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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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guyfromtheplace1 said:
So, question: What happens if we try to enchant an object(or two) to cause Mockery of Death?

I only remember this being possible because of that failed attempt to enchant a horn during the K8P expedition, but I think we have tool-free enchanting spells?

I assume it'd have to be done in an action during a turn, and would have a chance of failure, but on the plus side it puts a layer between Mathilde and any miscasts that might be happening, also it might avoid letting the time spent coordinating Cow-based Death Mocking eat into actions available during all turns going forwards(if that's what was going to happen).
(and her miscast chance when enchanting the item would occur before she starts approaching Dum/she can go back a bit on her shadowsteed and reach relatively non-dangerous winds conditions to enchant in)

I should have tagged the QM for this. hrmmmm.
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Enchantment takes weeks, actions on the Expedition represent hours.

Garlak said:
... I just realized.

If we'd gone for the Gazul Secrets and thus taken the corresponding Oaths, would we have had to stick around and provide rites for the fallen engineers in the Urmskaladrak? Or at minimum to have recovered the bodies and taken them with us, to watch over for 3 days. The Oaths do make allowances for troubles and such, but... that allowance is "literally can't stop because it's in the middle of a warzone or battle" rather than "can't stop because I need to remain with the caravan and keep on schedule." If it would kill you to carry it out, the Oaths would probably have reasonable exit clauses. But if it merely would force you to delay for 3 days on an expedition, then that's the sort of inconvenient-but-not-suicidal zone that the Oaths would probably apply in I reckon. If you're lucky, maybe you can excavate the corpses and take them with you quickly enough.

We also might have been confronted with a decision to make during the Karak Vlag aftermath. Probably looking something like: [] perform the Rites of Gazul for the Slaaneshi Slayers [] do not perform the Rites of Gazul for the Slaaneshi Slayers, I imagine.

What sort of guidelines are there for edge cases like that, @BoneyM? Or do we not know until we actually go deep enough into the Gazul Secrets and Gazul Oaths? Obviously, the rites and oaths would not apply to the Dawi Zharr. Because they're Dawi Zharr. But the Vlag Slayers, while tainted, were unexpected and new. New means needing to figure things out. Great.
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As others have said, there are Dwarves on this Expedition that have taken similar oaths when becoming Lay-Priests of Gazul. It's not a suicide pact.

Rafin said:
Speaking of Masteries and risks: @BoneyM As far as I understood, we don't need to roll for failure when casting normal amounts of spells that have since become easy for Mathilde, even in combat. Does that mean that it's near impossible to get a Mastery on one of these spells anymore outside of crazy mass casting schemes like the one we are planning on the cows? Or do we still roll dice, but the dangerous misscast threshold just happens to be below zero?
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Masteries are most likely for spells right at the edge of your abilities. When they've become rote and routine, it takes unusual circumstances to push you to the point that you might reach a higher or different understanding of the spell.

BurnNote said:
@BoneyM We can't use RoW at the corners, because then the ground isn't visible anymore. But couldn't you just put in some poles that extend above the mist at the border, and then drive based on those?

That's what they do here to mark the location of the road, in case it gets completely swallowed by snow drifts. Could put little flags at the end for extra visibility. Getting them to stand on pure rock might be a problem for humans, but I imaging dwarfs could either engineer something, or just make some holes.
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RoW wouldn't have prevented what happened to the Urmskaladrak, and it won't help with anyone trying to inch their way past the chunk of road it took with it.

ReImagined said:
Admittedly, that failed miserably since we rolled badly. But we have the Enchanter trait to attempt it. Even if we can't make one for Mockery of Death since it's Moderately Complicated, Sleep should be on the same level as Sound since they're both Petty.
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A sufficiently pared down enchantment would cause at best mild drowsiness.

Garlak said:
Well, it's a one-time-lasts-a-week spell effect... Maybe make it be an activated item instead? Rather than an always-on item. So it'd be like a Cornucopia, a horn of plenty. You take a bite out of the horn of plenty once a week, and you don't need to eat any more than that for a week.

