I'm a bit confused. Wasn't Mathilde supposed to create a Squeekish dictionary? None of the winning plan options seem to be about that?
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
That's cause the "winning plan" bits most recently referenced are only the half-turn left over from before the last battle for K8P.
Here's the half that we did before the fight, and which set it off:
-[*] MAX: Study an artefact: The book on Chaos Dwarf anatomy.
-[*] JOHANN: Join him on raids with the aim of finding written correspondence (Choose: Clan Skryre).
-[*] DUCK: Adela's started her education in Dwarven engineering. Escort her to do field-testing with some of Gotri's prototypes, and grab what Queekish you can while doing so. Clan Skryre.
-[*] Supply a steady stream of Queekish documents for Qrech to translate, and carefully check the results for consistency.
- Location
- Greece
Blessed be ye, oh chosen of Ranald, born under the stars of luck and irony.
(context: exact next post to that person is by the QM, saying he is back. I'd have quoted him too, but I do not want to ping him)
You met Terry Pratchett? At a bar?
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
This was great to wake up to. You know, one of my initial arguments against the original Slow and Steady was that we had too many enemies to not focus on them over stuff like the vitae.
The universe noticed my annoyance with that situation, I guess. 🤔
The universe noticed my annoyance with that situation, I guess. 🤔
- Location
- some computer lab
now we can be a huge nerd in peace.
Turn 25 Results - 2482 - Part 2
[*] Plan Slow and Steady with more papers
-[*] Found an internal investigation division, to investigate possible misconduct.
-[*] The Colleges want you to do a series of lectures on your paper, Waaagh and Peace. Travel to Altdorf and do so.
-[*] You have set up a Shrine to Ranald. Expand it into a Temple to the Gambler - a gambling hall with clean cards, guaranteed unloaded dice, fresh sawdust in the fighting ring, and a lottery every Festag. Costs 100gc.
-[*] Investigate how living things react to exposure to the Vitae. COIN.
-[*] Have additional rooms excavated underneath your Penthouse: -100gc for 4 rooms.
-[*] The Gambler: Investigate how living things react to exposure to the Vitae.
-[*] Serenity: The ability of Alkharad to assume a projected form of mist. (ALMOST FADED)
-[*] Found an internal investigation division, to investigate possible misconduct.
-[*] The Colleges want you to do a series of lectures on your paper, Waaagh and Peace. Travel to Altdorf and do so.
-[*] You have set up a Shrine to Ranald. Expand it into a Temple to the Gambler - a gambling hall with clean cards, guaranteed unloaded dice, fresh sawdust in the fighting ring, and a lottery every Festag. Costs 100gc.
-[*] Investigate how living things react to exposure to the Vitae. COIN.
-[*] Have additional rooms excavated underneath your Penthouse: -100gc for 4 rooms.
-[*] The Gambler: Investigate how living things react to exposure to the Vitae.
-[*] Serenity: The ability of Alkharad to assume a projected form of mist. (ALMOST FADED)
After the utter chaos of the Battle of the Caldera and a beautiful unveiling of the Eye of Gazul, Dreng and Prince Gotri will be scrambling to fortify the new outer borders of the restored Karak. Most urgent is the constant skirmish against Karak Drazh, but there's also the Western Gates that need to be rebuilt almost from scratch, the walls, watchtowers and redoubts that plug the very few gaps in the natural mountainous barriers between the Karags, and, of course, the undoubtedly innumerable Skaven-excavated passages below. It will be the work of decades to restore the Karak's defences to something that will satisfy the Dwarves, but though Dwarves approach fortifications with the desire for perfection inherent in all Dwarven endeavours, Dwarven Thanes and Siege Engineers are required to be capable of understanding and implementing the concept of 'good enough for now'. The world so rarely gives the Dwarves as much time as they'd like to fortify.
But while recent events have seen their previous tasks backburnered, you are instead freed to return to unfinished business. You check in on Maximilian, who has returned to grappling with the Skaven book on Chaos Dwarf anatomy, and then turn to your own pile of books and notes. The scheduled beginning of your lectures is fast approaching.
