Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[chocolote12]

I mean he made a weapon combining the power of the ancestor gods and umgi wizardry. that s a kick-flip high enough to clear the peak of Karag Nar, but well he is a Kragg therefore cannot be radical.

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That does seem to make sense, yeah. We designed the thing, but he was the one who felt like Runecraft had a place in our mountain-weaponizing army annihilator.

Just like all the Traditionalists calling Mathilde Court Wizard to pretend they haven't got a human Loremaster

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Have they been? I hadn't noticed.

 

[BeepSmile]

Digimon adventure

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Digimon season 3 (Tamers) was some hardcore shit, proper heavy stuff. I watched it all, when I was 14-ish, and tried again when I was 24.

There were many elements that I no longer enjoy - the 'childish' comedic bits bored me, but the core of it - the themes and messages, the various character arcs; that story became a part of me in ways that I can not measure - and I had forgotten that it was one of the causes of who I am. Thank you for the reminder.

I'll come out with my point: Someone make a Digimon Tamers thread and @ me so that I can read other people's posts about it.

Do itttttttttt

 

[Garlak]

That does seem to make sense, yeah. We designed the thing, but he was the one who felt like Runecraft had a place in our mountain-weaponizing army annihilator.

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To be fair, Thorek and the Karak Azul Runesmiths also contributed. Forging the actual 'sword' that would reach from the top of the mountain to the bottom. And making sure that no Chamon made its way into that metal, to allow it to serve as a proper conductor. (Well, maybe not Thorek purely directly exactly, as he didn't get himself involved into the design and invention of the project, but... he corralled the Karak Azul Runesmiths into working on the metal megaproject.)

Although I suppose this could be one example of the Guild (and Guild masters?) deciding to go along with the project?

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

Just like all the Traditionalists calling Mathilde Court Wizard to pretend they haven't got a human Loremaster

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I wonder how that discussion went.

What's more radical, a brand new position or an Umgi in a traditional position? Creating a new one wouldn't offend the traditional position, so maybe that.

But what if that position is for Karak's Official Zhufokri? That sounds even more radical than letting a human occupy a traditional post.

But them being a Zhufokri regardless, wouldn't that mean it loops back to them occupying an old position being even more radical?

The grumblings are still ongoing. Expect a resolution in one to three business decades.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

As the next turn will be coming soonish, i figure we might want to discuss what we're actually going to do.

Iirc we have an over work action available so

Robes + Coin
Scouting
Pall of darkness
Recruiting (Damsels+rune smiths) or Sword Style
Fog spell

I don't think there's anything here for a CF expenditure.

For the purchase round I'd suggest we go with

20 CF Aqshy (AOE fire damage to clear an area of enemies, man portable.)

 

[LightLan]

For the purchase round I'd suggest we go with

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Rune our pistols

 

[lentil]

It's kind of not related to anything, but I just realized that Mathilde literally had the snake fight portion of her thesis defense.

FAQ: The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense

Q: Do I have to kill the snake? A: University guidelines state that you have to “defeat” the snake. There are many ways to accomplish this. Lots o...

www.mcsweeneys.net

 

[CornyBones]

A confounding factor for the CK2 comparisons is that this isn't exactly a CK2 quest, it's taking place within a CK2 quest - first Abelhelm's, now Belegar's. This means that the main focus can be on a single aspect of managing the realm instead of needing to be split five or six ways, as well as making it a much more personal story, rather than the story being as much about the realm as it is about the character. I think that's lead me to stumbling into a sweet spot where I have fans of CK2 quests and fans of narrative quests both coming at this from different direction and finding something they like.

Relatedly, having an initially inexperienced protagonist is an advantage for letting people jump aboard with no prior knowledge instead of them being thrown right onto a throne. To quote David Eddings, 'a dumb hero is the perfect hero, because he hasn't the faintest idea of what's going on, and in explaining things to him, the writer explains them to his reader'. An Elector Count doesn't have time to be dumb because the stakes are too high, but Mathilde had time to skulk about Eagle Castle searching for secret passages, and to get into a tussle with a zombie.

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When I started reading this quest, I had no idea what an Elector Count was. Much less what Warhammer Fantasy was about. I just knew there was a tiny flegling spy mage, and she was working in the county that had a undead problem. Its been quite the experience.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

I wonder how that discussion went.

What's more radical, a brand new position or an Umgi in a traditional position? Creating a new one wouldn't offend the traditional position, so maybe that.

