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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Oh! And I should remind the thread- I was going back through and doing some rereading, and was at the point where it was decided to turn the battle wizards lose on sylvania- there are a few other threats that we've not been involved in. Ostland is said to be suffering from heavy raids, and drachenfels is said to be stirring. We might get called in, depending on if an 'all hand on deck' call gets issue.

For those with metaknowledge: we've butterflied away Karl-Franz and Gotrek. What are the major threats that they dealt with that might be coming up?
 
Glau said:
Oh! And I should remind the thread- I was going back through and doing some rereading, and was at the point where it was decided to turn the battle wizards lose on sylvania- there are a few other threats that we've not been involved in. Ostland is said to be suffering from heavy raids, and drachenfels is said to be stirring. We might get called in, depending on if an 'all hand on deck' call gets issue.

For those with metaknowledge: we've butterflied away Karl-Franz and Gotrek. What are the major threats that they dealt with that might be coming up?
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Lots of butterflies have happened and will continue to happen, but a non comprehensive list I guess of some stuff I guess:

Only Gork and Only Mork ritual disrupted, no Avatars as a result. Skarsnik was killed before he could grow up to be the menace he was, and Grimgor Ironhide while he might be a thing will not be nearly as ridiculously powerful as he is canonically. I don't know what this does to Wurzzag Da Great Green Prophet's whole Prophecy thing, but I think it messed it up?

Queek Headtaker is butterflied. We destroyed Clan Mors and Sleek Sharpwit was the commanding officer at the Yar battle, that he devastatingly lost so he's probably dead. We don't know what happened to Gnadwell, the leader of Mors who lives in Skavenblight, but he's probably toast considering his clan is destroyed.

In terms of threats Gotrek dealt with?

The Savior of Hell-Pit, The Destroyer of Under-Altdorf, The Killer of the Prophet of Sotek, The Summoner of Skarbrand, the Mighty Great Grey Seer Thanquol. He's a Saturday Morning Cartoon supervillain who constantly fucks up. A Slaan once met him and looked into his future and decided to keep him alive because he would cause more damage to the Skaven Under-Empire if he was alive then if he was dead.

As for Karl Franz, there's way too much to cover I'm sure and I'm not a lore buff, but there's a bunch of threats that may or may not pop up. The most notable of which is the Everchosen Archaon. Whether he'll be the Everchosen or not, and when he'll pop up is unknown, but Boney has confirmed the possibility of an Everchosen popping up at some point if we live long enough, which is definitely the biggest threat we'd have to face. Aside from that there's a number of miscellaneous threats that may or may not pop up, but for the moment the Empire isn't exactly at war. Well, not a full war but we're at a sort of cold war with Marienburg and high tensions between Ar-Ulric/Grand Theogonist and Nordland/Middenland.
 
Glau said:
For those with metaknowledge: we've butterflied away Karl-Franz and Gotrek. What are the major threats that they dealt with that might be coming up?
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Aside from wandering around the countryside fighting the occasional monster or cultist (including an adventure into K8P, and slaying a chaos sorcerer who was turning Blutdorf into his personal mutant army) Gotrek and Felix's big achievements were defeating the Skaven under Nuln, fighting in a chaos siege at Praag, travelling to Karak Dum via airship, killing the chaos dragon Skjalandir, the orc warboss Ugrek Manflayer, and a handful of vampires in Sylvania, and working with Teclis to stop a chaos plot in Albion involving artefacts of the old ones.

That's just what I remember from the original William King novels mind, I never really got into the Nathan Long ones.

So we've butterflied the vampires and Dum, Nuln is under threat, but they are preparing for it, the Praag siege could happen whenever (but Vlag's back, so they are a bit more protected now), the chaos dragon is still sleeping, and the orcs only attacked because they were disturbed by the dragon. The sorcerer in Blutdorf is also highly unlikely to happen, what with the EIC investment around the place. Albion is still hidden, so we don't need to worry about that just yet.

They also met with Countess Gabriella von Nachthafen at one point, but it seems to be the original vampire one, not the Heidi one.
 
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Lonkas said:
I have to say perhaps the thing i'm most excited about (from a worldwide betterment of the world perspective) in this quest is the one thing that we are only tangentially involved in... the canals.

The thing that truly broke the old dwarven empire was the destruction and then desecration of the underway. The method through which the isolated strongholds of the dwarves could concentrate their resources and armies. After it fell any journey through it would be fraught with danger and be longer and far less acomodating even in the still standing sections. So throngs start travelling overland, robbing the dwarves of nearly all their natural advantages.

But the canals change all that. Not only does it allow the easy transport of goods, but also it allows the supremacy of dwarven (riverine) shipbuilding to make it perhaps the safest way since the underway itself. No more will the gathering of throngs to help banner kings take months - years. Instead once the canals are finished, within weeks to months (unless your K8P or Azul) reinforcements will arrive even from the most far flung holds that are connected to the canals. Probably even faster (given water transport) than the underway.

