On Thread Etiquette:
I'm not going to weigh in on the logic of either side's arguments, but I will ask that everyone read over what they write and really consider if the words they used are polite and won't be inflammatory intentionally or not. You cant account for people's tolerances perfectly but at least try to say your piece without saying things that can be easily construed as overly dismissive of the other side of the argument, thank you.
The Rune of Awakening was presumably developed from the Master Rune of Waking by Valma. This probably happened when she Understood the Master Rune of Waking.
It sounds like if we want Alchemy to be a more generally applicable thing in the Karaz Ankor that we might want to make a Rune of Purification from the Master Rune.
I'm also wondering if for an ultimate gronti you might want to understand the Master Rune of Metalblood enough to compress it and use that as part of the gronti combination. Also if a dwarf has a blood problem a rally esoteric upgrade of the Rune of Forged Limb might be possible by combining in some elements of that...
I thought we had the rune of awakening already and Valma just gave us a more refined version. Like those traps in the underway have the rune of awakening on them don't they?
You also said that the first quote means that there aren't really any obvious Runes that MWaking is drawing from. So has Rune of Waking been retconned out?
The Rune of Awakening was presumably developed from the Master Rune of Waking by Valma. This probably happened when she Understood the Master Rune of Waking.
The Regular Rune of Waking came AFTER the Master Rune of Waking. Both were originally released from Thungni. Valma is not the creator of the regular Rune, she's just tinkered with it like she has the Master Runes.
Runes can come about on their own and then be developed into a Master Rune, the easy way.
OR
A Master Rune can be made and chunked down to a Regular Rune with similar effects, the harder way.
Yeah, but Hogrur and co came close to developing true Runecraft, which in time, I presume, would let them someday create Hashut-appropriate Runes. Like Domination, Fire, Tyranny, etc.
The smell of flour, gravel and freshly prepared mountain cod warred with the odour of troll fat in the small brewery kitchen. Josef studied the slowly heating cauldron of troll fat over a coal fire, waiting for the viscous fluid to warm to the perfect temperature. He confidently placed a wire basket partially in the fat, submerging its contents completely.
With the cooking process started, he momentarily relaxed and allowed himself to look around his crudely constructed brewery's kitchenette and found his spirits dropping. Frying mountain cod with a layer of stone bread batter just long enough to have that perfect crunch without overcooking or burning was not hard. Just follow Mother's recipe and adapt it slightly to take into account local ingredients. Cooking and creating food that he enjoyed was something that had not been difficult for him to pick up. Learning how to brew something worth drinking was proving much harder. There was a distinct lack of willing tutors and the relevant information hidden behind the clan's secrecy rules.
That had changed recently with, of all things, a request from outside the clan. The local dwarf of repute, Snorri Klausson, the gift giver, hinted vaguely that he would like any information on the tubers Josef was experimenting with. Clan Bryggeroot's response had the clan elders all but falling over themselves to gain any scrap of knowledge.
Well, they weren't literally, but the grumbling in his direction had changed timber sightly. Rather than being ignored, as long as he started discussing progress with the tubers, he would get tips on improving his brewing. Well, actually he would get frowns and complaints and longwinded stories that nevertheless contained a nugget of useful information. He had made more progress in the year after the Gift-Givers request than in the three decades before. A journey started after meeting Hilda and declaring he would join clan Bryggeroot to claim Hilda's hand.
Hilda had objected. Not to the Suit. She was fully agreed to that but that he would have to prove himself before joining the clan. He had already saved her from a troll that was inconveniencing her, and the beer she had been moving. She felt that it had proved his character. Hilda had also made it known that she enjoyed his company significantly more than the suitors that her father had been entertaining. Furthermore, if the clan and particularly her father couldn't see Josef's value, she would happily leave with him.
Even remembering that scene of her passionately defending him left him somewhere between horrified and elated. Elated that a dwarf, any dwarf would think so highly of him after that unpleasantness in Kraka Zorn, for all he had tried to put it behind him. A Dwarf without a clan had a hard life and his lovely beautiful stubborn and idealistic Hilda. She deserved better than a life of a clanless dwarf, better than he could provide.
