- Location
- Brazil
A letter from our master, Schultz was the compromise that won Talabecland's vote for Hal.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Norway
Elector Count Abelhelm Van Hal is currently a very powerful and very dangerous person who is standing very close to Mathilde and also paying Mathilde's salary (and Mathilde's "second salary").Amount of information reported and how those are presented really boils down to how we view the relationship between derp, Count, and Stirland by extension.
Is Mathilde using the job of spy master for self advancement and release from puppet status? Is she working for the betterment of Count and Stirland? Or is she going with the motions and moments?
Adding to these interests are how much trust and liberty derp allows Van. Does Mathilde view Van fully capable and able to digest the loose reports as is or if Van only have time to look at connected report and action suggestions.
TLDR: Are we going to hand hold Van in intrigue or if we are going lead him to our goal.
On that basis, I think Mathilde should endeavor to keep a very good working relationship with him.
But for the wider situation in general, it's not just the relationship between derp, Count, and Stirland, but derp's relationship to the Grey Order, to the Mysterious Appointer who got derp this position, and to derp herself.
Derpwizard appears to be so torn between the five of them that she's not really loyal to anyone. She's violated the Grey Order's tenets (vow of poverty and self-abnegation lol), she's kept important secrets from the Count, she's embezzled while simultaneously prioritizing her job over her welfare, and she's presumably not happy with the death threats from Mysterious Appointer either. So it's running around trying to keep a lid on the crises that Stirland keeps having, while being unable to just ditch it and run because that would get pretty much every other faction pissed off simultaneously. Not much for it but to do her best and try to get enough of a powerbase and enough people happy with her to defy the rest reventually.
Haven't got a line for you, but I can save @Alliterate finding the info that we got some time ago: (two years IC)!
"When your Master writes back, you're in awe at the masterpiece of encryption before you. A handful of entirely natural-sounding paragraphs telling you of goings-on in the College and asking after your health and how your new position is going, as well as gently reminding you to continue your studies. For a while you think he's just sent you a normal response to chide you for trying to guilt him, but then you finally work out the key and the paragraphs decrypt into information more precious than gold.
Wilhelmina Hochschild is the only Councillor that Van Hal actually chose. Everyone else was thrust upon him, as you were. Brother Kasmir Heinz was hand-picked by the Grand Theogonist for loyalty to the Cult of Sigmar over any secular authority. Detlef Schultz was the concession that bought Talabecland's vote for Van Hal, though his qualifications are solid."
It's similar in Dramatis Personae.
- Location
- Aotearoa
I'd suggest @DarkLight140Elector Count Abelhelm Van Hal is currently a very powerful and very dangerous person who is standing very close to Mathilde and also paying Mathilde's salary (and Mathilde's "second salary").
On that basis, I think Mathilde should endeavor to keep a very good working relationship with him.
But for the wider situation in general, it's not just the relationship between derp, Count, and Stirland, but derp's relationship to the Grey Order, to the Mysterious Appointer who got derp this position, and to derp herself.
Derpwizard appears to be so torn between the five of them that she's not really loyal to anyone. She's violated the Grey Order's tenets (vow of poverty and self-abnegation lol), she's kept important secrets from the Count, she's embezzled while simultaneously prioritizing her job over her welfare, and she's presumably not happy with the death threats from Mysterious Appointer either. So it's running around trying to keep a lid on the crises that Stirland keeps having, while being unable to just ditch it and run because that would get pretty much every other faction pissed off simultaneously. Not much for it but to do her best and try to get enough of a powerbase and enough people happy with her to defy the rest reventually.
Haven't got a line for you, but I can save @Alliterate finding the info that we got some time ago: (two years IC)!
"When your Master writes back, you're in awe at the masterpiece of encryption before you. A handful of entirely natural-sounding paragraphs telling you of goings-on in the College and asking after your health and how your new position is going, as well as gently reminding you to continue your studies. For a while you think he's just sent you a normal response to chide you for trying to guilt him, but then you finally work out the key and the paragraphs decrypt into information more precious than gold.
Wilhelmina Hochschild is the only Councillor that Van Hal actually chose. Everyone else was thrust upon him, as you were. Brother Kasmir Heinz was hand-picked by the Grand Theogonist for loyalty to the Cult of Sigmar over any secular authority. Detlef Schultz was the concession that bought Talabecland's vote for Van Hal, though his qualifications are solid."
It's similar in Dramatis Personae.
[ ] Mention to van Hal that you heard from your master in Altdorf that Schultz was the concession that brought Talabeclands vote. You have no reason to suspect Schultzs' commitment to his role in Stirland, but it appears that Talabecland interests wanted him here.
