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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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fictionfan said:
I think that Hubert should be able to get to us before the knights do. Do any of the other wizards have fast movement options?
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The Ambers also ride Demigryphs.

Johann has golden legs and lungs, so, probably pretty good cardio?

Might be it.

(Unless Egrimm can already summon demons to ride on, then he also counts)
 
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Mopman43 said:
The Ambers also ride Demigrpyhs.

Johann has golden legs and lungs, so, probably pretty good cardio?

Might be it.

(Unless Egrimm can already summon demons to ride on, then he also counts)
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Johann was able to keep pace with our shadow steed so yes he can likely make it very fast. Our shadow steed goes 30 miles an hour and we are a mile away so he could make it in 2 minutes or less.
 
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Mopman43 said:
The Ambers also ride Demigrpyhs.

Johann has golden legs and lungs, so, probably pretty good cardio?

Might be it.

(Unless Egrimm can already summon demons to ride on, then he also counts)
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Johann spent the last few months studying under his former master, and arrives with a wizard under each arm and one clinging desperately to his neck.
 
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What can we do about this, exactly? It's clearly not just a mirage; god knows how many dwarfs went over this place, even digging into the rocks, and there's been not a single seam in the hypothetical illusion. Someone would have made a will save, or at least bumped into an invisible structure. Vlag has been sealed up somehow, so how would Mathilde get at whatever's going on in there? Can she manipulate it from out here?
 
Briefvoice said:
I don't believe for a minute that this ritual is happening "under the mountain".

Mathilde stopped being able to follow the thread of power, but that doesn't mean that Chaos is actually doing something inside solid stone. A bit much even for them. Much more likely it's something going on up here on the surface, hidden by memetic effects. At least the battery portion of it.

All of this "it's under a mountain, Mathilde can't get to it" stuff is misunderstanding. If it was down there, it couldn't do anything! High probability that the enemy is up here with us, and the battery is also around here somewhere.
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We don't actually know how far down the solid stone goes. It could well be that there's a ritual chamber much nearer where the thread of power disperses. That said, given I also don't think that the original purpose the power has being put to can be easily turned against the Expedition... but the power could quite possibly be siphoned off to that purpose, and that could as easily be done at the surface. It could be either.

That said, I think that in order to actually fix things, there will need to be another expedition, with actual miners.
 
JamesShazbond said:
What can we do about this, exactly? It's clearly not just a mirage; god knows how many dwarfs went over this place, even digging into the rocks, and there's been not a single seam in the hypothetical illusion. Someone would have made a will save, or at least bumped into an invisible structure. Vlag has been sealed up somehow, so how would Mathilde get at whatever's going on in there? Can she manipulate it from out here?
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A lot depends on if it's actually going on in there, or if it's not. They might be doing the thing nearby instead of under all that stone.

It's an excellent insulator of magic, you know.

fictionfan said:
Johann was able to keep pace with our shadow steed so yes he can likely make it very fast. Our shadow steed goes 30 miles an hour and we are a mile away so he could make it in 2 minutes or less.
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When did that occur, do you know?
 
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I want to try to put my full reasoning in analyzing these options out there; I feel like I'm arguing from fundamentally different premises from other people more than half the time debating this, and I'd rather lay out what I see when I look at this instead of continuing to try to play whack-a-mole with what I think other people are presenting inaccurately. I'll note that I believe every option is going to result in actively investigating. None of these choices are going to lead into shrugging and hoping for the best; we'd have to be idiots for it to play out like that, and so would anybody else in the Expedition who wanted to try to just leave the giant Chaos ritual sitting on top of our line of retreat.

So, in my analysis, the differences between the options in terms of upsides/downsides - trying to write this up objectively, so I'm open to corrections if I'm missing something - are:

1), Act normal

Upsides: very very unlikely to tip the ritualists off that we've spotted them, allows the possibility to alert the Expedition with full knowledge of what the threat is (as much as we possess, at least), allows us to respond with assistance from our whole team, allows the possibility of not tipping off whoever's conducting the ritual until we're actually interfering with their ritual, allows the possibility of actually forming a plan to deal with this (and being able to draw on everybody's knowledge, intelligence, and experience in doing so), lets the leaders of the expedition decide what defenders they can send away to deal with this and make a strategic plan for force allocation.
Downsides: the slowest plan to start doing anything by about 15-20 minutes. Temporarily removes us from being in the position where we originally spotted the ritual.

