Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Copperscale]

Human: "Perfect is the enemy of Good"
Dwarf: "Good is the enemy of Perfect"

 

[DragonParadox]

Except those vices (that dwarves often consider virtues) may be largely what allows them to survive.
Just demanding they turn their whole society upside down is, kinda disrespectful, at best.

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I am not asking them to change everything, just dial them down to the point where they are less harmful to the mental well-being of the young, it being too late for those who have already internalized them. All well and good to say 'the dwarfs' consider their crushing shame at lost glories a virtue, but someone has to teach that to children to teach them they should feel shame and have self-worth issues that in far too many metastasize into not valuing their lives at all.

It is not an easy problem to adjudicate and it is not a simple one to solve, but I do not think it is fair to say that all cultural norms are good simply because a culture holds them.

 

[Valmond]

Perfectionism is what has allowed dwarves to acchieve what they have.
And in some ways it may also be what is kiling them.
But to get rid of the later, you are also denying the former.

 

[pucflek]

I dunno, I think there might be mages who prefer a particular wind, and mages who haven't mastered High magic yet. However I thought part of Teclis's colleges was that humans saw dedicating themselves to one wind and slowly attuning to it as rad, whereas elves saw it as a career ending blunder.

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Gaining arcane mark is, but being extremely focused on single wind isn't. There really is no question about someone like Alarielle being more powerful than probably any other Ghyran wielder sans what Durthu could accomplish if he wasn't ABSOLUTELY LIVID ATM. To give examples that aren't literal avatar of life goddess, there are mentions of archmages being noted for extreme skill in one particular field.

Specialisation does not necessarily mean locking yourself out.

 

[DragonParadox]

In any case I think we should get off the subject as the GM asked us to. And on top of that it is not very productive since we have no power IC to impact any great cultural change in the Karaz Ankor.

 

[Tasoli]

Pretty sure there's single wind focused elf mages though.

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They don't call themselves mage if they use single wind. If you are mage you must be able to use high magic, no ifs or buts. Now there are others who use single wind like dragonriders who use fire magic to be resistant to heat of dragons and cold of the high winds, or shadow warriors who blend with shadows. But they don't call themselves mages.

Hell that was exactly how Asarnil dissed Mathilde, for calling herself a mage while using single wind.

 

[DragonParadox]

They don't call themselves mage if they use single wind. If you are mage you must be able to use high magic, no ifs or buts. Now there are others who use single wind like dragonriders who use fire magic to be resistant to heat of dragons and cold of the high winds, or shadow warriors who blend with shadows. But they don't call themselves mages.

Hell that was exactly how Asarnil dissed Mathilde, for calling herself a mage while using single wind.

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Mist mages would beg to differ, they only or at least primarily use Ulgu and there is no indication they use High Magic

 

[Shard]

They don't call themselves mage if they use single wind. If you are mage you must be able to use high magic, no ifs or buts. Now there are others who use single wind like dragonriders who use fire magic to be resistant to heat of dragons and cold of the high winds, or shadow warriors who blend with shadows. But they don't call themselves mages.

Hell that was exactly how Asarnil dissed Mathilde, for calling herself a mage while using single wind.

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Isn't High Magic what Archmages and/or Loremasters use? Most Elven mages don't use High Magic, it's the pinnacle of their art.

 

[Tasoli]

Mist mages would beg to differ, they only or at least primarily use Ulgu and there is no indication they use High Magic

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I highly doubt they call themselves mages either. I am pretty sure that is what Empire calls them. And if they are calling themselves mages they are proabably capable of high magic even if they don't use it regularly.

Isn't High Magic what Archmages and/or Loremasters use? Most Elven mages don't use High Magic, it's the pinnacle of their art.

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Untill they are capable of Qhaysh any elven mage is apperantice. If they don't have intention to use it they don't call themselves Mage.

Edit: Was wrong, ignore this.

 

[Catpetter1981]

(1) Problem - The Dwarves are afflicted with enemies on all fronts. Orks and Goblins above, Skaven below, Daemons within.

(2) Solution - Mathilde uses the unparalleled power of the Liber Mortis to create an unbreakable wall of obedient skeletons between the Dwarf Holds and the forces of Chaos.

(3) Problem - Voters of this thread refuses to unlock the power of the Liber Mortis.