Does that still mean the Ghyran remains in your body the whole week, to stave off your hunger and nourish you? Or does the Ghyran last only for a short while, but the end result of the spell lasts the week?
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The magic would have to linger in the target's body to keep thermodynamics at bay for the entire duration.
 
BoneyM said:
The magic would have to linger in the target's body to keep thermodynamics at bay for the entire duration.
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So Fat of the Land or other prolonged spell usage, is really only viable to use on the Expedition's human knights, their monstrous cavalry mounts, or any animals we hunt or buy. Because the other people are Wizards, who're filled with magic. And Dwarfs, who might reject the magic altogether or start turning to stone or something.

Hmmm... ... Say. What kind of effects do High Magic spells -- or enchanted items -- have on Wizards? Do we know, due to academic knowledge, or not (because while the Elves might know what Qyash spells and magic artifacts do in prolonged usage... they probably don't have as much documented experience with human wizards being under said constant effects).

... It's a good thing we don't have to worry about this sort of thing with runic items. Which, I suppose, is rather the point of runic items, isn't it. ... Wait, no. That Axe of Grimnir, and that sword of Felix's, were indeed changing them... Albeit probably under very special circumstances, and while runic items are considered divine art in general the personal artifacts of an Ancestor God would be even more-so so...

... Wait.

What're the effects of divine magic items on humans and on human wizards? Gods have a divine energy too and all that.

And we've been wearing a divine magic item for almost 8 years now.

And, in fact, have technically been constantly activating it for those 8 years now.

... What, exactly, has that been doing to us all the while? Nothing? Or, something?
 
Garlak said:
So Fat of the Land or other prolonged spell usage, is really only viable to use on the Expedition's human knights, their monstrous cavalry mounts, or any animals we hunt or buy. Because the other people are Wizards, who're filled with magic. And Dwarfs, who might reject the magic altogether or start turning to stone or something.

Hmmm... ... Say. What kind of effects do High Magic spells -- or enchanted items -- have on Wizards? Do we know, due to academic knowledge, or not (because while the Elves might know what Qyash spells and magic artifacts do in prolonged usage... they probably don't have as much documented experience with human wizards being under said constant effects).

... It's a good thing we don't have to worry about this sort of thing with runic items. Which, I suppose, is rather the point of runic items, isn't it. ... Wait, no. That Axe of Grimnir, and that sword of Felix's, were indeed changing them... Albeit probably under very special circumstances, and while runic items are considered divine art in general the personal artifacts of an Ancestor God would be even more-so so...

... Wait.

What're the effects of divine magic items on humans and on human wizards? Gods have a divine energy too and all that.

And we've been wearing a divine magic item for almost 8 years now.

And, in fact, have technically been constantly activating it for those 8 years now.

... What, exactly, has that been doing to us all the while? Nothing? Or, something?
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The Colleges don't have answers to any of these questions.
 
BoneyM said:
Melkoth manages to cast it, but grumbles about a knot in his brain for the rest of the day. By the end of it you've got it down to eleven concatenated symbols and you're no longer entirely sure why it works. It would never be worth the time to teach this version of the spell to someone, as it would take ten times as long and save them a minuscule amount of power. But if you're going to be using the same spell hundreds of times a second, every scrap of concentration and power you save yourself will be an immense help.

With the first component of the spell completed, it's well past time to take a break before you lose the ability to communicate in anything but Praestantic equations.
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BoneyM said:
You return once more to your many chalkboards, and spend a day carefully copying everything down into notebooks before erasing the notes that lead to the eleven symbols you've reduced Skywalk to. You've got the most basic component of your 'Fog Path' spell completed, but there's more to a sword than just the blade. Even in this energy-efficient form it would take an unfeasible amount of power to create an entire surface for prolonged periods out of this spell, so you don't just need a mechanism to deploy it over and over, you need a way to identify where it must be deployed.
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Not to contradict you, but to figure out my own confusion: To me it reads like we have a version of Rite of Way that we can technically cast that does extend as far as the fog. As Melkoth was able to cast the spell before we figured out how to actually get it to only apply where needed, which means that early version of the spell is still functional.

Why is Mathilde not capable of using that to cover the short distance of the broken road? Too expensive to maintain, or has she simply forgotten this partially-complete version of the spell now that she doesn't need it?
 
