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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BoneyM said:
After spending most of their time inside and only coming out with a rag across their mouth? They're in no more danger than the average Stirlandian when the wind blows from the east.
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Better than I was thinking, still leaves potential active threats hitting us if we stay a day. If none come across us though doesn't seem like it's much additional impact.

Assuming six days travel if immediately going there and back, we're only increasing our exposure by 17% if we stay for a day, maybe even less since it's afternoon now and we'd be stopping soon anyway. Actual increase in risk of encounters is probably a good bit higher than that since this is a central point though.
 
primemountain said:
@BoneyM How about something like this?
[X] This is clearly some Divine non-Chaos effect. And it's fighting Chaos and the Chaos Wastes. So you are obligated to try to help, but no more. Go the the edge of the forest and set up a table to wait till nightfall. Have a Dwarf either/and or carve the name, rank and station of Loremaster of K8Ps and the Karaz Ankor, or announce you(or whatever else the procedure is for a formal envoy approaching a friendly Karak in Karaz Ankor). If anyone does show up, thank them for their service against Chaos and ask what message/assistance they require and see what knowledge they might be willing to give back, to be preserved. Do not step one foot inside the forest without an invitation.

Treat them like an unknown Order faction. Wood Elves are dangerous and you do not tresspass on their turf. So we don't. We offer them a chance at diplomacy, and then leave if they don't take it, while everyone else digs in for the day/night. Leave tomorrow. Come in with an honor guard, probably, but don't tresspass. Even if Order Beastmen, they're still Beastmen. Don't threaten them.
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I like that, it's like a more respectful fortify, wait and see. Not much more risky than fortifying and probably has better chances to get some peaceful contact from the Karak or the beastmen.
 
If y'all don't mind a suggestion (as suggested by some other folks): if you want to infiltrate the area with magic, why not ask one of the nearby groups if using magic is a mutation risk? They probably have shamans accompanying them, and they've been doing this for hundreds of years. If it's not a risk, then they should know, this shouldn't eat up more than a few hours, and takes away the chance of rolling a 'save or die' when Mathilde casts something.
 
[x] Approach the Kul camp peacefully and attempt to discuss the Karak with them
[x] Approach the Kvellige camp peacefully and attempt to discuss the Karak with them
[x] Fortify here and see if anything interesting happens over the next day
[x] Attempt to intercept a Kurgan war-party en route to attack the Karag and the Beastmen
 
ninjafish said:
Every moment spent in the chaos wastes is another moment the expedition spends exposed to the chaos wastes.

The dwarves in the Karag are not responding to any attempts at communication.

Nothing is gonna happen.

We have people we want to return too and things we want to live to do.

The best option for making sure we return to those people and live to do those things is leaving this cursed place behind.
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Want to know my feelings of why the most useless option is winning right now?

Because the second one is leave.

If we are going to have to vote against leave all the votes until we actually do it, plenty of people are going to vote the option that can win against it.

Hell I want to vote other options, but I won't until I know they can win the leave vote.
 
D.Rockstar said:
Want to know my feelings of why the most useless option is winning right now?

Because the second one is leave.

If we are going to have to vote against leave all the votes until we actually do it, plenty of people are going to vote the option that can win against it.

Hell I want to vote other options, but I won't until I know they can win the leave vote.
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Forgive the impertinence, but why not approval vote then? Seems like it's designed for this sort of situation.
 
D.Rockstar said:
Want to know my feelings of why the most useless option is winning right now?

Because the second one is leave.

If we are going to have to vote against leave all the votes until we actually do it, plenty of people are going to vote the option that can win against it.

Hell I want to vote other options, but I won't until I know they can win the leave vote.
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You can vote for multiple options, to my understanding. There isn't really a need to engage in strategic voting, as it's effectively a runoff system. Unless I'm misunderstanding something?
 
Ok, then honestly I vote to fortify and see if anything interesting happens. We want more information, we don't want to risk ourselves, and we've got two other armies right here for the express purpose of sending champions against Morghur. It's passive, yes, but it's not risky in a way most of the other options are. Especially if it helps us decide what to do next and/or what to tell Karak Ankor. Time is something we've bought, let's use it first, let the people we've cover to steal the goblet from weaken themselves if we can.

