Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[picklepikkl]

@BoneyM: Would the "try to convince Qrech that the Empire has Queekish" gambit include the wrinkle I came up with earlier (about the faction who has it jealously guarding the secret)? I am moderately proud of it and a lot of people seemed to like it, but I want to know if we should be writing it in or not.

Max Reasoning: He's a Journeyman who may one day wish to be a Magister. Let him perform the studies he wants to do.

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I disagree strenuously. We gave him last turn off. Sucks that he didn't get to blow anything up, but them's the breaks. We should either find useful work for him or let him go so we can get half an AP back.

Duck Reasoning: We know guns. We know Dhar. We might have insights to assist him with.

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...do we know guns? We know how to shoot a pistol. That is not quite the same thing.

Red Tower Reasoning: This basically doubles as having the benefits of the Blue Tower, doesn't it?

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Let us proceed under the assumption that Boney isn't writing the action plan with trap options. Consider the scenario wherein the sky is overcast, but the ambient light levels are high enough to prevent sharp-edged shadows from forming. Bright light sufficient to cast a shadow at night will not work nearly as well during the day.

 

[Garlak]

If you're thinking of going to spend any Favor on learning spells at all, should definitely just pick 1 spell; spend it on learning Invisibility. 1 Favor, for even further increasing the chance that we don't fail to learn the spell. (I mean, some people had wanted to put the Gambler on just learning Invisibility alone. A single point of Favor would be pretty acceptable, right?)

 

[Chronic]

Arn't dwarves hot for being Dragon Slayers? Spread the word and all of them will come.

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We'd probably need a Daemon Slayer, honestly. There is Dragons and Dragons, and Emperor Dragons are by a country mile the most powerful of their kind, easily capable of besting greater Daemons in combat and matching them in magic. Also, they are smart. The Ice Dragon could see that the trickle of Dwarven adventurers is probably caused by the Dwarven reclamation of the hold, and it would probably retaliate against every part of Belegars realm it can reach.

Hysh battlemagic from a flying supermonster that can bounce cannonballs of its scales reaches a lot of places. I don't particularily want to replace our cool Burning Shadow tower quite yet.

If we fight that Dragon, we should make sure to do it as the full focus of all the forces of Karak Eight Peaks.

 

[Codex]

Aside from the resources present in the Dramatis Personae, we also got some stats and a new trait.

Edda has 20 Stewardship and the Mechanical Efficiency trait (makes her better with machinery). Dreng has 15 martial, Gotri has 14 martial and 18 learning, Kazrik has 18 Diplomacy and Gunnars has ??? Piety.

Mathilde's opinion of Kazrik has also changed. Mathilde believes that he's proven himself capable. I'm still wondering why every single time we have a chance to see Gunnars' stats it's always ???.

 

[Olivebirdy]

• We're being a bad mentor to Max. He wants to create things like our gun, and we're not giving him any time to study metalworking.
• We should do something with the Vitae. At least give it away if we're not going to use it.
• Is there anything Amber wizardry can do to help the Dwarves procreate?
• We should set up relationships with the Skaven. We could find an ambitious young rat that won't look too deeply at where the notes they get with useful information come from.

 

[Neshuakadal]

I just want to say that it is so nice being on a council that has actually competent people on it. Like stirland suffered because no one wanted to work there. Here we have talent and money pouring out of every pore.

 

[Eldon]

Arn't dwarves hot for being Dragon Slayers? Spread the word and all of them will come.

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No! Absolutely not. First dragon slayers are usually very rare and keep to themselves so it would be hard to find. But discounting that the last thing we need is a bunch of near naked dwarfs with a death wish running up the mountain and disturbing the ice dragon. It is currently sitting nice and quiet on the top and that's the way we want it for now. If the slayers fail, which they are very likely to do Gotrix is the exception not the rule, we very well may have an angry dragon on our hands who may want a bit of revenge for disturbing it's nap.

 

[Boney]

@BoneyM: Would the "try to convince Qrech that the Empire has Queekish" gambit include the wrinkle I came up with earlier (about the faction who has it jealously guarding the secret)? I am moderately proud of it and a lot of people seemed to like it, but I want to know if we should be writing it in or not.

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Yes, it fits very well into the Skaven worldview so she'll be using it if it's chosen.

 

[Luminous]

I'm not sure any kind of diplomatic solution will be acceptable to the dwarfs and the dragon; the dwarfs will consider the dragon's goods (and home) stolen property, and the only non-grudging solution is full recompense, which I doubt in the extreme persuading any dragon to take.

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I dunno, the King is pretty radical. And I'd love to flash-freeze some rats in their tunnels. And Orks. Do you think Dragons like to eat Trolls?

Point is, I think there's potentially a way this could work. Ranald willing.

 

[picklepikkl]

If you're thinking of going to spend any Favor on learning spells at all, should definitely just pick 1 spell; spend it on learning Invisibility. 1 Favor, for even further increasing the chance that we don't fail to learn the spell. (I mean, some people had wanted to put the Gambler on just learning Invisibility alone. A single point of Favor would be pretty acceptable, right?)

