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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Concept: we start hero worshipping abelhelm and start encouraging worship of him as a god of Witch Hunters. Then he comes back as a god and we can see him again! We can make him the next Sigmar! (Smaller, obviously, don't wanna step on MC Heldenhammers toes)
(Also this way we can discourage the worship of Solkan among the witch hunters)
 
DocMatoi said:
Concept: we start hero worshipping abelhelm and start encouraging worship of him as a god of Witch Hunters. Then he comes back as a god and we can see him again! We can make him the next Sigmar! (Smaller, obviously, don't wanna step on MC Heldenhammers toes)
(Also this way we can discourage the worship of Solkan among the witch hunters)
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Knowing his luck so far I wouldn't bet on it
 
DocMatoi said:
Hey it's worth a shot, let's do it
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I don't think it really works that way also while Van Hal was a cool character and all he did get ganked by some skeletons not notable feat to get godhood I'm afraid.

Also there is the worry his personality would get shifted to fit his believers beliefs and being a god of WITCH Hunters having a friendly relationship with a witch would be unlikely.
 
DocMatoi said:
Hey it's worth a shot, let's do it
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A Wizard advocating heresy and preaching to Witch Hunters.

What could go wrong!

Atam the Ork said:
Also there is the worry his personality would get shifted to fit his believers beliefs and being a god of WITCH Hunters having a friendly relationship with a witch would be unlikely.
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This comes up from time to time, but I believe Mathilde would be very sensitive about being called a Witch. Those are specifically unregulated, non-college-trained practioners, usually on the inevitable slippery Dhar slope to the Dark Arts. She is a Journeywoman of the Colleges in good standing. In her mind, a clear difference. Not least, Witches proper can still be burned at the stake...
 
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Alliterate said:
A Wizard advocating heresy and preaching to Witch Hunters.

What could go wrong!
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Nah nah here's how we do it: get the common people on board, to get Abelhelm deified (@Atam the Ork belief is how everything in Warhammer works: the chaos gods are born of people's subconscious, sigmar was deified by worship of him in the empire)
Then, once Abelhelm is actually empowered enough to act, or even speak in dreams, *he* approaches the witch hunters as a god who represents the ideal witch Hunter.
Also, @Alliterate it's not heresy until it's declared a proscribed worship by the authorities
(Besides, some of them worship Solkan the Chaos God of Order so mleh)
 
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DocMatoi said:
Nah nah here's how we do it: get the common people on board, to get Abelhelm deified (@Atam the Ork belief is how everything in Warhammer works: the chaos gods are born of people's subconscious, sigmar was deified by worship of him in the empire)
Then, once Abelhelm is actually empowered enough to act, or even speak in dreams, *he* approaches the witch hunters as a god who represents the ideal witch Hunter.
Also, @Alliterate it's not heresy until it's declared a proscribed worship by the authorities
(Besides, some of them worship Solkan the Chaos God of Order so mleh)
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And I'm sure that's exactly how the more fanatical members of the the Holy Order of the Templars of Sigmar will view it.
 
If that's the path you want to go, we would have a much better chance at getting Van Hal venerated as a saint than as a god. Much better as in "it could actually happen and wouldn't get us killed trying".

Saint isn't a bad gig in Warhammer Fantasy, either, and even if a lot of them are pretty questionable there are a lot of saints who get a lot of worship. If we manage to successfully torch Castle Drakenhof in Van Hal's name after his death we could viably push for sainthood on his behalf on the basis that no one has ever managed it before and he led the crusade, inspiring noble men of Stirland and faithful allies to achieve great and righteous deeds even after death, etc. Would probably end up prayed to by a lot of Stirlanders.
 
DocMatoi said:
Nah nah here's how we do it: get the common people on board, to get Abelhelm deified (@Atam the Ork belief is how everything in Warhammer works: the chaos gods are born of people's subconscious, sigmar was deified by worship of him in the empire)
Then, once Abelhelm is actually empowered enough to act, or even speak in dreams, *he* approaches the witch hunters as a god who represents the ideal witch Hunter.
Also, @Alliterate it's not heresy until it's declared a proscribed worship by the authorities
(Besides, some of them worship Solkan the Chaos God of Order so mleh)
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Yes but you need a shit ton of belief to make a person a God Sigmar had an entire Empire was a champion of another god and performed mythic feats to get his godhood Van Hal doesn't really have any of that.

Also good luck trying to get common people to worship someone that doesn't really have a domain and doesn't do anything for them in return for their worship

Also just because Mathilde doesn't see herself as a witch does not mean a majority of witch hunters feel the same way.
 
[X] "We have the high ground. We have artillery. We level the town hall, and any other pockets of resistance, and the infantry pushes through the rubble."
 
