Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Pempelune]

I mean there is nothing stopping Mathilde from grasping Shysh, she would go mad from Dhar on the soul, but she could grasp it and use it to manipulate external Dhar. I think that is what the knowledge refers to.

If we wanted to not go mad yeah we would have to cast Ulgu-Dhar.

Click to shrink...

Ah! Well, no necromancy then.
Mathilde with the Lore of Stealth could be super fun, though. It would make her an even better assassin and infiltrator. Add to that the Ulgu-tongue, Dhar glue technique to cast spells from other Winds and Dark Mathilde could be very interesting to play.
Should we ever have another encounter with Clan Eshin, we should definitely try and steal their Grimoires. Clearly what Mathilde needs is yet another temptation to break the Articles in the name of intellectual curiosity

 

[DragonParadox]

Mathilde can touch all the Winds, but touching any of them except for Ulgu makes Dhar.
Mathilde is a law abiding wizard, so she avoids doing things that make Dhar.

But if she stopped caring about that law, she would Grab a handful of Shyish (and make some dhar in her soul, which would not be burned away by the belt), use that Shyish to squash more Winds together (and make more Dhar) and then cast her spells.

It's a bad idea, but by the point Mat is doing Necromancy, she's pretty fucked anyway.

Unless she uses Ulgu to grab Shysh, and then use that Shysh to grab Dhar. Which would be much more difficult, but probably not result in Dhar in your soul problems. Just external Dhar between the Ulgu and Shyish and between the Shyish and the Dhar... which is still an abominable act.

Well, you get the picture

Click to shrink...

I think trying to chain two winds together is likely too clumsy to then grab Dhar and weave it into a spell particularly as proper necromancy is a delicate and complex weaving binding Dhar against itself. It would be like trying to work with steel cables under tension using a pair of tongs held in another pair of tongs.

 

[Copperscale]

I think trying to chain two winds together is likely too clumsy to then grab Dhar and weave it into a spell particularly as proper necromancy is a delicate and complex weaving binding Dhar against itself. It would be like trying to work with steel cables under tension using a pair of tongs held in another pair of tongs.

Click to shrink...

Case in point, much more difficult.

Probably to the point of being impossible.

But if Mathilde still cares about remaining Sane, she'll avoid Soul-Dhar. But that's not a guarantee

 

[Codex]

I've just finished the Warriors of Chaos book. Some notes that I've taken in relation to DL.

First, I'm quite certain that the Champion we fought in the Kul camp was an Exalted Champion of Khorne. He definitely fits the bill in terms of power and favor. The Collar of Khorne in the Army book gives Magic Resistance 3 (the highest magic resistance possible), costs 45 points to purchase (quite expensive for a blessing) and may only be taken by one person per army. Obviously this is for balance reasons, but it's also to make it so that not every Khorne warrior out there has a stupidly powerful anti magic collar. He was also incredibly strong so he had that going for him.

It takes you almost too long to spot the gathering Ulgu, as at first you mistake it for a place you'd already visited. By the time you appear next to the Shaman, there's already a wailing adding to the din of the storm as reality begins to tear open and suck the air into the space between the physical and the Aethyr. It implodes in a scatter of arcing magical energies as the Shaman is cut down, and you flinch back and swear as the spilled blood begins to boil - more by reflex than out of any real danger, as your Belt protects you from extreme heat.

Click to shrink...

Secondly, this seems to be the "Acid Ichor" mutation, but modified to be burning instead of acid I suppose. It's a "blessing" in the book that deals damage every time someone gets injured. But speaking of spellcasters, I was thinking about something:

The other Skaven is more focused, Chamon buzzing in his mind as he analyzes the document and barks questions at the Sorcerer, but underneath that is a touch of rancid divinity. His soul bears the marks of what must be the Horned Rat, and a tendril of it is rooted deep within his mind.

Click to shrink...

At the head of the band is a man who looks slightly younger than yourself, dressed in leathers and wearing multiple necklaces of fangs and claws. Your books say there's no one mark of a Shaman as cultural practices vary widely across the Steppes, but that he thrums with the power of Ghur seems a solid indication to you.

Click to shrink...

While looking at the Chaos Sorceror entry, I was thinking to myself about the Lores they had access to. Chaos Sorcerors are able to cast from the Lores of Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Nurgle, Fire, Shadow, Death and Metal. Sorcerors can't get the Mark of Khorne, Sorcerors with Mark of Tzeentch are restricted to Lore of Tzeentch and Metal, Sorcerors with Mark of Slaanesh are restricted to Lore of Slaanesh and Shadow, and Sorcerors with the Mark of Nurgle are restricted to Lore of Nurgle and Death.

