Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting is open
Reader mode
FallenPears said:
...is it actually infeasible to capture a dragon ogre though?

For most yes, as far as I understand it most dragon ogres are either sleeping in the chaos wastes or raging army killers, but there is a population of sickly dragon ogres not far from us that we may be able to harry down, and if we can keep it from returning to the volcano eventually it should collapse into slumber.

From there, figuring out some way to move it would be admittedly difficult but certainly possible, especially for dwarves, proceed to lock it up in some underground room where the entrance has been filled back in with rock and steel leaving only a hallway which nothing bigger than a human could fit through, throw some chains around it, and some more chains, and some really, really big chains, throw out the chains when you remember the We are a thing, web it all up, and then go grab our little lightning journeymanling to give a poke. With lightning.

If it doesn't stir at all no matter how much we pump in then we can at least write a tiny paper FYI on it, should prob test that before building the mountain cage on second thought, but if it does stir we can start working on figuring out how much zappy poking is needed to get it to a point it can talk without being able to struggle against the restraints (another thing to write a paper on).

And bam! One Dragon Ogre conversation partner! So much paper material!

Now, I'm not saying this is wise, nor that it would actually be worth it other than for bragging rights, but we could probably pull it off.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not sure Mathilde could talk to them anyway though. I don't think they speak Reikspiel or Khazalid or Eltharin.
 
[X] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
[X] Princess Edda, on a hunt for weavers across the Empire.
[X] Algard, reporting the Skaven Civil War in person instead of in writing.
[X] Roswita, as she rides out the chaos of the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Kasmir, to see if he rejoined the Council of Stirland.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to be present for the birth of her child
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.
 
I feel this quest is losing it's sense of place. I blame overuse of gyrocopters. Gyrocopters are not teleporters. They take time to travel, they have finite ranges, they're expensive in fuel, maintenance and pilot time, they're limited in number, they're blatant and they're vulnerable to ground fire and enemy flyers.

If our social life is going to be international jet set, we should really be burning DF for the rides. Distance and scale should mean something dammit, even to Matty. As any GM might tell you, free stuff is bad game - if Matty can't be everywhere she wants to be then her decisions are harder, they carry more significance in narrative and gameplay.

We usually have business in Altdorf at some point each turn so meeting people from there isn't so bad - though picking a different time than our business to visit e.g. Heidi's due date should still cost. Visiting our friends and acquaintances in Stirland without a Task to take us there is a very expensive luxury.

When we were studying at the college this turn, it read like we were commuting back and forth every few days to talk to the rat. I hope that's wrong because it's crazy. It's a bad study pattern and an even worse aircraft maintenance pattern. It's an easy pattern to predict and ambush too.
 
noliar said:
I feel this quest is losing it's sense of place. I blame overuse of gyrocopters. Gyrocopters are not teleporters. They take time to travel, they have finite ranges, they're expensive in fuel, maintenance and pilot time, they're limited in number, they're blatant and they're vulnerable to ground fire and enemy flyers.

If our social life is going to be international jet set, we should really be burning DF for the rides. Distance and scale should mean something dammit, even to Matty. As any GM might tell you, free stuff is bad game - if Matty can't be everywhere she wants to be then her decisions are harder, they carry more significance in narrative and gameplay.

We usually have business in Altdorf at some point each turn so meeting people from there isn't so bad - though picking a different time than our business to visit e.g. Heidi's due date should still cost. Visiting our friends and acquaintances in Stirland without a Task to take us there is a very expensive luxury.

When we were studying at the college this turn, it read like we were commuting back and forth every few days to talk to the rat. I hope that's wrong because it's crazy. It's a bad study pattern and an even worse aircraft maintenance pattern. It's an easy pattern to predict and ambush too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
But if we don't use Gyrocopters then we would just go back to using Shadowsteed that is almost as fast and would alow the same options anyway?
 
Lupercal said:
But if we don't use Gyrocopters then we would just go back to using Shadowsteed that is almost as fast and would alow the same options anyway?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

More to the point arguing that we should not be allowed the freely use Gyropopters to socialize when the GM decided we could feels a little like backseat GMing to favor certain options over others and that well... it does not make for good questing.
 
noliar said:
I feel this quest is losing it's sense of place. I blame overuse of gyrocopters. Gyrocopters are not teleporters. They take time to travel, they have finite ranges, they're expensive in fuel, maintenance and pilot time, they're limited in number, they're blatant and they're vulnerable to ground fire and enemy flyers.

If our social life is going to be international jet set, we should really be burning DF for the rides. Distance and scale should mean something dammit, even to Matty. As any GM might tell you, free stuff is bad game - if Matty can't be everywhere she wants to be then her decisions are harder, they carry more significance in narrative and gameplay.