---
While Dame Mathilde Weber was watched with interest by her fellows among the Grey College and was known to many of those that make it their business to know what occurs on the fringes of civilization in the Old World, to the Colleges in general she was not that prominent a name until very recently. The Matrix was only useful in a few niches and the papers she produced upon the Eight Peaks Expedition were solid enough, but only attracted the attention of those already interested in what she was reporting on.
Then the MAP and then the improved MAPP circulated, and hot on its heels was a paper reporting not only hitherto unknown capabilities of vampires, but also a series of countermeasures against them. This got the attention of some, and those that did watch out for her work were very quickly rewarded by the publication of Waaagh and Peace. In language understandable to any Magister and even some of the more advanced Journeymen, the paper promised to completely revolutionize what the Colleges considered possible in the intersection of counter-magic and the greenskins. Some dismissed it as clearly impossible, but many more sought any advantage they could get over the greenskins' shaman, and when Magister Weber scheduled a series of supplemental lectures, dozens cleared a spot in their calendars for them.
But a quirk of fate pushed things a little further. When Barak Varr received news of a million-strong Waaagh marching on Eight Peaks, that information flowed north, through Black Fire Pass, and into the ever-listening apparatus of the Grey College. And when the next day brought news that it had been obliterated, that too travelled north. And thanks to the eternal efficiency of the staff of the Grey College, that meant that those wizards that had expressed an interest in the lecture received a small note informing them of a possible delay or cancellation due to seven figures of advancing greenskins. And directly atop that in each of their pigeonholes was another note, informing the reader to disregard the first note due to the utter destruction of said greenskins.
To say this increased interest in Dame Weber's lecture would be an immense understatement.
---
The Grey College does not often play host, and never to as varied an audience as the one accumulated for your lectures. It has been decided that the information you are to share can only be used to the detriment of the greenskins, so there is no reason to give it the usual restrictions that magical information would normally be shielded by, and the predicted crowd quickly outgrew the usual location of the gathering field of the Amber College. The University of Altdorf was asked to provide, and over the complaints of the local dramatic club they granted the use of their Magnus Hall. To your eyes, the stage that usually hosts orchestras and plays looks quite outsized for you alone and your nerves and your ego are warring over how to feel about the vast area of seats arrayed in front of the stage, and in the balcony that rings it, which is already filling with those about to be your audience.
"Should be quite a crowd," says Regimand, who has been managing some of the details while you were in Eight Peaks. "Algard and Dragomas signed off on the other Universities sitting in, and the Emperor okayed foreign guests."
That explained the woman with the very odd combination of magics intertwined inside her and an outfit barely within the constraints of decency. "Kislev or Bretonnia?" you ask, nodding in her direction.
"Bretonnia, I assume. The Kislevite ambassador has requested transcripts, as their lot are still occupied with their Ogre problem."
As Regimand bustles off to see to one detail or another, you run several of your senses over the gathering crowd. There's a veritable rainbow of robes from all eight Colleges, from the neat and unadorned robes of Perpetuals to the heavily runed robes of Battle Wizards to the eclectic fashion tastes of Magister Lords. Algard is present in the very centre of the balcony, flanked by No-Relation Reicthard of the Bright Order and Elspeth von Draken of the Amethyst. And though they were the most gratifying and intimidating of your audience, they were far from the most exotic or unexpected.
One of the Hedgewise, under a grey robe and a fair few cloaking spells, almost certainly here under a false name. If they're not also here by invitation and under the protection of the Grey College, they're likely to be on a pyre or in a shallow grave by sunrise tomorrow.
An Arabyan magician, dressed impeccably in the silk doublet and hose that was currently in style in Altdorf, only slightly incongruous from the curved dagger on his waist to mundane eyes, and rather more so to ones capable of seeing the magical beings trapped within the stones of his rings. Arabyans insist their Djinns are completely distinct from Daemons, and though academia is still divided on the issue, politics dictates acquiescence.
