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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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pucflek said:
To me its interesting that the desert is apparently growing, and so too must Morghur be growing in power. And its actually not his warp aura that does it, its the usual divine energies. Maybe he will piece himself back together into something touch more wholesome?
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Well. if they last long enough. As Borek said, they're being swallowed by Chaos. There's no telling how long they'll hold out. The next Great War against Chaos might very well be their last.
 
Boney said:
And it's one I'm glad has finally seen the light of day. Some might recall a heavily-redacted chart I posted quite a while back...
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My mind has been sent into overdrive thanks to the Asuryan in there. It reminded me of all the discussion over these aspects:
Boney said:
All the Cults have their own version of that story and they all just so happen to paint their preferred God in a great light. The Taalites say that Taal led the charge, the Verenans say that Verena was the only one that believed Ulric when Ulric was going around saying the demons were coming, the Asur say that Asuryan was the first to fight against the demons and the first to fall, and His eventual rebirth is what won the war. Like with studying IRL historical accounts, despite all the clear biases if you read enough you start to see the common threads between them that give you an idea of the truth of the matter. The growing threat, the widespread disbelief, the few believers talk around those on the fence, the long war, the final stand before a deus ex machina saves the day. All of this can be mapped to the historical timeline given by the Elven and Lizardmen histories with reasonable accuracy - the Gates begin to fail, they fail completely and demons are unleashed, the Lizardmen bear the brunt of the attacks early on, daemons become a worldwide threat and are opposed by the Elves and Dwarves, the Vortex turns on and the Daemons are banished.

Where it gets weird is what isn't converted into the vocabulary of the ones telling the story. A Taalite legend from the Obernarn Stone speaks vaguely and darkly about 'immortals', possibly the Old Ones, but speak of the Chaos Gods as four of them, which, what? It also has oddities among Taalite's allies: Margileo, a very minor God with a weirdly non-Reikspielish name with just a handful of worshippers in Averland, as well as Sotek the Snake (???), and it gives credit for the final victory to what is almost certain to be Asuryan. The Grey Order's myth adopted from the Asur says that King Taal inherited rule of the world from Asuryan after Asuryan was slain by Chaos, which doesn't fit Asur beliefs about Asuryan and Kurnous, nor does it fit Taalite beliefs about Taal, and for some reason it also name-drops Tlanxla, which is the name of a Lustrian Temple-City that's been in ruins since the Coming of Chaos. The Ulrican legend Codex cites has the same sort of oddness: it should date back to a time when he was the primary God of the Teutogens and the other Gods were either that of other pre-Imperial Tribes or of distant Tilea, and this is kind of supported by Ulric being described as 'prince of ice and snow' with no wolf associations (which were believed to have come about after the Cult of Ulric absorbed the Cult of Lupus) - but he is also said to be the younger brother of Taal, which is... odd. Maybe it's from a time when the seasonal trinity worship of Taal/Rhya/Ulric was splitting into three distinct deities, but while that would explain why Ulric is given second billing in an Ulrican legend, that process should have been long complete by the time the Southern Gods became known to the Teutogens.

It all seems like a jumble of syncretism, mistranslations and cultural misunderstandings, but you can't dismiss it entirely as a source because things come through that have no reason to be known by the ones doing the telling. Why does an ancient human Runestone have a cameo from a Skink God whose entire deal is that the Slann keep saying "who the fuck is this guy, he's not in any of our writings?" Why does it have a very clear description of Asuryan? Why does an Ulrican myth include beliefs from points on the evolution of the Cult of Ulric millennia apart? Or more explicitly, how does a supposedly ancient and unsourced Ulrican myth manage to supply a very neat 'just so' story to the evolution of Ulric's depictions by his worshippers, a process that took thousands of years, most of it long before any written records existed and unknown to modern scholars? Why does an Asur myth have Tlanxla, a Lizardman Sky God of some sort obscure enough that even those that have access to the wiki barely know anything about them, as a sword wielded by the Daemon Ulgu? All these mythologies that should have been separated by oceans and millennia keep describing the same events and beings with too much accuracy and too often to be coincidence. The only conclusion that makes sense is that these are the same events being seen through different cultural lenses.
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Boney said:
That would result in the opposite situation, where foreign beings were wrongly interpreted as or syncretized into familiar ones - interpretatio Imperium, if you will. An Empire translator might see a warlike sun God and say 'Myrmidia', or see a serpentine symbol and say 'there's no snake gods, so it must be a river'. An Elven translator culturally projecting onto the Obernarn Stone might erroneously result in the name 'Asuryan' among the Old World Gods but that name wasn't used, it was 'Flaming Phoenix ... from atop His Gleaming Pyramid' which doesn't really have a lot of wriggle room for mistaken identity. And there's no easy way to theorize a translator that would come up with both an obscure Averland honour God and a relatively modern Lustrian Skink God who has no written records attesting to his existence - even a superfan of obscure theology would be much more likely to go with one of the Nehekharan snake gods over Sotek.
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And the Obernarn Stone's legend:

