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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BoneyM said:
No, she's just gonna Kramer right in unarmed and unarmoured and be like 'sup, bunch of my buddies are gonna be coming through here soon, here's the exact date, that cool with you?'

Yes, she will take precautions.
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Alratan said:
What woman? A lone great and mighty spellcasting chaos champion coming down from the north to see if the wider world has thrown up anything that can challenge him perhaps, or a terrible daemonsmith of the Dawi-Zharr coming north to enslave yet more daemons into a mechanism of black iron and brass/ Mot a woman.
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It was mostly a rhetorical question, but still a pretty stupid one in hindsight. In my defense... I am a bit of an idiot sometimes.
 
DragonParadox said:
I'm pretty sure raising inteligent undead is rather beyond Mathilde at this point
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How are you sure about any of Mathilde's limits when she hasn't tested any of them? We know that the Liber Mortis makes even weaksauce apprentice necromancers into army-level threats, so I don't think Mathilde is that low level.

See, this is why I wanted to get our necromancy experimentation done before we needed it, it would avoid situations like this.

Though given that necromancy refers to Divination using the spirits of the dead I doubt getting information out of them would be too hard.
 
Personally, my approach here might be to illusion our self up as a chaos sorcerer, then walk into a camp, challenge their boss, kill him, and tell the rest that we're now in charge. We then use them to gather the intelligence we need, before murdering them all in their sleep afterwards.
 
I am utterly charmed with the notion of pretending to be a Chaos Sorcerer who treats with Chaos Dwarves and is attempting to bully these lesser servants of Chaos into giving us information. We even have a relevant Skill to bluff our bona fides:
BoneyM said:
Chaos: You know how to avoid - or to invite - the attentions of the Chaos Gods, and of the curses and blessings they gift and inflict.
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So yeah, I say we go for it.
 
I really hope Boney's just happily preparing the bait and switch of expectations and this Van Horstmann is a paragon of everything the colleges stand for.
 
Doomed Wombat said:
I really hope Boney's just happily preparing the bait and switch of expectations and this Van Horstmann is a paragon of everything the colleges stand for.
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But he knows that we know that he hates metagaming, so maybe we'll expect Van Horstmann to be a sincerely helpful and loyal fellow, and so the real subversion of expectations would be to double reverse psychology and have him be just as evil as in canon! :thonk:
 
The real bait and switch would be Horstmann being a Ciaphas Cain like figure, currently preoccupied with finding a way of talking Alric out of sending him to the Chaos Wastes, and worried that the Grey Magister in the expedition will expose him as the fraud he is.
 
It's actually a shame we went scouting before making the robes or finishing the Fog Path spell.

It might have been fun to lead a Chaos Marauder warband for a month to gather information and raise merry hell on the steppes.

Edit: We can even openly and honestly declare our self as the Champion of a God of trickery and lies. It's their fault if they don't realise that we're deceiving by telling the truth.
 
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BoneyM said:
"If you had asked me a decade earlier, I would have said yes," he eventually says. "Karak Azul as it was then could have lasted without me, should the worst happen. But now, my priority needs to be maintaining my Karak's renewed connection with the Karaz Ankor. Should your Karak come under threat, my Anvil and my Apprentices must stand ready to defend them, and we cannot do that if we are journeying in the frozen north, or never return from doing so."
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Entirely reasonable and commendably long sighted.

the full authority of King Belegar Ironhammer, King Ungrim Ironfist, and the delegated authority of King Thangrim Firebeard
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Titles!
Titles open more doors than any amount of lockpicks.

And that you didn't immediately mentally question that light made marble transparent, and that you mentally described the light as 'ethereal' rather than 'garish', rather suggests that your initial reaction of awe was not entirely natural.
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I find it exceedingly worrying that the Light College throws mind-control around so freely as to use it for decoration.

