Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I'm not sold on Adela either. What do we have for her to do? Why do want to bring her along when she has family and friends at Karag Nar? At least, I don't see why now. I think we can get her help finding a mechanical means to weaponize AV, but I feel that's somewhere down the line, and we can recruit her later.
Adding on to what I said earlier in the quote that @picklepikkl graciously supported, unless we limit WEB-MAT to a branch of four people (1 Mathilde+3 half-actions wrangling), we're going to have wizards we don't micromanage and give immediate tasks to. And that's fine, since WEB-MAT is a fully functional research institution with wizards who want to pursue their own projects when they aren't handling our stuff in the backlog or Waystones. And WEB-MAT is based in Karag Nar, so family and friends shouldn't be an issue, though her existing employment would be. That said, given her enthusiasm in working with Mathilde earlier in-quest, I'm thinking (or hoping, at least) she views the Gunnery School as a safety option.
 
Ok, I must say :

-[ ] Organize and coordinate investigations by Miners and Prospectors and collate the information they gather into a unified map

Sending loud miners and prospectors in the last great unknown of the Karak when we are tired seems risky to say the least. If there IS something down there I feel we'd be a much better fit to do it ourselves, even tired. If we find nothing, the next Loremaster can easily do the sending of Prospectors and Miners.

I mean, if there is something down there and the miners and prospectors wake it up we are gonna get involved either way so it's not even less dangerous. At least if we go alone and there is something down there we probably are stealthy enough to be unnoticed even if we are tired and thus avoid a fight.
 
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Adding on to what I said earlier in the quote that @picklepikkl graciously supported, unless we limit WEB-MAT to a branch of four people (1 Mathilde+3 half-actions wrangling), we're going to have wizards we don't micromanage and give immediate tasks to. And that's fine, since WEB-MAT is a fully functional research institution with wizards who want to pursue their own projects when they aren't handling our stuff in the backlog or Waystones. And WEB-MAT is based in Karag Nar, so family and friends shouldn't be an issue, though her existing employment would be. That said, given her enthusiasm in working with Mathilde earlier in-quest, I'm thinking (or hoping, at least) she views the Gunnery School as a safety option.
Considered me convinced then. I'd still prefer the mushrooms done first so we can cross that off the list, but Adela winning isn't as bad at all.
 
My worry (and I admit that this might be me jumping at shadows) is that by appropriating the best real estate in the Karag, we don't cause a population crunch, but we do make the inhabitants of Karag Nar unhappy with us. Having to walk by the giant library in the best position every time they're coming in from the outside and need to walk farther to get to, I dunno, the taverns or shops or prostitutes or whatever else would normally be occupying the "downtown" area of the city might breed resentment.

I'm glad to have time for us to kick this around in the moratorium, because I'm really uncertain about the best way to play it. Convenience is good, but monopolizing the most convenient space could be bad.
I don't really think the worry is quite that people will be annoyed by having a library in the middle of things - my experience with centrally located campus libraries suggests that what would actually happen is that anyone and everyone would just cut through the library as the shortest route to wherever they were going.

The main drawback is mostly just that this means there's a lot of foot traffic in/to/through the library for purposes other than actually using the library because effectively some part of the library's floor space is being used as a plaza/throughfare, which makes for a fair bit of extra custodial work for the library staff that they otherwise wouldn't need to account for.
 
My preference is for Kvinn-Wyr for the library. It's a mountain without a purpose- Nar is humans, Lhune is government, Karagril is miners, Ziflin is dragon/future restored smithies, Yar is tombs, Rhynn/Mhonar is markets and breweries and smelters. So let's make the White Lady into the Kron-Azril-Ungol.

Pros:
- on the other side of the east gate from Nar, it is easily accessible to travelers, humans, and most major dwarf populations. (Lhune, citadel, Rhynn/Mhonar)
- existing excavated chambers
- space for dedicated defense in depth of the books without interfering with other priorities.
- allows for a dedicated 'scholar's district' in the Karak
- keeps seperation from the Imperial Gunnery School and Imperial college branch in Nar, preserving institutional distinctness
 
I mean, this is true. Plenty of cities throughout history have been built on or near 'dormant' volcanoes. I don't have any hard statistics, but I'm sure quite a few cities regret that choice, while many others are still going strong. Does that make building near a volcano a bad decision or wrong? Well, certainly not if you don't have any other choice or the place has a commiserate benefit to taking the risk.

