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.
[ ] [Meeting:] Rorek Get-gold
Specialties: Engineering Rune Subset: Animation (Savant-), Talismanic Runes (Mastered)
He is a rich fellow, he has created a Dragon Gronti. You are a rich fellow, and you are from the Dragon Hold and are known for making Gronti, he's sure you can find something to discuss. You aren't sure if you appreciate being used to stave off conversation with other Dawi but the cheekiness is novel in and of itself.
This also feels a bit too advice-y to me. Maybe something like:
"What I see is a bunch of journeymen suddenly finding themselves without a master. They were given all of the tools and teachings they needed by the Ancestors, but now they need to learn to use them alone. Let's just hope they don't make too many mistakes and burn down the workshop in the process."
finally someone I agree with
But think of the craziness if Snorri tells Snorri, that when he becomes king, he goes from bumbling apprentice in his parents eyes to lost journeymen.
Actually all Dwarfs can be considered journeymen now. Their masters the Ancestors have stepped back and allowed them to start making their own mistakes. Will more die than if they stays, most likely. Will they change and grew, hopefully. Will the Ancestors return one day when they believe Dwarfkind as grown enough to stand near them like Masters of their craft? Hopefully. Will that take many lifetimes, undoubtedly
Yeah, this principle of Journeymen is what I came to in the discord as well.
There is this idea that well, there is a need for a diversity of viewpoints, to ensure that they do things for a reason and that those reasons are well examined. Because the dwarves are now cast adrift like a Journeyman - they have been taught by their master and made ready for the Wilds, but their Masters did certain things for them and they need to learn how to do those things too. E: some of the answer may want to include an idea to look to the Brana and their viewpoint upon dwarven issues.
Dwarves are beings that need a mirror for their pride and purpose. The mirror and ideal they could compare themselves against is gone and they must build upon their memory of the old Ancestors, as the Heirs of the Ancestors, in order to construct a secure purpose and example that the younger can try to measure up to.
I'm thinking something that ends with 'judgement withheld pending results'. Like,
[] [Character Moment:] Master of Many
-The Ancestors were the masters, and the Karaz Ankor their apprentices.
-there comes a time when every apprentice must strike out on their own. But with the Ancestors, no matter how far you trek, you can't really 'strike out' on your own. Even in the North, far from our Ancestors' favored haunts, we were still dependent on their aid, still actively learning at their knees.
-the Ancestors left because it was the only way for us to truly strike out on our own. The entire Karaz Ankor has reached 'journeyman' status.
-journeymen may succeed, or they may fail, and the master can do nothing to help them.
-the journey ends when the journeyman returns to their master.
-I received a message, presumably about Khazagar, that said simply 'judgement withheld pending results'. I think I understand now.
With the implication being that 'returning to their master' in this scenario means 'death'.
[Draft] There comes a time when every Apprentice needs make their own way in the world. The Ancestors have taught the Karaz Ankor nigh all we know. We should comport ourselves to honor and represent Them the way any Beardling would their own Master. A shame not everyone here is capable of it, but I have Faith we'll meet Their expectations. Eventually. They aren't wrong about these things.
I am curious why only one person
I would have loved to talk to both of them
Angkra because her interest of snerra and rorek knowledge of dragon gronki
[ ] [Meeting:] Angkra Twenty Loops
Specialties: Armour (Savant+), Talismanic Rune Subset: Protection (Mastered-)
She wishes to speak with you about Snerra specifically, to better learn about your niece apparently. For whatever purposes, you cannot say for certain, but at least it's not for negative reasons…you hope. You'd rather not start a feud with a daughter of Thungni.
[ ] [Meeting:] Rorek Get-gold
Specialties: Engineering Rune Subset: Animation (Savant-), Talismanic Runes (Mastered)
He is a rich fellow, he has created a Dragon Gronti. You are a rich fellow, and you are from the Dragon Hold and are known for making Gronti, he's sure you can find something to discuss. You aren't sure if you appreciate being used to stave off conversation with other Dawi but the cheekiness is novel in and of itself.
(my reaction for this post^^)
"hnnn" [that was thoughtful speech]
(positive) "grumble" [Still that is better project as the 'children' fighting. While the Elders grumble together]
"Hngh!" [But that brat Tungaz should respect his elders!]
[ ] [Character Moment:] Write-in. What are Snorri's thoughts, hopes and worries about what King Whitebeard is doing here? Bullet points are fine to use, you dont HAVE to give a quote.
