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I liked your earlier theory enough I fiddled with it to explain something it didn't before, but this doesn't track to me. Morghur isn't actually a daemon, he's just got mondo warp powers and is technically immortal because he just reincarnates into some poor schmuck's body through the Warp if he gets killed. So, yk, there's thematic overlap but nevertheless he's still a distinct entity. And if it was that easy to change how something thought/viewed you when binding it a lot fewer daemon-summoners would get eaten by what they summon.
We don't know what exactly Morghur is. But his existence and presence is described in a way that makes it look almost like a spiritual force being incarnated upon the world and setting out to wreak havoc.

Furthermore, that "'just' reincarnates into some poor schmuck" and "has mondo chaos powers" is a very suspicious thing for a being to be doing or be described as. It's... I don't... hrm. Remember when BoneyM quoted people talking about Damsels and using multiple Winds of magic and said "In that case, put a lot of asterisks and question marks by the word 'human''? That, basically. Reincarnating like that? And having magical superpowers like that? That shit ain't normal.

Morghur's existence is partially spiritual in some way. Maybe he's like a Treeman, maybe he's like a Daemonhost, maybe he's like an Everchosen, maybe he's like a Daemon, maybe he's like a fucking ghost or solidified walking dhar or whatever the hell.

Regardless, I do think it's possible to bind him. If he's not a daemon, then he should be bindable the way Giants and Dragons are bindable with Kadon's skills.

If he is a Daemon, he should be bindable the way Dawi Zharr do daemon-binding. Or the way you get Daemonweapons.

Or he should be bindable as something in-between.


And then, throw in the Runes of Valaya to purify all the Dhar he wafts out, and you've got an explanation for why this place is not a writhing chunk of hell-space despite being host to Cor-Dum. And also why it's desertified, too. Things get transmuted by his aura, Dhar gets released, and then the Runemasters' art and workings burn away the Dhar.
 
Not sure if this is the first time this has happened, but the tags of this quest have actually kicked out Worm on the trending tag cloud on the front page. But in all my time on SV I've never seen Worm disappear from the trending list.
Technically speaking, given the large size of "Mountain Vietnam" over other tags such as "hubris is a cowards word", I'm pretty sure at least part of that is from DoDA, which also updated today.
 
[X] THEORY: The specifics are hazy, but this is a known contingency plan that Borek is entirely aware of, but hoped hadn't been enacted. The result breaks all Dawi notions of acceptability, but Karak Dum survives in some capacity and continues to inflict attrition on every local and visiting Chaos force that want to take a swing at them, so it is considered a lesser evil by the pragmatic Karak Dum.
[X] ACTION: Turn back
 
[x] THEORY: The specifics are hazy, but this is a known contingency plan that Borek is entirely aware of, but hoped hadn't been enacted. The result breaks all Dawi notions of acceptability, but Karak Dum survives in some capacity and continues to inflict attrition on every local and visiting Chaos force that want to take a swing at them, so it is considered a lesser evil by the pragmatic Karak Dum.

[X] THEORY: The Dwarves of Karag Dum did something to burn away the taint of Chaos, much as your Belt of the Unshackled Mountain does, but on a far grander scale. Perhaps it had an effect on the Beastmen here, Cor-Dum included.

My only issue with this is the grammar nitpick (that can't easily be resolved due to tally messiness) - Karag Dum still has a noticeably lower amount of Dhar and higher amount of heat (despite Dhar raining from the skies and being in the open air for convection to take place), which means it wasn't a one time action but something that's still ongoing.

[X] ACTION: Gain more information.
[x] ACTION: Politely ask Morghur to be granted entrance into Karak Dum.
 
Went and grabbed a bunch of actions that look alright. No big preference or ability to follow the discussion. Only thing I don't want is to just leave.

It would be irritatingly anticlimactic to just turn around so we can just shrug and tell the rest of the Karaz Ankor, "Yep, you were right, Dum was corrupt. Couldn't be bothered to investigate further. Nothing to be done for it. Shame, that."

[x] ACTION: I'm going to have to check this out.
[x] ACTION: We need to verify if the situation here is stable, or if it's something that will come back to haunt the Karaz Ankor and Empire if left ignored.
[x] ACTION: Politely ask Morghur to be granted entrance into Karak Dum.
[x] ACTION: Persuade the Expedition to stay put for a day while you sneak to the gates of the Karak and try to have a chat about it.
[x] [Action] Scout the other fronts, ask other expedition members for what they might have happened, check with the other wizards what their expertise tell them about the magical and natural environments.
[x] ACTION: Attempt closer examination of Morghur, the beastmen, and the forest.
[x] ACTION: Investigate further.
[x] ACTION: Gain more information.
[x] ACTION: Expedition: Digs in; Mathilde: Investigates
[x] ACTION: Infiltrate Karag Dum to gather information.

Only other thing I want to comment on is the name Cor-Dum, because I saw Boney say something about it. I want to fixate on something that makes some amount of sense. So I have two theories.

One, it's Kor. Just misspelled. Like Ankor Byrn, the Glittering Realm, which should logically be Ankor Bryn ("Realm Glittering") but isn't, possibly for Dawi historical reasons, or for The Writer Was Not Paying Attention reasons.

Ankor is a 'Domain or Realm', but that could be broken down into An-Kor. 'An' meaning something like 'Will/Purposefully/Am going to', while Kor seems to have no modern definition. But it could have in the past, if the precursor to Khazalid had Kor as the word for a realm, and they devised the word An-Kor to mean a realm that was intended to last forever, as long as there were Dawi available to make sure it was intact. 'Realm will continue with intent.' As time went on, it displaced the old word for temporary realms that may or may not have been founded with the intent to last forever. Maybe the Ancestor Gods spelled it that way intentionally as a way to signal hope for the Dawi that they could continue to live in a hostile world, so long as they maintained the lifestyle methods that had been developed for them.