Daroir of Nagarythe, with a fully battle-ready Shadow Warrior on one side as a bodyguard or a date or both, and on the other an Elf that bears the universal expression of a harried bureaucrat, a stack of note paper, and a midnight-black feather quill.
A mercenary wizard of Tilea, looking very nervous and holding in their lap what you guess to be a declaration of good standing from a Tilean Prince or Doge or Triumvir or some other variety of ruler, which would be all that stood between them and being labelled a Black Magister and executed. There's a Grey Wizard in the row behind them, almost certainly keeping a watchful eye on them.
A Runesmith of Karak Norn, keeping a wary distance from the wizards and compulsively checking the medallion on his chest, no doubt bearing a Rune of protection from magic of some sort.
Several Priests, mostly Verenan and Myrmidian, though there's a Taalite-and-Rhyan pair close to the back. And almost indistinguishable from the Verenans, academics of several stripes, carefully clumped according to affiliation. The University of Altdorf locals are keeping their distance from their University of Nuln cousins, and both are keeping a much larger distance from the interlopers of Marienburg's Tempelwijk.
As the Hall fills near to capacity and the appointed hour approaches, you take a deep breath and go over your notes one more time.
---
"There are as many ways to categorize magic as there are beings who wield it, but one of the most common and fundamental is distinguishing those that wield the magic of the Aethyr, and those that wield the power of their God. I have come to realize that this is the biggest barrier in the way of understanding and countering the magics of the greenskins.
"The definition of a greenskin Shaman is not a greenskin capable of casting magic, nor one capable of directly channeling the power of the greenskin Gods. They store and direct the energies of the Waaagh, tapping into the energy field that bridges the greenskins and their Gods, but is not entirely of either. It possesses some qualities of the Arcane, some of the Divine, and some unique to it, so any approach that treats it using preconceptions developed from dealing with other magics is doomed to failure. So to understand greenskin magic, you must first understand the Waaagh. For those of you keeping notes - three As, no exclamation mark.
"To students of history, Waaagh might seem a rough equivalent to a horde or a beastherd, such as Waaagh Urgluk, Waaagh Grimfang, Waaagh Gorbad, or Waaagh Grom. This comes from using greenskin terminology without understanding it or them. Waaagh is the energy that develops from greenskins engaged in or anticipating bloodshed, and when a ruler arises among them of great martial prowess and tactical acumen - what they call Brutality and Cunning - it fills all their followers with that anticipation, and the energies this produces fills those greenskins with confidence and bloodlust as well as attracting more greenskins to the banner and drawing the attention of their Gods. This results in a self perpetuating cycle of growth and conquest centred on the leader that begun it. That is the Waaagh.
"By itself, the Waaagh and its energies are largely only psychological in effect. In the hands of a Shaman, either a Goblin channelling the Cunning of the Little Waaagh or an Orc the Brutality of the Big Waaagh, it becomes something very different. Imagine a Light Order Choir tens or hundreds of thousands strong amplified by a War God with no concept of subtlety, and you might begin to understand how this magic operates. At first, this is a terrifying thought. Sober reflection, however, quickly leads one to suspect that such a system would be hideously vulnerable to attack from a number of different vectors, and that it all turning on the axis of a single Shaman means that it would not take much destabilization to bring the entire spellcasting apparatus crashing down. These suspicions are absolutely correct, and once you understand enough about the Waaagh to know where to target, you won't need to try to match your strength against that of the Waaagh. All you need is a push in just the right place. And over the course of these lectures, I will give you that understanding."
---
It is the fundamental problem of magical academia - how do you explain something when everyone experiences that thing differently? The Elves of Ulthuan use poetry, a language where every word has a dozen contradictory meanings, and a lifespan measured in centuries. The Colleges find the best results from a Master and Apprentice system, so that the teacher and the student end up with similar magical senses and a solid understanding of where they differ. But the drawback of that is that it makes widely disseminating information impossible and standardization close to it. So every Wizard who puts quill to parchment ends up turning to metaphor, and every recorded Magesight observation is described through the lens of a more mundane sense. Usually sight, sometimes sound, the more repugnant magics often as smell, and for you, the Waaagh is best described as the taste of metal in your mouth and the feeling of an unpleasant vibration in your bones.
