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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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[X] Karak: Windherder

Even without the Waystone Project, this trait seems like it's utterly invaluable for Aethyric Vitae. Considering the voting power of the AV Faction, even without Waystones on the menu, it won't have surprised me had this trait won out over Collegiate or Polygot, though the margin of victory (150 vs 49 and 31 respectively at the time of writing) probably won't be as large.


[X] Battle: Surreptitious Intervention

On one hand, I'm inclined to support Surreptitious Intervention, simply because so many of the potential quest-enders we've faced in this arc has occurred during Assassination/Exfiltration actions, though thankfully, we haven't crit failed Infiltration rolls yet - and these actions have often been enormous difference markers (remember, the Eight Peaks was reconquered for the want of a mask!). While General of Fog tempts me greatly on both a narrative level and level of mechanical diversity, the fact that the thread tends to vote for SI style actions on such a regular basis makes me inclined to take a trait that that manages a more routine risk, then a trait that opens even more doors (cries in AP shortage) for both character development, mechanical diversity and further interesting lines of research.

Then again....

[X] Battle: General of Fog

Considering what I've just written, I might as well approval vote General of Fog.


[X] Personal: Mountain Mystic
[X] Personal: Xeno-Affinity

Honestly, I'm torn between Mountain Mystic and Xeno-Affinity. It seems to me that one path (shared by Mentor and Mom Friend) suggests a more sedentary existence as a Mountain "Wisdom" perched on the peak of Karag Nar. The other path suggests a more nomadic path of adventures to distant lands.

Come to think of it, I wonder whether the Sedentary vs Nomadic implications of the personal-choices are shaping the decisive advantage Xeno-Affinity has over Mountain Mystic. After all, those who want to sink down roots even deeper are likely spread out over Mentor and Mom Friend, while the adventure faction is almost likely going to cluster over mom-friend.

That being said, there are some awesome synergies among the options, had there been a thread consensus to specialize.

For example, if we wanted to specialize into becoming a more effective general, the following combination might have set Mathilde on the path of being one of the most terrifying generals to face off against in the Old World if given a few decades.

[ ] Battle: General of Fog
- Warfare is deception
[ ] Karak: Cartographer
Or
[ ] Karak: Surveillance
- Warfare is Intelligence
[ ] Personal: Poker Face
Or
[ ] Personal: Unphased
- Warfare requires sacrifices and hard decisions.

Similarly, a Super Agent built might have looked like this:

[ ] Battle: Surreptitious Intervention
The right blade in the right place....
[ ] Karak: Light Fingers
The "liberation" of enemy assets is not theft, but espionage, and honors Ranald of the Fingers all the same.
[ ] Personal: Mountain Mystic
Ranaldites are extremely useful collaborators for a Ranald worshipping Spook....

Or if Mathilde had ambitions to become Supreme Matriarch:
[ ] Battle: General of Fog
Inventing Battle Magics before the Age 40 is a mark of a future leader of the College
[ ] Karak: Collegiate
The Nine are one, and one are Nine.
[ ] Personal: The Mentor
A network of former students and research colleagues generates the all-important connections, contacts and allies within the College to climb the political totem pole.

That being said, I get the sense that Wind Herder + Surreptitious Intervention + Xeno-Affinity is winning because these seem like the three options that serve the impulse to to make as much a difference in the Warhammer World as a human wizard can achieve.

Waystones and the Geomantic Web, being Ranald/Order's equivalent of Deathmaster Snikch, and being comfortable in going beyond the Empire to do good for all races that resist Chaos in this world seems to be the spirit that's motivating the currently winning vote.
 
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NuclearConsensus said:
That's not a tradition though? It's simply a result of K-a-K no longer seeing significant peaceful foot traffic and it mostly being surrounded by enemies.
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Tradition is defined as, according to the dictionary,
* the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice.
* a long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting:The rebellious students wanted to break with tradition.
* a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices.
* a customary or characteristic method or manner

I believe that we can say that if the gates have only been opened for war in two generations then it's officially a tradition. Not to say that a tradition can't spring up faster than that, but I believe we can definitely say that a thing is officially tradition if this much time has passed.
 
ngl I am voting for Mom + Mentor because it's a character development that characterizes Mathilde in a very nice, adorable way.
That's all there is to it.

Like...Personal section should be for character-defining stuff about how Mathilde is, focusing on useful effects over fluff is....idk, not my cup of tea.
 
[X] Battle: General of Fog
[X] Battle: Understanding of Skaven
[X] Battle: Surreptitious Intervention

[X] Karak: Polyglot
[X] Karak: Windherder

[X] Personal: Mountain Mystic
[X] Personal: Poker Face
[X] Personal: Xeno-Affinity
 
ctulhuslp said:
ngl I am voting for Mom + Mentor because it's a character development that characterizes Mathilde in a very nice, adorable way.
That's all there is to it.

