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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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DarkLight140 said:
Mathilde is on track to becoming a Lord Magister but even being considered for the position will take another couple decades of work at absolute minimum, assuming that she manages to remain politically well-regarded the entire time, which is a necessity due to the immense amount of trust and power invested into the rank by the Colleges. Until that point Asarnil isn't going to respect Mathilde enough to seriously consider her a person.
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I think you're probably underestimating Mathilde's prestige. I could see her becoming a Lord Magister within a decade if things go right and easily within 20 years.

She already meets the Lord Magister power requirement (magic 7)

External Achievements:
Successful run as Stirland spy master.
Recovered Tax Ledgers
Destroyed Stirlandian League and recovered large portions of it
Terrified the Stirland nobility into compliance (disappeared a recalcitrant lord)
Cleared the Castle of infiltrators
Set up a spy network
Set up military intelligence attaché.
The singing king
Defended Van Hal when he fell and recovered him alive
Took charge of the army
Destroyed Drakenhof castle

Successfully delivered various messages getting Belegar Ironhammer lots of aid.
Lots of dead goblins in the forest of gloom
Solo'd Und-Uzgar
Acquitted well at battle of the Eastern Gates

Internal Achievements
Developed mystical matrix
Did well at magister's exam
Recovered Shyish-kebabs and donated to Amethyst college
Recovered Doomfire ring and gave to Bright college
Got information crucial in removing a powerful spy network
Has arcane marks
Took charge of the mages on the Karak eight peaks campaign and helped them out
Various external achievements that make the college look good and dead necromancers


Honestly I think if we just spend some time at the college filling in the rest of our spell list and network a bit we could become a Lord Magister with relative ease.
 
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I mean, thing is, Wizards are definitionally exceptional due to, well, being able to modify reality by thinking hard without exploding their own heads.
We are compared to exceptional individuals just by dint of everyone surviving long enough as wizard. So standards are going to be higher than for baseline human (and yeah, as wizards are mutants-ish, that's a decent way of phrasing it, no?).
 
[X] Head upwards to the Hall of the Moon, to scout the defences of the Crooked Moon Tribe.
DarkLight140 said:
There has been some significant discussion of children and relationships for Mathilde in the past which I was involved in; you were posting at the time so almost certainly read all of this but it's been more than a year so perhaps the details have slipped your mind. Little direct GM comment exists and it's difficult to look up amidst all the other GM posts but the RPG is a heavily used reference for this quest so it's usually a good standby to assume that what it says is mostly correctish.

Suffice to say that the Greys as a rule don't publicly admit to having sex, let alone children, and while Mathilde could try to go against convention on that matter it would probably be more convenient for all concerned if she didn't (which doesn't mean she can't do it, just never admit to it, hide pregnancy and child, etc.). As for marriage, Mathilde actually marrying would be politically toxic to the partner so she should never do it to anyone she likes unless they are somehow in a position to be largely unaffected by politics, which rules out anyone of any importance.
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Do note that back when it was clarified, the Grey as a whole don't have a rule, one way or another, except because they are Grey wizards they don't tell people shit, not because its forbidden.

Like, as I understand it, the Grey practice is probably to fade out of the public's eye for a half dozen years and show up with a preteen of indeterminate age(figuring out the difference between ages 8 to 10 or so is hell) which they 'adopted' or 'apprenticed' is not unknown, or they put the kid off with their significant other to be raised where theres a stable environment and not reality dissolving quietly.
For the matter, a lot of them likely take care of maternal/paternal instincts by picking up a suitably wet behind the ears apprentice, though after their first few exploded apprentices they probably work it out of their system.

The Order itself probably knows, but again, unless its important to the Empire they won't ask and won't tell.

The main obstacle to the Grey Order having romantic relationships is that Grey Wizards tend to operate far from anyone they COULD get in a relationship in. They're married to their job.
 
A home for unwanted kids, foundlings, orphans and the like sounds like a good retirement goal.

- also is there a limit to apprentices? Maybe every 5 years we look for exceptional students?
 
