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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
How would he know how its going?
He has no connection to the fronts, the information sources of the Skaven, and hasn't for a year. A Queekish written Lexicon (which I think is the only generally usable form of Queekish we can actually distribute) in the hand of the Grey Order as quickly as feasible means that they can develop their own intel from reading captured Skaven documents from any outposts, positions or settlements the Empire/Grey Order smacks in the course of taking advantage of the Civil War.
This isn't to say that pumping him for information has no worth, but I see no worth on that particular topic. Skaven culture, Skaven technology? Yes, those are not subject to decay due to ubiquity but military information I see no reason to be accurate anymore due to Qrech's distance temporally from the main fronts against Pestilens.
Ah! You know, that strikes me as a thing -- a productive and reasonable thing -- we actually can do in Kvinn-Wyr; we can try to check on the sealed treasuries and stuff. Mathilde's magics would be put to far better use if she's checking if the sealed vaults of Kvinn-Wyr are still intact. If there are any temples that were sealed too, she could check on those too.
That'd still require having gone deep into enemy territory tho', which is scary. (Personally, I'm worried about Trolls that mutated and gained the trait of "Magical Attacks" more-so than "intelligent" or "willing to use fire." Magical Attacks, or the ability to see spirits or something. A bonus is that that seems more reasonable a thing to happen, and thus to worry about, than developing intelligence or trolls using fire. Since, well, if they hung around Warpstone or even ate some... it wouldn't be too unusual if they got magical properties. The other worry I had was the simple fact that Kvinn-Wyr, due to the large amounts of Warpstone, might have bits of Dhar here, there, and everywhere. And we have a belt that lights up with fire whenever we come into contact with Dhar.) Still, probably something that Mathilde would hypothetically have had to do in the scenario where/when she picks the "Map all the mountains" plan, so hey.
Which... Might just mean that if Mathilde is mapping all the Peaks, if she rolls well enough on the Kvinn-Wyr roll, she will have also managed to find the sealed treasuries in Kvinn-Wyr. i.e. It's something that'll come up if/when doing mapping stuff anyway. (But I guess if Mathilde didn't manage to find it in the first go-around, they might ask for an AP to go find it or something.)
Kragg has already taken over that secondary peak. Azyr is busy running away from there, and does not want us to try building a tower.
As regards taking Kvinn-Wyr, I'm opposed until either we discover something in there that makes our currently sufficient defenses facing it inadequate, or we find that it's necessary in order to get through, which I am not convinced will happen for quite a while. After all, we're only pretty sure there's nothing under there but trolls, and taking it opens us up to both above-ground and below-ground attacks from Mhonar, which we have no intelligence on. (That said, that Mors doesn't seem to have significant defenses set up against Kvinn-Wyr suggests it's trolls all the way down.) And overland to the Citadel is secure, no reason we need an Underway route to it. But I'm not going to actually make any plans until we hear the results of the scouting Dreng got assigned to do.
Looking at that map I'd say the best get is definitely the underside of the Citadel and then take Karag Mhonar, odd as that may seem, and then holding and fortifying the the new fronts until we get the equipment (or a bunch of slayers) to clear out Kvynn-Wyr as safely as possible.So let's look.
the Biggest long term problem is the Caldera: Clan Mors
we should clear out Mor from under the Citadel first, they know we are in the game now and if we are going to have a front there anyways it might as we not be directly under the Citadel.
if we take every Peak one at a time we open up more and more fronts that we have to hold from Mor and whoever is below.
if we take the Caldera we will not have to deal with Mor, but will open up every front at the same time.
at the same time... we would be opening up the front on our terms if we take the Caldera and thanks to the tower above it would be easier to hold the Caldera below.
while taking every tower and securing it one it the time will be slow and let the enemies at the far ends get ready (Karag Yar is the worst place for Eshin to be. we will be dealing with their saboteurs and assassins for the whole campaign if we go the slow route...
I would pick the Caldera as the next push when (if) it happens. just because I prefer the momentum and the ability to pick the fight we want rather than having to go one by one in a very obvious and predictable way.
Edit: oh, and my problem with taking Karag Zilfin is holding it if it really is that massive.
- Location
- Singapore
Again, all this talk of other peaks probably requires Cartographer to win for the thread to shake out the AP to pursue these issues. I actually am sympathetic to all these speculations, but Cartographer does have to fight against Project Queekish (if we can get the Leixcon first time asking with Deceiver, then this becomes moot) and Aethyric Vitiate.
