It is more than "a few" lines but only a few paragraphs total. It is an important worldbuilding part for the ability of the druchii to project power on both sides of their continent without needing to run the gauntlet of the Ulthuan navies and cape colonies. We have never got much focus on it.
It is more than "a few" lines but only a few paragraphs total. It is an important worldbuilding part for the ability of the druchii to project power on both sides of their continent without needing to run the gauntlet of the Ulthuan navies and cape colonies. We have never got much focus on it.
That's what I mean! It's this whole thing that exists mostly to explain druchii naval power and also by the way there's like whole undiscovered species down there but we're out of space in this paragraph, time to move on.
I want to know more! I want to know a lot more!
I guess this is the right quest to have that in mind, though.
Besides the old/new division and the tone division i think there would also be the table top purists that want him to be playable or endlessly trying to make his weird stats and position work damn it on one side and the other people who just enjoy having him for the RP coolness and think he is perfect even if a bad(lore's access not power) wizard with C stats.
No you cannot, at least not shysh alone, if you want to summon ghosts you either have to use Dhar or get a God involved. That is what necromancy does, rips out the god bits of Nehekaran theurgy and replaces them with Morathi derived soul mutilation. It's not just that Nagash was a genius to be able to do that, it's that he was working off the notes of another genius dark mage, Morathi. The notion that some rando could just go 'just add a wee bit more Shysh' into the Dhar and get anything at all usable flies in the face of everything we know about necromancy in DL and canon.
Laniph was an Arabyan sorceress whose ardent passions were eclipsed only by her capriciousness. It takes little effort to call her back from the spirit world to caress a new lover of the caster's choosing...
Warhammer Fantasy Battle 8th Edition Rulebook, page 171-The Lore of Death.
t is true that Magisters of the Amethyst Order have power over the dead and the power to cause death. They can steal the soul of their enemy or suck away his life, leaving nought but a flesh and blood husk. These Magisters are reputed to even be able to see spirits and souls as they travel between this world and the next and are said to be able to communicate with them, after a fashion.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition-Realms of Sorcery, page 111.
With the Purple Wind of Magic, Shyish, you gain mastery over the passage of time, commanding the essence of life and death.
You imprison the soul of your victim, sealing it in a durable vessel of your choosing such as a bottle, vial, or pouch. While the soul is so imprisoned, the victim's body lives as a vegetable, carrying on the barest functions of life-breathing, swallowing, excreting- without initiative or awareness. Though technically living, this husk cannot shuffle around or even sit up on its own and must be fed by others or die of thirst or starvation. Damage, diseases, poisons, and other sources of harm affect it normally. It similarly heals over time and can be healed as usual by magic or the Heal skill. You can restore the imprisoned soul to its body at any time by opening the sealed vessel in the presence of its body. Any Priest of Morr or any other Amethyst Wizard who knows this spell, can do likewise. In either case, the restored individual gains 1-5 (1d10/2) Insanity Points immediately from the harrowing experience. If the bottle is opened away from its body or is opened by one who does not know the proper rituals, the soul becomes lost in the world, wandering and damned to become a Ghost.
You ask and can receive an answer to one question you ask of a specific deceased individual, as long as that question can be answered with a number of audible knocks other than zero ("How many robbers came into your house on the night you were beaten to death?"), or answered with a yes or no ("Would it please you for us to bring your body on our pilgrimage to Altdorf?"). In the case of yes/no questions, the spirit of the deceased knocks once for "yes," and twice for "no." No matter the question, the spirit is not compelled to answer at all, has no knowledge beyond that which he had in life, and can lie if he wishes. The act of answering is neither inherently pleasant nor odious to the deceased, though
it
may well be emotionally painful because of the living who are present or due to the nature of the question. This spell must be cast in the presence of either the deceased's body or the presence of one of his living descendants. It is said the dead answer by knocking on the gates of Morr's realm.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition-Realms of Sorcery, pages 141, 142 and 143.
He perverts Shyish by blending it with Dhar against all laws and sanity and uses his magic to give him power over others, living and otherwise.
