Barnes
Laughing on the outside, laughing on the inside
- Location
- Definetly not my parent's basement
We should be good; the runes are all on the backside of the buckle anyways.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
We should be good; the runes are all on the backside of the buckle anyways.
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
The way I understand it, it's basically the equivalent of Einstein's personal research notes. Except in this case, Einstein is evil and magical so it's dedicated entirely to nuclear bombs and other super-weapons which is why it's banned. But even if the book teaches you how to make nuclear bombs, there is a certain amount of atomic theory that can be learned as well.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think I'm getting the picture. We can't learn from it by using it as a pure instruction manual, but my studying the mechanics and collating it to our own knowledge and most importantly NOT using it for its intended purpose (Dhar) we can still potentially gain something from the building blocks it presents without damning ourselves, especially now that we have the belt. Because to manipulate Dhar with another Wind, you still have to know a LOT about said individual Winds, and magic in general.
I mean, the purest hearted Sigmarites can apparently read it, and we have at least similar protection.
I admit the idea of a quest with us learning to harness Dhar with Ulgu and creating a new type of magic like Nagash did sounds pretty cool, but...even discounting the fact Nagash was a gigantic monstrous asshole even before he was really corrupted, it's probably gonna end up with us as a monster. And we've done so much for good that it just would hurt to become a monster.
I mean, the purest hearted Sigmarites can apparently read it, and we have at least similar protection.
I admit the idea of a quest with us learning to harness Dhar with Ulgu and creating a new type of magic like Nagash did sounds pretty cool, but...even discounting the fact Nagash was a gigantic monstrous asshole even before he was really corrupted, it's probably gonna end up with us as a monster. And we've done so much for good that it just would hurt to become a monster.
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- Location
- Aotearoa
The belt is valuable enough that investigating the possibility we could create an 'over-belt sleeve' enchanted with Eye of the Beholder to appear worthless is a good idea.
I mean, it would probably just burst into flames, but it would be worth a go. (@BoneyM any initial thoughts? Right out, or needs researching? - the ideal being to disguise the belt without it's runic operation being affected)
If you think the Grand Theogonist is the purest-hearted Sigmarite, I've an Indulgence to sell you...
We could probably learn an enormous amount about magical theory. The problem would be if anyone figured out where all our astounding leaps of understanding came from. That's an extra problem in the Grey Order, as we might not even remember the last time we were questioned.
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Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
Exactly, we've done something similar when we we created our Matrix. Besides, even if we did consider going the Nagash route, reading the book and actually understanding everything beforehand allows us to make a more informed decision.
- Location
- Brazil
That bit of paranoia is no longer a problem, we will know if they ever puled something like this on us because next time the interrogator will have a burning headache.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
For the uninitiated who joined late, I've heard of that before, but all I've gotten from it are, chicken mines (?) and that others Colleges can make their own variant. What is it?
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Quite.
It's worth noting that Warhammer Fantasy is in some ways less grimdark than its 40k analogue, in that the civilised factions of the world are not actually assailed by multiple competing existential threats. While the war against Chaos is endless and costly, that doesn't mean the victory of the Ruinous Powers is assured. There are heroes capable of beating back the old horrors, even slaying them outright.
As such, there is significantly less of a call for the Radical Inquisitor's outlook of using the weapons of the enemy against them. You don't actually need to harness malignant energies in order to more effectively oppose Chaos, and doing so isn't necessarily even going to pay off at all. Just look at the Skaven - yes, their warpstone technology can do great things, but it's also so unstable that it's a good thing they breed like rats, or they'd all have blown themselves up centuries ago.
- Location
- Aotearoa
And we will have some more, very pointed questions to answer.
Sharing setting trivia which may or may not be true in quest is not metagaming.
Feel an itch because he's completely immune to burning? Those runes are paired for a reason.
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Barnes
Laughing on the outside, laughing on the inside
- Location
- Definetly not my parent's basement
So I noticed this on Matty's character sheet:
I like Chain of Spite as a name, but I'm sure the thread could come up with something more fitting. With the Drakenhof mountain right on it, something related to Mathilde keeping her oath to Van Hal, or somehow echoing the sentiment of 'we changed the world we live in', would be poignant.
If we don't want to go for sentiment, Lava Buoy is a fun name.
I like Chain of Spite as a name, but I'm sure the thread could come up with something more fitting. With the Drakenhof mountain right on it, something related to Mathilde keeping her oath to Van Hal, or somehow echoing the sentiment of 'we changed the world we live in', would be poignant.
If we don't want to go for sentiment, Lava Buoy is a fun name.
- Location
- Aotearoa
A bunch of stuff on the Matrix.
Winning vote:
---
Forewarned by Van Hal's stern instruction to make you welcome, the Colonel in charge of the Leicheberg Swords stands still long enough to acknowledge your status and inform you that his men have been instructed to make you welcome and obey all reasonable requests, before hurrying off to see to the last minute arrangements of getting thousands of men back on the march. Having been posted in Steinbachthal and therefore out of the nexus of activity that Fort Redemption has become, the 4th are apparently still finding their feet - which may be why Van Hal is taking charge of them personally.
You get in touch with the members of your attaché, and have a look over the paperwork that has yet to be sent on its way to Wurtbad. The forms are proving their worth; the details are recorded while memories are still fresh, and instead of having to wonder whether vague reports of 'walking skeletons' could refer to the rare and dangerous wights, one only needs to refer to the entry for 'Colour of Glow of Eyes or Eye Sockets'. There's even inferences that can be drawn that didn't occur to you when you made the forms. The entries for 'armament' and 'substance said armament is formed from' reveals that the skeletons are wielding an eclectic mix of modern steel, older iron and much older bronze, which implies that the undead are not sourced from any one battlefield but rather the result of thousands of years of accumulated restless dead. Back in Wurtbad, Julia is probably working on an organizational system to index this information - you hadn't asked her to, but it's the sort of thing she does.
