Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Rafin]

Ergo, the Expedition should...

[ ] Press on
[ ] Turn back
[ ] Other (write in)

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I don't quite get what we are voting for? Borek of course won't consider the loss of a single wagon worth turning back now. Voting to give an opinion when we haven't participated in any form of discussion feels weird. Voting on a binary when things like how insistent we in our position are matters also feels weird.

So are we voting on Mathilde's internal opinion, her external arguments, OOC voting for what the others will favor or what?

 

[Byzantine]

[X] Turn back

I'm aware we'll probably press on. But I think this is going to get very nasty if we do. Our primary issue is that we simply do not have the storage to make it back, and need to pass through a barren area most of the way.

 

[Mopman43]

I think some people misunderstand the problem. Yes, we can get food from the Dolgan if we press forward, but the issue is carrying capacity. If we turn back now, we have a three week trek back to Kislev with only two weeks of food supplies. If we go to Karag Dum and don't find an intact dwarf hold, then we will have a four week journey back, still with at most two weeks of food.

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Dolgan are a few days away from here- if we get supplied by them the whole way, we'll be in basically the same shape then that we are now.

Though, if we take any attrition on the knights and mounts in the journey there and back, that'll ease the food burden. And I am worried that there won't be any food to buy at Uzkulak, within two weeks after we bought all they had... if we don't have that, I don't see how we're getting to Kislev.

Our primary issue is that we simply do not have the storage to make it back, and need to pass through a barren area most of the way.

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We don't have the storage to make it back right now as it stands.

 

[Boney]

I don't quite get what we are voting for? Borek of course won't consider the loss of a single wagon worth turning back now. Voting to give an opinion when we haven't participated in any form of discussion feels weird. Voting on a binary when things like how insistent we in our position are matters also feels weird.

So are we voting on Mathilde's internal opinion, her external arguments, OOC voting for what the others will favor or what?

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You're voting on whether the facts of the matter lead to a conclusion of continuing on or turning back. Those facts won't change no matter how strenuously they're discussed. Mathilde will go into the discussion with that conclusion and there may be a further vote if there's enough disagreement that it gets complicated.

 

[Thomasfoolery]

I am not sure what to do, but we should understand the danger.

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Pressing on basically assumes either the Dolgan come through on their deal, and we return to this point with two weeks of food, or they renege. Which means they're hunted for their livestock and we either succeed and return here with 2 weeks (Plus attrition) of food or die attempting that. So either way we need their to be food available for purchase from the CDwarves to make it back across, where longer is likely better for restocking odds.

The bigger danger is probably the fact it changes the amount of crossings of the rockslide narrowed road from 3 to 7.

 

[patrickxx]

[X] Turn back

 

[Whassup]

This is like one of those stories where a band of Knights going to war do something valorous on the way, followed soon after by their leader dying to dysentery.
I'm kind of afraid of those rolls.

 

[kfrar]

[X] Press on

in all seriousness, when a 1/100 chance is all it takes for you to start rolling d6s with 4/6 kill chance, it feels a tad excessive.

boneym included links to his survival roll. he's very fucking dead.

and of course, because dwarves don't fucking pass on their knowledge, he was irreplacable.

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There was a nat 1 on a d100 to trigger the crisis, a <10 on a d100 to determine that the response to the crisis would be insufficient, and a nat 1 on a d6 to determine the lethality of the event. At that point, Gotrek had a 50% chance of living outright and a 33% chance of being revived after his death, so he ultimately had a 66% chance of surviving, but it was not to be.

It wasn't just a single nat 1 that did him in, it was a truly abysmal string of consecutive bad rolls. The odds of Gotrek dying like this were extremely low, but the thing about low probability events is that, unless the QM starts fudging dice, they still sometimes happen. And Boney doesn't fudge dice, which I am extremely grateful for.


See, QMs do frequently fudge dice to avoid outcomes like this, because they are narratively unsatisfying, but I've found that it's also narratively unsatisfying to wonder if we "should" have died after making it out of some dangerous situation with clutch rolls, or if that nat 100 we got was an actual nat 100 or if the QM wanted to drum up some hype and show off a shiny idea. There's nothing quite like running the stats on a quest's d100 rolls and determining there's a 99.9% chance that the results are non-random to cheapen the experience. But since Boney does use fair dice, that isn't a concern, and when something outright silly like the Eye of Gazul boxcars happens, we can get genuinely excited that Ranald had our back. That's honestly one of my favorite parts of the quest - when we take chances we are genuinely taking our chances, and when risks pay off we know we've genuinely earned the rewards.

But the nature of fair dice is that over time, for every time you roll back-to-back boxcars, you're also going to get a nice long string of natural 1's, and there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes, shit like this just happens, and we've all got to deal with it.

 

[Aranfan]

[X] Press on

 

[NexusEye]

[X] Press on

 

[angelofwhim]

[X] Press on

 

[ninjafish]

[X] Press on

Turning back now would make Gotrek's death in vain!

press on!

 

[consequences]

So, to try to break the logic down:

To return safely, the Knights are probably going to have to raid, forage, trade or otherwise acquire additional food supplies. This goes doubly so if they try to do so without the landships carrying their food, though they may be able to have their mounts gorge and make better time on their own to minimize that issue.

Reaching Karag Dum is well within our supply constraints, barring enemy action or another piece of landscape inviting a Grudging from the player base. Getting back afterward may be harder, depending on a great number of known and unknown unknowns. There's no realistic way to calculate the odds at every step in the flowchart, but there are enough options that either something should work, or all of the knights likely die failing to make it work and solve the problem in proper Slayer fashion.


