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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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NexusEye said:
MAD works if you have rational actors. The big problem is that Dhar's schtick is making its user irrational. MAD isn't a deterrent if you genuinely want everything to be destroyed.
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And has access to accurate information.
Only reason we did not get WW3 The Nuclear Edition was luck.

Random distribution would make it impossible to get rational actors even without dhar making people go nuts.
 
NexysDhyArchen said:
What's funny is that when she checks out with her cargo of ALL the meat, Mathilde will have to remember to do so as 'Gabriella von Ernachthafen'.

Wonder what the Chorfs would think of an incognito Grey buying so much meat AND her weight in gold of market trinkets.
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Guards watching Mathilde leave :
"Some poor sod is going to end up fighting a wet jerky golem aren't they?"
"With a laser arm, yes"
"Now i'm hungry, what do you figure the nut is for?"

Edit:
"Bait, the nut is bait"
...
"Must be some big ass squirrels that way"
"Trader last week was saying he lost his whole family like that"
*mimics a nut cracking*
 
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Actually, the Second Secret does bear some consideration.

Right now, we can't share it because it can't be used without knowing the First Secret. I wonder if we could do something like we were talking about with dwarf secrets: could develop it into a method that would work without being able to work out the really dangerous First Secret? It need not even be as capable as the Second Secret to do a great deal of good.

Something along the lines of [do something with your own magic while counterspelling Dhar] that would cause Dhar to more often fall afoul of the Second Secret, without any understanding of why this is the case?
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Actually, the Second Secret does bear some consideration.

Right now, we can't share it because it can't be used without knowing the First Secret. I wonder if we could do something like we were talking about with dwarf secrets: could develop it into a method that would work without being able to work out the really dangerous First Secret? It need not even be as capable as the Second Secret to do a great deal of good.

Something along the lines of [do something with your own magic while counterspelling Dhar] that would cause Dhar to more often fall afoul of the Second Secret, without any understanding of why this is the case?
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It would take a fair bit of experience with handling Dhar to know whether that would be possible.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Actually, the Second Secret does bear some consideration.

Right now, we can't share it because it can't be used without knowing the First Secret. I wonder if we could do something like we were talking about with dwarf secrets: could develop it into a method that would work without being able to work out the really dangerous First Secret? It need not even be as capable as the Second Secret to do a great deal of good.

Something along the lines of [do something with your own magic while counterspelling Dhar] that would cause Dhar to more often fall afoul of the Second Secret, without any understanding of why this is the case?
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Personally I'd say we should become enough of an authority in deconstructing enemy magics that we could plausibly find out the two secrets on our own without having read the Liber Mortis, then spend some time fighting Necromancy using factions. Then we can pass the Secrets on to the Lord Magisters of the Grey Order without being at risk of getting burned for reading the Liber Mortis.

Just teaching it to the Grey LMs brings much of the advantages (preserving a Panic Button) while negating most of the negatives of teaching the secrets, since once you are a LM you are probably way beyond being tempted by Necromancy. Unless you get turned by a Vampire, but at that point the secrets would probably make a Lord Magister tier Vampire only a little bit more threatening than they already are.

Can you imagine Algard as a Necrarch? Or Blood Dragon Dragomas? Scary.
 
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Chronic said:
Personally I'd say we should become enough of an authority in deconstructing enemy magics that we could plausibly find out the two secrets on our own without having read the Liber Mortis, then spend some time fighting Necromancy using factions. Then we can pass the Secrets on to the Lord Magisters of the Grey Order without being at risk of getting burned for reading the Liber Mortis.

Just teaching it to the Grey LMs brings much of the advantages (preserving a Panic Button) while negating most of the negatives of teaching the secrets, since once you are a LM you are probably way beyond being tempted by Necromancy. Unless you get turned by a Vampire, but at that point the secrets would probably make a Lord Magister tier Vampire only a little bit more threatening than they already are.

Can you imagine Algard as a Necrarch? Scary.
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Problem: the Second Secret is a method which inherently requires manipulating Dhar. It cannot be done without breaching the Articles.
 
BoneyM said:
It would take a fair bit of experience with handling Dhar to know whether that would be possible.
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Drat. Probably not worth getting into Dhar use for a maybe.

Chronic said:
Personally I'd say we should become enough of an authority in deconstructing enemy magics that we could plausibly find out the two secrets on our own without having read the Liber Mortis, then spend some time fighting Necromancy using factions. Then we can pass the Secrets on to the Lord Magisters of the Grey Order without being at risk of getting burned for reading the Liber Mortis.

Just teaching it to the Grey LMs brings much of the advantages (preserving a Panic Button) while negating most of the negatives of teaching the secrets, since once you are a LM you are probably way beyond being tempted by Necromancy. Unless you get turned by a Vampire, but at that point the secrets would probably make a Lord Magister tier Vampire only a little bit more threatening than they already are.

