Fundamentally, the demographics are whatever the plot needs them to be, so don't look for too much precision in canonical numbers.
But on most of the maps that include a scale, Sigmar's Holy Empire is roughly comparable in size to the Holy Roman Empire it's based on, i.e. about 2x-3x of Germany.
The population of which was about 16 million I believe. Which would give about two hundred wizards and two wizard lords for each order, if we use the 1:10000/1:100 ratio from earlier.
I just had a thought. Shadowsteed creates the shadow of a steed that acts like the real thing. Burning Shadows creates an area of shadows that acts like fire/acid. Dread Aspect+Roiling Shadows creates a terrifying shadowform with the ability to affect the physical.
We could combine them to conjure the shadow of our old friend Deathfang: Mathilde's Magnificent Monstrous Mount
[X] Try to peek into the gates without being seen, and use Bewilder to try to start enough chaos inside that you'd be able to slip through easily with Doppelganger and Take No Heed.
[X] Try to peek into the gates without being seen, then use Doppelganger to take on the appearance of someone on the other side, and use that and Take No Heed to slip through.
[X] Disregard stealth entirely and gallop through the gates, streaking through whatever is on the other side on Shadowsteed before any of the greenskins can react.
And yes, villages still count because most of medieval societies are very rural. 90-95% of the population will not be living in cities or towns, but small villages, or in the 30 sq miles around a village instead.
This is phrased as a response, but I don't know what you are responding to? What do you mean by "villages still count"? They count as what?
If this about my putting quotation marks around "villages", I only did that because they are not what we would think of as villages these days.
on most of the maps that include a scale, Sigmar's Holy Empire is roughly comparable in size to the Holy Roman Empire it's based on, i.e. about 2x-3x of Germany.
Interesting. In that case, the 1000:1 ratio for potential wizards works out only if a good percentage of those actually become wizards, instead of thinking they are insane, being killed, become hedgemages, joining chaos or dying during their education.
The rough ballpark of numbers works out though, which I find surprising.
[x] Climb from the King's Gates to the landing pad, kill or evade the solitary guard, and infiltrate through there.
It was only because of the extra help Skywalk provides that you even contemplated taking this path in the first place, but as you clamber along the unworked stone of the mountain's exterior, you quickly realize you don't need them. You're light, you're in shape, and you've had a fair bit of practice being light on your feet, so the mountain presents no challenge to you.
That is what you were thinking to yourself as your foot hit a loose patch of rock near the summit of the landing pad.
There's a few seconds at the start of an avalanche when it seems like maybe it won't be an avalanche, right before momentum kicks in and the world becomes noise. Ulgu leaps to obey as you abandon your grip on the side of the mountain, half jumping, half falling to the relatively safe footing of the invisible and arguably imaginary surface you've conjured. This buys you just enough time to find a rockface that isn't obeying the call of gravity, and from there you have a solid foothold from which to reach up and grip the approaching watchgoblin by the ankle. His scream, and his body, are swept away by falling rocks.
You haul yourself atop the ledge, taking a fraction of a second to analyze the landing pads from up close. There's room for an array of dozens of siege weapons, though you can only see half a dozen, and a moment's examination reveals why. This one has a snapped rope, that one a broken windlass, a third has had its wood crack right down the middle, and so on. It seems the goblins are just smart enough to keep their functioning siege weapons out of the elements, though not quite smart enough to salvage some of the broken ones to repair the others.
You dart for the set of stairs leading under the landing pad, and make it with just enough time to spare to shroud yourself in magic before a raucous crowd of a score or so of jabbering goblins rush past. They quickly discover the landslide, confer among themselves for a few moments, then begin hurling insults down at the broken body of the watchgoblin far below, apparently assuming that he caused the landslide that doomed him.
You take the opportunity to poke around the rooms carved into the stone below the landing pad. They appear to have once been warehouses, either for storing maintenance equipment for the airships it once serviced or the cargo they once carried, but now each is filled either with crude but lovingly tended siege weapons or sets of ragged wings designed to hold the living ammunition aloft for just long enough. Below those you find living quarters, their entrance hall packed with what looks like dozens or even hundreds of goblins in various stages of inebriation. It seems that with a dwarven army having arrived in the Karak, the living ammunition are being plied with fungus beer and mad-cap mushrooms, either as a reward for their imminent sacrifice or as a distraction from them. And those that merely fire the machines apparently don't have a problem with taking a share for themselves.
Below that are stairs, spiralling downwards in one ninety degree turn after another around what was once an elevator shaft and is now a pitch-black pit that, based on your estimates, stretches down the entire height of this secondary peak before rejoining the mountain proper.
You shudder to think what these artillery batteries could do to an advancing army, but on the other hand any action you take is likely to compound the risks of reconnoitring the greenskin positions. As the only sober goblins in this peak return from their foray above, an unmistakable tone of 'you won't believe what that idiot did now' in their voice, you weigh your options carefully.
[ ] Blatantly destroy the doom diver catapults, cutting ropes, smashing cranks and setting fires.
[ ] Attempt to sabotage the doom diver catapults in such a way that they will fail when fired.
[ ] A fire among the haphazardly stacked doom diver wings will neutralize the threat, and judging by how high they're stacked near the torches, it may even be thought an accident.
