Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Glau]

I'd like to say that the logic for dwarves likely being alive in a few hours goes double for tracking the bandits.

First, it's already been hours. The bandits are gone, the trail is as cold as it is going to get in the short term. Anything that is still there now is still going to be there in the light.

Second, trying to follow a trail runs the total of messing it up. If we go by traces of winds and race after then, we are likely to destroy footprints, break plants, splash water on things- basically make it impossible for the people after us to tell anything except that Mathilde went this way. Which is really, really had of you lose the trail and have to try and backtrack to see where you missed a turn.

Finally, there is a good chance of goblin attack before the throng can arrive. I'd prefer to be here, available, and not miles and miles away solo on the dark.

 

[Skelo]

[X] Try to track the bandits

We are pretty much the Dawi equivalent of Danzo. We were hired to do what Dawi can't; and it's night time. Acquire the crucial piece of information.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

We have WoG that the trail is getting ever colder.

The more lead they have, the farther away they can be, the better they can disguise their tracks, the bigger the chance they find settlements or rivers to get lost in.

We have to do everything we can to reduce the chance this thing gets aimed the wrong way.

 

[Axel Fones]

[] Try to track the bandits

Uuuuuuugh I suppose we can trust all the other dwarves to be capable of breaking into a ship and getting people out, even if it takes longer than our method. We're really the only option to immediately start tracking the bandits down.

edit: Alright fine I've been convinced.
[X] Use Substance of Shadow to check the wrecked passenger ship for survivors

 

[tapkomet]

Uuuuuuugh I suppose we can trust all the other dwarves to be capable of breaking into a ship and getting people out, even if it takes longer than our method. We're really the only option to immediately start tracking the bandits down.

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Eeeh not really. Rescue is pretty much only available thanks to Substance of Shadows, and dwarfs obviously can't do that. Breaking into the ship will lead to it sinking completely as air is vacated.

 

[Guile]

I'd like to say that the logic for dwarves likely being alive in a few hours goes double for tracking the bandits.

First, it's already been hours. The bandits are gone, the trail is as cold as it is going to get in the short term. Anything that is still there now is still going to be there in the light.

Second, trying to follow a trail runs the total of messing it up. If we go by traces of winds and race after then, we are likely to destroy footprints, break plants, splash water on things- basically make it impossible for the people after us to tell anything except that Mathilde went this way. Which is really, really had of you lose the trail and have to try and backtrack to see where you missed a turn.

Finally, there is a good chance of goblin attack before the throng can arrive. I'd prefer to be here, available, and not miles and miles away solo on the dark.

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I want to see Mathilde, Angel of Mercy (shadow horror vers.) as much as anyone, but Mathilde presumably wouldn't trample all over any trail she'd find if we take that option.

She can fly, for one thing.

 

[das_slash]

is wolf with us? can we tell him to get on the first gyro coming this way?

 

[Angelform]

I would not b so sure about that, our intrigue is borderline heroic and we have a god on our side, the witch the Grey College cannot anticipate. Melkoth is likely still better than us, but he is not out of our league anymore.

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It isn't a matter of 'who is better'. It is a matter of 'was the agent good enough that there is no evidence to find'.

Mathilde hid her sunken palace excavations with nothing more than the Journeyman trick of Mindholing the worker. Melkoth not only has Battle Magic to play with but managed, somehow, to rig things such that his age is conceptually incalculable. Unless Ranald is up for conjuring evidence out of thin air there is no possibility of Mathilde finding anything Melkoth didn't want her to find.

 

[Alratan]

It isn't a matter of 'who is better'. It is a matter of 'was the agent good enough that there is no evidence to find'.

Mathilde hid her sunken palace excavations with nothing more than the Journeyman trick of Mindholing the worker. Melkoth not only has Battle Magic to play with but managed, somehow, to rig things such that his age is conceptually incalculable. Unless Ranald is up for conjuring evidence out of thin air there is no possibility of Mathilde finding anything Melkoth didn't want her to find.

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To be honest, I suspect that's the result of a miscast/rare arcane mark that Melkoth ran with and pretended was deliberate.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

Lets seriously not fall into the rabbit hole of Melkoth bombing the dwarfs?

'Cause that's kind of treasonous. The Empire can't have its oldest and most reliable alliance threatened like that.

 

[Mopman43]

is wolf with us? can we tell him to get on the first gyro coming this way?

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I don't believe he's with us, why would he need to be here?

Uuuuuuugh I suppose we can trust all the other dwarves to be capable of breaking into a ship and getting people out, even if it takes longer than our method. We're really the only option to immediately start tracking the bandits down.

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It's sunk in the middle of piranha infested waters. It's Mathilde or no-one.

 

[storryeater]

On a more general note, would it be accurate to say that Grey Wizards aren't actually the best investigators of the Empire when it comes to anything other than looking in places they aren't supposed to, tricking people into thinking they are talking to someone else, our using memory fuckery in intense interrogation sessions? Or is their non-magical training such that they still outperform Gold, Amethyst, Celestial and Amber Wizards even in CSI style investigations, or non-covert tracking?