[x] Fortify here and see if anything interesting happens over the next day
 
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Eh, there's a bit of a difference between what Borek was trying to do and what we, theoretically, would try to do with another expedition. For him, nobody knew a damn thing about what would be waiting up here, and assumed the place was simply lost. Do us, we know they're holding, and in fact are pushing back the wastes with the backing of some non-chaos god or another. Also, we would probably be able to push off from Vlag in a few years instead of Pragg, so that might help.

Granted, I don't really know or care if that's actually enough to make a difference, but the calculus is not exactly the same.

[X] Approach the Kvellige camp peacefully and attempt to discuss the Karak with them
[X] Approach the Kul camp peacefully and attempt to discuss the Karak with them
[X] Leave

I don't really know if it's a wise idea to poke the other tribes, but fuck it we might as well try for some last minute information. It's more likely to work than anything else at least.
 
I will admit, much as I think we need to know what's going on in there I really don't like the "Send in a volunteer first" options.

"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make" is not exactly a heroic character statement. If we think something needs to be done (and I do), then we need to be willing to gamble our own chips, not those of our allies.
 
D.Rockstar said:
Want to know my feelings of why the most useless option is winning right now?

Because the second one is leave.

If we are going to have to vote against leave all the votes until we actually do it, plenty of people are going to vote the option that can win against it.

Hell I want to vote other options, but I won't until I know they can win the leave vote.
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The reason leave isn't winning because a bunch of people are showing absurd levels of hubris and overconfidence and think sitting here in the chaos wastes for another day or two trying to pointlessly figure this out is a good idea.

They are wrong.

The majority opinion is not always the correct choice.

The smart move would be to leave. trying to sate this curiosity could very well get people killed, leaving minimizes the chance of further death.

Leaving is the best choice, the one that's most likely to save lives.
 
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Omegahugger said:
I will admit, much as I think we need to know what's going on in there I really don't like the "Send in a volunteer first" options.

"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make" is not exactly a heroic character statement. If we think something needs to be done (and I do), then we need to be willing to gamble our own chips, not those of our allies.
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The corollary is 'if I die all of you starve or worse'.
 
Omegahugger said:
I will admit, much as I think we need to know what's going on in there I really don't like the "Send in a volunteer first" options.

"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make" is not exactly a heroic character statement. If we think something needs to be done (and I do), then we need to be willing to gamble our own chips, not those of our allies.
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While I agree in general, in this case gambling our own chips is also gambling everyone else's due to RoW and the iffy food situation.

Look at it this way: if you were leading the expedition, would you be willing to risk Mathilde right now?

'Cause I think she's the single most vital person to getting everyone home.
 
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HungryHamadryad said:
Okay, find out using any of the far safer options we could take first before jumping to the most dangerous, last resort option?
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Look, obviously we have different opinions on what is the most dangerous last resort option.

Everything we're seeing suggests Morghur's corruption is... not happening right now, for some reason. I specifically included a subvote that would have Mathilde veer off if upon entering the forest she sees any sign of Morghur's well-known corruption effect. Given that, infiltrating with magic is the fastest way to get in and out of the Karag through the forest of beastmen. The more time we spend trying out different things – parleying with Kurgans, attacking Kurgans and such – the more likely the Chaos dice roll something weird and we get a biting house dropped on us, Wicked Witch-style.

So I'm choosing to believe the evidence we've found, and roll the dice.
ninjafish said:
This.

IF WE DIE EVERYONE ELSE ON THIS EXPEDITION BESIDES MAYBE ASARNIL AND HUBERT ARE GOING TO DIE THEMSELVES.
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Because those hundreds of elite knights and battle-hardened dwarf rangers in their land-monitors are helpless without us, barely fit to hold Mathilde's big dick as she swaggers through
 
Well, we were alright with the call for volunteers to drive across the narrow road, asking someone to risk falling to their death isn't quite in the same league as asking them to risk getting spawned though.
 
DragonParadox said:
The corollary is 'if I die all of you starve or worse'.
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Not really.