Her father, Bjorn, had declared that he would sooner allow his daughter's marriage to an insect than to a clanless dwarf. He responded, stating that he could learn the skills to make himself valuable and worth adopting by the clan. Her father had laughed and said Josef wasn't capable of it. He stated that if Josef could brew something that he would willingly put past his lips, he would back the adoption. He also insisted there would be no match before Josef could wrap his beard at least three full turns around Hilda. Full of bravado and at least three mugs of Bryggeroot best Josef foolishly agreed.
Hilda had just looked in exasperation at the both of them and stated that she would teach Josef how to brew and the wedding would be in less than two centuries. Then she had grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the room before he aid anything else stupid.
He felt his mouth move involuntarily into a smile. His wonderful, beautiful Hilda had remained faithful to her word and done what she could. However, it's hard to extract gold from a tin mine. Sure Josef could cook and fry quite well, and he had started with an idea of doing something with the durazkul tubers, but that was it. All Josef's attempts to ferment the durazkul produced a mouldy mess, nothing drinkable. At least his efforts to grow the odd tuber paid off after only a few false starts, quickly growing barrels of the things in even minimal light.
The issue was, the brewing hints he was getting where linked explicitly to beer. He had done the sensible thing and started again from scratch this time with oats and Hilda's subtle assistance. So far, even with the starter yeast, he had salvaged from a carelessly discarded Bryggeroot barrel, all his brews where sour. His most recent attempt still awaited review. An assessment he was holding off until his meal was finished cooking. A good beer to go with a family favourite or comfort food for when he failed again. Either way worth the wait.
Idly he removed the basket from the cauldron of boiling troll fat and then removed the batted fish looking again at the chips of durazkul leftover from today's brewing attempt and the still-hot fryer. Shrugging to himself, he put them in the basket and lowered them in.
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Josef was not the first to do so. Nor was he the first to eat the results or even the first to enjoy them. He was the first to do so after spilling a small amount of a specific type of failed brew on them.
That the brew was not what he intended to make was immaterial after the first idle bite. A new flavour sensation had been born.
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A small breeze corresponding with the sound of a door opening heralded Hilda's arrival.
"You are here earlier than I expected." he called rising to greet her "Did the dinner with your father go well?"
"No sit. I'm coming in," Hilda called back as she closed the door. "The meal was terrible. I barely got to eat anything before Da started criticising you again. He repeated that insult that he would sooner marry me to an insect than to you. I told him that I would be happy to marry a bug man as long as you where that man. Ma took his side, and I just couldn't stay. Doesn't he understand that the Elders are changing their position slowly? With your work on the Gift-Givers tubers, they are going to adopt you with or without any brewing skill."
"The Honourable Elders are Reconsidering?" He asked in surprise. "I know their grumblings of late have held more useful brewing information. And I have given them a promise on my beard never to pass on clan secrets without their approval. I just considered it unlikely to influence their thinking. Has it truly occurred?" he called around the corner as he sat again.
"Well, I heard from Thogrim who said he heard it from Folgi. Folgi has been hanging around Runemaster Snerra's guards lately. Runemaster Snerra supposedly needed someone to fetch and carry for her guards as she has some sort of major project she is working on now. Tholgrim thinks he's just slacking off. Either way, the general consensus is that as your trying to get into the clan we won't be losing any of the secrets. Any chance of a meal here?"
Josef's breath caught in his throat as she walked around the corner. As beautiful as ever but wearing a strange contraption that actively narrowed her waist. "Err. Certainly. Fish battered in stone bread and chips of durazkul. Both fried and sprinkled with salt."
Spotting the direction of his look, she smiled that playful knowing and Oh so attractive smile. "I might have been wearing this at the dinner, and no, I didn't eat anything. Is that for me?"
Without waiting for his answer, she stole his plate and started on the fish.
"I... This is good, Josef. Aunt Dis said her cook, Lees is looking for something new at her pub. I reckon she could be persuaded to start selling this near the forge district. Just think all those hungry dwarfs coming home from work wanting a quick meal. If it sells well, that will increase the pressure on Da."
She reached for a fried piece of durazkul, one which had a small amount of his sour brew on he almost stated to raise an objection before she had put it in her mouth. She chewed twice and swallowed, looked at the small container of failed beer sitting innocently on the table and looked back at Josef.
