RHUNRIKKI STROLLAR (Warhammer Fantasy Golden Age Dwarf Runelord Quest)

[soulcake]

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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.

Please endeavour to be cordial. :^)

 

[Jreengus]

So... whats the bulk alchemy that we're expecting/anticipating/hoping we'll discover?

And the hilarious expense wasn't so much that the Brotherhood wasn't willing to get right of first refusal on our Gromril mine output and continue to make Adamant via their method until the improved smelter was made. Obviously the market is willing to pay for it.

I think the problem that experimentation thing. How do you imagine non Runesmiths doing this? Is the assumption that Snorri will invent a full range of MRunes for each alchemical transformation (basically equivilants to purification) and then they just combine those in different orders on different materials? Non Runesmiths feel extremely limited in what they could actually achieve as experiments.
Are you assuming that it no longer will require MRunes that take a decade to recharge, as otherwise its in the same place as Adamant that theres not a lot of effort to save. And we can only do one experiment every couple of years...

Also I didn't realise you were actually planning on sharing rune knowledge! Thats way against the strictures of Thungni:

Article:

All runesmiths must abide by the following strictures:[1b]​

• Never reveal the secrets of magic runecraft to any other than a fellow runesmith or one's own carefully chosen apprentice.[1b]​

Source: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Thungni

I don't think that they're apprentices would be a satisfactory loophole for the conclave of Runelords, especially if we're taking enough at a time to start a guild they hardly seem carefully chosen.
It would also possibly prevent us from employing Brana and Elves in the guild, which gets rid of the obvious solution to magic blindness.

Also just a reminder, pure Gromril is the result of Snorri manually working over and refining the Gromril that is actually on the market.

Click to shrink...

Ok I think you have a completely different idea of what alchemy is and what alchemy would do to me. Alchemists wouldn't be taught rune lore any more than warriors with runed weapons are being taught rune lore. They would use both runic and mundane methods to alter materials and create elixirs/potions. So for example an alchemist might want to take Grimnirzan and try to turn it into a potion of stoneskin, so they apply a mixture of mundane and rune based methods to try to alter the liquid so it has the desired effect, maybe even mixing it with other ingredients like stone aligned monster parts. Meanwhile they would be testing the effects of this on animals probably starting small with stuff like rats and moving up to goats and making sure it's completely safe and the slaughtered goats are showing no signs of long term effects before they even consider giving it to a dwarf.

This would be separate from Akazit, from the description we have of Akazit it would be to alchemy as adamant smelting and working is to smithing, an unattainable height impossible without runes.

 

[Horium]

This is the golden age, we are supposed to be a little wasteful by the standards of canon.

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By standards of canon, it's wasteful to use gromril (let alone the pure gromril or adamant) for prosthetics.

Using adamant is wasteful by any standard.

I also dislike the choice due to the fact that we are hard-capped by the adamant production speed.

It will never be not rare, and adamant spent here will never be repurposed or reused due to semantic reasons.

And pure gromril would get the job done just as well.

 

[Garlak]

I doubt Snorri would want to make an entirely new guild.

Especially when it comes to an untried and undiscovered and untested new research field. You want to immediately set up a new guild for this, without testing out and researching and documenting it for a few centuries or a thousand years first? Are you mad? These are Dwarfs, son. They don't just make a new guild wily-nily. Not just to sate one person's desire for fame and power, or because it would be convenient and fast.

Especially not because it would be fast.

If you want to be Dwarf-like, then spend a thousand years exploring this new and undiscovered research topic. And document exactly why you think it should be worth the creation and invention of a new guild. And document and explain exactly why this does not fall under Cult of Thungni Secrets. Because that's what it is, at this point. Runesmith Secrets.

If you want to found a new guild because you want to break ground the way the Ancestor Gods did, then I think you're motivated by hubris. A desire for fame.

