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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Honestly, a look at Kraka ravsnvake might be a wonderful way to find out the trip. We'd have taken the expedition to three dwarfholds rather than one: one win, one loss, and one as yet unknown but suspected empty. A very efficient use of the steam wagons, bang for coin.

Plus I think it would be good for morale stability, to look at a dwarfhold that has fallen in a normal, expected way with normal, expected remains. Flex those infiltration muscles a bit, give the rest of the expedition an excuse to use their skills a bit, with everyone likely feeling useless after the pass and not even getting out of the wagons at Dum.

And last, most speculatively, it could give us a place to shelter from pursuit- clearing and quickly forting up in old dwarfworks, should something happen to our wagons from heavier than expected pursuit.
 
storryeater said:
Yeah... I think we won't be able to find anything, but if a roll of the dice costs next to nothing, well, lets roll them.
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Opportunity cost. Can't do something else with that AP. That means not doing something less dramatic but more likely to reap dividends, or talking to an NPC, or whatever.

In particular, I'm worried about dealing with our pursuers after we steal the cup.
 
flotter said:
Each of those are quantitatively different to what is being proposed here. We were allowed into Uzkulak and never strayed away from the public spaces, we already had information about the Combes from the person who ran the place, and the chalice will be a smash and grab with directions given to us. The one thing each of those things have in common is that we already had information to help us. We're not going in blind, and so we weren't slowed down getting that information. That's what I was arguing.
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So your argument is that this action isn't viable because it could take time, too much for her to catch up. And the point of my response is that Mathilde moves five times faster than the Expedition when the Expedition is moving optimally. Even if Mathilde delays herself for a week, she literally can catch up in a single day and have room left over to range ahead. So your argument that lack of information causes delays only comes into effect if she's delayed by that for over a week.

To be clear, I'm not saying that exploration is a good idea, just that the objection of distance is not a good argument against it. We likely have zero information on Hell Pit itself, but not of the path of the Expedition, so it's likely that she'd at least be able to make her way back without issue.
 
CornyBones said:
so im gathering this throt is a pretty bad dude?
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In addition to being one of the most prodigious Monster makers in the setting (including shoving human sentience into a Rat Ogre at least once) he has a tense alliance with the Pestilence clans and many of his creations, including according to rumor himself, carry their diseases so just fighting his creations might give you the plague. Has a dream of creating essentially a Godzilla sized Rat Ogre.

He also has messed with his own biology a lot. One of his eyes was replaced with a chunk of warpstone, he has three arms, he's strong enough physically to grab rat ogres by the neck and push them to the ground, if he isn't currently eating he's essentially always in a berserker rage and, even by Skaven standards, he is considered insane.
 
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King Arthur said:
In addition to being one of the most prodigious Monster makers in the setting (including shoving human sentience into a Rat Ogre at least once) he has a tense alliance with the Pestilence clans and many of his creations, including according to rumor himself, carry their diseases so just fighting his creations might give you the plague. Has a dream of creating essentially a Godzilla sized Rat Ogre.

He also has messed with his own biology a lot. One of his eyes was replaced with a chunk of warpstone, he has three arms, he's strong enough physically to grab rat ogres by the neck and push them to the ground, if he isn't currently eating he's essentially always in a berserker rage and, even by Skaven standards, he is considered insane.
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So he has a powerful army with many virtual unknows, can give you plague, and can probably blade catch Branulhune.

I do not think we are ready to face him. My desire to avoid the hell pit increased.
 
Well, in all fairness, he does use ... essentially a dog catchers pole that he slips around beings neck to do the whole push rat ogres to the ground thing.

Text does directly call him very strong physically, and I'm inclined to believe it, but I can't imagine that it's catch the strength 10 sword level strong. Maybe push around a character that strong, could definitely push us around if he grabs us, but at the very least I doubt he has the kind of speed needed for sword catch.

The rest is totally valid though, dude is horrifying. Sort of person I'd try to bury in an avalanche or explode with an environmental hazard of some sort.
 
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picklepikkl said:
Opportunity cost. Can't do something else with that AP. That means not doing something less dramatic but more likely to reap dividends, or talking to an NPC, or whatever.

In particular, I'm worried about dealing with our pursuers after we steal the cup.
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Well, we'll see if there are pursuers or not. If we end up being chased around, we may want to do RoW all day just so we can get that extra bit of strategic speed. Presumably, actions to try to harass/sabotage/distract the pursuers will also be available in such a scenario. If we don't have pursuers, then the opportunity cost will be minimal, I suspect.
 
storryeater said:
So he has a powerful army with many virtual unknows, can give you plague, and can probably blade catch Branulhune.

