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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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So someone mentioned the idea that the Snek Juice might be useful in waking up sleeping Dragons.

now, while I bet it would be more complicated than using it like dragon-coffee or smelling salt, there is enough of an idea there (safely disperse it to create a mana rich environment around the dragon?) to be interesting.

Interesting and Dangerous.

I can't remember the numbers, or if there was a number, but there is a lot of old dragons napping in Ulthuan that the high elves have trouble waking up or keeping up.

and just like how Boney pointed out how 'just because there would be trouble from the dwarfs if someone tried stealing the Dhar resistant belt from Mathy, doesn't mean everyone will care or not think it worth the risk.' the same is true, no, scratch that... one hundred times that if the elves find out that someone has dragon waking juice.

they are not going to want to buy the juice, they will want the box, and us as we know how to make the box, and any of the papers and notes about the box, and burning anything related that they cant take.

they would go to war for the box, they will steal, cheat, threaten, lobby the Empire etc etc for the box. the idea that the dwarfs are involved will not scare them off, hell that might make them even more desperate to get it away from their old rival's influence.

because not only is it a chance to get back a lot of their old military might, but its also something they would not want anyone else to have use of it.

like, I can't stress enough how much the high elves think 'things like this should only be in our rightful hands, it's too dangerous for any less enlighted being to have that kind of power, its for their own good really.'

though I'm saying this as only if it can work like that.
 
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das_slash said:
The point still stands, nothing in the quote implies that approaching safe.
Just that approaching here is better than in the peak (various reasons, open to interpretation) and that we can easily find a way to approach.
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This is the full text of the original quote in context:
BoneyM said:
It's difficult to label either side a winner under the circumstances, but Clan Eshin seems to have been on the verge of eking out an extremely costly victory before being interrupted. You estimate both remaining forces in the low thousands, but those that remain are still formidable. Circling around Warlord Sleek with extreme paranoia are a battalion of extremely muscled Albino Stormvermin, and while Clan Eshin doesn't have anything with that much sheer punch, the trio of Assassins you noticed earlier is still active and you can taste a hint of Dhar-tainted Ulgu in the air that leads you to believe the Sorcerer is still around. And with Eshin being Eshin, chances are there's other pieces remaining hidden. Though you'd much rather face them now than how things stood at dawn, both still have the potential to be monumental headaches. But with how desperate their situation is it might be possible to bargain with one or the other. Clan Eshin can no longer hope to take the Karak for themselves, and can still claim the glory for Clan Mors' destruction. And Clan Mors might see the sense in seeking greener pastures, somewhere where the Under-Empire doesn't know where to find them. You might be able to remove one of the few remaining enemy pieces from the board, especially since you'd be bargaining from a position of power. Or you could simply act, and do your best to remove one of them more directly here and now.

Or you could use this opportunity to reach out to the dragon. Anyone approaching it in its lair will be at a disadvantage from the cold and from being within its place of power, but Karag Yar could serve as neutral ground to open a dialogue with it. And it shouldn't be hard to approach it as it goes from one group of Skaven to another.

Or for a third option, you could leave them all to it and once more rummage through the upper portions of Karag Yar for anything else that may be of use or interest. From your cursory scouting, battles seem to have rampaged through the Eshin infrastructure a few times, but it's unlikely to have been actually looted yet.
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Compare the phrasing between how Mathilde regards the prospects of diplomacy with the Dragon versus the Skaven.
And how she implies it's iffier to attempt to negotiate with Skaven who may or may not be in Black Hunger than with an Emperor Dragon.

Ninjafish then says, and I quote:
ninjafish said:
Looting is the better path.
Little to No risk, and our enemies destroy each other further.
Parlaying with the dragon is lots of risk, and likely going to get us an active loss even if we succeed because we'll have to pay the dragon off.
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To which I reply:
uju32 said:
You are wrong.
To quote the update, and Mathilde's thoughts:
Or you could use this opportunity to reach out to the dragon. Anyone approaching it in its lair will be at a disadvantage from the cold and from being within its place of power, but Karag Yar could serve as neutral ground to open a dialogue with it. And it shouldn't be hard to approach it as it goes from one group of Skaven to another.
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The only option that is lower risk is attempting to loot the Eshin, and that simply puts off the problem, since the Dragon will still be in K8P.
And we have troops in Ziflin whose safety is contingent on the Dragon being friendly or indifferent to them.
We are obliged to figure out which is which.

