Time of Salvation.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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Time of Salvation.
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@Boney I wanted to figure this out without asking you, but I've been having a horrible time doing so, so I thought it would probably be best to just ask:
What the heck is up with Nuln?
When I first read Divided Loyalties I was fully under the impression that Nuln was the Capital city of Wissenland and was where the Elector Count's estate was, and this seemed to be supported by Konstantin always being there and preventing the Reikland army from entering it. But then I go to the wiki, and it says that Wissenburg is the capital of Wissenland and Nuln is a "Chartered Free Town" making it technically fall under the authority of the Emperor. Nuln definitely gives me the feeling that it has a unique national identity, being built on the borders of three provinces and built first by Tilean immigrants on the ruins of a Hill Dwarf+Elf Ruin, but everything I've read from DL leads me to the conclusion that it's considered part of Wissenland, and I'd find it weird why the Elector Count has so much control over a place that technically belongs to the Emperor.
The conclusion I've come to is that the wiki is wrong and in DL Nuln is Wissenland's capital, but I want to confirm it with you first.
What the heck is up with Nuln?
When I first read Divided Loyalties I was fully under the impression that Nuln was the Capital city of Wissenland and was where the Elector Count's estate was, and this seemed to be supported by Konstantin always being there and preventing the Reikland army from entering it. But then I go to the wiki, and it says that Wissenburg is the capital of Wissenland and Nuln is a "Chartered Free Town" making it technically fall under the authority of the Emperor. Nuln definitely gives me the feeling that it has a unique national identity, being built on the borders of three provinces and built first by Tilean immigrants on the ruins of a Hill Dwarf+Elf Ruin, but everything I've read from DL leads me to the conclusion that it's considered part of Wissenland, and I'd find it weird why the Elector Count has so much control over a place that technically belongs to the Emperor.
The conclusion I've come to is that the wiki is wrong and in DL Nuln is Wissenland's capital, but I want to confirm it with you first.
Mopman43
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4th edition RP shook up the political make-up of the Empire, that might be it.
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Ok, I don't know how I missed this, but Max "tinkered" with his crossbow. What kind of Tinkering was it? Did he pick up enchantment? Is he branching off into engineering? I really want to know what he did to his crossbow.
Oh yeah, this also makes what I said a short while ago wrong. He really did make his crossbow into a staff. Don't know how, but you did it Max.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
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To the best of my knowledge "chartered town" and "belongs to the Emperor" are not the same thing. A Chartered Town is one that oraganizes itself according to a charter, rather than common law. Also, Konstantin could simply be the Count of Nuln (or whatever the title is) same as Boris Todbringer is canonically the Elector Count of Middenland and the Graf of Middenheim.
Nuln has been an independent city state since at least 2e.
Article: At the southernmost end of the Empire is the Electoral Province of Wissenland, considered an upstart for absorbing ancient Solland after the Orc invasion of the 1700s and for its claims to rule Nuln
I think part of the issue is that the Elector Count of Wissenland is also the Count of Nuln, so they are separate territories ruled by the same person.
So Wissenburg is Wissenlands capital, but the Elector Count rules from his home county in Nuln.
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Quite a few people replied that max made a staff through other techniques, without staff turning.
He got to where he needed to by skipping a couple of steps... Like a human wizard typically does.
By being a cheating cheater who intuits a way through even though conventional (teclisian) wisdom says its impossible
Sir_Travelsalot
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The basic premise is this; DL is set several decades before the 'current' point in the timeline of Warhammer Fantasy, which for the 2nd Edition of the RPG (which is where the bulk of the pre-made lore that DL uses is from) is just after the Storm of Chaos, in IC 2522. At that point in the timeline, the ruler of Wissenland is Elector Countess Emmanuelle von Liebwitz, who is rather... focused in her attentions on Nuln (or, more uncharitably, disinterested in the rest of Wissenland) and was seeking to make Nuln separate from the rest of the province and thus become the Elector Countess of Nuln, rather than Wissenland. I would guess 4e went with the notion that she was successful in that venture, and thus a different city became the provincial capital of Wissenland.
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Ok, I'm confused. I really don't know what a Chartered Free Town is but I was fully under the impression that it meant it was technically the Emperor's property since the whole fuss with Flensburg involved Flensburg paying half their taxes to the Emperor directly and half to the Elector Count, so what I want to know is what a "charter" even means. Clearly Elector Counts hate it since Averland raises a fuss whenever a town wants to get a Charter, and the Emperor has the right to grant it I think.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
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A Charter is literally just a document saying how you organize the town, who you owe your taxes to etc. It's bad for Elector Counts because a) it grants rights and privileges which ECs can't screw with (ie it could have the ability to trade wine tax free or something) and b) that organization doesn't have to be in the ECs favour. You could have a Charter that says you pay your taxes to the Emperor, you get two days a week off work and the Mayor is solely elected by geese on every tenth Thursday or something. It inherently restricts the rights Elector Counts normally have to come and do whatever they want in a given town.
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A charter is a set of rules that govern the town that are, in some way, different from the rules that govern the rest of the region.
That can mean that they are governed only by The Empire and not by their Elector Count, but it doesn't have to - unless The Empire has laws to the contrary an Elector Count could grant a town a charter, freeing it from its local lord while still requiring it to pay some taxes to the Elector Count.
The local noble(s) over whose head the charter flies is(/are) always going to be upset, because it's removing one of their most profitable bits of land from their control.
