So, is Wolf a narrative dead end then? No upgrades, because it isn't worth the opportunity cost. No further training/attunement because we are worried Mathilde will become enthralled or too dependent on Wolf. Any risky activities are right out due to magical backlash potential for Mathilde.
I don't know. I guess I just feel a familiar should continue to grow with their master.
It's probably safe to take one more level of familiar ability growth and then the rest has to be handled through hobbies and other interests. As Wolf becomes more intelligent with age I expect him to change subtly over the years and begin to pick up interests that give him more narrative potential.
People pray to and even worship Ranald without being necesarily okay with stealing just because you can, taking massive chances or peasant rebellions against The Man, no? Not to mention that there are people worshipping Ranald the Merchant despite him not being a true aspect yet. Everything is up to interpretation. Honoring Ranald only in his capacity to steal from, deceive, and protect against the enemies of the Dwarves, nudge the dice of fate and maybe help keeping things from the less flexible traditionalists for their own good could be decent for a Ranger.
I don't think @BoneyM means you can't worship one aspect of Ranald l, most do only follow one of his faces, but that it would be a dick move to not let the dwarves know about the other faces.
When a human has no hope left, he prays for Ranald to tip the scales. When a Dwarf has no hope left, he prays that the White Dwarf will join the battle.
So, is Wolf a narrative dead end then? No upgrades, because it isn't worth the opportunity cost. No further training/attunement because we are worried Mathilde will become enthralled or too dependent on Wolf. Any risky activities are right out due to magical backlash potential for Mathilde.
I don't know. I guess I just feel a familiar should continue to grow with their master.
I've always been of the opinion that that the risk/reward ratio* of deepening our familiar bond is such that the optimal choice is to keep doing it until we either run out of bonuses we want or hit the first level of Obsession, but the thread as a whole seems sufficiently averse to even the first level that we won't do that.
If we could put the Coin on it people might go for it, but as Wolf is a gift from Ranald we can't.
People pray to and even worship Ranald without being necesarily okay with stealing just because you can, taking massive chances or peasant rebellions against The Man, no? Not to mention that there are people worshipping Ranald the Merchant despite him not being a true aspect yet. Everything is up to interpretation. Honoring Ranald only in his capacity to steal from, deceive, and protect against the enemies of the Dwarves, nudge the dice of fate and maybe help keeping things from the less flexible traditionalists for their own good could be decent for a Ranger.
The way people worship individual facets of him doesn't change His overall nature, and that nature is antithetical to Dwarf society in a number of ways. The only way to convince Dwarves they should worship him is to lie, which might piss off Ranald and would definitely piss off the Dwarves.
Apart from that, Dwarves worship Ancestor Gods, and Ranald isn't one. An attempt to change that could easily be seen as an attempt to drive a wedge between the Dwarves and the Ancestor Gods, and that would be really, really bad.
But those poor quarters still exist in a larger society that can deal with more organized attempts of Chaos Corruption that a tight-knit neighborhood wouldn't be able to just deal with.
Honestly, the main reason I thought it could be a bit harder than for some other gods is because things like live and let live and keeping secrets is more accepted among them.
Very, very debatable. More than once a poor quarter has been purged of Ranaldites by the 'larger society' and had the vacuum filled by something much worse.
I expect that it is an unusually situation that rune-smiths can't find a way to repay a favor. Usually everyone wants another piece of high level rune equipment. Only exception being other rune-smiths and with them they can share research.
Wait. Is that really, really bad: Dwarves get offended about us trying to commit heresy.
Or really, really bad: Ancestor Gods get offended about us trying to commit heresy.
E:
It occurs to me now that there is always the third choice: Both.
Wait. Is that really, really bad: Dwarves get offended about us trying to commit heresy.
Or really, really bad: Ancestor Gods get offended about us trying to commit heresy.
Wait. Is that really, really bad: Dwarves get offended about us trying to commit heresy.
Or really, really bad: Ancestor Gods get offended about us trying to commit heresy.
