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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I still don't quite get why literal mass-Skywalk would not work.

K / Skywalk: Allows you to walk on air for a few seconds, enough to cover about twenty meters at a run.
- If you want to bring someone along you'll have to carry them.

The original version of Skywalk literally just allows you to walk on air. It doesn't need steady ground -- in fact, it doesn't use ground at all, because it's Skywalk.
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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BoneyM said:
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.
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So I don't quite get what this exchange meant and how it explains why the old version of the Rite of Way can't be of use here.

I've started at that exchange for posts for minutes at a time and still felt stumped as if it flew over my head. 'But, wait, why doesn't it work as a solution?' What'm I missing?


EDIT: Like, I get why Skywalk itself wouldn't work. It's too small. It just targets the mage. It can't keep a giant huge behemoth landship going. Also, it doesn't even last long enough. But the Rite of Way version was just a weird, energy-expensive, mass-Skywalk right?


... Of course, the real reason I'd feel concerned about trying this is because... ... Well.

Because this would be an untested spell. A very untested spell. Unfinished, in fact.

It'd definitely need a roll, and if we rolled bad, well... yeah.

EDIT 2: Ah, I think I get it. It's because this proto-form of the Skywalk could only be attached to the ground. Sure, you could fully walk on the fog/mist. But the fog/mist itself could only hug the ground.

It's the original-original Skywalk that could actually be used in the air.
 
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Has someone already brought up the possibility of widening the road/path from the inside? Just dig in the rock face? If dwarfs can throw together an army-proof bridge or fortifications in a day, they should be able to mine a quarter of a tunnel over whichever distance the avalanche covered.
 
Garlak said:
I still don't quite get why literal mass-Skywalk would not work.

K / Skywalk: Allows you to walk on air for a few seconds, enough to cover about twenty meters at a run.
- If you want to bring someone along you'll have to carry them.

The original version of Skywalk literally just allows you to walk on air. It doesn't need steady ground -- in fact, it doesn't use ground at all, because it's Skywalk.


So I don't quite get what this exchange meant and how it explains why the old version of the Rite of Way can't be of use here.

I've started at that exchange for posts for minutes at a time and still felt stumped as if it flew over my head. 'But, wait, why doesn't it work as a solution?' What'm I missing?
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Because the spell you are imagining is not Ulgu it's Azyr. The gap is large enough and the drop high enough that you are conceptually trying to make a flying tank.
 
Garlak said:
I still don't quite get why literal mass-Skywalk would not work.

K / Skywalk: Allows you to walk on air for a few seconds, enough to cover about twenty meters at a run.
- If you want to bring someone along you'll have to carry them.

The original version of Skywalk literally just allows you to walk on air. It doesn't need steady ground -- in fact, it doesn't use ground at all, because it's Skywalk.


So I don't quite get what this exchange meant and how it explains why the old version of the Rite of Way can't be of use here.

I've started at that exchange for posts for minutes at a time and still felt stumped as if it flew over my head. 'But, wait, why doesn't it work as a solution?' What'm I missing?


EDIT: Like, I get why Skywalk itself wouldn't work. It's too small. It just targets the mage. It can't keep a giant huge behemoth landship going. Also, it doesn't even last long enough. But the Rite of Way version was just a weird, energy-expensive, mass-Skywalk right?


... Of course, the real reason I'd feel concerned about trying this is because... ... Well.

Because this would be an untested spell. A very untested spell. Unfinished, in fact.

It'd definitely need a roll, and if we rolled bad, well... yeah.
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The landships don't have legs so Skywalk would not work.
 
Jeopardizer said:
Has someone already brought up the possibility of widening the road/path from the inside? Just dig in the rock face? If dwarfs can throw together an army-proof bridge or fortifications in a day, they should be able to mine a quarter of a tunnel over whichever distance the avalanche covered.
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...I'm not sure if they have mining tools with them. I think I remember that being mentioned before?
@BoneyM ?
 
DragonParadox said:
Because the spell you are imagining is not Ulgu it's Azyr. The gap is large enough and the drop high enough that you are conceptually trying to make a flying tank.
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So Skywalk is an Azyr spell? :V

Kidding, kidding. I see what you mean now though. The thing I was missing.

The proto-form of the Mass Skywalk spell was... ... It could only cast the mist on the ground.

That's what the problem was.

