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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. :^)
 
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what zorn so hard they erased it from all records, hence why they lost the location to zorn in modern whf?

Might have happened yeah, I mean imagine every generation finds some kind of proof that their ancestors did erasing and the Very Shameful Reason (TM) they did it, to reveal it would be to bring more shame, so they bury it harder and harder until the only records are about the lost Hold of Zorn.
 
I could see dwarves not caring if it was not 'really' a Hold at the time, sort of if an Imperial Dwarf enclave got wiped out, only the dwarves with kin there would particularly care.

But I don't know the timeline to say whether this is most likely to be because they were a colony, or never hooked up into the greater polity, or were never recognized, or they submitted to a different seat of power.
 
Speaking of dwarf drink, there was that one that either Fjolla or Snerra got. The one that was said to "cause even the hoariest longbeard to burp" or something.
I just got to that part in my reread and remembered your post.
After him comes your ever chipper niece. She gifts the newlywed couple several dozen casks of the finest Bryggeroot ale she has. Barrels that were centuries old and, "Strong enough to make even a most hardened Longbeard burp like a beardling," according to her. Something several of you found quite dubious before Fjolla put those doubts to rest after taking a swig of the stuff herself.
Snerra's wedding gift to Fjolla and Joll.
 
I mean, the simplest answer is looking at a map . Zorn is south. As in, so far south you have to go deep into Tomb King Country to reach it. The closest listed Hold, Karag Orrud, is basically on the other end. Travel between Zorn and the main Karaz Ankor is only feasible because of the Underway, and when that went to pieces? You can do the math.

Thanks to the Times of Woes, even if the Dawi still have explicit surviving records, they simply don't have the wherewithal to go looking for Zorn. Even if in your heart you know it's real, it's most likely fallen, the way so many of the great holds of the past did.
 
I mean, the simplest answer is looking at a map . Zorn is south. As in, so far south you have to go deep into Tomb King Country to reach it. The closest listed Hold, Karag Orrud, is basically on the other end. Travel between Zorn and the main Karaz Ankor is only feasible because of the Underway, and when that went to pieces? You can do the math.

Thanks to the Times of Woes, even if the Dawi still have explicit surviving records, they simply don't have the wherewithal to go looking for Zorn. Even if in your heart you know it's real, it's most likely fallen, the way so many of the great holds of the past did.
Makes me wonder why no holds built inbetween. There are definitely high mountains there, so why no major settlements? Is it due to how Zornish culture works, disallowing expansion, until the ancestors came and explored the under way and founded holds so far away?

Is it because the mineral deposits there suck? I doubt greatly tbqh, I even would bet there is great amounts of quality stuff, including gromril.

Something we just won't know guess.
 
Makes me wonder why no holds built inbetween. There are definitely high mountains there, so why no major settlements? Is it due to how Zornish culture works, disallowing expansion, until the ancestors came and explored the under way and founded holds so far away?

Is it because the mineral deposits there suck? I doubt greatly tbqh, I even would bet there is great amounts of quality stuff, including gromril.

Something we just won't know guess.
inquest it was probably because they wanted to hightail as far away from the remit area as they could
 
I mean, the simplest answer is looking at a map . Zorn is south. As in, so far south you have to go deep into Tomb King Country to reach it. The closest listed Hold, Karag Orrud, is basically on the other end. Travel between Zorn and the main Karaz Ankor is only feasible because of the Underway, and when that went to pieces? You can do the math.

Karag Orrud ain't even a Karak. It's an active volcano.
 
well yes but think of how all that can be used to forging for great effect

Oh, no doubt it would be very useful for forging and stuff. It's an active, close to surface geothermal powerplant, after all.

But what happens in case of eruptions?
Volcanos don't always erupt via the central cone. They often force out new, secondary cones during the course of an eruption due to uneven pressure and faults in rocks. It would be mighty fun to have a new volcanic vent suddenly open up in the residential districts someday and bury your family in lava, right?
 
[Non Canon] Project Prometheus, Skill to Skill x2 +15 to a Roll
Skill to Skill

???? IC

Karstah stood stock still in her armor, Karin A Karak shifting around her form in the howling Norscan snow. Obsolete, outdone, by other works she had poured fire and metal and skill into over the long, long time she had been alive, but there was something comforting, warming, pleasing about it. When she had been young and foolish and without the weight of responsibility responsibility. Much, in fact, like her Apprentice who was pacing in the falling ice, clad in a thick winter jacket of boar skin. She rolled her eyes even as Thorek made yet another pass in the deep ravine in the snow, formed by his efforts, even as she simply crossed her arms and kept her hand on her smith's hammer. "You can't send them your energy this way, lad."

"I'm worried, master." He looked her in the eye and did no worm about nor stiffen and that affirmed the wisdom wrapped in the foolishness of her choice; or perhaps, the foolishness wrapped in her wisdom? The Beardling was a stubborn piece of work to be sure, but then if he could have that much iron in his spine at that age how much might he have once the work of years refined him? What strength of character, what strength of will! And where there was will, there was Runes. If he did not get himself killed one way or another, anyway.

Could be worse. Could be Morgrim.

They both stopped as they heard thick stomping from somewhere far away.

Far away, and getting nearer. And pretty damn near already.

"Damn, dramatic giants..."

Karstah sniffed, and tapped her amulet, and the snow simply stopped falling for a hundred meters in every direction. And so both Master and Apprentice could see their guests.