Garlak said:
What're the effects of divine magic items on humans and on human wizards? Gods have a divine energy too and all that.

And we've been wearing a divine magic item for almost 8 years now.

And, in fact, have technically been constantly activating it for those 8 years now.

... What, exactly, has that been doing to us all the while? Nothing? Or, something?
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We are doing a prolonged 'try it and find out'. Unfortunately we do not have much of a control group to determine if a human wizard who steals a karak from Slaanesh becomes a dwarf without divine intervention.
 
Byzantine said:
Not to contradict you, but to figure out my own confusion: To me it reads like we have a version of Rite of Way that we can technically cast that does extend as far as the fog. As Melkoth was able to cast the spell before we figured out how to actually get it to only apply where needed, which means that early version of the spell is still functional.

Why is Mathilde not capable of using that to cover the short distance of the broken road? Too expensive to maintain, or has she simply forgotten this partially-complete version of the spell now that she doesn't need it?
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The early version of the spell can technically be cast but it can't be targeted so there's no point to doing so outside of testing or flexing.
 
Byzantine said:
Ah. It just kinda shows up where it shows up. Got ya. Thanks!
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That and the energy costs would be immense - it doesn't have a recycling system or a targeting system up top so every inch of fog created counts as though it were actively in use. Meaning that it wouldn't be possible to sustain it for long enough to actually put to use.
 
Are the Dolgan confirmed to have cows in the first place btw? My impression was that steppe nomads they seem to be based on relied mostly on sheep, historically. Though I suppose them having cows wouldn't be that weird.
 
Garlak said:
And, in fact, have technically been constantly activating it for those 8 years now.

... What, exactly, has that been doing to us all the while? Nothing? Or, something?
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BoneyM said:
Avatar: You've had close encounters not only with your own God, but with others, and are growing able to recognize and understand divine energies. +1 Piety, +1 Learning, able to sense nearby divine intervention.
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From a narrative perspective, it would make sense for the Coin to contribute to the manifestation of Avatar as a continual reminder of what happened.
 
zup said:
We are doing a prolonged 'try it and find out'. Unfortunately we do not have much of a control group to determine if a human wizard who steals a karak from Slaanesh becomes a dwarf without divine intervention.
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Past evidence from rune magic on human suggested that humans subject to rune magic become more dwarflike. Or perhaps they needed to be dwarflike for it to work.

Dwarven infection might not just be a meme. Look at how our use of Ulgu is in some ways becoming more Dwarfish, with the Rite of Way..
 
Shard said:
Past evidence from rune magic on human suggested that humans subject to rune magic become more dwarflike. Or perhaps they needed to be dwarflike for it to work.

Dwarven infection might not just be a meme. Look at how our use of Ulgu is in some ways becoming more Dwarfish, with the Rite of Way..
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That wasn't just any random rune. It was the ancestor rune of Grungi Father of the Dwarfs. If anything is going to make humans dwarflike it's that rune.
 
tapkomet said:
Are the Dolgan confirmed to have cows in the first place btw? My impression was that steppe nomads they seem to be based on relied mostly on sheep, historically. Though I suppose them having cows wouldn't be that weird.
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There's subspecies of cows known as Turano-Mongolian cattle that thrive in steppes and tundras that were genetically distinct from the cows we're familiar with and may have been independently domesticated. Most of those breeds are extinct today. That surely isn't going to come back and bite us in the arse at some point, yay for worldwide agricultural monocultures.
 
As I couldn't find an answer on this question, @BoneyM :
Did anyone from seven colleges except Light try to make wizard choirs and why it didn't work out or at least isn't used to the Mathilde's knowledge? Could this be a topic of research in the future? And as being in a choir is part of regular Light apprenticeship, I suppose knowledge of choirmaking wouldn't be anymore secret than magic overall is and we could get it?

Sure we have enough research avenues for us, but I'm thinking of this as a step in spell part of Windherding - if we can't cast collectively spells from our Wind, how could we hope to successfully coordinate spellcasting of multiple Winds?
 
matvprok said:
As I couldn't find an answer on this question, @BoneyM :
Did anyone from seven colleges except Light try to make wizard choirs and why it didn't work out or at least isn't used to the Mathilde's knowledge? Could this be a topic of research in the future? And as being in a choir is part of regular Light apprenticeship, I suppose knowledge of choirmaking wouldn't be anymore secret than magic overall is and we could get it?

