Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
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- Location
- Washington
Bretonnia uses magic, but it's straight up not how they dealt with their forests. Nobody's arguing that magic doesn't make a difference. But there are absolutely non-magical solutions to magical problems in Warhammer, long term even.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Really? Okay, stop the cataclysm with out magic. There's a shit tonne of problems in Warhammer that have a "You must be this tall to ride" clause to be able to solve it and the requirement is advanced knowledge of magic or at least the application of it.
Most of the heavy hitters in the setting are absolutely drenched in magic whether its arcane enchantments for their gear or the divine empowerment of gods that suffuses their being to the point where they are more magical than human. Included in that are people like Sigmar and Giles le Breton as their feats are so far beyond what a human can or should be able to do.
None of this is to say that 'mundane' characters aren't valuable but if you want to solve long term the big problems in the setting or even just do damage mitigation you're going to need people that can use magic. The waystone network is the Ur example of something keeping the world alive that only magical people will ever be able to fix/maintain and whilst there's an awful lot of other problems that could you could solve by putting a sword or cannon to it, some of the big setting details are magic or bust.
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Sure, but there's no reason that the impetus to solve them has to come from a magical character. If a nonmagical Mathilde wanted to fix the waystone network she could hire magisters and runesmiths and have them do that, compensating for the loss of those magic users to other projects by nonmagical means. The way to get things done without magic is organization, and magic users can be organized as much as anyone else.
- Location
- Aotearoa
By who, though? Not in numbers by just anyone with some cash and a project in mind.
Certainly Abelhelm didn't think Wizard-hours were an abundant resource. Runesmith time is not abundantly available even to Kings- Belegar has one resident Runesmith, luckily one of the two best, but still only one.
As a Wizard, we're plugged into the College system, able to trade our time and good will for that of other Wizards. Outsiders have considerably higher friction in making those exchanges.
Certainly Abelhelm didn't think Wizard-hours were an abundant resource. Runesmith time is not abundantly available even to Kings- Belegar has one resident Runesmith, luckily one of the two best, but still only one.
As a Wizard, we're plugged into the College system, able to trade our time and good will for that of other Wizards. Outsiders have considerably higher friction in making those exchanges.
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So people have been making great points about why it's important to talk to Ruprecht, and I agree with a lot of them. But what I don't understand is why speaking to him now is more urgent than a unique opportunity to scout and investigate a Skaven fort, especially when those Skaven control a portion of the road our convoy is travelling upon. Sure, if they move against us, our scouts will probably pick it up, but wouldn't it be safer to have nosy around at the source? Especially if the Combes were in the way of that Tzeentchian host that wandered off into the east. I doubt that a Lord of Change wandered off in the wrong direction and dissipated without fighting anything (but I could be wrong on that point—maybe they messed up their navigation roll or something, although what ever happened, I'm sure it went just as planned).
Also, many of the arguments for speaking to Ruprecht also apply to the other knight commander, Joerg, yet he seems to have been ignored completely. I think he's pretty suspect—his name is half Kislev, half Imperial, the ice witch chose to stay with him instead of the wizards (she seemed to have foreknowledge of him?), and the only levers we have on the knights of Taal are the amber wizards—and we don't know what his personal opinion on wizards is. I want to know what his deal is. At least with the Wolves they are allies of our king who fought alongside us before—we can leverage that into temporary command over them or use their support to gain an influential advisory position on who ever does end up taking over (probably Gotrek or Snorri, who respect us and our authority already, but extra votes at that meeting is extra legitimacy).
And I just realised that those Skaven are probably the closest threat to Karak Vlag, so figuring out if they are aware that there is almost-but-not-quite-free real estate just up the road could be important (although I do trust the dwarfs of Vlag to defend it from Skaven). We have severely disrupted the geopolitics of the region, and it would be cool to see if there are any impacts from that, but we'll mostly get that from the Chaos Dwarfs I suspect.
