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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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So, in the absence of our best engineer it's probably a good thing that Mathilde was prepared to bring a road along for the entire duration of travel.
That will do a lot to keep the steam wagons intact and without need for difficult repairs. Because trying to go off-road with early vehicles was always an insane idea.

It should be possible to make the trip back by buying at Uzkulak, stealing from someone, or slowing down during the first leg of the trip and bringing herds we bought along.
(Maybe, depending on how many survivors we have)
But it's going to be difficult to get to Dum with enough stuff to campaign within for any length of time.
It'll essentially be a choice between buying herds to bring along on the way up, and thus extending our time in the chaos wastes, relying on buying or stealing something from the nomads around the site, hoping to find food to buy or steal at the location, or paying extra to have the nomads we've got a deal with invade the territory of another just to sell us food.

Regardless, this isn't quite enough to stop, if I'm taking my ques from the expedition in that animated Atlantis movie, we haven't lost two thirds of our number to sea monster attack, been attacked by giant cave animals, had to deal with fire-setting fireflies burning our supplies, or fallen into a dormant volcano.
Hence things aren't bad enough to consider turning back.
BoneyM said:
When you finally reach the spot that Esbern and Seija had found, the Light Wizards trailing behind and in various stages of exhaustion, you take a moment to appreciate the sight that would be invisible to anyone without Magesight. This is where seven of the eight Winds blowing from the north descend from overhead to reach ground level and begin to follow the preferences and patterns you're familiar with, and though a waterfall would be the closest comparison, water's descent is extremely straightforward compared to streams of the Winds trying to keep their distance from other Winds and merging with streams of the same Wind in a chaotic twirling descent, and then scattering as they hit ground level and break apart from the sudden impact. The impact point is thick with Dhar from the times when velocity overcame natural repulsion, but the same velocity that causes the Dhar prevents most of the Winds from being drawn into the morass of blended Winds lurking at the bottom of the cliff like a sinkhole of dark magic.

"It's always mountains," Egrimm says as he begins to unpack his rucksack. "All across the upper hemisphere, there's always mountains to interrupt the flow of magic overhead. Here, the Mountains of Mourn, Norsca... I've read that even Naggaroth has a chain of mountains to its north that performs the same function. There's only two exceptions I know of: where the Northern Wastes meet the Great Ocean, and the Great Bastion of Cathay. Neither of which we know much about."

"So are mountains actually required for magic to descend, or is it an accident of geography?" you ask.

"That's the question. Those that believe the world was made with purpose tend towards the former, those that don't often also believe that there's similar Winds coming from the Southern Wastes that don't have a chain of mountains to interrupt them. Needless to say, there's not many expeditions to try to map the geography of the Southern Wastes, though apparently the High Elves have an outpost on a spur near Khuresh." He removes a large crystal wrapped in wire from his pack, and begins to examine it carefully.

"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."

"Remember to take notes, we don't get many chances to accumulate data on this phenomenon." Egrimm looks downwards at where the plummeting Winds terminate. "And to prove it, that's a much-debated phenomenon we can confirm the existence of. Natural Dhar. There's plenty that argue that it only comes about as a result of unnatural influences or ill intent."

"Why do the Winds fall here, though?" you ask, looking upwards.

"That's the question, isn't it? Everywhere else we know of, it's easy to say that it's the mountains interrupting the flow of magic, and that's the most popular theory. But this peak is below the ground level of the Great Steppes and it's still happening here. Even the Azyr is dipping before splitting off from the other seven to remain higher."

"Something metaphysical, then? The nature of mountains weighing down the Winds?"

"Could be. But that's a problem with the Colleges, they're so centralized in Altdorf that most of the Wizards that weave theories never go further afield than the Grey Mountains, and that's a very tame range, comparatively. So they've never really encountered the real thing."

"Well, let's gather some data for them," you say, frowning as you consider the coloured wax pencils you've brought with you. You're not much of an artist, but trying to turn what you're seeing into words seems a lot more daunting than trying to sketch it out.

