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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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fictionfan said:
Starting to think Dieter IV is Danzo in disguise.
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That's a disservice to Danzo. Danzo was a horrible person who let his perfectionism, jealousy, cynicism, self-loathing and twisted ideal of ninja transform him into a monster. But at the end of the day, Danzo not only really believed he was doing the right thing he and actually cared in his own twisted way about the future of his nation and people. Dieter IV cared only about his own fortunes, power, creature comforts, and personal safety. Danzo did horrible things to others but also did them to himself, He was perfectly willing to throw away lives and resources in pursuit of his ambitions but when the chips were down he was just as willing to sacrifice himself as he was others. Dieter was also willing to throw away lives and resources in pursuit of his ambitions but personally balked at making even the slightest personal sacrifice for the betterment of anyone other than himself.

Make no mistake Danzo is not a good person and did somethings that were arguably just as bad if not worse in some cases than what Dieter IV did but at least he did out of twisted the ends justify the means mentality. All Dieter IV did he did for himself, what action he did take to try better the empire, or at least address problems it had, almost always were done with either an element of greed in them or were simply because he felt that it would make him safer and stronger in the end.

Again this is not to say Danzo was a good person even comparted Dieter IV after all some of the worst evil ever perpetuated is by people who think they are doing the right/necessary thing. Danzo was trying to build something to help his nation and people and perhaps even destroy it after he felt it had done its job though I doubt it. All Dieter IV wanted to build was his personal fortune and safety net. Which is Ironic because some of the other worst evils are those created by inaction and or Greed.
 
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BoneyM said:
It would be impressively ballsy for them to put that right in their name. And they do wear masks that cover most of their face...
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Right? The hard part of getting into the sky is always the thrust to weight ratio after all, birds get there with hollow bones, and prehistoric giant insects got there by exploiting extremely high ambient oxygen to run unsustainable levels of fuel burn efficiency.

Wouldn't be a bad way for a bunch of very subtle mutants(after all, weight loss mutations aren't very discernable without literally picking them up) to not only pass in public, but be paid well for being mutants...

The masks would cover for any less covert mutations they might have, and the whole group wears those all the time as "branding".
 
chocolote12 said:
How... could one tell? Do they have a visible top and bottom?
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My understanding is that prolate is football-shaped and oblate is button-shaped.

NexusEye said:
You said usually, does this mean the actual shape of Powerstones can vary between them and that they aren't all physically identical?
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Yes. Research has confirmed that the difference is entirely cosmetic. OOC, GW has them sometimes spherical and some prolate or teardrop in their art and on their models.
 
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Re: wings, it seems like the simplest explaination that would tie together the small blades + much armor of the gyrocopters, the birdmen, the pegasus, and even K8P's exaggerated altitude: the air density is higher. It makes sense given the size of the world, right? And the more mass per volume displaced the smaller the volumes need to be to sustain flight. It makes sense for a mostly-frozen world that already had an atmosphere to get a much thicker one from de-gassing when it is moved closer to the sun.

On a related note, does anyone know what the ratios would have to be for the thicker atmosphere to cancel out the greater gravity from the planet being larger than earth, in terms of flight?
 
Glau said:
Re: wings, it seems like the simplest explaination that would tie together the small blades + much armor of the gyrocopters, the birdmen, the pegasus, and even K8P's exaggerated altitude: the air density is higher. It makes sense given the size of the world, right? And the more mass per volume displaced the smaller the volumes need to be to sustain flight. It makes sense for a mostly-frozen world that already had an atmosphere to get a much thicker one from de-gassing when it is moved closer to the sun.

On a related note, does anyone know what the ratios would have to be for the thicker atmosphere to cancel out the greater gravity from the planet being larger than earth, in terms of flight?
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I believe lift scales linearly with pressure so if Mallus has X times Earth's gravity you'd need X times Earth's atmospheric pressure to cancel it out, any further pressure increase would be pure profit aerodynamics-wise.
 
Glau said:
Re: wings, it seems like the simplest explaination that would tie together the small blades + much armor of the gyrocopters, the birdmen, the pegasus, and even K8P's exaggerated altitude: the air density is higher. It makes sense given the size of the world, right? And the more mass per volume displaced the smaller the volumes need to be to sustain flight. It makes sense for a mostly-frozen world that already had an atmosphere to get a much thicker one from de-gassing when it is moved closer to the sun.

On a related note, does anyone know what the ratios would have to be for the thicker atmosphere to cancel out the greater gravity from the planet being larger than earth, in terms of flight?
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Even in universe, it's noted that Pegasi should not be able to fly. Which would imply that this is incorrect.
 
Also this talk of pressure, gravity, and Birdmen has reminded me of an XKCD comic which is relevant enough that I have an excuse to post it.
 
BoneyM said:
"When I mentioned criminal elements looting the Stirlandian League, they were elements that I tipped off. They took a third in exchange for preventing the League from being able to escape with the goods, allowing us to capture the remainder unopposed."
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Does this count as a sacrament to Ranald? We stole a great deal of money from wealthy merchants who did not appreciate their good fortune and how quickly it could change, and distributed it to the (comparatively) poor.
 
BoneyM said:
"Stop," you cry, too late, far too late. "You just triggered..." You pause, recognition flashing through you. "A magical alarm. Lesser magic, formed of Shyish. Whoever cast it now knows that we crossed it."

The four of you stand frozen, your ears straining for any sound, every crackle of the flames of the torches sounding deafening in your ears. You stand there for what felt like hours, but must have been only minutes.

"How old could it have been," Van Hal asks, breaking the silence.