We of the Amethyst College do not fear death we seek to death understand it and all its implications. Yes, we can speak with the dead, but we don't want to dominate them. Rather, we want to know what they know, or destroy them if they're hostile. We are implacable foes of necromancers, because they corrupt what we love.
'Sigmar's own truth, Bart! They found this toff's corpse in the alley, no idea who he was nor who killed him. The Watch brings in this purple-robed wizard from the college, and he ed just stands there, staring at it, not saying a thing. Finally he shakes his head and tells the sergeant all about the killing. Within an hour they figured out who dunnit and nicked him.'
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition-Winds of Magic, pages 114 and 116.
Wizards of the Amethyst Order are shunned by common folk and there is reason to see why. Even so there are many who secretly crave contact with the spirit world, with departed loved ones or those dead souls whose secrets they wish to learn. Amethyst Wizards can contact the dead, for they have mastery over spirits both benign and otherwise.
It is said that they have the power to bend the dead to their will. Such tricks are as nothing compared to the nightmarish sorceries of the Undead, yet they are of a similar nature, and the Amethyst Wizards are tainted by their association with Necromancy, no matter how distant they claim it to be.
As the wizards of the Amethyst Order have power over the dead, they too have the power to deal death. It is said that an Amethyst Wizard can suck the life from an enemy, leaving nought but a husk. They can cast a wind of death that withers flesh or envelop their foes under a shroud of despair.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition-Winds of Magic, page 115.
Compel Spirits
CN: 6
Range: Willpower Bonus yards
Target: AoE (Willpower Bonus yards) Duration: Until sunrise
You exert authority over creatures with both the Undead and Ethereal Traits. Choose one of the following effects: Command all targets who fail an Opposed Willpower Test to do your bidding. You can order the spirits to flee or fight.
Dying Words
CN: 6
Range: Touch Target: 1
Duration: Willpower Bonus rounds Touching the body of a recently departed soul (one that passed away within the last day), you call its soul back briefly. For the spell's duration, you can communicate with the dead soul, though it cannot take any action other than talking. It is not compelled to answer you, but the dead do not lie.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition-Winds of Magic, page 123.
Amethyst College Mages, themselves call Necromancy as just blending of Shyish with Dhar, they can speak with souls of the dead, call them back, if briefly, explicitly can manipulate and control the dead and can manipulate souls in general. The difference between Shyish user and Necromancer is that, the latter doesn't restrain themselves so they would be stronger by using Dark Magics but also would have less control over their spells and Necromancers don't care about the souls they manipulate or summon, they just do it when they feel like it.
Just because some Norscan sorcerer couldn't had consumed the lifeforce of his entire tribe and then raise them as his minions, doesn't mean he was unable to summon some ghost or animate corpses to do some dirty work. Nagash was the loudest but realistically, he was far from literally ''The First Necromancer''.
You are warping a bunch of communication spells, some sorceress who most likely using necromancy (as seen by the fact that she is called a sorceress) and just blatant rumor mongering together. Secondly and most importantly just because the Norscan shaman can 'do stuff to ghosts' does not mean he can perform academic necromancy, that is the ability to control and manipulate the souls of the dead without the aid of gods or spirits. The closest thing thing to that is Animus Imprisoned which still does not control the soul, it just binds it in place. Shysh alone cannot give something the semblance of life, that is why you need the dhar and you also need the secrets of the mortuary cult to make it a good semblance of life.
Returning to the Norscan shaman, assuming he is a barrow raiser he may be able to call on the tribe's ancestral gods to make sure the honored dead can rise to defend their barrows, what he cannot do is make flesh puppets out of random corpses because that falls outside the reach of his gods powers.
Besides the old/new division and the tone division i think there would also be the table top purists that want him to be playable or endlessly trying to make his weird stats and position work damn it on one side and the other people who just enjoy having him for the RP coolness and think he is perfect even if a bad(lore's access not power) wizard with C stats.
Tabletop wise, I'd imagine that he'd be a decently powerful wizard that probably has some uses. Like I can imagine a situation where he can be splashed into a Vampire Counts, Tomb King or High Elven Army and he then allows you to take a small detachment of a unit type that the army can't usually access.
