Warhammer Fantasy: A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism

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So uh @torroar, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the Order of the Winter Throne? Given they're based primarily in Norsca I figured there'd have to be a decent number of people worshipping Ulric in Norsca itself. Taal and Manann also seem like they'd have a reasonable presence within certain tribes' pantheons, especially Manann. He's a quintessential sea god, there's lots of Norscan settlements that rely on the sea, and Norsca would've had consistent and peaceful enough contact with Manann-worshipping places, Marienburg most prominent among them.
 
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Marlin said:
South-west, technically. An empire map better shows this fact (Marienburg is Westerland, the only location that matters). For most intents though, Marienburg is part of the South provinces due to it's trade importance.
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Marienburg and Wurzen almost share a longitude and the Great North Road ends in Marienburg. Geographically, Westerland is a northern province to the West of Ostland.

In terms of defining features, the North is defined by its dangerous and untamed hinterlands while the South is a comparatively safe breadbasket. The Wasteland would fall under the former.
 
Andres110 said:
So uh @torroar, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the Order of the Winter Throne? Given they're based primarily in Norsca I figured there'd have to be a decent number of people worshipping Ulric in Norsca itself. Taal and Manann also seem like they'd have a reasonable presence within certain tribes' pantheons, especially Manann. He's a quintessential sea god, there's lots of Norscan settlements that rely on the sea, and Norsca would've had consistent and peaceful enough contact with Manann-worshipping places, Marienburg most prominent among them.
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The Order of the Winter Throne is a radical sect of the Cult of Ulric that is extremely controversial within the Cult. They think that Ulric's smiting of the world is imminent, and that to prepare people for the super winter that will thusly occur, they should make it much harder for people to survive in the North to 'train' them. They do this by going around in the north of the Empire, Kislev, and a few spots in Norsca, and burning down grain silos and supply stores in the night so that people learn to 'survive' better in the dead of winter.

Kattarin slaughtered every single one of the Winter Throne cultists in Kislev a long time ago during her whole push out of the Imperial Cults way back when when she managed to intrigue out their actions and got supremely furious about it. She takes such attacks on her people extremely seriously, and also Kislev doesn't really need Ulricans baying about winter constantly when they experience longer and harsher winters because of various reasons, this is actually canonical dislike here. So she created a glacier and shoved them all inside a large cavern inside and told them to put their precious training to the test, and a year later opened it again and catalogued to make sure none of them managed to carve their way out. As you might expect, every single one died horribly. The Order of the Winter Throne in Nordland was wiped out by Gruber, as they answered the martial call to war but had their isolated ascetic monasteries wiped out. The Order of the Winter Throne in Ostland are few in number thanks to the Vampire War, but still contribute to the deaths of a Ostlander citizens every winter by going about their 'holy duty'. To many people, it looks like the greenskins or beastmen have come in the night and done it.

Norsca is Norsca.

Frederick is unaware of the Winter Throne Sect, as they don't make big noises about things. Mostly because a shit ton of people would be extremely pissed if they walked around crowing about how they burned down your grain silos and made sure you were all nice and toughened up for the big winter that will surely be coming along momentarily, and if your children and ailing mother died from starvation and cold it's just because they were weak. Gotta purge the weak, you know, for Ulric and stuff.

You are also incorrect on Taal and Manann. They don't worship Manann. They worship Mermedus. Who they regularly make sacrifices too by wrapping weights around screaming living prisoners and dunking them overboard. If you die at sea, you are dragged eternally into his halls, and don't get to go feast in the afterlife with your ancestors in the Chaos Gods. Making him reviled as much as he is worshipped as the respected as the Lord of Wind and Tide. Yes, there are noted obvious parallels. There are also noted parallels to an ancient and super brutal and ultra savage monstrous God known as Olric, who may or may not be a horrific Chaos-tinged interpretation of Ulric. They hunt for their daily meals, and yet it is known that there is a Wild Hunt of Khorne. Ka'banda the Bloodthirster is known as the Lord of the Hunt, commander of the Blood Hunt daemons. Remember that they worship the Dark Gods for a variety of things, not just the most obvious ones. They don't pray to Taal and Rhya or Shallya in times of famine or plague, they pray to Nurgle. They don't pray Morr at all, seeing dreams and their interpretation as being a Tzeentch thing, and the dead thing as not compatible with their belief system at all.

So...yeah.
 
