Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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- madison
reward? where did I mention a reward? I just felt the dwarves need to know this information. We don't know the full fallout of this, but if anyone in this expedition can make so much as an educated guess, it would be kragg. We can't even guess how likely it is to come up, he can. As for the cost, I'm not being a naive idiot and dismissing the idea of this being a grudge, I just don't find the reasons they would flip out about the position, or march off to die in the badlands en mass very compelling. Yes, it would be a grudge, Yes if they go all-in on that specific grudge it would be bad. but well, they have giant piles of grudges in the book already, many against those who they cannot feasibly avenge. I don't see why this one would be different.
as for the idea of them freaking out about the possession, I have not seen anything I would consider a worthwhile argument in favor of that. its mostly just vague noises about dwarves issues with orks and unreliability.
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- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
[X] Remain silent.
[X] Cook with Panoramia and Titus
[X] Join the hunting with Maximilian
[X] Eating
[X] Telling war stories
[X] Gambling
[X] Play with a giant wolf
I mean if someone told me they were literally possessed by Satan himself I would instantly begin questioning quite strongly the integrity of the person. Normal balanced people don't go around claiming to have been possessed by Satan. It doesn't really matter to me who or what they have done before. Such outrageous claims instantly change a relationship. While the analogy is not 1 to 1 Mork has been the enemy of dwarfs for as long as greenskins have been alive. Claiming to have been possessed by Mork will instantly change the relationship between Mathilde and Belebro.
[X] Cook with Panoramia and Titus
[X] Join the hunting with Maximilian
[X] Eating
[X] Telling war stories
[X] Gambling
[X] Play with a giant wolf
I mean if someone told me they were literally possessed by Satan himself I would instantly begin questioning quite strongly the integrity of the person. Normal balanced people don't go around claiming to have been possessed by Satan. It doesn't really matter to me who or what they have done before. Such outrageous claims instantly change a relationship. While the analogy is not 1 to 1 Mork has been the enemy of dwarfs for as long as greenskins have been alive. Claiming to have been possessed by Mork will instantly change the relationship between Mathilde and Belebro.
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Gortek nearly tried to decapitate Teclis when he mentioned Chaos Dwarfs. Do I think Kargg would react as violently? No he has more self control. Do I think he would react with more spite? Oh yes. Kragg the Grim is made of spite, it's why he is even still alive.
- Location
- madison
oh hey fair warning? if your argument is based 100% on OOC knowledge, I'm just going to toss it into the bin marked excessive metagaming and not engage with it.
Fair enough, I'll keep that in mind when replying to you in the future, but I felt it deserved to be heard for those less stringent about not stepping into snake pits the character can't fully see IC.
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Where in canon does your earlier posted insight into Kragg's runesmithing processes come from? Where in those 20 pages of argument were the fanon arguments in favor of staying silent that I apparently overlooked? Finally, it's telling what that I called out the use of fanon when I did?
- Location
- madison
Personally, I doubt it. This is a setting where gods and magic and demons happen. I don't think getting caught up in essentially the splash of a massive divine ritual, especially from a god known not to do corruption, would be seen as some big dark secret. No more than spending a few minutes going mad under a bray shamans curse would.
[X] Tell Belegar and Kragg
[x] No to Shenanigans
Torture for fun is just not my cup of tea.
[X] Tell Belegar and Kragg
For the reasons above: our information might be actionable. We should take the risk.
[X] Join the hunting with Esbern and Seija
A classic managerial mistake is spending all your time on problematic subordinates, leaving dependable and self-sufficient ones to their devices. Esbern and Seija had been nothing but that: we owe them a little of mage bonding.
[X] 'Make sure the ale hasn't gone bad' with Johann
A chance to overcome our bias... or find out it's not a bias after all.
Torture for fun is just not my cup of tea.
[X] Tell Belegar and Kragg
For the reasons above: our information might be actionable. We should take the risk.
[X] Join the hunting with Esbern and Seija
A classic managerial mistake is spending all your time on problematic subordinates, leaving dependable and self-sufficient ones to their devices. Esbern and Seija had been nothing but that: we owe them a little of mage bonding.
