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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Hmmmm... now that I think about it more... the problem with super duper high classification is that you arrive at a certain point where, like, only the SP knows and can decide who else needs to know, and, like... the SP is no more safe than any other LM tbh.

I get that some knowledge is so dangerous very few should know about... but I think that if those very few are too few to , ya know, have the time to occassionally check on each other, we run into another problem in that who watches the Watchmen, when there is no public accountability and only the head even knows there can be a problem?

That connudrum is interesting to think about.
 
Honestly, I think that regular Patriarchs are safer than Supreme ones. The latter can be won through might alone while the former are bound to come out of a halfway sensible selection process in at least some of the Colleges.
 
Rafin said:
Honestly, I think that regular Patriarchs are safer than Supreme ones. The latter can be won through might alone while the former are bound to come out of a halfway sensible selection process in at least some of the Colleges.
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Even the Patriarchs can be dangerous, if the cabinet is not shared, because there still would be very few people capable of checking on them.
 
Rafin said:
Honestly, I think that regular Patriarchs are safer than Supreme ones. The latter can be won through might alone while the former are bound to come out of a halfway sensible selection process in at least some of the Colleges.
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Don't have the LMs the right to challenge their Patriarch, not only the Supreme one, if they want?
 
You know all this talk of classification and 'kill before reading' books makes be even less inclined to ever seek further promotion. Can you imagine being in charge of all this nonsense? All that lost research AP. Really it is a wonder any wizard wants the job and the people who do take it should be looked upon as martyrs to the needs of organization
 
Kornet said:
No, they do not, unless a specific college's tradition explicitly allows it. As of now, we know no such cases.
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This is false. Duels are the default, including for the Greys, unless the seat is empty from other causes.

BoneyM said:
Assuming Mathilde doesn't take a position in the Grey College org chart, the only significant changes for Mathilde would be being freed from the tithe and having the right to challenge Algard for leadership of the College.
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BoneyM said:
The Colleges exist primarily to be a military resource for the Empire. But the Magister Patriarch or Matriarch effectively controls who can possibly challenge them, since they decide who does and does not get access to the most powerful artefacts and teachings and spells, so anyone with more ambition than sense tends to get stonewalled out and good leaders tend to be unchallenged.
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BoneyM said:
Sort of like how Abelhelm came to power, the 'normal' succession is duels, but there's a vote if the seat becomes empty without a duel being involved.
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Edit: Third quote was for Supreme Patriarch, not Magister Patriarch. Whoops. I think it would still make sense, though.
 
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SuperSonicSound said:
If you can use dhar you can use any wind of magic. if you're not afraid of creating Dhar Mathilde could learn to wield Ghyran.
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I mean, our existing arcane marks would tend to corrupt any non-Ulgu magic we cast, such that any Ghyran spell we attempt would be distorted. It might be possible but like... extremely difficult and terrible.

Generally I suspect that yeah, making a healing spell using reality cancer might be somewhat... difficult.
 
That seems weird. And not only because the best battle wizard does not equal the best College administrator. But also because one asks oneself how the Gold College continues to have who they have as their Patriarch.
 
Rafin said:
That seems weird. And not only because the best battle wizard does not equal the best College administrator. But also because one asks oneself how the Gold College continues to have who they have as their Patriarch.
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That guy seems to keep his subordinates happy enough so they choose to not challenge him.
At least that's my read on him.
 
Rafin said:
That seems weird. And not only because the best battle wizard does not equal the best College administrator. But also because one asks oneself how the Gold College continues to have who they have as their Patriarch.
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Feldmann? Why would it be surprising that he stays as Patriarch? He's not a nerd, but he's a badass -- he used to be an adventurer and he has operational command over the Battle Wizards in Sylvania. And he's a canny politician to boot. So he's good at playing the game and capable of smacking down anyone who steps up.
 
picklepikkl said:
Feldmann? Why would it be surprising that he stays as Patriarch? He's not a nerd, but he's a badass -- he used to be an adventurer and he has operational command over the Battle Wizards in Sylvania. And he's a canny politician to boot. So he's good at playing the game and capable of smacking down anyone who steps up.
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Maybe I misremember, but I thought he got operational command due to his cat herding Wizard managing skills and that his personal magical prowess isn't all that great for an MP.
 
Mopman43 said:
I can honestly imagine Boney laughing when the thread took the bait hook, line, and sinker and devoted time and effort (and thoroughly mishandled the Watch) to fight an enemy that metagaming said was there but, in-quest, was not.
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You know, I learned about Warhammer Fantasy largely through and because of this quest, so I didn't really know about skaven till K8P.

