Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting is open
Reader mode
Whassup said:
I'm now thinking of how Skaven learn. Ten thousand Skaven go in, only 1 comes out (because he dropped a poison bomb inside and immediately ran out). Excellent learn-learn.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And then the survivor gets killed by the instructor, because they've proven themselves competent and therefore a threat.
 
I'm in the process of making a general non-collegiate codex, and I think I've bitten off far more than I can chew. I was in the process of recording the characters in DL, then I thought it would be more helpful if I started to record groups and organisations that were mentioned in DL or Boney in the thread. In the process I started to realise that maybe I could start recording geographical locations, cities, polities, provinces and countries and recording brief profiles and information on different aspects so people can check in and get reminded of something if they forget about it because characters aren't the only things people can forget about. So then I started recording Knightly Orders, sects and organisations and I realised that I was vastly underestimating the Warhammer setting.

Just to mention the ones in quest or Boney mentioned: Knights of the Vengeful Sun, Knights of Taal's Fury, White Wolves, Winter Wolves, Black Guard, Raven Knights, Order of the Sacred Scythe, Magisters Vigilant, Holy Order of the Templars of Sigmar, Helhunten's Redeemers, Fellowship of the Shroud, Order of the Shroud, Dreamwalkers, Priory of the Spear, Andanti, Knights Mariner, Stormguard, Templewijk, Star Chamber, Knights of the Everlasting Light, Order of the Stone Wall, Order of the Guardians, Order of Grungni's Pick. I'm sure I missed some at the moment because this is off the top of my head not from my notes.

Then I started recording ones that likely exist in DL but weren't mentioned or were done so offhand. Knights Encarmine, Knights of the Broken Sword, Knights of the Golden Lion, Knights Panther, Knights Griffon, Grand Order of the Reiksguard, Order of the Fiery Heart, Teutogen Guard, and the Brotherhood of the Axe. At this point I realised I was getting carried away because when I came across the Teutogen Guard I realised I was listing the Pre Imperial tribes (Teutogen, Unberogen, Taluten, Cherusin, Jutone, Endal, Fennone, Ostagoth, Asoborn, Menogoth, Merogens,Udoses, Thirungians, Brigundians, Hill Dwarves that formed the first Imperial Dwarves, Halflings that joined the tribes in the Reik Basin), and I realised this was a bit too much for one person.

My respect for Boney has gone up several notches as he has to keep a handle on all these things either in notes or off the top of his head by himself, and I find that greatly commendable. Unfortunately I find myself in a situation where I probably need someone's help. If anyone's interested in helping me out, PM me please.
 
That sounds like a wiki at this point. Which isn't actually that outrageous, since DL is pretty long these days, and there's a good lot of canon to cover.
 
BurnNote said:
That sounds like a wiki at this point. Which isn't actually that outrageous, since DL is pretty long these days, and there's a good lot of canon to cover.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Some stuff like the Order of the Shroud and the Guild of Embalmers (shame on you for forgetting them Codex :V:V:V) are literally only mentioned in a off hand way once or twice, I think both those examples came up when Roswita was mentioning the previous Witch Hunter academic conference.
 
Dark as Silver said:
Some stuff like the Order of the Shroud and the Guild of Embalmers (shame on you for forgetting them Codex :V:V:V) are literally only mentioned in a off hand way once or twice, I think both those examples came up when Roswita was mentioning the previous Witch Hunter academic conference.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I remembered the Guild of Embalmers but I didn't think they were significant enough for a mention because all they do is embalm and almost get staked by Morrites. Also the Order is mentioned in Mathilde's explanation for how she figured out which group Codrin is a part of because she speculated that he wasn't a Dreamwalker because he wouldn't need a letter if he was, he didn't fight like a knight so he couldn't be from a Knightly Order, and the Order are very devout about the Gardens of Morr so he had to be Fellowship, because the Fellowship have issues with the Order because some of the Fellowship advocate cremation.
 
Codex said:
I remembered the Guild of Embalmers but I didn't think they were significant enough for a mention because all they do is embalm and almost get staked by Morrites. Also the Order is mentioned in Mathilde's explanation for how she figured out which group Codrin is a part of because she speculated that he wasn't a Dreamwalker because he wouldn't need a letter if he was, he didn't fight like a knight so he couldn't be from a Knightly Order, and the Order are very devout about the Gardens of Morr so he had to be Fellowship, because the Fellowship have issues with the Order because some of the Fellowship advocate cremation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
At least they got mentioned in story, unlike the Teutogen Guard.
 
Dark as Silver said:
At least they got mentioned in story, unlike the Teutogen Guard.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Pretty sure Mathilde met the Teutogen Guard but didn't know that was their name. There were a couple White Wolves bodyguarding the Ar-Ulric, and she assumed they were just White Wolves but I don't think she's knowledgable enough about the intricacies of the Cult and their knightly orders to know that the Teutogen Guard are elite White Wolves who bodyguard the Ar-Ulric.
 
