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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Rhadamanthine said:
But we'd have to pay for those then. And we don't have any idea what that would cost, and have a great deal of debt already. We're sinking tons of money into the manor (which will likely give us little to no income, as it's a barren rock without any useful deposits or farmable soil.) Besides, the Shysh juice isn't the only thing I'm interesting in using or making. Most of these would be useful for us in the future, regardless of what we end up doing.

Beyond that, while we have a lot more experience in physical combat, intrigue and finances than most journmen mages likely have, we seriously slacked on actual magic. I was suprised the vote to take the test won so early. I figured we'd spend a turn or two training like crazy.

I don't think we're actually qualified to become a magister yet, honestly. With good rolls we likely can, but why risk it?
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To be honest, we have one asset that can absolutely make a fortune.

Ourselves.

We've got a blacksmith, we're a novice enchanter--even if we're limited to lesser spells, if we can get up to the point where we can imbue those reliably, we can pull some pretty damn fancy commissions out. I can see a lot of important statesmen who would pay through the nose for getting a formal set of clothes looking mostly normal on the outside, but capable of reducing a surprise arrow or dagger to something survivable.
 
BoneyM said:
They're at mail level, and when activated the protection covers your entire body.
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Whistle

Yeah, that's good, one of the big weaknesses that Wizards have in Warhammer Fantasy is their utter inability to wear any form of armor at all--having what amounts to being a mail shirt at all times--and can be scaled up to full body mail when you put your back into it? That's something that Battle Wizards would kill for. Especially if we can produce them with any degree of reliability.
 
Alectai said:
[X] Plan: Knock Off Socks
-[X] Three Months
-[X] Spells of Grey Magic
-[X] The Nature of Magic

We've got a hilarious amount of experience at this point in conventional skills and knowledge, well above what an ordinary Magister should be capable of. Let's take advantage of this opening to try and push our magical skills to a point where we can comfortably pass the tests.

Plus, Nature of Magic will probably be real fucking handy with handling our arcane goods.

Alternately, we can skip Spells of Grey Magic and focus on Power Stones or Alchemy instead, just optimize towards handling the magic juice. On the other hand though, more adventures are always nice.
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Rhadamanthine said:
[X] Seven Months
-[X] Intrigue and Tradecraft. (locked in)
-[X] The Nature of Magic
-[X] Ritual Magic
-[X] Enchantment
-[X] Potions and Alchemy
-[X] Power Stones and their Creation
-[X] Runes and Runecraft


We've got Ulgu, swordplay, and general education down. I can't see why we'd care too much about making an impression by graduating early. We're already independently wealthy, and have a fief to experiment in. We don't have plans to leave at the moment, do we?

Lets become a crafting expert, and save making an impression for when we produce works of wonder with the Shysh juice as a base.
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Night_stalker said:
[X] Plan: Knock Off Socks
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Angelform said:
[X] Plan: Knock Off Socks
-[X] Three Months
-[X] Spells of Grey Magic
-[X] The Nature of Magic
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This isn't a plan vote.
BoneyM said:
For reference, this is the correct way to vote.
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[X] Plan Study Magic and Enchanting

[X] Six Months
[X] Spells of Gray Magic
[X] The Nature of Ulgu
[X] The Nature of Magic
[X] Enchantments
[X] Runes and Runecraft
 
[X]Four Months
[X] Spells of Grey Magic
[X] The Nature of Ulgu
[X] Enchantment
 
[X] Four Months
[X] Spells of Grey Magic
[X] Imperial Law
[X] Religion and the Empire

Imperial law for understanding the finer point in responsibility, duty, and privilege of wizard and nobles. Religion for figuring out how to avoid attracting enemies or turning off potential allies in other faith.
 
BoneyM said:
For reference, this is the correct way to vote.
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Good update Boney, nice to see Enchanting portrayed with some internal consistency behind it.

Couple of questions- I assume you take the most popular length of time, and go down the subjects by popularity until the time is filled?

Can you give us a rough idea what post-graduate classes (coming back after graduating) cost?

