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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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This is the Grey College we're talking about, so they probably tell all the students that the list of Lord Magisters is secret then leave it in a conveniently stealable position :V
 
fictionfan said:
We are better known then the head of the order.
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I am pretty sure we are one of the better known LM period. Both our work with Dwarwes and Waagh and Peace are high profile and that was after we took Sylviana which is probably the first border expansion Empire had since forever. And now we brought back Vlag that will put us on the map even in Kislev.

I imagine if you asked random people to name 5 LM they know of we will regularly make up to that list.
 
The Karaz Ankor as a super-culture is pretty interesting. Ultra-Conservative due to the long-lived nature of the dwarves and the strong Ancestor Worship instigated by their Ancestor Gods mean that the 'young and innovative' population will always be out-numbered, out-ranked, and out-networked compared to their elders, who are continually given more power, responsibility and vision of the greater Karaz Ankor even as they spend more time being shaped by THEIR elders to embrace its ideals and continue those traditions themselves.
A sort of super-stable society where a sudden dearth of elders and the pressure of the greater Karaz Ankor is needed for the conservatism to be stopped and the younger generation to be given more of a free rein.
I kinda hope Karak Vlag is able to maintain its cultural distinction, without their own Karaz Ankor-shaped Longbeard population I don't see them adopting the old ways too easily, but I also don't see them changing too much more than they already have either, afterall the long lives of the dwarves mean that the current 'in power' generation who presumably favour their current culture will grow older, more Conservative, and more powerful, being less willing to change their ways and having plenty of time to pressure the younger generations to follow suite.

Hell, the whole thing is almost like some kind of dawi civilisation adrenaline shot. Sudden catastrophy allows for large scale and quick societal change, but the moment the mortal danger is over, or they stop dying off so fast, the society freezes in whatever shape it was when it stopped failing and remains as such until the next crisis.

Same with Gunpowder weapons NEEDING to be adopted suddenly but once the danger passed there was more stagnation. As opposed to human societies in WHF which are much more mutable, unstable, but also able to change and develop even during periods without catastrophic events.

Or at least that's my interpretation, obviously Longbeards aren't all robots, and Royals can act with huge influence to do their own thing etc though even then Belegor is pretty young by Dawi standards for a King I think?
 
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Tasoli said:
I am pretty sure we are one of the better known LM period. Both our work with Dwarwes and Waagh and Peace are high profile and that was after we took Sylviana which is probably the first border expansion Empire had since forever. And now we brought back Vlag that will put us on the map even in Kislev.

I imagine if you asked random people to name 5 LM they know of we will regularly make up to that list.
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Sort of doubt that. There are all the other heads of orders for one. Also plenty of Lord Magistrater that have been active for decades. We are in very rarified company.

Definitely if you asked a random dwarf or someone in Stirland.
 
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reignonyrparade said:
I wouldn't be too sure about that. There are still survivors from The Beforetimes and SOME secrets might have been not shared more on the basis of "not practical in our resource situation so there's not much point."
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I guess in smithing or engineering or something, but really I don't think anyone in the thread is going to get too excited about the ancient Karag Vlag secret of improved metal fittings making a comeback. For Runecraft, anyone who knew it in the Beforetimes is definitely dead.
 
Just as a quick opinion, I'm on the side that says runesmithing doesn't *have* first principles- this is not an art or science that can be logically deduced and recombined to get nicely, like math. It's a language, where knowing one word does not actually give you any clues as to what other, novel words actually are. Sure you can do prefixes and suffixes and apply some sorts of combinations, but nothing you do is going to get you from knowing the word for "stone" to knowing the word for "fire" if you don't have a dictionary.

If we want to rejuvenate runecraft, we are going to need to send someone to the glittering realm to get a look at the originals, like Gazul and Thorgrim.
 
Hmmmm... To rain on the parade a bit with sheer paranoia and worry, but...

Everybody's happy about how Vlag has come away changed, and musing amusedly over how the Karaz Ankor and conservatives will have their minds blown over the cultural differences these Dwarfs will have, but...

... What if this is the sort of thing that the Daemons, that Chaos, were hoping for? That is: a radical enough shock to the Karaz Ankor, that could hurt their culture or unity.

Either they strangle the Karaz Ankor by disrupting their ability to survive via the Waystone Network. Or. They spend hundreds of years putting pressure on a Dwarf Hold, in order to force them to break with traditions in ways that aren't just 'amusingly scandalous to those stuffy conservative Longbeards' but actually could screw over Dwarf society or future Dwarf politics. Fracture them. Or make it easier to bleed knowledge or secrets or political unity/solidarity from the Dwarfs. Or just form a culture that would be more amenable to change in ways future Chaos followers would find an easier way to profit off of.
We would have interrupted things and returned Vlag before they could really have finished things to their full desire, but... Some of the damage could still be done.

Or maybe that wasn't a plan -- or backup plan -- of the Daemons at all. Maybe they weren't intending to let loose a drastically-changed-but-not-Chaos-corrupted culture of Dwarfs.