Not Dwarfs, that was for certain. For one each was much too tall, the size of the barbarous Ogri, slimmer but quick and more plainly muscled. They were certainly better armed and armored however, for all it was by and large "practical" (lazy) work it blew both Fimir and Ogre away. Most marched with pollaxes as tall as they were, viciously sharp and hard that combination of spear and hammer and ax. Their armor was by and large plate, though a few replaced thick cuirass for brigandines; and it shone bright as the sun. Second skins of steel. There were gaps in the metal, but that was nothing to complain about.

They were, after all, protected by thick crystals. Gems projected from the brows, more like studs than horns in most cases; from the knuckles, which were integrated to serve the same function as knuckle dusters; and at the sternum, which acted as a target at the center of the armor. There was variations as well, however, some had the same studs of thick crystal rising up out of their shoulders, out of their elbows, everywhere there were joints, there could be crystal studs.

Colossi. Strange, nascent creatures at the dawn of their history, living now within former Lichtenburg.

At the center of the crowd, there was a man wearing even thicker armor than the rest, made of steel worked pristine white and shimmering gold. The crystals that projected from him were all lightly carved with faint emblems not unlike those on his armor. A cloak of wyvern hide dyed gold and then embroidered with a massive harp hung from his back. Musical notes, in fact, if she had to guess. Rather than a pollaxe he held a mighty hammer, two handed and circular of head, a fine mallet indeed. The pommel was carved to resemble a note at the end, while holy writing that vaguely burned with golden fire danced along the head of the mallet. He bore magic, and lightly grimaced as it touched the field of her Runes, but endured it with a stoic air. His hair was kept short, and was red; his skin gray as slate.

What immediately drew her attention, however, was the particularly thick book chained at his hip.

"Runelord Winterhearth," he said in a voice that was more like a chorus of ringing bells than anything that should come out of a single mouth.

"Artificer. It was a surprise when the High King said you requested to speak solely with us."

"Indeed, for you and your predecessor alone have the proven history." She nodded at Thorek, who went to help the Colossi lift the chests some carried: more than mere gold was held within. Reagents, manifold reagents, strange oddities from the far south and the construction of the Artificer alike, imbued with his magic.

"And a lack of certain other features I suppose," she said. He stopped and turned and then shook his head again.

"Dwarfs. All vengeance all the time. You think the weight of wars and grudges rest upon us? Ha. If we spent our time and energy on such reckless hate for all who did anything wrong to us, we would never get anything done."

"Is that why your hammer reeks of death's bane then, Artificer Deacon?" His eyes narrowed, though his lips tilted up at the edges in a half smile.

"Hatred of the Undead is just good sense, of course."

"Aye, I'll drink to that." Karstah pulled her flask of Bretonnian brandy from her pocket and downed part of it, not strong but sweet and crisp and she was old enough to bull over anybody who wanted to judge her for it, except, perhaps, for Master Snorri; but then he was mostly too busy to stop his work these days.

Mostly.

"In any case the day is not long enough for us to waste our time trying to fight anyone who ever wronged us. So let us instead march forward helping each other. You desire reagents to help you expand the horizons of your Runework, we desire reagents to expand our Artifice, and our kings and lords and masters, such that they are, all desire to strengthen our work together against the forces that would slay both of us. Is it not so?"

She nodded, finally satisfied. "Aye, that would be the long and short of it."

"Then let us expand our horizons."

Artificer Deacon Gemheart opened the chest inside her workshop, and pulled out treasures from the the oak container. A heart that still faintly beat in aftershocks was the first thing she saw, spurts of fire occasionally dripping from it. "Heart of a Firehoof, and a mighty one at that. Ox mutated by Aqshy itself to breath fire and to be immune to its licking hunger. Rich in flame, rich in strength." He placed it back inside and next grabbed from the chest what looked to be a bird's feather, though long as his hand and colored in a mottled array of shocking, rich blues and eye-bright whites. "Athvati feather. Lightning touched, rich with power in that way." Lastly he pulled a stoppered vial from the chest, and immediately the workshop felt ten, twenty degrees cooler. "Tears of the Wind, cold encapsulated and made physical."

She nodded, looking distractedly at the three, mind already racing, even as Tekton presented the Dronril and the Hearthstones to the Colossi and explained their functions.

She tapped the necklace on her neck, activating the fires in the forges.

And then she set to work.

Distractedly she said the chant even as she beat her hammer onto the ax blade. It was shaping up into a finely made throwing ax for her new client, and a good single-handed weapon for one of her people. There was a spike on the back shaped like like a lightning bolt, and a hunk of Dronril carved to look like Thungni helped balance the bottom of the hilt, with a grip of troll hide in the center studded with sapphire and lightning shaped knotwork etched along the edge of the blade, made of pure gold; the blade itself was Gromril (best not to share all their secrets yet, after all) lacquered an arcing sky blue, while the hilt was stained dark black as the storm clouds that tossed the lightning.

And finally the Master Rune of Flight was ready. A part of her was tempted to use the Athvati feather for that but she had a better idea for that particular treasure. Instead she took the ground Great Eagle feathers and let their strength soak in; and when that was done she turned instead to the Rune of Speed, took the crushed Dronril, and poured it in.

And at last she came to the Rune of Lightning and, taking the her mortar and pestle she began to crush the feather.

