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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Rafin said:
Maybe I'm a romantic, but romance doesn't really... work that way? One can decide on what actions to take based on one's feelings, but deciding what one feels is both hard and (at least in my opinion) feels a bit disingenuous. Personally, I can't see myself voting to continue going down any romance path where I don't see some form of romantic and/or sexual chemistry between Mathilde and the candidate. Like, this chapter was charming and beautiful, but right now it has lowered Johann for me as a prospect.

Also, I thought the initial romance vote, which felt more like an OOC vote where we choose what Mathilde is like instead of role-playing Mathilde and the choices she decides to make (i.e. more similar to a trait selection vote than to a vote like our answer to the Chamberlain), was already about how she felt about the winners. Meaning that I thought Mathilde currently fancies Johann (but not exclusively), be it for his body, his mind, his personality or all of the above.

Another thing I felt in hindsight to be missing* from the chapter was how and why Mathilde decided to go to this event with Johann, and who initiated this. In fact, I am so curious I'd love an official answer.
@BoneyM: What made Mathilde decide that she wanted to join Johann on the Grungni Festival? Did Johann ask her or did she ask Johann?

* Missing is the wrong word. Adding it somehow would not necessarily have made this chapter better in a literary sense. It's only missing in the sense that I feel like I can't make an informed choice on this matter without gaining that information.
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I do agree. I hadn't really detected any attraction on Mathilde's part. Plus I have fairly strong feelings about the the sliding scale of voter involvement in the protagonist's being. I don't disagree with having that romance vote because that makes some sense for the thread to be deciding on, but like you, I had definitely expected Mathilde to actually be observably interested in some way. As you said, some flirting or something. Some internal narration about how sweet he's being right now. Idk.

Full disclosure, I am Shipping Filth, I admit that. I find this stuff unbearably sweet to read.
 
Andres110 said:
@BoneyM is the supernatural accuracy correct? Realms of Sorcery doesn't say anything about an accuracy boost, but at the same time I can't remember if magic automatically hits in WFRP or not.
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Magic Missile type spells automatically hit in WHFRP, but that's because you're already rolling to cast, so to balance it for higher-power Wizards it's downgraded to an accuracy boost.
 
ChronOblivion said:
I do agree. I hadn't really detected any attraction on Mathilde's part. Plus I have fairly strong feelings about the the sliding scale of voter involvement in the protagonist's being. I don't disagree with having that romance vote because that makes some sense for the thread to be deciding on, but like you, I had definitely expected Mathilde to actually be observably interested in some way. As you said, some flirting or something. Some internal narration about how sweet he's being right now. Idk.

Full disclosure, I am Shipping Filth, I admit that. I find this stuff unbearably sweet to read.
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If Johann was aware enough of dwarvish culture to know that factoid about couples mining, maybe this would have played out differently! But he failed the Learning roll on his Romance Test.

No, but seriously, Mathilde suddenly feeling romantic feelings for somebody between one update and the next would have seemed weird, to me.

Instead, Mathilde empirically decided that she should consider having A Romance, and is now going to test local candidates for compatibility one by one until she has determined with some degree of certainty whether it is time for Love or if she should hold out hope for that random dashing, clever trader to appear.
 
Y'know, I was just thinking of how the Dwarves lack a monster equivalent to tie down a dragon, but I suppose their golems might have filled such a role before the war of the beard?
 
Alliterate said:
See: College Magisterhood duel.

But, joking aside, there probably is some 'surprise' advantage to the (very) direct approach when people might first be expecting subtlety from a Grey Wizard.
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Even if they absolutely know that you intend to baffle them instead of using subtlety, that still won't save them if they don't know how. They prepare for one trick and you pull out something totally different.
 
Glau said:
Second thought, upon reread: @BoneyM , can we use an EIC action to meet up with Wilhelmina and Anton, and discuss as shareholders how the company should respond to the information we've gained?
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Is the information we've gained referring to Otto's musings on pirate fighting, Barak Varr being willing to blockade-break, the possibility of a Marienburg embargo, something about the peat trade, or something else entirely? I'm a little lost.

veekie said:
We'd probably know in the next 3 turns, after which they'd have run out of clock to do damage in.
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Turns are 6 months, and the canal is an estimated 5 years from completion - 10 turns at a minimum. I'm pretty sure Marienburg has more than 3 turns to get up to anti-canal hijinks. The resolution of whether there will be a blockade or not will be within three turns sure, but they could very well give up on the blockade and send mercs to delay/sabotage the canal or something else equally stupid and desperate.
 
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Golden Eyed King said:
Honestly all the talk of who to Husbando and no one brought up Ranald as an option? The dragon got brought up.
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I assure you, it was brought up.
LiamOfOrmonde said:
I know you said not to suggest anything too crazy @BoneyM but how about Ranald? I thought he was romanceable.
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BoneyM said:
Mathilde believes him to genuinely love Shallya, and making a play for double God is too much hubris even for her.

...for now.
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ReImagined said:
@BoneyM Say, do we have any inkling as to what kind of magic the conspiracy cipher burned into our eyelids was?
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Boney OKed a social action to get the scoop on the Lahmian conspiracy from Regimand, so I strongly suspect that will be the most-voted-for option next turn.
 