But what if that position is for Karak's Official Zhufokri? That sounds even more radical than letting a human occupy a traditional post.

But them being a Zhufokri regardless, wouldn't that mean it loops back to them occupying a new position being even more radical?

The grumblings are still ongoing. Expect a resolution in one to three business decades.

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I do believe 'Court Wizard' would be the compromise in this argument.

it's distastefully untraditional for a wizard in a dwarven court, but at least they are in their historically traditional role.

 

[Exmorri]

I wonder how that discussion went.

What's more radical, a brand new position or an Umgi in a traditional position? Creating a new one wouldn't offend the traditional position, so maybe that.

But what if that position is for Karak's Official Zhufokri? That sounds even more radical than letting a human occupy a traditional post.

But them being a Zhufokri regardless, wouldn't that mean it loops back to them occupying a new position being even more radical?

The grumblings are still ongoing. Expect a resolution in one to three business decades.

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And on the flipside:

What's the less grumble-inducing option, hiring a human to be responsible for magical miscellany in a Dwarf Karak, or hiring a dwarf to be responsible for magical miscellany in a Dwarf Karak?

Because there clearly is magical miscellany going on and having nobody responsible for it is, well, irresponsible.

Ideally (for dwarfs) I imagine Kragg would glare disapprovingly at such things and they'd fade away from his incredibly antimagic presence. ಠ_ಠ But Kragg can't be everywhere at once, so allowances must be made.

 

[NSMS]

Depends how the Guild leadership takes it. If they fall in line, it could gain official approval. If they don't like it, it's a matter of 'Living Ancestors can do what they want, but everyone else has to do what we say'. But most often it would have everyone pretending not to notice the radicalness. Dwarven society leans heavily on a lot of things going unspoken.

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How was his work with the Eye seen? Or would be seen, if his part isn't generally known?

 

[picklepikkl]

Robes + Coin
Scouting
Pall of darkness
Recruiting (Damsels+rune smiths) or Sword Style
Fog spell
...
For the purchase round I'd suggest we go with

20 CF Aqshy (AOE fire damage to clear an area of enemies, man portable.)

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I agree with this general outline and suspect the winning plan will be crowded with variants thereof. My personal take on the specifics:

• Robes + Coin
• Scout Steppes
• Recruit Runesmiths + Light Wizards
• Fog spell + Melkoth
• See through Pall of Darkness

The "a bit of everything" approach gives us flexibility in our T33: we can use it to scout, we can use it to finish the fog spell if we don't get it this turn, we can use it to train the branulhune sword style, we can use it to train an arcane mark, we can spend 1 AP to join the expedition in Praag instead of at High Pass. Lots of possibilities.

I like the "fire damage to clear an area of enemies" wording; it makes it clear what the tactical role is.

 

[Boney]

How was his work with the Eye seen? Or would be seen, if his part isn't generally known?

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The details weren't generally known until its first major deployment. After that, well, there's no wrong way to kill a Waaagh*.

* With an unspoken list of provisos because there's actually a lot of wrong ways to kill a Waaagh if you really put your mind to it.

 

[Abhorsen]

Somebody, I forgot who, sorry, suggested using AV to buy asking Kara Dum runesmiths what the hell happened. This definitely seems worth it.

 

[Saidoro]

As the next turn will be coming soonish, i figure we might want to discuss what we're actually going to do.

Iirc we have an over work action available so

Robes + Coin
Scouting
Pall of darkness
Recruiting (Damsels+rune smiths) or Sword Style
Fog spell

I don't think there's anything here for a CF expenditure.

For the purchase round I'd suggest we go with

20 CF Aqshy (AOE fire damage to clear an area of enemies, man portable.)

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I'd probably go for sword style + recruiting instead of pall + either, but otherwise that seems reasonable. Runesmiths are the last people we really need to recruit I think, and damsels aren't a bad add on.

Here's a thought I just had though: Recruit translators. Having one or two extra people along who can talk to the Kurgans or understand the hobgoblins would be useful and not that expensive. It's not as good as learning them ourselves obviously, but much much cheaper. I'm not sure if this has been proposed previously, nor if this is actually something we'd be able to find people for but it could be handy.

 

[Garlak]

Just like all the Traditionalists calling Mathilde Court Wizard to pretend they haven't got a human Loremaster

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... Actually, I think this is backwards: Mathilde's position is the Loremaster. So they call her Loremaster.