Three Reagents she was given, three Reagents she would use. No doubt the Artificer Deacon thought he was clever, very clever, but she was cleverer and more stubborn than even a creature literally hewn of the stone.

So she turned to her next work. An even larger ax, one that a Colossus could use with one or both hands, but which a Dwarf would need Runes or both hands to wield. An "icicle" of Gromril projected out of the back, while the blade was damascened with blue and white gromril in such a way that the blue suggested the negative space in a snowflake. The haft was frigid blue and had a grip of Wyrren Duraz stone that leaked the cold. It was already a potent weapon by the degraded standards of the age.

Naturally, she began to add Runes. First she chanted her way through the Master Rune of Currents, feeding it the brain of a griffon from the War of Vengeance, dead to save its rider from her ax, kicking up a wind as it finished. Next she took up the Rune of Strikes, and gave it the ground down remnants of the tusk of a Thundertusk, and a particularly impressive one at that, and there was a new deftness and weight to it.

Finally she poured the Tears of the Wind into the Rune of Snow.

An ax so big no Dwarf could lift it but with Runes, and even they could never fight with it. A Colossus would be required, and a strong one at that. It had a mighty, double bladed head, forged of Gromril and "split" into three portions. Near where the hard metal head was set into the hilt it was a vibrant, heady, dark blue, like the dancing flames. At the edge, where it grew thin, the blade was a jewel bright violet, the shade of the dancing flame. And knotwork of whitest gold, white as her hair and white as the snow at the mountain top, traveled to the head: a snarling, massive dragon. The haft itself was carved out of Wyrm Bone, the only thing she could be sure would stand up to the power of the fire unleashed. A hearthstone spike shaped like a tail dripped fire. It was dyed bright red, but for the grip, made of Wyrm Scale and dyed yellow.

Next she began working on the Runes. She carved the Rune of the Ram and gave it Chimera's blood, to force the thing's fiery strength into it. The Rune of Cleaving, given the blood of a Great Taurus slaughtered with her own two hands. Strong and sharp of claw.

Finally she took the blood of the Firehoof and began to pour it into the marks of the Master Rune of Conduction (Master Rune of Kragg the Grim, bah, stop using it for a few centuries cause you've got no damn dragon blood and have that Kragg beardling come along and modify it and watch everybody lose their mind, bah).

Karstah finally stepped out of her workshop to see the Artificer Deacon presenting his works. A finely made cloak of troll hide worked soft and pliant, trimmed with silk at the bottom and dyed black and white, at the center a Dwarf's visage deeply stylized in bifaciem fashion, one half snarling and wrathful to fulfill a Grudge, the other contemplative and attentive to fulfill the craft. A set of armor next, and rather than the full plate harness it was a fine set of more intricate scale at the chest to the mid thigh, and laminar around the rest of the limbs, overlapping each other. Each scale was studded with gems, but the gems varied, alternating from one scale to the next, between the wyrren duraz, hearthstone and dronril.

It was good. For a mere forty year old, more than acceptable work. Excellent, even, all things considered.

But she was old. Old when his people were young, old when the Empire was young, old when the Vortex was young. Heir to Snorri Gift-Giver, who even with his face turned from the Empire was a great Runelord than damn near any one of the impetuous youths who claimed the title now.

And so hers were better, even as she used the mighty two handed ax to support her weight. The Colossus was unreadable as he saw the gifts he was to present to his people, in honor of their alliance, if you wanted to call "we hate the same people as you and don't particularly dislike you in comparison" an alliance.

The first was the throwing axe, constantly pouring out electricity. "Zhufadron I name it, the Torrent of Lightning. Throw it and you may control it with your hands as though it was still grasped, and sparking with lightning it shall be fast as the lightning, and so shall he that bears it be.

Next the smaller battle ax, a bastard ax perhaps to call it; and ice dripped from it, and snow fell from it, and the blizzard was trapped within. "Zhufawyr, the Torrent of Snow. Ice and cold are bound within it, and those that fight you shall face chill in all places, and shall be slow and easily slain before it."

Finally, the great ax, that which only the very mightiest could bear. Fire of hues no fire should be constantly burned around both edges of it, and the dragon-bone hilt shone with the inner heat as even it was tested by the inferno within. "Zhufazharr I call this, an ax mighty beyond might. Strike your foe with it, and it shall rend open their armor, and pour the fiery tongue of a dragon within."

She tilted her head as she examined the other's armor. "And now, what have you made?"

Project Prometheus stuff. Deeply unfortunate that I got interrupted in the middle of making it since it sort of interrupted my train of thought, but cookie, crumbles, etc.
 
@soulcake, in the past, when have the Runelord research Standing bonuses proven useful?

Instead of trying to fight the Slann directly, wouldn't it be much easier to develop better and better and more and more digging and spelunking gronti to the point where even the mountains moving won't slow us down for long?

Like, suppose we had an army of dozens of Miner-sized digging gronti that serve to both expand and protect the Underway. I'm imagining this force obviously being built up over centuries, it's no small task. When the Slann pull their BS, this army can work to quickly reconnect the tunnels and hunt down the various new openings the greenskins will try to use to break in. If it can cut down the work that Dawi have to do themselves, it will save Dawi lives.
Wait a second, are you saying that we didn't raise Shard Dragons for that exact purpose? :V (:V is the sarcasm emoji right?)


@Dark as Silver, sorry I wasn't clear about my belief Soulcake will give us a warning before we do something that could be considered centralization! I'm working on not info dumping in real life, and I just realized that I went too far in the other direction this time.