BoneyM said:
If they filled their larders and gorged their animals at the edge of Kurgan lands, they'd have two weeks of food plus full bellies to go three weeks of distance. 2/3 rations or going the last week without food would be a really bad time, but it's not an automatic death sentence.
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It's also quite amusing imo to see this argument used when almost everyone voted to continue the expedition before realizing we could do Mockery of Death.
 
BoneyM said:
She'd recognize it if it was Ranald, Gork, or Mork.
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Damn, being possed grants quite some recognition credit :V
Redshirt Army said:
Yeah, but they don't normally emit divine magic energies of the type Mathilde can sense. If it is the Ancestor Gods then it would imply some fairly kickflip stuff going on by the Runemasters to give the ancestors more agency than they usually have.
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Mathilde doesn't recognize it as familiar like she did the Valayan Blessing on the Dawi at Karak Vlag, it's likely not an Ancestor God.

[X] Leave

Edit: Would rather leave, but fortifying is the least bad of the options currently in the running.
[X] Fortify here and see if anything interesting happens over the next day
 
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Guile said:
Because those hundreds of elite knights and battle-hardened dwarf rangers in their land-monitors are helpless without us, barely fit to hold Mathilde's big dick as she swaggers through
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As none of them can preserve meat in meaningful quantities yes. Without Mookery of death the commandeers of those battle hardened knights would have already voted to turn back.
 
GrimTheMad said:
While I agree in general, in this case gambling our own chips is also gambling everyone else's due to RoW and the food situation.

Look at it this way: if you were leading the expedition, would you be willing to risk Mathilde right now?
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Yes.

But then again, I have also been one of the vocal proponents that our mission is not done yet and that we shouldn't turn around until it is, so this really shouldn't come as a surprise.

Frankly the amount of support leaving gets does surprise me, though it really shouldn't given how often it gets revealed that my threat assesment differs from the rest of the thread.
 
DragonParadox said:
I can do you one better. The side that wants to act keeps paining pictures of transformative magic and cuddly beastmen so let me paint a picture too of what would happen if we die here.. It won't just be everyone starves cleanly. It will be a weakened doomed expedition trying to limp its way south. It will be raids and desperate last stands.

Imagine Max and Johan ending their days in a Moulder Pit or a Chaos Dwarf sacrificial blade and then compare that to the potential nebulous gains of vising Dun. Imagine Panoramia getting news of Mathilde's grisly death from a grim Asarnil and weeping.
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whose painting pictures? Between this update and the previous one Mathilde has seen both transformative magic and a cuddly beastman with her own eyes. Are you willing to condemn an arbitrarily large number of dwarves to those fates? because that is what is likely to happen if the dwarves of Dum get wrongly grudged based on appearances because we were too scared to do the thing we went into the chaos wastes to do.
 
Retrueno said:
It's also quite amusing imo to see this argument used when almost everyone voted to continue the expedition before realizing we could do Mockery of Death.
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Well yeah, that is because we are overconfident and hoping for resupply at Dun. The knight condemners wanted back.

wrecksalot said:
whose painting pictures? Between this update and the previous one Mathilde has seen both transformative magic and a cuddly beastman with her own eyes. Are you willing to condemn an arbitrarily large number of dwarves to those fates? because that is what is likely to happen if the dwarves of Dum get wrongly grudged based on appearances because we were too scared to do the thing we went into the chaos wastes to do.
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They are in the Chaos Wastes, they are not answering hails. They are already doomed and not from any grudge. The Karaz Ankor has not power here and never will.
 
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Let me make this clear.

The goal of this expedition was not to satisfy our curiosity.

We were to get to karag dum, see if it's still there, potentially evacuate any survivors and then report back.

Everything else is optional.

We have done what we came here for. We've done far more than we actually had to, what with returning Karak Vlag to the material realm and all.

We do not have to do anything else. We are not obligated to do anything else.

Let's go home, we've got a Girlfriend to return too, Regular friends to visit, and a whole bunch of interesting reseach projects to do.

Also neat drama with the whole "We are the Ancestor Cult Conclave, you are now dawi" thing.
 
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