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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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[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.
[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: I'm going to have to check this out.

Sorry folks, but I have to see how this ends.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
The illusion - or disguise - is just on "Morghur" itself, to trick the other beastmen into following it as a leader (every beastman instinctively reveres Morghur).
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The reason I'm so unconvinced by this theory is that you can illusion someone into looking like someone else, and maybe even illusion facsimiles of their most distinctive effects (like the reality-shivering thing), but I don't think you can illusion an instinctive connection into place. Because it is instinctive. Beastmen just know where Morghur is, and they just know that they're meant to serve him, AFAIK. I don't think you can fake that. So either Morghur isn't fake, or all of the beastmen are also fake.

And I actually find the former (Morghur isn't fake) to be more plausible. Not because it would be easier, it would be much harder. But because there's no real reason to fake a bunch of wildly incongruous Beastmen. It would be very useful to be able to actually control real Beastmen and summon/attract more through the Beast Paths (for a sufficiently desperate Hold, anyway), but I just don't see an upside to faking having a bunch of Beastmen in the Chaos Wastes that would be worth sinking this kind of effort into.
 
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I have no idea what we're about to get into besides being up against a legendary figure who can hard-counter wizards and corrupt everything around him and a mystery I'm not sure we even want to figure out.
Let's do this thing.

Also all these people saying things about the taint of chaos being burnt away are giving incredibly unsupported arguments And I'd vote against them if I could, just because making that claim is going to make us look wrong.
 
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[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] ACTION: Turn back
 
I actually came back from bed because I had a very sad thought.

Valaya's rune, as it is applied down on the Southern holds, doesn't constantly catch fire. That's because the rune that burns up Dhar, as we believe the hold to be using, isn't Valaya's Rune, it's the Rune of Valaya's Vengeance:
BoneyM said:
Rune of Valaya's Vengeance: The third, the largest and most intricate of the three incorporates elements of both the Rune of the Furnace and the Rune that Valaya gave to the dwarves that allowed them to weather the coming of Chaos. It will grant you such resistance to flame that you could wade through lava, and burn off any taint of chaos before it could even touch you.
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That's not the same rune. But to have an effect of this size, it would have to be a truly gargantuan rune, of the size of Valaya's is on every hold. That's not something you can throw together from scratch, under siege.

I think they might have converted Valaya's Rune into the Rune of Valaya's Vengeance, and doomed themselves.

They blew up the entire surrounding mountain range, and whatever force laid siege to it, by making that conversion. But in doing so, they lost the functionality of Valaya's Rune that the Dwarves rely on to survive the Winds down south, never mind in the Chaos Wastes.

They would have known that this would happen. The final "screw you" superweapon in the event of Chaos being about to take the hold would have been known by Borek, and they would have known that that would leave the Waystone defenceless.
BoneyM said:
"Karag Dum remembers much that others have forgotten, even when some might prefer we didn't. Even when we might prefer we didn't."
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They remembered the importance of holding the Waystone, that it was vital to the Karaz Ankor. They could not abandon their duty to defend it, even in the face of their own damnation. And so they found a way to survive even without that Rune, even up here where the winds blow so strongly.

If they could not survive as Dwarves, they would no longer be Dwarves.

People are talking about "purified beastmen", but I think it might be just the opposite: Whether by the Cup, or by profane Runesmithing, or something else, they turned themselves into beastmen and either retained enough sanity to defend the Karak - and thus the Waystone - or set things up so that even in their lesser state, they would recognise it as something to defend, like a herdstone.

They did the best they could, and may their Ancestors forgive them.

...@BoneyM I'm going to be so sad if I'm right.
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
I actually came back from bed because I had a very sad thought.
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While this is sad indeed, it's also a very interesting thought. I don't know how it explains Morghur, or what looks like Morghur, being there. But you should write it up as a Theory vote because I'd vote for that one for sure. It doesn't explain everything, but at least it's internally consistent, draws on known facts, and it's just tragic enough to be eminently plausible.

Edit: or if you need to sleep, with your permission I could try to write it up for you? I mean it's a bit hypocritical of me, but I don't want to encourage somebody else to lose sleep on a quest.
 
Fayhem said:
While this is sad indeed, it's also a very interesting thought. I don't know how it explains Morghur, or what looks like Morghur, being there. But you should write it up as a Theory vote because I'd vote for that one for sure. It doesn't explain everything, but at least it's internally consistent, draws on known facts, and it's just tragic enough to be eminently plausible.