We usually have business in Altdorf at some point each turn so meeting people from there isn't so bad - though picking a different time than our business to visit e.g. Heidi's due date should still cost. Visiting our friends and acquaintances in Stirland without a Task to take us there is a very expensive luxury.

When we were studying at the college this turn, it read like we were commuting back and forth every few days to talk to the rat. I hope that's wrong because it's crazy. It's a bad study pattern and an even worse aircraft maintenance pattern. It's an easy pattern to predict and ambush too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This turn we spent months in Altdorf learning spells... And yet we also were back in K8P to chat with our prisoner every 3 days.
Your fears have already come to pass, but I'm fine with that.
 
Seems like only allowing us to take Social action with people in Altdorf/Stirland when we spend an AP to do stuff in Altdorf/Stirland would be a pretty reasonable limitation.
 
Lupercal said:
But if we don't use Gyrocopters then we would just go back to using Shadowsteed that is almost as fast and would alow the same options anyway?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The 'Talk to the skaven every three days' was pretty egregious, though. It takes three days to make a one way trip to the empire on a Shadowsteed; two if we book it. Even assuming that the Gyrocopter goes more than four times the speed of our supernatural horse, that's still the better part of a day each way.

So, what, we got in a Gyrocopter for most of a day, took a single day of classes in Altdorf, took a gyrocopter back to talk to our prisoner, and then did that a whole bunch for half a year?

On a turn-sized scale factoring in the Gyrocopter for stuff like 'head back to the college and take a class' makes sense because the general idea is that we're not going to be spending more time travelling than we are learning. Once or twice a week fits in neatly with that sort of thing. But little explicit schedule based things like 'you head to Altdorf and get back every three days' do run into the problem of it taking an awful lot of flying to achieve.
 
noliar said:
When we were studying at the college this turn, it read like we were commuting back and forth every few days to talk to the rat. I hope that's wrong because it's crazy. It's a bad study pattern and an even worse aircraft maintenance pattern. It's an easy pattern to predict and ambush too
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We shouldn't have been moving back and forth that much. Beyond that a few gyrocopter rides every year is totally in theme for the most trusted councilor of a Dwarf King in a major hold. Sure it is expensive but the Clans of Karak Eight Peak in general and for Belegar in particular Mathilde is about as well regarded as a human can get.

Valarauko said:
That's not the point. The point is it's still a major commute. That takes a long time and is logistically complicated.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Not really. It is a couple days by Shadowsteed and Mathilde is strong enough to casually dismember most ordinary obstacles like groups of orcs, beastmen or brigands and fast enough to bypass the rest.
 
noliar said:
I feel this quest is losing it's sense of place. I blame overuse of gyrocopters. Gyrocopters are not teleporters. They take time to travel, they have finite ranges, they're expensive in fuel, maintenance and pilot time, they're limited in number, they're blatant and they're vulnerable to ground fire and enemy flyers.

If our social life is going to be international jet set, we should really be burning DF for the rides. Distance and scale should mean something dammit, even to Matty. As any GM might tell you, free stuff is bad game - if Matty can't be everywhere she wants to be then her decisions are harder, they carry more significance in narrative and gameplay.

We usually have business in Altdorf at some point each turn so meeting people from there isn't so bad - though picking a different time than our business to visit e.g. Heidi's due date should still cost. Visiting our friends and acquaintances in Stirland without a Task to take us there is a very expensive luxury.

When we were studying at the college this turn, it read like we were commuting back and forth every few days to talk to the rat. I hope that's wrong because it's crazy. It's a bad study pattern and an even worse aircraft maintenance pattern. It's an easy pattern to predict and ambush too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I really could not give less of a fuck. If the QM says we can use the gyrocopters to visit people, then it doesn't matter if you think it isn't logistically possible or not, because this is a quest in a fantasy setting and logistics take a second place to the enjoyment of the players.
 
SuperSonicSound said:
It's a literally a shit farm. There's nothing of value to the fief narratively or practically. Why not have a nice little scene with some of the characters we're actually supposedly working with but basically haven't spent any time with in over two years since going to K8P like you know Kazrik. Bleh.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yeah @BoneyM if there is one thing i might gripe about for this quest, it's how you've handled the fief, damn thing basically just exists to justify the very rare abuse of loopholes and not much else.

Like why even have it? it literally does nothing.
 
