Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Alectai]

On the topic of the Rune of Valaya--it provides perfect protection as long as it works.

However, given what we've learned of the Ancestor Runes through the Eye of Gazul, we know that these things require said Ancestor God's implicit approval to function--the Rune of Valaya it occurs to me is probably proof against incidental corruption--or hell, even just experimenting and finding it turning to Dhar accidentally. Inviting it in by trying to work it seems like the kind of thing it would just... Not work so well.

At best, we might get a 'Polite Warning' the first time we try it, when the protection flickers just long enough to point out 'This is a blessing that can be revoked', more likely, I can see the talisman just breaking if we try to make use of our apparent protection to work Dark Magic.

Technically, this is information we didn't have when Boney gave the big spiel on how Mathilde can 'Juggle Warpstone and Hug a Daemon' , we only learned it a short time ago in universe that the Ancestor Runes require said Ancestor God's approval to operate. So I think it's worthy of pointing out as a possible piece of consideration in favor of the 'Don't fucking play with Dhar for anything less than the apocalypse'

 

[picklepikkl]

Everybody here would agree that the Skaven are one of the most evil races (if not the most evil race) in Warhammer... And if there is a central characteristic of them is that of Selfishness... But what is incredibly curious is that IRL rats are actually quite altruistic, and shows remarkable levels of empathy towards strangers.

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I'm gonna level with you: if I had to choose between making the focus of this quest "save the dwarves from their self-destructive spiral" or "assassinate the Horned Rat and liberate the skaven from the perverse incentives they're under," I'd let Belegar go hang. Fuck the Horned Rat; ratties are good soft clever frens, and the HR took every virtue they have and made it hateful and gross.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

I think you are screwing up the Under-Caldera, which is where Mathilde is right now, and the Caldera, which is hundreds of feet above her, outside, and connected to the West Gate, Citadel, and a bunch of mountains. By sealing Mountains that we take, it limits lanes of attack for the coming Waaagh.

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The Red Fang are coming overland, and there was concern about fighting them underground, so I was wondering how people thought they would get there. The question's been answered now though, so I'm good.

By the way, you have excellent taste in books. Abhorsen was a great series.

 

[Chimeraguard]

Everybody here would agree that the Skaven are one of the most evil races (if not the most evil race) in Warhammer... And if there is a central characteristic of them is that of Selfishness... But what is incredibly curious is that IRL rats are actually quite altruistic, and shows remarkable levels of empathy towards strangers.

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I've heard it said that the Skaven have some basis off of how rats get when they're in extremely cramped conditions with lots of other rats and next to no food for extended periods of time.

But yeah, I remember that video, and was pretty surprised when I watched it.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

On the topic of the Rune of Valaya--it provides perfect protection as long as it works.

However, given what we've learned of the Ancestor Runes through the Eye of Gazul, we know that these things require said Ancestor God's implicit approval to function--the Rune of Valaya it occurs to me is probably proof against incidental corruption--or hell, even just experimenting and finding it turning to Dhar accidentally. Inviting it in by trying to work it seems like the kind of thing it would just... Not work so well.

At best, we might get a 'Polite Warning' the first time we try it, when the protection flickers just long enough to point out 'This is a blessing that can be revoked', more likely, I can see the talisman just breaking if we try to make use of our apparent protection to work Dark Magic.

Technically, this is information we didn't have when Boney gave the big spiel on how Mathilde can 'Juggle Warpstone and Hug a Daemon' , we only learned it a short time ago in universe that the Ancestor Runes require said Ancestor God's approval to operate. So I think it's worthy of pointing out as a possible piece of consideration in favor of the 'Don't fucking play with Dhar for anything less than the apocalypse'

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You know, this suggests that Runes are a form of divine magic. Maybe that's the missing key to understanding how they work? If Mathilde looks at them with her experience understanding the divine she might be able to start to understand what the heck is going on with them.