[X] 'Make sure the ale hasn't gone bad' with Johann
A chance to overcome our bias... or find out it's not a bias after all.
- Location
- Europe
Whether other people consider the Dwarves behaviour reasonable is irrelevant. What matters is whether it hurts them more than it helps and whether there would be any significant positive difference if the Dwarves psychology which enables and creates the Grudge phenomena were gone.
I don't believe so. The true problem is not their grudges, not their difficulty in working with others or even their low birth rates
Dwarves live in a world where it doesn't matter whether you can forgive and forget, where compassion and cooperation aren't enough. Because you are outnumbered and outgunned on every front.
So it is for the humans, who have no book of grudges, so it is for the elves, who have no book of grudges, and so it is for the Dwarves, who happen to have a book of grudges and die just the same as everyone else.
You are not actually giving an argument here, just stating what you believe so there's nothing for me to say but 'let's agree to disagree'.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
Inserted tally
- Location
- Europe
My argument is right there.
It is: Whether the Dwarves have a book of Grudges or not is not an essential cause of their downfall. This is shown as other species, which do not have a book of grudges, experience a similar phenomenon. It is also shown as there was a time when the Dwarves Maintained their book of Grudges and were not a failing species pushed to the brink.
The existence of the book of grudges does not correlate to their downfall.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
We didn't get "caught up" as you say. We were the instrument of Mork exacting his divine justice. That is a little bit more than "caught up" in a ritual. That is a big deal. To be a hand of Mork is to act with the intentions of Mork. Mork does not have good intentions when it comes to the dwarfs. You say this is a setting with gods and magic and demons. How many times do people get possessed by those divine? People normally don't go around claiming to have been possessed. It just doesn't happen. Either it's true and we were a conduit for Mork or we are crazy. And if it is true that we were a conduit for Mork why couldn't Mork make us a conduit again? These are questions that completely change a relationship.
That is manifestly not true, humanity is doing much better than it did say two thousand years ago, it's progressing not declining, even the high elves who have to contend with similar low birth rates have modest gains under the current king.
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- Location
- Europe
So the dwarves continuing their progress down the technological paths, working to re-conquer their homes, assisting their allies (humans) in building up and more doesn't count. But the modest gains on the elves part are enough to qualify?
Edit: for clarity
- Location
- Earth
I'm not going to qoute the update, because that would ping the QM into this, but here, this is from Karak Eight Peaks: The Battle of Karag Nar, Part 4:
You consider the bed and quickly reject it, and are in fact tempted to set it on fire to rid the room of the smell of rotting leaves and fur. So instead you lean against a window and witness the rare spectacle unfolding below. The Colleges only knew the very basics of what an Anvil of Doom was capable of, and now you get to see it for yourself, as conducted by the oldest and most powerful of Runelords. Kragg the Grim did not research, rarely journeyed, and was very difficult to convince that anyone was worthy of the products of his art, so what has he been doing with his centuries of life? The answer, it seems, was crafting Runes for his Anvil of Doom.
In the context of one of the Anvils, a Rune did not mean a carving upon an object, but an object in its own right - a piece of metal in the shape of a single Rune, but itself covered in dozens or even hundreds of smaller runes. Once fully crafted, it would begin to siphon magical energies from the air, and days or weeks or months later it would be ready. When properly positioned on an Anvil of Doom and struck by someone skilled in its use, the energies would be unleashed in the way dictated by its runes, the Anvil's runes, and the will of the wielder. For year after year, decade after decade, Kragg had shut himself in his workshop in Karaz-a-Karak and channeled his hatred of greenskins and Skaven and Elves and all other enemies of Dwarves, and all of his bitterness at the decline of the Karaz Ankor, into an arsenal for his Anvil, waiting for a reason sufficient to justify his presence. The lost hold of Karak Eight Peaks, once second only to Karaz-a-Karak in population and wealth and power, had finally given him that reason, and the Grobi in the Citadel and in the caldera beyond received the full force of his hatred and his skill. Lightning struck from above with pinpoint accuracy, and the ground at the Citadel's foundations split open and molten rock exploded forth.
