Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[zxzx24]

If we do end up with this library thing, did some of ya'll come to the same conclusion, where we're essentially Ranald's apology to Morr and Verena?

Purging Sylvania, making a big library/future university, really all we need is a big ol thing symbolic of Shallya specifically and we're effectively Ranald's bouquet and chocolates for when he rings the proverbial doorbell.

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Were working on it.

Honestly we just need to find something grand enough.

Start an order of knights dedicated to her maybe?

Invent the knights hospitaler?

 

[EFW3]

Snuggles started at the bottom like everyone else. Every promotion was earned. As, alas, was every demotion.

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I guess her CO was unappacative of the skaven left on their pillow while they were sleeping.

Edit- I hate auto corrupt

 

[Ericwinter]

Were working on it.

Honestly we just need to find something grand enough.

Start an order of knights dedicated to her maybe?

Invent the knights hospitaler?

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We're revitalizing an entire nation with hope for a better life, and--with any luck--healing the wounds the Karaz Ankor have suffered for millenia. If you consider them to be a single ailing, wounded, and despereate entity, it would certainly count. We just need to keep driving home the lessons Belegar and Mathilde both want to teach and make it stick.

 

[chocolote12]

We're revitalizing an entire nation with hope for a better life, and--with any luck--healing the wounds the Karaz Ankor have suffered for millenia. If you consider them to be a single ailing, wounded, and despereate entity, it would certainly count. We just need to keep driving home the lessons Belegar and Mathilde both want to teach and make it stick.

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If you have to explain why it counts, it sort of doesn't, I don't think. 'Upholding a legal polity' is more Verana's thing, as the goddess of law, and gods on the same side tend not to overlap.

Were working on it.

Honestly we just need to find something grand enough.

Start an order of knights dedicated to her maybe?

Invent the knights hospitaler?

Click to shrink...

We know she hates Nurgle, and he and his followers are pretty much the only beings she's okay with having killed.

So, if we can't think of any constructive things to do for her, sweeping through a few piles of chaos cults might do the trick. They've been keeping an awfully low profile since we turned up anyways, its about time we ran into them.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

If you have to explain why it counts, it sort of doesn't, I don't think. 'Upholding a legal polity' is more Verana's thing, as the goddess of law, and gods on the same side tend not to overlap.

We know she hates Nurgle, and he and his followers are pretty much the only beings she's okay with having killed.

So, if we can't think of any constructive things to do for her, sweeping through a few piles of chaos cults might do the trick. They've been keeping an awfully low profile since we turned up anyways, its about time we ran into them.

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nunneries are constructive, one in K8P (missionary and hospitalist) and one in Striland (teaching and orphanage)

the Striland one would even pay for itself out of the rent we don't use.

 

[soul ice]

Of the many hats that the Ar-Ulric wants to see of Mathilde maybe it's doom tower Mathilde. After all we just did build a weapon that channels a gods fire to kill a whaaagh maybe Ulric wants one too.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

The ideal "gift" for Shallya would be stealing something she needed stealing. Or, alternatively, returning something that was stolen from her. I wonder if any relics etc. of Shallya have gone missing, that we could recover?

 

[Thor's Twin]

Of the many hats that the Ar-Ulric wants to see of Mathilde maybe it's doom tower Mathilde. After all we just did build a weapon that channels a gods fire to kill a whaaagh maybe Ulric wants one too.

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If he wants that, the more interesting question would be how he knows about what the tower does.

 

[HebrideanStarfis]

[x] Agree to meet the Ar-Ulric.

The wolf pope wants to meet we should do it for no reason other than to find out why. Also he did go through official channels. We should bring wolf to the meeting to meet the wolf pope.

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Too late for him to be a riding wolf, but maybe the shame of being so teeny tiny will pack a few inches on to him so his gigantic wintery peers stop laughing at him.

 

[chocolote12]

nunneries are constructive, one in K8P (missionary and hospitalist) and one in Striland (teaching and orphanage)

the Striland one would even pay for itself out of the rent we don't use.

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It's just a nunnery, though. Everybody can do nunneries if there's an actual demand for them. They're boring.

Of the many hats that the Ar-Ulric wants to see of Mathilde maybe it's doom tower Mathilde. After all we just did build a weapon that channels a gods fire to kill a whaaagh maybe Ulric wants one too.

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Ulric would have to tell him about it, considering it's double plus secret. This would raise the question of how Ulric knows.