Like...Personal section should be for character-defining stuff about how Mathilde is, focusing on useful effects over fluff is....idk, not my cup of tea.
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Think of it this way: If Xeno-Affinity wins, it means that Mathilde is more likely to get along with the soon-to-be undead Abelhelm van Hal.

For a former Stirlander, that's definitely a character growth!
 
ctulhuslp said:
Like...Personal section should be for character-defining stuff about how Mathilde is, focusing on useful effects over fluff is....idk, not my cup of tea.
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I vote for Surreptitious Intervention because I enjoy Mathilde throwing a wrench into the machinations of Chaos.
I mean just picture it:
A Necrarch and his students are just holding their last strategy meeting before assaulting the Empire.
Suddenly one of the students beheads another sitting on the same table, grabs the head and skeedaddles out of the room.
Just around the bend he leaves the head in the arms of someone who looks just like them and is wholly surprised by it.

Then Mathilde vanishes into the shadows and watches them fall into infighting.
 
LightLan said:
I vote for Surreptitious Intervention because I enjoy Mathilde throwing a wrench into the machinations of Chaos.
I mean just picture it:
A Necrarch and his students are just holding their last strategy meeting before assaulting the Empire.
Suddenly one of the students beheads another sitting on the same table, grabs the head and skeedaddles out of the room.
Just around the bend he leaves the head in the arms of someone who looks just like them and is wholly surprised by it.

Then Mathilde vanishes into the shadows and watches them fall into infighting.
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I mean, Battle stuff is actually a place where the optimization feels more appropriate? It's Mathilde internalizing what works.
Personal section is internalizing something more intensely personal, so it's different IMO.


I mean, I certainly don't mind Stabbity trait in battle section, we did a lot of that and are likely to do even more later on. At the very least, we gotta finish off Birdmuncha.
 
Angelform said:
…not really. Must Protecc was the default position for the child of Van Hal. And even immediately after she kicked us out there were those that wanted to stick around and help out surreptitiously. Conversely the hate for her didn't really stop until we dumped an army of Wizards on her then went to gloat over commiserate with her about it.
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It's also worth remembering that basically all the information we got about what Roswita was doing in the immediate aftermath of her firing us painted her as doing a horrible and/or shortsighted job. That's mostly because we didn't have the context to properly understand why she was doing what she did, or were missing crucial details of the actions themselves, but at the time we didn't know we lacked that information. As such, it very much seemed like Roswita was carelessly squandering the progress her father had worked so hard for, and the success that he died for.

People understandably got a bit upset over that.
 
ctulhuslp said:
I mean, Battle stuff is actually a place where the optimization feels more appropriate? It's Mathilde internalizing what works.
Personal section is internalizing something more intensely personal, so it's different IMO.


I mean, I certainly don't mind Stabbity trait in battle section, we did a lot of that and are likely to do even more later on. At the very least, we gotta finish off Birdmuncha.
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Don't forget, we still have the Nagathye Shadow War token, and stabbity stab traits probably would come in handy in maximizing our chances of surviving and making a difference in the brief time we have there. Remember, we are likely going to be rolling against the Druchi, and likely will face peer enemies on the same tier as that Eshin Sorcerer we voted to hunt.

At least, I think it would make the thread feel more ready for it.
 
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ChronOblivion said:
This whole thing has made me regret that we got that look into Thorgrim's head.

Like, imagine if we didn't get that one mini-chapter. Where Cadeath's bombshell shocked us as deeply as it did Mathilde, and launched the thread into a dizzying frenzy of speculation until Belegar's partial truth solidified us into the worst interpretation. Just imagine the discourse around Thorgrim then, because we do not and have never truly known what goes on in that head, and it sure looks like he has never stopped acting only out of the interests of his own Hold.

And then picture a future scene down the road, where Belegar and Mathilde have escalated far enough that Thorgrim is forced to break his secrecy and read us into the full truth, that the continued existence of the Dwarven race depends on our Waystone's continued function. WHAM.

As it is, this OOC knowledge will change the course of our actions and the feeling behind them. We would have to deliberately choose to pick suboptimal choices that depend on Belegar's inaccurate guess. The consequence of metagaming would be a success that we didn't figure out on our own, and the consequences of failure would be spoiled by the fact that we didn't earnestly make that mistake.

What a touchy subject this subplot is going to be. I really do not know how it is going to unfold.
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TBH? I'd start wondering if Thorgrimm wasn't the changeling.
 
I was just rereading the initial eight peaks campaign and thought of something terrible.

