Also, a note on the college of necromancy: we had no idea it existed when we voted to chase down Ambrosia. The decision to solo it wasn't one we made as players.
I know, and I've no issue with that theorycrafting. This whole discussion chain was starting by me asking whether people, based on the current evidence, would trust their own lives on the belief that Marge's aura won't mutate us if we enter its range/cast magic around it. The difference between coming up with theories and rushing into the most direct means of testing them possible.
Morghur twists and mutates everything around him by mere proximity. He touched Borek. If we're using prior knowledge of Morghur as fact, which in this case I believe is making assumptions, Borek should have been a Chaos Spawn well before he got that close, nevermind when he was touched by the spirit-essence of Chaos incarnate.
I don't think he's done it at all, because otherwise we would have found chaos spawn bones. And if we go solely by tabletop lore then Mathilde's doesn't exist, so there's no point in debating her actions.
That's all I was saying. Not getting into the whole thing there.
We have evidence that something weird is going on with his aura. We don't have evidence that it applies universally (Borek is a dwarf rather than human, is part of Karak Dum, had passphrases/responses we don't, etc), or that it's altered the 'screw magic users' part of it. It might be the case, don't get me wrong, but we can't be anything close to certain of it- and given prior knowledge of what Maybelene can do, I personally wouldn't want to chance it without more evidence.
Try it and find out. That's how we take apart secrets and mysteries. Frankly we're a shit Grey Magister if we leave because it's too mysterious and we couldn't be bothered to get answers.
So, is this a thing now?
It explodes. We kept gallons of it in our house.
We're still a freaking grey wizard, and that's a big ol' infiltration target up ahead.
We watched it melt a guy.
Who knew those hundreds of people who read the book and turned into crazed necromancers were just really bad at reading the forward and skipped right to the end?
No? Obviously. We didn't even torture Qresh.
The "fuck casters" effect is something separate from his normal reality warping, and is specifically caused by the gear he carries. I don't know if that's true in quest, or known about in character if so, but it is a distinct effect from his aura.
"Bork! Bork, get your ass out here and explain, or so help me I'm going to-"
It also didn't mutate the trees around him, so this isn't some special protection Borek has, at the very least.
TT, especially the later editions, is well known for dumping special abilities and effects that would nominally be on the character themselves onto their equipment.
Because we will almost certainly never get the chance again, because it's tied to the Waystone network and still sending energy through making it a potential threat, because we can, because it's our duty. And because the risk is as theoretical and potentially nil as the potential rewards, which I put great emphasis on.
A distinct effect which, if present would have meant we saw chaos spawn bones and we haven't.
As has been reiterated many times, the potential rewards are possibly absolutely crucial info. Here's my summary from some time back: Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest Fantasy
We didn't know this when we chose to store this, and had no evidence it would behave this way.
After we'd stored it. It's not relevant to the 'basing risks on current information and prior knowledge' topic.
One we have reason to believe we can't use magic around.
We watched the dhar spell sit comfortably inside people who'd had it there for long periods of time without doing them noticeable harm, assuming it got regular maintenance, and ulgu is more stable than dhar.
Mathilde explicitly knew IC before reading the Liber Mortis that the book itself has no memetic or corruptive effects. It's not like the book of Nagash or any other cursed tome- it's just a book containing very (very) dangerous knowledge.
Technically speaking, to my understanding, Morghur was first created in 6th edition for the Beastman book, where he had the staff that does the Chaos Spawn thing to Wizards, and then in their 7th book, they just dropped the staff and effect altogether. He doesn't actually have any special items in 7th.
Mathilde knew that? Or did the players know that?
