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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Presumably the Gold Order can get us access to some experts from the other Colleges if they want to by doing some favor trading. I'd imagine that sort of thing happens fairly frequently, with the Colleges needing consultants or enchantments or help from the others for various purposes. And the Gold Order makes enough useful stuff that they probably have no trouble accumulating favors.

If part of the goal here is helping with research backlog, we might consider asking for staffing for some sort of R&D center in Eight Peaks to help us with future research endeavors, make them a lot more efficient/effectively give us a free research action or two, something like that. There are certainly plenty of unique things in Eight Peaks that could attract interest from Perpetuals and Journeymen of an appropriate bent anyway.
 
BoneyM said:
Example prices:
GIANT ROBOT
Gold Magister or Battle Wizard assistance for specific projects
Outfitting of an entire College-scale library
Complete Gold Order cooperation for the Waystone investigations
Gold Order creates and supplies a 'seviroscope' - a way to provide Windsight without interacting with the brain
Gold Order outfits a branch college (created through separate Great Deed expenditure)
Insights on creating independent, temporary, and combat-capable constructs in the vein of Gehenna's Golden Hounds
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Thoughts on some of the suggested prices so far:

Giant Robot: It's a meme, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea - just an amusing one. Mind you, I don't think a giant robot is particularly optimal for us, so I feel like the main selling point of this idea is "it would be neato." (It would.)

Magisters/Battle Wizards: I feel like we can get a good chunk of what we'd need from favor and volunteers. If we specifically want a bunch of Battle Wizards for the expedition that might be worthwhile, but we haven't gotten a chance to read up on the Chaos Wastes IC yet - is having a bunch of people using Battle Magic in the wastes the sort of thing that leads to grand tales of wizardly heroism for like two people with everyone forgetting about the 75% of the wizards who just exploded from miscasts?

Library: Would be redundant with b o o k b o o n, which seems fairly likely

Waystones: If and when we study them it'll be with Belegar's blessing, so Belegar can foot the bill to bring them on anyway. I think we can get better value elsewhere.

Seviroscope: This is sufficiently blue-sky research that we might not be able to get Belegar to fund it, so unless making a seviroscope is really as simple as taking the write-in exploratory research exactly once (doubtful) it might be a long time before we can get one of these otherwise. I like this option. Edit: Especially since we would be able to buy more later if necessary. Edit2: But we could also buy college research into Seviroscopes with a Great Deed, so eh?

College facilities/staff: Without their help we'd need to pay for a lot of this stuff out of our stockpiles of money, Dwarf Favor, Runesmith Favor, and College Favor. This would probably save a large amount of resources if we did want to make a branch college for research, and it may be worthwhile.

How to make temporary independent constructs: If we want to do this, I'm not sure how else we would make it happen, so this option may have value. Edit2: On second thought, there's a lot we could do with spells capable of independent (pseudo?)-thought, from Shadow-scouts to, potentially, a home-made Seviroscope. This is currently my favorite.
 
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Again, we don't need the Gold's approval to ask for Magisters to go along on the Karak Dum expedition. We're perfectly able to ask that, on our own and on behalf of the Karaz Ankor as a whole.

We should probably look beyond things we can already do.
This has the potential of another one of those unique currencies- "The incredibly wealthy and influential Gold Patriarch wants our toys, for some obvious reasons and several others he's not letting on".

BoneyM said:
The Gold Order can bend considerable amounts of talent and resources to the task, and, one hopes, have usable insights ready and weaponized before the next existential threat we all face.
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He expects to dedicate considerable resources, multiple Magisters to exploiting this trove... so what we ask for can and should be commensurate.
Not just one trinket (Sevirscope), nor a single Magister for a Waystone project.
 
I'm not overly fond of KD assistance because battle wizards are either something we can ask for already if Stirland finishes up or something we can't ask for easily if Stirland isn't finished yet. And Chamon isn't really the type we want for the Chaos Wastes, even if they'd still be helpful.

Besides, his speech was very Empire focused, so this sounds like a good opportunity to handle an Empire problem, and we don't have a good way to handle the Marienburg situation with our current projected schedule. They've got a lot of influence and money, so that sounds like a good match. I'm not quite sure what exactly what form it would take, though.
 