Both. If anything, 'really, really bad' undersells it. When a Dwarf thinks of the Dwarves being lured away from worship of the Ancestor Gods, they think of the Chaos Dwarves. You don't want to be seen as trying to cause another schism.
The problem is precisely that the arrogance means that Mathilde needs to achieve much much more for them to acknowledge the same...and achieve in a field where looking away isn't optional.
The Protector coin is going to be big mileage when the time comes I'm sure. The hard part is making them not look away
My point was less about character interactions and more about voter expectations: Don't expect elves to be better than Mathilde just because they are elves. Elves have their cannon-fodder, their dropout and their mediocre successes just like everyone else.
There will be high magic using archmages. Mono-wind specialists who have studies since before Sigmar lived. Mages diligently mastering the Battle Magic of all the eight winds.
However there will also be a far greater number of 'journeyelves' who either can match us in ulgu or who are human journeyman level in multiple winds.
And an even greater number of 'mages' who lack the power, talent and or experience to be Mathilde's equal in anything.
Much the same for martial combat, except our ludicrously OP sword puts us much closer to the top.
TL: DR – Temper your expectations. Lord level characters are exceptional, not representative.
-[*] DUCK: Spend time with Hubert to try to ensure a good relationship between him and magic, and between him and his identity as a Wizard.
-[*] Commission an altar based on (boosted) Transformation of Kadon.
--[*] Able to transform non-wizards.
--[*] Optimized to reduce destructive consequences in case of miscast.
--[*] Can only be activated by a Dwarf not currently being transformed.
--[*] Can only be activated with one of three keystones.
--[*] Transportable but heavy and unwieldy enough that even the resulting dragon can not just carry it away.
--[*] COIN: The Gambler
-[*] Attempt to interest a prominent and knowledgeable Runesmiths in the interaction between Runes and Vitae. (will start at the top and work your way down)
With all the tests and experiments you've performed with the Aethyric Vitae, it's come time to bring in a Runesmith to examine the interactions between Runes and Vitae, foremost of all your hope that it could be used to rapidly charge Runes dependent on absorbing ambient magic. You've decided to start at the top and work your way down, and though there could be much debate on the matter of which Runelord could be considered the greatest of all, you start with Kragg on the grounds that the two of you have worked together well in the past.
You find Kragg in his workshop, as expected, tinkering with an axe while shooting surly looks at Bok looming in one corner. The glare he levels at the vial of Vitae you brought threatens to detonate it as it shrinks away from his gaze, and though he does you the courtesy of hearing you out, he eventually declines, citing that the future of Runecrafting will always lie in the greatness of the past, not in material oddities from the Warp. But he does suggest you take it to someone who isn't doing anything useful with their time so they can see if it might be of some use, and though he doesn't specify, it's more than clear who he means by that.
Thorek Ironbrow doesn't spend much time at Karak Eight Peaks of late, but he does pass through it quite regularly as he travels to every corner of the extant Karaz Ankor to establish his status in person. Your status as Loremaster means you're able to secure a meeting with him when next he passes through, and he spends some time inspecting the vial.
"The undifferentiated substance of the Polar Realm," he says slowly. "It can be contained safely?" You hand over your design for a runic array to keep it suspended and isolated, and he spends even more time studying that. "And division can be reliably induced. If the repellent fields could ensure a specific amount is dropped onto a catalyst..."
It's clear he doesn't care much for the substance, but the idea of being able to supply large but precise amounts of magical energy on demand intrigues him, and after much grumbling he concedes it wouldn't be a complete waste of time on his part to pursue the project. A week later the more portable portions of his workshop arrive and he establishes himself deep within the largely-unoccupied Kvinn-Wyr, and the two of you get to work - he reluctantly concedes that your senses are much sharper than whatever equivalent Runesmiths use to feel the movement of magical energy. He gets to work on experimenting, and you're given a chance to see how his approach differs to Kragg's.