[ ] [Meeting:] Thormund Stalwart-shield
Specialties: Generic Rune Subset: Buildings (Mastered), Weapon Runes (Mastered)
Stalwart Shield came to you wanting to poke and prod about the construction behind Khazagar, what begins as a debate about the benefits and drawbacks of certain kinds of booby traps… spirals.
[ ] [Meeting:] Rorek Get-gold
Specialties: Engineering Rune Subset: Animation (Savant-), Talismanic Runes (Mastered)
He is a rich fellow, he has created a Dragon Gronti. You are a rich fellow, and you are from the Dragon Hold and are known for making Gronti, he's sure you can find something to discuss. You aren't sure if you appreciate being used to stave off conversation with other Dawi but the cheekiness is novel in and of itself.
[ ] Every single Dawi in the world just got kicked out the door by their Masters to go on their Journey like a stunned Beardling. and are acting like it in one way or the other, for good or bad.
just trying to condense what people are saying into something snappier and less preachy.
wrote this a bit ago when I first read this story, partially because I wanted a crossover with my own story and fantasy and this was the best thing from fantasy I've read. didn't see anything about writing something like this in frequently asked questions so I do hope it isn't an issue. My own story is 'Fabricated Hazards' but you don't need to read that for context here, just a suit of power armor from it thrown into the setting. Critiques are lovely, comments equally so.
Yet another lost Armor
Deep in the factory's depths there is a flash of light, a burst of electricity, a loud cracking sound, and a newly designed and crafted suit of armor vanished from its housing. The minds made note of this abnormality and began construction on a replacement suit. Stuff like this really happened far to often for this to be of too much note, just an annoyance.
Deep in the woods on an unknown world there is a flash of light, a burst of electricity, and a loud cracking sound as a six meter tall suit of armor appears and… does nothing. Days pass, leaves build up at the armor's feet, a storm blows through and the waterlogged soil causes the suit to sink partially. Multiple tons of metal sitting inert in a clearing.
Months pass, it sinks a further five feet before hitting solid ground, more and more leaves and detritus build up around that suit, and slowly the armor is buried, its jewel encrusted, engraved, and polished surface stays untouched by the forces at work around it. Erosion matters little to a machine under multiple layers of shielding, its atoms not even decaying.
Years pass and the only trace remaining of the armor on the surface is a small hill that formed in an odd location, nothing of particular note. Beneath the surface its power core burns hot, its shields and weapons waiting for a fight it may never reach, to defend a bearer it may never have. It's pseudo intelligent systems offline in the absence of threat or stimuli. It could wait centuries before even imagining running low on power.
Decades pass, the forest itself has shifted, life within becoming fraught with mutations as tainted energy seeps throughout the world. The suits' sensors log it as passive scans from an unknown source, the scans fail to find the suit and so it slumbers on. The hill the suit is buried under beings to grow more and more plants.
The forest begins to team with corruption, more and more creatures are born every moment, more than the forest could ever hope to sustain. They turn on one another, ripping flesh from kin and growing ever stronger. The creatures fight on, not knowing of the metal monster slumbering beneath their claws.
The energy crests to a new height, and the barest tendrils find the suit. They reach insid… with a lurch the suit wakes, a burst of energy pouring from within and pushing the foulness back, no match for a star no matter how small. It was awoken and the suits' sensors search, finding more sources of the tainted energy throughout the woods. The suit digs its way out of the soil and is immediately beset by a tide of horrors, each screaming and clawing towards it.
Fleshy corpses infected with a myriad of diseases and parasites, plants and beasts driven to madness and given foul strength, creatures formed of that tainted energy trying to tear out the armor's heart. The armor has no heart, and even if it had flesh had little chance of piercing pure metal deep enough to matter.
They all die. The suit moves on, more sources of the energy have been discovered, more enemies, and in even greater quantities. The source of the attack will be found and purged. Threats will not be allowed to remain, even without a wielder to protect. Proactive defense is a tried and true strategy, one even a freshly made armor had been implanted with, your enemies cannot harm you if they are rendered down into their component atoms.
The entire forest is tainted, the energy the armor now recognized as an enemy pervades every leaf in every tree, and so the suit purges every leaf and every tree, striding through the forest with bounding leaps, the plasma reactor at its core burning ever hotter, radiating enough heat that the trees outright combat. The armor glows with white pulsating heat. A portion of a shackled star at its core, bathing its surroundings in radiation to kill life on the most fundamental level.