Hours later the army is finally ready to leave, and off they march at something of a relaxed stroll. You summon your shadowsteed and join the head of the column, where the General and four Colonels - part of an endless cloud of military men who's names you're glad you never have to learn - are planning the day's march, or as best they can with the map pinned over the horn of Van Hal's saddle and the wind doing its best to pluck the map free and carry it off. As far as you can tell, the full day's march will take the troops about as far as you could go in twenty minutes. You're starting to regret your decision to join the rank and file.
---
Two agonizingly dull days later, the army finally reached the bridge that lead to Naubonum. Another day of organizing later, and the army disintegrated; five companies stayed in place to maintain and guard the camp while twenty plunged into the hills to start performing their task. You pick the first one where nobody makes the sign of the hammer as you approach and introduce yourself to the Captain, who's name you honestly tried to remember, and the Lieutenant of the swords contingent of the company, who's name you might be able to remember if you thought about it for a moment. You also introduced yourself to the Knight of Morr that would be accompanying you, though of course you received no reply. And with that, fifty spearmen, twenty-five swordsmen, twenty-five crossbowmen, one Knight of Morr and a wizard ventured off into the hills, and it takes you less than an hour to realize the insurmountable problem that this campaign faces.
It is, unfortunately, not one you are qualified to solve. The cause of these seemingly regenerating undead is not mystical, but geographical. You had pictured softly rolling hills, covered in grass, perhaps of a sickly colour due to the Sylvanian atmosphere. Instead the landscape is jagged, like it had been sliced apart by some enormous blade, and covered in impenetrable scrub and unnaturally still lakes and fathomless caves.
The Leichebergian troops, native to these lands, are happy to share with you an all-new vocabulary of the land they call the Wold. Combes, steep, narrow valleys without watercourse, almost always impassably filled with thorned scrub. Scarps, the sheer cliffs separating two otherwise level pieces of land, as if the land had been broken apart and then put back together off-center. Dew-ponds, artificial hilltop lakes built longer ago than man remembers, that somehow remain full without being fed by spring or river. Karst, the bizarrely smooth caves that absolutely riddle the hills. Doline, when the land atop the aforementioned caves has surrendered to the pull of gravity, creating enormous depressions like the impact of some unbelievably enormous missile - and, they warn, sometimes the land is just waiting to collapse in on a karst cave and form a doline, so never march in time atop the Wold.
And compounding the geographic terrors, there are the botanical ones. Mother-die, the horrifically-named tree that grows out rather than up, with soft white flowers and shiny red berries and jagged thorns as long as a man's hand. Spined Spurge, a sprawling climbing shrub with every stem festooned with barbed spines - they say that if a man dies touching a Spurge, it will envelop his corpse and never let it rise, which makes it popular among villages unsupervised by the Morrites. The Brambles, a variety of dense shrubs with tasty berries that can grow as fast as a man can walk, or so they say, and are - inevitably - covered in thorns.
They also speak of ancient tales, though none can agree if those that feature in them were the Fennone or the Asoborn - you privately theorize that it was both, and the Southern Stirlanders have always been a blend of Sylvanians and Stirlanders. The tale tells of hills covered in dense, choking woodland that jealously covered the sky so that nothing below could live, and how the people of prehistory fought it over generations with axe and saw until the forest was killed and life returned to the hills. For millennia the Wold was host to grass and grazers and shepherds, tamed and peaceful and quiet... until, of course, it became just one victim among countless others, when Sylvania fell to plague and beastman and necromancy in the time of Van Hal's infamous ancestor.
All very interesting in a bucolic sort of way, you suppose, but the end result is a land that can't be easily searched. Any given hour's walk will find an impassable cliff, an impenetrable valley, the entrance to a cave network of unmappable complexity, and acre after acre of dense, thorned scrubland. One doesn't clear such a land - one just marches back and forth along the few passable routes until they stop finding enemies to kill.
You wonder what Van Hal is going to make of all this.
---
Weeks pass atop the Wold. Each morning you emerge from your tent, cursing the late autumn chill, and try to find solace in the dawn mist. Each day you march, and you inevitably find something; usually skeletons, sometimes zombies, and once a wight, that might have broken up the monotony if your pistol shot, trailing Ulgu, hadn't punched right through it's skull and dispersed the fell magic holding it together. You have the opportunity to watch the forms you designed in action, and are pleased to see the diligence with which the officers fill them out, and the odd air of satisfaction with which they do so. As if performing a final tally of the dead - they're slain, they're given rites by the silent Knight, their details are taken down, and all the forms will be sent off to the capital all nice and neat and that's that undead beastie dealt with for good, nice and neat and official.
Only once did you or the Swords see proper combat, when you stumbled across the entrance to some vast underground chamber filled with milling dead. Without a good open battlefield to form neat units, the swords and spears stood side by side at the opening to the cave, and your pistol barked once before they were upon your lines, and your flamberge rose and fell in time with the swords of those at your side until finally no more emerged. Forty of them, all told, four of whom were slain by your hand; six injuries among the ranks of the living, none serious. Over the course of the month, you claim another dozen, all from pistol-shot and all just before the crossbows would have achieved the result anyway. The task at hand is thoroughly lacking in glory - if anything, it's a chore. A chore with a small but significant chance of getting you killed, and not even in any interesting, glorious way.
You're relieved when the month draws to an end and the army reassembles to head back to Fort Redemption before winter settles in.
---
Before fleeing to the comforts of home, you sat in on the council of war that convened in the usual council room at Fort Redemption. Van Hal was... well, if it was anyone else you'd say they were sulking. He had clearly been expecting some sort of horrible necromantic curse to unravel, and instead it was just a matter of geography.
Gustav had greater luck with his adventure; what was once the tallest peak in the western Wold is now very much not so, and he's quite pleased to add 'killing a mountain' to his list of deeds. The 'Blasphemy of Blood' had turned out to be some sort of bizarre cursed spring in a cave atop the peak. It burbled blood-red water, which local vermin drank and drank and drank from, growing bloated and sloshing, and the only thing they thirsted for more than the liquid of the spring was the true blood that ran in the veins of men. Sadly for the creatures, it turns out that in this case water does not beat fire, and Deathfang had dealt with most of their population in a single contemptuous exhalation. The problem of what to do with the spring was puzzling for a while, and then he'd apparently decided that thinking was for other people and decided to hit it until it went away, and to do that he had roped in the 3rd Division and their siege train. For three weeks boulders the size of cows had been flung at the peak, and though at first it just caused the cursed spring to overflow it's pool and run down in a crimson waterfall, he'd persevered until one day, finally, against all reason, the waterfall ran clear.