Sure, yeah, you could step fully on the mist. But the mist itself could only hug the ground; it could not be an aerial form, like the original Skywalk spell.
Fayhem said:
But if the rubble was, idk, cemented into place somehow then it wouldn't slide off right? Presumably whatever hasty job of "slap some rubble in there with something sticky enough it doesn't slide" wouldn't bear the steam wagons' (enormous) weight, but RoW is meant to carry the weight of whatever's on it AFAIK. So if there's something there stable enough to cast RoW on (whether it's cemented rubble or something else) even if it's not strong enough to carry the weight itself, would that work? We might have to make whatever's there broken up enough to trigger RoW, but that shouldn't be too tricky to work out with trials involving volunteers with safety ropes before putting the steam wagons on it.
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I think part of the problem is that the surface still might need to be strong and tough enough to actually support the person, mount, or machine, moving over it.

The spell provides a level surface so that you don't trip over anything; it does not provide perfectly tough ground, however.

The spell only activates sometimes. Er, to clarify... The spell kicks in when there's something that would make you slip up and fall. Otherwise, it lets your feet touch the ground.

And in this case, the "ground" you would be touching down on is... rubble. And that rubble will crumble. And soon you won't have ground at all.


Frankly, maybe the solution will just end up being "Get the scouts and rangers to find a second path to pass through, for the 2 leftover steam-wagons."

No need to bother with magic or engineering solutions or anything. Just take an alternate route for the 2 steam-wagons.

Another possibility is to hitch a rope to one of the left-behind steam-wagons and connect the rope to the 3 steam ahead, and if the steam-wagon can't cross the road, the 3 ahead of it will just pull it over with engine-power.
 
NexusEye said:
The problem is that the energy requirements would be way too high.
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I figure that was probably in reference to constant and sustained usage of Rite of Way. For a single crossing, it's probably (I assume) not too energy intensive.

I think the real problem is presumably the fact that only the original Skywalk could function in the air; and it was a self-only spell. Even the proto-Rite of Way, as soon as we started developing it, lost that ability to be an aerial thing.

i.e. It's literally not-doable. Spell just doesn't work that way. :(
 
DragonParadox said:
There is no second path, people have been looking for such for literal millennia since it would be safer from raiders who know this path very very well
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The mountain ascent path, which we are going up right now? Not some hypothetical "path where we will be safer from raiders."

It's not about safety from raiders at all -- it's about finding a road wide enough. Wide has nothing to do with safety from raiders. Just whether the tanks can use it.
 
Is there any benefit to be gained from Johann Trial-and-Error advising the steam wagon drivers as they negotiate the rubble? Seems he might be able to avert a disastrous turn before it happens, and presumably the manoeuvring is going to be done very slowly?
 
Alliterate said:
Is there any benefit to be gained from Johann Trial-and-Error advising the steam wagon drivers as they negotiate the rubble? Seems he might be able to avert a disastrous turn before it happens, and presumably the manoeuvring is going to be done very slowly?
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Already determined to be non-viable.
picklepikkl said:
@BoneyM Apologies if this falls under "manling nonsense" which you have already said the dwarves are unwilling to try unless all else fails, but can Johann use Trial and Error to assist the steam-wagons in their movement around the hazardous turn? He's Dawongr, so I figure they might accept assistance from him for the driving, even if they won't let him at the guts of the machine.

If so: would this need to be specifically written-in as a command, or is it something we can trust characters to do without our micromanagement?
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BoneyM said:
Johann would have serious objections to being asked to ride every single steam-wagon as it crosses Doom Gulch when his magic actually has a very low chance of being able to change whether or not the ground will hold up underneath it.
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BoneyM said:
The rubble is as subject to gravity as the Urmskaladrak was. It would just slide off.
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Could we build something very shoddy that would hold? Like covering it with a tarp that's nailed down, so that it makes a taut surface for RoW to work on? Maybe with wooden supports?
 
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SITB said:
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.
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Hahaha yeeeasss. I will always approve of more Glorantha. Time to shed bucket loads of blood to fertilize the Earth for Maran Gor (Jade College approved) and start making "the sign of the cave" for Cow Quest.

Eurmal and Ranald would get along like a house on fire.
 
Abhorsen said:
Could we build something very shoddy that would hold? Like covering it with a tarp that's nailed down, so that it makes a taut surface for RoW to work on? Maybe with wooden supports?
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It seems like Rite of Way would treat that as a consistent surface, rather than a broken one, and therefore let the tank put at least some of its weight onto it. At which point it would give way. Remember, when we tested it the mud ended up with tracks in it - it doesn't notice "too soft to take the weight"

We'd need something like a large piece of fine netting, and even then I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work.
 