It had been designed as a new defense mechanism, but it served well enough in its new role as a fire starter. The armor noted the beasts steadily becoming more humanoid, some even wielding crude weaponry. But the effectiveness of a stone arrowhead was much reduced when both the wooden shaft and stone arrowhead would evaporate before coming near the suit, even without the laser defense systems.
The armor was not a weapon, but it certainly wielded many. The suit strode towards a point where its sensors noted the energy was congregating, it watched the motes of power nearly become visible as the ash it left in its wake began to be pulled by unseen winds. And it readied its weapons systems.
It slowly strode from the treeline, its sensors picking out hundreds if not thousands of the 'beastmen' in the clearing, along with hundreds of the hostile energy forms. But while its sensors noted them as a threat they pinged the suits' nascent AI with what the creatures had been attacking before it burst forth with a wave of fire, heat, and ash. A group of stout humanoids in heavy armor, along with another group of taller, more slight humanoids with pointed ears.
They were not tainted, and they were certainly not producing the waves of tainted energy like a fair majority of the beastmen and energy forms. So they were noted as non-hostile. And given they were fighting the same energy forms it was the AI saw no need to kill them in its purge.
That did mean it needed to be slightly restrained, but the armor would not broker being called a crude tool of war. It could wield itself with mechanical precision. Even its waves of radiation could simply be diverted by its systems, preventing them from striking its maybe allies.
The suits reactor spun up higher, its energy stores skyrocketing to unsustainable levels. And the glow and heat put off by the suit began to ratchet up at a rapid pace. The beastmen, warped and tainted by their foul masters, had been granted supernatural strength and durability. But the dark gods could do nothing to save their servants as they were shredded on the most fundamental level. Their very cells and DNA turned to sludge.
But the daemons had no such issues, they cared not for the physical laws of reality. Radiation damage could not so easily kill them. The heat would, fire and heat still burns them. But it would not stop them from using their fellows as shields to close the distance. And that is exactly what they did, turning from the elves and dwarves and charging the suit, their press of bodies forcing the ones heading the charge to take the brunt of the heat.
It was a good thing then that the suit hadn't intended for the heat and radiation to kill its foes. Those were just unshielded byproducts of its power production, no it had stored so much energy for a far more productive reason. Immediately the tide of daemons slammed to a halt as they crashed into solid air, and then within that white glowing sphere the suit maintained around itself lances of energy shot out. Lasers pierced through scores of daemons with every shot, and the suit watched as the energy was dispersed into the environment around it, only to be pulled in another direction.
With all the known threats dead, the suit rapidly cooled down, the radiation it emitted would not linger for long and it had numerous systems to disperse the heat it had built up. Cycling it back into the suits' power stores, leaving the environment somehow even colder than when it had started, bits of frost forming on the ground around it. The suit cared little for these details, simply striding through the scorched field to the only part left untouched by its heat. Its own shields having kept both the radiation and the burning air from reaching the humanoids.
Its own walking towards them wasn't even because the suit was interested in them. It did have some inclination to keeping them alive, yes. But it could do that from a distance, no it was following the trail of energy.
On the suit strode, only take faint note as the elves and dwarves followed in its wake, even if it had understood their language and quiet chatter it would not have cared.
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The dwarf Gimli, a prince of the northern Kraka Drakk had gone with the elven prince Laequalys on what they had thought would be a simple beastmen hunt. A friendly competition to strengthen the bond between the two races. Something they had done on many occasions. They had left with only a few dwarven and elven rangers and bodyguards and set out to investigate the beastmen sightings.
It hadn't taken long for the pair to realize it had been a trap or trick of some sort, and they had resolved themselves to fighting through it together. Only for the majority of the enemy to just die outright when a metal behemoth the size of a gronti walked into the clearing with a wave of ash and nearly blistering heat. Gimil had thought it a champion of Chaos and had been about to charge through the beastmen horde to cut the strike off at its head, only Laequalys hand clamping on his shoulder stopped Gimil's charge. "The winds of chaos do not touch that thing, it rejects them utterly" that got a grunt from the dwarf "so what is it then?" he spoke between each swing of his heavy runed hammer.
