Book 2 – Text Updates 027

[MonteCristo]

Plus...their Foolamancer wasn't even in the capital. Wanda arranged that, too. We captured him when we razed their other two cities. Pretty neat package, right?

So, I'm curious how exactly Wanda went about arranging this particular double-bluff, or if there even was any "arranging" on Wanda's part.
We know that Faq operated on Jack veiling each of the 3 Faq cities, as determined by predictamancer.
This would suggest a few duplicities.

If this caster unit could determine which cities Jack was meant to veil turn by turn then it would certainly have been aware of the approaching dwagon army. The predictamancer would have had to have been in on it, or would at least have known and not cared enough to alert Banhammer.
Was there even an actual other threat more important than the one Faq was about to face that turn, and if there was, how was it orchestrated to fit into Wanda's plan so perfectly?
Does this mean that Wanda and this predictamancer are working hand in hand, or does it mean that Wanda (and the rest of Erfworld) is getting played by this predictamancer? And if it is the latter, how far back does the treachery stretch?
Or, and I'm not pandering to the Charlescomm suspicions here, is someone with masterclass thinkamancy manipulating others, i.e. the predictamancer in this case, to take specific actions to bring about their...actually, I'm halfway through this sentence and it sounds like I am suggesting it's Charlescomm. I'm really not, though. or I might be. But that's why speculation is fun. Bring on the grand reveal!

Well part of the problem is that we don't know exactly how predictamancy works... there could be limitations
For instance, when it comes to long term Predictions, the predictamancer can only provide a answer, but not the how's and whys... he knew Wanda would attune to an arkentool, but could not say when, which one, or how she would... he also did predict that Faq would fall, but could not clarify how or when...

As for short term predictions... it could be that the predictamancer may be able to "see" units in the field and see where they can go in the next turn, and thus "predicts" what is the most likely course of action; it's almost like he's just using logic to make predictions. It could be like the predictamancer needs a certain bit of info to make a prediction. As such a reason why he might have been unable to predict the dwagon attack could be because he did not take into account the possibility of Wanda's "betrayal"... afterall, if stanely does not know about Faq, then it's impossible for him to attack... Again, it's all hard to say since we don't know what predictamancers can do exactly

As for Jack... its possible that maybe Wanda lied to Jack, telling him that the predictamancer told her to tell him to go veil one of the other cities... she may have thought that stanely might have thought twice before attacking a city that was under a massive veil...

[Sieggy]

Hmmm . . . I wonder if the Predictamancer who set Wanda on her path of betrayal made it out to the MK, and if so, revealed what she saw to Janis, who talked with a few casters, and the result was a 'perfect warlord' spell . . .

[Lamech]

You rather undermine your own argument, if the Titans are remotely controlling the dish as you suggest, wouldn't Charlie has some awareness of someone else interfering with the system he is attuned to?

How? He has no untampered Arkendish to compare it too. If a untampered Arkendish can mantain 57 thinkagrams and a tampered Arkendish is weaker and can only maintain 54 how will Charlie be the wiser? You can't use only corrupted data to discover the corruption, you must have a standard. Charlie has none; he couldn't tell the difference between a Arkendish that the titans have tampered with from a dish the titans have not.

And while the Erfworlders say "attuned" that doesn't mean that they know what there tool can all do. We note Stanley learning of the creation of pigeons. No reason to assume that Charlie knows all of the dishes capablities and inner workings.

On the analogy of satellite signals, picking up signals on a satellite dish is not the problem, it's decoding the ones you can receive, but you still know you have a signal.

Any reciever can only pick up what it was made to recieve. While it is possible to make a reciever or dish with a very large frequency range it is possible to make on with a smaller range that excludes much.

If the latter, that makes Charlie one of the Chosen Attuned ones, the other two of whom believe themselves to be favoured and guided by the Titans, but Charlie, the longest attuned, is somehow out of the loop WoTT-wise?