HeWhoAdds said:
Seems like only allowing us to take Social action with people in Altdorf/Stirland when we spend an AP to do stuff in Altdorf/Stirland would be a pretty reasonable limitation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is my last comment on this since it's not something I'm altogether comfortable addressing as a player, but I feel it needs to be said. If in a quest with 200-300 players the GM were to suddenly reduce options for certain votes drastically for realism at the call of a handful of players I suspect it would lead to nothing good the the atmosphere of the quest.
 
Last edited:
noliar said:
I feel this quest is losing it's sense of place. I blame overuse of gyrocopters.

...

We usually have business in Altdorf at some point each turn so meeting people from there isn't so bad - though picking a different time than our business to visit e.g. Heidi's due date should still cost. Visiting our friends and acquaintances in Stirland without a Task to take us there is a very expensive luxury.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I... semi agree for different reasons. The current structure of the "social turns" does make us seem more like a modern businessman who flies every few weeks.

This is because we vote on them after the main turn. I think if they were chosen with the rest of the actions, they could be integrated more smoothly. Even if we had no other buisiness there, one trip a year to Stirland or Altdorf is perfectly reasonable.

If you are inclined for a bit of feedback @BoneyM, the social turns are really well written but might be better integrated if we chose them with the "major" choices. This system of extra choices for social actions with no mechanical benefits was a good one, but they do feel slightly disjointed from the rest of narrative.

Of course the other way of doing it can have disadvantages as well.
 
If I remember correctly, Boney has said that Gyrocopters carry mail on direct routes between K8P and Altdorf, K8P and the Moot (next to Stirland), and probably some other places that are less relevant to us. I've been assuming that Mathilde was using her status as a Council member to claim a ride on those; "important people get to travel express on post coaches" was a thing that happened in history, at least while post coaches were still a thing.

I agree that it was weird that we managed to keep up the thrice-daily feeding of the prisoner and be back every few days to talk even while we were busy at the College, but I am OK handwaving that for the sake of not having had to trade off College vs. the prisoner.
 
Taking one gyrocopter ride to deliver critical intelligence to a Patriarch in person, visit an important state event and check up on Roswita sounds plausible.
 
POSTED BY ACCIDENT, NOT DONE YET, but an analysis of the info we got from the skaven:
BoneyM said:
"I am Mathilde Weber. What does that mean to you?"

Another pause. "Manling wizard-warlord of the Exhausted Mine Land. Now of the West-Dwarves." You try to follow the chain of meaning from Khazalid, through Skaven, and back into Reikspiel. Exhausted Mine is a single word in Khazalid, and could be conceptual, so the land that Skaven considered picked clean... ah. Sylvania. And West-Dwarves? As opposed to East-Dwarves? If that's how the Skaven differentiate between the Karaz Ankor and the Chaos Dwarves, you're sure both would object.

"I am a Magister of the Grey Order. What does that mean to you?"

Qrech cocks his head; you try not to interpret it as confusion or curiousity. The body language you know will only lead you astray. Finally, it speaks. "Eshinzhufi." Partially correct, partially enlightening. That he uses Zhufi instead of Zhufokri when he's clearly trying to at least seem like he's cooperating either indicates a lack of knowledge of cultural connotations, or Skaven Khazalid has absorbed Chaos Dwarf cultural assumptions that don't see being defined by magic as negative.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Can someone explain the differences between Zhufi and Zhufokri again? Or link me to the correct post?

But regardless, this shows that we are well known to the Skaven given that a high-ranking prisoner knows both of us, and our past accomplishments. We should be wary and upgrade our security.

BoneyM said:
"Can you read Queekish?" you ask. A nod. "Khazalid?" Another.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Very important for future information gathering.

BoneyM said:
"What subject would it entertain you to read of?"

This was a tricky question. If he tried to be cheeky with it, you could easily shut it down, but it would make a possible avenue to develop an emotional bond instead be an avenue of sparring. You wonder if he's considering something similar, or if he's simply considering the question. "Ogrikaraz," he says at last.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What does Ogrikaraz mean?
BoneyM said:
"Nurglitch should never have survived the Black Pillar! Been allowed to spread his sickness to Gnawdwell! The first time should have taught us! The second time should have taught us! There will never be a fourth!" He subsides, chittering in agitation. "Clan Mors is past. What remains is a meal soon to be devoured."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

3 big pieces of information here: First, there are the names Nurglitch and Gnawdwell. OOC, we know them they are the heads of Clan Pestilins and Mors, though we could have figured this out from context. Also, we learn of something called the black pillar, and how it is something that is culturally important and that skaven sometimes don't survive it. OOC, this is the thing skaven must touch before competing for a seat at the Council of Thirteen (later this update we learn of the council). We might be able to figure out from context clues that the names are skaven on the council, and further that the pillar has to do with the council somehow.

