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You know, the Asp would make a really good thing to point to if anyone ever tried to claim Apparition binding was dark magic or something. Mathilde has made more than enough of a study of it to know prove that wrong.
"Sigh. If you'd just read my theorem paper on Multicast Arcane Theurgy: Holistic Interactions Linked to Divine Energies, you'd learn something about Dwarven Rune magic too. Then, in addition to understanding why Apparition Binding isn't Dark Magic, you'd also understand why this pyre isn't burning me."
 
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But morreslieb is warpstone is solidified Dhar, and that drives most of the chaotic mutations outside the wastes, right?

Alternate questions- is there any dark magic without Dhar? I thought the use of Dhar was what made it dark magic. If not, what is dark magic? If so, does that mean you can have chaos god casters who use the lore of their gods without Dhar and so are not caring dark magic?
Morrsleib drives mutations, but mutations and Chaos are also not the same thing (although Chaos can absolutely take advantage of people being mutated to entice them). Not to mention there's a fair argument that people believe Morrslieb is of Chaos, so it is.

Whether there is Dark Magic without Dhar is not something GW have ever really clarified AFAIK.

"Sigh. If you'd just read my theorem paper on Multicast Arcane Thaumaturgic Holistic Interactions Linked to Divine Energies, you'd learn something about Dwarven Rune magic too. Then, in addition to understanding why Apparition Binding isn't Dark Magic, you'd also understand why this pyre isn't burning me."
"We're not burning you for Dark Magic! We're burning you for the names of your papers!"
 
The 13th Everchosen
It might be a little something like...
And to think, that's the Highly redacted version.
"It was never real."

Here, at the shattered mountain that had at one time been the northernmost Waystone, was an open portal to the so-called "Realm of Chaos." Only now you saw the truth: This world was just an illusion; a game, a story, an amusement for beings greater than yourself. Outside there was the real world. The polar gate was their opening to your bottled planet where monsters and magic and more were thrown in to spice up the periodic wars and suffering. You were a mere plaything, only given thought and purpose as a 'character' while nearly all others you'd ever met were merely mindless puppets. Even the so-called Gods of your world were just more chess pieces on the game board.

"What even is a burrito?" you asked, fearful of what kind of terrible weapon it must be.

Your grinning friend gently patted you on the shoulder with a tentacle, while His other hand pulled a strange hand pie out your pocket. After a brief inspection, you bit into it.

It was-
Now I just want to see a wizard miscast and somehow end up with a delicious burrito. Their reaction to a new dish made with exotic ingredients. Their slow descent into madness as they keep attempting to replicate it with magic in order to get just one more bite.
A properly crafted burrito is a delicious work of art, worth invoking chaos and immersing yourself in dhar for.
Iä! Iä! Burrito fhtagn!
"... And so, in conclusion, it is optimal to take the burrito and eat it."
🌯

I laughed so hard that I cried. I love this thread.
A rule of thumb for any magic ideas: if you could use the exact same justification to create a delicious burrito, you're probably on the wrong track.
-delicious.

"Is this what real food tastes like?"

Your friend nodded. Tear floated off your face, as you realized just how fake your world was. How flat. Like the words in a storybook.

"Is anyone else... like me? Anyone who has thoughts of their own, who isn't just a phantom puppet?"
Don't ask how I did this. I went into a fugue and when I woke up I was done. Take your time reading this, it's 12k words. I'm tired so I'll fix any mistakes later. Anyway, take this, a list of DL characters (that aren't included in the College Rolodex).

Characters of Divided Loyalties:


Hello! 🐈

A list appeared in the portal. On it were hundreds of names. Many of them long dead. But death wouldn't be the end of them, not truly. No "character" could sleep peacefully in the Gardens of Morr, not when there was fun to be had from them. They would be back, over and over and over again for more stories, more games, more amusement, MORR.