"Did you brew that?" she asked deadly serious.
A hesitant nod resulted in a slightly evil grin on Hilda's face.
"That combination was delicious, and I know others are going to agree. Aunt Dis is going to love this. She can get Da to try it, and if he approves well, what was the wording of that stupid oath you both made? You brewing something that he willingly put past his lips? I think we have him.
She celebrated her wit by picking up another durazkul chip and eating it. Then taking another with a playful look on her face. "You know we probably should check that all of these are good. Care to join me?"
Josef could only nod.
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Two Weeks later the addition of battered fish and chips of durazkul with sour beer proved to be a reasonable success to Dis Buggyroots Pub. Less than Hilda had hoped but still decent. Progress was being made.
It was not until eight months later that the popularity had grown by word of mouth that Hilda's father had heard and come to try it. Some Bryggeroot elders had even come past and pronounce the food not totally awful.
Then Hilda managed to serve it to her Da. It was, predictably, exciting.
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To be entirely fair, Josef thought to himself that the whole episode went far better than expected as he hid in his brewery. Nothing had caught fire. No one was dead, and Bjorn had almost publicly agreed that Josef and Hilda's marriage conditions were met. The exacerbating factor, and why he was still trying to straighten his beard was a pair of apprentices taking their fish and chips with them.
Rune Apprentices Sigrun and Jolla had stuck their heads in the pub earlier in the day. Because they were in a hurry, they had taken the fish and chips wrapped in paper from an already delivered missive. Master Snerra had apparently sampled some of the chips and decided to have dinner just as Hilda's father had walked in and sat down.
Bjorn had seemed to enjoy the fish and chips even as his clan duty forced him to compliment the cooking in front of Runemaster. From what Josef could see from the kitchen. Hilda had also heard and gone directly to talk to her father.
The look on her father's face when she revealed who had brewed the vinegar on the chips was one that would stick with him for the rest of his life.
To Bjorn's credit, he didn't even deny that the brewing was fine merely starting on the fact that Josef's beard wasn't long enough.
That was met by Josef being pulled around the corner. His beard attacked by Hilda with a comb and two ties. Then climbing onto the bar, Hilda demonstrated that the two bunches of beard would together wrap around her middle the requisite number of times.
It also gave the crowd a perfect look at Hilda smug expression. His partially concealed mortified one, Bjorn's thunderous one and Hilda's aunt Dis's exasperated one. The view didn't last long as Dis took charge of the situation, instructing him to pick up Hilda and carry her out. Right now. The last thing he heard leaving with Hilda still wrapped in his beard was Runemaster Snerra promising a wedding present to Hilda's father.
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It was a brief scandal. A tale of a father and a daughter's stubbornness warring with each other. Salacious enough that it spread far and wide with enough of a glimmer of truth to make it respectable. A bit of gossip that eventually settled. Still, Josef "Two Beards" Bryggeroot felt he had come out of the whole ordeal rather well. There was wedding planning occurring in the Bryggeroot Clan Hall. The Gift-Giver was happy with Josef's small contribution, or he hadn't frowned too often when he read Josef's notes on growing durazkul. And as a minor bonus from the whole affair his nickname was no longer so humiliating. Whoever heard of a dwarf named bug man anyway?
This started somewhere with a comment that Warhammer dwarfs are from Lancashire and that fish and chips seem to have originated in the region. Then looking at the miniature for Josef Bugman why did he have his beard in two bunches?
Here's my go at an answer.
Well I had fun writing this. I hope you all enjoy reading and have a Merry Christmas, especially @soulcake without who's hard work we wouldn't be here.
So many typos. Since this is canon now, I hope others can point the typos out.
I am pooped, so no hope for me on that front.
Also I love how the legendary Bugmans now has a tie in with durazkul chips. And Bugmans is just the dwarf I imagine to be the perfect discoverer of Healing Vodka (the hope still lives on).
So many typos. Since this is canon now, I hope others can point the typos out.
I am pooped, so no hope for me on that front.
Also I love how the legendary Bugmans now has a tie in with durazkul chips. And Bugmans is just the dwarf I imagine to be the perfect discoverer of Healing Vodka (the hope still lives on).
