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So the open question is what the slave/freeborn elf population ratio looks like. I'm still, despite your arguments above, very skeptical that there could actually be that many slaves in Naggaroth, mostly based on how fragile people are and how mind boggling horrific the death tolls were for the middle passage in reality- most people, the vast majority of people, die to the kind of treatment that happened in reality, much less the caricatured extreme version of it the druuchi do. I figure for every hundred thousand captives taken, maybe a few thousand make it to Naggaroth? Enough to fill pits and mansions in a few cities, but past that... And farm labour under harsh conditions kills quickly too.

As a side note, given that the only thing the druuchi seem to really have to buy slaves with is... more slaves? I'm not sure how they would make up for the low numbers available from raiding with buying them from other polities, even if most of the polities in the world practice slavery. (And somehow set aside their hatred of dark elves to do business.) What do dark elves export?

...I'm going to ignore the claims about dark elves changing over the years unless you've got examples. I don't think eight years of Malekith being gone out of five thousand counts as any sort of dynamism.

I would assume most of the slaves are from local sources: Greenskins (who have evolved to deal with extreme attrition and harsh environments and reproduce asexually - it is almost literally impossible to ever run out of these, unless you send entire armies to hunt them down), Beastmen (almost as hardy, and probably more edible), Skaven (who already breed slaves in industrial quantities for their own use - the question is what the Druchii are selling them in exchange; I would not be surprised if a quite a few of the Druchii's skaven slaves (lack of capitalization is intentional - meaning species, not culture) are Skaven refugees and living in conditions that are at least not worse than in the Under-Empire) and Hung (freshly captured from the Chaos Wastes) - in rapidly descending order.

The average freeborn farmer most likely has goblin slaves, comparably easy to control and cheap to replace (they grow from the ground!) - and while inferior to Dawi Zharr hobgoblins they are good enough for light farm work. For heavy farm work you call in the local beastmaster with their somewhat tame trolls. Orcs might be cultivated (in fields - just dig a pit, throw in some orc parts and regularly give them a bit too little food to keep them lean and mean) as living practive dummies for military training and for low-budget bloodsports (not everyone can afford elven gladiators).

Beastmen are still easy to come by (especially if you breed them with local lifestock) but tainted by Chaos and harder to control. More something for intermediate beastmasters, while trolls can be controlled even by goblins i.e. rookies. They would cover some farm work, food production (Druchii are cultural sadism writ large, and what more to make meat more murdery than eating someone (barely) sapient) and more expensive blood sports (somewhat infamous gors and minotaurs might even attract elven gladiators) - they would be useless for construction, with their instinctive loathing for civilization (which would easily be a instant agression response to right angles - might explain some of the curved shapes and spikes on Druchii architecture) while goblins and snotlings can throw at least something together. I could even see snotlings kept as indoor slaves, somewhere between brownies and pets - and always afraid of the cats, because you just know that the Druchii like cats, both are far too alike not to.
I could easily see the breeding and keeping of beastmen requiring a license due to inherent risk of Chaos corruption - and because they can do quite a bit of damage if they break out.

Skaven slaves (that are not infected with bioweapons, regular plagues and / or hounded by clanrats) are not easy to come by, and many a "lucky" farmer that just caught one was found dead in their bed, gnawed to the bones - along with their entire family. It probably requires agreements with the local warlord. The easiest barter good to the ever-hungry Skaven would be food - trading mouths to feed for feed, at a more efficient ratio (an possibly more pleasant taste) than eating them directly. On the other hand, if you are very lucky you get some that are good with machinery, having inherited talent from warlock engineers that passed by the breeder pens or some hands-on (and if they were unlucky, hands-off) experience with maintaining the local Skaven infrastructure. With Clan Pestilens in Lustria, I only really see skaven slaves in the northern half of Naggaroth - the southern parts of Naggaroth got too paranoid after one too many bioweapons.

Imported slaves and Hung would be a status symbol, very comparable to spices - something only the wealthy, at the very least the upper middle class can afford.
The step down from living slaves - or step up, depending on the attitude towards conspicious consumption - would be furniture made from the skin and bones of slaves. We know that flaying of enemies and wearing their skins as throphies is at least practiced by Mengil's Manflayers, a Druchii mercenary regiment.