But maybe it could be the effect nonetheless.


I figure that some of us think that some of the Dwarfs of the Karaz Ankor will react to Vlag's Dwarfs with "Oh god no, they're too changed! This is bad for us!" And that some of us posters will go "Man, ultra-conservative Dwarfs are always like that, to any change." But, well, what if they have a point? Even in spite of being stuffy old Dwarfs, and even in spite of them showing paranoia about Vlag being too influenced or too changed or whatever... I mean, maybe they might still have a point about worrying about what it might mean for the future of Dwarf politics. Even if they're not exactly correct in their predictions. Maybe worry and concern isn't exactly wrong. :V

I guess I can only hope that Thorgrim manages to navigate this diplomatic and cultural thorny knot.
 
myrix said:
Not de facto though, meaning no flow of taxes / levies etc., right?
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A lot of the time, there was. Vlad didn't take power until about 1800, and he ruled it mostly legally until he tried to take the throne by force in the 2000s, which isn't super great but there were like three Elector Counts doing the exact same thing at the time, and Vlad very much described himself as part of the Empire who had as much of a right to vie for the throne as everyone else. After the Vampire Wars ended in the 2100s Sylvania becomes part of Stirland, and though lots of it are under the influence of various Vampires it's not in open rebellion against imperial control until the self-proclaimed Countess von Carstein that was opposed to Abelhelm. And even then that wasn't all of Sylvania, just Drakenhof.
 
The Phoenixian said:
Personally, the impression I get is less "no metalworking expertise at all" (though it would be highly specialized towards maintenance and repair and otherwise very limited) and more "No new ore, so everything is run rationing principles."

So I would imagine the culture WRT metal and, most things that aren't rocks for that matter, is very Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. "Every scrap of iron, bronze, or steel is as precious as gold: so spend it well and make it last." If you have nails for a brace or a buckle for a belt? Toss them into the pile for the furnace, that's gonna be a axe head once we have enough. If the axe, or anything else like an old minecart, is chipped and broken, or the owner has died? Salvage it. Once the new axe is made? Learn very well how to maintain it, for it is a precious thing that can be all too easily lost or broken.
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Lol I imagine their view on gold is "what, that stupid soft worthless metal the Slaneeshi daemons were waaayy too fond of draping themselves in?"

Also I think you're not going far enough re rationing and reusing. I imagine they started having someone collect the shavings/dust whenver someone sharpened an axe to try and reuse that.
 
Glau said:
If we want to rejuvenate runecraft, we are going to need to send someone to the glittering realm to get a look at the originals, like Gazul and Thorgrim.
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Hmm. Yeah, shame that we've got no idea where that...
kingreaper said:
It's not clear that Dwarves ever did make those advances. They certainly don't believe that they did - they believe that the Ancestor Gods (individuals that may well have existed alongside the last of the Old Ones) created runesmithing fully formed.

Meaning that from an IRL perspective the obvious answer is "they developed their version of the Old One's runetech", no discoveries needed.
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Hmmm.
BoneyM said:
We knew of other beings that plied the void, travelling in silver ships to protect themselves from the radiance we happily bask in.
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Hmmmm...
Glittering silver ships realm not of this planet, but now returned to of it?
BoneyM said:
"A part close to our world, known as the 'Glittering Realm'. Thungni discovered it, and the secrets he found are held sacred by the Runelords. But Gazul of the Flame conquered it, and severed it from the rest of the Aethyr. The Aethyr is," he waves a hand skywards. "Out there, at least metaphorically. More literally, some sort of sideways in a dimension imperceivable to us, but not, perhaps, to you. But either way, entirely separate and outside of what we call reality. The Underearth is not, it has been made within and of this world."
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Codex said:
Well, with all of this said, I will admit I have absolutely no idea what we could even possibly use the Transcendant Boon we have with them on.
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On this note- we might well find a good use for the Vlag Transcendent Boon if we look outside Mathildes' narrow self interests, and towards things a returned, radical Vlag might be able to do for the good of the Karaz Ankor and/or Dawi wellbeing. Things within their grasp, but that they might not dedicate themselves to without that impetus.
 
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Alliterate said:
Hmmmm...
Glittering silver ships realm not of this earth, but now of it?
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I mean it's pretty obvious Gromril is at least partially Old One metal. Came from the sky, is often tainted by warpstone, Silvery.

Yeah, Thungi likely found a still-working Old One ship, or at least part of one.

The Glittering Realm is probably part of some kind of stasis chamber or some other form of warp-bubble. Maybe just the equivalent of the holo-deck from Star Trek? Gazul apparently figured out how to tear it out of the Warp entirely, which probably ruined whatever the Old Ones used it for, but suits the dwarves purposes perfectly.

Considering it this way Runecraft is probably the equivalent of Old One console commands, and the warp-rifts are allowing enough unreality into the world to let them function even without the Old Ones to moderate it.
 
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