Thinking about it, this make the Waystone network of canon even more impressive. A joint project between dwarven Runelords and elven Archmages, both of whom seem to have rather diva-ish tendencies, that required the construction of many tens or even hundreds of thousands of apparently near identical hybrid Qhaysh enchanted/runic items, each of which would have required the personal attention of a runesmith and an archmage.
Think of the scale of this project. It would have required a collective, collaborative effort by the Guild of Runesmiths and the Prince-Mages of Ulthuan that would have made our prosthetic limbs a drop in the ocean in comparison. It would have been a literal industry that would have taken centuries or even millennia to produce the Waystones and then transport, install and integrate them into the rest of the network across the entire globe. This almost must have consumed a huge proportion of the total productivity of the runesmiths during that time.
Now, it's something that was easily important enough to justify being an exception, apparently being key to preserving the existence of the world, but think of the transformation in runesmith culture it represents. A transformation that isn't reflected in later dwarf culture at all. Now, this could be a result of that approach being discredited by the War of the Beard. Or, it could be that the runesmiths that worked on this being a distinct branch of the Guild/Cult that was wiped out. We know that before the Time of Woes there were surface dwarven settlement, and before the War there were runelords living and working in the elven colonial cities. Perhaps it was these runesmiths that worked on the Waystones.
It makes me wonder how the Cult came to dedicate such effort to this mega-project. As I say, it's justifiable in terms of its existential impact, which makes me wonder if there's anything else that would fall into that category. Perhaps a development of the ward stones from Karak Dum, or something to do with the Happening of Things that shields dwarves from the surveillance of the Chaos Gods?
Maybe it was the Runesmith equivalent of the two twins working together. The Dwarfs made one part of a project, the Elves made another, complementary, part.
Or maybe it involved shared research and knowledge, like what the Brotherhood of Dron does; and the Waystones themselves, could be made by either Dwarfs or Elves alone. It just required two divergent forms of expertise and application of two different arts in order to be able to be unlocked.
Or maybe it required literal orders from the Ancestor Gods in order to pull off; the Ancestor Gods saying "We're going to have to leave, so once we do, here's what you have to do..." And the Dwarfs deciding to swallow their distaste and do as their Ancestor Gods bid them to.
The thing is that the second generation Waystones, from what little we know, are themselves joint works. Given what we know of runes, it seems unlikely that the dwarves would or could teach the elves to use them on Waystones. Even if it were possible, teaching them how to make runes seems even more radical than collectivisation. That's, debatable, of course.
More than that, it's a wholesale abandonment of the Rule of Pride, organising the runesmiths to collectively make tens or hundreds of thousands of Waystones as part of a vast global mega-project with all the deadlines, coordination, logistics, etc. that this entails. Even ignoring the requirement to work with the elves, it's all the problems of our prosthetics project quite literally multiplied thousands of times over.
It also, from the timeline, seems to be something that was started a fair amount of time after the Ancestor Gods left.
What's interesting is to see how we get from here to there. Perhaps Thungni did leave a precedent that could be seen to mandate this, or perhaps the Cult-Guild itself evolved in some way to justify it.
Maybe it was the Runesmith equivalent of the two twins working together. The Dwarfs made one part of a project, the Elves made another, complementary, part.
Or maybe it involved shared research and knowledge, like what the Brotherhood of Dron does; and the Waystones themselves, could be made by either Dwarfs or Elves alone. It just required two divergent forms of expertise and application of two different arts in order to be able to be unlocked.
Or maybe it required literal orders from the Ancestor Gods in order to pull off; the Ancestor Gods saying "We're going to have to leave, so once we do, here's what you have to do..." And the Dwarfs deciding to swallow their distaste and do as their Ancestor Gods bid them to.
I'm of the take it probably starts as just shared research since that's well within the bounds already set up in this quest and there's a lot that can be done with that as a start.
I'm of the take it probably starts as just shared research since that's well within the bounds already set up in this quest and there's a lot that can be done with that as a start.
That's not really what's described though, and it also doesn't make any sense thematically, which is that it was a joint project of a lost age whey they combined the best of both races' arts, a lost wonder's greater than the sum if its parts that can't be reproduced because both races are too proud to bury the hatchet and work together again.
