Aren't the Lady of the Lake just and elf god tricking the Bretonians into being meat shields for Athe Loren and keeping them technology stagnant and hyper focused on cavalry so they can't grow powerful enough to actually threaten the Woold elfs or Atha Loren?
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
That's End Times canon. There were still some vague elven connections to the Lady even before End Times, but nothing nearly that definitive.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
I have not read the End Times personally, but in them, was it even the case that Lileath was using Bretonnia for the benefit of the Wood Elves? My (secondhand) understanding is that she wanted the Bretonnian (nobles) as her chosen people or some-such?
(Really, the work that makes the strongest push towards "Bretonnia is a meat-shield kept by the Wood Elves" is Knights of the Grail, where the Fay are literally just Wood Elves)
(Really, the work that makes the strongest push towards "Bretonnia is a meat-shield kept by the Wood Elves" is Knights of the Grail, where the Fay are literally just Wood Elves)
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Eh, sort of? In End Times it's revealed that's 100% what she was originally planning, then she decided the world was doomed, so she used the Grail Knights to protect some sort of bubble reality, and gave her daughter the last of her divinity. The idea was to create a realm beyond the reach of Chaos. IIRC, AoS indicates that at least some of the residents of this realm were Elves, even if not all were.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Is that 'sort of' in regards to it being for the Asrai or it being for the Bretonnians?
This is about foreign Ranaldian cultists passing through Bretonnia. Once the punishment is over they presumably get the hell out of there.
Internal doctrine of the Cult of Morr that goes deeper into His relationship with the rest of His family, which would be completely incompatible with the adopted Clanless Gazul.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
It all depends on how seriously you take the painful even for GW efforts at saturating Brettonia with self sabotaging completely societally unsustainable grimderpery.
If you subscribe to the noblebright everything is polite fictions bouncing off of each other and of course the rightful king had his heritage hidden and was raised in the stables theory, the Lady as Ranald's daughter is creating a stable state where the rebellions are part of the system and don't fundamentally change anything, where the merchants are completely shunned and looked down on yet aren't taxed at all, where one in four knights ain't never going to grow a beard and basically everyone knows that and treats the obvious lie as truth, and whatever other clever contradictions and ironies one has the energy to dig down to uncover and/or make up from whole cloth because it's a better story.
If you take it with all of the very worst aspects, then Brettonia like Hochland doesn't actually exist, because it suffered spontaneous existence failure before devolving into Border Princes 2: Uglier Pseudo French Boogaloo less than a century in.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
NeonLights
Formerly Reliable_2IC
- Location
- In shambles
[X] Yes
Just do it with Johann and we're good on AP efficiency.
[X] Magister Tochter Grunfeld
[x] The Gold College, to see what's become of their research into Skaven technology.
Just do it with Johann and we're good on AP efficiency.
[X] Magister Tochter Grunfeld
[x] The Gold College, to see what's become of their research into Skaven technology.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
For the Bretonnians. There was some knowledge of it in Athel Loren, but it doesn't seem to have been a scheme focused on the Asrai particularly.
I mean, the Fey Enchantress or rather her statline is a pretty strong hint that Something elf related is going on with the Lady. Can't post the stats now, phone, work etc but if anyone is interested i can do so in about 11-12 hours
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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Are you referring to the Fey Enchantress having the exact same statline as an Elf Archmage? I suppose you could make that assumption. You could also make the assumption that she's heavily blessed by the Lady and it's implied that the Fey Enchantress for the last 1400 years since the inception of Bretonnia is likely to have been the same person. She can cast from all eight lores of battle magic, but I would expect her to be able to considering Prophetesses which are firmly below her can cast from three.
You could make an argument she's an elf. You could also make an argument that she's the Avatar of the Lady and that makes her just as if not more powerful.
An excerpt from the journal of Soizic d'Karak, a Questing Knight 31
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
An Excerpt from the Journal of Soizic d'Karak, a Questing Knight-
Dear diary, today I write from a new perch! In truth long a landmark for my endless wandering amidst the mountain peaks, it is the very crag that marks half of the way to Karag Ulric and the tunnel it guards. Ten leagues down from the East Gate to the bend in the road below me, where it joins Death Pass. From there, ten leagues gently back up, until the Watchtower I call mine marks the turn north to the tunnel road. (But continue west but another twenty leagues, a mere forty miles! and a slowly boiling waaagh churns behind thick walls of iron.)
With Oswald Oswaldson (Maybe soon to be father of Oswald? We will see! My friend the "princess" feeds me such interesting rumors!) firmly planted in his new arsenal in Karag Nar though, I have little to worry about from those western roads- his cannon and mortar dominate. Thus, though the bastions at Karag Ulric and the batteries now at Und-Uzgal can range all of the miles between them (Per the helpful dwarf I just queried, 4 miles, 323 paces, one foot and nine inches wall to wall) there are leagues of road to the east yet beyond their gunsights where enemies may circle, or cone from the east. And so, royal eyes have turned to expansion.