It seems to me like this is for balance reasons rather than specifically for lore reasons, but I can understand certain Chaos gods being resonated to specific winds more prominently. I can also see a resonance between Slaanesh and Aqshy, Nurgle and Life (in a corruptive sort of way) and Tzeentch with all the winds. I mean Light is kind of counterintuitive, but I'm sure they could make use of it. I don't see why they would be restricted to specific winds.

But then it hit me that we did have a Chaos Sorceror in quest who used the Lore of Beasts right? Then I thought to myself, is he a Chaos Sorceror? The Emissary we saw above was almost certainly not a Grey Seer, but we saw the touch of divinity in his soul and brain. The Horned Rat is much weaker than the Chaos Gods and he can bind his servants to him, so clearly she would have sensed Chaos God presence in the Untamed Shaman if he was a Chaos Sorceror. I wonder if the Shaman of the Eight traditions clearly separate the Wind traditions from Chaos traditions and they don't mix the two.

 

[Humbaba]

I want to investigate AV enchanting because the Waystones have to work with all 8 winds, so seeing how enchantments interact with AV (which is undifferentiated warp stuff) might give us useful paths to work down for waystone research even if we can't use AV directly in enchantments.

For example, Tongs already told us we can't use the repulsion effect between winds to precisely control others, can we use enchantments of single winds to attract others? We need to pull magic down from the air after all. If we want to have effective waystones are we going to need enchantments from all the orders? If so do we either need to make every one huge enough for distance windherding to work or for Mathilde to investigate her windherding abilities much more strongly?

Honestly, if I thought it could succeed I'd push for doing both AV actions just to finally get it out of the way. I'm tired of fighting to get it even thought about. I just want to get the last 2 actions crossed off so we either have viable path(s) forward or can put it to bed and move on to other tasks.

 

[Omegahugger]

Ah! Well, no necromancy then.

Click to shrink...

Sure, when Ulgu affects Mathilde's soul to make her more paranoid it's all fine and dandy, but suddenly when Dhar makes her more cackly and prone to villanous monologues everybody slam the breaks.

Dumb double standards with regards to soul pollution preventing us from the glory that is solving all our problems with legions of the untimely dead. -.-

 

[Ericwinter]

Sure, when Ulgu affects Mathilde's soul to make her more paranoid it's all fine and dandy, but suddenly when Dhar makes her more cackly and prone to villanous monologues everybody slam the breaks.

Dumb double standards with regards to soul pollution preventing us from the glory that is solving all our problems with legions of the untimely dead. -.-

Click to shrink...

You know, a Storm of Magic is one of those times when Mathilde might actually be willing to break the Articles. Your chance may come soon...

 

[DragonParadox]

But then it hit me that we did have a Chaos Sorceror in quest who used the Lore of Beasts right? Then I thought to myself, is he a Chaos Sorceror? The Emissary we saw above was almost certainly not a Grey Seer, but we saw the touch of divinity in his soul and brain. The Horned Rat is much weaker than the Chaos Gods and he can bind his servants to him, so clearly she would have sensed Chaos God presence in the Untamed Shaman if he was a Chaos Sorceror. I wonder if the Shaman of the Eight traditions clearly separate the Wind traditions from Chaos traditions and they don't mix the two.

Click to shrink...

Chaos sorcerer is a wide plain of magical lore. I mean yet you have things like wielders of the Sorcerous Lores of the Four, you do not get any more chaos than that, but taking a step down from that you have things like mages of Chaos-friendly people like the Kurgan and the Norscans, they do not serve the Four, but they still cast in Dark Tongue and learn from daemons, that is plenty Chaos by most metrics. Go down a step from even that, say you have a black Magister fallen to Chaos, or for that matter a dark elven sorceress in the service of Slaanesh, they are still going to cast according to the traditions of non-Chaos magic mostly only with a little help from their 'friends on the other side' to quote a certain doctor. They too are chaos sorcerers even though praising chaos is not really their day job necessarily.

 

[Glau]

I do not think a vampire can fall to chaos, given the nature of their souls. They would have to willfully jump off the bridge of general sanity, and probably do some heavy duty magic to get any sort of blessing of the Dark Gods.

Click to shrink...

Dhar is dangerous, but it isn't metaphysically evil. It's not Chaos.

Click to shrink...