 

[Ericwinter]

If you have to explain why it counts, it sort of doesn't, I don't think. 'Upholding a legal polity' is more Verana's thing, as the goddess of law, and gods on the same side tend not to overlap.

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Ehh, but it's not about upholding the legal polity of the dwarves. It's about their hearts and minds, bringing succor to the old wounds they sustained so long ago. Take Kragg, for example. and the way seeing a reclaimed Karak affected him. Or how Belegar would make comments on buying lives instead of glorious deaths, or even better, all the recent omakes on various dwarves who finally got to see the Queen of the Silver Depths restored. The halflings, with a new and safer home in which to finally grow a stable population without risk of extermination. The Undumgi and Winter Wolves, either homeless wanderers that finally found a place to belong, or people who had been so abandoned by their faith they left the Empire entirely despite the fear of being called traitors, but now have new purpose and prosperity. Karak Eight Peaks has become a home for the lost, the desperate, and the bleeding to come together and heal, while making the world a better place. Mathilde may not have directly intervened in most of it, but her actions were what made it such a secure and welcoming place.

 

[soul ice]

Ulric is one of the few gods that still has a physical manifestation in the form of his flame he could have greater ability to perceive things on the mortal plane. He also may not have told about the other tower just sent a commission through his priesthood.

 

[adaer]

If he's got any more of that divine energy we helped him steal left to add as icing on the cake, it would be even better.

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Setting Ranald up to apologize and return the godly energy he originally stole does sound like a pretty great way for the two of them to reconcile and maybe get past what he did before.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

It's just a nunnery, though. Everybody can do nunneries if there's an actual demand for them. They're boring.

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She is a bit of a boring God, she don't want heads of enemies or stolen goods back (she didn't even care all that much about what Ranald did from what the RPG book said.) she wants healing (hospitalist and missionary) and mercy (orphanage?)

what can you do if the head of their enemies isn't a way to make friends, it's completely out of Mathys comfort zone.

she likes nunneries.

 

[chocolote12]

what can you do if the head of their enemies isn't a way to make

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It is, though, she just has less enemies.

Kill Nurgle cultists, she hates those, they're a perfect present.

Ehh, but it's not about upholding the legal polity of the dwarves. It's about their hearts and minds, bringing succor to the old wounds they sustained so long ago. Take Kragg, for example. and the way seeing a reclaimed Karak affected him. Or how Belegar would make comments on buying lives instead of glorious deaths, or even better, all the recent omakes on various dwarves who finally got to see the Queen of the Silver Depths restored. The halflings, with a new and safer home in which to finally grow a stable population without risk of extermination. The Undumgi and Winter Wolves, either homeless wanderers that finally found a place to belong, or people who had been so abandoned by their faith they left the Empire entirely despite the fear of being called traitors, but now have new purpose and prosperity. Karak Eight Peaks has become a home for the lost, the desperate, and the bleeding to come together and heal, while making the world a better place. Mathilde may not have directly intervened in most of it, but her actions were what made it such a secure and welcoming place.

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You can say all that, but that you had to say all that instead of any such thematics being self evident demonstrates that it's pretty out there. Gods aren't that poetic, when you get down to it.

The life of the karak might be a separate matter, but its retaking was entirely military in nature. We walked in and killed things.

 

[NuclearConsensus]

@BoneyM how can we find out how Snuggles gained his position back?

Or is that going to be forever stuck behind "need to know, and you don't"?

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Johann stared.

On the shelf of bottled gases of dubious nature in front of him, the cat stared back. At least, he thought it was a cat. He couldn't quite tell what its head looked like behind the gasmask it wore, though the body wrapped in some sort of shiny, form-fitting clothing looked feline enough.

Johann kept staring.

Deliberately, the cat lifted one of its forepaws, before moving it back and forth in the direction of the door.

Was this cat shooing him?

Johann shook his head. He then pointed at the bottles on the shelf, then mimed smashing them.

The cat... rolled its head? Probably an attempt to roll its eyes at Johann. Slowly, the cat padded over to the end of the shelf, stopping beside an amber colored bottle. It paused for a moment, seemingly contemplating the provenance of the substance within, before elegantly swiping the bottle of the shelf.

Johann stared, first at the bottle, now broken on the floor and emitting a combination of both ominous liquid and gas that was eating into the floor and the shelf, then at the cat, who had walked to the opposite end of the shelf, jumped down and was staring back at him again.

The cat repeated its shooing motion, before ambling off in the direction of the door.

Johann ran.

