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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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ScottishMongol said:
Maybe also a reference to the plot of Journey to the West, where Sun Wukong goes on a mission to India so he can help bring Buddhism back to China.
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Possibly, but I think this Sun Wukong has yet to be sealed for 500 years under rocks by Buddha (metaphorically, since I doubt Buddha exists here), so I'm not sure how much Journey to the West (I mean the actual Journey, not the book itself) they're implementing.
 
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Codex said:
By the way, I'm looking up the lore behind the myths of the Monkey King and it's so over the top and amazingly ridiculous. He swings around a staff that weighs 8000 Kg, and defeated the " Army of Heaven's 100,000 celestial warriors, all 28 constellations, Nezha, and all of the Four Heavenly Kings." while drunk. I suppose it makes sense how he's able to stand up to the Dragons of Cathay.
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Though Journey to the West is a solid narrative at face value, it's all very allegorical, and one of the facets of Monkey King is that he represents the human mind. That's why he's both powerful and easily distracted, and causes chaos when allowed to roam freely but carries the entire narrative when he's properly leashed. So I'm really interested to see how they'll handle him in Total Warhammer.
 
Boney said:
Though Journey to the West is a solid narrative at face value, it's all very allegorical, and one of the facets of Monkey King is that he represents the human mind. That's why he's both powerful and easily distracted, and causes chaos when allowed to roam freely but carries the entire narrative when he's properly leashed. So I'm really interested to see how they'll handle him in Total Warhammer.
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I've never read Journey to the West. Is there a particular translation that's considered pretty good? I'm interested in reading it for the first time.
 
By the way, I feel bad for butchering the chinese names in my Cathay lore post due to my lack of familiarity and having to guess from sound through Zoom, so I'm very glad for ReinaBlaka from the Total War Subreddit for these names so people aren't led astray. These are guesses for what the names look like/mean, since the localised versions aren't out yet:

Moon Empress = Kui Yin 魁阴

  • kuí 魁: "foremost, primary; the Chinese star god of literary inspiration"
  • yīn 阴: "darkness; moon"
  • Translation: "Prime Yin/Darkness/Moon"
Celestial Dragon Emperor = Zhen Yang 真阳

  • zhēn 真: "true"
  • yáng 阳: "brightness; sun"
  • Translation: "True Yang/Brightness/Sun"
Sea Dragon = Ying Yin 瀛音

  • yíng 瀛: "sea, ocean"
  • yīn 音: "sound"
  • Translation: "Sound of the Sea"
Fire Dragon = Li Dao 雳道

  • lì 雳: "crashing thunder"
  • dào 道: "way, path"
  • Translation: "Thunderous Path"
 
Codex said:
I've never read Journey to the West. Is there a particular translation that's considered pretty good? I'm interested in reading it for the first time.
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I've never read it, but the YouTube channel « Overly Sarcastic Production » has done several videos resuming parts of the book, and they used the one by Anthony C. Yu.
 
Codex said:
I've never read Journey to the West. Is there a particular translation that's considered pretty good? I'm interested in reading it for the first time.
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I can't in good conscience recommend any unabridged translation, they weigh in at something like triple the lengths of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy and I've never managed to finish any myself. Arthur Waley's abridged translation is a good read and is fairly well respected. Another good entry point is this series on it by youtube channel Overly Sarcastic Productions.
 
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On another topic, I've realised something but I've been waiting to see if it's an established pattern or just coincidence. Total War Warhammer 3 is headlined by women to represent Kislev (Kattarin) and Cathay (Miao Ying), and I was wondering if it was a marketing ploy. But I'm seeing that both Kislev and Cathay have female soldiers, as well as female units (Gunners for Cathay and Ice Guard for Kislev). The Moon Empress seems to have just as much of a presence as the Dragon Emperor even if she's not as obvious about it, and the Dragon children are pretty neatly divided into 2 male/2 female (well, there's the Jade Dragon but I think it'd be funny if he was just an annoying NPC telling you to do your paperwork).

I'm not sure if this is GW/CA attempting to move in a new direction in being inclusive to women in newer Warhammer content, but I'm hopeful. The less said about the treatment of women in older Warhammer material the better.
 
Codex said:
On another topic, I've realised something but I've been waiting to see if it's an established pattern or just coincidence. Total War Warhammer 3 is headlined by women to represent Kislev (Kattarin) and Cathay (Miao Ying), and I was wondering if it was a marketing ploy. But I'm seeing that both Kislev and Cathay have female soldiers, as well as female units (Gunners for Cathay and Ice Guard for Kislev). The Moon Empress seems to have just as much of a presence as the Dragon Emperor even if she's not as obvious about it, and the Dragon children are pretty neatly divided into 2 male/2 female (well, there's the Jade Dragon but I think it'd be funny if he was just an annoying NPC telling you to do your paperwork).