WorldSlayer said:
I think you're probably underestimating Mathilde's prestige. I could see her becoming Lord Magister within a decade if things go right and easily within 20 years.
...
Honestly I think if we just spend some time at the college filling in the rest of our spell list and network a bit we could become a Lord Magister with relative ease.
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That giant list of achievements is impressive, but it's nowhere near enough for Lord Magister rank. I've gone into this a bit before but it's worth focusing on: Lord Magister is not merely a recognition of ability, it's a recognition that the person invested with the rank is 110% Empire Approved Wizard, the wizard's wizard, the kind of person that the Colleges believe will make everyone support and respect their institution as a whole more as a result of their actions. Inviting someone to take the rank is not merely a reward, it's a huge show of faith on the part of the Colleges a statement that, basically, they believe you will never make any large political mistakes for the entire rest of your life... and you'd better not, because when you speak it is with the voice of your College and your mistakes reflect upon every other wizard in the Empire. There aren't a lot of wizard lords and they cannot afford for any of them to be fuck-ups, particularly this early in the timeline; there isn't nearly as much goodwill and political capital built up to cover for any mistakes as there are in canon.

Mathilde is really impressive and doing almost everything right to be considered for the position of Lord Magister over the decade since she left her apprenticeship. That doesn't mean that they're going to give it to her before she has continued to do everything right for so long that they believe she'll continue in that manner until the day she dies. Their standards cannot accept anything less.
 
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Each college has its own detriments to having children or at least having a healthy family enivronment.
Light and Amber Amethyst Colleges outright demand celibacy, and the psychological make up of purity and death magics make you partially sociopathic in two radically different ways.
Gold and Celestial Colleges produce workaholics that are celibate by circumstance and simply ignore most people outside of science and duties.
The Jade and Amber Colleges are not conductive to a healthy childhood due to being so naturalistic, the Amber College is also severely misanthropic to boot.
The Bright College should seem like the passionate hotbloods who would have as many children as they can. This also easily creates a stir crazy absentee for a parent.
The Grey College also produces workaholics married to the job who are also politically savvy and know that having children would be more trouble than worth in 99.99% of cases.
Qhaysh users are either Elven Archmages who have the time to have kids inbetween intense study or Slann who don't reproduce.
Users of the Lores of Tzeentch, Slaanesh and Nurgle are not exactly the kind of people you want to have a family with, to state the obvious.
I don't think I have to go into outright Dhar users, Necromancers or Vampires.
I suppose the Lore of Khorne also counts in not being able to produce a healthy family.
What might be the Lore of Khorne? It consists of one spell: Smack enemy with sharp object. Very effective.
 
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DarkLight140 said:
That giant list of achievements is impressive, but it's nowhere near enough for Lord Magister rank. I've gone into this a bit before but it's worth focusing on: Lord Magister is not merely a recognition of ability, it's a recognition that the person invested with the rank is 110% Empire Approved Wizard, the wizard's wizard, the kind of person that the Colleges believe will make everyone support and respect their institution as a whole more as a result of their actions. Inviting someone to take the rank is not merely a reward, it's a huge show of faith on the part of the Colleges a statement that, basically, they believe you will never make any large political mistakes for the entire rest of your life... and you'd better not, because when you speak it is with the voice of your College and your mistakes reflect upon every other wizard in the Empire. There aren't a lot of wizard lords and they cannot afford for any of them to be fuck-ups, particularly this early in the timeline; there isn't nearly as much goodwill and political capital built up to cover for any mistakes as there are in canon.

Mathilde is really impressive and doing almost everything right to be considered for the position of Lord Magister over the decade since she left her apprenticeship. That doesn't mean that they're going to give it to her before she has continued to do everything right for so long that they believe she'll continue in that manner until the day she dies. Their standards cannot accept anything less.
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Well if nothing else the fact that Lord Magisters don't need to pay guild dues probably prevents many wizards getting their much desired promotion.
 