Edit: or if you need to sleep, with your permission I could try to write it up for you? I mean it's a bit hypocritical of me, but I don't want to encourage somebody else to lose sleep on a quest.
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Nah don't worry, I was writing it up already.

[] THEORY: Karag Dum converted their Rune of Valaya into a Rune of Valaya's Vengeance, and used it to burn away all of the surrounding Dhar, causing a cataclysmic explosion and presumably wiping out whatever threat they were facing. But having lost their Rune of Valaya, they no longer had a defence against the Winds of Chaos, and they knew it. They could not simply die, for they had a critical duty to protect their hold, for reasons that are secrets of my Guild and Karak Eight Peaks, and so they decided that if they could not survive to defend it as Dwarves they would no longer be Dwarves. They found a way for dwarves to become beastmen, and know that they must defend their Karak as though it were their herdstone. Pity them.

The key distinction here is that you can't just use your hold's Rune of Valaya as a Rune of Valaya's Vengeance, they're different runes. And though you could maybe convert from one to the other, you'll lose the effects of the first, and dwarves... need that.
 
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Still about 60 pages behind all the discussion, so maybe this already came up, but could one of the things Karag Dum remembers that others have forgotten, even if they'd prefer to have forgotten too, be the old friendship between Elves and Dwarves?

While the rest of the Karaz Ankor was fighting the War of Vengeance, Karag Dum was fighting Chaos - if they never stopped being friends with the Elves (or perhaps just with a specific group of Elves), then they'd have had to hold their tongues at all the vitriol other groups of Dawi spewed whenever the topic of Elves came up for thousands of years lest their continuing association be discovered and they be pressured to give up the vital advantage of OP Runecraft/Wind-magic combo projects. Having to endure... Divided Loyalities... between their fellow Dawi and their own bonds of friendship (and mutual aid) with what were now enemies of Dawi-kind because they didn't forget the depth of their peoples' friendship would have sucked.

If "Morghur" and the other "beastmen" are fakes but fakes made of more than mere illusion, created in a secret team effort with some group of Elves, then Borek might have explained nothing and told us to go back and tell what he told us to tell in order to keep word from getting out and getting those collaborators in trouble with other Elves.

Or, let's take it a step farther. What if it's not just elf friends, but dark elf friends? Malekith was once the biggest Dwarf-friend ever, and what's a few raided irrelevant-to-fighting-Chaos trade ships compared to relevant-to-fighting-Chaos aid from friends? Not their fault that ass occupying the Phoenix Throne kicked off a cycle of overreaction. That they and their friends stayed out of. The follow-up invasion of Ulthuan killed off more than enough Asur who'd killed off more dwarves than were killed in those instigating acts of piracy, so that's more Grudges avenged than caused anyway. The Druchii might just have the skills to help design a last ditch defense that turned Morghur and his fellows into puppets for real - and it's a collaboration that'd risk provoking the Asur into War of the Beard 2.0 if anyone ever found out. And it'd be aimed at Karag Dum this time, so they couldn't stay out of it and focus on fighting Chaos.


Edit: This is all wild speculation and nowhere near worth being presented as an actual theory, I'm just posting in the unlikely event it's true so I can say I called it.
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
I actually came back from bed because I had a very sad thought.

Valaya's rune, as it is applied down on the Southern holds, doesn't constantly catch fire. That's because the rune that burns up Dhar, as we believe the hold to be using, isn't Valaya's Rune, it's the Rune of Valaya's Vengeance:

That's not the same rune. But to have an effect of this size, it would have to be a truly gargantuan rune, of the size of Valaya's is on every hold. That's not something you can throw together from scratch, under siege.

I think they might have converted Valaya's Rune into the Rune of Valaya's Vengeance, and doomed themselves.

They blew up the entire surrounding mountain range, and whatever force laid siege to it, by making that conversion. But in doing so, they lost the functionality of Valaya's Rune that the Dwarves rely on to survive the Winds down south, never mind in the Chaos Wastes.

They would have known that this would happen. The final "screw you" superweapon in the event of Chaos benig about to take the hold would have been known by Borek, and they would have known that that would leave the Waystone defenceless.

