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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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I think people are approaching these challenges the wrong way, especially Durins challenges.
They are meant to be long term goals, they aren't things that we're meant to just be a compression or two off of.
Assuming that we wait for Glimril and it can hold 4 Runes (1 Master and 3 regular):
Compressed Makerstrike, Grimnir, Gazul, and Valaya, who is balanced between both the creative aspect of brewing and the warring, destructive aspect of protector of the Hearth and Home.
I don't mind it as a theme for a creation, however this is nowhere near to meeting Durins requirement.
Valaya is basically a dud rune for a weapon
On weapons, the effects are less well recorded because Dwarfs don't tend to put her Rune on weapons, save for the Valkyrie Maidens and any effects there cant be separated from Valaya's Rune, the kind of personality such a position usually attracts or because they're women (They don't tend to say that last part in front of a shield maiden or Valkyrie Maiden on fear for their lives). Though dwarfs do note the members of the Valkyrie Maiden are more level headed than other shield maidens, but again whose to say?
And similarly Gazuls effect is too subtle for us to be sure what it actually does.
few theories suggest his Rune is useful against that which should be dead, or in keeping things dead.
This means that the combo is nowhere closer to being more destructive than the Compressed makerstrike effect however the wielder is likely more level headed, skilled and better at dealing fatal strikes(?)
And the challenge is: Create a Weapon beyond Karaz-Kazakrhun
Which soulcake says "Destroys even more surely than it creates" so if we're literally trying to create a better combo than it, this isn't advancing either goal.
And if we're not trying to create the same combo ++ then we should be asking why Makerstrike rather than Meteorfall. And if we're accepting that its much further in the future I think we should probably attempt Hammerspites challenge and then build on that to acheive this.
 
I don't know. I anticipate the next turn plan to be very hotly contested between the original plans to finish Movement 6 before the Khazagar to improve it's quality, and people who want to monofocus on Extrasensory, and I have no clue if a compromise plan to do both pan out even if our action economy permits it. There are probably also going to be a lobby insisting that we put actions into the Khazagar before Turn 52, now Soulcake has clarified how overflow works. It really all depends on how many actions Extrasensory costs.

We also don't know what hatching the dragons so soon does to our action economy, and I suspect another massive division would be whether to sacrifice one of Snorri's actions to raise the dragon never mind it makes other plans AP inefficient, or assign this to Kartash, if hatching the dragons places an action tax.

The original plan was to do a 3-2 split between Movement and Runemetal I believe, before the events of this turn because of how our action economy worked before Soul of the Earth got an upgrade.
The main questions I believe are if Yorri shows up and if Dragon Rearing is a Project or Locked Action, because those two things shape all of these project balances, because these two factors essentially shape our action spending ability - how many actions/points of progress we actually have at hand. @MrRageQuit pointed out earlier in the discord that when we have something Yorri really wants, the rewards of Prod for Prod jump from 3 Prods to 5 Prods. Windsight is one such topic, I would feel. There's an idea tickling my speculations that he might give more than 5 Prods for Windsight because its so important, but we don't know and do not have proof for going beyond 5.

I'll be talking in the context that we get 5 Prods then. I am also assuming that Yorri prods are spendable on Extrasensory: He may not know much about the rune itself, but he does know about the runes of the senses and he's smart. His Prods at that point may flip from "I am giving you notes and hints" and turn into "I am actually directly helping". Same might apply to Movement 6, but I generally assume further that this line of research is more stable in terms of prod value given that prods into Movement 5 gave so much - implying that Yorri had a lot to give and isn't tapped out.

If Yorri is not present and Dragon Rearing is a locked action like apprentice raising I'd do this: a 2 AP Movement, 2 AP Extrasensory, 1 AP Dragon Rearing plan. That's nice and balanced and accounts for reasonable progress in our two priorities. I consider this generally the most boring/least convenient situation because Dragon Rearing will suck actions for turns 50 and 51 and potentially 52 as well.

