Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Codex]

Ordinarily I'd say whichever one you want to do most, but for now I think Organizations? That seems like it'd be quite useful going forward.

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I'm doing them all eventually. I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't equally willing to do whatever, so don't worry about that.

 

[Altom]

But far less knowledge to be taught. Wasn't the point of all this to preserve and spread knowledge of runes, not end it?

I don't understand how you can say and belive things that are so wrong. Sooo:

Big one. For runesmithing "becoming increasingly useless and irrelevant to the Karaz Ankor".

Because from where I'm standing, plenty of people, inculding us as Mat, think of Runes as very usefull and relevant. Which is why both us and so many others go to so much trouble to get runes.
So some citations are really needed for how you got to runesmithing being useless and irrelevant.

When the argument of "save a people by culling the weak and the ones that hold us back" genuinely comes up as the right choice, there is no further argument to be had. History says it is a wasteful, monstrous and ineffective arugment.



Or, you know, find a worthy apprentice, like he's been trying to all this time, and pass on his secrets. Then finally be ready to let go, since he knows he trained a successor. Which is how it's supposed to work.


No, what it does is lie about the final words of another dwarf to serve his and ours goals while also killing Runelords. He has reached his judgement. But Thorek is not the Grandmaster of the damn Guild. Kragg is. He doesn't get to decide what the guild should be for all other members.



Actually, it's great crime was demonology and consorting with a Beastman demigod and possibly/probably using dark magic. Do you think other runelords should hire beastmen warheards?

Does that matter if through the conquest of Karaks, and increast dwarven births/numbers there are more dwarves/more talents/better talents/ worthy apprentices appear?

The alternative is we let the High King start his new age, get more dwarves being born. As their numbers rise and the whole Karaz Ankor looks to the future, lead by their High King, the runelords will more look to pass on their teachings. Which means more aggressively trying to find a worthy apprentice instead of churning out runes for the final days of the kingdom.

After all, why look for an apprentice/successor if these are the final days of the dawi?
But if there is to be a new age of rebirth, then suddenly they need to seek out worthy successors.
Remember, the High King was on a Slayer Oath for his whole people, more or less. You think the runelords didn't notice?

And as dwarven women start having larger families(assuming the moral boost takes), more dwarves means more chances for a good, worthy talent to appear.

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The thing is, Kragg has been looking for an apprentice. For most of his life, over a millenium for sure. He didn't find one, which sounds fine at the first glance, he is the best after all, until you realise that he is only the best TODAY. In the past there were plenty of runelords or even possibly runesmiths( as Bok apparently calls Kragg a runesmith) who were flat out better. And those found apprentices perfectly fine. Which leaves us with two options: either something changed in the nature of the dwarves making them less capable of being runesmiths, or Kragg's entire justification doesn't hold water. And we have no evidence of the former.
Many other runelord who seem to follow in Kragg's steps have even less of an excuse on account of not being the best of today.
That policy of too high standarts is what makes runes obsolete for Karaz Ankor as a whole. Not because runes are useless but because they steadily grow less available and less powerful, as the numbers and average skill of runesmiths goes down, forcing the dawi to rely more and more on other means of survival until hypothetically, if the trend continues, they would either abandon runes at all since the knowledge will be so diminished as to be completly replaced by other means bar perhaps relics of old, or they will go extinct when a cricual peice of lore that can't be compensated for with other tools is lost.
Now that is an extreme example for sure, but it follows from what we know about state of runesmithing from the lore and it is the worst case scenario Thorek is striving to prevent.

EDIT: One more thing that deserves to be mentioned: The decline of the runesmithing began during war of Vengeance and the Time of Woes as the runelords died before they were able to fully their knowledge and possibly runesmiths were graduated without receiving the same level of training as a generations long war with the other great superpower of the time and the apocalipsys level cataclism afterwards took their toll and that is understandable.
What is not understandable is that fact that decline continued even into the Silver age. Consider it for a moment. Dwarves had finally caught a break, the pressure is, if not gone, then at least reduced, and yet the runesmitgs failed not only to recover from the loss of skill, they failed to stabilize.

 

[IronFist]

The thing is, Kragg has been looking for an apprentice. For most of his life, over a millenium for sure. He didn't find one, which sounds fine at the first glance, he is the best after all, until you realise that he is only the best TODAY. In the past there were plenty of runelords or even possibly runesmiths( as Bok apparently calls Kragg a runesmith) who were flat out better. And those found apprentices perfectly fine. Which leaves us with two options: either something changed in the nature of the dwarves making them less capable of being runesmiths, or Kragg's entire justification doesn't hold water. And we have no evidence of the former.

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"For every bit of silver in the mine there's far more lead that gets dug up. We can't expect a Gottri Hammerspite or Angkra Twentyloops to pop up every generation to solve all our problems. Better to work the lead and do something with it instead of leaving it to waste."

Kragg needs to listen to Snorri

 

[Zero Gravitas]

What is not understandable is that fact that decline continued even into the Silver age. Consider it for a moment. Dwarves had finally caught a break, the pressure is, if not gone, then at least reduced, and yet the runesmitgs failed not only to recover from the loss of skill, they failed to stabilize.

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It is understandable considering the much longer training time of Runesmiths and the institutional loss of knowledge during the Time of Woes. During Sigmar's time the Runesmiths guild would have been, with few exceptions like Alaric the Mad, filled with Runelords and Runesmiths that have gone through several premature promotions - Runelords and Runesmiths who knew that they weren't as good as their masters and were particularly deficient in utility runes with the higher level stuff (such as Anvils of Doom) either entirely lost or relegated to one or two relics of the bygone age who didn't teach that stuff.