 

[CrimsonOddball]

Oh, wikis have mislead me. Elsewhere I read that it's a source of all the winds, is it Dhar in Divided Loyalty canon instead?

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Yes, I must not have gotten that far. The line that mislead me was up closer to the top:
"Being the source of all magic, Warpstone is highly coveted by magicians, alchemists and sorcerers for its false properties of turning lead into gold and healing the sick and wounded."

Do we have any idea if our knowledge of destroying Dhar could enable us to easily destroy warpstone?

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Uh, warpstone is not the source of all magic.

To simplify:
Magic comes from the warp, it blows in from the polar gates in a raw state and splits into the 8 Winds upon being subjected to the pressure of reality.
Dhar is what you get when multiple Winds are forced to mix together, becoming a chaotic vortex of corruption and destruction.
Warpstone is what is essentially solidified Dhar, there's theories it is the Dhar version of a powerstone.
As others have said Warpstone is incredibly illegal.

 

[FallenPears]

As for dwarf warpstone disposal, they mostly seal it away.
Theres not many ways to destroy warpstone that don't also release lots of energy

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Pretty sure that the objectively best and most efficient method for disposing of warpstone is to pile it all up into a big swimming pool and have Mathilde jump in wearing her belt

 

[LilyWitch]

I'm gonna level with you: if I had to choose between making the focus of this quest "save the dwarves from their self-destructive spiral" or "assassinate the Horned Rat and liberate the skaven from the perverse incentives they're under," I'd let Belegar go hang. Fuck the Horned Rat; ratties are good soft clever frens, and the HR took every virtue they have and made it hateful and gross.

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I think its one of the things that makes the Under-Empire such good villains.

 

[Fanhunter696]

I've heard it said that the Skaven have some basis off of how rats get when they're in extremely cramped conditions with lots of other rats and next to no food for extended periods of time.

But yeah, I remember that video, and was pretty surprised when I watched it.

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Maybe, but i think that that GW made the Skaven that way because they thought that they needed even more Dark Comedy that the one provided by the Greenskins...

 

[Garlak]

I actually really like the pressure of never being able to follow up on everything.

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It grinds at me like incomplete work does at a Dwarf. Nakrokutar. I don't like it.

So I very much want to only ever be able to research maybe 1/2 our backlog. It makes the question of 'what next?' matter a lot.

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Look at it this way -- we got the Tower of Serenity.

This did not make our AP Hell magically go away. And in fact we arguably have an expanding list of things to do. And we no longer can do some types of actions that we could before, because the time doesn't really allow for it; for example, we haven't been able to do things like helping a Councillor with a task like we did Gunnars, or getting to know a Councillor. We can barely train ourselves or our wolf.

It did not also magically make it so that we no longer had to make interesting choices and trade-offs. In fact, if anything, I think a laboratory that would let us research backlogged artifacts, work on Snakejuice, and create things from the artifacts we studied... would create more meaningful choices and options.

Because then, we will have a debate over whether to use the action slot to progress on studying Aethyric Vitae, or creating stuff out of the Vitae; or using it on our backlog; or using it to create stuff we discovered from our backlog.

Now wouldn't that be cool and meaningful?

I think the Atelier or Laboratory or Wizard's Workshop would add meaningful choices and debate, not detract from it. And meanwhile, it would be a balm to those of us feeling Nakokrutar.

Also. I don't think we're ever going to run out of stuff. Even if we somehow did, either the players or BoneyM would come up with more ideas to add on and try. Or we'd finally take that Nagarythe Vacation... and come back with 20 more Artifacts and Papers to do. If we ever did run out of stuff, I assure you that that state of affairs would not last long.

 

[FlyingScanian]

I actually really like the pressure of never being able to follow up on everything. It creates meaningful opportunity costs to the actions we do take, and forces specialization. (Admittedly, about 1/2 the quest is adamantly in favor of a generalist Mathilde willing and able to deal with any situation, but I think that is very far from realistic, and spends a ton of time on prep for things that will never happen rather than leveraging a more limited set of skills on actual attempted changes to the world.)