(4) Solution - Unshackle yourself from the ossified chains of "mainstream" thinking. Vote for Dwarven Salvation. Vote Necromancy.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Perfectionism is what has allowed dwarves to acchieve what they have.
And in some ways it may also be what is kiling them.
But to get rid of the later, you are also denying the former.

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Pretty sure what's killing them is constantly fighting against skaven and greenskins and Chaos after a costly war against the elves and getting their infrastructure damaged by a Slann.

It is remarkable that the Dawi managed to stabilize - but they needed an outside force in Sigmar to do so (and arguably another outside force in Mathilde to get them back on track). The Karaz Ankor went through some extremely difficult times at the end of the Golden Age.

 

[Codex]

Let me bring in a bunch of Boney quotes about the topic of Elf magic:

Only a very small minority of Elves who use magic have dedicated the decades to centuries required to learn how to cast high magic. Using Elven Mages as the Elven benchmark is like using Lord Magisters or Grail Prophetesses as the standard for human magic use.

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They don't have a single monolithic magical tradition. What you seem to be thinking of as the 'standard' Elven magic-user is actually a product of Saphery's foremost tradition, but alongside their Mages and Archmages they also produce Loremasters, magic-users who seek enlightenment within the framework of the Winds, not High Magic.

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No, they wouldn't. Dragon Mages of Caledor, Shadow Warriors of Nagarythe, Mist-Mages of Eataine, Maiden Guard of Avelorn, none of them have high magic as part of their magical traditions.

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Elf magic is not monolithic. A very small amount of them ever manage to reach High Magic, and there are plenty of magical traditionas that never attain High Magic.

 

[Tasoli]

Oh damn, I forgot about those. This quest is so long I swear I can't even remember everything that happened.

 

[veekie]

I'm not demanding that anyone like or agree with Dwarven culture, I'm just asking that people stop treating it like a buffet where they can load up the plate with craftsmanship and steadfastness and honour while leaving the artisanry and punishingly high standards behind, and that the only reason the Dwarves haven't already done so is because they're just too dumb and stubborn.

They should be more adaptable!
...but also still be steadfast.

They should mass produce things!
...but also maintain an extremely high standard of craftsmanship.

They should train more Dwarves, faster!
...while also still training them to an incredibly high standard.

They should be more willing to share their secrets!
...while also still keeping those secrets from leaking into the wrong hands.

They should be more forgiving of those that don't live up to their standards!
...while still accomplishing everything that requires those high standards.

If they lived in a utopia, it would be right and good to encourage the Dwarves to chill the fuck out and enjoy life. But they don't. The world became intrinsically inimical to the Dwarves eight thousand years ago, and with every year that passes it becomes slightly more so. There's greenskins all around and Skaven below. Their only ally spent almost a thousand years locked in civil war. Their way of life isn't killing them, the world is. Their way of life is what's allowed them to survive this long despite all that, and it's what gives them enough pride and strength of will to keep doing so. The question isn't, why doesn't a Dwarven couple have a fifth child? The question is, how the hell did they manage to scrape together enough hope to have the first four?

I'm not saying that there aren't improvements that can, should, and probably must be made to the Dwarven way of life for there to still be a Dwarven way of life in a few generations. Belegar's journey has been an exploration of the ways, places, and times in which Dwarven culture fails. But it's something that needs to be treated with more thought and respect than "why don't those idiots just stop all the bad things while still doing all the good things".

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The weird part of all this is that...people don't focus on whats actually killing them - enemies on all sides - but do focus on what keeps them from growing faster, like technology and knowledge transmission.

It would be more convenient if the dwarves adopted a more human culture, but it wouldn't really do one whit to change the looming doom.

Reclaiming holds and destroying their enemies do

 

[Shane_357]

I am not asking them to change everything, just dial them down to the point where they are less harmful to the mental well-being of the young, it being too late for those who have already internalized them. All well and good to say 'the dwarfs' consider their crushing shame at lost glories a virtue, but someone has to teach that to children to teach them they should feel shame and have self-worth issues that in far too many metastasize into not valuing their lives at all.

It is not an easy problem to adjudicate and it is not a simple one to solve, but I do not think it is fair to say that all cultural norms are good simply because a culture holds them.

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It is... unclear how much of that is culture and how much is biology. The Old Ones decided that they weren't viable weapons for a reason.