The elf responded after cutting the heads off of three beastmen. "I do not know, but look, it burns the beastmen and Daemons." the dwarf hacked through to sets of knees and crushed a daemon under his heel "I'm not some freakishly tall thing like you, I can't see past the crush of bodies" that was only partially true, it was large enough he could see parts of its head, and he seemed to be making an admirable attempt to solve that problem by making a massive pile of bodies. But soon the flow of bodies stopped to a trickle as the beastmen grew sluggish and then just fell over dead. Blood pouring out of every hole on their bodies, what little skin could be seen under their fur red and peeling.
"I thought you said they didn't have magic? Not that this is a bad thing mind you" the elf shook his head as their remaining bodyguards pushed out in front of them. "It doesn't, whatever it is doing doesn't affect the winds in the slightest." by now the last beastmen was a bloody corpse on the ground, not even twitching. And Gimli could see that every daemon they hadn't killed was charging the metal beast that had to be some seven meters tall, and outright melting before they reached. "You've seen a gronti right? Does this look anything like that to you?" Laequalys shook his head "they pull up the deep magic to power themselves, this thing just has something at its core. Burning the unseen winds but not consuming them"
Then before either could decide to help the thing it showed that it really didn't need their aid, lances of bright light the uneducated would think was magic. Punching holes straight through the daemons but always only lightly singeing the ground or plants it struck. Even the larger forms fell when a hole bloomed where their heads should have been. Gimli felt his jaw nearly drop, few weapons could do that and none could hit so many daemons so rapidly. "Well at least this just got far more interesting" Gimli spoke and Laequalys nodded "if we could learn such a technique… I imagine the arcane scholars would be interested in studying.. Whatever this is"
Now that it was coming closer Gimli could make out the details on the armor better, delicate swirls and gems coated its metal surface, the swirls and lines so fine and small it'd take a dwarf craftsmen months. He might not be a craftsman himself, but any dwarf would agree that this thing was a work of art. Tastefully using gold and silver to accentuate what looked like tempered steel. Though given the heat it had withstood Gimli doubted it was just steel. The thing had been glowing white when he first saw it, and the metal wasn't even the slightest bit warped.
His guard went up as the thing only walked closer, not even slowing its pace. But given the range on its weapon and the fact it hadn't yet attack…. Gimli certainly wouldn't be making the first attack. The runelords' gifted armor might be a masterwork of runes but that was no reason to heedlessly attack something that might not be a threat. Still the prince's guards formed up around them both.
Only for the thing to walk past them like they weren't there, "it heading the same way the winds are being pulled. There must be a ritual sight there! I should have known!" the elf's mutter grew to a growl at the latter part of the sentence. "We can't just let them do whatever they are doing!, this many beast men and daemons?, it won't be good" Gimli just snorted at that "stating the obvious there ain't ya elf, but are ya sure we need too. That thing's got this handled." not to mention they had wounded.
Laequalys only let out a haughty scoff, the same one he did whenever he spoke something that would upset gimli. "You'd leave something this important to an unknown? Thats not very dawi of you" Gimli knew it was just friendly ribbing, but the elf wasn't wrong per say. Even with wounded they weren't in danger of dying and looking around everyone still seemed up for another fight. "Aye, I'll give you that, we follow"
They set out with a clattering of metal, mostly metal gauntlets against shields or weapons pounded into armor. creating a symphony intentionally as a sort of matching chant. it wasn't like the sorcerer wouldn't know they were coming by now, so they might as well put the fear of dwarven steel into them, and elven Gimli supposed.
As Beastmen after Beastmen after Daemon fell without even the elf managing to loose an arrow Gimli was starting to think they wouldn't be needed at all. And his vague worries over their wounded lessened, though he still had them moved to the center of the formation. That was only common sense.
It might have even been safer to follow in the wake of this thing. Not only was it clearing a path through the dense woods, but any thing that could be considered a threat was just unmade. Nothing had even managed to get close enough to touch the… he was just going to call it a gronti in his head. As long as no runelord heard it he was fine. As time went on the only things he spotted about it were an ever increasing amount of weapons. Something like a catapult that launched explosive balls, another that launched small metal balls at insanely high speeds. Some odd self propelling arrows that also exploded. Actually there was little this thing did that didn't explode in some way. Even its heat had made anything with water in it pop.
------------------------
The suit walks through the forest, its plasma fusion core pulsing gently within its chest. As gently as a tiny neutron star can when sheltered and controlled by machines advanced enough to be considered magic. No longer is the heat from the star burning everything around it, the fires that would start would more than likely burn those that followed in the machine's wake.