I do not think we are ready to face him. My desire to avoid the hell pit increased.
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I don't even particularly want to visit Hellpit, but I'll remind you that it's a full-sized skaven settlement. Much as we never saw Sharpwit in Karak Eight Peaks - until the very end - even setting eyes on him would mean we'd gone way too deep.

EDIT: Sleek Sharpwit, not Gnawdwell.
 
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GrimTheMad said:
I think people are maybe not used to having a fallback point that's so vulnerable.

In K8P if we piss someone off they'd have to siege an actual dwarf hold, one protected by a super weapon and about a hundred thousand soldiers, with readily available reinforcements.

The Convoy, for all that its way better on an 'average power per head' basis, is still just 500 people in metal boxes that they have little idea of how to repair.

The name of the game is to draw as little attention as possible, and considering they're 5 enormous landships that spew out smoke that can be seen for dozens of miles, the onus is on Mathilde to not draw any undue heat.

Which means that getting up to our usual shenanigans is... generally inadvisable.

(Also we're already planning on pissing off probably the biggest Kurgan tribe in the area to repay our ice witch debt, so let's maybe not borrow any more trouble.)
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I can't think of when we've ever needed to retreat back into a Karak after one of our shenanigans. The shroom goblins walked into a burning shadow; the Skryre got dragon'd; etc.

I guess you could consider Waaagh Birdmuncha to be a consequence of one of our shenanigans, and we fled back to our doomsday superweapon to kill them all? Although if we were just passing through in an armored convoy we could have left them to the dragon, so I'm not convinced that it is.
 
Guile said:
I can't think of when we've ever needed to retreat back into a Karak after one of our shenanigans. The shroom goblins walked into a burning shadow; the Skryre got dragon'd; etc.

I guess you could consider Waaagh Birdmuncha to be a consequence of one of our shenanigans, and we fled back to our doomsday superweapon to kill them all? Although if we were just passing through in an armored convoy we could have left them to the dragon, so I'm not convinced that it is.
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Still, the idea of "do not piss off anything strong and fast enough to catch up with the convoy and seriously threaten it" seems to make sense.
 
Guile said:
I can't think of when we've ever needed to retreat back into a Karak after one of our shenanigans. The shroom goblins walked into a burning shadow; the Skryre got dragon'd; etc.

I guess you could consider Waaagh Birdmuncha to be a consequence of one of our shenanigans, and we fled back to our doomsday superweapon to kill them all? Although if we were just passing through in an armored convoy we could have left them to the dragon, so I'm not convinced that it is.
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Well, we had to run away from those orcs that one time, and nearly died. But I think the point is that if something goes wrong and we need to hightail it out of there, it might have serious repercussions for the rest of the expedition too.
 
Mopman43 said:
Think you mean Sharpwit there. Don't think we ever got any hints on where Gnawdwell was- presumably dead or in Skavenblight.
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Only mention I could find:

BoneyM said:
"Traitor-Clan Mors," you say, remembering the words of the Eshin you encountered, and he nods so fast his head seems to quiver.

"Nurglitch should never have survived the Black Pillar! Been allowed to spread his sickness to Gnawdwell! The first time should have taught us! The second time should have taught us! There will never be a fourth!" He subsides, chittering in agitation. "Clan Mors is past. What remains is a meal soon to be devoured."
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So presumably dead or on the run.
 
I'm onboard with checking out the Norse dwarf holds near our route. The IC information paints a bad picture, but all that's known for sure is that they lost contact with them. Given the entire purpose of the expedition is to determine the status of a dwarf hold long thought lost, it feels very much aligned with the expeditions goals to check up on another lost hold should our path pass close enough to make things viable.

If we're lucky, we either establish contact with survivors (or evacuate survivors). If we're unlucky we find an empty or fallen hold, but at least we can get a definitive answer on the question for the Karaz Ankor on whether they are holding out or not. If yes, hooray. If no, at least it prevents people from having to send a second expedition up here to check.
 