 

[Godwinson]

what keeps them from growing faster, like technology and knowledge transmission.

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I'm not sure those actually are keeping them from growing faster.

Industrialized production only helps if you have vast amounts of resources to shove through the increased throughput, and on Mallus, increased resource gathering intrinsically means you're increasing your rate of pushing into new territories and then increasing your military obligations in a way that was absolutely not true for a similar development on Earth. Dwarven modes of production emphasize getting the most out of the resources that are least renewable within a given territorial footprint, thus permitting the defensive force-multipliers they rely on to survive.

Meanwhile, the "failures" of knowledge transmission could very well be preventing an even worse failure mode for dwarven society, considering the way we see the magically-capable among the Fire Dwarves behaving toward the rest of their society.

 

[ShyPerson]

(4) Solution - Unshackle yourself from the ossified chains of "mainstream" thinking. Vote for Dwarven Salvation. Vote Necromancy.

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Better solution: write your own side story about a quest canon breaking necromantic salvation fantasy instead of mugging the thread with a joke so putrid that Lord Skrolk would not risk poking it with his Rod of Corruption. Hell didn't someone already do that, making this whole mugging pointless.

Or if you truly wish to unshackle yourself, take a hint from The Broken Mirror and start your own necromancer Mathilde AU Quest, freed entirely from the baggage of the mainstream thread.

Yes, I am sick of this gag, and respond to any sign of it like Morrs faithful to a vampire on a good binge. My blood boils at any sight of this "joke" at this point. Makes me wish we burned that damned book.

 

[DragonParadox]

Meanwhile, the "failures" of knowledge transmission could very well be preventing an even worse failure mode for dwarven society, considering the way we see the magically-capable among the Fire Dwarves behaving toward the rest of their society.

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That is reaching, it is reaching really far. It basically posits flaws within the dwarf character that are being restrained by a restrictive culture and the proof of that is chaos worshipers. By that logic Magnus the Pious should not have allowed the Colleges because of how Chaos Sorcerers behave towards their tribes.

 

[Godwinson]

That is reaching, it is reaching really far. It basically posits flaws within the dwarf character that are being restrained by a restrictive culture and the proof of that is chaos worshipers. By that logic Magnus the Pious should not have allowed the Colleges because of how Chaos Sorcerers behave towards their tribes.

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I'm not sure it is that far of a reach. The issue is worthiness, after all. The Colleges themselves have plenty of people who aren't, and never will, receive a full magical education, at times due to a lack of moral character, or because they cannot safely (read: properly) use the arts beyond that point.

My point of comparison would be to take the Colleges of Magic and remove their institutional blocks on teaching magic. There are costs that come with that. Some of them are actually seen in the way Chaos Sorcerers behave. I'm not claiming that the only failure-mode for a more permissive runesmithing culture would be the Fire Dwarves, I'm saying that it should not be taken as a given that there are no costs or societal failure-modes associated with that reduction in standards.

To say nothing of the fact that runesmiths are also priests, and that directly flouting their patron's mandates might have much more direct ramifications on their work.

 

[veekie]

The thing with controlling knowledge transmission is mostly that Chaos is better at using that knowledge than dwarves...

 

[DragonParadox]

I'm not sure it is that far of a reach. The issue is worthiness, after all. The Colleges themselves have plenty of people who aren't, and never will, receive a full magical education, at times due to a lack of moral character, or because they cannot safely (read: properly) use the arts beyond that point.

My point of comparison would be to take the Colleges of Magic and remove their institutional blocks on teaching magic. There are costs that come with that. Some of them are actually seen in the way Chaos Sorcerers behave. I'm not claiming that the only failure-mode for a more permissive runesmithing culture would be the Fire Dwarves, I'm saying that it should not be taken as a given that there are no costs or societal failure-modes associated with that reduction in standards.

To say nothing of the fact that runesmiths are also priests, and that directly flouting their patron's mandates might have much more direct ramifications on their work.

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I think you are conflating types of worthiness. There is being a good craftsman, which is what most Runelords means when they say they want a worthy apprentice, and then there is being a good person. I do not think Kragg has been waiting for over a thousand years for the platonic ideal of goodness. If the colleges behaved like the Guild of Runesmiths they would only take as apprentices those with the potential to become Lord Magisters.

