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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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FallenPears said:
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the only reason Settra isn't a God is he took a look at the other Gods around and decided actually ruling stuff on the material plane seems pretty difficult when you are one.

Pretty sure Sigmar would have made some different decisions some time in the last few millennia if he was still in charge.
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Like getting rid of his current Grand Theogenist :p

Though Mathilde thinks the Theogenist is fitting for Sigmar :V
 
Codex said:
Alliterate said:
Sigmar was a real Mary Sue, (or on Mallus, a real MAGDA WESSEN) is what I hear you saying. :V
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Isn't Warhammer full of those types of characters?
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Not really. Digression time!

Granted, "Mary Sue" and its lesser-known spear counterpart "Gary Stu", as terms, have been watered down a lot until a bunch of people (who are wrong on the internet) use it to mean little more than overpowered character I dislike. And I'm sure there's a lot of that in Warhammer.
But in the narrow sense, the term mostly applies to later-appearing characters introduced in fanfiction or sequels, and denotes something more like character whom the previously existing setting gets bent around.

For example:
A powerful character can have a kickass weapon without being a Gary Stu; a Gary Stu has a weapon that is made of Ghal Maraz and two Runefangs melted down and reforged together with all their powers combined.
A beautiful character can receive reams of adoring love poems without being a Mary Sue; a Mary Sue receives adoring love poems from characters previously established as celibate, asexual, blind, or the like.

To borrow a wrestling term, much of the setting will be 'jobbing' for a Sue - suffering an externally arranged loss rather than a loss on prowess. A Sue usually has few or no original accomplishments, just other people's accomplishments repeated better. A Sue frequently results from a sort of laziness/ignorance on the part of the author, depending heavily on existing content, writing "Like Bob but more so" and adding very little new to the setting, just upstaging existing characters.
The original Mary Sue story, a Star Trek fanfic, features Sue beating out Kirk to become the extra-youngest Starfleet captain, then she's complimented on her logic by Spock, takes over doctoring while McCoy gets sick, and would probably have continued like that with the rest of the named characters if not for the fact that her story is only about the length of this post. :V

Warhammer has very few Sues of that sort.
 
I'm just getting more and more nervous as the time approaches. An Emperor Dragon is an encounter that'd just flat-out kill us, so we're gambling on it being in a speaking mood, and us being able to catch its attention in a non-hostile way... Gah.

Speaking of. Something that occurred to me, about the looting we'd been doing of the Skaven in Karak Eight Peaks in general rather than this turn in specific. Aside from the fact that sneaking in and stealing is probably dangerous. We've been fortunate enough to not fail our infiltration -- or exfiltration, probably -- checks, but... If we had, it could have gotten ugly.

Namely: we really should probably have been using the Night Prowler for this.

Because what else is more goddamn appropriate than using the THIEVING Facet to perform a HEIST?

Seriously, I can't believe we never ended up in a scenario where we activated it when we were doing any of the looting. It would have made things a lot more simpler, I imagine -- or increased the chances of success and the size of the haul. Because with it, we could go deeper and broader with raising suspicion. And could disappear into the streets just like that. Also: it's literally the Thieving and Stealth facet, what tool could be more appropriate.

It just... Things ended up never lining up for it. We always used the Gambler most of the time. And also spent a lot of time worrying that we wouldn't be able to pass for Skaven due to scent, when probably just looting a Skaven or keeping some Skaven cloth or stuff could have done that. Still, though. Missed opportunities.
HeWhoAdds said:
For some reason my brain started trying to fit this list to the melody of the Stonecutters song from the Simpsons:

Who controls the Empire's crown? Who keeps the Everchosen down?

Sigmaaaar! Sigmaaaaar!
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Alliterate said:
Whoa, my brain went to exactly the same place.

Who made Dieter Emperor? Who holds back the Orcish Waaagh!?
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It's pretty good, but I'm afraid the Lizardmen already beat us to the Stonecutter's song.

Also I think I'd rather change it to "Who Made Karl Franz Emperor?" or "Who made Magnus Emperor?" Definitely not Dieter.

 
Is voting closed, or do I have time for a push for:
[X] Parlay with Clan Eshin.
Okay, so this has little practical purpose behind it. I acknowledge that. But if you have ever wanted to have a long-term foe romance with an Eshin assassin, where we are the best of enemies, now might be our last chance to ensure it lasts. This would be really cool, and he already said he would kill us last.
 
Garlak said:
It just... Things ended up never lining up for it. We always used the Gambler most of the time. And also spent a lot of time worrying that we wouldn't be able to pass for Skaven due to scent, when probably just looting a Skaven or keeping some Skaven cloth or stuff could have done that. Still, though. Missed opportunities.
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We used the Nightprowler once, the Deceiver once and the Protector never.
It always is the gambler sadly. :(
 
Guys, I hope you have all done your sacrifices to the Dice Gods/Ranald, because we are going to need it.