So I very much want to only ever be able to research maybe 1/2 our backlog. It makes the question of 'what next?' matter a lot.

And it forces us to, if we want everything researched, develop competent allies and then hand stuff off to them. Like the rest of the colleges, and how we deal with this stuff IRL.

So I think we should give up on the black gem, the skaven firearms, the chaos dwarf book, the skaven technical manuals, and the other little stuff. I want to do the light with Adele, mostly to get her name on a paper with us (would like to co-author w all our journeymen at some point before they graduate), the vitae, the coin, and our multi-wind efforts.

Focus on our best stuff, let others support us with the rest.

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Which would be a valid argument if our problem was "our backlog is huge", not "our backlog is ever-increasing and we rarely-if-ever actually work on it" (which is sort of a subset of the former, but you get my point). How much research have we gotten done since we settled in Eight Peaks? Two-three actions worth (I think it's 2 actions snekjuice, and maybe 1 other that I'm forgetting)? The only reason we got through the Damnable Book was because it didn't cost us any actions once the decision was made.

 

[Kornet]

I've heard it said that the Skaven have some basis off of how rats get when they're in extremely cramped conditions with lots of other rats and next to no food for extended periods of time.

But yeah, I remember that video, and was pretty surprised when I watched it.

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I haven't seen this video, but I'm not surprised. Skaven are based not so much on rats, but on stereotypes against rats, and their running theme is "plague rats of DOOM".

As anyone who has kept rats at home can attest, they are, in fact, extremely caring and companionable and each idividual rat has a lot of personality. Their only failing as a pet is a very short natural lifespan.

Incidentally, that's why I no longer keep them.

 

[das_slash]

I'm gonna level with you: if I had to choose between making the focus of this quest "save the dwarves from their self-destructive spiral" or "assassinate the Horned Rat and liberate the skaven from the perverse incentives they're under," I'd let Belegar go hang. Fuck the Horned Rat; ratties are good soft clever frens, and the HR took every virtue they have and made it hateful and gross.

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Maybe there is an altar of the horned rat in the trench and we can invite Ranald for dinner?

 

[Zaratustra]

For all her eccentricities, Mathilde is a loyal wizard of the colleges. She may skirt the line, but so far she has never broken the articles of magic. Using the second secret does break them, there are no ifs and buts, we had WoG on it.

I may not agree with most that it is important that she doesn't break the articles, but even I acknowledge that it is not a trivial action.

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I feel this argument is kind of exemplar of what I was talking about.
At first glance it feels obvious, Mathilde is loyal to the colegess, breaking the articles would them be moraly bad, and that is it.
But then I ask myself, Why ? Since when are the articles and the coleges the same thing ?
Because they aren't the articles are a law, the colleges are an intitution, one is not the other, being against one isn't the same as being against both.

There is a meningfull distinction here between the letter, the praticality and the spirit of the law that the absolute statement kind of ignores and that is important if the disscussion is going to be around how Mathield personaly fells about something.

Mathilde is disgusted by Dhar.
I'm not projecting here; Mathilde thinks Dhar is a perversion of the magic she loves. It's not just wrong to use it, it's gross.

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This is kind of why I think you are projecting, I don't know if it is just me but you seen to have demonstrated one thing and stated two.
Like yes Mathilde is dissgusted be dhar, thinks it is gross and would much prefer to not want to touch it, like most people about most gross stuff.
But again, where did you get that part that it was wrong ? It was a very diferent word whit a very diferent meaning from gross.

I don't know what the baby step beyond just testing the second secret will be, but I think Boney has one in mind. There'll always be a very good reason to keep going further, and we'll probably believe them. Mathilde is the thread, and the thread is Mathilde, and no voting option will get through that at least half of everybody, and so half of Mathilde, isn't convinced they're doing for the right reason, but I'd honestly say right now that the only reason we're not already doomed is that going further costs AP.