Being a perfectionist about your craft does not make you a good person, and I do not think you can find better proof than that than the Sorcerer Priests themselves who in spite of being evil and corrupted are in fact quite skilled in their dark arts.

 

[Rafin]

In any case, it's not the whole Karaz Ankor that "needs to change" or anything like that. The Runesmith Guild/Cult/Clan in particular is overly conservative in a way that costs the rest of the Karaz Ankor disproportionately much. We don't need to compare them to some external ideals. Comparing them to, say, the Engineering Guild is enough.

Mathilde ever wants to consider the kingdom-building option the next time she makes a career choice, pretty sure that Karag Vlag knows more about constructing a completely self-sufficient impenetrable fortress than any group alive. The fact that they largely don't rely on runecraft to do so is a bonus if you want the new place to be full of humans. That is the traditional answer for dwarves who owe you bigly... ask them to build something!

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I think I am completely on board with not trading in the Boon until it is relevant, even if it has to wait one or two life chapters.

There might be secrets in runelore that would allow a something demonic to learn how to literally unravel reality, for example- the way the runes seem to act to reinforce reality with their magic rather than weaken it as human and elven magic does, or just poison it as Dhar does. Think of a rune, for example, that when applied to a demon allows it to exist without requiring any further energy.

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If the mere basics are enough to do something like that then I guess we all have to pray that Hashut never wants to wreck his material storage space.

They should be more adaptable!
...but also still be steadfast.

They should mass produce things!
...but also maintain an extremely high standard of craftsmanship.

They should train more Dwarves, faster!
...while also still training them to an incredibly high standard.

They should be more willing to share their secrets!
...while also still keeping those secrets from leaking into the wrong hands.

They should be more forgiving of those that don't live up to their standards!
...while still accomplishing everything that requires those high standards.

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That seems like a very exaggerated version of what I've seen players say. Though granted, I don't read all the comments like you do.

There is a healthy middle somewhere in between. And honestly, most Karraz Ankor Dwarves seem to fall within it in my opinion. But some who don't really hurt the rest, because they are important people like Kragg, Thorgrim and the kings of Karak Kadrin.

I still remember Belegar's frustration as he witnessed the Slayer ritual of that young Dwarf with us.

Except those vices (that dwarves often consider virtues) may be largely what allows them to survive.
Just demanding they turn their whole society upside down is, kinda disrespectful, at best.

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I'm pretty sure nobody here would be in favor of going up to the Dwarves and demand them to change. OOC thread chatter is not the same as actual intent.

It is... unclear how much of that is culture and how much is biology. The Old Ones decided that they weren't viable weapons for a reason.

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That reason might or might not have been because they rebelled and killed Umskaladrak.

 

[pucflek]

There is a healthy middle somewhere in between. And honestly, most Karraz Ankor Dwarves seem to fall within it in my opinion. But some who don't really hurt the rest, because they are important people like Kragg, Thorgrim and the kings of Karak Kadrin.

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BoneyM later on literally remarked that if Kragg was the sort that would not wait for perfect apprentice, he would have died before he reached his 400. So the Dwarfs would actually have access to even less knowledge than they do now, because he might be one of the last living links to people that might have even remembered Sigmar.

It all has its upsides and downsides.

Also Thorgrim is shockingly radical when it suits his purposes, and we might yet see that come to fruition now that he has a reason to hope again.

RE: Worthiness - I just think that Thungni's gift manifests itself with variable strenght in people, which might be Fanon from Soulcake quest but it makes a degree of sense to me.

 

[Godwinson]

I think you are conflating types of worthiness. There is being a good craftsman, which is what most Runelords means when they say they want a worthy apprentice, and then there is being a good person. I do not think Kragg has been waiting for over a thousand years for the platonic ideal of goodness. If the colleges behaved like the Guild of Runesmiths they would only take as apprentices those with the potential to become Lord Magisters.

Being a perfectionist about your craft does not make you a good person, and I do not think you can find better proof than that than the Sorcerer Priests themselves who in spite of being evil and corrupted are in fact quite skilled in their dark arts.

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No, I'm saying that both are a factor, because the relevant point of comparison for "being a good craftsman" for a wizard would be how reckless they are in handling their magic.

 

[Andres]

@BoneyM, do you remember where you got your dwarf revolver from? At first I thought you came up with it yourself, but then I saw it in GW material, but now for the life of me I can't find it again.