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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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@BoneyM Would the following be theoretically feasible (in a world where we don't hit unexpected snags on the way and always roll decently)?

  1. Learn how to manipulate Dhar with Ulgu.
  2. Secretly study and use Dhar (while protected by the Belt) long enough to learn how to codify and blackbox an Ulgu spell that manipulates Dhar in a way that creates some type of Second Secret explosion cascade.
  3. Create said spell.
  4. Study our own new spell from all sides (and maybe attempt to teach it to trustworthy/disposable victims) until we are able to create a written scroll that a skilled Ulgu user with a different paradigm could learn it just from reading the instructions.
  5. Write up eight scrolls in a Grey College cypher that can't be related back to Mathilde directly. Include notes on the spell's danger but also on its potential necessity in certain situations.
  6. Simultaneously mail it to the personal inbox of each Grey LM (including Mathilde herself) over multiple secretive proxies that includes Dwarfs.
  7. Hope that even one of them decides to learn it.
  8. ???
  9. Profit.
 
agumentic said:
Ah, the return of the "You can't do a thing despite a thing being an explicit example of what you could do" argument.
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I believe the argument against using Dhar is more along the lines of:
1. While Mathilde is immune to physical Dhar corruption, she's not immune to metaphorical Dhar corruption. Namely, that using Dhar requires cultivating a certain mindset, just like Ulgu, and that mindset is a pretty evil one.
(Personally, I feel like that's not really something that can't be overcome if needed, but still, best be careful)

2. Using Dhar is an explicit breach of the Articles. This is bad because everyone is likely to turn on her unless it's for an extremely good reason (like taking down an undead army threatening a whole province or Karak good reason), and because for Mathilde such an explicit breach is a pretty serious blow to her internal ethics. And even with a very good reason we will still have people clamoring for her head.
(Personally, I suspect that the rest of the Grey College LMs might let us dodge the blame if it's important enough and we clear it with them in advance. But it's still extremely suspect.)
 
Rafin said:
@BoneyM Would the following be theoretically feasible (in a world where we don't hit unexpected snags on the way and always roll decently)?

  1. Learn how to manipulate Dhar with Ulgu.
  2. Secretly study and use Dhar (while protected by the Belt) long enough to learn how to codify and blackbox an Ulgu spell that manipulates Dhar in a way that creates some type of Second Secret explosion cascade.
  3. Create said spell.
  4. Study our own new spell from all sides (and maybe attempt to teach it to trustworthy/disposable victims) until we are able to create a written scroll that a skilled Ulgu user with a different paradigm could learn it just from reading the instructions.
  5. Write up eight scrolls in a Grey College cypher that can't be related back to Mathilde directly. Include notes on the spell's danger but also on its potential necessity in certain situations.
  6. Simultaneously mail it to the personal inbox of each Grey LM (including Mathilde herself) over multiple secretive proxies that includes Dwarfs.
  7. Hope that even one of them decides to learn it.
  8. ???
  9. Profit.
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You won't know if 2 is possible until you do enough of 1, and you won't know if 4 is possible until you do 3. As for 5, use the metric of 'if I said Mathilde had to figure out who wrote the scroll or the Empire would fall, could the thread think of a way'.
 
Ericwinter said:
...How is Uzkulak still standing again?
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Look at the unicorn hair instrument.
That is the focus of a ritual that would literally kill a settlement unless someone resists and counters it. Everyone seeing a dancer will start dancing until they die, and so will everyone seeing second, third and fourth order contagions.

Given the Chaos Dwarves they probably just sealed off the surface and checked back in a month with expendables whether it had burned out.
 
BoneyM said:
You won't know if 2 is possible until you do enough of 1, and you won't know if 4 is possible until you do 3. As for 5, use the metric of 'if I said Mathilde had to figure out who wrote the scroll or the Empire would fall, could the thread think of a way'.
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Huh, that is an interesting question to think about, let's see...

Personally, as long as the scrolls have no metallic components and Mathilde takes all the due dilligence her intrigue score implies, I cannot think of one.

I do not think it is a good idea, mind ya, too much risk and I do not want to dharify our brain, and at least 2 steps are very unreliable, but I cannot think of a way this can be traced back to... anyone, unless they literally truth detect the entire grey college about this...

How does the deceiver stack against magical truth detection?
 
BoneyM said:
In this case, because there's a lot of rubbings alongside the books.
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You know, now that we actually have a decent-sized collection of rubbings, assuming we manage to get them back to Eight Peaks, I wonder...

1: If any of the tablets in the rubbings have gone missing in the years since they were made and
2: Whether the Lizardmen would approve of cast copies of their plaques? (Knowing that they are, in fact, copies)

Since if so it would probably be a good way to open relations and a good way to preserve knowledge. Assuming there's nothing particularly finicky or magical involved in the creation of the real golden plaques.