It's reasonable to be cautious about putting a Great Library built with our Transcendent Boon next to a creature that could wipe it out in an afternoon. Is it likely that Cython would do that? Probably not, but good luck convincing the dwarfs not to consider it a threat, and they aren't even wrong. He's essentially a sapient natural disaster lol. They'd go nuts on the fortifications to his part of the mountain; no way that's gonna be 'quiet' either.
There's also the fact that Cython was asleep or something like it for many of those decades or centuries spent living with Skaven underneath. Right now that isn't the case. Cython is awake, or more awake, and likely to remain so for a good while yet. It's a lot easier to disturb someone who's aware of stuff around them than someone that isn't.

It's a bit irrational, but I'm also afraid that in time Cython might come to consider the library as part of his hoard, and thus restrict normal people's access to it, which would defeat the purpose of the library being built in the first place.
 
There's also the fact that Cython was asleep or something like it for many of those decades or centuries spent living with Skaven underneath. Right now that isn't the case. Cython is awake, or more awake, and likely to remain so for a good while yet. It's a lot easier to disturb someone who's aware of stuff around them than someone that isn't.

It's a bit irrational, but I'm also afraid that in time Cython might come to consider the library as part of his hoard, and thus restrict normal people's access to it, which would defeat the purpose of the library being built in the first place.
I'm more worried some idiot goes and disturbs the dragon.
Just, keep anything important away from the dragon lair.
 
Okay, something I need to say about all the stuff people are saying about library "accessibility." Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like people are imagining this as something akin to a modern lending library, which would naturally have a substantial amount of traffic.

But, that's not really accurate to the time period. IIRC, Boney has stated that movable type has yet to be invented. That means that books are E X P E N S I V E. I think Boney's going with an at least somewhat lower value than this given the prices we were given for building our library, but at least in the 2e WFRP (consulting Old World Armoury here) even a glued, AKA lower-quality, printed book costs 75 gold. An old-fashioned illuminated book (AKA hand-written and illustrated), of the kind noted to be particularly popular with and favored by wizards, is quoted as costing 350 gold. In contrast, the yearly (pre-tax) income of a peasant is given as 9-15 gold. A mercenary (such as one guarding a caravan) is given as having a yearly income of 20-50 gold. They're not letting people just casually walk out the door with items worth more than a year's earnings (or multiple years earnings) for even a particularly well-paid commoner. The fact that Mathilde lets her Ducklings borrow her books freely is actually a sign of uncommon trust that I can (probably) guarantee meant a lot more to them than Mathilde's casual presentation of the offer made it appear. Incidentally, that was actually a pretty damn cool mentor flex on her part for exactly these reasons, and it deserves more acknowledgment for that IMO.

Moreover, literacy is rare, at least among humans. The idea that this library is going to be seeing large amounts of day-to-day traffic from the humans and halflings of the Eastern Valley is simply not realistic. Only a comparatively small percentage of them are likely to even be able to read, much less interested in casually doing so recreationally. Seriously, think about it for a second. Mathilde's social circle is overwhelmingly comprised of wizards, nobles, artisans, merchants, and dwarves. This is not exactly a representative sample of the general human population (especially not the "dwarves" part :V). I think the thread has developed a skewed perception of how common literacy is among the human population at this time based on the characters we see on screen - which isn't unreasonable, but is still wrong.

What we are building might be a theoretically public library, in the sense that nobody is barred from using it. But it will not be a public library in the sense that we have public libraries IRL. This is going to be a reference library. That means that anybody going there is going to have a very good and specific reason for doing so, almost always research-related. Attracting idle foot traffic and casual readers is a complete non sequitur to the actual content and purpose of this library. If a person is interested in this library at all, the relative convenience of differing locations in Karak Eight Peaks will be of negligible relative importance. Remember, K8P is hundreds of miles from almost all centers of civilization in the Old World. If somebody's willing to travel to K8P to visit our library in the first place, they're not going to be put off by it being slightly further away within K8P itself.