Edit: and what does 'more impressive graduation' mean? That the College (in a general sense) will be more impressed if we go for the test quickly? And what would that mean? Or, that they (or our Master?) will throw us a bigger graduation party? Something else?
 
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[X] Five Months
[X] Four Months
[X] Spells of Grey Magic
[X] The Nature of Magic
[X] Enchantment
[X] The Nature of Ulgu
[X] The Enemies of Man

Spells because we want to boost our spellcraft
nature of magic because of the snake box
Enchantment because we want to do more of that
Ulgu because bringing it up might result in a boost to our magic
 
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racnor said:
Ritual magic is also a massive time sink. We already have tons of those, and very deep ones at that. Between enchantment, spell development, and our pile of research subjects, the only way I could be tempted into ritual magic is if the juice is an amazing boost to rituals and ONLY rituals.
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I 'unno, it could have some potential; combined with our Enchantment, investing in ritual magic could see Matty able in imbue the Buried Palace with Ulgu, make it even more secure. Heck maybe even connect it to Sonningwiese somehow.
 
All of these are good points, so I'm going to revise my vote.

[X] Five Months
[X] Spells of Gray Magic
[X] The Nature of Ulgu
[X] Enchantments
[X] Alchemy and Potions
 
@BoneyM ok, our first enchanted robes seem to be pretty valuable. Can you give us something to clarify its real value? Would help in our future enchantments.
 
Barnes said:
[ ] Searching for and Identifying Animal Familiars

I would very much like for Matty to have a cat familiar, which requires a high DC to be passed. Taking the opportunity to lower it by any amount or get a bonus to the roll would be nice.

[ ] On the Education of Apprentices

Given some of the comments about filling the buried Palace with apprentices, I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more interest.


There are a lot of interesting options presented, but I am also interested in Matty having a more impressive graduation, so I'll likely vote for fewer months of study than more.
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A cat? Could be used to spy, I guess, but we're already superb at that, and a flying familiar would likely be more suited to scouting areas we couldn't. Why not something like an elemental spirit, minor fae or Faery dragon, provided the QM okays it?

I am intrigued by the option to make our own familiar out of magic...

As for apprentices, I don't think the system really works like that. You can train one or two at most, and after they're trained and somewhat useful, they go off on their journeyman quest, then become completely independent once they graduate. It's complete luck of the dice whether they'd actually come back to work with us, and it would be a very long time investment, likely with actions per turn invested in training them.

racnor said:
Ritual magic is also a massive time sink. We already have tons of those, and very deep ones at that. Between enchantment, spell development, and our pile of research subjects, the only way I could be tempted into ritual magic is if the juice is an amazing boost to rituals and ONLY rituals.
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It also has a great deal of potential. Of course, how much so depends on the QM and the dice, but rituals take time because they bring greater power to bear, and achieve greater results.
 
Really the question is whether we want to make our Master pay for our education and go all out, have him pay a for a bit and do 4-6 courses on his dime, or just vote 3 months and impress people by passing afterwards. No matter what we choose though we can still spend our own cash on a six month or year long study afterwards.
 
Okay, lets see, we have to pay for these out of pocket later so...
Practical
[*] Intrigue and Tradecraft. (locked in)

Well, locked in anyway.

[ ] The Use and Creation of Poison

We hadn't used this at all, done no related trades and aren't investing in it. Pass.

[ ] Spells of Grey Magic

This can be quite valuable, since we're PRETTY close to the next level of magic. Take it and we could hit the test with a better suite.

[ ] Swords and Swordplay

We're a PRETTY good swordswoman, might open up the advanced sword training stuff Marcus was talking about before he died though.

[ ] Ritual Magic

We hadn't done anything for this. Probably won't for a long while.

[ ] Psychology

We've done a fair bit of this and it's QUITE useful. Leverages our Interrogator and Economics.