He produced a flask of water, which he'd said the chaplains had already inspected; you give it a close examination, but there's absolutely nothing to indicate it's anything but completely normal water. You're slightly annoyed that 'hit it until it stops doing evil magic stuff' has proven effective even against inanimate objects.
---
It is the aptly-named Kaldezeit and you are incredibly glad to be back in Wurtbad, and especially Wurtbad's hot springs. Once a vibrant tourist attraction, the misrule of the Haupt-Anderssens had rendered them little more than a local luxury, but such a luxury they were. You idly consider the possibility of getting one piped in to your buried palace.
Once you get that out of your system, you check in with Jack, who appears to be settling in quite well to his position - he's been taciturn about his previous experience and the Watchmen have, understandably, reached the conclusion that he's a former spy. You check in with Julia, who's busily distilling thousands of freshly filled-out forms from the front into usable information. You check in with the printers, who assure you that they'll get to it when they get to it and to please stop breathing down their necks about your elf story; the scribe you hired for the three properly scribed copies says something similar. Then, satisfied that everything is ticking over nicely without you, you turn to magical experimentation. With your memory of the lattice of Dhar that had ensorcelled the infiltrators refreshed, you try your damnedest to adapt it for Ulgu. It's a great deal trickier than you first thought; it could be said to be similar to trying to achieve with ice what someone else had done with water, except magic has ten forms instead of the three of matter. Dhar has an inherent tendency to degenerate, so your hope is that the same trick done with Ulgu will lack the tendency to break down and unleash the held effect; but Dhar also has a tendency to stick to people, where Ulgu does not.
Weeks pass in experimentation. Theory turned to practice, and now a corner of your spare room has been fenced off and is now the temporary home of a half-dozen chickens. On a piece of wood you've set up as a workbench, one has been sent to Sleep while you hunch over it, weaving Ulgu into it's tiny feathered frame. You've been at it for hours, and this is the third time you've tried today - over in the pen one chicken is clucking distressingly as fog spills from its beak, and another is confusedly preening it's newly-grey feathers. It's like trying to build a spiderweb inside of a soap-bubble, and then building a model ship inside the spiderweb. The framework for the spell is built inside the physical body of the creature - without, obviously, being able to physically interact with where the metaphysical framework is being built - and then the spell needs to be cast inside that framework. It is, in short, hideously fiddly.
Finally, finally, it is done. You pull away from the chicken with your breath held, and observe. The spell is there, glowing softly to those with the eyes to see, but frozen as if in amber at the moment of culmination.
You shift in your seat, a little awkwardly. There was really only one suitable spell for testing this - Drop would rarely have an effect on a chicken and as for Mindhole, how did you even tell if a chicken remembered you? So the spell you had woven inside the chicken was Sleep.
You poke it, gingerly, your breath held and watching for any sign of destablization from the lattice inside the bird. But it holds firm even as it stirs, and then it takes one look at you and dashes off the surface of the bench, flapping its way to the floor as it clucks in distress.
"Test," you say, and the chicken continues scampering away from you. "Balderdash." Still nothing untoward; it apparently decides the distance is now safe and starts scratching at the floor. "Danoi," you say, and the chicken instantly collapses forwards onto it's feathered breast, eyes closed.
You step forward and pick up the bird gingerly, examining it closely. Sure enough, the spell that had been held within it was gone, the once-frozen magic having fulfilled its purpose and dispersed. But, to your surprise, the framework that once held the spell remains. Interesting. And potentially useful.
You once again begin weaving Ulgu into the hapless bird.
[Bound Spell research: 93+17+10 (Ranald's Blessing)=120.]
---
Pistol proficiency acquired!
'Bound Spells' adapted for Ulgu.
Jack settling in to the Watch - 'free' Watch action will be available after next turn.
70g spent on books - 10g for personal copies, 40g for printing plates for the books, 20g for the initial print run
---
PLAN FOR THIS PURGE TURN
ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIONS - pick NONE. For reference only, as actions can be taken as Personal Actions.
Information Network -pick ONE (no action expenditure required):
[ ] Expand your information network into another province (choose one)
[ ] Expand your information network into another county or barony (choose one)
[ ] Expand your information network into the military (choose a Division)
[ ] Expand your Intelligence Attaché program to another Division (choose one)
[ ] Off the Leash: Let Julia handle the network without your micromanagement from now on.
Information Network finances - can be chosen INSTEAD of a selection from the above.
[ ] Attaché Paperwork: The Intelligence Attachés are your biggest expense by far - see if you can have them paid for by the Army of Stirland instead.
[ ] Fixer: Work with the Wurtbad Thieves Guild, supplying them information in exchange for a portion of profits.
[ ] Special Branch: Pull some financial trickery to get the information network classified as part of the Watch, so that their costs are covered by the Stirlandian treasury.
[ ] Trade Delegation: Convince Wilhelmina and Markus to partner your network with the EIC based on the value of market information.
Stirland Watch -pick ONE (no action expenditure required):
[o] Expand the ranks of the Watch, so that they're able to start covering even the poorer parts of their covered area. (cannot be taken until army retirement resumes in one year)
[ ] Expand the Special Branch into areas already covered by the Watch, so you have an additional pool of manpower you can call upon to supplement the full-time Watchmen.
[ ] Improve the training of the Watch, hiring trainers and dedicating paid time each week to sharpening skills.
[ ] Integrate the Roadwarden network of covered areas into the Watch.
[ ] Headhunt administrators from other organizations in Stirland.
