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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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CuttleFish2.0 said:
Honestly, I think either parlaying with the dragon or looting should be our aim. Like the update says this is probably the best chance we have of catching the dragon out of its literal seat of power, putting us on something at least approaching equal footing, at least territory wise. And the ring would be fortuitous; allowing us to possibly set up a cordon to prevent skaven from either side escaping with minimal risk of entering into conflict with the dragon itself and possibly forming an alliance of convenience for the incoming orcs.

On the other hand this is probably the best chance we have at actually getting our hands on skaven magical lore. The Eshin sorcerer and assassins are thoroughly distracted and both sides are extremely depleted with enormously reduces our risk, meanwhile the other threats are being mopped up (we hope). Actually getting info on skaven magic could be nearly as big a deal as the paper we wrote on our Waaaghbane knowledge.
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This is a good summary; I agree completely.

Personally I think the opportunity for peaceful first contact is massively important; during the vote for this past turn, people were worrying that sending dwarves into Zilfin would be read as a hostile act, and opening a dialogue of "you're at war with the skaven? we're at war with the skaven" has the potential to clear that up. And if the narration says that Mathilde thinks this is the best chance she's going to get, I believe her.
Xilentxium said:
Quick Parley with Eshin! Rules of Drama state that Eshin Friend will be one of the survivors. The time for Skaven Husbando is now!
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...this is the best argument I've heard yet.
 
Dragon's day:

*sleeping*

*sniff. sniiiiiiiff*

*EUGH!*

"What *is* that smell? By tooth and claw!"

*is sick*

"That's it. Whoever did this is dead."

*goes exploring, rats everywhere.*

"How did my lair fill with vermin?!"

"Oh well. Only one thing to do."

*exterminates*
 
[ ] Loot Clan Eshin (again)

Mathilde has a Diplomacy of 11. Relying on it as a core strategy against an angry Dragon busy mass killing Skaven isn't a good strategy to stay alive. If we roll low, the Dragon may decide to use us a yet another punching-ball.

I don't know what to to do about the Skaven Clans except not talking to them. We killed ones base and the other will try to betray us quickly, or give information about us to the Skaven at large. I don't want Mathilde to be even more known to them.
 
Attempting to capture the Eshin sorcerer is probably folly, but getting credit for confirming their existence and getting to ship it off to the colleges is incredibly tempting.
 
Maybe we'll be able to lead the Dragon to the groups of Skaven.

Also, we're familiar with Skaven tactics and strategies, so... We might have a slightly better grasp on what Skaven would be doing and where they'd be. Or, well -- at least we might be able to help out the Dragon, anyway.

For all we know, it doesn't actually know about all the stealth tricks Eshin would have, or the magic they might have available, or whatever. It can probably do a good job finding them of course because Hysh. But it might be ignorant of Skaven tactics, operating procedures, and general what-can-they-do stuff.
picklepikkl said:
I assume that means she has an idea of how not to be taken as an assassin sneaking up on it.
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Hmm... One way might be to use magic to write a bunch of letters, or pictures, in the air for the Dragon to come across when it moves on from killing the latest group of Skaven.

So, that is: it finishes killing a group of Skaven. It turns around or goes down the corridor, and bam there's a giant magical neon sign saying "Hey, want to talk?" (Signed with, presumably, a "-Signed, Not A Skaven" mark. :V)

Or perhaps using the Sound cantrip to talk to it from a distance while it's in the middle of flying. Our voice doesn't sound anything like Skaven, too, which is nice.
 
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So here is my, partially OoC, reasoning that the Dragon does not have grudges.

Let's split the Dragons life into 5 sections: pre-Dwarven Existance, pre-Naggaroth, Naggaroth, Transition, and K8P.

Pre-Dwarven Existance, it can't have grudges, because Dwarves don't exist.

Pre-Naggaroth might actually be entirely contained in Pre-Dwarven Existance, and ends some time well before Malekith arrives in Naggaroth. We can't say much about this time, but it is doubtful grudges happened here, and it might be from before Grudges were a thing.

The Naggaroth period is safe, as no Dwarves were nearby.

The transition period is a shaky part. It is from sometime post -2700ish (when Malekith sailed for Naggaroth (I could have this number wrong)) to sometime post -500ish (when K8P fell). During this period, we don't know whether or not a grudge occurred. Evidence against a grudge is that a) Ice Dragons are lazy and sleepy, so it probably didn't do much during this time. Also, there is the very high chance that it was successful at lasting in Naggaroth for far past -2700 as well, shortening this period.

At K8P, the Dragon probably didn't interact with dwarves either. Again, the Dragon is lazy and sleepy, so it probably didn't do much. In addition, the knowledge of the Dragon was new to Belegar, which means that it probably didn't interfere in past attempts to take K8P, as otherwise knowledge of it would have gotten out.