I do expect that Soulcake will warn us of a bad end.
It's good to know that we agree that Soulcake will give a warning. However, I'm unsure if our previous disagreement is still valid since you made edits to your post.


But I don't see why we should try and ride the edge of acceptability.
I think we should avoid pushing the boundaries of what Snorri deems acceptable. Based on the quote below, it seems that Snorri considers modifying his actions to fit others' opinions of acceptability a necessary evil. I believe that he would only care what other people would think of Karstah making Mruned items on Snorri's behalf if the consequences are too negative.
You have been dancing around the issue for decades now, and now you must reap what your indecision has sown. Your niece was more willing to branch out and take decisive action than you were, and doesn't that send a current of shame running through you. Well no more. The time for delicate and precise movement has passed, and the world will not wait for you to find the perfect answer. Conflict of some sort would come, and now you'll simply have to decide what sort of conflict it'll be.

The House only cared, by your reckoning at least, about the autonomy of the Runesmiths. Any attempt, perceived or real, by some fool to sway the Runesmiths into subordinates unduly would be met with the full force of Thungni's eldest and angriest disciples. Fine, you would remove any possible evidence they could point out as you attempting just that.

No more fear about who ought to learn the Rune or not, no more nail-biting about choosing the right sort of Master Smith. Any Dwarf who went through the centuries of toil to become a recognized Master Runesmith was now worthy, and this would be your standard. Politics be damned, ideas and decisions be damned. If they only made the Rune once that was solely on them. Let the House rabble rouse about the audacity of your actions, not that you considered them such, better all of that than a schism or some conflict with another Cult or institution.


The second factor is that Soul is now aware of the issue, so its obviously going to influence his enemy design. Just to preserve his own sanity.
Was the enemy that Meagh Snorri fought after airdropping the stall enemy?


Helps that the odds of it being a duo attack is pretty low too really. I feel like the only time you'll ever see Khornate and Tzeentchian working together is when there's either a solid Chaos Undivided presence leading the charge, or when Tzeentch is tricking Khornates in some way. Worst case scenario is that they each pick a different target really.
Yeah, that idea of Tzeentch tricking the Khornates is how I imagine the combined Tzeentch + Khornate attack happening.
I'm confused about why the Fimir must attack completed dwarven fortifications. I think my confusion stems from my lack of familiarity with the lore. For example, I assumed the Khornate and Tzeentchian cities would work together because the three cities we destroyed could have survived if they worked together. Instead, it appears even Tzeentch sending warriors with the Khornates to ensure no matter who wins it's a pyrrhic victory, is too much cooperation without Chaos Undivided. I describe my understanding below. Could you please clarify what I'm misunderstanding about the strategic situation for the war?

In my opinion, the Fimir are in a do-or-die situation where their primary goal surviving to the long term, and their secondary goal is to weaken their enemies for a better position in the future. This is because they witnessed three of their peer-level enemies destroyed in a single campaign after the dwarves fielded someone who made their previous hero units appear weak. Furthermore, the Slaaneshi city fell after utilizing its last resort option of sacrificing all the slaves. I believe the known Fimir forces consist of two powerful military factions. Either of whom could individually match the entire Far North without Snorri, as long as the dwarves lack fortifications.

Why wouldn't the Fimir repeat their original strategy of sending Beastmen armies forcing their enemies are forced to come to them? I'm not sure what the Khornates could use their prep time for besides replenishing their Beastmen fodder and summoning daemons, maybe even a Bloodthirster. I think the Tzeentchians could learn Dwarves are prioritizing long-term growth, and are obligated to defend their universities and elven allies. Plus, since they fought the whole Far North with teleporting Beastmen, they probably could teleport enough of an army to stop the dwarves from disengaging from a location, if not a full army's worth. Since the Slaaneshi city summoned an entire army with only 1/3 of an AP, could the Tzeentchians summon Greater Daemons? Couldn't there be an alliance with Hashut since IIRC a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch aided the Chaos Dwarves in the past? Finally, could the Fimir forge or modify communication between Snorri and Vragni? According to the quote below, there may be more cities that are unknown, so I'm wondering why you're assuming the Fimir are limited to what is known.
Again, at least 5 Cities from reports in the deep ranging, but they never got to the Western coast. You will only be able to reach this city and 3 others for this phase of the campaign.


View: https://imgur.com/xDwINjS

ignore the geography and black lines, the red line is roughly the start of Fimir territory and green is the deepest extent that the ranging from a few turns ago got.


I think the dwarves of the Far North are only capable of defeating 1 city in the field or when lacking fortification based on performance in the campaign. I don't know how long it takes for prosthetics, Valayan medicine, and Stubbornness to heal the dwarves which makes it difficult to assess the rank-and-file situation, especially since it takes an unknown amount of time for beardlings to bring a throng back to full strength. Additionally, Snorri, Kraka Drakk, Vragni, Vragni's apprentices, and perhaps Vragni's hold are occupied with universities, which offer no benefits until completion. Snorri, the dwarves' most powerful warrior, is solely focused on long-term gain for multiple turns after Khazagar's completion, and the unity among the dwarves is damaged.

It seems counterintuitive that even if the Fimir spent all their actions on war preparation, they would still be unable to pose a threat to us, while we dedicate little to no resources towards war preparation. I want to clarify that I'm not criticizing our low priority on war preparation. I believe that the long-term benefits outweigh the risks of little war preparation.


