13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
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.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Literally everything?
I mean look at how much shit we have to research that we can't even touch. AV theurgy, Ulgu tongs ( Which just got a huge boost in viability with the wind herder trait)
To expand upon it, its like...we could, as part of our job, or by spending Favor, hire a research team for a specified project.
Spending the Boon is more like getting the King to found Harvard. It'd research a lot of things, it'd also research your things, and it won't ever stop.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I never understood that. I mean, doesn't Morrslieb shine pretty much every day to varying extents, just like any other moon would? How do people operate at night?
I thought Malekith was encased in his armor and couldn't get out. Or did I confuse something?
How much is a quarter of a transcendental boon? I'm not asking for numbers, but it's hard for me to imagine even the order of magnitude we are talking about. As far as I know it could still be enough to fulfill all we are hoping for and then some while going for just library or just sanctuary would result in complete overkill.
What's anti voting?
So in Warhammer lore there is nothing to justify matches in which two Dwarf players play against each other?
What do the Undumgi and other commoners of K8P use as currency for daily use?
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- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
War games? That the excuse I have always used when two armies from the same faction match.
If 'good enough' is in your vocabulary on the matter, then it does make sense to split it. If you want to make whatever you're making the best it can possibly be, then don't.
Not really, no.
Dwarven coins, mostly K8P silver ingots and coins, with Barak Varr copper being used for change.
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- Location
- Spain
Basically you don´t like something because you like it, you vote it to prevent the alternative you dislike more from winning...
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- Location
- Earth
I mean....
Creating a network of Gyrocopter landing pads in every capital of the Province in the Empire, that would be paired with a Rapid Response Team. They could serve as both messingers, transports for the Elector Count in times of emergency, and SWAT teams. Carrying Leadership (Captains of the Empire, Generals, etc), Heroes (The type of Blenders that are monster slayers, like Expert Knights, maybe having a Slayer or two on hand) and Magical Support (Magisters, Maybe even a Battle Wizard or two if needed)
The Empire would have to pay them for at least some of the dwarf hours and maintenance, but much of the weight of supporting them would fall on K8Ps. Or at least, of getting them built in the first place.
Key issue with this is that in trying to make something like this, we need to do some set up, check with people back in the Empire that they would even want/allow something like this to be built. It's damn helpful and useful, which doesn't mean certain parties in the Empire won't hate it on principle. Espetially if they have to help support/finance it, and if it will bring more hated technology (Ulric) or Magic into the cities. (The mages on standby)
The Empire would have to pay them for at least some of the dwarf hours and maintenance, but much of the weight of supporting them would fall on K8Ps. Or at least, of getting them built in the first place.
Key issue with this is that in trying to make something like this, we need to do some set up, check with people back in the Empire that they would even want/allow something like this to be built. It's damn helpful and useful, which doesn't mean certain parties in the Empire won't hate it on principle. Espetially if they have to help support/finance it, and if it will bring more hated technology (Ulric) or Magic into the cities. (The mages on standby)
Commision Belegar to make dwarven quality roads linking each of the Capitals of the provinces with the Capital of the Empire. Rivers and river trade is nice and all, but good quality roads make so many things so much easier. This is the kind of thing which will cost a lot, and I mean a lot and the Empire will have to both approve and damn well help fight off all the nasties that won't like the Empire have functional High Tier Roads. Most roads in the Empire are dirt. Just think how much faster both overland trade and armies could move with proper damn roads.
Have Belegar commission Runeforge in K8Ps. One where Runesmiths can study, like in the newly connected Karak. But there is a catch: Once a year, the best work of an apprentice runesmith is to be given out to the Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, as a sign of the Enduring Pledge of friendship, to be given to either the just graduated Apprentice at the start of their journey, or just Graduated Journeymen, at the start of the Magisterial duties, and in turn, said Mage will spend at least the next Five years in service to K8Ps, to keep the bonds strong. and ongoing, as long as K8Ps stands, and the Colleges Endure. This would ensure five runed items go into Mage hands every five years, as well as that there are at least five mages at K8Ps every year.
Belegar will commission a Large Dwarven Vessel from the shipwrights of Barak Varr. Maybe not a full Dreadnought, with how long those take to build and how much they cost, but something the Empire couldn't build in a century. Name it in honor of the Emperor that made magic legal, made Mat possible to exist, and have it permanently loaned as a Flagship to the Imperial fleet, along with the needed dwarven support. Make the Norscan fear dwarven guns in the Sea of Claws, and make the shores of the Empire much safer, as well as having a big Stick if you ever need to deal with Marienburg and the Ulthuan Elves.
