It's not a public library and the Undumgi in question would still have to explain Mat why he wants to use her library.
The impression I got of the parlour is that its semi-public, in that if you are a significant member of Eight Peaks in good standing you'd be permitted to visit and make use of her public book resources.
Otherwise there wouldn't be a reason to separate the Collegiate material referring to Magic and the General Arts and Sciences sections.
Exactly. Hitching a ride to Barak Varr or Zhufbar is simple enough but unless we get assigned gyrobombers for high impact diplomacy or the like*, taking them away from their semi-regular flights within the Karak Anzor should be a big deal.
@BoneyM Maybe a system like:
When taking a gyrocoptor beyond the KA**:
1st trip to 1st destination each round: 0 DF
1st trip to subsequent destinations: 2 DF
Further actions in those locations: 1 DF each
Keeping a 'coptor on call at the far end: 2 DF
Extra capacity e.g. gyrobomber: 1 DF
Cunningly consolidating trips: -1 DF
Losing a Gyrocopter: 1 very awkward conversation.
Spending cap: 5DF / turn. Even for Mathilde travel times add up and availability is limited.
We have a nice DF surplus normally so unless it looks like we might hit the cap it's probably simplest to just calculate what we spent at the end of the round.
*In which case it's Belegar's big deal.
** Southern Sylvania and the eastern Border Princes are within easy Shadow Mount of Zhufbar and Barak Varr respectively.
This is completely unnecessary. Mathilde ORIGINALLY needed to spend Favor for it, but at her present Reputation, unless she's telling them to go far out of their way or carry unpleasant cargo, they'd do it for the price of her buying them a beer.
Keeping in mind that Eight Peaks has a very large Gyrocopter wing for its reclaimed lifespan. Certainly we aren't using it anywhere close to capacity.
Time to leave the thread I think, it has gone weird places again, and at mere twelve hours after update.
Wheres that meme with Thomas the Tank Engine when you need it?
Johann: Would be promising, except the first impression was terrible.
Literally 80% of Shoujo Manga premises, where the primary love interest is a giant asshole to the girl.
@BoneyM It is possible to build more than one variation of the shrine of Ranald? And if so, what do we need to do to build them? Simply purchasing the terrain and building it? Or do we need to wander around until we feel that our coin marks a good position?
This was answered before. We can build more shrines of Ranald if we want, but only one will occupy the Holy Site. The Holy Site shrine can develop elements representative of the other faces as well down the line, but the main aspect is something we have to choose.
we could argue a teaching nunnery, they are supposed to be in places out of the way and with little distractions.
A mountain full of burly and frequently alcoholic former mercenaries is very much not a place with little distractions.
Basically. Zhufi has the connotation of being a conduit for magic rather than a wielder of magic, but Mathilde is unsure of whether this was a language mistake due to ignorance of the idiom, whether it is a dialectical feature of Chaos Dwarf Khazalid, or whether he was being deliberately insulting.
Hmm, considering their observed weakness at compound words I'd probably put it down to Chaos Dwarf Khazalid if they used an unusual compound word.
In this case, probably literally Chaos Dwarf Khazalid for "Eshin Sorceror"
Specially since doing so would be a flagrant violation of the vow of poverty, both in letter and spirit, it would be courting the noose.
I would rather vote for "march alone towards the troll mountain and attempt to solo it", it might actually be safer.
If something like "go treasure hunting with Johann" comes up again that is ok, but looking for funds simply because we fucked up with our money is a huge no.
Explicitly wrong. Pursuing wealth via legitimate means is permitted, provided it is spent on legitimate avenues, that the tithe is paid on time and in whole. The actual reasons we shouldn't do it is:
-Mathilde HAS a lot of money, and doesn't need to go looking for more. She's supposed to spend it according to her claimed purpose, so the most law-compliant action is to blow every last coin of the Dwarf reserved money on books and towers.
-Mathilde doesn't have a lot of free time and Mathilde has a very impressive passive income, she shouldn't spend actions on it when she could go do something else for a year and be rich enough to buy it.
Or the head Pestilens is, I wouldn't be surprised if more of the rank and file legitimately believe more in the horned Rat.... ya know given his name that really wouldn't be surprised.
Than again the Skaven outright aligning with one of the Chaos Gods is probably one of the heresy the Horned Rat would want gone ASAP given that the Skaven have plenty of bodies to sacrifice for demon summoning and the like.
Given that he pardoned Pestilens despite pulling that shit before I'm not sure he actually COULD make it gone if he tried. That maybe he didn't smite them via the Pillar when they touched it is because he couldn't win that match if Nurgle insisted.
s that what that was supposed to be?
To me, it seemed like he twitched and panicked upon the gun-shot, genuinely.
Then he spent some time looking at the door after we left, thinking "Holy shit, is she gone?" And then eventually he moved in to check the stuff, and upon finding out it was real, was unnerved again.
However, in hindsight, it occurs to me that he must not have been really terrified at any point... because we never noticed a sudden smell.
Right, it was a pretty good stunt if you assumed Skaven are going to freak the fuck out at a single gunshot when he can see directly in front of him that the gun isn't even pointed in his direction. Except this guy is a 6 year veteran commander, or so he claims.
If he was that easy to spook he'd never had made it.
Ah, a thought, especially after what you speculated about his knowledge of the language...
... What if we have to worry about him learning Khazalid from us?
If he only knows mostly words, then... Mathilde on the other hand, knows the grammar too. So it's possible that he might be learning more of Khazalid from Mathilde. However, it seems like Mathilde is aware of that? Because she's picking her words with care. Or at least, so I hope.
Hm. Maybe one things we do, is get him to demonstrate his level of literacy. Have him write something in Khazalid. See how much he knows.
