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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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TimEd said:
Just like our Secret Mansion right? Dang I missed that place.
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We still own that place, but it hasn't been used for a long time, in favor of our Estate and Blutdorf, whenever we had cause to spend several weeks operating in Stirland.

I suspect had we opted to go to Zhufbar rather than to the Eight Peaks, we might well have been using that place more often, but I do wonder where Belegar would be if Mathilde never signed up onto his expedition.


Neshuakadal said:
Or maybe even Hendrik. It's been a while since we last talked to the only priest of Ranald we know.
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Seconded. Actually, he might be a very good lead if we want to acquire more Ranaldite Priestly Lore, I think something that would greatly help in Project Theurgy.

Honestly, I suspect based on Heidi's remarks, that probability manipulation is one of the bigger things we can derive from Project Theurgy - if Ulgu is the wind of uncertainty and ambiguity, and probability is the uncertainty of outcomes but the certainty of the distribution of outcomes, hence the subtle ambiguity of the nature of probability, I get the sense that Ulgu-Ranaldite Probability manipulation might be one possible developmental path for Project Theurgy. And giving Wizards the means to give probability a small kick is huge, given the continual risks of miscast.


P.s: I forgot to join in the most one-sided vote in this quest history


[X] Both must die.
- [X] Let the Sorcerer's attack play out, then finish off whoever survives.
 
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dunk1010 said:
Yeah, if we ever did more than, block off all but two doors, dig out eight rooms and fill four of them none of them especially developed.

I mean, I would Love to go back to that place and put into it the time and resources it deserves but a lit more time has been put on our stuff in 8 peaks.

On that note, I vote we visit Stirland and spruce up the Sunken Palace while we check up on... someone I guess, maybe anton?
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Or maybe even Hendrik. It's been a while since we last talked to the only priest of Ranald we know.

Andmeuths said:
We still own that place, but it hasn't been used for a long time.

I suspect had we opted to go to Zhufbar rather than to the Eight Peaks, we might well have been using that place more often, but I do wonder where Belegar would be if Mathilde never signed up onto his expedition.
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He likely wouldn't have eight peaks to his name that's for sure.
 
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Yeeeeeeah our book buying budget for a single turn is like 100 gold more than we ever spent on the sunken palace, the investment totals don't quite line up in comparison haha.
 
Andmeuths said:
Honestly, I suspect based on Heidi's remarks, that probability manipulation is one of the bigger things we can derive from Project Theurgy - if Ulgu is the wind of uncertainty and ambiguity, and probability is the uncertainty of outcomes but the certainty of the distribution of outcomes, hence the subtle ambiguity of the nature of probability, I get the sense that Ulgu-Ranaldite Probability manipulation might be one possible developmental path for Project Theurgy. And giving Wizards the means to give probability a small kick is huge, given the continual risks of miscast.
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The one problem I have with this is that it may come pretty close to time manipulation which the colleges frown on in general. I understand the idea of probability manipulation but you don't know what you need until you need it. That means that the past will have to change in order for you to have what you need right now. Seems pretty close to outright changing the past.
 
Night said:
Kragg, to Belegar: "She thinks big, but about everything save herself. She has absolutely no ambition for her own advancement; it is one of those things that simply happens to her sometimes, as far as she's concerned."
Belegar: "Ah, so she's not a danger?"
Kragg snorts, turning his highest level of stony gaze on Belegar: "Such as that are the most dangerous of all."

Mathilde pretty much never thinks in terms of how good it'll make her look save as a thing about meeting responsibilities. She has very little ambition for herself, despite the thread's ambitions for her. It's all focused outside, on striving to achieve. The closest she ever came to self-indulgence was destroying Drakenhof, and even then it was something she saw as done for Abelheim and it was undoubtedly a great service to the Empire and the forces of Order.
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eyes dragon skull throne
remembers all the times she trolled people just to revel in being able to
She has her foibles there, although they are fairly low-key for someone with such a good track record.

