- Location
- Greece
Game of thrones
Not quite the same thing, as all the good writing came from GRRM and all the bad writing from DnD
(Also, sorry if I accidentally pinged you on the wrong thread before making my reply here.)
Let's Read: Warhammer Fantasy: End Times
- Thread starter Codex
- Start date
Not quite the same thing, as all the good writing came from GRRM and all the bad writing from DnD
(Also, sorry if I accidentally pinged you on the wrong thread before making my reply here.)
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Man, this was awesome, exactly what I wanted from "Undead unexpectedly appear to help the Empire fight Chaos". I'm glad at least some parts of this are salvageable.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's incredibly funny to switch from reading End Times to reading Age of Sigmar lore to switch things up (and to preserve my sanity. I need breaks sometimes). It's like going from an unbelievably large scale shitshow that has so many variables in it and everything's depressing and plot points zoom by and everything's convoluted as hell and full of plot twists and stuff.
And then I read Age of Sigmar and it's literally "Our job is to go here, smash some Chaos skulls, get the stuff, get out". The characters are simple. They love Sigmar, they hate Chaos. Simple as.
I guess I know now why people liked reading Conan the Barbarian back in the day. It's fun to keep it simple sometimes.
And then I read Age of Sigmar and it's literally "Our job is to go here, smash some Chaos skulls, get the stuff, get out". The characters are simple. They love Sigmar, they hate Chaos. Simple as.
I guess I know now why people liked reading Conan the Barbarian back in the day. It's fun to keep it simple sometimes.
- Location
- London, England
My favourite fact about Volkmar is that back during the Storm of Chaos he lead the Empire army in the first big battle report that GW wanted to put in their White Dwarf magazine, fighting against Archaon's horde.
And he won. He won so convincingly, in fact, that they had to redo the entire battle and deliberately get Volkmar himself killed by charging him into Archaon personally (Volkar on the tabletop was built as a chariot unit made for running down infantry and Archaon was a hero-killer). This then got turned into the official Storm of Chaos lore, that the Grand Theogonist whipped up a horde of zealots and borrowed state troops and threw them headfirst into the oncoming invasion to get butchered wholesale for no good purpose, which sucks, but the fact that they did this to retcon the fact that he actually won the first time will never stop being funny to me.
And he won. He won so convincingly, in fact, that they had to redo the entire battle and deliberately get Volkmar himself killed by charging him into Archaon personally (Volkar on the tabletop was built as a chariot unit made for running down infantry and Archaon was a hero-killer). This then got turned into the official Storm of Chaos lore, that the Grand Theogonist whipped up a horde of zealots and borrowed state troops and threw them headfirst into the oncoming invasion to get butchered wholesale for no good purpose, which sucks, but the fact that they did this to retcon the fact that he actually won the first time will never stop being funny to me.
- Location
- Somewhere.
If anyone's going to get the smallcaps, I think it should be Settra, (though I cannot tell you why) but eh, preserve it as it was written. Despite the fact that GW is so clearly poorly aping the work of a writer a thousand times better than this with that particular design choice.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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Sorry for my disappearance, but I've been getting really caught up in Age of Sigmar. I'll get back to End Times when I finish reading through Realmgate Wars.
I do have a burgeoning thought that I'm currently grappling with. I'm trying to bring my thoughts into words, but there's something about Archaon in Age of Sigmar that makes him so much better than what he used to be in Warhammer Fantasy. I think it's that Archaon fits better in AoS than he ever did in Fantasy. He feels much more menacing, his actions feel actually impactful, and he doesn't just sit around and waits for everyone to work their asses off for him. His actions feel like they're earned, rather than given to him, and they managed to make him actually cool.
I don't know if it's because Archaon fits better in a High Fantasy setting than in the lower Fantasy setting of WHF or what. It also helps that Archaon can prove how horrifically powerful he is to people without them just dying when he wins. Archaon killing Vandus Hammerhand means that he goes up to Azyr and gets to be reforged knowing that Archaon gutted him like a fish and surviving to grapple with it. In Fantasy, most people die when they're killed and they don't get to have a rematch with Archaon. It reminds me of video games where you get to fight the final boss relatively early on in the game and you get your ass kicked, except the story doesn't have to find an excuse for why the final boss desn't just kill you.
I do have a burgeoning thought that I'm currently grappling with. I'm trying to bring my thoughts into words, but there's something about Archaon in Age of Sigmar that makes him so much better than what he used to be in Warhammer Fantasy. I think it's that Archaon fits better in AoS than he ever did in Fantasy. He feels much more menacing, his actions feel actually impactful, and he doesn't just sit around and waits for everyone to work their asses off for him. His actions feel like they're earned, rather than given to him, and they managed to make him actually cool.
I don't know if it's because Archaon fits better in a High Fantasy setting than in the lower Fantasy setting of WHF or what. It also helps that Archaon can prove how horrifically powerful he is to people without them just dying when he wins. Archaon killing Vandus Hammerhand means that he goes up to Azyr and gets to be reforged knowing that Archaon gutted him like a fish and surviving to grapple with it. In Fantasy, most people die when they're killed and they don't get to have a rematch with Archaon. It reminds me of video games where you get to fight the final boss relatively early on in the game and you get your ass kicked, except the story doesn't have to find an excuse for why the final boss desn't just kill you.
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Isn't the problem of Archaon in Fantasy at least pre-Storm of Chaos bascially he never did anything of importance?
I know the memes around Abbadon in 40k but I had the impression reading the background he gets to do more than Archaon ever did and so do not feel completely like Orcus on his throne.
I have trouble remembering what Archaon in End Times ever did personnaly except going to Middenheim.
I know the memes around Abbadon in 40k but I had the impression reading the background he gets to do more than Archaon ever did and so do not feel completely like Orcus on his throne.
I have trouble remembering what Archaon in End Times ever did personnaly except going to Middenheim.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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- She/Her
Oh he did a lot in the End Times. It's all backended. It's just that a lot of it felt unearned and lots of things came out of nowhere to save his ass. There were so many opportunities for the heroes to win that were foiled by narrative convenience, so it felt cheap. No matter what happened, Archaon always won.
I have heard of people who know both Abaddon and Archaon to say that Abaddon is a bigger disgrace than Archaon though. I'm not sure he's the best example.
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Abaddon is hampered by his memetic status: ie he mounted twelve invasions to invade the Imperium and failed every time. Except the lore has always be clear only one of them had the objective to end the Imperium (the first), the other were after specific objectives he tended to get.
He is also used to do things like the Pandorax campaign where he tends to lose of course but never so completely as to be ridiculous.