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torroar said:
Frederick is unaware of the Winter Throne Sect, as they don't make big noises about things.
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I have to think he's vaguely aware in a, "read a line in an intelligence report" sort of way since we specifically took the A Cataloguing Of Radicals: action to gather information on the radical groups in the various Cults back in Turn 36.

Though they weren't important enough to make the specific list we got in the results, so they probably fall under, "You've no doubt that there are many more radical sects than this," at the end.
 
torroar said:
The Order of the Winter Throne is a radical sect of the Cult of Ulric that is extremely controversial within the Cult. They think that Ulric's smiting of the world is imminent, and that to prepare people for the super winter that will thusly occur, they should make it much harder for people to survive in the North to 'train' them. They do this by going around in the north of the Empire, Kislev, and a few spots in Norsca, and burning down grain silos and supply stores in the night so that people learn to 'survive' better in the dead of winter.

Kattarin slaughtered every single one of the Winter Throne cultists in Kislev a long time ago during her whole push out of the Imperial Cults way back when when she managed to intrigue out their actions and got supremely furious about it. She takes such attacks on her people extremely seriously, and also Kislev doesn't really need Ulricans baying about winter constantly when they experience longer and harsher winters because of various reasons, this is actually canonical dislike here. So she created a glacier and shoved them all inside a large cavern inside and told them to put their precious training to the test, and a year later opened it again and catalogued to make sure none of them managed to carve their way out. As you might expect, every single one died horribly. The Order of the Winter Throne in Nordland was wiped out by Gruber, as they answered the martial call to war but had their isolated ascetic monasteries wiped out. The Order of the Winter Throne in Ostland are few in number thanks to the Vampire War, but still contribute to the deaths of a Ostlander citizens every winter by going about their 'holy duty'. To many people, it looks like the greenskins or beastmen have come in the night and done it.

Norsca is Norsca.

Frederick is unaware of the Winter Throne Sect, as they don't make big noises about things. Mostly because a shit ton of people would be extremely pissed if they walked around crowing about how they burned down your grain silos and made sure you were all nice and toughened up for the big winter that will surely be coming along momentarily, and if your children and ailing mother died from starvation and cold it's just because they were weak. Gotta purge the weak, you know, for Ulric and stuff.

You are also incorrect on Taal and Manann. They don't worship Manann. They worship Mermedus. Who they regularly make sacrifices too by wrapping weights around screaming living prisoners and dunking them overboard. If you die at sea, you are dragged eternally into his halls, and don't get to go feast in the afterlife with your ancestors in the Chaos Gods. Making him reviled as much as he is worshipped as the respected as the Lord of Wind and Tide. Yes, there are noted obvious parallels. There are also noted parallels to an ancient and super brutal and ultra savage monstrous God known as Olric, who may or may not be a horrific Chaos-tinged interpretation of Ulric. They hunt for their daily meals, and yet it is known that there is a Wild Hunt of Khorne. Ka'banda the Bloodthirster is known as the Lord of the Hunt, commander of the Blood Hunt daemons. Remember that they worship the Dark Gods for a variety of things, not just the most obvious ones. They don't pray to Taal and Rhya or Shallya in times of famine or plague, they pray to Nurgle. They don't pray Morr at all, seeing dreams and their interpretation as being a Tzeentch thing, and the dead thing as not compatible with their belief system at all.

So...yeah.
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If Freddy did find out about them he'd probably be so pissed he'd have his wife freeze them all solid before personally taking a sledgehammer to each and every one of them.
 
Of course the question then arises is Olric a Chaos tinged Ulric, or the reverse? Is Ulric perhaps a civilized Olric beyond the sphere to Chaos? More broadly are chaos and Order gods really meaningfully different or is it just a matter of degree, or how extreme they are. I imagine all theologians ans scholars trying to study this have been either burned at the stake or driven mad by the subject matter, but it is an interesting thing to consider from the other side of the screen where the memetic dangers can't get you.

A pity there are no vampire theologians, I imagine their vast resistance to chaos would make them the most likely to actually be able to unravel the mystery. :V
 
Briefvoice said:
they probably fall under, "You've no doubt that there are many more radical sects than this," at the end.
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They do, yes. Generally, they stick in their monasteries, shoveling snow down their throats and mutually agreeing on how cool and tough they are, and how best to next help the poor weaklings that are everyone else survive the coming mega winter by burning their food and furs, and occasionally ranging out to kill greenskins/beastmen because Ulric hates such things and they have to keep their skills up.

They purposefully don't make a lot of noise and actually act with subterfuge and quiet when it comes to their 'holy duties' of preparing the masses. Hence why it didn't come up.