2), Run like hell

Upsides: probably pretty decent chances it won't tip the ritualists off right away (as long as they're not closely actively watching us we should still be good), lets us alert the Expedition of what the threat actually is, allows the possibility of responding with assistance from our whole team, alerts the Expedition quickly, lets the leaders of the Expedition decide what defenders they can send away to deal with this and make a strategic plan for force allocation, gives us at least a few minutes to put together a plan and possibly even hear ideas from somebody other than us.
Downsides: slower to alert the expedition than 3) by ~3 minutes (shadowsteed runs at 25 MPH and we're 1 mile away, that works out to roughly 2.4 minutes). Temporarily removes us from being in the position where we originally spotted the ritual.

3), Stand your ground

Upsides: alerts the expedition about 3 minutes sooner than 2) would. Keeps us planted in the same spot, theoretically giving us a chance to mess with the ritual if it tries anything.
Downsides: very likely immediately tips the ritualists off (it certainly is at least by far the highest likelihood of it), minimizes the amount of magical assistance we are likely to have, does not alert the Expedition of what the danger is, pulls some of the strongest defenders away from the Expedition without consulting with the Expedition's leadership (including those selfsame defenders) to form a coherent or strategic defensive plan/allocation of forces, does not let us form a plan before starting to deal with this, does not let us benefit from anybody else's magic-related expertise or knowledge, by far does the most to jeopardize Mathilde's life.

3 only makes sense if we assume that there's a very high likelihood that whoever's conducting the ritual planned to trigger it right away regardless of whether we tip them off that they've been spotted or not, AND if we assume that we by our lonesome have good odds of counterspelling whoever's been conducting the ritual. The ritual using a major waystone's amount of magic. That has been using it for 185 years. Personally, I'm dubious. It's the Protagonist Syndrome choice, basically - it operates on the premise that we alone are in a position to make a difference, that we must act immediately by ourselves, and that nobody else's assistance will be necessary to deal with this magical threat (Asarnil and the knights can't help with the magical part of it; we'd just be calling them over to protect us in case we get attacked physically by beasties or whatever).

2 makes the most sense if we assume that whoever's conducting the ritual plans to trigger it ASAP regardless of whether we tip them off that they've been spotted or not but we don't assume that we're likely to be able to stop it all by our lonesome with literally zero prep time. We alert the expedition quickly and in a way that actually lets them know what to be alert for, and we get magical buddies to back us up when we try to piss in their metaphorical Chaos Wheaties. It's the compromise choice, which is probably why (at least by comparison) nobody seems to like it.

1 makes the most sense if we think whoever's conducting the ritual is unlikely to trigger it in the next 15-20 minutes if all other things are equal (because the chance to counterspell, however high or low that chance may be, isn't even relevant if they're not going to do anything). It is the only option that gives us a chance to prepare a response with knowledge and assistance from everybody. It is the only option that gives us a good chance of attacking the ritual with the element of surprise (as long as they don't set it off for unrelated reasons first, we'll very likely/almost certainly keep the element of surprise). It's something of a gamble in that we're betting they won't set it off right away/very soon no matter what we do. But I think that's a gamble with good odds. There's no plausible reason for them to suspect we've spotted them; we just observed their location with the magical equivalent of unusually good passive sensors, and they know damn well that their defenses against being spotted are top-notch. And they've waited 185 years to do anything. I think the odds are in our favor that at least the next 15-20 minutes will hold the same, if all other things remain equal.
 
BoneyM said:
Johann doesn't have the ability to summon a magical horse, but you're quite shocked to learn that he doesn't need one to keep pace with you. Enchanted gold, it seems, not only makes him stronger and tougher - it also removes his capacity to feel physical fatigue. He's not at all out of breath when you reach Karagril and dismiss your steed, nor, now that you watch closely, is he breathing at all, except when required for speech. "It's one of the most recent things I had done," he says casually as the two of you make your way deeper under the mountain. "I've a gift for the more literal applications of the Wind of Metal, but it's still quite a tricky ritual under the best of circumstances, and trying to convince yourself to inhale molten gold isn't the best of circumstances. But it does mean that I don't need to breathe."
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Mopman43 said:
When did that occur, do you know?
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Fayhem said:
3 only makes sense if we assume that there's a very high likelihood that whoever's conducting the ritual planned to trigger it right away regardless of whether we tip them off that they've been spotted or not,
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No if we leave then come back in force they are going to know that they have spotted and had more time to prepare. If we assume the can watch us right now what stops them from watching us plan when we get back?
 