The Failabaddon thing is mainly 1d4chan
- Location
- Canada
Its one of those reasons the death of 1d4chan is very mixed event in my mind. It held a lot of useful information about old school tabletop stuff and some of its original content was funny or interesting but it was also a complete dumpster of old 4chan style bigotry and it frequently had stuff that was just flatly incorrect but treated as gospel.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Abaddon has the disadvantage of actually having done things - failing at most of them objectively outside of authorial fiat - whereas Archaon was more or less ISO Standard Dark Lord version 528c until the End Times built him up: a cardboard cutout propped up at the edge of the setting to look menacing, provide an easily written threat... but he never really had much of a character.
Also, with regard to the memes, Abaddon also had the disadvantage of having a model that was notoriously prone to having its arms fall off: so "failbaddon the [h]armless" was, on the balance, a very, very, easy joke to make.
Thinking about it further, GW has never done much to actually justify precisely why the Chaos is going to inevitably win, has it? They say it a lot. They write the lore that way. But how much have they actually done to make the playerbase feel that chaos is a serious-business, world ending threat that cannot be held back, only lost against more slowly?
For my part, it feels like precious little, and I'd be a lot less ... irked ... with how much Chaos has won over the years if even half of it felt justified.
- Location
- California
Chaos sort of has the inherent disadvantage of a lot of their characters being immortal, while GW tries to give a lot of the other factions the "slowly dying out" trope. This should make chaos seem scarier, but what it actually does is make it so that GW can't really kill off the major characters of other factions very easily, while they can feed chaos characters into the woodchipper to hype up other factions. After all, they respawn so it doesn't really hurt them, does it?
(It does).
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's part of what I like so about Stormcast Eternals (yes I'm a Stormcast fan now).
Stormcast Eternals don't die permanently (with some exceptions), so the authors are free to kill them in pivotal moments only to bring them back later. The good thing about it is that there is a cost for coming back. Every time a Stormcast Eternal comes back, they change in some way that shows you that there is very much a cost to it.
I have noticed something though. The Stormcast Eternals being somewhat immortal also makes it so that authors are far more likely to just make their lives living hell. I've only read like 6 books by this point, and the shit they go through sounds like absolute hell. I've seen their legs pulped, their spines cracked, their bodies boiled by molten silver, their bodies transmuted to metal, I've seen them turning to red paste and smears on the pavement, and I'm not even touching the torture some of them have gone through against Nurgle.
It really makes you feel bad for them. What sucks is that Sigmar doesn't even give them many breaks. It's from one battle to another to another to another. Even when they die he reforges them as soon as possible to send them back to fight. Give them a chance to grapple with their deaths please. Some of them are still traumatised.
I mean they changed the lore to go "Akshully, abbadon wasn't trying to win the way we used to say he was, he was trying to win in these other ways that he totally succeeded". It was super lame retcon, and abaddon is just an uninteresting villain because of them twisting the narrative to make him not as, well, bad at being a warlord as he used to be. Also they retconned out others leading the numbered black crusades. Was a time that I believe about 4 of them were led by not abaddon.
And note, they stuck him on a bus immediately after 8 released for the guilliman/mortarion showdown. He did eventually come back to job a bit to Calgar, and then have calgar job to him after he pulled the classic "Fool, this is not even my final form!". And then, like, he immediately arses off after the eldar suicide bomb his battleship
It's also important to note that the 13th black crusade actually had an end times treatment to it in that it was a massive global campaign first that GW decided to just ignore, and they actually literally froze the setting for over a decade before going "Okay, here's how the black crusade really went down"
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ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Actually there was an interesting tidbit in the 3rd Chaos Space Marine codex where they said "Black Crusade" was a term used by the Imperium and not Chaos and the Black Crusades of Abaddon covered anything from huge invasions to lightning raids led by himself in person.
There was a time where GW was able to juggle in-character information well. But to return to the subject the main sin of Archaon is being generic. You can laugh all you want at Abbadon "daddy issues" but at least the Black Legion complicated relationship with Horus legacy is a character trait.
Age of Sigmar tried to give one to Archaon in that from what I understand he hates even the Chaos Gods and wants to kill them too. He still lacks a motive to want and destroy the cosmos but behind the inefficient storytelling you kinda get he is motivated by nihilism.
He would still have been more interesting IMHO if he fought for ultimate freedom because only in Chaos can you be free of all fetters, including sanity, loyalty and flesh.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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Being generic is fine if you execute it well. Not everything needs to be non-generic and I'm a bit tired of people using it constantly as a bad thing. Yeah it can be exhausting sometimes, and you have to execute it pretty well so that it doesn't feel boring and samey, but Archaon isn't the sole focus of AoS like he was supposedly the focus of the End Times (heavy quotations on supposedly). He's just a major player, and he does a good job at it. His first scene in Realmgate Wars is an absolutely excellent demonstration of what you can do with a Dark Lord type character, even if he doesn't really break the mold much.
He was just effective, threatening and imposing, and that's all he needed to be. Archaon is successful in his actions in AoS, but not always. He loses but not in a way that humiliates him. He wins but it often comes at some sort of cost. Sometimes he wins with caveats attached or he has to really put in the work to get it. Even when he's not directly on screen we always feel his presence and his actions. You don't need to be a super complex sympathetic villain to be an effective antagonist.
Warhammer Fantasy Archaon missed the mark, largely because I felt like his execution within the setting he existed in was overly lame. His execution in AoS was far more well done, and I think part of that is that he just fits that sort of setting better. I don't need AoS Archaon to be overly complex as long as he serves as an effective fulcrum to drive the story, and he does that job very well.
- Location
- London, England
Abaddon suffers a fair bit from his thematic relevance having been edited out of the game.
His original character-defining quote was "Horus was weak. Horus was a fool. He had the whole galaxy in his grasp and he let it slip away". In a world where so many of the Chaos Legions are the very same ones who fought in the Horus Heresy, same banners and commanders and philosophy as before, Abaddon was meant to be the New Man for a New Age. His Black Legion was a completely new invention, it drew recruits from all across the galaxy and all across the other Legions, Abaddon himself earned the favour of each Chaos God but deliberately spurned their offers of ascension or any chance to commit himself fully to one deity's cause.
He's the New Man. And when the Heresy was nothing but vaguely defined backstory and the Primarchs were all dead or gone, he was there to pick up the banner and champion the cause of Chaos as the herald of the apocalypse.
Except now we know more about the Horus Heresy than basically any other major event in the 30k-40k timeline, we know more characters connected to it than any other period except 999.M41, and we have the Primarchs of old returning to the field after ten thousand years away. So Abaddon kinda gets squeezed out of thematic relevance.
His original character-defining quote was "Horus was weak. Horus was a fool. He had the whole galaxy in his grasp and he let it slip away". In a world where so many of the Chaos Legions are the very same ones who fought in the Horus Heresy, same banners and commanders and philosophy as before, Abaddon was meant to be the New Man for a New Age. His Black Legion was a completely new invention, it drew recruits from all across the galaxy and all across the other Legions, Abaddon himself earned the favour of each Chaos God but deliberately spurned their offers of ascension or any chance to commit himself fully to one deity's cause.