Anyway... Kor-Dum would be 'Realm-Doom', with all that implies. It's an excellent and fitting name, if you're evil and crazy.

Two, it's just one of those things that are immediately recognizable from a trivial amount of information. Like Kroak, or Malekith, or Nagash, or the various Gods when they're not intentionally being deceptive, or stone is an excellent insulator of magic. Some identity or ego or piece of information is heavy enough to leave an imprint in the Aethyr, and anyone seeing a bit of it can accurately figure out the rest. Natural consequence of stacking some unnecessary psychic dimension on top of the more predictable one.

This particular example just includes some anomalous memetic spelling. Like how everyone somehow can identify the word Waaagh correctly and use it in conversation, even though it would make more sense for their individual languages to use variations like Wah or Waw or Wuhh or Wog or War.

But I'm not turning those into votable [ ] Theories because I don't think the expedition will be nearly as enthused by linguistic possibilities as Mathilde 'Rakilid un Thaggorhun' Weber.
 
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I mean, it's not MORE implausible than the other crazy theories we've got. But it doesn't have that ring of "huh, this actually makes a lot of sense" that your other theory did. Because I could, and did, come up with an explanation for why Cor-Dum would have reacted like that to Borek and why Borek would have reacted like that to Cor-Dum. But with the "binding" explanation? Kadon's Scrolls of Binding can bind damn well near anything, yes, though tbh I'd still call binding a demigod iffy. But what the scrolls can't do is make the thing they're binding like it. So I see no way to reconcile the binding theory with the Borek Factor in the situation.
 
Fronkly I'm surprised a certain crow father hasn't come raging in.
This ain't really his stomping grounds.

I mean, this isn't Morghur's either*, but at least he's got the whole "die then spawn again elsewhere" thing going on. Malagor would have to get up here on his own.


*Honestly, I would not be surprised at all if Morghur actually hangs out in the Chaos Wastes when he's between spawnings- my personal theory for what's going on is that Morghur happened across Karag Dum some time after Araloth burned him to a crisp with OoA sap, and the Runemasters managed to capture him because they figured he'd just respawn if they killed him. Then one of them had the idea of using him, and the debate over that was ongoing when Borek left to seek aid
 
I have belatedly realized that the people voting [] THEORY: Omegahugger are not meme-voting "Omegahugger did it", they're voting for the theory Omegahugger proposed.

I'm not sure what it says that I thought [] THEORY: Omegahugger was a realistic thing for people to vote for.:rofl:
 
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One, it's Kor. Just misspelled. Like Ankor Byrn, the Glittering Realm, which should logically be Ankor Bryn ("Realm Glittering") but isn't, possibly for Dawi historical reasons, or for The Writer Was Not Paying Attention reasons.

I'm 99% sure it should just be Bryn but someone typoed it to Byrn at some point and it made it onto all the wikis and you can't fix it without it getting reverted, so it's become completely self-sustaining.
 
I mean, it's not MORE implausible than the other crazy theories we've got. But it doesn't have that ring of "huh, this actually makes a lot of sense" that your other theory did. Because I could, and did, come up with an explanation for why Cor-Dum would have reacted like that to Borek and why Borek would have reacted like that to Cor-Dum. But with the "binding" explanation? Kadon's Scrolls of Binding can bind damn well near anything, yes, though tbh I'd still call binding a demigod iffy. But what the scrolls can't do is make the thing they're binding like it. So I see no way to reconcile the binding theory with the Borek Factor in the situation.
The FOF (friend or foe) thing doesn't explain that enough? That is, Dwarfs are viewed the same as Beastmen in his eyes, due to wrangling and headgames. So he thinks he's reaching out to pet a fellow Beastman or something.


But, you might be right. You might be right that that's not enough to get Morghur to act like that, affectionately or friendly.

Whereas if Morghur is purified or purged somehow, then yes, it does make sense for him to act more sanely and less hostilely.

Hm.

Yeah, I guess it does make some sense.

It would help if we knew how Morghur normally acted -- not just in terms of "would he do X thing like headpat?" but also "does he scream and blabber like a madman and act crazy" -- because mere bindings might get him to not harm the right people but they won't get him to behave civilly or sanely.
 
I have belatedly realized that the people voting [] THEORY: Omegahugger are not meme-voting "Omegahugger did it", they're voting for the theory Omegahugger proposed.

I'm not sure what it says that I though [] THEORY: Omegahugger was a realistic thing for people to vote for.:rofl:

What is Omegahugger's theory anyway? I missed the discussion.
 
But, you might be right. You might be right that that's not enough to get Morghur to act like that, affectionately or friendly.
I gotta ask again. What makes us think that Morghur can't be naturally affectionate to the Beastmen (and other assorted gribblies like "what the fuck is wrong with you" type Dawi) that he personally likes? Only Khorne seems diametrically opposed to affectionate love, because he's the kind of guy who worries about being called gay for not punching everything that moves.
 
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The FOF (friend or foe) thing doesn't explain that enough? That is, Dwarfs are viewed the same as Beastmen in his eyes, due to wrangling and headgames. So he thinks he's reaching out to pet a fellow Beastman or something.
Most Beastmen who directly approach Morghur get mutated into goo and/or Chaos Spawn. He's not big on hugs.
 
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