And once the dwarves have had time to build up thecanals to their liking (in a century or two) I imagine the canals might be near as impregnable as the underway of old as the entire length I could imagine may being enclosed or have titanic walls raised around it. While work continues on widening the canal or double leaning it.

The return of two old holds (three in terms of rune power) has given the dwarves breathing room. The canals may be enough to revitalise the dwarven empire.
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I disagree. While the damage to the Underway was problematic for the Karaz Ankor, what cost them so desparately in the Time of Woes was twofold. First, they had just spent five hundred years at war with Ulthuan, for which they bled knowledge, troops and equipment, and second that they hadn't anticipated being attacked from below. The Underway, while useful, would almost certainly not be so much faster than marching overground that ypu'd gain months (marching isn't super fast, Dwarfs or no).

Also, while transporting troops by ship will definitely be quicker than marching them, you're probably still looking at decades or even centuries for the Barak Varr navy to build enough riverine ships to transport that number of troops, even assuming they ever do (which they might not). And, perhaps most importantly, the Dwarfs can often no longer afford to send huge throngs marching to aid the other holds. They are stretched thin in terms of Dwarfpower as is.
 
I think that throngs in the low thousands are likely and also fairly easily transported by ship, but as far as I can tell it's K8P, Barrak Var, zuftbar, and the slayer keep that have close access to the canals. The other five? Six? Major holds are not connected, as far as I know.

Honestly I would really like to see dwarves go all in on Thunderers and artillery and gyrocopters- let the humans do the dying in the spear walls. Which is quite likely, I think, as long as the dwarves aren't fighting defensive battles inside their Karaks.
 
Glau said:
I think that throngs in the low thousands are likely and also fairly easily transported by ship, but as far as I can tell it's K8P, Barrak Var, zuftbar, and the slayer keep that have close access to the canals. The other five? Six? Major holds are not connected, as far as I know.

Honestly I would really like to see dwarves go all in on Thunderers and artillery and gyrocopters- let the humans do the dying in the spear walls. Which is quite likely, I think, as long as the dwarves aren't fighting defensive battles inside their Karaks.
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Hirn, Izor, Varr, Zhufbar, Kadrin, the Everpeak and Norn are all within a short march of the river/canal system according to the thread-canonical map (K8P is actually pretty far from the water interestingly).

60,000 Dwarfs marched to reclaim Eight Peaks, and I think Boney said that a population of around the same number was the 'expected' number to defend a Karak, so the Dwarfs can absolutely muster armies in the high tens or low hundreds of thousands (although I agree that's unlikely to happen).

There are Dwarfen Holds who still refuse to use Thunderers or have few of them. Stalling the dwarfen population loss by sepdnign human lives is a nice thought, but one that seems unpalatable to the Dwarfs themselves. Not to mention that the only human troops they can guarantee to have would be mercenaries, who may very well abandon the Dwarfs, which could prove devastating.
 
Glau said:
I think that throngs in the low thousands are likely and also fairly easily transported by ship, but as far as I can tell it's K8P, Barrak Var, zuftbar, and the slayer keep that have close access to the canals. The other five? Six? Major holds are not connected, as far as I know.
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Looking at the canal map in the important info threadmark, Karak Izor and Hirn have river+sea access to Barrak Var, and Hirn as well as Karak Norn have river access to each other and Nuln via the River Sol, which in turn connects to the River Aver and Black Water, whilst Karaz-a-Karak also connects to Barrak Var and Black Water via the Skull River.

Vlag might also be able to connect if canals are built between Kislev city and Praag, but they'll still have to travel overland through High Pass to reach Praag first, Azul is landlocked and can only reach the outside world via K8P, and Dum are cut off from the Karaz Ankor forever.

So really, apart from Vlag, Azul and Dum, all the major holds will be able to access each other via water. That's 8 out of 11 holds, and two of those have mostly secure land routes anyway.

The fallen holds of Varn and Ungor could also be connected to the canals via rivers, but since there are not enough dwarves to repopulate them, that's a bit of a dead end.
 
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I would hesitate to assume rivers coming out of mountains are navigable their entire length, so the rivers Sol and Skull are the ones I'd doubt. Or, rather, it seems like a question of how big the boats could be- canoes and kayaks, or barges?
 
