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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BeepSmile said:
SOMEONE.ELSE.FOUND.IT.AND.HANDED.IT.IN.ANONYMOUSLY *.AND.WE.MATHILDE.DID.NOT.KNOW.WHAT.TO.DO.BECAUSE.WE.KNEW.WHAT.HAVING.IT.MIGHT.LOOK.LIKE.PLEASE.MAKE.THIS.PROBLEM.GO.AWAY.

*To be fair, handing it to various parties was in fact several of the options that we had when it was... bequeathed to us.

Edit: Bequeathment is a fun word.
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"Look, I had a big book drive, you know how it is, and somebody put this at the bottom of the bin, howweirdamIright?"
 
Mopman43 said:
"Look, I had a big book drive, you know how it is, and somebody put this at the bottom of the bin, howweirdamIright?"
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"Happens all the fucking time! Like how many times have you gotten one of those 'Nine Books of Nagash'?"
"None"
"Right, of course, none, that was a bad example. My point is that with a book drive; you don't get to pick what people bring you. I bet the last person that had the Liber Mortis before it fell into your... area of observation (i.e here), via this innocent book drive, just wanted to get rid of it without destroying it! We all know how a copy of it was used to save Atldorf!"

...
[glances at the collection of three of the nine books of Nagash sitting innocently under the desk with worry]
 
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TotallyNotEvil said:
Indeed, big libraries already exist all around the work. The dwarfs themselves have libraries eight thousand years old.
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Ericwinter said:
...And absolutely none of those libraries are accessible to humans. Not without them having regular purges in some form or another.
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To be fair, Cathay seems like the sort of place that'd have a great big Grand Library of the Celestial Dragon Emperor. But that'd just change the problem to "And absolutely none of those libraries are accessible to humans outside of Cathay."


I support using TB on the library and GD for the R&D institute because it plays to the strengths of the ones we're calling favors from.

Belagor has effectively infinite funds for acquiring books and artifacts and can call on vastly better expertise for keeping things safely stored and preserved for millenia, so the Boon from him is best for founding and funding the library. More importantly, the library being the dwarf-managed institution means it's safe from politically or religiously motivated purges - wizards could be ordered to burn their records or to put untrue things in their textbooks, but the worst you could get the Dawi to do is put things into the "you need permission to read this" section unless the book/item in question is intrinsically corrupting. And if printing copies of things ever becomes a library function, then it's best handled by the folks with the better-quality craftsmanship.

The Empire is the one with a supply of wizards and the institutional knowledge of how to manage them, so a Great Deed from it is best for setting up a (predominantly) wizardly institution - and since that institutional knowledge is only a few generations old and actively being developed, it makes more sense for the R&D institute to start as the smaller of the two institutions and grow over time. And if the institute ever branches into enchanted engineering, well it'll be a lot easier to manage a radical thing like that in a human institution.
 
Angelform said:
Nagash and Van Hal put very valuable secrets in their diaries.
Perhaps we should go swipe Malekith's and see what shinies he wrote down.
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I mean, sure. If you want to read pages and pages rambling diatribes by an narcissistic elgi going on about his raging Oedipus Complex...sounds like a real page turner.

Mathilde, no. Put that back. I don't care if it's private shelf material.
 
Ekzentric Lohner said:
To be fair, Cathay seems like the sort of place that'd have a great big Grand Library of the Celestial Dragon Emperor. But that'd just change the problem to "And absolutely none of those libraries are accessible to humans outside of Cathay."
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Yeah, when an area is so undefined separate from the setting that the GM explicitly won't let us go there so he doesn't have to do the world-building for it, anything to do with It really doesn't make a good argument. Which is what I think you're trying to say.
Angelform said:
Nagash and Van Hal put very valuable secrets in their diaries.
Perhaps we should go swipe Malekith's and see what shinies he wrote down.
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...Can we? Like, legitimately, I would be cool with pillaging Malekith's library if we ever end up near Naggarond. We'll probably never be able to fight the guy, but we didn't have to fight the Skaven we looted their tech tree from. And there is likely a whole shit-ton of secrets in there.
 
Two thoughts-

First, I bet we could get official sanction through Francesco for the college, rather than Belegar directly, to provide him some political cover.

Second, I love the idea of attempting to rebuild a waystone. There are a ton that are destroyed or damaged beyond repair, and even the elves can't fault us if we grab the directed flow from parts of the network that were rebuilt.
 