---
PERSONAL ACTIONS - CHOOSE BETWEEN TWO AND THREE. ANY CHOSEN BEYOND THE FIRST TWO WILL COME WITH RISKS - PLEASE SPECIFY THE 'ADDITIONAL' TASK:
Genießt den Krieg - join the divisions entering Sylvania:
[o] Attach yourself to the general staff, so you can be present for anything interesting that might happen and keep a finger on the pulse of the war. (army is bunked down for the winter)
[o] Attach yourself to a specific regiment so you can spend some time in the thick of things. (army is bunked down for the winter)
[ ] By all accounts the entire general vicinity it was in has been pulverized, but there could be a shadow of a ghost of a chance that something might remain of the Blasphemy of Blood that could be studied? Maybe? (NEW)
Miscellany:
[ ] Financial Jargon: Everything with the EIC flew right over your head last time. Try again. Succeeding here will mean that you can take a more active hand in the company, adding it to the organizational actions; failing or not attempting means Mathilde will remain a silent partner.
[ ] Hang Out A Shingle: Spymasters don't advertise, but wizards sometimes do. Make an official announcement that there's a wizard in residence, and see who comes out of the woodwork.
[ ] Formal Proposal: Your idea for an undead research team was received poorly, but Van Hal is still open to the idea in theory. Write in details: Name, who it is technically a part of (Watch, Witch Hunters, Military, College, none), and whether it reports directly to you (becomes a new Organization you command) or, if not, who it would report to.
[ ] Gun Shopping: You're currently using a pistol that was a spare for the pistoliers. Visit Nuln to upgrade. (Choose: dueling pistols for accuracy and range, repeater pistols for weight of fire, dragons for hand shotguns. Choose: whether you will acquire and use two pistols at once or keep one hand free.)
[ ] Write up a proposal for Wilhelmina to approve a short-term increase in Discretionary Income, for the duration of the crisis.
Self-Improvement: Things have been going well so far, but the skills of a Journeyman Grey Mage can only go so far.
[ ] Practice, Practice, Practice: Having been thrown into the deep end of imperial politics, it would probably be a good idea to brush up on your skills and internalize the lessons you've learned (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective if you've used the trait a lot lately).
[ ] Tutoring: One of your fellow councillors may be willing to teach you in their chosen field (choose who; can choose which, or you can let them decide).
[ ] Really Good Swords: You have achieved proficiency with the Greatsword. Future progress is possible, though it will take more effort to see results.
[ ] Combat Training: You're virtually surrounded by armed warriors of various sorts. See if you can convince one to teach you (choose who).
[ ] Combat Training, In The Free Market: You haven't made many heavily armed friends yet, but gold is good for that. Go out and buy some training. (-personal gold)
[ ] Enchantment: You're naturally talented at enchantment; so far, this just amounts to being able to make your desk meow for about an hour. See if you can improve on that, or at least figure out a way to make that useful.
Home Comforts: Your Palace-Shrine is bursting with potential. And also mud.
[ ] Diggy Diggy Hole, Remixed: You're getting sick of having workmen tramping in and out of your abode. Recruit an entire team and personally oversee them to clear out all of the reachable portions of the Palace-Shrine and be done with it. (-personal gold)
[ ] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
[ ] Filled with Potential: You've got a room cleared out and ready to be put to use. Decide what you're going to put there and get started on equipping it. (write in the purpose of the room)
Research:
[ ] Undead Research: You know the basics, now. Perhaps a great deal of effort will allow you to advance further.
[ ] Snooping: Van Hal gave you a key to his Study. It's been a while since he's been in Wurtbad; he probably forgot he did so, and won't remember until he returns. And he didn't specifically say not to poke around and see what you could find.
[ ] Shyish-kebabs: The Shyish swords are hideously dangerous as weapons, but fascinating as a subject of study. Try to reverse-engineer the lost enchantments woven into them.
[ ] Publish Or Perish, Part 1: Though it's currently of limited utility to you personally, sharing your discovery might bring it to the attention of hundreds of wizards who could put it to great effect. Though before you do that, you'll need to learn the vocabulary to communicate exactly what it is you're doing, since you can't exactly submit the poor chicken as part of your paper. (NEW)
[ ] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got two gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
[ ] Qhaysh Skunkworks: It would take careful study to unlock the secrets of the liquid. It would take considerably less time to find out if it can be made to burn, or explode, or do something militarily useful.
[ ] As a Journeywoman, the path to Magister is marked by mastering more than the two shadow spells you already know. Send to the Grey Order for the basics and work on figuring out one of the others.
Influence:
[ ] Thieves Guild: It's currently little more than a church group, albeit of a very unconventional god. If it could be expanded under your aegis, it could be a powerful tool.
[ ] Biderhof: This village based on woodcutting and agriculture, has adopted you as one of it's own. Maybe you should adopt it as your own, in a literal sense.
[ ] Non-Thief Guilds: Wurtbad, like all major cities, is home to a number of guilds. Reach out to them and enforce your will.
Relations:
[ ] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
[ ] Getting To Know You Whether You Like It Or Not: You've been given good reason to mistrust your fellow councillors. Perhaps you should see what they spent their time doing (choose one).
[ ] Letters Home: You might be able to wring more information out of your Master, or you might just be able to get news, information and guidance in general from the Grey Order.
[o] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (not possible during Purge Turns)
- Finance details will be at the end of the next Purge Turn.
- Don't forget Ranald's Blessing.
- Any questions you have about the undead statistics, ask - though keep it general, because I'm not going to calculate and detail exact casualty figures.
- Before anyone tries - no, you can't wield a greatsword in one hand and a pistol in the other and get a total of +6 martial.
Winning vote:
---
Forewarned by Van Hal's stern instruction to make you welcome, the Colonel in charge of the Leicheberg Swords stands still long enough to acknowledge your status and inform you that his men have been instructed to make you welcome and obey all reasonable requests, before hurrying off to see to the last minute arrangements of getting thousands of men back on the march. Having been posted in Steinbachthal and therefore out of the nexus of activity that Fort Redemption has become, the 4th are apparently still finding their feet - which may be why Van Hal is taking charge of them personally.