@BungieONI while the last vote is closed, I'm still interested in hearing your thoughts on why getting Standing 8 with the Brotherhood immediately is more important than obtaining the T5 trait or achieving Bara standing, as well as the value of understanding Mrunes and compressing combos. I believe most of these topics are still relevant and would like to discuss them further.

The answer of "But we can do these things to raise standing, at some nebulous point in the future" rings weakly to me because we're not going to be figuring out Glimril until after Khazagar is completed even if we monofocused doing that to the exclusion of all The Other Things we want to do. It rings weakly because we should do Movement of Things Part 5b before we do Brotherhood Calls, and again, both of those are post Khazagar.

Or to put it another way, probably an in real life year or longer. I would be genuinely surprised if we have Glimril by this time in 2024.
It looks like you believe it's important to prioritize getting Standing 8 with the Brotherhood for their bonuses before Khazagar. I am confused because I thought we were planning on dedicating almost all, if not all, of our available actions to Khazagar research.

We cannot control when we do a Rune Trade with Bara, so suggesting it as a method isn't very convincing. They are completely random, or the result of wars. Also, when the hell are we going to create something that's relevant to Bara? Are we going to do it before or after Khazagar? If before, what are we trading out? E: Are we actually going to prioritize any of these suggestions over the stuff we've been talking about for something like two months? I doubt it.
I believe that we can gain at least 1 level of standing from the Dragon Gronti since her primary specialty is engineering, and Grontis uses engineering runes. Regarding doing a Rune Trade, how long do you think it'll take for the Fimir to attack? I assumed that they would want to hit us before we could finish recovering from the previous campaign.


We've never done Understand or Compression yeah? It's because they are at the moment too hard/long. Bara's bonus makes it easier to do them, especially if the system is reworked - which is currently something Soul is considering. I think Bara's bonus is to all research involving a rune. I'm not sure why her bonus would be so much more powerful, but it might just come down to the character generation rolls that Soul did to make her i.e luck.
Regarding understanding Mrunes, I previously believed the action cost was the issue, but now I think it's not valuable for our current build. We still haven't understood Purification, which only requires three actions since turn 38. Additionally, we don't produce many Mrunes, and even if we ramped up production to match the current quest peak, Karstah can still mass-produce sets of Mrunes items. The only exceptions I can think of that would make understanding a Mrune useful are for unique cases like Purification, which is one of a kind for us, and the Mountainsouled banner, which synergizes with a T5. What do you think I'm missing regarding why we would want to understand a Mrune?

The Adamant Maker combo will benefit from the self-created bonus and procs Master of the Odd. Based on the quote below, it seems likely that Mountainsouled would also activate Master of the Odd*, as it grants regeneration, immunity from fatigue, and fear. Even with the reduced modifiers, I believe we could compress both combos in the same turn since compressing a combo requires fewer actions than understanding a Mrune. Are there other combos that are useful enough to be worth compressing? Also, do you think if Karstah creates a combo we get the bonus from personally creating a combo?

The reason it is such a big deal lies in the answer to the question of "What do we spend so much time on?" The answer to that is Materials Science (Akazit, Autopsies, material examinations like Hearthstones or Ithilmar or Power Stones, Rune Metal). Everything related to reagents is a massive part of how we do things.

Taking this option makes our research lives easier much faster. We won't see results from the Khazagar option for four turns, and that's four turns of research not benefiting from standing proc bonuses.
I will respond to this once I understand the timeline we are working with.

*When looking at the armor rune list, I noticed many runes that I would categorize as esoteric. I'm uncertain whether this is due to Snorri's specialization in esoteric runes or if I'm underestimating what qualifies as odd since we've obtained a lot of our seemingly odd Mrunes from rune trades. I'm unsure how representative rune trades are. The reason why is since Snorri offers different things to different Runelords, I think we might not get to see options because he lacks interest in.
 
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I'm confused about why the Fimir must attack completed dwarven fortifications. I think my confusion stems from my lack of familiarity with the lore. For example, I assumed the Khornate and Tzeentchian cities would work together because the three cities we destroyed could have survived if they worked together. Instead, it appears even Tzeentch sending warriors with the Khornates to ensure no matter who wins it's a pyrrhic victory, is too much cooperation without Chaos Undivided. I describe my understanding below. Could you please clarify what I'm misunderstanding about the strategic situation for the war?

In my opinion, the Fimir are in a do-or-die situation where their primary goal surviving to the long term, and their secondary goal is to weaken their enemies for a better position in the future. This is because they witnessed three of their peer-level enemies destroyed in a single campaign after the dwarves fielded someone who made their previous hero units appear weak. Furthermore, the Slaaneshi city fell after utilizing its last resort option of sacrificing all the slaves. I believe the known Fimir forces consist of two powerful military factions. Either of whom could individually match the entire Far North without Snorri, as long as the dwarves lack fortifications.

