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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BoneyM said:
But she's used to the idea that runes are reliable, long-lasting, and resist any attempt of hers to understand them. The question 'how do they work?' has the answer 'runes' and any further questions just get 'runes' said again but in a sterner tone.
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But, and this I think is the last I'll talk about it, she's also used to the idea that Runes need recharging if the expenditure is large enough.
Pour example:
the Tower
BoneyM said:
10 minutes of recharge a day, a couple hours or so of 'battery' capacity.
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and the Anvil Runes.
BoneyM said:
Anvils don't get recharged, individual Runes do. Depends on the Rune, years to decades for the less powerful ones, a century or more for the most powerful.
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If Mathilde accepts that a Rune powers this whole shebang, would this not plant it firmly on the side where the Tower and Anvil Runes are?

Such a thing, I do not believe is out of the realm of possibility for her to think given what I understand.

Anyhoo, its yer story I won't try and make it harder for you (whether or not I have is up to debate but eh)
 
pucflek said:
The Dawi Zharr cursed the Ancestors because their runes failed and they were abandoned in face of Great Cataclysm.

That is not even remotely the same thing as a dwarf dying because their ancestral friends turned out to be traitors. Gotri is the most radical dwarf we knows and even he is more like "traditional building is good, but only when there is time, traditions don't seem to work out of context" and "traditions just say we should not share stuff with possible enemies, i figure Empire has been allies long enough to warrant benefit of the doubt".
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Gotri did not live through the horror of the War of the Beard. Imagine someone who is even more bitter than Kragg at his worst and radical with it.
 
BoneyM said:
If it was any other species that had enchantments on every single man, woman, and child, Mathilde would very quickly begin to question the energy logistics. But she's used to the idea that runes are reliable, long-lasting, and resist any attempt of hers to understand them. The question 'how do they work?' has the answer 'runes' and any further questions just get 'runes' said again but in a sterner tone.
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But we do know that some runes at least need to be charged by pushing magic into them, from the AV dropper, and her sword basically sucking Ulgu out of her:
BoneyM said:
It's a Greatsword. Well, of course it would be a greatsword, but it's a Greatsword greatsword, only scaled down slightly to match your build and exhibiting the sheen of gromril instead of the glint of steel, and lighter than you expected. Three runes are carved into it, and the only reason they do not blaze with radiance is they have been specifically made not to, and as you take in the amount of power it contains you need to remind yourself it was made by the eldest Runesmith of the Karaz Ankor to keep from carefully putting it down and then fleeing in the opposite direction - and, to your fading horror and rising delight, it's still absorbing more, and you watch traces of Ulgu get pulled from the surface of your skin to feed the power of the blade.
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Along with some of the tower descriptions, I believe.

So that Runes need to be powered by magic is something she knows. So I think she should be able to piece this together.
 
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Seems fairly straightforward to me, until we change jobs our position as loremaster requires keeping our king in the know.
Shirking that duty as some kind of "greater good" for OOC reasons seem incredibly meta for no gain at all.

[x] Yes
 
Abhorsen said:
But we do know that some runes at least need to be charged by pushing magic into them, from the AV dropper, and her sword basically sucking Ulgu out of her:

So that Runes need to be powered by magic is something she knows.
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Sure, but the rune of "not being affected by ambient magic" being powered by sucking up some of said ambient magic is inherently plausible.

It might require it to be more efficient than non-runic magic could be, but that's also perfectly plausible.
 
kingreaper said:
The Eonir believe the energy can be put to use. That's the information that started this. Now if Thorgrim were to state "The throne's rune is a way to dump energy that's inimical to dawi-kind out of the world" that would likely be perfectly acceptable to Belegar (if Thorgrim were convincing enough).

(EDIT: It'd be a lie, so I can't see Thorgrim actually saying it, but there are plenty of honest answers, i.e. "It once powered the great works of the ancestors, and may do so again" or "Your Sword of Grimnir actually wields some of the processed power" that'd also be acceptable.)
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Yeah, if it ever gets to a face-to-face confrontation, it would be trivial for Thorgrim to defuse this situation.

More than Belegar acting irrationally, I am a bit worried about Thorgrim's reaction...

Guliang said:
Seems fairly straightforward to me, until we change jobs our position as loremaster requires keeping our king in the know.
Shirking that duty as some kind of "greater good" for OOC reasons seem incredibly meta for no gain at all.

[x] Yes
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If voting "No" was only sensible for OOC reasons we wouldn't be given the option to vote for it.

And Mathilde does have experience keeping secrets for the greater good, like what "illness" claimed the last Empress-Consort.
 
[X] Yes

Belegar and Thorgrim are not idiots. While they, as much as everyone, could be acting irrationally, Belegar isn't going slayer from one circumstantial evidence alone and absolutely surely no one is starting civil war over this. Very few arguments against telling had convinced me at least a bit, and they (for example, inadvertent revealing of existence of Dwarven waystone network by formal legal process) can be alleviated by Mathilde monitoring the situation. On other side, it's not really significant evidence that could be deduced by Belegar alone, as others have pointed, and in his mental state he is likely to take it as confirmation of his views anyway.

