Got some nice dinner, got a nice shower, and...back into the fray instead of sleeping
So while many dwarves on this expedition have been reasonable and mature, other dwarves have been unreasonable and irresponsible with their own lives. And the line dividing them is a line of shame. Shame trumps rationality and demands to be satisfied. And Mathilde should have enough information about dwarves to know that bringing this up would involve some shame. For either the chaos dwarves are simply imitators of the Dwarves who have rejected all which Dwarves hold sacred, or they are actually related to Dwarves and have turned on their race. Either the Dwarves have let a twisted imitator of their proud traditions live and prosper, or their own kin has betrayed what is held most dear.
And while I have no doubt that neither Belegar or Kragg would even contemplate taking the Slayer Oath, I also have no doubt that this will not be a pleasant conversation. Indicating otherwise seems to trivialize just how powerful shame is to a dwarf. And furthermore, as I've said previously, even if this conversation is pleasant and reasonable, it will distract from what is important at the moment. Which is the expedition. King Belegar has done fantastic on this expedition, but I have no desire to burden him with something that will not help his expedition prosper. I would rather have his total focus on the expedition, rather than have a silver of his attention being brought to think about Chaos Dwarves.
I would be concerned about this if the knowledge of Chaos Dwarves are new to them. Its not.
We're bringing up a
known(to the dwarfs) shame, and telling them of a grievous offense performed by said shame such that they may begin to see it put to rights.
That is a significantly different account!
For one, the Dawi in general are ALREADY going to wage a war of annihilation against the Dawi Zharr to begin with. If they could reach them. If they could find them.
Nothing significant changes in the big picture, but a nuance of the map had been filled in..
Many people have been complaining about all the borderline OOC arguments to stay silent, but I feel that mine is completely IC. We are an agent of the most powerful Imperial intelligence agency. This (as of yet) unverified information is huge news if true, but the way we actually got ot is both suspect and endangers Mathilde's standing and ability to function as an agent if found out. So no, I am not fundamentally opposed to the Dwarfs finding out we know, but this shouldn't be up to us. It should be up to the Grey Patriarch. Now, this would be different if this info had direct strategic consequences regarding the expedition, but it doesn't. Afaik Black Orcs have existed for centuries, so whatever Dwarven Chaos Cult birthed them will not suddenly become a new issue tomorrow. And if the Black Orcs all originated from one of the 8 Peaks then our Dwarven friends would know that already.
tl;dr~ We are a Grey Wizard. Our loyalty should be with our Order, and through it the Empire. And anyone who thinks that the Order's MO is to immediately disclose unvetted information of high but not urgent importance is simply wrong IMO.
I see this as a twosided issue. Our duty as a Grey Wizard is to:
1) Keep secrets useful to the Empire
2) Find knowledge useful to the Empire, especially secrets.
1 is not violated by telling them, the origin of the Black Orcs is not a secret that the Empire needs to protect against dwarfs. What happened with Mathilde and Mork is a secret that Mathilde needs to protect against the EMPIRE, but ironically Kragg is almost certain not to speak of something brought to his attention in trust.
2 is advanced by telling them, as there is a chance that the dwarves may let a Grey Magister know more about these fallen Dwarfs, and if they do not, the knowledge that the dwarfs are unwilling to speak of it even to one they trust with wagonloads of gold, is itself useful information.
This whole discussion has been tiresome and near impossible to follow.
My own concern regarding disclosing Mork possession is mostly around it denting Belegars perception of Mathildes reliability.
Might he start wondering- if she's been possessed by Mork once, can it happen again? Is Mork listening in to the War Council via Mathilde now? Even if we still trust what she says, should we exclude her from planning meetings?
Like all the other rampant speculation offered for the positions, I've no way of knowing whether this is likely. But it is something I worry about.
As Kragg himself said: The Greenskin gods are sloppy, and it is very likely that in typical greenskin manner, they let themselves get carried away in the moment rather than actually doing the synchronization on purpose.
How often does a human perform brutally cunning or cunningly brutal acts in a Greenskin holy place
while advancing the agenda of a Greenskin god?
Already mentioned some of this but:
1) Teclis brought up the Chaos Dwarfs when Gotrek refused any notion of there being a seperate faction of Dark Elves who are responsible for all the past occurences of slaving and pirating, claiming all Elves are the same clique so Teclis then brought up the Chaos Dwarfs as a counter-example.
2) None as far I can tell outside of possibly exchanging a few words during the Great War Against Chaos as part of the big Empire-Elf-Dwarf alliance, but there's no info on that.
3) As mentioned in 1, it was Teclis pointing out Gotrek's hypocrisy by lampshading the Dwarfs too have a splinter faction of evil maniacs when Gotrek denied there being no such thing as a seperate 'Dark Elf' faction when accusing Elves of being murderers and slavers.
4) Gotrek tried to kill Teclis the moment he saw him, believing all Elves to be treacherous and deserving of death for the War of the Beard and the acts of the Dark Elves and already on edge due to being trapped in a magical mirror realm, only calming down due to his companion Felix talking sense into him. When Teclis brought up the Chaos Dwarfs, Gotrek got hostile again and Felix again had to calm him down.
Afterwards they continued together on their quest to slay a twin pair of Sorcerers of Tzeentch and a Chaos Giant. Source material is the novel Giantslayer by William King.
So in short:
-Teclis is a butt to Gotrek. Is almost mauled.
-Teclis claims the Druchii's activities are not the Asur's fault(it wouldn't be, by Elf reckoning).
-Gotrek disagrees because your kin, your problem(it would be, by Dwarf reckoning).
-Teclis retaliates against THAT statement by metaphorically shanking Gotrek with some variant of "Oh yeah? You never took care of YOUR problem either then.", possibly intending to win some points because a reasonable elf would have concluded that yeah the Dawi Zharr aren't part of the Dawi, so the Druchii aren't part of the Asur.
-Gotrek attempts to literally shank Teclis for being a butt.
Whats illustrated here is not how touchy the dwarves are about the Chaos Dwarves, but the sheer cultural disconnect that had them talk clean past each other and further escalate the discussion while trying to win the argument.
Just a little reminder for everyone debating, but spaghetti posting, while not against the rules, is looked down on, and should probably be avoided going forward.
Incidentally important note is that spaghetti posting is specifically breaking up someone's argument into incoherent portions to argue piecemeal.
As heated as things got, theres no spaghetti here. Its Tilean.
To people saying that Worshipping Ranald will be looked at unfavourably by Belegar and Kragg due to being the God of Theives and Revolutionaries.
It is worth remembering that Ranald the Night Prowler and Ranald the Protector are only two of his four aspects. He also, in Ranald the Gambler/Dealer and Ranald the Deceiver, has two aspects that work together as THE God of Merchants in the majority of the Empire. Handrich is only worshipped in the Wasteland and Reikland. The largest public sect of the cult is dedicated to this aspect. As a God of Merchants Ranald could also be respected by Dwarfs, at least as far as a human god could be.
Mind you, a merchant lying about his goods is a well spanked merchant when it comes to the Dawi!
The Protector and Gambler makes sense to them I think. Umgi don't follow their oaths reliably, so you need a god to look out for the people whose lords aren't doing their job. Umgi take risks a lot, so you need a god to manage the risks.
And try to convert others.