Also, vote:
[X] Both should die
-[X] Let the Sorcerer's attack play out, then finish off whoever survives.
-[X] If the attack proves not to be physical, let the Sorcerer leave, and attack the Council member alone. The documents must not make it out.
 
Neshuakadal said:
The one problem I have with this is that it may come pretty close to time manipulation which the colleges frown on in general. I understand the idea of probability manipulation but you don't know what you need until you need it. That means that the past will have to change in order for you to have what you need right now. Seems pretty close to outright changing the past.
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It really depends if the innards of reality in the Warhammer Fantasy universe are probabilistic or deterministic.

Was the Wizard who mis-casted pre-determined in the past by hidden variables to inevitably miscast, or did the Wizard miscast because magic fundamentally is Russian Roulette with always a matter of probability and risk. In the first, you have to reach out in the past to manipulate these hidden variables to transform to a deterministic outcome, in the latter, all you are doing is manipulating probability space of the outcome tables within the present, at the time you invoked Ranaldite-Ulgu Theurgy together with an action you are undertaking in the present.

My guess is that the ontology of the Grey College generally favors a probabilistic interpretation, while the Gold College insists there must be hidden variables, and the Light College remarkably keeps infuriatingly and smugly silent. Thankfully, the mind-set of Ulgu means the user likely isn't manipulating the past, but the point between past and future called the present, since Ulgu assumes reality is inherently non-deterministic. Which would also explain why the Grey College is "pragmatic" and probably fiercely rejects fatalistic world views.

If we are going to study the coin, I do think Mathilde has to poke into the innards of reality, as Algard phases it. My suspicion is that the Gambler's probability manipulation effect requires a conscious, deliberate targeted action to be applied to, and likely activates at the point the action begins to affect the probability distribution of the outcomes of said actions. No time-travel is required when you are doing this, unless reality is deterministic and there actually isn't a probability distribution of outcomes in said actions in the present, but rather the outcome has already been determined by unknown unknowns in the past.

TLDR: Whether Project Theurgy, including Probability manipulation involves time-travel, depends on the guts of reality. And I suspect that a faith in Ranald means one must believe that the gods roll dice as an article of faith, so there cannot be Ranaldite related theurgy if your mind subscribes to determinism.
 
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Alratan said:
The Sorcerer in the Roleplay is Journeyman level in magic, I think. They can proceed from that to become Master and then Lord level wizards.
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Yes, their Magic stat is journeyman-level, but their stat cap total is on the level of Master Wizards (less Magic and worse mental stats, but better physical stats), not Journeymen. Master Wizard is a possible exit for them, but there are much less upgrades there for Sorcerers than for Journeymen. If we disregard fluff and only look on mechanical effects then in a game like Disciples with upgrade trees Sorcerers and Master Wizards would be pretty viable alternative upgrade paths for Journeymen (both are straight-up upgrades, but with different focus).

Journeyman -> Master Wizard: +1 Magic, +1 Wound; +5% WS, BS, T, Agi, Fel; +10% Int, Will
Journeyman -> Sorcerer: +2 Wounds; +10% WS, BS; +15% T, Agi
 
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dunk1010 said:
Yeah, if we ever did more than, block off all but two doors, dig out eight rooms and fill four of them none of them especially developed.
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then there's the forge, the shrine (which we took with us), the nifty Inn whose owner we befriended as cover, and the 'blocked off all but two doors' bit kinda trivialized how we rearanged the streets to make our hideout be impossible to stumble upon (or near to it, since Ranald might push another worshiper in need of a place to stay there).


Really, it was the perfect place to base ourselves in, if not for that pesky geographical location problem.

ADarkerPorpoise said:
Yeeeeeeah our book buying budget for a single turn is like 100 gold more than we ever spent on the sunken palace, the investment totals don't quite line up in comparison haha.
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yeah, but compare that to the crit needed to get the palace, then the (I think it was a crit or just high roll) roll to secure it, then the number of action points we spent on that place makes it incomparable to the Library.

