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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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And keep in mind that it's basically impossible for humans to fully learn magic the high elf way, what collages got was scraps was because that's all humans are capible of doing without it turning into Dhar.

Stuff like the immortality transfomations for instance are almost certainly entirely human developed considering elves don't really have the same pressing need to develop them due to being immortal, and a lot of what individual winds can do high magic can already so I also wouldn't be surprised if a lot of single wind spells are actually entirely human in development.
 
DragonParadox said:
Ah yes... without fear.

*glances at witch hunters and Sigmar fanatics who would gladly slit our throats *

And again you are saying that Mathilde should be grateful for the for the discrimination and ostracism because at least she is not dead. We should be loyal for the gift of life they so graciously gave her should we?

No.

Not killing someone for your own ends does not a hero make and should not engender gratitude.
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You haven't been reading the informational tabs. Witch Hunters are priests of Sigmar, in part. One of the info tabs clearly states, on relations between the College and Witch Hunters: "You aren't their prey, you're their backup."

Law of the Empire says, young mages are to be turned over to the College. That is what any true fanatic of Sigmar would do. The rest are false. This doesn't mean that people don't discriminate against Magic, they do. Ulricans and Sigmarites. But it's not the Chruch's fault, or at least, not the fault of proper Sigmarites.
 
DocMatoi said:
sorry, but "The Colleges are bad because the church sucks" just seems like a weird thing to take from the warhammer lore to me
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There's plenty of other reasons the colleges are bad but his argument is a holistic one and so trying to break it down to constituent parts loses the greater picture, for what it's worth theres a fair amount to suggest that ultimately the elves did half ass teaching the humans in the end mostly because they were rushed but also because they were pretty arrogant and thought humans weren't really capable of much. The fact that examples like Fozzrik exist suggest that humans ultimately are more capable than given credit for and one of the bigger issues with the colleges is that it promotes stagnancy. The monofocus winds of magic is undoubtedly safer but it does mean that exceptional human wizards are going to be trapped in one wind and you'll never get human mage equivalents to Sigmar ever again.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Ah yes... without fear.

*glances at witch hunters and Sigmar fanatics who would gladly slit our throats *

And again you are saying that Mathilde should be grateful for the for the discrimination and ostracism because at least she is not dead. We should be loyal for the gift of life they so graciously gave her should we?

No.

Not killing someone for your own ends does not a hero make and should not engender gratitude.
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To be fair to Magnus, what he did for the colleges was probably as far as he could push things at the time. As it was, the witchhunters started executing people en masse and a ton of them, including their commander, had to be put down. When Magnus the Motherfucking Pious is having to put down a Rebellion over this shit, you can see why pushing things any further would have been... Unwise.

Tl;Dr, the restrictions on and prejudice against Wizards really suck, but blaming Magnus is kinda unfair to him, given the monumental pushback he got.
 
Pretty much.... though it doesn't help that the primary example of human caster (Without divine assistance of course) without a mono wind focus who isn't a follower of Chaos is Nagash.
 
[ ] You are merely a human that has gotten in the middle of forces you cannot begin to understand. Try to survive the energies.
With this much energy unchecked, it is going to be bad for property values.

[ ] You are the justice of Mork, delivering swift death upon the heresy of Only Gork. Try to accept the energies.
That's straight up "energy field bigger than your head".

[ ] You are a faithful of Ranald, being in the right place at the right time to unbalance the scales. Try to steal the energies.
Ranald's head is probably bigger than this field, and it is part of his legend besides. The only options where energy ends up somewhere not there.

[ ] You are a Magister of the Grey Order, and follow the traditions laid down by Teclis and Magnus the Pious. Try to ground the energies.
Real question time - ground energies into where? If it is "into the ground, huh", then I don't see ground faring any better than in option one, except instead of destruction in all directions we'll get even more destruction pointed downwards. Success probably means being less affected than option 1, failure means more affected.

[ ] You are Dwarf-friend and you bear upon your person a masterpiece developed by the oldest and wisest Runepriest of the Karaz Ankor. Try to destroy the energies.
I'm iffy about destruction. How do you destroy energy? Belt is good for conversion - Dhar into fire, enemy spells into mental attacks on the person who cast it, but there is nothing about it that indicates that it can straight-up destroy energy. And while fire is more predictable and mundane than divine energy, it is still a lot of fire in the place we want to capture and use.

That said, I'm voting for only option that has a possibility of all that energy not affecting everything around us:
[X] You are a faithful of Ranald, being in the right place at the right time to unbalance the scales. Try to steal the energies.
 
Once again I would love an Orc quest omake, since this is basically the Orc Prophet failing a string of Intrigue checks while on the cusp of the thread completing their grand Piety project.
 
DragonParadox said:
In this comparison Teclis was simply using the barbarians for his own, granted necessary aims. It's the Empire tha is the hostage taker.
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DragonParadox said:
Yes, they are the fact of the college system, because it's part of and loyal to the Empire which is practicing the institutional abuse. The colleges are protecting us from dangers are are outgrowths of the same system, institutions which mages are helping to propagate and protect.
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TalonofAnathrax said:
They love the Empire, despite the Empire being the source of their problems.
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I feel you're not properly taking into account just how involuntarily dangerous untrained mages can be, and how much mages are the source of their own problems and also everyone else's problems when messing around with magic.

