Great Man Theory (Warhammer Fantasy)

Well, that was a "close" vote





When most people think of Norsca, they think of braying hordes of half-maddened tundra savage men dedicated to the Dark Gods of the world. A ceaseless stream of worshippers for the Great Enemy that crashed against the world over and over again in service to their Ruinous Masters. A land of people so ensorceled by the seductive power of Chaos that they were irredeemable in all things.


They… were wrong. You knew at least three people in your old village that did not directly worship the Crow, the Hound, the Serpent or the Plague Fly. Two of those, granted, were slaves, and one of them was killed by the time you were Ten and One. But they proved that it was not all Norscans.


This meant it was entirely a matter of bigotry and not logical reasoning that everyone around you assumed you were some kind of daemon worshipper just because you had short blond hair and muscles stacked on muscles and Norscan Runes painted across your chest depicting gratuitous slaughter.


Sure at one point in your life, you were a part of a Raiding Band called Slaves of the Hound, and sure, at more than one point in your life, you had witnessed the terrible corruption of Chaos tear apart once peaceful hamlet as your brothers in arms performed morally foul deeds upon the once residents.


But you were different now. Had a god that people actually liked! No longer did you show up to villages solely to rip out their spines and beat their loved ones to death with it. Now you come with large books. While you were very well aware they could be used to beat a loved one to death, you usually resisted that urge.


Which you had on good authority that Verena, your lovely new god, approved of! Which, uh… made you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Like the Hound was nice, constantly letting you get the violent urges out, but Verena gave you so much more. She actively gave out her approval for you doing things she liked, rather than just not killing you and using your skull as an ornament for her throne.


Which uh… if you remember, your old Orthodoxy was also a reward, not just a punishment?


And sure, you had to do things like follow laws, and could not just raid indiscriminately and could under no circumstances use books as kindling for a still living priest's pyre anymore. But at least your punishments were not the same as your rewards anymore.


To think, your entire life changed because a Sorcerer of the Crow enlisted you to scout out the great library of Magritta, and instead of doing your job, you got drunk and headbutted an Ogre.


Indeed, the moral of your early life, like the moral of every good story, was that good triumphs over evil through the copious consumption of absurd amounts of alcohol.


And er that a life of dedication to law and knowledge is more fulfilling than one dedicated to decadent slaughter and primitivism.


Which is a word you knew because of Verena! Truly, you picked a fantastically benevolent god.


Who was so nice to a reformed


[] Man

[] Woman


Like you.


Sure, that was mostly because she felt like you performed a great deed in service to her when you accidentally threw a powerful priest down a flight of stairs several times, who turned out to be the Sorceror of the Crow who enlisted you, which was discovered when his skull was split open the second time you thr- accidentally tripped him down some stairs and exposed that he had tentacles in his brain. But you liked to think that in other circumstances, she would have found it in her heart to open her… heart up to you?


That made it sound like you were in a kind of kissy-face relationship rather than a Goddess Worshipper relationship… er, that's a Goddess and Worshipper relationship.


That does not sound right either. You were still getting used to the whole 'being literate' thing.


Anyway, the point remained, Verena is a cool goddess, and your worship of her has really helped you work through the many atrocities you kind of felt bad about committing.


Sure it took some time to get used to the whole "being a lawful citizen of a civilised society" and it took you a while to understand 'libraries' as a concept. Which might have resulted in a few misunderstandings between you and the Marienburg Cult of Verena, and those misunderstandings might have resulted in you being permanently barred from Marienburg for something as minor as "Breaking and Entering." and "Unlawful imprisonment of Chief Librarian''. But that was all part of learning and growing into your new life as a Verena faithful. Verenan? Verenese?


Did it say something about you, or the temple, that it was harder to figure out the correct term for your goddesses' worshippers than it was to break into one of the largest of her temple libraries? Probably said something about literacy.

What it said, you did not know. You were still getting used to it, after all.

The point being that Marienburg's sect of Verena has a bounty on your head, but your hair was blue when you did it because you had just read a book on hair dye. So like a good Verenan, you tried out your new knowledge, and yes, you will continue to insist you did not realise that it was an unlawful thing to do and that you were not disguising yourself in preparation. That would be antithetical to Verena's tenants, and you were definitely very faithful and committed to Laws and such.

So as long as you never dyed your hair blue again, no one would be able to connect you to the - unauthorised borrowing - of several dozen priceless pieces of writing. After all, there was probably at least someone in the world that looked like you, and was not… you know a daemon worshipper.

Luckily, it could be said that you learned your lessons. Why you even managed to stop a theft or two since then. Rightfully enforcing the legal precedent to ensure that justice prevailed. Sure the theft was against yourself, and the thieves were Magritta's grand library, and the precedent you were enforcing was the rightful seizure of goods after the merchants you were escorting revealed that they were, in fact, not able to pay you.

