NeonLights
Formerly Reliable_2IC
- Location
- In shambles
We should bring it to her eventually for Jade expertise and getting the most value out of it, but for the first stages of figuring out what's up with the magic nut we can trust Johann.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
-
- Tags
- 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.
We should bring it to her eventually for Jade expertise and getting the most value out of it, but for the first stages of figuring out what's up with the magic nut we can trust Johann.
I always feel like these arguments are based on the (false) assumption that Boeny would be willing the play paperwork quest.
Spymaster probably had lots of paperwork in the background: we only ever saw the intrigue and violence on screen.
loremaster probably had lots of meeting in the background: we only saw the army leading and cave diving and maching to hell.
you don't want to pay Supreme Matriarch? that fine
but don't pretend that Boeny is suddenly going to make the quest less exciting or that we will have to spend turns twiddling our thumbs.
- Location
- Aotearoa
"Max, welcome to WEBMAT. I'm glad you accepted this opportunity. One small formality, as a respectable College Branch, theres naturally a lot of paperwork to complete for new members of WEBMAT."
"Oh?"
"Oh yes. I just need you to devise and write up the membership forms first, then scribe another copy for Johann to complete. Then send a copy to Altdorf, and file one in our archives. Creating our Archives is action item two, after you've signed up of course."
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- Location
- Greece
Because we can poke our nose everywhere in the Empire and have one of the highest clearance levels anyone in the empire has, only really superceeded by the Emperor and the emperor's spymaster, and arguably matched by the rest of his council? (organizations and cults and ECs will still have their individual secrets, but still). Because we can affect real political change in the empire, and use our skills and connections to further better the status of wizards? Because some posters actually enjoy political intrigue more than adventure, and becoming a player as SM will not garner the same opposition from the voterbase as, nor has the same disadvantages as, doing it under Heidi as Mandred's tutor? Because its a big, shiny title that proves Mathilde's superiority, and both her and a sizable amount of voters love that for some reason? Because its the natural progression for one who wants to become the ulimate Empire wizard (tm), even if its not strictly speaking, necessary?
Mind you, I will not vote for it this turn, (we are not powerful enough yet, maybe next time, 16 turns later) nor do I agree with all those reasons (its mostly number 3 I like), I am just listing all possible reasons people may have for wanting that.
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I meant specifically the group meetings. Of course Mathy and everyone else goes out for a beer every now and then and not just every six months. The Duckling Club probably also met more than twice a year. What I wanted to know is if the Duckling Club is officially disbanded (or not disbanded but abandoned in practice) or if it is just Mathilde who can't find the time to attend anymore. And that was answered. So no need to get your pants in a bunch.
Huh. I always thought that Dwarves pay significantly better and that any rare Human craftsman that can get a job with them is really lucky, money wise.
But I guess it makes sense. Dwarves pay really well for a craftsman, but they don't have a specific salary for Wizards. So it might be more than a Human engineer in Nuln gets on average, but Magisters are much rarer.
That said, damn our salary from Stirland was bad. Or maybe the Journeyman/Magister divide in the Empire is just much wider than the Journeydwarf/Master divide in the Karaz Ankor.
It's literally Mathilde's soul. Are the Dwarves really taking the stance of "we announced to the world that everything you thought about your very self is a lie and you are actually something completely different (we have evidence by the way), but no we are not going to actually talk to you about it in any way because this shouldn't be relevant to you"? Like, if that's the case, why even send this proclamation into her personal letterbox? If this is how they would decide to handle it then I honestly think Mathilde would be in the right to escalate this through the Grudge system and see what mediation makes of it.
More OOC though, I am really surprised. I thought that this whole thing was supposed to be a plot hook for some crazy shenanigans. We were given a hype sneak peak and everything. Now it just feels like the in story answer to "how do I deal with DF currency over-inflation". I mean, well written to be sure, but still disappointing.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
Holy crap, please stop.
Being "more careful" is well and all, but I don't think it would have the same impact as convoys. Convoys means that the enemy has to risk far more ressources in order to succeed in an ambush and said ambush is much less likely to succeed.
Increasing patrols or securing the riverside are much less likely to succeed do to the huge length covered by the rivers and canals. It's pretty much impossible to keep the river system safegarded at all time. Reinforcing ships or adding weaponry to them also has a limited impact if the ships get ambushed.