Considering dwarf mentality that's likely to lead to delays in taking and teaching apprentices and would have only taught apprentices stuff they were comfortable with - thus leading to fewer apprentices that were also on average not as good as the previous generation - which also increases the burdens on the more talented Runesmiths since they'd have to spend more time producing relatively basic weapons and armour.

Besides it isn't like the Silver Age was a great resurgence - the Karaz Ankor barely stabilised and whilst some Holds prospered and the Engineers Guild did actually manage to innovate and improve under the pressure but the Dawi never started recovering key Lost Holds.

 

[primemountain]

The thing is, Kragg has been looking for an apprentice. For most of his life, over a millenium for sure. He didn't find one, which sounds fine at the first glance, he is the best after all, until you realise that he is only the best TODAY. In the past there were plenty of runelords or even possibly runesmiths( as Bok apparently calls Kragg a runesmith) who were flat out better. And those found apprentices perfectly fine. Which leaves us with two options: either something changed in the nature of the dwarves making them less capable of being runesmiths, or Kragg's entire justification doesn't hold water. And we have no evidence of the former.
Many other runelord who seem to follow in Kragg's steps have even less of an excuse on account of not being the best of today.
That policy of too high standarts is what makes runes obsolete for Karaz Ankor as a whole. Not because runes are useless but because they steadily grow less available and less powerful, as the numbers and average skill of runesmiths goes down, forcing the dawi to rely more and more on other means of survival until hypothetically, if the trend continues, they would either abandon runes at all since the knowledge will be so diminished as to be completly replaced by other means bar perhaps relics of old, or they will go extinct when a cricual peice of lore that can't be compensated for with other tools is lost.
Now that is an extreme example for sure, but it follows from what we know about state of runesmithing from the lore and it is the worst case scenario Thorek is striving to prevent.

EDIT: One more thing that deserves to be mentioned: The decline of the runesmithing began during war of Vengeance and the Time of Woes as the runelords died before they were able to fully their knowledge and possibly runesmiths were graduated without receiving the same level of training as a generations long war with the other great superpower of the time and the apocalipsys level cataclism afterwards took their toll and that is understandable.
What is not understandable is that fact that decline continued even into the Silver age. Consider it for a moment. Dwarves had finally caught a break, the pressure is, if not gone, then at least reduced, and yet the runesmitgs failed not only to recover from the loss of skill, they failed to stabilize.

Click to shrink...

That's not true at all. They did stabilize during the Silver Age. As far as I know they expanded, particularly with the northern dwarves added. And then the Time of Woes repeated with the Coming of Chaos, and the Everchosen. Read some of the dwarven segments on it. A lot of holds sent a lot of dwarves out to die to push back Chaos. Including Runelords. They died too. That's why it looks like they aren't recovering.

They did, and then all their apprentices and talents went out and died fighting chaos all over again. This is the Thing Thorek and Karak Azul was spared by distance. They didn't have to sacrifice and fight the damn Everchosen and his hordes. They were too far south, and surrounded by Greenskins. They couldn't go even if called.

For the very Runelords Thorek is lambasting, the Great War was this generation. Their clan mates and families went and died in it. He got to stay in his mountain and train apprentices. Real easy to lambast others for not having successors, when he's not the one who had to bury a bunch of apprentices and successors, while watching the Karaz Ankor shrink and die slowly.

This is what I mean by there being a new age starting for the dwarves. If the High King and Belegar pull it off, it will be the start of a New Silver Age. And the Runesmiths will recover right along everyone else among the dwarves. We know they will, because they did last time. Or they would not have had so many to throw as living walls against the coming of Chaos. You think dwarven armies would have marched against demons and sorceeres without runelords to shield them?

Thorek is Tilea. Sitting down south and judging those who had to deal with demons up north. That's probably the core of why he is pissed. Much like he says: Anyone who accepted responsibility for it would feel immense shame. He's blaming the other runelords for not acting, but he's one of those runelords. It's just that his excuse is distance and more active enemies closer to home. This is the exact same excuse presented by the other runelords at the time. Except with Thorek it was orks, not elves.

That's why he's going after this so hard. He's ashamed himself, not for not believing them, but for not helping. Weather he could have doesn't come in to it. So he blames the ones who he thinks should have helped in his stead. That's why it's a Grudge he's ready to tear the Guild over.

He just doesn't see his own hypocrisy in it that the same things that stopped them from helping, also stopped him.

Read the segments again. It wasn't that the runelords didn't believe Dum that chaos was a problem. It was that for Dum chaos was always the main problem, and always had been. They were the hold who cried wolf, talking about the wolf again, when the other holds had real threats much closer to home to worry about, and no evidence chaos was about to come to their neck of the woods.

This is why, I think, Borek was resigned. Because at least in part, he blames his own hold for not being better at talking to the other holds and preaching against Chaos so much, that by the time they were right, people had gone deaf to their warnings because they'd been warning them about the same thing for millennia.

 

[In_lurk_shadow]

[X] [ARM] Amputee
[X] [THOREK] Both

 

[Alliterate]

Besides it isn't like the Silver Age was a great resurgence - the Karaz Ankor barely stabilised and whilst some Holds prospered and the Engineers Guild did actually manage to innovate and improve under the pressure but the Dawi never started recovering key Lost Holds.

Click to shrink...

Until the Mathilde Age of Vengeance!