BoneyM said:
Though you spend months at the Colleges and then months more occupied with your tower, you never go longer than three days without having at least a cursory conversation with Qrech. Though he's reticent with any information about Skaven, he seems to enjoy talking about the books he's read, albeit through a lens you could have predicted.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This doesn't seem to line up with all the other info he's been dropping about the council of 13 and the black pillars, etc. Though on the other hand, he might not know that he's dropping all of this useful information, which is a good sign for the interrogation's success.
BoneyM said:
The understanding of Skaven warfare you inherited from Frederick allows you to engage him on his level, and you find yourself more entertained than you'd expect by discussing the myriad ways a Skaven war party could subdue and consume the various beasts of the Mountains of Mourn, and as his tastes expand, of the Dragon Isles as well. Amid these recreational conversations, details about the Skaven need to be teased from him carefully, and you make sure to keep to information on Pestilens and Mors, who he sees no reason to protect. A picture emerges of the Third Skaven Civil War, with the Council of Thirteen apparently gripped by indecision and unable to decide the wishes of the Horned Rat, and of Clan Pestilens once more trying to seize dominance over Skavenblight. Not alone this time; Clan Mors sided with them, as well as several minor clans, and after a brutal decade of fighting they had failed. Now the remaining Great Clans and minor clans alike sought to claim the strongholds and secrets and breeders. Pestilens, Mors, Feesiks, Morbidus, Flem, Septik, Fester. Open season with the unspoken fear that sooner or later the Horned Rat's silence will end, a ceasefire will be called, and for a third time Clan Pestilens would be forgiven and the opportunity would pass forever.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We learn of the Council of Thirteen, the 3rd Civil War, which clans are in revolt, and that Skavenblight exists (though that last part isn't really news).
BoneyM said:
Qrech never would have played a part in the war at all, engaged as he apparently was with the constant mutual war of raiding each other for test subjects that Clan Moulder and the Chaos Dwarves are locked within. He was not a raider, though. He prevented raiders, and for six straight years he ensured that more Hobgoblins went northwest to Hell Pit than Skaven went southeast to Zharr-Naggrund. Then apparently a local Moulder with more ambition and authority than sense took this to mean the Qrech was a universal solution to all matters Dwarven, and commandeered his service and dragged him halfway across a continent to Clan Moulder's attempt to be the one to claim the kill on Clan Mors.

"'Don't attack the Dwarves,' Qrech said. 'The greenskins are weak, the Dwarves are strong. They are not as vulnerable as we will be if you attack them.' 'Coward', Grot-brained Moulder said. All the soldiers he had given Qrech were loyal to him. They put Qrech in cage, Grot-brained Moulder had many ideas for what he would do with Qrech after 'victory'." Qrech's eyes refocus on reality as he shakes himself loose of the grip of memory. "What happened to them?"

It's the first unprompted question he's asked, and you refrain from smiling. "Dwarves from one side, greenskins from another, Clan Mors from a third. Exterminated."

Qrech's teeth rub against each other in something that sounds almost like a purr. "Good."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Qrech is intellegent, but so are many skaven. He might, however, know how to fight Chaos Dwarves, which could be useful. This experience and dislike with Chaos Dwarves, along with the book, could be our key to unlocking the language. We just ask him for help translating the book to Khazalid so that the West-Dwarves can get better at killing the East-Dwarves.
 
Last edited:
DocMatoi said:
PLEASE
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
"The best kind of good news."
"Haven't we already done this bit?"
"Yeah, but this time it actually is a Skaven civil war."
chocolote12 said:
or taken a suspiciously talented and pretty wife who seems to care an awful lot about what sunlight does to her complexion.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Mathilde: "Damn it Heidi! Why!"
Heidi: "Actually, it's Edith now."
Mathilde, /Vader no: "Whyyyy"
Now Edith, /shrug: "Ranald works in mysterious ways."
 
ninjafish said:
Yeah @BoneyM if there is one thing i might gripe about for this quest, it's how you've handled the fief, damn thing basically just exists to justify the very rare abuse of loopholes and not much else.

Like why even have it? it literally does nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The fief was there because we needed lands to go with our title. Boney gave us a fief that doesn't need much attention, which is good, because we don't have much attention to spare. So it trundles along doing its own thing; I think someone called it a "potted cactus fief" at one point.

But I want to know what's up with it. We haven't seen it in, what, three years in character? Certainly not since we left to join the dwarf expedition. I am curious, and it seems a large portion of the quest is too. Remember, Mathilde grew up somewhere a lot like that village. It's useless to us from a quest-mechanical perspective, but that doesn't stop it from being meaningful to her and therefore narratively/thematically significant.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Remove ads
Back
Top