I don't think the Dwarves alone have enough ships to use some of them as escorts and even if they did, River Monitors are not expandable. We are uniquely positionned to have our ships form convoys with River Monitors as we are trusted enough and have the motive to do so.
I'm all for using the EIC for espionnage purposes, but adressing a vulnerability that we are uniquely positionned to address while furthering the EIC's interest seem more important on the short term.
Plus, narratively, I think it makes more sense for Mathilde to want to avoid the tragedy of Okral happening again than to investigate some cult she heard about. Mathilde had to risk her life to mitigate the Okral catastrophe and even then, it was still a disaster. I think she's be invested in that.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
Ok- I think there is a common element to all the plans thus far that is suboptimal, so I'd like to bring it up before plan finalization.
Johann. He should be in the library, not the research branch. It's a waste of his skills.
Point the first: he is the *most* dwarfy wizard besides us here. Putting him in an organization that is wizard (and elf) focused isn't using that. Putting him into building the library, where 90% of the work in the first bits is going to be dwarves with picks is going to smooth things for us a lot.
Point the second- he's not all that good at research. He banged his head against the rattling gun for ages without results, got the we wrong, and he is focused on the aspects of chamon least useful to us with waystones.
So I think we put him in the library. He's got good Diplo- he was the handler for the ducklings until we're had time for them, and he can serve as on-site security against any heavy hitters that randomly show up. And as a disciple of the pick, he's pretty neutral with the book priests.
Plus, offering him implicitly the promotion to head Librarian in the future gives him a clear, prestigious career path. It's a a way of showing him that his loyalty to us is being rewarded.
If we need him for a spell or as a party member, he's easy enough to bring in as a contractor.
As far as the EIC goes, I like Eike, but that can wait a turn without much issue while giving agents stone time to work in before we use them is good.
--[ ] In the Silver Tower, an ancient structure on the southwestern face of Karagril
I want to give the library job to Johann eventually, which *does* make a tower optimal. However- what we have here is a perfect location for WEBMAT. It's a prebuilt, huge tower just when we were looking for locations! Maybe not as convenient for Mathilde, but unless we plan on our penthouse as the primary WEBMAT location (do we? We'd just need a few more bedrooms set up and it's already a close-to-perfect pocket wizard academy, right down to the full spectrum of mono-wind environments for training apprentices, even if they would be a bit cramped to live in) then we'll need a tower.
Spread the rumor to Ulithan that the dwarves are setting up a silver tower of magic to eventually rival the white tower, and arsanil's friend and biographer is the one heading it up. Just to tweak some noses. That way when we show up for our elfcation and they said at us, we can reply with quotes from Caledor Dragontamer that we cribbed from the library of Mourne.
Thread- can we crowd-source this, please? Just each write like, two paragraphs of someone hearing the news and their reaction, we can package it all together later.
Please?
I did really like him. He was smooth, fun to poke fun at for his good-natured reactions, and totally willing to do us a favor for Hubert, to pay him back for the favor he did us telling him of the ulrican politics.
Tbh if open relationship had won, I might have voted to sleep with him.
I think the big unpacking of this actually happened in the sidestory letters home she wrote. It makes a lot of sense given what she's said onscreen about the religious politics of it and her current pay. But it might have also been pushing back on/building off of(?) mom, who taught her everything despite her being apprenticed to someone else.
There's probably a fair deal to unpack with Panoramia about her mom and her growing up, tbh. Especially given how she was a bit given to hero worship when she was young. Idk- says it was likely very positive, but I'm still guessing formative in very submerged ways.
Johann. He should be in the library, not the research branch. It's a waste of his skills.
Point the first: he is the *most* dwarfy wizard besides us here. Putting him in an organization that is wizard (and elf) focused isn't using that. Putting him into building the library, where 90% of the work in the first bits is going to be dwarves with picks is going to smooth things for us a lot.
Point the second- he's not all that good at research. He banged his head against the rattling gun for ages without results, got the we wrong, and he is focused on the aspects of chamon least useful to us with waystones.
So I think we put him in the library. He's got good Diplo- he was the handler for the ducklings until we're had time for them, and he can serve as on-site security against any heavy hitters that randomly show up. And as a disciple of the pick, he's pretty neutral with the book priests.