Also, many of the arguments for speaking to Ruprecht also apply to the other knight commander, Joerg, yet he seems to have been ignored completely. I think he's pretty suspect—his name is half Kislev, half Imperial, the ice witch chose to stay with him instead of the wizards (she seemed to have foreknowledge of him?), and the only levers we have on the knights of Taal are the amber wizards—and we don't know what his personal opinion on wizards is. I want to know what his deal is. At least with the Wolves they are allies of our king who fought alongside us before—we can leverage that into temporary command over them or use their support to gain an influential advisory position on who ever does end up taking over (probably Gotrek or Snorri, who respect us and our authority already, but extra votes at that meeting is extra legitimacy).
And I just realised that those Skaven are probably the closest threat to Karak Vlag, so figuring out if they are aware that there is almost-but-not-quite-free real estate just up the road could be important (although I do trust the dwarfs of Vlag to defend it from Skaven). We have severely disrupted the geopolitics of the region, and it would be cool to see if there are any impacts from that, but we'll mostly get that from the Chaos Dwarfs I suspect.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Getting hold of magical resources when you're not a wizard is difficult to say the least. I honestly doubt we'd have nearly the same achievements as a non magical mathilde not even in terms of organisation. Yes we would have hit the "Push skills" button but those skills wouldn't have the same impact as skills half as good but backed up by magic.
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That was working with Stirland's budget, being required to hire magisters who met Abelhelm's monster hunting standards when filtered through Abelhelm's view of the typical magic user. We're currently part of a polity which keeps a half dozen magic users on staff full time and hires more on a contract basis regularly despite having a non magical leader. Add to that, Boney has pointed out before that magisters from other colleges can be hired for just gold. Nonmagical Mathilde would need to do some work getting regular access to magic users, but it is doable.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I didn't remember the first one, thought the second event was more visible and/or affected something Thorek was working on and thought that Borek meant that the Dum Runesmiths had some sort of Rune or Runic array they were using for that.
That helps. I still prefer staying on the "socializing schedule, but what you said means that it actually is the best action to spy for Skaven actions being planned against us, since the other three combes are less reachable to us. Still, a one in four chance to witness coordinated attack preparations if a) we get far enough without complications, b) we happen to come at the right time and c) there's anything being planned in the first place is nothing to run home about.
Wait, which combes are we visiting woth that action? I thought only the one. If we visit all four that are properly Skaven-occupied then I retract my objections, though I don't know how she'd manage to give them their due time in a week that she's also visiting Uzkulak and socializing with three people in particular and a bunch of Wizards in general.
In the HRE there were plenty of fiefdoms that didn't get a vote during Imperial elections but also weren't vassals to any of the Elector Counts. And I'm not sure, but I vaguely recall there having been Emperors that weren't also Elector Counts.
Since they are relatively new and the social/legal contract surrounding the difference between Magisters and Lord Magisters are probably designed by the Colleges themselves I assume that the exact position of Lord Magisters in the noble hierarchy is still partially disputed.
Do you think socializing with the people we already know for years will become an option in general in future weeks or is there just not enough quest value or writing material to make it worth it outside of specific events happening to specific
Dwarf king level wealth doesn't exactly grow on trees. Belegar can afford stuff because he's rich and he recovered at least part of K8P enormous pre fall wealth. He was still moved when Karak Azul decided to drop decades worth of their iron supply into the Sword of Gazul without charge because that would have otherwise been expensive even for him.
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Granted. Magic is genuinely a plus and a big one at that, we're in the top 1% of magic users and are doing much better than we would be if we were in the top 1% of non magical people. But it doesn't actually follow that we need to personally have magic to help solve the biggest problems in the setting.
She'll play it by ear. If Qrech's stories turn out to be enough information she'll get into every combe she can, if not she'll stick to Qrech's.
These aren't purely social turns, getting to know people better now could end up being important in the coming weeks, whereas there's little utility to spending time with people that Mathilde already knows well.