Incidentally, to return to the "at least among humans" comment I made before. While dwarves do have vastly higher literacy rates, I'm fairly certain that, culturally speaking, dwarves would regard a library being more difficult to access as being a mark in its favor.

Anyway, in summary, the Silver Tower is flipping awesome, has oodles of space for a library, has top-tier wizardly flex value ("oh, you have a wizard's tower? that's nice, I have a library built into a Golden Age dwarven tower as big as the Burj Khalifa."), and is in a much more defensible location if the outer defenses of K8P are breached again compared to any uninhabited mountain. Seriously, if part of the reason we're building this library is because we want an archive that will stand the test of millennia, put it in one of the more defensible parts of the Karak, I'm begging you. And the "accessibility" concerns that have been raised are IMO off the mark due to *gestures meaningfully at all that previous text*.

To conclude, put library in Silver Tower please and thank you.
 
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For @picklepikkl and whoever else likes the idea:

[ ] Plan Redshirt with Mushrooms
-[ ] MAX: Recruit him into the research branch of WEB-MAT
-[ ] JOHANN: Recruit him into the research branch of WEB-MAT
-[ ] DUCK: Continue to work with Panoramia with implementing the Waaaghsoak Mushrooms as an aid to spellcasting.
-[ ] EIC: Insert agents into a particular province, cult, company, or institution to start gathering their secrets. (Cult of Karnos, Talabecland)
-[ ] Suggest Eike spend a few weeks in Karak Eight Peaks, so she can grow familiar with Dwarves and their ways.
-[ ] Organize and coordinate investigations by Miners and Prospectors and collate the information they gather into a unified map
-[ ] Investigate the possibility of using one Wind to directly manipulate another.
-[ ] Attempt to recruit Egrimm van Horstmann into WEB-MAT
--[ ] COIN: Gambler
-[ ] SERENITY: Write a paper: Daemonic Concealment of Karak Vlag
-[ ] PENTHOUSE: Build a basic tower of single-Wind environments for each of the 'missing' Winds: Light, Amber, Amethyst, and Gold
 
Library accessibility matters because researcher, librarians, scribes, etc, still need to get to the library, not to mention the building crews.
 
I'm a little embarrassed that I never even considered the cultural difference with regards to a library.

"There's a nearby library? Of course everyone is going to be using it! It's not like they have internet!"

Meanwhile a local peasant look awkwardly at the nearby wizard wondering what the fuck an internet is and why anyone would expect him to know how to read.
 
So a while ago Mathilde made that toy horse which responded to only an authorized user.
Rite of way functions by casting and managing a large number of sky-walk instances. Using one spell to cast another.
What do these two combine into? A library card machine. Or any kind of ID card even.

Some sort of enchanted object where you place your hand on one part, and an object on the other (say a small wooden statuette).
Of course it will be odd to have library horses instead of library cards, but there is no reason why the development path of an alternate universe with magic should follow ours exactly.
"To confirm your identity, please present your library horse and neigh at it"
It would be more secure to do something like saying your name, and it repeating your name back. Not nearly as funny to imagine though.

I wasn't reading the comments when the horse first came up, so I don't know anything like it has been discussed. Any previous ideas?
 
If there was any issue getting building crews anywhere, our towers on top of our mountain would never get built.
Just because dwarves can build something somewhere, does not mean it is the easiest, or easy, place to build it.
I doubt it will have much practical effect for the quest, but in universe, travel times will be an issue.
Just like our tower at the top of a mountain discourages casual visitors, so will placing a library in inconvenient location.
 
If there was any issue getting building crews anywhere, our towers on top of our mountain would never get built.

Yeah, @Fayhem has convinced me. Anyone with a reason to use the library isn't going to be phased by a bit of a walk through the central valley.

Also, the tower is huge. Why not build scholar-inns inside the library that researchers can stay at? It'd bring extra income in to the library as well!