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Other posters have addressed "what is a charter". Flensburg paid taxes to the emperor because their town was an "Imperial Charter", i.e. their charter came from the Emperor instead of a local ruler.
Think of it something like a business Org Chart. You can have "Assistants" or "Deputies" at various levels, but some report to a department head, others report directly to the CEO. (some report further down the chain - I don' think there would be anything stopping a local ruler from chartering a town in his domain - they'd still owe loyalty to him, but woudn't answer to his subordinates that might be in charge of the rest of the region).
It wasn't uncommon for a local Lord to give a town an exemption for, say, tanners to pay less tax if their guild gave them a loan, that would be the lower end of a charter
charting is almost code for 'someone needed a lot of money right now'
I think the Grey Order-ish thing is actually something else. Allowing nepotism for leverage is not exactly restricted to them.
But there is a subtle difference in how Mathilde sees it: It's not that she allows worse candidates for leverage. She assumes that someone will skew things, and she can get something out of it if that someone knows she knows (plus she's got a connection to Adela herself). (She also makes sure there's a baseline of quality.)
There's actually two different interesting bits to this. First, it reflects the Grey methodolgy: They don't have enough manpower, so allowing some grift is unavoidable. But they also really don't want to let others know this, because the reputation for being all knowing is very important. So here the Grey Wizard both reinforces that reputation, while getting a small amount of leverage, and all for a very low work investment. This is how such a small group can actually work as a secret police of a country the scale of the empire. (Getting that bit of leverage is actually quite important, because it accumulates, and you need something to work with when someone does cross a line, and night murder is a dangerous habit.)
Second, I think it also displays the mentality. Letting grift go for an advantage is a little treasonous. Using inevitable grift to gain an advantage is not. The distinction is kind of thin (and I imagine one of the Lights would flat out reject it), but it feels like the sort of thing Greys thrive on, and the sort of subtle distinction that matter quite a lot to yourself when doing questionable things so you don't drift into the unacceptable (Mathilde less so, but especially undercover agents). It's also a lot like her thoughts on what the Articles say about dhar.
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With Boney's statements on Deathfang's age and power, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that he's a Star or Emperor Dragon rather than Great?
Third: Mathy is a little bit corrupt herself, she has the best of intentions and is often the best person for the job anyways. But even ignoring Striland, she has never shy away from setting things up in a way that make her personally more comfortable or help her agdnda, even if it would bend the rules or even right up step over them if pointed questions were asked.
not that Mathy herself always recognises it.
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I missed this before, but "something alien yet familiar that emanates from Dwarves"...
My theory for what that is is that Mathilde is sensing the Divine energy of Valaya's Rites that are placed over them. My reasoning for why she would find it familiar is that she channelled the power of Gazul through her Soul, so her Avatar trait can recognise Gazul's signature. Valaya's rites aren't Gazul, but I theorise that it's familiar enough because both of their energies are sourced from the Glittering Realm that Gazul severed from the Aethyr.
Heat sense is basically visual with extra steps. I mean normal humans cannot sea heat , but that is just because we cannot see the infrared, there are all sorts of animals who can.
Could be infrared. But humans are perfectly capable of feeling heat already, and an extension of that is just as possible, maybe more so, since it's already familiar.
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Heat sense differs from visual in that A) it will get lower precision information (it's a relatively simple intensity-only sense at its baseline) and B) It's not tied to the direction you're looking. (You can feel a fire behind you heating your skin.)
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Fair point, it could even be both in different wizards. To be honest I do not think we can see mage-sense that is not mapped into some sense humans actually have. Heat sense is no such thing so it would just be a specialized expression of another sense.
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Heat sense is very definitely a thing in humans. It's often grouped in with the sense of touch because they're both found primarily in the skin, but it comes from different sensors from your ability to sense textures.
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IIRC Star is what Caledorian Great Dragons are called. So every Star dragon is a Great dragon but not the other way round. And Emperor dragons are a different, even larger size category.
Nuln was Wissenland's capital up until the 1700s. When Solland was destroyed by Waaagh Ironclaw and was absorbed by Wissenland, the other provinces were wary of it growing too powerful and pushed Nuln to be split off from it as a 'Chartered Free Town', which is based on the Holy Roman Empire's 'Free Imperial Cities' or 'Reichsstadt' and basically means that its ruler owes fealty (and usually taxes) directly to the Emperor instead of the Elector Count of the province. Then when Magnus the Pious became Emperor at the start of the 2300s he made Nuln his capital, which meant that it passed to the next Emperor upon his death, at which point Emperor Leopold was also the Elector Count of Stirland and the Count of Nuln. Then during the reign of Dieter IV Nuln was destroyed by Waaagh Grom, so Dieter moved the capital to Altdorf and control of Nuln reverted to the Elector Count of Wissenland. It's been used as the capital of Wissenland ever since, even though legally the capital is Wissenburg, a town fifty miles upriver from Nuln.
So in short, yes, the ruler of Nuln is a legally distinct entity to the ruler of Wissenland. It's just that currently both titles are held by the same person.
He made changes and checked to see if the changes made things better or worse and then either reversed or increased the changes and tried again. He tinkered.
There's been a grand total of one Caledorian dragon to ever visit the Empire, so an accurate vocabulary for them has yet to work its way into Reikspiel. Mathilde is using 'Great Dragon' here to mean 'dragon except more so', instead of intended to be a definitive statement about his relative age and power.
Star Dragons are Star Dragons. Great Dragons are Great Dragons. Trying to directly equate categories just confuses matters and severely pisses off all the dragons involved.