If you want to found a new guild because you think it would be good, then... Well, okay. You should still take a thousand years to do it though. Do it the proper, Dwarfy, way. And have ironclad arguments for why a new guild is needed, for why Runesmiths can't do this alone, why Runesmiths shouldn't do this alone, and why these Runesmith secrets should be shared and made both not-secret and not-Runesmith-knowledge.

If that sounds like an uphill climb and a hell of an ask then, well, congratulations -- you've gotten a glimmer of what it's like to try to match an Ancestor God for the revolution or creation of an entire sphere of cultural influence or the creation and proliferation of an entire new line of work, like Runesmithing or Engineering.

But don't take shortcuts to it. Nor should you decide, beforehand, that you want to aim for new-guild target and like-an-Ancestor-God-prestige as a target. And come up with justifications and rationalizations for why that's okay.


If you wanted your Alchemy Guild? Your chance for that probably went out the window when a Priest of the Cult of Thungni stumbled upon it and started researching it.

You know what you might aim for now, though?

Something that's the equivalent of the Brotherhood of Dron.

A group or fellowship within the ranks of the Runesmiths, or Runelords, that holds expertise and specialties in a given topic, and pursues that topic, and shares research about it.

And that? That, I am much more excited about.

Because that I feel is giving me a very Dwarf vibe and Runesmith vibe. That sort of Golden Age vibe. Because... It's discovering some new field, and then reaching out to your fellow Grandmasters, and starting a tradition or fellowship about it.

It's... It's going out to the other Runelords, and going: "Look at what I've found! It's pretty cool." And then being surprised or impressed or confused by it.

That sense of discovery, of wonder and mystery... It's very very cool and satisfying to me. But also and equally important, is the sense of culture and... fantasy race verisimilitude, basically. I don't want just Cool Things(TM) -- I want it to be Dwarfy, too. And that involves being and acting Dwarfy. Rather than 'Dwarfy is what we say it is.' =/

 

[Ithillid]

It really depends on how much of the process of alchemy depends upon a Runesmith or Runesmith equivalent to do it successfully, and on how much the process can be scaled up.

If this is something where it is really just an efficient method to take low tier reagents and turn them into high tier reagents, it is something where it becomes a version of the Brotherhood of Dron, because it really just helps Runesmiths.

On the other hand, if Alchemy is a mechanism to get on the path towards stable high explosives, smokeless powder, highly concentrated healing potions, strength potions, chemical warfare agents etc. And is something where most, if not all of the steps can be handled by someone with the appropriate runed tools without more than basic knowledge of Runesmithing, it is something where the flexibility and capability is enough that it needs to be more than runesmiths, because even with the productivity of Snorri, there are simply not enough with the capability to create the quantities needed across the Karaz Ankor.

 

[Dark as Silver]

Ok I think you have a completely different idea of what alchemy is and what alchemy would do to me. Alchemists wouldn't be taught rune lore any more than warriors with runed weapons are being taught rune lore. They would use both runic and mundane methods to alter materials and create elixirs/potions. So for example an alchemist might want to take Grimnirzan and try to turn it into a potion of stoneskin, so they apply a mixture of mundane and rune based methods to try to alter the liquid so it has the desired effect, maybe even mixing it with other ingredients like stone aligned monster parts. Meanwhile they would be testing the effects of this on animals probably starting small with stuff like rats and moving up to goats and making sure it's completely safe and the slaughtered goats are showing no signs of long term effects before they even consider giving it to a dwarf.

This would be separate from Akazit, from the description we have of Akazit it would be to alchemy as adamant smelting and working is to smithing, an unattainable height impossible without runes.

Click to shrink...

Potion potions?

Article:

Potions differ from draughts as magic is required to brew these concoctions, while draughts can be mixed using mundane means.

