Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Reader mode
Boney said:
Not to pick on you specifically, but this sentiment in general that I've seen a fair few times recently is... not wrong, but incomplete. Another way to see the exact same events is the Ice Witches having been forced to show how far they've fallen by being unable to scrape up a single Ice Witch that is both seasoned and literate, and when they chose literate, they ended up feeding the poor girl into the jaws of an ancient ancestral enemy, giving a monster that spent centuries dunking on the Gospodars a chance to do it repeatedly front of the collected magical traditions of the continent. A grand opportunity for prestige and peacocking has withered on the vine.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That interpretation could be true, but assumes that the Ice Witches did send their objectively best candidate. Which neither we nor Mathilde actually know. From the observables, it's also possible, nay likely, that they underestimated the role. That Zlata was the best candidate, but only from the pool of "Witches who don't have anything important to be doing."

And from the Ice Witches' perspective that's perfectly reasonable, if aggravating for us as Project Lead. Kislev has a lot of problems, and not many Ice Witches, and nobody would expect the Waystones project to result in the Tzar signing a treaty with Ulthuan within three years.
 
Last edited:
Boney said:
giving a monster that spent centuries dunking on the Gospodars a chance to do it repeatedly in front of the collected magical traditions of the continent.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I know we're supposed to feel a bit bad for the Ice Witches here, but all I can see is a horrified Zlata looking at Baba Niedzwanka in a jersey while the space jam music plays.

Gavin Prince said:
That interpretation could be true, but assumes that the Ice Witches did send their objectively best candidate.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's Boney you're replying to.
 
Sorry to those who thought the waystone project might have some sort of lasting impact on the world, but we just got confirmation that the world is doomed and nothing can change its fate.

Also the Empire is the Imperium of Man.
<https://www.warhammer-community.com...nd-table-on-how-the-new-old-lore-was-written/>
From the moment we'd established what the Empire was and what Chaos was, we'd destined Archaon to ascend and destroy that setting.
[...]
An early question for us was: "What was the Horus Heresy moment in the Old World? What was the Siege of Terra moment?" The conclusion we came to was that the Destruction of Praag and the Siege of Kislev were pivotal – the rise of Asavar Kul represented the true return of Chaos to the Old World.
[...]
It's Asavar Kul who rises up and destroys Praag, bringing Chaos back into the world. He's defeated at Kislev, but while the nations of the Old World think that means Chaos has been driven back, the reality is that it's a tipping point – something has changed in the world, and from that point on, it is doomed.
[...]
"What technologies might exist during this time that have been forgotten or cast aside later on, and what does that tell us about the World of Legend versus the world of the End Times?"
[...]
Steam Tanks are fascinating, because they were built several centuries ago, when the great engineer Leonardo De Miragliano was still alive. They've been around a long time, and there are actually more in the World of Legend period than during the End Times because they were newer, and fewer had been destroyed. This is a slightly more Golden Age, an age that knows a degree of peace compared to the End Times.
[...]
There's also less superstition. By the End Times, it was commonly claimed that there were only 12 Steam Tanks built, ever – but that's the kind of mad myth that spread in the End Times. Really there were loads of them! That was just normal. This isn't an age of vast crowds wandering through the Empire and flagellating themselves.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Last edited:
Boney said:
Not to pick on you specifically, but this sentiment in general that I've seen a fair few times recently is... not wrong, but incomplete. Another way to see the exact same events is the Ice Witches having been forced to show how far they've fallen by being unable to scrape up a single Ice Witch that is both seasoned and literate, and when they chose literate, they ended up feeding the poor girl into the jaws of an ancient ancestral enemy, giving a monster that spent centuries dunking on the Gospodars a chance to do it repeatedly in front of the collected magical traditions of the continent. A grand opportunity for prestige and peacocking has withered on the vine.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Dang, I do feel a bit bad for them now. We don't tend to think about things in terms of prestige.

Maybe if we take the Kislev Network action at some point, they'll have a chance to show off?
 
Andres said:
Sorry to those that thought the waystone project might have some sort of lasting impact of the world, but we just got confirmation that the world is doomed and nothing can change its fate.

Also the Empire is the Imperium of Man.
<https://www.warhammer-community.com...nd-table-on-how-the-new-old-lore-was-written/>
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Welp, since WHF is doomed, we must turn to something even more doomed to drive away the darkness that WHF canon insists on being: 40k memes.

Turning to the thread
Brothers! Get the flamer. The heavy flamer.
 
Last edited:
Altom said:
And that is why I have exactly zero hype for the Old World.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
A greater-than-zero amount of hype may be appropriate. From what I can tell, the bad things introduced are unavoidable: they need to sell new models of things that don't appear in later time periods, and they need to write the setting as if it were doomed. Where they've get more freedom to work with, they do good work, adding women knights and also this:
Settra's understanding of his realm is that all lands beyond his borders are lands to be conquered by Settra and to submit to his glorious rule. And his rule is absolute and unchallengeable. If you don't want to be ruled by him, he will kill you. Those are the two options: bend the knee, or die.
[...]
It's difficult to buy the idea that an undying empire of skeletons, ruled over by the ultimate tyrant who in his life wanted to cross every horizon and subjugate everything he discovered… wouldn't be evil? The mortuary cults and the entire idea of undeath exist because of Settra's vanity and refusal to die. Nagash wouldn't exist if it weren't for Settra's refusal to die. The aggrandisement of self through the grand statuary and hieroglyphic writings of Nehekhara – it's so self-centred and so selfish and tells us so much about how little the rulers of Nehekhara cared about their subjects that it cannot be anything but evil.
[...]
In the End Times, Settra opposed Chaos, because he was not going to yield to Chaos. He's too insane, even in undeath. That's where we think the idea of the Tomb Kings being 'good' came from, and where we think the shades of grey perhaps muddied things a little too much. Neither Chaos nor Settra will let the people of the Old World get on with their lives.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's a very low bar to present the tyrannical overlord bent on world domination as straight up evil, but it's not a bar that's always cleared, and they do clear it.
 