The utter carnage it is causing is barely an afterthought to the machine, nothing near the density of foes, and those few scattered groups it fights are weaker by far. Massive trees are uprooted by invisible tendrils of solid air and thrown from its path, bushes and plants, so corrupted they weep blood and scream, grow thorns and lash out at the suit as it passes, trying to entangle it in their magically enhanced roots.
The suit does not care, the bushes and plants are killed with bursts of radiation, cooked and burnt by microwave radiation. Heat and energy can be transferred through a myriad of methods, and nearly all are deadly in excess. Occasionally a beast large enough that the radiation would fail to kill it instantly arrives, in those instances a molten bullet barely larger than two inches immediately removes its upper skull.
The suit's limited fabrication uses its similarly limited stores of metal to fashion replacement ammunition, its magnetic cannons getting fed new ammunition types. So far no explosive shells have been needed, the suit notes that as optimal as explosives are harder to fabricate with its limited fabrication systems. It's energy to matter conversion systems taking hours to make a single grenade or mortar shell, rather than minutes for a simple metal bullet.
The suit could not make ammunition faster than it could use it, but it could make enough to function behind enemy lines and without support without concerns of becoming overly reliant on energy weapons. Some things couldn't be easily killed by the application of heat, light, or radiation.
If it wasn't an armor, with the hollow core that entailed, the suit would have been far stronger than it was, but the suit could not and did not care for this knowledge. It was what it was.
The suit walked on, and its foes fell on it with a desperate fever, trying to slow the metallic font of violence for just a few moments. They failed, their deaths doing little but cause the suit to have a use for its ample power generation. The Elves and Dwarves walked in safety behind the machine. The few beastmen who made an attempt on the considerably more killable creatures of flesh soon learned that the armor was much better at defending a creature than it was at killing them. Even if half its methods of defense were just murdering the enemy.
Loosed arrows and bolts of piddly magic did not even have the chance to fail against the masterworks worn by the dwarves and elves. The magic was disrupted by explosions or redirected by the very air refusing to move from its path, the arrows and bolts and even the occasional thrown rock were outright disintegrated through precision application of intense vibration causing the object to fall apart.
And eventually without even suffering a scratch the armor's sensors led it to the source of the foul energy and to where the energy forms and fled once the suit had torn them asunder. A massive tear in reality outputting the foul radiation like water from a dam. The suit had its attention split between monitoring the portal and planning just how it was going to kill the odd creatures guarding it, the things had to be some ten meters tall, larger than it by 3 meters, and at least one could manipulate the energy.
Well the portal would most likely close once its guardians stopped maintaining it, and they were just creatures of flesh. Even the tide of daemons rushing from the portal would fail to stop the suit from just launching a missile into the odd four legged creatures. So while its laser point defense dealt with the smaller creatures rushing it, a section of the armor's back lifted up exposing its missile bays, ten high explosive missiles launched in rapid succession, one for each of the large beasts.
The missiles screamed as they tore through the air, rapidly shattering the sound barrier and accelerating faster and faster, even if they had just been solid metal the missiles were traveling at enough speed they would have sunk deep into the beastmen's flesh, but these were made to rip holes in much larger and far more armored creatures. The missiles sank into the beastmen's flesh like the air it had flown through to reach them, its sharp angles and form serving to part the flesh with little resistance.
Then they detonated, before the beastmen could do so much as recoil all that was left to show they had existed in the first place were the various pairs of legs just now starting to fall over, and the raining viscera falling everywhere but on the armor and its entourage. The flesh was tainted, and could arguably be considered a bioweapon, so the armor simply didn't allow the flesh to fall upon its metal form.
The portal began fluctuating, its ragged edges losing even more cohesion as its size seemed to both grow and shrink at the same time, the energy it put off rapidly destabilizing and tearing at the few surviving daemons just as violently as it tore at its surroundings.
But the foul energy was not done, it writhed and screamed, audible even to those without the suits' advanced sensors. And the portal snapped into stability for just a few instants, before slamming shut with an explosion larger than the armor's missiles had been combined. That had been long enough for something to come through, something just as large as the beastmen the armor had killed. And the amount of energy it had was considerable even by the armors standards. A portion of the ambient taint and the energy from the portal's collapse had been funneled into the energy form, making it even stronger than it should have been and giving it the power to remain in the material world for a time.