Kragg, from what you've seen, knows exactly what he is doing at all times. If a Rune is to be struck, he strikes it in utter confidence that it will work as he demands. Thorek is very different, starting each step with filling a large block of slate hung on the wall of his workshop with notes in chalk, and then he acts with extreme care and precision. A few prototypes are laboriously created and rejected until he settles on a simple design for a containment vessel - a steel bowl with a hole in the base and inscribed with the Rune of Valaya forms the base, and another inscribed with the Rune of Sanctuary to sit atop it. The Rune of Valaya suspends a portion of Aethyric Vitae in the centre of the sphere the two bowls form, while the Rune of Sanctuary keep any errant magical energies from interfering with it. The sphere is suspended above a steel ingot with a Rune of Spellbreaking, and then from a safe distance the Rune of Valaya is deactivated. The suspended blob of Vitae drops through the hole, falls upon the Rune of Spellbreaking, and detonates, filling the room with magical energy that is siphoned away into Runic collectors Thorek had set up.
This success prompts Thorek to return to the drawing board, and he designs a more self-contained system, calculating precisely how much energy could saturate a specific area until the Winds are forced to intermingle and form Dhar. Eight vents are built on each side of a precisely-measured cubic detonation chamber, one for each Wind, and the energies are funnelled into an adjoining hinged octahedron, which can be opened to place an Anvil Rune inside - or a newly-made absorption Rune, for Thorek won't risk an Anvil Rune on this just yet. A mechanism is added to empty a flask into the containment chamber from above, Thorek observes the detonation in action several times, and then he returns once more to the drawing board, and you have to bite your tongue to refrain from commenting.
After weeks of work, the final prototype is shown, and you have to admit to being impressed. The uppermost mechanism allows for a row of sealed containers to be held ready a safe distance from one another, and then delivers them at precise intervals into the containment chamber. After enough time has passed for the Vitae in the containment chamber to have formed a sphere from the semi-spherical repellent field that suspends it, the Rune of Valaya is deactivated and the Vitae drops into the detonation chamber, with a metal lid sliding over the hole a heartbeat before the Vitae reacts to the Rune of Spellbreaking. The energies are siphoned out of the chamber and delivered not just to the charging chamber, but also to the other Runes that control the process, ensuring it could run indefinitely with the only intervention needed being to refill and replace the Vitae containers. And with Thorek's face lined with concern, you watch as for the first time a precious Anvil Rune is placed into the charging chamber, one of the ones exhausted during the rebuffing of Waaagh Birdmuncha, and then the mechanism begins its work, with the gentle noises of metal sliding over metal only interrupted by the splash-THOOMF of the Vitae being dropped and detonating. And after a number of containers are emptied, Thorek gingerly opens the charging chamber to stare at the Anvil Rune within, which now glows with contained power.
"I've no doubt," he says slowly, "that your manling craft has uses for the substance. But every drop you could spare would be of great value to the descendants of Thungni."
[1 gallon of Vitae expended on experimentation]
---
Hubert is a bit of an odd duck. To be an Ulrican and a Wizard is an untenable position in the first place - Ulric dictates self-reliance, and a Wizard is by necessity reliant on the whims of the Winds of Magic - but to be an Ulrican and a Celestial Wizard is particularly so, as it would be difficult to find two groups more different in temperament. And on top of that he's from a noble family, and they rarely react well to finding the gift of magic amongst their offspring. So it's no surprise to you that he often seems rootless and irresolute, torn in mutually exclusive directions.
If there's a glimmer of hope, it's that he's recently added Wings of Heaven to his magical repertoire. Consulting your books on Azyr, you find that the spellbook of the Celestial Order is split neatly between those that look to the sky for the portents in the stars, and those that look to the sky and weaponize it. Hubert does seem to be a poor fit for astrology and scrying the future, but he may very well be a good fit for throwing lightning around, even if that doesn't fit the approved mold of the Order.