Why wouldn't the Fimir repeat their original strategy of sending Beastmen armies forcing their enemies are forced to come to them? I'm not sure what the Khornates could use their prep time for besides replenishing their Beastmen fodder and summoning daemons, maybe even a Bloodthirster. I think the Tzeentchians could learn Dwarves are prioritizing long-term growth, and are obligated to defend their universities and elven allies. Plus, since they fought the whole Far North with teleporting Beastmen, they probably could teleport enough of an army to stop the dwarves from disengaging from a location, if not a full army's worth. Since the Slaaneshi city summoned an entire army with only 1/3 of an AP, could the Tzeentchians summon Greater Daemons? Couldn't there be an alliance with Hashut since IIRC a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch aided the Chaos Dwarves in the past? Finally, could the Fimir forge or modify communication between Snorri and Vragni? According to the quote below, there may be more cities that are unknown, so I'm wondering why you're assuming the Fimir are limited to what is known.

That's the thing about Chaos, they don't always go for the smartest choice for numerous reasons. Infighting is a big hurdle, and without a powerful Undivided warlord to guide the hordes they have, and will, turn on each other, especially Khorne and Tzeentch, as those two despise each other.
Also, it doesn't help that the Gods themselves don't really give a fuck if their followers live or die. At the end of the day, if the Dwarfs wipe the Fimir off the map, all Chaos is gonna do is shrug their shoulders, write them off permanently as boring, and go back to playing with Beastmen and humans. They don't really care, they just wanna be amused, and sometimes that amusement comes from watching their arrogant pawns get destroyed for some reason or another.

Lastly, lmfao Chaos doesn't ally with anyone. They're the goofy evil faction, they'd rather just kill everyone. I mean sometimes you'll see the different evils working together a bit, like how Morathi furthers Slaanesh and how the Chaos Warriors of the future buy arms from the Chorfs, but I'll be absolutely shocked if the Fimir here were to ally with any surviving hits of Hashut. And any Daemons that helped the Chorfs, I can guarantee they were either only briefly using them for an immediate goal to further one of Tzeentch's many plans, or they were bound by the Chorfs to do their bidding and would have happily turned them into soup if it could have.

Also I doubt the Fimir even know Snorri's name (they probably know who he is, he's just probably that one really scary Dwarf to them), much less have such an in on Dwarfen everything that they'd both know about the feud between Snorri and Vragni, and also be able to capitalize on it to a degree that'd actually cause anything to happen, besides exposing that they have some way of getting info on the Dwarfs
 
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Expecting Fimirs to have enough detailed information on individual dwarfs, or even a basic network for getting intelligence on their movement that more than "Oh shit! The stunties are coming from that way" seems unlikely, tbh.

We see a lot of Chaos intrigue in WHF, but that mostly traitors to their own race, and Dwarfs are particularly resistant to that nonsense.
 
Expecting Fimirs to have enough detailed information on individual dwarfs, or even a basic network for getting intelligence on their movement that more than "Oh shit! The stunties are coming from that way" seems unlikely, tbh.

We see a lot of Chaos intrigue in WHF, but that mostly traitors to their own race, and Dwarfs are particularly resistant to that nonsense.
The Fimir were able to come up with counters for every runelord in the throng. Except us, who they had never seen before.

They don't appear to have infiltration, but they definitely are watching.
 
They knew that we were coming, and they could have realized where the runelords were stationed from how the Runelords affect the Winds, but I wouldn't think that they knew which Runelord was which.

There's scouting, and then there's spying.
 
Was the enemy that Meagh Snorri fought after airdropping the stall enemy?
Nah, the Meargh of the city we airdropped onto was not the stall enemy. The stall enemy was the Meargh of the Nurgle city.

I'm confused about why the Fimir must attack completed dwarven fortifications. I think my confusion stems from my lack of familiarity with the lore. For example, I assumed the Khornate and Tzeentchian cities would work together because the three cities we destroyed could have survived if they worked together. Instead, it appears even Tzeentch sending warriors with the Khornates to ensure no matter who wins it's a pyrrhic victory, is too much cooperation without Chaos Undivided. I describe my understanding below. Could you please clarify what I'm misunderstanding about the strategic situation for the war?
Uhhhhh. Okay there's a lot to unpack here that's worth correcting so I'll start with the Chaos stuff.

As TheCynicalPogo gets into, Chaos is very unlikely to cooperate with itself. Never assume that two Chaos groups will work together in Warhammer, they don't really believe in "stronger together". Furthermore its incorrect to state that if they banded together they would survive. That is a statement/assumption that is not well supported by the actual fights we experienced. They may have been able to do more damage to the Throng and work together to give more of a fight, but now I need to talk about mechanical realities. Even if all three cities had worked together and fought Snorri and the Throng together; they would still have lost. It was mechanically impossible for two of the Meargh's to beat Snorri (this would be the Undivided and Slaaneshi Meargh), and for the Nurgle Meargh it was incredibly incredibly unlikely. And the cold mathematical facts of their stat blocks don't change.

To be very clear, Soul had no real need to roll the Undivided and Slaaneshi Meargh's, he just chose to for the sake of authenticity and a kind of due diligence. And he only really needed to roll the Nurgle Meargh fight up to the point we broke her Scythe - once that was broken she was dead. The Greater Daemon Gustalixx, because of the context of his battlefield and the active waystone, was potentially a threat but it was not a strong one. Without the waystone he wasn't a threat.

In my opinion, the Fimir are in a do-or-die situation where their primary goal surviving to the long term, and their secondary goal is to weaken their enemies for a better position in the future. This is because they witnessed three of their peer-level enemies destroyed in a single campaign after the dwarves fielded someone who made their previous hero units appear weak. Furthermore, the Slaaneshi city fell after utilizing its last resort option of sacrificing all the slaves. I believe the known Fimir forces consist of two powerful military factions. Either of whom could individually match the entire Far North without Snorri, as long as the dwarves lack fortifications.

