It's why a "league of nations" is also probably not in the cards. The dwarfs don't want help to reconquer their old holds if they can help it. They want it to be a dwarven project to raise moral. Something where they can say "see! We still have it! We might be diminished but we are not out!"
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- Location
- Finland
It will be known as the webway.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Yes it will!It will be known as the webway.
The problem of course is that they do not have it and that is never going to change in the span of the quest. The process of saving the dwarfs has to be done tiptoeing around their pride for precisely this reason.
- Location
- Finland
Also, one of the main reasons why K8P can hold dwarves, humans, and halflings, is because they can be spread out.
Halflings live in the caldera/valley with all the farmland, humans have their own area, and dwarves live in their own areas.
It allows everyone to ease into living together.
Cramming everyone into one mountain, even if there was room, would probably end up in a disaster.
Halflings live in the caldera/valley with all the farmland, humans have their own area, and dwarves live in their own areas.
It allows everyone to ease into living together.
Cramming everyone into one mountain, even if there was room, would probably end up in a disaster.
Establishing a League of Nations is the exact reason why Thorgrim is planning to retake Mount Silverspear. We know that Thorgrim has another reason for it: to expand the number of holds with active nexuses. Mount Silverpsear was seemingly the easiest hold to retake. From there it is a matter of snowballing. In any case, the waystone network is private. That reason is known to Thorgrim alone and will likely only be known by his successor.
Establishing the League of Nations is the reason he gave to the Kings of the Karaz Ankor. The retaking of the Watchtowers is being done with the assistance of human mercenaries. They're also using human and ogre mercenaries to test the defenses of Mount Silverspear. Dwarf pride is a reason why the reclamation would be done purely by dwarfs, yes. However, there are other reasons too. Involving other powers would make it harder to compel them to join Thorgrim's League of Nations. Also humans probably aren't the best at underground warfare either.
Thorgrim just signed a treaty saying he would disclose the location of nexuses within the Karaz Ankor and that same treaty acknowledged that military actions would be done by the other nations to assist each other in reclaiming nexuses.
As I posted above, from the novels that doesn't seem to have been a problem in either Karak Kadrin or Barak Varr, which seem to have large permanent human quarters inside those holds.
If the Slayer Hold can manage to peacefully integrate a settled human population, I think most holds should be able to.
Absolutely, but a league of nations would be so blatant no one could ignore it.
K8p worked because belegar was desperate and could convince himself that if they live there it's ok.
That seems like a bit of an odd sentiment to be honest, yeah humans halfflings and dwarfs are different species with different morphologies and cultures, but so what? When I look at an episode of Star Trek I don't think 'ah putting humans Vulcans and Klingons in the same city will never work, it will end in disaster.'
The dwarfs would not like sharing space with humans, that is not the same thing as it being doomed in the abstract.
The main reason Mount silver spear was chosen is because it holds the key to the silver road and with k8p and vlag holds all three viable passes through the world edge mountains. That it gives another boost to the waystone system of the dwarfs is nice, but it's absolutely secondary to holding those passes.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
5 passes. There's also Karak Kadrin and the Howling River pass that Gretel is set up at.
Right, still those passes are the most important thing the dwarfs can hold. Because if they can hold them an enemy army (most likely a waaagh) can be funneled into prepared defenses instead of having to let them besiege their holds.
This would ease the fighting the dwarven armies have to do immensely.
Do you mind pointing out which novels say that? WFRP 4e said that Karak Azgaraz had Belthani vassals that they abandoned when the Unberogen displaced them.
I do not understand why you think this is a reply to my post. You said that a League of Nations would not happen. I pointed out that Thorgrim made it clear to the Kings of the Karaz Ankor that his goal in reconquering Mount Silverspear was to force the human nations to form a League of Nations with military assistance and coordination and all of that.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
You can take it up with Boney if you like, it's his statement that it'd be more difficult in other holds than K8P that people are going off of.
Because this is the quote your relying on.
