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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Using Vitae as a propellant sounds like an enormous waste.

Remember that two gallons of the stuff is enough for an entire large scale battle worth of Ancestor Runes, and we still don't even know what else it can do.

Personally the possibility I'm looking forward to the most is its use in enchanting.
 
GrimTheMad said:
Using Vitae as a propellant sounds like an enormous waste.
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That depends how much of it we have to infuse into an object to get the propellant effect. If you could get thousands of shots per gallon, it gets better.

An AV fueled, rattling gun (with some enchantments to bridge the gaps) would be one of the deadliest man-portable weapons in the world.

The Ratling Gun is the latest and perhaps most powerful weaponry Clan Skryre has ever invented, a large multi-barrelled death-dealing machine that has the potential to change the very face of warfare in favour of the Skaven race
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In combat, the Ratling Gun is capable of laying down an ungodly amount of firepower in an extremely short period of time. A solid barrage from a Ratling Gun is more than capable of single-handedly scything down a mob of charging Orc Boar Boyz or take down a monstrous Griffon in mid-flight. Few can stop a Ratling Gun once its gung-ho weapons-team gets in gear.
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I mean, ungodly amount of firepower. Doesn't that just speak to you?:lol:
 
GrimTheMad said:
Using Vitae as a propellant sounds like an enormous waste.

Remember that two gallons of the stuff is enough for an entire large scale battle worth of Ancestor Runes, and we still don't even know what else it can do.

Personally the possibility I'm looking forward to the most is its use in enchanting.
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I begin to despair of ever finding out, personally. It's supposedly our "ongoing" personal research project, but as far as I can see the last time we spent an action on it was on turn 28. Next turn will be turn 34. Who wants to bet that we don't work on it this turn either, because we're scared of the -10 malus?

There's always some reason to spend our attention elsewhere, but at this point it's downright farcical.
 
just a few idea's I've had in passing while in thread.

I remember Bony saying something about building or looking into battle alters if we want to enhance the power of our spells. Not entirely sure on the lore but it seems to be basically a massive carriage which enhances a mages magic if it corresponds to their lore of magics. Hell, maybe even learn to use battle alters with Aetheric Vitae to enhance not only our magics but those of our fellow wizards when we turn it into winds of magic which can be used by everyone but not sure if it would be easy to do without turning into Dhar though we could probably try to work it out with Thorek for the specifics on how to release it safely without turning into Dhar.

Another idea i had was training in explosives by the dwarves. Just the idea of placing a few well placed explosives in the enemy fortresses ready to be exploded when hit by a good cannon ball or artillery sounds good or hell even placing explosives traps triggered in the enemy bosses room sounds pretty neat as another thing we can do when infiltration enemy lines or fortresses.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I begin to despair of ever finding out, personally. It's supposedly our "ongoing" personal research project, but as far as I can see the last time we spent an action on it was on turn 28. Next turn will be turn 34. Who wants to bet that we don't work on it this turn either, because we're scared of the -10 malus?

There's always some reason to spend our attention elsewhere, but at this point it's downright farcical.
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We've found a permanent use for arbitrarily large amounts of it. Unless we can find a way to make waystones recharge those runes I don't think we'll be looking too hard for another use.

Of course given that the Eonir want to work with us on the waystone network I wouldn't be surprised if we do find a way to make the waystones recharge runes. At which point we'll need a new use for AV.
 
kingreaper said:
Windherder Enchantment Idea List. Confirmed possibilities are marked, everything else is speculative.

Grey+Gold:
Eye of the Beholder(RS)+Fool's Gold (MC): Target object is actually irresistibly valuable now. - Shard

Shadow Knives(FC) +Silver Arrows (MC): Enchant a crossbow to fire armour-piercing homing bolts.