All three could be out of the loop. The titans might be tampering with the world and tell no one. Also we have no idea if attunement means anything, maybe it just means the character has the correct finger print. Maybe it means there non-royal. So far the record for attunement is Stanley find and immediatly attunes, and Wanda finds and immediatly attunes.

Yes, It certainly seems like Wanda, and Stanley are making up there own narrative. If Charlie is claiming there is no will of the titans he is too.

[Rosa Vernal]

We note Stanley learning of the creation of pigeons. No reason to assume that Charlie knows all of the dishes capablities and inner workings.

Sure. There's no reason to assume that the person who's been attuned to their Arkentool longest would know everything about it.

[asparagus]

I am becoming more and more convinced that Faq had only two casters: Jack and Wanda. Wanda was probably employed to do multiple sorts of casting: thinkamancy, shockmancy, predictamancy but was frustrated at the lack of any calling for croakamancy. Maybe even Stanley seems like quite a passable manager when compared to Banhammer from her point of view. And delivering an uncroaked Banhammer to Stanley was probably the high point of her career to that point.

[DevilDan]

I am becoming more and more convinced that Faq had only two casters: Jack and Wanda. Wanda was probably employed to do multiple sorts of casting: thinkamancy, shockmancy, predictamancy but was frustrated at the lack of any calling for croakamancy. Maybe even Stanley seems like quite a passable manager when compared to Banhammer from her point of view. And delivering an uncroaked Banhammer to Stanley was probably the high point of her career to that point.

So when Stanley says in this update that Faq had a whole lot of casters...

[asparagus]

I am becoming more and more convinced that Faq had only two casters: Jack and Wanda. Wanda was probably employed to do multiple sorts of casting: thinkamancy, shockmancy, predictamancy but was frustrated at the lack of any calling for croakamancy. Maybe even Stanley seems like quite a passable manager when compared to Banhammer from her point of view. And delivering an uncroaked Banhammer to Stanley was probably the high point of her career to that point.

So when Stanley says in this update that Faq had a whole lot of casters...

He may not have actually seen them. He may have only seen the effects and lots might have been traps that could have been set up for years. After all Faq had a defensive strategy.

[Chris Goodwin]

So when Stanley says in this update that Faq had a whole lot of casters...

He may not have actually seen them. He may have only seen the effects and lots might have been traps that could have been set up for years. After all Faq had a defensive strategy.

Stanley doesn't strike me as the most detail oriented guy... Nor particularly reliable as a narrator.

[Lamech]

Sure. There's no reason to assume that the person who's been attuned to their Arkentool longest would know everything about it.

I'm not 100% sure if this is sarcasm but I think it is...
Lets go back to the pigeons; lets suppose that the titans decided pigeon creation was over-powered so they set the hammer to not do that. Assuming they did this before Stanley attuned how would he ever learn of it? If the titans did not want the dish to tell Charlie of their will or their interference the dish would most likely not.

[gazes_also]

I am becoming more and more convinced that Faq had only two casters: Jack and Wanda. Wanda was probably employed to do multiple sorts of casting: thinkamancy, shockmancy, predictamancy but was frustrated at the lack of any calling for croakamancy. Maybe even Stanley seems like quite a passable manager when compared to Banhammer from her point of view. And delivering an uncroaked Banhammer to Stanley was probably the high point of her career to that point.

In Jack's recollection of life in Old Faq he talks about discussing things 'in circle'. In Jillian's recollection we see Jack and Wanda sitting at Banhammer's feet with at least three other people and they are all dressed alike. She also said he had little regard for his warlords, so he wasn't spending any time with them. Discussing philosophy is a casterly pursuit and discussing the nature of love in relation to magic is something only a caster would be interested in.

So, Banhammer had a circle of at least 5 casters?