The problem is that we don't know what secrets the Golds have that we'd be interested in, and almost anything else would be a waste - the Seviroscope isn't big enough to be worth the ~80 favours and reputation this hoard has been estimated at, Belegar will happily pay for any expertise the Waystones require, and getting some magisters to join the Expedition to Karag Dum is similarly not valuable enough. We'll almost certainly get some just by spending an action on it.

The secret behind the minds of Gehenna's Golden Hounds is something, but I'm not sure it's enough either. Any lore buffs know of anything interesting the Golds are sitting on we could make use of?
 
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BoneyM said:
Even if they were willing to share it, and they're not, Mathilde wouldn't be able to do it. It's an implementation of Chamon.
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Ah, and there goes that old idea people were excited about.

Out of curiosity though, why would they be willing to let us buy artifact stuff but not alchemy stuff?

Actually, for that matter, what exactly is alchemy? (I mean, if it just would not be useful or applicable to Mathilde then, well, yeah.)
Briefvoice said:
Or to put it another way, if Mathilde floats a request for all the assistance/knowledge they can muster on figuring out Waystones, would they be able to deliver something significant?
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BoneyM said:
They'd definitely be willing to supply experts for the project, if that's her price.
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That sounds a lot like "Sure, we'll gladly send people to work on a very prestigious and important project with you!"

If people didn't want to so much as get Belegar's backing and funding for researching Aethyric Vitae out of a (IMO not-quite-correct (because we've already done most of the preliminary and important research)) desire to not share the prestige and importance... why do people want to invite an entire College in on something even bigger than that? A non-Jade College, at that. If it were the Jades, this'd be a good idea.

... Actually... @BoneyM, do we know if we can trade around favors that the Golds have, in exchange for our Skaven stuff? That is, instead of asking for something from the Gold wizard stuff, we ask the Gold College to pull favors on our end. Specifically, ask them for any favors, markers, and pull they have in the Jade College.

... Which... Probably wouldn't be that much, ugh. Or, well, they probably could grant us some help in talking to the Jade College. But I doubt they have the equivalent of a Transcendent Favor with the Jade College, and which they would use for us. So it'd be more like the Gold Patriarch going "... Sure, I guess I'll stand by your side and nod approvingly when you go talk to the Jades." Bah, I guess nevermind.
 
BoneyM said:
They could try, but they're Gold Wizards, not Grey. They're unlikely to produce anything that spectacular.
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I was more wondering if there was one they could buy with college favor/they had one they were studying, but this makes sense.
BoneyM said:
They can't dictate terms to Dragomas.
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I was hoping he could politic his way towards that instead, but it makes sense that wouldn't work on Dragomas. Could we get a promise from him to buy/influence elector votes of Elector Counts?

Though if he was an adventurer, he might have cool magical doodads. I'm searching sourcebooks for cool stuff, if anyone wants to join me in doing so. I assume we don't have access to anything listed as lost.
 
Boney, you say the Gold can and will make it up to Max and Johann.
Is that saying they definitely will, without us adding such a wording, clause or rider to whatever we request, if we do go for this?
Garlak said:
That sounds a lot like "Sure, we'll gladly send people to work on a very prestigious and important project with you!"
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Algard is willing to try and arrange this, to make it a College-K8P project, so IMO we certainly don't need an outside Patriarch's help.
 
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The Seviroscope does sound like the best option of the ones that have been thrown around so far, especially as golds actually can apparently do the 'thinks for itself' thing without needing to invoke demons, which should massively simplify it. My main concern is that it just doesn't feel like it's enough by itself? We're handing over absolutely huge amounts of material, and in exchange we'd only get one thing.

Hmm...

@BoneyM, could we ask for both the seviroscope, and for the gold's knowledge of how to produce independently thinking constructs? Or would that be pushing for too much?
 
You know I am starting to regret this social action from someone else a little, social turns were suposed to be harmless fun, but them we have the chanberlain of the seal and now this...

You know my first reaction right now is rejection, while this is a blank offer we are having a hard time coming with something worth asking in enchange and whitout the skaven stuff we have nothing else for the golds to do, realy we will be leave with only the vampire skulls.
 
Garlak said:
Ah, and there goes that old idea people were excited about.

Out of curiosity though, why would they be willing to let us buy artifact stuff but not alchemy stuff?