Also, I really want to reserve Snake Juice research for a Gambler turn, since low rolls are really damaging to the Snake Juice cause in an environment of scant AP. Unless AV becomes our job, a bad Snake Juice Roll reduces the chances the thread will vote for AV especially in a turn where there are multiple other competing priorities and multiple demands for that one or two truly free AP slots we have.
Also, I really want to reserve Snake Juice research for a Gambler turn, since low rolls are really damaging to the Snake Juice cause in an environment of scant AP. Unless AV becomes our job, a bad Snake Juice Roll reduces the chances the thread will vote for AV especially in a turn where there are multiple other competing priorities and multiple demands for that one or two truly free AP slots we have.
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He's been our prisoner for 6 months and was in a torture cage before that and was a recent arrival before that. His expertise is countering chaos dwarves and hobgoblins. We're not going to get specific, timely, local intelligence out of him. If we want to know what the local Skaven are up to we need to be able to spy on them and interrogate fresh prisoners who belong to factions that are still locally relevant.
Mathilde: Queekish lexicon - the foundation for everything else
Mathilde: Train Wolf - if he can communicate what he gets from his canine senses that gives a window on a lot more nuance
Max: Translate the anatomy books - gives verification for what Mathilde learns, builds up our expertise with their writing
I don't think Max can translate the book, that's looking like a Mat only job
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yeah, Varano beat me to it. Max is Patient and has Law of Logic, so he might be able to take a swing at it with the help of our Anatomy books, but it's worth remembering that written Queekish is canonically an ideographic language, many of which are indistinguishable to the untrained eye, and that's just not something he has any sort of practice with. Mathilde's Apprenticeship included ciphers, codebreaking, and other sorts of practice in "I will figure out what this unknown text means and what its rules are." Max's Apprenticeship didn't; we'd be basically crit-fishing.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And my criticism of the military intel of the Civil War from Qrech largely comes from the first industrialized wars we had IRL, but specifically World War I's Eastern Front. Far more confused than the Western trench warfare, you had people dropping in and out and getting subsumed or recieving catastrophic damage in only a year. And this milleu persisted for 4 years before it ended.
As to the Queekish deceiver plot I perfer the ones where we lie about the access we have to Queekish and need it to finish the traitor clan. Another thought I had which has less pull is saying some variation of:
-say the "East Dwarves" are coming and have decided to try and kick us out.
-They are keeping us from finishing Mors.
-But we very conveniently have this very nice book on one of their more powerful and elite personnel.
-And we have a useful rat who knows a lot about fighting them.
-The Empire already has a lexicon, but won't give it to us.
It has problems I think, but it has the one advantage of using a source right in front of us with obvious illustrations when learning Queekish writing from Qrech. Can't really deceive us all that easily when the resource we're asking about is right in front of us, and Mathilde is smart enough to manipulate his privileges depending on his cooperation.
Putting this out here though I prefer the simpler "The Empire has a lexicon already and I want to translate Mors documents but they won't let me."
As to the Queekish deceiver plot I perfer the ones where we lie about the access we have to Queekish and need it to finish the traitor clan. Another thought I had which has less pull is saying some variation of:
-say the "East Dwarves" are coming and have decided to try and kick us out.
-They are keeping us from finishing Mors.
-But we very conveniently have this very nice book on one of their more powerful and elite personnel.
-And we have a useful rat who knows a lot about fighting them.
-The Empire already has a lexicon, but won't give it to us.
It has problems I think, but it has the one advantage of using a source right in front of us with obvious illustrations when learning Queekish writing from Qrech. Can't really deceive us all that easily when the resource we're asking about is right in front of us, and Mathilde is smart enough to manipulate his privileges depending on his cooperation.
Putting this out here though I prefer the simpler "The Empire has a lexicon already and I want to translate Mors documents but they won't let me."
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The only contested vote was the library one, and the no-favour version wins.
I am still scratching my head about why the vote got so messed up when the turn plan ones usually don't, even when one person votes [X] Plan Whatever and another person votes [X] Plan Whatever with all the trimmings underneath. Any light anyone can shed on why the tally did this and what formatting actually works for consolidating detailed/name only versions of the same plan would be appreciated.
I am still scratching my head about why the vote got so messed up when the turn plan ones usually don't, even when one person votes [X] Plan Whatever and another person votes [X] Plan Whatever with all the trimmings underneath. Any light anyone can shed on why the tally did this and what formatting actually works for consolidating detailed/name only versions of the same plan would be appreciated.
