Her being called that is a reference, not a destiny.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
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Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Her being called that is a reference, not a destiny.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh wow, apparently I have to adjust my mental image of Elspeth von Draken and Gretel, because every member of the Amethyst Order is apparently required to shave their heads? It seems unnecessary, but I guess that's the Mystery Cult background again.
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- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
Not just their heads, supposedly they shave every hair off their entire body.
Which seems like an awful lot of effort, basically meaning they'd be spending hours every day on cosmetics, so I'm going to guess that they at the very least wax and more likely use some combination of chemistry and magic to kill all the hair follicles.
Possibly the channeling of Shyish, or the development of Shyish arcane marks, naturally causes hair follicles to die off as they do with some cancer treatments - and doing it ahead of time is a way of exerting a measure of control on the process.
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- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Depending on how fast your hair grows and how obvious it is against your skin you don't necessarily have to shave your entire body every single day. The easiest method is to split it up into sections and rotate through them, it is definitely doable even if it is a pain in the ass.
To be fair to the Gold Order; Breach the Unknown makes it much easier to work out what's an element and what's a compound, or something else.
Realms of Sorcery also mentions that knowledge of 'True Elements' is restricted to the real inner circle of the order, but that it did once leak and was published, but that everyone involved had suspicious 'accidents' in the following months, strongly hinting that the Gold Order stuffed the genie back in the bottle. I wouldn't be surprised if the Grey's picked up a copy in the interim - or if the dwarves already knew and an engineer wrote it down somewhere accidentally and it reached her library that way.
Realms of Sorcery also mentions that knowledge of 'True Elements' is restricted to the real inner circle of the order, but that it did once leak and was published, but that everyone involved had suspicious 'accidents' in the following months, strongly hinting that the Gold Order stuffed the genie back in the bottle. I wouldn't be surprised if the Grey's picked up a copy in the interim - or if the dwarves already knew and an engineer wrote it down somewhere accidentally and it reached her library that way.
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One does have to wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to obscure the periodic table? It is not engineering knowledge that you could use to imitate some proprietary invention. Is it just a mysticism thing?
Guild Secrets thing.
An accurate Periodic Table lets you predict the properties of unknown but predicted materials. Which lets you actively search for new substances and their applications.
Which then translates to better alchemy because you know what to look for.
- Location
- Russia
This.
Mendeleev, for example, predicted existence and some properties of Gallium, Germanium and Scandium.
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
For some people that'd work, but I can't imagine the Amethyst order looking at a guy and going "Nope, you're too hirstute to join our order" and someone like me would have to shave my entire body at least twice a day to be considered "clean-shaven" - when I've shaved my legs before a night out , they're covered in stubble by the next morning.
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- Location
- Space
The idea that specific actionable knowledge is proprietary and general knowledge should be shared freely to help everyone is cultural, not inherent. They want to keep it to themselves because it's potentially useful, and because even if it wasn't to them it still might be worth it to someone else to trade for it.
Not just new elements, but new combinations of known elements, because you can generally swap out elements in the same group. So if you have Chlorine in some compound, you can instead use Flourine to get a new compound with related but different qualities.
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Now I'm imagining that part of the requirements to go on your journeying is showing that you can remain clean shaven at all times and the amethyst order is full of perpetuals who are as skilled as a magister but can't progress past apprentice because they are too hairy.
- Location
- Utrecht
Gretel's physical growth was stunted by Shysh... I don't think Hair growth is actually a problem
Also crystal geometry and catalytic action.
In the period of the Empire, an accurate Periodic Table could be an economic strategic weapon...and deliberately leaking inaccurate ones an excellent way to waste the time of your rivals, especially if they do not have the magical tools to verify
very much not funny.
Edit: I've known a lot of people that struggled through chemo, including my mother. very poor taste.
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
That wasn't a joke?
Like, I'm being perfectly serious, would that work that way?
If it came off as one, then I am sorry, that wasn't the intention.
Just, I was figuring "okay, if hair doesn't grow because it's fast growing, that's the same reason it falls out in chemo, would that mean they couldn't get cancer?"
Again, sorry that this came off wrong.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
All wizards are resistant to that kind of thing I believe. However I don't think there is a source on that I know of.
- Location
- Somewhere with a Thousand Watchful Eyes
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Alright. I've just finished catching up on this Quest, and this happened to catch what I felt was the best quality of it.
It's a Nobledark story in a Grimdark setting. In the Grimdark setting, even.
Mathilde lives in a hostile world that is only saved from being cruel by being totally indifferent to the individual lives of its inhabitants. But she saved K8P. She saved Karak Vlag, she learnt Queekish, she learnt of Dhar and Daemons and didn't go crazy, she learnt secrets of Waaagh, channeled an Ork god, helped her god in mugging said Ork god, and was an overall positive influence in the Old World. She made friends, got a cute hippy girlfriend and kicked eight kinds of ass.
All because of player choices and some extremely good dice rolls.
I'm excited to read more.
- Location
- California
Of course, upholding the proud tradition of GW consistency, they proceeded to give Amethyst Wizards massive beards in total war.
I think realms of sorcery takes precedence over total war in this quest, but the Amethyst patriarch had eyebrows when we visited him, so it's possible that not all Amethysts in Divided's canon shave everything.
Yeah, I reckon the Amethysts run the full spectrum between religious and secular that the other collages do, and that only the really devout shave everything.
I've also remembered that Gretel's core motivation is the acquisition of wealth, and that she travelled to K8P because some of her order wouldn't appreciate her flaunting that wealth, but at the same time she's a follower of Morr and knows some of the mysteries of his cult (the hand over the face thing, calling the Reaping Scythe spell 'Morr's Scythe' etc). So honestly, it's hard to tell whether she would be bald or otherwise. I know Boney's personal writing style is to go light on physical characteristics, but I feel that would have been mentioned at some point?
I've also remembered that Gretel's core motivation is the acquisition of wealth, and that she travelled to K8P because some of her order wouldn't appreciate her flaunting that wealth, but at the same time she's a follower of Morr and knows some of the mysteries of his cult (the hand over the face thing, calling the Reaping Scythe spell 'Morr's Scythe' etc). So honestly, it's hard to tell whether she would be bald or otherwise. I know Boney's personal writing style is to go light on physical characteristics, but I feel that would have been mentioned at some point?
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
They took that off of a tabletop model.
There's Elspeth's tabletop model as well.