As an aside, I never really understood how "robbing of a magical energy" could ever be a thing. Say magic wouldn't be funneled from Karak Eight Peaks to KaK, what exactly Belegar is going to do with it, sit on it and wait as it curdles into Dhar and destroys his kingdom? Say magic wouldn't be funneled from Empire to Ulthuan as per mentioned Algard's concerns, what exactly Empire and Colleges are going to do with it, on what exactly uses they are going to throw it where all the ambient magical energy, sufficient for Battle Magic and the big Ritual Magic, is insufficient? Even the Elves at Golden Age, one of the two (or three) most advanced magic civilisations ever existed on Mallus after crashing of Polar Gates, literally just threw magic back into Warp not used it in such huge quantities on spells and magitech or whatever. This isn't robbery, this is a draining of a excess pollutant that nobody in the current world can use in such quantities.
 
Thinking of the information about the EdgePrincess thing...

Throwing it to the Winterwolves sounds like a good idea :
- Securing the Area can't be done by Mathilde alone and she would probably ask them anyway, might as well cut out the middle-woman
- They are restless and bored in Ulrikkadrin, it is too calm, too secure
- Embarking in a forever fight against greenskins to keep trade open in the only pass not secured by a dwarfhold sounds like a nice enough purpose for them
- It's mostly plain, they are some of the heaviest cavalry possible...
- If Barak Varr involving itself too obviously could spark trouble, I don't see how a Lady Magister answering directly to the colleges and the Empire would be different
- The Winter Wolves still have a castle/citadel owed to them by K8P, plop it down in the Border Princes rather than Urikkadrin and suddenly the princedom has a fortress and an army, Ulrikkadrin would still be secure by dint of all the dwarves going through it

Can't really see what Mathilde would add to that, beyond poking at maybe-ruins and trolling goblins by chain-assasinating leaders and trying to set-up wars between the tribes.

Also :

[x] Yes

Mathilde has always been well served in trusting Abelheim then Belegar, I will vote to continue that trend.
 
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soulcake said:
But, and this I think is the last I'll talk about it, she's also used to the idea that Runes need recharging if the expenditure is large enough.
Pour example:
the Tower

and the Anvil Runes.

If Mathilde accepts that a Rune powers this whole shebang, would this not plant it firmly on the side where the Tower and Anvil Runes are?

Such a thing, I do not believe is out of the realm of possibility for her to think given what I understand.

Anyhoo, its yer story I won't try and make it harder for you (whether or not I have is up to debate but eh)
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Mathilde has a mental category of 'Anvil Runes' that are a lot easier for her to understand because it's basically a spell given physical form: put Winds in, get magic out. The Tower is a separate thing that's a hybrid so it doesn't 'count'.

Another big problem with figuring out the Rune of Valaya IC is that she has only seen energy flowing one way. There's nothing she can see coming into Karak Eight Peaks, and when she shut off the flow from Karag Dum going south there was no mirroring flow going north. And even if you posit some sort of underground rune-magic flow that she can't detect because runes, that might explain how it connects to each of the Holds, but what about the individual protections? The Imperial Dwarves? Some go to the mountains to give their newborns the proper rites, but there are lineages that haven't seen a Dwarfhold since before the time of Sigmar. By her current understanding, even if the possibility did occur to her she couldn't come up with a way that it makes sense.
 
storryeater said:
Some kings can abdicate and pass the rule to heirs.
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The quote in my last post was pretty specific. Do we have an example of a Dwarf king abdicating? If you're thinking of Karak Hirn, even that isn't an abdication situation:
BoneyM said:
So records were destroyed and forgetfulness was induced, and everyone who knows better stays silent, and in the privacy of their own minds their respect for my father diminishes with every day he does not travel to Karak Kadrin and take the Oath.
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BoneyM said:
I pray the Ancestors give Ulthar strength enough to root it out, and that Alrik manages to rediscover his honour long enough to shave his head and let the Throne pass to Ulthar.
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It's not clear whether this is a "the throne will immediately pass from Alrik to Ulthar if Alrik takes the Slayer Oath situation" or if it's a "hopefully he would die quickly after becoming a Slayer" situation. The former would make sense, but the example of the Slayer Kings shows that the Slayer oath and the oath of Kingship are not mutually contradictory in Dwarf law. It is possible that that's only in the specific case of Karak Kadrin, though, and that for any other Dwarf monarch the throne would pass upon taking the Slayer Oath.
 
[X] No

I don't want to trouble Belegar even more with knowledge he can't do reasonably anything about yet. Investigate further on our own or with the Waystone project if we want to continue the inquiry.
 
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