But as fundamental a problem as it is, it's also one that your audience will be familiar with wrestling with. 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.
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 begin to transform it into a weakness. Reliability is vulnerability.
You explain all of this in painstaking detail in the first phase of the lectures, and take a break from there to field questions and talk some of the more prominent attendees into understanding. Those that have faced the Waaagh tend to get it, and those who haven't tend not to, and you begin to wonder if it might be possible to emulate or capture Waaagh energy for teaching purposes.
The second phase of lectures focuses on spell disruption, and where previous attempts went wrong. Your audience remains about the same size but grows in prestige, as Apprentices drop out but Battle Wizards and Lord Magisters read the transcripts so far and decide to see the rest in person. 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. 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.
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. This is the least developed possibility for the simple fact that you can and have tested how Waaagh reacts to Ulgu-energized air - very favourable for the Little Waaagh and somewhat unfavourable 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.
The third phase, in your opinion, is where the real meat of the lectures are. This is where you describe not how to merely prevent the casting of hostile magic, but to turn it back on the Shaman and sometimes any greenskins unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius. Enhancement spells being used as a channel to drain away the Waaagh from an area completely and psychologically devastate the greenskins is your personal favourite, but using the previously described air-charging method to steer a spell without touching it directly is pleasingly elegant too. 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.
As you're wrapping up the last few lectures and fielding all the questions you have patience for, Algard approaches you one evening. "Very fine work, Magister. But with the adulation taken care of, there's another matter. The Ar-Ulric has asked to see you." A thousand terrible scenarios flash through your mind in an instant, and you make no attempt to keep the expression on your face from showing it. "Believe me, I understand your concern. But the request has gone through the official channels, and I've spoken to the Emperor and Dragomas about it, and if this is a trap of some sort, the Ar-Ulric knows damn well that all eight Colleges will march on Middenheim and the Imperial Army won't do a thing to prevent it."
"Is it an order?" you ask flatly.
"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 Nordland 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."
[*] Agree to meet the Ar-Ulric.
[ ] Refuse to meet the Ar-Ulric.
---
After the weeks spent in Altdorf trying to communicate the intricacies of Waaagh magic, it's a relief to be able to sequester yourself in your laboratories and dedicate some serious time to further unravelling the mysteries of the Aethyric Vitae, and specifically how it reacts to living creatures. You're fairly confident it's going to go rather poorly for your test subjects, but finding out exactly how and when it goes badly would tell you whether your current safety measures are adequate, and make it possible to bring others into the project suitably forewarned.
You start small, with a collection of various invertebrates who decided to try their luck with the Karak's crops and would now pay the price. Modern conventional classifications split non-magical animals into six different classes, and you begin with the most basic - Vermes, represented by a snail. It oozes its way around a sample dish containing a single drop of Vitae, and you watch from a safe distance as it moves over the tiny dollop without paying it any heed. You give it a few more moments, then carefully approach as it tries to make its way over the lip of the dish and peer down. The single drop has obeyed conventional fluid dynamics by spreading across the slime track, and with the tip of an obsidian scalpel you try to encourage the two substances to mix. They refuse, and the Vitae shows a stubborn determination to remain contiguous, apparently being drawn towards itself.
Over several cautious hours you scale up the experiment in very gradual increments, until the poor snail is wading unhappily through Vitae half the depth of its body, with no unexpected reactions from either. You rescue the critter one last time and graduate it from active experimentation, dropping it into a small tank in a corner of the laboratory with a trickle of water and a handful of lettuce leaves. You add the results to your notes - because a lack of reaction here is just as telling as something more dramatic would have been - and move on to the next step in the hierarchy of Animalia: Insecta.