Source: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Potions

If your idea of achieving alchemy is "Manage a great deal of what Gold Wizards do, but without using mage sight." Then yes. We do have different ideas of what is possible

And while it might technically be possible to achieve without windsight:

Article:

Because many potion ingredients are inherently unstable, though, and because the arts of preservation in the Old World are rather medieval, potions frequently go bad, sometimes with disastrous results. And because the natural state of most potions is to smell dubious, it's impossible to tell whether a given potion has gone bad before you drink it.[4a]​

Source: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Potions

Which brings me back to the point about magical muckery. Very few dwarves are going to want to trust something thats impossible to tell when its safe, when they're the same species that try and make impromptu repairs last decades when rescuing people from mines.

 

[Garlak]

On the other hand, if Alchemy is a mechanism to get on the path towards stable high explosives, smokeless powder, highly concentrated healing potions, strength potions, chemical warfare agents etc. And is something where most, if not all of the steps can be handled by someone with the appropriate runed tools without more than basic knowledge of Runesmithing, it is something where the flexibility and capability is enough that it needs to be more than runesmiths, because even with the productivity of Snorri, there are simply not enough with the capability to create the quantities needed across the Karaz Ankor.

Click to shrink...

Now, see... I'm actually not sure that that would be a persuasive argument to a Dwarf. And thus, that that would be a motivation that a Dwarf to have. (But it could be a motivation that human players would have, and push for their Dwarf character to pursue, and rationalize that since he's radical and odd it'll be okay, and if the Ancestors did it (here "this" referring to "started a new guild and way of life in some parts") it must be okay, right? And it's for the good of the Karaz Ankor anyway so it's fine.)

Does that sound sucky? Of there being an easier or more convenient or simply faster and more efficient path, and refusing to take it? If so, well, you've discovered some of the psychological and cultural quirks of Dwarfhood, I'm afraid.

But I'd rather succeed as a Dwarf, then to do our best to humanize Dwarfs as a whole, or our Dwarf character individually, every time such things come up.

If that means not being totally utilitarian and theoretically optimal (by standards which wouldn't work out 'in reality' anyway, because these are Dwarfs and Dwarf society we are dealing with, rather than a human society) then I'm fine with that.

If anything, I'm more than fine with that.

Because this is the Golden Age.

If any time era is the time to take a hundred or a thousand years to do a thing, or to play a reclusive hermit or mysterious master, or a secretive master, without worrying about some theoretical "We know this happens in the year 2000 after-Sigmar in Canon" problem? It'd be here and now.

 

[Karugus]

Informal seems like it very much isn't that, and neither does his description, whereas the other two are much more emblematic of what the Hearth Guard is supposed to be about.

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Are you kidding? Informally we have minimal hard authority. Except we're a highly revered and respected elder that people listen to very closely when we make suggestions.

Dwarf society, outside the presumably horrifically nitty gritty legal codes, relies tremendously on soft power and pressure. We can't order a guild to give us secrets, but they might respect us enough to give us research if we ask. The vast majority of Snorri's influence is simply being the result of a helpful and respectful senior that other dwarfs trust to make things better. What is that if not the kindly old man with good life advice always 'eager' to help the young'uns out? Which is basically Straightbeard's explicit gimmick.

One of the entire premises of Snorri as a character is that all the gifts and kindness and help- have lent him a tremendous amount of influence he uses to help out further. The quintessential 'one good deed deserves another' weaponized for shared benefit. If you don't see that as immensely relevant to the Hearthguard that's entirely on you.

 

[Jreengus]

Potion potions?

Article:

Potions differ from draughts as magic is required to brew these concoctions, while draughts can be mixed using mundane means.

Source: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Potions

If your idea of achieving alchemy is "Manage a great deal of what Gold Wizards do, but without using mage sight." Then yes. We do have different ideas of what is possible

And while it might technically be possible to achieve without windsight:

Article:

Because many potion ingredients are inherently unstable, though, and because the arts of preservation in the Old World are rather medieval, potions frequently go bad, sometimes with disastrous results. And because the natural state of most potions is to smell dubious, it's impossible to tell whether a given potion has gone bad before you drink it.[4a]​

Source: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Potions

Which brings me back to the point about magical muckery. Very few dwarves are going to want to trust something thats impossible to tell when its safe, when they're the same species that try and make impromptu repairs last decades when rescuing people from mines.

