She's either a quick study or quick to earn the trust of Apprentices that have been here longer, as there's the telltale signs of very careful breaches of the rules of the dorm rooms.
How long has Eike been here at this point? Weeks or months?
"Only fourteen left to find, then," you say, and smile at her look of shock. "Come with me, I'll give you some hints for the next few.
Are (some of) the nooks findable based on clues in the other ones, like a fun little treasure hunt? That's pretty cool.
You dismiss it and step forward yourself, and he nods as he turns to your true self. "No outsiders may be allowed past the second line of defence until a majority of each generation of the Regency Council agree to opening our doors to visitors once again," he says. "We shall have to talk here. Can I offer you a drink?"
Governed not just by a Council, but by one split into generation-based chambers and requiring a vote to pass each of them? I am most curious what events exactly lead to that...
At first glance, he appears fairly typical for a Dwarf of advanced years who is almost but not quite yet a Longbeard, but the more you look, the more discrepancies you spot. The only metal on his person seems to be the axe on his hip, and the rest of his clothing is fabric and leather - and reptilian leather at that, instead of the more typical goat. His hair and beard are unornamented and hang loose instead of being kept under control by rings and plaits, but seems no less carefully tended for it. He's thinner and wirier than the Dwarves you're used to. And he's also looking at your Illusion with growing thoughtfulness.
He's the first non-fallen Dwarf of Vlag we see up close, right?
"Our population is two thirds of what it was when we were stolen," he corrects, "but it was once lower, and has been climbing steadily for over a century.
So Vlag managed to just decide to have more children while literally lost in the Warp and the Ankor as a whole (especially the Old Holds) are declining while neighboring the Empire in the material realm? Shame on Thorgrim.
Karak Vlag is fascinating. Ever will I mourn the path not taken and in this particular moment I dearly wish we were helping Belegar drag the Karaz Ankor out of its death spiral.
Oh yeah. If we had stayed on as Loremaster then I'd definitely vote to advocate in favor of good relations and maybe some population exchange.
the first three generations are numerous enough to have meaningful representation.
Only one generation from before the Escarpment survives? No Living Ancestors in Vlag?
It almost certainly doesn't. They still kept the teaching to the "some, even barest relation to Thungni necessary". And they are no longer in survival mode. While i have no doubt they will retain lot of their current radicalness, they fundamentally did not change that much.
They are unapologetic about their survival and methods used to get to it, but they still heed traditions to some degree.
The thing I haven't seen mentioned is one of the biggest things they partially discarded. Namely, the deference to their ancestors. I mean they were ruled, like is appropriate to Dwarves, by the oldest generation. And then the children rebelled against their own parents and uncles because they didn't trust their judgement when it came to their own circumstances. What do you think how much Second Generation cares about the opinions of the dead Zeroeth Generation and before? Enough to respect and value their input definitely, but not enough to take it as holy gospel like so so many of the Karaz Ankor do.
Forget free love, dislike of alcohol, Rune-poking. Considering younger generations equally worthy of being listened to as older ones is the most radical change of all.
Honestly, if anything Karak Vlag seems like a foil to Karag Dum: Both caught up in Chaos's direct attentions, but while one fell all the way down in their quest to survive and remain free, the other was more moderated and careful in their approach and so, while they were unable to solve the problem entirely by themselves, still remained uncorrupted enough to rejoin the Karaz Ankor when help finally came.
We have no idea how far they have actually fallen. Maybe Dum just has mind control runes.
I don't think sex for pleasure is new. Unabashedly talking about sex for pleasure might be though. If a high dignitary in an emissarial position feels comfortable propositioning to the most respected outsider during her first visit, what kinds of conversations on the subject happens between friends and neighbors?
And Vlag hasn't had experience with non-hostile outsiders in quite some time. It's possible the Vlag locals might default to thinking of her as 'one of them' because that's the only mental category they really have for non-Daemons.
Especially because Daenins often looked like one of them, so appearance isn't a good criterion for differentiation.
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 Vampires used to send taxes to the Haupt-Andersens? I thought the whole thing about pro-Vampire Sylvanian culture is that the blood tax can be more palatable than an actual grain/money tax.
Who wants to destroy dwarf democracy?
Besides it hasn't been established that Mathildes children will be dwarves (metaphysically or otherwise) and I doubt either her or Pan are getting pregnant anyway, so it would be kind of a dead end as far as royal clans go.
They are a republic. Nowhere was it stated that they are a democracy. The (soon to be renamed) Regency Council gives equal representation to members of each generation, but we don't know if said representatives are elected, let alone through universal suffrage. Look at pre-1800 republics throughout IRL history. Most of them were very restrictive regarding who gets to vote. If voting was even the mechanism that the government was elected by.