And near anything else is trivialized compared to our library if gold cost is the main comparison.
 
noliar said:
@BoneyM we don't have gyrocopters harrassing the Orcs but do we have them watching and counting?
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Wasn't much point to a precise count yet. We know its beyond many and firmly in the lots range. Until we wrap this bunch up.

Neshuakadal said:
The one problem I have with this is that it may come pretty close to time manipulation which the colleges frown on in general. I understand the idea of probability manipulation but you don't know what you need until you need it. That means that the past will have to change in order for you to have what you need right now. Seems pretty close to outright changing the past.
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Potentially damaging cause and effect is completely different from probability manipulation.

The Coin is probability manipulation, you stack the deck with aces FIRST, then if it comes down to needing to draw aces, having twice as many aces in the deck is important. If you're building a Flush instead...too bad?
 
veekie said:
Wasn't much point to a precise count yet. We know its beyond many and firmly in the lots range. Until we wrap this bunch up.


Potentially damaging cause and effect is completely different from probability manipulation.

The Coin is probability manipulation, you stack the deck with aces FIRST, then if it comes down to needing to draw aces, having twice as many aces in the deck is important. If you're building a Flush instead...too bad?
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That is only one type of probability manipulation that Ranald does. Lets look at Empress Heidi's story.

BoneyM said:
But she bit off more than she could chew too, and it just so happened that the landlady was the hoarder type and left several wooden stakes and a vial of holy water in the nightstand - or at least, it just so happened after I gave probability a few good kicks in the ribs.
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This quote makes it sound to me that at first there were not wooden stakes and a vial of holy water there at first. It sounds like Heidi did something to cause those items to be there. An attempt to skew probability so hard that only one outcome is possible. This is very different than what Ranald did for her birth which was described as finding the best port. I believe that is what the coin does. It scans futures and tries to guide to the "best" one for a given task. It seems like a much more passive probability manipulation than what Heidi described with her vampire encounter.

I am not concerned with passive probability manipulation like Heidi's birth or what our coin may do. I am far more concerned with the active variety that Heidi seems to describe for our first talk. That one seems like it can be far far more dangerous and far far closer to time manipulation.

Again this is pretty deep speculation on my part. But I think it's something we should watch for if we start to develop powerful probability manipulation spells with Ranald. After all there is probability manipulation and there setting up a predestination effect.
 
Neshuakadal said:
The one problem I have with this is that it may come pretty close to time manipulation which the colleges frown on in general. I understand the idea of probability manipulation but you don't know what you need until you need it. That means that the past will have to change in order for you to have what you need right now. Seems pretty close to outright changing the past.
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Azyr is all about time travelling information and as a result temporal manipulation. Azyr apparently travels backwards rather than forwards in time, carrying information with it from potential futures. Creatures of the Aethyr live outside time, and can play all sorts of tricks as a result.
 
Well, it the 24 hours mark have already passed and I think this is one of the most one-sided votes I have seen in this thread...
Adhoc vote count started by duskrider42 on Dec 2, 2019 at 3:35 AM, finished with 609 posts and 132 votes.
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Neshuakadal said:
That is only one type of probability manipulation that Ranald does. Lets look at Empress Heidi's story.



This quote makes it sound to me that at first there were not wooden stakes and a vial of holy water there at first. It sounds like Heidi did something to cause those items to be there. An attempt to skew probability so hard that only one outcome is possible. This is very different than what Ranald did for her birth which was described as finding the best port. I believe that is what the coin does. It scans futures and tries to guide to the "best" one for a given task. It seems like a much more passive probability manipulation than what Heidi described with her vampire encounter.

I am not concerned with passive probability manipulation like Heidi's birth or what our coin may do. I am far more concerned with the active variety that Heidi seems to describe for our first talk. That one seems like it can be far far more dangerous and far far closer to time manipulation.