[ ] Imperial Law

Probably worth picking up a Law proficiency. We cannot rely on Kasmir and Anton to do this for us anymore, and we ARE a landowner now.
Also addresses some of the threads' concerns about owning various businesses and fief developments as well as sorting out the Witch Hunter thing

[ ] Practical Diplomacy

This is part of the Grey Order's roles, we're still not very good at it, and it's how we can somehow mend and maintain relations.

Theory
[ ] The Nature of Ulgu

We've done some of this. Quite fascinating.

[ ] The Nature of Magic

We've done some of this. Quite fascinating.

[ ] The Enemies of Man

We've studied the undead, but we've had refreshingly little encounters with proscribed cults, beastmen or greenskins.

[ ] The Allies of Man

Elf, Dwarf and Halfling.
Probably valuable for anyone who wants to take a swing at Hold delving. Dwarfs can be touchy without their etiquette

[ ] Religion and the Empire

We DO have a high piety not used a lot.

[ ] The Empire and its Provinces

Valuable if we want to adventure across the Empire.

[ ] Human Nations of the Old World

Valuable if we want to say...go visit Bretonnia for wine. Learn important things like how Ranald is absolutely banned first.

[ ] Chaos and Chaos Gods

Not a big part of our job anymore to watch out for this.

Extracurricular
[ ] Enchantment

Tutoring in Enchantments? Count me in. Not really urgent though.

[ ] Potions and Alchemy

Hadn't done anything on this. Don't expect to.

[ ] Power Stones and their Creation

Quite useful later on, but not urgent.

[ ] Runes and Runecraft

Useful for our enchantment work.

[ ] Wyrdstone Containment

This is actually quite useful if we ever go hit Sylvania again.

[ ] On the Education of Apprentices

This is required, its part of our responsibilities now.

[ ] Searching for and Identifying Animal Familiars
[ ] The Creation of Artificial Familiars

We probably want one of these so we can finally get a familiar. No rush though.

So lets see:
[X] Six Months
[*] Intrigue and Tradecraft. (locked in)
[X] Imperial Law
[X] Spells of Grey Magic
[X] The Nature of Ulgu
[X] The Nature of Magic
[X] On the Education of Apprentices

Lets beef up on our Magister requirements
Sure, less time is more impressive, but we want to study all this anyways.
But please at least take the spells and the apprentices.
 
Rhadamanthine said:
As for apprentices, I don't think the system really works like that. You can train one or two at most, and after they're trained and somewhat useful, they go off on their journeyman quest, then become completely independent once they graduate. It's complete luck of the dice whether they'd actually come back to work with us, and it would be a very long time investment, likely with actions per turn invested in training them.
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The apprentices are more of assured network hub as well as wild card investment. Mathilde got decent support from her master and completely surprised him when she brought back a hit list that freed her and him. Unexpected benefit for sure, but undoubtedly appreciated.
 
Alectai said:
Whistle

Yeah, that's good, one of the big weaknesses that Wizards have in Warhammer Fantasy is their utter inability to wear any form of armor at all--having what amounts to being a mail shirt at all times--and can be scaled up to full body mail when you put your back into it? That's something that Battle Wizards would kill for. Especially if we can produce them with any degree of reliability.
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Battlewizards can cast the exact same spell but better, their armor would be as good as full-plate or better.

Admittedly they probably would kill for it, but that probably has more to do with being living artillery than any intrinsic value of the armor we made.


Rhadamanthine said:
A cat? Could be used to spy, I guess, but we're already superb at that, and a flying familiar would likely be more suited to scouting areas we couldn't. Why not something like an elemental spirit, minor fae or Faery dragon, provided the QM okays it?

I am intrigued by the option to make our own familiar out of magic...

As for apprentices, I don't think the system really works like that. You can train one or two at most, and after they're trained and somewhat useful, they go off on their journeyman quest, then become completely independent once they graduate. It's complete luck of the dice whether they'd actually come back to work with us, and it would be a very long time investment, likely with actions per turn invested in training them.
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I'm still enamored with the idea of getting a griffon or a pegasus to be our familiar.

Imagine if we meet up with all the other wizards for familiar-con 2484.