Like imagine if taking him allows you to take a few Ushabti as a Vampire Counts, some Vampirate units as a Tomb King or some fodder Undead units as a High Elf.
Basically while his stats aren't the best, what he provides is the ability for you to be a bit more creative with your army list.
I'm Pretty sure from basically the moment they started putting together war on what the origin of vampirism was, it's been an explicit attempt to reproduce nagash's work, cribbing off his notes.
Even under the view of it being better than his, which I even agree with, that's still a "standing on the shoulders of giants" situation.
That Sorceress is dead and the spell summons her ghost. It's from 8th edition Lore of Death spells which can be used both by Amethyst Wizards and Necromancers.
The ''rumour mongering'' as you called it, is from 2nd of Roleplay but that's because that game in particular liked to be as low magic as possible and generally was talking from perspective of some very lowlife folk. By this logic, Sylvania isn't actually ruled by Vampires because in the same book, their existence is presented as just unconfirmed rumour.
Local authorities and very wealthy families who live and operate around the land once known as Sylvania in north-eastern Stirland often seek to employ Shyish's Magisters. Such is the malignancy of that dying and warp-dust saturated land that many people believe the dead rest uneasily in their graves there, and Vampires are said to stalk the night. True or not, the skills of the Amethyst Order are highly valued by the desperate, the paranoid, and the terrified, and the Magisters view it as their sacred duty to undo all the works of necromancy and dark magic.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition-Realms of Sorcery, page 113.
It's just the style this book, and others from that particular version of the game, were written, if you just read the Shyish spell list from the same book, it's clear that talking to death, seeing them or controlling them is anything but rumour. And if you actually read quotes I had given, you would notice that in 4th Edition of the RPG, the book just straight up says that Amethyst Wizards can control ghosts, summon them, talk to them and people hire them specifically to talk with ghosts and at every moment the Winds of Magic, mentions how similar Shyish and Necromancy are.
Actual, Amethyst Wizard literally describes Necromancy as ''blending Shyish with Dhar'' and one of the spells, explicitly summons deceased spirit.
He perverts Shyish by blending it with Dhar against all laws and sanity and uses his magic to give him power over others, living and otherwise.
What more prove to you need? Amethyst Wizards can literally put someone soul into a bottle and your argument is ''W-well, but they aren't literally puppeteering that guys soul so it doesn't count!''. You can manipulate and do wierd things with people souls without any Dhar or literal Divine intervention, you can speak with ghosts, summon ghosts and fucking steal their lifeforce.
I think you are perfect example of a problem some Warhammer, but by no means only, fans have. Warhammer was always sandbox setting, you were supposed to do your own stuff in it, write your own stories, create your own Nobles, Knights, Vampires or Elves Wizards of the White Tower. It's not a setting with hard, well defined rules and never was. Magic has very wide range of effects, you really don't need literal Gods or be some super powerful Dark Sorcerer who lived for countless aeons just to summon fucking Casper or puppeteer someone's dead grandma.
I mean, no, what the logic establishes (correctly) is that 2e WFRP (or at least that book) cannot be used as a source for Sylvania being ruled by vampires. Fortunately I think there might be one or two other sources that can cover that gap.
Which is a mostly accurate, but incomplete, description of what Necromancy entails, coming from a source who likely is not an expert in it and certainly holds it in poor regard.
Again: Necromancy proper is not just "any magic which affects the dead," it's a specific lore of magic with specific methods and techniques. Methods and techniques which Nagash invented/developed from a synthesis of existing traditions, and which have subsequently formed the foundation of "Necromancer" being an entire distinct category of problem for the world to have.
I am reminded of a but of lore that I read somewhere.
Basically the story goes that an Empire Noble's wife falls ill with some unspecified disease. He tries everything he can to find a cure, but despite his wealth and connections nothing works.
So out of desperation he travels to dead Nehekarah, in search of some rumored miracle cure. So he braved the tombs and was naturally captured, being brought before the tomb king.
There the man told the Tomb King his story and desperately begged for the rumored miracle cure. However rather than execute the man, his pure love for his wife touched the Tomb King's heart and he not only spared the man's life, but gave him the miracle cure he sought.