The beetle darts around the tray with what seems like nervous energy, but your Magesight sees no mirroring stirrings in the ambient Winds. Whether this is because the insect feels no emotion or that its emotions are incompatible with the Aethyr is a question you're not here to answer, and either way you predict the same lack of reaction that the snail experienced. At first you're mostly right, and you take a few notes on how the liquid regathers itself after being scattered by the darting movements of the beetle. But the beetle eventually calms, and approaches the tiny puddle of vitae to drink from it. All seems fine at first, but after about a minute there's a very tiny burst of magical energies and the beetle writhes and expires. A very small autopsy later reveals a rupture in something roughly analogous to a stomach, which you reason was caused by the sudden expansion of the Vitae transforming into the Eight Winds.
Strange, you muse. The Winds normally exist as a phase of their own, interacting with mundane matter in ways according to their nature. But in the fraction of a second the transformation from Vitae to Winds takes, it physically expands. Is the Vitae expanding like a boiling liquid does, and then transforming directly into incorporeal Wind? Or is it passing through a gaseous phase before becoming Wind? The cause of the transformation puzzles you too, and you put aside your test creatures for a while as you run some tests directly on the Vitae. At the cost of a few sample flasks, you determine that while the Vitae is mostly stable, enough agitation is sufficient to cause it to transform into Winds. Your hypothesis is that the unfortunate beetle's stomach provided this agitation. Interesting, but once more, the Vitae is not reacting to the creature itself - only to being agitated.
Next is Pisces. You're less than keen to fill an entire fishbowl with the Vitae, so you repeat the experiments one more time with a larval newt imported from Ulrikadrin, and all that you discover is that a gill chamber is as agitating to the Vitae as a beetle's stomach. About what you expected. Larger fish tend to be more intelligent than smaller fish, at least according to some Manannite doctrines, and you believe they might be able to spark a different reaction to the Vitae, but the logistical problems and safety hazards inherent in testing that hypothesis lead you to move on to Amphibia, represented by some Badlands lizards retrieved by scouts. The lizards are naturally quite terrified when they arrive, and you can see a very faint ripple in the ambient Shyish. Intelligent enough to fear death.
A single drop of Vitae glistens upon the scales of a terrified lizard for a moment, before exploding into Winds and sending the test subject skittering away in panic. You coax the poor creature into a nice dark box to nurse its bruise and move on to a second test subject, and you douse most of the lights, move quietly, and provide some of the surplus test subjects from the first two phases. The lizard calms somewhat as it eats, and though it watches you carefully, it does not react to the dropper moving slowly over it. The drop of Vitae lands atop its back and the creature freezes for a moment, before carefully returning to its feast. The drop moves slowly down its side and then falls onto the floor.
You skip right past Aves and onto Mammalia to test your newfound hypothesis, and a few volunteers suffering bruised hands later confirms it: a sufficiently strong emotion of a type attractive to the Winds will spark the transformation, and for some reason it requires less Wind concentration from emotion than it did from your own manual concentration of Ulgu in previous experiments. Is it because a Wind manipulated by a Wizard is partially shielded from the Vitae? Because Winds moving freely and drawn to emotion is somehow more reactive? Or does one or the other possess some other quality that changes how readily Vitae reacts to it? You can't think of a way to narrow down the possibilities further, so you move on to further testing of the results of Vitae consumption - though this time, of course, on a much smaller scale.
Vitae does not readily mix with other liquids, but very careful experimentation does reveal a way to stir it just enough to mix it without agitating enough to trigger the transformation, and before the waters can still once more and the Vitae can be drawn back together, you present the mixture to a series of dehydrated test subjects, who eagerly gulp it down. All of them show various levels of discomfort a few minutes later, coinciding with the sudden release of magical energies within them, but while the Amphibia test subjects have the energies escape through them and fill the room, the Aves and Mammalia ones have the energies initially remain within them, and they display heightened fear, anger, and curiosity responses as the Winds slowly radiate back out of them, similar to how animals act in Wind-rich environments. You increase the dosage, and find a medium-level dose that so floods the test subjects that the crowded energies are forced to intermingle and begin to curdle into Dhar. Unfortunate, but the mercy killings do provide an opportunity to do an autopsy, and you confirm that while the intermixed doses do cause internal bruising to the digestive organs from the Vitae transformation, it's not strong enough to cause severe or permanent damage.