"And then the Cataclysm came. King Taal rose from His Forest, and with Dark Morr muttering dire portents in His ear, He banished all immortals from the world. But the Cataclysm's architects refused His order. The Crow, the Hound, the Serpent, and the Vulture were jealous of King Taal, and had tried to use the Great Gates to take what was His. They had failed. As the other immortals fled, the Four attacked, bitter and angry with their frustrations. Many died. After countless battles, King Taal was eventually surrounded. There were few still by his side. Ulric the Wolf. Noble Margileo. Just Verena. Sotek the Snake. Manann of the Sea. And Gentle Shallya, tear-stained and afraid. Even Smiling Ranald had fled, and now hid in the Places Between, fearful for the future. Then, just as the Four and their allies arrived for the Final Battle, Flaming Phoenix, whom all had thought dead, returned from atop His Gleaming Pyramid, and He smote about Him. Thus the rebels were pushed behind the Great Gates, and were sealed there forever. But they were restless in their cage, and soon worked to escape."

There's something going on here. I'm starting to construct a mental table of possible Old Gods from the revelations of this update, and it matches with a lot of the speculative musing that Boney's laid out in thread.

Can I just say that I love that Boney engages so heavily with the thread that I can go back months to find a quote seeding the threads of possibilities as we get to see Boney develop his theories in real time? Or at least get to see him pontificate on them. If we had chosen a less inquisitive character and didn't go hounding for all sorts of sources of divinity and if we hadn't discussed the topic so many times in thread I doubt our reaction would be so profound yet so receptive.
 
pucflek said:
To me its interesting that the desert is apparently growing, and so too must Morghur be growing in power. And its actually not his warp aura that does it, its the usual divine energies. Maybe he will piece himself back together into something touch more wholesome?
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I do not think we have much hope of that. Think about it he was a broken thing being worshiped by other broken things, one twice betrayed, now he is thrice betrayed and enslaved. Odds are if he ver gets lose and chaos does not just kill him he will be much worse than he ever was.
 
[X] Yes
[X] Wizard
[X] Stirlandian
[X] Religious

It's a pity Tochter is (unsurprisingly) being overshadowed by KaK and Borek, but I find the seasons part very interesting. IRL, most of the world uses two 'main' seasons (hot/dry season and cold/wet season) plus usually an even number of seasons symetrically marking the transition between both, resulting in two/four/six seasons.

Checking Wikipedia, the most notable use of an odd number of seasons (and the only I've found besides Thailand, who IIRC splits the 'dry' season into 'hot' and 'cold') is in Ancient Egypt, which based them on the regular floord of the Nile: Inundation, Emergence (of the crops) and Harvest.
I wonder if something similar happened in the time of the Belthani? Most of the Empire is around the basins of the rivers Reik and Talabec, after all. Perhaps the massive floods were an indirect result of the Great Pumps of Morgrim dumping all that water in Averland? Or maybe the climate just changed sometime in the following millennia.

If so, you might have Rhya-Harvest-Spring [March to June], Taal-Inundation-Summer [July to October] and Ulric-Emergence-Winter [November to February]. Or something like that, depending on the precise climate.
 