Furthermore, if we're making alarmist claims, do note there is at least one Eshin Sorcerer around.
Which means a Vermin Lord interrupt is not out of the question.
We do NOT want to ignore that possibility and go looting.
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So I stand by my statements that it's personally safer for Mathilde, AND for the army she leads, to open diplomacy with the Dragon over the other options on the table. Given current conditions.
 
I can already see it: Dragon tells Mathilde to help, they both go around Yar killing Skaven. The Eshin Sorcerer manages a Verminlord by sacrificing the last of his troops, big showdown of Math and Dragon vs Sorcerer and Greater Daemon.

Dragon and Verminlord roll great, maul each other, the accompanying magical assassins kill each other's partnered monsters, it's down to a climatic battle between the Eshin Sorcerer and Mathilde.
 
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Abhorsen said:
So given that a couple of posters have commented positively on the plan @chocolote12, here's a quick write-up. Is it correct? Anything you want to add? Also, can you link me the post you made with the summarized WOG approval for the spell creation page?

Short Term Plans:
Sudden Sword Style:
PREREQS: Branulhune, Shadow Dagger Mastery
PLAN: Develop sword style using the Rune of the Unknown's ability to 'blink'. Then develop a new spell which is a sword variant of our Shadow Dagger Mastery that allows for a 'blinking' magic sword that can cut thru armor (has WOG approval here). Share this spell and sword style with the college.
TIME: 5ish? 2ish turns for the style, 2ish turns for the spell, 1-2 Serentity turns for the paper(s) on the spell and sword style, 1 turn for teaching at the College.
COST: 0
PAYOFF: Cool sword style that's better at fighting. A new spell. College Favor. Mathilde's name on the college's signature sword style. College has a new method of fighting. Shadow Wizards really want swords with the Rune of the Unknown, so help out Dwarves more.
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your missing the most important part.

Mathilde's Sudden Sword Style

all better.
 
[X] Parlay with the dragon.

Even if we only get its neutrality for there are somewhere between a hundred thousand and a million Orcs inbound and we are going to melt them is a net positive.
 
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uju32 said:
This is the full text of the original quote in context:

Compare the phrasing between how Mathilde regards the prospects of diplomacy with the Dragon versus the Skaven.
And how she implies it's iffier to attempt to negotiate with Skaven who may or may not be in Black Hunger than with an Emperor Dragon.

Ninjafish then says, and I quote:

To which I reply:


So I stand by my statements that it's personally safer for Mathilde, AND for the army she leads, to open diplomacy with the Dragon over the other options on the table. Given current conditions.
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And I still stand by what I said, you replied directly to him stating that he was wrong to say that parlaying with the dragon is a risk.
I replied that nothing in the quote implied it wasn't a risk.
If I was supposed to keep track of the entire conversation and figure out what you meant by "you are wrong" I am sorry, maybe you bolded the wrong statement or something.
That's it, the rest of the points have been debated time and time again and there is no need to go there again.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
So someone mentioned the idea that the Snek Juice might be useful in waking up sleeping Dragons.

now, while I bet it would be more complicated than using it like dragon-coffee or smelling salt, there is enough of an idea there (safely disperse it to create a mana rich environment around the dragon?) to be interesting.

Interesting and Dangerous.

I can't remember the numbers, or if there was a number, but there is a lot of old dragons napping in Ulthuan that the high elves have trouble waking up or keeping up.

and just like how Boney pointed out how 'just because there would be trouble from the dwarfs stealing the Dhar resistant belt from Mathy, doesn't mean everyone will care or not think it worth the risk.' the same is true, no, scratch that... one hundred times that if the elfs find out that someone has dragon waking juice.

they are not going to want to buy the juice, they will want the box, and us as we know how to make the box, and any of the papers and notes about the box, and burning anything related that they cant take.

they would go to war for the box, they will steal, cheat, threaten, lobby the Empire etc etc for the box. the idea that the dwarfs are involved will not scare them off, hell that might make them even more desperate to get it away from their old rival's influence.

because not only is it a chance to get back a lot of their old military might, but its also something they would not want anyone else to have use of it.

like, I can stress enough how much the high elves think 'things like this should only be in our rightful hands, it's to dangerous for any less enlighted being to have that kind of power, its for their own good really.'

though I'm saying this as only if it can work like that.
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What makes you think the juice could wake dragons? I imagine that would only work if they were asleep because they were starved of winds, somehow.

But that doesn't make sense. Dragons existed (and were very active) before the Old Ones opened their portals, and therefore before any winds existed in the world.