Kattarin was naturally suspicious of non-Kislevite God stuff, and investigated them based on that paranoia, and also because fire is sacred and well kept in Kislev because of Dazh, which made some burnt down things in areas she KNOWS she she cleared of Beastmen/Greenskins/Eyeless incredibly suspicious looking. Well, incredibly suspicious to a paranoid. So she went in and investigated, learned what they were doing, and then went Kattarin the Bloody on them. She was actually disappointed that none of them had turned into a mourngul so that she could extra kill them.
 
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DragonParadox said:
A pity there are no vampire theologians, I imagine their vast resistance to chaos would make them the most likely to actually be able to unravel the mystery. :V
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I mean, there's nothing about being a vampire that prevents you from being a theologian(unless it's about Sigmar)! If someone was devoted/passionate/very curious, they could study things like this after being turned.

...this would be such a cool character concept.
 
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t3isukone said:
I mean, there's nothing about being a vampire that prevents you from being a theologian(unless it's about Sigmar)! If someone was devoted/passionate/very curious, they could study things like this after being turned.

...this would be such a cool character concept.
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While there is nothing inherent about being a vampire that would prevent one from studying the gods, the culture of the various bloodlines discourages this sort of study. They see gods as either obstacles or simply irrelevant.
 
As we have gone over before there are tons of radical cult sects that the main cult in power either ignore or outright say are too crazy even for them, which being WHF is saying something. Also lots of obscure sects that people don't know about/who actively go out of their way to not be well known for one reason or another.

Thankfully we live in Ostland which is the birth place of the witch hunters in general so we tend to be mostly safe from background stuff like that, with the Holders of the Shore event being very a unique thing all things told. If the last captain wasn't so hell bent on personal revenge quest she might have even caught wind of it, who knows really.

Oh, I can't believe I forgot about this but since the skaven never burned down coastal fleets in this quest like they did in canon but the Holders of the Shore did would the Brets be open to cannon sales now for rebuilding fleet with them due to loophole like in canon? Should we look into it?
 
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Carcer said:
Is there a risk that ulric's church will be upset if we exterminate this sect?
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The Ulricans aren't actually politically unsavvy on a Cult level. They can recognize a PR nightmare when they see one. I'm doubtful their activities would meet with much more approval from the mainline Cult of Ulric than the Holders of the Shore got from the mainline Cult of Manann. So IMO if we uncovered them, wiped them out, and then told everybody about the crazy shit we found these Ulric worshippers doing then the Cult of Ulric might be mad, but only because of the last part. If we stopped at two out of three we'd probably just get a quiet high-five from the Ar-Ulric at the next Elector's Meet for handling a sticky situation for them with discretion.
 
Massgamer said:
Oh, I can't believe I forgot about this but since the skaven never burned down coastal fleets in this quest like they did in canon but the Holders of the Shore did would the Brets be open to cannon sales now for rebuilding fleet with them due to loophole like in canon? Should we look into it?
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The shores of the world were attacked, yes, but the difference is that it was from an inward force rather than an outward force. When the skaven went nutso, it was obvious to everyone that a terrible outside force with shocking numbers was attacking all over the place. That's an external threat which demands evolved response, to the point that the Bretonnians finally managed to figure the loophole of 'cannons okay if not on Bretonnian land'. This time around, it was crazy cultists of people who are just, you know, around. Similar damage, significantly different responses. In this case, much more passive, comparatively at least, because Cults doing Cult stuff means Cult responses, and the Foamborne are running around doing their dealie, so it immediately takes the pressure off the King and Dukes to do something big and extreme and instead has people turn to the Cult of Manann for the response. Which, to be fair, they are doing with gusto.

They weren't attacked by a force that their usual method of 'sail up and try to board because ranged weapons are for wimps but also trebuchets and peasant archers are here' could handle, so they are still quite firmly sure that they are just fine doing things they way they are.
 
Well, Brettonia navies aren't gonna change until then, I guess we should prob expand our 3rd fleet more now than ever.

Hopefully, more people would take our Greatship design while we build up more of them in the process.
 
torroar said:
They weren't attacked by a force that their usual method of 'sail up and try to board because ranged weapons are for wimps but also trebuchets and peasant archers are here' could handle, so they are still quite firmly sure that they are just fine doing things they way they are.
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Gotcha, unfortunate but makes sense. Thanks for info.
Restalaan said:
Well, Brettonia navies aren't gonna change until then, I guess we should prob expand our 3rd fleet more now than ever.