Not that the suit cared, fear was a hormonal response and even if the suit had been capable of that well…. The thing was far smaller than what it had been made to kill, and there was only one of it, rather than a never ending tide.
It did note that the dwarves and elves behind it began spreading out of their group and fanning around the clearing, but besides noting that it was probably an attack formation and that it'd make them more difficult to shield the suit did nothing to stop their preparations.
It just strode towards the massive energy form, who let out a roar that was more than physical, brandished its massive blood soaked axes, and charged. The suits' lasers and bullets tore into the beast but failed to slow it down or even meaningfully harm it, the creature seeming to relish in its bleeding wounds. Which the armor noted shouldn't have been bleeding regardless given the heat of its lasers. Its vibration disintegration didn't have any matter to destabilize, energy forms being made of solid energy. The armor's missiles might have been able to kill the thing, but its estimated toughness based on how the bullets had penetrated showed that it'd take twice as many missiles to kill this thing as it had taken to kill all of the beastmen.
No, this was a foe of much greater quality than those it had just finished killing. It would actually be able to reach the armor before it died. And those blades likely had some esoteric effect granting them greater cutting power than the edge implied. But still the suit walked closer, its analysis had already shown the best way to beat this thing. Simply cut it into small pieces with the armors mounted blades. Resource efficient and relatively effective.
The energy form reached the armor and lashed out with one of its blades, seeking to bisect the armor. The armor however showed that it's sedate pace wasn't because it couldn't move quickly, rather that it just hadn't needed to. To the eyes of the dwarves and elves the armor became a blur, the earth under its feet shattering as it lunged forward using both its legs and it's maneuvering thrusters, with its wrist blade held in just the right position that as the armor dodged towards and past the greater daemon it's blade tore the daemon in half in turn.
Still, a greater daemon was no weak thing and it's second ax lashed in a counter strike, the daemons form bending in a way no flesh could to strike the foe now behind it, the armor simple kept moving out of it's reach, then turned on a dime and rocketed back towards the daemon, who was still in the midst of both it's swings and lopped of its right arm, then it's left, and finally with one last lunge, the daemons head fell to the ground.
The armor dropped out of its combat stance, its wrist blade sliding seamlessly into its shell and monitored the clearing. The energy levels were dropping rapidly, and the armor made certain to scramble the energy forms retreating self into an even more chaotic form. It wouldn't stop the thing from coming back, the suit not capable of outright destroying memetic energy. But it would take the energy longer to assume its previous configuration.
With that the battle was done, the elves and dwarves stared at the suit who even though its form remained stationary, stared back. The suit had options here, it was obvious these creatures had some civilization, given the primitive but well crafted tools. It could follow them, and learn about them, maybe even protect them from danger as it was made to protect its maker.
Or it could simply stay, let time wash away the blood, let the plants regrow and slowly be buried yet again. Waiting for the day its maker returned.
He is a rich fellow, he has created a Dragon Gronti. You are a rich fellow, and you are from the Dragon Hold and are known for making Gronti, he's sure you can find something to discuss. You aren't sure if you appreciate being used to stave off conversation with other Dawi but the cheekiness is novel in and of itself.
If i would made an IC analogy is like how Snorri lost his mother,bat this point the whole dawi as a species lost their parents, their most valued elders, leaving even the longest of longbeards as if they are just beardlings. The future would test the Dawi, Snorri only hope's that his work will not be found waiting, it's all a dawi can hope.
You take a moment to marshal your thoughts, finding an answer to a question as momentous as the one Snorri Whitebeard himself has asked will no doubt take every ounce of you wisdom and cunning. Finally, a sufficient response on the tip of your tongue, you open your mouth to speak.
"-Something about trials and tribulations
-Something about unity
-Something about arguing over inheritances
-Something about herding goats"
You have about five seconds to wonder what possessed you before the Whitebeard's bodyguard separates your thread from its shoulders for the insult.
The world dies. Runes, perverted, cast themselves against the Gifts of the Gift Giver, and they prove themselves mighty enough, and certainly there are more of them: for the Dawi Zharr are not bound by shame. No, no, of all the flaws roiling, boiling, burning and writhing within the hearts of the Dwarfs that are magnified a thousand fold by the touch of Hashut, pride qua pride is not one of them. Or perhaps, it is that the pride they feel is the pride of surpassing those they hate, no matter the cost. Aye, the pride of a fulfilled Grudge is not too far, some part of you must acknowledge, and there is little you would not do for that.