But it was all legal and above board. Which is what matters to Verena, even more than her potentially protecting the only copy of a series of deep philosophical treatises on the nature of thought and the various methods of thinking written by one of the most famous thinkers of the Time of Three Emperors.

You er… hope. Verena tends to get really quiet whenever you try to get her to answer what she thought about what you did, and you're not sure if it was because she had no thoughts on it or if she was giving you the silent treatment.

Like, you do not usually get words out of your goddess, obviously. But there was always that little presence in the back of your mind, and it was very conspicuously quiet.

And sure, you knew the mortal followers' opinions on it, obviously. Like, when you were in Magritta, you would struggle to walk more than two steps without getting a guilt trip about "Oh, wouldn't it just be grand if those priceless one-of-a-kind books on the methodology of human thought were in a safe and secure library, not just in your backpack where they could get crumpled, and make Verena sad at the mistreatment of the books".


Which was very annoying you had to say. You made sure that the books would not get damaged.


Though granted it meant nearly everyone knew the name of


[] Write in name.


Well, everyone in Magritta with a vested interest in Verena, at least. Honestly, it got so bothersome that you just had to leave that place. You had no choice. It of course had nothing to do with people actively starting to refuse service to you and the Chief Librarian threatening to revoke your library card.


You had not been cowed into exile! Just… annoyed.


Which for some reason makes you feel better about yourself.


So, now here you found yourself in the Borderlands. A land of, and this really must be said, a really bizarre water table. Several times you went from trudging through thick swamps to utterly dry badlands to extensive grasslands as far as the eye could see.


Geography books were not really your favourite thing to read, but even your limited knowledge knows that this land is just so weird. Was it magic? Does the stomping of half a million Orks through the place every once in a while mess up the land?


Truly a question that only the great mind of a Verenese scholar like yourself could ponder. You and your goddess are, it must be said, tops.


As in really good, not in like a sadomasochist way.


You sigh and rub your palm into the side of your head. You really needed to stop reading that book late at night, even if it was one of the only books you had out in this place.


Speaking of this place, you glance up with somewhat resigned eyes. After the comfort of living in and among Verena's for the last few years, a return to something more akin to the poorly made log cabins of your youth was a bit… of a setback.


Granted...


[] Meissen did have its charms:


Founded by Imperial settlers many years ago, it sat in the enviable position of having wide swaths of arable land, a unique situation for the borderlands. Protected in the west by the river… Meissen - such creative minds settled here - it would almost be idyllic if it was not for the horde of undead sieging its walls. Shame Meissen the river was not on the other side of Meissen the town, keeping the undead out. Luckily you were being paid to be here; unluckily, the looming threat that there won't be a 'here' in too long was very present. (Start in Meissen, a surprisingly idyllic land for the borderlands, save for the fact that it is about to become a ruin. It is currently ruled by Izek Bochkarer. A once Kislev merchant who bought the land from the previous border prince, paying a truly exorbitant amount of gold, before having his new subjects reclaim his gold from their once Border Prince.)



[] Locronan was a mightly defensive location:


Wedged in the valley of Six rather large mountains, Locronan is a holdover of the many errantry wars waged by Brentonia and has long since been ruled by a family of Brentionian Knights. Who do as Brentonians usually do and treat the peasantry like they are cattle. Incredible taxes, few rights and many injustices performed against them. A Brentonia 2.0 ramped up to eleven because it's the Borderlands. It really does say a lot about the Borderlands that Locronan is considered one of the better places to live. You're oppressed, granted, but a Brentonian Knight is a potent warrior that can match many of the horrors that lurk in the Borderlands. (Start in Locronan, a fortress city ruled by Algernon Mercier, the Scion of a Brentonian Knight lineage left behind during one of the Chivalry Kingdoms Errantry wars. He is a heavy-handed ruler, with little regard for other "principalities" often waging war against the polities around him, secure from any retaliation by the six tall peaks surrounding his capital.)




[] Whoever named Inutileton was probably being very truthful:


You were not sure who named Inutileton. Was it some unfortunate coincidence? Some Tilean pulling a fast one on the inhabitants? A deliberate attempt to convince people that it was not worth their time? Any which way, by all accounts the name is accurate. The town is just slightly too large to be considered a village but lacks much of anything really going for it beyond that. Most people make their living off hunting or driving goats through the moorland surrounding the town, and those that do produce things are producing… nothing of great quality. (Start in Inutileton, a small town with not much going for it. However, it is free of any Border Princes' control, and the moorlands are a fresh hell to move an attacking force through.)