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It's not clear that getting instruction on Shroud of Invisibility is better in the average case than our Tower of Dawn and Dusk. The last time we tried to learn it, six years ago with a lower Magic score, it was DC70 from a scroll. Recently, we succeeded on learning a spell in the same tier (Throttle) with a 63. Even if none of the change in difficulty is due to our growth in our magical skill, I find it hard to believe that the DC is more than twenty points higher from a scroll than at college.

Yes, it fits very well into the Skaven worldview so she'll be using it if it's chosen.

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Yay. 😊

 

[DragonParadox]

• We're being a bad mentor to Max. He wants to create things like our gun, and we're not giving him any time to study metalworking.
• We should do something with the Vitae. At least give it away if we're not going to use it.
• Is there anything Amber wizardry can do to help the Dwarves procreate?
• We should set up relationships with the Skaven. We could find an ambitious young rat that won't look too deeply at where the notes they get with useful information come from.

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1. We are not Max's mentor, we are his employer, who pays him money to help the Karack
2. The notion of giving away something as precious as the Vitae is... out of character for any sane wizard let's say
3. No, amber magic is 'beasts' not life. You want Ghyan for that and a lot of study (specifically called out as beyond the scope of current projects by the GM)
4. Skaven are bound body and soul to the Horned God. Trying to have any sort of relationship with them as they are is impossible.

 

[BeepSmile]

I dunno, the King is pretty radical. And I'd love to flash-freeze some rats in their tunnels. And Orks. Do you think Dragons like to eat Trolls?

Point is, I think there's potentially a way this could work. Ranald willing.

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Also, making friends is nice and dragons are cool.

 

[Alratan]

I disagree strenuously. We gave him last turn off. Sucks that he didn't get to blow anything up, but them's the breaks. We should either find useful work for him or let him go so we can get half an AP back.

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We didn't give him last turn off. We seconded him to work for the Karak's airforce. We did that because we thought that would be to his advantage, but it was still work, and his assigned task.

Remember that Johann and Maxare employees of Karak Eight Peaks, not Mathilde personally. She's their line manager, but that doesn't mean they're her personal minions. If she wants a wizard as a personal minion, she can spend College Favour on a Perpetual Apprentice.

In the same way, Johann did not have last turn off. He was sent on a training course, which is still working.

 

[picklepikkl]

• We're being a bad mentor to Max. He wants to create things like our gun, and we're not giving him any time to study metalworking.
• We should do something with the Vitae. At least give it away if we're not going to use it.
• Is there anything Amber wizardry can do to help the Dwarves procreate?
• We should set up relationships with the Skaven. We could find an ambitious young rat that won't look too deeply at where the notes they get with useful information come from.

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* He studies metalworking when he's off the job. He talked about it at the duckling club the turn before this one. The option would be "give him the turn off from work so he can just pursue his interests."
* People want to propose it as our next project to Belegar.
* Jade magic would be the relevant one, not Amber, and the problem is almost certainly cultural, not biological. They just don't want seem to more children.
* That seems like an extremely complicated plan that has a lot of chances to backfire vs. just "fighting the skaven, but with the ability to read their stuff."

We didn't give him last turn off. We seconded him to work for the Karak's airforce. We did that because we thought that would be to his advantage, but it was still work, and his assigned task.

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I do not agree at all.

[ ] MAX: Allow him to spend his time on patrol with the gyrocopters so he can finally get to shoot something from one.

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"Allow" is the word our action plans use when it's "give them the time to pursue their interests vs. assigning them work." The justification for doing this, as presented in the option itself, was to give him the experience of shooting stuff from a gyrocopter. Not because we felt the Aircorp needed his help.

 

[Fanhunter696]

I dunno, the King is pretty radical. And I'd love to flash-freeze some rats in their tunnels. And Orks. Do you think Dragons like to eat Trolls?

Point is, I think there's potentially a way this could work. Ranald willing.

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The thing is that even if the Dragon has no grudges pending he is still going to have a fuckton of Dwarven Treasure (if only because he lives in K8P and he has probably stolen lots of it from greenskins and skavens)... And if he doesn´t give it back... Well he is entering the Book of Grudges.

 

[Quest]

Then what about negotiating with the dragons if they a e sentient?

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It's been considered. It's essentially something we want to try but it's going to be pretty difficult. If it has grudges against it, dwarves won't want to. If we piss it off, it won't want to. We'd need to thread the needle.

It's also probably best to look at after we deal with the current enemies. Ice dragons sleep for centuries and we're in no hurry to wake it up.

We're being a bad mentor to Max. He wants to create things like our gun, and we're not giving him any time to study metalworking.

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We're not his mentor, we're his employer. What we pay him also funds much of his metal-working, so...

 

[BeepSmile]

We didn't give him last turn off. We seconded him to work for the Karak's airforce. We did that because we thought that would be to his advantage, but it was still work, and his assigned task.

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He was in a gyrocopter shooting arrows, or would have been if he rolled well.

