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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Chronic said:
If the Orcs stopped and sieged every giant fortress they came across on their Waaaghs none of them would ever make it into the Empire, and Karaz-A-Karak would be besieged at all times.

The Orcs are too impatient to sit through most sieges. They'll attempt to storm the fortress once, then when it turns out they can't get in and the Waaaghboss isn't cunnin' enough to think of a better plan than "bash our heads against the walls" go around to easier loot and better fights. Then your countryside burns.
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Well, that does bring up the primary reason to have castles: It gives your army a safe place to run back to after harrying the enemy. An army that passes by such fortifications without taking them first will quickly find themselves hit from behind by forces from said castle that are impossible to force a decisive engagement with all while forces from where they're marching towards can pincer.

It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation to be in that's only really solved if you can crack the fortification open.
 
Okay, from the options we have seen so far, I think I really favor the offer for Mandred's tutor.

Effectivly we'll be close enough to Heidi that "doing her a little favor" can easily be a big part of our job. From the scenes with her and the Emperor we know that she has an excellent overview over the political situations, the military activities and all those relevant issues in the Empire.
Meaning she could effectivly point us as a troubleshooter at many diverse and interesting problems, all while benefiting herself and our Mutual Friend as a little side-effect.

At the same time we are close to the Colleges, physically, making our involvement in that community much easier than it is currently.
 
ShyPerson said:
Apparently during the Crusades they supposedly went on their own crusade against the Tomb Kings. Sounds epic, yet the narrative focus of the backstory is alway focused on a bootleg rehash of the Crusades, despite it not making any sense in the setting. And really it just amounts to explaining the backstory of some Knightly Orders.

The Empire is filled with hostile woodlands. It has all the reasons you need for marshal orders to form, instead of some far of conflict that all the knights head of to for some bearly explained motivation.
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Most of the Knightly Orders did form outside of the Crusades. Even the ones that did, tend to because knights gathered during or just after the fighting, not formed for the conflict itself. And the Crusades exist to explain why Araby and the Old World doesn't get on as much as anything else. The setting needs to be in a suspended state as much as possible for the wargame to work.

Also, should be martial, not marshal. Martial is relating to fighting or war, marshal is either a rank, or a verb.
 
Some sort of toss up between Pope, Sylvania, Mandred, and Waystones.

I'm hoping that we can still do Waystones from Sylvania, but I'm not sure if I'm confident about that.
 
My thoughts on the current crop of offers:

Edgelord of Sylvania
+ Get promoted to high nobility as the not!Elector Countess of Sylvania
+ Reunite with all your old favourite characters from Stirland
+ Hold serious influence within the Colleges as the Feudal Lord of the Place the Battle Wizards Hang Out
- Sylvania is a shithole with no infrastructure and a Vampire problem
- Have to manage our own council of incompetents because Sylvania is a shithole where no one sane or competent would go voluntarily
- Seriously, I can't emphasise this enough. The ground in Sylvania is literally infused with warpstone which causes the dead to rise

A Cat and Rat Game
+ Go be a Spymistress again, but this time for a province that isn't Stirland
+ Wissenland took a swing at the Skaven and missed. They're in deep and need the help
+ Potentially meet Eshin-Friend again yes-yes
- The Elector Count we'd be working for is a moron who refused imperial help to take a half cocked swing at the Skaven
- Is just being a Spymistress and dealing with Skaven again for those who want something fresh-new.

Smallest Ambassador at Large
+ Would not need to move house
+ A route onto the Emperor's Council, if that's what you want
+ We've not been a Diplomacy Advisor yet
- We have a Diplomacy score of 12
- D I V I D E D L O Y A L T I E S

PRINCE AND EMPEROR ('s tutor and bodyguard)
+ Heidi
+ Manfred
+ Whatever insane plan Heidi has for this job will be interesting, at least
- Heidi
- Potentially no free time
- Being directly employed by Heidi feels like a terrible idea

Colony Simulator 2487: Dino Apocalypse Edition
+ Find out how a tiny colony justifies having a Grey Lady Magister named as Governor-General
+ D E E P L O R E
- Lustria is a silly place full of pain, death and dinosaurs, let's not go there
- A long way away from everyone we know, including our girlfriend

Ranald's Bestest Favouritest Minion
+ Be the first ever Wizard High Priest
+ Everything about this will infuriate the Sigmarites
+ D E E P L O R E
- Fundamental change in our relationship with Ranald
- Probably locks us out of becoming the Grey Matriarch or Supreme Matriarch

An Umgi of Proven Trustworthiness
+ Magical Princess Mathilde
+ Only moving down the road
+ More Dwarfs!
- The borderlands is a terrible place to live
- Eww. Empire Building
 
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I'm definitely going to campaign for an approval vote on Manfred-tutor so we can at least see what Heidi has in mind. I think it's intriguing enough to see how much it's actually a bodyguard/tutor job and how much that's a cover story for something else.
 
If let's pretend we make our borderland princedom, would most info on them come from the Southern Realms mod for TWW2 since they dont really have much to their lore?

They're generally unexplored and one of the more interesting places to go to... I mean come on, this is fantasy Balkans we're talking about.
 
Weeks later, a letter from K8P, direct for the Empress...

"Dear Heidi: Your Chamberlain is trying to poach me to be a tutor for your son. I'm flattered by the offer, but I'm afraid I have to decline. There's a Light Order magister called Egrimm van Horstmann whom I can recommend to you, though. He's not a Ranaldite, so no spilling secrets our mutual friend doesn't want known."
 