If it's just knowledge than the elves (or the dwarves) can independently build it without needing the other. Making it just joint research misses the entire narrative point of it being a collaboration.
That's not really what's described though, and it also doesn't make any sense thematically, which is that it was a joint project of a lost age whey they combined the best of both races' arts, a lost wonder's greater than the sum if its parts that can't be reproduced because both races are too proud to bury the hatchet and work together again.
If it's just knowledge than the elves (or the dwarves) can independently build it without needing the other. Making it just joint research misses the entire narrative point of it being a collaboration.
Yeah, but Alratran has already told us that he has difficulty understanding where dwarves put the boundaries on acceptable research and unacceptable cooperation are.
Maybe the Waystones were not actually individually runed and the dwarf part was simply the product of rune work. Like adamant is. The runesmiths made waystone smelters of some sort.
The thing is that the second generation Waystones, from what little we know, are themselves joint works. Given what we know of runes, it seems unlikely that the dwarves would or could teach the elves to use them on Waystones. Even if it were possible, teaching them how to make runes seems even more radical than collectivisation. That's, debatable, of course.
No. I meant, that, once the Waystones had first been figured out... they could be built with by magic or runecraft alone. It required Dwarf and Elf cooperation to unlock and reach that point. But afterwards, Elves or Dwarfs could make them alone.
Or maybe it took hundreds of years to do because the Runesmiths weren't going to make the same thing over and over again so fast, and had to stretch it out over centuries.
Maybe the Waystones were not actually individually enchanted and the dwarf part was simply the product of rune work. Like adamant is. The runesmiths made waystone smelters so some sort.
Maybe the Dwarfs' part were to make the equivalent of Adamant Smelters and keep them running for centuries.
Maybe Waystones are sort of related to Anvils of Doom in that way -- by which I mean, it's not just that you need to know the runes for it, but that you also need to specially craft it out of a chunk of a rare material. In the Anvil's case, Gromril. In the Waystone's case, who knows.
... Or maybe each Waystone just has the Rune of Stone on it, or the Master Rune of Stone (Mountainsouled maybe?) and nothing else, and much like the plumber joke of "Hitting it? 10 dollars. Knowing where to hit it? 490 dollars." the trick was figuring out the proper special material for it and figuring out how to enchant it (maybe the enchant is done first, and the rock is runed afterwards).
... Or maybe it has 4 Runes of Stone on it. Thus somehow breaking one of the known rules of how Runes work. But, ironically, not the Rule of Pride. Because Dwarfs consider the Rune of Stone okay to make a lot of. As it's the first rune a Runesmith apprentice strikes and kin to Dwarfs. Maybe Waystones are just some kind of Platonically Reality-locked Rocks, with 4 Runes of Stone on them, and worked with Elf magic or craft or placed just-so in the right spot. The right-spot being something to do with Deep Magic perhaps.
In fact, maybe that was the Dwarf's contribution; knowledge of the Deep Magic of the Earth.
While the Elves contributed knowledge of just Magic, aka the Winds of Magic.
My guess as to what goes on the waystones is a rune of spelleating (in banner form), the rune of stone and the deep magic component, with reversed "polarity" so that it pushes magic back to the earth, instead of pulling it out to power things.
My guess as to what goes on the waystones is a rune of spelleating (in banner form), the rune of stone and the deep magic component, with reversed "polarity" so that it pushes magic back to the earth, instead of pulling it out to power things.
That seems like a good combo to me. The idea of a stone sanctuary which can absorb and hold magic. Sending the magic back to refuel the Deep Magic of the Earth -- if it even is a finite resource that needs refueling, who knows, it may not. But if it does need refueling, then it might be interesting to try.
Can already imagine the combo name: Grounding.
Stone + Sanctuary + Spelleating. The Spell-Grounding combo. Though, it's spelleating rather than spellbreaking. It probably only vacuums up spare energy floating around, rather than actively countering spells. Which means it might require a Banner or Talisman to do the counterspelling part.
But together? Might be a good Banner or Talisman to put on a Gronti in fact? Letting that Gronti absorb and be powered by any spellcasting in the area.
Yeah, but Alratran has already told us that he has difficulty understanding where dwarves put the boundaries on acceptable research and unacceptable cooperation are.