There's three tables of Minor, Major and Catastrophic Chaos Manifestations in the 2e book, giving examples of what happens when a spell goes awry (mechanically, when you roll doubles, triples or quadruples on your d10s). Minor is things like curdling milk, losing 1 wound, terrifying animals. Major has a wider range, with glowing red eyes at the low end, taking irresistable damage in the middle, and gaining an insanity point or temporary daemonic possession at the upper end, with other entries for "GM makes up comparably bad effect" and "Roll on the Catastrophic Chaos Manifestation table instead".
Catastrophic manifestations include things like spontaneous daemon manifestation, permanent insanity points, permanent chaos branding, being sucked into the Realm of Chaos on the spot, and of course "GM makes up comparably bad effect" again.

Untrained mages are like Typhoid Mary running loose, and one of the several functions of the Colleges is as quarantine against Demonoid Mary.
 
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Sinsystems said:
Once again I would love an Orc quest omake, since this is basically the Orc Prophet failing a string of Intrigue checks while on the cusp of the thread completing their grand Piety project.
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Only for your rival to fail the exact same ritual!

Though in hindsight I can see why the Cunning part manifested given we were just about to shank it's natural enemy while at the same time being a follower of the sneaky human god and being attuned to the most sneaky wind.

All we were missing was the 'not a greenskin' aspect honestly.
 
spiritualatheist said:
To be fair to Magnus, what he did for the colleges was probably as far as he could push things at the time. As it was, the witchhunters started executing people en masse and a ton of them, including their commander, had to be put down. When Magnus the Motherfucking Pious is having to put down a Rebellion over this shit, you can see why pushing things any further would have been... Unwise.

Tl;Dr, the restrictions on and prejudice against Wizards really suck, but blaming Magnus is kinda unfair to him, given the monumental pushback he got.
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I'm not blaming Magnus and I'm not blaming Teclis either, I'm blaming the system as it exists right now, it is not only abusive but to an extent fueled by that abuse and isolation. I'm not evens saying we should tear it down right now because bad as it is things could be worse. I just don''t want Mathilde trusting it in her hour of need.
 
LockedMind said:
[ ] You are a faithful of Ranald, being in the right place at the right time to unbalance the scales. Try to steal the energies.
Ranald's head is probably bigger than this field, and it is part of his legend besides. The only options where energy ends up somewhere not there.
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To be honest, that doesn't read that way to me. It seems less, "Ranald steals it" and more "I'll do what a proper follower of Ranald would/like Ranald did, and steal it myself."
Like literally, the end of that flavor text is "try to steal the energies" absolutely nothing in there saying give it to Ranald.

This seems like praying to Ranald, doing as he did and being properly pious, and trying to copy his feat of becoming a god. or at least demi-god.
 
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Neshuakadal said:
That chapter did state that the emperor had no male heirs. So Karl Franz has not been born at the time of that death. However we still have like 2 years for Karl Franz to be born.
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masterofmadness said:
Does that mean Karl Franz is dead!!! please tell me I am just panicking because I do not want to have the best freaking emperor save Magnus the Pious to have been butterflied away!
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BoneyM said:
Such is butterflies.
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cheesyme said:
To be honest, that doesn't read that way to me. It seems less, "Ranald steals it" and more "I'll do what a proper follower of Ranald would/like Ranald did, and steal it myself."
Like literally, the end of that flavor text is "try to steal the energies" absolutely nothing in there saying give it to Ranald.
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Yeah, I hope BOney interprets it the way pretty much the whole thread has interpreted it, but either way itll be pretty darn cool.
 
Exmorri said:
I feel you're not properly taking into account just how involuntarily dangerous untrained mages can be, and how much mages are the source of their own problems and also everyone else's problems when messing around with magic.

There's three tables of Minor, Major and Catastrophic Chaos Manifestations in the 2e book, giving examples of what happens when a spell goes awry (mechanically, when you roll doubles, triples or quadruples on your d10s). Minor is things like curdling milk, losing wounds, terrifying animals. Major has a wider range, with glowing red eyes at the low end, taking irresistable damage in the middle, and gaining an insanity point or temporary daemonic possession at the upper end, with other entries for "GM makes up comparably bad effect" and "Roll on the Catastrophic Chaos Manifestation table instead".
Catastrophic manifestations include things like spontaneous daemon manifestation, permanent insanity points, permanent chaos branding, being sucked into the Realm of Chaos on the spot, and of course "GM makes up comparably bad effect" again.

Untrained mages are like Typhoid Mary running loose, and one of the several functions of the Colleges is as quarantine against Demonoid Mary.
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I know, it simply does not matter to me and should not matter to Mathilde IMO, she should not feel responsibile for the actions of other mages. She is a human being and responsible for her own actions and no more who should not feel guilt or accept abuse due to the actions and misfortunes of others.
 
TimEd said:
NO.