Little...but not anything.
But as you were saying, to look upon the Dawi Zharr is certainly to see everything wrong with your people laid out and bear like some great feast. See the men bound in chains and hooks and left upon the great banners of the enemy and know that they have a spite beyond yours: A good, proper, follower of Grungni, after all, would kill them and be done with rather than this nonsense. See the gold and treasures each damn Overseer has heaped up in chests taller than they are, the short little engines of wrongness that hurt you even to smell and not only because the stink of oil is thick on them: You aren't ignorant, naive, or arrogant enough to say no Dwarf has ever in effect wronged somebody for money, but you will say it's not business the way it is for your fallen kin, nor that you would march out hoping to kill men and women and little children just for booty and plunder. And "xenophobes" you may be, but no Dwarf trucks in a business as black hearted as slavery, not even of the grobi and the urks.
But what hurts more is seeing what is right in your people, twisted to vile ends. Discipline. Oh, the hordes of Hobgoblins and other greenskins may not be, in fact they're little more than targets for your bolts, but the Frundrar themselves? They certainly are. Maliciously they advance, glimmering, malicious metal armor glinting in the sun as though it's been lacquered in the blood of the daystar itself. Red steel and vicious bronze, though at least they have no Gromril. Industriousness: many war machines bear the mark of their creation and of advanced technology and of hateful, arrogant ability. Dedication, to hold a Grudge, even a wrong one, a foolish one, a stupid one against the wrong targets, for generation after generation after generation.
It has been these virtues that have let them advance against your people. They have not broken any of the major Holds, at least, but the fighting has been fierce and they have not relented in spite of anything. But it would be a mistake, a grave mistake, to think they are winning. Have won. That you can do nothing but wait and hope that the Holds further south can send aid before it is too late. No. No, you still have one last card to play, whereas the traitors, the victims (both?) have played the fullness of their hands. Have sent their Destroyer, their spirits of fire, their everything. You know what powers they posses.
They are considerably more ignorant.
Azrildrakki is ready.
It is certainly an appropriate time for a it, in any case. The winds are whipped into a frenzy. The skies crack and burn and shake as magic is unleashed, magic on a scale not seen for some time. Even under the power of so many Runelords, it is this active as they strive to reclaim their god? If you were all not here, would reality itself be running apart at the seams? Would logic and sense and reason no longer hold command over the world, as much as they ever did anyway, in favor of fire that sears and scorches and corrupts? You doubt it would be good for anyone except the forces of darkness.
You don't tell the Beardlings racing about you that you can sniff magic not of the traitors, either. You doubt it will matter either way, and if it does, it will be, for the first time in a very long time, a pleasant surprise.
The beast comes to life. The enemy is stretched thin and taut even as they advance on your Hold, on your home, on the beardlings and garazi and innocents that live within it. The Rangers have made sure of this, and a false retreat has as well. Their heavy hitters have been spread as far and as wide as you can manage, helped by constant attacks by Izgrom, Zharrok and Grimgal, each joined with one of the Throngs that marches against one of their Throngs and so split to three direction, west, south, and east. There will be no damn mobbing of this creature, no sir. Not that they could anyway; good steel they may make, but this is Adamant and no steel forged by mortal hands can threaten it.
There is a roar, as your Dragon and Gronti comes to life. And so now the northern throng gains its champion, its idol. The Deep Magic is forced up by Khazagar itself and fed to your beast, even as it twitches claws as long as you are tall and hard and sharp enough to break through, to cut, even stone. It is hardly the only Gronti you have active now, fighting and killing and bleeding against the enemy. Everything from the simple-but-promising work of apprentices with half-a-brain and some good instincts, to your own ancient work, to the master crafts of students long passed, face the foe.
But none of them are equal to Azrildrakki.
Near simultaneously, close enough to fool a beardling even, there is another roar. It is higher, brighter in register. Almost more like music, like a rhythm pulled up from some ancient memory from the dawn of time, pouring out from a...a piercing, you suppose, and not in the way an arrow pierces but in the sense of an earring...yes, a piercing in the world. And then a portal appears, swirling blue and white mostly, though of every shade you can imagine and several dozen more you can't, never could have; you are too old for much to inspire you in your art, have seen much and grown jaded, but in this one instance, you get a few new ideas.