Again this is pretty deep speculation on my part. But I think it's something we should watch for if we start to develop powerful probability manipulation spells with Ranald. After all there is probability manipulation and there setting up a predestination effect.
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Heidi's seems to be more of "this COULD have been here, so cool, it is conveniently here" ala Exalted stunting. It'd only need to be time manipulation if you require a deterministic materialist setting, in Warhammer, particularly with warp entities propagating themseives both up and down the timeline.

So rather than a timeline strictly, you have a time web, where a mortal perspective moves along, but which a given present could have dozens of possible mid-range pasts associated with a given perspective.
Not so much for long range or short range, the former because irrelevant stuff is likely to stay irrelevant, allowing forks to merge back together, and the latter because there hadn't been enough time to inject variance in.
 
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veekie said:
Heidi's seems to be more of "this COULD have been here, so cool, it is conveniently here" ala Exalted stunting. It'd only need to be time manipulation if you require a deterministic materialist setting, in Warhammer, particularly with warp entities propagating themseives both up and down the timeline.

So rather than a timeline strictly, you have a time web, where a mortal perspective moves along, but which a given present could have dozens of possible mid-range pasts associated with a given perspective.
Not so much for long range or short range, the former because irrelevant stuff is likely to stay irrelevant, allowing forks to merge back together, and the latter because there hadn't been enough time to inject variance in.
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Sounds less like stunting and more like Dramatic Editing, which tbf, I could totally see Heidi as a Talent.
 
veekie said:
Heidi's seems to be more of "this COULD have been here, so cool, it is conveniently here" ala Exalted stunting. It'd only need to be time manipulation if you require a deterministic materialist setting, in Warhammer, particularly with warp entities propagating themseives both up and down the timeline.

So rather than a timeline strictly, you have a time web, where a mortal perspective moves along, but which a given present could have dozens of possible mid-range pasts associated with a given perspective.
Not so much for long range or short range, the former because irrelevant stuff is likely to stay irrelevant, allowing forks to merge back together, and the latter because there hadn't been enough time to inject variance in.
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Or simply Ranald subtly nudging Heidi to squat in a more prepared location on the night when he knows vampire will be hunting.
 
vsh said:
Or simply Ranald subtly nudging Heidi to squat in a more prepared location on the night when he knows vampire will be hunting.
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Ranald doing so retroactively, maybe, but the implication was an active effect.

(The two aren't mutually exclusive; we know Ranald gets to look at all the rolls before applying his bonus. Going back and leaning heavily on her 'safe place' roll would be very much in line with his observed abilities).
 
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Andmeuths said:
And I suspect that a faith in Ranald means one must believe that the gods roll dice as an article of faith, so there cannot be Ranaldite related theurgy if your mind subscribes to determinism.
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Not really relevant to the discussion, but I will note that Ranald is Ranald, and so of course he rolls dice. He's probably so good at it, he can cheat at dice without really noticing. Kind of like how you never let Ranald deal cards.

[X] Both must die.
- [X] Let the Sorcerer's attack play out, then finish off whoever survives.

I'm a bit iffy on the risk here, but I think that it's worth it. Especially if the agent is the one to survive. (Rune of Superior Skill vs warpstone-powered devices? Should be interesting.)
 
primemountain said:
Adela wasn't at all sure how this had all come to be, but when all your enemies start killing each other, and the battle is over before you arrive, you don't need to be a child of Burghers to understand simple truths. Who profits?

From there, she didn't need to know. Not the schemes or the plots. The results spoke for themselves. It was said there was no Wizard so feared on the field of battle as a Bright one. In sheer scale of the damage they could do, none were their match. This? This is what the Greys did. A battle won, before the first swing. Adela was witnessing the work of a maestro of that terrible art.
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Mathilde is never going to be able to convince anyone she had nothing to do with all their enemies spontaneously deciding to kill each other, is she? :lol:
 
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