(...I still really want the tower to have a dragon-sized reading room)
 
Just because dwarves can build something somewhere, does not mean it is the easiest, or easy, place to build it.
I doubt it will have much practical effect for the quest, but in universe, travel times will be an issue.
Just like our tower at the top of a mountain discourages casual visitors, so will placing a library in inconvenient location.
If travel time was a goddamn issue, we should not have built the library approximately 3000 kilometres from the center of Empire and in middle of greenskin infested area.

Fayhem has the right of it. People are goddamn illiterate. Remember our Hamlet? Its most educated member, our stewart, had to travel to a town miles away just to learn "numbers". Visitors will not be casual because reneissance libraries are not irl libraries, they are for scholars. And if a scholar makes a goddamn trek into middle of Badlands, they will have no issue walking up carved stairs.
 
Also, if accessibility proves to be an actual problem then the dwarves have the capability to solve it. There's theoretically nothing preventing them from carving paths up the side of Karagril to give easier access to the Silver Tower. It might even be ideal, since the stone removed to make the paths could be repurposed in rebuilding the tower itself.
 
If we recruit Horstmann, he might become a firm proponent of "The Mathilde Age"

The Mathilde Age: She liked us me, so she made the world got me a better place for us job

Just baby steps at first :V like getting a couple of Dwarf favor for making an Oathstone of our Liege.
 
[ ] Plan Redshirt v3
-[ ] MAX: Recruit him into the research branch of WEB-MAT
-[ ] JOHANN: Recruit him into the research branch of WEB-MAT
-[ ] DUCK: Attempt to recruit someone into the research branch of WEB-MAT: Adela
-[ ] EIC: Insert agents into a particular province, cult, company, or institution to start gathering their secrets. (Cult of Karnos, Talabecland)
-[ ] Suggest Eike spend a few weeks in Karak Eight Peaks, so she can grow familiar with Dwarves and their ways.
-[ ] Organize and coordinate investigations by Miners and Prospectors and collate the information they gather into a unified map
-[ ] Investigate the possibility of using one Wind to directly manipulate another.
-[ ] Attempt to recruit Egrimm van Horstmann into WEB-MAT
--[ ] COIN: Gambler
-[ ] SERENITY: Write a paper: Daemonic Concealment of Karak Vlag
-[ ] PENTHOUSE: Build a basic tower of single-Wind environments for each of the 'missing' Winds: Light, Amber, Amethyst, and Gold
I don't really see the point in doing 2 EIC this turn, I can see that having Eike visiting this turn makes a lot of sense, but why use another action here when we have many actions that will only be available this turn?

We can try to finish several Duckling actions this turn since it is the last turn that they will be available.

Or we can take a couple actions on Belegar's last assignment to be sure to end it properly

But why use those extra AP on the Karnos thingy, when the greatest argument in favor of doing so is "we have a Spy organisation, we should use it to spy someone"... I am not against inserting our agents there, but I don't see the urgency of needing to do it this precise turn.
 
Also, @BoneyM, if we went with the Silver Tower, could the dwarves do anything to make it more accessible? Maybe a new tunnel off the underway to bypass the close-to-a-war-zone part? That seems to be the main objection.

A big part of what the Okral were doing was sealing off all those little shortcuts for security reasons. And besides that, the Eastern Valley-Citadel-Caldera route and the Underway route aren't that far off from being straight, it's just a considerable distance from the parts of the Karak populated by non-Dwarves, both horizontally and vertically. The closest thing to a practical solution would be some sort of gondola lift, and that would present a lot of challenges to someone trying to make it a reality.

@BoneyM Should there be an option to attempt to codify the Rite of Way into the grey college spellbook?

Yes. Added:
[ ] Attempt to codify Rite of Way so that others can learn it
 
Musing. When you cast a spell, the winds you're using gets turned into spell. So if you get Aqshy to cast a fireball spell, once you're done, there's a fireball and no Aqshy. But that fireball is "magical". It's got magical properties, dealing magical damage, so Aqshy's Aegis - which is fully immune to natural fire - is only partially effective against it. It's magical despite its composition completely lacking winds of magic. I'm wondering a little if this has some measure of importance, somehow.
 
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