You feel confident enough in your understanding to bring in live test subjects once more, and flasks of the Vitae are carefully moved around by volunteers who are under strict instructions to remain unemotional. You then graduate to having them handle it directly, and most subjects remain unharmed. There was one overly-clever volunteer who got a little too curious about the strange, gleaming substance they were running their fingers through, but they'll heal in time. A very sceptical squad of Dwarven volunteers very carefully replicates these tests, and though the Vitae does slide away from the prodding of a Dwarven digit, the repellent effect isn't enough to have it crawl up a test tube. The volunteer's emotions prove irrelevant to the Vitae, and the only way they are able to spark the transformation is via agitation.
So. Vitae is safe to handle by Wizards as long as one is gentle, as they can control the magic within them and keep it away from the Vitae they are handling. It is safe to handle by Dwarves as long as they are gentle, as their emotions do not sufficiently stir the Winds. Non-magical sentients must remain gentle and also serene, as too much of the wrong emotion will draw a Wind to them which could transform the Vitae. You close the cover of your notebook, pleased with the progress you've made, and turn to the paper on Alkharad's gaseous form.
[Writing paper: Learning, 79+27+20(Necromantic Insight)+6(Library: Vampires)=132.]
Magic, you know, is often spoken of as if it has laws, but what it actually has is tendencies. An Apprentice will first be taught things like propagation speed of magic through the air, and then taught all the different circumstances under which that might not apply. So while most Wizards would happily say there'd be no way for a Wizard to be present and active in real time in two different places hundreds of miles away at once, they'd likely start adding disclaimers and provisos if you asked if it would apply to an ancient and studious Necrarch Vampire. So while it is definitely news that there exists at least one spell that can break that particular norm, it is not particularly shattering news, as the origin of magic makes it fundamentally antithetical to limitations and predictability.
It does, however, remain a very important paper to write. If this particular ability was not limited to Alkharad - who won't be causing any trouble from his position on your shelf - then it could very well be used to mislead and befuddle Vampire Hunters across the Empire and beyond. If a Vampire could be a province away while still interfering with matters through a form of mist, they could lead any pursuer on a merry chase in any direction they pleased. So you put pen to paper and describe everything you saw of the Vampire's ability to be active in two places at once, and after some thought split the paper into two sections, the first describing the characteristics of the spell in terms a layperson could understand and not getting into the technical side of things until the second half of the paper.
You're quite pleased with the result, feeling you've managed to write a paper that could be equally of use to an uneducated Vampire Hunter as it would be to a scholarly Wizard. When you label and address the paper to be sent back to the Grey College, you give instructions that the Light College pass it on to the Templar Witch Hunters, and the Amethyst College to the Fellowship of the Shroud.
[Observations on a Necrarch's Extreme-Range Real-Time Interaction Ability. Subject: Rare, +1. Insight: Revolutionary, +2. Delivery: Compelling, +1. Precious, +1. Accessible, +1. Tactically Significant, +2. Total: 8.]
---
When it comes to personal enrichment, people are very good at convincing themselves that they can get away with it and that the harm done will be minimal. Traditional countermeasures are to try to counteract these tendencies by making them believe getting away with it would be impossible or that even minimal damage done would be unforgivable. The reputation of the Grey College is great for the former, especially when you've sufficient grasp of bureaucracy to back up your threats with random spot checks. As for the latter, faith and patriotism are safe bets. So you set to building twin sets of accountability infrastructure: one for the EIC, and one for the Temple to the Gambler you're building.
The EIC a straightforward matter, as there is already a strong streak of patriotism within the company, giving you a good pool of candidates to draw from. They are to focus on actual misconduct that might threaten the Empire or the EIC's relationship with it rather than mere accounting irregularities, so you don't foresee any major conflicts of loyalty. Anyone misbehaving seriously enough to attract the attention of the newly-formed division would be betraying their friends in the company as much as they were the company itself, after all. And the first few examples will serve to make it clear to everyone else that the consequences will be severe and unavoidable.