However if Yorri is present, and that Movement 6 has Prod payouts similar to Movement 5, then by devoting 3 Prods out of 5 to it we could range from 7 Progress minimum to completing it outright. Focusing the bulk of our Procs on Movement is the right course, unless Extrasensory's proc payouts are even better than Movement - which would be weird.

It's much more convenient if Dragon Rearing is a Request project. It means we can complete it on turn 49, and keep our full action amounts for Turn 50, 51, and 52. Which of course would mean more progress into Extrasensory and such.

If Yorri doesn't show up on turn 49, then we should see him on turn 50 during the Materfran Conclave of Runelords that I assume is going to be happening because Thungni is confirmed Gone For Cigarettes and all the diva Runelords will be losing their shit. Him not showing up on turn 49 could actually be really good, because if we have some progress into Movement 6 already when we see him again that means less Prods need to be expended on it, and Prods not spent on it can go into Extrasensory.
 
If I had to guess, the effects of Valaya's Ancestor Rune on a weapon is something like Snorri's Hearth and Home: Where fighting defensively/to protect buffs you.

Maybe also a bit of "I hit the magic with the axe and it went hiccup a bit more than it should".
 
Not a dud, the effects of her Runes just aren't as overt as Grimnir or Grungni's in a combat context. Nevertheless Valaya is the PROTECTOR of the Dwarfs, not either of her husbands or any of her children, and thats not a peaceful occupation in Warhammer.
I laid out what the implicit effect is and included the quote. Are you trying to tell us that there is more to the Ancestor Rune or that I'm undervaluing the effect of being more level headed?
however the wielder is likely more level headed
 
@soulcake, TheCynicalPogo, OzymandiasAgain, and BungieONI thank you for your answers and information.

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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Based on your responses, it sounds like dwarves' anti-magic field and high resistance to Chaos mean we don't have to worry about espionage of any form. I'm confused on how that could be the case when the Karag Dum's runesmiths was forced to invent Wardstones to protect against scrying and we need multilayed runic protection for Khazagar against espionage.
 
@soulcake, TheCynicalPogo, OzymandiasAgain, and BungieONI thank you for your answers and information.






Based on your responses, it sounds like dwarves' anti-magic field and high resistance to Chaos mean we don't have to worry about espionage of any form. I'm confused on how that could be the case when the Karag Dum's runesmiths was forced to invent Wardstones to protect against scrying and we need multilayed runic protection for Khazagar against espionage.

We don't really have to worry about espionage from the Fimir we're currently fighting, but in general? Yeah espionage is a concern, Tzeentch is an annoying fuck who'd love to gobble down on all the secrets that'll be stored in Khazagar soon enough. As well as for the future too, with the possibility of some greedy, snobby High Elf thinking he deserves to learn Dwarfen secrets, or worse Druchii if they do still manage to come into existence. Humans too, once they build up more and we see the typical Chaos bs we all know and love to hate start appearing.

To summarize, for our current foe, the Fimir, espionage is essentially a non-factor barring some unlikely Tzeentchian Daemon intervention, especially in some of the ways you were asking about, but in general, and for the future, espionage is a very big concern. This is a big case by case kinda thing
 
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@soulcake, TheCynicalPogo, OzymandiasAgain, and BungieONI thank you for your answers and information.






Based on your responses, it sounds like dwarves' anti-magic field and high resistance to Chaos mean we don't have to worry about espionage of any form. I'm confused on how that could be the case when the Karag Dum's runesmiths was forced to invent Wardstones to protect against scrying and we need multilayed runic protection for Khazagar against espionage.
That's because you're assuming what I was talking about was scrying.

I wasn't talking about scrying, because I don't think its actually all that relevant in this case. I was talking about agents of the fimir, either fimir individuals or traitor dwarves. As far as we can tell those don't exist - thus they don't have sources of information to use to direct their scrying. Meaning they are largely directing their scrying efforts around Runelords (really rather difficult) that they do know about or randomly, and randomly scrying is pretty pointless. What you are concerned about takes a great deal of detailed knowledge and there would need to be actual people on the ground to get that level of detail.
 
