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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Katahiraga said:
I want the lesser evil of freeing some slaves, than none of the slaves, and for Mathilde to not run away and leave people to die or suffer a fate worse than death, just because its more convenient for her emotions, and for her to get over the What measure is a non-human trope, plus ignorance is bliss way of thinking and face her problems in life than pretend they don't exist.
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This is Warhammer, if you can't pretend some problems don't exist you would be in an insane asylum or the service of the Ruinous powers.
 
Katahiraga said:
Visitting the slave pen, and buying a few slaves to free them, is the lesser evil than doing nothing and running away, we don't even have to take them with us, just buy one important person, get a trustworthy group to ransom him back, perhaps a brettonia or imperial group in this city, they don't even have to do it for good moral reasons, but simply for profit,
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No.

First, it won't work. Or at least, is incredibly unlikely to work. There are no trustworthy groups for that purpose.

Second, anything that distracts from Mathilde's purpose of helping the Expedition get to Karag Dum, and back, is a betrayal of her morals and oaths. Going into that Hall will make her less capable for the rest of the trip.

So, no. If you want to do something about the Hall of Slaves... Figure out how to do something like the Second Secret of Dhar with Daemon-runes. That *might* be sufficient.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
Why?

No, seriously. Why?

Clan Moulder has been waging war against them for generations anyway, and vice-versa. What you're suggesting is basically crippling an entire Chaos Dwarf city-fortress by ourselves...and then somehow breaking out a shitload of slaves during that, while somehow escaping from all of that while skaven are invading, then somehow successfully extract those slaves across brutal, unforgiving terrain even though we'd definitely have plenty of wounded, starving, and belligerent slaves. And you'd also be freeing up a clan of skaven to turn their attention to Kislev, the Karaz Ankor, or Karak Vlag specifically.



Ranald is not all-powerful. It doesn't matter how saintly Ranald is, he's not going to be able to just negate the capabilities of the capital city of the Chaos Dwarves any more than Gork could let a single orc waltz into Karaz-a-Karak and steal a hundred tons of gold.

And BoneyM has already said that Mathilde's reaction would be trauma and deep emotional pain.
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You got me wrong here, i tend to interpret Ranald as a trickster god leaning on the side of evil and anarchy as per WHFRP rulebooks, my quests and roleplay games. So not as a saint, but how his ethos can fit Math's world view and if Warhammer races matters to Ranald .
 
Neshuakadal said:
Mathilde has repeatedly said that this place is awful and it would be better burnt to the ground. How is that pretending this place is O.K? Does someone need to personally see something to know that thing isn't o.k? Does someone need to personally experience something in order to not be a coward?

I would find your argument somewhat compelling if Mathilde wasn't revolted by this place, but she clearly is.
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I meant pretending that, looking away is better than looking at the problem, especially when looking away will cost lives if not souls of the victims, the voters voting for not visiting the pen, are those who are also voting to leave the few slaves that Mathilde could potentially save to die or potentially suffer a fate worse than death, which is reason enough to if not rescue the slaves, than buy at least a few, which is better than doing nothing just so Mathilde can have peace of mind.
 
Katahiraga said:
Visitting the slave pen, and buying a few slaves to free them, is the lesser evil than doing nothing and running away, we don't even have to take them with us, just buy one important person, get a trustworthy group to ransom him back, perhaps a brettonia or imperial group in this city, they don't even have to do it for good moral reasons, but simply for profit,
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No it is totally worse. Buying slaves just supports the institution causing even more slaves.
 
Lightwhispers said:
No.

First, it won't work. Or at least, is incredibly unlikely to work. There are no trustworthy groups for that purpose.

Second, anything that distracts from Mathilde's purpose of helping the Expedition get to Karag Dum, and back, is a betrayal of her morals and oaths. Going into that Hall will make her less capable for the rest of the trip.

So, no. If you want to do something about the Hall of Slaves... Figure out how to do something like the Second Secret of Dhar with Daemon-runes. That *might* be sufficient.
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Leaving people to die or worst is also a betrayal of her morals, especially if she left them just to keep her peace of mind, when a simple purchase can save a life or two.
 
BoneyM said:
Presumably someone decided it would be useful to know affiliation, then someone realized that asking the question discouraged some visitors so they allowed for 'incognito', so from then on everyone is asked a useless question. Bureaucracy!
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Its not shown how Dwarven Custom/border patrol officer ask ( the usual/universal question of 'Anything to declare?') in normal dwarven hold, but these questions, if not already implemented, is a good idea.

I'd recon they will have magical/runic/chaotic scanner which goes wild if it detected Dwarven/runic magic. Which will then be accompanied by full search and beatings..


A question, what is cheap/abundant in Chaos Dwarves hold but expensive at regular Hold?

Do they have purely mechanical/non chaotic works that is better then what the regular dwarves have?
 
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[X] HALL: No
[X] MEAT: Yes
[X] ARM: Yes
[X] NUT: Yes
[X] PAPERS: Yes

this is an easy vote for me.

is that an Acorn from Athel Loren?
I doubt that.
probably a mystical acorn from a mystical Oak but there are many of those and being of the Oak of Ages would be . . . troubling.