He's the New Man. And when the Heresy was nothing but vaguely defined backstory and the Primarchs were all dead or gone, he was there to pick up the banner and champion the cause of Chaos as the herald of the apocalypse.
Except now we know more about the Horus Heresy than basically any other major event in the 30k-40k timeline, we know more characters connected to it than any other period except 999.M41, and we have the Primarchs of old returning to the field after ten thousand years away. So Abaddon kinda gets squeezed out of thematic relevance.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The simplest way to handle the 13 Black Crusades would have been to emphasize that actually toppling the Imperium isn't the point. Sure, it would be a nice bonus but it's not the goal. The goal is Chaos causing chaos - running around setting fire to as many planets in a row as it can manage, racking up a new high score in murder and grabbing shipfuls of slaves and supplies before the Imperium gets its shit together and chases the warbands back into the Eye of Terror. For Abaddon in particular it serves the dual purpose of tormenting the Imperium and also giving potential rivals in his own and other Legions a relief valve when they get antsy - can't turn on the Despoiler when your bros are tuckered out from hitting loyalists with axes all day. Sure, he might use the Talon of Horus to point at A Thing and say 'I want to destroy That Thing this time out,' but most of the time it's completely arbitrary, just A Thing chosen to have a goal so that once the Black Legion destroys A Thing, Abby can say 'cool crusade, gg everyone peace out' and take the largest of the Chaos warbands back to the Eye of Terror, removing the biggest strength of the Black Crusade and thus effectively halting it whenever he chooses. (To push the apocalyptic mindset, the 13th Black Crusade can be thought of as a switchup with Abby seeing how weak the Imperium has gotten and going on a serious offensive.)
Unfortunately Abaddon's lore started getting written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, one of the biggest pushers of the 'chaos wins everything forever all the time even if it loses' mindset, so now everything has to be a galaxy-brain 12d chess move that's enormously more pretentious and vastly sillier than the previous stuff thanks to its insistence that no for real it's been A Plan The Whole Time.
Unfortunately Abaddon's lore started getting written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, one of the biggest pushers of the 'chaos wins everything forever all the time even if it loses' mindset, so now everything has to be a galaxy-brain 12d chess move that's enormously more pretentious and vastly sillier than the previous stuff thanks to its insistence that no for real it's been A Plan The Whole Time.
I've just barely started reading this..
Especially "lol chaos stronk other gods weeeaaaak, feeble" which is Just. DUMB. Especially since the premise was in no small part "glutted on emotion", but in warhammer fantasy, the other gods are able to siphon much of that away so it DOESN"T reach the chaos gods!
The gods of order REPEATEDLY demonstrated that they could pull off all kinds of stuff, often driving back chaos corruption, healing, etc. So "LOL OTHER GODS WEAK" is just. So. DUMB! And also of absolute, complete and total incompatibility with what happens in age of sigmar where sigmar proceeds to beat the stuffing out of nurgle and orchestrate driving the chaos gods out of like 6 or 7 places with more surface area each than the original planet. I can certainly believe that the writer teams were not allowed to contact eachother.
In particular, the whole "lol nurgle plague, shallya can't cure it, neener neener neeener" ALONE was...yeesh. There's SOO many better ways to have done it if they wanted to sideline SHALLYA against NURGLE. That's her SPECIALTY is fucking over nurgle. She's basically a nurgle-specific Anathema!
Say.... "Over the eons, nurgle had snagged many priests of Shallya...and melted them down into sludge in a very, very special, rusty cauldron, covered in broken, shattered, defaced symbols of healing. One year, a particularly devout priest who had the misfortune to read the wrong tome right as morrsileb had waxed strong over her abode; another, a less devout priestess who simply gave into her doubts and whispered a prayer to papa nurgle. Now the mixture boiled, ready to spread. A disease that could not be cured by shallyan priests..."
And then, the plauge itself. "and so, Priests of shallya found themselves utterly helpless against the new plague, for trying to remove it was like trying to remove ones own limb.
One pushed past this, and ripped the disease out of a child-but in doing so, it left the priestes's own mental barriers utterly shattered, and a passing demon of khorne seized the opportunity to possess them, slaughtering the entire nunnery, even the innocent child, before finally falling to pieces . While other priests could cure it, their patrons power was far, far less suited for acts of healing, and so they swiftly exhausted themselves, running ragged, only for the plague to spread beyond them faster than they could hope to keep up..."
BAM. Suddenly THAT BIT MAKES SENSE. It actually kinda fits with the themes of warhammer fantasy, makes it clear WHY shallya in particular suddenly seems utterly useless, AND shows that, no, chaos hasn't already "won" at that point. No need for stupid "the mortal gods are WEEAAAK" bullshit, some actual, sensible reasons and explanations. This is the chaos gods pulling out all the stops, so if someone DID somehow manage to stop them for a few more years or something, it would be an astounding victory that would leave them in a good position to, say, close one of the polar gates forever because chaos would have an empty quiver for a while.
But nope. Gotta be "LOL CHAOS STRONK OTHER GODS WEAK! HAHAHAH!" as if these writers forgot they were in WHfantasy not WH40k in their rush to SIDELINE EVERYONE.
Ugh. The end times hate sure seems deserved.
Yeah....there's a lot of ways they could have done that. *with proper buildup*. Which they didn't do of course.
Especially "lol chaos stronk other gods weeeaaaak, feeble" which is Just. DUMB. Especially since the premise was in no small part "glutted on emotion", but in warhammer fantasy, the other gods are able to siphon much of that away so it DOESN"T reach the chaos gods!
The gods of order REPEATEDLY demonstrated that they could pull off all kinds of stuff, often driving back chaos corruption, healing, etc. So "LOL OTHER GODS WEAK" is just. So. DUMB! And also of absolute, complete and total incompatibility with what happens in age of sigmar where sigmar proceeds to beat the stuffing out of nurgle and orchestrate driving the chaos gods out of like 6 or 7 places with more surface area each than the original planet. I can certainly believe that the writer teams were not allowed to contact eachother.
In particular, the whole "lol nurgle plague, shallya can't cure it, neener neener neeener" ALONE was...yeesh. There's SOO many better ways to have done it if they wanted to sideline SHALLYA against NURGLE. That's her SPECIALTY is fucking over nurgle. She's basically a nurgle-specific Anathema!
Say.... "Over the eons, nurgle had snagged many priests of Shallya...and melted them down into sludge in a very, very special, rusty cauldron, covered in broken, shattered, defaced symbols of healing. One year, a particularly devout priest who had the misfortune to read the wrong tome right as morrsileb had waxed strong over her abode; another, a less devout priestess who simply gave into her doubts and whispered a prayer to papa nurgle. Now the mixture boiled, ready to spread. A disease that could not be cured by shallyan priests..."