I really don't get this. Out of game, it seems pretty clear that the reason to do it this way is to have multiple evil factions that, for some reason, need some reason to fight each other besides 'chaos fights itself'.

But in game? The winds carry the intent of the dark gods, separated into the winds to make it harder for them. But Dhar is a recombining, an evil and corruptive one. Why *isn't* it chaos? The chaos wastes cover the area where Dhar is up north. Demons can use Dhar to manifest. It is returned by the great vortex 'to where it came from'.

So I struggle to understand how having a soul made of Dhar renders you immune to chaos, rather than giving it leverage on you. What creates the separation? It seems... Arbitrary and unsupported. Especially given the massive overlap between effects, location, and style of use.

Anyone have any in-universe attempts to answer this?

Edit: it seems like something the plotter would do- create a faction that serves the same purposes as chaos warriors but thought themselves independent, only to discover that they were in fact tools the entire time.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

I really don't get this. Out of game, it seems pretty clear that the reason to do it this way is to have multiple evil factions that, for some reason, need some reason to fight each other besides 'chaos fights itself'.

But in game? The winds carry the intent of the dark gods, separated into the winds to make it harder for them. But Dhar is a recombining, an evil and corruptive one. Why *isn't* it chaos? The chaos wastes cover the area where Dhar is up north. Demons can use Dhar to manifest. It is returned by the great vortex 'to where it came from'.

So I struggle to understand how having a soul made of Dhar renders you immune to chaos, rather than giving it leverage on you. What creates the separation? It seems... Arbitrary and unsupported. Especially given the massive overlap between effects, location, and style of use.

Anyone have any in-universe attempts to answer this?

Click to shrink...

Why was I quoted?

 

[Glau]

Why was I quoted?

Click to shrink...

Oh! Leftover quote from when bracket first dropped, meant to include that in my "Round 1: Fight!" Post. Deleting now

 

[Alratan]

I really don't get this. Out of game, it seems pretty clear that the reason to do it this way is to have multiple evil factions that, for some reason, need some reason to fight each other besides 'chaos fights itself'.

But in game? The winds carry the intent of the dark gods, separated into the winds to make it harder for them. But Dhar is a recombining, an evil and corruptive one. Why *isn't* it chaos? The chaos wastes cover the area where Dhar is up north. Demons can use Dhar to manifest. It is returned by the great vortex 'to where it came from'.

So I struggle to understand how having a soul made of Dhar renders you immune to chaos, rather than giving it leverage on you. What creates the separation? It seems... Arbitrary and unsupported. Especially given the massive overlap between effects, location, and style of use.

Anyone have any in-universe attempts to answer this?

Edit: it seems like something the plotter would do- create a faction that serves the same purposes as chaos warriors but thought themselves independent, only to discover that they were in fact tools the entire time.

Click to shrink...

Because Dhar is a phenomena of the material world, a further reaction of the winds together after the raw matter of the Aethyr has reacted with reality to form the Winds. It's an additional step further away from the infinite potential and dynamism of the Aethyr that the Chaos Gods are part of, and that's why it's a favoured tool of Necromancers who are fundamentally opposed to Chaos, because they're the ultimate competition.

Harking back to the Moorcroftian origins of some of the fluff, the Undead are a Law faction, evil because of their lack of moderation in their way just as Chaos is evil because they lack moderation in their own way. The undead want stasis, Chaos wants change. That's why Dhar is the result of the Winds loosing their dynamism and becoming stagnant.

 

[DragonParadox]

I really don't get this. Out of game, it seems pretty clear that the reason to do it this way is to have multiple evil factions that, for some reason, need some reason to fight each other besides 'chaos fights itself'.

But in game? The winds carry the intent of the dark gods, separated into the winds to make it harder for them. But Dhar is a recombining, an evil and corruptive one. Why *isn't* it chaos? The chaos wastes cover the area where Dhar is up north. Demons can use Dhar to manifest. It is returned by the great vortex 'to where it came from'.

So I struggle to understand how having a soul made of Dhar renders you immune to chaos, rather than giving it leverage on you. What creates the separation? It seems... Arbitrary and unsupported. Especially given the massive overlap between effects, location, and style of use.

Anyone have any in-universe attempts to answer this?

Click to shrink...

Do the Winds carry the intent of the Dark Gods? I mean if the winds were fundamentally of Chaos with a capital C that would mean that every time an elf weaves high magic they are basically neutering the will of the Four, that is quite a lot to put into every single High Magic spell that ever was. It seems more likely to me that Dhar carries the small c chaos of the warp, a broken and warped sort of magic, out of balance and out of focus, but not specifically born of the four reality tumors.