Atam the Ork said:
Also just because Mathilde doesn't see herself as a witch does not mean a majority of witch hunters feel the same way.
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Per Realm of Sorcery, the Colleges do have a formal definition of a Witch, as a Hedge Wizard who has survived their initial experiences with untrained magic and know several spells (perhaps roughly equivalent to junior journeyman). Untrained, they'd be using a variety of winds (and hence exposed to Dhar), with the risks to sanity, morality and health that entails. Not full Necromancer or Sorcerer, but their magic is likely already taking a dark turn (curses, minor pacts etc) and very susceptible sliding further to the dark arts. (TBF, this is probably based on a WHFRPG Career as much as anything else).

Less educated people do use the term Witch with a broader meaning, though.
 
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Alliterate said:
Per Realm of Sorcery, the Colleges do have a formal definition of a Witch, as a Hedge Wizard who has survived their initial experiences with untrained magic and know several spells (perhaps roughly equivalent to junior journeyman). Untrained, they'd be using a variety of winds (and hence exposed to Dhar), with the risks to sanity, morality and health that entails. Not full Necromancer or Sorcerer, but their magic is likely already taking a dark turn (curses, minor pacts etc) and very susceptible sliding further to the dark arts. (TBF, this is probably based on a WHFRPG Career as much as anything else).

Less educated people do use the term Witch with a broader meaning, though.
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I mean witch hunters know she technically isn't a witch bit I'm talking about their beliefs and feelings
 
[X] "We have the high ground. We have artillery. We level the town hall, and any other pockets of resistance, and the infantry pushes through the rubble."


I feel we should save the dragon for the actual castle, we'll need it there, and our PC's vengeance can be safely vented there too. The town can be taken with less...severe...measures.
 
Two questions for @BoneyM (and anyone else who can answer):

1) We know Van Hal intended to use the town as a staging area for the assault on the castle. After the purge, did he intend to hold the town with a garrison? Or was the plan just to purge the blatantly evil and fuck off back to Stirland proper?
2) Would using the Dragon here prevent or make less effective using it on the castle (due to exhaustion or w/e)?

Depending on the answers, it'll be dragon or artillery for me.
 
[X] "We have the high ground. We have artillery. We level the town hall, and any other pockets of resistance, and the infantry pushes through the rubble."
 
Oksbad said:
Two questions for @BoneyM (and anyone else who can answer):

1) We know Van Hal intended to use the town as a staging area for the assault on the castle. After the purge, did he intend to hold the town with a garrison? Or was the plan just to purge the blatantly evil and fuck off back to Stirland proper?
2) Would using the Dragon here prevent or make less effective using it on the castle (due to exhaustion or w/e)?

Depending on the answers, it'll be dragon or artillery for me.
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1. It was a judgement to be made after all was said and done based on the state of the town and the remaining forces of Stirland.
2. Assuming he's uninjured (and both dragon and rider would be insulted at the idea of anything in the town injuring them, but the possibility is there) it will not make him any less effective against the castle.
 
BoneyM said:
1. It was a judgement to be made after all was said and done based on the state of the town and the remaining forces of Stirland.
2. Assuming he's uninjured (and both dragon and rider would be insulted at the idea of anything in the town injuring them, but the possibility is there) it will not make him any less effective against the castle.
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Thank you.

[X] "If you've no desire to take this town intact, Deathfang is only a horn's blow away."

We really lucked out on the dragon. Let's use it to its fullest extent.
 
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Exmorri said:
Then there's the exact and incredibly vile nature of the enemy to consider, wherein their populations are a military resource of sorts, which may be destroyed on that ground.

Setting aside even that, there's the Renaissance-era laws of war, which I would take Warhammer to be based on, where the lawyers like Grotius in The Law of War and Peace would probably say that Sylvania being in an ongoing state of war with Stirland, Sylvanians in Sylvania are legitimate targets of war one and all, even the civilians*, even if they offer to surrender, and even if they offer to surrender unconditionally.

(Also Sylvanians in Stirland obviously, and Sylvanians on the sea, but no going after Sylvanians in a third country!)
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I never expected to find someone who actually knows de iure belli ac pacis here. But counterpoint: Grotius' theory of laws implied the existence of the state of nature between States. A legal war implies two states enter into a full-fledged (in the material sense) war. Sylvania is however Eastern Stirland and its citizens are citizens of the Empire, and so citizens of Sylvania are not in a state of war with Stirland, thus neither the laws of war, nor natural law principles apply. A sovereign is bound by the rights and corresponding duties towards its citizens, and military actions towards said citizens are fundamentally law enforcement duties and cannot have the same scope as full measures of war. Citizens of Sylvania would not be considered valid targets, juridically speaking.
 