And then, the plauge itself. "and so, Priests of shallya found themselves utterly helpless against the new plague, for trying to remove it was like trying to remove ones own limb.
One pushed past this, and ripped the disease out of a child-but in doing so, it left the priestes's own mental barriers utterly shattered, and a passing demon of khorne seized the opportunity to possess them, slaughtering the entire nunnery, even the innocent child, before finally falling to pieces . While other priests could cure it, their patrons power was far, far less suited for acts of healing, and so they swiftly exhausted themselves, running ragged, only for the plague to spread beyond them faster than they could hope to keep up..."
BAM. Suddenly THAT BIT MAKES SENSE. It actually kinda fits with the themes of warhammer fantasy, makes it clear WHY shallya in particular suddenly seems utterly useless, AND shows that, no, chaos hasn't already "won" at that point. No need for stupid "the mortal gods are WEEAAAK" bullshit, some actual, sensible reasons and explanations. This is the chaos gods pulling out all the stops, so if someone DID somehow manage to stop them for a few more years or something, it would be an astounding victory that would leave them in a good position to, say, close one of the polar gates forever because chaos would have an empty quiver for a while.
But nope. Gotta be "LOL CHAOS STRONK OTHER GODS WEAK! HAHAHAH!" as if these writers forgot they were in WHfantasy not WH40k in their rush to SIDELINE EVERYONE.
Ugh. The end times hate sure seems deserved.
Chapter 4 Nagash: Obsession
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Chapter 4: Corruption, Obsession and Deceit (Part 1):
It's been a while. Sorry for the delay, but I got burnt out on Warhammer and the End Times, and the posts were always far more energy than I had to give. For the sake of my own sanity, I will try to be more brief in the let's read from now on (Note from the future: I failed). Apologies to those who enjoyed an in-depth look at things. Let's catch up, shall we?
Last time I covered one of my favorite moments in this book, where Valten and Vlad fought alongside each other to defeat a Great Unclean One. This part of the Chapter, however, is… well, see for yourself.
This section starts with Gelt, who will be our primary focus for the moment. You see, last time, Gelt fixed the Auric Bastion by himself, but that had its side effects. After all, the Bastion was a combination of Light Magic and Divine Magic, and not a Chamon construction. Gelt was a master of transmutation, and he labored for a full night and day to ensure the Bastion was repaired, but the result of that was that Gelt had interacted with Hysh and the Eddies of Divine Magic, an effort that was considered dangerous to the Collegiate Wizards. This, perhaps, was the first spark, because it widened Gelt's understanding of the world, and made him truly aware of how much he was missing out on. Gelt could now hear voices that were previously silent to him. He could see secrets that others did not even know existed. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.
Gelt then decided to take his hand at investigation. Who killed the ritualists in charge of maintaining this section of the Bastion? Captain Dreist said that it was likely Beastmen, but Gelt knew that this could not be their work. It was too efficient, too clean. With effort, Gelt opened his mind to the Winds and found demon spoor. It should also be noted that this investigation was the result of Gelt's burgeoning insomnia. His lack of sleep will become relevant later, don't worry about it.
Gelt approached Emil Valgeir, who also seems to be struggling to sleep. With his help, Gelt finds out that whoever killed the ritualists was indeed a Daemon, and not only that, but a shapechanger too. Gelt was determined to find this shapechanger, because he didn't like the idea of it being let loose in the Imperial camp. His plans soon went awry however, when he was called back to Castle von Rauken by an Imperial messenger. Valgeir gave his reassurance that he would find the shapechanger, and so Gelt left to meet with the Emperor and his war council to report on Alderfen.
Gelt arrives at Castle Von Rauken where a council of politically significant individuals have gathered. Of the seven surviving Elector Counts, only Boris Todbringer was absent. There, he was questioned about the events at Alderfen, with Aldebrand Ludenhof being the biggest presence asking questions about the collapse of the Bastion and praising Gelt's actions for fixing the breach. The Council were particularly interested in secondhand accounts of Valten. Gelt spoke of Walach Harkon and his Blood Knights charging to fight the forces of Chaos, and he also spoke of them being sealed beyond the Bastion, because of course Harkon would charge into the wastes to fight, to the satisfaction of the council. Gelt did not speak of the shapeshifter, he would need proof before he incites panic.
Then, well, Gelt fails every Diplomacy and Speech check possible:
"Had the council ended there, Gelt would have left a hero. Instead, after Alderfen had been thoroughly discussed, he faced a rancorous onslaught from the Reiksmarshal concerning the failure of the wall of faith around Sylvania. Helborg did not shout, but his voice was tight with anger as he gave a tally of the slaughter inflicted on Averland, Stirland and Ostermark by a reinvigorated Sylvania, events the Reiksmarshal was certain heralded a renewed onslaught from that benighted land; a land that Gelt had claimed to have caged.
It was a mark of Gelt's preoccupation with the war in the north that he had given little thought to Sylvania. Even with the sudden arrival of the undead at Alderfen, he had failed to make the connection – after all, there were more vampires in the Empire than the fiends of Sylvania. Gelt was a clever and perceptive man, but he was also prone to obsession, and so had been blinded to the collapse of his cage. As Helborg's tirade at last came to a close, Gelt realised his folly, and addressed the war council, but he had gone several days without sleep, and his judgement was clouded. As the Supreme Patriarch began speaking, it was his intention to make apology for his failure, but remind all there present that he had never claimed to cage Sylvania – that feat had been attributed to him as rumour had spread. Alas, Gelt was too weary to keep his pride in check, and as a result, his apology was grudging, his outrage at being blamed for others' assumptions all too plain. He had done everything he had promised, the wizard told the council at length. He had blunted the threat from Mannfred von Carstein's return, and bought time for a lasting solution to be found. Gelt did not even realise he had been shouting until he finally fell silent.
Soon after, the council moved onto other business, but it was too late; the damage had been done. Between Gelt's perceived failure in Sylvania and his conduct, the respect he commanded in the eyes of the war council had been heavily eroded. Karl Franz, ever the diplomat, had claimed that the strain of the last few days must lay heavy on Gelt's mind, and suggested that the wizard retire from the council and seek rest. When Gelt refused, the suggestion became an order. In that moment, the Supreme Patriarch was convinced he had lost the Emperor's trust." Page 273
Gelt leaves the scene, disgraced, and knows full well that if he were to return to Altdorf, he will be challenged for his position by one of the other Patriarchs. Gelt couldn't do that, he was far too preoccupied with the mystery of the shapeshifter. Thankfully for Gelt, Karl Franz calls Gelt over for a private meeting, outside of the public eye. There, Karl Franz apologises for the reception earlier, and states that he would have interfered had Gelt not lost his composure. The Emperor made it clear that he still had need of Gelt, now more than ever, and gave him control over the now dead Wolfram Hertwig's section of the Bastion. Overwhelmed by the Emperor's generosity, Gelt gives a sincere apology for his actions. Overwhelmed by his emotions, Gelt did not realise that Karl Franz decided to do this in a private room rather than in public because Karl Franz still saw him as a liability.