He then returned to the Empire and cured his wife, living with her for the rest of his days.
I believe the purpose of the story is to show how the Tomb Kings are sometime fickle in positive ways as well.
That's from 2e Roleplay Old World Bestiary, page 68.
The priest walked to me and said, 'My lord commands me to tell you that he too, loved once. He too, would've gone to the ends of the world to save his love. I am to show you the wisdom you seek.' If not for Razim's greed, I would never have found the hidden place that the wizened priest took me to and my Karelia would've been lost to me forever. Strange are the turnings of the world.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if the Heldenhammer isn't the result of some shipboard Sigmarite priest seeing the Curse of Zandri chasing down some luckless thief and deciding that the Empire should have one of its own? Replace the massive khopesh at the front with hammers and the pyramid with a cathedral... it kind of fits.
If we're going strictly by the Dreadfleet book, the Heldenhammer was definitely built before the Curse of Zandri. Because it was Roth raiding his lands with the Heldenhammer that prompted King Amanhotep the Intolerant to create the Curse of Zandri in response.
I think you are perfect example of a problem some Warhammer, but by no means only, fans have. Warhammer was always sandbox setting, you were supposed to do your own stuff in it, write your own stories, create your own Nobles, Knights, Vampires or Elves Wizards of the White Tower. It's not a setting with hard, well defined rules and never was. Magic has very wide range of effects, you really don't need literal Gods or be some super powerful Dark Sorcerer who lived for countless aeons just to summon fucking Casper or puppeteer someone's dead grandma.
"Warhammer is a sandbox, and you're playing in it wrong" is a hell of a take.
You keep treating this thread as a general Warhammer discussion thread and wading into it to champion the cause that Warhammer is a lego setting that you can assemble in a number of different ways, that there are alternate takes on just about everything. In the right place that argument isn't wrong, but in the context of a quest thread with pretty well established lore, it just doesn't work that way. These questions did have multiple answers, but a QM has to choose an answer and go with it. Sometimes that's not the answer you would have gone with, and you need to be okay with that.
Warhammer could be imagined as a setting with a diverse and fractured family tree of necromancy where it has been independently invented dozens of hundreds of times, where Drachenfels is a peer to Nagash, where Norsca and the Empire and Ind and Cathay and everywhere else all have their own (likely suppressed) necromantic traditions, likely drawing more widely and deeply on real life mythology to come up with a bunch of different conceptions of what that would look like. I think that would make for a fantastic quest to explore or worldbuilding post to read. But this isn't the place for it. The metaphysics for this quest have been pretty well established in DL. In this take on Warhammer, magical traditions tend to be rarer and to have much clearer lineages for the straightforward reason that I'm into that. I like there being a traceable throughline in history where you can trace a line all the way back from some asshole trying to break into the local Garden of Morr, going through a local Vampire to their family tree to Lahmia to Nagash to the Druchii to Morathi to Aenarion drawing Widowmaker to Vaul and Draugnir. Someone that's more into the infinite variation of different cultures exploring the same ideas would have made a different world out of the same setting, one where necromancy would be much as you described, but that's not the world this quest is set in. Please make your peace with that.
I like there being a traceable throughline in history where you can trace a line all the way back from some asshole trying to break into the local Garden of Morr, going through a local Vampire to their family tree to Lahmia to Nagash to the Druchii to Morathi to Aenarion drawing Widowmaker to Vaul and Draugnir.
Long before the glorious time of Eldanesh, Kurnous and Lileath were bound in courtship. Only Khaine among the gods resented their union, and by every method he could conceive he sought Lileath's hand, so charmed was he by her beauty and wit -- and so desirous to spite the Hunter.
But he could not win her despite all his attempts. An eternity later, fair Lileath was spurned by Kurnous in favour of her mother Isha, the goddess of the harvest, fertility and healing and the Hunter soon got the Healer with his child. Through pretty smiles and pretty laughter Lileath hid her bitterness and jealousy. Then, when a dream came to her of Khaine being torn into pieces by a great army of mortals, a plan formed in her mind. In secret, she divulged this prophetic vision to the Lord of Murder, and he resolved to slaughter the Aeldari to prevent his death. Lileath was pleased, for the deaths of their mortal children would bring tremendous pain and grief to Isha and Kurnous.