[asparagus]

In Jack's recollection of life in Old Faq he talks about discussing things 'in circle'. In Jillian's recollection we see Jack and Wanda sitting at Banhammer's feet with at least three other people and they are all dressed alike. She also said he had little regard for his warlords, so he wasn't spending any time with them. Discussing philosophy is a casterly pursuit and discussing the nature of love in relation to magic is something only a caster would be interested in.

There could be an alternative interpretation. Warlords generally have more latitude over dressing than normal troops. And turning upto circle presumably requires non combat dress. Being forced to turn up to circle presumably constitutes further persecution. Also my theory requires that Wanda's picture of the predictamancer is inaccurate.

[Whispri]

I am becoming more and more convinced that Faq had only two casters: Jack and Wanda. Wanda was probably employed to do multiple sorts of casting: thinkamancy, shockmancy, predictamancy but was frustrated at the lack of any calling for croakamancy. Maybe even Stanley seems like quite a passable manager when compared to Banhammer from her point of view. And delivering an uncroaked Banhammer to Stanley was probably the high point of her career to that point.

In Jack's recollection of life in Old Faq he talks about discussing things 'in circle'. In Jillian's recollection we see Jack and Wanda sitting at Banhammer's feet with at least three other people and they are all dressed alike. She also said he had little regard for his warlords, so he wasn't spending any time with them. Discussing philosophy is a casterly pursuit and discussing the nature of love in relation to magic is something only a caster would be interested in.

So, Banhammer had a circle of at least 5 casters?

I can think of one Warlord who was interested in philosophy. King Banhammer. He was even hoping for a Philosopher-Prince when he popped an heir. The other three people in the Warlords = crap panel could also be Warlords for all we know (What sort of treatment would Jillian define as "like crap" I wonder?). I'm far from convinced on the two Casters front, but it would explain a few things.

[I<3ChocolateMilk]

Well part of the problem is that we don't know exactly how predictamancy works... there could be limitations
For instance, when it comes to long term Predictions, the predictamancer can only provide a answer, but not the how's and whys... he knew Wanda would attune to an arkentool, but could not say when, which one, or how she would... he also did predict that Faq would fall, but could not clarify how or when...

As for short term predictions... it could be that the predictamancer may be able to "see" units in the field and see where they can go in the next turn, and thus "predicts" what is the most likely course of action; it's almost like he's just using logic to make predictions. It could be like the predictamancer needs a certain bit of info to make a prediction. As such a reason why he might have been unable to predict the dwagon attack could be because he did not take into account the possibility of Wanda's "betrayal"... afterall, if stanely does not know about Faq, then it's impossible for him to attack... Again, it's all hard to say since we don't know what predictamancers can do exactly

I'm going to have to disagree with you. At first I thought you had a point, but then I drew a comparison to Parson's bracer, whereby he is able to determine probable outcomes based on the raw data presented. The bracer, however, uses Mathamancy, which is bound on the Numbers axis, while Predictamancy is bound on the Fate axis. I agree that we can only speculate at the limitations of each school of magic, but we have had enough clues to make an educated guess at what each Axis allows magic to do.
It's unlikely that Predictamancy would be affected by numbers/criteria, i.e. facts/statistics, given that the concept of Fate magic and all associated schools of magic sharing this axis appear to all deal with the nature of changing the free will of units/objects, i.e. Croakamancy uncroaks the croaked, Thinkamancy changes the way units think/behave, etc.
Whereas schools of magic on the Numbers axis appear to deal with the raw numbers of the world, e.g. Mathamancy calculating odds of success, Dittomancy duplicating effects/units, Moneymancy increasing money generated by the treasury/decreasing upkeep.
Basically, logic has no business in the ephemeral and intangible realm of the Fate axis, in the same way that destiny has nothing to do with the raw statistical nature of the Numbers axis.
The only time that these would be able to affect one another is if a Thinkamancer links up with a caster from the Number axis, and we have first hand knowledge of what happened when a group of Eyemancers linked up.