With umgi cannon on the walls and watchtowers of the Karak, and a sudden flood of (local) dwarven masons freed to work on surface projects (while the Okral get their bearings, and make their surveys below) it had been decided that our redoubts and firing positions should have their number added to. Thus, the spur of lesser peaks descending East from the Karak, the broken ridgelines that separate the main route though Death Pass from the approach to the Eastern Gate, ending at the crag upon which I now sit.
In total a good forty square miles of mountains to be climbed, scoured, surveyed, evaluated, dug out, built out, equiped, manned, and supplied before we shall have cannon covering the entire road from the old underway.
Marshall Dreng accompanies me, though this is both more and less awkward than it may sound... While in his mind the Undumgi have charge beyond the gates and so I have command outside times of war, in mine his authority as the Viceroy's superior marks him as one I must defer to, and so we dance a polite dance of words. However I think that secretly he enjoys the relative informality of rangers and Undumgi, for he tells stories of his travels with the air of a dwarf who can't quite believe he has an entourage following him about, and so the stakes are low.
As the commanders, as W- well, no, I'm saving *that* story for the right time yet dear diary, once I have thought and prayed on it, no hints!- we of course had the privilege of choosing the most pleasurable locations of such an assignment for ourselves. And so, at this very moment as my quill scrapes your pages as I write and flutters in the wind as I pause to think, Marshal Dreng drains his mug on the far side of the table and returns to his perusal of the summary reports amidst sausages and cheese. We have a table here, on a wooden scaffold erected to serve as support for surveyor's optics; that is to say, there are also four other dwarves on top of our sketch of a tower, with prisms and periscopes and telescopes and plum bobs and mirrors and what have you. It is all very much above my head (the obviousness of which is the most likely reason they allow me to write as I work without strife about secrets) but I will praise to the Lady the maps they produce, that we now ponder over.
My part in this is minor, to provide opinion and insight as to the use of such redoubts as are proposed, and to speculate on how I would take each one should I need. And so, dear diary, I sit and drink and laugh as the sky wraps around us and vistas stretch out in every direction, beyond the dreams of those that never chase the horizon. In the far distance the cleft of Death Pass opens out to the sky, but it is too far to see the lands yet beyond.
The good Marshall has proposed a baker's dozen watchtowers, anchored by five bastion-batteries, with a network of paths, tunnels, and bridges tying them together- a plan for what he calls Garazund. The keystone of the construction will be here, where we now sit, a good eighteen cannon and space for two companies provisioned for a month. He gestures with his mug as he draws out the towers and walls with words; a fortress I must protest as squat and inelegant, with all priority given to the beast blackpowder and none to grace! This will be, after all, the first place the Banner of Eightpeaks will be seen, welcoming back those weary travelers who bring us their gold and gems, silk and spices. The first rock upon which any eastern enemy will break, and the last sight their fleeing eyes shall see. Such momentous moments demand more from an architect than an overgrown bunker! The khalazid that Dreng is using for it, Migdhal Kadrin, is as squat as his vision. I push for Drek Barak, the Gate-Fortress of Ambition! To face the silk road and take in it's riches! But we shall see.
I make my pleas in khalazid for I know there are architects in earshot with their beards all aquiver, and it is truly to them that I must appeal; Dreng grumbles and shouts me down with what I chose to treat as good nature. (And you can't stop me, you dour old dwarf! Ha!)
The other bastions are still under discussion, but tentatively two towards the north and Death Pass, one or two to the south and the East Gate road, with perhaps one final one on the far side of the valley I now overlook. The advantages of a position with sightlines along the length of the road north and west of it's bend, as well as being within support range of the battery here, is not to be underestimated.
T'is that last one where the real discussion lingers, for while the angles are perfect to decimate any army that marches upon the Karak without taking it, and it's placement for mutual support between here and there is promising, it would be almost impossible to supply for an extended siege. Options are proposed, some fanciful (a suspended bridge of towers and steel cables across the whole of the valley) some grounded (an entirely separate set of paths and tunnels back to the Karak) we have as yet not settled.
In the end, I suppose it will be others that make the decision anyway, but for today I am here and happy.
Ah, dear diary, I pray for many more days of this type, for this life of mine is scarcely to be dreamt of. How glorious is the Lady, to have given me such a chance as to be here today!
Wish me luck!
Dear diary, today I write from a new perch! In truth long a landmark for my endless wandering amidst the mountain peaks, it is the very crag that marks half of the way to Karag Ulric and the tunnel it guards. Ten leagues down from the East Gate to the bend in the road below me, where it joins Death Pass. From there, ten leagues gently back up, until the Watchtower I call mine marks the turn north to the tunnel road. (But continue west but another twenty leagues, a mere forty miles! and a slowly boiling waaagh churns behind thick walls of iron.)