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ok, here's one that (if i did it right) should have the votes combined properly.
(Also huzzah a vote i named and started is winning <3)
(Also huzzah a vote i named and started is winning <3)
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Why not? Painstaking comparisons between them and the many anatomy books in known languages we bought, methodically testing each day's haul of words that Mathilde brings in - this is stuff he's good at. Law of Logic, patience, good learning, speaks Khalazid and experience with language barriers all make him an excellent fit.
edit: he's not trying to solo it, he's part of the same team as Mathilde and Wolf with feedback going both ways.
Mathilde: prisoner says <word> means this and is written <squiggle>. Does that check out?
and
Max: I'm not getting <other sqiggle> from context, could you ask him about it?
will both be happening a lot. Along with
Wolf: No, those are two different words.
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chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
This is the route I want to go too, more or less.
Maybe with a side of the obstacle being our political rivals, or not wanting to have to share credit with any of them; the intent being to mix a little ambition into our explanation of why we aren't just using empire resources. Skaven understand ambition, so it might make it more solid; 'help me advance my position fast' versus 'help me do this fast' shifts what our apparent angle would be towards 'I want to be politically powerful', and away from 'actually, nobody knows Queekish'.
- Location
- Berkeley
For tactical information, he was highly enough placed to know greater Skaven political happenings—think an advisor like us or one of our own underlings. Not one focused on the civil war, but certainly not someone given the mushroom treatment nor without access to tactical and strategic intelligence.
I would also like to remind you guys that prior to this guy talking, we did not know about an all out civil war occurring. What is common knowledge to even a Skaven grunt about which clans own where and who is in ascendence or decline is either unknown or badly outdated for human intelligence.
Yes, due to his specialization and time away the information he has will be spotty and slightly outdated, but it is far better than shooting blind.
Now, I agree that learning Queekish is ultimately a more important goal, as even the ability to reliably translate written Queekish alone would revolutionize intelligence efforts against the Skaven, but it having a greater overall payoff does not mean we should do it first. Learning—let alone disseminating—Queekish would be an effort of years even if our prisoner was entirely cooperative. Regardless of if we start it now or in a year's time the first fruits of it will not be gained before the temporary offensive against the Skaven ends. More, even if we were capable of getting a single translator in time for the current offensive, the strategic value of said translator would most likely be below that of going in with the immediate strategic intelligence our prisoner has because again, our strategic intelligence about the Skaven was so bad we weren't even aware of a civil war occurring.
Even if we assume that literally the only thing of value the Skaven knows for us is Queekish, I would still prioritize doing an action that makes him more likely to be inclined to cooperate with us going forward (which I hope this would be, as it nicely gets him over the hurdle of willingly sharing military intelligence with us), as I see learning Queekish as being valuable enough to sink extra time into in order to boost the odds of succeeding. It is just that in light of his very obvious continuing loyalty to the Skaven as a whole (rather than only acting in his own self interest) I view trying to press him for Queekish now as having a lower chance of us actually learning Queekish from him than if we waited until the loyalty has faded and/or he is more used to cooperating with us.
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
It might be because people were putting links in the plan header. I don't think that's standard practice for the main turn plan votes?
Well, one issue seems obvious enough, the whole "favour"/"favor" spelling difference thing...
The other stuff though, I have no idea what went wrong.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yeah. Here's a potential variant: "the faction that has access to Queekish won't share, because it is an asset that brings them favor from the Emperor." This might convince Qrech that by teaching us Queekish he could not just fuel our efforts to destroy the Traitor-Clan, but fuel internal dissent within the Empire of Man's intelligence apparatus. That's the sort of bait I could imagine swaying an Under-Empire loyalist.
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- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
Oooooh, spicy. I like it.
- Location
- between Venus and Mars
Some major projects:
1)Project: Queekish (will probably require a few AP, but it may or may not be possible to spend multiple AP during the same turn on it)
2)Project: Snake Juice (We know there are multiple options for this. Even if we spend several AP in one turn, this research will probably take several turns to finish.)
3)Project: Cartographer (We can spend multiple AP on this in a single turn, but we probably can't take advantage of the time critical information we may gain if we explore more than one area. especially if they are far removed from each other.
4)Project: Sylvania (multiple actions each turn available. will probably be an on going project. covers more than just main turns.
