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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Fanhunter696 said:
I find quite curious not only that 80% of the named Magic Grimoires in Warhammer are focused on Dark or Chaos Magic, but that the safest ones to study, own, and arguably use (besides being the least gruesome of the bunch) are the treaties of necromancy like the Liber Mortis or the books of Nagash.
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The Books of Nagash are pretty dangerous, but the type of people who can seize them to read them and get famous tend to be powerful enough to subvert the traps (although a couple of them were famous in part because they got possessed by portions of Nagash's spirit).

The Liber Mortis is so famous because it's the only non-trapped translation of one of the 9 Books of Nagash, along with necromancy bits and pieces Vlad read from the other 8 or picked up from his travels, plus the translator's journal, military memoirs, and Vlad's notes on his descent into madness.
 
HungryHamadryad said:
Can't say I agree. This isn't a binary issue and there are far more sensible plans of action in-between 'tell virtually everyone how the extremely dangerous ancient monuments function' and 'do nothing at all'. You're also ascribing little agency to anyone else; it's entirely possible the problem will resolve itself without Mathilde lifting a finger. I'm not going to bet on it, but it's a possibility.
If you're serious about fixing the network I have no idea why you'd be advocating bringing in the southern practitioners or Ice Witches as opposed to, y'know, the Slann.
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Because the Slann are unstable, malfunctioning teraforming robots more likely to kill the messanagers than do anything useful, like that time they killled Asur emissaries for 'being on the wrong continent'. Why do you think the elves and dwarfs did not bring them in? There is barely anything there to talk to.
 
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theajl said:
I have caught up and am sad. Also disappointed that a protagonist with tastes beyond the usual boring standard options has been wasted on a boring standard relationship with a character whose name I still cannot recall unless she's onscreen. The interactions were kinda cute I'll give you, but dragons! Dwarves! Skaven! Spider hivemind!

Other than that though, this Quest is absolutely fantastic and I'm honestly amazed that I missed it for this long. I've no particular desire to wade through eighty pages of discussion at the moment, so I'll abstain from voting :V.
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Welcome! Your disappointing lack of enthusiasm for She-Who-Shall-Lurk-Offscreen aside, feel free to vote after reading zero pages of discussion. It's a bit decided already, but don't let that stop you from making your opinion heard. Even losses can still help establish that an option you support ought to be picked later down the line.
 
DragonParadox said:
Because the Slann are unstable, malfunctioning teraforming robots more likely to kill the messanagers than do anything useful, like that time they killled Asur emissaries for 'being on the wrong continent'. Why do you think the elves and dwarfs did not bring them in? There is barely anything there to talk to.
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While that's a valid interpretation of the Lizardmen, based on Boney's history with Skaven and now Chaos Dwarf characters, it is possible that the Lizardmen may be less on the meat robot end of the scale in this quest.
 
DragonParadox said:
Because the Slann are unstable, malfunctioning teraforming robots more likely to kill the messanagers than do anything useful, like that time they killled Asur emissaries for 'being on the wrong continent'. Why do you think the elves and dwarfs did not bring them in? There is barely anything there to talk to.
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To be fair, that time was due to the Slann in question only being awake enough to say "They should not be here" and his attendants interpreting that as violence.

If he'd actually stayed awake, it's possible a more peaceful solution would have occured.

(I mean, probably not, but who knows?)


(If we're including past editions, than the Lizardmen of Zlatlan did once treat a group of Arabyans peaceably enough, even gave them a fair bit of treasure for their time/use of their maps)
 
Mopman43 said:
To be fair, that time was due to the Slann in question only being awake enough to say "They should not be here" and his attendants interpreting that as violence.

If he'd actually stayed awake, it's possible a more peaceful solution would have occured.

(I mean, probably not, but who knows?)


(If we're including past editions, than the Lizardmen of Zlatlan did once treat a group of Arabyans peaceably enough, even gave them a fair bit of treasure for their time/use of their maps)
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I mean, if I woke up, rolled over, and saw a bunch of elfs in pointy hats in my bedroom, I'd probably say that as well. The real issue with the god-toads is that they're too out of it to do more than give vague directives, and their servants have difficulty interpreting their orders.
 
DragonParadox said:
Because the Slann are unstable, malfunctioning teraforming robots more likely to kill the messanagers than do anything useful, like that time they killled Asur emissaries for 'being on the wrong continent'. Why do you think the elves and dwarfs did not bring them in? There is barely anything there to talk to.
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That very much depends on how Boney interprets them and what you consider higher canon. Totalwar is, frankly, the most up to date and popular take on the faction and it by and large took the meat robots idea out behind the shed and shot it. It was always pretty questionable though, given that worship of the Old Ones is beginning to wane in favor of Sotek.
 