Click to shrink...

Your argument here seems to be somewhat semantical, we know that for example Durazkul can be used to increase healing without using magic on it, even if anything made with it would by the definition you presented qualify as a draught rather than a potion does it really matter? Beyond that I already indicated the dwarves would have access to and use runic tools as well so they absolutely will be able to make mixtures that fill the definition of potion as given by you. I'm not sure how much the dwarves could create compared to the golds but the lack of windsight can be compensated for by parterning with brana and elves and having literally thousands of years compared to the gold colleges couple hundred. The issue with potions going bad is classic example of where dwarven attention to detail and desire for excellence would work out massively in their favour it is explicitly stated in the article you cite to be due to poor preservation, obviously a dwarven alchemists guild is going to work on preservation techniques and detection techniques for bad potions. This is like saying dwarves would never adopt firearms because human early firearms were prones to problems with powder not firing or misfiring and killing/wounding the human carrying them, except dwarves did use them they just made sure work out all the problems first, why wouldn't they do the same with potions?

 

[Dark as Silver]

Your argument here seems to be somewhat semantical, we know that for example Durazkul can be used to increase healing without using magic on it, even if anything made with it would by the definition you presented qualify as a draught rather than a potion does it really matter? Beyond that I already indicated the dwarves would have access to and use runic tools as well so they absolutely will be able to make mixtures that fill the definition of potion as given by you. I'm not sure how much the dwarves could create compared to the golds but the lack of windsight can be compensated for by parterning with brana and elves and having literally thousands of years compared to the gold colleges couple hundred. The issue with potions going bad is classic example of where dwarven attention to detail and desire for excellence would work out massively in their favour it is explicitly stated in the article you cite to be due to poor preservation, obviously a dwarven alchemists guild is going to work on preservation techniques and detection techniques for bad potions. This is like saying dwarves would never adopt firearms because human early firearms were prones to problems with powder not firing or misfiring and killing/wounding the human carrying them, except dwarves did use them they just made sure work out all the problems first, why wouldn't they do the same with potions?

Click to shrink...

I posted the definition so that we could clarify semantics. If your response is: "No I mean draughts not potions as the Warhammer Fantasy universe currently defines them." then my response is different to if you want to make potions matching that definition. I do consider the distinction very important even when using non mundane ingredients, as the ingredients are usually stable and adding new magic to that mix is a potentially destabilising factor.

I don't think that runic tools is a sufficient explanation to remove problems. Even though we can expect those tools to behave the same way every time, we can't expect that they will always be applied in the same way. Magic does not like to behave and these potions are going to possibly go long periods between the runes actually being applied and the potion being consumed. Runes don't tend to have long lasting effects after they're deactivated.

There are two solutions I see to this,

1. We do potion creation in as industrialised fashion with as few 'human' elements so we can avoid stray Asqy being brought in because the potion mixer is in a bad mood and the like. And if we do this, it kinda reduces the point of the guild.
2. We intend for the apprenticeship of an alchemist to significantly mirror the runesmith way and take decades. Doing that would more or less remove the advantages of not inducting Runesmiths. Dwarven attention to detail isn't a simple solution like you present it, they need to learn what details to pay attention to and the correct way to do it.

I think firearms might be a relevant comparison as as I recall, dwarves refused to adopt them until they were under so much pressure of destruction by outside forces that it was a matter of survival for the whole race to do so.
So I'm willing to agree that should we face an extinction event, even dwarves are likely to swallow their stubbornness, until we face one however my critisms remain.