Why wouldn't the Fimir repeat their original strategy of sending Beastmen armies forcing their enemies are forced to come to them? I'm not sure what the Khornates could use their prep time for besides replenishing their Beastmen fodder and summoning daemons, maybe even a Bloodthirster. I think the Tzeentchians could learn Dwarves are prioritizing long-term growth, and are obligated to defend their universities and elven allies. Plus, since they fought the whole Far North with teleporting Beastmen, they probably could teleport enough of an army to stop the dwarves from disengaging from a location, if not a full army's worth. Since the Slaaneshi city summoned an entire army with only 1/3 of an AP, could the Tzeentchians summon Greater Daemons? Couldn't there be an alliance with Hashut since IIRC a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch aided the Chaos Dwarves in the past? Finally, could the Fimir forge or modify communication between Snorri and Vragni?

Anyway, moving on to your understanding of the strategic situation. The Fimir are in a do-or-die situation because they have lost the strategic initiative and because of the desires of their Chaotic masters. In order to regain the strategic initiative and secure their survival they must strike back at the dwarves. Their evil masters will also push them to expand in order to fulfill the Chaos Gods desires and to push the Fimir to make up for their failure, but for the Fimir to expand they need Major Waystones to build their cities around and as far as we know all the Major Waystones on the peninsula are now behind Dwarf front lines due to the advance. This means that to please their masters they must strike back at the dwarves.

This aligns with your own understanding to a point, but I am being more precise here. Waiting does not give much advantage to the Fimir, because it does not change the strategic situation facing them and gives the dwarves more time to dig in. Don't give the dwarves more time to dig in.

Not sure where you got the idea of the Fimir having two military factions, I have seen no basis for that so please explain what you mean and give me sources from the text of the quest. Ignoring that for now and moving on, when it comes to the Beastmen luring out the dwarves, its something that could happen as the prelude to attacking the dwarven army that tries to move out beyond their front lines to retaliate. This is just a repeat of the same strategic moves they did last time and that's not a good choice when they have no idea if Snorri might move again and squish them. Better, I think, to attack a point they know Snorri is not present to inflict damage upon the dwarves and take steps to push the dwarves out of the initiative.

I don't think that they can teleport an entire army, nor enough to lock down a dwarven army. The bands of Beastmen they teleported around were small. Teleportation is magically intensive, and well we just destroyed three Major Waystones - reducing the amount of energy available to the corrupted parts of the network. I'm not sure where the heck you pulled out the idea of 1/3 of an AP to summon a daemon army from, and I'm going to be blunt it is completely the wrong comparison to be making here. NPCs don't use the AP system. What they can do and the threats they present is of Soul's personal judgement and design.

The rest of what you get into here is going down a rabbit hole about Vragni and I'm just going to say no. None of that is relevant. We'd have way more salient and severe problems than fomented grudges between Snorri and Vragni if the Fimir had spies planted that deeply.

According to the quote below, there may be more cities that are unknown, so I'm wondering why you're assuming the Fimir are limited to what is known

You have also misunderstood me. I do not think the Fimir are limited to what is known. I also think that its unlikely for the Cities on the Coast to attack the dwarves due to distance, the fact they are not presently under threat by the dwarves, and the fact a number of them are probably focused elsewhere like Albion. If the Khornate and Tzeentchian cities could convince some of the Coastal Cities to throw their weight behind an attack on the dwarves, they might decide to. However! Here Chaos's backstabby nature comes to the fore again; such favor trading is incredibly expensive and likely to have the Khornate and Tzeentchian cities forces used as shock troops so that the forces of the costal cities can go in and get all the loot.

So its really unlikely, for that reason too.

@BungieONI while the last vote is closed, I'm still interested in hearing your thoughts on why getting Standing 8 with the Brotherhood immediately is more important than obtaining the T5 trait or achieving Bara standing, as well as the value of understanding Mrunes and compressing combos. I believe most of these topics are still relevant and would like to discuss them further.

It looks like you believe it's important to prioritize getting Standing 8 with the Brotherhood for their bonuses before Khazagar. I am confused because I thought we were planning on dedicating almost all, if not all, of our available actions to Khazagar research.

I believe that we can gain at least 1 level of standing from the Dragon Gronti since her primary specialty is engineering, and Grontis uses engineering runes.
Before I get into talking about any of this, I need to address the repeated concept of "Karstah mass-producing Master Runed items". It is an incredibly bad way to frame what you want Karstah to do because 'mass-production of master runed items' is literally anathema to the idea of the Rule of Pride. Framing it that way when I'm pretty sure you don't mean actual mass-production immediately sets any discussion regarding what Karstah is doing on the wrong foot. Please find a better way to summarize what you want you want her to do.

Anyway, on the topic of why I felt obtaining Standing 8 with the Brotherhood was the more important option its worth clarifying: We would get Standing 8 with the Brotherhood and Standing 8 with Bara, because Bara is part of the Brotherhood. Framing it as Standing 8 with the Brotherhood vs a T5 or Standing with Bara, and Understanding and combo compression is inaccurate. Understanding and combo compression is not relevant to the conversation in my opinion, except in the sense that Bara may help with those actions.

