Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Ian Drash · Jan 30, 2018

Having Doppleganger would have been very useful right now.

If we assume there are multiple enemy agents in the staff, there is a chance one of them will be checking if the current one is in there fir too long. So we have a limited amount of time. Given the reaction of our victim, if they are noticed they will start a bloodbath and/or they are not really good at planning.

Right now I don't really have a better idea than
[X] veekie

veekie · Jan 30, 2018

Anyone has a guess what they might be? Vampires would be unlikely.

Ian Drash · Jan 30, 2018

veekie said:
Anyone has a guess what they might be? Vampires would be unlikely.

A full-blown vampire would have killed us from this close, unless we got very-very lucky. There was blood, so it can't be the usual undead. It would be a very strange ghoul, that could do infiltration. I would need to check the bestiary for more ideas.

@veekie I am not fully sure about this, but it might worth to spare a minute if it is actually dead. Because there are things that can survive an injury like this, and Mathilde was not in the mindspace to make goid observations after making the kill.

veekie · Jan 30, 2018

Ian Drash said:
A full-blown vampire would have killed us from this close, unless we got very-very lucky. There was blood, so it can't be the usual undead. It would be a very strange ghoul, that could do infiltration. I would need to check the bestiary for more ideas.

@veekie I am not fully sure about this, but it might worth to spare a minute if it is actually dead. Because there are things that can survive an injury like this, and Mathilde was not in the mindspace to make goid observations after making the kill.

Oh yeah editing in to confirm the kill. Nothing lives without a head

No7sHere · Jan 30, 2018

[X] veekie
Maybe this was some kind of blood thrall?

LilyWitch · Jan 30, 2018

veekie said:
Anyone has a guess what they might be? Vampires would be unlikely.

It could maybe be a Doppleganger but they don't really have inhuman stats and they return to natural form in death.

—Doppelganger Statistics—
Main Profile
WS BS S T Ag Int WP Fel
41% 33% 42% 33% 33% 29% 29% 10%
Secondary Profile
A W SB TB M Mag IP FP
2 14 4 3 4 0 0 0

A Patchwork person is also possible even more unlikely. There is not many options I can think of for an infiltraitor who looks human but possesses beyond human abilities other then chaos cultists. Which I hope we don't have considering we are also dealing with Vampires and plain old humans right now.

REAPER35 · Jan 30, 2018

[X] veekie

edit: a Renfield? Or maybe a prospective vampire? A partially turned human? half-blood? Just plain mind controlled or brainwashed human? A human that has been fed vamp blood?

vsh · Jan 30, 2018

How I see our future information network parts and their respective heads:

1) Peasant network: a single extended family of peasants with relatives and friends in every village in Stirland. Family head is reporting to us undead or armed man sightings, robbers and brigands, anything that feels off and peasant grievances that are hard or dangerous to push through official line.

2) Ranald the Night Prowler priesthood in every city or town. May be just spiritual guidance for the seedy parts of town, then it's just reports on chaos cults, necromancers and undead sightings, or may be actual mob, than it's a lot more.

3) Adventurer party. Special ops team to do the jobs of the crazy kind.

4) Noble contact booth. I'd prefer to not talk to them what with all our charming personality and all. Let's handle them through Anton, maybe?

5) Castle security (servants rumor mill, watch etc). I'd prefer to handle it ourselves, no outsourcing.

6) Middle-class informant network. Probably the best way is to go through guilds and societies.

7) Halfings. Don't know how to approach them, honestly, but they are perceptive and numerous.

Sinsystems · Jan 30, 2018

vsh said:
How I see our future information network parts and their respective heads:

1) Peasant network: a single extended family of peasants with relatives and friends in every village in Stirland. Family head is reporting to us undead or armed man sightings, robbers and brigands, anything that feels off and peasant grievances that are hard or dangerous to push through official line.

2) Ranald the Night Prowler priesthood in every city or town. May be just spiritual guidance for the seedy parts of town, then it's just reports on chaos cults, necromancers and undead sightings, or may be actual mob, than it's a lot more.

3) Adventurer party. Special ops team to do the jobs of the crazy kind.

4) Noble contact booth. I'd prefer to not talk to them what with all our charming personality and all. Let's handle them through Anton, maybe?

5) Castle security (servants rumor mill, watch etc). I'd prefer to handle it ourselves, no outsourcing.

6) Middle-class informant network. Probably the best way is to go through guilds and societies.

7) Halfings. Don't know how to approach them, honestly, but they are perceptive and numerous.

Might I suggest getting our hooks in on the local bounty hunters, those guys could be useful.

In_lurk_shadow · Jan 30, 2018

[X] veekie

Ian Drash · Jan 30, 2018

vsh said:
How I see our future information network parts and their respective heads:

7) Halfings. Don't know how to approach them, honestly, but they are perceptive and numerous.

Most Stirlanders dislike halflings quite intensly, and the history between Stirland and the Moot is checkered at best. Halflings should be treated as foreign agents for the most part, because their loyalty is generally to the Moot. I'm not saying they can't be recruired on an individual basis, but it is risky and for every new halfling loyalty will be suspect even if never plan to do anything against the Moot.

vsh · Jan 30, 2018

Ian Drash said:
Most Stirlanders dislike halflings quite intensly, and the history between Stirland and the Moot is checkered at best. Halflings should be treated as foreign agents for the most part, because their loyalty is generally to the Moot. I'm not saying they can't be recruired on an individual basis, but it is risky and for every new halfling loyalty will be suspect even if never plan to do anything against the Moot.

We have mutual adversaries in, eh, Eastern Stirland, so there's that.

