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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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[X] [LIBRARY] The Eonir of Laurelorn: Esoteric Dwarven (150 gc), Beastmen: Extensive Imperial, Extensive and Antiquarian Dwarven (300 gc), Waystones and Henges: Esoteric Imperial (150 gc and 4 CF)
 
Glau said:
So I guess I'm not sure if you are actually disagreeing with my thesis, or just bring pendantic about my supporting evidence?
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Scrutinising evidence is not pedantry. Its discussion...

And I'm also not sure where your thesis was stated prior to this.
I started responded to Nerdasaurus Rex's interesting look for gaps in common deitic archetypes intending to point out that the unique circumstances of dwarven culture meant they wouldn't care about some things.
You responded to that by saying dwarves are missing common features of evolution. And so may have lived above ground before the coming of chaos.
Myself and others doubted that we could trust evolution given the dwarves where a designed species not an evolved one. Which I now realise was the wrong response, as there is no evidence that gods are evolved traits of a species...
Now for your thesis:
Glau said:
My point was that there is no evidence for a cave-dwelling origin for the dwarves that would lead to a different set of original gods, as opposed to the archetypes shared by the humans, elves, halflings, etc. Cython expected them to have agriculture, the wild, and fertility as primaries, and I'm pushing back against the theory that says dwarves were different from the beginning and so have a different set of archetypes.
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There is no real evidence for the origins of dwarves full stop, as far as I'm aware, I'm not super into the lore. If the dwarves have records of the times before the ancestors they aren't exactly common. As far as I'm aware the oldest known dwarven settlement is Karak Zorn which may have been the origin of the later colonisation efforts that the Ancestors lead, which suggests that dwarves have always been an underground species. Additionally didn't Gunnars tell us about how dwarves above ground slowly turn to stone from exposure to the winds without the Rites of Valaya, I think dwarves turning to cave dwelling in their extremely early history as protection against the winds is an extremely likely hypothesis.
I suppose I disagree with your thesis on the basis that there's no real evidence for it, neither you nor I have convincing evidence for who or what the dwarves worshiped prior to the ancestors.

However to contribute something positive to this discussion, my thesis would be: worshiping gods is a choice that reflects your desires and values. The early desires and values of dwarven society where shaped both by the Old Ones, who wanted features that would make the superior warriors against Chaos as well as shaped by their environment which caused them to not care about weather and storms and more about cave ins.
The best explanation I have for early dwarf religion is that they've always been an ancestor worshiping species and whether the Ancestors are dwarves who ascended to being gods like Sigmar did or if they're gods who descended to being dwarves like.... can't think of an example (does Sigmar do that to Karl Franz or something?). So prior to the Ancestors there were no divine beings that they worshipped.
In this way the dwarven archetypes of gods where largely shaped by the pre existing culture of the dwarves in a sort of cycle. As the deeds of the Ancestors where culturally relevant enough for dwarves to follow and worship them, which then engrains them and their other actions further into the culture, making them even more worthy of worship.
 
A reminder that the elves aren't doing this because *we* know stuff about waystones, they are doing this because we are friendly with the dwarves and the dwarves have demonstrated an ability to bring parts of the network back online.

They want us for our friends, not so much because they regard us as knowledgeable.
 
Dark as Silver said:
And I'm also not sure where your thesis was stated prior to this.
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Oh. Then yeah, it makes sense that you aren't responding to what I was trying to say. It was threaded through my large initial post after the threadmark, this portion most specifically:

Glau said:
The million dollar question. And TBH, I think I've talked myself into seeing Hashut as the original head off the dwarven pantheon pre-ancestors. Consider:

The oldest human gods, in the real world, tended to be bull or cow gods. Sometimes with a sun resting between the horns as part of their motif. (Anu and his bull of heaven, the rune Urduz with the extinct European Aurochs, the stars and cattle of the Egyptian prehistoric religions, the sacred cattle that wikipedia tells me were present in Egypt, Greece, Israel, Rome, Germany; and evidence from Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism.)

So we've got a bull god that is explicitly and desperately at the top of a hierarchy as his 'thing', came out of nowhere, and cannot help with the consequences of the winds of magic, and is somehow able to interact with the dwarves in a way different to almost all other warp entities.

This strongly reads as a deposed king seeking to make a come back.

It also makes me wonder if there *is* a dwarven goddess of fertility that was abandoned but it's still floating around out there somewhere.

Also, more horrifyingly, it suggests that a possible explanation of the Shadow-Gave is, from what we've seen at Karak Dum, that it was originally a dwarven god, cast out into the warp by the ancestors. Probably even an originally benevolent one. If it can accept worship/power from dwarves, carries their grudges (against the elves) from after the time it disappeared...

There's a story here about a dwarven goddess of fertility cast into the warp and desperate enough to return to help her children that she took a deal from the chaos gods for a reincarnation where she was horribly twisted, and I don't like it at all.
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Glau said:
A reminder that the elves aren't doing this because *we* know stuff about waystones, they are doing this because we are friendly with the dwarves and the dwarves have demonstrated an ability to bring parts of the network back online.

They want us for our friends, not so much because they regard us as knowledgeable.
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They want us for our friends, but also for our demonstrated ability to understand the magic of others. Waaagh and Peace is a magnificent demonstration of the fact that we aren't limited to what we're taught - if we're able to see something in action we can learn from it.

So we may be able to recover secrets of the waystones that are still in use but no longer understood. For instance if we watch a growing waytree we might spot something that the Eonir no longer know was part of their creation.
 
Glau said:
Oh. Then yeah, it makes sense that you aren't responding to what I was trying to say. It was threaded through my large initial post after the threadmark, this portion most specifically:
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Oh right, yeah that would explain it.