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VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
Having a good working relationship doesn't mean we can/can't edit what we tell him.
It's in his interest not to be informed on some topics if we were able to take care of things. Does actual god protection work against birdface's influence? Derp is drenched in schemes and intrigue afterall.
- Location
- Aotearoa
What? I don't follow, or even know what you mean.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
Thanks for the links, you guys. I don't have an issue with putting in the suggested line to tell Van Hal that, although I kind of expect him to know it already- isn't he aware where his votes to be elected came from? I'll add it to the vote anyway just in case since it shouldn't hurt anything.
I can't think of any actions on Mathilde's part which are clear violations of the Grey Order's rules or demonstrations of disloyalty to it, actually, and if you can I'd be interested to hear them.
I... don't actually see any serious violations of that on her part? She's embezzling to pay her student loans- which doesn't violate anything, because it's enriching the Grey Order, not herself. Secret labs with furniture aren't self-enrichment, they're a reasonable job-related investment (such things are acceptable if not necessarily standard; Van Hal just told us that he'd approve a hidden lab if we paid for it out of money that we already have). She has a fair amount of resources and cash on hand but the Grey Order doesn't demand that its members be penniless, it demands that they not enrich themselves more than is reasonably necessary to fulfill their duties. Hell, she could probably reasonably justify buying fancy dresses and jewelry so that she can show her face at noble parties as one of the Elector Count's council and schmooze with nobles more effectively while gathering intel and the Grey Order wouldn't blink.
I can't think of any actions on Mathilde's part which are clear violations of the Grey Order's rules or demonstrations of disloyalty to it, actually, and if you can I'd be interested to hear them.
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HanEmpire
Delicious
He's worried that Mathilde's job as a schemer will get her corrupted by Tzeentch, and wants her to become more pious as protection.
- Location
- Aotearoa
MORE pious? If Randal wasn't so laid back, we'd be a ruddy fanatic, more than Kasmir.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Other spell ideas, I know ulgu is supposed to be rooted in the feeling of being lost or confused, but illusions aren't all supposed to confuse things, they can also be used to clarify.
Things like an illusionary heads up display (providing a targeting cursor where shots will land edit: among other things) or illusionarily enhanced senses might work, I'll find a full list of the twenty-somthing human senses, but it occurs to me that just as a person might be able to use an illusion to make sounds seem louder to their ears they might be able to use a single target illusion to make the body more sensitive to the information coming from a person's sense of balance or kinesthetic sense, making them uncommonly graceful and sure-footed.
Another spell idea is enchanting stakes or shields to make those who approach them from a certain direction get confused and turned around, or just make a spell for the same purpose.
It'd break a charge far better than a deployable wall or line of wooden stakes, and would be unusually effective against the forms of undead that aren't smart enough to do somthing like toss a rope across the effect and follow the rope or march in a large enough close formation(touching their peers to ensure the correct relative position) that the whole formation can't get turned around within the area of the effect.
Things like an illusionary heads up display (providing a targeting cursor where shots will land edit: among other things) or illusionarily enhanced senses might work, I'll find a full list of the twenty-somthing human senses, but it occurs to me that just as a person might be able to use an illusion to make sounds seem louder to their ears they might be able to use a single target illusion to make the body more sensitive to the information coming from a person's sense of balance or kinesthetic sense, making them uncommonly graceful and sure-footed.
Another spell idea is enchanting stakes or shields to make those who approach them from a certain direction get confused and turned around, or just make a spell for the same purpose.
It'd break a charge far better than a deployable wall or line of wooden stakes, and would be unusually effective against the forms of undead that aren't smart enough to do somthing like toss a rope across the effect and follow the rope or march in a large enough close formation(touching their peers to ensure the correct relative position) that the whole formation can't get turned around within the area of the effect.
- Location
- Norway
I can't think of any clear violations either, actually. But I'm not sure there even exists such a thing as a clear violation with the unclear way the rules are described. The sorcery sourcebook says Grey Wizards must take a vow of poverty one moment and then a moment later carves out a country-sized loophole of 'unless you have a good reason for it', which is more exception than rule as you've just demonstrated. Then it flips right back to talking about how the Grey Order is the Order that self-polices the most harshly and executes the most members due to their zero tolerance policies. This strikes me as a setup where the question of violations is in large part a matter of whether you have a friendly magister on the case.
Meanwhile, Mathilde's salary is already enough to cover her interest, so embezzling to pay her loans strikes me as a flimsy argument at best, quite apart from it being simply illegal when wizards swear a special oath to be law-abiding as one of their conditions to practice magic.
VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
Not more pious derp, just asking if having faith actually works against background corruption. The whole WHF faith/religion/belief is rather hard to understand.
The success of someone who's narratively skilled and suited to the task gets better results than the success of someone who's not. Success and failure boil down to rolls of the die, but what that means is a narrative decision.
For example: if Anton was sent to Averland to negotiate a defensive pact against Sylvanian threats, a success wouldn't mean that he suddenly pulled sprouted political acumen and negotiated an ironclad and mutually beneficial agreement. It would mean that he charmed the Elector Count of Averland enough that Averland agrees to a pact built not on a binding legal document, but on goodwill that Averland now has for Stirland.
In quantity yes, in quality not necessarily and not immediately. There being someone who's job it is to handle incoming news means that you'll start getting all the news, not just stuff that's potentially meaningful. The person in question may (may, again, untrained peasants) start developing skills related to their job, such as building personal relationships with the informants making them more loyal to you by proxy, or learning to keep track of news across Stirland and spot trends, or a hundred other potential boons. You'd have a higher chance of developing skills like that with someone better suited to it, but such a person would probably be harder to find and almost definitely more expensive.
With the votes still ongoing and discussion still lively and me still half-asleep, I'll leave the voting open a little longer - I'll also be immediately available to answer any mechanical questions or supply any information that Mathilde would have IC to help things along. If I've missed anything you'd like clarification of in the last few pages (like I said, half-asleep), please ask again.
Not at short notice, unless she happens to be in the courtyard waving around a sword.
In theory, all Elector Counts have the Empire as their backer.
In practice, not so much.
So far, Van Hal has resisted the ancestral curse of Moot Revanchism that all Stirlandian Elector Counts face. The Moot is unwilling to endanger this state of affairs, and as such are being very quiet neighbours.
Well, there's Wilhelmina. You don't know about the others.
rolls a die
It occurs to you that you've never heard anyone in the Council reporting to Van Hal re: Stirland's resident Witch Hunters. He may be controlling them personally.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
So hey, you know how if we fail to follow our mysterious spymaster's instructions, we will be 'declared rogue', which I assume means the Grey Order hunts us down and murders us?
What do you think they'll do if they think we're trying to ID them? I'm assuming the Grey Order has something worse than mere excommunication and death they can throw at us, in such case.
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DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
Dammit, we had a solid lead with no new votes coming for more than two hours and you do this. Remind me to never post when winning in the future.
...questions, I guess... to the best of Mathilde's knowledge, does Van Hal know who forced each of his councilors on him? We just added throwing a note about learning that Talabecland was backing Schultz to the council in exchange for their vote into the current action set; it had never occurred to me that he didn't know that already, but apparently there's a belief amongst the other players that he doesn't or they wouldn't have wanted to bring it up.
My logic was that after all, as an Elector Count why would he let people be placed on his council by someone else unless he knew what politics were involved in placing them there? But I thought the same logic applied to Kasmir- obviously the Grand Theogonist put him there so he works for the Grand Theogonist, or his placement wouldn't have been a requirement for the Grand Theogonist's vote- and apparently that wasn't the case.
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HanEmpire
Delicious
Makes sense, though how does the man make time?
Since they were all forced upon him he knows that they're someone's catspaws, and he can reasonably conclude that there was all sorts of compromises at the Elector's Meet when he was chosen for the post, but you don't know whether he knows who's pulling Schultz's strings. So far, he hasn't seemed to mind as long as they do their job. The problem is that so far two of them have failed to do so, which casts a cloud over Schultz, who didn't have the foresight to increase Van Hal relation early on.
VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
Okay, then, for clarity:
How can he not know whose catspaws they are? As a practical matter once he was installed as Elector Count no one is getting him out of that office short of an invasion (or assassination), so he doesn't need continued votes in his favor in order to retain the thing that they gave him originally. The reason that he hasn't fired his initially demanded council even if he doubts their intentions must be that he doesn't want to alienate their backers, but there's no point in those backers not letting him know which catspaw is associated with each of their council members, because it's the backers who actually matter. Van Hal has no reason not to offend Kasmir, but he has reason not to offend the Grand Theogonist; therefore, if the Grand Theogonist wants Kasmir to remain in place regardless of what Kasmir does, he needs to let Van Hal know that removing Kasmir will piss him off. The same logic applies to every catspaw on the council.
It just boggles the mind as to why anyone who forced their rep into Van Hal's inner circle would subsequently not let Van Hal know who their rep is representing. How can that be what's going on?
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Guile
Having a really great time right now
Abelhelm Van Hal does not sleep.
He waits.
And does paperwork by candlelight.