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Fayhem said:
So, in my analysis, the differences between the options in terms of upsides/downsides - trying to write this up objectively, so I'm open to corrections if I'm missing something - are:
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The possibility space of likely responses is not nearly confined to 'triggering their Ritual early'.
Fayhem said:
And they've waited 185 years to do anything. I think the odds are in our favor that at least the next 15-20 minutes will hold the same, if all other things remain equal.
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As others have also pointed out the ritual might not be the immediate threat. Conflating the Big Bad Magic with the response they (any active observers) may trigger to someone discovering the Big Bad Magic isn't helpful to your factual analysis. Making decisions based on 'they won't trigger a 200-year-ritual early just because Protagonist' doesn't seem to be a sound premise.

Any active observers- assuming they exist- had advance warning something significant was probably coming up the pass when the weather was cleared.
 
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fictionfan said:
No if we leave then come back in force they are going to know that they have spotted and had more time to prepare. If we assume the can watch us right now what stops them from watching us plan when we get back?
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It's significantly harder to watch someone who is inside a heavily guarded metal box than when they're in an open mountain pass. "Watching" doesn't have to mean undetectable perfect scrying, and the tzeentch cultists (if it is them) could just be using a telescope for all we know.
 
uju32 said:
Yes? I mean, it makes zero sense to go on into the Chaos Wastes and leave what looks like a ginormous Chaos operation along your path of retreat.
Either you resolve it, or there is no mission. Else you're just feeding useful assets to Destro.
This is not at all optional.
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Given the route, I was figuring there'd be three or four similar things: large concentrations of enemy forces that our survival strategy was to avoid aggroing. A chaos dwarf throng or a kurgan warband or an old dwarfhold being used to fuel a ritual: all of them are scary enemies that we have to leave on our path of retreat because slipping by is how we actually do our mission.

This isn't something in the middle of the empire that needs dealing with. This is the first of many obstacles to be avoided.
 
Putting some of my thoughts down, as I'm still not sure what to go for.

Presupposing active observers in position to act hostilely:
- They may have a prepared a response to the Expedition, may even have expected sightseers like us.
Stand Your Ground confirms to any active observers we've noticed them, and makes us an obvious target.
Run away does the same, but might influence their response, timing or target.
Act normally comes down to our 'bluff check', but still leaves them free to act- they knew the Expedition was coming. Bearing in mind the Rangers may also need to pass the bluff.

If there are no active observers, but the memetic defenses are constructed to trigger a response when someone has seen through them:
- Those responses would probably be centred here, on the observer, or at least their most likely location. Summon demons? Big destructive firespell? More mind magic?
Stand your ground means we're at ground zero when the response happens, with the associated risks and possibility of disruption.
Run away means the opposite.
Act normally won't accomplish much in this scenario. If it's a triggered effect we've already activated, we'd probably be caught in between, neither able to disrupt it, and possibly not far enough away to be safe.

If there are no active observers, and nothing is in fact going to happen imminently:
We just made Studious Concentration Bluff Face for no reason. :)
What we are voting on then mostly just affects delay versus embarrasment, so is (meta thinking) is probably a little anticlimatic for this type of All-Stop vote.

...If discovery is meant to be the big trigger for the grand ritual of doom to spring the trap, OR the Expedition is exactly the type of large, pre-announced target they've been waiting for-
Then standing at ground zero probably means we're toast, yeah. Don't think we're likely to be able to disrupt that sort of thing, and are about to take a Portal of Demons to the face.
 
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Hunkering down for centuries, memetic camouflage etc point more in favor of opposition being good at preparation and planning, not one good at navigating confusion and lower-case c chaos of a random encounter. Mathilde on the other hand thrives in situations like this.

Let's not try to outplan the person who is obviously better positioned. Better to kickflip the board using a pocket dragon we have on call.

[X] Stand your ground
 
[X] Act normal
- There might be unfriendly eyes on you. Pretend you didn't see anything and return to the Expedition as normal, and decide what to do from there.

Now...

BoneyM said:
The future isn't set in stone, so if you get a glimpse of it and act too dramatically to try to alter it, you could change the future too much for the glimpse you got to be any help to you. You can stack the deck," he says with a smile as he ruffles the cards in his hand, "but you can't change the game."
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Correct me if I sound insane here. But this seems like a big old H I N T.
Regardless, the expedition aren't going to thank us for dragging them into a mess without a proper consensus. In addition if this is greater demon tier shit, which it probably is, we really want to think before we go into this half cocked.
 