... Ah. I just remembered. Dwarf and Chaos Dwarf language and written language are a bit diverged. So if he does write, some of the runes he uses should probably be slightly different. If we notice a difference, that would be a good indicator as to whether he learned the alphabet from Dwarf or Chaos Dwarf sources. (Or, of course, he might know both and is just revealing Chaos Dwarf runes.)
Less of a worry, he's not getting out of this alive, and he likely knows it. His continued existence, fundamentally, is predicated upon doling out information as slowly as possible, and waiting for an opportunity.
He knows the day he no longer offers any continued value he likely changes from intel source to Skaven Anatomy research subject. Mathilde's strategy is in essence to make him think he's gotten us NOT to do that.
This is not a given fact in fantasy worlds.
A dragon can sit on his hoard for decades without growing bored of it in many settings.
In this particular one I would also hazard a guess that the Dragon Ogres have some natural resistance to boredom, allowing them to while away entire ages in low-activity states until the time for battle has come.
Well..
It helps that for Warhammer specifically both those species spend much of their time unconscious in sleep. Dragons because the world's environment often isn't suitable to prolonged activity from them unless bonded to an Elf or Aqshy user, and Dragon Ogres because that's a consequence of the bargain they struck.
This basically. You should only be feeling boredom when in a state where you are capable of learning. Long periods of low mental activity don't count, anymore than people get bored while asleep.
Huh. Do you think this guy might have been from Clan Rictus instead? If, as veekie speculated, he may have lied about a thing or two? If so, the reason he'd been a prisoner would be because he's not originally from Clan Moulder, and so was being interrogated and kept prisoner.
Hmm... Nah, seems unnecessarily complicated, I think.
Possible, just keep in mind not to trust anything you can't verify. Deception is hard to detect when the other party is using a language they are unfamiliar with, because the usual tells for deceit are masked by their low ability in it.
Now that we've seen some of the possible utility of our skaven guest, I was wondering if we could drum up some support behind spending 5 favour on eshin/escape proofing our cells, especially with the ominous warning boney threw out at the end.
IIRC we were going to do that to our foyer instead of the cells themselves. As pointed out, he can't break himself out without being stopped dead by the spell on him, and before any intruder can discover the dungeon they'd have to pass the foyer anyways.
I dunno- I expect "knowledge of the overall capabilities of the advanced mind magic" is available to Lord Magisters, but the actual magic itself would be restricted to particularly skilled/trusted Perpetuals, on grounds of "literally no one capable of this is ever going to be allowed to leave the College because it's an unacceptable security risk, so let's restrict it to the people who are never going to leave the College anyway".
And to anyone who thinks it's not an unacceptable security risk, I invite you to consider that from what we've already experienced, it includes the ability to reveal information while preventing it from being revealed further (see also the Conspiracy's eyelid cipher) and the ability to trigger other mind-magic effects based on relatively flexible (possibly arbitrarily so) conditionals (the Number Whatever: The Skaven And The Conspiracy Of Silence automated read-in on encountering word of them).
Also interestingly, if I'm right, that means at least one of the Conspiracy was one of the Grey Order mind-mages? Which is fucking terrifying in hindsight, though I'm assuming the Patriarch cleared the other mind-mages and one of them went through our hidden triggers checking for shenanigans and we just don't remember it because of course why would we be allowed to remember it.
Perpetuals can't muster the kind of power, if its something a Perpetual could use then Magisters would have been independently reinventing it constantly.
Its more likely a role suited to Greys, people who have proven themselves trustworthy and skilled at magic but incapable of leaving the College anymore.
Look. Do you really think the Grey Order would be as institutionally paranoid if they had a way of guaranteeing honesty at all feasible for semi-regular use? And the Light Order, the other people who probably are most suited for that- allowed Egrimm Van Horstmann to be their Patriarch. The greatest traitor the Colleges have ever known and the most hated of Black Magisters.
I think this is the sort of thing that Boney is going to make ludicrously difficult to get. Because what methods might exist are secret, difficult, and easy to sabotage from what I understand and it's a very important conceit of the setting that they remain so.
Observe Mathilde trolling the shit out of the Celestial College's precog enchantments.
I suspect the methods are unreliable because minds are pretty complex, naturally contain a blend of the Winds in normal people, or are under deliberate control in spellcasters and priests.
Use them sparingly or they'd be unusable.
the last survivors of the heroic tale of Skabbicus: a slave turned warrior, who promised a better existence. Legions of armoured Stormvermin assaulted down narrow tunnels to suppress the rebellion, but the slaves held firm. They might have gained freedom had not the devious Council of Thirteen announced a pardon for any who desisted and pointed out their leader. It is said that over 10,000 Skavenslaves pointed out Skabbicus and watched their former commander get cut down and eaten. The promised pardon was quickly forgotten and the following retribution was predictably brutal. Production dropped for weeks throughout Skavenblight, but everyone ate well.
but whether they actually are one of the only good Skaven clans or merely puppets of the Council is up in the air.
I'm pretty sure they're still regular Skaven in allegiance to the Horned Rat, they just don't want to BE the slaves. Which is a fair belief even in a slaving society.
What? That doesn't make sense. Why the heck wouldn't it help.
... Or did you mean books on Psychology and Interrogation?
Because that was not what I meant; I meant going to the Grey College, and paying for classes on Psychology and Interrogation. (This can be bought with Favor or per 100gc, apparently.)
In addition, I also wanted to spend Dwarf Favor to buy up to Esoteric Dwarven books on Skaven. But that's separate from going to school in the Grey Colleges.
Books I think. Boney's statement was with regards to broad purpose skill books, which well, we kind of know interrogation relies a lot on knowing the culture specific psychology if you want to avoid being stonewalled by differential value judgements.