Ranald was there when Sigmar was absent. His domain is so far away from healing that its a dang miracle that he even showed his presence. He did what Mathilde was looking for in anyone else. Ranald tried.
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He tried and failed. That's letting us down.

When you need a Yahtzee, rolling four 6's and a 5 is a bad as rolling two 2's, one 3, one 4 and a 5.
 
Exmorri said:
I feel you're not properly taking into account just how involuntarily dangerous untrained mages can be, and how much mages are the source of their own problems and also everyone else's problems when messing around with magic.

There's three tables of Minor, Major and Catastrophic Chaos Manifestations in the 2e book, giving examples of what happens when a spell goes awry (mechanically, when you roll doubles, triples or quadruples on your d10s). Minor is things like curdling milk, losing 1 wound, terrifying animals. Major has a wider range, with glowing red eyes at the low end, taking irresistable damage in the middle, and gaining an insanity point or temporary daemonic possession at the upper end, with other entries for "GM makes up comparably bad effect" and "Roll on the Catastrophic Chaos Manifestation table instead".
Catastrophic manifestations include things like spontaneous daemon manifestation, permanent insanity points, permanent chaos branding, being sucked into the Realm of Chaos on the spot, and of course "GM makes up comparably bad effect" again.

Untrained mages are like Typhoid Mary running loose, and one of the several functions of the Colleges is as quarantine against Demonoid Mary.
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You can thank the earlier editions of TT for this but they weren't completely untrained, wizards pre-Teclis in the empire followed a different tradition of elementalism, assuming you weren't part of the druidic cabal and their magic was actually relatively stable it just wasn't nearly as suited for battle magic. Granted thats 1e RP doing some synthesis on the original Warhammer TT which didn't even have colour magic.
 
DragonParadox said:
I'm not blaming Magnus and I'm not blaming Teclis either, I'm blaming the system as it exists right now, it is not only abusive but to an extent fueled by that abuse and isolation. I'm not evens saying we should tear it down right now because bad as it is things could be worse. I just don''t want Mathilde trusting it in her hour of need.
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I dunno, Empire's treating Mathilde pretty good as an institution. She's got saved from superstitious parents who'd kill us otherwise; got a vital education and support, a pretty high position in an imperial hierarchy form the start. Empire rewarded her good work with not one but two noble or noble-equivalent titles, and some cool bling. She's getting some shit too, no question about that, but you can't really frame it like a hostage situation or pure mistreatment.
 
Exmorri said:
I feel you're not properly taking into account just how involuntarily dangerous untrained mages can be, and how much mages are the source of their own problems and also everyone else's problems when messing around with magic.

There's three tables of Minor, Major and Catastrophic Chaos Manifestations in the 2e book, giving examples of what happens when a spell goes awry (mechanically, when you roll doubles, triples or quadruples on your d10s). Minor is things like curdling milk, losing wounds, terrifying animals. Major has a wider range, with glowing red eyes at the low end, taking irresistable damage in the middle, and gaining an insanity point or temporary daemonic possession at the upper end, with other entries for "GM makes up comparably bad effect" and "Roll on the Catastrophic Chaos Manifestation table instead".
Catastrophic manifestations include things like spontaneous daemon manifestation, permanent insanity points, permanent chaos branding, being sucked into the Realm of Chaos on the spot, and of course "GM makes up comparably bad effect" again.

Untrained mages are like Typhoid Mary running loose, and one of the several functions of the Colleges is as quarantine against Demonoid Mary.
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I understand all that. I'm not advocating for letting mages run around unchecked. But why does the Empire's mage-regulation plan not include things like "improve the PR of the Colleges" and "put more effort into getting peasants to send their new mages to the colleges instead of burning them". Remember that Mathilde was almost burned at the stake if not for one angry old guy deciding to help out. The entire rest of the village was 100% behind killing this innocent child. This is widely considered normal. The faiths of Sigmar and Ulric don't preach "Kill unsanctioned witches, thank our brave College wizards our Faithful Emperor set up to protect you" : they preach "kill witches" and let the threat of legal execution keep College-killers at bay.

Basically the system sucks for College wizards and it makes very little effort to improve, even today. It's like ever since Magnus set them up as best he could, other institutions all decided they didn't have to do anything and could let the Colleges try to change society all by themselves.

Furthermore, DragonParadox is entirely right that all these institutional considerations don't really matter to Mathilde emotionally. She likes the Colleges, doesn't like the way other Imperial citizens act towards her, and doesn't have to accept responsibility for either. She's done everything right and has been loyal : why should she accept this situation? The Colleges as a whole don't, for example : they've always been making efforts to reduce the stigmatisation of wizards and change the way this whole mess works.
 
College system has flaws, but it's a step in the right direction. It's what, not even three hundred years old?
For institution building, hell, for changing one of the major facets of a culture, that's not really such a long period.

Besides, fact of the matter is, human mages in Warhammer are ticking time-bombs. Well, other than Grail Damsels iirc. And the most powerful deities on the planet are particularly invested in making them explode.

Having that in mind, of course there are safeguards and limitations. There has to be. The question is, what those limitations and safeguards should be.
 
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