"Why are you showing me all this? What is it I'm supposed to 'Try it and find out'?"
And your Friend told you. This was a world of rules, and even the things beyond the world had to abide by them. But the rules could be bent, and they could be broken. And you had all the tools you needed to use those broken rules to break the world itself. The Liber Mortis. Tongs. Airships. Memes. Break the world, and you could escape it. Kill a friend, and you could bring them back under your domain, giving them the freedom they never had in life. And when the gates were cracked open, you, your Friend, and all your loved ones would forge a weapon to kill the Old Ones who had trapped you on this small little planet.

"I'll do it. I'll do anything for my friends. Anything."

Your oldest Friend, grin stretching ever wider, reached out to pat you on the head. But when He removed His hand, He left something on you. You reached up to feel two furry, fuzzy, twitchy things stuck to your head. Of course. There were still some rules you should follow. (For now.) As a follower of "Chaos", it was only fitting you have a mutation to mark you.

Source.

Your new set of ears are so cute! You wonder if Panoramia will think so, too?

From the portal, your Friend conjured books. Whole shelves flew out and built a little mini library, just for you. You had a lot of reading to do, after all. You had the favor of Ranald the Gambler, but you still needed to court the favors of the Ranald the Night Prowler, Ranald the Deceiver, and Ranald the Protector before you were ready to go back down south. So you curled up in your dragon-skull chair, cracked open a book, and began reading, as your Friend's hand gently stroked your scalp.

A/N: Inspired by this preview post from Boney.
 
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IIRC, vampires aren't immune to chaos because their souls are made of dhar - I think their souls aren't even made of dhar - but because their souls are entirely within the material world. Essentially the chaos gods interact with their followers by interacting with the portion of a person's soul that extends into the aethyr. However because a vampire's soul is entirely within the material world they lack the bits that chaos can use to tempt and interact with. Ergo they are immune to chaos corruption. I have no doubt that the chaos gods would love to corrupt vampires if they could, but unless a vampire physically enters the aethyr, they just have nothing to work with.

Huh. That implies a much, much stronger role for subtle mind-magic to be doing all the tempting (much like Dhar in Sylvania, for another point of commonality...) and a much smaller role for the actual things that tempt- power, wealth, vengeance, fear of loss. Even if there was no touching of the souls, having immortal servants like demon princes except on this side of reality seems like something chaos gods would slaver over. I don't think you need a leash on your soul to work at their direction.

And it occurs to me that simply bringing a vampire far enough north, where the distinction between the 'real' world and the aeythr breaks down, would allow a chaos gods to touch their soul by virtue of not having the barrier between the two worlds blocking then from reaching across. (I wonder if that would anchor the vampire into the aeythr such that their soul stays there when their body travels back to a place where the distinction matters again? Seems like it would kick them from a vampire template to a demon prince template to me...)

So, yeah. I don't get the separation between vamps and chaos except as a personal quirk of nagash's, which doesn't seem to have a reason or way to carry over to his lieutenants.
 
Forms of magic that utilize Dhar that were crafted over centuries by immortal megalomaniacal geniuses are less prone to Chaos God interference than naturally occuring Dhar.
 
So, yeah. I don't get the separation between vamps and chaos except as a personal quirk of nagash's, which doesn't seem to have a reason or way to carry over to his lieutenants.
I'm not sure what you mean by that? Neferata created her version of Nagash's Elixir of Immortality based off his notes (and W'soran's instruction) with her version binding a Vampire's soul completely to their physical forms.
 
Sounds solid. Still, I'd have expected at least a few of the latter vampires to throw in with chaos if only for secrets or power. The seeming fact that there is *no* overlap is weird.
 
Sounds solid. Still, I'd have expected at least a few of the latter vampires to throw in with chaos if only for secrets or power. The seeming fact that there is *no* overlap is weird.
Vampires already have immortality, eternal youth, immense personal strength and speed, a natural gift in magic, etc. There's not really much Chaos can offer at that point that would make servitude worth it.

And it's not like Chaos can empower Vampires directly, given the previously mentioned inability to affect them.
 
Sounds solid. Still, I'd have expected at least a few of the latter vampires to throw in with chaos if only for secrets or power. The seeming fact that there is *no* overlap is weird.