You get in touch with the members of your attaché, and have a look over the paperwork that has yet to be sent on its way to Wurtbad. The forms are proving their worth; the details are recorded while memories are still fresh, and instead of having to wonder whether vague reports of 'walking skeletons' could refer to the rare and dangerous wights, one only needs to refer to the entry for 'Colour of Glow of Eyes or Eye Sockets'. There's even inferences that can be drawn that didn't occur to you when you made the forms. The entries for 'armament' and 'substance said armament is formed from' reveals that the skeletons are wielding an eclectic mix of modern steel, older iron and much older bronze, which implies that the undead are not sourced from any one battlefield but rather the result of thousands of years of accumulated restless dead. Back in Wurtbad, Julia is probably working on an organizational system to index this information - you hadn't asked her to, but it's the sort of thing she does.
Hours later the army is finally ready to leave, and off they march at something of a relaxed stroll. You summon your shadowsteed and join the head of the column, where the General and four Colonels - part of an endless cloud of military men who's names you're glad you never have to learn - are planning the day's march, or as best they can with the map pinned over the horn of Van Hal's saddle and the wind doing its best to pluck the map free and carry it off. As far as you can tell, the full day's march will take the troops about as far as you could go in twenty minutes. You're starting to regret your decision to join the rank and file.
---
Two agonizingly dull days later, the army finally reached the bridge that lead to Naubonum. Another day of organizing later, and the army disintegrated; five companies stayed in place to maintain and guard the camp while twenty plunged into the hills to start performing their task. You pick the first one where nobody makes the sign of the hammer as you approach and introduce yourself to the Captain, who's name you honestly tried to remember, and the Lieutenant of the swords contingent of the company, who's name you might be able to remember if you thought about it for a moment. You also introduced yourself to the Knight of Morr that would be accompanying you, though of course you received no reply. And with that, fifty spearmen, twenty-five swordsmen, twenty-five crossbowmen, one Knight of Morr and a wizard ventured off into the hills, and it takes you less than an hour to realize the insurmountable problem that this campaign faces.
It is, unfortunately, not one you are qualified to solve. The cause of these seemingly regenerating undead is not mystical, but geographical. You had pictured softly rolling hills, covered in grass, perhaps of a sickly colour due to the Sylvanian atmosphere. Instead the landscape is jagged, like it had been sliced apart by some enormous blade, and covered in impenetrable scrub and unnaturally still lakes and fathomless caves.
The Leichebergian troops, native to these lands, are happy to share with you an all-new vocabulary of the land they call the Wold. Combes, steep, narrow valleys without watercourse, almost always impassably filled with thorned scrub. Scarps, the sheer cliffs separating two otherwise level pieces of land, as if the land had been broken apart and then put back together off-center. Dew-ponds, artificial hilltop lakes built longer ago than man remembers, that somehow remain full without being fed by spring or river. Karst, the bizarrely smooth caves that absolutely riddle the hills. Doline, when the land atop the aforementioned caves has surrendered to the pull of gravity, creating enormous depressions like the impact of some unbelievably enormous missile - and, they warn, sometimes the land is just waiting to collapse in on a karst cave and form a doline, so never march in time atop the Wold.
And compounding the geographic terrors, there are the botanical ones. Mother-die, the horrifically-named tree that grows out rather than up, with soft white flowers and shiny red berries and jagged thorns as long as a man's hand. Spined Spurge, a sprawling climbing shrub with every stem festooned with barbed spines - they say that if a man dies touching a Spurge, it will envelop his corpse and never let it rise, which makes it popular among villages unsupervised by the Morrites. The Brambles, a variety of dense shrubs with tasty berries that can grow as fast as a man can walk, or so they say, and are - inevitably - covered in thorns.
They also speak of ancient tales, though none can agree if those that feature in them were the Fennone or the Asoborn - you privately theorize that it was both, and the Southern Stirlanders have always been a blend of Sylvanians and Stirlanders. The tale tells of hills covered in dense, choking woodland that jealously covered the sky so that nothing below could live, and how the people of prehistory fought it over generations with axe and saw until the forest was killed and life returned to the hills. For millennia the Wold was host to grass and grazers and shepherds, tamed and peaceful and quiet... until, of course, it became just one victim among countless others, when Sylvania fell to plague and beastman and necromancy in the time of Van Hal's infamous ancestor.
All very interesting in a bucolic sort of way, you suppose, but the end result is a land that can't be easily searched. Any given hour's walk will find an impassable cliff, an impenetrable valley, the entrance to a cave network of unmappable complexity, and acre after acre of dense, thorned scrubland. One doesn't clear such a land - one just marches back and forth along the few passable routes until they stop finding enemies to kill.
You wonder what Van Hal is going to make of all this.
---
Weeks pass atop the Wold. Each morning you emerge from your tent, cursing the late autumn chill, and try to find solace in the dawn mist. Each day you march, and you inevitably find something; usually skeletons, sometimes zombies, and once a wight, that might have broken up the monotony if your pistol shot, trailing Ulgu, hadn't punched right through it's skull and dispersed the fell magic holding it together. You have the opportunity to watch the forms you designed in action, and are pleased to see the diligence with which the officers fill them out, and the odd air of satisfaction with which they do so. As if performing a final tally of the dead - they're slain, they're given rites by the silent Knight, their details are taken down, and all the forms will be sent off to the capital all nice and neat and that's that undead beastie dealt with for good, nice and neat and official.
Only once did you or the Swords see proper combat, when you stumbled across the entrance to some vast underground chamber filled with milling dead. Without a good open battlefield to form neat units, the swords and spears stood side by side at the opening to the cave, and your pistol barked once before they were upon your lines, and your flamberge rose and fell in time with the swords of those at your side until finally no more emerged. Forty of them, all told, four of whom were slain by your hand; six injuries among the ranks of the living, none serious. Over the course of the month, you claim another dozen, all from pistol-shot and all just before the crossbows would have achieved the result anyway. The task at hand is thoroughly lacking in glory - if anything, it's a chore. A chore with a small but significant chance of getting you killed, and not even in any interesting, glorious way.
You're relieved when the month draws to an end and the army reassembles to head back to Fort Redemption before winter settles in.
---
Before fleeing to the comforts of home, you sat in on the council of war that convened in the usual council room at Fort Redemption. Van Hal was... well, if it was anyone else you'd say they were sulking. He had clearly been expecting some sort of horrible necromantic curse to unravel, and instead it was just a matter of geography.