In the end, I think we have to roll the dice. YMMV.

 

[Jrin]

[X] Press on
Would like to use the wolves to sniff out Gotrek's body just to be sure sigh.

 

[Mopman43]

"How does your Magesight manifest?" you ask curiously.

"Visual, which is actually not that common in the Light Order - we initiate early so most don't have a chance to develop their own before they're shaped by the Choruses. Citharus has auditory like most, Timpania has olfactory, and Barbitus has... what was it?"

"Visceral, Magister," he says, not looking up from rooting through his rucksack.

"And how is all this manifesting for you?"

Barbitus frowns. "Hard to say, but it's doing a lot of it. I think I'll be skipping lunch."

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The rest of the chapter was rather understandably completely overshadowed by what happened at the end, but I did want to mention, Boney- this is hilarious.

 

[EternityWarrior]

Honestly this is best out of worst options for us. It would've been much more devastating if someone Mathilde is directly responsible for died, like the wagon full of wizards. Gotrek is a cool guy and all, but his wagon was the emptiest one with all the slayers being dead.

If Karak Dum is actually holding out, we should be dandy. If it isn't, we either hope that attrition lowers the mouths we need to feed, or we can try to figure out some other way to carry food with us.

Things get really sketchy if we lose more steam wagons however.

 

[Horologer]

If we spend very little time at Dum, then completely stock up with food from the Dolgan on the way back, and we top the suplies up at Uzkulak again, then there's enough food accounted for to allow a round trip. There's a lot of hypotheticals there, though. The Dolgan might not have enough, Uzkulak might not have enough, it's pretty likely we'll get tied up at Dum for a while... I would say the trip is still theoretically possible even without additional scrouging, but we'd have to be very careful with how we manage both the time we spend and the food we eat. I mean, even more than we were already, of course.

I'm inclined to say that the weakest link in the supply chain isn't the food itself, it's actually the steam wagons. We need the wagons to carry the food, and our ability to repair those wagons is now sharply diminished. If one breaks down, that's food, security, and transportation gone all at once.

 

[Angelform]

[X] Press on

 

[Rafin]

You're voting on whether the facts of the matter lead to a conclusion of continuing on or turning back. Those facts won't change no matter how strenuously they're discussed. Mathilde will go into the discussion with that conclusion and there may be a further vote if there's enough disagreement that it gets complicated.

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Are we leaving Steam Wagons behind if we continue or is it implied that we first build/excavate some way for the whole convoy to pass either way?

Also, I assume that the fallen Wagon is being dismantled until every corpse is recovered enough so as to get a proper Gazulian burial?

 

[Guile]

[X] Turn back

I'm aware we'll probably press on. But I think this is going to get very nasty if we do. Our primary issue is that we simply do not have the storage to make it back, and need to pass through a barren area most of the way.

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I'm down for Turn Back if we can manage a path safely, but I'm not sure how.

If we return the way we came, Borek isn't going to go with us, so we won't have a fistful of gems to buy supplies with. We could try and sell the shinies we picked up, but who knows how that would go. If Uzkalak even has more food supplies to buy with the money we don't have.
If we try the other path across the ice pack, there's nothing unless we luck into penguins, seals or whales, as far as I know. We'd be depending on a roll of the dice to survive.

 

[EVA-Saiyajin]

[X] Press on

 

[Aranfan]

If we spend very little time at Dum, then completely stock up with food from the Dolgan on the way back, and we top the suplies up at Uzkulak again, then there's enough food accounted for to allow a round trip. There's a lot of hypotheticals there, though. The Dolgan might not have enough, Uzkulak might not have enough, it's pretty likely we'll get tied up at Dum for a while... I would say the trip is still theoretically possible even without additional scrouging, but we'd have to be very careful with how we manage both the time we spend and the food we eat. I mean, even more than we were already, of course.

Click to shrink...

If we are spending a lot of time at Dum, then the place is either in good enough shape to restock us, or we are going to suffer a lot of attrition and our food situation will be better so long as we don't lose the wagons.

 

[Andres]

Might be rubbing salt in the wound but losing one of the wagons means we won't be getting a kickflip pistol now.

 

[Glau]

I only knew Gortek by reputation, but wow, the thread reaction is intense.

I think I'm betting on our resourcefulness. We've got most of our combat power intact and we will be able to hunt and trade- but I think it might be a good idea to buy five weeks worth of food on the way up, and split off a dozen cannon and a wing of Taalite knights with a wizard or three to encamp with most of it (four weeks, assuming we take a week to get to the deal and fill to capacity) so it's not at risk in the fights at Dum. Also, so if things go south and we can't make deals on the way back because everyone hates us, we're as set in advance as we can be. Prob have knights stay with food while the wagons navigate back down, hopefully should allow for enough capacity for the sprint back.

[X] Press on

 

[Boney]

Are we leaving Steam Wagons behind if we continue or is it implied that we first build/excavate some way for the whole convoy to pass either way?

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- The Kriestov and Alexis are behind the rockslide area, and will need to negotiate the now narrower road if the Expedition presses on.

The convoy will stick together by default.

Also, I assume that the fallen Wagon is being dismantled until every corpse is recovered enough so as to get a proper Gazulian burial?

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The Expedition doesn't have the tools to do it quickly or the time to do it slowly. Any unrecoverable bodies will have to take their chances with the next life. Every Dwarf on the Expedition knew that was a possibility.