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In Karag Dum many other dawi infiltrated the hold, the wards are famously less powerfull if tampered from within or broken, in end times a whole army os skaven teleported inside because a door was open on the peak of the karak and the wards weren't open.
In Dum others dawi were activly searching for them and they were inside the same hold, this situations lasted decades.
The ward on Khazagar are really for a question of standard, regardless of the need for it a building like Khazgar will always require as much defenses as you can put in it, is a political question.
How could a fimir possibly buy a dawi?
Lots of money? why you could just take the money and run away, and runesmiths are just very rich anyway.
Kidnap his family?
Maybe but that is hard to do, since dwarfen families either are composed of only figther or civilian who do not go out of impregnable hold, and you will have to kidnap a very particular dawi to make it work.
Standard magic chaos corruption?
Sure that will work, but runelords talk with coded messages in runicaly sealed tubes.
A corrupted messanger isn't going to cut it so you will have to corrupt a runesmith, there never was a noted corrupted runesmith aside from the chaos dwarf, and we are quite far away from being in a situations were they were formed.
Hoping that vragni hate of Snorry makes him go so crazy that he willingly starts to sell info about us to the fimir?
I am pretty sure that some runesmith of Vragni line was either killed or seriously endangered by the fimir.
I refuse to belive he woul ever willingly consider an alliance with them.
 
Standard magic chaos corruption?
Sure that will work, but runelords talk with coded messages in runicaly sealed tubes.
Even that doesn't work well on Dwarfs. They tend to break before they bend so chaos corruption turns them into stone or drives them insane. Which doesn't lend itself to infiltrators.
 
Even that doesn't work well on Dwarfs. They tend to break before they bend so chaos corruption turns them into stone or drives them insane. Which doesn't lend itself to infiltrators.

We do get shown a Non-Hashut Chaos Dwarfs in canon, the worshipers of Gorlaz the Golden, 'Ancestor God' of Wealth and Greed in Skalf's Hold, they are quite similar to what we saw in this quest with the Unseen Father. I think the key to corrupting dwarfs is the same as befriending them, take it slow and steady. Though on the other hand the first worshiper of 'Gorlaz' was corrupted just by carelessly touching a Slaaneshi altar so it is possible, if very rare, for a dwarf to just Fall all at once while mostly keeping their mind.
 
We had a very successful campaign against the Fimir, but if Snorri tries that again the Fimir are going to be ready for him. Likely a large hit squad of lightening empowered monsters. Either we need to completely change up our fighting style, equip someone else or take over the duties of some other Runelord for a bit so we can tag them in.
 
I laid out what the implicit effect is and included the quote. Are you trying to tell us that there is more to the Ancestor Rune or that I'm undervaluing the effect of being more level headed?

There's always been a tension between how soul cake describes ancestor runes in prose (powerful, useful) and how he describes their explicit effects (most of them suck ass). The way I've personally tried to reconcile the seeming discrepancy is to think of ancestor runes as valuable less for their individual power and more for the breadth of what they represent: an ancestor rune can fit into a lot of different arrays and achieve combo effects that would be difficult to produce with more straightforward runes. Take the thugni rune, for example, the isolated effect of which is to make gear require less maintenance. On its lonesome, it's a crap rune for serious combat. But it carries a lot of additional implicit meaning that can be brought out through a runeword: thugni is paramount lord over all runesmiths, so Snerra used his rune to make a powerful banner combo that rallies and empowers them. He's also a god of magic understood through the lens of artisanry, so Snorri used his rune to make a hammer that commands the fire and the earth. There's a lot of versatility on display here that, in the right context, makes the rune much more useful than its limited individual effects might suggest. Similarly, if we put valaya on a weapon, on its own I think it would do exactly what you say it would, ie nothing very impressive. But if we succeeded in making a runeword for a champion's weapon, or a defender's, in that context valaya could be hugely powerful. Under this interpretation ancestor runes are strong but also a little risky to use, because if we include one but fail to achieve a combo the rune often won't do much good on its own.
 
