Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
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There's a very real chance that Dum is still holding under siege. The expedition is expensive but not cripplingly expensive. I'd say that even knowing for sure what's the Karak Dum state is worth the try.
You are ignoring the intangibles. And in a fantasy world, especially where whf dawi are concerned, intangibles matter, a lot.
You are also ignoring the potential gains of lost runic lore and artefacts.
I am hoping that there are dwarf survivors, but even if there aren't, there are still benefits to be acquired.
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- She/Her
The main reason to worry is not that the expidition succeeds or fails. Its if the circumstances at Dum (which we can't know until we get there) are favouable enough or devistating enough to Borek to make him do something stupid out of stubborness or dispare.
*That's* the seneriaos that Grotti gave us leverage over Snorri and Gotrek for.
*That's* the seneriaos that Grotti gave us leverage over Snorri and Gotrek for.
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- Location
- Edinburgh
[x] Lead the Wizards, Knightly Orders, and Asarnil
Because that is now how the military calculus works. She was never going to be in the position of undermining it to where the losses would not be significant whatever she did. Therefore adding resources in the hopes of punching through and getting back as intact as posibile became the name of the game. It could still fail utterly, she would not have pointed out to Panoramia 'I can get back even if I have to run alone' if she did not think that a credible possibility dragon wizards and all, but on the other side of things she might still be able to attain such a victory as to make this worth it as a PR exercise.
I'm not so much ignoring them as saying the possibility of such still isn't worth it.
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
The only reason the K8P expedition was objectively worth the lives spent was because of the Waystone Network thing that IC we don't even know about yet. And maybe because of finding the We.
The Dwarves do empathically not need Lebensraum.
If anything the Karak Dum expedition is a more worthy one because it might save some Dawi lives.
Mathilde is not a hypocrite if she considers Dwarven lives inherently more valuable than Human ones.
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While technically true, I very much doubt she does.
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Which is why it's not the main point.
Mathilde's read her history, she knows how long Dwarves can hold out for and while her specific example of K8P wasn't in the chaos wastes, it also hadn't fanatically prepared to deal with chaos for its entire existence. By her logic at least she seems to feel that dwarves of some kind surviving for at least as long in Karag Dum seems reasonable, before taking into account temporal weirdness.
Even then, this kind of stuff is important to the Dwarves on more levels. They're a kind of people who need to know what needs grudging, what has been lost and quite fundamentally need to have these kinds of dreams punctured or they'll never stop going for them. Canon Borek certainly didn't stop despite the failure of this expedition (again canonically). While the butterflies will flap their wings he's only going to stop trying when he reaches Karag Dum or dies and if he doesn't get there then any descendants he has will continue his quest like the Ironhammers did for literal thousands of years.
That alone is going to waste vastly more lives and material over the course of time so putting a pin in it now to me is plenty. I'd rather Malakai Malkson ends up making his zeppelin and not having to have its maiden voyage go into the Chaos Wastes. I don't know where to send it instead, but its just opening up that option alone.
Anything after that is gravy, but I'll also note from Mathilde's personal experience dawi stuff can be preserved for a heck of a long time, but will be stolen over time. K8P fell thousands of years ago and there were still sealed vaults when she arrived, Dum's fallen only a 200 years ago so its safe to assume many of those vaults are still sealed. The sooner they can get there the more chance they have of saving those things from chaos. Say unknown runeworks of the runemasters of Dum which can then be hand over to Ironbrow and Kragg to reverse engineer.
And to go entirely out of character this is without considering the possibility of reclaiming one of Grimir's axes. The literal weapon of an ancestor god and twin-blade to the high king's axe. For the Dawi a people whose birth rates are very statistically tied to their optimism and happiness that alone would send them over the freaking moon, as well as being a statistically relevant power boost.
To perhaps bounce off from this from the human looking in on the dawi, the best thing this can do is continue to give the Dawi hope. We saw heard Thorek speaking off the lost hope, we've been in Thorgrim's head and learned about how he's resigned himself and the Karaz Ankor to annihilation and we know from statistical evidence that the Dawi's birth rates are almost directly tied to their confidence in the future.
We know these things and for millennia the dawi have been slowly worn down by failure after failure, then K8P came in and kicked the narrative. A hold, that hold reclaimed with all the grudges avenged. Now we've got to keep up the confidence that they can keep doing these things. That K8P wasn't a fluke in what it represents.