The final argument is that it uses Hysh, which is the anti-chaos/demon magic.
 
....I'm leaning towards Dracoplomacy. It's difficult to resist the allure of loot, but business first and then pleasure methinks.
 
From around a hundred thousand Skaven per side down to only low thousands on each. Even if it's seemingly mostly elites left, that is an absolutely horrific casualty rate (>95 %). The sort that you would literally never see in real life, because humans break and run before they get anywhere close. Guess that's what happens when you're essentially biologically compelled to stay on the field or die of starvation.

Anyway, of the two Skaven groups the one we want gone the most is almost certainly Eshin. Mors has lost its breeders and most of its territory anyway, and in battle they're a much more conventional threat; they'd probably take a good chunk out of our forces in a fight, but unlike Eshin they can't just sneak through our lines and gib our leaders. Though that's assuming we go on the offensive, of course.
 
Well, as I said before, I dont think that this is a good moments to [ ] Parlay with the dragon.

Because lets face it, when Mathilde finds him in a relatively quiet spot between slaughters the dragon is still going to be incredibly pissed off (not with Mathilde, but possed off nonetheless), and when people are pissed they tend to be petty and tomake rash decisions...

Let's wait to see how things turn out, and once the Dragon has had his fun slaugtering the remaining Skaven, and calms the fuck down, that would be a good time to approach him.

For now lets take [ ] Loot Clan Eshin (again) which is the closest option to, wait until things sorted themselves out.
 
Last time I thought we would roll for Diplomacy and voted against it, it turned out we were rolling Learning for diplomacy (that was with the We). I'm not sure if we'll be rolling for Diplomacy if we encounter the dragon, because we do have time to prepare a speech. I wouldn't necessarily bet on it though. Still gonna vote for it because it's the most appealing option.
 
Hmm, maybe we could help the dragon by shanking someone bonding over mutual dislike of skaven. Makes for a nice first impression at least.
Singing in Mathilde
You don't like rats. Stab. We don't like rats. Stab. Lets not like rats togetheeeeerrrr.
 
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In all seriousness, I'd rather avoid trying to go do the thing with our worst (or one of the worst) stats.

Looting would be more productive I assume.

Ganurath said:
I'm of a mind to target the sorcerer. I always love assassinating assassins. They're always so surprised.
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Mat seems less warrior and more Inquisitor if you catch my drift
 
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FallenPears said:
Are Albino Skaven a specific sign of the Horned Rat's favour or something, or just traditional?

Whilst this could be a Councillor, some crazy pseudo-Greyseer or some other crazy dangerous power play, it's equally possible some Skaven with a bit too big of a head gathered together all the albino Skaven near him and tried making his own mimicry of a Greyseer honour guard, because of course he's that important.

Not necessarily true, but just as devils advocate, let's not crazy tunnel vision on us having a Councillor or something equally big here before we know for sure.
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IIRC Skaven also discriminate based on fur color, grey furred pups are taken to be trained as Grey Seers, black furred pups are taken to be trained as Stormvermin etc. I assume that Sleek Sharpwit just cobbled his own elite bodyguard group during the civil war.
 
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Fanhunter696 said:
Well, as I said before, I dont think that this is a good moments to [ ] Parlay with the dragon.

Because lets face it, when Mathilde finds him in a relatively quiet spot between slaughters the dragon is still going to be incredibly pissed off (not with Mathilde, but possed off nonetheless), and when people are pissed they tend to be petty and tomake rash decisions...

Let's wait to see how things turn out, and once the Dragon has had his fun slaugtering the remaining Skaven, and calms the fuck down, that would be a good time to approach him.

For now lets take [ ] Loot Clan Eshin (again) which is the closest option to, wait until things sorted themselves out.
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I'm hoping we can just start off with a good "Want to kill them together?"
 
Mathilde's got enough of a backlog of research material to last her for years. There will be other opportunities to get various sorts of loot if that backlog ever gets thin.

Making contact with the dragon is my path of choice.
 
Also, I don't want the dragon to see us before he sees the Waaagh.
Either it thinks it can take them, in which case it flies off to kill them, or it thinks it maybe can't, in which case we negotiate on an even table.
 
I say we talk to the dragon. We might not be the best for the situation, but we are the best we have. Better to find out if the dragon is hostile or not now, when it still has Skaven to distract it. The common enemy of the Skaven will also provide as good a common ground as we are likely to get.
 
Either loot eshin or parlay with the dragon personaly im tempted by loot the dragon will be around after the loot probably wont.

Remember no trap options if we were assured wed get the loot regardless it wouldnt be an option.
 
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For everyone worrying about the dragon's mood, my thinking goes sort of like this: after it's done styling on the skaven here I would assume it's goal will be to go back to sleep, which'll mean if we want to negotiate with it we may end up having to wake it ourselves. At least now we have some plausible deniability with it that we weren't the things that woke it up.
 
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