MonkeyTypewriter said:
"This is how I fooled those Idiot Dwarves and Elves into murdering each other. Muahahahaha."
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While I doubt it would be so plainly stated, and we would probably have to roll boxcars or something while looting his personal library, that would be interesting to see. I mean, I don't think it would wipe away the many grudges accrued as a result, but as Belegar said about the Black Orcs, being pawns is a somewhat lesser burden to bear than actively fucking up of your own accord.
 
Glau said:
For having a whole bunch of torrent crafters running around his Karak? Mathilde is one thing, but unless we spend the transcendental boon specifically on having a college of wizards in the dwarfhold then the traditionalists will scream bloody murder, I think.
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I think that ship sailed when the wizard Loremaster recruited a hive of giant spiders and built the Flaming Death Tower of Shadowy Hellfire.
 
Ericwinter said:
Honestly, it's just a shame Mathilde can't use runecrafting in any way shape or form. Otherwise, she might just measure up. well, outside of just not being a dwarf, but that's kinda one of the requirements for runesmithing anyways.
Right, new plan. We need to find the Dwarven version of Mathilde.
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Is it actually though?

Like, not that its going to happen of course, but like if there were, in theory, some absolute madlad of a radical runesmith who decided to teach an umgi... is there any reason at all the umgi could not learn?

I mean this doesn't even seem like something that would actually run into humanities "Only attuned to one wind" issue. because i don't think they directly channel any magic at all in runesmithing.

This question is purely theoretical of course because we're not ever gonna get the chance to confirm one way or the other... but still.

(also we really need to start upgrading out of being human, because being human sucks shit, like seriously fuck you old ones! you give everyone else long ass lives and super powers but you stick humans with less than a hundred years and sweet fuck all besides being trivial to corrupt by chaos! I can't blame nagash for going to dark magic for immortality, because fuck the human lifespan, and fuck all the elves who call us mayflies.)
 
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Glau said:
For having a whole bunch of torrent crafters running around his Karak? Mathilde is one thing, but unless we spend the transcendental boon specifically on having a college of wizards in the dwarfhold then the traditionalists will scream bloody murder, I think.
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I think any of them willing to speak up about all the wizards running around would have done so when we turned an entire mountain into an enchanted object and used it to vaporize five hundred thousand orcs with a single spell. It does feel like that boat has sailed a fair distance already, so to speak. (Does this feel a bit hostile? I'm not sure how the tone is coming across, sorry.)

I don't anticipate it being any more of a problem than he's already running into with the weaver guilds, so now that he's eaten the consequences he might as well get all the available benefits from it, if that makes sense?

I don't even really want a branch college or anything, I'm just trying to explain why I don't think that that particular consideration would cause him to worry much.
 
ninjafish said:
Is it actually though?

Like, not that its going to happen of course, but like if there were, in theory, some absolute madlad of a radical runesmith who decided to teach an umgi... is there any reason at all the umgi could not learn?

I mean this doesn't even seem like something that would actually run into humanities "Only attuned to one wind" issue. because i don't think they directly channel any magic at all in runesmithing.

This question is purely theoretical of course because we're not ever gonna get the chance to confirm one way or the other... but still.
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According to RHUNRIKKI STROLLAR, you need to be either 1) descended from Thungni or 2) an Ancestor God (the protagonist receives runed artifacts from each of the top three). I don't know if that's canon or just soulcake's fanon, though.
 
Okay but seriously when can start working on Operation: Fuck being human because it sucks?

Because clearly transhumanism is the only viable future for the species.
 
ninjafish said:
Is it actually though?

Like, not that its going to happen of course, but like if there were, in theory, some absolute madlad of a radical runesmith who decided to teach an umgi... is there any reason at all the umgi could not learn?

I mean this doesn't even seem like something that would actually run into humanities "Only attuned to one wind" issue. because i don't think they directly channel any magic at all in runesmithing.

