There won't be a new EC yet when we get to Wurtbad, and there's a decent chance there won't be one by the end of a turn.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- 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
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I don't really see Mathilde internalising this one. The undead were dangerous, but pretty much every incidence of enemy casting went badly, either by their incompetence or by good reactions on the part of our artillery.
In the confusion of battle, even the greatest warrior can lose their life pointlessly.
This one I can see, especially with the potential to extrapolate it to cover life in general (you can't account for everything).
The lesson about mundane means surpassing magic definitely rings true as well.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
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- Lost in my thoughts
This is a pretty fun idea for shaping character personality and advancing their development at the same time. Let's see... this campaign spans an impressive sixteen updates, a full third of the quest, so it would be a mistake to draw only on the most recent handful of events when considering what Mathilde has learned/come to believe over the course of the war, even if the big finish will likely have the biggest impact on her for obvious reasons. Let's check back and see how she participated and what she might believe as a result.
In the Brauzeit, 2475 update she and Van Hal both ran around the Haunted Hills hoping to find some reason that the undead were being stubborn and ultimately found that it was just a matter of difficult geography which the line troops were handling just fine. In Ulriczeit, 2475 this was followed up by investigating Gustav's work on the Blasphemy of Blood and finding that yes, he had in fact done a fine job of pulverizing it and double-checking his performance was a colossal waste of her time. Between the two of these I could see her learning a powerful lesson about sometimes being completely unnecessary and needing to stand back, let professionals do their work, and have faith in their skills- a lesson which, to jump forward a bit, she put to use in Assault on Drakenhof, Part 7, where she literally sat on a cushioned chair for days on end while letting the army do their thing, stepping in only when she could provide critical observation which she could reasonably expect no one else to be able to discern (locating the building ritual so that the dwarves could blast it). This lesson would be something like "Focus on what only you can do", or "Everyone should tend to their own tasks".
In Pflugzeit, 2476, Mathilde spoke with Countess Gabriella von Bundebad, where this exchange occurred:
In Nachgeheim, 2476, Mathilde joined the battle against the Singing King. She admired the organization and delegation present among the military staff, as it was her first exposure to it. Interestingly, the Singing King was caught after killing a bunch of greenskins, then was defeated by the Stirlanders, and that defeat allowed for the easy alliance with the Throng of Zhufbar. It feels to me like there should be a lesson to be learned there- enemies defeated/weakened other enemies so that we didn't have to fight them, and the defeat of those enemies allowed the acquisition of friends; that's a powerful statement particularly considering how utterly essential the dwarves later proved in the campaign. If they hadn't joined up here, it's no exaggeration to say that Castle Drakenhof might not have fallen, and certainly taking the town would have been much uglier. Also of note is the truly exceptional double-crit spellcasting that Mathilde pulled off with Kasmir here, where the whole was most certainly more than the sum of its parts- but I'm not sure how to turn that into an internalized lesson. Heck, from the fact that in spite of their star turn a third of the army was on the casualty list means that she could well pick up a damage like "no heroism can save everyone"- certainly nothing in her later experiences would contradict it.
The bulk of the lessons/damage to be drawn from the Assault updates are being brought up already, either in the defaults or by others. A few of my own suggestions, though:
"Subtlety is life", or conversely, "Stand out and die". Enemy spellcasters, identified by their slow and prominent ritual magics? They're just marking themselves out for artillery. Van Hal and Mathilde's doomed charge, drawing so much attention to themselves- if they had stayed in the ranks... well. The Singing King was noted to have completely overlooked the casters at Van Hal's side right before their combo-spell went off, and we saw how that worked out. It's no exaggeration to say that Mathilde's greatest successes in the Drakenhof sequence were when she didn't put herself forward and instead kept to the command tents and artillery batteries- and those who did, well. All those slayers, greatswords, and Markus died in valiant, doomed charges into the heart of the enemy while the artillery won the day by being quietly moved into place until they could decisively strike.
Van Hal spoke his last words to Mathilde, as she stood by his side. They were:
I found the Ranald sequence powerful, enough so that I'd be unwilling to vote against anything raging at the gods in general rather than Sigmar in particular- sure, Ranald didn't heal Van Hal, but it's not terribly reasonable to have expected him to; his priests don't even get healing spells as far as I know. Having a literal god to show up and give you a physical sensation of comfort during your time of anguish is pretty incredible, though, and between Ranald and Launy the Barazul I kind of feel like Mathilde had people there for her when she most needed them, and even if they couldn't actually do anything to solve her problems at least she wasn't alone. But I don't know that either of those is likely to have been etched into her personality rather than merely mitigating the damage done.