I've got ideas for magic guns, but two things first. One, runes are worthless. They're outclassed by spells in damage, accuracy, and armour penetration. The only advantage they have is quick draws and +3 initiative is not worth 15 favour. Two, only one spell for the bullets, otherwise it doesn't work.

Marksdwarf pistol - Shadow Knives' accuracy would be great for this, but it's a single shot, whereas vanilla Shadow Knives is multi-shot. A pistol-shaped wand may be better. Still, if we're gonna magic up the marksdwarf pistol, 5 favours on Shadow Knives is a good choice.

The Revolvers - Lots of options here. Breathe Fire gives +4 Damage and fire. Shadow Knives gives accuracy - 8 headshots with Impact is yummy - plus armour-ignoring. Limbwither disables an enemy limb for entire minutes with no possibility to resist. Icy Grip of Death is an AoE stun. Steal Life ignores armour and toughness. Wind of Death is ditto but 5 favours and AoE. Ruin and Destruction ruins armour by destroying the straps and destroys wooden shields. Curse inflicts a fight-permanent penalty to everything. Daemonbane is anti-daemon AoE. Drop is boring but practical. Bewilder is good.

Process of elimination time. First of all: nothing that can hurt us if we're caught in the AoE, which we might be given we use these pistols in close range. Bye bye Icy Grip and Wind of Death. Daemonbane is safe to us, but we've never fought daemons and any anti-person spell would be useful against them anyway. Ruin and Destruction is only really useful against heavily armoured enemies. Just doing damage also inflicts penalties on enemies so Curse is out. Steal Life is straight up better than Breathe Fire - ignores armour and toughness beats out +4 Damage, and it's cheaper too. Boring but practical is still boring, so Drop's out. Other spells kill outright or cripple for longer so Bewilder isn't the best.

Three finalists: Steal Life, Limbwither, and Shadow Knives. Steal Life does the most final damage per shot, Shadow Knives is the most accurate, and Limbwither cripples.

I...honestly have no idea which of the three spells would be best. They're all really fantastic options and we would murder with them.

I should also mention other spells we could add on. Not to enchant the bullets, just the guns themselves. Enchant Item is an obvious choice, but 5 favours for a +5 bonus is maybe a bit much, and useless on a Shadow Knives gun since it wouldn't be aiming with quality pistolwork. Our Telescope spell might be useful for the marksdwarf pistol but maybe not. Could do some kind of shadow magic to make the guns silent and drop the muzzle flash. Might be able to use Move to reduce recoil. Take No Heed lets us smuggle the pistols easier but don't know why we'd want that. Cleansing Glow makes sure the gun is always clean and pretty - this is to show off our magical superiority more than anything, but I guess it could help with reliability or something. Eye of the Beholder or Fool's Gold or both can similarly be used to show off.
 
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me.me.here said:
Is the information we've gained referring to Otto's musings on pirate fighting, Barak Varr being willing to blockade-break, the possibility of a Marienburg embargo, something about the peat trade, or something else entirely? I'm a little lost.
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Yes. :)

More accurately, the potential embargo and Marianburg moving against the canals. I'd like to put the Hochlander on watching for Marianburg playing silly buggers with deniable assets in the empire, but I think it would be a good chance to see where Wilhelma is at, create a bonding moment between the old friends. To make policy for the EIC in light of these changes as a collective decision.

And to make sure we aren't missing anything from our analysis of the situation that they could tell us.
 
Using Norsca as an excuse to get the fleets together is a pretty smart move. Most likely it consolidates imperial strength. If Marienburg blocks it and plays that badly enough to get Bretonnia against them as well as the Empire and Barak Varr, then Ulthuan becomes pretty irrelevant. They'd lose enough of their navy fighting that battle that Malekith would be able to trivially clean up the remainder of their ships, if they could even win at all.
 
So, I've got a potential scheme in mind that should benefit Ranald, ourselves, and the Empire as a whole (particularly the intelligence community and/or the Grey College).

First, I'd want to speak to the Empress about this plan, check it's feasibility and if it's a good idea; getting a second opinion from her seems like a good idea.

Okay, so the plan is .... we get the Empire to okay (and potentially pay for, but that's optional, the money can be gathered by other means) Casino Church's to Ranald the Gambler and we tie the Casino's into the Empire's various Intelligence communities. The Casino's collect info from the people that enter it's door's and pass the info to the intelligence community. In exchange, the Casino Church gets the protection of the Empire, increased and official recognition, the right to publicly observe their faith, and various other benefits, I don't know, maybe tax breaks or payment or something for services rendered. Each Casino is run by a priest, use it to push the faith a little, and also develop ties with the intelligence community to potentially get some conversions, and probably some improved relations with the Empire and the other faces of Ranald.

Plus, tying the intelligence community into the Casino helps the Church's avoid some of the worst aspects of gambling, the Casino can pay some of those who lost more money then they can afford to for information, whether one off sums or incomes for being informants, helping the money go back into community and making it harder for lives to be ruined here.

Thoughts on all of this? I'd love to put big Casino Churches throughout the Empire.

BoneyM said:
Potentially, but the process of getting there does mean experimenting with Battle Magic. Most people willing to do so aim to create new types of Battle Magic, rather than more modest and accessible spells.
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That's a shame, some of those Battle Spells could do some pretty nice stuff on a personal scale. Ah well.
 
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