 

[DragonParadox]

That's not true at all. They did stabilize during the Silver Age. As far as I know they expanded, particularly with the northern dwarves added. And then the Time of Woes repeated with the Coming of Chaos, and the Everchosen. Read some of the dwarven segments on it. A lot of holds sent a lot of dwarves out to die to push back Chaos. Including Runelords. They died too. That's why it looks like they aren't recovering.

They did, and then all their apprentices and talents went out and died fighting chaos all over again. This is the Thing Thorek and Karak Azul was spared by distance. They didn't have to sacrifice and fight the damn Everchosen and his hordes. They were too far south, and surrounded by Greenskins. They couldn't go even if called.

For the very Runelords Thorek is lambasting, the Great War was this generation. Their clan mates and families went and died in it. He got to stay in his mountain and train apprentices. Real easy to lambast others for not having successors, when he's not the one who had to bury a bunch of apprentices and successors, while watching the Karaz Ankor shrink and die slowly.

This is what I mean by there being a new age starting for the dwarves. If the High King and Belegar pull it off, it will be the start of a New Silver Age. And the Runesmiths will recover right along everyone else among the dwarves. We know they will, because they did last time. Or they would not have had so many to throw as living walls against the coming of Chaos. You think dwarven armies would have marched against demons and sorceeres without runelords to shield them?

Thorek is Tilea. Sitting down south and judging those who had to deal with demons up north. That's probably the core of why he is pissed. Much like he says: Anyone who accepted responsibility for it would feel immense shame. He's blaming the other runelords for not acting, but he's one of those runelords. It's just that his excuse is distance and more active enemies closer to home. This is the exact same excuse presented by the other runelords at the time. Except with Thorek it was orks, not elves.

That's why he's going after this so hard. He's ashamed himself, not for not believing them, but for not helping. Weather he could have doesn't come in to it. So he blames the ones who he thinks should have helped in his stead. That's why it's a Grudge he's ready to tear the Guild over.

He just doesn't see his own hypocrisy in it that the same things that stopped them from helping, also stopped him.

Read the segments again. It wasn't that the runelords didn't believe Dum that chaos was a problem. It was that for Dum chaos was always the main problem, and always had been. They were the hold who cried wolf, talking about the wolf again, when the other holds had real threats much closer to home to worry about, and no evidence chaos was about to come to their neck of the woods.

This is why, I think, Borek was resigned. Because at least in part, he blames his own hold for not being better at talking to the other holds and preaching against Chaos so much, that by the time they were right, people had gone deaf to their warnings because they'd been warning them about the same thing for millennia.

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Man you are projecting a lot of malice and ignorance on Thorek and a lot of tragedies on the 'poor misunderstood runelords' who are failing in their duty to pass on their lore. These people do not need your sympathy and to be honest they do not need your support either. They are not misunderstood and they are not sad boys looking for a ray of hope, they are the establishment, they are to a dwarf vastly wealthy, enormously respected and if all those excuses are valid they cam make them before their peers themselves, they do not need Mathilde to manage their feelings like they are toddlers

 

[primemountain]

Extra thought on Kragg:

We had a scene on screen where Kragg shared an ancient secret with a worthy student. Twice. When the belt was forget:

It is as this news spreads and the Expedition regathers that you feel the unmistakable feeling of Ulgu sobbing quietly to itself, and you turn to see Kragg the Grim approaching you. "Hand," he barks, and you hold yours out and he drops what looks like a rope of chainmail into it. He nods the satisfied nod of someone who is finally done with a distasteful task, and turns and leaves without another word to you.

You examine the item, and find it to be a belt made of chainmail links of blackened steel, with a large buckle etched with a simple mountain; extremely common in Dwarven fashion, but you recognize it as the mountain that Castle Drakenhof was once built upon. And on the reverse, etched deep into the steel and filled back in with what could only be pure gromril, are three runes, and you can feel the power radiating off them.

When you look up again, a harried and awed looking dwarf with a pure-white beard that brushes the ground is standing there. "He didn't wish to linger to explain," he says numbly. "But nor did he want his work unappreciated. But though he allowed me to watch the entire way through, I barely understood a fraction of it."

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This is Kragg showing another secrets. Not teaching, but showing. A fraction of Kragg's work is still a major advancement for another runelords.

The second was with the sword. This scene:

Deep in the heart of Karag Lhune, Kragg grimaced at the Rune he had just struck. A shoddy job, it would barely last a century or two before beginning to fade. He resisted the urge to throw it back into the crucible; this was only needed for a single task, and in these dire times such shortcomings had to be accepted. He threw the amulet at the beardling that was sadly necessary for the task at hand, and the youngster stammered thanks that he utterly ignored. Any unprotected Dwarf would risk passing out in the heat the white-hot furnace was giving off, and it still wasn't quite hot enough for the task at hand. Smelting gromril was hard enough; purifying it all the way to glimril was lost, and even getting it to a state that it could hold the most powerful of runes was beyond just about any Dwarf born to this benighted time. Lucky for the Karaz Ankor that Kragg still remained.

As the Grandmaster of the Karak Azul Guild of Blacksmiths shovelled more fuel into the rune-enhanced fire under the protection of the newly-made amulet, Kragg grimaced once more, this time in distaste at the mold. Molding! A proper Dwarf worked with hammer and molten metal, and if it took decades and wore out hammers by the score, then so be it. And the shape, too. Hammers were best, of course, with axes a close second. A pick was a worthy weapon in a pinch, and Kragg would reluctantly concede that spears had a time and a place. But swords?