I suspect that you are absolutely right about the long term predictions. The further into the future something is, the more time Fate/Free Will has to change things, which could blur the exact details.
However, I expect that the more eminent an event is, for instance one of the Faq cities being discovered, the more accurate the Predictamancer's visions become, which is why the Preditamancer was able to keep Faq and it's 3 cities veiled for so many turns.
After all, not even Don King knew about Faq. This suggests that Faq existed before Transylvito was able to start scouting the nearby hexes, which suggests that the Transylvitan powerbase was significantly weaker than it is now, since it takes several turns and significant luck to pop casters, let alone the 2 that we know of (assuming that Wanda and Jack were popped in Faq - the Predictamancer coul have been a hire from the MK). How long has Don King been at the helm? 500 turns?

However, if the Predictamancer were only determining which of the cities was in danger of discovery as opposed to destruction (i.e. discovery being the fate of the city, or destruction being the fate of the city), having made the assumption that, unless people know about Faq they won't be able to destroy it, it is unlikely that the Predictamancer would have foreseen the invasion.
However, if predictamancy works based on what you are looking for, i.e. discovery vs. destruction, and Banhammer knew that Faq would someday fall, why did he not have the Predictamancer check for both outcomes each turn? It's also unlikely to be a matter of juice, as the Predictamancer was able to not only help keep the cities veiled but also provide forecasts for various members of the Faq Circle, and given that the safety of Faq hinged on the fact that the Predictamancer managed the veiling of cities turn by turn it would be ridiculous to consider that the Predictamancer would burn off multiple turns worth of juice in one sitting.

It just seems silly that a someone who prides himself on being a great thinker of the time would simply accept his doom like that without asking any of the next logical questions or try to put some form of failsafe in place, unless of course he was a fatalist and believed in the Will of the Titans. Also, if the Predictamancer was popped in Faq and not a hire, why did Duty not kick in and force the Predictamancer to consider both?

Just curious...if Wanda's clan is Croatoan, does that suggest that she was not popped in Faq but was captured and turned, which accounts for her low Loyalty score?

[Turtlewing]

Could it instead be that the predictamancer did predict Stanly's invasion?

We know that the pridictamancer predicted the fall of FAQ, as this prediction led to Jillian being poped.

From what has been said about Banhamer's disposition I could see something like the following taking place:

Predictamancer: My lord, a large flight of dwagons will attack the capital in X turns.

Banhammer: How many dwagons?

Prdictamancer: too many.

Banhammer: Looks like it's finally happening, send for my doughter, and see to it that she isn't told of this. If she knows the bigger fight is here she'll ditch the mercinary job I'm about to give her and then the whole side will fall. Also, see to it that Jack is in one of the other cities when the attack happens, perhaps the enemy doesn't know about them all, and Jillian will need him to rebuild afterwards.

[DevilDan]

I don't see any real reason to doubt that Faq had a good number of casters: we've been introduced to the theory that there is a mechanism that chooses between casters and warlords based on the mindset of the ruler. Banhammer was opposed to war, so Faq popped casters more often than probably the vast majority of sides. Jill is focused on combat, so he's yet to pop a single one.

[asparagus]

Could it instead be that the predictamancer did predict Stanly's invasion?

We know that the pridictamancer predicted the fall of FAQ, as this prediction led to Jillian being poped.

From what has been said about Banhamer's disposition I could see something like the following taking place:

Predictamancer: My lord, a large flight of dwagons will attack the capital in X turns.

Banhammer: How many dwagons?

Prdictamancer: too many.

Banhammer: Looks like it's finally happening, send for my doughter, and see to it that she isn't told of this. If she knows the bigger fight is here she'll ditch the mercinary job I'm about to give her and then the whole side will fall. Also, see to it that Jack is in one of the other cities when the attack happens, perhaps the enemy doesn't know about them all, and Jillian will need him to rebuild afterwards.

This is quite plausible. However this line of reasoning ought to have led Banhmammer to figuring out that Wanda was a traitor. So why did he not disband her?