And then there are possibly slaves bred from Druchii - or even more precious yet, Asur! - that have fallen into disfavor. Albeit, considering how strong the Cult of Khaine is described as, with execution by sacrifice more or less the default punishment for captial crimes, this is more of a speculation based on IRL human trafficking and the Druchii both being racial supremacists, and revancists against the Asur. Might depend on the specific crime, with violent offenses meaning execution and non-violent offenses (e.g. embezzlement) meaning enslavement.

The Druchii would need humans (and would not say no to Druchii slaves, especially their own political rivals) to do the high-dexterity work their artisans cannot be bothered with, busy as they are with commissions for the local dreadlords, with very literal deadlines. Skaven can do the job, sometimes, but they are used to quick and dirty solutions, and might just sabotage you and steal your entire shop before they return to the Under-Empire to sell your merchandise (and tools, and the flesh of your relatives!) for clanrat status.

Slaves could be as much as 80% of the population in places (freeborn farmers with goblins) with fewer and more expensive slaves as the urbanization goes up.
 
I'm fairly sure the Druuchi use human slaves raided from around the world and there at one point indigenous (and I'm using that word purposely) humans on the continent before the elves arrived. Of course, we know nothing about them.
 
I would fear that the local human population resembles the worst of antebellum slavery, with breeding programs and all the rest.

Worse, it's backed up by magic that can, amongst other things, mess with minds and predict the future, which makes slave rebellions a much harder thing.

As a side note, make dark elves are forbidden from learning sorcery, but sorcery may well (and is in the Old World) be a separate thing to regular spellcasting using a single Wind.

Edit: reading a bit more, apparently 'the dark magics of sorcery' are explicitly distinguished as being something separate to single wind lores by the dark elves.

Even if it's restricted to one gender, but particularly if both can use it, if the free dark elf slave owners can use magic in support of their lifestyles without being dedicated sorcerers, as it's suggested that other elven cultures may here, then lots of the instability of historical slave holding societies that are majority slave may not apply.

And that digression makes me wonder about male dark elf single Wind traditions that are most certainly not using Dhar, because that is heading in the direction of the forbidden sorcery.
 
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The only discrepancy with the quest I can see is that it's missing southern Stirland and instead has the Moot bordering the mountains. For the Empire I rely heavily on these fan-made maps, and for the rest of the world I usually use these:

'looks at the Talabheim map'... that's not a meteor impact zone.

that's a caldera.

that's a caldera that makes Yellowstone's look small.


whelp, let's add 'dormant super-super volcano' to the list of unstoppable threats to life on the Warhammer planet if that is canon to the quest.
 
'looks at the Talabheim map'... that's not a meteor impact zone.

that's a caldera.

that's a caldera that makes Yellowstone's look small.


whelp, let's add 'dormant super-super volcano' to the list of unstoppable threats to life on the Warhammer planet if that is canon to the quest.
If you check the scale at the top left, the crater is a little more than 15 miles from west to east. Yellowstone is significantly larger.
 
Edit: reading a bit more, apparently 'the dark magics of sorcery' are explicitly distinguished as being something separate to single wind lores.
Yes, the Dark Magic used by the Druchi( and Asrai) is IIRC "True Dhar".
IE whatever mix of the Winds is necessary to achieve the effect they want...as long as it's destructive, because it's extremely hard for True Dhar to be used for anything that isn't destructive.
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Compare to "normal" Dhar magic used by human witches, which is usually whatever Winds they can grasp and throw together at any particular moment.
 
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Yes, the Dark Magic used by the Druchi( and Asrai) is IIRC "True Dhar".
IE whatever mix of the Winds is necessary to achieve the effect they want...as long as it's destructive, because it's extremely hard for True Dhar to be used for anything that isn't destructive.
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Compare to "normal" Dhar magic used by human witches, which is usually whatever Winds they can grasp and throw together at any particular moment.
Relevant to this is Boney's take on "True Dhar":
True Dhar
The term 'True Dhar' has a habit of coming up frequently. According to canonical sources, 'True Dhar' is a label for stable environmental Dhar in contrast to Dhar created on the fly by crushing Winds together. However, it's also often interpreted as a dark mirror to High Magic that achieves much more potency out of Dark Magic than any other method can accomplish, meaning that the magic practiced mainly by Dark Elves is 'truer' (or at least more powerful) than Necromancy or Skaven magic or even Chaos Sorcery. Whether there is merit to these claims would require more familiarity with both Dhar and the nature of Chaos than the Colleges are willing to pursue, but a few alternative and possibly more convincing explanations do exist:
a) Elves are arrogant, and believe their own forms of magic are intrinsically superior to any others.
b) Dark Elves believe implicitly in 'might makes right', so think that bending Dhar to their will is 'truer' than following the actual nature of Dhar.
c) The term is more literal, and simply reflects that the spells of 'True Dhar' do not involve other Winds (as Necromancy does) or Gods (as Chaos Sorcery does).
 
