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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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TotallyNotEvil said:
One can have multiple familiars, right?

What would an open bounty for a griffon egg cost us? Or better yet, convince Van Hal to do it, add some griffon knights to stirland's roster.
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If they work like regular animals, it would need to be the right griffon to be bound, not just the first egg we get. Assuming we could even tell at the egg stage. You really would need a large griffon hatchery-stables operation (presumably the Empire has something like this) to have a decent chance of finding one.

Even still, it seems to me cats makes better covert operatives than griffons...
 
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Alliterate said:
Cheaper to just inspect our alleyfull of cats. Hmm. Is 'alleyfull' the proper collective term for multiple cats?
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Historically, it was either a 'clowder' (variant of 'clutter') or a 'nuisance' of cats.
VoidZero said:
Technically the only entity on derp's side is the popcorn god. Everyone else (Count and co) just happened to be somewhere close.
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In principle, isn't it the Count whose side Mathilde is supposed to be on?
 
BoneyM said:
an animal with that certain je ne sais quoi, a combination of health, appearance, attitude, intelligence, as well as an intangible form of potential within it
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Can a wizard tell with a short examination if an animal does possess those qualities? Or does it take a few months of frustrated bonding to realize they don't?

Are magical beasts like griffons and manticores more likely to have this?
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
What would an open bounty for a griffon egg cost us?
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Having a murder beast is great and all, but you can just train one normally and not spend literal years and Ranald only knows how much gold looking for that one in a thousand griffon egg that happens to be a possible familiar.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but over time you're increasingly likely to become obsessed with your familiar (via a test you have to make) every time the familiar is improved in any way i.e. making it a better fighter. I don't know about you, but spymastering sounds a lot easier if you happen to fall into an obsession with your cat or (fingers crossed) incorporeal spirit familiar that you can keep near all the time. You're also much less likely to obsess when you don't have to train it to do much at all.
 
You can spot a 'maybe' in a moment, but it takes about an hour of interacting with the animal to tell for sure, or two to three of observing from a distance.

Are magical beasts like griffons and manticores more likely to have this?
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Yes, though it's possible they'd be suited to being the familiar of another colour of Wizard instead.
 
Heretek said:
Having a murder beast is great and all, but you can just train one normally and not spend literal years and Ranald only knows how much gold looking for that one in a thousand griffon egg that happens to be a possible familiar.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but over time you're increasingly likely to become obsessed with your familiar (via a test you have to make) every time the familiar is improved in any way i.e. making it a better fighter. I don't know about you, but spymastering sounds a lot easier if you happen to fall into an obsession with your cat or (fingers crossed) incorporeal spirit familiar that you can keep near all the time. You're also much less likely to obsess when you don't have to train it to do much at all.
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Worst case: Someone loyal gets a griffon to raise and Stirland is stronger.
Best case: Murderously good familiar that's also good a time murdering.

BoneyM said:
Yes, though it's possible they'd be suited to being the familiar of another colour of Wizard instead
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Hey, griffons are half cat, right? Well, lion, but that's just a big cat!
 
Aren't griffons hard to get even for elector counts so how do you guys expect to get one with our broke ass?
 
Ranald might be generous and maybe one of the cats that hangs around our secret underground lair home is suitable. I doubt it, but anything's possible.
 
I suddenly have an idea for Ranald's holy scripture- plain paper made from the fiber of rags and distaff found by happenstance, written in stolen invisible ink- vitriol potions taken from an cruel man with the iron nails of a prison- and mirrored backwards onto the page. The book would be bound in another work's gilt and silver, perhaps the Testament of Pergunda or the Reformatio Magni, and tied by cathair thread. The fact that this means you could simply resleeve a mass produced volume the cheapest way possible and no one would be able to tell the difference is left... unsaid.
 
Exmorri said:
In principle, isn't it the Count whose side Mathilde is supposed to be on?
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Let me just dig out Realms of Sorcery here...

Realms of Sorcery page 104 said:
The only non-Collegiate authority the Grey Order is theoretically answerable to is the Emperor himself, but in effect this is not as clear cut as it would seem. ... Volans, the first Patriarch ... forbade that the Grey Order should ever sell their skills to aid the various political manoeuvrings of the Elector Counts and other governing bodies. Their goal was to oppose Chaos in all its forms, not to unduly influence the internal political struggles of the Empire. An Emperor could be forced to abdicate, or worse, may fall to Chaos and would then stop being an ally and become a potential enemy to the Empire.

...

Shadowmancers can be found in the service of important officials, merchants, and nobles... Shadowmancers may only practice their spellcraft for the benefit of Imperial society and are expressly forbidden from using their magic for their own profit or solely for the political or financial profit of their patrons. ... Any breaches of the many strict rules laid down by the Order are prosecuted very harshly and vigorously.