Also, the only answer I can find for why Dragons sleep on the wiki is that the Old Ones changed the global temperature when they nudged the planet and now it's too warm for the dragons.

The rest of your analysis is very on point, but I don't see where this one assumption comes from.
 
chocolote12 said:
No, Mathilde's Ephemeral Shadow Sword Evocation Ritual.

MESSER, for short. :V
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you know, i don't always agree with you, but posts like this remind me that at the end of the day you are an individual of culture.

TaliesinSkye said:
What makes you think the juice could wake dragons? I imagine that would only work if they were asleep because they were starved of winds, somehow.

But that doesn't make sense. Dragons existed (and were very active) before the Old Ones opened their portals, and therefore before any winds existed in the world.

Also, the only answer I can find for why Dragons sleep on the wiki is that the Old Ones changed the global temperature when they nudged the planet and now it's too warm for the dragons.

The rest of your analysis is very on point, but I don't see where this one assumption comes from.
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oh ya, total assumption.

but it was an interesting one that I wanted to comment on.
 
[X] Loot Clan Eshin (again)

Not much risk compared to negotiating with a dragon that can probably kill us if we botch our diplomacy roll and negotiating with the Skaven seems even worse in their current state.
 
[X] Loot Clan Eshin (again)

I don't especially want to loot... but I definitely don't want to risk dying on a crappy roll of Mathildes' lowest stat (Diplomacy).
This- drawing the attention of an irate-to-furious spellcasting Emperor Dragon, solo, without backup- carries a tremendous amount of a personal risk, far above and beyond anything we are obligated to take on.
Beyond even the risks in our deep scouting runs- as we'll be revealing ourselves deliberately.
 
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Jyn Ryvia said:
you know, i don't always agree with you, but posts like this remind me that at the end of the day you are an individual of culture.


oh ya, total assumption.

but it was an interesting one that I wanted to comment on.
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Gotcha. Is there any further information out there on why dragons sleep?

If it's because things are too warm it struck me as odd that the dragons of Ulthuan preferred hot caverns in Caledor. And the whole thing doesn't really explain all the wind aspected sub-species of dragons, which can't have been a thing when dragons were around originally because the species predates the existence of the winds.

...whoa. I just had a realization. What if the different kinds of dragons aren't species at all, but arcane marks from the wind a particular dragon chooses to learn to manipulate? Over thousands of years dragons could accumulate deep marks that heavily alter their forms, producing the appearance of highly variable subspecies.

The default fire-breathing non-magic using dragons could be the ones that never deeply invested themselves in learning to manipulate a wind.

What do people think?
 
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TaliesinSkye said:
Gotcha. Is there any further information out there on why dragons sleep?

If it's because things are too warm it struck me as odd that the dragons of Ulthuan preferred hot caverns in Caledor. And the whole thing doesn't really explain all the wind aspected sub-species of dragons, which can't have been a thing when dragons were around originally because the species predates the existence of the winds.

...whoa. I just had a realization. What if the different kinds of dragons aren't species at all, but arcane marks from the wind a particular dragon chooses to learn to manipulate? Over thousands of years dragons could accumulate deep marks that heavily alter their forms, producing the appearance of highly variable subspecies.

What do people think?
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That actually makes a lot of sense.

Although why hysh dragons gets power related to ice still makes no sense.
 
uju32 said:
So I stand by my statements that it's personally safer for Mathilde, AND for the army she leads, to open diplomacy with the Dragon over the other options on the table.
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And where is that army?

Oh yes, nowhere nearby.

This is Mathilde rolling the dice on an extreme personal risk, to possibly reduce a collective risk, which we have other means to address in the worst case scenario.

Worst case here is GG, game over, thanks for playing, you die alone. Now, that's often the case for Mathilde... but this is a real gamble, and in an area of weakness.
 
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TaliesinSkye said:
Gotcha. Is there any further information out there on why dragons sleep?

If it's because things are too warm it struck me as odd that the dragons of Ulthuan preferred hot caverns in Caledor. And the whole thing doesn't really explain all the wind aspected sub-species of dragons, which can't have been a thing when dragons were around originally because the species predates the existence of the winds.

...whoa. I just had a realization. What if the different kinds of dragons aren't species at all, but arcane marks from the wind a particular dragon chooses to learn to manipulate? Over thousands of years dragons could accumulate deep marks that heavily alter their forms, producing the appearance of highly variable subspecies.

What do people think?
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Go travel the world for a few years, write a paper about it and wait for a couple druids living in the woods to refute it.
 
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