Codex said:
Pretty sure Mathilde met the Teutogen Guard but didn't know that was their name. There were a couple White Wolves bodyguarding the Ar-Ulric, and she assumed they were just White Wolves but I don't think she's knowledgable enough about the intricacies of the Cult and their knightly orders to know that the Teutogen Guard are elite White Wolves who bodyguard the Ar-Ulric.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh damn, I am beaten :D Shoulda picked the Knights Panther. lol
 
An excellent side effect of all this is that it led me to understand things that I never bothered to think about. For example, I never bothered to think about what the rivers of the Empire looked like. Rivers are rivers, they carry stuff from one place to another, so I didn't understand why Talabecland was trying to mess with Ostermark's canal project and they almost got grudged for it by Karak Kadrin.

Turns out the only riverine passage from the Empire to Kislev without going through the Sea of Claws is through the River Talabec, which runs across Talabecland and the Northern edge of Ostermark. The River Stir runs alongside the north of Stirland and the south of Ostermark, ending at Karak Kadrin. The canal project Ostermark is doing is connecting the Rivers Stir and Talabec together in their own lands, which means you can go through to Kislev without ever setting foot in Talabecland, hurting Talebcland's trade and letting Ostermark profit. Basic stuff, but it feels nice to finally understand it because I actually tried to track down what the rivers looked like.
 
It can be very hard to overstate how important rivers are to pre-modern societies. When the horse is the cutting edge of overland travel, boats are an enormous game changer. A good sailing ship can travel about twenty times as far per day as a horse-drawn carriage, and a horse can pull fifty times more weight in a boat than it can in a carriage.
 
Plus, there's the fact that the larger the town/city is, the more water it requires- and in the absence of aqueducts or modern plumbing, that pretty much means you need to stick it by a river. It's not a coincidence that so many towns and cities have a river running through or past them, and it makes river trade even more convenient than it already would be.
 
NSMS said:
Plus, there's the fact that the larger the town/city is, the more water it requires- and in the absence of aqueducts or modern plumbing, that pretty much means you need to stick it by a river. It's not a coincidence that so many towns and cities have a river running through or past them, and it makes river trade even more convenient than it already would be.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hell, even with modern plumbing, going much distance away from rivers is expensive to pump.
 
The only major city in the Empire that isn't built on a river or coastline is Middenheim, the holy place of the god of autarky. You could extend that to the entire continent and I think the only new exception would be Trantio in Tilea.
 
BoneyM said:
The only major city in the Empire that isn't built on a river or coastline is Middenheim, the holy place of the god of autarky. You could extend that to the entire continent and I think the only new exception would be Trantio in Tilea.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That particular city is even explicitly called out as an upstart city that used to just be an irrelevant backwater due to being placed in a hilly region that did not benefit from trade, until Marco Colombo (really???) came in and made it a prosperous city with his great fortune.

Although the wiki lists it as only having a population of 3000. Am I just uneducated about pre-modern population numbers and that's enough to count as a major city in WHF? Or is that just another thing we have to ignore about the worldbuilding?
 
Codex said:
Although the wiki lists it as only having a population of 3000. Am I just uneducated about pre-modern population numbers and that's enough to count as a major city in WHF? Or is that just another thing we have to ignore about the worldbuilding?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Canon figures on population are absurdly small. Most of them need to be multiplied by about a hundred to get something that actually works.
 
Last edited:
You know, for a moment I thought that the exchange between Codex and Dark as Silver up there was just one poster engaged in some serious multiposting? Clearly I need to make sure I'm more awake before reading the thread.
 
Codex said:
Although the wiki lists it as only having a population of 3000. Am I just uneducated about pre-modern population numbers and that's enough to count as a major city in WHF? Or is that just another thing we have to ignore about the worldbuilding?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It depends on the time period and region. There was a time where 3000 was a pretty big deal. I think Dunwich had around that and was something like fourth largest city in Britain, as well as possibly a capital. That's around 1000 BC. "Current" warhammer is much closer to renaissance, so you'd expect bigger numbers there. But honestly, it's not that far off, and it would still be enough to count as notable.
 
30k would be a pretty large city i think for the tech level.
And very large for a city that needs its food delivered over land instead of river.
 
BurnNote said:
But honestly, it's not that far off, and it would still be enough to count as notable.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
3,000 in the 14th century (beginning of renaissance) would be the 10th largest in England - on the scale of The Empire that's not notable at all, but it's a place worthy of note on the regional scale.
30k would be the 21st biggest in Europe. Notable on the Imperial scale.
300k would be the single biggest city in Europe. Absolutely massive, notable on the global scale.
 
Using 14th century Europe's population numbers throws things off because that was in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death. During the 1500s the major Italian city-states like Milan and Venice and Florence had metropolitan populations between 50k and 200k, and you can double to quadruple that if you count the rural population associated with them.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Remove ads
Back
Top