Gelt did not leave Von Rauken alone, but he was followed by two individuals of note. Ludenhof, who watched him like a hawk, and Luthor Huss, who was excessively interested in Valten and the rumors he heard, wanting to see him personally, wondering if Valten was the lad he had been searching for all these years. Neither were pleasant company.
Though it would be of no comfort to Gelt, he was not the only one dissatisfied with his current position. Vlad von Carstein also detested his position under Nagash and would have gladly remained dead were it not for the opportunity to finally see Isabella again. He did not find comfort in his position or in his allies however. Harkon was a hypocritical brute that Vlad was glad to be rid of, and the Nameless was worse, being a cruel creature who rejoiced in spreading misery. It's literally said in text that he would gladly be rid of the creature, for he knew "its power greatly eclipsed his own", but alas, it was not his choice to make.
The narrative now shifts into an introspective look at Vlad. Vlad was well aware of the irony of his sentiments, because he knew that others would have considered him no better than his fellow Dark Lords. He was a Tyrant after all. He readily admits that he was one, but that he was never needlessly cruel. Brutality was a tool to impose order on those who needed it, and order and discipline was important to him. He knew that humanity cried out for a firm hand to guide it, and he believed himself to be that hand. He had attempted to do so by recreating Old Nehekhara in his former life (Sylvania), and his only fault was that he trusted too much in his kind.
Here we get a little look into Vlad's goals. Mannfred thought that Vlad wanted Sylvania back, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Sylvania was an opportunity to exploit, only a stepping stone to a greater goal. He held no fondness for that backwater or its inbred citizens (his words), he knew that in the future, there would be greater lands to claim as humanity cried out for order. Order that "only he could provide". That didn't mean Vlad forgave Mannfred, but it did mean he was in no hurry to take revenge. Immortality gave inexhaustible opportunities, in his own words.
Fascinating look at Vlad's personality imo. One of the strong points of this chapter.
Getting on with it, Vlad was in charge of protecting the Auric Bastion to preserve the Empire. Nagash needed it to stay intact for the moment. Alderfens caught Vlad flatfooted, his Sylvanian army not having had the ability to catch up to his forces. Therefore, he sent them ahead to take control of an outpost where the Bastion met the World's Edge Mountains, which would become Vlad's homebase. Rackspire.
Rackspire's Commandant Roch withstood three days being besieged by undead, hoping for reinforcements, but unfortunately for him, none came. While the fortress was being attacked, the Nameless wandered the eastern reaches of the Auric Bastion, named by locals the Helreach, and took control of every soldier and ritualist within a twenty league span of the Auric Bastion around the region. Vlad was loathe to admit it, but he knew that while he could take control of the garrison, he was not a match for the Nameless' domination abilities. Vlad took control of the assault and killed everyone in the Garrison, raising them as undead. He felt bad about it, but he knew they would serve better in death than they did in life.
Oh, as a reminder, everyone controlled by the Nameless is fully aware of what they're doing but can't control themselves. It's not pretty.
Vlad now had control of the Empire's eastern defences, and anyone who approached the area would find their minds taken over by the Nameless. The lucky ones left without remembering anything. Most eked out a life full of agony inducing servitude, because the Nameless is a sadistic, horrible creature.
The arrangement was not perfect, because the Nameless could not perfectly replicate the rituals needed to maintain the Bastion, and certainly not along a hundred minds across twenty locations. Thus, the Helreach was the most often breached of all the Bastion locations, and yet it was the safest, because it didn't matter. Undead and mind controlled subjects were far more organised and disciplined than humans ever could be. Vlad was so self assured of the situation that he often went into Ostermark and Stirland, ransacking temples and shrines looking for clues to restore Isabella to life so that he would no longer need to serve Nagash.
What follows next is a short mystery segment. The POV shifts to Gelt and his defence of the Bastion further west of the Helspire, while his attention is divided by the shapeshifter, which is slowly morphing into a growing obsession. Valgeir told Gelt that the shifter had struck again, never as severe as their first move, but they were doing shit like sabotaging equipment, trapping people in their tents, destroying cannons and artillery trains, and stuff like that, and nobody can find the culprit because they keep changing shape. Several deep seated issues between the army started to come to the fore, as couriers were killed, supply trains were derailed, people began arguing about border disputes, individuals began to talk of mutiny, Nordlander mutineers getting their skulls cracked by Ostermarker greatswords etc etc.
Overall, animosity coming to the fore. Even Valgeir was attacked! Although the old priest had enough of his wits to summon the wrath of Ulric to drive off the shifter, suffering only a sore head as a result. Gelt was not satisfied with the assurance that the shapeshifter was resorting to mischief for the moment. He was certain that it was simply biding its time for a much darker deed. In between sessions of attempting to find said shifter, Gelt and Valgeir were meeting with Luthor Huss, who spent all his time with Valten. The Priest seemed sure that Valten was the second coming of Sigmar, and that only irritated Valgeir, since the Cults of Ulric and Sigmar had been at each other's throats for millenia.
Anyways, the shapeshifter decided to take a break out of the blue. They stopped causing mischief and the tension between the Hochlanders and Talabeclanders cooled down as things settled. Gelt didn't know the cause, but he couldn't rest on his laurels. He spent many a sleepless night focused on his defence of the Auric Bastion. The Bastion had been receiving more and more breaches as of late, and Gelt's sleepless labor had finally allowed him to find the cause of the instability, in the eastern reaches of the Bastion, the Helreach. Gelt felt something was off, because messengers walked that stretch of the wall day by day and saw no abnormalities, so he decided to check on it himself.
The Nameless instantly sensed Gelt entering his territory, but couldn't deal with him with ease because of Gelt's strong will. The Nameless could brute force it, but he preferred easy prey. It is here that the Nameless' true nature is revealed:
"Since the Nameless had asserted control over the Helreach, many of its defenders had perished in service to his whims. Some had fought their fellows to the death in makeshift arenas, spurred to the bloodsport by the cruel whispers in their minds. Others had gnawed at their own flesh, for no other reason than because the Nameless wished to sample the experience through his borrowed senses. One day, the spectre had decided that his unwilling armies should march into battle beneath banners of flayed skin, and so had ordered scores of his puppets to fashion such standards from the hides of their friends. Next, the Nameless decided that bone totems would be more appropriate; the flayed banners were abandoned, and his puppets tore each other's flesh away, strip by strip, unable to disobey their master. Ironically, had the Nameless been less easily distracted, then he would have made a better job of maintaining the Auric Bastion, and thus never given the wizard a reason to enter his domain. As it was, the wizard had to die before he saw too much, and spoilt the spirit's games.