Mathilde saw or at least saw the evidence of multiple casters blowing themselves up in this campaign. She also saw the Amethyst Patriarch go down to some unknown because he poked it. Further, she had a serious miscast while trying to learn the Invisibility spell that she may well have survived uninjured only because of Ranald's Blessing. I would not be at all surprised to see her develop some kind of magic-related damage because of these factors and her ability to survive a truly incredible physical confrontation and power through wounds afterward; "My magic will kill me, one day". Considering that she's Brave I'd expect the results of that to be more of a fatalistic/reckless acceptance than overcaution, though.
This campaign's major battles, except for the last against Castle Drakenhof, all had fairly horrific casualty figures. Between that and the serious hero casualties I would not be surprised to see a damage like "The road to victory is paved with corpses."
The Castle Drakenhof battle itself demonstrated something else pretty well- it had a ton of nasty enemies inside, but they never got to engage and were shattered piecemeal even though they had plenty of warning- if they'd emerged and formed up the moment smoke started rising from the town instead of letting us entrench around the castle we'd have had a very difficult fight. They lost themselves that battle through their own foolishness. A lesson to be learned there is something like "force is worthless if not brought to bear".
In the Brauzeit, 2475 update she and Van Hal both ran around the Haunted Hills hoping to find some reason that the undead were being stubborn and ultimately found that it was just a matter of difficult geography which the line troops were handling just fine. In Ulriczeit, 2475 this was followed up by investigating Gustav's work on the Blasphemy of Blood and finding that yes, he had in fact done a fine job of pulverizing it and double-checking his performance was a colossal waste of her time. Between the two of these I could see her learning a powerful lesson about sometimes being completely unnecessary and needing to stand back, let professionals do their work, and have faith in their skills- a lesson which, to jump forward a bit, she put to use in Assault on Drakenhof, Part 7, where she literally sat on a cushioned chair for days on end while letting the army do their thing, stepping in only when she could provide critical observation which she could reasonably expect no one else to be able to discern (locating the building ritual so that the dwarves could blast it). This lesson would be something like "Focus on what only you can do", or "Everyone should tend to their own tasks".
In Pflugzeit, 2476, Mathilde spoke with Countess Gabriella von Bundebad, where this exchange occurred:
There was some other stuff about her being a vampire and probably plotting, and Van Hal talked about that bit later, but it's the "why would I do anything" that strikes me as the part of this that Mathilde might really walk away from this campaign having taken to heart. von Bundebad, if what she said and Van Hal said about her is to be read into, is probably a vampire who didn't particularly like the other vampires. Presumably she didn't care for Van Hal or the Stirlanders, either. And when they went to war, the leaders of both sides died (probably, the vampire Countess could still crawl out from under some rubble), horrific casualties were taken, Castle Drakenhof itself was shattered... and who was the greatest winner, in the end? There's a reasonable argument to be made that it's Countess Gabriella von Bundebad, who did nothing. I could see that being taken as either a powerful lesson ("The right inaction can serve better than action") or a terrible trauma ("Focus on one enemy leaves another free to grow strong").
In Nachgeheim, 2476, Mathilde joined the battle against the Singing King. She admired the organization and delegation present among the military staff, as it was her first exposure to it. Interestingly, the Singing King was caught after killing a bunch of greenskins, then was defeated by the Stirlanders, and that defeat allowed for the easy alliance with the Throng of Zhufbar. It feels to me like there should be a lesson to be learned there- enemies defeated/weakened other enemies so that we didn't have to fight them, and the defeat of those enemies allowed the acquisition of friends; that's a powerful statement particularly considering how utterly essential the dwarves later proved in the campaign. If they hadn't joined up here, it's no exaggeration to say that Castle Drakenhof might not have fallen, and certainly taking the town would have been much uglier. Also of note is the truly exceptional double-crit spellcasting that Mathilde pulled off with Kasmir here, where the whole was most certainly more than the sum of its parts- but I'm not sure how to turn that into an internalized lesson. Heck, from the fact that in spite of their star turn a third of the army was on the casualty list means that she could well pick up a damage like "no heroism can save everyone"- certainly nothing in her later experiences would contradict it.
The bulk of the lessons/damage to be drawn from the Assault updates are being brought up already, either in the defaults or by others. A few of my own suggestions, though:
"Subtlety is life", or conversely, "Stand out and die". Enemy spellcasters, identified by their slow and prominent ritual magics? They're just marking themselves out for artillery. Van Hal and Mathilde's doomed charge, drawing so much attention to themselves- if they had stayed in the ranks... well. The Singing King was noted to have completely overlooked the casters at Van Hal's side right before their combo-spell went off, and we saw how that worked out. It's no exaggeration to say that Mathilde's greatest successes in the Drakenhof sequence were when she didn't put herself forward and instead kept to the command tents and artillery batteries- and those who did, well. All those slayers, greatswords, and Markus died in valiant, doomed charges into the heart of the enemy while the artillery won the day by being quietly moved into place until they could decisively strike.