So you spend some time with him when he's not off dealing with his coreligionists of Ulrikadrin, to feel out where his mind is at and, if necessary, try to nudge it in a better direction. The easiest way to nail him down is with sparring - he's often to be found in the sparring chambers, even when Soizic isn't there to keep him company - so in between bouts, you turn the topic to the history of the Empire and his order to try to determine what it is he admires and aspires to, and after the usual suspects of Magnus the Pious and his companions, and Teclis and Yrtle and Finrier, you hear an unexpected name - Casandora, the Seeress of Mordheim, one of the Sisters of Sigmar in their efforts to prevent the tainted bounty of the comet from falling into the wrong hands. Sigmarites say that her foresight was a gift from Sigmar, but some of the Celestial Order theorize that she was channelling the power of Azyr instead, and the powerful Battle Magic to call a comet down from the heavens is said by some to have been named for her.
"A member of a cloistered order who nevertheless crossed blades with the enemies of the Empire," you muse.
He opens his mouth to reply, then frowns and shrugs. "Okay, when you put it like that..." You raise an eyebrow, and he sighs. "Look, I'd have been okay with the Bright Order. Or the Golds or the Greys. But I dreamed of the stars at night and I could feel a change in the weather coming three days off, so I ended up stuck with, well..."
"The Celestials," you say, nodding in understanding.
"Stargazers and fortune-tellers."
You nod again, thoughtfully. "Just as the Greys are diplomats, and generally work completely unseen."
"Right," he says, and then frowns.
"And the Brights are unthinking fire dispensers instead of aspiring mechanics, the Amethysts are ascetics, and the Golds are cold and analytical and definitely don't take up punching and puppy rearing as hobbies..."
He sighs. "Okay, point made."
"And I'm going to keep making it," you say, prodding him with your wooden sparring blade. "I'm sure your Apprenticeship was astoundingly tedious, but now you're clear of it you can blaze your own trail. If you want, you can make the choice to never set eyes on Altdorf again, and be able to throw lightning and flit around the sky for the low price of one coin in ten. Or if you really want, I can write a letter and get you a full set of dampeners, and you can go back to Middenland and do whatever it is Middenlander nobles do, or go to Ulrikadrin and join the Winter Wolves, or stick around and join the Undumgi. But if you really set your mind to it, you can be whatever kind of Wizard you want to be and still find success and respect among the Colleges, even if you don't fit the archetype of your classmates."
[Pep talk: Diplomacy, 71+14+2(Library: Azyr)=87.]
For a moment you think you might have pushed him a bit too far, but after a long moment he looks down at his hands as lightning crackles along his knuckles. "I never wanted to be a Wizard of the Celestial Order," he says quietly. "But I find I've liked being a Wizard of Karak Eight Peaks."
You smile, and reach out and ruffle his hair. "If that's what you want to be, that's what you can keep being. You've got it in you to achieve greatness whatever path you end up taking, but not if you never pick a path."
He doesn't reply, but he does look thoughtful. And over the coming weeks, you do seem to notice him flitting about the sky more often.
---
When you return to Altdorf as the nights grow long, it's with a fair bit of anticipation and a touch of trepidation. Lord Magister Luuk's words echo in your imagination, and you can imagine quite a few different ways he could have meant 'uglier than you think it'll be'. But you definitely weren't imagining what you found when you approached the Amber Tower on the appointed day and found it almost dwarfed by a massive pillar of stone propped up against it, heavily splattered with the dark stains of old blood.
"You know what Herdstones are?" Lord Magister Luuk says after you enter the tower, not looking up from the battered kettle he was patiently watching.
"Gathering points for the Beastmen," you say. They'd come up a time or two in tales of Regimand's travels.
"They're also the complete opposite of Waystones, which scares the shit out of anyone with sense." He scratches at his shoulder, where the angry red of a new scar is visible under his leathers. "If you can interrupt them while they're setting one up, and drag the thing away before they summon reinforcements, you've got a menhir attuned to Ghur but not yet tainted by their rituals. It was a stroke of luck to find one just as you asked for this." You suppress a smile. "I carved out a recess in the side of this one, and you need to fill it with heart-blood of wild animals spilled by the blade I left in it, that's the 'key' you asked for. Wild, mind - nothing domesticated. Once it's full, the chosen subject drinks it, and as long as they drink most of it the transformation should take hold. Tea?"