Plus, offering him implicitly the promotion to head Librarian in the future gives him a clear, prestigious career path. It's a a way of showing him that his loyalty to us is being rewarded.
If we need him for a spell or as a party member, he's easy enough to bring in as a contractor.
As far as the EIC goes, I like Eike, but that can wait a turn without much issue while giving agents stone time to work in before we use them is good.
--[ ] In the Silver Tower, an ancient structure on the southwestern face of Karagril
I want to give the library job to Johann eventually, which *does* make a tower optimal. However- what we have here is a perfect location for WEBMAT. It's a prebuilt, huge tower just when we were looking for locations! Maybe not as convenient for Mathilde, but unless we plan on our penthouse as the primary WEBMAT location (do we? We'd just need a few more bedrooms set up and it's already a close-to-perfect pocket wizard academy, right down to the full spectrum of mono-wind environments for training apprentices, even if they would be a bit cramped to live in) then we'll need a tower.
Spread the rumor to Ulithan that the dwarves are setting up a silver tower of magic to eventually rival the white tower, and arsanil's friend and biographer is the one heading it up. Just to tweak some noses. That way when we show up for our elfcation and they said at us, we can reply with quotes from Caledor Dragontamer that we cribbed from the library of Mourne.
Thread- can we crowd-source this, please? Just each write like, two paragraphs of someone hearing the news and their reaction, we can package it all together later.
Please?
I did really like him. He was smooth, fun to poke fun at for his good-natured reactions, and totally willing to do us a favor for Hubert, to pay him back for the favor he did us telling him of the ulrican politics.
Tbh if open relationship had won, I might have voted to sleep with him.
I think the big unpacking of this actually happened in the sidestory letters home she wrote. It makes a lot of sense given what she's said onscreen about the religious politics of it and her current pay. But it might have also been pushing back on/building off of(?) mom, who taught her everything despite her being apprenticed to someone else.
There's probably a fair deal to unpack with Panoramia about her mom and her growing up, tbh. Especially given how she was a bit given to hero worship when she was young. Idk- says it was likely very positive, but I'm still guessing formative in very submerged ways.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
I can agree with this and i admit that i sometimes forget that people do actually want wildly different things from the quest than i do
. But i feel that this is kinda assuming that Supreme P/Matriarch is in any way equivalent to our previous positions. They are essentially Elector counts. The scope of what they have to be managing doesn't really permit the on the ground action Mathilde immerses herself in nearly as often as she has so far.
This kind of reminds me of your assertion that if we ended up being a staff turner then Boney would spice the job up to make it engaging. When actually it would just be timeskipped past.
The job will be what it is regardless. We naturally wouldn't be twiddling our thumbs as Supreme Matriarch, but the claim actually made (That our freedom of action would be curtailed) seems pretty self evident.
The entire crux of the matter is the alleged shenanigans of Ranald, who she worships and they don't. Why would it be their place to extrapolate on His bullshit? That would be like them coming to her to ask her about things Grungni may have done.
Things don't happen because they're narratively convenient. They happen because that's how the characters react to events and try to pursue their own goals and responsibilities. If you've tried to extract metainformation from the presentation of events and been led astray by doing so, that's entirely your problem, not mine.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
So I've spent a lot of time thinking about the personal actions we have available to us this turn and I've discovered that I'm actually totally okay with a lot of different possibilities. Make up for lost time on our research backlog and finally poke at tongs? Sounds great. Hit college classes and study ritual magic? Sure, why not. One last overachieving hurrah for Belegar? I do like smug Mathilde faces. Keep working on Branarhune? While you were out partying, I studied the blade. Approval votes for everyone!