Gustav had greater luck with his adventure; what was once the tallest peak in the western Wold is now very much not so, and he's quite pleased to add 'killing a mountain' to his list of deeds. The 'Blasphemy of Blood' had turned out to be some sort of bizarre cursed spring in a cave atop the peak. It burbled blood-red water, which local vermin drank and drank and drank from, growing bloated and sloshing, and the only thing they thirsted for more than the liquid of the spring was the true blood that ran in the veins of men. Sadly for the creatures, it turns out that in this case water does not beat fire, and Deathfang had dealt with most of their population in a single contemptuous exhalation. The problem of what to do with the spring was puzzling for a while, and then he'd apparently decided that thinking was for other people and decided to hit it until it went away, and to do that he had roped in the 3rd Division and their siege train. For three weeks boulders the size of cows had been flung at the peak, and though at first it just caused the cursed spring to overflow it's pool and run down in a crimson waterfall, he'd persevered until one day, finally, against all reason, the waterfall ran clear.
He produced a flask of water, which he'd said the chaplains had already inspected; you give it a close examination, but there's absolutely nothing to indicate it's anything but completely normal water. You're slightly annoyed that 'hit it until it stops doing evil magic stuff' has proven effective even against inanimate objects.
---
It is the aptly-named Kaldezeit and you are incredibly glad to be back in Wurtbad, and especially Wurtbad's hot springs. Once a vibrant tourist attraction, the misrule of the Haupt-Anderssens had rendered them little more than a local luxury, but such a luxury they were. You idly consider the possibility of getting one piped in to your buried palace.
Once you get that out of your system, you check in with Jack, who appears to be settling in quite well to his position - he's been taciturn about his previous experience and the Watchmen have, understandably, reached the conclusion that he's a former spy. You check in with Julia, who's busily distilling thousands of freshly filled-out forms from the front into usable information. You check in with the printers, who assure you that they'll get to it when they get to it and to please stop breathing down their necks about your elf story; the scribe you hired for the three properly scribed copies says something similar. Then, satisfied that everything is ticking over nicely without you, you turn to magical experimentation. With your memory of the lattice of Dhar that had ensorcelled the infiltrators refreshed, you try your damnedest to adapt it for Ulgu. It's a great deal trickier than you first thought; it could be said to be similar to trying to achieve with ice what someone else had done with water, except magic has ten forms instead of the three of matter. Dhar has an inherent tendency to degenerate, so your hope is that the same trick done with Ulgu will lack the tendency to break down and unleash the held effect; but Dhar also has a tendency to stick to people, where Ulgu does not.
Weeks pass in experimentation. Theory turned to practice, and now a corner of your spare room has been fenced off and is now the temporary home of a half-dozen chickens. On a piece of wood you've set up as a workbench, one has been sent to Sleep while you hunch over it, weaving Ulgu into it's tiny feathered frame. You've been at it for hours, and this is the third time you've tried today - over in the pen one chicken is clucking distressingly as fog spills from its beak, and another is confusedly preening it's newly-grey feathers. It's like trying to build a spiderweb inside of a soap-bubble, and then building a model ship inside the spiderweb. The framework for the spell is built inside the physical body of the creature - without, obviously, being able to physically interact with where the metaphysical framework is being built - and then the spell needs to be cast inside that framework. It is, in short, hideously fiddly.
Finally, finally, it is done. You pull away from the chicken with your breath held, and observe. The spell is there, glowing softly to those with the eyes to see, but frozen as if in amber at the moment of culmination.
You shift in your seat, a little awkwardly. There was really only one suitable spell for testing this - Drop would rarely have an effect on a chicken and as for Mindhole, how did you even tell if a chicken remembered you? So the spell you had woven inside the chicken was Sleep.
You poke it, gingerly, your breath held and watching for any sign of destablization from the lattice inside the bird. But it holds firm even as it stirs, and then it takes one look at you and dashes off the surface of the bench, flapping its way to the floor as it clucks in distress.
"Test," you say, and the chicken continues scampering away from you. "Balderdash." Still nothing untoward; it apparently decides the distance is now safe and starts scratching at the floor. "Danoi," you say, and the chicken instantly collapses forwards onto it's feathered breast, eyes closed.
You step forward and pick up the bird gingerly, examining it closely. Sure enough, the spell that had been held within it was gone, the once-frozen magic having fulfilled its purpose and dispersed. But, to your surprise, the framework that once held the spell remains. Interesting. And potentially useful.
You once again begin weaving Ulgu into the hapless bird.
[Bound Spell research: 93+17+10 (Ranald's Blessing)=120.]
---
Pistol proficiency acquired!
'Bound Spells' adapted for Ulgu.
Jack settling in to the Watch - 'free' Watch action will be available after next turn.
70g spent on books - 10g for personal copies, 40g for printing plates for the books, 20g for the initial print run
---
PLAN FOR THIS PURGE TURN
ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIONS - pick NONE. For reference only, as actions can be taken as Personal Actions.
Information Network -pick ONE (no action expenditure required):
[ ] Expand your information network into another province (choose one)
[ ] Expand your information network into another county or barony (choose one)
[ ] Expand your information network into the military (choose a Division)
[ ] Expand your Intelligence Attaché program to another Division (choose one)
[ ] Off the Leash: Let Julia handle the network without your micromanagement from now on.
Information Network finances - can be chosen INSTEAD of a selection from the above.
[ ] Attaché Paperwork: The Intelligence Attachés are your biggest expense by far - see if you can have them paid for by the Army of Stirland instead.
[ ] Fixer: Work with the Wurtbad Thieves Guild, supplying them information in exchange for a portion of profits.
[ ] Special Branch: Pull some financial trickery to get the information network classified as part of the Watch, so that their costs are covered by the Stirlandian treasury.
[ ] Trade Delegation: Convince Wilhelmina and Markus to partner your network with the EIC based on the value of market information.
