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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Asheram said:
Ice Dragons are reportedly quite slow to anger and rather sedate. If we have a chance of diplomancy I'd put above-average odds to talk it out compared to any other dragon type.
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Ummm

BoneyM said:
From the windows of your Entrance Hall, you can immediately see the cause: perched atop the frozen peak of Karag Zilfin is an enormous pure-white dragon, clawing at its face and roaring in distress. Then with a single gesture of its claw, you see and hear and feel and somehow taste pure Hysh thrumming through the air, and the dragon stills, its head swinging this way and that as it takes in the mountains. Then with another roar - this one very clearly not of reactive, surprised anger, but the low, reverberating roar of a promise of terrible vengeance - it climbs headfirst down the side of the near-vertical face of Karag Zilfin and disappears back into the mountain.
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Yeah, I think "sedate" and "slow to anger" flew out the window the moment he got aggressively woken up, and then responded to looking at the state of Karak Eight Peaks by unleashing a roar of terrible vengeance.

Like, we aren't approaching Smaug sitting comfortably in his hoard, we're dealing with him for the first time when he is utterly pissed off and actively on his way to roast an entire city.

In my view, if we don't have a plan to deal with this thing besides Diplomance it, we are hopelessly ill-prepared to deal with this. That desperately needs a Plan B.

Best plans I can think of so far is firing the Eye of Gazul in the moments after Kragg smashes him with an Anvil Spell so he doesn't dispel and insta-roast the Tower, and shoving the Brass Orb into his face.
 
Ericwinter said:
You know, random thought. If we do diplomance the dragon, can you imagine how much knowledge he could share with us? Like, not even just Hysh magic, I wouldn't be surprised if it knew a good chunk of runes and other lords as well, not to mention the normal historical knowledge and stuff. It might even know the answer to Kragg's axe dilemma, if we were really lucky.
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That requires the dragon has been interacting with anything, and not just sleeping in caves for the past five thousand years. It's entirely possible the dragon has nothing of interest to share.
 
ChronOblivion said:
Ummm



Yeah, I think "sedate" and "slow to anger" flew out the window the moment he got aggressively woken up, and then responded to looking at the state of Karak Eight Peaks by unleashing a roar of terrible vengeance.

Like, we aren't approaching Smaug sitting comfortably in his hoard, we're dealing with him for the first time when he is utterly pissed off and actively on his way to roast an entire city.

In my view, if we don't have a plan to deal with this thing besides Diplomance it, we are hopelessly ill-prepared to deal with this. That desperately needs a Plan B.

Best plans I can think of so far is firing the Eye of Gazul in the moments after Kragg smashes him with an Anvil Spell so he doesn't disple and insta-roast the Tower, and shoving the Brass Orb into his face.
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The only answers to dragons we currently have are: The Eye of Gazul, Kragg's Anvil of Doom, Artillery and the Gyrocopters. Again all of the current plans have things set up so we can use those tools against the dragon if it comes and attacks us but I still think that that is unlikely.
 
ChronOblivion said:
Yeah, I think "sedate" and "slow to anger" flew out the window the moment he got aggressively woken up, and then responded to looking at the state of Karak Eight Peaks by unleashing a roar of terrible vengeance.

Like, we aren't approaching Smaug sitting comfortably in his hoard, we're dealing with him for the first time when he is utterly pissed off and actively on his way to roast an entire city.
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In its defense, that dragon was woken up by the equivalent of Nurgle sneaking up and farting in its face.
It had to heal itself immediately and from how it was clawing itself in the face it was likely from something extremely caustic.
Also, that's Skryre over there, not Mors that we're going to assault.
 
ChronOblivion said:
Yeah, I think "sedate" and "slow to anger" flew out the window the moment he got aggressively woken up, and then responded to looking at the state of Karak Eight Peaks by unleashing a roar of terrible vengeance.

Like, we aren't approaching Smaug sitting comfortably in his hoard, we're dealing with him for the first time when he is utterly pissed off and actively on his way to roast an entire city.
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Yeah, but it's not our city,

In my view, if we don't have a plan to deal with this thing besides Diplomance it, we are hopelessly ill-prepared to deal with this. That desperately needs a Plan B.
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But you know, there's no place in the vote for us to write a Plan B. We aren't being asked to write-in anti-dragon contingencies.

I suppose discussing it in the thread doesn't hurt in the "give BoneyM some ideas if it does come to that" sense, but people who aren't interested or bothering to discuss it aren't doing anything wrong. There's nothing missing from the vote that needs to be there.
 