They remembered the importance of holding the Waystone, that it was vital to the Karaz Ankor. They could not abandon their duty to defend it, even in the face of their own damnation. And so they found a way to survive even without that Rune, even up here where the winds blow so strongly.

If they could not survive as Dwarves, they would no longer be Dwarves.

People are talking about "purified beastmen", but I think it might be just the opposite: Whether by the Cup, or by profane Runesmithing, or something else, they turned themselves into beastmen and either retained enough sanity to defend the Karak - and thus the Waystone - or set things up so that even in their lesser state, they would recognise it as something to defend, like a herdstone.

They did the best they could, and may their Ancestors forgive them.

... @BoneyM I'm going to be so sad if I'm right.
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Even if this theory is correct, there could still be uncorrupted dwarves in Dum, anyone wearing an item with the rune if valaya would be fine, and dwarf holds can resist sieges long enough to have more made.in which case, ascertaining what happened could prevent Dum from being grudged.
 
Godwinson said:
And thus be punished for that as well. Which fits the reference I was making, too!

@Omegahugger, you are now officially a kenning for one aspect of Loki in my mind.
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The guy who challenged fire to an eating contest and lost because he was too picky an eater? Sure, I don't mind being compared to him.

Even if in terms of actual accomplishments I am more like Loki-as-played-by-Doofenshmirtz.
 
A follow-up thought.

In the Chaos Wastes, time is... screwy. Things can happen before they were caused. People have talked about Karag Dum retroactively creating Morghur. What if they're right? That Morghur we're seeing - maybe it is a heavily mutated dwarf or Runemaster, turned into a beastman by their own desperate design. And maybe it's also Morghur, before he'd congealed or fallen enough to become the terror of Athel Loren, who will one day be sent into the past.

But if that's the case, then Chaos has had the last laugh. Because the whole reason for this tragedy is that the Karaz Ankor wouldn't come to Dum's aid, because they were worried about the elves.

Because of Morghur.

Are we seeing one of Tzeentch's nastiest plots, unravelling before us?
 
[X] THEORY: Karag Dum converted their Rune of Valaya into a Rune of Valaya's Vengeance, and used it to burn away all of the surrounding Dhar, causing a cataclysmic explosion and presumably wiping out whatever threat they were facing. But having lost their Rune of Valaya, they no longer had a defence against the Winds of Chaos, and they knew it. They could not simply die, for they had a critical duty to protect their hold, for reasons that are secrets of my Guild and Karak Eight Peaks, and so they decided that if they could not survive to defend it as Dwarves they would no longer be Dwarves. They found a way for dwarves to become beastmen, and know that they must defend their Karak as though it were their herdstone. Pity them.

[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.

[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: I'm going to have to check this out.
 
wrecksalot said:
Even if this theory is correct, there could still be uncorrupted dwarves in Dum, anyone wearing an item with the rune if valaya would be fine, and dwarf holds can resist sieges long enough to have more made.in which case, ascertaining what happened could prevent Dum from being grudged.
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An interesting thought, and it actually could explain the presence of a fake "Morghur", since perhaps this "Morghur" could be used as an intermediary/interface between the surviving uncorrupted dwarves in the hold and the dwarf-beastmen outside. And the face-stroking of Borek from Morghur could be how friendlies are identified since that's a damn hard ID check to spoof if you aren't already in the know, since even people who are notionally on Morghur's "side" would know that if you let him get that close and touch you like that you are seconds away from turning into a Chaos Spawn. So that way illusion'd Chaos types wouldn't be able to sneak their way in if the Beastmen are automatically hostile to anyone that "Morghur" doesn't approve. And since they in a sense aren't "real" Beastmen, that could maybe explain it being viable to use a fake Morghur who doesn't have the same instinctive connection to actual Beastmen; when they made dwarf-beastmen maybe they could have used that normal connection to Morghur to connect to a "Morghur" they made instead, since they were making both at the same time. Wildly speculative, but I feel like the logic holds together internally at least?

Though, that also means that the beastmen will likely still attack us and anyone from the Expedition on sight, so that's something to remember as well.

Edit: additional possible support for the above. Any surviving uncorrupted dwarves would be dependent on having and if possible crafting more personal runes. Which means they'd very likely be either exclusively or highly disproportionately Runesmiths. And Boney confirmed that the reality-shuddering effect around Morghur could have theoretically been caused by a dwarven Runesmith/lord imposing more reality in contrast to the ambient unreality of the Chaos Wastes.
 