He steeled himself. The partnership between Dawi and Umgi predated even him, and he was forced to admit that it wasn't entirely a bad decision. And to be a Dwarf meant repaying what is owed. Grudges, of course, were repaid in blood and death, but the other side was that those that helped the Karaz Ankor were repaid in ways commensurate with their act. When Sigmar had saved the High King, he had not only been gifted the ancient treasure Ghal-Maraz, but on top of that the best Runesmith of the age was commissioned to create something entirely new to settle the debt. Similarly, when manlings aided the greatest reconquest in millennia, the burden was on him to repay it. And they did so with swords, so swords it had to be. And with them being cursed with ridiculously brief lifetimes, decades could not be spared to properly form it. Even years would be too long.

Finally, a cry of success came from his accomplice, and Kragg glanced over as the gromril shimmered and steamed as the impurities finally surrendered and evaporated. Kragg put all doubts and grumblings from his mind as the gromril began to pour. He would see to it that all would know that the Karaz Ankor would be as indefatigable in rewarding its friends as it was at punishing its foes.

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In this scene Kragg calls the Grandmaster of the Karak Azul Guild of Blacksmiths a beardling. He also calls him an accomplice. But for all that? He also showed a Grandmaster Blacksmith how to refine gromril. Not to grimril, as Kragg himself doesn't know that, but to the second step.

I think said Grandmaster Blacksmith learned from watching Kragg refine Gromril. So it is not that Kragg does not teach. He has simply yet to find one worth of teaching all he knows.

This is almost certainly Chaos's fault. I'll bet you the Plotter took the time to prune Kragg's future apprentice out of assistance during the Storm of Chaos. If he hasn't been pruning them over the centuries all along. One Kragg troubles Chaos already.

 

[DragonParadox]

Extra thought on Kragg:

We had a scene on screen where Kragg shared an ancient secret with a worthy student. Twice. When the belt was forget:

This is Kragg showing another secrets. Not teaching, but showing. A fraction of Kragg's work is still a major advancement for another runelords.

The second was with the sword. This scene:

In this scene Kragg calls the Grandmaster of the Karak Azul Guild of Blacksmiths a beardling. He also calls him an accomplice. But for all that? He also showed a Grandmaster Blacksmith how to refine gromril. Not to grimril, as Kragg himself doesn't know that, but to the second step.

I think said Grandmaster Blacksmith learned from watching Kragg refine Gromril. So it is not that Kragg does not teach. He has simply yet to find one worth of teaching all he knows.

This is almost certainly Chaos's fault. I'll bet you the Plotter took the time to prune Kragg's future apprentice out of assistance during the Storm of Chaos. If he hasn't been pruning them over the centuries all along. One Kragg troubles Chaos already.

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He will never teach runes, which is qualitatively different from teaching things like refining Gormil, those are the holy secrets of Thungi and Gormil forging is not. The very thing that makes Kragg live that long also makes him fundamentally unable to share his runelore. A more mentally healthy Kragg would have passed on his secrets sometime in the last millennia and then he would have died. This one ain't sharing.

 

[K von Carstein]

This is Kragg showing another secrets. Not teaching, but showing. A fraction of Kragg's work is still a major advancement for another runelords.

Click to shrink...

He did not teach anything. He didn't explain anything and that runesmith didn't understand what he saw. I don't call that teaching.

In this scene Kragg calls the Grandmaster of the Karak Azul Guild of Blacksmiths a beardling. He also calls him an accomplice. But for all that? He also showed a Grandmaster Blacksmith how to refine gromril. Not to grimril, as Kragg himself doesn't know that, but to the second step.

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Sure, he showed him ONE trick to one person, and it isn't even runecraft. Great, give him a medal! But you know what would be even better? Taking apprentices and teaching them everything he knows. And he won't, because he has standards that are impossible to meet.

I think said Grandmaster Blacksmith learned from watching Kragg refine Gromril. So it is not that Kragg does not teach. He has simply yet to find one worth of teaching all he knows.

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He didn't find one in several centuries, and considered it criminal (accomplice) to teach a goddamn Guild Grandmaster how to make gromril. He won't take apprentices, his standards are impossibly high.

 

[DragonParadox]

@primemountain at the end of the day I think arguing against systemic reform on the grounds that it would make the current leadership sad it a flawed logic. This is not about the runelords as people, it is about the institution of the guild and how to make sure as much of its knowledge is preserved as possible for the use of the Karaz Ankor.

Prioritizing the feelings of runelords over the good of the dwarfs is how we got in this mess in the first place. I mean think about how Magnus founded the colleges, he did not give them the obligation to teach more wizards if they felt like it and the candidates were worthy, he charged them with teaching anyone who was willing and able to be taught and then he charged them to use the powers of magic for the good of the Empire.

That is the point of magic, doing good for the society they are part of not making he elder magician feel all warm and fuzzy inside about how worthy their apprentices are.

 

[Altom]

It is understandable considering the much longer training time of Runesmiths and the institutional loss of knowledge during the Time of Woes. During Sigmar's time the Runesmiths guild would have been, with few exceptions like Alaric the Mad, filled with Runelords and Runesmiths that have gone through several premature promotions - Runelords and Runesmiths who knew that they weren't as good as their masters and were particularly deficient in utility runes with the higher level stuff (such as Anvils of Doom) either entirely lost or relegated to one or two relics of the bygone age who didn't teach that stuff.