Musings on options:

Nuln is an opportunity to follow up on Qrech and the whole "the problem with the Skaven is the Horned Rat (and the fact they're all mainlining Warpstone)" thing. Maybe we can find them a god of cunning and sneakiness (because what that's what they like) and maybe one of health and purity (because they really need rehab for their warpstone addiction). But where could we find a pair of deities like that? (That was sarcasm. I'm saying we convert them to Ranald and Shallya.) I guess the Ranald Pope idea would work too, and we could leverage Qrech's past with Moulder better up there near Hell Pit.

With Lustria, I'm pretty sure the most likely shared language between Mathilde and the Lizardmen is going to be Queekish, with both learning it to understand their enemies, which leads to the hilarious mental image of a bunch of Greatswords looking extremely confused when a Skink and the Governor start squeaking at each other.
 
LightLan said:
While it is mechanically negative, it is narratively interesting.

Mathilde did start with many a flaw which made her interesting, but they were lost over the course of the story.
She had no martial worth speaking of. -> A lot of training was done, it's now heroic.
We had the mirror snake chasing her. -> It's now in a box making AV
We owed a debt to the college. -> we embezzled enough money to pay it off.
We were a double agent to the lahmians. -> We sent them off to the pyres via Regimand.

All of those were flaws we had to deal with and dealt with. They were still interesting.
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I'd be fine with trading it for another flaw but a character not growing past flaws makes them kind of stagnant in a way.
 
Personally, I don't find the idea of being Mandred's tutor/bodyguard interesting in the slightest. While I do like Heidi she's also someone who I only really like in small doses, and the whole 'shape the future Emperor' thing that people have brought up just holds zero interest for me. And besides, if Heidi doesn't already have shaping Mandred's loyalties and views on lockdown, I'll eat Mathilde's hat.

Note that this isn't me saying that there's no value in the option or that you're objectively wrong if you like it or anything daft like that, just that I myself would rather take any of the other careers.
 
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K von Carstein said:
The main reason I'm against Mathilde practicing necromancy is because she would become a raving psychopath. The belt protect us from Dhar, true, but to actually use it I think we would have no other choice than to take it fully into our metaphorical hands. We would probably have to take the belt off.
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You think that's the case. We have no evidence that this is the case, and there's only one way to find out.

King Arthur said:
I can't believe we have a Dracula arguing against Necromancy.

I'm not saying you don't have good points, just that it confuses something in my brain.
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To be fair, I don't think Bram Stoker's Dracula ever actually performed necromancy.
 
Bucarcar said:
If let's pretend we make our borderland princedom, would most info on them come from the Southern Realms mod for TWW2 since they dont really have much to their lore?

They're generally unexplored and one of the more interesting places to go to... I mean come on, this is fantasy Balkans we're talking about.
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they actually are one of the few places with a dedicated RPG book 'Renegade Crowns'

so they have more lore then most places
 
Omegahugger said:
To be fair, I don't think Bram Stoker's Dracula ever actually performed necromancy.
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Not that I can recall, no. Turning into animals, crawling headfirst down walks, altering his age, enthralling living humans, showing off stupid amounts of physical strength... he has a ton of powers, but necromancy isn't one of them.
 
If we go Border Princess, how hard would it be to make an Orc Bait Fortress in the same conceptual vein as the Screaming Tower, or whatever Algard's cultist trap is called?
 
NavySeel said:
I'd be fine with trading it for another flaw but a character not growing past flaws makes them kind of stagnant in a way.
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My personal explanation for that is because she never had a reason to change it? Using the K8P traits to remove it sounded to Meta for me. This expedition doesnt sound much better either but maybe use a IC narrative about she being in the presence of other Region Gods to give Sigmar a 2nd chance?
 
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I genuinely only find Mandred and the Ambassadorship the most interesting out of this batch of choices. The Lustria option is basically starting from ground 0, the Border Prince one sounds like trying to dam the tide with sand, the Sylvania option is just back to where we started narratively. The Mandred one is interesting mostly because I think it's a fun way to interact with higher Imperial politics, but our Disdain for Sigmar trait is going to be a doozy there, and having the heir to the empire tutored by someone who's not really a fan of one of the biggest gods of the Empire might be a bit of a pain in the long run.
 
To speak in favor of Lustria, it's not just Lizardmen and malaria and the faint promise of pirate vampires, there're also Skaven and Norse to fight and trade with, and general mixing pot of all Old World human cultures.

Additionally, the Lizardmen don't have to be hostile, early explorers established good relations with them, and were welcomed into their temple cities as guests of honor. Their current enmity to the colonists is a result of centuries of ecological destruction and theft, which as Governor General of the imperial colonies, we can reverse and pay reparations for.

That's without touching whatever fascinating stuff @BoneyM will add in.
 
Ganurath said:
If we go Border Princess, how hard would it be to make an Orc Bait Fortress in the same conceptual vein as the Screaming Tower, or whatever Algard's cultist trap is called?
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If you want to attract orcs, literally all you need is a big sign saying 'COME AN' 'AVE A GO IF YA FINK YER 'ARD ENUFF!'. Or possibly just an insulting picture, given most orcs can't read.

The hard part of dealing with orcs isn't finding them, or luring them to specific locations, or anything like that. No, it's actually surviving the waaaghs that get thrown your way.
 
High Priestess sounds the most painful to let go imo. I *want it* because of our relationship with Renald, but like any good cat im afraid of Mathilda being tied down.

Elves and Lizardmen are things I want to follow on.
 
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