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So hey, effortpost incoming. I'm going to advance a slightly heretical line of thought. Bear with me, here, I'll get where I'm going eventually:


So Morghur as he's known in canon arose 300 years ago. But one of Mathilde's puzzle pieces is that there are stories of beings identical to him stretching back all of recorded history. Now, granted, this could suggest that the Chaos Gods came up with this in pre-history and the being we now know as Morghur has lived from that day to this as a single contiguous (albeit not continuous) being. He's the same in every incarnation, a brainless capering monster with just barely enough mind to hate civilization and all its works, as he always was and always will be. The Bray-Shamans believe that Morghur is the spirit that revives again and again, however many times his body is slain. But why do we assume that's right?

So after checking a bunch of dates (and trying to make sense of Elvish history is not for the faint of heart), Morghur's history seems to go like this:

1) Morghur emerges in the Season of Rebirth and starts corrupting the Forest of Arden by his very presence. After awhile hanging out in Arden, Ariel tracks him down in -1095 of the Imperial calendar. He gets into a fight, loses, fixates on her, and travels south towards Athel Loren to get him some sweet revenge. He is eventually slain by Ariel and the Treelord Coeddil at the Glade of Woe in the Season of Withering after a year-long running battle, year -814 by Imperial reckoning. Morghur dies for good.

An aside here:
Not sure why it takes him 281 years to recover from Ariel's sick burn and go find her. Maybe he died after all, and this is Lives 1 and 2. Maybe that Morghur was part sloth instead of part crab. Don't understand it, and on the face of it seems to weaken the argument I'm going to be making later, but I thought I should note it down anyway.

2) Morghur emerges in Drakwald Forest in -698 Imperial. He eventually decides he wants to go to Silverspire. Orion sets out on the Wild Hunt, and at Silverspire tears Morghur limb from limb and burns the remains to ashes.

An aside here:
Orion senses something behind Morghur as he smites him at Silverspire, and tells Ariel so. She assumes the Chaos Gods are driving Morghur to consume her and Orion's godly essence. But, Morghur only went after Ariel and Athel Loren after she dropped a forest fire on him, and he never went after Orion at all; the Wild Hunt was chasing him. If I were of a Dwarvish mind, I might say that's typical Elvish arrogance at play.

3) Morghur emerges in the Forest of Shadows in the Season of Revelation, 338 Imperial, smack dab in the middle of Ostland. Ariel notices, sends a great Elvish war-host through the world-roots, and drags Morghur aaaaall the way back to the Oak of Ages, where she plans some probably awful ritual to make his power her own. Durthu killed him instead before the ritual could be completed, which is probably for the best for all involved. Morghur dies a third time.
4) Morghur emerges again in Bretonnian lands at the tail end of the Season of Revelation, 970 Imperial. The Wood Elves ally with Gilles de Breton the Uniter, and take him on tag-team style. One distracts him and the other gives him the chair off the top ropes, and Morghur dies again.
5) Morghur emerges again in the Season of Retribution, 2008 Imperial. After only one month out in the world after an actual millennia and change of being gone, Morghur is once again killed by a super-star lineup of Elvish heroes, including Ariel, Orion, Scarloc, Naestra and Arahan.
6) Morghur emerges in the Season of Doom, 2232 Imperial, for the last time. Araloth goes on the hunt and they kick each other around a bit back and forth, and Morghur escapes. He is eventually found again in the Forest of Arden, where he is burned to ash by a gourd of sap from the Oak of Ages. Morghur dies.

Those are the six canon lives and deaths of Morghur. And... look, maybe it's just me, but that timeline reads a lot of 'So there Morghur was, dancing around without a thought in his head, until elves or Grail Knights showed up and tried to murder him dead. Usually, they succeeded.' Morghur isn't an Ork Boss, to send out the call to Waaagh; Beastmen come from miles around to gather around him by some weird herd instinct in what Beasts of Chaos calls a tainted pilgrimage, to test themselves and form warherds. He seems to have as much forward planning as the average Herdstone, and while the tabletop gives him a respectable Leadership of 8, he seems to basically operate by instinct. Beasts of Chaos would have you believe he despises civilization and wants to watch it all burn, but he has a funny way of showing it; rather than, you know, going out and attacking nations, he just chills out in the deep forests, turning the grass red and the trees into twisty treants.