5)Project: Wolf (Usually only 1 or 2 actions available each turn. Might be able to complete in a few turns.)
6)Project: Favor Hunter (Some Questers want more top tier gear/living space/other runed up shinies. may align with other projects at times.
7) Project: Sworddancer (Learn to use our Greatsword as it was intended to be used.)
8) Project: Bow Chicka Wow Wow (dwarf breeding/eugenics program)
Some Minor Projects:
1) Project: Romance (building up mathilde's smut collection. can be accomplished with no AP or Favors. Will require gold. suggest purchases be placed under Purchases not Library. Don't use royal allotment for this project.)
2) Project: Polyglot (Will require AP. Aligns with Project: Queekish and Project: Romance)
3) Project: Socialite ( get to know the council)
4) Project: High Rollers (Getting in good with the Empress and by extension Ranald.
5) Project: Waifu (Find Mathilde a nice boy/girl/dwarf/elf/spider/... you get the idea)
6) Project: Librarian (ALL THE BOOKS. uses our stipend and maybe some extra gold and Favors.)
Have I missed any Major Projects? the minor ones are legion and I know I missed several of those.
So we have a few different directions we can go here. Doesn't look like any major offensives are planned right now. We could probably change that. thoughts?
EDIT: Which do you support?
1)Project: Queekish (will probably require a few AP, but it may or may not be possible to spend multiple AP during the same turn on it)
2)Project: Snake Juice (We know there are multiple options for this. Even if we spend several AP in one turn, this research will probably take several turns to finish.)
3)Project: Cartographer (We can spend multiple AP on this in a single turn, but we probably can't take advantage of the time critical information we may gain if we explore more than one area. especially if they are far removed from each other.
4)Project: Sylvania (multiple actions each turn available. will probably be an on going project. covers more than just main turns.
5)Project: Wolf (Usually only 1 or 2 actions available each turn. Might be able to complete in a few turns.)
6)Project: Favor Hunter (Some Questers want more top tier gear/living space/other runed up shinies. may align with other projects at times.
7) Project: Sworddancer (Learn to use our Greatsword as it was intended to be used.)
8) Project: Bow Chicka Wow Wow (dwarf breeding/eugenics program)
Some Minor Projects:
1) Project: Romance (building up mathilde's smut collection. can be accomplished with no AP or Favors. Will require gold. suggest purchases be placed under Purchases not Library. Don't use royal allotment for this project.)
2) Project: Polyglot (Will require AP. Aligns with Project: Queekish and Project: Romance)
3) Project: Socialite ( get to know the council)
4) Project: High Rollers (Getting in good with the Empress and by extension Ranald.
5) Project: Waifu (Find Mathilde a nice boy/girl/dwarf/elf/spider/... you get the idea)
6) Project: Librarian (ALL THE BOOKS. uses our stipend and maybe some extra gold and Favors.)
Have I missed any Major Projects? the minor ones are legion and I know I missed several of those.
So we have a few different directions we can go here. Doesn't look like any major offensives are planned right now. We could probably change that. thoughts?
EDIT: Which do you support?
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- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yeah, it occurred to me when @chocolote12 mentioned political power; I was like "wait, in the universe where parts of the Empire's intelligence apparatus have Queekish, they would obviously gain political power as a result, and other factions would envy them and try to gain access to it themselves, and if they ever got it there would be an interdepartmental turf war." Real life intelligence agencies do that sort of petty shit all the time. So if Mathilde is part of the group that wants a cut of the Emperor's headpats, Qrech might reason that giving it to her would 1) not constitute betrayal, because they already have it 2) cause the Empire's leadership to turn against itself in a political squabble instead of taking advantage of the skaven's own disunity, and thereby he would actually be serving the Horned Rat by doing it.
Also, thinking like a skaven is giving me a headache and making me kind of sad, I'm going to go express genuine sentiment and loyalty to my loved ones for a bit.
Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hm. I do like this, but one possible concern: revealing sensitive information like that to our captive is liable to come across as suspicious. Now, he won't conclude we're lying, because of the Deceiver coin face - but that means he'll have to come up with some other reason for why we'd be so open with this intel. The obvious conclusion is that we never expect him to have a chance to use it, which means he'd probably infer that he's never getting out of that cell alive. TBH he'll probably assume something similar anyway, but it would seriously impede any plans involving convincing him that freedom could be a reward for cooperation.
Dwarf Viagra of course!