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Honestly, I imagine they'd need different wizards to fullfill the role of different members of the "squad" rather than relying to a single superdetective wizard.

 

[Glau]

I want to see Mathilde, Angel of Mercy (shadow horror vers.) as much as anyone, but Mathilde presumably wouldn't trample all over any trail she'd find if we take that option.

She can fly, for one thing.

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Wait, what? Are you thinking that we'd be trying to track them from a gyrocopter? Enormously noisy, several hundred yards above any trail they will have left?

Another hour on top of the 5-7 already spent in transit matters more in irrecoverable dwarf lives than marginal cooling of the trail. We have other intrigue options besides just tracking then straight, but we don't have any resurrection options.

Plus, goblins.

Seriously people, we are a significant fraction of the martial power Belegar brought, we really should be close in case an attack comes.

Standing guard is in fact one of the options all on its own, so please let's try to keep this disaster from becoming a catastrophy. We can deal with tomorrow's problems tomorrow.

Edit: also, for people thinking the dwarves can survive a few more hours in the air pockets, it occurs to me that substance of shadow rescues are going to be a heck of a lot easier at night, without sunlight. We know the only thing above water is the funnel, so there's no easy way to go from inside the ship (dark) to a rescue boat without getting eaten by fish in the daytime.

 

[Omegahugger]

My read on the thread's motivations is that we would do our level best to burn the Empire to the ground if they hurt and tried to use Belegar like that.

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I for one can quarantee that I prioritise Karak-8-Peaks and Belegar way above the Empire.

The Empire valued internal squabbling over supporting one of the most important campaign in living memory. The Dawi and halflings, on the other hand, came through for us.

... Yes, I too developed a dwarf-like capability to hold grudges while Mathilde stayed among them.

Lets seriously not fall into the rabbit hole of Melkoth bombing the dwarfs?

'Cause that's kind of treasonous. The Empire can't have its oldest and most reliable alliance threatened like that.

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Something being a dumb idea does not mean people won't do it. Especially when nationalism and politics get involved.

 

[Alratan]

I for one can quarantee that I prioritise Karak-8-Peaks and Belegar way above the Empire.

The Empire valued internal squabbling over supporting one of the most important campaign in living memory. The Dawi and halflings, on the other hand, came through for us.

... Yes, I too developed a dwarf-like capability to hold grudges while Mathilde stayed among them.

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Remember that the halflings are just, if not more, imperial, as the humans of the Empire are.

 

[DragonParadox]

It isn't a matter of 'who is better'. It is a matter of 'was the agent good enough that there is no evidence to find'.

Mathilde hid her sunken palace excavations with nothing more than the Journeyman trick of Mindholing the worker. Melkoth not only has Battle Magic to play with but managed, somehow, to rig things such that his age is conceptually incalculable. Unless Ranald is up for conjuring evidence out of thin air there is no possibility of Mathilde finding anything Melkoth didn't want her to find.

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I'm going to go with @Alratan's theory there. That very much sounds like and arcane mark more than something he did and battle magic does not generally do much to enhance intrigue since it is mostly concerned with killing people in job lots and otherwise acting on a crowded battlefield.

Lets seriously not fall into the rabbit hole of Melkoth bombing the dwarfs?

'Cause that's kind of treasonous. The Empire can't have its oldest and most reliable alliance threatened like that.

Click to shrink...

I think I can bear the burden of thought-crime and so can Mathilde, also it's hardly a far-fetched theory for a paranoid Grey Wizard to entertain.

Remember that the halflings are just, if not more, imperial, as the humans of the Empire are.

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Eh, they are Imperial in the sense that they live in the empire. the constant discrimination and othering does not do much to keep them imperial when they have divided loyalties from K8P where they are treated better.

 

[guyfromtheplace1]

I think there's no way Ulthuan goes to the bitter end for Marienburg, a credible army makes it to the walls and they quit the contest and retreat to their embassy (Honestly a credible army making it to the walls is probably when a negotiated settlement is struck, none of the parties involved particularly want fighting inside the city). Marienburg is a useful enough patsy to support when it's cheap enough to do so, but they'll get most of the benefits regardless of who's in charge.

The agreement is very ambiguous so they're able to do this without much prestige cost. So this is not something the Marienburger leadership would want to rest their entire strategy around. Or generally have to put to the test.

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It's not when an army reaches the walls, Marienburg's military strategy is to win at sea/on the rivers, and abandon their outlying territories and retreat back to the city, then leave the enemy trying to siege while they're incapable of dragging siege weapons through the marsh, forcing them to bring siege weapons in by boat or by one of the roads(that can be easily raided by people who know how to hide in the marsh).
They then proceed to raid out of the marsh and out of the water, while resupplying themselves on food or mercenaries as necessary to keep the city untaken(and you'd better believe that even if the elves won't stick their hand in directly they'd provide favorable loans to pay for a defensive siege).
As far as I can guess most of the reason the Empire hasn't annexed the land that makes up the Wasteland is one part feeling in the area of common heritage with Marienburg(which may lead the locals to rebel or the directorate to hire mercenaries to retake lost lands), one part fear of their elven alliance, and possibly one part fear of the navy and mercenaries the city can call on.