Can you imagine Algard as a Necrarch? Scary.
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I don't think "LM" is good enough, really. If we weren't playing as Mathilde, I wouldn't trust her with it, either.
 
Lightwhispers said:
Problem: the Second Secret is a method which inherently requires manipulating Dhar. It cannot be done without breaching the Articles.
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It could be theorized by observing a user of the First Secret, though. With enough plausibly deniable magibabble and a hint at past usages of grand banishment spells like the one that Grand Theogenist used against Manfred. Nagash somehow managed to discover it from first principles, after all. I suspect Mathilde could manage to point someone as accomplished as an LM at the Second Secret while making it clear that she never used it herself.
 
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Chronic said:
It could be theorized by observing a user of the First Secret, though. With enough plausibly deniable magibabble and a hint at past usages of grand banishment spells like the one that Grand Theogenist used against Manfred. Nagash somehow managed to discover it from first principles, after all. I suspect Mathilde could manage to point someone as accomplished as an LM at the Second Secret while making it clear that she never used it herself.
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You can't learn the Second Secret without understanding the First Secret, so this is a non-starter. That Mathilde discovered it via observation rather than experimentation does not make her, or anyone she teaches, any less of an existential threat to the Empire.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I wonder if we could do something like we were talking about with dwarf secrets: could develop it into a method that would work without being able to work out the really dangerous First Secret?
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Enchant blade and pass them off. Nobody needs to know about how to use Dhar just to stab stuff.

Question I have would second secret work on vampire skulls we have? Being able to permenantly kill blood suckers would be one hell of a feather on our cap.
 
Tasoli said:
Enchant blade and pass them off. Nobody needs to know about how to use Dhar just to stab stuff.

Question I have would second secret work on vampire skulls we have? Being able to permenantly kill blood suckers would be one hell of a feather on our cap.
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Counterspelling someone by stabbing them while they're casting does not require a particularly special blade.
 
fictionfan said:
Remember where the college actually is. It isn't actually in Altdorf. It's in the shadows realm. Many of the links happen to be in Altdorf. But I see no reason we can't make a link from our tower.
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location in the shadow realm still roughly equates to location in the real world.

and K8P is very far indeed. Think of it as a world wide overlay.
 
fictionfan said:
Remember where the college actually is. It isn't actually in Altdorf. It's in the shadows realm. Many of the links happen to be in Altdorf. But I see no reason we can't make a link from our tower.
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That plane exists everywhere that the physical realm does. Entering it doesn't take you closer to the Grey College than you already are.

Tasoli said:
Question I have would second secret work on vampire skulls we have?
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No.
 
Tasoli said:
Enchant blade and pass them off. Nobody needs to know about how to use Dhar just to stab stuff.

Question I have would second secret work on vampire skulls we have? Being able to permenantly kill blood suckers would be one hell of a feather on our cap.
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If the second secrect did cause true death, then Vlad wouldn't be at risk of coming back, but he is (theoretically) so it probably doesn't.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
You can't learn the Second Secret without understanding the First Secret, so this is a non-starter. That Mathilde discovered it via observation rather than experimentation does not make her, or anyone she teaches, any less of an existential threat to the Empire.
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It kinda does. The First and Second Secrets are only part of what makes people who read the Liber Mortis an existential threat to the Empire. The other is that it contains a list of every necromantic spell ever, as well as how to cast them. And as the cherry on top of that it contains a how-to guide on efficiently using an undead legion on the strategic level.

The First Secret can easily be understood by observing a necromancer that uses it. Anyone who has ever faced a sufficiently knowledgeable Vampire / Necromancer Lord should know about it. I would not be surprised if a large part of the LMs in the Colleges already do know about it, because they are the people you go to in order to counterspell people like that. The Likes of Kemmler, or Helsnicht. Just find a sufficiently isolated Necrarch, dust him and claim you saw him use the First Secret, intuited it from him, thought long and hard about the weaknesses of this style of casting Necromany and then proceeded to figure out the Second Secret from that.

Also don't call them the First and Second Secrets, that would be too obvious a reference.

BoneyM said:
If you're trying to conceal that you read the Liber Mortis, it's probably not the best idea to bring up the time the Grand Theogonist read a 'spell' from the Liber Mortis.
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Yeah, i guess that would be a bit of an own goal. But there must have been similiar stories of grand banishments in the past one could use to draw historical references. Or just don't draw historical references at all, i guess.
 
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7. No Magister may ever study the Forbidden Lores of the Daemonic Powers, nor the unholy ways of Necromancy, nor any other sorcery or witchcraft that utilises the wicked powers of Dark Magic. Any Magister found disregarding this Article is guilty of an Abominable Act and is both Heretic and Traitor and will be put to sword and fire immediately.
 
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