Bewilder (RS) + Guard of Steel (RS) = Bronze Orbs that in addition to protecting you, also seriously disorient anyone hostile to you. Constantly. -Shard

Stoke the Forge + Burning Shadows = Target Fires burns hotly with a Burning Shadows effect. Very lethal. - Shard

Aethyric Armour + Guard of Steel = Two seperate defensive effects that can be used together. - Jyn Ryvia - Confirmed

Marksdwarf pistol from Zhufbar + Illusion(FC) + Enchant Item(FC): Silenced supergun -Picklepikkl

Grey+Jade
Shadowsteed (RS) + The Wild's Undisturbed (MC): Creates a shadowsteed leaves no trail and passes through wilderness

Shadowsteed (RS) + Tree-dweller's Step (RS) = Shadowsteed that can climb? - Shard

Take No Heed/Shroud of Invisibility/Shadowcloak + The Wilds Undisturbed (MC) = Super Sneak through forests - Shard

Grey+Celestial
Illusion(FC) + Polish-Clean-And-Gleam(RS): A self-cleaning silenced rifle - Klaus
Aethyric Armour + Wings of Heaven (MC): Robes of flight - Jyn Ryvia - Confirmed possible but inadvisable

Grey+Bright:
Bewilder(RS)+Choleric(RS): Target becomes confused, with the only clarity being their anger at one target.

Shadow Daggers(FC) + Fireball (MC) - Shadow Daggers that explode when they hit. - Confirmed

Grey+Amber
Dread Aspect(FC) + The Ox Stands (MC): Makes the user utterly terrifying, but makes their allies immune to terror.


3-mage projects: Using two winds that aren't Ulgu requires three mages, one per wind+mathilde, and is thus automatically more dangerous
Bright+Jade
Barrel of Ferment(RS)+Taste of Fire(RS) - Converts any liquid, no matter how foul or brackish, into strong booze- Businessmanga

Amethyst+Jade
Death's Door(FC) + Seed of Regrowth(Battle): This would theoretically solve the problem of our opponent being able to stop us from regenerating after they kill us, by allowing us to keep fighting while we heal. - Klaus - Confirmed to be attemptable

Light+Gold
Inspiration(MC) + Law of Logic(RS): An initial boost of creativity and then Law of Logic to allow them to develop the concept to fruition. -Alratan

Things we definitely can't do: Combine Aethyric Armour with anything that makes armour stronger.
Combine Mindhole with effects of other winds to change its targeting.
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this one was confirmed as well

Shadow: Mantle of Mist/Death: Ward Against Abomination Enchantment:

The Dämmerlichtreiter thurible.
when Incense is burned within the Dämmerlichtreiter thurible the smoke that it releases carries the warding effect against the undead. a skilled user can almost blanket the walls of a small town or village in its glowing smoke.
 
Mopman43 said:
Mostly it feels like taking uranium and using it to bludgeon someone to death.

There has got to be a better use than propellant.
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Uh, basically all uses for uranium are as propellant, in one form or another. "Energetic release," certainly. This is just a question of how much you need to use at any one time.

(technically, depleted uranium is payload, not propellant, but who cares about that?)
 
Klaus said:
That depends how much of it we have to infuse into an object to get the propellant effect. If you could get thousands of shots per gallon, it gets better.

An AV fueled, rattling gun (with some enchantments to bridge the gaps) would be one of the deadliest man-portable weapons in the world.




I mean, ungodly amount of firepower. Doesn't that just speak to you?:lol:
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Plain old gunpowder is perfectly capable of doing the job as a propellant.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I begin to despair of ever finding out, personally. It's supposedly our "ongoing" personal research project, but as far as I can see the last time we spent an action on it was on turn 28. Next turn will be turn 34. Who wants to bet that we don't work on it this turn either, because we're scared of the -10 malus?

There's always some reason to spend our attention elsewhere, but at this point it's downright farcical.
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The fact there's a hard limit on how much of the stuff we can get is why I personally don't think there's much of a rush. It took us ages to get the first use of it properly nailed down sure, but then we quickly spent many years worth of accumulation on that use. Doesn't seem the end of the world to let the stockpile build up.
 
Mopman43 said:
That's... really not the point of the analogy.
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It's a bad analogy. Uranium is used to generate energy. If you can kill a lot of people with a very low expenditure of uranium (rattling gun) then that is a better idea than killing that same number of people by building a less efficient bomb, that wastes most of it's energy on the air or ground.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
this one was confirmed as well

Shadow: Mantle of Mist/Death: Ward Against Abomination Enchantment:

The Dämmerlichtreiter thurible.
when Incense is burned within the Dämmerlichtreiter thurible the smoke that it releases carries the warding effect against the undead. a skilled user can almost blanket the walls of a small town or village in its glowing smoke.
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Cool, have added that and a note that Arcane Marks can be fuel for enchanting.

Also added:
Dread Aspect(FC) + The Ox Stands (MC): Makes the user utterly terrifying, but makes their allies immune to terror.
 