That said, the one thing I do feel strongly about is that we should double up our EIC actions: start the infiltration of the Karnos cult in Talabecland (because that's a dangling recurring mystery I've beaten to death) and, with our personal action, bring Eike to K8P. Following the social turn where we last met with Eike, "give her a break from Wilhelmina and give her an appreciation for the context of the world the EIC operates in" was a popular position in the comments. It is the sort of action that is well-suited to a cooldown turn where we're resting off our -10 to everything, but it's also something that is really useful from a forward-looking perspective, because Eike is being groomed as Wilhelmina's heir and therefore Mathilde's future partner. Investing in our relationship with her is smart, and I'd rather do it with a personal action on a turn where we don't want to do anything high-stakes than tie up future EIC actions: if we do keep the EIC intel network under our control instead of handing it to the Hochlander, I suspect we'll be primarily using it for either "gathering intel about Waystones-related stuff" or for responding to political developments within the Empire. As such, I actually value the personal action on a -10 turn less than I do the half-action in a future turn.
So yeah. I probably won't be putting forward a plan of my own this voting cycle, but I would strongly encourage planmakers to include those actions.
That said, the one thing I do feel strongly about is that we should double up our EIC actions: start the infiltration of the Karnos cult in Talabecland (because that's a dangling recurring mystery I've beaten to death) and, with our personal action, bring Eike to K8P. Following the social turn where we last met with Eike, "give her a break from Wilhelmina and give her an appreciation for the context of the world the EIC operates in" was a popular position in the comments. It is the sort of action that is well-suited to a cooldown turn where we're resting off our -10 to everything, but it's also something that is really useful from a forward-looking perspective, because Eike is being groomed as Wilhelmina's heir and therefore Mathilde's future partner. Investing in our relationship with her is smart, and I'd rather do it with a personal action on a turn where we don't want to do anything high-stakes than tie up future EIC actions: if we do keep the EIC intel network under our control instead of handing it to the Hochlander, I suspect we'll be primarily using it for either "gathering intel about Waystones-related stuff" or for responding to political developments within the Empire. As such, I actually value the personal action on a -10 turn less than I do the half-action in a future turn.
So yeah. I probably won't be putting forward a plan of my own this voting cycle, but I would strongly encourage planmakers to include those actions.
B Ö Ö K
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I was thinking more about the how do they know and what do they think this means for her.
True.
I got overhyped by the central coolness and (as they appeared to me) massive implications of that whole thing while at the same time having looked forward to a Mathilde/Thorgrim conversation of some kind for even longer that I really built my hopes up unduly. This is in no way your fault.
Stop commenting completely? Stop commenting in a certain way in general? Because this is in total the third comment I made specifically about that proclamation in at least a month I think.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
You have fundamentally misunderstood my point. The metaknowledge causing trouble is the possible chaos loyalties. People liking him because they've seen him in canon is not privileged information that would change what we know about the world and our decisions. Similarly, people liking Snorri more because he's from canon would also not really be a problem, because it's just an attachment to the character, not secrets from his past.
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NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
We've also learned that she's not a fan of how invested in religious debate the Jade College is, and if she tested for Magister she'd have to spend some non-negligible amount of time there putting up with it. Or possibly even diving into it as part of her exam.
Ok, so a rant.
what you are accusing me of, possible rightly, is still a positive argument, trusting the QM to write the story well, and one boeny was quick to tell me was wrong and that they would not write it. so not the same because The 'Paperwork quest' argument implies in it's premise that the QM is willing to write it wrong.
The Paperwork Quest argument (name still in beta) is, I'm going to argue here: is Inherently both false, and actively or subconsciously, malicious and should be avoided at all possible. and if I ever start using it, throw this back at me.
The Paperwork Quest requires one core assumption: that the QM will willingly write something bad because the voters picked a certain choice. (this is not the same as a downside, such as less free actions or higher chance of death, but implying that boring, pointless or pointlessly frustrating actions will be core to the job 'on screen' e.g paperwork quest)
No QM would do that, so this assumption is false: ergo the Paperwork quest argument is false.
so we can say that Paperwork Quest argument is false, but Malicious?
i make with the following assumption: to make the Paperwork argument, you have to assume the worst possible interpretation of a quest line: that it will be boring or something you don't like, from the beginning.
it is based on a bias, but does not own up to that bias. instead it implies that 'the qm will write it bad' rather than 'I dont like the option' and so differentiates Paperwork Quest argument from just arguing against something: it is a trick argument.
The point of the Paperwork argument is then is thus: To scary away votes from an option you don't like, by the (false) argument that the QM will write wrong.
its been awhile since Ive done this type of thing, so I probably got a load of that wrong: but I think I've make the jist of want I was saying.