EDIT: It also strikes me as a good way to get plaques back to the Lizardmen without creating a market for piracy. If it works.

"We'll put a standing bounty on golden plaques" has issues of people deciding to go to Lustria and source fresh plaques if the bounty gets high enough, in ways that "We'll pay for rubbings" does not. Or at least, people going to Lustria and taking their own rubbings is not nearly as much of an inherent problem.
 
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veekie said:
Institutional paranoia would do it. It is easiest to assume she is mentally damaged, corrupted or possessed if she held an impossible belief.
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We are talking about shoot in the dark truthchecking the entire grey college in the hope of catching the guilty guy, not about a situation when the grey college allready has reason to suspect us.
 
BoneyM said:
You won't know if 2 is possible until you do enough of 1, and you won't know if 4 is possible until you do 3. As for 5, use the metric of 'if I said Mathilde had to figure out who wrote the scroll or the Empire would fall, could the thread think of a way'.
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Your points on 2 and 4 are completely reasonable and expected. Which is why I put in the caveat of good rolls and no unexpected snags. That said, the way I envisioned it, breaking through 5 would, among other things, require something that might cause a war against the Karaz Ankor because of eight identical letters that, while teaching tainted and scary knowledge, aren't actually Chaotic or daemonic in any way and don't even allow the outright destruction of non-Dhar-soaked polities or forces.

That said, this was more of an idle thought to allow me to explore that particular thread madness discussion without getting snagged over back and forths regarding feasibility. I don't actually think I'd vote in favor of going down this path, because abducting and burning through either hapless human Ulgu users or Eshin Assassins (both morally painful and practically risky propositions) might be necessary for part 4.
 
storryeater said:
We are talking about shoot in the dark truthchecking the entire grey college in the hope of catching the guilty guy, not about a situation when the grey college allready has reason to suspect us.
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Again, institutional paranoia. If they find that there is no doubt at all that she's telling the truth?

Grey Order would suggest you get your head checked in the exact same way that Mathilde was instantly suspicious of her certainty that Stone Is An Excellent Insulator Of Magic.

Because if you trust someone unreservedly in their environment, its almost certain that your head has been fucked with.
 
We worked for Van Hall, we blew up the vampire castle, we spent years in or near Sylvania fighting necromancers, we destroyed the necromancer school.
Sudden appearance of anti necromancer spells should make Mathilde an instant suspect.
And i doubt Grey College would be willing to assume there being no way to fool whatever truth spells they have, if any.
 
i am certainly not an expert on warhammer fantasy, but as far as I understand it, a potential inquisition searching for a necromancer within the upper ranks of the grey college would be perfectly willing to burn every suspect, if they cant find out the specific culprit. So 'there is no solid proof that we did it' might not be enough
 
naths said:
i am certainly not an expert on warhammer fantasy, but as far as I understand it, a potential inquisition searching for a necromancer within the upper ranks of the grey college would be perfectly willing to burn every suspect, if they cant find out the specific culprit. So 'there is no solid proof that we did it' might not be enough
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They would use magisters not the Templars of Sigmar. the Colleges don't trust the Cult of Sigmar that far.
 
naths said:
i am certainly not an expert on warhammer fantasy, but as far as I understand it, a potential inquisition searching for a necromancer within the upper ranks of the grey college would be perfectly willing to burn every suspect, if they cant find out the specific culprit. So 'there is no solid proof that we did it' might not be enough
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If you do that the Empire risk another Night of a Thousand Arcane Duels directed to the Church of Sigmar.

So, no they won't risk to be nuked to oblivion.
 
naths said:
i am certainly not an expert on warhammer fantasy, but as far as I understand it, a potential inquisition searching for a necromancer within the upper ranks of the grey college would be perfectly willing to burn every suspect, if they cant find out the specific culprit. So 'there is no solid proof that we did it' might not be enough
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Witch hunters largely operate on what they can get away with. Burning a village to kill a single heretic is normal and accepted because peasants don't matter and the world will never mourn their loss, but things change if the witch hunter's suspects are actual people. Then they're expected to do things like cough up evidence and take the accused to trial and such, with significant consequences if they fail to do so.

EDIT: Just to be clear I do not actually believe peasants are non-people and that they don't matter. Just trying to get across how things are seen by people in-universe.
 
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There is precedent for information to be implanted and only released when necessary. So we just have to get the Patriarch and whoever else is involved with that process to accept our knowledge without murderburnstabbing commencing, and we can have our In Case of Nagaash contingency cake and eat it too. Until of course something unanticipated goes wrong with this otherwise no fail brilliant plan.
 
We don't need to worry about witch hunters.
If anyone is going to off Mathilde over necromancy (assuming we decide to start applying second or first secret), it is the Grey College.
And we should assume they will figure out it was us.
So any spells that use necromantic secrets need to have a solid grounding on non Liber Mortis sources we could have learned from observing necromancers we were in the process of murdering.
 
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