Gelt could have perished easily then, struck from the skies by a bolt of dark magic, and torn limb from limb by the Nameless' puppets, but he did not. Vlad von Carstein too had become aware of the wizard's presence on the Helreach, and sent minions of his own to intercept the Supreme Patriarch before the Nameless' blow could land.
They met in secret that night, the wizard and the vampire. Vlad sought to make the other a willing ally, rather than a dupe or slave, and strove to convince the Supreme Patriarch through honesty, rather than trickery. In this, the vampire failed, at least initially; even after their impromptu alliance at the Battle of Alderfen, Gelt was disinclined to trust that he and the vampire truly had the same cause. Nevertheless, the seeds Vlad planted in the wizard's mind that evening would soon bear fruit."
Then we have a conversation between Gelt and Vlad:
Note: I've been sitting on this half-written section for ages now, and it's been driving me crazy. I wanted to go all the way with the Gelt section, but I need to release this now or I never will. I'll continue Gelt's adventures later, and hopefully I won't have to take an unreasonably long impromptu hiatus before I do so.
My overall impressions of this section of the chapter is that it's a solid premise with some good introspection, but the writing falls a bit flat because the author is still doing that descriptive narration thing instead of a more organic story, so outside the few conversations we actually get to see, everything is told to use instead of shown, which makes scenes like Gelt's breakdown in Castle Von Rauken and Karl Franz' private conversation with him feel much weaker and less impactful than they rightfully should. The book constantly tells us how smart and politically astute Karl Franz is, and I can see that, but they're really pushing the envelope because he has yet to actually have any dialogue. Everything is being spoonfed to us at the same time that we dash through plot points at mach speed.
You know, typical End Times stuff.
The Nameless is an appropriately nasty villain. Vlad and Gelt are actually interesting and I like their dynamic and the concept of a corruption arc, and the introspection is quite good. The issues in regards to this arc start showing up in the next section, as we start seeing them speedrun all the plot points as fast as they can while contriving things to make everything work perfectly for the bad guys. As usual.
In the meantime, I'm going to go over my posts to see if I forgot any relevant facts and get to follow up on this… sometime soon hopefully.
It's been a while. Sorry for the delay, but I got burnt out on Warhammer and the End Times, and the posts were always far more energy than I had to give. For the sake of my own sanity, I will try to be more brief in the let's read from now on (Note from the future: I failed). Apologies to those who enjoyed an in-depth look at things. Let's catch up, shall we?
Last time I covered one of my favorite moments in this book, where Valten and Vlad fought alongside each other to defeat a Great Unclean One. This part of the Chapter, however, is… well, see for yourself.
This section starts with Gelt, who will be our primary focus for the moment. You see, last time, Gelt fixed the Auric Bastion by himself, but that had its side effects. After all, the Bastion was a combination of Light Magic and Divine Magic, and not a Chamon construction. Gelt was a master of transmutation, and he labored for a full night and day to ensure the Bastion was repaired, but the result of that was that Gelt had interacted with Hysh and the Eddies of Divine Magic, an effort that was considered dangerous to the Collegiate Wizards. This, perhaps, was the first spark, because it widened Gelt's understanding of the world, and made him truly aware of how much he was missing out on. Gelt could now hear voices that were previously silent to him. He could see secrets that others did not even know existed. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.
Gelt then decided to take his hand at investigation. Who killed the ritualists in charge of maintaining this section of the Bastion? Captain Dreist said that it was likely Beastmen, but Gelt knew that this could not be their work. It was too efficient, too clean. With effort, Gelt opened his mind to the Winds and found demon spoor. It should also be noted that this investigation was the result of Gelt's burgeoning insomnia. His lack of sleep will become relevant later, don't worry about it.
Gelt approached Emil Valgeir, who also seems to be struggling to sleep. With his help, Gelt finds out that whoever killed the ritualists was indeed a Daemon, and not only that, but a shapechanger too. Gelt was determined to find this shapechanger, because he didn't like the idea of it being let loose in the Imperial camp. His plans soon went awry however, when he was called back to Castle von Rauken by an Imperial messenger. Valgeir gave his reassurance that he would find the shapechanger, and so Gelt left to meet with the Emperor and his war council to report on Alderfen.
Gelt arrives at Castle Von Rauken where a council of politically significant individuals have gathered. Of the seven surviving Elector Counts, only Boris Todbringer was absent. There, he was questioned about the events at Alderfen, with Aldebrand Ludenhof being the biggest presence asking questions about the collapse of the Bastion and praising Gelt's actions for fixing the breach. The Council were particularly interested in secondhand accounts of Valten. Gelt spoke of Walach Harkon and his Blood Knights charging to fight the forces of Chaos, and he also spoke of them being sealed beyond the Bastion, because of course Harkon would charge into the wastes to fight, to the satisfaction of the council. Gelt did not speak of the shapeshifter, he would need proof before he incites panic.
Then, well, Gelt fails every Diplomacy and Speech check possible:
"Had the council ended there, Gelt would have left a hero. Instead, after Alderfen had been thoroughly discussed, he faced a rancorous onslaught from the Reiksmarshal concerning the failure of the wall of faith around Sylvania. Helborg did not shout, but his voice was tight with anger as he gave a tally of the slaughter inflicted on Averland, Stirland and Ostermark by a reinvigorated Sylvania, events the Reiksmarshal was certain heralded a renewed onslaught from that benighted land; a land that Gelt had claimed to have caged.
It was a mark of Gelt's preoccupation with the war in the north that he had given little thought to Sylvania. Even with the sudden arrival of the undead at Alderfen, he had failed to make the connection – after all, there were more vampires in the Empire than the fiends of Sylvania. Gelt was a clever and perceptive man, but he was also prone to obsession, and so had been blinded to the collapse of his cage. As Helborg's tirade at last came to a close, Gelt realised his folly, and addressed the war council, but he had gone several days without sleep, and his judgement was clouded. As the Supreme Patriarch began speaking, it was his intention to make apology for his failure, but remind all there present that he had never claimed to cage Sylvania – that feat had been attributed to him as rumour had spread. Alas, Gelt was too weary to keep his pride in check, and as a result, his apology was grudging, his outrage at being blamed for others' assumptions all too plain. He had done everything he had promised, the wizard told the council at length. He had blunted the threat from Mannfred von Carstein's return, and bought time for a lasting solution to be found. Gelt did not even realise he had been shouting until he finally fell silent.