Chronic said:
Interesting. That means the big question as to how effective the tower is against an army packing halfway decent counterspell support is how long it takes to fire it again after being counterspelled, and how often it can do so. We'd need to seriously tire out the enemies spellcasters to have any chance of getting a spell through...
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Or, as Boney mentioned a few pages ago, have some of our casters interfering with counterspell activity.
 
I'll admit that now that the thread seems to have warmed to the idea of Waifunar the everloved, ice emperor of K8P, I am more willing to try Diplomacy.

Specially since it already fulfilled his role of weakening our enemies (no need to bargain for that) and has seen the disadvantages of having unruly neighbours.

Hopefully the grudge test comes back negative.
 
Briefvoice said:
But you know, there's no place in the vote for us to write a Plan B. We aren't being asked to write-in anti-dragon contingencies.
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The closest we're expected to do in the way of anti-dragon planning is making sure the weapons that are actually useful against it are in places where a) they could target the dragon should it attack, and b) won't die instantly to an angry dragon.

That's Kragg, Thorek, and the artillery, basically, and I'm pretty sure we're keeping them forted up in places where they can defend the Citadel and Karagril, so job done.
 
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The Adventures of Meoewthilde Weber 1
  • Apocrypha
    • We've been joking about Mathilde as Belegar's cat. Little did we know, Mathilde has always been a cat: prone to wandering off, getting into trouble, and bringing home murderpresents. I PRESENT:

    THE ADVENTURES OF MEOWTHILDE WEBER
    Episode One
    ​
    Our story begins with the first meeting of the Council of Stirland: Abelhelm van Hal, the new Elector-Count; Anton Kiesinger, his Diplomat and heir to the Barony of Blutdorf; Lucrecio de Verezzo, his Marshal and Professor of Military History at the University of Altdorf (forcibly ret.); Wilhelmina Hochschild, his Steward, old friend, and trusted ally; Kasmir Henz, his Chaplain and a Warrior-Priest of Sigmar; Detlef Schultz, his head architect and a coward; and Meowthilde Weber, his Spymistress, a Journeycat of the Grey College. Meowthilde is assigned to track down the intelligence infrastructure left behind by her predecessor, and so she applies the investigative tactics that have made the Grey College of Wizardry an intelligence force par excellence: she wanders around until something attempts to murder her, and then kills it single-pawedly. E.C. van Hal finds her primly cleaning gore from her claws, perched over the body of a gribbly.

    van Hal: You have been on the job for three months. Three months.
    Weber: *wide-eyed innocent look*
    van Hal: ...and aren't you supposed to be a wizard? Why did you kill it with stabbing, of all things?
    Weber: *purrs smugly while batting the skull around with her paws*
     
  • Apocrypha
    • ChronOblivion said:
    Best plans I can think of so far is firing the Eye of Gazul in the moments after Kragg smashes him with an Anvil Spell so he doesn't dispel and insta-roast the Tower, and shoving the Brass Orb into his face.
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    I doubt the Eye of Gazul is going to do anything much to it. It's useful, but Emperor Dragons have sturdy scales and souls, so it will almost certainly survive only slightly damaged. And this one in particular can just restore itself to prime health with a Boon of Hysh whenever it wishes, as long as we don't manage to dispell it. I don't think it would be worth it, we need the Eye intact to have a chance of dealing with the Redeye Waaagh, using it against the Dragon is likely to loose the tower as it retaliates.

    The way to deal with the Dragon if it proves hostile is to have Kragg, Mathilde and Thorek on dispell duty within the Citadel while the Gyrocopters harry it from the air. That should annoy it enough that it decides to land at said Citadel to take us out and regain its ability to cast. Then we hit it with everything we've got, magic, the Anvils, all available infantry, artillery, the brass orb, the works. Clan Angrunds rune weapons should prove capable of breaking its hide. Maybe.
     
    Is the dragon actually going to be able to do much to Clan Skyre?

    I mean... they deliberately didn't expand into the upper mountain because it was there, so it's going to have to go at them in the Undermountain. And now we have to ask how many passages down there are wide enough to fit a dragon? Seems like they could pull back to safer areas and just wait it out.
     
    picklepikkl said:
    We've been joking about Mathilde as Belegar's cat. Little did we know, Mathilde has always been a cat: prone to wandering off, getting into trouble, and bringing home murderpresents. I PRESENT:

    THE ADVENTURES OF MEOWTHILDE WEBER
    Episode One
    ​
    Our story begins with the first meeting of the Council of Stirland: Abelhelm van Hal, the new Elector-Count; Anton Kiesinger, his Diplomat and heir to the Barony of Blutdorf; Lucrecio de Verezzo, his Marshal and Professor of Military History at the University of Altdorf (forcibly ret.); Wilhelmina Hochschild, his Steward, old friend, and trusted ally; Kasmir Henz, his Chaplain and a Warrior-Priest of Sigmar; Detlef Schultz, his head architect and a coward; and Meowthilde Weber, his Spymistress, a Journeycat of the Grey College. Meowthilde is assigned to track down the intelligence infrastructure left behind by her predecessor, and so she applies the investigative tactics that have made the Grey College of Wizardry an intelligence force par excellence: she wanders around until something attempts to murder her, and then kills it single-pawedly. E.C. van Hal finds her primly cleaning gore from her claws, perched over the body of a gribbly.

    van Hal: You have been on the job for three months. Three months.
    Weber: *wide-eyed innocent look*
    van Hal: ...and aren't you supposed to be a wizard? Why did you kill it with stabbing, of all things?
    Weber: *purrs smugly while batting the skull around with her paws*
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    Lol this is exactly what I needed today.
     
    Briefvoice said:
    Seems like they could pull back to safer areas and just wait it out.
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    They've already pulled back behind a no-rat's-land they've proceeded to fill with gas.

    That said, people have been saying something about Hysh spells being perfectly happy to go through walls?

    I'm pretty sure a battlemage of an Emperor Dragon's caliber can come up with something.
     
    Does anyone know if dragons have their own language here?

    Otherwise, we know that at least some dragons assisted the Old Ones build the polar warp gates, so they may speak their tongue, in which case Eltharin, as a descendant tongue may be mutually intelligible.

    As a side note, if this dragon is one of those true ancients, what it could teach would be astonishing. We might even see Teclis here as a fellow student, not a teacher, which would be pretty incredible.

    Unlikely though.
     
    Briefvoice said:
    Is the dragon actually going to be able to do much to Clan Skyre?

    I mean... they deliberately didn't expand into the upper mountain because it was there, so it's going to have to go at them in the Undermountain. And now we have to ask how many passages down there are wide enough to fit a dragon? Seems like they could pull back to safer areas and just wait it out.
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    Veekie said that Hysh has relatively simple clairvoyance spells to see through walls. Combined with some classic light blasting nuke spells, it can scry-and-die every significant Skryre holdout.

    Hysh also likes to mess with time and space, so it might have a spell that allows it to fit into spaces it really shouldn't fit into. That is only a maybe, though.
     
    Briefvoice said:
    Is the dragon actually going to be able to do much to Clan Skyre?

    I mean... they deliberately didn't expand into the upper mountain because it was there, so it's going to have to go at them in the Undermountain. And now we have to ask how many passages down there are wide enough to fit a dragon? Seems like they could pull back to safer areas and just wait it out.
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    Werll, a lot of that is probably still dwarven infrastructure and they tended to build big from what we know and an angry dragon with magic at his disposable can probably bully through a lot of obstacles. But in my opinion Skyre should of all the factions in K8P be best equipped to deal with stuff like an angry dragon. They can outdo dwarves in regards for artiliery on a good day and I don't care how big of a dragon you are, facing multiple lightning canons or the like head on is going to ruin your day.
     
    At this point I think we shouldn't have built the fucking tower. The "discussion" is giving me an anyrism just from proximity. If it can't do the fucking basics of what we built it for, I want our money and favours back.
    storybookknight said:
    One thing that I should point out to anyone hoping to diplomance the Dragon: if dwarfdom has any notable Grudges against the Dragon, trying to befriend it might be politically impossible. IIRC Belegar decided to send off for a list of Grudges against Ice Dragons to see if they could identify it, but if there was a result to that I don't remember seeing it.
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    Belegar: "I told you to SLAY the Dragon, not LAY the Dragon, Mathilde!"
     
    deathofrats0808 said:
    Shouldn't that be Elector-Cat if it's a cats as people world?
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    I was going with a Wishbone-type setup where everyone is a person, except Meowthilde is just a grey tabby in a wizard hat and nobody finds this remarkable. I think it's funnier that way.

    EDIT: also, gosh, I got threadmarked. If I do more of these, I will aim for longer installments, or more at once, so as not to clutter the threadmarks unduly.
     
    Candesce said:
    They've already pulled back behind a no-rat's-land they've proceeded to fill with gas.

    That said, people have been saying something about Hysh spells being perfectly happy to go through walls?

    I'm pretty sure a battlemage of an Emperor Dragon's caliber can come up with something.
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    Looking back at the kind of thing the Light College has done, I'd half expect spatial manipulation, so that although the outside dimensions of a tunnel indicate it should only be a foot across, it's internal dimensions are now the width of a football pitch.
     
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