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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Sir_Travelsalot said:
The Badlands do flood quite frequently. It's one of the reasons alongside earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and abysmal soil quality that makes it incredibly unattractive for inhabitation even without the hordes of Greenskins running amok.
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I thought the soil quality was actually rather good there, given all the dead bodies, orkoid sewage and lack of large-scale agriculture.
 
BelligerentGnu said:
Huh. Genuinely wasn't expecting that. How does a giant rat go about hiring human bandits, I wonder.
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They have a lot of human slaves.

Also mercenaries are the worst.
More seriously, the conspiracy of silence isn't actually a thing outside of the empire, so unscrupulous elements on both the human and skaven side of things occasionally making backroom deals with each other doesn't seem that unlikely.
Odds are there are skaven involved in a lot of smuggling operations, both into and out of the underempire.
 
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So I'm curious, @BoneyM, was that conversation at the end done in Khazalid or Reikspiel? If it was Khazalid, it seems a little odd to me that some words were left untranslated though I can understand why you would do it for stylistic reasons.
 
Honestly, we shouldn't be surprised it the Skaven. It was only a matter of time before they hit back at us over their losses in K8Ps.

I for one, happy it not Marienburg.
 
The Phoenixian said:
Keep in mind that this is two points of evidence now: Not just the warpstone blackpowder in the mine, but also the talk of there being possible bio-warfare during the social update.

At this point this is either someone framing the Skaven (very unlikely, since I doubt they would have been able to count on us looking at the bomb that closely) or the Skaven actively cooperating with whoever did it. At the most removed, they sold the opposing faction weapons and assistance, At the most, they themselves were the perpetrator.
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True. I mean, it's possible the two incidents aren't directly related, like separate Marienburger plots working with different factors, but I agree it's growing rather unlikely.

So, if it is the Skaven, we can perhaps take this as a sign that the GHR has finally stepped in and ended hostilities, and now the Skaven are likely looking outwards again at their losses during the conflict, like I mentioned:

NuclearConsensus said:
Not just that, they've seen assaults on their territory recently too. Eight Peaks, Nuln and Ubersreik in the Empire, and Mousillon and somewhere else in Bretonnia, all in a short time? It's possible the Skaven are hitting back, possibly in an attempt to put holes in any closer Empire-Karaz Ankor, or trying to engineer a situation similar to the Skaven civil war to give them an opportunity to retake lost territory.
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To finally join in on the God Mathilde thread madness, what do y'all think that the Marks of Mathilde would look like? The Living Shadow would probably copy over, except maybe with nore tangibility. Then a Mark that gives a stamina boost that also transfers to one's mount. A reflavored and slightly modified version of Sigmar's Dwarf friend thing. Or one that allows for better understanding and communication with other races in general. Then a generic Windsight one. And a mixed bag one that makes it harder to resist curiosity and/or challenges, but protects against fear effects as well.

TalonofAnathrax said:
Quoting him pings him...
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That's different though. It gives him a different message. And since he's the story author he gets quoted here all the time, even during conversations that aren't trying to involve him. Direct @ tags ping him in a different way though and are usually how he gets asked stuff, which he has been very diligently answering in full.
 
Anyway, with the knowledge that it was skaven that were probably behind this, would Johann still risk looking into the fragments we found? He's not going to be looking at warpstone directly, but he is going to be looking at something that's been around and possibly directly worked on by the stuff.
 
BoneyM said:
Though Belegar doesn't press the issue, he does assign a few of his hammerers to go with you. In case any of the ambushers are still out there, he says.
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We should perhaps consider that nothing is stopping Belegar from putting an AP or two into 'Learn about magic'. Much like Van Hal had terrible Intrigue and a skilled spymaster but still did some investigation of his own, Belegar could do some Learning. Between the "why didn't you say you could weaponise mountains" and Mathilde clearly pushing herself he may well feel it prudent to check some assumptions.

With a summoned knife you prick your finger and allow a drop to fall into the river, and after a moment you activate your Robes and dip your hand in after it. The blood has already attracted the attention of several fish and it takes only a few seconds for you to feel the slight pressure of powerful jaws closing on even more powerful Aethyric Armour, and then blood blooms in the river as the Rune on your belt returns the chomp twofold to the fish. You withdraw your hand, double-check that it's unmarked, and then take a breath, summon Branulhune, and jump over the side.
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A set of high-end magical armour, a high-end defensive talisman and one of the highest-end weapons of the age… all to rig a diving suit.
Not sure if this is Macgyvering or just overkill.

you now know how long it takes to divert half a river, at least if you're Barak Varr: about a couple of hours.
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That is damned impressive.

"Skaven blackpowder,"
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Well that cuts down the list of suspects rather drastically.
Shame it is an enemy that is exceedingly difficult to retaliate against.
 
BoneyM said:
Over the course of several dives you retrieve several fragments of metal, and when your lungs start to ache you dismiss Branulhune - which disappears with an odd flash of light that it's never displayed before, which is a puzzle for later -
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My best guess is that Branulhune was underwater, so it didn't want to just pop into storage and leave a greatsword-shaped vacuum for water to violently fill, it did a little extra to fill in the gaps before it fully disappeared. Either that or it had to yell at the water to back the fuck off before vanishing cleanly.