Klaus said:
That depends how much of it we have to infuse into an object to get the propellant effect. If you could get thousands of shots per gallon, it gets better.

An AV fueled, rattling gun (with some enchantments to bridge the gaps) would be one of the deadliest man-portable weapons in the world.

I mean, ungodly amount of firepower. Doesn't that just speak to you?:lol:
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Mathilde, brandishing her AV gun: "It costs two hundred thousand Dwarf Favor to fire this gun... for twelve seconds".
 
Klaus said:
It's a bad analogy. Uranium is used to generate energy. If you can kill a lot of people with a very low expenditure of uranium (rattling gun) then that is a better idea than killing that same number of people by building a less efficient bomb, that wastes most of it's energy on the air or ground.
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The analogy is that the uranium is being used as a bludgeon. As holding a rock in your hand and bashing someone's skull open.

Using a microchip as a spearpoint, if that makes more sense to you then.


This is a tremendously rare and magical substance, if we can't find a better use for it than "poor wizard's warpstone", we've failed as a Lord Magister.
 
Mopman43 said:
The analogy is that the uranium is being used as a bludgeon. As holding a rock in your hand and bashing someone's skull open.

Using a microchip as a spearpoint, if that makes more sense to you then.


This is a tremendously rare and magical substance, if we can't find a better use for it than "poor wizard's warpstone", we've failed as a Lord Magister.
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And as I said, it's a bad analogy. Using wizard-uranium(AV) as a substitute for fantasy-dark-magic-uranium(warpstone) is not wasteful at all.
 
Briefvoice said:
The frustrating part was not the fate of Karag Dum, which is where the dice roll came in. It's perfectly reasonable that "actually they did turn to questionable magic to survive" was the answer. The frustrating part is not having any catharsis where Borek or someone from Karag Dum comes out and justifies themselves and we vote to condemn them or not judge them or plead with them to send somebody back to Karaz Ankor or something like that. Instead Borek goes, "I know this looks bad and it is," then nopes out of the Expedition and we're left with more questions than answers.

None of that was a dice roll. That was an authorial choice.
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I can sort of see where youre coming from from a traditional storytelling/narrative approach. General wisdom there has it that everything happening has a purpose and every mystery gets solved, at least to the reader.
This is mostly due to the medium, being mostly concerned with sales (or if you prefer, appeal to general audiences if were going older). Most people only read so many pages (and thus most questreaders are NOT most people :D) and in oral tradition they tend to lose interest, so a story or book has to be as concise as possible, thus excising everything not relevant. Many people, like you just here, get frustrated when a mystery stays that, when there is no narratively satisfying conclusion to a story, when things just end. That is basic human nature. We want things to make sense, to follow some sort of order. I mean we sort of invented religions and philosophy to deal with it in real life. And theres the problem with that approach. Real life doesnt work that way. Most things happen without purpose or higher order behind them and if there is, its the machinations of other humans. Good and bad things happen irrespective of narrative appropriateness or if it would be satisfying. Thats were the author comes in.
All authors face this problem and I like to think of them on being on an axis between narrative/storytelling and realism/worldbuilding. Aka do you plan out your story to be as satisfying and as possible or do you tend to stick to the worldbuilding and often ask yourself "how would the world react". I tend to prefer the latter approach in my own p&p campaigns and from what I read from Boney he seems to do as well. Note that from how this quest works, he has to. If the thread decides not to follow up on something he cant go there. If the thread decides to go somewhere, he need to know whats there and how the world would react.

Edit: What Boney is responsible for and how I handle it as Dm for my group is portraying the world how the character(s) see it. And to make sure its consistent. That things happen for reason that in-world, in-story make sense. For me at least the compelling narrative comes from the characters and their interactions (and worldbuilding :D) and consequences of actions on them, but thats up to the players/thread.

So, sort of rant over. TLDR: This quest is quite realistic (I think it is). The world doesnt bend to your whim. Narrative is not a fundamental building block of this world. As in real life the world (here meaning most likely Boney) doesnt owe you an answer.