Think thats due to proving yourself an asset even with just continued existence. Mathlide will need some R&D as well as apprentice teaching to be even close
 
Basically, Mathilde needs to produce systematic improvements to Empire and/or Grey Colleges to become a Lord Magister.

In other words, we would likely have to invest a considerable amount of time and resources into a pursuit of something that is not a shiny per se (even if it could be connected to shinies later along the way).

Just something to keep in mind.
 
[X] Head upwards to the Hall of the Moon, to scout the defences of the Crooked Moon Tribe
 
DarkLight140 said:
That giant list of achievements is impressive, but it's nowhere near enough for Lord Magister rank. I've gone into this a bit before but it's worth focusing on: Lord Magister is not merely a recognition of ability, it's a recognition that the person invested with the rank is 110% Empire Approved Wizard, the wizard's wizard, the kind of person that the Colleges believe will make everyone support and respect their institution as a whole more as a result of their actions. Inviting someone to take the rank is not merely a reward, it's a huge show of faith on the part of the Colleges a statement that, basically, they believe you will never make any large political mistakes for the entire rest of your life... and you'd better not, because when you speak it is with the voice of your College and your mistakes reflect upon every other wizard in the Empire. There aren't a lot of wizard lords and they cannot afford for any of them to be fuck-ups, particularly this early in the timeline; there isn't nearly as much goodwill and political capital built up to cover for any mistakes as there are in canon.

Mathilde is really impressive and doing almost everything right to be considered for the position of Lord Magister over the decade since she left her apprenticeship. That doesn't mean that they're going to give it to her before she has continued to do everything right for so long that they believe she'll continue in that manner until the day she dies. Their standards cannot accept anything less.
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We're like, 30 years before the election of Karl Franz OTL. We're not that far off from canon.
 
Not really interested in becoming a Wizard Lord. Sounds like a thing that requires significant sacrifices on the part of someone looking to become one.
 
[X] Go downwards to the Armoury, to ensure that the ancient armaments that were sealed within remain so.

Goblins armed and armoured with dwarf equipment would be a pretty awful surprise.

Goblins with working dwarven siege weapons would be infinitely worse.

I don't know exactly what was being kept in the Armoury, but it could incredibly important to verify that it's all still in there.

Who knows what the dwarves considered important enough to be locked away? Karag Lhune also has a fancy "air port" as the dwarves call it, and letting my imagination go bad places for a moment, the absolute last thing we want to be surprised by is a freaking Goblin Zeppelin.
 
[X] Go downwards to the Armoury, to ensure that the ancient armaments that were sealed within remain so.
 
[X] Go downwards to the Armoury, to ensure that the ancient armaments that were sealed within remain so.

It's easy to just assume that all the doors are still sealed. However, if there's one thing that could screw up our attack, it's orcs with ancient dwarven arms. I'd say that is critical intelligence.
 
[X] Go downwards to the Armoury, to ensure that the ancient armaments that were sealed within remain so.

Mopman43 said:
We're like, 30 years before the election of Karl Franz OTL. We're not that far off from canon.
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I don't think it's that we're far from Canon, but more that we're closer to times when wizards are heavily distrusted. The Colleges of Magic have been around for almost two centuries, but they were disestablished and wizards outlawed from 2415 to 2430. Considering Mathilde was born in 2450, that's well within living memory for the wizards in charge of the Colleges.
 
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Derpmind said:
[X] Go downwards to the Armoury, to ensure that the ancient armaments that were sealed within remain so.

It's easy to just assume that all the doors are still sealed. However, if there's one thing that could screw up our attack, it's orcs with ancient dwarven arms. I'd say that is critical intelligence.
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I don't assume they are sealed. I assume that information about the defense layout of the next target immediately after entering, which could either stifle or accelerate the momentum of said attack on everything else in the mountain based on information delivered, is more important.
 
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[X] Go downwards to the Armoury, to ensure that the ancient armaments that were sealed within remain so.

If we look at the defences on the way out we'll have the most up to date information.
 
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