While you do have to filter your observations through metaphor, you don't have to worry about it misleading them the way you would with laymen. So you merely couch your metaphor with a few others from your library - the discordant tones of a Light Order observer, the sensation of half-welcome heat mixed with entirely unwelcome humidity of a Bright Order Battle Wizard, the staccato pulsations of a Runesmith. Those that have felt it for themselves should be able to translate to their own senses, and those that haven't will have to figure it out when they first do. You regret that your Magesight had apparently decided that Waaagh is a flavour, as if it was a sight you could replicate it with your MAPP.
Synesthesia would probably be a useful magical effect for translating metaphors. Wonder if Ulgu could do that. It does seem well in line with Ulgu things, though probably not all that useful.
The least intuitive thing about Waaagh energies is that in stark contrast to the beings they arise from, it is entirely predictable and acts more like a mundane gas than the flighty and whimsical energies of the Winds. It is attracted to greenskins, more to those fighting than those not, denser around Bosses in accordance with their place in the hierarchy, and to Warbosses and Shamans most of all. A set of ironclad constants at the centre of the often-anarchic animosity of the greenskins is one of their strengths, but with this lecture you begun to transform it into a weakness. Reliability is vulnerability.
This really does describe it pretty well. Any individual gas particle might as well be moving completely randomly, but the aggregate is very predictable.
You explain to them that you can't kick away at the foundations when the air is thick with the energy the foundations are built upon, as those energies rush in to fill the void you just created and you may as well have not bothered. But if you blast those loose energies away - much easier than doing so to the energies being actively shaped by a Shaman - then the strength becomes a weakness as the spell begins to dissolve as the energies are drawn to the many small vacuums this results in.
Man, if what I'm getting from this description is right, they've been trying to slash a liquid to death with countermagic, and it only works when they have overwhelming force and it turns into basically a sweeping splash instead of just ineffectually chopping water.
Or if you must strike directly, strike at the centre rather than at the foundations, and let the spell collapse inwards, resulting in every facet of it becoming weaker and less controllable, making it possible to combat it more conventionally.
Is that a cavitation bubble attack?
As the phase draws to a close, you explain the most finicky but most potentially devastating method of indirect interference - charging the air with Winds to make it more or less resistant to the Waaagh and thus either direct them away from the Shaman and weaken them, or to them and overload them.
Sounds rather Magic intensive. Probably not accessible to most people, who would find charging the air with their Wind over a battlefield to be a difficult stunt, but the Battle Wizards should get a lot of use out of this method.
The Light College probably could do this with a Choir though. It'd even directly work in tandem with their normal casting.
This is the least developed possibility for the simple fact that you can and have tested how Waaagh reacts to Ulgu-energized air - very favorable for the Little Waaagh and somewhat unfavorable for the Big - but can't replicate the experiment for the seven other Winds yourself. So you leave that in the hands of your audience, and hope to see a series of supplemental papers emerge in coming years as your colleagues in other Colleges try it for themselves.
My guess:
-Ulgu - Major Pro Little Waaagh, Minor Con Big Waaagh
-Aqshy - Passion is very much the lifeblood of a Waaagh, so probably fairly favorable to either, but more so to the Big.
-Azyr - Repellent to both. Waaagh no like philosophy.
-Hysh - Not a clue. They operate similarly enough that it could be a matter of orientation.
-Shyish - Somewhat repellent to both. Waaagh seriously not into fatalism, but they do mete out plenty of death, so I doubt the energy is entirely incompatible.
-Ghur - Probably favorable to both.
-Ghyran - They're fungi so...maybe?
-Chamon - Strongly repellent to both I bet. The Waaagh really does not like logic.
using the previously described air-charging method to steer a spell without touching it directly is pleasingly elegant too
...I see some people in thread may get very excited when they realize what this just said.
The trickiest part is when a Shaman calls for the direct intervention of Gork or Mork, but while you very much emphasize how inadvisable it would be to try to directly counter a God, the energies a Shaman uses to suggest a target are fair game, and while moving them about without disrupting them would require a great deal of control, just about anyone could muster enough strength to scatter them and leave it up to luck for the God to decide where to intervene. As you're witnessed, They have no compunction against stomping their own believers.
Would bet some priests have tried pitting God to God, but in Mathilde's experience that leaves the mortal in the middle very sore.
Mucking with the targeting beacon makes sense...I wonder just how much the Gods can actually perceive on the mortal plane directly.
"No. He has no authority over you and I won't lend him mine. The decision is yours. But I won't deny that I'm curious, and ever since the trouble with Norrland started the Ulricans have been incredibly tight-lipped, and if you can bring any new information to the table it would be an enormous help."
It also occurs to me that for the Ar Ulric to ask for Mathilde's cooperation with getting Ulrikadrin back in line they'd ALSO have to explain some of what the hell is going on as part of the persuasion and why is everyone keeping quiet to the point that
Algard has limited information on what the fuck.