What marches out of the portal is tall and somewhat thin, like the Elgi, though they are pretty damn muscular for an Elgi.
But that is the only particularly Elgi thing about them. Their leader wields a two-handed hammer for one, and while it's a good bit more delicate and thinner than you'd really prefer it's a good height even on them, never mind for you. The head is mallet like, rather than a square striking surface and spike as you prefer, more like the Bretonnians really. The haft is hard wood stained pure white except for where bands of gold act as a grip; the surface is pure gold, except for where white engravings serve as pictographs for an image that you don't like. Probably for the bull, to be honest, though it doesn't strike you half as wrong as the Broken does.
It's a recurring theme, as well. Their helmet, a tall, pointed thing has the horns of a bull made of white bone except, again, for where bands of gold with burning, searing--no, not searing, not scorching, not corrupting. Again, like the Bull, but not. They burn, yes, but this fire will purify, will refine, will harden-- runes, not merely mundane but quite distinct from what you work with (which is good, since you already have more than enough on your plate without having to hunt the thief down). Their armor is a combination of plate and scale, white and gold and brilliant and bright. One of their pauldrons, larger than the other, is the form of a bull's head on their left, likely weaker, arm, not unlike the Tilean armorers who do much the same though less exaggerated, to help offset the loss of a shield without "too much weight" (Bah!). It is an intricate, ornate, lifelike thing, though again much the friendlier than any of the many images of the Enemy that float around the battlefield.
For some reason, an image continues to play in your mind. An ax splits a bull's haunch, a beast of pure red and black. Blood flows, falls, mingles with the mud and the dust and the dirt and the water. And that mud and blood and dust and dirt and water commingle, come together, flow together, make themselves like one another, slowly and slowly and slowly becoming a bull. And it roars and it challenges its father. For there is no love lost between father and son.
Magic, you hate magic.
The leader of the Elgi (?) stares down at the traitor, even as the rain falls and lightning cracks and the world burns. Here to decide which will kill you, then? Other Elgi, of similar theme and similarly unelven (some wear armor shaped like the mountains themselves, for the love of the Ancestors!) trait though in considerable variation otherwise, march through the portal, armed with swords, spears, bows, axes, and hammers.
Then they bring the hammer down, and that puts the problem aside, for the moment.
--
It's Lumineth, kind of, in that for yet another of the fifty-trillion projects that burn around my brain the thought that Lumineth, or more specifically the Stoneguard (and those attached, I don't actually know that much about Age of Sigmar) would actually make a surprisingly good aesthetic for like, a good Hashut (Kind of it's complicated) would not leave me. I don't expect there will be more in this little series, in that most of the rest of it would be even more tangential than Project Prometheus is which is quite a statement, but you never know.
Man, the King Of Karak Zorn is uh... Not Snorri's biggest fan, eh?
First he refuses to speak to Snorri himself, implying that Snorri must be his lesser. Then he ( or at least his wife ) all but calls Snorri and the North as a whole traitors to the Ancestor Gods due to Mhorni following him around ( understandable to a degree ), and because he has a female Heir ( who has more than proved her own ). Snorri is tactful enough that it Tungas is simply unable to find purchase for... whatever point he was attempting to make.
Man, the King Of Karak Zorn is uh... Not Snorri's biggest fan, eh?
First he refuses to speak to Snorri himself, implying that Snorri must be his lesser. Then he ( or at least his wife ) all but calls Snorri and the North as a whole traitors to the Ancestor Gods due to Mhorni following him around ( understandable to a degree ), and because he has a female Heir ( who has more than proved her own ). Snorri is tactful enough that it Tungas is simply unable to find purchase for... whatever point he was attempting to make.
That was a political action in two parts - one to confirm where Snorri stood on things politically (something not necessarily obvious to external characters) and another to make a demonstration to whatever followers or allies he has.
[ ] [Character Moment:] It is a raw gem, still hidden within a shroud of rock straight from the mines placed in from of an unprepared apprentice by their Master's oathsworn followers. Told that the Master has gone elsewhere in faith that they are ready, and looking forward to seeing the jewel that results from their efforts. Is the Apprentice truly ready for this test and will carefully free the stone before cutting a flawless jewel? Or will we find that the Master may have seen the skill, but the Apprentice's internal conflicts and doubt yielded a lesser result? We together are all the Apprentice in question.