To put this another way when you become a creature of Dhar as a vampire and not as a daemon prince, you remain fundamentally your own creature, apart from the warp and consuming raw Dhar, not the power of the Gods to make more soul stuff as the soul becomes in Manfred's words 'cold and heavy'. A vampire is not merely a daemon in the material world they are a daemon of the material world consuming the stuff of the warp or souls to sustain eternal stasis.

Chaos ebbs and changes, vampires are eternal and unchanging, anathema to the dark gods

 

[Zero Gravitas]

So I struggle to understand how having a soul made of Dhar renders you immune to chaos, rather than giving it leverage on you. What creates the separation? It seems... Arbitrary and unsupported. Especially given the massive overlap between effects, location, and style of use.

Click to shrink...

Dhar is raw material - just like the Winds are - just in a form that's volatile and generally bad for life.

Chaos is a pantheon of four really powerful deities (that don't really get along with each other most of the time) + a one or two other weaker gods depending on how you count them.

The Aethyr is where the Chaos gods (and other gods) are but it is not Chaos.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

@Boney can we take College Classes with a coworker as a WEB-MAT action, if we cover their costs?

 

[deathofrats0808]

I really don't get this. Out of game, it seems pretty clear that the reason to do it this way is to have multiple evil factions that, for some reason, need some reason to fight each other besides 'chaos fights itself'.

But in game? The winds carry the intent of the dark gods, separated into the winds to make it harder for them. But Dhar is a recombining, an evil and corruptive one. Why *isn't* it chaos? The chaos wastes cover the area where Dhar is up north. Demons can use Dhar to manifest. It is returned by the great vortex 'to where it came from'.

So I struggle to understand how having a soul made of Dhar renders you immune to chaos, rather than giving it leverage on you. What creates the separation? It seems... Arbitrary and unsupported. Especially given the massive overlap between effects, location, and style of use.

Anyone have any in-universe attempts to answer this?

Edit: it seems like something the plotter would do- create a faction that serves the same purposes as chaos warriors but thought themselves independent, only to discover that they were in fact tools the entire time.

Click to shrink...

Because the idea that all magic is inherently bound to Chaos is a lie that the Four tell in order to self-aggrandise.

 

[Codex]

Chaos sorcerer is a wide plain of magical lore. I mean yet you have things like wielders of the Sorcerous Lores of the Four, you do not get any more chaos than that, but taking a step down from that you have things like mages of Chaos-friendly people like the Kurgan and the Norscans, they do not serve the Four, but they still cast in Dark Tongue and learn from daemons, that is plenty Chaos by most metrics. Go down a step from even that, say you have a black Magister fallen to Chaos, or for that matter a dark elven sorceress in the service of Slaanesh, they are still going to cast according to the traditions of non-Chaos magic mostly only with a little help from their 'friends on the other side' to quote a certain doctor. They too are chaos sorcerers even though praising chaos is not really their day job necessarily.

Click to shrink...

Then you start falling into terminology delineation and definition specification. If a person is a Chaos Sorceror, there is absolutely no reason not to wear Chaos Armor. It boosts your defence, shows a mark of the Chaos Gods and enforces your authority. You also can't take it off because it's literally nailed to your skin.

Sure he probably uses Dark Tongue and consorts with Daemons, but his soul is untainted by Dhar and the Chaos God's influence, and Mathilde is exceptionally good at detecting Dhar and Divine presence. This seems to indicate to me that he's managed to leave himself "uncorrupted" magically. It's not like he can't be a Chaos worshipper without being a Chaos Sorceror. It could be that the magical disciplines are simply seen differently.

And before you mention it, yes he can be "corrupted" by Chaos without being spiritually/magically corrupted. I'm just choosing to draw a line here between "Wizard" and "Chaos Sorceror", because labels are important for specification.

 

[Alratan]

To put this another way when you become a creature of Dhar as a vampire and not as a daemon prince, you remain fundamentally your own creature, apart from the warp and consuming raw Dhar, not the power of the Gods to make more soul stuff as the soul becomes in Manfred's words 'cold and heavy'. A vampire is not merely a daemon in the material world they are a daemon of the material world consuming the stuff of the warp or souls to sustain eternal stasis.

Click to shrink...

It's even arguable whether vampires with a healthy diet are creatures of Dhar. Necrachs that subsist on Dhar are, sure, they probably are, but those that consume other mortal souls to sustain themselves may have souls made of the same stuff as regular people.