With Oswald Oswaldson (Maybe soon to be father of Oswald? We will see! My friend the "princess" feeds me such interesting rumors!) firmly planted in his new arsenal in Karag Nar though, I have little to worry about from those western roads- his cannon and mortar dominate. Thus, though the bastions at Karag Ulric and the batteries now at Und-Uzgal can range all of the miles between them (Per the helpful dwarf I just queried, 4 miles, 323 paces, one foot and nine inches wall to wall) there are leagues of road to the east yet beyond their gunsights where enemies may circle, or cone from the east. And so, royal eyes have turned to expansion.
With umgi cannon on the walls and watchtowers of the Karak, and a sudden flood of (local) dwarven masons freed to work on surface projects (while the Okral get their bearings, and make their surveys below) it had been decided that our redoubts and firing positions should have their number added to. Thus, the spur of lesser peaks descending East from the Karak, the broken ridgelines that separate the main route though Death Pass from the approach to the Eastern Gate, ending at the crag upon which I now sit.
In total a good forty square miles of mountains to be climbed, scoured, surveyed, evaluated, dug out, built out, equiped, manned, and supplied before we shall have cannon covering the entire road from the old underway.
Marshall Dreng accompanies me, though this is both more and less awkward than it may sound... While in his mind the Undumgi have charge beyond the gates and so I have command outside times of war, in mine his authority as the Viceroy's superior marks him as one I must defer to, and so we dance a polite dance of words. However I think that secretly he enjoys the relative informality of rangers and Undumgi, for he tells stories of his travels with the air of a dwarf who can't quite believe he has an entourage following him about, and so the stakes are low.
As the commanders, as W- well, no, I'm saving *that* story for the right time yet dear diary, once I have thought and prayed on it, no hints!- we of course had the privilege of choosing the most pleasurable locations of such an assignment for ourselves. And so, at this very moment as my quill scrapes your pages as I write and flutters in the wind as I pause to think, Marshal Dreng drains his mug on the far side of the table and returns to his perusal of the summary reports amidst sausages and cheese. We have a table here, on a wooden scaffold erected to serve as support for surveyor's optics; that is to say, there are also four other dwarves on top of our sketch of a tower, with prisms and periscopes and telescopes and plum bobs and mirrors and what have you. It is all very much above my head (the obviousness of which is the most likely reason they allow me to write as I work without strife about secrets) but I will praise to the Lady the maps they produce, that we now ponder over.
My part in this is minor, to provide opinion and insight as to the use of such redoubts as are proposed, and to speculate on how I would take each one should I need. And so, dear diary, I sit and drink and laugh as the sky wraps around us and vistas stretch out in every direction, beyond the dreams of those that never chase the horizon. In the far distance the cleft of Death Pass opens out to the sky, but it is too far to see the lands yet beyond.
The good Marshall has proposed a baker's dozen watchtowers, anchored by five bastion-batteries, with a network of paths, tunnels, and bridges tying them together- a plan for what he calls Garazund. The keystone of the construction will be here, where we now sit, a good eighteen cannon and space for two companies provisioned for a month. He gestures with his mug as he draws out the towers and walls with words; a fortress I must protest as squat and inelegant, with all priority given to the beast blackpowder and none to grace! This will be, after all, the first place the Banner of Eightpeaks will be seen, welcoming back those weary travelers who bring us their gold and gems, silk and spices. The first rock upon which any eastern enemy will break, and the last sight their fleeing eyes shall see. Such momentous moments demand more from an architect than an overgrown bunker! The khalazid that Dreng is using for it, Migdhal Kadrin, is as squat as his vision. I push for Drek Barak, the Gate-Fortress of Ambition! To face the silk road and take in it's riches! But we shall see.
I make my pleas in khalazid for I know there are architects in earshot with their beards all aquiver, and it is truly to them that I must appeal; Dreng grumbles and shouts me down with what I chose to treat as good nature. (And you can't stop me, you dour old dwarf! Ha!)
The other bastions are still under discussion, but tentatively two towards the north and Death Pass, one or two to the south and the East Gate road, with perhaps one final one on the far side of the valley I now overlook. The advantages of a position with sightlines along the length of the road north and west of it's bend, as well as being within support range of the battery here, is not to be underestimated.
T'is that last one where the real discussion lingers, for while the angles are perfect to decimate any army that marches upon the Karak without taking it, and it's placement for mutual support between here and there is promising, it would be almost impossible to supply for an extended siege. Options are proposed, some fanciful (a suspended bridge of towers and steel cables across the whole of the valley) some grounded (an entirely separate set of paths and tunnels back to the Karak) we have as yet not settled.