Stirland Watch -pick ONE (no action expenditure required):
[o] Expand the ranks of the Watch, so that they're able to start covering even the poorer parts of their covered area. (cannot be taken until army retirement resumes in one year)
[ ] Expand the Special Branch into areas already covered by the Watch, so you have an additional pool of manpower you can call upon to supplement the full-time Watchmen.
[ ] Improve the training of the Watch, hiring trainers and dedicating paid time each week to sharpening skills.
[ ] Integrate the Roadwarden network of covered areas into the Watch.
[ ] Headhunt administrators from other organizations in Stirland.
---
PERSONAL ACTIONS - CHOOSE BETWEEN TWO AND THREE. ANY CHOSEN BEYOND THE FIRST TWO WILL COME WITH RISKS - PLEASE SPECIFY THE 'ADDITIONAL' TASK:
Genießt den Krieg - join the divisions entering Sylvania:
[o] Attach yourself to the general staff, so you can be present for anything interesting that might happen and keep a finger on the pulse of the war. (army is bunked down for the winter)
[o] Attach yourself to a specific regiment so you can spend some time in the thick of things. (army is bunked down for the winter)
[ ] By all accounts the entire general vicinity it was in has been pulverized, but there could be a shadow of a ghost of a chance that something might remain of the Blasphemy of Blood that could be studied? Maybe? (NEW)
Miscellany:
[ ] Financial Jargon: Everything with the EIC flew right over your head last time. Try again. Succeeding here will mean that you can take a more active hand in the company, adding it to the organizational actions; failing or not attempting means Mathilde will remain a silent partner.
[ ] Hang Out A Shingle: Spymasters don't advertise, but wizards sometimes do. Make an official announcement that there's a wizard in residence, and see who comes out of the woodwork.
[ ] Formal Proposal: Your idea for an undead research team was received poorly, but Van Hal is still open to the idea in theory. Write in details: Name, who it is technically a part of (Watch, Witch Hunters, Military, College, none), and whether it reports directly to you (becomes a new Organization you command) or, if not, who it would report to.
[ ] Gun Shopping: You're currently using a pistol that was a spare for the pistoliers. Visit Nuln to upgrade. (Choose: dueling pistols for accuracy and range, repeater pistols for weight of fire, dragons for hand shotguns. Choose: whether you will acquire and use two pistols at once or keep one hand free.)
[ ] Write up a proposal for Wilhelmina to approve a short-term increase in Discretionary Income, for the duration of the crisis.
Self-Improvement: Things have been going well so far, but the skills of a Journeyman Grey Mage can only go so far.
[ ] Practice, Practice, Practice: Having been thrown into the deep end of imperial politics, it would probably be a good idea to brush up on your skills and internalize the lessons you've learned (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective if you've used the trait a lot lately).
[ ] Tutoring: One of your fellow councillors may be willing to teach you in their chosen field (choose who; can choose which, or you can let them decide).
[ ] Really Good Swords: You have achieved proficiency with the Greatsword. Future progress is possible, though it will take more effort to see results.
[ ] Combat Training: You're virtually surrounded by armed warriors of various sorts. See if you can convince one to teach you (choose who).
[ ] Combat Training, In The Free Market: You haven't made many heavily armed friends yet, but gold is good for that. Go out and buy some training. (-personal gold)
[ ] Enchantment: You're naturally talented at enchantment; so far, this just amounts to being able to make your desk meow for about an hour. See if you can improve on that, or at least figure out a way to make that useful.
Home Comforts: Your Palace-Shrine is bursting with potential. And also mud.
[ ] Diggy Diggy Hole, Remixed: You're getting sick of having workmen tramping in and out of your abode. Recruit an entire team and personally oversee them to clear out all of the reachable portions of the Palace-Shrine and be done with it. (-personal gold)
[ ] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
[ ] Filled with Potential: You've got a room cleared out and ready to be put to use. Decide what you're going to put there and get started on equipping it. (write in the purpose of the room)
Research:
[ ] Undead Research: You know the basics, now. Perhaps a great deal of effort will allow you to advance further.
[ ] Snooping: Van Hal gave you a key to his Study. It's been a while since he's been in Wurtbad; he probably forgot he did so, and won't remember until he returns. And he didn't specifically say not to poke around and see what you could find.
[ ] Shyish-kebabs: The Shyish swords are hideously dangerous as weapons, but fascinating as a subject of study. Try to reverse-engineer the lost enchantments woven into them.
[ ] Publish Or Perish, Part 1: Though it's currently of limited utility to you personally, sharing your discovery might bring it to the attention of hundreds of wizards who could put it to great effect. Though before you do that, you'll need to learn the vocabulary to communicate exactly what it is you're doing, since you can't exactly submit the poor chicken as part of your paper. (NEW)
[ ] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got two gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
[ ] Qhaysh Skunkworks: It would take careful study to unlock the secrets of the liquid. It would take considerably less time to find out if it can be made to burn, or explode, or do something militarily useful.
[ ] As a Journeywoman, the path to Magister is marked by mastering more than the two shadow spells you already know. Send to the Grey Order for the basics and work on figuring out one of the others.
Influence:
[ ] Thieves Guild: It's currently little more than a church group, albeit of a very unconventional god. If it could be expanded under your aegis, it could be a powerful tool.
[ ] Biderhof: This village based on woodcutting and agriculture, has adopted you as one of it's own. Maybe you should adopt it as your own, in a literal sense.
[ ] Non-Thief Guilds: Wurtbad, like all major cities, is home to a number of guilds. Reach out to them and enforce your will.
Relations:
[ ] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
[ ] Getting To Know You Whether You Like It Or Not: You've been given good reason to mistrust your fellow councillors. Perhaps you should see what they spent their time doing (choose one).
[ ] Letters Home: You might be able to wring more information out of your Master, or you might just be able to get news, information and guidance in general from the Grey Order.
[o] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (not possible during Purge Turns)
- Finance details will be at the end of the next Purge Turn.
- Don't forget Ranald's Blessing.
- Any questions you have about the undead statistics, ask - though keep it general, because I'm not going to calculate and detail exact casualty figures.
- Before anyone tries - no, you can't wield a greatsword in one hand and a pistol in the other and get a total of +6 martial.