You can even agree that it can block us from the positions that would allow us to do the most good.
Wizards can't become emperor after all.
Or holder of the Seal, imperial treasurer, Elector count etc etc.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Not that it matters much, but you wrote your vote wrong. It's Gurnisson. With an r, just one n and double s.
- Location
- Washington
I don't need to provide a way to do that, because I didn't fucking say "every problem can be solved nonmagically." Someone else said that magical problems all need magical solutions, so I said that's wrong because it is in fact wrong, and also said that their example was actually the opposite, because it was beastmen in the forest, which far from needing a magical solution, is a problem that has been solved so long as the political and economic will is there, and THE solution, not a solution, is nonmagical. No forest, no beastmen.
That is not technically true, it would be more difficult, exponentially more difficult for some of those positions, but there is not formal reason a Wizard can't be any of those things, if only because elector counts and Emperors don't like those sorts of limitations on their own power. Say for instance that and lector count was discovered to be wizard later in life. They definitely would not want to be forced into abdication.
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Are you sure? Aren't those positions completely up to the Emperor and just as politically feasible for him to fill with Wizards as it is for the High King in Karaz-a-Karak to have a Court Wizard?
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Well I'd argue strictly speaking the beastmen aren't solely a magical problem but even then clearing the forests like you suggest would provoke an all out attack by the beastmen which is going to need magical assistance if you don't want to get utterly smashed by magically empowered beastmen, you're also going to need magical assistance to deal with the dhar menhirs they make. You can't credibly claim that beastmen are solely a mundane problem that can be solved by political and economic will thats a big part of it but if you're completely magically null and you don't have any kind of ability to impact the winds or operate with runes like the dwarves I genuinely don't see how you could deal with the fall out of the beastmen.
Magical problems can certainly be partially dealt with non-magically but you're relegating yourself to mitigation efforts. When you talked about 'Long term even' I'm honestly not quite sure what you were trying to imply but there's a lot of situations that don't rise to the level of the great catacylsm that need magical assistance to matter, but fair enough I took your statement to be more absolute than it was.
I'm still very very sure that a non-magical Mathilde would absolutely 100% have not even come close to the same scale of achievements that we have. That's not to say that it wouldn't be interesting to read in its own right but it'd be very different.
They pretty much are, there's nothing stopping a wizard from being in those positions.
- Location
- Brazil
Put it another way- someone offered us to block our magic permanently, but we'd be 100% sure to become an Elector Countess right after.
Would you take that deal?
Would you take that deal?
- Location
- Earth
I'd kill that stupid Tzeentchen Daemon
- Location
- Greece
RP wise? hell no, Mathilde would never, her identity is too connected with magic to even consider such a choice.
Interest in quest wise? Also hell no, it would be an incredible AP sink where every action would have to be spent setting up organizations and politicking and stuff, and while that may be interesting, itd shift the paradigm of this quest waaay too much, which is a risk, plus it'd tie us down into a place. It may hurt my interest in the quest to even get such a position for free, without having to give up magic. There is a reason a great number of questers do not want the position of patriarch even though it comes with more power.
At a cost benefit analysis of ability to affect things though? yeah, those people have too much political power, and that matters a lot. It would be a yes, this is a good exchange of things for me under such a calculation.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Would it? I'd say it depends, if you were made an elector but you don't have a territory under you it wouldn't make to much difference, you get some influence but no real power, if that territory was Stirland then you'd have a chunk of power but you're still in the little leagues over all I'd say. We could do more good with our magical abilities especially as we're at the point where the next tier of thing to look into is battle magic level enchanting and the waystones as a project. There's only a handful of people in the world that could remotely be considered ready to try and tackle that as a project.
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- Location
- USA
I'd probably really enjoy a Boney Elector Count quest, but I don't see myself enjoying a scenario where Mathilde loses magic.
For anyone wondering why some of us vote for "social" options, this is exactly why.