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Holy fuck Snorri you madlad. That's some excellent fighting chops right there.
I find it interesting that the Ranger's side weapon is a warhammer. I'd have expected a handaxe not just because of the stereotype, but also simply because it is a better tool in the wild (for cutting ropes and whatnot). But what am I saying. He probably has both.

@BoneyM What's the Dwarves view on knifes as all purpose tools on a warrior?
Edit: Here's a thought, is that what they're using the waystone for? Powering the planar shift?
Well, yes.
It's a lot of energy for one Wizard, but it's not impossible.
If he doesn't think he's up to the task purely based on power required, are we allowed to try to convince him to let other Wizards (Mathilde at the very least) help?
I don't think we have dwarven priests with the expedition.
According to WoQM on world-building stuff there's definitely at least a couple lay-priests of Gazul here. Probably among the Rangers. Dwarven throngs and expeditions don't go anywhere where death might be a thing without having those in reach.
Mathilde theorizes that disrupting the spell or the flow of magic will return the Karak to reality.
How confident is she?
(if they dissipate! they might only do so if killed)
I know this thread moves far too fast to keep track of every comment, but you should at least read BoneyM's own comments if you want to give definitive opinions on the stuff being discussed.
Once it popped back into the immaterium it left the watchtowers and fortifications behind.
On the other hand those watchtowers were in the Immaterium. I don't know how safe they are to garrison.
You have all the information Mathilde has, your guess would be as good as hers.
We don't, actually. Mathilde has lived years among Dwarves and has read a library's worth of their books. We just have the expertly crafted glimpse into her life that you've gracefully provided us.

Each of them has risks. If you don't particularly care if Cyrston and the Light Wizards live or die, then I suppose there's no reason not to triple-dip.
But they're not compounding risks. And they would be sequential actions, not simultaneous ones. Like rolling dice until we hit the DC or rolled three times, permanently sacrificing assets on each crit fail. I guess Cyrston would be less likely to cooperate if he sees a Magister and three fellow Journeymen explode because of something we told them to do, but well, we aren't going to force him to do it if he tells us that it isn't feasible anyway, so it still seems worth asking.

That said, when I made that plan suggestion I was working off of the idea that all three available options were conceived by you and put there as choices from the beginning. If the majority of people would rather vote "No" than, say, approval vote the three options then doing all three sequentially is worse than doing just the one(s) that are being considered better than "No". And with all the options being technically write-in, my own confidence that all three options are preferable to "No" falls as well.
 
@BoneyM What's the Dwarves view on knifes as all purpose tools on a warrior?

They're seen as tools, not weapons.

If he doesn't think he's up to the task purely based on power required, are we allowed to try to convince him to let other Wizards (Mathilde at the very least) help?

Mathilde will do her best to make whatever is chosen work.

How confident is she?

At least 60/40.

We don't, actually. Mathilde has lived years among Dwarves and has read a library's worth of their books. We just have the expertly crafted glimpse into her life that you've gracefully provided us.

I don't like 'what does Mathilde think about [what the thread is debating]' because it's asking me to render all that debate pointless, and no matter how much I emphasize that it's Mathilde's subjective opinion based on the incomplete information she has available to her at the time, it always gets taken as complete gospel unquestionable WoG to the extent that it shuts down all further discussion of the topic and people get upset if it turns out to have been incorrect. The argument that Mathilde has expertise the thread doesn't can be applied to literally every decision the thread is asked to make, and if taken to the logical conclusion it would turn this into prose, rather than quest.
 
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He has learned perfectly. He gives her vague orders to do things a long, long way from his mountains. Thus the inconvenient miracles continue to happen, but the headaches hit someone else. Belegar is a practical Dwarf after all.
"Phew, that was something. After a quick break, I'd like to take a look at the Waystones now, my king."
"Yes, sounds good- you just head on up to Laurelorn and cooperate away in Elgi-land, with my blessing. Come back when you've learned something." [or relocated them into the middle of blasted Ulthuan]
 
[X] No

I'm going with this because I don't want to get side tracked, and because I figure they're just not equipped to deal with this right now. Possibly giving it another go on the way back, depending on how things go, I wouldn't be opposed to, but I'd prefer not now.
 