Belegar will ensure that when the weavers do get up and running and start making spidersilk armor underclothes at least half of those made (by weight) will be made with men in mind and shipped to the Emperor, to be given to worthy knights, heroes who distinguish themselves, Magisters and such, as well as the Reiksguard(Emperor Personal Guard). Of course, they won't be given for nothing, but the Empire will have right of first refusal, and the price will be the price of manufacture + transport, with only a 5% profit margin. This means that men of the empire, Knight mages and heroes will get spidersilk armor at the same time the dwarves do, instead of all of it being hoarded until all the dwarves have it, like Gromril. Since the We were majorly Mats achievement, spidersilk being treated like Gromril and hoarded is not what we want to happen.
Assuming the dwarves get in on it, and the Runelords will share, being able to call on dwarven support in studying and making and managing Waystones seem like something the might be a great boon in the future, assuming the waystone research actually get actionable results. But we have to wait for this one to see if there is something there so not to waste it.
Remember that part where we still don't know if the dragon has grudges against him? I don't want to fight that thing, and I don't think the newly reborn K8Ps needs that either. Burning a boon to get Belegar to not fight him if not provoked is not something I'm sure we can do, but averting the dragon coming down a killing god alone knows how many dwarves would be nice.
I don't think I need to expand on this one. Depending on how things go between Belegar and the High King, the ability to go: "Ok now, Listen RANALD DAMN IT!" in a diplomatic sense might be priceless
Asking dwarves for their secrets of smiting is stupid. But asking them to send advisors and teachers, or at least make them avaliable to hire on a regular basis, on the nature of tunnel fighting might make the Empire a lot more capable with assisting with future Karak Re-conquests as well as making them much better in any fight with Skaven involved. Hell, just asking them to share and allow the spread of that knowledge might do a lot of good, if you can get them wave their "secrets must never be shared" kick.
Ask Belegar to see what he can do about sharing parts of the history of the world that isn't secret or sacred with Mat. To have acurate and lengthy copes made, both for her growing libraray, and one copy to be sent on to the Grey Order. They can then further prune them for parts that need to stay secret, and pass the rest, thousands of years of forgotten history, to the University of Altdorf. That would be like lobbing an academic nuke into the history departments of the University.
WARNING, SNARK AHEAD: Instead of, you know, inventing another great library. Why not give the one we have some of the books they are missing and have no other way to get. That will propagate truth and knowledge faster and better than any new org made in the middle of the Fucking Mountains across the Entire Border Princes. We work for the Empire, remember?
WARNING, SNARK AHEAD: Instead of, you know, inventing another great library. Why not give the one we have some of the books they are missing and have no other way to get. That will propagate truth and knowledge faster and better than any new org made in the middle of the Fucking Mountains across the Entire Border Princes. We work for the Empire, remember?
While asking for the secrets of Runelore is an obvious no-no, asking Belegar to consult with the Runelords and get them to share their knowledge of the Winds that isn't sacred, just what is historical (spells seen cast, espetially by enemy factions) as well as any insight they can share on the nature of the Winds themselves , and any collected books/writings taken from the Elves in the time of the War of Vengance might give the kind of background filling that future generations of mages could comb through for decades for further insight into the nature of magic. Just what can be deduced from any descriptions from the time of the great storm of Magic might be priceless.
And so on and so forth. I'm a bit tired of typing. But those should be enough to start us off.
EDIT: for bonus points, the Rapid Respons units would allow the Empire to also deploy Heroes/Magic to help a dwarven unit/Karak if it was under attack/ambushed as well.
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- Location
- Australia
Actually there is. I think I remember a story where a straight up war did happen between two kings. What happened is that there was some incident and a Grudge was levelled, and so the kingdoms went to war. Eventually, they realised that no one remembered what the incident was about and they made peace. During the feast celebrating the peace, a dwarf from one of the kingdoms killed both of the kings (or everyone at the feast; can't remember precisely which) because not knowing what a Grudge is about is no excuse to not avenge it.
- Location
- Singapore
Honestly, since we've passed up on actually taking a knowledge/research related boon right now because of opposition to a set of knowledge-institutions that would permanently have buffed our capabilities as a Researcher (both the Great Library and the Research Institute would have almost certainly given Mathilde permanent advantages as an Academic), I'm actually wondering whether we should set aside the many, many things we do want to research outside our Job until we can find some way to get up the efficiency of our research actions for now, and instead pursue things like preparing for our Ulthuan adventures.
