So... I do not think Mathilde is actually a Dawi, no matter what the council says, yet... I had an idea for an omake based on this, and it kept drilling my mind until it was turned into an omake all on its own. So I have to post it here, lest I go insane, whether I agree with the premise or not.
(for those only following the threadmarks who do not know what I am talking about, I will post the "brilliant "maneuer the Dawi may have pulled that has not yet made it into the story but which was previewed by the QM a while ago, but which probably won't make its way into the main story until we return from Dum, or die on it and get an epilogue written. )
An announcement from the Emergency Meeting of the Ancestor Cult Conclave of the Karaz Ankor, hosted in Karaz-a-Karak.
After certain confidential information was vouchsafed to this body by a source of undoubtable repute, a Grudge is hereby leveled against the being, spirit, force, ancestor, demiurge, and/or anthropomorphic personification commonly known as Ranald, believed to originate somewhere in our about the continent called The Old World, for the crime of theft of a disembodied Dwarven soul, which has subsequently been incarnated in the form of an Umgi.
Reparation or vengeance for said Grudge is to be postponed pending the full and proper evaluation of the consequences of those actions, which may be considered to mitigate, in whole or in part, those actions.
Witnessed and entered into the Book of Grudges by the High King.
So, without further ado, omake for the omake throne
Ranald always answers prayers
Being a god was a state of being hard to explain to mortals, and impossible for them to truly fathom, even if they academically understood. Ranald knew that, because unlike most gods, he was once a mortal. And that made him more qualified to talk about it in mortal terms than most, even when knowing mortals could never fully understand.
A god wan not most different from mortal species in their ability to be immortal. Many members of mortal species have managed that, some with more success that gods. Nor were they different simply because they could wield enormous strength. There were some very nondivine frogs over yonder that even he feared to antagonise, and civilizations as wholes could poke the eye of most gods.
A god was different because they were a multitasker like no other. They could be in multiple places at once, think with multiple threads of thought at once and intensely care
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A child prays to Ranald. He prayed for his heist of a man's pouch to succeed, lest he go hungry today.
Ranald always answers prayers
The man would be a litle more drunk today that he would normally be, then. The child could still fail, he dearly hoped that wouldn't be the case, but that is all the power Ranald could spare.
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about a lot of things simulutaneously. More than any mortal creature, a god could give attention equal to what a very concentrated human could give to hundred of thousands of things at once, millions for stronger gods.
But even they had limits, depending on their power. For most gods, those limits were not something they even reached. Most gods held back most of their power, using it for the important stuff, for the big things that affected most people. That may be wise. It may even be a strategy that benefits the average person more that what Ranald did. But Ranald didn't care, because he decided, long ago, that he wouldn't be a god high and mighty on his throne , detached from small things and caring only about the big picture. Because for each and every person, their life was the big picture. That didn't necessarily mean that everything they asked for was meaningful and important, of course, but if a prayer was given it meant Ranald's opinion was asked for, that Ranald was asked to take part in their own personal big picture, and so his opinion and involvement would be given even if it was an opinion that should not be mentioned in polite company.
And so, Ranald hears every prayer . Every prayer directed on him, at least. And he answers every single one. Even if it means that his hundreds of thousands threads of thoughts sometimes overlay and interrupt
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A merchant prays to Ranald to help his negotiations go through, to sell his object at a desirable price. This doesn't matter at all to Ranald, for neither the merchant nor his mark have either the need or the merit. But, regardless...
Ranald always answers prayers
And so, while the merchant is walking in the street, rain happens a little earlier than it normally would. Just so that he would arrive in his mark's house humiliated and dripping. A meaningless prank for a meaningless prayer, that would hopefully teach the merchant to be a little more conscientious about how meaningless some things were.
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one another. Even if it means rarely having enough power to do big things and always being spread thin. He often wondered what he would do if he even had a big influx of power. Probably reward the person who gave it to him, then spend the rest on one grand theatrical gamble few people would ever learn about, he mused with bitter irony. But, if that gamble worked he'd gain enough to then spend in another gamble, and wasn't that the life.
But today, his lack of power and focus stung more than anything else. Because today, he wanted to steal from one of the chaos gods. A little while ago (in god time, at least) Slaanesh had chanced upon a dwarven Karak. In an uncharacteristic show of restraint, they used it to slowly mine Dwarven souls while keeping the Karak as a foothold, rather than gulping said souls down all at once. And so, Ranald decided, he would try to steal the latest shipment of souls from Slaanesh. Today he needed all the power and concentration he could get to sneak past Slaanesh's attention, and nab those souls. and yet...