TimEd · Jan 30, 2018

Yeah might have been bad if he jus upped and walked away. Maybe he's a thrall? Still human but mindcontrolled would be great spies.

Or maybe just a chaos worshiper of some sort

LilyWitch · Jan 30, 2018

vsh said:
We have mutual adversaries in, eh, Eastern Stirland, so there's that.

The enemy of my enemy is still the enemy of my enemy. Nothing more and nothing less. Sylvania has been a threat to the whole empire multiple times before but every time they've been cowed the Empire gets right back to infighting.

TimEd said:
Yeah might have been bad if he jus upped and walked away. Maybe he's a thrall? Still human but mindcontrolled would be great spies.

Or maybe just a chaos worshiper of some sort

Vampire servants, in Warhammer, don't have any special powers unless they are necromancers or vampires themselves.

TimEd · Jan 30, 2018

So he is either a chaos worshiper which sucks, or a legit Vanila Human Super Spy from somewhere else. Maybe from the empire or neighbors or smarter vamps?

ShadowNic94 · Jan 30, 2018

[X] veekie

Exmorri · Jan 30, 2018

For this interlude:
[x] veekie
It seems like the kind of thing swordmage the brave would do. Gather your party and explore the ~~dungeon~~ castle.

BoneyM said:
"Mainly, I'm checking up on the candidates to replace the previous Marshal. I don't suppose you could save me the work?"
"And what kind of teacher would I be if I did that? Go, do your investigating, then come back to me and I'll tell you if you missed anything important."

Did he not tell us, or was it just nothing important? Because after that part of the update Mathilde goes back to networking with the Watch and the villages and checking the castle staff.

And thinking ahead a bit:

BoneyM said:
-[ ] There's a vacuum where a dozen trade guilds should be. Found one of your own, and let information and profits flow through you, and see what the Stirlandian League does about it. (warning: expensive, will need Van Hal or Wilhelmina to sign off on it)

Let's raise this proposal at the next council meeting so we know their opinions on it before we dedicate an action to the attempt.

While we're at it, what other proposals should Mathilde raise at the council meeting?
Enchantment-Laboratory probably has a better chance than Palace-Shrine to get funding, or at least being able to put it on our operations budget rather than personal wealth.
We need loyal subordinates we can delegate tasks and time to, maybe one of the other councilors or Champion Markus can put forward some names.

veekie · Jan 30, 2018

Theres an intermediate possibility of human under mind control prompted frenzy?

Alliterate · Jan 30, 2018

Alliterate said:
We're dual class Mage 3/Thief 1, by now. All bases covered.

Now I think of it, Matilda seems to be going for the rarely seen Shadow Mage/Rogue Agent/Great Weapon Fighter/Luck Cleric quad-class combo.

Hopefully it's some weird power gamer build that pays off at high level.

veekie · Jan 30, 2018

Exmorri said:
Let's raise this proposal at the next council meeting so we know their opinions on it before we dedicate an action to the attempt.

It looks easier than it is. We're not an exceptional businesswoman so expect big losses.

Personally I think we leave the mercantile side to people who actually have the skills. We can leverage the thieves in a comparable role better

Exmorri · Jan 30, 2018

veekie said:
It looks easier than it is. We're not an exceptional businesswoman so expect big losses.

Personally I think we leave the mercantile side to people who actually have the skills. We can leverage the thieves in a comparable role better

I'm not disagreeing, I was just expecting that Mathilde could own it not run it? Insofar as owning a chartered proto-organization is a thing in this age, anyway.

x0Nothing0x · Jan 30, 2018

[X] veekie

Theunderbolt · Jan 30, 2018

[X] veekie

Boney · Jan 30, 2018

PotentialPlateau said:
@BoneyM
I have three questions
1.) Does Mathilde suspect the culprit is non-human in some way? The comments about "inhuman speed" and "the thing that just tried to kill you" might suggest so, or they might just be a poetic turn of phrase.

2.) If so, how obvious is it that the culprit is non-human? Is it clear now that he's dead, or does he still look entirely human?

3.)

Just one t of curiosity, what would've happened if we hadn't added Ranald's Blessing?

1.) There's definitely something up. 'Inhuman' was not just a pretty turn of phrase - as soon as he noticed that Mathilde wasn't buying his lies, he was moving faster than a human should be able to.

2.) The parts of him not demolished by a sudden encounter with a greatsword still looks human.

3.) Comedy option:

Actually, though, appreciate having two functional hands the same way instead of one normal hand and one withered and arthritic claw of a woman approaching a century in age.

Exmorri said:
Did he not tell us, or was it just nothing important? Because after that part of the update Mathilde goes back to networking with the Watch and the villages and checking the castle staff.

Mathilde was sick and tired of big cities, so went straight from Nuln to Wurtbad. If she hadn't gotten dirt on all three candidates, though, she would have checked back in.

TotallyNotEvil · Jan 30, 2018

BoneyM said:
[TEMPTING RANALD: Breakpoints 30/60, Learning, Ranald's Blessing 11+13+20=44. Ranald's got your back.]

Very glad I insisted on Ranald's Blessing here.

BoneyM said:
REGIMAND'S EXAMINATION. Roll, Learning, 92+18=110. This is why he is the Master.]

Regimand is best master.

Guile said:
There's no choice, lads.

We're going to have to strip off the full-body wizard robe. Just this once. For the good of the city.

Then we need to go find Van Hal immediately, and let nature take its course.

You mean we should burst in his room wearing nothing but Mage-lingerie, thigh-high boots, blood splatter and a big fucking sword?

BoneyM said:
Yes.

Oh, the public will certainly be pleased by it.

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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