I have no reason to believe Ranaldite Theurgy, Ulgu Tongs, the Ancestor Gods, Waystones, Multi-wind projects, Project Bok Sevieroscopes and so on are any less AP demanding than Aethyric Vitae's tech-tree, and until we can improve our capacity to conduct such fundamental research in some manner, we should hold off on trying to commit multiple turns into one of our many Moonshots. Instead, perhaps we should focus on bring our skills up first.
For example, here's one possible Research Free plan:
Plan: The Challenges ahead.
1 Action - Lexicon Book (either Khazalid or Imperial)
1 Action - Removing Qrech AP sink
1 Action - Practical Diplomacy
1 Action - Windstone Classes
1 Action - Assassination Classes to get to master Assassin (probably, this is the bare minimum I feel comfortable with before going to Nagarthye
Plan: Getting the Staff
1 Action - Lexicon Book (either Khazalid or Imperial)
1 Action - Removing Qrech AP sink
1 Action - Practical Diplomacy
1 Action - Windstone Classes
1 Action - Staff-making Classes? Powerstone Classes?
One more thing about Boons: I have a very strong bias towards boons that are institutional in nature for three reasons:
1. They are re-usable and applicable to many different contexts. The classic example is a Research Institute with a carefully written charter to allow co-operation and recruitment of entities outside Karaz Ankor that do not have unmanageable outstanding grudges with the Dwarves. In that sense, a narrow one-off boon to one moon shot like Bok or Waystones feels immensely wasteful.
2. Thematically, Mathilde has committed a good deal of her life to institution building. The years spent on Stirland Watch, and Mathilde's own commitment to the Colleges shows just how much Mathilde values institutions. It makes sense in-character to me, that Mathilde would more likely ask for an institution instead.
3. Building onto it, there is a strong appeal to make possible something amazing that last long after Mathilde's time on Mallus. A Royal Society or Great Library that is there long after Mathilde is gone making a difference to the world, feels far more satisfying than any single very specific narrow boon that ceases to take effect once the matter it concerns is resolved or rendered irrelevant.
So when it comes out to it, while I prefer some Institutions over another, I will always approval vote in favor of Institutions. One-off Boons are extremely unappealing to me.
I don't deny the possibilities of a Dreadnought allowing Mathilde Santiago to conduct more Mork level grand theft Divinity across the world. I don't deny the appeal of a personal retinue/army/throng, however it's assembled, under the complete control of House Weber and utterly bankrolled by the Eight Peaks. Infact, if memory serves, this was one of the possibilities raised very, very early on in the discussion on the Boons back in December. It's just that they don't win out over Institutional votes for me, and these institutions ought to come from Mathilde's plans, hopes and activities, and not something that abruptly entered Mathilde's headspace such as revolutionizing the transport structure of the Empire through forced Dwarven tech transfers such as a Gyrocopter network which might have made sense had we choose to engage far more with the EIC, hut less sense when we voted to handle the EIC as an info network.
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- Location
- Finland
I'm not really sure it would be useful to us, in fact i suspect it would be more of a millstone around our necks lot of the time.
We don't need a power projection capability, we are a lorekeeper, a magister, possibly a spy or assassin, not a warlord.
Now, if you manage to convince the thread to stop being a loremaster and becomming fulltime mercenary general, maybe, but otherwise i don't really see a point.
If we wanted to start proactively seeking trouble to solve, we would probably be better served by quitting as lorekeeper and becomming wandering spy/assassin eliminating threats before the manifest, lean into the whole grey magister thing, and for that, army feels counter productive.
And, again, empire nobles are not morons, EIC acts as a shield only so far. Merchant conglomerate starts to send out armies without decent for profit reasons and people will get suspicious fast, we'd be pulling attention to our primary spy network and potentially make it go the way of its predecessor.
That story never really made sense to me. Recording Grudges is what Dwarves do.
- Location
- Australia
Maybe they got arrogant and thought not to record it because "everyone knew", maybe it was before Grudges started getting properly recorded, maybe the book was lost to some accident or maybe it was destroyed in the war. Doesn't really matter. It's a good story, one that provides a good example of one of the biggest flaws of the dwarves: their bad and self-destructive level of stubbornness.
File that under breaks Belegar. Mutually irreconcilable obligations.
The problem is mostly thread politics. Part of the thread will lose patience and damn the voting or the risks at that point. The other half of the problem would be reaction to high proximity issues always take precedence
Seems a lot more likely that the records were damaged or lost.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Or it could be a cautionary tale told by humans to humans to show that dwarfs take grudges really seriously.