I'm not sure if this is GW/CA attempting to move in a new direction in being inclusive to women in newer Warhammer content, but I'm hopeful. The less said about the treatment of women in older Warhammer material the better.
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Their first complete OC was Cylostra Direfin, and the other female characters tend to be wearing more clothes than their old tabletop and art depictions, which are good signs. But the real test for them is going to be the Slaanesh faction.
 
Boney said:
Their first complete OC was Cylostra Direfin, and the other female characters tend to be wearing more clothes than their old tabletop and art depictions, which are good signs. But the real test for them is going to be the Slaanesh faction.
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Oh! I just wanted to say, I actually love Cylostra's design. Truly amazing to see a plus sized women in a fantasy game. Even her character concept is cool as hell. They did a really good job with her.

I'm not looking forward to Slaanesh, but I mean, the game is rated T so the more ridiculous stuff from the tabletop likely won't translate. Crossing my fingers and praying to Ranald.
 
I do not think we are going to get away without some amount of the old GW when it comes to Slaanesh, the temptation to get some easy clicks will be too great for them IMO, the question is how much they linger on it.
 
Sorry for my bad editing skills, but I saw this meme on the Total War subreddit and I just couldn't not do this:
Here is the transparent PNG of the meme:
The Dragon Mathilde was commisioned by @MiracleGrow, the art drawn by Grey, and the art of the Averlanders was done by Doppelsoldner_Art.
 
Ok, at risk of becoming Omegahugger: The Windherding Version one more post summarisng my thoughts on Windherding and thus Hugo.
Glau said:
The limitation fort me is that we need to spend an AP every other turn per WEBMAT member. So adding another person is the same level of drain as our entire library, or entire EIC. I'd strongly prefer the increased personal flexibility at least until we are ready to start making things.

The tradeoff I see for it is AV and branarlhune, since both of those are personal actions that we cannot add a WEBMAT person to.
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I see the mandatory AP as an upside (side note it wouldn't actually cost us any additional AP as long as we cycle between the WEBMAT members we spend AP on each turn). The issue with windherding isn't that people aren't in favour of it in theory. The issue is that no-one is actually willing to spend AP on it for it's own sake. Personally I couldn't care less if the first few items we make ares weapons that can slay the chaos gods and close the polar rifts, useless doohickeys that Mathilde keeps on a shelf in her trophy room or writhing masses of dharr Mathilde has to destroy. The point is just to give Boney an excuse to actually write Mathilde using it and discovering the capabilities and limits of it as a discipline thus informing us and letting us plan out what we can do with it.

But the impression I get from the thread is that most people just want to skip to the end and produce a powerful item from the get go. Hence the game of 50 questions with Boney where the thread tries to grind him down and feel out the edges of what is possible without actually spending the action to find out. Then proposed items never get any traction because the actions are always judged on whether the item they make is useful right now not as steps to allow us to actually produce the useful items.
 
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Jreengus said:
Ok, at risk of becoming Omegahugger: The Windherding Version one more post summarisng my thoughts on Windherding and thus Hugo.

I see the mandatory AP as an upside (side note it wouldn't actually cost us any additional AP as long as we cycle between the WEBMAT members we spend AP on each turn). The issue with windherding isn't that people aren't in favour of it in theory. The issue is that no-one is actually willing to spend AP on it for it's own sake. Personally I couldn't care less if the first few items we make ares weapons that can slay the chaos gods and close the polar rifts, useless doohickeys that Mathilde keeps on a shelf in her trophy room or writhing masses of dharr Mathilde has to destroy. The point is just to give Boney an excuse to actually write Mathilde using it and discovering the capabilities and limits of it as a discipline thus informing us and letting us plan out what we can do with it.

But the impression I get from the thread is that most people just want to skip to the end and produce a powerful item from the get go. Hence the game of 50 questions with Boney where the thread tries to grind him down and feel out the edges of what is possible without actually spending the action to find out. Then it never getting any traction because the actions are always judged on whether the item they make is useful right now not as steps to allow us to actually produce the useful items.
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The issue with windherding is that we mostly do not need more stuff. Being more skilled in windherding would be nice, more magic items for our magic item closet is not really that useful. Being forced to take actions to fill said closet does not sound that fun to me. Also it's not like we don't have an enchanter on board already and that is Horstman. I do not think we need another one who had do nothing but enchanting.
 
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Jreengus said:
But the impression I get from the thread is that most people just want to skip to the end and produce a powerful item from the get go. Hence the game of 50 questions with Boney where the thread tries to grind him down and feel out the edges of what is possible without actually spending the action to find out. Then proposed items never get any traction because the actions are always judged on whether the item they make is useful right now not as steps to allow us to actually produce the useful items.
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My opposition comes from the fact that I'm not interested in sacrificing a lot of AP for something we know nothing about, and also because I think that the others proposals are often more interesting. I don't think we need it. Tbh, I don't really care about windherding, but that's just me.
 