- Location
- Aotearoa
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
Fun fact about lava; you can't swim in it. It's molten rock, even heated to squishiness you'd still have to be denser than basalt in order to sink.
We would run on it instead.
We would run on it instead.
Mathilde's Mystical Matrix is a way to hold a spell that could normally be cast on a person or animal in stasis until triggered. It was originally used as a sort of dead man's switch on infiltrators working for a Sylvanian vampire/necromancer/troublemaker (you never did find out what her deal was) that turned them into raging berserkers if they didn't get the matrix maintained by a spellcaster every few days, because the Dhar would corrode. Mathilde adapted it to work with Ulgu, bypassing the time limitation, and it's currently being adapted by other Colleges for use with their Winds; it served as her Masterpiece for her graduation to Magister.
I've added it to an 'Academic Discoveries' section of the character sheet.
I've added it to an 'Academic Discoveries' section of the character sheet.
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Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
Mathilde's Matrix is basically a magic technique we kind of invented that lets us implant spells into living beings that can be activated later. We first encountered it as a Dhar spell used by Sylvanian vampires on spies that they were using who we caught. After some time we managed to reverse engineer an Ulgu variant and basically did a thesis on it.
There are several limitations to the effect and it interacts with different spells differently. My understanding of the rules is that the spell literally activates inside the subject, so if it's a spell you use on someone else like a buff, it's generally fine but if you use something like a fireball, it'll literally cause the fireball to appear inside the subject. If it's a personal spell, the effect varies but we know shadowsteed causes the subject to explode but actually summons a usable steed. The spells can activate when the target is dead, startled or something like that and IIRC Chicken mine thing was basically an idea to put a spell on the chicken and throw it at an army.
It takes half an hour or something to set up one of these and we can't use it on magical beings like a familiar or mage because it has a chance to be disrupted by their magic or corrupted into Dhar. It's also possible for other winds to make their own variant by studying what we did.
EDIT: So late.
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Also IIRC one of the Ulgu arcane marks grant another +1 Magic.
So pretty much finish the standard spellbook, get a Staff and collect a few more Arcane Marks(mind you this is super risky given some of the Marks being nasty ass things)
The Matrix is based off a vampire necromancer's work, where they bind a necromantic spell inside a target, which goes off when the target either dies, spends a week without having it renewed, or hits a trigger condition. The necromancer is a veritable genius, considering they managed to make it work using the least stable form of magic.
Mathilde studied it, then, now aware of the possibility of binding spells inside people, worked on a more stable Ulgu version of it, then published it, skipping the steps of dangerous experiments that are as likely to blow up the caster as not(which the vampire original inventor, of course, got around by being a vampire and not subject to corruption, as well as being able to regenerate anything blown off).
After this, she wrote a paper explaining how it works with Ulgu, allowing the other Colleges to convert the process to work with their own wind.
This is also what the guy planning on studying Skaven warmachines plans on. Hes going to look at the stupidly unstable, warpstone powered war machines, and figure out the principles of how they work, then see about developing a stable version that runs on Power Stones or for the sufficiently ambitious, one of Teclis' balls(you know, like the Luminark of Hysh). This skips the dangerous experiments part of the research as likely to blow up the inventor as not(which the original inventors got around by being Skaven and thus too insane and too replacable to care)
Then he's probably going to write a paper which might allow enchanters from the other colleges to replicate the effect.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
I believe you're thinking of the Mark which gives +10% to Channeling checks in WFRP. That would probably be translated into the mechanics of this system as a Learning instead of Magic bonus.
[X] Ulthar's Rangers and Petrescu's marksmen are ranging far to ensure that any greenskin that claps eyes on the Expedition don't live to tell the tale. Assist them.
[X] Ask him to teach Johann to Dispel.
[X] Help Esbern teach Seija to Dispel.
[X] Purchase the strange Lustrian eggs (200 gc).
[X] Purchase the Helldrake scales (100 gc).
[X] Do not purchase the title of a Border Princess.
[X] Ask him to teach Johann to Dispel.
[X] Help Esbern teach Seija to Dispel.
[X] Purchase the strange Lustrian eggs (200 gc).
[X] Purchase the Helldrake scales (100 gc).
[X] Do not purchase the title of a Border Princess.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Power Stones? I know about Teclis' Orbs of Sorcery, but what are Power Stones?
Winds of magic condensed to gem like objects. It was a class available at school to make them.
Compressing a strand of a wind of magic until it solidifies. It can then be used as a power source in magical artifacts and enchantments or to help supercharge battle magic. It's at minimum a month-long process for even the most powerful and skilled of Wizard Lords. Ulgu power stones are called 'Crystal Mist'.
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- Location
- Russia
Only Frederick Van Hal wasn't evil. Story goes like that - several millennia ago Nagash, The Great Necromancer (who was evil) penned his 9 books of Nagash in the distant land of Nehekhara (fantasy Egypt), the most definitive treatise on Necromancy. In the 1100s IC (couple thousand years after Nagash) Skaven engineered a horrible super-plague and invaded the Empire. When they were advancing on Stirland, Frederick Van Hal, ruler of Sylvania (baron or count, but not EC of the whole Stirland apparently), was visited by mysterious "prince Vladimir" (it was totally Vlad Carstein), who gave him Books of Nagash (or at least their translated copies). Desperate for some sort of defense against Skaven, Frederick studied the books and distilled them into his own work - Liber Mortis, the foundation of all modern necromancy. His hordes of undead ground Skaven offensive to a halt and weakened them enough for Emperor Mandred Skavenslayer to win. Sylvania became that fucked-up mess of undead and necromancers only after Frederick was assassinated by his asshole of an apprentice, who was much more typical necromancer - amoral and power-hungry (which was probably "Vladimir"'s plan all along).
As to the Liber Mortis' power (and knowledge contained in it) - during one of the Vampire wars Grand Theogonist (presumably lacking any previous training in necromancy or arcane magic in general due to being a priest) recited Great Spell of Unbinding from a copy of the book and totally fucked up whole undead army. We have original and we are a mage.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
So I see...What the difference, as far as we can be told/aware, between them and Teclis' Orbs of Sorcery?