[Welf von Ehrwald]

So, I'm curious how exactly Wanda went about arranging this particular double-bluff, or if there even was any "arranging" on Wanda's part.
We know that Faq operated on Jack veiling each of the 3 Faq cities, as determined by predictamancer.
This would suggest a few duplicities.

If this caster unit could determine which cities Jack was meant to veil turn by turn then it would certainly have been aware of the approaching dwagon army. The predictamancer would have had to have been in on it, or would at least have known and not cared enough to alert Banhammer.

We don't know how exactly the predictamancer determined the city to veil. It's possible that he only foresaw which city will be next in proximity to non-allied troops, or which city to veil to keep the kingdom hidden as long as possible. Then Stanley might simply have overflown one of the smaller cities first, and Wanda later told him that she arranged for it.

[gazes_also]

There could be an alternative interpretation. Warlords generally have more latitude over dressing than normal troops. And turning upto circle presumably requires non combat dress. Being forced to turn up to circle presumably constitutes further persecution.

Warlords have more latitude in dress, so dress identically to the casters?

I can think of one Warlord who was interested in philosophy. King Banhammer. He was even hoping for a Philosopher-Prince when he popped an heir. The other three people in the Warlords = crap panel could also be Warlords for all we know (What sort of treatment would Jillian define as "like crap" I wonder?). I'm far from convinced on the two Casters front, but it would explain a few things.

Banhammer was not a warlord but a royal. Royals we have seen or been told are more subtle, think independently, can think big picture and are capable of introspection, warlords, not so much.

If Banhammer was interested in a circle for philosophical discussions, the last thing he would want there would be a bored warlord who's only thinking about how he can best armour his gwiffon . Judging by Jack's comments the discussions were pretty wide ranging, comparing different magical disciplines.

Also my theory requires that Wanda's picture of the predictamancer is inaccurate.

And my theory requires that Old Faq had a significant number of casters. Enough to make TMK nervous.
Here's another thought. Is New Faq's lack of casters another instance of pop-rate manipulation?

[DevilDan]

Here's another thought. Is New Faq's lack of casters another instance of pop-rate manipulation?

Possible, but this would be manipulation of pop-rates within cities, and capitals at that.

[Curxzed]

If Wanda was laying a trap for Stanley, especially with Banhammer involved, she would have had Jillian there, and Jack, and the predictamancer, EVERYTHING would have been laying in wait. You don't spring a trap with that many negative possible outcomes without giving it all you've got. Just giving up the location to him was risk enough.

So no, I don't believe Banhammer was involved. I don't believe he would go along with Wanda taking that kind of risk just to get her very own shiny new arkentool. Especially since he didn't care about warfare or conquest at all. Wanda was acting without his knowledge. And technically, the predictamancer wouldn't need to be involved at all. High level warlords get good chances to detect veiled things, even moreso when they are looking for something/know where it is. The point is they could have done everything right, and still failed. Maybe even the predictamancer passed on her predictions to Jack via Wanda and her thinkamancy scrolls, and Wanda just left out certain critical information. Like, "Come home, we are in serious trouble!"

Once in the city hex, Stanley would be able to see/scout all enemy units that weren't veiled. So all the enemy casters would be reveiled to him. Hence "lots of casters" means exactly that. FAQ had a lot of casters. It's no stretch at all to believe the predictamancer was one of them.

So, my conclusion is that Wanda downplayed FAQ defenses in order to get Stanley to attack with underwhelming force, thus bringing her the Tool. When she saw that she underestimated him, she knew she was screwed and immediately turned. No sense in trying to play it out any other way, damage done.

Oh and someone sometime ago in this thread said something about casting several turns worth of juice. Thats crap IMO.. Vanna was talking about 2 casts worth of the "turn warlord" spell. "My Queen, I could have turned him two times over with the juice I just used on that last spell" to paraphrase it.