Van Hal spoke his last words to Mathilde, as she stood by his side. They were:
She could draw so many things from this, and as last words they're a very appropriate choice for inspiration as something that would leave a real emotional impact on her. Many of them could be quite double-edged, too. A couple suggestions: "A powerful will can succeed even after death." "The Liber Mortis is Van Hal's last gift to me."
I found the Ranald sequence powerful, enough so that I'd be unwilling to vote against anything raging at the gods in general rather than Sigmar in particular- sure, Ranald didn't heal Van Hal, but it's not terribly reasonable to have expected him to; his priests don't even get healing spells as far as I know. Having a literal god to show up and give you a physical sensation of comfort during your time of anguish is pretty incredible, though, and between Ranald and Launy the Barazul I kind of feel like Mathilde had people there for her when she most needed them, and even if they couldn't actually do anything to solve her problems at least she wasn't alone. But I don't know that either of those is likely to have been etched into her personality rather than merely mitigating the damage done.
Mathilde saw or at least saw the evidence of multiple casters blowing themselves up in this campaign. She also saw the Amethyst Patriarch go down to some unknown because he poked it. Further, she had a serious miscast while trying to learn the Invisibility spell that she may well have survived uninjured only because of Ranald's Blessing. I would not be at all surprised to see her develop some kind of magic-related damage because of these factors and her ability to survive a truly incredible physical confrontation and power through wounds afterward; "My magic will kill me, one day". Considering that she's Brave I'd expect the results of that to be more of a fatalistic/reckless acceptance than overcaution, though.
This campaign's major battles, except for the last against Castle Drakenhof, all had fairly horrific casualty figures. Between that and the serious hero casualties I would not be surprised to see a damage like "The road to victory is paved with corpses."
The Castle Drakenhof battle itself demonstrated something else pretty well- it had a ton of nasty enemies inside, but they never got to engage and were shattered piecemeal even though they had plenty of warning- if they'd emerged and formed up the moment smoke started rising from the town instead of letting us entrench around the castle we'd have had a very difficult fight. They lost themselves that battle through their own foolishness. A lesson to be learned there is something like "force is worthless if not brought to bear".
MacroDaemon
Lachrymose Lapis
I do like the idea of Mathilde blaming the College of Magic for not actually supporting the Empire, since that's something she could eventually work towards fixing. Becoming Supreme Matriarch would take time and effort, but I imagine it's not impossible.
LoganBert34
Apprentice Clerk
- Location
- Australia
Unlike video games, in real life, as well as in this quest, it takes time for the decision making gears to start moving. Moreso here, as the guy making the decisions is dead.
My guess is that Anton would actually be regent for 3 months at least while waiting for the new Count to arrive, provided that he could be tracked down quickly. Besides, there's a lot of formalities a new count will need to go through that would only be ditched if Sylvania boiled over, so we'd have time to do so if we want.
My guess is a few years of regency just to spice things up, and then back to normal turns.
JaceAoT
The Architect
- Location
- The Netherlands
Really another way of seeing things might be that Mathilde finds other magicians (or mostly anyone really) to be incompetent.
The Dhar-mages were generally underwhelming, even inviting some form of disgust in Mathilde for their lack of ability to do anything really. Whereas the mages on our side (disregarding the death-mages) were incompetent not in their magic, but in the way they acted.
This way of looking at things might cause Mathilde to search for competence elsewhere and finding her part of the world wanting; Kasmir and by extention Sigmar are a disappointment for obvious reason and even Julia has shown major incompetence in the recent past.
I think it might give cause for Miss Weber to develop a form of utilitarianism where she feels that because she is a spymaster, she should be great at that and because she is a wizard, she should be great at that and because she is a swords(wo)man, she should be great at that etc etc.
This is supported by her (probably internalised) idea that is only she was better at everything, she might have been able to save Van Hal.
Thoughts?
The Dhar-mages were generally underwhelming, even inviting some form of disgust in Mathilde for their lack of ability to do anything really. Whereas the mages on our side (disregarding the death-mages) were incompetent not in their magic, but in the way they acted.
This way of looking at things might cause Mathilde to search for competence elsewhere and finding her part of the world wanting; Kasmir and by extention Sigmar are a disappointment for obvious reason and even Julia has shown major incompetence in the recent past.