"Yes, please."
He busies himself, and a minute later hands you a chipped stone mug of surprisingly pleasant dandelion tea. "When one of us transforms, we hold what we truly are inside of us, and so when the spell ends we revert. Someone else does not have the training to hold who they are within them, so the transformation sinks deeper into them until nothing remains untouched. So the menhir also imbues a second spell into them, which does the remembering of what they were."
You nod along, but are struck by a sudden suspicion. "Imbues how?"
He shrugs. "Some strange tangle of energies one of the other Colleges came up with a few years back." You repress a sigh. Ambers. Sometimes it seems like they keep more secrets by accident with their disdain for the trappings of civilization than the Greys do on purpose. "Assuming nobody dispels it, it should activate when the subject sleeps. Ideally that will be when whatever emergency they were transformed for is dealt with, but I figured if they were rendered unconscious they're probably done for anyway."
"And if someone does dispel it?"
"That would be a problem, and it's not an unlikely one, because someone might figure that would get rid of the dragon. If that does happen, might be kindest to wait until they sleep and then give them a quick death. They won't have the training we have to retain our selves when in the form of another, and it won't take long for them to lose themselves, and then you've got a feral beast on your hands. I recommend you don't use it if there isn't an immediate problem for them to address, because there being an enemy in the here and now should keep them concentrated for long enough. Assuming they get back to their old form in a timely manner, there shouldn't be too many long-term effects."
You grimace at the thought. "What sort of dragon? Great Fire? Horned?"
He sips his tea to conceal a grimace. "A dragon. Definitely a dragon. You'll see what I mean. One more reason not to let anyone get trapped that way."
You thank him for his time and expertise, and he thanks you for the ephemeral promise of repayment that will likely be traded a half dozen times or more before Belegar is ever called upon to make good. And he leaves you with the not inconsiderable problem of transporting tens of tons of stone halfway across the continent.
---
You're quite pleased with yourself as you enter Algard's office, as filled with anticipation as your arms are brimming with papers. He looks up as you enter, takes in your expression and your cargo, and slides his paperwork off his desk and into a sideways dimension. "Last time you came in here with that expression, we cleared the Skaven out of Ubersreik," he notes.
"Funny you should mention them," you say, and slide your trio of papers across his desk to him.
"There's a process for publishing these and this isn't it," he gripes, but he picks up the first anyway and winces. "Ever been on the receiving end of one of these things?"
"Not personally, though I've shared a battlefield with them." The closest you came, Johann punched the operator out before they had a chance to get it operating.
"Do your best to keep it that way." He skims through it, comes to the simple cantrip that will guarantee a very bad day for anyone within the blast radius of an exploding Ratling Gun, and his eyebrows rise as he mumbles and does a few experimental gestures. "That easy?"
"There's a shocking amount of mechanical energy in the storage mechanism. It only takes the right nudge for a failure cascade, and that sets off the Warpstone."
"This could... no, this will save lives. Probably a lot of them. Do you have other copies of this?"
"Yes, and one's on its way through the system."
"Good." He makes a series of gestures that does strange things to the shimmering aura of sideways dimensions in his office, and the paper disappears somewhere into his storage system. "An Eyewitness Account... You're sure? The more skilled ones can certainly look like they're using magic, but..." he opens the paper and skims through it, then stops abruptly. "Oh fuck. You're sure of what you saw?" You nod. "Never thought I'd be thankful for the Eshin ability to keep secrets. The Amethysts have a devil of a time with Necromancy, if an Ulgu equivalent got out it would be an utter nightmare. You dropped this one in the classified pile, right?" You nod again. "Good. Bloody rats." A few more gestures, and that report disappears. "And a third... Winning the War Below? I suppose you've earned some hubris," he says with a smile, but the smile slips away as he gets deeper into it.