We had a very successful campaign against the Fimir, but if Snorri tries that again the Fimir are going to be ready for him. Likely a large hit squad of lightening empowered monsters. Either we need to completely change up our fighting style, equip someone else or take over the duties of some other Runelord for a bit so we can tag them in.
All three alternatives are largely impossible. To equip someone to the same scale of power of Snorri, the most reasonable suggestion, to be a suitable replacement, takes more than we have at the moment.

The alternatives are also flatly unnecessary. A large hit squad of lightning empowered monsters does very little because Snorri is OP as hell.

It's already been discussed, at length, what it actually takes to kill Snorri - and the thing with his build is that if you do not meet those specific criteria you lose. Period. The math straight up just kills you unless you have exactly the right kind of build.
 
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I concur with bird, ancestor runes are bad compared to other master runes, but can make or breake a combo, that's all they are good at.
But to be hones, causing a combo is a lot stronger than a normal rune.
 
What no. Elves do get Arcane marks. That why they take centuries to be absolutely sure they don't miscast and get a mark that would prevent them from learning high magic.
And if we're at the point where a secondary soul is just a few steps more. Well between this and the arcane marks it really seems like you don't really understand how difficult the subject actually is.

I think you really overestimate children if you think they're casting formalised spells rather than semi instinctive wind farts

As much as I like BoneyMs warhammer setting that's his own take on the 2e rpg elves not getting arcane Mark's. The bare setting just treats elves as less mutable.
 
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There's always been a tension between how soul cake describes ancestor runes in prose (powerful, useful) and how he describes their explicit effects (most of them suck ass). The way I've personally tried to reconcile the seeming discrepancy is to think of ancestor runes as valuable less for their individual power and more for the breadth of what they represent: an ancestor rune can fit into a lot of different arrays and achieve combo effects that would be difficult to produce with more straightforward runes. Take the thugni rune, for example, the isolated effect of which is to make gear require less maintenance. On its lonesome, it's a crap rune for serious combat. But it carries a lot of additional implicit meaning that can be brought out through a runeword: thugni is paramount lord over all runesmiths, so Snerra used his rune to make a powerful banner combo that rallies and empowers them. He's also a god of magic understood through the lens of artisanry, so Snorri used his rune to make a hammer that commands the fire and the earth. There's a lot of versatility on display here that, in the right context, makes the rune much more useful than its limited individual effects might suggest. Similarly, if we put valaya on a weapon, on its own I think it would do exactly what you say it would, ie nothing very impressive. But if we succeeded in making a runeword for a champion's weapon, or a defender's, in that context valaya could be hugely powerful. Under this interpretation ancestor runes are strong but also a little risky to use, because if we include one but fail to achieve a combo the rune often won't do much good on its own.

I concur with bird, ancestor runes are bad compared to other master runes, but can make or breake a combo, that's all they are good at.
But to be hones, causing a combo is a lot stronger than a normal rune.

I'm going to pull up a soulcake quote here but this is kinda a problem.
I'll term them Theme, and Effect respectively.

Theme is the aesthetic of a combo, its best seen in the name and flavour description itself. If we look at say, Trollslayer's combo, Meteorfall, for instance it's clearly a pretty direct and simple idea. Gather heat (Conduction), swing hard (Might), impact go boom (Impact). Yeah? When I used the term High Concept, I generally mean how easily understood the Theme of a Combo you're going for actually is. If you get very abstract and symbolic about a Theme it gets, not impossible per se, but much harder to make a combo. Similarly, making a very direct and blunt theme does not guarantee a Combo either. Why? Because of how it plays into Effect.