...

The Order of Shadows has killed or Pacified more of its members than any other of the Orders of Magic, and this is more of a reflection of the zero-tolerance of rule breaking and corruption within the Order rather than a demonstration of their Magisters' unworthiness.
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In other words, in the Grey Order's opinion Mathilde is most definitely not on the Count's side. Hell, she's not even on the Emperor's side. She's on the Empire's side, and if she forgets it and does something that the Count would want but which doesn't necessarily serve the interests of the Empire (like say, spying on another Elector Count for purposes other than discovering potential corruption) they'll kill her for it.

As a Grey Wizard it can be assumed that Mathilde shares this opinion. She works for the Count, but only because she's seconded to him by the people she actually works for.
 
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DarkLight140 said:
Let me just dig out Realms of Sorcery here...

In other words, in the Grey Order's opinion Mathilde is most definitely not on the Count's side. Hell, she's not even on the Emperor's side. She's on the Empire's side, and if she forgets it and does something that the Count would want but which doesn't necessarily serve the interests of the Empire (like say, spying on another Elector Count for purposes other than discovering potential corruption) they'll kill her for it.

As a Grey Wizard it can be assumed that Mathilde shares this opinion. She works for the Count, but only because she's seconded to him by the people she actually works for.
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On the other hand, the Count is a total bro, while the Grey Order (or at least Regimand) have turned us over to mysterious bullshit people presuming to order a wizard around and issue fake writs of outlawry.

We should look into that one of these days when we're not running around chasing ledgers and vampires and former spymasters and kidnappings and informer networks and magic swords and Ranald's favor and stuff.
 
Exmorri said:
On the other hand, the Count is a total bro, while the Grey Order (or at least Regimand) have turned us over to mysterious bullshit people presuming to order a wizard around and issue fake writs of outlawry.

We should look into that one of these days when we're not running around chasing ledgers and vampires and former spymasters and kidnappings and informer networks and magic swords and Ranald's favor and stuff.
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Looking into the backgrounds of people who can boss our Grey Wizard boss around seems likely to end poorly.
 
Guile said:
Looking into the backgrounds of people who can boss our Grey Wizard boss around seems likely to end poorly.
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I agree, ignorance is a bliss in cases such as this. Besides, we still have tackle our student loans and get some independent income. We aren't a good intrigue player if we aren't using alphabet soup's (CIA, KGB, MI5, etc) play book.:ogles:
 
Guile said:
Looking into the backgrounds of people who can boss our Grey Wizard boss around seems likely to end poorly.
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Well, yes. But consider some of the alternatives:
-Indefinitely taking orders from unknown parties
-Silently disobeying orders of unknown authorities
-Going on a tell-all to Van Hal

I don't see any safe ways out of this at all, and learning more so we can make an educated choice seems the least bad option. With relevant caveats, naturally. Like raising Intrigue and not rushing into it.
 
Quick question:

If he ever has spare money, we want to build and equip a concealed wizard's lab. We consider our having a well-equipped enchanter's lab and a plentiful supply of reagents to be in Stirland's interest, as is concealing its existence and location from anyone who might consider us a target (read: absolutely everyone).
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Is this asking for money above and beyond your discretionary income, or just asking permission to spend your existing discretionary income on a wizard lab?
 
BoneyM said:
Is this asking for money above and beyond your discretionary income, or just asking permission to spend your existing discretionary income on a wizard lab?
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It was written under the assumption that spending our existing discretionary income on a wizard's lab would be inappropriate since that money is for bribes and funding cross-country kidnapping excursions, which Van Hal wants us to retain sufficient budget for. We can't reduce the bribes-and-kidnapping-trips fraction of the discretionary budget; thus, we would only be able to have a Stirland-funded wizard lab if he has extra money to give us for it.

If he wants to go "fund that out of your current budget if you want one, I have no extra money for it" that's fine too, though.
 
DarkLight140 said:
It was written under the assumption that spending our existing discretionary income on a wizard's lab would be inappropriate since that money is for bribes and funding cross-country kidnapping excursions, which Van Hal wants us to retain sufficient budget for. We can't reduce the bribes-and-kidnapping-trips fraction of the discretionary budget; thus, we would only be able to have a Stirland-funded wizard lab if he has extra money to give us for it.

If he wants to go "fund that out of your current budget if you want one, I have no extra money for it" that's fine too, though.
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We already have 320 gold saved up in our discretionary fund; we really don't need any more. Frankly we have a budget much larger than we've been spending right now; we certainly don't need to ask for more money especially when stirland is so poor.
 
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