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That was a very trought an amazing analyses.
I mostly agree with you, and kind of makes me wonder how much of the rejection for exploring the second secret comes from not knowing what the theorethical next baby step would, the fear of the unknow eroding the confidence that they would know when to stop.

On the topic of the Rune of Valaya--it provides perfect protection as long as it works.

However, given what we've learned of the Ancestor Runes through the Eye of Gazul, we know that these things require said Ancestor God's implicit approval to function--the Rune of Valaya it occurs to me is probably proof against incidental corruption--or hell, even just experimenting and finding it turning to Dhar accidentally. Inviting it in by trying to work it seems like the kind of thing it would just... Not work so well.

At best, we might get a 'Polite Warning' the first time we try it, when the protection flickers just long enough to point out 'This is a blessing that can be revoked', more likely, I can see the talisman just breaking if we try to make use of our apparent protection to work Dark Magic.

Technically, this is information we didn't have when Boney gave the big spiel on how Mathilde can 'Juggle Warpstone and Hug a Daemon' , we only learned it a short time ago in universe that the Ancestor Runes require said Ancestor God's approval to operate. So I think it's worthy of pointing out as a possible piece of consideration in favor of the 'Don't fucking play with Dhar for anything less than the apocalypse'

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You forgot that Boney also said we could fling dhar around.
Like I kind of understand were you are coming from but the thing I am having a hard time wraping my head about is, why would Valaya have a problem with us using Dark Magic in and of itself ? I could see her having a problem with many things we could use Dark Magic for, but the logic here seens to assume that she would have a problem in and of itself just to say the Belt won't actualy do what is was said the belt does whitout actualy elaborating on the why.

Edit:
Actualy forget everything above, I just realized this argument has a fundamental flaw.

The Ancestor Rune of Valaya and the Rune of Valaya are actualy two diferent runes and so whatever rules govern ancestor rune don't apply to our belt pretty much be definition.

 

[BungieONI]

Didn't we have WoG at one point that it's not destroying Dhar as much as unravelling it? To make an imperfect comparison, instead of an ice sculpture (a zombie) you'd have water (ambient dhar and a corpse). You still have the same amount of Dhar, and dhar is not healthy for you (possible exception: Mathildes belt), but much preferable to a horde of undead.

And we'd have to test to see how that interacts with warpstone. Which is manipulating Dhar, i.e.super-extra verboten (and another step in a generaly necrotic direction, which I will fight because I don't want Mathilde to go in that direction)

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It was that yes. "A patch of Dhar contaminated ground is better than a horde of zombies." Or something close to that.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Ya, the more I hear about how much we might get from this battle, the more I think we need to start warding. Turning parts of the underground into a shadow maze will help a lot with the numbers problem. To the point that I want to make it the next project.

 

[picklepikkl]

But then I ask myself, Why ? Since when are the articles and the coleges the same thing ?
Because they aren't the articles are a law, the colleges are an intitution, one is not the other, being against one isn't the same as being against both.

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The Articles are the legal structure that permit the Colleges to exist at all. Mathilde has never shown particular resentment of the Articles; in contrast, she seems to take her responsibilities pretty seriously, and has onscreen been grateful to Magnus the Pious for setting up the laws that protect her rights as a wizard and that kept her from being burned at the stake as a child.

But again, where did you get that part that it was wrong ? It was a very diferent word whit a very diferent meaning from gross.

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Well, there's this choice bit:

Contempt rises in you, contempt for the wizard who crafted these abominations - they fell to the temptations of dark magic for this? They succumb to the lure of Dhar and this is the best they can do with it? Ulgu envelops Orc Hewer, and though it can do nothing to add to the ancient power of the blade, you need your magic to be tearing through that of the so-called Elector Countess who can manage no better than these pathetic, mindless automatons. Blasphemy twice: once for falling to temptation, and once for doing so little with it.