Alliterate said:
...If discovery is meant to be the big trigger for the grand ritual of doom to spring the trap, OR the Expedition is exactly the type of large, pre-announced target they've been waiting for-
Then standing at ground zero probably means we're toast, yeah. Don't think we're likely to be able to disrupt that sort of thing, and are about to take a Portal of Demons to the face.
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As someone earlier in the thread said, though, if we're really being targeted with a 185 year ritual then running probably also means we're toast. The only non-toast options would be:

1. They don't shoot the cannonball.
2. The cannon hasn't finished being created, so they have to shoot a handgun instead.
 
Alliterate said:
As others have also pointed out the ritual might not be the immediate threat. Conflating the Big Bad Magic with the response they (any active observers) may trigger to someone discovering the Big Bad Magic isn't helpful to your factual analysis. Making decisions based on 'they won't trigger a 200-year-ritual early just because Protagonist' doesn't seem to be a sound premise.
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If you replace "triggering the ritual" with "triggering a response from the ritualists" it changes... nothing, in terms of the reasoning in my analysis.

I mean, I guess at this point I've more or less resigned myself to watching the thread bandwagon onto what looks like clearly the worst option on the basis of reasoning that appears to boil down to a mix of Protagonist Syndrome and "but what if we hit Chaos with some chaos - surely they could never know how to react to that!". I just still don't like it very much, is all.
 
Briefvoice said:
As someone earlier in the thread said, though, if we're really being targeted with a 185 year ritual then running probably also means we're toast.
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Except we're much faster than Rangers on foot. ;) So Mathilde might get away while the others are chewed by gribbly-demons or sucked into hell. It would be the best chance to avoid quest end?

[:V] Run back to the Expedition, keep running, head back home and curse the day you ever got involved.


Possibly what's here is... 'magical infrastructure', rather than a one-off Doom Thing waiting to be triggered? Mathilde's mind went to 'Portal' when she was thinking what you could do with the magic. Sustaining a big Portal... into the Warp? Deep into the Wastes? Meaning perhaps there's a portal around here, through which horrible demons are about to pour.
 
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Cernunnos said:
Correct me if I sound insane here. But this seems like a big old H I N T.
Regardless, the expedition aren't going to thank us for dragging them into a mess without a proper consensus. In addition if this is greater demon tier shit, which it probably is, we really want to think before we go into this half cocked.
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You're not insane and despite voting for standing our ground I do worry that we are jumping the gun. Despite that, I feel that going back to the convoy would be giving up ground when we desperately need every inch and any advantage we gain might very well give our unseen opponents more time to prepare. I don't feel like the possible advantage is worth ceding the initiative. I guess I also am willing to bet on the expedition being better able to react to 'suddenly chaos' than whatever is lurking in the mountain can react to sudden discovery. His argument about stacking the deck was strong, but Mathilde already had every ace up her sleeve.
 
Question do we have an alternative return route? I dimly recall there being two possible routes.
(I can't find the threadmark with the maps grml)

I think we had an alternate route using Peak Pass?

Other idea, how hard is it to turn the steam wagons into something that can swim again? ..uh and boat around Norsca
 
The one thought I keep coming back to is that this expedition isn't really much of a worthwhile target to someone acting on the scale of "destroy a entire Dwarfhold, drink up an entire leyline's worth of magic for centuries, and hide it all from Teclis"

So I'm left focusing on "don't let them know they've been noticed"
 
dpara said:
Question do we have an alternative return route? I dimly recall there being two possible routes.
(I can't find the threadmark with the maps grml)

I think we had an alternate route using Peak Pass?
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There's the route they took in canon, which is an insane route involving a more time spent in the deep Wastes even though it's shorter in terms of overall distance.
BoneyM said:


Red is the Skull Road, the trade route from Kislev to Cathay. Blue is the two Expedition routes, the original on the left and the current on the right. Purplish-brown is a pretty huge cliff - the Western Steppes are at a higher elevation than Zorn Uzkul, which is itself at a higher elevation than the Dark Lands and the Old World.

This map is a result of comparing four canon maps, all of which disagreed with each other, with the book Daemonslayer and the information in various Army Books, which disagreed with the maps and also each other, and finding the least bad way to fit them together. It is likely to conflict with everything, but should be considered Quest Canon for at least the purposes of this Expedition.
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