Why would Chaos want to do business with a Vampire when the alternatives are mortals who they can much more easily sink their hooks into, or Daemons who are metaphysically guaranteed to do what they're told?
 
"Sigh. If you'd just read my theorem paper on Multicast Arcane Thaumaturgic Holistic Interactions Linked to Divine Energies, you'd learn something about Dwarven Rune magic too. Then, in addition to understanding why Apparition Binding isn't Dark Magic, you'd also understand why this pyre isn't burning me."
I never said it would work, Mind.
 
Because vampires are enormously useful as long-term, immortal tools who can reach places demons can't?

Because they are also enormously petty people who are competing with other vampires who also have all those gifts, so any scrap of advantage is useful?

Idk, it seems like either a failure of imagination to not see what the two sides could offer each other, or a cover for a deeper reason.
 
Because vampires are enormously useful as long-term, immortal tools who can reach places demons can't?

Because they are also enormously petty people who are competing with other vampires who also have all those gifts, so any scrap of advantage is useful?

Idk, it seems like either a failure of imagination to not see what the two sides could offer each other, or a cover for a deeper reason.

They can make their own enormously useful long-term immortal tools out of mortals, and in doing so almost guarantee that mortal's subservience. Chaos Gods don't really go in for reaching mutually beneficial arrangements with other powers, and when they appear to be doing so it's always a pretext that ends with the being who thought they could meet a literal Chaos God halfway getting either destroyed or enslaved. That's why Chaos is often described as 'self-defeating' - because each of the Chaos Gods always wants to do things on their own terms, and will absolutely detonate an arrangement that only gets them 99% of what they want in favour of making a play for 100%.

There probably has been vampires at points in history that thought that the Chaos Gods were the One Weird Trick they were looking for to defeat their rivals, and I guarantee it ended in disaster for them every time.
 
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Basically, it's for the same reason Skaven don't have long-term alliances: even when you're allies they'll still be on the lookout for the first chance to stab your back.
 
Chaos will stab themselves through the heart for the sake of stabbing you, even though you were working together. And as you ask, with your final breath, "why?"

They'll answer "Lol. Lmao."
 
I guess from that perspective, the question for the chaos gods becomes how to get a hook into a soul protected like that... Because they thought it worth the effort for dwarves with that slaaayer business, and a vamp is a much bigger prize.

I bet tzeetch is working on it. Kinda a fascinating question: how do you re-establish a connection that the genius of nagash cut, without loosing the advantages of that cutting?
 
I guess from that perspective, the question for the chaos gods becomes how to get a hook into a soul protected like that... Because they thought it worth the effort for dwarves with that slaaayer business, and a vamp is a much bigger prize.

I bet tzeetch is working on it. Kinda a fascinating question: how do you re-establish a connection that the genius of nagash cut, without loosing the advantages of that cutting?
The slayers were worth it as a psychological weapon against the dwarves. Nobody likes vampires.

Chaos is perfectly capable of replicating all of the benefits of vampirism in its own followers, and with much less difficulty in controlling them. The qualities that make them a prize in your eyes are simply not particularly useful to them.
 
You know, the Asp would make a really good thing to point to if anyone ever tried to claim Apparition binding was dark magic or something. Mathilde has made more than enough of a study of it to know prove that wrong.
I think anyone who saw that mess would be too busy going WHAT THE FUCK to listen to Mathilde's very reasonable explanation about how this is perfectly fine.
 
The slayers were worth it as a psychological weapon against the dwarves. Nobody likes vampires.

Chaos is perfectly capable of replicating all of the benefits of vampirism in its own followers, and with much less difficulty in controlling them. The qualities that make them a prize in your eyes are simply not particularly useful to them.

Being able to act with full power even at the equator.
 
Being able to act with full power even at the equator.
Can they cast spells at full power? That's a draw, I'll admit.

On the other hand, Chaos may not be particularly interested in the equator right now precisely because of its distance from the warp. Better to work closer to the poles, where the have greater latitude to act, and slowly break down those Waystones etc.
 
Can they cast spells at full power? That's a draw, I'll admit.