But he kept going, apparently on sheer inertia, and apparently had sufficiently recovered from his shame to retake the position of Supreme Patriarch in 2439, and then lost it in '47, then regained it again in '55. In recent years he's been alternating leadership of the Light College with part-time Supreme Matriarch Mira, and from the outside it's not clear if it's an arrangement to take pressure off failing faculties or if leadership is being wrested back and forth like two dogs with a bone, but either way it bodes poorly for the Light College.
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Academic political bickering with (non-lethal) Klingon Promotion. This is why smart wizards spend as little time in Altdorf as possible.

A single Magister.
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…Mathilde is 'a single magister'.

You smile at the question. If the preparations for the Karak Eight Peaks Expedition taught you anything, it's that success breeds success. Nobody wants to be the first one to volunteer, but nobody wants to be last, either. "Karak Kadrin's supplying the Dwarves and gold, Zhufbar the expertise, Karak Azul the Runes, and Karak Eight Peaks is supplying Wizards - we have four Magisters confirmed so far - as well as having reached an accord with the Ice Witches of Kislev to guarantee that High Pass will be open. A substantial portion of the Winter Wolves have also joined, and the Expedition has reached an accord with the mercenary Asarnil."
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o_O Pretty sure she told the wolf boys not to bring too many people.
For that matter why is she not telling this guy the same? A hundred men and kittybirds effectively doubles the size, and thus logistical and organisational nightmare, of the expedition.

The biggest problem is likely to be navigation, as once the mountains on the edge of the steppe disappear into the distance, the only way to tell direction is the sun and the only way to tell distance travelled is the passage of time.
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…or you can have a Wizard point the permanent north-south wind and just count wheel rotations.

Should you be content with what you've uncovered so far and what a few flights overhead might reveal, or should you seek to make very cautious contact with the locals?
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Given we have yet to learn anything remotely worth the AP we should most certainly go poke the locals. At worst we get to slaughter some chaos worshipers.

So to summarise:
No runesmiths.
One wizard.
Too many kittybirds.
And our scouting has found that the only problems were pre-solved the moment any wizard joined the expedition.

The dice were not kind today.
 
picklepikkl said:
I am utterly charmed with the notion of pretending to be a Chaos Sorcerer who treats with Chaos Dwarves and is attempting to bully these lesser servants of Chaos into giving us information. We even have a relevant Skill to bluff our bona fides:

So yeah, I say we go for it.
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... Remind me again, do we have our Coin set to Protector, and if not do we have time to switch it before long?

Because this is a prime opportunity to establish a fake persona as a helpful Chaos( Dhar) Sorcerer( User) and I am absolutely here for it.
 
BoneyM said:
Should your Karak come under threat, my Anvil and my Apprentices must stand ready to defend them, and we cannot do that if we are journeying in the frozen north, or never return from doing so." You open your mouth to thank him for his time anyway, but stop yourself as you notice he's still lost in thought. "However," he eventually says, "I can contribute in some small part to the preparations. I shall send my most promising Apprentices to assist Karak Kadrin in outfitting the Expedition."
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Better than nothing, but not enough. In the next purchase turn, I will be voting to spend dwarf favor for "hiring" a runesmith for the expedition.

It would cost 8 favor right?

I get where Thorek is coming from, but it's an overly conservative and an utterly dwarf perspective.

Any single of his apprentices can do a lot more good at Karak Dum than in K8P that's already being defended by Thorek, Kragg, The Earth Elemental and a frickin' deity.

BoneyM said:
"Mmm. Much as I would like to join such an adventure, I fear the Light College requires my leadership too much. Instead, I will send with you the greatest assistance it is in my power to give: my former apprentice, Magister Egrimm van Horstmann. He has been a stalwart assistant of mine in internal matters, but I am sure I could spare him for a few months."
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Ugh, I hate this design choice from a quest pov, and furthermore it's not even an unexpected "twist".

It's too poisoned by the colective meta knowledge to ever be satisfactory.

Really unhappy with it.
 
Alratan said:
I wonder if we can commission devices based on powerstones to make the process of drawing on the high altitude Winds safer.

This may be where we really want to bring some AV along to release at critical moments.
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The problem is too much magic. Adding more magic is unlikely to help.