I didn't vote that because I wanted him doing something anyone with a bow or gun could do - I voted it because I wanted him to have fun.

You can see it as you like, but for me the Gyrocopter vote was always for his own enjoyment and anything in terms of personal growth is a bonus.

Cool Boss Lady: "Hey, employee, your job this week is to go and do [hobby you enjoy]"

Is closer to what we ordered than "Hey, employee, go practice your programming skills"

 

[Andres]

"Five at each underground front, twenty total. We're on track to triple that in another six months, and all the work is being done at Karak Azul so that's alongside any other work."

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@BoneyM I don't think Karak Azul is meant to be able to make guns so soon. They didn't have gunpowder weapons until they were reconnected.

Apparently Ice dragons are really lazy (wiki says sedate and slumbesome) and dragons have been known to sleep for centuries on end. Maybe we could be lucky and we could murder it in its sleep.

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The problem there is the "murder" bit. Murder is Khaine's thing, and something Ranald is strongly against. Ranald's ok with it if it's against destruction faction, but ganking some dragon peacefully sleeping in a mountain because it's convenient? Easy way to earn his disfavour.

 

[soul ice]

[ ] battle tower operational and laying the foundation.
-[ ] MAX: Allow him to spend all his time on his metalworking studies.
-[ ] JOHANN: Join him on raids into Clan Mors territory with the aim of finding written correspondence. (NEW)
-[ ] DUCK: Gretel's motivated by wealth. Take her on a raid against Clan Mors, looking for wealth and Queekish. (NEW-ish)
-[ ] Put policies in place that local news should be collected and sent to you (rumour mill).
-[ ] Blue Tower: build a tower that uses Azyr to create clear sky on demand.
-[ ] Red Tower: build a tower that uses Aqshy to create mystical flames (and non-mystical light) to use the mountain at night.
-[ ] Try to deepen your understanding of Skaven warfare.
--[ ] Convince Qrech there is to be a push on traitor clan Mors
-[ ] Attempt to learn a spell from scrolls (specify which, will be harder than studying it at the Grey College)
--[ ] invisibility
-[ ] Write a paper: select which.
--[ } The ability of Alkharad to assume a projected form of mist. (FADING)

this is what I would suggest as for reasoning if Max gets a metalworking knowlege he will be more valuable for reverse engineering the Skaven tech so let him work on it. getting correspondence from Mors adds to the Qrech gambit and makes it easier to push for language next turn with a larger sample size to compare with. the only thing I am not sure of is if we should use the Gambler on the collection action for better loot or add the deceiver to the gambit. and now off to bed.

 

[pucflek]

I only just noticed Roswita has affinity for wizards on her sheet. Had a cartload of laughs over that one.

 

[SITB]

Just need buy the dragon out lol, if the We silk stuff works Belegar would be flush with money. So paying the dragon to move to a different locale that isn't part of the Dwaeven heritage (possibly the dwarves can build a new lair?) and buying out the stuff that's supposed to belong to the dwarves is possible. Hell, realpolitik-wise if the dragon isn't part of any standing grudges then them holding to dwarf artifact is excusable on the grounds of rescuing it from the Skaven/Orcs and the gold is repayment for returning it.

As an aside, @BoneyM, is there any point in throwing college favor at the towers or do we assume that Belegar already covers all the costs?

 

[Boney]

@BoneyM I don't think Karak Azul is meant to be able to make guns so soon. They didn't have gunpowder weapons until they were reconnected.

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They can make a cauldron and then ramp up the thickness about thirty-fold or so. They can't make a cannon that can aim and they can't make a cannon that would be at all portable, but grapeshot means not having to aim and being effectively stationary means they can overengineer the living hell out of it to make up for a lack of any idea what the hell they're doing.

As an aside, @BoneyM, is there any point in throwing college favor at the towers or do we assume that Belegar already covers all the costs?

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Now that you've exhausted your supply of Magister Patriarchs with a love for tower weaponization, you can leave the rest on Belegar's tab.

 

[Luminous]

The thing is that even if the Dragon has no grudges pending he is still going to have a fuckton of Dwarven Treasure (if only because he lives in K8P and he has probably stolen lots of it from greenskins and skavens)... And if he doesn´t give it back... Well he is entering the Book of Grudges.

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"Stolen? Nah, that's just his front pay for killing all of those rats an' Orks!"

 

[Fanhunter696]

It's also probably best to look at after we deal with the current enemies. Ice dragons sleep for centuries and we're in no hurry to wake it up.

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Apparently Ice dragons are really lazy (wiki says sedate and slumbesome) and dragons have been known to sleep for centuries on end. Maybe we could be lucky and we could murder it in its sleep.

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First, we should try to infiltrate his cave and try to identify him and take a look at his hoard... I mean we may be lucky and he is a dragon known to be reasonable or he doesn't have any grudges with the Dwarves...

 

[Quest]

Is anyone up for spending 10 college favor this turn to rig the gacha and try to one turn our spell list? It'll save a lot of time and be very worth it.

It's not like we wouldn't get the favor back in a turn or two.