What makes you think it's a caldera instead of a meteor crater?
the elevation of the hole: a meteor crater has a rim, but its base is mostly level with the outside, with the only change being the downwards dip towards the impact zone.

Caldera's are created from subduction after an elevation: the land rises and then the centre collapses.

E.g the 'rims' are very tall and thick compared to a meteor crater.


notice how high the mountain 'rim' of Talabheim is.
its not impossible that it was a meteor crater, but that area would need to have been mountains beforehand, without any other signs of mountains near.

so its A: a caldera

or B: a giant meteor hit a former hot-spot dead centre.
 
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Oh I get that, I'm just not good at that. I know it's a bit of a flawed practice to try to convey the inner thoughts of a character from a third person view while using words that are too complex for their thought processes, but I cannot for the life of me write a natural sounding Greenskin dialogue.

I would if I could, but alas. It just doesn't come easily to me.
On the other hand, unlike "propa" phonetic Greenskin, reading it is not physically painful :)
 
Or for people with choice anxiety, all of the above. Taal beat the wyrm by summoning a volcano below it and then smacking it down with a meteor.
I am suddenly reminded of another quest where a Goddess literally created ground spontaneously in her divine realm—which was normally shapeless—just so she could have something to physically beat some demonic invaders into. The ground was even volcanic!
 
Just another comment on Dark Elf society, the Lexicanium article on Tar-Eltharin notes that the Dark Elf nobility are taught the archaic form of Eltharin, which is contrasted with the Druhir that dark elves in general speak. That's supportive of the notion that there's significant differences between nobl and non-noble dark elf culture.
 
Just another comment on Dark Elf society, the Lexicanium article on Tar-Eltharin notes that the Dark Elf nobility are taught the archaic form of Eltharin, which is contrasted with the Druhir that dark elves in general speak. That's supportive of the notion that there's significant differences between nobl and non-noble dark elf culture.

Hmm... having al the murder and treachery he a sort of safety valve for only the most ambitious to rise into the ranks of a stratified nobility is certainly a lot more clever than making it common practice, though I question how you would be able to keep a spoken language secret from the commons. I mean even the dwarfs did not manage to keep their tongue secret to humans and there are a lot more cultural stumbling blocks in that language transfer.
 
[x] [THOREK] Both
Either possibility would purchase the cooperation of Thorek Ironbrow. Assisting with both would make a partner of him.
 
Hmm... having al the murder and treachery he a sort of safety valve for only the most ambitious to rise into the ranks of a stratified nobility is certainly a lot more clever than making it common practice, though I question how you would be able to keep a spoken language secret from the commons. I mean even the dwarfs did not manage to keep their tongue secret to humans and there are a lot more cultural stumbling blocks in that language transfer.
If we're trusting Lexicanum's wording, I think it's more like how private school kids are taught latin/greek.

Tar-Eltharin is also spoken in a more limited capacity by the nobility of the Druchii, as they are forced as children to learn the language of their ancestors and their hated kin.
That said, Lexicanum provides no source for this bit, so could anybody verify it?
 
Hmm... having al the murder and treachery he a sort of safety valve for only the most ambitious to rise into the ranks of a stratified nobility is certainly a lot more clever than making it common practice, though I question how you would be able to keep a spoken language secret from the commons. I mean even the dwarfs did not manage to keep their tongue secret to humans and there are a lot more cultural stumbling blocks in that language transfer.

You don't have to keep it secret, really, it's just yet another barrier that makes it harder for low born dark elves to become part of noble society.
 
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