I think it might give cause for Miss Weber to develop a form of utilitarianism where she feels that because she is a spymaster, she should be great at that and because she is a wizard, she should be great at that and because she is a swords(wo)man, she should be great at that etc etc.
This is supported by her (probably internalised) idea that is only she was better at everything, she might have been able to save Van Hal.
Thoughts?
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I think it's better summarized as "You can't rely on anyone but yourself", throwing army who failed to support Van Hal's charge into the mix. Inability to trust anyone is a fitting development and it's supported by Ulgu-inspired mindset many shadowmages have.
Well she does seem to be terrifyingly competent. The campaign seemed to be on the verge of dying and then she takes over and all of a sudden casualty numbers drastically drop, they take the town and then take the castle with almost no losses. I'm actually expecting Mathilde to become some kind of symbol in stirland with all her successes on the battlefield. And she's even scarier off the battlefield, I'm pretty sure all the nobles are still scared shitless of her flawless disappearing of von Stolpe while he was in the center of his power.
I could in addition to your thoughts also easily see this ending up with her deciding that she should be in charge of pretty much everything since it causes less screw ups.
[X] The campaign is over, but your duty to Stirland remains. Go home to Wurtbad.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Eh. On the one hand the dwarves/halflings/Asarnil were all pretty competent, but then none of them are human and they won't be who she primarily deals with in Stirland.
Of the human forces the Knights of Morr seem to have handled themselves best, but then they were consistently decent rather than spectacular in any one area/battle, so it depends on whether that'd be enough to alter Mathilde's opinion.
- Location
- Brazil
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
You sure we can only pick one of each of these, and not a "Pick X lessons and gain X damages" sort of deal? Because I kinda want almost all of these.
Artillery is the King of Battle.
Cannons are awesome and are pretty much the sole reason this horrible campaign managed to come out as a victory.
Dwarves are the greatest ally of humanity.
The dwarves really came through for us in the end. Both in terms of the campaign itself, but especially for Mathilde personally. Wilhemina and Anton were away, Markus was busy imitating a succesful Slayer and Kashmir wisely chose to put some distance between himself and Mathilde after the taking of the town, so our dwarven comrades were the only one around to actually lend some comfort.
You can probably add "Help out the dwarves" to Omegahugger's list of delusions for the rest of this quest.
The Halflings have proven themselves as a worthy neighbour.
Given how they brought more troops than the darn empire, this basically amounts to "Don't be a dick".
The risks of Dhar are endless - but likewise is the potential.
... Read my posts post-Abelheim to see why I find this appealing.
The dead of Sylvania's prehistory deserve an undisturbed rest.
This one just makes sense. "We don't want no necromancers in Stirland" is pretty much how we want things to be unless we decide to fix our liege's problem ourself.
In the confusion of battle, even the greatest warrior can lose their life pointlessly.
Essentially, "war is terrible and anyone can die". This is about as healthy a lesson as you can get out of this sorta thing.
The Colleges of Magic act in their own interest, rather than that of the Empire.
Fuckers sent almost nothing and somehow managed to do even less. Mathilde needs to show them how things are done. <.<
Sylvanians will meekly accept any tyrant, to the point of complicity in their actions.
Okay, this one doesn't actually appeal to me at all.
The Empire is a morass of self-interest, to the point of becoming a millstone around the neck of humanity.
Yeah, the Empire managed to send almost no help taking out freaking vampires. Unless we hear that there's a Waaagh going on or the Storm of Chaos has arrived, they failed us here.
Not Anton though, Anton's still cool.
The Morrite compunction against mutilating corpses is the greatest gift necromancers could ask for.
I, personally, failed to protect Abelhelm.
This pick is just ripe for character growth. It is completely unfair and unwarranted, but it is also an understandable lesson to take from this. We know that Abel rolled a Nat 1 and therefore was practically doomed, but Mathilde doesn't know that. She was right there beside him went it went wrong. If she had been just a little bit faster, maybe she'd be able to cut the offending skeletons down before they did any damage. Maybe she could've parried the spear before it entered Van Hal's stomach. Maybe if she ran into the city, she could've found our Light Mage before he exploded. Maybe she could've used the abundant Dhar to do something good for once in bloody history and saved him.
Maybe if she was someone she isn't, she could've wielded a wind of magic that can actually do something useful.