So it always bugged me how weird and counter-productive Mathilde's choices with the watch were. Learning it was metagaming backfiring makes a lot more sense.

storryeater said:
I get that some knowledge is so dangerous very few should know about... but I think that if those very few are too few to , ya know, have the time to occassionally check on each other, we run into another problem in that who watches the Watchmen, when there is no public accountability and only the head even knows ther
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The real problems with the 'too classified' stuff are threefold- first, you stand a good chance of losing it completely if the secret-holder dies. Second, knowing it on an institution level isn't the same as being able to use it, if the secret holders are unavailable; you end up in a situation where your might as well have destroyed it because it isn't doing you any good, and keeping it is a risk to the future. Third, the 'who watches the watchmen?' problem, where the people charged with guaranteeing loyalty *cannot* know about it.
 
Rafin said:
Maybe I misremember, but I thought he got operational command due to his cat herding Wizard managing skills and that his personal magical prowess isn't all that great for an MP.
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Mathilde speculated that he wasn't delving deeply enough into his wind to be a threat to Dragomas, but that's it as far as I'm aware.
 
There is something I'm wondering about. The duels are clearly supposed to be serious business, and they clearly allow Battle Magic. But isn't there a decent amount of Battle Magic that's just downright deadly? Save or Die deadly? How is anyone going to recover from losing a save against Pit of Shades? Does the duel ban those spells or they're allowed and just because of a duel for leadership the Empire loses a great Wizard who could have contributed to its successes. It seems wasteful if that's the case.
 
Codex said:
There is something I'm wondering about. The duels are clearly supposed to be serious business, and they clearly allow Battle Magic. But isn't there a decent amount of Battle Magic that's just downright deadly? Save or Die deadly? How is anyone going to recover from losing a save against Pit of Shades? Does the duel ban those spells or they're allowed and just because of a duel for leadership the Empire loses a great Wizard who could have contributed to its successes. It seems wasteful if that's the case.
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As far as I know they are allowed. You can Pit of Shades Dragonas, you know if you manage it.
 
Codex said:
There is something I'm wondering about. The duels are clearly supposed to be serious business, and they clearly allow Battle Magic. But isn't there a decent amount of Battle Magic that's just downright deadly? Save or Die deadly? How is anyone going to recover from losing a save against Pit of Shades? Does the duel ban those spells or they're allowed and just because of a duel for leadership the Empire loses a great Wizard who could have contributed to its successes. It seems wasteful if that's the case.
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BoneyM said:
The duel takes place with the Staff of Volans between the duellists, and because having it is such an advantage, one of them getting their hands on it usually results in the other surrendering. Though some have died in the duels, tradition dictates that it's to surrender or incapacitation. The job they're fighting for is managing the Colleges, and that becomes significantly harder if you kill off your subordinates.
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That seems to indicate to me that it's far more likely for a surrender to be the cause of loss than death, which makes sense to me. Casting those spells should be legal, but I think most are aware that killing an Empire mage is a waste so they just rush to get the Staff of Volans to end the duel. Or maybe I'm assuming too much.
 
Codex said:
That seems to indicate to me that it's far more likely for a surrender to be the cause of loss than death, which makes sense to me. Casting those spells should be legal, but I think most are aware that killing an Empire mage is a waste so they just rush to get the Staff of Volans to end the duel. Or maybe I'm assuming too much.
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I seem to remember a quote from Boney (but i haven't managed to track it down) about Dragomas' duels, something along these lines:
Every challenger shortly before calling it quits said:
Welp, he really turns into a Dragon. Nope. Nope. NoPe!
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Edit: Remember Borek saying he looked up our name's meaning. Battle Mighty Weaver. I just found out Dragomas is a constellation. Do you think it's his birth name, or maybe one he took later (Like Gehenna?)
 
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Codex said:
There is something I'm wondering about. The duels are clearly supposed to be serious business, and they clearly allow Battle Magic. But isn't there a decent amount of Battle Magic that's just downright deadly? Save or Die deadly? How is anyone going to recover from losing a save against Pit of Shades? Does the duel ban those spells or they're allowed and just because of a duel for leadership the Empire loses a great Wizard who could have contributed to its successes. It seems wasteful if that's the case.
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I would assume that there is a fair amount of counterspelling and miscast management in those.
 
Bear in mind, you need to be a Lord Magister to challenge for the high seats, and of the qualifiers there is that the other Patriarchs and LMs don't think you're the kind of person who would do something to upset the applecart. "Will this person literally kill me to take my job" is probably one of the first questions on any Patriarch's mind when deciding whether to sign the paperwork.
 
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