On the topic of how different the presentation of the two routes was: Of course it was. We know what awaits us taking the same way back. They might be pessimistic about it concerning the opposing faction, but some might just call it being realistic. They did the math on the corner of death and came to about the same conclusion as the thread and dont see another option except not going there. So they decide on going the new route, which they dont know about. They know it should be possible. It was the original planned route. Its already improved upon, cutting out most of the traversing the actual wastes. What they dont know is whats waiting there for us. And the math of bad with options of worse are easily topped by unknown. And it has one major upside: The things we dont know about that await us dont know about us as well :D
 
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I have no doubt we could make a ratling gun equivalent with AV. Not a ratling gun as in weapon type, but as in single model. The thing is, ratling guns change the nature of war with numbers. Having a single ratling gun equivalent (since we have a very limited trickle of AV) would be using a unique resource to get a single slightly more portable piece of artillery.
 
BoneyM said:
From what you've heard, the convoy has to stick close together or the rearmost will get stuck in the reforming ice.
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That seems freakishly fast. Is there something supernatural about the Frozen Sea or is that how fast ice actually reforms?
Rafin said:
Rite of Way can't really prevent these vehicles from getting stuck in nice and uniform snow. Which when one compares the size of the vehicle to the size of its weels (wheels not tank threads) they can very easily do.
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RoW should be able to detect and deal with snow which is ice mixed with air just a much as its able to deal its mud which is dirt mixed with water.

[X] Frozen Sea

Let's RoW RoW RoW our boats, gently down the sea...
 
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Klaus said:
That depends how much of it we have to infuse into an object to get the propellant effect. If you could get thousands of shots per gallon, it gets better.
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Klaus said:
An AV fueled, rattling gun (with some enchantments to bridge the gaps) would be one of the deadliest man-portable weapons in the world.
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This is another possibility, and we aren't going to know unless we vote to test Vitae weaponization, and maybe add these idle thoughts into the vote.
You know what else sounds really, really scary under the right circumstances, and a bit more up Mathilde's alley? A dwarf version of a warplock jezzail, using runes or enchantments to further improve performance - and if Vitae works out, hopefully matching or exceeding the raw power warpstone provides. It's never going to see widespread adoption, but it doesn't need to. Mathilde is at the point where she can turn personal power into far reaching and long lasting ripple effects, by being in the right place at the right time, with a good target.

Raydom said:
Another idea i had was training in explosives by the dwarves. Just the idea of placing a few well placed explosives in the enemy fortresses ready to be exploded when hit by a good cannon ball or artillery sounds good or hell even placing explosives traps triggered in the enemy bosses room sounds pretty neat as another thing we can do when infiltration enemy lines or fortresses.
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The problem with this is that if you're not using warpstone, the actual energy density of warhammer explosives is... well, it's basically black powder. You need barrels of the stuff to blow up walls, and that's not something Mathilde can easily lug around with her. Hence my interest in finding a way to enhance blackpowder similar to the way warpstone does it, but hopefully with fewer horrible side effects.

13th Fleet said:
Plain old gunpowder is perfectly capable of doing the job as a propellant.
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Huh? No, we literally did a rattling gun research project and our findings explicitly fingered warpstone as being wholly integral to its' operation. You would need to redesign the whole thing from the ground up, in a much bulkier and less efficient package, in order to get an inferior end product. That's what makes a rattling gun so incredibly lethal.
If you somehow invented the cartridge and smokeless powder and reliable primers for said cartridges then sure, you can make a gatling gun.


kingreaper said:
We've found a permanent use for arbitrarily large amounts of it. Unless we can find a way to make waystones recharge those runes I don't think we'll be looking too hard for another use.
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That's why it's ideal for someone like Mathilde but useless for a group of thunderers. She can get away with using relatively tiny quantities to (hopefully) significant effect. It could very well be the difference between 'your gun is effectively useless against this named character' and 'you can punch through their armor and turn their insides into a bowl of spaghetti'. There's also mind game synergy here. If you're an Ork warboss and you get shot by a sneaky git in the rafters, you aren't going to expect that when you finally reach her, she's going to pull a runic greatsword out of hammerspace and go to town on your ass. We saw the sort of surprise rune of the unknown can create with Alkharad, and this plays into those sort of deceptive appearances and subversion of expectations.
 
HungryHamadryad said:
The problem with this is that if you're not using warpstone, the actual energy density of warhammer explosives is... well, it's basically black powder. You need barrels of the stuff to blow up walls, and that's not something Mathilde can easily lug around with her. Hence my interest in finding a way to enhance blackpowder similar to the way warpstone does it, but hopefully with fewer horrible side effects.
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There is a substance that's of much higher energy density than blackpowder and isn't Warpstone. The only question is where are we going to find a plentiful supply of incompetent Light Wizards. :V
 
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