Evilness42 said:
The Books of Nagash are pretty dangerous, but the type of people who can seize them to read them and get famous tend to be powerful enough to subvert the traps (although a couple of them were famous in part because they got possessed by portions of Nagash's spirit).

The Liber Mortis is so famous because it's the only non-trapped translation of one of the 9 Books of Nagash, along with necromancy bits and pieces Vlad read from the other 8 or picked up from his travels, plus the translator's journal, military memoirs, and Vlad's notes on his descent into madness.
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That is end times lore (and a retcon), the Liber Mortis written by Fredrick Van Hel based on the teachings of Vlad von Carstein/Vashanesh of Nehekhara who was three steps removed from Nagash.
 
BoneyM said:
This is an assumption I've seen made a few times that doesn't seem like a given to me. Pretty much every named Vampire character seems like exactly the sort to only teach part of what they know to their disciples so that they'd have some trump cards remaining if/when said disciples turn on them.
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I would argue that wanting a trump card against any disciples is more reasons to teach them the First Secret of Dhar. I would only hold the Second in reserve.

My reasoning is as follows.
My subordinates can attempt to turn against me in a number of ways. By gathering other vampires, by facing me in martial prowess, by using Necromancy to crush me beneath the skeletal hordes.
Teaching the First secret of Dhar makes using Necromancy more attractive as an option to betray me. Necromancy is powerful.
At the same time, it makes people less likely to try the other options, because everyone knows the real power lies in Necromancy.
When the skeletal hordes turn on me, I will them away with the Second Secret of Dhar.

The Second Secret turns the First Secret into a poisoned chalice. It gives them power, and makes them rely on it. And all the while you can rip out the foundations from beneath them whenever you want if they turn against you.
There is nothing better then giving out powerful weapons that only work on your enemies.

I will drop the subject if you want, but I think there are very good reasons for Vlad to have taught it out.
 
Luxon said:
I would argue that wanting a trump card against any disciples is more reasons to teach them the First Secret of Dhar. I would only hold the Second in reserve.

My reasoning is as follows.
My subordinates can attempt to turn against me in a number of ways. By gathering other vampires, by facing me in martial prowess, by using Necromancy to crush me beneath the skeletal hordes.
Teaching the First secret of Dhar makes using Necromancy more attractive as an option to betray me. Necromancy is powerful.
At the same time, it makes people less likely to try the other options, because everyone knows the real power lies in Necromancy.
When the skeletal hordes turn on me, I will them away with the Second Secret of Dhar.

The Second Secret turns the First Secret into a poisoned chalice. It gives them power, and makes them rely on it. And all the while you can rip out the foundations from beneath them whenever you want if they turn against you.
There is nothing better then giving out powerful weapons that only work on your enemies.

I will drop the subject if you want, but I think there are very good reasons for Vlad to have taught it out.
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The problem is that you are correct, but do not grasp what that means. Because while Vlad would have taught it to his direct subordinates, none of them would have taught it to their direct subordinates. And most of Vlad's direct subordinates are no longer around, the average vampire we're likely to encounter in every day matters is several generations removed from them. Drakenhof, home of the Von Carsteins, was held by some no one.

This is means it is only slightly less lost than it would be if Vlad hadn't taught it to anyone.
 
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Luxon said:
I would argue that wanting a trump card against any disciples is more reasons to teach them the First Secret of Dhar. I would only hold the Second in reserve.
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Once you know one secret it's a fairly intuitive leap to the other. This has come up before when people were wondering why the colleges didn't just teach the second secret to everyone.
 
Aranfan said:
I would def be down to comissioning a sevirscope for Kragg.

Any idea how much CF it would take? Or would that require cashing in a great deed?
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When the question was floated during the Feldmann deal discussion (in the context "let's ask for something else and buy the seviroscope with CF") Boney answered something like "you can't do it with CF alone, no one knows how hard it would be to research something like that". @picklepikkl could probably find an exact citation if he wanted to.
 
DragonParadox said:
Because the Slann are unstable, malfunctioning teraforming robots more likely to kill the messanagers than do anything useful, like that time they killled Asur emissaries for 'being on the wrong continent'. Why do you think the elves and dwarfs did not bring them in? There is barely anything there to talk to.
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IIRC as long as you are not a Skaven/Ork/Chaos/Dark Elf the Lizardmen will not be hostile to any sapient visitor who doesn´t come with an army behind them, visitors are even allowed to enter any of the cities, and as long as they don´t get too close to the Slann (the Temple Guard are really trigger happy), or try to steal (or look like you are trying to steal) their gold plates you will not have any problem with them and they will basically ignore you... Hell, you can even grab all the gold ingots or jewelry you can carry and they won´t lift a finger stop you (since for them the only value of gold is as a medium in which to write down information due to its natural resistance to corrosion, thus being perfect to preserve the instructions of the Old Ones )

And Speaking of Lizardmen @BoneyM, how big is the set of books and papers that we are buying? Approximately how many tomes are we buying?
 