So Khaine started genociding the elves, Asuryan said "no more talking to mortals", Isha and Kurnous got around that, Khaine discovered their activities and dobbed on them, and as punishment, Asuryan said he could torture them as much as he wants. Vaul, wanting to free them, agreed to make 100 swords for Khaine in a single year, the last of which was Anaris, the Widowmaker.
So yeah, all all that suffering because Khaine and Lileath are canonically an incel and a femcel.
@Solarion informed that Lileath and Kurnouth courting originates from the Path of the Eldar novels, which ran from 2010 to 2014, and frames them as being lovers, not being parent and child. (I personally am unaware of any lore that says Lileath is Kurnous' daughter, only that she's Isha's daughter.)
"Warhammer is a sandbox, and you're playing in it wrong" is a hell of a take.
You keep treating this thread as a general Warhammer discussion thread and wading into it to champion the cause that Warhammer is a lego setting that you can assemble in a number of different ways, that there are alternate takes on just about everything. In the right place that argument isn't wrong, but in the context of a quest thread with pretty well established lore, it just doesn't work that way. These questions did have multiple answers, but a QM has to choose an answer and go with it. Sometimes that's not the answer you would have gone with, and you need to be okay with that.
Oh. I'm sorry. I'm perfectly aware that this quest has distinct history and setting from Warhammer Fantasy official publications and that QM have everyright to establish their own interpretation of the setting. I simply was talking about official publications because I assumed that was what's this specific discussion was about. DragonParadox claimed that neither in your canon nor official publication non-Necromancers are able to summon ghosts/spirits and other people mentioned things like Night of Magic Duels. I never wanted to force upon you anything Boney nor claim anything about your version of Warhammer Fantasy setting. Obviously things work differently in the case of this quest.
However, you are correct that this isn't place for that. Very sorry for the derail.
If I recall correctly, a lot of Aeldari lore got retconned into also being High Elf lore during 8th ed/End Times. I'd ignore it if I could, but I don't know enough about the previous lore to know which is which in order to separate them.
There was a lot of 40kification of High Elf lore in 8th edition, but I still definitely wouldn't take lore from an Eldar codex to be canon to Warhammer Fantasy, if it doesn't actually appear in any WHF publication.
Oh. I'm sorry. I'm perfectly aware that this quest has distinct history and setting from Warhammer Fantasy official publications and that QM have everyright to establish their own interpretation of the setting.
For someone who's nominally championing the cause of warhammer as a sandbox, you sure seem to think the only correct interpretation of things is your own.
"Nagash invented necromancy" IS canon and it's not the QM having a distinct setting from official publications to take "Nagash invented necromancy" at it's most straightforward meaning rather than twisting into pretzel to go "well, you could argue that actually he just invented a distinct more refined form of necromancy but other not as good forms were independently invented in lots of other place."
Hm don't know how applicable it is because of subtle changes between 40 K & fantasy
But on the other hand, I think Khaine is a big nerd so I am willing to except it
"I am one who has conquered death," you intone, smiling at the melodrama of it, but giving the smile a bit of a mysterious curl to match the tone. "A Mortuary Priest of the Kingdoms of the Sun. I was a Prince of Lahmia during our Third Dynasty, your Fourth Reign, and was tasked with preserving the body and the souls of the dead against the ravages of time and the predations of evil spirits. Its current state has rendered that task redundant, and yet I remain, still whole of limb and hale of body four thousand years after my youth. So I journey, and take on interesting hobbies and students where I find them."
"And what hobby or student brings you here today?" she asks, her voice remaining steady, her gaze flicking back and forth as she studies you.
"Our mutual friend has been my friend for a very, very long time, and he wishes to assemble a display of artefacts and trophies to peacock for the world. These beasts of your late husband's would make for a fine foundation."
After the mention of her husband, it takes her a moment to process the rest of the sentence and look doubtful. "Really? So mundane a purpose?"