 

[Ericwinter]

You can say all that, but that you had to say all that instead of any such thematics being self evident demonstrates that it's pretty out there. Gods aren't that poetic, when you get down to it.

The life of the karak might be a separate matter, but its retaking was entirely military in nature. We walked in and killed things.

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... It should have been self evident in the first place. Like, discussing thematics that, as I pointed out, have been a pretty big thing in several omakes, doesn't make them any less real or justified. Otherwise I could argue that any time someone has to point out particular character traits for Mathilde, or the thematics of our achievements and what effects they have, or pretty much everything that is not stated explicitly word for word in the text of the story is "pretty out there". That's what Thematics are, a deeper look at a chain of events and how they relate to one another. It's another way of looking at things beyond the obvious. To say otherwise pretty much goes against the spirit of a thread in the first place. And Gods, as conceptualized beings who may or may not be affected by the perceptions of their worshippers, are almost by definition that poetic.
Yes, retaking the Karak was a military action, but everything that will come out of it, and even the work we had to do between each stage of the Conquest? That fits pretty damn well into Shallya's wheelhouse when looked at from a grand scale rather than a personal one, which is the whole point of the conversation.

 

[veekie]

I am weirdly intrigued by what that singular Runesmith got out of it all.
Even more than all the other odd ducks, including the elven ambassador, since at least that guy was already in town and presumably uses the magic tradition ours was based on.

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Remember the whole thing about targeting the unfocused Waaagh field to dissolve the focused spell by kicking away the energy its sucking up?

Runesmiths excel at that, because they can't directly sense the magic, hitting a wide area, diffuse magical energy field with "Valaya Says Go And Stays Go" is vastly more efficient for them than standard countermagic.

Dwarf books on Waaagh magic. It's greenskin secrets instead of Rune secrets so it's fair game.

Technically they perceive magic by mastering the protection of Valaya they received shortly after birth to the extent that it becomes one of their senses but that's very much not for non-Dawongr consumption.

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Sort of like feeling their shields rattling huh?

I don't see the point in spending AP on that last spell. What benefit do we get from learning it that is worth expending limited AP on?

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Illusion can quite literally to that too, better, you can look like Mathilde with a sword, you can look like Mathilde with a book, you can look like Magnus the Pious wielding Ghral Maraz

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Cloak Activity is of a lower complexity and therefor easier to cast.
Which includes less chance of a miscast during stressful situations.

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Fair, that would be among the 1% of situations where it would be worth noting, though it is worth nothing that if you are trying to mislead someone with clock activity you are probably the one with the initiative and thus not stressed.

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Uh, Illusion is massively more difficult to use in battle than its complexity suggests. It requires ongoing attention to actively modify what it shows, and you need what it is trying to show in detail. It doesn't inherently obscure your activity, you need to stack Invisibility for that.

Cloak Activity on the other hand straight out replaces your action with another action you could be doing, and is probably required to really max out our personal "what the fuck is that" sword style by adding Cloaked diversions.

The Temple is a trickier matter. One of the first decisions you made was not to engage in player-versus-house games to prevent resentment from the patrons and adversarial thinking from the staff. The Temple will fund itself by taking a rake from the card games, a commission on the bookmaking, and the sale of beer, ale, wine and liquors to the clientele. Hiring from amongst those Undumgi who have taken wounds that won't allow them to patrol any more gets you the bar staff, but for an affinity for cards, an ability to spot cheats, and to honour the Gambler, you need to recruit from further afield.

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Probably could make a big buck on pies and pastries too.
A lot of people stress eat, and if you make salty pies they'd buy more beer too.

One quite convincing card sharp got quite a way into the interview with you having only barely set of a few minor suspicions, until he stopped mid-sentence, listened to the sliver of Ranald's attention that had just turned your way, then apologized and left.

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...this guy is running the Deceiver "Perfect Bluff" blessing. Mathilde having only minor suspicions is itself suspicious!

Ranald: "Dude, seriously, don't try this. I got a good gig here."

And under the watchful eye of a newly brevetted Lieutenant Snuggles, the cat statue became the perch of choice for Karag Nar's small but growing feline population.

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Snuggles started at the bottom like everyone else. Every promotion was earned. As, alas, was every demotion.

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Snuggles got promoted for heroism in battle!

Maybe she nailed some snotling assassins.

But I thought cats were bad in dwarf fortress!