- Location
- Finland
Blood of Trade: Seems possible, would need a permission from the emperor and elector counts.
How would the upkeep be handled?
Rune of Friendship: Seems possible, would need to get the colleges onboard. But not necessarily in Belegars power, he does not control runesmiths or their secretive ways.
Might break Belegar.
MAGNUS THE PIOUS: Within Belegars power, what would the empire feel like about randomly being gifted a warboat to act as their flagship. Potential political problems.
Maybe loan the ship to the emperor personally?
The Weave of Life: Maybe doable, not sure how much direct control Belegar has over weavers or silk trade. doable by money.
Waystone Tech and cooperation: Potential landmine. If we can't talk Belegar into this as the lorekeeper he really likes and respects, i don't think it would be a good idea to force the issue with boon. Also Belegar has no control over runemisths. Might break Belegar.
The Suicide Dragon Contingency: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, fucking hell no. We should not mess up with grudges. Trying to force Belegar to avoid a grudge via boon is not a good idea. Might break Belegar.
The Civil War Contingency: See above. Except potentially more so.
The History of the World, Proper Edition: Don't need a boon, already part of our job description. Spend some book budget on it.
Also, the Grand Library could accomplish all of this, and more.
The History of Magic, proper Edition: See above. Also Belegar has no fucking control over runesmiths, go ask Kragg or something.
Also, the Grand Library could accomplish all of this, and more.
- Location
- Singapore
The cycle of the thread losing patience with our research backlog and the accompanying toxicity that usually spawns from it is actually one of the reasons why I prefer a Research Institute.
If the thread thinks Mathilde should go on adventures rather than play Academic by going for moonshots, and there wasn't the patience dilemma that you've described, I'm actually quite fine with something like a Dreadnought. I might be putting forth ideas like going Mathilde Santiago with a Dreadnought with tongue in cheek, but there is a certain charm to it that I won't mind seeing. But if we are going to remain in the Eight Peaks, and if we are going to commit to the path of an Academic with revolutionary discoveries and innovations (Mathilde's lectures were so, so satisfying, as was the beauty of the Tower of Gazul), I think our Boon ought to be closely tied to better managing our research efforts by moving beyond the lone woman in a comfy room with two underlings model.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
The vast majority of those are nothing for Mathilde personally. I kind of dislike the idea of using a boon like this purely for Empire stuff. And I don't know if Belegar can handle us using the boon to help him, as gifting the whole thing to the dragon just to prevent a battle would be.
- Location
- Finland
I'd like to use the boon for something that is bigger than one wizard.
Grand library is something that could potentially change the world.
But i definitely see a charm of a big badass boat and going on adventurers.
What i most want to avoid is things that are done mostly for mechanical benefit, or things we could accoplish anyway through gold/favor or our position as a lorekeepr/magister.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
@BoneyM How much does the Grey College expect that we go to them when faced with such an opportunity? Like, if we just tell our Patriarch that we got an [insert the Boon we vote for here] in exchange for our service to Belegar then he might just accept it and maybe demand occasional special access or whatever, as he would with all of our other resources in times of need. But if he found out we have an unspent boon including just what size that boon is, would he expect we tell him about it or consult him regarding its use? And, seeing how our loyalty is officially Empire first, could there be actual repercussions if we don't let him have a say after he finds out about the boon (but before we spend it)? All wizards of K8P currently know about it after all.
The Grey College operates on a favour economy. That would collapse overnight if the College's leadership started trying to yoink favours from its Wizards. It's Mathilde's to spend.
- Location
- France
This one is clearly the best of the lot, IMO. It'd absolutely vote for that when it comes up.
Obviously this boon would include dwarven mechanics, fuel and spare parts, right? And a promise that the humans won't be studying them to steal their secrets?
- Location
- Finland
Biggest problem would be getting anyone not Belegar onboard.
Including other dwarf kings, but also human elector counts who might not want the emperor have easier time sending his agents into their cities.
Didn't the Kings die from having a statue of one of the Ancestors collapse on them? Sounds like a just so story to me (and thus apocryphal).
- Location
- Singapore
The general form of this boon is that Karak Eight Peaks makes a long term permanent commitment to the transportation infarstructure to the Empire. You could swap Gyrocarriages for Railways or Dwarven roads, but the high concept of this Boon remains the same in all three cases.The problem I have is that narratively speaking, where is this coming from, and how does this have narrative potential for Mathilde herself?
Basically if Research Institute is more and better research, this is more and better transportation and coms.
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