Actually, for that matter, what exactly is alchemy? (I mean, if it just would not be useful or applicable to Mathilde then, well, yeah.)
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They'd be willing to give you an artefact but not the secrets of alchemy, upon which almost all their wealth and influence is built. Alchemy is being able to use Gold Magic to indirectly manipulate other Winds contained inside objects or liquids to create what are basically potions.

Garlak said:
... Actually... @BoneyM, do we know if we can trade around favors that the Golds have, in exchange for our Skaven stuff? That is, instead of asking for something from the Gold wizard stuff, we ask the Gold College to pull favors on our end. Specifically, ask them for any favors, markers, and pull they have in the Jade College.

... Which... Probably wouldn't be that much, ugh. Or, well, they probably could grant us some help in talking to the Jade College. But I doubt they have the equivalent of a Transcendent Favor with the Jade College, and which they would use for us. So it'd be more like the Gold Patriarch going "... Sure, I guess I'll stand by your side and nod approvingly when you go talk to the Jades." Bah, I guess nevermind.
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They'd give it their best shot, but yeah, you're probably better off going for what is directly in their power to provide.

Abhorsen said:
I was hoping he could politic his way towards that instead, but it makes sense that wouldn't work on Dragomas. Could we get a promise from him to buy/influence elector votes of Elector Counts?
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Sure.

NSMS said:
@BoneyM, could we ask for both the seviroscope, and for the gold's knowledge of how to produce independently thinking constructs? Or would that be pushing for too much?
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Asking for two things gets you half as much of each.
 
Abhorsen said:
I was hoping he could politic his way towards that instead, but it makes sense that wouldn't work on Dragomas. Could we get a promise from him to buy/influence elector votes of Elector Counts?
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BoneyM said:
Sure.
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How many votes does Mathilde think this would buy? Regardless, plan legitimize Ranald is a go!

[ ] Influence to legitimize Ranald

Remember how much Ranald helped us during the campaign. He deserves something nice back. Let's take a step toward getting Ranald legitimized.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
The problem is that we don't know what secrets the Golds have that we'd be interested in, and almost anything else would be a waste - the Seviroscope isn't big enough to be worth the ~80 favours and reputation this hoard has been estimated at, Belegar will happily pay for any expertise the Waystones require, and getting some magisters to join the Expedition to Karag Dum is similarly not valuable enough. We'll almost certainly get some just by spending an action on it.

The secret behind the minds of Gehenna's Golden Hounds is something, but I'm not sure it's enough either. Any lore buffs know of anything interesting the Golds are sitting on we could make use of?
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The one thing that would be worth is their alchemy, which they can't teach Mathilde.

Maybe their free assistance in multiple collaboration projects, where they would use alchemy enchanting combined with whatever expertise Mathilde can scrounge up (her own, other magisters paid by favor, etc)?

Something like Seviroscope, but on its own that would not be valuable enough for what Mathilde is giving up.
 
BoneyM said:
Asking for two things gets you half as much of each.
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Fair enough.

I think my vote will look like this:
[] The secrets behind the minds of Gehenna's Golden Hounds
-[] That we're kept in the loop regarding any discoveries that are made

We can make the Seviroscope ourselves, we're an extremely competent enchanter with uniquely effective Windsight. This is pretty much the only way we'll ever have access to the answer for this specific question. It might help with Bok, too!

EDIT: We're kept in the loop automatically.
 
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Honestly, I feel like actually doing serious damage to the Chaos Dwarves would do more harm than good?

For all that their incredibly evil, I feel like they unintentionally play a very important role in the safety and survival of the Old World.

The Dark Lands hold the highest level of Greenskins in the world as far as I'm aware, and I honestly believe that the Chaos Dwarf domination of the area is what prevents this population from, despite the mountain range, leaking into the Old World at a rate comparable, if not greater then, the invasions from the Bad Lands. Also, to a much lesser extent, their a powerful outside force the Skaven can raid and war and scheme against as relatively equal level player, which is just nice to have.

Weakening the Chaos dwarfs would serve to weak them as a disruptive force to the Greenskins, bringing their focus to the outside world instead of keeping to contained to the Dark Lands. The big thing it definitley prevents is Greenskin unification under a single leader, in a single Waagh, which would create a Warband the likes of which the world has never seen before.

The Chaos Dwarves don't really take a lot of direct action against the Old World, and even with their sales to the various Chaos factions I'd say the good they unintentionally do far outweighs the bad.
 
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