That was all a lot of build-up to ask:
Why do we assume Morghur is one being? One Morghur went after Ariel after she hunted him down and set him on fire, and died. Literally none of the other Morghurs did. The only grudge there is Ariel's. Aside from two Morghurs moving in the direction of the Silverspine, none of them actually ever seemed to have a destination or a plan at all. So what if they aren't the same beast? What if they're some natural expression or function of Nature or Chaos, like Apparitions? Suppose that dark primeval forests just spit out a Morghur sometimes, who acts as his nature demands no more or less than a Wisdom's Asp, and anything else is just bad PR.

Why do we assume the Chaos Gods have some grand plan for their supposed 'favored champion'? Ignoring Orion's nebulous feelings, Morghur usually seems to appear somewhere in the woods at random, and then hang out corrupting the woodlands until he gets attacked and murdered. Even Tzeentch would have to work to pretend that was all part of some grand plan. What if there is no Great Plan? What if Dwarf Morghur here just... emerged in the woods here, and spent a lot of time dancing around, doing his thing. Maybe he isn't blighting everything around because he's actually been alive for more than a year, this time, and learned some goddamn tact.
 
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I have my theory.

[X] THEORY: These fools, these incalculable madmen. They may have found a way to tear the Beastmen from Chaos.

Action .. pending.
 
Hmm... I don't think this quite works.

For starters, the Protection of Valaya isn't only something on the Karak-Runes; the protection against the Winds of Magic is "ingrained" into every Dwarf.

They are ritually given it some time after birth, and they keep it.

So the Karak-Runes... I'm not sure.

Hm.

On the other hand, it would be a real "What the fuck?" if it was true. And if what happened to Karag Dum, was that they turned to Beastmen... albeit Beastmen purified and protected from Chaos. o_O
 
Deathbybunnies said:
A follow-up thought.

In the Chaos Wastes, time is... screwy. Things can happen before they were caused. People have talked about Karag Dum retroactively creating Morghur. What if they're right? That Morghur we're seeing - maybe it is a heavily mutated dwarf or Runemaster, turned into a beastman by their own desperate design. And maybe it's also Morghur, before he'd congealed or fallen enough to become the terror of Athel Loren, who will one day be sent into the past.

But if that's the case, then Chaos has had the last laugh. Because the whole reason for this tragedy is that the Karaz Ankor wouldn't come to Dum's aid, because they were worried about the elves.

Because of Morghur.

Are we seeing one of Tzeentch's nastiest plots, unravelling before us?
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There is possibly a ray of hope here, if this is the case, by the way. If this is Morghur's past, before it became the unstoppable hyper-mutated beastman demigod, maybe we can do something about that before it happens? We probably can't rewrite history for Morghur to have never existed, but maybe we can paradox him out of ever coming back again?
 
I understand how dangerous the situation could be, but it is just so baffling that I feel like we just can't head back to the Karaz Ankor with only what we know. We have to get at least a bit more of an understanding before we go back.

Sorry about the crazy grab bag of theories and actions, there's a lot of possibilities that I think are reasonable winners

[x] THEORY: Karag Dum converted their Rune of Valaya into a Rune of Valaya's Vengeance, and used it to burn away all of the surrounding Dhar, causing a cataclysmic explosion and presumably wiping out whatever threat they were facing. But having lost their Rune of Valaya, they no longer had a defence against the Winds of Chaos, and they knew it. They could not simply die, for they had a critical duty to protect their hold, for reasons that are secrets of my Guild and Karak Eight Peaks, and so they decided that if they could not survive to defend it as Dwarves they would no longer be Dwarves. They found a way for dwarves to become beastmen, and know that they must defend their Karak as though it were their herdstone. Pity them.
[x] THEORY: Dwarf that do not get Gazul sacrament reincarnate. The Runesmiths of Karak Dum messed with one of those soul(s) to possess the Shadowgave who is the first Dwarfhost.
[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.
[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] THEORY: The dwarves of Karag Dum are alive and uncorrupted by Chaos, but have resorted to truly drastic measures to survive, probably undertaken by their controversial "Rune Masters", which involves having these beastmen or beastmen-appearing creatures defending the karak for the dwarves. We can assume that this is all in favour of the dwarves by Morghur's easy acceptance and non-destruction of Borek as well as Borek's mutual acceptance of the beastman. The idea of Rune Masters being critically involved is the certainty that some form of magic was used to create this whole situation, including the odd weather, and the Rune Masters' lack of corruption is supported by the lesser level of ambient dark magic in the area, even directly around Morghur himself.
[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] wait nearby and observe. It shouldn't be nearly as dangerous as it seems, and that allows us to gather additional clues.
[x] ACTION: Expedition: Digs in; Mathilde: Investigates
[x] ACTION: Enlist Journeyman Cyrston's help in identifying flora.
[x] THEORY: Physical signs point to Morghur having been holding the area against nomad raiders for a very long time, and history implies that he's not been seen in the old world since approximately when Karag Dum would have come under attack during the Great War against Chaos. He's been here this whole time.
[x] THEORY: Whatever the hell is happening, Borek seemed to still care for what Karaz Ankor thought of him and that what we are seeing is the result of his home trying their best to fufill their duties in ways the rest of dwarves probably wouldn't approve. The Corrupter seemed to recognise Borek as almost kin and hasn't made a move against us. I think some very careful investigation is warranted.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
A follow-up thought.