This question is purely theoretical of course because we're not ever gonna get the chance to confirm one way or the other... but still.
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I mean, we know Runes and enchantments don't play well together, which suggests there's at least a moderate amount of conflict between the magical styles. Then there's the point I made later--which admittedly may be wrong, but has yet to be refuted since--that i remember Runesmithing to be, in some way, manipulating their racial resistance to magic granted by the Blessings of Valaya.
Chlof said:
No? No. Better people than us have been trying and failing to infiltrate the Black Tower for over 5000 years. We're not going to succeed where the likes of Alith Anar and Eshin Deathmasters have so far failed.
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...I get your point, and certainly agree we're not near that level yet, but I think Alith Anar actually has infiltrated Naggarond. Or at least there's that story about him having once danced with Morathi "in the court of the witch king" and stole the Stone of Midnight from her treasury. Or maybe that's false, but definitely seems like the kinds of things I would expect from the best intrigue lord, like, ever.
 
ninjafish said:
Is it actually though?

Like, not that its going to happen of course, but like if there were, in theory, some absolute madlad of a radical runesmith who decided to teach an umgi... is there any reason at all the umgi could not learn?

I mean this doesn't even seem like something that would actually run into humanities "Only attuned to one wind" issue. because i don't think they directly channel any magic at all in runesmithing.

This question is purely theoretical of course because we're not ever gonna get the chance to confirm one way or the other... but still.
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It is race-locked, and not all Dwarves are capable of it, much less anybody else.
ninjafish said:
Okay but seriously when can start working on Operation: Fuck being human because it sucks?

Because clearly transhumanism is the only viable future for the species.
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When the vampires change their selection mechanisms away from the least social members of the species.
Ericwinter said:
...I get your point, and certainly agree we're not near that level yet, but I think Alith Anar actually has infiltrated Naggarond. Or at least there's that story about him having once danced with Morathi "in the court of the witch king" and stole the Stone of Midnight from her treasury. Or maybe that's false, but definitely seems like the kinds of things I would expect from the best intrigue lord, like, ever.
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I definitely remember reading a blurb about him getting away with both of those, yes.
 
Redshirt Army said:
When compared to such bastions of mental stability as Frederick Van Hal and Nagash, I somehow doubt that Malekith was the kind of guy well-adjusted enough to keep a diary.
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If he did it would probably just be his torture fantasies/records of people he's tortured.

It's Morathi's diary we'd get actual information out of, but it's probably a cognitive hazard due to the seven thousand or something years of Slaanesh worship and would take up an entire room.
 
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Also, completely random thought, but can I just say how freaking hilarious and epic it is that the dwarves have a chick with two husbands as a goddess? Like, that is just the weirdest thing to put in an extremely nerdy and geek-driven setting like Warhammer. Not that I mind it at all, and actually applaud GW for breaking the mold like that. I just would've expected, like, a typical harem protagonist, instead of the reverse-harem protagonist.
 
Redshirt Army said:
Given how well the extermination of Sylvania is going, I wonder if Roswita has come upon the Vanhaldenschlosse yet - and if she has, if she's ordered it eradicated by the most powerful Battle Magics available.
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We actually took Vanhaldenschlosse during the purge of the Haunted Hills, way back in the day.
BoneyM said:
Julia reports on her forays into Flensburg politics with glee, how a great deal of money had been made selling information on the trade families to each other so that everyone had paid quite a lot to end up no better off. She had apparently been stockpiling secrets for this for years in the anticipation of one day selling them. This single-handedly brought the budget for the half-year into the black. She also passes on news from the military - as Spring sets in, they're going to march in force to Vanhaldenschlosse, and if nothing unexpected is found there, then the army will separate by Division and sweep the northwestern Hills between the two rivers.
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BoneyM said:
You stumble into Julia's townhouse and start devouring equal parts reports, gossip, and marmalade toast one of the house staff brings you. The 1st Division is on the march to join the rest of the Army on the campaign, and news from said army is all positive - Vanhaldenschlosse was found to be entirely inoffensive, and the divisions separated to clear the largest segment of the Haunted Hills yet.
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And now it is used as a military base:
BoneyM said:
"They started calling it that before I arrived. They love him, you know. If he'd lived they would still be grumbling about taxes and land prices, but since he's with Sigmar, they love him. Timber prices are crashing throughout the Empire like falling dominoes and they're still clear-cutting the Ghoul Wood and they'll keep doing it if they start making a loss on every log. The Hills themselves are an entire's county worth of prime grazelands and with the 1st in Drakenhof, the 3rd in Nachthafen, and the 4th in Vanhaldenschlosse they're as safe as Averland, and most of the land-owners are ex-military who swear in Khazalid and get a friendlier reception from Zhufbar Dwarves than I do."
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We had the option to go poke around it during the Purge and see if there was anything interesting, but instead we tore our hair out over our paper.
 
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