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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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[X] The Karak Azul Architects, to get involved in the design of your Library in detail.
[x] Belegar, to discuss who has been made Loremaster after you.
 
Codex said:
Ostermark: Known as "Wise Ones", which is described in the book as those who believe that they were granted the knowledge of the Hedge by Verena.
Reikland: Known as Cunning Folk, so likely worship Ranald.
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The book is confusing about this - they use epithets like 'Wise Ones' and 'Cunning Folk' among all the other terms for Hedgefolk interchangeably, but then give them extra significance for some splinters, so my reading of it is that every time they use a specific title can't necessarily be read as indicative of a splinter's religious readings. This reading of it has the 'Wise One' and Verenan only necessarily apply to Wissenlander Hedgefolk, and the 'Cunning Folk' and Ranaldite to Middenlanders.

Codex said:
Also, chariots are not an imperial thing. The reason why is obvious, most of the Empire is forests and other treacherous terrain that sucks for chariots. Chariots were however super popular with the Tomb Kings, and with the Brigundians because it's the one of the only expansive flat plains you get on the Empire. Hell, they abandoned their chariots after they joined up with the rest of the Empire. My theory is that they got their idea for chariots from the Tomb Kings, since clearly no one else would have come up with the idea in the Empire's terrain.
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Historically, chariots are what you use when you're breeding horses to be big enough to ride on but haven't quite got there yet, and once someone figures them out and start whacking their neighbours with them they spread hard and last until horses get big enough to actually ride and they're either abandoned or shunted to a ceremonial role. They're associated with the Tomb Kings because their military is based on what they've dug up, not what animal husbandry has achieved in the past few millennia, which mirrors why they're associated with the Egyptians - a lot of our historical knowledge is based on very old snapshots we got from digging up their tombs. The Celts, likewise big chariot-users and probably an inspiration for the Brigundians, were right on the periphery of the spread of chariots so adopted it late enough to appear in the historical record with them, but even then they were in the process of phasing them out and replacing them with cavalry. The Gauls accompanying Julius Caesar in Britain were recorded as saying they used to use chariots too, but had given them up relatively recently.

So I'd take the Brigundian chariot association as an indication that they were big on horses in general, and they likewise seem to have been in the period of phasing out chariots for cavalry in the time of Sigmar as they're said to have used both.

Fayhem said:
Not to umtechnically a basically valid and relevant note, but to actually do that umtechnically I think that would be Emperor Mannfred von Carstein. Since that's the one whose army got nuked by the Grand Theogonist reading a spell from the Liber Mortis; Vlad just got tackled onto a wooden stake by the Grand Theogonist after Mannfred arranged for his "fuck you, I'm alive again" ring to get stolen.
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A valid and correct point.
 
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Fayhem said:
Yeah, this. If we wanted Mathilde to focus on changing the Empire, that would have been the Bodyguard/influence builder job that Heidirella offered. Which would have been a dope job, I wound up very tempted by it. But we went with Waystones. Which should also be dope, but is unlikely to focus on getting deep into Imperial politics (AFAICT at this point).
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It does occur to me that to get organizations to buy in to this project, we are going to have to do them favors, right? And while Thorek had his own agenda and there might be some others we can use our connections or wealth to satisfy, I'm thinking that the biggest favor Mathilde can offer in a lot of cases is the fact that she can turn invisible and has a giant f-you sword. Plus veteran backup.

So I think we are going to see a lot of Mathilde going around as a trouble-shooter and assassin for the factions we want to recruit. The trick is going to be the fact that instead of backing Heidi's agenda as we advance the interests of some factions over others, who we back is going to be dictated by who we think knows stuff.

We've seen the price for damsel help already- the chaos orcs. I think the hedgewise might bring us up against the necromancer, of they can't be bought off by us applying political pressure. Elf wards are probably most likely to appreciate an empire hitter taking requests than the city nobles, and my bet is that sends us against beastmen.