In the Chaos Wastes, time is... screwy. Things can happen before they were caused. People have talked about Karag Dum retroactively creating Morghur. What if they're right? That Morghur we're seeing - maybe it is a heavily mutated dwarf or Runemaster, turned into a beastman by their own desperate design. And maybe it's also Morghur, before he'd congealed or fallen enough to become the terror of Athel Loren, who will one day be sent into the past.

But if that's the case, then Chaos has had the last laugh. Because the whole reason for this tragedy is that the Karaz Ankor wouldn't come to Dum's aid, because they were worried about the elves.

Because of Morghur.

Are we seeing one of Tzeentch's nastiest plots, unravelling before us?
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Dum can mean darkness in dwarves, and shadows are made of darkness. Morghur's title is Shadowgave. This is spooky.
 
Garlak said:
Hmm... I don't think this quite works.

For starters, the Protection of Valaya isn't only something on the Karak-Runes; the protection against the Winds of Magic is "ingrained" into every Dwarf.

They are ritually given it some time after birth, and they keep it.

So the Karak-Runes... I'm not sure.

Hm.

On the other hand, it would be a real "What the fuck?" if it was true. And if what happened to Karag Dum, was that they turned to Beastmen... albeit Beastmen purified and protected from Chaos. o_O
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The Karaz Ankor was going to die when Valaya's Runes were no longer powered, in this very quest. The Dwarves cannot survive Storms of Magic or the Chaos Wastes for extended periods without them.

EDIT: There's also the fact that Valaya's Rune and the Rune of Valaya's Vengeance just aren't the same rune, fundamentally. I could buy converting one to the other by adding the Rune of Furnace parts maybe, but not keeping the old functionality too.
 
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Garlak said:
For starters, the Protection of Valaya isn't only something on the Karak-Runes; the protection against the Winds of Magic is "ingrained" into every Dwarf.

They are ritually given it some time after birth, and they keep it.
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Yes, but notably it's not strong enough to protect against a Storm of Magic/Chaos on its own. That's why Thorgrim was so freaked about the power running down; once it ran out, the Dawi would be exactly one Storm of Chaos away from extinction.

Karag Dum lost contact during the Great War Against Chaos, when Chaos surged so powerfully that the Chaos Wastes shifted south until they completely enveloped Karag Dum whereas before Karag Dum was on the outskirts of the Wastes. That sure sounds like Storm of Chaos conditions to me. And this would presumably have been when they got desperate enough to activate their ultimate failsafe contingency.

edit: Mathilde'd
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
I don't think Ariel ever leaves Athel Loren? She's the leader of the polity, and has religious duties with Orion etc. She couldn't come up to Dum. It seems unlikely that Ariel could mess with Dwarven waystones, but she would at the bare minimum have to be there in person, right?
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She was present at Morghur's fifth death, on the grounds that she 'didn't fear him any longer.'

If there was some hypothetical seventh death in quest canon after Araloth got him in 2232, it's unlikely but not impossible that Ariel showed up to stake him personally.
Jyn Ryvia said:
going to be honest, was a bit worried where you were going with that until you got to the beard...
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Ericwinter said:
...Where did you think it was going?
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Redshirt Army said:
Grimnir's other axe, for the ladies. :V
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Clenched in his buttcheeks. It's nature's pocket, you know.
 
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