The 'court wizard' is a descriptor and would probably have been what a human ruler would have named her position such. But we're the Loremaster.

I do believe 'Court Wizard' would be the compromise in this argument.

it's distastefully untraditional for a wizard in a dwarven court, but at least they are in their historically traditional role.

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There's no compromise, nor is there a 'but at least they are in their historically traditional role' thing, she's just the Loremaster and so gets called that, simple and clear. (Though she's also a Thane too.)



I actually went and searched BoneyM's posts for "Loremaster" and "court wizard", and court wizard actually doesn't appear very often. And not very often in updates either. Loremaster is way more commonly appearing in the thread, and updates, however.

Mathilde being a human yet Loremaster, is less weird than creating an entirely new position and naming it Court Wizard. So it's probably way more palatable to have a Human Loremaster, than a Human Court Wizard for a Karak.

EDIT:

I agree with this general outline and suspect the winning plan will be crowded with variants thereof. My personal take on the specifics:

• Robes + Coin
• Scout Steppes
• Recruit Runesmiths + Light Wizards
• Fog spell + Melkoth
• See through Pall of Darkness

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What about the idea of putting the Coin on the Fog Path? Decided that in the end it's better to spend 10 CF on Melkoth, whereas the Robes probably don't have something so convenient and so get the Coin?

I figure that the Fog Path spell should get the Coin, because we risk not being able to complete it, whereas the robes... well they'd be really nice, but we already have robes. And (unless we roll horribly) we'd be guaranteed to complete it anyway, just with the roll. The Coin is purely for hoping for a crit on the robes. The Fog Path though is sort of a necessity; we won't know if we can finish it.

EDIT 2: Or, alternatively, we put the Coin on a Scout Action. That's something we're uncertain about and aren't sure what effect it'll have, so having a great roll could be useful. Though... it's only one scout action. Drat. What I would give for having 2 more turns... Instead, the time crunch feels very very real.

 

[T_of_A]

* With an unspoken list of provisos because there's actually a lot of wrong ways to kill a Waaagh if you really put your mind to it.

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Omegahugger sits back down, disappointed.

You know, I wonder if they'd be unhappy if we killed a Waaagh with enough bound apparitions to count as a small daemon army?
Our soul is probably too small to staple more than a few demons Apparitions to it, but the idea is amusing.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

There's no wrong way to kill a Waaagh*.

* With an unspoken list of provisos because there's actually a lot of wrong ways to kill a Waaagh if you really put your mind to it.

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1: 10 million tubs of ice-cream.
2: raising a bigger Waaagh to kill the Waaagh.

 

[Briefvoice]

As the next turn will be coming soonish, i figure we might want to discuss what we're actually going to do.

Iirc we have an over work action available so

Robes + Coin
Scouting
Pall of darkness
Recruiting (Damsels+rune smiths) or Sword Style
Fog spell

I don't think there's anything here for a CF expenditure.

For the purchase round I'd suggest we go with

20 CF Aqshy (AOE fire damage to clear an area of enemies, man portable.)

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My thoughts:

I still see no IC reason for Mathilde to randomly run out and try to recruit Damsels, but I do want the Runesmiths. I object to you picking that action as the either/or with Sword Style. Recruiting runesmiths is higher importance than many of these other options. If anything, I think Pall of Darkness is either/or with Sword Style.

I would also argue that we should put the coin on the Fog Path spell, not the robes. The fact of the matter is that if the Robes fail... it's just not that big a deal in the immediate future. The spell will be of more utility. Also, we can get the Artificer to help with at least the Robes for 5 CF.

What part of the route are your proposing to apply the Scouting action to?

After Boney's comments about how being outnumbered will always be a threat, I think there's no reason for Mathilde to get an enchanted item that lets her be a half-ass fire mage once per adventure. I'd prefer some utility item, preferably one she creates herself, to fill that slot.

 

[picklepikkl]

Somebody, I forgot who, sorry, suggested using AV to buy asking Kara Dum runesmiths what the hell happened. This definitely seems worth it.

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Garlak did, and then I dug up the suggestion and floated it again.

... Hm. Wait. I wonder if we can use Aethyric Vitae-granted Dwarf Favor, to buy Karaz Ankor Runesmith expertise on telling us stuff about Karag Dum?