I think the jades are going to be the most interesting though. I have no idea what they want, but we do have a piece of information that is very relevant to their internal politics: Isha is not Rhya. I think we might want to run that by Pan to see if she knows who we can talk to that would give that valuable, but I'd really like to know jade internal politics a bit better before we move on them. What would they want?
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Wait, what?
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There are these Orcs attacking Carcassone called Iron Orcs that have iron implanted in their skin or something and (in-quest) have Chaos symbols on them.

Boney said:
Duke Huebald frowns, and exchanges a look with his wife, who nods. "We shall speak unrelatedly of other matters that we are pressed with, but nonetheless able to overcome with thanks to the Lady, so we need no mystical assistance with," she says. "To demonstrate the truth of our chivalrous nature, and so how worthy partners we would be."

"Iron Orcs," the Duke says. "Like Black Orcs, but with the armour set into their skin, bearing runes of the Dark Gods. They come from the mountains in greater numbers every year." You grimace at that. Though the greenskins almost always stay true to their native Gods of Gork and Mork, that 'almost' covers more than enough nasty examples to give any ruler cause for concern, and motivation to seek esoteric answers - even if their societal rules prevent them from saying so outright.
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Mopman43 said:
There are these Orcs attacking Carcassone called Iron Orcs that have iron implanted in their skin or something and (in-quest) have Chaos symbols on them.
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I mean, it isn't just this quest that gives the Iron Orcs an association with Chaos. From page 64 of Knights of the Grail:

"In recent years, Carcassonnian knights have begun talking of the Iron Orcs of the mountains, obvious servants of Chaos who reinforce the normal Orc hordes and who are stronger even than the Black Orcs. So far, only natives of Carcassonne claim to have seen them. Even Tileans, with territory in the same mountains, have seen nothing. Many people think they are just a story to back up Carcassonnian demands for reduced taxes."

It's also worth noting that the armour worn by Chaos Warriors, Champions and Lords, imaginatively named Chaos Armour, is also fused to the wearer's skin. Much like the iron bonded to the Iron Orcs' flesh...
 
Mopman43 said:
Huh, I'll admit I missed the bit saying "obvious servants of chaos", but given the tone of the rest of Knights of the Grail, I can't tell whether or not that's serious.
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I will say, in all the rest of the books, an ambiguous link with Chaos comes in the form of in-person anecdotes from characters, or states that it is suspected to be associated with Chaos by Old Worlders, such as the entry on golems in Renegade Crowns. In no other case can I recall anything being described as an 'obvious' servant of Chaos, besides the actual Warriors of Chaos, Chaos Spawn and the various Daemons.
 
Glau said:
It does occur to me that to get organizations to buy in to this project, we are going to have to do them favors, right? And while Thorek had his own agenda and there might be some others we can use our connections or wealth to satisfy, I'm thinking that the biggest favor Mathilde can offer in a lot of cases is the fact that she can turn invisible and has a giant f-you sword. Plus veteran backup.

So I think we are going to see a lot of Mathilde going around as a trouble-shooter and assassin for the factions we want to recruit. The trick is going to be the fact that instead of backing Heidi's agenda as we advance the interests of some factions over others, who we back is going to be dictated by who we think knows stuff.
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I agree that we're probably still going to be running around doing favors, but the set of people we'd be trying to do favors for in service of this project would both be much less likely to necessarily be Imperial, and be less likely to be major political players in the Empire even when they are Imperials. Mathilde will still be doing Mathilde stuff for this job just as much as she would have for the Heidirella job, but the Mathilde stuff called for by this job seems much less likely to put us in a position to have the major power brokers of the Empire know our face and have positive associations with us helping them specifically out. Hence the Heidirella job being much more suitable for aims of making political changes in the Empire, especially when you factor in that if Heidi's plan worked we would be the bodyguard/godmother who got to be around for a lot of the most formative years of a future Emperor's life. A future Emperor molded by very devout followers of Ranald, notably including his aspect of the Protector.
Glau said:
I think the jades are going to be the most interesting though. I have no idea what they want, but we do have a piece of information that is very relevant to their internal politics: Isha is not Rhya.
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For something to qualify as "information" it has to come in the form of evidence that somebody who is currently inclined to believe otherwise would still have to accept. Do we actually have that here?
 