 

[Alratan]

It's worth considering that the Ancestor Gods organised modern dwarf society in something like the thousand years leading up to the start of the quest, including founding the relevant guilds and cults. That's within living memory at this point. There could well be living dwarves (in Zorn) who remember that period before the Ancestor Gods were active, and certainly before their cults and the guilds they founded were the pillars of dwarf society they became. This may mean that dwarf society is more flexible and able to accept new institutions more easily than they would be later.

As a side note, just rereading dwarven history, but Valaya apparently taught the dwarves to make wards to protects themselves, and the description very strongly suggests that these wards are something separate and in addition to runes. If that's the case then there are already existing supernatural crafting techniques performed by non-runesmiths who presumably aren't descended from Thungni.

As another side note, magic not liking to behave is, I believe, fanon.

 

[Sir_Travelsalot]

As another side note, magic not liking to behave is, I believe, fanon.

Click to shrink...

Then why are miscasts the #1 reason for a wizard's untimely death? In all seriousness, it's less that it intentionally misbehaves, and more that it is not intuitive in assuming an ordered shape to cast a spell. Like trying to build a sandcastle at high tide, only you're inside it if it collapses before you're finished making it.

 

[Alratan]

Then why are miscasts the #1 reason for a wizard's untimely death? In all seriousness, it's less that it intentionally misbehaves, and more that it is not intuitive in assuming an ordered shape to cast a spell. Like trying to build a sandcastle at high tide, only you're inside it if it collapses before you're finished making it.

Click to shrink...

Because magic is powerful and channeling and transforming that much energy through your mind, body, and soul is almost inherently dangerous.

That's why sensible people, like rune smiths, channel and shape it using carefully prepared tools instead.

 

[Sir_Travelsalot]

Because magic is powerful and channeling and transforming that much energy through your mind, body, and soul is almost inherently dangerous.

Click to shrink...

That's different from miscasts, though. What you're describing is magical energy from a failed spell searing the caster's mind, which is internal. Miscasts are external and apart from a few cases have some external effect on the world around you.

 

[Alratan]

That's different from miscasts, though. What you're describing is magical energy from a failed spell searing the caster's mind, which is internal. Miscasts are external and apart from a few cases have some external effect on the world around you.

Click to shrink...

Miscasts can be internal or external, depending on what the energy does when you mess up channeling it through you.

It might sear your mind. It might make you explode into daemons. It might curdle all the nearby milk.

 

[Shaper47]

Considering how powder making became a guide in canon timeline given that it would fall amongst the use of Alchemy there is little doubt that the guide of Snorri/Alchemy is going to happen

 

[Pyre]

[X] Fire Keeper: Ylva Hearth Hands
[X] Plan Chain, Mat Sci, and Prepping for Ironarms

 

[BungieONI]

I doubt Snorri would want to make an entirely new guild.

Especially when it comes to an untried and undiscovered and untested new research field. You want to immediately set up a new guild for this, without testing out and researching and documenting it for a few centuries or a thousand years first? Are you mad? These are Dwarfs, son. They don't just make a new guild wily-nily. Not just to sate one person's desire for fame and power, or because it would be convenient and fast.

Especially not because it would be fast.

If you want to be Dwarf-like, then spend a thousand years exploring this new and undiscovered research topic. And document exactly why you think it should be worth the creation and invention of a new guild. And document and explain exactly why this does not fall under Cult of Thungni Secrets. Because that's what it is, at this point. Runesmith Secrets.

If you want to found a new guild because you want to break ground the way the Ancestor Gods did, then I think you're motivated by hubris. A desire for fame.

If you want to found a new guild because you think it would be good, then... Well, okay. You should still take a thousand years to do it though. Do it the proper, Dwarfy, way. And have ironclad arguments for why a new guild is needed, for why Runesmiths can't do this alone, why Runesmiths shouldn't do this alone, and why these Runesmith secrets should be shared and made both not-secret and not-Runesmith-knowledge.

If that sounds like an uphill climb and a hell of an ask then, well, congratulations -- you've gotten a glimmer of what it's like to try to match an Ancestor God for the revolution or creation of an entire sphere of cultural influence or the creation and proliferation of an entire new line of work, like Runesmithing or Engineering.