It would mean that there is a Dark Elf plot within Athel Loren that successfully stole or killed someone that had an Acorn of the Oak of Ages on them, with so much overflow that they can get away with selling them for that cheap instead of using them to directly fuel a scheme. That'd be ridiculous, so I doubt it's an Acorn of the Oak of Ages. Something similar, but not specifically the big lore one we know of.

same with this being literally The Hand of the Gods, the golden gauntlet of Kroq'Gar. Being a Hand of the Gods type weapon that was recovered/plundered by Skeggi or polar-gate battlefield plundering Norscans makes sense. Kroq`Gar was from a spawning of badasses, so the other badasses having similar equipment would make sense. It's powerful equipment that casts Shem's Burning Gaze for the user without requiring the user to be a spellcaster. Seeing one of them, well, all the colleges have secrets right? It would make sense that the Luminark's of Hysh were designed around a separate Hand of the Gods that was brought to Altdorf and studied well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is a similarity between the runic installations of the Old Ones and the runic installations of the Dwarves. It intrigues me to have access to a device that shapes the winds on behalf of the wielder especially because I would like to know if there is Divine Magic at work allowing the device to function. Because that is the wonder of Gazul's Eye is it not? Through machining and runecraft, the winds are shaped and molded so that a spark of Divine from Gazul can set off the desired effect. I am interested greatly in the Lizardmen lore, and I believe Cython would find the theology of Lizardmen (literally all of their writings, so this research is sure to touch on it) fascinating.

Acorn as a Pan Project
Research Papers as reading material on the trip, loan to Cython when we return
Hand of Gods as a joint project with Cython might be neat. They are an incredibly knowledgeable and capable individual after all
 
Katahiraga said:
I meant pretending that, looking away is better than looking at the problem, especially when looking away will cost lives if not souls of the victims, the voters voting for not visiting the pen, are those who are also voting to leave the few slaves that Mathilde could potentially save to die or potentially suffer a fate worse than death, which is reason enough to if not rescue the slaves, than buy at least a few, which is better than doing nothing just so Mathilde can have peace of mind.
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If we suffer mental trauma such as we are more vulnerable to the Chaos Gods we are endangering the whole expedition and any survivors of Dun, far far more people than we could reasonably buy and ones we have a present obligation to.
 
Man all this talk about suicide bombing ourselves in dwarf Vegas in hopes of causing a slave revolt just makes me want to go back to k8p more.

Ain't no way in he'll I'm voting to stick to years of plan8ng and staying in chaos Vegas mind breaker horror boogalo in the vein hopes 9f trying a slave revolt.

Depression quest ain't what im here for.
 
fictionfan said:
No it is totally worse. Buying slaves just supports the institution causing even more slaves.
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I haven't actually decided on a vote yet but this isn't a good argument. Adding a few hundred gold to the near-incalculable wealth of the chaos dwarves in order to free a few slaves isn't as morally deplorable as you're making it out to be.
 
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I voted Hall: Yes, because I expect @BoneyM will be able to do it justice in writing. Poor Mathilde, the QM is too good to not vote for her to live in interesting times.
 
Chlof said:
@BoneyM Will we be able to come back to Uzkulak on the way back from Karak Dum? Sorry if this has already been answered.
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The state that Mathilde and the Expedition will be in on the way back from Karag Dum is impossible to predict.

B_omega said:
A question, what is cheap/abundant in Chaos Dwarves hold but expensive at regular Hold?
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Trade goods from Cathay, the Great Steppes, the Mountains of Mourn, and Norsca. Amber, cattle, horses, silk, jade, ivory, tea.

B_omega said:
Do they have purely mechanical/non chaotic works that is better then what the regular dwarves have?
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No. Their tech tree is Sorcery and Daemons, excluding those leaves a pretty underwhelming selection.
 
BoneyM said:
The state that Mathilde and the Expedition will be in on the way back from Karag Dum is impossible to predict.
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Fair enough. In that case I'm going to hope that we'll be able to come back and vote no on the hall this time.

[X] HALL: No
[X] MEAT: Yes
[X] ARM: Yes
[X] NUT: Yes
[X] PAPERS: Yes
 
BoneyM said:
No. Their tech tree is Sorcery and Daemons, excluding those leaves a pretty underwhelming selection.
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This is a good place to ask a question - @BoneyM, are there any spells, enchantments or the like in trading area? If there are spells, it could be interesting information on nature of chaos dwarves Sorcery (arcane? divine? dhar?). If there are any type activated items for detection, takedown or magic suppresion, then with Mathilde magesight looking at them could be interesting.
 
DiceOfStupidity said:
This is a good place to ask a question - are there any spells, enchantments or the like in trading area? If there are spells, it could be interesting information on nature of chaos dwarves Sorcery (arcane? divine? dhar?). If there are any type activated items for detection, takedown or magic suppresion, then with Mathilde magesight looking at them could be interesting.
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None that Mathilde found, and in general if you're very lucky, you might be able to find something very low quality. About as many as you can find in stalls at market day in Altdorf, for about the same reason.
 
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Omegahugger said:
They probably vote for it because they think Mathilde facing down the ugliness of the world, an evil that is clearly physical and actual that she cannot remove with a wellplaced swordswing, is the kind of thing that'll be interesting to read about. The closest thing Mathilde as a character has come to facing something similar were the Skaven Breeders, and as moral challenge those were inherently different.

Mathilde was also emotionally tortured and traumatized by Abel dying in her arms, and yet the thread consensus is that him dying was ultimately to the story's benefit. The same reasoning can apply here.
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Hey, if you ever wanted to slap a mindbreak tag on this thread, and drive Mathilde to necromancy in anger, now's your chance!
 
NexusEye said:
If the Chaos Dwarves captured any Karag Dum Dwarves they wouldn't be slaves, they would be sacrificed to Hashut.
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Raiseth said:
That sounds like a capital-G Grudge in the making.



Also that.
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I mean, these guys have already been stated to be different from how Mathilde expected and Dwarfs are valuable slaves, for the sole reason that they are really good at whatever craft they practice. I can see this outpost being willing to sell captured Karag Dum Dawi. I just don't want us to end up in Dum and find out that Mathilde failed to rescue someone because she was essentially afraid. I can't help but feel that'd be catastrophic psychologically.
 
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