In the context of one of the Anvils, a Rune did not mean a carving upon an object, but an object in its own right - a piece of metal in the shape of a single Rune, but itself covered in dozens or even hundreds of smaller runes. Once fully crafted, it would begin to siphon magical energies from the air, and days or weeks or months later it would be ready. When properly positioned on an Anvil of Doom and struck by someone skilled in its use, the energies would be unleashed in the way dictated by its runes, the Anvil's runes, and the will of the wielder. For year after year, decade after decade, Kragg had shut himself in his workshop in Karaz-a-Karak and channeled his hatred of greenskins and Skaven and Elves and all other enemies of Dwarves, and all of his bitterness at the decline of the Karaz Ankor, into an arsenal for his Anvil, waiting for a reason sufficient to justify his presence. The lost hold of Karak Eight Peaks, once second only to Karaz-a-Karak in population and wealth and power, had finally given him that reason, and the Grobi in the Citadel and in the caldera beyond received the full force of his hatred and his skill. Lightning struck from above with pinpoint accuracy, and the ground at the Citadel's foundations split open and molten rock exploded forth.
As for the 20 pages thing? I'm not going to quote a bunch of people because you don't want to go back and look. But a lot of arguments were made about possession, and the weight of Grudges, and how it affects their souls and what that effect would have on dwarves as a whole and these ones in specific. And for some reason, you never protested those.
As for the telling thing: It's telling that you did not protest them. The options left are that you did not protest them because they agree with your head-cannon, so you didn't notice they were head-cannon; or because they were aiding a side you support, namely slaying silent, so why would you speak out against your own side?
- Location
- madison
My point was that its not some bizarre never before seen thing. There is a frame of reference for it to be evaluated. We unknowingly stepped into a big divine ritual, I doubt this is the first time that has happened. Gods doing a thing is something that the locals just deal with, unwittingly ending up involved in a God doing a thing is to me at least, unlikely to be a massive dark secret unless the god is known to taint people.
- Location
- Singapore
From an in-character perspective, If the prospect of being hijacked again by Mork again is indeed what Mathilde fears, all the more the reason for Mathilde not to keep what happened at Karak Nar to herself and seek the counsel of wiser minds then herself! From an IC perspective, this isn't a justification for secrecy from everyone in the expedition, it's justification for Mathilde to seek the counsel of someone she might regard as wise within the Expedition.
Does Kragg the Grim not qualify?
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No, not really because the dwarfs are still looking down the barrel of a mountain of unsolvable grudges. Also it bears noting that dwarfs are not allied with humans, they are allied with the Empire of Sigmar. Most humans don't like them. Arguing that dwarfs are allies of humans is like saying the same of the Asrai since they have Bretonia guarding their border.
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- Location
- Philippines
It's strategic information to get out that Mathilde didn't win against a God by herself, she only survived due to divine interventioned,
Not telling Belerag and especially Kragg would be a mistake, he could potentially overestimate his craftsmanship rune to be sufficient against Mork or any Gods if Kragg assumed that Mathilde a mere human wizard gave Mork a bloody nose, than a dwarf such as him who is supposedly superior can do better, she has to hammered into his head that it took a God to survive if not beat another God in this whole Morg weakening business, if the other humans and halflings know or suspect about Ranald, then it's understandable that she would keep her God's involvement a secret, being a God of thief and Ranald's secretive nature.
Not telling Belerag and especially Kragg would be a mistake, he could potentially overestimate his craftsmanship rune to be sufficient against Mork or any Gods if Kragg assumed that Mathilde a mere human wizard gave Mork a bloody nose, than a dwarf such as him who is supposedly superior can do better, she has to hammered into his head that it took a God to survive if not beat another God in this whole Morg weakening business, if the other humans and halflings know or suspect about Ranald, then it's understandable that she would keep her God's involvement a secret, being a God of thief and Ranald's secretive nature.
- Location
- Europe
I was unclear when naming the Dwarves allies, yeah.
However, if you simply ignore their accomplishments because they haven't resolved all their problems and struck out every Grudge your measuring Dwarves and Elves with different lengths. Neither have returned to their heights, neither have solved the great crises of their time, neither have a future to look forward to in the long term.
By that point there's little point discussing things further.
I think you are misunderstanding my point about what goals impossible to realize mean for a civilization, but fair enough