[ ] No doom divers means no doom diver catapults. Attack the mostly-drunken goblins, slaying as many as you can and chasing the rest either up and out or downwards and into the mountain.
[ ] Somewhere in here, there'd be a leader. If you quietly killed him, the argument over who takes over might keep this crowd distracted for just long enough.
[ ] You are here as a scout, not as a saboteur. Leave them be.
[ ] Other (write in)
What will you do after you're finished with business in this secondary peak?
[ ] Advance deeper into Karag Lhune.
[ ] Return to the army with what little information you've garnered.
- If you're feeling thorough, blend as many of the above as you desire into a single line item and vote for that. Otherwise it will be counted as approval voting.
- Eg. [*] Sabotage the doom diver catapults and set fire to the wings.
- The effectiveness of surreptitious sabotage will be based on the dice, not on the specific method used, but if you want to get creative with ways to achieve this, feel free.
- The entrance to the living quarters is well illuminated, but beyond that lies a warren of darkened rooms where lighter-weight greenskins are sleeping it off.
- If you attacked the drunken goblins, odds are about 50/50 whether the few sober ones can reach you or whether they'd be swept up in the chaos of innumerable panicking, drunken, hallucinating goblins.
[X] A fire among the haphazardly stacked doom diver wings will neutralize the threat, and judging by how high they're stacked near the torches, it may even be thought an accident.
[X] Advance deeper into Karag Lhune.
[X] Somewhere in here, there'd be a leader. If you quietly killed him, the argument over who takes over might keep this crowd distracted for just long enough.
in order to set
[X] A fire among the haphazardly stacked doom diver wings will neutralize the threat, and judging by how high they're stacked near the torches, it may even be thought an accident.
From there, we should see if it would be feasible to infiltrate deeper into Karag Lhune - depending on how the greenskins react (i.e. if they start fighting even more furiously, it would be a perfect distraction to get deeper - but if they start coming out of the Karak to see what's going on, that would be problematic).
We could also see about trying to use Mathilde's Matrix on some of the more important-seeming goblins, ideally setting them up as Ulgu time-bombs.
I think we kill the leader, burn the wings and then keep going in a bit.
Killing the leader leads to squabbling and theat can lead to a riot if we are lucky (we may even be able to ensure it with some magic trickery)
Fire spreads and stone doesn't burn. It will mostly destroy the greenskins shacks and stuff if it does spread.
We can use the commotion to get a bit more in bit it also may make them more alert. Then again, we can also see then who is sent in to stop the squabbling and kill them.
[ ] No doom divers means no doom diver catapults. Attack the mostly-drunken goblins, slaying as many as you can and chasing the rest either up and out or downwards and into the mountain.
Can that even work?
Wouldn't they just take the nearest Gobbos, give them some fungus brew and tell them they are the new ammo now?
That's at least how I imagine Orcs (or higher-ranking Goblins) deal with a lack of ammunition.
Not like there is such a thing as veteran Doomdivers, it's a one-time job.
[X] A fire among the haphazardly stacked doom diver wings will neutralize the threat, and judging by how high they're stacked near the torches, it may even be thought an accident.
[X] Advance deeper into Karag Lhune.
[X] A fire among the haphazardly stacked doom diver wings will neutralize the threat, and judging by how high they're stacked near the torches, it may even be thought an accident.
[X] Advance deeper into Karag Lhune
Fire tends to create panic and confusion. Perfect conditions for a practitioner of Ulgu.
[X] A fire among the haphazardly stacked doom diver wings will neutralize the threat, and judging by how high they're stacked near the torches, it may even be thought an accident.
[X] Advance deeper into Karag Lhune
Fundamentally, the demographics are whatever the plot needs them to be, so don't look for too much precision in canonical numbers.
But on most of the maps that include a scale, Sigmar's Holy Empire is roughly comparable in size to the Holy Roman Empire it's based on, i.e. about 2x-3x of Germany.
I thought it was more like the size of Western Europe on most scales.
Do note though that only something 10-25% of the internal area of the Empire is held by humanity in the modern era. The areas shown as forests are generally enemy territory, the domain of beastmen and forest goblins. The deep woods are dark and full of terrors.
If we set the wings on fire, we can use that to identify the leader (via the good old fashioned "find the one yelling at everyone else") and then drop him in a way that causes maximum confusion
[X] Somewhere in here, there'd be a leader. If you quietly killed him, the argument over who takes over might keep this crowd distracted for just long enough.
[X] A fire among the haphazardly stacked doom diver wings will neutralize the threat, and judging by how high they're stacked near the torches, it may even be thought an accident.
Just a reminder. Dame Mathilde is batshit terrifying with her spell (and torc). We just might be able to have a terror-induced riot. Or maybe if we kill their Chieftain then do the terror bit for more insurance. Would be ridiculously loud though. Would the noice help or hinder us?
Setting fire to their wings seem the 'surest' logical option, but it also has the danger of a massive fire in a cave. If the fire is strong enough, it would prevent us from searching further, but also we have the possibility of smoking them out. Though I doubt that the dwarven made sentry is that vulnerable to smoke poisoning even with a long time of neglect.
So my vote goes to Terror induced murder (for now). Wont vote yet though. Will come back later when some others make their bid to power.