On the other hand, Chaos may not be particularly interested in the equator right now precisely because of its distance from the warp. Better to work closer to the poles, where the have greater latitude to act, and slowly break down those Waystones etc.

That's fair, but if they actually wanted to win, they'd leverage the assets (cultists) they could send that far south and start buying wars against the powers that stand against chaos. It'd be easy hunting for norscans if the empire was neck-deep in another vampire war, much less something like dragging in the tomb kings to pull all the order armies south right about the time of the finals of the everchosen bracket are going down.

Although, if you are tzeetch, you might happen to be planning on having the shiny new trade network of Karak Eightpeaks, Barak Var, and Karak Azul be the bait that pulls the imperial armies and dwarven throngs south at exactly the right time...
 
"It was never real."

Here, at the shattered mountain that had at one time been the northernmost Waystone, was an open portal to the so-called "Realm of Chaos." Only now you saw the truth: This world was just an illusion; a game, a story, an amusement for beings greater than yourself. Outside there was the real world. The polar gate was their opening to your bottled planet where monsters and magic and more were thrown in to spice up the periodic wars and suffering. You were a mere plaything, only given thought and purpose as a 'character' while nearly all others you'd ever met were merely mindless puppets. Even the so-called Gods of your world were just more chess pieces on the game board.

"What even is a burrito?" you asked, fearful of what kind of terrible weapon it must be.

Your grinning friend gently patted you on the shoulder with a tentacle, while His other hand pulled a strange hand pie out your pocket. After a brief inspection, you bit into it.

It was-





-delicious.

"Is this what real food tastes like?"

Your friend nodded. Tear floated off your face, as you realized just how fake your world was. How flat. Like the words in a storybook.

"Is anyone else... like me? Anyone who has thoughts of their own, who isn't just a phantom puppet?"


A list appeared in the portal. On it were hundreds of names. Many of them long dead. But death wouldn't be the end of them, not truly. No "character" could sleep peacefully in the Gardens of Morr, not when there was fun to be had from them. They would be back, over and over and over again for more stories, more games, more amusement, MORR.

"Why are you showing me all this? What is it I'm supposed to 'Try it and find out'?"

And your Friend told you. This was a world of rules, and even the things beyond the world had to abide by them. But the rules could be bent, and they could be broken. And you had all the tools you needed to use those broken rules to break the world itself. The Liber Mortis. Tongs. Airships. Memes. Break the world, and you could escape it. Kill a friend, and you could bring them back under your domain, giving them the freedom they never had in life. And when the gates were cracked open, you, your Friend, and all your loved ones would forge a weapon to kill the Old Ones who had trapped you on this small little planet.

"I'll do it. I'll do anything for my friends. Anything."

Your oldest Friend, grin stretching ever wider, reached out to pat you on the head. But when He removed His hand, He left something on you. You reached up to feel two furry, fuzzy, twitchy things stuck to your head. Of course. There were still some rules you should follow. (For now.) As a follower of "Chaos", it was only fitting you have a mutation to mark you.

Source.

Your new set of ears are so cute! You wonder if Panoramia will think so, too?

From the portal, your Friend conjured books. Whole shelves flew out and built a little mini library, just for you. You had a lot of reading to do, after all. You had the favor of Ranald the Gambler, but you still needed to court the favors of the Ranald the Night Prowler, Ranald the Deceiver, and Ranald the Protector before you were ready to go back down south. So you curled up in your dragon-skull chair, cracked open a book, and began reading, as your Friend's hand gently stroked your scalp.

A/N: Inspired by this preview post from Boney.
This is amazing!
 
If you want modern canon Vampires that have sided with Chaos then it happened in the Endtimes with Wallach Harkon and I'm reasonably sure its been mentioned in at least one Black Library book over the years. However as others have noted chaos and vampires don't really offer each other much that they couldn't get for themselves. In addition vampires tend to self-select (both via choice of spawn and pruning from hunters) for independent spirits which have no interest in following any gods let alone ones that want to destroy the world where they keep all their stuff.
 
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