And this is not a league of nations.
It's barely a defensive pact against a Ork waaagh if we want to go that far...
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
Most Thorgrim said that Karaz Ankor could come to an accomodition with Human nations. You might think that is going to end up as League of Nations but he might just easyly mean to exploit their control or anything between. We don't know either way.
I think it's Heirs of Sigmar mentions that human vassals served as cavalry auxiliaries for dwarven holds.
Dragonslayer has the description of Karak Kadrin's human quarter.
Also worth considering is that Dragonslayer also tells us that Karak Kadrin has a notable library, the Library of the Slayer King, which includes human texts.
It's not necessarily inconsistent. Karak Kadrin is noted to be one of the dwarf hold that's closest to humans thanks to the presence of the pass and proximity to Imperial provinces, so this may be a cultural feature that's particular to them and Barak Varr. The dwarves of other holds may be much less familiar with having human neighbours. Those two holds may have gone through the pain of adapting and managing the cultural friction centuries or millennia past, but other dwarves such as those in Karaz-a-Karak would be yet to do so.
It's also likely that humans in those holds are a smaller minority than they are in K8Ps.
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Kadrin is also just weird because it is the slayer keep and ruled by the slayer kings. Their whole culture is just slightly divorced from the other holds I feel.
Though there is an argument that no hold is the same because all had to go into isolation for a time and divergence does happen rather quickly.
- Location
- A Pit Of My Own Making
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Probably less so for dwarfs, being A) long lived and B) staunch traditionalists
There's probably a lot in that. Each dwarf hold is in some ways an island in a mostly hostile sea, and they'll each have been shaped by their local environments.
Karak Kadrin was particularly close to humans, so has a human quarter. Karak Azul was particularly isolated so has fewer engineers. Each of them will have developed their own survival strategies.
I suspect that divergence partially happens through the subtle redefinition of what 'traditional' means…
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
You're probably thinking of this passage?
(Sigmar's Heirs page 44)
But that's just saying early Averlanders provided cavalry for their allies the Dwarfs, not that there was any kind of vassalage going on.
Necessity is the mother of invention (and change). barak varr had very different challenges then kadrin in isolation and had to react very differently to them.
This forces change rather quickly.
If your way of survival is building giant ships instead of digging into a mountain then that changes who is important, what gets prioritized and what knowledge gets prized higher.
At least that's my thought on it. The holds generally had different enemies and different problems
Boney was the one who described it as a League of Nations. Thorgrim clearly intended and intends to form major diplomatic inroads with the other powers of the Old World. What Thorgrim described in the interlude was significant. Thorgrim's description of his goals included military coordination in the excess of "barely a defensive pact."
Do you recall the Bohka Palace Accords? The ones we just gone done negotiating? Thorgrim just signed them. A treaty that could imply that Ulthuan could deploy military force to expand the waystone network in the Karaz Ankor. Would that happen? No, almost certainly not. But that Thorgrim signed it despite the fact that many dwarfs would read it that shows that he is seeking military cooperation.
Reread the description of the second Silver Road War. Karaz-a-Karak has shed a lot of its conservatism in the prosecution of that war. Mount Silverspear is extremely far away from the Empire. It is honestly easy to justify not having humans help retake it. But the other Karaks would be much closer and the precedent of Mag Dog Pass is already there.
Nothing about Thorgrim's actions suggests that he has goals as small as you're trying to paint them.
I'm not Boney obviously so I'm not sure if he is going to use this in the quest, but the one thing that comes to mind is that a trade quarter is not the same as military aid and cavalry auxiliary isn't the same thing as the Udumgi. So the elaborate, the problem with dwarfs is that there aren't enough dwarfs which means you need humans to take on dwarf jobs, particularly risky ones. 'Wine merchant', to give an example, is not that, even though said human would be so some use in the working of the Karak's economy and at the same time human cavalry is nice to have, but it isn't going to deal with the main source of dwarf attrition, which is to say greenskins and skaven.