Horium said:
Ugh, I hate this design choice from a quest pov, and furthermore it's not even an unexpected "twist".

It's too poisoned by the colective meta knowledge to ever be satisfactory.

Really unhappy with it.
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That's a strong judgement about a character that has not even personally appeared yet. I'd appreciate being given at least a chance to make it work.
 
BoneyM said:
The problem is too much magic. Adding more magic is unlikely to help.
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I was thinking of devices like the Runic conduits for draining and transferring magic around that we're built into some of our towers, assuming they could be built only to slow controlled amounts of magic through the 'pipe' at once.

Runes can repel magic, so I thought they might be able to repel magic above a calibrated threshold.
 
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The real question is: Does he believe he's been set up to be assassinated in the Wastes? :p

It's not every day your Patriarch suddenly tells you to go to the Chaos Wastes together with the totally trustworthy Grey Wizard.
It's not like the last Light Magister didn't come back... Oh Wait!.. :V
 
BoneyM said:
Magister Patriarch Alric is the kind of person best described with 'was' instead
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This is an absolutely fantastic line. Beautiful.
BoneyM said:
a massive pyramid of pure-white marble so filled with ethereal light as to be transparent. And that you didn't immediately mentally question that light made marble transparent, and that you mentally described the light as 'ethereal' rather than 'garish', rather suggests that your initial reaction of awe was not entirely natural. You scowl up at the towering display of magical puissance- No. You refuse. You glare upwards at the overgrown caltrop and dare it to insert any more purple prose into your internal monologue.
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I really like this bit of Mathilde telling the pyramid to screw with someone else, not one of the wizards specialised in twisty mentality.
BoneyM said:
Karak Eight Peaks is supplying Wizards
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-said the Loremaster.
I hate how this works.
-said every dwarf who reconquered something with the help of supplied wizards.
DragonParadox said:
Actually they had two magisters, it's just that one was playing journeyman to shrink his responsibility.
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I know, but the public and, more importantly the dwarfs, don't.
 
BoneyM said:
The problem is too much magic. Adding more magic is unlikely to help.
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I wonder if runes could help? We know runes can sweep all the magic out of somewhere, could they moderate the intake?

Note that I'm not really expecting this to be something we can miniaturize to the point of making and item, just curious if the dwarfs could build a tower of 'less magic' or say an altar.

Edit: Mathilde'd
 
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picklepikkl said:
But he knows that we know that he hates metagaming, so maybe we'll expect Van Horstmann to be a sincerely helpful and loyal fellow, and so the real subversion of expectations would be to double reverse psychology and have him be just as evil as in canon! :thonk:
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Aye, that seems likely :D

Clearly the correct response is to scream out of character :p

BoneyM said:
That's a strong judgement about a character that has not even personally appeared yet. I'd appreciate being given at least a chance to make it work.
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I'm just glad you preemptively declared the book he's had non canon, having done a quick summary read it seems...ehhh how do you say like how they decided to make Archaeon in the new version.

AKA requiring a lot more idiot balls than required.

Otherwise yeah, this is me (at least) jokin around and I am interested to see how this universe Van Horstmann's like, since I assume we'd have heard of him if he was as big a mega prodigy as he was in canon (unless we did hear about him and I'm just completely oblivious.)
 
LightLan said:
The real question is: Does he believe he's been set up to be assassinated in the Wastes? :p

It's not every day your Patriarch suddenly tells you to go to the Chaos Wastes together with the totally trustworthy Grey Wizard.
It's not like the last Light Magister didn't come back... Oh Wait!.. :V
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Not just the Light College too, the Shyish Magister Patriarch vanished then as well!
 
I'm curious how often nominally Order aligned traders (from Kislev or the Empire) voluntarily pay tolls and tariffs to the Chaos Dwarves, or even visit Uzkulak. And if the Chaos Dwarves haven't constructed literal toll booths on various points of the Skull Road then I really don't understand how they think and why they do what they do.
 
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