First we see the other grey wizard with their cats and ravens and everyone nods in appreciation at their glossy coats and feathers. Such classic and respectable familiars, surely they will win the competition we think.

Then some gold wizards turn up with their clockwork contraptions, and we whistle at their shiny gold casings and intriguing inner workings. Surely nothing can be more impressive than this.

Then the amber wizards turns up and show off their powerful wolves and even the occasional bear and for a moment everyone thinks surely they have the most impressive familiars of all.

Then Mathilde turns up with a griffon out of nowhere and no one is quite sure how she even got in the room. Vote Mathilde for winner of familiar-con 2484, choose a griffon.
 
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[X] Six Months
[*] Intrigue and Tradecraft. (locked in)
[X] Imperial Law
[X] Spells of Grey Magic
[X] The Nature of Ulgu
[X] Enchantment
[X] On the Education of Apprentices



Changing vote to this. Nature of magic might be a nice class to take, but our Magic understandig is already Magister level. It is our understanding of Ulgu which is behind. Also we need enchantment so we can make more bad ass robes or give Anton and Wilhelmina more tangible protections against crazy people.
 
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Rhadamanthine said:
A cat? Could be used to spy, I guess, but we're already superb at that, and a flying familiar would likely be more suited to scouting areas we couldn't. Why not something like an elemental spirit, minor fae or Faery dragon, provided the QM okays it?

I am intrigued by the option to make our own familiar out of magic...
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I was thinking more that there'd be some sort of synergistic bonus to having a familiar that's also the favored animal of Ranald. A flying critter would certainly beat it out in utility, especially a flying mount, but think of all the times Matty's been helped out by cats during the course of the quest. Thematic's not the right word, but if Mathilde does get a familiar, I think a cat would be fitting.
 
Alectai said:
To be honest, we have one asset that can absolutely make a fortune.

Ourselves.
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True enough. I guess it depends on how quickly we can actually make items. I was thinking more along the lines of arming men of our own, but selling items may be a better way to go about things. One magic item can be sold for enough gold to hire many more mercenaries, after all, or simply fuel our other interests.

While I would like to research magic further, I'd also like to have an additional goal for the quest. Finish Van Hal's dream of purging Sylvania, repay the dwarves for their help, or even making the EIC great. Mercenaries or elite magic item equipped forces could do either.

VoidZero said:
The apprentices are more of assured network hub as well as wild card investment. Mathilde got decent support from her master and completely surprised him when she brought back a hit list that freed her and him. Unexpected benefit for sure, but undoubtedly appreciated.
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Possibly, but they're also a massive investment for uncertain rewards. One action per turn, minimum, likely for years. If we take up ritual magic or potions, and it doesn't pan out, we can ditch the idea and focus on other things, or simply put it off for a few months. Can't do that with an apprentice.

It would be nice to have a loyal apprentice though, I'll give you that.
 
Barnes said:
I was thinking more that there'd be some sort of synergistic bonus to having a familiar that's also the favored animal of Ranald. A flying critter would certainly beat it out in utility, especially a flying mount, but think of all the times Matty's been helped out by cats during the course of the quest. Thematic's not the right word, but if Mathilde does get a familiar, I think a cat would be fitting.
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Why not a flying cat? Specifically a Shedu or a lamassu. Also i think the greak have one as well. So the possibility is there.
 
Alliterate said:
I'm not sure we need (or would be expected) to take on an apprentice immediately. How about coming back to study that when we do take one on? Being that apprentices need to spend time in the College anyway, it seems a bit premature to do now.
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One of a Magister's duties is the training of apprentices. Now, we ARE allowed to fob them off on the College, but we're expected to train some, or they give us frowny faces along the same lines of "what ARE you doing with over a thousand gold?" and "when are you coming for your exams?".

I'm not very enthused about the idea of potentially finding an apprentice then putting off their "not exploding themselves" training while we take a crash course in teaching.

Its one of those things you want ready and over with to have before you even see an apprentice. Considering the long journey and the need to pay for it later, we really should just get it over with.
 
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