at least.

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The Dwarves say that the Runes named for them operate through their intervention. They're certainly the most powerful Runes of all, but that does become a bit chicken and egg. Are they the most powerful Runes because the Ancestor-Gods are empowering them, or were they named for the Ancestor-Gods because they're the most powerful Runes?

(any insight that events of the End Times might give into the nature of Runes and Ancestor-Gods should be considered inapplicable for the purposes of this quest)

 

[HeWhoAdds]

He's getting our Duckling action, socialing him on top of that seems kind of redundant.

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Ok, but, counterpoint, I think it would be cute if he and Mathilde smooched.

 

[Garlak]

Algard and Kragg might be interesting figures.

Algard, because this would be a rare opportunity to socialize with our College Patriarch.

Kragg, because he just worked on something that was a combination of Runesmithing and Magic, and I wanna see how he feels about that. And yet at the same time, what he did was to bring forth a weapon of the Ancestor God's to smite our enemies -- so, a holy act.

Kazador, because Kazador. Maybe his son, Kazrik, because I want to temper his enthusiasm for humans; because, kid, you have thus far only dealt with very Dwarf-y humans. I don't want him to build up a false image of what humans are like, and then suffer the culture clash.

King Belegar. Spending time with him couldn't hurt. Might help. Might give us an idea of how he's doing. Or what's wrong. Or if anything we can do.

Princess Edda, or the Undumgi leader perhaps, so that we can get a handle on how the Undumgi are doing and what the situation is for the Stewardship advisor when it comes to humans.

Also, just... I want, I need, to know about the Undumgi.

We actually don't know squat about them, and they're our most important neighbors, and they're a human settlement too! And they got affected by the Ancestor Runes.

I feel like we should really be more aware of what is going on with the Undumgi (and ideally Ulrikadrin too, frankly) than we currently are.

 

[picklepikkl]

Ok, but, counterpoint, I think it would be cute if he and Mathilde smooched.

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Intensely valid. I cannot gainsay your reasoning.

 

[Glau]

However, I would put forward that you think about the spells thing: we are, after all, a wizard, and we know that learning new spells helps us progress in becoming a better wizard

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I will go for that actually- I was thinking about how much I like reading her delight in magic, so it's more of a character reason but it gets the same result.

Namely, I think we should buy an item bound with either Burning Vengeance or some kind of large area of effect damage spell.

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AoE damage I'd be here for. I'd ask that we do a turn of heavy paper writing first so we can spend favors we have rather than going into debt.

1 action, for 6 hours more protection? For each day? That's pretty much the most efficient thing ever.

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But why does a few hours matter to an anti-siege weapon? Our army took, iirc, a week of marching to get from the underway to the east gate. On that scale, we could hit pretty much anything but cavalry for at least days before they were close enough to hit back.

Honestly, setting up a cadre of long-distance scouts is likely to be far more useful to the Karak defense than patching the missing time. Give them shadowsteed bridles and task then with getting the information about enemy armies back fast enough that the tower can be used at it's full range, rather than trying to make sure it is always tactically useful at relative knife fight ranges.

 

[Shadowatcher]

Up to Magister Lord is on Belegar's bankroll. We spent favor to upgrade a team of a Magister and two Magister Lords with a Patriarch this turn.

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Good to know. dammit, I keep missing these things. Apparently, I need to go back and reread more stuff than I have. on the other hand, time constraints and a fast-moving thread

All we require is the names, not the languages the targets speak. Getting the names is easy, because these are greenskins and skaven,

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That... is a big problem that I see, because I don't have a name in Swahili, much less know what it is/would be. Same thing here: I, at least, don't know (and would suspect not) if a name given by another community, that they dont consider their own, or even a translation of the name they do call their own. honestly, it boils down to "what is a name"

also, three drops of blood from the target seems... difficult.

If we get even to one favor we can spend down to -9 next turn to hire a Lord Magister to help and then have three turns to generate that favor back before our Rep starts depleting to fill it back in, when we are drowning in paper subjects.

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Negative favour only affects reputation if it stays negative after a certain period of time, so you really really shouldn't worry about it going down, much less vote for anything based on that irrational fear.

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Duly noted, as noted, apparently I need to go back and look at things a hint better: I was mostly working off memory. Though I'll admit, calling it an irrational fear stings a little. I'm just forgetful, thats all.

 

[Artemis1992]

A simple answer to this is a Vampire army using a tide of dead Greenskins. Vampires don't like the Sun and do not give a toss about the restrictions imposed on mortals by night time like sleep or seeing in the dark and their armies also don't care.

In daylight we would laugh at this hypothetical army, and rightfully so, we can deal with a tide of living Greenskins in the day with it. The Undead are strong because they can be endless. Getting attacked by an Undead horde coming from the Plain of Bones, which is rather close to us would be very costly to rebuff for the East Gate in the hours they have to attack. We probably could rebuff it and then fry it when the sun reaches two hours beneath the horizon.

The point then is to close this vulnerability that risks the lives of those who stand at the East Gate and guard its walls.

This same reasoning applies to armies that know of the capabilities of the Tower in the daylight. Take for example an attack by Chaos Dwarves who interrogated Greenskins fleeing the first use of the Tower after they run into the Dark Lands or just general Greenskin rumors filtering out from Karak Drazh which has a prime time front row seat to its first firing. They have a good chance to figure it out, and they have armies of enslaved beings and armies of things called Forgebound Daemons. Which are basically Daemons bound to living beings in welded shut suits of armor. And other terrible examples of Daemonsmithing.

And Karak Eight Peaks as a progressive resurgent Hold is a giant middle finger to their entire philosophy that they needed to do what they did and the other Dawi are doomed to die.

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I'm not seeing that as very relevant.
Moving an army is long and difficult work.

It would take some extremly impressive work to have an army attack by night and successfully retreat before daylight.
Sieges are the work of months and years after all, especially against Dwarfes.

Kragg was optimistic they could hold a gate for months if the sun's angle just isn't right in the season the foe attacks, so I doubt a night-attack or bad weather has any serious influence.

 

[BungieONI]

We actually don't know squat about them, and they're our most important neighbors, and they're a human settlement too! And they got affected by the Ancestor Runes.

I feel like we should really be more aware of what is going on with the Undumgi (and ideally Ulrikadrin too, frankly) than we currently are.

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As I've mentioned before this is part of why I have mentioned wanting to build the Temple to the Gambler next turn. It is a keen and cunning backdoor into their culture and lives and Mathilde can easily wander in under Doppelganger and just watch them with Windsage to see how their souls look.

It is one of the most perfect venues for such a thing.