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Cats were actually pretty good in dwarf fortress, the problem was that cats ate up a lot of FPS because unlike all the other animals you aren't allowed to butcher cats, because the cats will domesticate a dwarf who'd go nuts if you kill the cat so they became the dominant population rapidly.

If we do end up with this library thing, did some of ya'll come to the same conclusion, where we're essentially Ranald's apology to Morr and Verena?

Purging Sylvania, making a big library/future university, really all we need is a big ol thing symbolic of Shallya specifically and we're effectively Ranald's bouquet and chocolates for when he rings the proverbial doorbell.

Click to shrink...

I mean, Mathilde ships it, and is a huge fan of trashy romance novels. She'd probably be entirely on board with this plan.

Edit: Also note that we've got Warfare/Strategy/Tactics nailed down too with our most recent reclaiming of K8P, so we have a legendary feat to appease Shallya's sister Myrmidia too.

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Its especially funny since we sorta just ended up doing this by accident, almost by...

...chance.

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I ship it!

quick thing.
Insight on Skaven tactics and strategy, acquired from the Liber Mortis but justified by your current encounters (TIMELESS)

even tho this is a timeless action, maybe we should get it out of the way while we have the excuse and everyone thinks we are the bees knees.

or just sit on it forever, either or works for me.

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We're going to have a glut of fresh papers as it is, so the immediate priority is to finish the difficult and strategically important papers we got material for this turn.
Timeless papers is what Serenity chipping at it is for.

 

[Ericwinter]

...this guy is running the Deceiver "Perfect Bluff" blessing. Mathilde having only minor suspicions is itself suspicious!

Ranald: "Dude, seriously, don't try this. I got a good gig here."

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I'm reminded of that time Boney mentioned that the Grey College is so god-damn paranoid that even Ranald's Coin on the Deciever would have trouble tricking them. Guess mathilde lives up to her college's reputation.

 

[Doomed Wombat]

Getting some Shallyans set up seems like a good idea.

She's the main goddess in WHF whose not entirely objectionable, + magic medics.

What's not to love?

 

[chocolote12]

And Gods, as conceptualized beings who may or may not be affected by the perceptions of their worshippers, are almost by definition that poetic.

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Use the Protector Test: If you have to say anything extra for somebody to understand what this has to do with one god or another, no, it isn't clear enough to count. You could tie every action to one god or another; it's when things are unambiguous enough that it isn't up for discussion that they'll actually pay attention, though.

 

[Walliseatscheese]

Ulric is one of the few gods that still has a physical manifestation in the form of his flame he could have greater ability to perceive things on the mortal plane. He also may not have told about the other tower just sent a commission through his priesthood.

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I hadn't considered that Ulric might have a similar connection to Fire that might allow for him to ride along the targeting data from Burning Shadows.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

I'm reminded of that time Boney mentioned that the Grey College is so god-damn paranoid that even Ranald's Coin on the Deciever would have trouble tricking them. Guess mathilde lives up to her college's reputation.

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what was it again? "they will completely believe you, but they will know somethings up by dint of completely believing anyone. '

 

[Shovern]

A compilation of Mathilde's hats. I think I moved one post to make the connection clearer. And I actually have something to contribute for once, so I won't feel quite as deep a shame when people like this post instead of the talented, handsome, and all around fabulous people quoted below.

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It's far from all of them by any means(Only seven) but:

Spoiler: Gif's take Bandwidth right?

Spoiler: Mucho Slow Version

Can you guess them all?

If people have good suggestions for additional "hats" I might make another version later.
EDIT: Never mind Photoshop decided to bork my project file.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

... It should have been self evident in the first place. Like, discussing thematics that, as I pointed out, have been a pretty big thing in several omakes, doesn't make them any less real or justified. Otherwise I could argue that any time someone has to point out particular character traits for Mathilde, or the thematics of our achievements and what effects they have, or pretty much everything that is not stated explicitly word for word in the text of the story is "pretty out there". That's what Thematics are, a deeper look at a chain of events and how they relate to one another. It's another way of looking at things beyond the obvious. To say otherwise pretty much goes against the spirit of a thread in the first place. And Gods, as conceptualized beings who may or may not be affected by the perceptions of their worshippers, are almost by definition that poetic.
Yes, retaking the Karak was a military action, but everything that will come out of it, and even the work we had to do between each stage of the Conquest? That fits pretty damn well into Shallya's wheelhouse when looked at from a grand scale rather than a personal one, which is the whole point of the conversation.

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Kind of have to agree that your twisting and after justifying a little too much for it to count.