A few industrious hours pass as copious notes are taken, esoteric instruments consulted, and one crystal shard is very carefully dipped into a Wind stream with Move cast by the miniature choir. To you the choir was more interesting than the results, as between the three of them they managed to keep two instances of the spell on the crystal while the third took a break, rotating so that every minute each of them had rotated in and out once. Getting them in sync enough for that to work must have been a hellishly difficult process, but it seems like it would be extremely useful in all sorts of ways. But once the observations are taken and the lunches have been eaten it's time to head back once more, with the three junior Light Wizards ranging ahead while you hang back to talk to Egrimm.
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I feel like this is a case of foreshadowing. I've never heard of Windfall before, but I have a vague suspicion that this is being included right after we already saw the dwarves hide their waystones as mountains on purpose, because the questors are already primed to view mountains as suspicious magical constructions.

-Winds are attracted to the same type of wind.

-Do we have any indication of where the physical components of the geomantic web actually are? Suppose many of them are hidden as mountains, just like that waystone we found.
Suppose the Old Ones left portions it just sitting under these mountains filled with large amounts of Winds attracting other winds, or the Old Ones left the Web there, then the Slann filled it with wind-attracting stuff as a response to the Winds no longer behaving as they did in a lower-energy environment for magic Winds.


Just realized that I haven't voted, going to try using the check boxes at the bottom instead of doing it manually this time.

[x] Press on
 
Adhoc vote count started by aeiou! on Jan 3, 2021 at 4:39 PM, finished with 802 posts and 169 votes.
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It's pretty obvious at this point.
 
Byzantine said:
That probably gets responded to with most of the party joining the garrison and the fastest of us (math and deathfang, presumably) running to civilization with word and probably the King's seal or something. We'd have an army magiced up to evacuate them in relatively short order, now that their relatively intact and alive status is known.

Also the 5 would have been best on Godrick's survival roll. Injuries are nothing we can't handle with the seed.
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In the event we find Karag Dum in need of large scale evacuation we will almost certainly have the opportunity to strip the weapons out of some or all of the remaining steamwagons and load them up with food from the Hold.
While it isn't impossible that them running out of food is why they need evacuation, it is staggeringly unlikely compared to them running out of people, weapons or determination.

DragonParadox said:
We could not find the body so no rites, he's not going to Gazul.
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Ranald: Hey Gotrek, lets play a game.

1 Reincarnate as a non-Dwarf.
2 Reincarnate as a Dwarf-adjacent Human, Halfling, etc.
3 Reincarnate as a Dwarf.
4-6 Deliver to Gazul.
 
Angelform said:
In the event we find Karag Dum in need of large scale evacuation we will almost certainly have the opportunity to strip the weapons out of some or all of the remaining steamwagons and load them up with food from the Hold.
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Most of the food load is meat for the Wolves and Demigryphs, and the only place we can store that is the cold rooms on the Steam Wagons. That's where the maximum capacity comes from.
 
@BoneyM are the mountains that experience Windfall universally the first mountains the winds come across, given Egrimm's examples? If she doesn't know, is at least this specific mountain the first they cross in this area?
 
aeiou! said:
Adhoc vote count started by aeiou! on Jan 3, 2021 at 4:39 PM, finished with 802 posts and 169 votes.
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It's pretty obvious at this point.
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There's still a chance for a last minute push from the necromancy faction, though.
 
Angelform said:
In the event we find Karag Dum in need of large scale evacuation we will almost certainly have the opportunity to strip the weapons out of some or all of the remaining steamwagons and load them up with food from the Hold.
While it isn't impossible that them running out of food is why they need evacuation, it is staggeringly unlikely compared to them running out of people, weapons or determination.

Ranald: Hey Gotrek, lets play a game.

1 Reincarnate as a non-Dwarf.
2 Reincarnate as a Dwarf-adjacent Human, Halfling, etc.
3 Reincarnate as a Dwarf.
4-6 Deliver to Gazul.
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Sure Rolling...

Edit: Hope I did not sap any important luck.
DragonParadox threw 1 6-faced dice. Reason: Reincarnation Total: 6
6 6
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
@BoneyM are the mountains that experience Windfall universally the first mountains the winds come across, given Egrimm's examples? If she doesn't know, is at least this specific mountain the first they cross in this area?
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Karak Dum is presumably a mountain. Perhaps the winds needs a certain distance from the Polar Gates to... drop 'naturally' before geography can have that effect?
 