But don't take shortcuts to it. Nor should you decide, beforehand, that you want to aim for new-guild target and like-an-Ancestor-God-prestige as a target. And come up with justifications and rationalizations for why that's okay.


If you wanted your Alchemy Guild? Your chance for that probably went out the window when a Priest of the Cult of Thungni stumbled upon it and started researching it.

You know what you might aim for now, though?

Something that's the equivalent of the Brotherhood of Dron.

A group or fellowship within the ranks of the Runesmiths, or Runelords, that holds expertise and specialties in a given topic, and pursues that topic, and shares research about it.

And that? That, I am much more excited about.

Because that I feel is giving me a very Dwarf vibe and Runesmith vibe. That sort of Golden Age vibe. Because... It's discovering some new field, and then reaching out to your fellow Grandmasters, and starting a tradition or fellowship about it.

It's... It's going out to the other Runelords, and going: "Look at what I've found! It's pretty cool." And then being surprised or impressed or confused by it.

That sense of discovery, of wonder and mystery... It's very very cool and satisfying to me. But also and equally important, is the sense of culture and... fantasy race verisimilitude, basically. I don't want just Cool Things(TM) -- I want it to be Dwarfy, too. And that involves being and acting Dwarfy. Rather than 'Dwarfy is what we say it is.' =/

Click to shrink...

Ummm...

So the conversation me and Jreengus were having had a timescale of millennia. It initially started with the issue that making an Alchemists guild might lead into collectivization issues, which I then mentioned aren't really present outside of specific scenarios, and we got to discussing the progression of how such an Alchemist guild might grow out of the Runesmith guild naturally. Snorri teaches it to his apprentices, they teach it to their apprentices. That's the start. The step after that is deciding if we want to share it in Rune Trades (we don't have to, but it goes faster inside the acceptable social course of secret society like the Brotherhood of Dron). The next step is advancing the field and making runic tools that lower talent runesmiths can use to expand the valid student pool. The final hypothetical future is advancing the field far enough that dwarves without The Gift could use the runic tools, with the first being taught by those who have it until a body exists of normal dwarves who can teach their own apprentices exists. This final form is probably not possible, but given how helpful Alchemy is it's probably worth pursuing.

This sort of progression starts out with Snorri's "school" (all his apprentices and grand apprentices plus his master), which then grows bigger till its comparable in size to the Brotherhood of Dron, and then grows again until it reaches several hundred members and then it's more a question of does it count as a sub-guild inside the Runesmith Guild that is largely organized in the same way.

Sounds dwarfy to me, and it sounds particularly Snorri because at no point does he actually have to go down and sign the likely hill sized pile of legal documents to officiate a guild until the very end some thousand plus years later.

E: Now there is probably a worthwhile discussion to be had on whether we actually want it to grow bigger than the Brotherhood of Dron (which has like seventy or so members IIRC), separate from the 'is it dwarfy' argumentative tool, since it might not be practical to get it bigger than that.

 

[LaggPlaguedDuke]

Oh wait, has Bungie's plan always used adamant? That is disappointing. The adamant gronti gets farther away

 

[BungieONI]

Oh wait, has Bungie's plan always used adamant? That is disappointing. The adamant gronti gets farther away

Click to shrink...

Yeah, since the first iteration.

 

[Alratan]

Oh wait, has Bungie's plan always used adamant? That is disappointing. The adamant gronti gets farther away

Click to shrink...

I agree that it's a shame, but we still have a fair amount of research to do before we make a Grimnir Gronti. I'd like to complete Mind and Movement of Things, and I rather suspect that will take a while...

Particularly with Alchemy and Rune Metal also on the table.

 

[LaggPlaguedDuke]

I agree that it's a shame, but we still have a fair amount of research to do before we make a Grimnir Gronti. I'd like to complete Mind and Movement of Things, and I rather suspect that will take a while...