I think that the idea that Karak Vlag would be stuck in the warp if we cut the power to be rather silly. The effect putting it in the realm of Chaos must be an active effect, and it must be based in reality, otherwise where did the power from the Leyline go? if it was a one and done effect, then the 200 years of magic radiation would've caused some kind of chaos-y thing to happen to the mountain. If it was based on the other side then why would they need the leyline's power? the power in the waystones comes from the polar rifts, which are portals to the Realm of Chaos. It would be like generating power by plugging a power strip into itself. So if the effect is based on this side and requires constant power to keep Karak Vlag elsewhere, then surely it would return if the power supply was disrupted.
 
It's kind of awkward, but honestly I really don't think we can actually deal with This, especially fucking with waystones.

I don't know what to do to be honest
 
VOTE
[X] Waystone Clog

Clog the waystone, observe for a couple days. If nothing happens, move on and clog the next one upstream. Unclog them on our way back from Dum.
Because having a confirmed demon holding along our primary route of retreat is....what's the term, suboptimal. And giving them several months to prepare a welcome for us is just a bad idea. No point to evaccing a bunch of Dum dwarves and losing them on the High Pass to demon attack.

And as for the fears of a clog keeping Vlag immersed in the Warp, I dont think thats likely.

If the process of keeping Vlag shunted into the Warp did not require active effort, they wouldnt need the leyline power.
Either they dont need the energy from Dum to keep Vlag shunted dimensionally, in which case fucking with the waysstones will do nothing, or they need it as part of the process of sieging the hold, in which case clogging the wardstones triggers a countdown.

I mean, we(and by we, I mean Mathilde/Wizards/Elves/Dwarves) have some idea of how much power it takes to elicit major spatial distortions on this sort of scale. There's a reason its only seen in the Wastes, where the Winds blow strong.
 
It's kind of awkward, but honestly I really don't think we can actually deal with This, especially fucking with waystones.

I don't know what to do to be honest
We have the instruction manual to turn the thing off and on again; we can definitely do that, at least. We just have to turn it off until Vlag comes back, clear the daemons out, then turn it back on.

'Just'. :V
 
If we're gonna leave that portal open behind us, we might be coming back this way along with weary Karag Dum survivors forced into battle in open ground against daemons and no sturdy fortification. And possibly, if things went really fucky, with Kurgan Hordes hot on our tail.
 
Just saying, if this plan works, then when the "hold Vlag in the Immaterium" enchantment loses its power I want Mathilde to pat the Waystone she used for the job appreciatively for being such an excellent insulator of magic.
Okay, this line is genius.

@BoneyM
I read you saying something about Mathilde's knowledge about the dwarf waystones being potentially capable of setting off a civil war.

But isn't it the fact that they're all feeding into Karaz a Karak the fact that might set off a civil war?
So would it be fine just telling them that Karaks are waystones on the network, that she believes that the power feed leading into Vlag is coming from Dum, and that the K8P waystone stopped sending power when it fell?
(Thus maintaining the impression that the waystones probably feed into Ulthuan.)
Do we have any indication whether or not this power feed could have only been what power was picked up along the way by the chain between Dum and Vlag?
 
Random thought, but it occurs to me that Mathilde could, potentially, learn enough off of dealing with this mess to try replicating the dimensional shunt herself, assuming all goes well. Of course we wouldn't want to do a whole mountain, not unless we had a Waystone we didn't mind hijacking, but it would probably be interesting to do a room or something. Having a hidden lab in the warp sounds like it could be all kinds of fun. Of course, we would probably have to find a part of the warp where daemons can't get in, but Ranald probably has us covered there...
 
[X] Waystone Clog

Leaving this behind the Expedition is a bad idea, we could potentially have daemons attacking us all the time or ambushing us on the way back.

Besides, buy one Hold and get one free is an excellent deal if we can pull it off.

Also we have a crazy amount of expertise here to pull it off since we have on the team Elder Ice Witch, Jade Magister, Ancient Dragon, Elf Prince and Mathilde. Plus the forces to hold a Waystone with.
 
I think that the idea that Karak Vlag would be stuck in the warp if we cut the power to be rather silly.
It might be that they need the power source on this side merely to bring Vlag Back to our world, so that it can function as a back-door for chaos. So in that case cutting off the power supply closes the back door, but doesn't actually bring Vlag back.

While I agree that the above isn't the most likely option, and that Karak Vlag is probably going to exit the warp once the power is cut, the issue I see is timescale. While it wouldn't surprise me if it reappeared quickly I also wouldn't be surprised if the chaos people running this had a backup power supply that could delay things for long enough that our expedition in particular won't be sticking around long enough to be able to deal with it.
 
We have the instruction manual to turn the thing off and on again; we can definitely do that, at least. We just have to turn it off until Vlag comes back, clear the daemons out, then turn it back on.