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I'm not sure how else to interpret "dark magic" and "blasphemy" other than Mathilde believing that the use of Dhar is a moral transgression.

 

[Kornet]

I feel this argument is kind of exemplar of what I was talking about.
At first glance it feels obvious, Mathilde is loyal to the colegess, breaking the articles would them be moraly bad, and that is it.
But then I ask myself, Why ? Since when are the articles and the coleges the same thing ?
Because they aren't the articles are a law, the colleges are an intitution, one is not the other, being against one isn't the same as being against both.

There is a meningfull distinction here between the letter, the praticality and the spirit of the law that the absolute statement kind of ignores and that is important if the disscussion is going to be around how Mathield personaly fells about something.

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I actually agree with you, but I have to ask you a question: why are you raising this point?

We already had this topic discussed to the death, and the response to a proposal to test the second secret was overwhelmingly negative, to my great sadness. Of couse, you are free to discuss whatever, but I'm afraid the only thing you will get here is irritation from other posters who are kind of tired of this topic.

 

[DragonParadox]

I actually agree with you, but I have to ask you a question: why are you raising this point?

We already had this topic discussed to the death, and the response to a proposal to test the second secret was overwhelmingly negative, to my great sadness. Of couse, you are free to discuss whatever, but I'm afraid the only thing you will get here is irritation from other posters who are kind of tired of this topic.

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Seconded. for what it's worth I too would like to test the Second Secret, but I do not think the discussion into its testing is productive to the thread.

 

[FlyingScanian]

Skaven romances, but given that this seems to be regular Skaven literature, it PROBABLY confirms that Breeders are artificial and Skaven can breed the regular way if they had to sustain a cut off population.

Heck, might be worth some psychological insight.
What a people think constitutes romance tells you quite abit about how their priorities are oriented, culturally.

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So you're saying that what the Skaven really want, is a two-is-friendship thing? Considering it was apparently common enough for there to be a romantic pair with some kind of bullshit loyalty-guarantee in the so far sampled romances...

maybe some recreational reading.

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Well, ask yourself this. What language would the romance novels brought by a Ratsassin be in? (Yes, I am now expecting us to have once more accidentally looted the local skaven romance affiliate)

 

[chocolote12]

Technically, this is information we didn't have when Boney gave the big spiel on how Mathilde can 'Juggle Warpstone and Hug a Daemon' , we only learned it a short time ago in universe that the Ancestor Runes require said Ancestor God's approval to operate. So I think it's worthy of pointing out as a possible piece of consideration in favor of the 'Don't fucking play with Dhar for anything less than the apocalypse'

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I've made many overblown posts on this thread, and it would be unreasonable to expect that anybody would remember any of them, or that those posts would have any accuracy to them, but I do recall making one about my guess as to the narrative purpose of a belt that makes us immune to the auto-lose corruption that so plagues the genre; my argument went something along the lines of the standard sort of magical corruption in Warhammer being so powerful as to be useless.

The players in any quest where it occurred would never even get near what's supposed to be this incredibly potent force in the setting, literally as supernaturally attractive as it gets, because the concept of it being an automatic failure was so ingrained in them that it just couldn't ever win. The only way the GMs could get it to 'work' was to force it on them, with trap options, or lack of choices, or, I think I remember hearing of one nameless instance in which they did vote-weighted lightning rounds, I think? And they still couldn't get their playerbase to budge an inch until most of them had to go to sleep and literally weren't even online to beat the mechanics? Something like that.

An entire element of roleplay was lost because instead of being a part of the game it was a lose condition. Turning to Chaos was dying with extra steps, (you just got to be a jerk first), Dhar turned your character into a generic low-fantasy magical villain, and neither of them gave the character any reason at all why they'd want to dabble in something so costly and pointless.