He would not stop. Hearing every prayer, in part, defined him. So what if he wasn't at full strength? Slaanesh could roll him anyway. This is why he always advocated, to every musclehead god that wouldnt listen, fighting smart and sneaky, not hard, with the weapons the weak can use to help the weak
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A gambling man prayed to Ranald for better dice. A pitiful man, ready to spent everything for the joy of gambling, his logical faculties long rotten away. Most gods would never give this man their time of day, but...
Ranald always answers prayers
A man, a devotee of Ranald sat next to him. Most would thing this man would egg him on to Gamble more, or Deceive him in order to fleece him out of everything, or perhaps use his debts as a lever to make him Prowl in the Night. But today, that man was there to Protect. And so, he started talking to the man, trying to convince him to stop, that this was enough gambling for one day. Ranald hoped that this would be enough.
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and fight the strong.
And so, Ranald disguises himself, or rather, a part of himself that is also the whole that is still just a part, as a greated daemon. Such disguise would corrupt most, but a god was not so easily corrupted as to let a mask affect him, even one affected by chaos.
And so, as a greater daemon he just went and took the souls, as if everything was normal.
Ranald, the god of luck, could not believe his luck, but in retrospect, it was not so strange that his plan went on without a hitch. Most gods had more threads of awareness that a country made of geniuses, and Slaanesh, one of the strongest gods out there, had even more than most gods. But they were not like Ranald, they weren't as focused on maximizing them, on using every little thread to monitor and be focused on everything. Their attention lapsed, because gods spent their time and effort doing things other than monitoring and responding to everything. Because Ranald was the god that cared about everything, while Slaanesh spent most of his attention threads partying.
And so, he went to inspect the loot he stole from the evil
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A soldier prayed to Ranald for survival. The conflict he found himself on was a conflict immaterial to any fight of good or evil, but to him, it was a matter of life and death.
And yet... while that normlly would be enough for Ranald to help, this man was a tyrant to his loved ones. Ranald could never understand why it was so accepted in humans to beat, hurt and control those you love, simply because you were the husband of the family, but this man was particularly vile even considering society's accepted norms. It was not easy, in this world, to be bad enough at home that your wife and kid would be better off without you, and yet, here we were. But Ranald was Ranald.
Ranald always answers prayers
And so, today, he would find his spear structurally weaker than it should be, hopefully failing in some critical moment. If everything went well, that man would not be returning home tonight, and someone worthier would, in his place.
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god. 64 Dwarven souls, all ready to be duly processed to Gazul. Most of them were still distrustful of being saved, even in death, being scarred by Slaanesh's perverse psychological torture.
But one of them, a litle Dawi girl, was too young to know better- oh dear Shallya, was that a tragedy or a mercy- and she approached him.
"Are you a human Ancestor god?" she asked
"Of a sort" Ranald answered. Not a lie, not quite the truth, just like he liked it best.
"Then... humans can learn magic, like the damned elgi once did, can't they?"
"Yes? " answered Ranald, for even as a god he didn't know where this was going
"Then teach me. Teach me how to use magic too, please. "
Ranald was so baffled, he needed to pull multiple threads of consciousness from elsewhere-each of them equal to a human's full attention- to digest that request "why would you want to use magic?"
"My great grandfather tells me stories about how great the Dwarven empire was until the elgi betrayed it." how did that grandpa find the time while being under Slaanesh siege? Ranald pondered, some questions hard even for gods to answer "so I thought to myself, why did the Ancestors , in their wisdom, partnered with something as unreliable as the elgi to be betrayed? After questioning my grandpa about the age before, as was passed in history, I think I figured it out. The Ancestors deemed magic a necessity. And so, it is traditional and proper for a Dawi to seek a way for the Karaz Ankor to do magic, because it is, in the end, the only way for it to return to the glories of old. Karak Vlag wouldn't be in this predicament if the Dawi could use magic."
"But... for a dawi to use magic... even if they do manage it, it does awful things to them" Ranald said, flabergasted. And to thing that he was the one supposed to flabergast others. This kid was going pl... well, no, she was going nowhere but straight to Gazul, she was dead, he thought sadly.
"I do not care. I am willing to suffer anything to use magic. Anything to return Karaz Ankor's old glory"
Well then...
Ranald always answers prayers