Soon after, the council moved onto other business, but it was too late; the damage had been done. Between Gelt's perceived failure in Sylvania and his conduct, the respect he commanded in the eyes of the war council had been heavily eroded. Karl Franz, ever the diplomat, had claimed that the strain of the last few days must lay heavy on Gelt's mind, and suggested that the wizard retire from the council and seek rest. When Gelt refused, the suggestion became an order. In that moment, the Supreme Patriarch was convinced he had lost the Emperor's trust." Page 273
Gelt leaves the scene, disgraced, and knows full well that if he were to return to Altdorf, he will be challenged for his position by one of the other Patriarchs. Gelt couldn't do that, he was far too preoccupied with the mystery of the shapeshifter. Thankfully for Gelt, Karl Franz calls Gelt over for a private meeting, outside of the public eye. There, Karl Franz apologises for the reception earlier, and states that he would have interfered had Gelt not lost his composure. The Emperor made it clear that he still had need of Gelt, now more than ever, and gave him control over the now dead Wolfram Hertwig's section of the Bastion. Overwhelmed by the Emperor's generosity, Gelt gives a sincere apology for his actions. Overwhelmed by his emotions, Gelt did not realise that Karl Franz decided to do this in a private room rather than in public because Karl Franz still saw him as a liability.
Gelt did not leave Von Rauken alone, but he was followed by two individuals of note. Ludenhof, who watched him like a hawk, and Luthor Huss, who was excessively interested in Valten and the rumors he heard, wanting to see him personally, wondering if Valten was the lad he had been searching for all these years. Neither were pleasant company.
Though it would be of no comfort to Gelt, he was not the only one dissatisfied with his current position. Vlad von Carstein also detested his position under Nagash and would have gladly remained dead were it not for the opportunity to finally see Isabella again. He did not find comfort in his position or in his allies however. Harkon was a hypocritical brute that Vlad was glad to be rid of, and the Nameless was worse, being a cruel creature who rejoiced in spreading misery. It's literally said in text that he would gladly be rid of the creature, for he knew "its power greatly eclipsed his own", but alas, it was not his choice to make.
The narrative now shifts into an introspective look at Vlad. Vlad was well aware of the irony of his sentiments, because he knew that others would have considered him no better than his fellow Dark Lords. He was a Tyrant after all. He readily admits that he was one, but that he was never needlessly cruel. Brutality was a tool to impose order on those who needed it, and order and discipline was important to him. He knew that humanity cried out for a firm hand to guide it, and he believed himself to be that hand. He had attempted to do so by recreating Old Nehekhara in his former life (Sylvania), and his only fault was that he trusted too much in his kind.
Here we get a little look into Vlad's goals. Mannfred thought that Vlad wanted Sylvania back, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Sylvania was an opportunity to exploit, only a stepping stone to a greater goal. He held no fondness for that backwater or its inbred citizens (his words), he knew that in the future, there would be greater lands to claim as humanity cried out for order. Order that "only he could provide". That didn't mean Vlad forgave Mannfred, but it did mean he was in no hurry to take revenge. Immortality gave inexhaustible opportunities, in his own words.
Fascinating look at Vlad's personality imo. One of the strong points of this chapter.
Getting on with it, Vlad was in charge of protecting the Auric Bastion to preserve the Empire. Nagash needed it to stay intact for the moment. Alderfens caught Vlad flatfooted, his Sylvanian army not having had the ability to catch up to his forces. Therefore, he sent them ahead to take control of an outpost where the Bastion met the World's Edge Mountains, which would become Vlad's homebase. Rackspire.
Rackspire's Commandant Roch withstood three days being besieged by undead, hoping for reinforcements, but unfortunately for him, none came. While the fortress was being attacked, the Nameless wandered the eastern reaches of the Auric Bastion, named by locals the Helreach, and took control of every soldier and ritualist within a twenty league span of the Auric Bastion around the region. Vlad was loathe to admit it, but he knew that while he could take control of the garrison, he was not a match for the Nameless' domination abilities. Vlad took control of the assault and killed everyone in the Garrison, raising them as undead. He felt bad about it, but he knew they would serve better in death than they did in life.
Oh, as a reminder, everyone controlled by the Nameless is fully aware of what they're doing but can't control themselves. It's not pretty.
Vlad now had control of the Empire's eastern defences, and anyone who approached the area would find their minds taken over by the Nameless. The lucky ones left without remembering anything. Most eked out a life full of agony inducing servitude, because the Nameless is a sadistic, horrible creature.
The arrangement was not perfect, because the Nameless could not perfectly replicate the rituals needed to maintain the Bastion, and certainly not along a hundred minds across twenty locations. Thus, the Helreach was the most often breached of all the Bastion locations, and yet it was the safest, because it didn't matter. Undead and mind controlled subjects were far more organised and disciplined than humans ever could be. Vlad was so self assured of the situation that he often went into Ostermark and Stirland, ransacking temples and shrines looking for clues to restore Isabella to life so that he would no longer need to serve Nagash.
What follows next is a short mystery segment. The POV shifts to Gelt and his defence of the Bastion further west of the Helspire, while his attention is divided by the shapeshifter, which is slowly morphing into a growing obsession. Valgeir told Gelt that the shifter had struck again, never as severe as their first move, but they were doing shit like sabotaging equipment, trapping people in their tents, destroying cannons and artillery trains, and stuff like that, and nobody can find the culprit because they keep changing shape. Several deep seated issues between the army started to come to the fore, as couriers were killed, supply trains were derailed, people began arguing about border disputes, individuals began to talk of mutiny, Nordlander mutineers getting their skulls cracked by Ostermarker greatswords etc etc.
Overall, animosity coming to the fore. Even Valgeir was attacked! Although the old priest had enough of his wits to summon the wrath of Ulric to drive off the shifter, suffering only a sore head as a result. Gelt was not satisfied with the assurance that the shapeshifter was resorting to mischief for the moment. He was certain that it was simply biding its time for a much darker deed. In between sessions of attempting to find said shifter, Gelt and Valgeir were meeting with Luthor Huss, who spent all his time with Valten. The Priest seemed sure that Valten was the second coming of Sigmar, and that only irritated Valgeir, since the Cults of Ulric and Sigmar had been at each other's throats for millenia.
Anyways, the shapeshifter decided to take a break out of the blue. They stopped causing mischief and the tension between the Hochlanders and Talabeclanders cooled down as things settled. Gelt didn't know the cause, but he couldn't rest on his laurels. He spent many a sleepless night focused on his defence of the Auric Bastion. The Bastion had been receiving more and more breaches as of late, and Gelt's sleepless labor had finally allowed him to find the cause of the instability, in the eastern reaches of the Bastion, the Helreach. Gelt felt something was off, because messengers walked that stretch of the wall day by day and saw no abnormalities, so he decided to check on it himself.