Gavin Prince said:
It's not WoG that Zlata was the best. It's "Have you considered that she might be?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think what Boney said is "have you considered that literacy may be so rare in the Ice Court that getting a literate Ice Witch means seriously compromising on her actual skill, and that this implies that the Ice Court is kind of in a bad shape?"

In fact, we know Zlata wasn't chosen for being the best, she was chosen for being literate and not busy. She outright told us as much when we socialed her, and she also mentioned that the lack of widespread literacy is because of the decline of the Ice Court:
Boney said:
"Why is it, do you think, you were selected for this?"

"Beyond having nothing more important to be doing? Because I can read and I can speak Reikspiel."

"Is that unusual for Ice Witches?"

"The reading more than the Reikspiel. Most Ice Witches are from peasant families. Some say because they are closer to winter and the land, others say it's just a matter of most Kislevites being peasants. So most are only really taught the secrets of Ice Magic and the doctrines of the Ancient Widow. I've heard things were different before Kattarin, back when we had a proper Ice Court and the Ice Witches shaped the bloodlines of the Boyars, but for now the only Ice Witches that can read are the ones that were taught to as children.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Ah yes, the golden age of the Empire: the Time of Three Emperors.

Ah yes, the great victory for Chaos that made the world's end inevitable: Asavar Kul not even making it through the first nation he tried to conquer.

Ah yes, the era that marked the ruinous decline of the Empire: the reign of Magnus the Pious.

Every time I start to get a little bit interested in the Old World, they go out of their way to remind me that it will forever be framed as the explicit prequel to Age of Sigmar, and never be allowed out of that shadow.
 
mathymancer said:
I think what Boney said is "have you considered that literacy may be so rare in the Ice Court that getting a literate Ice Witch means seriously compromising on her actual skill, and that this implies that the Ice Court is kind of in a bad shape?"

In fact, we know Zlata wasn't chosen for being the best, she was chosen for being literate and not busy. She outright told us as much when we socialed her, and she also mentioned that the lack of widespread literacy is because of the decline of the Ice Court:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Sure, but I feel the more important factor there for us is

"Beyond having nothing more important to be doing?"

Because that can go very different ways depending on how the Ice Court viewed the project. If they thought it was important, then Zlata is their best choice of everyone they could possibly call away. If they viewed it as a folly they were indulging because Boris called in a marker, then Zlata is the best of whatever new graduates they had idling around.

And we have no way of actually knowing which is true until we interact more with the Ice Court (and maybe not even then, given few would admit the latter if it were the truth)
 
Last edited:
Tobtorp said:
We really should just find a way to make that road mobile.
If you can trick the sun in thinking it's a bit more to the left, you definitely can trick a mountain into thinking it's 2000 miles north.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Does it really need to be road mobile? I feel like we could get most of the benefit of blocking the main pathway for the Armies of Chaos by just building a second one for Karak Vlag. Though I doubt Kragg the Grim is interested in building copies of anything he has already done.
 
Last edited:
Andres said:
A greater-than-zero amount of hype may be appropriate. From what I can tell, the bad things introduced are unavoidable: they need to sell new models of things that don't appear in later time periods, and they need to write the setting as if it were doomed. Where they've get more freedom to work with, they do good work, adding women knights and also this:

It's a very low bar to present the tyrannical overlord bent on world domination as straight up evil, but it's not a bar that's always cleared, and they do clear it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I am sufficiently sick and tired of the culture war to not feel hyped when what feels like a blatant cash grab happened to put some diversity in. As for the Settra thing, deciding to take what used to be at least somewhat nuanced faction and make them "straight up evil" is not a decusion I like and the fact they bothered to do absolute minimum of legwork to justify it can not make me like it. It is a bandaid on yet another stab wound on the rotting corpse of my ability to care about GW's take on WHFB.
 
Last edited:
LawsOfRobotics said:
Does it really need to be road mobile? I feel like we could get most of the benefit of blocking the main pathway for the Armies of Chaos by just building a second one for Karak Vlag. Though I doubt Kragg the Grimm is interested in building copies of anything he has already done.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In a meta sense I'd find it boring to just build it again and in a in universe sense k8p has the unique situation of having the surrounding peaks being used as a shield so that enemies can not directly go for the eye for an attack easily.
I don't think that would work for vlag.
 
Altom said:
As for the Settra thing, deciding to take what used to be at least somewhat nuanced faction and make them "straight up evil" is not a decusion I like and the fact they bothered to do absolute minimum of legwork to justify it can not make me like it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They didn't write anything different about Settra compared to how he always was.

He literally founded the entire Mortuary Cult because he knew he wasn't going to live long enough to enslave the entire world and demanded that they make him immortal so that he could.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top