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picklepikkl said:
In particular, I'm worried about dealing with our pursuers after we steal the cup.
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I don't really think dealing with Kurgans pursuing the thieves of their sacred cup are going to compete with scouting Ravnsvake/Hellpit/whatever else, simply because they'd be happening a week or two apart on opposite sides of the Frozen Sea. Several hundred miles of super-cold packed ice/tundra is a very, very effective barrier to a bunch of nomadic horsemen, both for lack of foraging capability (particularly of hay/grass suitable for horses/cows) and for being a much more extreme/inhospitable environment than they are used to.

It's also pretty unlikely that there will be any pursuing forces that aren't as vulnerable to supply limitations, because the Kul/local natives who would know how to live off of that land would be much less likely to be mounted (and thus unlikely to be able to keep up) and any demons or whatever that wouldn't need to eat would fade away without sacrifices.

It's possible to get around these issues with sufficient organization/prep time, but it's also really unlikely that there'll be anybody who just so happened to have an expedition prepped and ready to go chasing after us.
 
IC have the Norse Dawi been mentioned in the story? I've seen Boney's Q&A posts mentioning them but I dont remember any characters or prose talking about them.
 
Mosshadow95 said:
IC have the Norse Dawi been mentioned in the story? I've seen Boney's Q&A posts mentioning them but I dont remember any characters or prose talking about them.
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Here and there. Borek talked about the Norse Dwarfs holding out for thousands of years to justify having hope in Dum, our fellow council members brought up Thorgrim finding them as a reason why Dwarfs keep forming expeditions to lost holds. Stuff like that.
 
Mosshadow95 said:
IC have the Norse Dawi been mentioned in the story? I've seen Boney's Q&A posts mentioning them but I dont remember any characters or prose talking about them.
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Several times.
BoneyM said:
You frown; the axe had clearly been of Dwarven manufacture, which made both of the possibilities very touchy. "North or east?"

He sighs. "That's the question, isn't it?"

The dilemma is clear to you, but fairly buried in Dwarven history. During the Dwarven Golden Age some six millennia ago, the Dwarves had spread throughout the World's Edge Mountains, and some internal debate the Dwarves were rather tight-lipped about led to two splinter groups leaving: one northwest to the mountains of Norsca, and one east across the bleak plateau that sits at the northern edge of the Dark Lands. Then Chaos had come to the world, and while the Karaz Ankor fought off demons with steel and the taint of Chaos with Valaya's runes, the Dwarves of the East either succumbed or were seduced by Chaos, and those that went North were presumed lost, being the closest to the Chaos Wastes. But about 180 years ago, during the Great War Against Chaos that led to the founding of the Colleges, the Karaz Ankor under High King Alriksson had marched to defend Kislev. A fiery young Thorgrim pursued fleeing Norscans so far north that he encountered those that had harried the forces of Asavar Kul for every step they had taken south: the Norse Dwarves of Kraka Drak.

When Alriksson perished of the wounds he suffered in the Great War Against Chaos, Thorgrim was elected to replace him in no small part because of his rediscovery of the Karaz Ankor's lost kin. But the Norscans who had failed to conquer the south for the Chaos Gods turned their attention to the Norse Dwarves, and contact was once more lost after a mere three years. This time, as far as anyone could tell, for good.

Clan Moulder's stronghold of Hell Pit is on the northern edge of Troll Country, equally able to access the lands of the Norse Dwarves and the Chaos Dwarves. The Naggarothi might have gotten it from them, or it could have been stolen from the Norscans, or it could have been bartered from the Chaos Dwarves. So if you don't know which a Rune comes from, is it a lost discovery of Thungni, preserved for millennia by the Norse Dwarves? Or is it a tainted gift from the Demon-God of the Chaos Dwarves?
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BoneyM said:
The tales of Thorgrim Grudgebearer give many hope that like the Norse Dwarves did, the Dwarves of Karag Dum still hold out, and the fate of the Norse Dwarves has convinced many of the dangers of the Wastes."
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BoneyM said:
"Our Norse kinfolk lasted near four thousand years. Karag Dum will not have fallen in a mere two hundred. If we can establish a new road to them..."
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BoneyM said:
He frowns. "One of the Norse Dwarf Holds?"
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BoneyM said:
Thorek shrugs. "Perhaps the High King would not have fallen. Perhaps Karak Vlag and Karag Dum would not have been lost. Perhaps the Norse Dwarves would not have fallen. Perhaps the Silver Age would not have ended. Anyone that accepted that burden upon their shoulders would have no choice but to shave their head and seek their Doom.
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BoneyM said:
"The Norse Dwarves were isolated in Norsca for seven thousand years before they fell, and Karak Azul survived three thousand.
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