Sure we have enough research avenues for us, but I'm thinking of this as a step in spell part of Windherding - if we can't cast collectively spells from our Wind, how could we hope to successfully coordinate spellcasting of multiple Winds?
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Choirs work for Light Magic because when used properly it's very stable and pure, which means getting everyone onto the same wavelength is relatively easy. Other Winds vary a lot more from user to user.
 
matvprok said:
As I couldn't find an answer on this question, @BoneyM :
Did anyone from seven colleges except Light try to make wizard choirs and why it didn't work out or at least isn't used to the Mathilde's knowledge? Could this be a topic of research in the future? And as being in a choir is part of regular Light apprenticeship, I suppose knowledge of choirmaking wouldn't be anymore secret than magic overall is and we could get it?

Sure we have enough research avenues for us, but I'm thinking of this as a step in spell part of Windherding - if we can't cast collectively spells from our Wind, how could we hope to successfully coordinate spellcasting of multiple Winds?
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This get expanded on in the canon RPG books to a degree, the white wind is the wind of philosophy and harmony, uniquely suited to being used in tandem. I can't really think of how any of the others could be so used. Keep in mind that magic is born of chaos, so generally speaking it's not going to harmonize and every mage's relationship with their magic is unique. I guess if you had some external factor to harmonize the magic, like say if you had wizard twins it might work the generally it's probably not worth the effort for the other colleges to try to make such a thing.
 
Perhaps Chamon somehow? The wind of logic and order? But not of harmony specifically though. Then again, philosophers don't strike me as being people who wouldn't love to argue and debate a lot and yet here we are with Hysh...

Maybe Chamon, and the Gold College, ends up being the Wind and College where it's (comparatively) "easier" to copy and do what another Gold Wizard did. Easier to spread or copy or share, in the way that math or logic is...

In fact. Maybe that's connected to how/why they've got a ritual/transformation/thing that they all can use -- Gilding. It's a ritual of transformation that works for everybody, or for most Gold wizards at least. That by itself is pretty impressive.
 
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DragonParadox said:
This get expanded on in the canon RPG books to a degree, the white wind is the wind of philosophy and harmony, uniquely suited to being used in tandem. I can't really think of how any of the others could be so used. Keep in mind that magic is born of chaos, so generally speaking it's not going to harmonize and every mage's relationship with their magic is unique. I guess if you had some external factor to harmonize the magic, like say if you had wizard twins it might work the generally it's probably not worth the effort for the other colleges to try to make such a thing.
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Eh.

Depending on how one looked at it I could see Ghur, surprisingly, as the other Wind that could maybe pull something like that off through the lens of like. Pack animals, and herds, and so on.
 
With Hubert LARP-ing as a Wind Lord and now the new cow dependent plan we are going back full circle from WHF to Glorantha, better propriate Maran Gor so no more mountains will collapse on us.
 
Voikirium said:
Eh.

Depending on how one looked at it I could see Ghur, surprisingly, as the other Wind that could maybe pull something like that off through the lens of like. Pack animals, and herds, and so on.
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Maybe Aqshy? With the idea being that one flame can spread and grow?

Though, in a sense, that doesn't sound harmonious per se... ... That more sounds like one Wizard can start a fire, and then a bunch of other Wizards can add to that fire. A bit different from Chorus Spellcasting, in that way. They aren't all taking part in casting the same spell. They're just sort of... pilling onto the target.
 
Garlak said:
Maybe Aqshy? With the idea being that one flame can spread and grow?

Though, in a sense, that doesn't sound harmonious per se... ... That more sounds like one Wizard can start a fire, and then a bunch of other Wizards can add to that fire. A bit different from Chorus Spellcasting, in that way. They aren't all taking part in casting the same spell. They're just sort of... pilling onto the target.
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Aqshy has a lore attribute that works like that in tabletop. But it's about spells not spellcasters. The more fire you have on the field the easier it is to conjure more fire.
 
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