DragonParadox said:
I do not think we have much hope of that. Think about it he was a broken thing being worshiped by other broken things, one twice betrayed, now he is thrice betrayed and enslaved. Odds are if he ver gets lose and chaos does not just kill him he will be much worse than he ever was.
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I don't think he views it as enslavement. The people of Karag Dum seem to have turned to him in their need, and his affection shown to Borek would seem odd if he didn't think of him as family. I think they swore themselves to Morghur, rather than enslaved him.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
Makes me wonder if all of these might not be canon to some degree. Or at least have been plans of various Dwarfholds that never got used.
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This line of thinking would imply that there are Norse Dwarf Refugees floating around somewhere. If they didn't go east, across the ice to Karag Dum, where did they go?

A line of questioning made yet more open ended by the fact that The Norsican settlement we visited had the look of at once time being a Dwarven Port of all things. If memory serves me well.
 
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Codex said:
I don't think he views it as enslavement. The people of Karag Dum seem to have turned to him in their need, and his affection shown to Borek would seem odd if he didn't think of him as family. I think they swore themselves to Morghur, rather than enslaved him.
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You know, it makes some sense that former Dawi deity would be considered nemesis of the Elves :V
 
Garlak said:
... Here's a thought:

the betrayal was the Great Horned Rat betraying Morghur.
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Still thinking on that.

You know what else just took on really intriguing implications, in hindsight again?
Boney said:
"It's fine, it's temporary, it will pass, I was trained for this. Okay. Divine and Arcane are - by them - divided differently. They consider High Magic and Dark Magic to be Divine, and other magics to be Arcane."

"Antimagic that doesn't work on Dark Magic," you say with a frown.

"Yeah, I just scrambled my brain twice for the world's stupidest talisman. I'm going back to bed."
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Cathayans considering High Magic and Dark Magic to be Divine.

What if that's because Dark Magic, Dhar and Warpstone, is associated not with Chaos... but with some of the Old Ones' gods? Maybe fallen ones like Hashut and Khsar and the Great Horned Rat? But not the likes of Sotek? (Though who knows, maybe Sotek will reek of Dhar or Warpstone too...)

Perhaps Dark Magic, Dhar, is the province of or related to "immortals" -- as these quotes and references just now mentioned by other posters --, of immortality or eternity. It's the thing that the Master Rune of Ages was carved on, because Alaric found nothing else to be able to be eternal.

I think... maybe before the Chaos Gods gained power, maybe Dhar or Warpstone was the domain of, or related to, "corporealized, material, Aethyric beings"? That is, not just manifested Spirits and Avatars, but... but, more permanent Avatars? Or... Or maybe, Dhar was mainlined by various "immortals"; Gods of Law, gods made by the Old Ones, and also the Four Chaos Gods. It's just that the Chaos Gods were the biggest set of gods by now which remain, and so they hold the biggest association with Warpstone and Dhar.

Or maybe Dhar or Warpstone is about Domination or Corruption. And it's just that by now, the Chaos Gods hold the biggest piece of the pie on that.

Though beings like Hashut and the Great Horned Rat (and maybe Stromfels? if he's a quasi-primordial being? or maybe Balor? if Fimir are transformed and corrupted beings that once served the Old Ones, like the way the Dwarfs or Skaven did; except the Skaven were corrupted, or maybe adopted rather than being one of the servant races all along) still hold a bit of the pie.
 
Well @Codex just ninjaed me regarding Morghur and family, so it's time for my backup attempt at searing insight.


Gods can change and be changed, be made more or lesser by their own will or that of others.

Dragons can change and be changed, be made more or lesser(and good luck getting them to agree which is which) by their own will or that of others.


Is it possible that one can convert or be converted into the other? Urmskaladrak being a Dragon and an Old One Warden may not be mutually exclusive.


Also Cython's interest in the origin of dawi divinities may not be quite the pure academic pursuit of knowledge to gnaw on with these new revelations. What's missing, what did they change, how did they get from there to here, and just maybe 'Is there a further adaptation I can make to the world that is to benefit me?'

[x] Secrets
[x] Yes
 
consequences said:
Is it possible that one can convert or be converted into the other? Urmskaladrak being a Dragon and an Old One Warden may not be mutually exclusive.
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I feel like Deathfang, his Avatar-or-higher grade godsight demonstrated talking while about Mathilde, and knowledge of the divine at this point stands as evidence that the line between "Dragon" and "Divinity" is a pretty malleable one. Even if Deathfang hasn't outright crossed it (yet?)
 
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