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Alliterate said:
Karak Dum is presumably a mountain. Perhaps the winds needs a certain distance from the Polar Gates to... drop 'naturally' before geography can have that effect?
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Here's my question that's functionally impossible to answer- has the Windfall changed at all between when the Chaos Wastes were at the edge of Karag Dum compared to now where they're practically at Pragg? Has the Chaos Wastes pushing out affected it?
 
@BoneyM Could you give an example of a potential write-in? Not necessarily a smart one, not one you would actually suggest we do, just something not meme-y. Because I can't think of anything other that "go one way on a narrow road" or "go the other way".

Except of course splitting the party, but I am assuming that that will be a latter vote that will come up once we actually discuss with everyone and need to propose compromises or try and manipulate people who think continuing is madness or whatever.
 
Garlak said:
How the hell was Karag Dum normally maintaining contact with the rest of the Karaz Ankor? Before Asavar Kul came?

Or is the answer to that "It didn't, mostly; its contact was even more tenuous than that of Karak Azul"?

Did they use the Underway or something @BoneyM? Or was it via gyrocopter? Or the extremely rare and extremely well-guarded caravan?
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Infrequent caravans, which were a safer proposition when Karag Dum was in its prime and the Chaos Wastes were less so.

guyfromtheplace1 said:
-Do we have any indication of where the physical components of the geomantic web actually are? Suppose many of them are hidden as mountains, just like that waystone we found.
Suppose the Old Ones left portions it just sitting under these mountains filled with large amounts of Winds attracting other winds, or the Old Ones left the Web there, then the Slann filled it with wind-attracting stuff as a response to the Winds no longer behaving as they did in a lower-energy environment for magic Winds.
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IIRC the Colleges don't have any indications that the geomantic web even exists.

Deathbybunnies said:
@BoneyM are the mountains that experience Windfall universally the first mountains the winds come across, given Egrimm's examples? If she doesn't know, is at least this specific mountain the first they cross in this area?
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The first mountain range, there's some individual mountains or small clusters that don't seem to trigger it.

Rafin said:
@BoneyM Could you give an example of a potential write-in? Not necessarily a smart one, not one you would actually suggest we do, just something not meme-y. Because I can't think of anything other that "go one way on a narrow road" or "go the other way".

Except of course splitting the party, but I am assuming that that will be a latter vote that will come up once we actually discuss with everyone and need to propose compromises or try and manipulate people who think continuing is madness or whatever.
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Splitting the party would be the most obvious write-in I can think of, and a few people have brought up the idea. The party splitting out of logistics is a different kettle of fish to the party splitting because of internal strife.

But for the sake of argument, 'backtrack and try to hire a ship from Uzkulak' would be a different third option.
 
Mopman43 said:
I mean, if we hadn't, we'd be in exactly the same place we are now.
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Arguably we're better off having saved Vlag. Between having already saved a Karak and Slayers having found worthy deaths in combat (instead of random deaths in an accident if they were here with us), we're sure to have higher morale and personal authority in the Expedition than otherwise.
 
Phalfpipe said:
Now that Vlag's back they might be able to set up long range gyrocopters and at least keep in contact.

Although maybe not, since helicopters tend to crash even when the laws of physics are working normally.
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It is a significant factor for resuplying of chopers and airship (if they have any), as well as resuplying for arms for ranger and such.

How does the underground karak feeds itself? Do they have underground farms and animal pen?
 
SuperSonicSound said:
Thats a fair point, we can try and resupply at Karak Vlag. Coming back from Dum desperetely needing food is going to be unexpected from a tempter plot perspective.
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Ehhh, to me "Look we're your friends and have good news, let us in!" and/or "Oh no, we're friends, let us in since Chaos is tracking us!" seem like Day 1 levels of temptation. I'm not sure how Karak Vlag is going to be convinced it's actually safe anytime within the next century short of them somehow believing that Hysh is a thing that works/exists (they got dissapeared before the Colleges were a thing) and then standing in a pool of it while not getting disintegrated.
 
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