"There's something about a rivalry with a fellow in a whirlpool, but yes, it really is just a prestige project. The concerns of nobility tend to remain the same, whatever the form. I've been given a broad remit as to the details, and I decided that you could be the most important of his contacts to get to know, and to find out if there's any service I can perform for you."
You can see it in her eyes and her soul when she very quickly makes the connection you intended her to make, but it is to her credit that she draws the conversation out as she considers it. You sit there and play along with the conversation as she does so, waiting with the patience of millennia. The best students are the ones who realize just how badly they need the lessons, and the ones that are harangued into it have a tedious habit of deciding they never actually made the decision in the first place.
---
It takes longer than you expect for her to follow her resolution and ask you to simply examine her husband's tomb with the eye of an expert, explaining in a brittle voice that the local Priesthood of the more benevolent Elven Death God aren't established enough to have their own architects and builders, and so the task fell to those who spend most of their time building residences and fortifications. It's an entirely fair concern, especially when she mentions her intention to arrange suitable transportation for his body to return to Ulthuan to be interred next to where she will eventually lie. This is a matter of more urgency than one might expect, and not just because of the concern of further assassination attempts that might kill her and leave her husband stranded on this island forever, but because of peculiarities in the Elven conception of the afterlife that you're only vaguely familiar with.
"You don't believe the Elven Gods would be willing or able to shepherd him to the afterlife from here?" you attempt to prompt her to continue.
Her silence speaks volumes. You're far from an expert on the subject, but your understanding is that Asur believe that outside Ulthuan, proper transition to the afterlife - as opposed to falling prey to the beings that would feast on a wandering spirit - depends on the scarce mercy of Morai-Heg, the assistance of one of Her Priests, or swearing oneself into the service of Ereth Khial. The alternative would be forever haunting wherever the spirit ends up, or attempting to travel somewhere that it would rather haunt. You'd guess that the local Priest for the civilian portion of the Citadel of Dusk might be seen as good enough for the local farmers and fishermen, but a Princess might have reservations about entrusting her beloved to their care.
Rather than push further, you begin your examination. You're not sure how to judge the size; for a merchant it was respectable, but judging it as a resting place for the sole spouse of a ruling royal, you've seen sarcophagi bigger than this entire mausoleum. Under the watchful eye of the Princess' pet Mage, who had been one of the Elves lurking within earshot, you get to work studying the structure, being careful not to do any more magic than merely nudging the ambient Winds to test how they flow.
"Hmm," you eventually say. "Okay, interesting. More to work with than I expected. The marble would be an excellent outer layer, but on its own it just doesn't provide enough baffling. You need an internal layer to compound the effects - granite if you can get it, but if you can't, basalt will do. The objective isn't to smother, mind you, but rather to insulate and to inhibit direct connections. It would still be navigable to even a moderate amount of concerted, thinking effort from the resident soul, but it disrupts any kind of mindless pull. I'll draw up some rough schematics that workers of the skill level that constructed this should be able to follow." You turn your attention to the exterior of the tomb, where what appears to be a smooth-polished oval ruby is socketed. "What is the significance of the jewel?"
The Princess turns to look at her Mage, and her expression grows insistent as the Mage remains silent. "It's a Wayshard," the Mage says with clear reluctance. "They resonate with the Waystone Network, and can be used to locate the nearest Waystone. It's believed by many that the spirits of the dead can travel back to Ulthuan along the network, allowing them to either return to their homeland or seek the sacred sites of Morai-Heg to have a better chance of crossing into the afterlife."
"That would be quite a journey," you say with affected mildness, your deliberate understatement immediately understood by your audience. Clearly if the Princess had any faith in this Network, you wouldn't be having this conversation, and sure enough she simply nods, her face bleak. You allow the moment to hang in the air for a moment, and then move on. "Well, at the very least it doesn't appear to be compromising the rest of the structure. The peaked roof could be adapted into a Wind-sump of sorts - it would be more work and materials than a capstone would, but less than rebuilding the structure to make it the right shape for a capstone. I'll have to have a word with the local metalworkers to see what materials would be available, but it should be simple to add it to the schematics. As for the body itself, considered on its own I would critique the preservation methods, but accounting for the remaining poison it had to contend with, I'd say this was respectable work. Your Mortuary Cult's work?"