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.
[Recruiting dealers and priests: Piety, 73+26=99.]
You reach out to Heideck, and make it crystal clear that you're looking for those dedicated only to the Gambler, and that any Deceiving or Night Prowling directed towards Dwarven hosts or Undumgi protectors will result in very harsh consequences and you'll not be shielding anyone from them. He says he'll put word out, and you turn your attention to other matters until the faithful begin to trickle in. Retired merchants, battered mercenaries, sailors seeking good solid rock under their feet for a change - all people who have spent a lifetime entrusting themselves to Ranald and are quite ready to instead facilitate the chance-taking of others. One quite convincing card sharp got quite a way into the interview with you having only barely set off 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.
By midyear, the Temple begins to fill with those knowingly or unknowingly paying homage to Ranald. Anyone seeking to cheat was very quickly seen through by those that know when the Gambler is suddenly supplanted by the Deceiver. 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.
---
Thus concludes the work Mathilde performed these past months, but not every waking moment was filled with work. With whom did she spend her free time, this past year? The four with the most votes will be chosen, not counting those locked in.
[+] The Wizards of Karak Eight Peaks (locked in)
[+] Social interaction initiated by someone else (locked in)
[ ] King Belegar, as he scrambles to deal with having very suddenly accomplished his dream.
[ ] Gretel, who's apparently spending her newly-earned wealth to make herself at home.
[ ] Max, during the few breaks in the silence as the two of you worked on Queekish in the Room of Serenity.
[ ] Elder Hluodwica, as the Halflings prepare for their first proper harvest festival in this new home.
[ ] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi and possible future Thane.
[ ] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi.
[ ] Soizic, military leader of the Undumgi.
[ ] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, leader of the frontier town of Ulrikadrin.
[ ] Barak Varr, to watch the progress of the canal.
[ ] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiosity about Prince Ulthar.
[ ] Roswita, as she campaigns through Hunger Wood.
[ ] Kasmir, to see how he's keeping himself busy in Sylvania.
[ ] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[ ] Wilhelmina, to see how she's going when she's not a terrifying financial juggernaut.
[ ] Julia, to see what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
[ ] The Amber College, to see how your donation of Lustrian eggs is going.
[ ] Other (write in)
- Parts of this turn were originally posted as fragments over the holidays:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
- The vote over whether to meet the Ar-Ulric took place as part of Part 4 above. Voting on this matter is closed.
- There was also a 'Holiday Opportunity' vote that allowed the thread to decide upon a single province that will heed Belegar's message and seek to align itself with the Dwarves, and the thread voted for the Bretonnian duchy of Carcassonne.
- After some thought, I've decided to leave the glimpse inside King Thorgrim's mind and the vote for Dwarf-influenced provinces where they are in the 'canonical' threadmark order.
- I'm drawing a blank on better populating the social vote options. As always, suggestions are very welcome.
- There will be a one hour voting moratorium.
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- Location
- Titan
Back to regularly scheduled programming.
- Location
- France
Well then. That was some very useful Vitae experimentation, especially from the perspectives of the Dawi who are currently taking care of it.
We'll be updating our "handle with care" instructions, right? They probably won't leak it to the colleges or anything, so this probably won't decrease the value of our paper.
We'll be updating our "handle with care" instructions, right? They probably won't leak it to the colleges or anything, so this probably won't decrease the value of our paper.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Welcome back BoneyM. I hope things are Ok with your living situation.
@BoneyM Given that we are going to have contact with Bretonians per the Carcasone vote would it be posibile to talk to the Damsel at the lecture, nothing major just enough to get a feel for her?
I understand if the answer is still no, I just felt like circumstances had changed enough to warrant asking.
I understand if the answer is still no, I just felt like circumstances had changed enough to warrant asking.
- Location
- Austria
The Vitae is weird. It is both subject to laws of physics and laws of warp nonsense, and you can hardly tell when which will apply.