I have to admit, I am getting flashbacks of a roleplay session this last summer in which I tried to speak with an Ice Dragon, and I crit-failed the diplomacy roll, then I failed my athletics role to escape and the fucker could see through my invisibility cloak.

Let's say that my party had to peel off my Smuggler from the floor to bury him...

Not really, the cleric of our group (a cannibal Shapeshifter mantis) ate the corpse...
 
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Garlak said:
I'm just getting more and more nervous as the time approaches. An Emperor Dragon is an encounter that'd just flat-out kill us, so we're gambling on it being in a speaking mood, and us being able to catch its attention in a non-hostile way... Gah.
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Repeat after me: Mathilde. Is. Not. Suicidally. Stupid. Brave, yes, but if the dragon is obviously in a mood of "kill now, ask questions never", she will probably avoid it, at least for a bit.
Garlak said:
Namely: we really should probably have been using the Night Prowler for this.
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Dubious it would have worked, considering it failed in Orc Civil War. This is a bit less chaotic and Orcy, but might be something similar, "Skave I don't recognize" probably triggers "food".
 
Garlak said:
Seriously, I can't believe we never ended up in a scenario where we activated it when we were doing any of the looting. It would have made things a lot more simpler, I imagine -- or increased the chances of success and the size of the haul. Because with it, we could go deeper and broader with raising suspicion. And could disappear into the streets just like that. Also: it's literally the Thieving and Stealth facet, what tool could be more appropriate.
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The thing is that we've repeatedly dunked all over the skaven without using it. Like, last turn we went all the way from friendly territory to the Trench -- the very heart of Mors territory -- with Gretel in tow. She can't even go invisible! Just by purely mundane stealth methods, we crept into the Trench and robbed them blind.

Night Prowler was really, really good in Sylvania, but for one-off thieving in the mountains here, it's overkill.
Thor's Twin said:
Well... I guess it's time to roll the dice.
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ok but that's true about literally every update except for the social turns
 
Exmorri said:
To borrow a wrestling term, much of the setting will be 'jobbing' for a Sue - suffering an externally arranged loss rather than a loss on prowess. A Sue usually has few or no original accomplishments, just other people's accomplishments repeated better. A Sue frequently results from a sort of laziness/ignorance on the part of the author, depending heavily on existing content, writing "Like Bob but more so" and adding very little new to the setting, just upstaging existing characters.
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I agree with this interpretation. To add onto this, I would say that this jobbing isn't just in terms of actions or ability, but also socially. Characters can't really talk about things other than the Sue, or hold negative opinions about them; if you get an interlude, it's going to be about the character thinking about the Sue, and it's always going to be about how cool or noble or something they are.

The closest thing to an opposing element to the Sue is going to be what the author conceives of as the opposite to their 'positive interactions'; the antagonist character will be obsessed with the Sue, but unreasonably so, and constantly focused on invented negatives about them. The faker their reasons are the 'better', because it makes the antagonist seem even more unreasonable and therefore 'good to root against', so to speak.
picklepikkl said:
The thing is that we've repeatedly dunked all over the skaven without using it. Like, last turn we went all the way from friendly territory to the Trench -- the very heart of Mors territory -- with Gretel in tow. She can't even go invisible! Just by purely mundane stealth methods, we crept into the Trench and robbed them blind.

Night Prowler was really, really good in Sylvania, but for one-off thieving in the mountains here, it's overkill.
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Yeah, we don't need the coin to do things, it's just nice. The entire point of the Protector is that in those situations we can turn around and get twice the Favor and Reputation out of it, so that the coin is never redundant.
 
Thor's Twin said:
Of course it's true, I'm quoting a character from the Wheel of Time. It's a saying he says almost every time he commits to a decision or gambit.
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Oh. Sorry! I never read that series.

...that's a pretty good thing for Mathilde to say now that she's build that Gambler temple, but, uh, it might get annoyingly meta really quickly.
 
Hypothetically speaking, is there anything stopping Deathfang, who is supposed to be of the same age range as an Emperor, from learning magic?
 
I will point something out however.

When you're approaching someone and have had time to formulate your pitch, you use Learning.

Diplomacy mostly applies when you're thinking on your feet.
 
Oh no. This is it, isn't it. Ranald's Last Roll. The roll that may very well end the quest, if it's bad enough.

I can't take the pressure of waiting anymore! I MUST KNOW NOW.

OH GREAT AND HANDSOME RANALD! PLEASE TELL US, HOW WILL THE ROLL GO?

Edit: Oh. So about average, huh.
PurposefulZephyr threw 1 6-faced dice. Reason: Roll. Total: 3
3 3
 
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