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DragonParadox said:
Dhar is less like a knot and more like a pool of mud made from two or more winds. Hit a mud puddle with a sword and it just splatters all over the place. The Dark Power is indivisible.
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You can dry out mud and turn it back into water and dirt.

As We the atomic bomb proved... nothing is indivisible if you try hard enough.
 
Chlof said:
Once you know one secret it's a fairly intuitive leap to the other. This has come up before when people were wondering why the colleges didn't just teach the second secret to everyone.
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It's backwards; the second requires the first (entering the self destruct requires you to understand the mechanism), but the first doesn't imply the second (I can use a computer, but could not say for sure either way whether or not any given device contained a self destruct).
 
I've always thought about a potential Dhar separator as a magical centrifuge, which is the way you separate things that seem like they can't be separated. The basic concept is, to keep it simple, you stick a liquid or a gas in a container and the container spins the material around real fast, and this causes it to separate into it's constituent parts according to it's density.

So if the different winds have different magically/metaphysical densities (and they should, in my opinion. At the very least I have a hard time believing the concept that the wind of metal and the wind of light or shadow/fog have the same density.) then a magical centrifuge should work, and the required ingredients "box that magic can't move through, that can be opened and close, and a way to get the winds to spin real fast once inside" ..... I think those are doable with Runes?
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
Right now, we can't share it because it can't be used without knowing the First Secret.
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Chronic said:
It could be theorized by observing a user of the First Secret, though.
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Deathbybunnies said:
You can't learn the Second Secret without understanding the First Secret, so this is a non-starter.
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I'm pretty sure it's the other way around - we can't safely use the second secret to counter necromancers unless there's no other option because any observer with the slightest bit of windsight and knowledge (basically any necro-n00b hanger-on) can deduce the the first secret from watching us, and thus multiply their own threat level from "annoying" to "existential".

And also because it'd still be using Dhar, but if it was just that, it'd only be a risk to Mathilde, not to the Empire as a whole.
 
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Ekzentric Lohner said:
I'm pretty sure it's the other way around - we can't safely use the second secret to counter necromancers unless there's no other option because any observer with the slightest bit of windsight and knowledge (basically any necro-n00b hanger-on) can deduce the the first secret from watching us, and thus multiply their own threat level from "annoying" to "existential".

And also because it'd still be using Dhar, but if it was just that, it'd only be a risk to Mathilde, not to the Empire as a whole.
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Well, that overstates the actual wording there:
BoneyM said:
If you're carefully watching for it, see it a few times, have a strong grasp of magical theory and a decent ability with Magesight, it could give you an enormous first step towards discovering for yourself the First Secret.
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Necronoobs absolutely wouldn't be able to figure it out from just seeing us do it once. Probably necronoobs couldn't figure it out from watching us do it even repeatedly. We still shouldn't use it because who knows how well we'd be able to tell if anyone beyond a necronoob is also watching, and also because if literally anyone from our side realized what we were doing we'd be recognized as a black magister.
 
Ekzentric Lohner said:
I'm pretty sure it's the other way around - we can't safely use the second secret to counter necromancers unless there's no other option because any observer with the slightest bit of windsight and knowledge (basically any necro-n00b hanger-on) can deduce the the first secret from watching us, and thus multiply their own threat level from "annoying" to "existential".

And also because it'd still be using Dhar, but if it was just that, it'd only be a risk to Mathilde, not to the Empire as a whole.
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Note, what I meant by that quote was that Mathilde, already in the know about both secrets as she is, could probably come up with a plausible way to infer the existence of the Second Secret from the (pretend) observation of the First Secret in use by enemy necromancers, thus allowing us to spread knowledge about the two secrets to the Grey LMs without revealing that we studied the Liber Mortis or making them think we actually used Dhar and broke the Articles.
 
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Mopman43 said:
Magic was never really his strength, that's Mannfred's thing. Vlad's strength was in his ability to actually corral a whole bloodline of Vampires to at least vaguely work together.

(and, you know, relying on the Von Carstein Ring to make him literally unkillable)
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In other words, he was a Diplo Hero.

A Diplo Hero with the Power of Love on his side, to make him even more dangerous.
 
Rafin said:
@BoneyM how dis pre-Teclisian mono-wind mages train their apprentices without losing so many of them to Dhar poisoning that their traditions would go extinct?
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The good old way - get them very young, indoctrinate them to think in ways highly compatible with their practice of magic before they even start thinking about magic. Apply mind altering substances or experiences as necessary to force such state.

Standard religious mystery cult gig.
 
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