Yes reclaiming Dum itself is a fools errand of that we can be certain, but reclaiming things from Dum? Before they can be stolen, so the perpetrators can be identified for later and either survivors saved or their bones rescued either way keeps hammering the message home and brings more hope to the old holds. Which in turn can statistically help to reverse their population decline, it helps get into their heads that they have to get other races and skills on board and it implants into their heads "what about a hold that isn't in the mouth of hell? If we can take back the 8 peaks, and reclaim our legacy from the chaos wastes maybe we can get back other holds?"
Yeah its not a particularly smart expedition, but the old holds know this hence why they're sending minimal support mostly slayers, while the potential benefits are fantastic to the Dawi even before one considers the benefits for Mathilde.
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The K8P expedition form the start was for reconquest, Borek's is not. The reconquest of K8Ps had been tried many times and all failed. At least Borek's expedition doesn't have a tradition of failure.
- Location
- Czech Republic
[X] Lead the Wizards, Knightly Orders, and Asarnil
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
ATM, I'm glad both at just how cautious and realistic the old olds are being. Of the expedition's membership, half are slayers, the total dawi number about 200 and while the tanks are big and expensive they're still no where near costly enough that the old holds never mind the (I believe 3?) are feeling the strain and won't make up the loss in less than a few years, assuming no tanks make it back.
As expeditions go its already pretty well balanced thanks to Mathilde we have the knights to give it more numbers without slowing it down, the wizards help in utility + dealing with magic and assuming it still exists and we do reach Dum we even have a potential counter to the Blood Thirster in Asarnil and Deathfang.
My main concern ATM is Borek getting over confident that he can reclaim Dum.
Pempelune
Fanfiction Deep State
I would disagree. Waystone Network or not, K8P is in an incredibly strategic position, reclaiming it allows the Karaz Ankor to control all the passes that allow crossing of the World's Edge Mountains into the Dwarven heartland. That's very valuable, as was proven by Karak Eight Peaks successfully annihilating a Waaagh that would have been a major threat to any more westerly polity as it been allowed to continue westward.
The Dwarves may not need more space, but a more defensible position to staunch their losses? That they definitely need.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
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- He/Him
[X] Lead the Wizards, Knightly Orders, and Asarnil
Been convinced to change my vote based off of the arguments in the last few pages.
Been convinced to change my vote based off of the arguments in the last few pages.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Technically speaking, there were survivors in canon.
Not that that has much bearing on the quest, of course.
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- She/Her
Only one switch or two new votes from taking the lead!
Another reason to command the knights as well is it will make embeding wizards into their formations easier (and we won't be embedding wizards into Dwarf formations other then artillery, and even then only maybe, anyway)
Another reason to command the knights as well is it will make embeding wizards into their formations easier (and we won't be embedding wizards into Dwarf formations other then artillery, and even then only maybe, anyway)
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
250 dwarves, only fifty slayers.
And six steam wagons, though one is larger than the others (converted off a different chassis, perhaps?). This is one more than originally forecast.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
It's also allowed a long-isolated dwarven hold (Azul) to reconnect to the greater whole of the dwarven empire, after literal millennia of only having contact through very rare messengers.
- Location
- Earth
I mean... you could keep your original choice as an approval vote? Like so:
[x] Lead the Wizards and Asarnil
[x] Lead only the Wizards
[x] Lead the Wizards and Asarnil
[x] Lead only the Wizards
[x] Lead only the Wizards
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
If, say, the expedition loses fewer Dwarves than expected in every uncircumventable military encounter, circumvents a few military encounters that Dwarves alone would have gotten mixed up in, find Karak Dum ruined, but manages to dislodge whoever has taken residence there for long enough to loot some of the leftover scraps, and then manages to return having lost only a few Rangers, even fewer Engineers and no more than two Steam Wagons, do you think that this would reflect positively or negatively on Mathilde, Imperial aid and radical methods as a whole?
If you invent a crazy but efficient way to crack uncrackable nuts, but the nuts brought to you to demonstrate happen to be rotten or poisonous, that doesn't mean that your nutcracker is flawed.
What changed and what have you been doing up till now?
Individually, and discounting their lives worth to the Empire? She might, because we might. If there was a necessary suicide mission and we'd have to decide between sending a Dawi throng or thrice as large Human mercenary band, all else being equal, who do you think we'd send?
Huh. I missed that one. Still remember the source?
I'm not sure that K8P will ever develop the projection power to directly stop a Whaaagh from the Badlands or further East that is actively trying to circumvent them. Even taking Karak Drazh is still little more than a dream and if Birdmuncha had wanted to go West instead of running into our Tower, then he could have.
Forgot about that one. Yeah, that's definitely worthwhile. As is giving Thorek more reach and freedom of movement.