Huh. So Gretel wants to make K8P her home? That's interesting. I think we should talk to her, see if she sees it as something permanent.
Huh. So Gretel wants to make K8P her home? That's interesting. I think we should talk to her, see if she sees it as something permanent.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
WanderingEye
smol skeleton
I jumped with joy when I saw my notifications, welcome back!
- Location
- France
And now, time for the most contentious type of voting that this quest produces! Forget risking our lives, time to squabble about who to slice-of-life with!
Thus concludes the work Mathilde performed these past months, but not every waking moment was filled with work. With whom did she spend her free time, this past year? The four with the most votes will be chosen, not counting those locked in.
[+] The Wizards of Karak Eight Peaks (locked in)
[+] Social interaction initiated by someone else (locked in)
[X] King Belegar, as he scrambles to deal with having very suddenly accomplished his dream.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi and possible future Thane.
[X] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi.
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, leader of the frontier town of Ulrikadrin.
[X] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiousity about Prince Ulthar.
[X] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[X] Wilhelmina, to see how she's going when she's not a terrifying financial juggernaut.
[X] Julia, See what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
I would personally prefer if nobody voted for Soizic, because keeping her as an omake-only character sounds good. No contradictions this way!
Thus concludes the work Mathilde performed these past months, but not every waking moment was filled with work. With whom did she spend her free time, this past year? The four with the most votes will be chosen, not counting those locked in.
[+] The Wizards of Karak Eight Peaks (locked in)
[+] Social interaction initiated by someone else (locked in)
[X] King Belegar, as he scrambles to deal with having very suddenly accomplished his dream.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi and possible future Thane.
[X] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi.
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, leader of the frontier town of Ulrikadrin.
[X] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiousity about Prince Ulthar.
[X] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[X] Wilhelmina, to see how she's going when she's not a terrifying financial juggernaut.
[X] Julia, See what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
I would personally prefer if nobody voted for Soizic, because keeping her as an omake-only character sounds good. No contradictions this way!
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NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
Out of the given options, I'd kind of like Mathilde to do some socialising away from K8P. The war was hard on her, and even if there isn't any mechanical benefits to time away it still feels like it might do her some good fluff-wise. So for me, that'd be an action for Anton and an action for Wilhelmina.
Outside of that, definitely one for Belegar, and...
@BoneyM, would an action to socialise with Regimand be an acceptable write-in? Comparing notes, checking to see how the other's doing, not-so-subtly acquiring headpats for doing him proud?
Outside of that, definitely one for Belegar, and...
@BoneyM, would an action to socialise with Regimand be an acceptable write-in? Comparing notes, checking to see how the other's doing, not-so-subtly acquiring headpats for doing him proud?
- Location
- France
She got a 99-year lease on a tower, didn't she? So she's probably intending to stay there for a while, and come back eventually after returning to the Colleges.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Heads up. There is a moratorium.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
... Okay, Hugger now has a new goal, one almost as important as bringing back Abelhelm van Hal.
Teach every scholar the basics of phylogeny because OH GOD did it hurt to see lizards described as amphibia.
Teach every scholar the basics of phylogeny because OH GOD did it hurt to see lizards described as amphibia.
No. The exact effect of their interest in aligning themselves with Dwarven interests will take place over the coming years.
Do you have a topic in mind for this conversation?
- Location
- Austria
Especially as we've kinda been around each other while Mathilde was giving lecture, yeah, that makes sense.
Acquiring headpats from father figure is important.
Headpats are nice but I need more than that to write an entire social interaction about. That's why the list doesn't have all characters, just ones that have an obvious topic of conversation. But if he wins as a write-in I'll work something out.
- Location
- UK
Woot woot!
Okay I really want to talk to Belegar. Also pick his mind on what sort of response need to go to the High King...
Okay I really want to talk to Belegar. Also pick his mind on what sort of response need to go to the High King...
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Did he like the ale and spell creation lore? It might be cool to get a glimpse at how the art of creating spells has changed over the years.