Considering dwarf mentality that's likely to lead to delays in taking and teaching apprentices and would have only taught apprentices stuff they were comfortable with - thus leading to fewer apprentices that were also on average not as good as the previous generation - which also increases the burdens on the more talented Runesmiths since they'd have to spend more time producing relatively basic weapons and armour.

Besides it isn't like the Silver Age was a great resurgence - the Karaz Ankor barely stabilised and whilst some Holds prospered and the Engineers Guild did actually manage to innovate and improve under the pressure but the Dawi never started recovering key Lost Holds.

Click to shrink...

So, in other words the knowledge of the guild of runesmiths is in decline because the masters believe themselves not worthy because they know less then their predecessors, thus leading to the masters teaching less to apprentices so that new masters believe that they are unworthy because they know less then their mssters etc... What you describe is a feedback loop which will only end when the training of new runesmiths stops. It has to be broken and this is what Thorek is going to try

That's not true at all. They did stabilize during the Silver Age. As far as I know they expanded, particularly with the northern dwarves added. And then the Time of Woes repeated with the Coming of Chaos, and the Everchosen. Read some of the dwarven segments on it. A lot of holds sent a lot of dwarves out to die to push back Chaos. Including Runelords. They died too. That's why it looks like they aren't recovering.

They did, and then all their apprentices and talents went out and died fighting chaos all over again. This is the Thing Thorek and Karak Azul was spared by distance. They didn't have to sacrifice and fight the damn Everchosen and his hordes. They were too far south, and surrounded by Greenskins. They couldn't go even if called.

For the very Runelords Thorek is lambasting, the Great War was this generation. Their clan mates and families went and died in it. He got to stay in his mountain and train apprentices. Real easy to lambast others for not having successors, when he's not the one who had to bury a bunch of apprentices and successors, while watching the Karaz Ankor shrink and die slowly.

This is what I mean by there being a new age starting for the dwarves. If the High King and Belegar pull it off, it will be the start of a New Silver Age. And the Runesmiths will recover right along everyone else among the dwarves. We know they will, because they did last time. Or they would not have had so many to throw as living walls against the coming of Chaos. You think dwarven armies would have marched against demons and sorceeres without runelords to shield them?

Thorek is Tilea. Sitting down south and judging those who had to deal with demons up north. That's probably the core of why he is pissed. Much like he says: Anyone who accepted responsibility for it would feel immense shame. He's blaming the other runelords for not acting, but he's one of those runelords. It's just that his excuse is distance and more active enemies closer to home. This is the exact same excuse presented by the other runelords at the time. Except with Thorek it was orks, not elves.

That's why he's going after this so hard. He's ashamed himself, not for not believing them, but for not helping. Weather he could have doesn't come in to it. So he blames the ones who he thinks should have helped in his stead. That's why it's a Grudge he's ready to tear the Guild over.

He just doesn't see his own hypocrisy in it that the same things that stopped them from helping, also stopped him.

Read the segments again. It wasn't that the runelords didn't believe Dum that chaos was a problem. It was that for Dum chaos was always the main problem, and always had been. They were the hold who cried wolf, talking about the wolf again, when the other holds had real threats much closer to home to worry about, and no evidence chaos was about to come to their neck of the woods.

This is why, I think, Borek was resigned. Because at least in part, he blames his own hold for not being better at talking to the other holds and preaching against Chaos so much, that by the time they were right, people had gone deaf to their warnings because they'd been warning them about the same thing for millennia.

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The Old Silver age started 2000+ years ago and ended with the great war aganst chaos less then 200 years ago. Kragg was trained over a millenium before Great war. There were multiple generation between beginning of the Silver age and Great war. Yet, rune knowledge declined even as early as between the death of Alaric the Mad and the time Kragg was trained,otherwise Kragg should have had the knowledge needed to replicate the Runefangs. Sure, Great war exacerbated the issue, sped up the decline, but it could not be the cause of it.

 

[primemountain]

Man you are projecting a lot of malice and ignorance on Thorek and a lot of tragedies on the 'poor misunderstood runelords' who are failing in their duty to pass on their lore. These people do not need your sympathy and to be honest they do not need your support either. They are not misunderstood and they are not sad boys looking for a ray of hope, they are the establishment, they are to a dwarf vastly wealthy, enormously respected and if all those excuses are valid they cam make them before their peers themselves, they do not need Mathilde to manage their feelings like they are toddlers

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Mathilde herself would disagree with you. Here:

"Mmm." He spins the mirror on its corner. "What do you think, did the Expedition succeed?"

You exhale. "The goal was to ascertain the status of Karag Dum. Personally, I have many more questions, but this wasn't my Expedition. It was Borek's, and it's Karak Kadrin's, and it's the Karaz Ankor's. Borek's apparently got his answers, and to the Dwarven perspective, we've uncovered enough information that they can write it off with a clean conscience. So, yes. We cauterized that wound in the Dwarven psyche. That's a success even before you factor anything else in."

"That's an odd choice of words. Are you worried about the Dwarven psyche?"

"It's twenty-five centuries since their dark age, and their population is still going down. Why do you think that is?"

He frowns. "Well, they're always fighting one war or another."

"So are we. So are Kislev and Bretonnia and everyone else. That's just the world we live in. They haven't changed biologically since their Golden Age, and yet their oldest and richest Holds are shrivelling, even during times of peace, even though those Holds were built and populated when Daemons walked the world freely. So yes, I think it's the Dwarven psyche. I think that the average Dwarf woman does her duty in bringing four children into the world, and then chooses not to inflict it on a fifth."

"Four? But-"

You wave a hand. "Three quarters of Dwarven births are male."