Codex said:
As for Karl Franz, there's way too much to cover I'm sure and I'm not a lore buff, but there's a bunch of threats that may or may not pop up. The most notable of which is the Everchosen Archaon. Whether he'll be the Everchosen or not, and when he'll pop up is unknown, but Boney has confirmed the possibility of an Everchosen popping up at some point if we live long enough, which is definitely the biggest threat we'd have to face. Aside from that there's a number of miscellaneous threats that may or may not pop up, but for the moment the Empire isn't exactly at war. Well, not a full war but we're at a sort of cold war with Marienburg and high tensions between Ar-Ulric/Grand Theogonist and Nordland/Middenland.
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On the subject of Archaon, his fall to chaos happened shortly after the Great War, so it should be butterfly-proof. Whether or not he succeeds in becoming Everchosen is a different subject, but ultimately i think it is likely that if an Everchosen shows up it would be Archaon
 
Glau said:
I would hesitate to assume rivers coming out of mountains are navigable their entire length, so the rivers Sol and Skull are the ones I'd doubt. Or, rather, it seems like a question of how big the boats could be- canoes and kayaks, or barges?
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I wouldn't actually be surprised if these particular rivers are. It's the sort of thing golden age dwarfs would do, and if they did it, it would stay done.
 
Glau said:
I would hesitate to assume rivers coming out of mountains are navigable their entire length, so the rivers Sol and Skull are the ones I'd doubt. Or, rather, it seems like a question of how big the boats could be- canoes and kayaks, or barges?
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The threadmarked map has those rivers highlighted in blue, so I assume they are navigable enough for regular trade. The big dreadnoughts Var is famous for might struggle, but a fleet of smaller merchant ships would probably do okay.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The threadmarked map has those rivers highlighted in blue, so I assume they are navigable enough for regular trade. The big dreadnoughts Var is famous for might struggle, but a fleet of smaller merchant ships would probably do okay.
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The Dreadnoughts are ocean vessels, they aren't designed for rivers. Varr uses the monitors for that, and they might be able to make the whole trip.
 
BoneyM said:
After a very comfortable night in the royal guest rooms, your journey continues but in much greater stature. King Byrrnoth has been invited to the celebration at Eight Peaks, and has decided he will accompany his honoured guests on their voyage. You're quite sure he'd sail a dreadnought up the Blood River if he thought he could get away with it, but there exists a single extraordinarily svelte ironclad for this exact scenario, and the Bokkul becomes your home for the next leg of this journey.
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Glau said:
Oh! And I should remind the thread- I was going back through and doing some rereading, and was at the point where it was decided to turn the battle wizards lose on sylvania- there are a few other threats that we've not been involved in. Ostland is said to be suffering from heavy raids, and drachenfels is said to be stirring. We might get called in, depending on if an 'all hand on deck' call gets issue.

For those with metaknowledge: we've butterflied away Karl-Franz and Gotrek. What are the major threats that they dealt with that might be coming up?
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Be careful for what you wish for The 'mists of Albion' event is not that far in the future now.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Don't we still have about 30 years before they canonically reappear? 2518, if I remember correctly.
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Codex said:
Shadow over Albion is still 30 years away or something like that from Boney's statement. That is a hefty amount of time, if it even happens that is.
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its 30 years until the truthsayers and Dark Emissaries started openly acting in the old world.

but I very much doubt they got the leaders of every faction, from dwarfs to high elves, to agree to hear out, let alone take council, from them within a year. (that's the type of thing that takes years of DIP work.)

I fully expect that they will begin moving a fair bit earlier in the shadows before then.
 
BurnNote said:
When Mathilde "I like Magical Megaprojects" hears of the Magical Mists hiding Albion, there won't be a force in the world that'll stop her from pushing her nose into the mess.
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and that as long as she can keep her good name/favours/boons/great deeds up, she's the type of person that can draw enough fighters to the island that the Truthsayers will probably... not bend over backwards for, that's an Elector count, but she could get quite a bit out of them.
 
Codex said:
Shadow over Albion is still 30 years away or something like that from Boney's statement. That is a hefty amount of time, if it even happens that is.
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Unless of course, it happens early :V

But no, BoneyM has several times remarked that he doesn't literally simulate every goddamn faction in the world like some other people, so i find it unlikely because Albion is pretty out there tbh.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
When whoever is in charge of the collages at the time hears about it, Mathlide is probably on their shortlist of people to send.
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She already is, that's what the fancy grey robe means. And among all the fancy robes, you clearly want a Lord Magister of Sneakiness and talking to people. And among those, who better than the one that specialises in mists, talking to very alien cultures, waystones, magical megaprojects, and expeditions to places no sane person would go?
Jyn Ryvia said:
and that as long as she can keep her good name/favours/boons/great deeds up, she's the type of person that can draw enough fighters to the island that the Truthsayers will probably... not bend over backwards for, that's an Elector count, but she could get quite a bit out of them.
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I don't think her first instinct would be "let's take an army there". Don't think it would be necessary either, she's actually pretty decent at diplomacy, especially in first contact type situations.
 
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