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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Codex said:
@BoneyM I belive you already approved this spell idea, but I can't find the post, so can you comment on its eligibility?

I'm thinking of a spell that is essentially Eye of the Beholder, but applies to people using the Fog of War trait. Make someone (or a group of people) look more or less threatning using similar concepts as EotB.
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I believe my comment was along the lines of 'yes, but at the scale of entire units it'd be battle magic'.
 
Say, random question: why is it that humans can't perform high magic?

Is it some sort of inherent limitation, or do they not have a sufficiently developed mystical knowledge base, or do they just not live long enough to learn everything necessary?
 
@BoneyM since the branch college idea has some support in the thread I'm curious, how would Belegar see the notion, as a long term prospect? Is he wary? Excited? Some combination of the two? Or do we need to vote to ask him IC to find out?
 
TaliesinSkye said:
Say, random question: why is it that humans can't perform high magic?

Is it some sort of inherent limitation, or do they not have a sufficiently developed mystical knowledge base, or do they just not live long enough to learn everything necessary?
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Using High Magic means learning all eight Winds of magic to a pretty high level just as a starting point. That takes longer than a human lifespan. On top of that, humans are very mutable to magic, so it's rare that someone can learn one Wind without being changed by it in such a way that it locks them in to using only that Wind.

DragonParadox said:
@BoneyM since the branch college idea has some support in the thread I'm curious, how would Belegar see the notion, as a long term prospect? Is he wary? Excited? Some combination of the two? Or do we need to vote to ask him IC to find out?
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The idea that you could accept Wizards into your community without also accepting their future Apprentices wouldn't even have occurred to him.

Codex said:
So if it was a small radius of effect like Universal Confusion, it would be Fiendishly Complex?
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If it was centered on the caster, yes.
 
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[X] Gretel, who's apparently spending her newly-earned wealth to make herself at home.
[X] Roswita, as she campaigns through Hunger Wood.
[X] Julia, See what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
[X] The Amber College, to see how your donation of Lustrian eggs is going.
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.

[X] No, the social actions should remain as they currently are.
 
[X] The Amber College, to see how your donation of Lustrian eggs is going.

We got a high roll for this. We better know what they hatched into.

[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.

We have really been neglecting our holdings.
 
Vote tally:
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Nov 13, 2019 at 3:27 AM, finished with 861 posts and 171 votes.
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@Quest:
Not so much an approved spell, but approved spell research (it's a bit more long term): Here.

WOG that it's possible, here. Also notes it would take multiple AP, like over several turns and is likely to have to compromise on the result, unless we are really, really favored by Ranald and the dice.
 
TaliesinSkye said:
Say, random question: why is it that humans can't perform high magic?

Is it some sort of inherent limitation, or do they not have a sufficiently developed mystical knowledge base, or do they just not live long enough to learn everything necessary?
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Well the way the Elves use high magic is basically described as a form of massive multi tasking, imagine a painter using eight hands to paint with eight brushes at once. Humans dont have the multi tasking to do it, on top of that the system of magic the empire uses is reliant on monofocusing winds to the point where their souls align with one wind to make it much safer by removing a lot the chance for incidental dhar creation.

Theres decent reasons to believe it might be possible to manipulate one wind with another but thats rather speculative until we take the research action in the turn plan, were probably two to three turns out from doing that.
 
[X] Investigate the aftermath of the Empire's campaigns against the Skaven in Nuln and Ubersreik.
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.
[X] Julia, See what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
 
If we are talking about next turn purchases I'd like to push buying an item of Cleansing Glow, which can be used to cleanse Mathilde of smoke when she is sneaking.

So if she is forced to traverse an area with a lot of smoke she can just use the item and continue sneaking.
 
[x] Max, during the few breaks in the silence as the two of you worked on Queekish in the Room of Serenity.
[x] Investigate the aftermath of the Empire's campaigns against the Skaven in Nuln and Ubersreik.
[x] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi and possible future Thane.
[x] Kragg, who's begun to be seen around the Karak once more, indicating he might be finishing his study of the rune-axe you and Johann found.
[x] Yes, have one social interaction be initiated by someone other than Mathilde.
 
SuperSonicSound said:
Well the way the Elves use high magic is basically described as a form of massive multi tasking, imagine a painter using eight hands to paint with eight brushes at once. Humans dont have the multi tasking to do it, on top of that the system of magic the empire uses is reliant on monofocusing winds to the point where their souls align with one wind to make it much safer by removing a lot the chance for incidental dhar creation.

Theres decent reasons to believe it might be possible to manipulate one wind with another but thats rather speculative until we take the research action in the turn plan, were probably two to three turns out from doing that.
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I think Boneys post explains it better tbh. They could but never live long enough to get even halfway there is pretty to the point.
 
Volans came closest, but he could only perceive the Eight Winds at a High Elf level with attempts to use them ending in a big disaster early in his life.
 
Codex said:
@BoneyM I belive you already approved this spell idea, but I can't find the post, so can you comment on its eligibility?