So they won't surrender once an army reaches the walls. They've got good chances to surrender after an army breaches the walls, but even that's not entirely sure as the islands of Marienburg make it one of the most naturally defensible cities in the world.

 

[Alratan]

Eh, they are Imperial in the sense that they live in the empire. the constant discrimination and othering does not do much to keep them imperial when they have divided loyalties from K8P where they are treated better.

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Well, they're Imperial in that they're a founding tribe of the Empire, their government is represented in the Empire's highest councils and until a few years ago they were only found in the Empire, unlike humans, elves, and dwarves, who are all part of multiple nations.

We can't overplay the discrimination, given that humans in the Empire treat humans from other groups as badly as they treat halflings, so it's not as if it's species based.

 

[DragonParadox]

Well, they're Imperial in that they're a founding tribe of the Empire, their government is represented in the Empire's highest councils and until a few years ago they were only found in the Empire, unlike humans, elves, and dwarves, who are all part of multiple nations.

We can't overplay the discrimination, given that humans in the Empire treat humans from other groups as badly as they treat halflings, so it's not as if it's species based.

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Linchings are apparently a common enough sight in some areas of Stirland that ten year old Mathilde was not sure whether or not she witnessed one as common entertainment. I don't think ancient history is worth much beside that and keep in mind these are all the halflings that wanted out of the Empire enough to move to a greenskin infested warzone.

 

[Alratan]

Linchings are apparently a common enough sight in some areas of Stirland that ten year old Mathilde was not sure whether or not she witnessed one as common entertainment. I don't think ancient history is worth much beside that and keep in mind these are all the halflings that wanted out of the Empire enough to move to a greenskin infested warzone.

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Is it any different for humans from out of town that the locals think they can get away with robbing and murdering though?

Plenty of humans also wanted to move to K8Ps in preference to Stirland as well.

 

[JackOfAll]

apparent death of the leader of Karaz-a-Karak's Metalsmiths Guild

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Apparent means not confirmed.

I really hope that survives and Mathilde can fish him out of sunken ship. It would really reduce severity of situation.

 

[Alliterate]

I believe the vast majority of the (deserter) Stirlanders went home, as they had always planned.
The surviving vagabonds and scoundrels from the Border Princes and elsewhere stayed and became the Undumgi.

 

[DragonParadox]

Is it any different for humans from out of town that the locals think they can get away with robbing and murdering though?

Plenty of humans also wanted to move to K8Ps in preference to Stirland as well.

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It's different in that halflings form a coherent culture that suffers discrimination far more consistently than any similarly cohesive group of humans. Halflings have their own gods, their own customs and their own political traditions. It does not sound like the kind of thing that would foster long standing political allegiance to a distant empire especially while they are on new soil.

Plus in the event of conflict between the Empire and Karaz Ankor they would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by siding with the Empire. It's not like a victorious empire could guarantee their cushy conditions continue whereas a victorious Karaz Ankor could.

 

[Alratan]

It's not when an army reaches the walls, Marienburg's military strategy is to win at sea/on the rivers, and abandon their outlying territories and retreat back to the city, then leave the enemy trying to siege while they're incapable of dragging siege weapons through the marsh, forcing them to bring siege weapons in by boat or by one of the roads(that can be easily raided by people who know how to hide in the marsh).
They then proceed to raid out of the marsh and out of the water, while resupplying themselves on food or mercenaries as necessary to keep the city untaken(and you'd better believe that even if the elves won't stick their hand in directly they'd provide favorable loans to pay for a defensive siege).
As far as I can guess most of the reason the Empire hasn't annexed the land that makes up the Wasteland is one part feeling in the area of common heritage with Marienburg(which may lead the locals to rebel or the directorate to hire mercenaries to retake lost lands), one part fear of their elven alliance, and possibly one part fear of the navy and mercenaries the city can call on.

So they won't surrender once an army reaches the walls. They've got good chances to surrender after an army breaches the walls, but even that's not entirely sure as the islands of Marienburg make it one of the most naturally defensible cities in the world.

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More than that, setting up siege lines, artillery and an army camp in the Cursed Marshes is also a great way to end up with the army dying of dysentery, malaria, and typhoid, while your artillery either sinks or is blown away by the much heavier and better sited artillery Marienberg will already have set up with calculated site lines.

On the elves, they don't have n embassy in Marienberg. They have a city in Marienberg that they consider part of their sovereign territory. If you besiege Marienberg you somehow have to do so without besieging the elven city that is colocated there - and if the eleven merchants can simple move around into and out of their city unhindered, there's nothing stopping them making a mockery of the siege.

 

[zxzx24]

[x] Use Substance of Shadow to check the wrecked passenger ship for survivors