The Nameless instantly sensed Gelt entering his territory, but couldn't deal with him with ease because of Gelt's strong will. The Nameless could brute force it, but he preferred easy prey. It is here that the Nameless' true nature is revealed:
"Since the Nameless had asserted control over the Helreach, many of its defenders had perished in service to his whims. Some had fought their fellows to the death in makeshift arenas, spurred to the bloodsport by the cruel whispers in their minds. Others had gnawed at their own flesh, for no other reason than because the Nameless wished to sample the experience through his borrowed senses. One day, the spectre had decided that his unwilling armies should march into battle beneath banners of flayed skin, and so had ordered scores of his puppets to fashion such standards from the hides of their friends. Next, the Nameless decided that bone totems would be more appropriate; the flayed banners were abandoned, and his puppets tore each other's flesh away, strip by strip, unable to disobey their master. Ironically, had the Nameless been less easily distracted, then he would have made a better job of maintaining the Auric Bastion, and thus never given the wizard a reason to enter his domain. As it was, the wizard had to die before he saw too much, and spoilt the spirit's games.
Gelt could have perished easily then, struck from the skies by a bolt of dark magic, and torn limb from limb by the Nameless' puppets, but he did not. Vlad von Carstein too had become aware of the wizard's presence on the Helreach, and sent minions of his own to intercept the Supreme Patriarch before the Nameless' blow could land.
They met in secret that night, the wizard and the vampire. Vlad sought to make the other a willing ally, rather than a dupe or slave, and strove to convince the Supreme Patriarch through honesty, rather than trickery. In this, the vampire failed, at least initially; even after their impromptu alliance at the Battle of Alderfen, Gelt was disinclined to trust that he and the vampire truly had the same cause. Nevertheless, the seeds Vlad planted in the wizard's mind that evening would soon bear fruit."
Then we have a conversation between Gelt and Vlad:
Page 281
Note: I've been sitting on this half-written section for ages now, and it's been driving me crazy. I wanted to go all the way with the Gelt section, but I need to release this now or I never will. I'll continue Gelt's adventures later, and hopefully I won't have to take an unreasonably long impromptu hiatus before I do so.
My overall impressions of this section of the chapter is that it's a solid premise with some good introspection, but the writing falls a bit flat because the author is still doing that descriptive narration thing instead of a more organic story, so outside the few conversations we actually get to see, everything is told to use instead of shown, which makes scenes like Gelt's breakdown in Castle Von Rauken and Karl Franz' private conversation with him feel much weaker and less impactful than they rightfully should. The book constantly tells us how smart and politically astute Karl Franz is, and I can see that, but they're really pushing the envelope because he has yet to actually have any dialogue. Everything is being spoonfed to us at the same time that we dash through plot points at mach speed.
You know, typical End Times stuff.
The Nameless is an appropriately nasty villain. Vlad and Gelt are actually interesting and I like their dynamic and the concept of a corruption arc, and the introspection is quite good. The issues in regards to this arc start showing up in the next section, as we start seeing them speedrun all the plot points as fast as they can while contriving things to make everything work perfectly for the bad guys. As usual.
In the meantime, I'm going to go over my posts to see if I forgot any relevant facts and get to follow up on this… sometime soon hopefully.
Interesting, previously in canon there's been two Liber Necrises and a Grimoire Necris, but Revelations Necris seems to be a new invention for the End Times. I wonder where it originates, most books of necromancy mentioned in canon have their descent from Nagash explicitly laid out.
Gelt's doing his best to swallow the idiot ball whole, I see. "I touched the bad magic and now doing it some more seems like a really good idea! This surely requires absolutely no introspection on my part."
Gelt's doing his best to swallow the idiot ball whole, I see. "I touched the bad magic and now doing it some more seems like a really good idea! This surely requires absolutely no introspection on my part."
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Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I kid you not, but Insomnia is mentioned so often with Gelt it feels like the author is trying to plant the idea that sleepnessness is turning him delirious to justify his actions and mistakes.
"As the weeks ground on, Gelt became increasingly weary. Each battle took a toll of his strength, and where other men could seek solace in sleep's embrace, Gelt had been denied that luxury ever since the Battle of Alderfen. Oh, he could rest for perhaps an hour each night, but his dreams were ever haunted by secrets half glimpsed when he had sought to wrestle the Wind of Light alongside that of Metal. On occasion, Gelt feared he was going mad, but if that were so it was a strange madness, full of wonder and potential, like a flavour the tongue could not quite taste, or a precious jewel lying just beyond the reach of a thief's straining fingers. Had Valgeir been there, perhaps Gelt would have spoken of his weariness, but Ar-Ulric was still further west, keeping close eye on Huss and Valten, and so Gelt was alone. Dreist and the other captains were mundane folk, possessed of earthy desires and simple thoughts; they would not have understood, or at least so Gelt assured himself. The wizard could not bring himself to display weakness before men who were so obviously his inferiors, and moreover feared that one of them would see that word of his fragility reached the Emperor. Karl Franz had given Gelt a sacred trust, and the Supreme Patriarch was determined not to fail his liege. Paranoia this certainly was, but weeks of near-sleeplessness had robbed Gelt of sound reason." Page 282-283
"How odd, ever since I used two Winds at once I've had trouble with nightmares and paranoia and megalomania. I wonder why that might be? I wonder if there's any reason known to the Colleges for why someone might experience that mental state from wielding two Winds at once? Oh well, I'm sure it's nothing important. Now let's read this Big Book Of Naughty Magic that Vlad von Carstein gave to me, an extremely good idea that definitely doesn't set off any alarm bells."
Extremely cool and compelling that the plot only works if the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic is completely ignorant of the causes and symptoms of Dhar exposure while fighting against Chaos and Vampires.
Extremely cool and compelling that the plot only works if the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic is completely ignorant of the causes and symptoms of Dhar exposure while fighting against Chaos and Vampires.
It's hard to call the Gelt arc 'good', because of the writing and 'idiot balling' as above.
But at least Gelt got an actual narrative arc: the biggest sin of the end times was that it was just a lot of things happening, maybe some cool moments, but no true themes or lessons or 'rise and falls' or etc etc. Things just kind of happened at characters and then they died or didn't. (Mostly died.)
Gelts 'rise and fall' hero's journey is not a well written one. But it is the only fully done one in the end times.(that I remember at least.)
So… gold metal to Gelt arc viva hobbling over the finish line when all other racers stoped to shit themselves.
But at least Gelt got an actual narrative arc: the biggest sin of the end times was that it was just a lot of things happening, maybe some cool moments, but no true themes or lessons or 'rise and falls' or etc etc. Things just kind of happened at characters and then they died or didn't. (Mostly died.)
Gelts 'rise and fall' hero's journey is not a well written one. But it is the only fully done one in the end times.(that I remember at least.)
So… gold metal to Gelt arc viva hobbling over the finish line when all other racers stoped to shit themselves.
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