"Mine, actually," says the Mage, a little primly.
You turn your full attention to her as you run through your recent memories for her name. "Might I ask your specialty?"
"Carnivorous plants."
Hmm. That could mean that Telsomar here raises those plants for their usefulness as potion ingredients, making it even more impressive that she was able to do such good work purely as an apothecary, or that she is accustomed with the proper handling and storage of the dead as a necessity for handling the diet of those plants. You could compliment her further to fish for more information, but she'd likely take that as the prying it would be, so for now you simply move on. But you resolve to keep half an eye on Telsomar in the future.
"I can supply unguents to build on this solid foundation that should allow the vessel to reach a stable equilibrium and prevent any further degradation. And finally, a sacrificial brazier to sustain the soul, giving it both the energy to linger and refreshing its memories of life. We would use bronze, but what makes it suitable is the enchantment laid upon it, so any magically-resonant material would do."
"How is the soul eating food without a body?" Talsomar asks.
"It is absorbing the spiritual energy of the food, which is released by the enchanted flames," you explain patiently.
"But why food?" she insists. You're not sure if this is part of her interrogation or if you've piqued her curiosity. "Surely as a spirit, it can absorb any kind of magical energy."
"Even when energy can be absorbed in many forms, doing so in ways the soul does not understand can distress them and have strange and unwanted side-effects. The soul is most familiar with taking in nourishment from food, so is most open to continuing to do so." W'soran and his students proved that. He insisted that taking in sustenance from blood was pointlessly inefficient when the transformations of the Elixir made them able to sustain themselves by absorbing ambient magical energy, and even though his willpower was sufficient to overrule the thirst, over time those that did so had their physical bodies wither away until they resembled corpses.
Aelsabrim stares at the tomb, her hand on her stomach, likely considering how long her husband has gone without eating. Her expression grows determined and she gives her assent for you to begin your work.
---
You finish the schematics in the middle of the night, and yet Aelsabrim is still awake and sends runners off to assemble work teams immediately. You lurk unobtrusively nearby as she gives instructions. Those that answer her summons treat Aelsabrim with a sort of sad tenderness, making it clear that they see this as an expression of helpless grief instead of the very practical solution to grief that it is. It will have to do.
While the shell is assembled and the sump forged, you go through the rituals on the supplied brazier, a spindly-looking thing of marble and precious metals, but surprisingly sturdy. You are no student of Necrotecture, but there are certain enchantments that every Mortuary Priest worthy of the title can perform rote with the same ease and familiarity as applying their morning moisturizer. To their credit, the Elven builders prove to be swift and efficient workers when given a specific task to focus on and disallowed from any embellishments and refinements, and the renovated tomb is done by the time you're ready to install the brazier by its entrance.
"Is the fire dangerous?" Telsomar asks as you demonstrate its use with a loaf of rye bread.
You wave a hand. "Barely. The enchantment is less damaging to a living soul than the fire itself is to the flesh that contains it, and even that can be ameliorated." You check that Telsomar is watching closely, and then you weave together a Death cantrip, the flames taking on a purple tinge. "This is a divinatory spell used to commune with the dead at a very surface level," you say to Aelsabrim. "I would be willing to teach it to your Mage so that she might perform it for you." It was very widely distributed to tomb caretakers during the dynasties as a way for them to be able to check that everything was functioning correctly, so it wouldn't even be a violation of the rules of the Mortuary Cult. "If you place your hand in the fire, you will be able to sense the current emotional state of your husband's spirit." This part, on the other hand, would be unauthorized. It would be nice if this was because of concerns about feeding an obsession in those with lost loved ones that would come at the expense of living their lives, but in reality it was so that nobody else would be able to check up on exactly how many of the tombs were still occupied and secure.