"I do think I've got some insights to share," you say with clearly false modesty.
"This is... very detailed. Just a moment." He opens a drawer, rummages through the clutter inside, and then underhand lobs something to you. "Think fast."
You catch it, and frown as the crystal orb glows with a shocking amount of Hysh, a tendril of pure light extruding to wave lazily through the air. "What in the-" you grimace as the Ulgu inside you rebels at so much Light magic in close proximity, and there's a crashing flutter as one of Algard's paperwork dimensions collapses. "Seriously? Did you seriously just daemon-check me?"
"If any of your underlings drop three different flavours of extremely convenient and extremely unlikely insight on you in a row, I'd be very disappointed if you didn't do the same." The orb subsides, the energy tendril retracting back into its depths. "What are your sources with this one? Sudden flashes of inspiration in your dreams? Whispers on the wind? A conveniently insightful underling that appeared out of nowhere?"
You begin to rebut, but then you frown. He's kind of got a point, considering the order you're delivering these in. Maybe you shouldn't have saved the best for last. "My sources," you say, standing and dropping your freshly-printed tome on his desk with a dramatic thump, "are primary."
He stares down at the single word on the cover: Queekish. With slow and careful movements, he lifts the cover and begins to flip through page after page of laboriously catalogued pictograms and phonetics. "We've lost more than one to Frederheim in their attempts at unpicking their tongue," he says. "How? Your captive?"
"I convinced him that we already had it translated, but internal politics meant that my requests for translations were getting stonewalled. Then I fed him a great deal of papers stolen from the Clans that were present in the Karak. He thought he was helping me defeat just those Clans, since his own was already defeated there."
"This..." He frowns. "In the wrong hands, this would obliterate the Conspiracy of Silence. Who knows?"
"Johann and Maximilian de Gaynesford of the Gold Order. King Belegar and his council. By now, a Khazalid version would have reached the High King of Karaz-a-Karak."
"A Khazalid version is no threat, the Dwarves have been in open war against them since time immemorial. Johann... he was given dispensation, wasn't he? I'll have a word with Feldmann. Would you vouch for Maximilian?"
"Completely."
He looks at you, then nods. "Your security?"
"Dwarves consider it sufficient to guard a holy superweapon."
He snorts a laugh. "How could I forget. Very well, consider me mollified, for now. But find the time in the coming year to go through anti-Chaos training. That's an order. I'd be surprised if you hadn't already drawn the attention of at least the Changer." He turns his attention back to the book. "This is astounding work, Magister. And it's about to make the War Below a lot more interesting. Most will never learn of this, and even fewer will know that it was done by you, but those that matter will."
As you make your way out of the College, you find yourself unable to stop from smiling. Your papers were so good he thought you were cheating, which is quite a compliment. Though to be fair, for some of it you were, it's just that your source was necromantic rather than daemonic.
[GREAT DEED performed.]
---
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)
[+] EIC Reports (does not cost a choice)
Romance Any victors from this category will trigger a subvote for how you'll spend time with them. This isn't a lock-in, this is getting to know them better to see how compatible you might be.
[ ] [ROMANCE] Journeywoman Panoramia
[ ] [ROMANCE] Magister Johann
[ ] [ROMANCE] Elector Countess Roswita van Hal
[ ] [ROMANCE] Baron Anton Kiesinger II
[ ] [ROMANCE] The Ice Dragon of Karag Zilfin
[ ] [ROMANCE] Chief Bombardier Oswald Oswaldson
Fellow Wizards
[ ] Gretel, who's apparently spending her newly-earned wealth to make herself at home.
[ ] Adela, to see how she's going with her mechanical aspirations.
Karak Eight Peaks Notables
[ ] Elder Hluodwica, High Priestess of Esmerelda and civilian leader of the Eight Peaks Halflings.
[ ] Francesco Caravello, proud Viceroy of the Undumgi.
[ ] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, leader of the frontier town of Ulrikadrin.
Foreign Relations
[ ] Barak Varr, to watch the progress of the canal.
[ ] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiosity about Prince Ulthar.
Friends Abroad
[ ] Kasmir, to see how he's keeping himself busy in Sylvania.
[ ] Julia, to see what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
[ ] Eike Hochschild, to get to know your future business partner.
[ ] Empress Heidi, to pay her a social visit and see how Mandred is growing.
Following Up
[ ] Regimand, to finally get the full story behind the Lahmian plot you were both ensnared by.
[ ] The Amber College, to check in on the salamanders.
[ ] Follow up on your donation of the Skaven organ-vat, and see what has been made of it.
[ ] Other (write in)
- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- If you have ideas for other people to spend time with, let me know.
- The results of the Hochlander's actions will be part of the EIC reports.
- You get four options total. This can mean you take multiple romance options, or none.
- The Coin did apply, the action just took place off-screen.
- The exact method for how Vitae can be translated into Runesmith gratitude will be determined in coming turns.
"The undifferentiated substance of the Polar Realm," he says slowly. "It can be contained safely?" You hand over your design for a runic array to keep it suspended and isolated, and he spends even more time studying that. "And division can be reliably induced. If the repellent fields could ensure a specific amount is dropped onto a catalyst..."
Oh, excellent, looks like the safety testing we did wasn't for naught. We directly benefited in this conversation from the testing with dwarf runes and the testing for how to make it phase-change. I assume without that we might have had to work harder to convince him?
As you make your way out of the College, you find yourself unable to stop from smiling. Your papers were so good he thought you were cheating, which is quite a compliment. Though to be fair, for some of it you were, it's just that your source was necromantic rather than daemonic.
Oh, excellent, looks like the safety testing we did wasn't for naught. We directly benefited in this conversation from the testing with dwarf runes and the testing for how to make it phase-change. I assume without that we might have had to work harder to convince him?
Maybe a treaty permitting the Grey Order as an institution the right to purchase Runic equipment? An alliance between the Grey College and the runesmiths?
Basically, take @Alectai 's idea and extend it to the entirety of the Grey College, where the Guild of Runesmiths and the Grey College declares an alliance, which allows Grey Wizards to forge contacts with Runesmiths easier, access the reagent network of the Runesmith Guild, offer their services to willing Runesmiths as Ulgu is the wind of secrecy, and have the right to request commissions for Runesmith for an appropriate amount of favor/gold, depending on how trusted a Grey Wizard is in the Karaz Ankor.
I like this idea a fair bit.
But it might be best to discuss with the patriarch of the Grey College, to see if a sudden burst of Runesmith favor would be extraordinarily useful somewhere else.
Otherwise help setting up some Oh Dear rooms for all eight collages? Would be of genuine to them all while allowing us to act smug over the other wizards.
Considering that's probably the reason for this... I highly doubt they would need favour for that. Hell, iwouldn't be surprised if half the runesmiths in the Karaz Ankor start trying to figure it out themselves.
I'd agree with the second guy. If they've got a strong interest in the subject they'd probably help either as part of a project for the hold, or with only minimal favor expenditure.
Also this seems like the sort of situation where Runesmiths would primarily be useful to containing and possibly bleeding wisdom's asps, but you'd need a wizard to summon or draw in the thing.
I propose maybe something to transfer Runesmith favor into empire favor or something? Does the Emperor want rune-enhanced fortresses somewhere? Does the Emperor want a rune-enhanced naval fleet or river fleet?
These seem like important questions.
I know this is a bad idea ( i can hear Slannesh laughing from my bunker) but i really want to see how Boney would make it work
Pretty sure only the Bard are supposed to lay the dragon...
Frederheim is a small Imperial village situated in the Reikland. Situated just off the Altdorf to Middenheim road, Frederheim is technically a possession of the Emperor, but he has given oversight of it in all but name to the Cult of Shallya, which maintains a walled hospice and sanatorium for...
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