Siual said:
I never expected to find someone who actually knows de iure belli ac pacis here. But counterpoint: Grotius' theory of laws implied the existence of the state of nature between States. A legal war implies two states enter into a full-fledged (in the material sense) war. Sylvania is however Eastern Stirland and its citizens are citizens of the Empire, and so citizens of Sylvania are not in a state of war with Stirland, thus neither the laws of war, nor natural law principles apply. A sovereign is bound by the rights and corresponding duties towards its citizens, and military actions towards said citizens are fundamentally law enforcement duties and cannot have the same scope as full measures of war. Citizens of Sylvania would not be considered valid targets, juridically speaking.
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so if we want to kill sylvanians, we need to bring in the stirland watch and arrest them all for aiding and abetting sylvania
 
Siual said:
I never expected to find someone who actually knows de iure belli ac pacis here. But counterpoint: Grotius' theory of laws implied the existence of the state of nature between States. A legal war implies two states enter into a full-fledged (in the material sense) war. Sylvania is however Eastern Stirland and its citizens are citizens of the Empire, and so citizens of Sylvania are not in a state of war with Stirland, thus neither the laws of war, nor natural law principles apply. A sovereign is bound by the rights and corresponding duties towards its citizens, and military actions towards said citizens are fundamentally law enforcement duties and cannot have the same scope as full measures of war. Citizens of Sylvania would not be considered valid targets, juridically speaking.
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No legal scholar or anything. But I'd imagine any lawyers could argue 'Sylvania' exists in a state of open revolt against the 'rightful rule' of Stirland and the Empire. There is after all challenging 'Elector Countess' at the head of this 'rebellion'. The populace is further arguably complicit with heretical enemies of the state (Necromancers and Vampires), subjugating themselves to this usurper, weakening their claim to the protections of the State. (Such as they exist for illiterate goat-herders).
 
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DocMatoi said:
so if we want to kill sylvanians, we need to bring in the stirland watch and arrest them all for aiding and abetting sylvania
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Using the army is fine enough, dedicated policing forces as an instrument of the state is very 19th century. Then again, this is about what legal thinkers classified these actions as, rulers have always had a penchant for really not caring. Hell, Grotius opens the first of this three books with the observation that "states will go to war for just about anything, won't they?"

Alliterate said:
No legal scholar or anything. But I'd imagine any lawyers could argue 'Sylvania' is in a state of open revolt against the 'rightful rule' of Stirland and the Empire. There exists after all challenging 'Elector Countess' at the head of this 'rebellion'. The populace is further arguably complicit with heretical enemies of the state (Necromancers and Vampires), subjugating themselves to this usurper, weakening their claim to the protections of the State. (Such as they exist for illiterate goat-herders).
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Well any citizen complicit with the illegal act of rebellion would of course be a perfectly valid target. The grey zone is whether inflicting a massacre on a town's citizens -- which is a measure of war -- can reasonably be justified as a law enforcement action. Not that anyone will care, as a sovereign you're the final judge and measure of what you can and cannot do with your citizens, so long as you don't screw up so hard the natural state of affairs returns and your citizens have to seek redress themselves -- by ousting you.

Recognizing Sylvania as an independent state with its own sovereign -- and the state of war between the two states -- opens up a whole different can of worms, as you need to respect the extradition of prisoners, third states are bound by the laws of neutrality and the most prickly of all, the war needs to be ended by treaty. None of that when it's just upstanding citizens!
 
Speaking about future - something closer to home.

I think it is likely that Amethyst Order Patriarch will try to use current situation to look through Van Hal belongings. Usually it would not happen, but with Van Hal death and a journeyman wizard in charge he have much more freedom that usual - there is no elector to counter his demands, so political fallout from demands is much reduced.

I suspect something less than balant - approach of such unspoken ultimatum, that either he gets what he wants, or he will pull out and return to Altdorf before attack on Castle Drakenhof. It's serious threat, as it would leave army entirely without magical support (Mathilde excepted) - with noone able to counter necromancy. It would make for unacceptable loses, or potential failure if Castle was attacked.

In addition, it's different order of wizards, but it's a Patriarch of one. Mathilde cannot really afford antagonizing him, by going against his wishes. We would go back to Altdorf, and make Mathilde possition between wizards precarious. Enemity of Patriarch is no small thing, and Shadow order is practical: Mathilde is not that valuable. They will not waste political capital to protect an journeyman.

My point is, that I hope that Mathilde will be able to set things before that. So she would be able to allow Patriarch to inspect Van Hal belongings without it revealing anything important.
 
@Alliterate @Siual
Maybe these are my modern sensibilities talking and there's precedent that would call me wrong in that time, but couldn't it be argued that the children of Sylvania, including the ones right now in Drakenhof town, are innocent and any callous and unnecessary harm we do them a crime? Or can children of traitors be treated as traitors as well, no matter the age? I know that lawfully hanged criminals could be quite young as late as the 18th century.
 
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