Effectively this would be something like..., using AV to buy specialized hero-level instruction on what is up with Karag Dum, I think. Basically, use AV Favor to get the Runesmiths to start talking about. Is that a viable option, @BoneyM?

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As long as it's paid for in AV, yes.

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@BoneyM, since you're around: would this be something we buy in the purchase round, or would it be a nonstandard Training Action taken during the regular turn (and consequently costing AP)? I can convince myself of either option -- it's information that is communicable in a single conversation and our role in setting it up might consist of "give Thorek some snake juice and let him know that we'd appreciate a briefing" (making it like a standard Dwarf Favour purchase), but alternately it might consist of flying out to meet people and other logistical hassle and on the meta level involves you writing more words than a standard purchase round involves (making it more like a standard action). So I would like to check.

 

[Boney]

Garlak did, and then I dug up the suggestion and floated it again.


@BoneyM, since you're around: would this be something we buy in the purchase round, or would it be a nonstandard Training Action taken during the regular turn (and consequently costing AP)? I can convince myself of either option -- it's information that is communicable in a single conversation and our role in setting it up might consist of "give Thorek some snake juice and let him know that we'd appreciate a briefing" (making it like a standard Dwarf Favour purchase), but alternately it might consist of flying out to meet people and other logistical hassle and on the meta level involves you writing more words than a standard purchase round involves (making it more like a standard action). So I would like to check.

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Do it in a purchase round for just the information, doing it as part of a turn to also get a Piety skill for Thungni lore.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Garlak did, and then I dug up the suggestion and floated it again.


@BoneyM, since you're around: would this be something we buy in the purchase round, or would it be a nonstandard Training Action taken during the regular turn (and consequently costing AP)? I can convince myself of either option -- it's information that is communicable in a single conversation and our role in setting it up might consist of "give Thorek some snake juice and let him know that we'd appreciate a briefing" (making it like a standard Dwarf Favour purchase), but alternately it might consist of flying out to meet people and other logistical hassle and on the meta level involves you writing more words than a standard purchase round involves (making it more like a standard action). So I would like to check.

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not boney, But i would see it as a branch of Dip actions were we plan to bribe information out of someone. so under AP actions rather then buy actions.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Do it in a purchase round for just the information, doing it as part of a turn to also get a Piety skill for Thungni lore.

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Ohhh, lore for the most secret of mystery cults in the setting...

Tempting.

 

[Garlak]

After Boney's comments about how being outnumbered will always be a threat, I think there's no reason for Mathilde to get an enchanted item that lets her be a half-ass fire mage once per adventure. I'd prefer some utility item, preferably one she creates herself, to fill that slot.

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Yeah put like that, I definitely want to have the 3rd Activated Item slot reserved for an 'Oh Shit' magic item trinket. Something that saves our butts, whether through invisibility and teleporting, or whatever method.

Well that, or, we replace the Hysh Candle.

 

[picklepikkl]

Do it in a purchase round for just the information, doing it as part of a turn to also get a Piety skill for Thungni lore.

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Awesome, thanks!

...sadly, while I did vote for the "you are open to worshiping the dwarf Ancestor-Gods" trait back after Waaagh Birdmuncha as part of my long-term plan to have Mathilde become one eventually, it didn't win, so Piety skills for Thungni are less important than they might otherwise be. So yeah, this is definitely something we should do during this purchase round, and big ups to @Garlak for thinking of it.

What about the idea of putting the Coin on the Fog Path? Decided that in the end it's better to spend 10 CF on Melkoth, whereas the Robes probably don't have something so convenient and so get the Coin?

I figure that the Fog Path spell should get the Coin, because we risk not being able to complete it, whereas the robes... well they'd be really nice, but we already have robes. And (unless we roll horribly) we'd be guaranteed to complete it anyway, just with the roll. The Coin is purely for hoping for a crit on the robes. The Fog Path though is sort of a necessity; we won't know if we can finish it.

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I would also argue that we should put the coin on the Fog Path spell, not the robes. The fact of the matter is that if the Robes fail... it's just not that big a deal in the immediate future. The spell will be of more utility. Also, we can get the Artificer to help with at least the Robes for 5 CF.

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This is fair. It's really hard to weigh the value of the Coin bonus; do we want to stack it onto something that we definitely need to succeed, but which already has help, or do we want to spread it out and try to get lucky with two big deal things in the same turn? There's no easy answer, alas, since we're working with a lot of unknown unknowns.