"Ah. I suppose that explains why I mostly ever see ones with beards." He spins the mirror as he considers your words. "Is that why you do what you do? Hoping to single-handedly heal the Dwarven soul?"

You shrug. "If it happens I'll take it, but I joined Belegar because Abelhelm died and I didn't know what else to do with myself, and I found Vlag because I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with the right talents. I can't grab the entire Dwarven race by the beards and shake them until they stop looking backward and start looking forward. But I like them, so I'll do what I can to make the world a better place for them."

"There's a line for their history books. 'The Mathilde Age: She liked us, so she made the world a better place for us'." You roll your eyes at his teasing, but can't help smiling. "Why do you like them? Dwarves aren't exactly fans of magic."

"They don't like magic because they know magic is often dangerous and unreliable, and they physically react badly to it. I can respect that. That's probably what it comes down to: what I disagree with them about, I can usually still understand and respect. Not like how it is in the Empire, where every other person is a twit with a fistful of virulently-held beliefs they've never given any thought to."

He smiles. "I thought the Greys were supposed to cleave closely to the Articles."

"Even we didn't lay down our staffs and let ourselves be burned after Alric let the Night happen. Being a bigoted fool is not part of the 'ideals and laws of Sigmar's Holy Empire', even if it seems like that sometimes."

"Hear, hear," he says, his smile widening.

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That cauterized wound? That's the wound Thorek is picking at. He wants to tear it open thinking he will do a better job fixing it after he tears it open. I'm arguing it shouldn't be torn open, but allowed to heal.

He will never teach runes, which is qualitatively different from teaching things like refining Gormil, those are the holy secrets of Thungi and Gormil forging is not. The very thing that makes Kragg live that long also makes him fundamentally unable to share his runelore. A more mentally healthy Kragg would have passed on his secrets sometime in the last millennia and then he would have died. This one ain't sharing.

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Now you are just moving the goal posts. You can't have it both ways. Either Kragg is trying to find a successor and is trying to teach the worthy, or he isn't. If he is teaching, as I've proven with qoutes he is, then when he finds a worthy successor, he'll teach them.

You can't argue that "he is fundamentaly unable to share runelore" while also saying "his wish to share runelore is the only reason he is still kicking around". That's non-sense. Find me a qoute that proves that if presented with a worthy successor, Kragg won't teach them, or concede that point.

And no, citing stuff that shows he hasn't found one yet, even over a thousand years, is not proof he can't. Just that he didn't.

If you want to prove a point, you have to actually prove it, not imply it is proven.
It's like siting at the bottom of a volcano and claiming that because we haven't seen it erupt in the last X years, it cannot erupt ever again.

Runelords operate on a different timescale than humans, and the greatest of them on another one to even regular runelords. Kragg is in essense Thungni's heir, and he has spent a milinium searching for a dwarf worthy of being his.

He did not teach anything. He didn't explain anything and that runesmith didn't understand what he saw. I don't call that teaching.


Sure, he showed him ONE trick to one person, and it isn't even runecraft. Great, give him a medal! But you know what would be even better? Taking apprentices and teaching them everything he knows. And he won't, because he has standards that are impossible to meet.


He didn't find one in several centuries, and considered it criminal (accomplice) to teach a goddamn Guild Grandmaster how to make gromril. He won't take apprentices, his standards are impossibly high.

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Look, let's simplify this: Prove it. Prove that his standards are "impossibly" high. Not improbably, impossibly high. Because I don't see it. Kragg himself had to pass those standards once upon a time to get where he is.

So unless you have some proof for why a dwarf as exceptional as Kragg can never be born again, I just don't see it.

So, in other words the knowledge of the guild of runesmiths is in decline because the masters believe themselves not worthy because they know less then their predecessors, thus leading to the masters teaching less to apprentices so that new masters believe that they are unworthy because they know less then their mssters etc... What you describe is a feedback loop which will only end when the training of new runesmiths stops. It has to be broken and this is what Thorek is going to try

The Old Silver age started 2000+ years ago and ended with the great war aganst chaos less then 200 years ago. Kragg was trained over a millenium before Great war. There were multiple generation between beginning of the Silver age and Great war. Yet, rune knowledge declined even as early as between the death of Alaric the Mad and the time Kragg was trained,otherwise Kragg should have had the knowledge needed to replicate the Runefangs. Sure, Great war exacerbated the issue, sped up the decline, but it could not be the cause of it.

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No. The knowledge of the runesmiths is in decline because finding worthy apprentices is hard, and the runelords and apprentices keep dying fighting a world filled with Skaven, Wood Elves, Orcs, and Chaos. The Runesmiths aren't special, they are in the same decline as everyone else as overall population numbers drop.

As for the runefangs, Alarick the Mad invented his Master Rune and took a century to do it, so if he did not take apprentices, of course no one could know it. But compare Mat's Greatsword to a Runefang. Kragg might not know how to make a Runefang, but what he made is very much in the same heavy weight category.

Moonlight Wit is Three Runes, one of which is a Master Rune. That's Runefang level. It hits hard enough to ignore any kind of armor, and nearly any kind of toughness, while also striping the enemy of their enchantments. While teleporting.

If the fight against the Chaos Champion had been against any other then Khorn, that first hit would have stripped them of their magic gear. Just Mat's luck to run into the only chaos Champion that carried anti-magic gear instead.

So no, I don't agree that the knowledge declined during the Silver age, or Kragg, who was trained during it, Would not be able to a make a weapon to match the Creation of a Runelord from it's start. There's your proof.