Well, this seems pretty much decided...
Adhoc vote count started by Fanhunter696 on Jan 4, 2021 at 4:17 PM, finished with 1191 posts and 189 votes.
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I am a little worried about how are we going to take the last Steam Wagon over that damaged path though...
 
vsh said:
Is there something to be done with Law of Form on something like fishnet and Rite Of Way on top of it?
I think it's not practical: Law of Form only lasts minutes, and spells might not work together; also I think that a steel-strong fishnet won't hold under a wagon, and not sure we have a fishnet with us.
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Seems much chancier than just trying not to drive on the gaping hole.

Fayhem said:
But if the rubble was, idk, cemented into place somehow then it wouldn't slide off right? Presumably whatever hasty job of "slap some rubble in there with something sticky enough it doesn't slide" wouldn't bear the steam wagons' (enormous) weight, but RoW is meant to carry the weight of whatever's on it AFAIK. So if there's something there stable enough to cast RoW on (whether it's cemented rubble or something else) even if it's not strong enough to carry the weight itself, would that work? We might have to make whatever's there broken up enough to trigger RoW, but that shouldn't be too tricky to work out with trials involving volunteers with safety ropes before putting the steam wagons on it.
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Unfortunately, the cement mixer steam-wagon never progressed beyond the design stage.

Garlak said:
I still don't quite get why literal mass-Skywalk would not work.

K / Skywalk: Allows you to walk on air for a few seconds, enough to cover about twenty meters at a run.
- If you want to bring someone along you'll have to carry them.

The original version of Skywalk literally just allows you to walk on air. It doesn't need steady ground -- in fact, it doesn't use ground at all, because it's Skywalk.


So I don't quite get what this exchange meant and how it explains why the old version of the Rite of Way can't be of use here.

I've started at that exchange for posts for minutes at a time and still felt stumped as if it flew over my head. 'But, wait, why doesn't it work as a solution?' What'm I missing?


EDIT: Like, I get why Skywalk itself wouldn't work. It's too small. It just targets the mage. It can't keep a giant huge behemoth landship going. Also, it doesn't even last long enough. But the Rite of Way version was just a weird, energy-expensive, mass-Skywalk right?


... Of course, the real reason I'd feel concerned about trying this is because... ... Well.

Because this would be an untested spell. A very untested spell. Unfinished, in fact.

It'd definitely need a roll, and if we rolled bad, well... yeah.

EDIT 2: Ah, I think I get it. It's because this proto-form of the Skywalk could only be attached to the ground. Sure, you could fully walk on the fog/mist. But the fog/mist itself could only hug the ground.

It's the original-original Skywalk that could actually be used in the air.
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When Mathilde stripped Skywalk down to the bone, she took out the targeting mechanism. So if you cast it as if it's a full spell, it just kinda hangs there doing nothing until it fizzles. This was okay because it's not a full spell, it's a component of a spell that takes care of the targeting, but the targeting of the full spell is designed with a specific scenario in mind and it wasn't bridging a ravine. When used as intended, that it's self-targeting is a huge advantage because it means that nobody dies because the caster didn't see a gopher-hole that breaks a horse's leg mid-gallop.

Jeopardizer said:
Has someone already brought up the possibility of widening the road/path from the inside? Just dig in the rock face? If dwarfs can throw together an army-proof bridge or fortifications in a day, they should be able to mine a quarter of a tunnel over whichever distance the avalanche covered.
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Ericwinter said:
...I'm not sure if they have mining tools with them. I think I remember that being mentioned before?
@BoneyM ?
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Correct, they're not equipped for heavy excavation. They'd have picks in the same way that they have their beards, but they'd be small tools for small jobs, not digging something about thrice the diameter of a subway tunnel.

Garlak said:
Frankly, maybe the solution will just end up being "Get the scouts and rangers to find a second path to pass through, for the 2 leftover steam-wagons."
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There are no other routes that could accommodate a steam-wagon. The altitude difference between Zorn Uzkul and the Great Steppes is at least a mile, the Skull Road is all there is unless you route through Cathay, through about a dozen Ogre Kingdoms starting on the other side of Zharr Naggrund, or over the Frozen Sea.

Abhorsen said:
Could we build something very shoddy that would hold? Like covering it with a tarp that's nailed down, so that it makes a taut surface for RoW to work on? Maybe with wooden supports?
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RoW would see this as a consistent and therefore valid surface.
 
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Voting closed, writing has begun.

Adhoc vote count started by BoneyM on Jan 4, 2021 at 4:31 PM, finished with 1194 posts and 189 votes.
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