- Location
- Brazil
Dang, the Silver Tower is enormous. Kind of want to put it there simply because of that.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
I feel like this is the sort of thing that, were it to exist in universe, would get Wizards, Dwarves, Dragons, and Chaos to declare a collective Grudge against you for creating it.
Yes, despite most of them not even using the legal concept. EDIT: Despite, even, most of them being mortal enemies.
Well done.
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The problem with your whole stance is that you're implicitly claiming "The way this job works is bad, so naturally as a good QM Boney will not do this." When actually whether or not it would be bad is something far more subjective.
The whole "Paperwork Quest" is something you conjured up yourself, that's not actually at all how Pufleck presented their objections. They weren't claiming we would be stuck in an office filling out forms, they were saying 'Based on in quest precedent' that we would have much less leeway due to increased responsibilities. Many players could find those increased responsibilities very interesting, that doesn't mean they wouldn't have consequences other players wouldn't be keen on though. Just trying to boil things down to a black and white "Boney is a good GM, so they won't write bad stuff, and this can be all things to all people." Is sidestepping the actual issue.
NeonLights
Formerly Reliable_2IC
- Location
- In shambles
This Is Your Brain on Magic, a non-profit awareness campaign brought to you by the Cult of Sigmar.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I mean, a quarter the height of a mountain is enormous, but one of the other options is "the lower sixty percent of a mountain" and still a third is "an entire mountain."
Being a dwarfmade structure rather than a natural formation does enhance impressiveness beyond mere height, though, I'll agree.
but this option gives us an Orthanc to go with our Barad-dûr.
come on Pickle, I know you can get behind this reference. its too good.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Scenario 1: Mathilde Weber is 100% the decent and talented Lady Magister she seems to be. This is by far the most likely scenario and the one most supported by the text, and in this case being hired by her is obviously a good idea. We get a friendly Lady Magister tier Wizard as our employer who Egrimm happens to get along with personally. Like, how many Hysh Magisters can we say that about? Reeling her in is clearly a good idea.
Scenario 2: Mathilde Weber is on the up and up, but has some Black Magistry-worthy secret hidden. Not too likely a story, but it's fully plausible and would explain the vague, cagey remarks that MoneyB loves to throw at us. It's also the sound of thing that sounds really bad (and could potentially be that) but is the exact same situation that Egrimm has been in for the entirety of his Magisterhood. Arguably his apprenticehood as well if you count "is currently part of a snake conspiracy". In this case as well, having Mathilde employ us is obviously a good idea as well seeing as, well, all of the downsides from this option compared to the first are stuff we're already used to handling.
Scenario 3: Mathilde Weber has actively studied Necromancy (or other Black Magistry-worthy subjects), but intends to use it in defense of Order. You could say that this is a subsection of Scenario 2, but I'd argue that there is a qualitative difference between "has knowledge" and "has knowledge with the intent to use it". And if this happens, then we absolutely want to get our sneaky noses near Mathilde. While the reasons I'd be partial to her are obvious, matter of fact is that if she's within our circle it'll be that much easier to convince her not to do that obviously bad thing that might seem like a good idea. If we let her float around in her current position, whatever drove her to study Dhar in the first place will only continue to push her down that path, but if we pull her away from that environment we might be able to stop that. Or at least make sure she practices properly...
Scenario 4: Mathilde Weber is actually a traitor just biding her time. This is the worst case scenario, but even in this unlikely and unsupported-by-the-text scenario, I'd still say it's in our best interest to be recruited by her. Why? Because Mathilde has somehow kept herself being a high-ranking Necromancer a secret for most of her life, and if left alone she'll likely keep being hidden until the right time comes and she reveals herself at the absolute worst timing. If we join her, not only will she spend much more time in SMITE range, she will also deal with an entirely new peer-level mage with entirely new opinions and vision, which brings entirely new ways for her to screw up and get caught. We know that Mathilde can stay hidden within K8P because she's done so (... Unless the entire Karak are traitors I suppose), but she has yet to prove that she can hide from our glowing eyes. Keep your enemies closer and all that jazz.
*cough* Quick bash-job for the joke, so it doesn't quite make sense in places. I'm still this many pages ago, so I apologize on the off-chance that someone else beat me to a similar joke.