So unless you'd like to argue that Mat's sword is lesser than a Runeblade?

 

[Valmond]

That cauterized wound? That's the wound Thorek is picking at. He wants to tear it open thinking he will do a better job fixing it after he tears it open. I'm arguing it shouldn't be torn open, but allowed to heal.

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You are assuming the wound is healing, instead of festering and slowly killing the patient.
Which, considering that runelore keeps getting lost, i am not sure is the case.

 

[DragonParadox]

Mathilde herself would disagree with you. Here:


That cauterized wound? That's the wound Thorek is picking at. He wants to tear it open thinking he will do a better job fixing it after he tears it open. I'm arguing it shouldn't be torn open, but allowed to heal.

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Yeah well when a wound heals poorly you have to cut it open again to set right. The runelords are big boys and can deal with it and we cannot have every effort to enact reform tiptoe around their feelings. If they feel they are up to making big political decisions like ostracizing the Dum Runemaster than they should be able to deal with someone pointing out the consequences

Now you are just moving the goal posts. You can't have it both ways. Either Kragg is trying to find a successor and is trying to teach the worthy, or he isn't. If he is teaching, as I've proven with qoutes he is, then when he finds a worthy successor, he'll teach them.

You can't argue that "he is fundamentaly unable to share runelore" while also saying "his wish to share runelore is the only reason he is still kicking around". That's non-sense. Find me a qoute that proves that if presented with a worthy successor, Kragg won't teach them, or concede that point.

And no, citing stuff that shows he hasn't found one yet, even over a thousand years, is not proof he can't. Just that he didn't.

If you want to prove a point, you have to actually prove it, not imply it is proven.
It's like siting at the bottom of a volcano and claiming that because we haven't seen it erupt in the last X years, it cannot erupt ever again.

Runelords operate on a different timescale than humans, and the greatest of them on another one to even regular runelords. Kragg is in essense Thungni's heir, and he has spent a milinium searching for a dwarf worthy of being his.

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No, i am not moving the goal posts, you brought up a bunch of stuff that is wholly irrelevant to the matter of him teaching runecraft. Also I find it deeply silly to think of Kragg as Thungi's heir, Bok does not even recognize him as a runelond, that is how far he has fallen from the abilities of his forefathers who have all found apprentices I will note, and I kind of doubt it took all of them a thousand years to do so.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

That cauterized wound? That's the wound Thorek is picking at. He wants to tear it open thinking he will do a better job fixing it after he tears it open. I'm arguing it shouldn't be torn open, but allowed to heal.

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It won't "heal" for the runesmiths. You keep saying this, but it's just not true - they aren't the way that they are because they're sad, but because their traditions have warped and calcified in a way that won't change naturally.

Now you are just moving the goal posts. You can't have it both ways. Either Kragg is trying to find a successor and is trying to teach the worthy, or he isn't. If he is teaching, as I've proven with qoutes he is, then when he finds a worthy successor, he'll teach them.

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Kragg is not actively searching for an apprentice, no. He doesn't think a worthy enough dwarf exists. Your quotes are also absolutely not evidence of teaching, given that no real teaching of runesmithing is happening in them, even if we take your baseless claim that the grandmaster smith didn't know how to make gromril beforehand.

Look, let's simplify this: Prove it. Prove that his standards are "impossibly" high. Not improbably, impossibly high. Because I don't see it. Kragg himself had to pass those standards once upon a time to get where he is.

So unless you have some proof for why a dwarf as exceptional as Kragg can never be born again, I just don't see it.

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There is a Boney WOG on this exact subject. Kragg is holding the would-be apprentices to standards that he probably wouldn't have met when he was a beardling.

So unless you'd like to argue that Mat's sword is lesser than a Runeblade?

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...Yes, Mathilde's blade is lesser than a Runefang. That's, uh, not really in question.

 

[K von Carstein]

Look, let's simplify this: Prove it. Prove that his standards are "impossibly" high. Not improbably, impossibly high. Because I don't see it. Kragg himself had to pass those standards once upon a time to get where he is.

So unless you have some proof for why a dwarf as exceptional as Kragg can never be born again, I just don't see it.

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From the wiki: Kragg the Grim

« Kragg is the oldest and by far the most powerful living Runesmith - a gnarled old Dwarf, strong and enduring as a weather-beaten oak. Despite being more than 1,000 years old, his expression is one of eternal disapproval, his beetling brow and granite-like face a withering condemnation of younger, more frivolous Dwarfs. Kragg rarely emerges from the Underhalls of Karaz-a-Karak, preferring instead to labour secretly on his lore, which he jealously guards. Perhaps one day he will find a worthy successor, but so far no one has proven themselves, much to the chagrin of many an aspiring Runesmith. »

In more than 1000 years, he never took even one apprentice. Never. Once. Do you think that no potential runesmiths with the potential of being as good as Kragg was born during that time in the whole of the Karaz Ankor? We can't have absolute proof that his standards are impossibly high, but all the evidence we have points towards that conclusion.

And because two can play that game, prove me that no Dwarf potentially as good as Kragg was born during that time.

Finally, even if by miracle Kragg finds someone he's willing to teach, that will still be one new runesmith in more than a millennia. Hoorah! I'm sure it will be enough to make sure his knowledge will continue forever!

 

[Altom]

Mathilde herself would disagree with you. Here:


That cauterized wound? That's the wound Thorek is picking at. He wants to tear it open thinking he will do a better job fixing it after he tears it open. I'm arguing it shouldn't be torn open, but allowed to heal.