 

[DragonParadox]

Then you start falling into terminology delineation and definition specification. If a person is a Chaos Sorceror, there is absolutely no reason not to wear Chaos Armor. It boosts your defence, shows a mark of the Chaos Gods and enforces your authority. You also can't take it off because it's literally nailed to your skin.

Sure he probably uses Dark Tongue and consorts with Daemons, but his soul is untainted by Dhar and the Chaos God's influence, and Mathilde is exceptionally good at detecting Dhar and Divine presence. This seems to indicate to me that he's managed to leave himself "uncorrupted" magically. It's not like he can't be a Chaos worshipper without being a Chaos Sorceror. It could be that the magical disciplines are simply seen differently.

And before you mention it, yes he can be "corrupted" by Chaos without being spiritually/magically corrupted. I'm just choosing to draw a line here between "Wizard" and "Chaos Sorceror", because labels are important for specification.

Click to shrink...

The reason not to wear Chaos Armor can be as simple as not having Chaos Armor, that stuff does not grow on trees. There are plenty of people with the actual marks of the dark gods branded into their skin who have not yet earned the chaos armor. Also Mathilde's sight is not good at seeing things past wind density, that is why she finds it harder to read the emotions of wizards, all she can see are big blobs of their wind.

 

[Codex]

The reason not to wear Chaos Armor can be as simple as not having Chaos Armor, that stuff does not grow on trees. There are plenty of people with the actual marks of the dark gods branded into their skin who have not yet earned the chaos armor. Also Mathilde's sight is not good at seeing things past wind density, that is why she finds it harder to read the emotions of wizards, all she can see are big blobs of their wind.

Click to shrink...

They weren't in the Chaos Wastes, they were in the southernmost portion of the Steppes where she could see stuff just fine. Dhar inside someone is not an easy thing to miss, and she saw the Divine Energy of the Sands much further north in Karag Dum. That energy was particularly subtle too. If he was a Chaos Sorceror, she would have been able to see it.

 

[DragonParadox]

It's even arguable whether vampires with a healthy diet are creatures of Dhar. Necrachs that subsist on Dhar are, sure, they probably are, but those that consume other mortal souls to sustain themselves may have souls made of the same stuff as regular people.

Click to shrink...

I think there is Dhar in the foundation of all vampires, in the elixir, the fact that all of them can eat Dhar at need seems to support that, after all the stuff most likely to draw Dhar in is more Dhar.

 

[DragonParadox]

They weren't in the Chaos Wastes, they were in the southernmost portion of the Steppes where she could see stuff just fine. Dhar inside someone is not an easy thing to miss, and she saw the Divine Energy of the Sands much further north in Karag Dum. That energy was particularly subtle too. If he was a Chaos Sorceror, she would have been able to see it.

Click to shrink...

If chaos sorcerers (or for that matter Black Magisters) were as easy to identify as having someone with good mage sight take a peek at them Chaos would be a hell of a lot of a smaller problem. I do not think Dhar in the soul is remotely as easy to spot as Dhar on some sand.

 

[Codex]

If chaos sorcerers (or for that matter Black Magisters) were as easy to identify as having someone with good mage sight take a peek at them Chaos would be a hell of a lot of a smaller problem. I do not think Dhar in the soul is remotely as easy to spot as Dhar on some sand.

Click to shrink...

It wasn't Dhar in the sand, it was literally Divine Magic. Impossible to spot for someone without Avatar, a skill that Mathilde used to see the spark of the Horned Rat inside an Emissary. Not a Grey Seer, just an Emissary.

 

[DragonParadox]

It wasn't Dhar in the sand, it was literally Divine Magic. Impossible to spot for someone without Avatar, a skill that Mathilde used to see the spark of the Horned Rat inside an Emissary. Not a Grey Seer, just an Emissary.

Click to shrink...

Even so it was on some sand, a material object that was right in front of her. The soul of a properly living person is not in front of her, but obscured by the body and anything on them further obscured by the fact that souls are big complex and dynamic magic dense entities.

 

[Codex]

Even so it was on some sand, a material object that was right in front of her. The soul of a properly living person is not in front of her, but obscured by the body and anything on them further obscured by the fact that souls are big complex and dynamic magic dense entities.

Click to shrink...

And yet you never once think to address the fact that she managed to do the very complex thing you mentioned to the Emissary? This isn't some impossible new feat, this is something she's already done. And something she's already done when the Emissary was infested with so much Dhar jewelry he gave her a headache. This isn't her first rodeo doing something like that.