For the record, Black Arks are spectacularly well-contained Dhar-wise. Otherwise. Well. You know.
Even if they're more resistant, it wouldn't be great for all Druchii to suffer from it as if it were some cartoonish fantasy version of a Soviet super Nuclear Reactor from Red Alert 3 or whatever.
Nah. Gotrek and Felix had a good chunk of time spent on a Black Ark. It wasn't pleasant, of course, but they weren't just suddenly dying from Dhar-radiation either. Additionally, they saw plenty of slaves there doing things, a variety of kinds, also not suddenly just exploding into Chaos Spawn and what not. Was even a large contingent (100~ I think?) of dwarfs who had been enslaved for a long while too, who had been broken with despair and what not but at the end all became Slayers and shaved their heads and died fighting to redeem themselves for having been broken as aforementioned. It was a whole thing.
And then it got blown up because of the Harp of Ruin, which originally was going to be used to, like, collapse the entire western seaboard of the Empire and sink Altdorf specifically? Something like that.
I'm new enough that I know it's bad, but I don't know the ramifications. Like if it's related to chaos or something else.
Dhar pretty much is Chaos. All magic in Warhammer has its source in the two gates to the Realm of Chaos at the planet's poles and Dhar is the winds of magic smashed together into their rawest form. For what the impact of massive amounts of Dhar corruption woulf be, one can just look at the Chaos Wastes.
Yeah, so the Polar Gates are the big sources of everything Chaos,
and pretty much everything Magic, in Warhammer Fantasy. The Winds of Magic, the Eight Winds that is, which form up Aqshy and the rest, flow freely from the Gates out into the World from the Realm of Chaos. They, themselves, are one of those things that are part of the setting in that not
everything from the Realm of Chaos are actually bad.
Sort of.
The Eight Winds are part and parcel and interwoven with reality itself at this point, and its various components. With the waning of life, the gathering of it. Death. The concept of experimentation, purification, protection, fire, passion, etc.
And they flow around.
Now,
generally, they're meant to flow freely, occasionally intermingle, and inevitably get drawn towards either the Vortex at Ulthuan, or are literally used up in enacting spells or what not in the material realm. With them endlessly flowing out of the Gates.
So, what the High Elves and the Slann do is manage to perfectly weave all 8 Winds into a single beautiful super harmonious thing which is capable of doing tremendous stuff, known as High/True Magic, or Qhaysh. It is known, when wielded properly, to be capable of some of the most powerful magic workings possible. Ever. And is also more versatile than any other form of magic as a result.
Dhar, on the other hand, is a collapsed
bad melding of magic, which can occur both naturally and unnaturally, if the various Winds are pooled together and sorta, well here, I'll quote the wiki on four major points:
Four Major Points said:
1. Dhar, also called Dark Magic or, more rarely, Black Magic, is a form of magic that draws on all eight of the Winds of Magic yet does so in a corrupt and unbalanced way that can twist the physical environment, cause rampant mutation in the caster or bystanders, lead to the user's damnation by Chaos or otherwise damage reality itself. However, the boon of wielding Dhar is easy access to spells far more potent than those available to the Magisters of the Imperial Orders of Magic or even the High Elf Mages who can unleash the power of Qhaysh -- High Magic.
2. Those who wield magic in this way do not carefully sculpt and tweak the Winds of Magic like most wizards, so much as simply grab the winds and force them into the effect they desire through harsh and bloody-minded determination. This form of magic is the embodiment of Dhar, rightly named Dark Magic.
3. But Dark Magic is far more than simple hedge wizardry. It also encompasses the dark arts which are employed by the necromancers, the process of using the Winds of Magic to create and control the spirits of the dead. It is also the foul magic used by the Chaos Dwarfs to construct their mechanical abominations, and it especially refers to the magic used by practitioners of Chaos Magic who serve the Ruinous Powers. It is also the sadistic magic practised by the Dark Elves of Naggaroth. The final lore of Dark Magic is the foul, Warpstone-powered magic wielded by the Skaven.
4. Spells of Dark Magic are potent because they use all available magical energy in an area. But this also releases a lot more unguided and partially activated magical residue into the mortal world. This undirected magical residue can manifest itself in all sorts of unwanted ways and with often unintended side effects. The side effects can manifest as the summoning of Aethyric entities like Chaos Daemons, physical mutations unleashed on the wielder or bystanders, or psychological alterations
Either way, I'm not saying it would be wonderful to be on a Ark. No matter how you slice it, there are gonna be some real bad bits of history there that likely manifest as unfortunate psychic/emotional residue of the abominable acts performed upon them for thousands and thousands of years. But I'm also not saying that, like, charging aboard it for a fight is gonna ruin any human what does that.