You watch with your face neutral as Aelsabrim hesitantly approaches, and very gingerly inches her hand into the flickering magenta of the fire, then her face transforms as the magic allows two souls to brush. To you, you'd simply pick up on a sensation similar to finally being able to reapply one's unguents after a long walk through the desert - or, for a more familiar example for the conventionally living, of returning to bed after a long, stumbling path to and from an outhouse on a cold and blustery night. To Aelsabrim, finally brushing against the achingly familiar soul of her lost beloved and receiving confirmation that he's still here and still okay...
You and Telsomar turn away from her to give her some privacy as tears stream down her face.
Aelsabrim's cooperation as a middlewoman for acquisitions has been assured. What will you direct her to acquire in the coming year?
[ ] Critters Lustria is home to various kinds of fascinating and unique forms of wildlife, the smaller and more manageable examples of which are in demand as pets and exhibits in Ulthuan and the Old World. You might decide that they're also in demand on Fire Serpent Island.
[ ] Beasts Lustria's more impressive beasts are rarer, more dangerous, and even more sought after, both by Elven hunters and by the native Lizardmen that use them as mounts and as living siege engines, but one can be diverted from the trickle flowing through the Citadel to go towards your island.
[ ] Skeletons Capturing beasts alive is a process with a failure rate. You could receive that failure rate. There's less things you can do with a skeleton, but it is easier to fit them in crates and they're a lot less likely to try to bite you.
[ ] Relics Fuming Serpent Island was once home to a Lizardman temple-city until it was partially buried in volcanic eruptions, then the Elven colony that was built atop those ruins was itself buried in another volcanic eruption. The current Elven presence is dedicated to mining the stone that had been lava for jewels, metals, and treasures from the two lost cities, and the Lizardmen seem to allow it as long as anything of Lizardman origin is turned over to them. Not everyone obeys, and the Citadel has accumulated a fair amount of artefacts that miners attempted to smuggle out. Nobody will notice if some of it goes missing, and considering your patron, nobody will suspect the Citadel as the origin of any Lizardman loot you put on display.
[ ] Gems Honestly, there's not much historical value in freshly-mined jewels, but they are extremely pretty. Uh, they were mined on Fuming Serpent Island, so they are tangentially related to the Vampire Coast. And Elven faceting techniques are some of the most advanced in the world. You could come up with some excuse to indulge in corvid instincts.
[ ] Plants Princess Aelsabrim roped in a local ally of hers, the Mage Telsomar Greendale, to make sure you didn't mishandle her husband's spirit. Her claimed area of expertise is carnivorous plants, and she seems to be quite competent. You could arrange for seeds and samples from this collection if you foresee a botanical wing to your museum.
[ ] Introduction - specify where Options: Cothique, Eataine, Yvresse, Sith Rionnasc (Old World), Fortress of Dawn (Southlands), Tor Elassor (Sea of Dread), Elithis (The Far Sea).
As a Princess of Ulthuan, Aelsabrim has contacts throughout the Ten Kingdoms and their colonies. You could have her introduce you to a useful contact in one of Ulthuan's 'Sea Elf' Kingdoms, or from one of their other colonies. They will not be as initially helpful as Aelsabrim was, but could extend your reach into entirely new realms.
[ ] Other - write in On top of her influence over Ulthuan's colonies in Lustria, Aelsabrim is still a Princess with the wealth and authority to tap into the trade networks of the so-called Sea Elves. A mind-boggling variety of goods flow through the seas of the world, and Aelsabrim can cause some of it to be diverted to you.
- I had intended for the Researcher recruitment to be a part of this post, but Aelsabrim's recruitment got a bit more detailed than I expected.
- Researcher options will include an animal wrangler to take care of keeping live critter exhibits, some sort of necromancer for animating dead ones, and some sort of zoologist or anatomist for dissecting creatures to improve your knowledge of them. In the absence of any of these, live creatures will be killed and preserved by Pahtsekhen to be put on display.
- It will be possible to further develop the situation with Aelsabrim and her husband in the future, which may add to or alter the ways she is willing and able to assist the museum.
- Introductions will get you Contacts, who will take your action for a turn to get them to acquire something for you unless you go to the effort of cultivating them into a part of your Acquisitions roster.
We absolutely have to do a paleontology department if we're on lustria. but you know with the dinosaurs still running about instead of just being in the ground as fossils