Effect is the actual mechanical effects of the Runes you're using. NOT their names, the actual description of what their mechanics are, and how that interacts with Theme generally decides a combo's viability. So if we look at Meteorfall again we can easily understand its Theme, a fiery impact of tremendous force is pretty straightforward after all. So straightforward in fact that you can arguably use a bunch of different combinations of Runes to meet the description of the Theme in some way, shape or form. However, say we have hypothetically have two ways of matching the criteria of the Theme for Meteorfall, I'm utlimately going to have ONE set of Runes that will make the Combo happen, and I'll be very picky about your accuracy.*

Theme informs and guides your direction, Effect must match Theme.

Having a difficult and abstract Theme in general makes it harder because there's room for differing interpretation. However you could create a surprising and nonconventional combo whose Theme and Effect that don't immediately come to mind, but if I can go "Oh, okay I see that makes sense," after thinking about it for more than a few seconds that's also good. If you're not sure, describe your Combo's Theme and Effects to someone else and see if it requires explaning your points, if so, youre probably not on the right track.

*I don't think it needs to be said, but just in case, a Master Rune obviously has more relevance on Effect and how it matches Theme than a regular Rune.
I suppose I'm happy to accept that Ancestor Runes can cover a wider a theme, however if they don't provide the effect they still cannot combo.
So with regards to what I was saying, unless soulcake wants to confirm there are effects we're unaware of, the most I'll move on that statement is to say "Valaya is a dud rune, within specifically that combo and the context of trying to create a weapon that surpasses Thungni's hammer."
Gazul and Grimnir synergy is known from how elements both show up in the Slaying runes, and I can see a potential link between Valaya and Grimnir in staying level headed and at high morale. There isn't much between them and Makerstrike. And the goal is making a better weapon so improving the users abilities is only very marginal for us as well though.
If Valaya's rune isn't providing effect here that advances the goal, then the other two have to do double duty in acheiving that effect however I just don't see that they were.
In this case, we should really be relying on Ancestor Runes to tie together other high effect, but questionable theme runes rather than pairing them up with other low effect high theme runes.
As much as I like BoneyMs warhammer setting that's his own take on the 2e rpg elves not getting arcane Mark's. The bare setting just treats elves as less mutable.
Within this quest specifically: Our book on Chamon was written by an elf who got an Arcane mark and could no longer become an Arch mage so decided to dedicate his life to extending mono wind Chamon magic.
 
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Next time Yorri comes back, his reaction to Windsight would be a big help in confirming our theories, but I don't think he would croak so soon. He would prolly be around till we actually solve the question of "How runes work?".
 
I mean, it's only a couple of steps past a runic array that allows one to see the winds to one that allows one to manipulate the winds. Imagine, if you would, gauntlets of windgrasping. Dawi can't channel the winds without turning to stone, but that problem is resolved quite neatly if all the magic happens outside the Dawi itself. Runesmiths write runes in many mediums. Sometimes working with a new medium is simply a matter of creating the tools required to shape it.

Imagine runes written out of the winds themselves on the fly to generate effects.
Can't attract the right winds beyond using strong generalized suction, maybe powerstones to supply the specific winds?

So you got the next refinement of gromril, runes to shape the winds and eight powerstones socketed to draw the right winds.
On gauntlets.
 
The timing of this is fit to drive a Dawi to madness, considering an Ancestor contacted Snorri to say that judgement on his Runiversity would be forthcoming ... only for them all to vanish
The Ancestors may no longer walk among us in the guise of mortals, but they are still very much around. They have merely ascended, dare I say achieved true apotheosis. For literal ages they have staved this off, all the more the guide their descendants to a brighter future, but it was only so long the world would allow Gods to walk alongside mortal Dawi.

Plus, I got faith. He said judgement will come, and gone or not, it will come. I do hope we're ready for it. There is no way they didn't know they're time to leave was approaching.
 
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Snorri's Challenge: Find out if the Ancestors are now the same class of being as the Elgi gods.

Burudin: WUT?
...do we know that Elgi gods can exert influence on the world? Because a good challenge would be to create Runes that could thwart, mimic or otherwise interact with that influence. Or just analyse prayer until the Karaz Ankor can react to diplomatic conflicts with other races by Grumbling directly at their Gods in a way that cannot be ignored.
 
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