You see what he could be asking straight away. "Here? It was formed of Shyish and the air here is thick with it. If untriggered, it could last forever."
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"East-south-east," you mutter. "Delay of just over an hour... propagation speed of magic through air, about 750 miles per hour. That's... about 900 miles. 450 each way. 450 miles east-south-east of Wurtbad..."
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BoneyM said:
Lesser Magics
common to all the Colleges
K / Magic Alarm: Creates a silent alarm at a place you touch, and if any creature comes within a couple of meters of that point you will be alerted that it has been triggered. Lasts until triggered, or until you cast it at a different spot.
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This could just be early instalment weirdness. Or it could be evidence that Magic Alarm can be upscaled to get rid of some of the limitations. Most likely the 'place you touch' as casting it on an object that can be 'armed' once in place would fit the MO of the wizard who created the matrix.

Extrapolating from this it might, might, be possible for Mathilde to make something of this.
- Have it chain-recast like Rite Of Way does with Skywalk and tie it into tower-grade MAP and you could have a real-time display of troop movements.
- Drop the 'one at a time' limit and combine it with the Matrix and you can give people an SOS signal.
- Rip the guts out and just use the 'send message' part to create a communication system for coordinating troop movements. (No point hiding your flanking force in the fog of war if they can't tell when to charge.)
- Make it exclude the caster (and designated allies?) and you have a motion detector for finding stealthed enemies.
 
Angelform said:
This could just be early instalment weirdness. Or it could be evidence that Magic Alarm can be upscaled to get rid of some of the limitations. Most likely the 'place you touch' as casting it on an object that can be 'armed' once in place would fit the MO of the wizard who created the matrix.
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What's supposed to be the weird bit? Nothing unusual pops out to me.
 
I think it's quest canon that petty and lesser magics are still differentiated into the Winds, and it's their simplicity and low power level makes them possible to be cast by any Wind.
 
Angelform said:
Petty and Lesser magics are undifferentiated, which is why mono-wizards of all eight winds can use them. However the chapter states that the spell is Shyish, which is why it could sustain itself in a Shyish heavy environment.
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My understanding was that they were differentiated but at low concentrations lost their identity. The spell was Shyish but because there was so little of it it could behave in ways Shyish normally wouldn't be able to do because it doesn't fit its theme, like becoming an alarm spell.
 
Glau said:
On a related note, does anyone know what the ratios would have to be for the thicker atmosphere to cancel out the greater gravity from the planet being larger than earth, in terms of flight?
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Depends on whether or not people (and other things you want in the skies) have the same density. Lift equation states that the lift force is directly proportional to the atmo density, while weight is directly proportional to the world's free fall acceleration ("gravity" for short) and your mass. If density of the people on the big world is the same as on Earth, then indeed the same proportion of (atmo density/gravity) means the same difficulty of achieving flight. If people are denser on Mallus, then you will also need to compensate for that increase.
Flight Difficulty Coefficient = g*Pbody/Patmo. If this coefficient (it is not official or anything, I just made it up) >1, then flight is harder, if it is <1 then it is easier (g - gravity, Pbody - density of the thing you want in the air, Patmo - atmosphere density). There is also Archimedes' force, but is pretty negligible unless we are talking about x100 atmo density or something.
 
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Romv said:
I think it's quest canon that petty and lesser magics are still differentiated into the Winds, and it's their simplicity and low power level makes them possible to be cast by any Wind.
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NexusEye said:
My understanding was that they were differentiated but at low concentrations lost their identity. The spell was Shyish but because there was so little of it it could behave in ways Shyish normally wouldn't be able to do because it doesn't fit its theme, like becoming an alarm spell.
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Quest canon on the subject:
BoneyM said:
It's also significantly easier said than done. The Lesser Magics are universal because of the very small amount of magical energies they use. Basic Winds theory states that the more of a Wind is concentrated in one place, the more tempestuous it is, which is why Battle Magics are so powerful and so dangerous. The flip side to that is that very small amounts of Winds are much more malleable, to the extent that their identity can be completely lost. This is sometimes referred to as Earthbound Magic as small amounts of it can be drawn out of almost any mundane object, and this undifferentiated magical energy is believed to be what allows for witches, hedge wizards, the Hedgewise, and Elementalists to create magics that don't align with the Teclisean model. It's also believed to power the Runes of the Dwarves, which take in whatever Wind is available and somehow break it down into undifferentiated magic, which would be believed impossible to do in large quantities if the Dwarves weren't so clearly doing it.
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Seems like another of those 'the characters have theories but no proven conclusions' things.
Thing is, if the spell only functions because it has so little energy that it isn't bound by the themes of Shyish then surrounding it with high concentrations of Shyish energy should break the spell.


On an entirely separate matter:
Glau said:
An excerpt from the journal of Soizic d'Karak, a Questing Knight
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I wore a new dress, this one in the Tilean style that had begun to be sold recently, royal blue over white with a broad neckline and embroidery of gold.
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Odd that Saber gets her dresses from Tilea.
 
Angelform said:
Thing is, if the spell only functions because it has so little energy that it isn't bound by the themes of Shyish then surrounding it with high concentrations of Shyish energy should break the spell.
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If this was the case it would be impossible to learn to cast Petty and Lesser spells in the magic-rich environment of the Colleges, and the Fog Path spell would be impossible because the Skywalks would fracture from all the Ulgu floating around. Magic contained in a spell remains distinct from ambient magical energies.

NexusEye said:
Hmm, there's one way to settle this, @BoneyM are Petty and Lesser magics Winds acting like they have no identity's low concentrations or them losing their identity and becoming something other than the 8 Winds at low concentrations?
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The former.
 
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