I'm thinking of a spell that is essentially Eye of the Beholder, but applies to people using the Fog of War trait. Make someone (or a group of people) look more or less threatning using similar concepts as EotB.
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I believe you're thinking of my spell proposal here:
DarkLight140 said:
This is actually the seed of a really interesting idea! What if we made a variation of Eye of the Beholder which, instead of targeting an item and the concept of value, targeted a person(/group) and the concepts of danger/importance? So instead of an illusion which makes something look cheap or valuable, we get an illusion which makes a person look harmless or dangerous. Normal knights could look like light cavalry scouts or terrifying demigryph riders, capable but unexceptional soldiers could look like champions or terrified conscripts, an Elector Count could be concealed within the ranks, and so forth. This seems like a very solid piece of logical development that plays directly into our Fog of War trait. It could be developed into either a battle magic scale spell that gets used on entire units, or a much lesser scale spell targeting a single individual at a time. @BoneyM, a review of this spell idea?
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BoneyM said:
Entirely plausible.
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You've just gotten somewhat more specific feedback than the original ever did, admittedly. The battle magic scale spell is obviously battle magic and therefore very dangerous to develop; I'd be more comfortable with a single-target spell as our initial development goal, then a large template spell, like the scaling of the Bewilder/Universal Confusion spell line, before trying for a battle magic version. We could certainly start at the top if we're feeling bold, though!

In any case the key factors to make it work are long duration and not needing Mathilde to be around, so that it can actually work on a strategic scale. A lot of grey magic spells have durations measured in minutes, but this needs hours at least and preferably days in order to really be worthwhile on a battlefield scale (it could still be usable for infiltrations/extractions with a shorter duration, but that's not why we're making it) since it needs to be cast, deceive scouts and such who see it, give the enemy time to erroneously react based on their bad data, etc. to really live up to its potential. Or at the very least, last long enough to hide a ridiculous champion inside a normal unit so that they can pop out of nowhere and murder enemy warbosses like Mathilde does.

There were also some related ideas at the time which might be worth investigating, like this one:
Kornet said:
I love this idea. I don't think it should be limited to people, though. "This hill is of obvious strategic importance, we must capture it at all costs!"
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Which is, basically, a Battle Magic version of Eye of the Beholder on pure scaling, focused on a conceptual deception instead of a physical illusion. That was never explicitly approved as far as I know, though.

@Quest you may want to add this to your approved spell listing. Also, I know we've had the basic idea of "giant fog bank that allies can see through but enemies can't" suggested and approved on multiple occasions but I'm certainly not going thread-diving for that.
 
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ninjafish said:
it's pretty much the only way left for magical advancement in ulgu at this point.

All the big name wizards know battle magic, you ain't no one important if you don't.

We have the gambler, we have dhar belt, i say we do it.
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We're already very magically powerful and there's no pressing need for us to get even more so. The risk of getting those two bad arcane marks or miscasting during training are so completely not worth the risk of this gluttonously eternal quest for power.

And that thing about Mathilde not being important if she doesn't know battle magic is straight bullshit, ninjafish. There's no one who can believe that idea.

Zero Gravitas said:
Not that dangerous. Between Learning and coin that's a +47 bonus right there which is in no way insignificant particularly if Magic 8 reduces the learning threshold by a bit.

Magic items aren't going to potentially have masteries, will have casting limitations - even the non-BM Seed has only four charges that take quite a bit to recover and actual BM items are going to be even more demanding.

If Battle Wizards could just enchant their staves to safely throw unlimited BM spells around they wouldn't try casting in the middle of battles.
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Learning and casting battle magic for the goal of getting friggin masteries is insane and dangerous, an unrealistic goal that by necessity will require many coin-flips to see if we miscast. I am alarmed that there are this many people who don't see battle magic miscasts as that big of a deal.

As for rechargeability issues, it's entirely tolerable. This plan of yours to chuck multiple battle magic spells every battle is very likely gonna mess up our own side eventually, so that plan is never gonna happen. A far more realistic SOP is that in a given battle we either never use battle magic at all, or we use it once, when and where it'd have the most effect. That can be done most safely with items. In fact, items would mean we do battle magic more in any given battle; because we know it's perfectly safe with no chance of miscast, there's less hesitation to bust out the maximum amount of nukes in a given battle.

There's also the fact that Mathilde's most effective not as a walking nuke, but as an assassin and general. Battle magic doesn't help her in those niches of hers, and is certainly not worth killing her social life for it.
 
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BoneyM said:
No such books exist, they're not enough of a threat vector for Dwarves to have paid special attention to the familiars of their enemies.
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Would a paper that proves the familiars are enough of a threat vector, that if the Dwarfs had paid them special attention, Time of Woes would be called 'Time of Minor Inconveniences', be considered shattering? I rather suspect it would not be appreciated but...
 
zup said:
Would a paper that proves the familiars are enough of a threat vector, that if the Dwarfs had paid them special attention, Time of Woes would be called 'Time of Minor Inconveniences', be considered shattering? I rather suspect it would not be appreciated but...
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I mean, that paper would be a lie. How exactly are familiars a threat vector to Dawi?
 
pucflek said:
I mean, that paper would be a lie. How exactly are familiars a threat vector to Dawi?
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Well, the dragon riders of Caledor might have something to say about that given the dragons are almost certainly their familiars, but yea I agree it's kind of silly.

pucflek said:
I think Boneys post explains it better tbh. They could but never live long enough to get even halfway there is pretty to the point.
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Yea but that makes the implicit presumption that humans could learn to wield high magic in the way elves do. Which I don't think BoneyM has outright said would be possible although I could be wrong. I think even if they could live that long they wouldn't be able to pull it off (and certainly in the normal warhammer lore that is a basic conceit, quest lore obviously is supreme here). I think the Elven casting method for high magic is kind of tailored to their unique biological and Animalogical state. Something that wouldn't be sensible for humans to pursue even given the time because it's reliant on quirks of the Elven soul that humans don't have.

I think you're better off approaching high magic as a human from either a cooperative venture, eight wizards of each wind working together or from a Nagashian point of using one wind to the control the others, but I'm sure at this point I'm just reiterating old discussion.

I'm actually kind of excited for the next few turns. I think we can knock Queekish out, then AV and move onto Ulgu tongs to test the idea.
 
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