Cool idea and I like it as a concept. I'm not sold its correct but I'm kinda dubious about everything.
My main points here is that dwarven ancestor worship includes non Ancestor ancestors, and my understanding here is that these predated the capital A Ancestors.
So your theory would need to explain the transition from Deism to general ancestor worship, of which only the largest cults happen to worship a actual god.
warhammerfantasy.fandom.com

Ancestor Cults

The Dwarf Ancestor Cults are those cults that venerate the ancestors of each individual clan.[1a] From the Dwarf perspective, the worship of clan ancestors cannot be separated from everyday life. No undertaking can commence without performing the proper rituals to solicit an ancestor's blessing...
warhammerfantasy.fandom.com warhammerfantasy.fandom.com

I don't nessacarily expect you to have evidence of that or even for that evidence to exist, likely the only way this could be cleared up is Boney WoG, new Warhammer lore, or extended Mathilde investigation actions. And even then I think it would likely still remain somewhat mysterious due to the amount of time passed and writers preference to be mysterious. But thats what it would take to move this to my primary head canon.
 
Glau said:
They want us for our friends, not so much because they regard us as knowledgeable.
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Well, there's also our ability to understand other perspectives (greenskins). That was the main trait Cadaeth mentioned:

BoneyM said:
But then Boris passes on the transcript of the lecture on greenskin magic, which some of our mages found intriguing because, of course, we're not capable of lowering ourselves enough to understand their magics. So we had a look into you, and when we realized that someone with an affinity for understanding magics is in Eight Peaks and working with the Dwarves
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(emphasis mine)

So it looks like they mainly want us to study different magical traditions and distil them so that their insights can be shared.

It's seems to be something the elves can't or won't do, which is why they headhunted us in the first place.



Damnit, ninja'd trying to find the quote.
 
There is something very odd going on with the tally:
Adhoc vote count started by picklepikkl on Jul 22, 2021 at 8:37 AM, finished with 210 posts and 17 votes.
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To wit, it is not showing the [COLLEGE] or [PURCHASE] votes, despite the fact that those votes have in fact been cast if you scroll through the thread.

It's probably not a big deal, because I seriously doubt anyone wants to buy anything Collegiate or mundane, but it's concerning on general principle. Anyone have ideas?
 
picklepikkl said:
There is something very odd going on with the tally:
Adhoc vote count started by picklepikkl on Jul 22, 2021 at 8:37 AM, finished with 210 posts and 17 votes.
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To wit, it is not showing the [COLLEGE] or [PURCHASE] votes, despite the fact that those votes have in fact been cast if you scroll through the thread.

It's probably not a big deal, because I seriously doubt anyone wants to buy anything Collegiate or mundane, but it's concerning on general principle. Anyone have ideas?
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They show up if you divide by task.
 
[X] [LIBRARY] The Eonir of Laurelorn: Esoteric Dwarven (150 gc), Beastmen: Extensive Imperial, Extensive and Antiquarian Dwarven (300 gc), Waystones and Henges: Esoteric Imperial (150 gc and 4 CF)
[X] [DWARF] No purchase.
[X] [COLLEGE] No purchase.
[X] [PURCHASE] No purchase.
 
[X] [LIBRARY] The Eonir of Laurelorn: Esoteric Dwarven (150 gc), Geography: Extensive Imperial (100gc), Beastmen: Extensive Imperial, Extensive and Esoteric Dwarven (350 gc)

I don't want to spend personal College Favour on books that the Waystone Project itself could fund shortly down the line.
Jreengus said:
If Panorama is going to try for magister should we buy her a present for if she succeeds? (Or as a consolation if she fails.) I'm not sure what we would be a good gift though.
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A Gyran Nut jam-packed full of magic to research?
 
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Glau said:
A reminder that the elves aren't doing this because *we* know stuff about waystones, they are doing this because we are friendly with the dwarves and the dwarves have demonstrated an ability to bring parts of the network back online.

They want us for our friends, not so much because they regard us as knowledgeable.
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It is worth keeping in mind that the dwarfs did not demonstrate anything. It was an automatic process that would have happened even if the modern dawi thought Waystone was a type of cheese.
 
[X] [LIBRARY] The Eonir of Laurelorn: Esoteric Dwarven (150 gc), Geography: Extensive Imperial (100gc), Beastmen: Extensive Imperial, Extensive and Esoteric Dwarven (350 gc)

[X] [DWARF] No purchase.

[X] [COLLEGE] No purchase.

[X] [PURCHASE] No purchase.
 
Does anyone know where to find Boney's napkin math that broke down the number of total Wizards in the Empire? Can't find it, would appreciate some hints/help.
 
It seems like the issue is that none of the leadership that left Zorn were farmers, they had farmers with them but most of those clans were lost during the time of woe, as they stayed in the relative safety of the holds… and were promptly screwed over when the holds stopped being safe.

the dwarves ancestor worship so hard they don't really consider that this was a mistake by the ancestors, so instead lean into it. And no one wants to start new farming clans because it isn't seen as truly honorable, because of said oversight. (Or perhaps it wasn't an oversight, precisely, but a sign of desperation that they had to focus near entirely on military matters?)
 
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The Phoenixian said:
Considering just how much Dwarves seem to highlight their ancestor gods for changes and new inventions, specifically, If Panoramia does end up being right and manage to improve the dwarven livelihoods by improving their diet... Would that make her a minor ancestor goddess of agriculture? (At least, in Dwarven eyes. Because that seems like a feat worthy of a clan founder.)
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I think you are trying to sneak a HUMAN NONDWARF in to being a DWARF god. I am not sure why you are trying to do that but It is not something that should be done since only prior example of doing something remoteably simliar is Hashut.
 
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