Now you are just moving the goal posts. You can't have it both ways. Either Kragg is trying to find a successor and is trying to teach the worthy, or he isn't. If he is teaching, as I've proven with qoutes he is, then when he finds a worthy successor, he'll teach them.

You can't argue that "he is fundamentaly unable to share runelore" while also saying "his wish to share runelore is the only reason he is still kicking around". That's non-sense. Find me a qoute that proves that if presented with a worthy successor, Kragg won't teach them, or concede that point.

And no, citing stuff that shows he hasn't found one yet, even over a thousand years, is not proof he can't. Just that he didn't.

If you want to prove a point, you have to actually prove it, not imply it is proven.
It's like siting at the bottom of a volcano and claiming that because we haven't seen it erupt in the last X years, it cannot erupt ever again.

Runelords operate on a different timescale than humans, and the greatest of them on another one to even regular runelords. Kragg is in essense Thungni's heir, and he has spent a milinium searching for a dwarf worthy of being his.


Look, let's simplify this: Prove it. Prove that his standards are "impossibly" high. Not improbably, impossibly high. Because I don't see it. Kragg himself had to pass those standards once upon a time to get where he is.

So unless you have some proof for why a dwarf as exceptional as Kragg can never be born again, I just don't see it.



No. The knowledge of the runesmiths is in decline because finding worthy apprentices is hard, and the runelords and apprentices keep dying fighting a world filled with Skaven, Wood Elves, Orcs, and Chaos. The Runesmiths aren't special, they are in the same decline as everyone else as overall population numbers drop.

As for the runefangs, Alarick the Mad invented his Master Rune and took a century to do it, so if he did not take apprentices, of course no one could know it. But compare Mat's Greatsword to a Runefang. Kragg might not know how to make a Runefang, but what he made is very much in the same heavy weight category.

Moonlight Wit is Three Runes, one of which is a Master Rune. That's Runefang level. It hits hard enough to ignore any kind of armor, and nearly any kind of toughness, while also striping the enemy of their enchantments. While teleporting.

If the fight against the Chaos Champion had been against any other then Khorn, that first hit would have stripped them of their magic gear. Just Mat's luck to run into the only chaos Champion that carried anti-magic gear instead.

So no, I don't agree that the knowledge declined during the Silver age, or Kragg, who was trained during it, Would not be able to a make a weapon to match the Creation of a Runelord from it's start. There's your proof.

So unless you'd like to argue that Mat's sword is lesser than a Runeblade?

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Again, other runelords before Kragg, greater runelords then Kragg looked for apprentices and found them. Case in point, Alaric the Mad has spread the knowledge of his rune wide enough for it to available even today. Why he could do it, but Kragg cant? However, there is more to Runefangs then that rune, like the ability to put other master rune tier runes with it and that knowledge is lost. As for moonlit wit vs runefang? Yes, it is inferior as far as cutting capacity goes. It has nice extra features, but it cannot cut things runefangs can.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

No, i am not moving the goal posts, you brought up a bunch of stuff that is wholly irrelevant to the matter of him teaching runecraft. Also I find it deeply silly to think of Kragg as Thungi's heir, Bok does not even recognize him as a runelond, that is how far he has fallen from the abilities of his forefathers who have all found apprentices I will note, and I kind of doubt it took all of them a thousand years to do so.

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In all fairness Bok might have a list of Runelords and Kragg isn't on it or there might be a Runelord password that got lost through the ages. I don't think the worst Runelord before the Age of Woes was better than Kragg.

 

[DragonParadox]

In all fairness Bok might have a list of Runelords and Kragg isn't on it or there might be a Runelord password that got lost through the ages. I don't think the worst Runelord before the Age of Woes was better than Kragg.

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Fair enough on the list, though I do think there is a good chance that every runelord from before the Age of Woe was better than him.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Considering Bok has five runes stamped on its soul, I suspect the creator might have unrealistic expectations of what a runelord should be able to achieve.

Kragg can only make physical items with a max of 3 runes, and he believed that was the height of runesmithing and everything else was just knowledge of the runes themselves. He's never heard of a five rune artefact before, let alone an intangible runework. I think Bok is not a normal creation for its time period.

 

[Valmond]

There is probably an important distinction to be made on more skilled, and more knowledgeable.
Transport Kragg to couple thousand years before his birth and he would probably be the most talented novice ever seen.
What has been lost is knowledge, not skill.
And possibly a proper experimentation mindset.
Because something is missing from the modern runesmiths guild, and i refuse to believe it is something as simple as skill and talent.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

RE: Branalhune versus Runefang, this would never happen to a Runefang against a mere Champion of Khorne:

You swing Branulhune in an arc in return, and for the very first time since you received it, the blade judders in your hand as the Runically-enhanced force of the swing is arrested by the flesh it has only sunken partially into. You yank it free as the Champion roars in outrage, backpedalling from his next swing.

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Our sword is incredible and arguably better suited to Mathilde given the Rune of the Unknown, but Kragg did not bang out in a couple of years what it took Alaric the Mad a hundred years to complete.

 

[DragonParadox]

RE: Branalhune versus Runefang, this would never happen to a Runefang against a mere Champion of Khorne:

Our sword is incredible and arguably better suited to Mathilde given the Rune of the Unknown, but Kragg did not bang out in a couple of years what it took Alaric the Mad a hundred years to complete.

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Very good point. You can use a Runefang to tickle the Everchosen, assuming you can get close enough and they will by Thungi feel it.