The belt, then, served by my reckoning to reintroduce the concept in a way consistent with the experience of the thread. If the players refused to use something because just getting near it killed you, well, here's a gas mask and some safety gloves, what now? Making it stop working if the players tried using it for that purpose would then sort of deny that narrative idea. I mean, it's just conjecture, of course; Boney isn't bound to my interpretation or anything. But it would be sort of odd to open up that line of story elements and then close them if we tried to take any.

In-universe, I'd guess the explanation might be the same as with Dwarven-Vampire relations. Technically speaking they don't have anything against them as individuals, it's just a universal tendency for Vampires to also be grudge-worthy jerks. I would expect Rune work to not work if we committed atrocities against dwarves, but anything else doesn't sound like the sort of thing that would cause the Magic A is Magic A, 'no conceptual nonsense here' Runes to short out. (I would expect that the combination of Rune and color magic might also play a part in the apparently semi-conceptual nature of the Ancestor Rune of Gazul).

Which would be a valid argument if our problem was "our backlog is huge", not "our backlog is ever-increasing and we rarely-if-ever actually work on it" (which is sort of a subset of the former, but you get my point). How much research have we gotten done since we settled in Eight Peaks? Two-three actions worth (I think it's 2 actions snekjuice, and maybe 1 other that I'm forgetting)? The only reason we got through the Damnable Book was because it didn't cost us any actions once the decision was made.

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I think I agree. The issue is not that we wish for there to be no backlog research actions, but rather that we are not getting to take any of them.

 

[Lightwhispers]

Hmm, rocket propelled steam grenade launcher seems difficult to power...but if you factor in that this is normally supposed to be hooked up to a Gyrocopter or Ironclad boiler, thats another story altogether.

I kind of wonder how precisely they manage it, steam is great at carrying energy but it tends to explode immediately if pressurized sufficiently to, or not at all.
Pressurized steam shells probably isn't it.

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My impression was that it was an early attempt at impact fuses, possibly using fulminate of mercury, but they were generally coming out too sensitive, such that using gunpowder to propel the grenade was setting it off. So, steam propulsion, some sort of impact fuse setting off a gunpowder grenade.

 

[picklepikkl]

Which would be a valid argument if our problem was "our backlog is huge", not "our backlog is ever-increasing and we rarely-if-ever actually work on it" (which is sort of a subset of the former, but you get my point). How much research have we gotten done since we settled in Eight Peaks? Two-three actions worth (I think it's 2 actions snekjuice, and maybe 1 other that I'm forgetting)? The only reason we got through the Damnable Book was because it didn't cost us any actions once the decision was made.

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A full accounting of K8P Research we've done:
T19: Spider venom (job-related)
T21: Spider webs (job-related)
T21: Investigate the snake juice (personal project)
T22: Spider autopsies (job-related)
T24, T25: Chaos dwarf book (job-related) x2
T25: Living thing reactions to the Vitae (personal project, AP committed but action not yet taken)

Plans that have almost won included "study the Eshin assassin weapon" (T23) and "study the black gem," (T25) which were both personal projects, but both of those plans got voted down in favor of identical plans with different actions in those slots.

So, in the seven turns we've been here, we've taken 5 job-related research actions and 2 personal project research actions, or an average of one research action a turn.

 

[Hazardine]

About the main things I could see them bringing in Cathayan are probably instructional manuals and maybe some recreational reading.

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Might be Nipponese, though all I recall is that Eshin learned stealth from Orient which includes, Ind(I think?), Cathay, and Nippon general for Warhammer Fantasy, and doesn't specify which part.

 

[LightLan]

I think I agree. The issue is not that we wish for there to be no backlog research actions, but rather that we are not getting to take any of them.

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We are for now in a war zone and have high chances to acquire more items.
Once K8P is fully conquered our chances for loot will drop rapidly and we'll have time to chug through the backlog.

Plans that have almost won included "study the Eshin assassin weapon" (T23) and "study the black gem," (T25) which were both personal projects, but both of those plans got voted down in favor of identical plans with different actions in those slots.

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I'd argue getting the Skaven language is research.