In the end, I suppose it will be others that make the decision anyway, but for today I am here and happy.
Ah, dear diary, I pray for many more days of this type, for this life of mine is scarcely to be dreamt of. How glorious is the Lady, to have given me such a chance as to be here today!
Wish me luck!
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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This family has abysmal naming sense. Please stop naming your children Oswald. There's a limit to this.
I can't remember from what Dukedom you decided Soizic to be from, but at this point she's so knowledgable and comfortable with mountain holds and fortresses that she would make a Montfortian proud. They're the most mountainous of all the Bretonnians, so much so they rarely ride horses cus they can't handle the terrain. Unlike Parravon they don't have the luxury of having access to Pegasi.
- Location
- USA
Ulric? I...don't remember such a mountain?
Codex
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It's the name of the mountain passageway between Ulrikadrin and Karak Eight Peaks given by the Undumgi:
- Location
- Chicago
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I remember having her family hold be just over the river that the road through the northern pass crosses inside Brettonia? Not sure which dukedom that is either.
It's what the Ulrikadrin are trying to get everyone to call their fort at the exit of the underway tunnel, and Soizic uses it out of solidarity with Hubert. I remember Mathilde laughing because the rune transliteration was actual Karag Alric, so she sent a letter to the patriarch letting him know.
Edit: ninjas!
Pretty much, yeah. In fact the most "damning" thing is M 5. As far as i know there are no blessings that enhance movement speed not even in Chaos forces. At the very least without major and blatantly obvious alterations to the body. Yet FE has M5. Quite unlike any other human in the setting and quite like any other elf. And that is despite the fact that she gets a unicorn as a mount by default so she doesn't even need an M boost.
Said mount is another source of implications because as dar as I know only Wood elves get them as mounts in WHFB and yet FE has one. So at the end of the day FE fights lile an elven caster lord, moves like an elven caster lord, uses magic like an elven caster lord and uses a mount otjerwise exclusive to elven caster lords, so it is very likely that she is in fact an elven caster lord.
In fact, even if she is a human blessed/ mutated into her current "totally not an elf guys!," state, it still has strong implucations of something elf related going on with the Lady, because it raises the questions of: 1: how she is so good at reshaping humans into near perfect replicas of elves and
2: why the elves living literally next door do not take offence at such a blatant mokery of their bodies and souls going on right now right there.
There are of course alternative explanations for any of these points. But I do think it is some very strong evidence for LotL having some kind of connection with the elves
Codex
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There are four notable passes I remember about Bretonnia. The southernmost which I'm sure you don't mean is Montdider Pass at Kreutzhofen (Wissenland in the Empire) crossing into the Loren Highway which lets you skirt around Athel Loren into Carcassonne, Quenlles or I suppose Parravon depending on your direction. There's Grey Lady Pass around the area of Ubersreik in Reikland leading into Parravon. There's Axe Bite Pass further north guarded by Helmgart in Reikland and Montfort in Montfort, which is the most major pass. Then there's the northernmost pass, called the Gisoreux Gap, which isn't actually in the Empire, it connects the Wasteland to the Dukedom of Gisoreux. If you go further north there is no pass, you just move through the Marches of Couronne into the Dukedom of Couronne.
I'm going to guess you mean either Gisoreux or Montfort. It would be ironic if she's a Montfortian considering they're the mountain people of Bretonnia.
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Codex
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I think Soizic would like the canonical Duke of Montfort actually. This is his description in page 79 of Knights of the Grail:Axe Bite for the family home, Montfortian by training after she subbed in for her brother under a distant uncle, at least in my head canon.
And that does work out nicely.
"Duke Folcard is something of an anomaly among the Dukes of Bretonnia. He is a fearsome warrior, but he hardly ever fights on horseback. The mountains that cover his dukedom severely limit mounted combatants, and the Duke accepts no limits in his pursuit of the Greenskins that infest his lands.
Duke Folcard is possibly the Bretonnian Duke most loved by his people. He genuinely seems to care about peasant villages and tries to relieve them when they are attacked by Goblinoids. He has set up a network of signal beacons across the mountains—which means relief forces arrive more often than not—and the Duke goes in person if he can. Once he has relieved a village, he establishes an impromptu court to hear any complaints of unjust treatment and sets things to rights.
The Duke is a tall man with dark hair cropped very close and an intense, fierce glare. Many Montfortian peasant girls dream about their Duke, as do most of the noble women."
I'm pretty sure he has the Virtue of Empathy. If it helps you with your conception of Soizic, Martrud of Montfort, the Grail Companion of Montfort, was the one to establish the Virtue of Empathy.
I think Soizic would idolise Gilles a lot, but I like the idea of her settling down with a less romanticised version of what being a Knight is and realising that maybe it's not just about slaying monsters, but about helping people out, like her Dukedom's ancestral hero.