Again, we saw the dice rolls, and know that the universe basically conspired to kill him, but for someone currently in Mathilde's position, this line of thinking is unfortunately natural.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I guess my fear is that all of this huge part of her life gets boiled down to two specific traits while all of the mental consequences implied by the traits not taken get kinda neglected. Honestly, I wouldn't even care if we get no intricate mechanical boons as long as it stays clear in the narrative how the various events she witnessed and participated in and the various impactful conversations and emotions she had changed her. I mean, her appreciation of her Halfling neighbors suddenly making her not care as much about what the Dwarfs did? If we need traits I'd rather have several minor ones than two huge ones.
But maybe I'm being unfair to you for fearing that. After all you have more than proven your writing skills. As long as Mathilde's headspace in the future doesn't revolve too much around those two specific traits we chose to the expense of everything else related to the campaign, I'll be happy.
In that case we can go through Van Hal's office but don't need the other action of meeting the EC in depth. Either way, we'll have to wait and see how the situation is when we arrive.
Incidentally this is another reason to try and be the person bringing Anton and Wilhelmina the news before anyone else. To have more time to prepare for the new Elector Count. Also, we're the Spymaster. Council members learning of what happened from a source unrelated and uncontrolled by us would be a slight embarrassment.
That's not fair. The Dwarves, the Halflings and Asarnil all did their jobs pretty damn well.
Which brings me to my suggestions for traits:
"Humanity has great friends in the allied races"
"We humans in general seem to be incompetent compared to the other forces of good"
The positive version would be an opposite of racism, while the negative one a bit of self-hatred impacting how we view every institution of the Empire.
@BoneyM Do the Runefangs have any sort of enchantment on them which restricts who can wield them, like Mjolnir? Because I'm pretty sure that the scene where she was defending Van Hel in the battle of Drakenhof she was wielding Orc Hewer, his Runefang, as well as her flamberge in battle. Wizards can't become Elector Counts in the Empire, but if there is some sort of innate restriction on who can wield a Runefang and word gets out that Mathilde used one against the undead, things could get pretty interesting.
As I recall, our bonus from using Orc Hewer was +3, fairly minimal. The Runefangs was forged when the empire was a newborn, serving the Elector Counts for millenia. It was likely to understand on some level that we, too, were a loyal servant of the Count and wielded it in his defense. But even then, it was still only a fraction of its true power.
[X] The campaign is over, but your duty to Stirland remains. Go home to Wurtbad.
- Location
- Upon the back of the Great A'Tuin
Well, he is the GM, so yeah, he is probably pretty sure.
They do not.
It's not fair or healthy, that's why it's a trauma.
No, they don't. Their enchantments are limited to perfect sharpness and indestructibility.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
While I agree that it's more cheesy to ask for more lessons, I think it's entirly reasonable to ask for more trauma, since unlike lessons that isn't a bonus. I get if boneyM don't want to write her as too broken down though.
As far as the damages go, i think "The Empire is a morass of self-interest, to the point of becoming a millstone around the neck of humanity." Is the most fitting. It resonates every stage of the campaign and many events throughout the quest (the first martial adviser, Kasmir's bullshit, wizard chic) and the campaign (the lack of assistance, the way the company of honor folded like tissue paper, the failed healers, and the wizard explosions). The empire is supposed to be a network of support that can keep functioning when one component fails, but here everyone up to and including the Empire's GOD committed the bare minimum of effort, and from the empire's perspective this is a satisfactory result, because they got their purged Sylvania and Van Hal is replaceable to them.
I also prefer this option because it fits with her existing belief in Ranald, which provides both a basis for this path. Finally, it gives the potential for lateral character development. Most of the other options will probably resolve somewhere along the spectrum of "and then we got over it eventually" to "and this weighed on us forever" but this trauma is one that could drive us to action. That's true for the "the colleges failed us" option as well, but that option has none of the other reasons I like the imperial millstone option.
If we do get to pick multiple traumas, then i'd go for "I, personally, failed to protect Abelhelm." but i can't really say why I hold that preference.
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All of the lessons and potential traumas are, on some level, true. That's why they're options in the first place. But to try to focus on multiple things runs counter to the very definition of the word.
Yes, Mathilde will recognize that, say, the dwarves were a great help in the campaign even if that isn't picked as the internalized lesson.
No, I won't be allowing you to choose one lesson for every trauma, because I know that ends with Mathilde turning into a characterless omnicompetent mess of a human being with grudges against literally every being, institution, and inanimate object in the Old World.
Yes, Mathilde will recognize that, say, the dwarves were a great help in the campaign even if that isn't picked as the internalized lesson.
No, I won't be allowing you to choose one lesson for every trauma, because I know that ends with Mathilde turning into a characterless omnicompetent mess of a human being with grudges against literally every being, institution, and inanimate object in the Old World.