Hopefully, more people would take our Greatship design while we build up more of them in the process.
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We certainly plan to build back Greatships we gave up, yes, but its nice to know they are still technically with us to protect coast. Do agree with hoping Greatships become more common in general along with wing-suiters.

On another note, I do hope that once this trade/intrigue war with Tri-Compact ends one way or another we can engage in more serious trade with Marienburg in general since after seeing their city its hard not to want a piece of that.
 
Well now i'm curious, Did anything change in Brettonia after the rampage of the Pillager ? I mean did they "modernise" their knights and men at arms or did they decide to stay the same as ever ?
They have no reason to invest in their navy so the country must have some money to invest.
 
Massgamer said:
Gotcha, unfortunate but makes sense. Thanks for info.

We certainly plan to build back Greatships we gave up, yes, but its nice to know they are still technically with us to protect coast. Do agree with hoping Greatships become more common in general along with wing-suiters.

On another note, I do hope that once this trade/intrigue war with Tri-Compact ends one way or another we can engage in more serious trade with Marienburg in general since after seeing their city its hard not to want a piece of that.
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Best way is basically to either back opposing families that doesn't like the families that made the contract with the Quinsberry Lodge. Create a divide and make ourselves an important supplier that they can't afford to ignore or important to replace.

Just one problem though, we don't have a lot of premier item.

The best that we have in terms of valuable commodities are Bugman brews and the multitude amount of dwarven brew available. Not to mention the alcoholic hub of our collection (Like really, if we can get Eonir wine as well, it'll help our trade and reputation since it's not against the Amity trade regulations.).

Aside from that, we're not really swimming in precious resources. Even with the Northern Trident pooled together, we don't have a lot of stuff that can bring in the big dough like silk or spices.
 
torroar said:
I really am sorry if I have negatively affected you by writing it like I did.



My dude? That guy has already come up in thread before.





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My sleep was wretched, so further apologies for slowness today. Plus, not really looking forward to tomorrow.

But I'm still wavering a bit on the whole 'design' conversation thing, which, as stated by someone else in the thread, it's not like there's necessarily blue prints as we would know them. I can revise the front part of the update if that is desired by a sufficient number of people, I just didn't really see it as 'insulting' or a 'jab' as it were at the time. Really, though, I'm starting to wonder if something is just...genuinely off, lately. This is the second time in recent memory that I've written something that ya'll've found just...bad, I guess, with the writing, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm reaching just, I don't know, the point of some kind of old jalopy car that's just starting to mess up more and more after so many years? Or maybe it's just involving Manann stuff? Like, I didn't see any issue with the vote, I was just writing and then thinking to myself, well, how would this possibly come across delivered by the character in the state he's in to the Matriarch, and instead of wounded/concussed/blood-loss/drunk talking to concerned ally, I have people saying he came across as retarded. So that's not great. Miracles and powers of the divinities and their servants are just...they're a thing, and I didn't really see that as that unrealistic, and I honestly figured that the Manannites would just talk to the people in Salkalten that they took the ships from, without the people in Salkalten needing to explicitly be told to do so, like...it felt like they would just naturally do that? And I only really seized on that when I was writing the update. I'll admit it, I was a bit distracted IRL and wasn't really super closely watching the voting until it was done, because this was meant to be a general excursion exploration thing, not some dire conversation set of things that could end up in super terrible consequences like, say, telling a pissed of Mage-Queen Ariel that you are staying and she's going to have to deal with that - which could have ended fatally - and just...talking to Maghda. And that, if in Marienburg, there is literally a pool of sacred healing Shallyan waters with crutches strung in the rafters as evidence for all the cripples that have been healed by it (not all, but some, and on a regular basis too) that being able to do other divine stuff...I don't know. It's not stuff that can be easily triggered or done, as evidenced in things like the Blood Fane, but if it's on a sacred ship given over to the Cult and sanctified by Manann and they have the ability to just talk to the people on the docks who helped build the things why wouldn't they, you know? Without needing prompting on either side? And I didn't really figure that until I was writing already. I don't...really pre-write the updates for interludes during the voting periods like I sometimes do for main turns, because in those, I can see the options that seem consistent across the various plans, and roll and write for some of them. I didn't really do that for this update until both the voting was closed and I posted on, like, Sunday that I was really going to actually start writing - and even then didn't really start until Monday either.

Ugh. Rambling. Apologies.

I won't be able online much today. Sorry to the unsatisfied readers, I'll try to do better or fix it or whatever, I guess.
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I personally enjoyed the update as a whole.
 
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