The reason we weren't able to find Codrin Petrescu was because he moved out of Stirland and started an animal shelter.
Codrin's Pet-Rescue
 
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NSMS said:
It's also worth remembering that basically all the information we got about what Roswita was doing in the immediate aftermath of her firing us painted her as doing a horrible and/or shortsighted job. That's mostly because we didn't have the context to properly understand why she was doing what she did, or were missing crucial details of the actions themselves, but at the time we didn't know we lacked that information. As such, it very much seemed like Roswita was carelessly squandering the progress her father had worked so hard for, and the success that he died for.

People understandably got a bit upset over that.
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It's fascinating how similar that is to Belegar's reaction to Thorgrim:
• Gets information that Thorgrim is doing a bad job.
• Lacks context and crucial details to understand Thorgrim's reactions.
• A feeling that Thorgrim is squandering their hard work with the reconquest.

I can see how Belegar got to this conclusion. All I can hope for is that, like the thread (and thus Mathilde), he's able to ease off on his dislike when he gets the full picture.
 
I have to say I don't really like the General of Fog trait, it feels more general and less fog to me, where the point of the original trait was the fog.
I just don't see Mathilde as a general, but perhaps I just have a different view of her actions than many.
 
Mopman43 said:
The only person in the Karaz Ankor that knows about it is Thorgrim.

(And Grombrindal, but he generally doesn't show up for politics)
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Then who fixes the runes when orc or Skaven sweep through/ who places the runes when new holds are founded? Either a rune smith or a priest might know enough to suspect that something they work with is drawing power from somewhere.
Even if they're not officially supposed to know anything.
 
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I don't think Thorgrim even knew what the Azrildrekked was when Belegar approached him. It might have just been a designation for the King of 8 Peaks for all he knew- he didn't see the scene we did when Belegar finished it.

Sadly, I don't think there's a good way to heal the rift. I don't think half-measures would placate Belegar- he literally hates Thorgrim and believes he's actively malicious and failing the Ancestors- and Thorgrim won't reveal the full truth to anyone but his heir.

Course, far as I'm aware, he doesn't have any sons, so he might also solve it by making Belegar his heir- but I feel like we'll be in an even more tense position before he'd commit to that.

(And yes, he could declare Belegar his heir, Alricksson chose to call the council because his sons had died in the Great War Against Chaos and he was disheartened at how divided the Karaz Ankor seemed, most successions have not involved the big council and any kind of 'test of deeds')
 
guyfromtheplace1 said:
Then who fixes the runes when orc or Skaven sweep through/ who places the runes when new holds are founded? Either a rune smith or a priest might know enough to suspect that something they work with is drawing power from somewhere.
Even if they're not officially supposed to know anything.
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I'm sure they know where the Waystones are and how to keep them running, but they'd be assuming the same thing everyone else is- that all the magic is sent to the Vortex.
 
[X] Battle: Surreptitious Intervention

[X] Karak: Windherder

[X] Personal: Xeno-Affinity


This just feels like the ideal mix of character influence and mechanical benefit that most fits Mathilde. Battle and Karak are effortless lock-ins, while Personal is much harder to decide, simply because of how fun some of the other personality traits sounds. Still, gotta go with Xeno-friend. I prefer to make nice with Dragons and Elfs and Skaven, rather than killing them 'cause we don't know how to diplomance (and the thought of Mathilde being absolutely shit at talking to other humans, but somehow amazing at talking to things that normally hate humans, is amusing to me).
 
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@BoneyM - Something I noticed, in the Dramatis Personae, Esbern and Seija are still listed as Journeyman/Journeywoman, not Magister. (Hiding in the Former, Fallen, and Distant Characters section.)

Just something for your next pass-through updating things.
 
Mopman43 said:
Sadly, I don't think there's a good way to heal the rift. I don't think half-measures would placate Belegar- he literally hates Thorgrim and believes he's actively malicious and failing the Ancestors- and Thorgrim won't reveal the full truth to anyone but his heir.
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Best way would be to investigate the Waystones ourselves. If we can independently figure out what they are powering, we can go a long way towards fixing this misunderstanding.
 
agumentic said:
So are the leaders of every other Old Hold. Why should Belegar be treated differently from them?
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Well, it's heavily implied that Karak Eight Peaks is special in how much power it generates, given that it connecting to the network was enough, not just to power itself, but to make up for the deficits incurred by every single Young Hold.
BoneyM said:
No power from Karak Norn, or any of the other Young Holds founded after the War of Vengeance. All they represented to the Rune of Azamar was a constant drain to sustain their protections.
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So yeah, that's why Belegar should be treated differently than the other kings: all the Old Holds have their own generators, sure, but Belegar is in charge of a full-on power plant.
 
picklepikkl said:
Well, it's heavily implied that Karak Eight Peaks is special in how much power it generates, given that it connecting to the network was enough, not just to power itself, but to make up for the deficits incurred by every single Young Hold.
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All we know for sure is that it made up the deficit caused by losing the two smaller holds during the Great War Against Chaos.

At least part of the Young Hold Deficit would be made up for by all the other Old Holds.
 
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