But Skaven involvement is debatably better than Marienburg, in terms of aftermath. It won't rip up the geopolitical landscape for the Dawi to be even more peeved at them. Need to confirm with Johann.
 
I absolutely love the writing this particular chapter. Lots of cool little segments and there is a real atmosphere to everything. The following two bits are especially great @BoneyM!
BoneyM said:
With a summoned knife you prick your finger and allow a drop to fall into the river, and after a moment you activate your Robes and dip your hand in after it. The blood has already attracted the attention of several fish and it takes only a few seconds for you to feel the slight pressure of powerful jaws closing on even more powerful Aethyric Armour, and then blood blooms in the river as the Rune on your belt returns the chomp twofold to the fish. You withdraw your hand, double-check that it's unmarked, and then take a breath, summon Branulhune, and jump over the side.
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BoneyM said:
How long does it take to divert a river? Months? Years? Decades? You don't know. But you now know how long it takes to divert half a river, at least if you're Barak Varr: about a couple of hours. With extremely precise driving it lines itself up so that its bow is almost touching that of the sunken ship and its stern is on the verge of running aground, and somewhere inside the massive vessel, a certain series of valves that are very rarely turned are turned, and water floods in. With an almost stately grace it settles lower and lower in the water until it touches the river bottom, its top decks still well clear of the surface. The water level on one side of the wreck begins to sink as it rises on the other, and working with coordinated grace, hundreds of Dwarves begin to fill and stack sandbags to further increase the discrepancy. By the time the first hour is over the top of the wreck is piled high with sandbags to keep all the water on one side and not the other, the river has receded enough on the dry side for some wary Dwarves to start bludgeoning beached fish, and water from inside the ship has begun to pour over the massive hole in its front.
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BoneyM said:
Over the course of several dives you retrieve several fragments of metal, and when your lungs start to ache you dismiss Branulhune - which disappears with an odd flash of light that it's never displayed before, which is a puzzle for later -
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So, is it because rivers are full of Ghyran, which the blade is absorbing? Or is it because the fame of our accoutrements is starting to make them look subtly fancier? Or is it because we just personally saved three hundred dwarves with the Protector sure to be retroactively on and as far as runes go that counts for something?
 
NSMS said:
Anyway, with the knowledge that it was skaven that were probably behind this, would Johann still risk looking into the fragments we found? He's not going to be looking at warpstone directly, but he is going to be looking at something that's been around and possibly directly worked on by the stuff.
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A reasonable concern, but I think Johann is the best suited to evaluating that risk compared to the playerbase - he's the one who understands the spell and he'll be told of the dhar sources that were near the container.
ChronOblivion said:
My best guess is that Branulhune was underwater, so it didn't want to just pop into storage and leave a greatsword-shaped vacuum for water to violently fill, it did a little extra to fill in the gaps before it fully disappeared. Either that or it had to yell at the water to back the fuck off before vanishing cleanly.
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I straight up just want to tell Kragg about it and ask him directly if he can explain, or if it's super-secret-rune-shenanigans. I'm curious.
 
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It would appear the Skaven are distinctly unpleased by the various setbacks they've suffered on the Old Continent recently, and have resorted to some tried and true tricks to even the scales now that the Civil War has died down. There was bound to be some kind of backlash for the Empire's assaults on the undercities, looks like we've uncovered at least one prong of it. Let's hope they won't resort to more direct measures now that the frame job has been exposed.
 
ChronOblivion said:
My best guess is that Branulhune was underwater, so it didn't want to just pop into storage and leave a greatsword-shaped vacuum for water to violently fill, it did a little extra to fill in the gaps before it fully disappeared. Either that or it had to yell at the water to back the fuck off before vanishing cleanly.
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Alternatively, it did leave just such a vacuum, and the flash was actually the cavity in the water violently collapsing and causing some dramatic physics to happen. Cavitation of propellers is such an issue for sonar stealth because that cavitation is causing tiny fusion detonations from the water hitting itself and having absolutely no exit.
 
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Dwarven engineers. Fckn A.

They manage to do the supremely difficult with 2 hours of work and no magic but science.

BoneyM said:
About fifteen.
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That is great, thats excelent. We've done good with what we have and hopefully, analysis of what can they improve next, would improve the dwarven SAR procedure.

If only they got diving gear and some underwater torch, this rescue can be done by dwarven engineers.
 
Something I'm wondering:

Why did the dhar only show up in the ship's hull? I'd have guessed splinters of dhar-soaked wood would have embedded or stuck to the rope or barrel hoops.
 
BeepSmile said:
A reasonable concern, but I think Johann is the best suited to evaluating that risk compared to the playerbase - he's the one who understands the spell and he'll be told of the dhar sources that were near the container.
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That's why I said 'would Johann be willing to risk it' rather than 'should we risk Johann', yeah.
 
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