A huge ulterior motive for why I don't want Hugo is because I want Panoramia. Having Hugo will reduce the chance of bringing Panoramia, and IMO he's less useful than Panoramia, because of this:
Boney said:
"I know that wiser and more experienced Wizards have taken their best swing at the topic, but all of them were working within the Colleges. The Dwarves and the Elves each have their own pieces of the puzzle, and I don't think anyone in the Colleges have ever been in a better position to bring both together."

"Mmm," she hums in agreement. "There's..." she hesitates. "Well, I..."

"Jade secrets?" you guess, to a silence that speaks volumes. "And if there were, you wouldn't be able to confirm or deny their existence?"

"And I wouldn't be able to confirm or deny if I was able to confirm or deny," she says with a forced laugh.
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Panoramia's been drawing on the largest Waystone Network in the Old World (that is available for humans) for years now. She definitely knows stuff she's not allowed to say and is far more experienced with Waystones than Mathilde is. She's just not allowed to say anything because the Jade Order keeps that stuff secret.

If we convince the Jade Order to reveal their secrets, I want Panoramia to join. Not only is she experienced with Waystones, she has a skillset that might be quite useful in the magical forest we live in. I'm also more interested in enchanting with the Jade Wind than with the Bright Wind, so I would prefer to teach her Enchanting if we could. She could then help with other avenues like the Seed and we could look into distilling AV into a potion since she is the only Potion maker we know and can trust.
 
I don't want another WEB-MAT member at all, really. 3 is enough to qualify for the bonus, and we have to juggle our AP to use them to justify keeping them. Also we've met Hugo like, once, he's doing a great deal of good where he is right now, and we don't need anything enchanted right now.
 
"Although they can be found across the mortal realms, the greatest concentration of Henges in the Old World can be found in the foothills of Karak Eight Peaks, within Athal Loren and the Laurelorn Forest, and all across the misty isle of Albion—where the word "Ogham" is said to originate." Realms of Sorcery Pg. 41

Panoramia's almost certainly the only Jade Wizard who's ever harnessed the energies of the Karak Eight Peaks waystones, probably the only one who's ever harnessed a Karak Waystone since most Dwarfs did not like Wizards before the K8P Saga. She has a ton of practical experience that literally none of WEB-MAT has, because all of us are Waystone amateurs that are pretending to know something.
 
K von Carstein said:
My opposition comes from the fact that I'm not interested in sacrificing a lot of AP for something we know nothing about, and also because I think that the others proposals are often more interesting. I don't think we need it. Tbh, I don't really care about windherding, but that's just me.
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We literally can't figure out much more about Windherding without well actually doing it in practice. It would be pretty useful to see what Math actually thinks about it IC, and a lot of the time experimenting is really the only way forward from a deadend. Unless anyone has any ideas what we could go looking for that'll be applicable to Windhering, barring the obvious Waystones? If we are doing it for enchanting, then we could just do it... as a gift to people that we like, or hell even something that'll serve as a proof of concept for the College. We don't have to make everything we do a direct benefit for us and only us, given that it is technically possible in the event Math dies then the next PC might be able to pick up one of her old enchanted items.

(note I'm more talking about the stance as a whole on it being unworthwhile, rather than on the individual level)

And even if it is an AP sink, isn't that what every unexplored action is to some extent? As they'll always be actions that'll take some time to build up benefit, and a reputation for making such enchantments might do us good in the long run. Given unless Math dies unexpectedly then we can likely assume she'll make it to her 80's and above. Like for example, the person/people that made a ton of rings infused with the fireball spell to ensure their journeyman's protection helped aid a lot of their future colleagues by doing so. Which may have allowed them to cultivate a greater relationship within their Order.
 
The Void said:
We literally can't figure out much more about Windherding without well actually doing it in practice. It would be pretty useful to see what Math actually thinks about it IC, and a lot of the time experimenting is really the only way forward. Unless anyone has any ideas what we could go looking for that'll be applicable to Windhering, barring the obvious Waystones? If we are doing it for enchanting, then we could just do it... as a gift to people that we like, or hell even something that'll serve as a proof of concept for the College. We don't have to make everything we do a direct benefit for us and only us, given that it is technically possible in the event Math dies then the next PC might be able to pick up one of her old enchanted items.

(note I'm more talking about the stance as a whole on it being unworthwhile, rather than on the individual level)

And even if it is an AP sink, isn't that what every unexplored action is to some extent? As they'll always be actions that'll take some time to build up benefit, and a reputation for making such enchantments might do us good in the long run. Given unless Math dies unexpectedly then we can likely assume she'll make it to her 80's and above. Like for example, the person/people that made a ton of rings infused with the fireball spell to ensure their journeyman's protection helped aid a lot of their future colleagues by doing so. Which may have allowed them to cultivate a greater relationship within their Order.
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Boney confirmed that if Mathilde dies, the quest ends. He has the opening post for the next quest prepped and ready to go the day after Mathilde dies and the quest ends. This quest is basically Mathilde quest at this point.
 
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