And for the topic of why I valued Standing 8 with the Brotherhood and Bara over a T5 we'll only see the results of at the end of turn 52, I gave you your answer in the final quote of mine that you have in your post. One of our primary research activities is materials science. Yes, we will be primarily spending our time and main actions on Movement but we will be spending our Research Action on Materials Science stuff the entire way up to Khazagar being built. And all of those autopsies and reagent examinations are relevant to Akazit, and the bonuses from the brotherhood are also relevant to all of Akazit as a research chain itself. Because Akazit is all about materials. Further, if Akazit doesn't complete this turn, then it would have been relevant to Akazit on turn 49 when we finish it that turn.

Bara is relevant because her bonus to Rune research because that's the other big thing we do, and what do you know Movement is researching a Rune to make it better and more useful. However, maybe her thing only applies to Understand and Compression actions. If that is the case then her bonus is the only known bonus that currently exists which applies to Understanding the Master Rune of Thungni. And having that upgraded bonus with certainty is more valuable to me than a chance that it will rise when we make the Dragon Gronti. The Dragon Gronti that probably isn't getting made until Turn 60 or later, as a reminder. Furthermore, while it is not certain because it depends on how the turns work out, there is potentially space to drop a small number of actions into Understanding the Master Rune of Thungni or the Master Rune of Purification as filler on turns 50 or 51. So, Bara could have helped there, if any of that happens.

E: To actually answer your question in terms of timeline, I expected that we could make use of the Materials Science and Rune research standing bonuses during the course of turns 49 through 52 and that if we grabbed the T5 we weren't going to be boosting standing with the Brotherhood until somewhere post turn 55 at the earliest.

Regarding doing a Rune Trade, how long do you think it'll take for the Fimir to attack? I assumed that they would want to hit us before we could finish recovering from the previous campaign.


Regarding understanding Mrunes, I previously believed the action cost was the issue, but now I think it's not valuable for our current build. We still haven't understood Purification, which only requires three actions since turn 38. Additionally, we don't produce many Mrunes, and even if we ramped up production to match the current quest peak, Karstah can still mass-produce sets of Mrunes items. The only exceptions I can think of that would make understanding a Mrune useful are for unique cases like Purification, which is one of a kind for us, and the Mountainsouled banner, which synergizes with a T5. What do you think I'm missing regarding why we would want to understand a Mrune?

The Adamant Maker combo will benefit from the self-created bonus and procs Master of the Odd. Based on the quote below, it seems likely that Mountainsouled would also activate Master of the Odd*, as it grants regeneration, immunity from fatigue, and fear. Even with the reduced modifiers, I believe we could compress both combos in the same turn since compressing a combo requires fewer actions than understanding a Mrune. Are there other combos that are useful enough to be worth compressing? Also, do you think if Karstah creates a combo we get the bonus from personally creating a combo?

I will respond to this once I understand the timeline we are working with.

*When looking at the armor rune list, I noticed many runes that I would categorize as esoteric. I'm uncertain whether this is due to Snorri's specialization in esoteric runes or if I'm underestimating what qualifies as odd since we've obtained a lot of our seemingly odd Mrunes from rune trades. I'm unsure how representative rune trades are. The reason why is since Snorri offers different things to different Runelords, I think we might not get to see options because he lacks interest in.

I'm expecting the Fimir to attack next turn. No guarantee that a rune trade opens up with Bara though, which was my main point. Treating Rune Trades as a viable way to raise Standing with a specific Runelord is not a smart idea, because of their complete randomness.

In terms of Understanding you have it backwards. We have had Understand open to us from the beginning of the quest, long before our build was ever started. Why was it not picked in those earlier times? Because it was manifestly not engaging or interesting enough, and it was not engaging or interesting enough because: it took too long/is too hard, it has no fluff descriptor that can pull the attention of the readers, and later on in the quest it was stuffed into the bottom of a spoiler where no one is going to read.

We convinced ourselves that it was not worth our time and is not valuable to our build. That is a value judgement made before our build ever existed and is not the same as the actual reasons we came to that judgement.

As to your question of other combos useful to compress, I don't really want to talk about that because I'm just not interested in exploring that tangent. If Karstah creates a combo, I do not think we get the personally made bonus. She's not Snorri after all.
 
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@soulcake, is Gormak still alive in the quest, or did he return to the Ancestors after Snerra did her thing?
Unless he died between Pt1 and Pt2 of the update. Still alive.
E:
-Eyeing an empty mug, Karstah moves to refill it, gesturing to the other apprentices honoured to be in the room that she's on it while doing so. One ear tunes in to the discussion between her teacher and Master Gormak over the usage rights of the forge space planned for the facility as well.
 
Rune of Fear's Foe: A strange Rune, it makes the bearer strong and vigorous against those who fight by drawing on fear, reducing the effects of the dread and increasing the surety of attacks.

Master Rune of Terror's Rival: Akin to the Rune of Fear's Foe except more potent, by making those who march under its effects wholly immune to such terrors and making their attacks deadly effective against those who trade in such tactics.

Master Rune of Nightmare's Bane: The acme of this group of Runes, it makes those who bear its effect immune to terror and fear in all forms, makes those who attack attack more effectively and more skillfully, and perhaps most stunningly imbues those under its aegis with an aura that makes all who wield fear as a weapon burn under the light.

"Going around scaring people, causing nightmares, frightening children, bah you spooky wazzock. I'll show you what for."
-Modi Landwalker

#Rune-Ideas
 
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