Particularly with Alchemy and Rune Metal also on the table.

Click to shrink...

Yeah that's true and we're probably far enough out from the other two smelters that we could make another one if we had the actions for it.

 

[BungieONI]

Yeah that's true and we're probably far enough out from the other two smelters that we could make another one if we had the actions for it.

Click to shrink...

And we still have six voidstones kicking around. And I think Soulcake mentioned being able to reduce the cost on Master Runes if you understood them super well, so that's another reason to study the Master Rune of Purification aside from its Akazit connections and being our own Master Rune which we don't really understand. And for that matter, it's probably had its action cost for understanding reduced significantly, though we're probably going to have to apply Understanding to it multiple times because each use of that action puts a Master Rune into a single other category.

 

[Dark as Silver]

Ummm...

So the conversation me and Jreengus were having had a timescale of millennia. It initially started with the issue that making an Alchemists guild might lead into collectivization issues, which I then mentioned aren't really present outside of specific scenarios, and we got to discussing the progression of how such an Alchemist guild might grow out of the Runesmith guild naturally. Snorri teaches it to his apprentices, they teach it to their apprentices. That's the start. The step after that is deciding if we want to share it in Rune Trades (we don't have to, but it goes faster inside the acceptable social course of secret society like the Brotherhood of Dron). The next step is advancing the field and making runic tools that lower talent runesmiths can use to expand the valid student pool. The final hypothetical future is advancing the field far enough that dwarves without The Gift could use the runic tools, with the first being taught by those who have it until a body exists of normal dwarves who can teach their own apprentices exists. This final form is probably not possible, but given how helpful Alchemy is it's probably worth pursuing.

This sort of progression starts out with Snorri's "school" (all his apprentices and grand apprentices plus his master), which then grows bigger till its comparable in size to the Brotherhood of Dron, and then grows again until it reaches several hundred members and then it's more a question of does it count as a sub-guild inside the Runesmith Guild that is largely organized in the same way.

Sounds dwarfy to me, and it sounds particularly Snorri because at no point does he actually have to go down and sign the likely hill sized pile of legal documents to officiate a guild until the very end some thousand plus years later.

E: Now there is probably a worthwhile discussion to be had on whether we actually want it to grow bigger than the Brotherhood of Dron (which has like seventy or so members IIRC), separate from the 'is it dwarfy' argumentative tool, since it might not be practical to get it bigger than that.

Click to shrink...

That it grows out of our apprentices and is a sub-guild seems like the most natural way.
Alternately I could conceivably see this as a Brotherhood forming with other Kraka Drakk Runesmiths, although since I'd expect that Lorna (curious researcher) and Brana (On the trail of Adamant) are the two most likely recruits it may be a Sisterhood instead.

 

[BungieONI]

That it grows out of our apprentices and is a sub-guild seems like the most natural way.
Alternately I could conceivably see this as a Brotherhood forming with other Kraka Drakk Runesmiths, although since I'd expect that Lorna (curious researcher) and Brana (On the trail of Adamant) are the two most likely recruits it may be a Sisterhood instead.

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Quite possibly! And happily enough they're not mutually exclusive paths, and socially its not any different from the Brotherhood of Dron so reasonably enough there shouldn't be collectivization issues. Especially since its not tied into a Rule of Pride bending production project like Forged Limbs, so that's a complicating factor that just doesn't exist.

 

[Dark as Silver]

Quite possibly! And happily enough they're not mutually exclusive paths, and socially its not any different from the Brotherhood of Dron so reasonably enough there shouldn't be collectivization issues. Especially since its not tied into a Rule of Pride bending production project like Forged Limbs, so that's a complicating factor that just doesn't exist.

Click to shrink...

mmmmm, I imagine that a lot of minor brotherhoods and things start when some former apprentices are researching closely with their master and the master dies. And they just continue researching.