Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] [HOUSE] No
- Location
- Canada
My gut instinct is that the other Daughter is Esmerelda.
Boney wrote either a big hint or a big coincidence back during Eike's Visit:
Which flew entirely under everyone's radar, because this was a couple turns before the Truth/Faith vote happened, and we found out Ranald even had daughters.
Just a totally unremarkable coincidence of two unrelated cults agreeing on the importance of lunch as a religious observance.
Boney wrote either a big hint or a big coincidence back during Eike's Visit:
Which flew entirely under everyone's radar, because this was a couple turns before the Truth/Faith vote happened, and we found out Ranald even had daughters.
Just a totally unremarkable coincidence of two unrelated cults agreeing on the importance of lunch as a religious observance.
Burned_Cookie
Very tired girl.
- Location
- Plato´s cave.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/It/Its
Don't forget that Esmeralda also has a touch of protector given that she watches over the Moot IIRC.
- Location
- Canada
I'll take your word on that. I don't know anything about Halflings other than what's been shown in the Quest. These days I don't trust the wiki any further than I can throw it.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
WFRP 2E doesn't give Halflings much at all, and what it does give is barely enough to fill a bottle much less create a mythos. This is what's said of the most prominent Halfling Goddess in the core rulebook and Tome of Salvation:
"The Halflings seem an irreligious race. They keep few holy days and seldom seem to pray. They claim to honour Esmerelda, a Rhya-like figure of hearth and home, but this seems to be a thin excuse for the debauched excesses of Pie Week (see page 174). Some have been seen making the sign of Ranald, but he does not look to be a common choice of God. Empire scholars have attempted to discover the Halfling pantheon, but have mostly been misled and mocked for their troubles." Page 188 2E Core Book
"The most popular Halfling deity is Esmerelda, Goddess of Hearth and Home. Worship of Esmerelda is free of strictures and demands for worship, and her only rite of note is Pie Week, (in)famous throughout the Empire for its gluttonous excesses. During Pie Week, if at no other time of the year, Halflings can be said to be devout to the core of their being." Page 126 Tome of Salvation
Halflings, Mothers and Bakers worship her. If I was to pin down what I don't like about the way Halflings are developed in WFRP material, then I would say that it lacks what I thought Tolkien did very well in what little I've read of Fellowship of the Ring (which is full of exposition and worldbuilding of the Shire). Respect. I truly don't feel like the WFRP writers put even a morsel of the respect that Tolkien provided to the Hobbits when writing about Halflings.
"The Halflings seem an irreligious race. They keep few holy days and seldom seem to pray. They claim to honour Esmerelda, a Rhya-like figure of hearth and home, but this seems to be a thin excuse for the debauched excesses of Pie Week (see page 174). Some have been seen making the sign of Ranald, but he does not look to be a common choice of God. Empire scholars have attempted to discover the Halfling pantheon, but have mostly been misled and mocked for their troubles." Page 188 2E Core Book
"The most popular Halfling deity is Esmerelda, Goddess of Hearth and Home. Worship of Esmerelda is free of strictures and demands for worship, and her only rite of note is Pie Week, (in)famous throughout the Empire for its gluttonous excesses. During Pie Week, if at no other time of the year, Halflings can be said to be devout to the core of their being." Page 126 Tome of Salvation
Halflings, Mothers and Bakers worship her. If I was to pin down what I don't like about the way Halflings are developed in WFRP material, then I would say that it lacks what I thought Tolkien did very well in what little I've read of Fellowship of the Ring (which is full of exposition and worldbuilding of the Shire). Respect. I truly don't feel like the WFRP writers put even a morsel of the respect that Tolkien provided to the Hobbits when writing about Halflings.
Then they were true to Games Workshop, who iirc have always tried to treat their Halflings as a joke at Tolkien's expense.
if hes witch-hunting the witch hunter, then logically the lizard will have a better hat. And Lizards build primarily with stone.
I think the idea that is Esmeralda is kind of moot. Even if it is her it's not useful enough to ever use the coin on. After all we have no indication that the halflings have any lore about the stones. The fact that they have naturally fewer mages than humans also means it is all the less likely that any lore would have been passed though if it did exist.
- Location
- Earth
It's not so much as Waystones in particular as it is that we already have an in with them, and have Halflings who we can say we're on good terms with who can vouch for us.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I should clarify though, that I actually think things changed when Black Industries stopped publshing WFRP books. Towards the end of 2E's lifecycle, WFRP was picked up by Fantasy Flight Games from Black Industries, and they were the ones who made the last three books (Career Compendium, Thousand Thrones and Shades of Empire). It's very clear to me when reading those books that things took a different direction with this new publisher, and I still say that Shades of Empire is actually one of the more interesting and well written 2E books. It's also the book that introduced the Quinsberry Lodge, which is probably the most earnest take at an actually interesting concept involving Halflings in 2E.
Fantasy Flight went on to publish 3rd Edition, and I've only heard bad things about that Edition, but then Cubicle 7 took over 4th Edition. I can't say I have much experience with 4th Edition, and I actually dislike quite a few of the decisions they took, but what I've read from Archives of the Empire Volume I about the Halflings was actually promising. It was a serious take on the Halflings that preserved some of the airy lighthearted nature of previous Editions while presenting things in a more refined, well developed lens. I liked it.
@Andres can probably speak more to the actual quality of Halfling literature in 4E since he reads more of it than I do by far, but I'd like to think that Halflings are in a better position now than they used to be.
Well, if we discount the fact that they're the only race from Warhammer Fantasy to be cut out from Age of Sigmar. That was pretty sad.
Halflings are perfectly nice people who will generally trust one if you treat them fairly. I cannot think of many cases when we would need the trust of one so fast and so far that we would need to appeal to the Coin
- Location
- Utrecht
Maybe we could spare a social action this turn to go check out the coin.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm not convinced on Esmeralda. For starters, the daughters seem to be twins, so it'd be odd if one was a halfling goddess but the other wasn't. Before we knew Haletha was one of them, I could have seen that, but not now, not unless the Halflings just happen to have an obscure protector-goddess of their own that is associated with the Hedgefolk or the Forest of Shadows.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Using social actions to reap practical benefit is a slippery slope that I'm not sure we want to get close to. It would make it even more of a battleground between people who just want to hang out with other people and people who want to maximise our action economy.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
moot, lol
Boney's already shot this sort of thing down:
They weren't actually described as twins:
They were both small, but children are small for a long time [citation needed], and could be non-twins. That said, I do agree that it would be really weird for one to be a halfling goddess and one not. I agree that Haleth and the Lady are the likeliest possibilities at this point.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His.
Since yes is probably going to win, I'll approve vote what I feel the best about.
[x] Plan how many people can actually read elf anyways?
- [x] [SCOPE] The Empire (+2)
- [x] [REP] Magical Theorist (-2)
- [x] [FORM] Dedication (0)
[x] [HOUSE] No
[x] [HEDGEWISE] Secretly
[x] Plan how many people can actually read elf anyways?
- [x] [SCOPE] The Empire (+2)
- [x] [REP] Magical Theorist (-2)
- [x] [FORM] Dedication (0)
[x] [HOUSE] No
[x] [HEDGEWISE] Secretly