'Just'. :V
I mean we don't actually have to go inside, just wait for demonic instability to do the work.

Fuck, we really can't leave this behind, we'd be hunted down by a shitton of daemons that want to make sure the secret doesn't spread.

[X] Waystone Clog
 
We have the instruction manual to turn the thing off and on again; we can definitely do that, at least. We just have to turn it off until Vlag comes back, clear the daemons out, then turn it back on.

'Just'. :V
As I understand it, we're not at this time sure how to cancel whatever effect moves Vlag into the Warp. We can try to interrupt it via an upstream Waystone- and face the emerging daemonic assault- but then the 'poking around to find out what causes it to keep disappearing' probably still needs to be done- possibly falling into outside-of-expedition research time. Easier with Vlag here than in the Warp, I'm sure, but still could be difficult.
I mean we don't actually have to go inside, just wait for demonic instability to do the work.
I'm convinced we'll come under focused attack, rather than the daemons just waiting around until they dissipate.
 
As I understand it, we're not at this time sure how to cancel whatever effect moves Vlag into the Warp. We can try to interrupt it via an upstream Waystone- and face the emerging daemonic assault- but then the 'poking around to find out what causes it to keep disappearing' probably still needs to be done- possibly falling into outside-of-expedition research time. Easier with Vlag here than in the Warp, I'm sure, but still could be difficult.

I'm convinced we'll come under focused attack, rather than the daemons just waiting around until they dissipate.

Well they will try to focus on us... but they will still need to track down which stone we blocked.
 
I'm convinced we'll come under focused attack, rather than the daemons just waiting around until they dissipate.

Oh yeah definitely. The problem is that they will probably chase us down if we just nope out, or attack when we try to make the return journey, so we kind of have to deal with it now.

Also, going inside the the plan works would be insane. Dwarf Karaks are not conductive to cav, and we don't wanna risk getting pulled into the warp if something goes wrong.
 
It might be that they need the power source on this side merely to bring Vlag Back to our world, so that it can function as a back-door for chaos. So in that case cutting off the power supply closes the back door, but doesn't actually bring Vlag back.
In which case the daemonette attack force would not have needed them to bring back the whole Karak in the first place to launch an attack.
Theyd just have created a temporary portal, like you see everytime some Chaos sorcerer or effect summons a bunch of demons into the real.

The real clincher though, is the fact that when they took the Karak back into the Warp, they left parts of the Karak behind.
Which points at real resource constraints on the part of the perp, whether expertise or power or conditions.
I mean, there is no Storm of Magic in play any longer, so major rituals like this are much more difficult than they used to be to execute or maintain.

While I agree that the above isn't the most likely option, and that Karak Vlag is probably going to exit the warp once the power is cut, the issue I see is timescale. While it wouldn't surprise me if it reappeared quickly I also wouldn't be surprised if the chaos people running this had a backup power supply that could delay things for long enough that our expedition in particular won't be sticking around long enough to be able to deal with it.
Backup power reserves are possible, but this is not the Storm of Magic any longer.
Reality is much harder to bend under these conditions, and there will be a definite timer running for them. They cannot rely on us giving up and leaving before said timer runs out, so they have to react and not attempt to wait us out. Especially if Karag Vlag is actively resisting.

Furthermore, they have to consider the other possibilities.
We clog the nearest waystone. If there's no reaction, then we clog the one upstream of THAT as well.
And unclog them on our way back from Dum.

Besides, Slaanesh not Tzeentch. Elaborate contingencies are not especially in theme for followers of this member of the Four.
 
It might be that they need the power source on this side merely to bring Vlag Back to our world, so that it can function as a back-door for chaos. So in that case cutting off the power supply closes the back door, but doesn't actually bring Vlag back.

While I agree that the above isn't the most likely option, and that Karak Vlag is probably going to exit the warp once the power is cut, the issue I see is timescale. While it wouldn't surprise me if it reappeared quickly I also wouldn't be surprised if the chaos people running this had a backup power supply that could delay things for long enough that our expedition in particular won't be sticking around long enough to be able to deal with it.
In order for that to be the case though, they would need to bring Karak Vlag back into reality on a regular basis, so as to prevent the buildup of magic from where the Waystone should be, since otherwise the mountain would be obviously glowing with magic. Presumably Thorgrim would be curious if he kept getting pings that Vlag and Dum kept getting connected to the network again and then dissapeared, or the dwarves would have seen it at some point when they were investigating earlier.
 
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