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Redshirt Army said:
The Ranald Question
I do think that there should be some minor Ranaldian symbolism subtly worked into the library somewhere, since I do like the idea of this being something of an olive branch between Ranald and Verena that Mathilde is facilitating. However, by that same token, said symbolism should be subtle and minor. It's not much of an olive branch if it has Ranald's name gaudily scrawled all over it, and a library really doesn't need cat statues every few feet to trip over. We can likely do something tasteful with how the dwarven rune for book involves four lines crossing over each other - not hard to hide some crosses in that design.
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Just getting to this now. As I seem to be the person really pushing the Ranald angle, I feel obligated to chime in. Wholeheartedly agree with this. My Ranaldian design which you allude to (here) calls for the sum total of Ranaldian symbolism to be four interlocking crosses for the primary floorplan and four sets of cat/owl statues across from each other at the primary intersections. These statues would be appropriately camouflaged among sundry other decoration such that the Ranaldian significance is discernable only to the most conspiratorially-minded. Nothing more.
 
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Execute/Dumbo said:
...is it a legitimate request to make of your god to get more cats? How much divine favour is 'I want this library to have cats' worth?!
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I think perhaps you underestimate Ranald's enthusiasm for gifting/afflicting people with cats. If it becomes clear that cats will not be made unwelcome by us I think (slash hope) that cats will happen to this library whether anybody likes it or not.
*cue Benny Hill montage of Dwarf librarians futilely chasing cats up and down the aisles of the Great Library*
*montage ends with Dwarves formally adopting cats into their Clan*
*second montage features cats in dwarven helms and chain mail killing Skaven warlords with runic axes*
 
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If I'm remembering something that Boney said right, Ranald symbolism integration is, in the case of the library, folly. Ranald symbolism has meaning only if you made the symbolism yourself. If you duped some workers into making a big X, it doesn't count.
 
Mopman43 said:
Keep reading, there's some reveals on that front.
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The Player's section was very misleading. The GM section on the other hand was incredibly informative and actually well constructed. Literally none of the major factions of the Aquila Academy actually give a damn about crusading Araby, and their goals and motivations all make a lot of sense. It appears I was hasty in making judgement, although given GW's track record with anything related to Araby I didn't feel like giving them the benefit of the doubt.
 
So I've collected all the Halfling Pantheon that I've been able to find from various 2e WFRP sources. This is the result:

Esmeralda: Goddess of Hearth and Home. Cooking and good food. Head of the Halfling pantheon
Josias: God of Farming and Agriculture
Hyacinth: Goddess of Fertility and Childbirth
Quinnsberry: God of Ancestry and Tradition
Phineas: God of Tobacco and Smoking
Gaffey: God of Building and Villages
Groplotta: Goddess of Herbalism and Nature

I'm very interested to see what Cython makes of this, it's quite the interesting pantheon. In terms of Ogres, they worship the Maw, which isn't really a formal cult or priesthood but the Maw is all about eating. They also worship the Fire Mouth, the largest and most destructive volcano in the Mountains of Mourne. Priests of the Fire Mouth are known as Firebellies and can cast from the Lore of Fire, and priests of the Great Maw, known as Butchers and Slaughterpriests, can cast from the Lore of the Great Maw, Death, Beasts and Heavens.
 
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Codex said:
So I've collected all the Halfling Pantheon that I've been able to find from various 2e WFRP sources. This is the result:

Esmeralda: Goddess of Hearth and Home. Cooking and good food. Head of the Halfling pantheon
Josias: God of Farming and Agriculture
Hyacinth: Goddess of Fertility and Childbirth
Quinnsberry: God of Ancestry and Tradition
Phineas: God of Tobacco and Smoking
Gaffey: God of Building and Villages
Groplotta: Goddess of Herbalism and Nature
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Just a quick reminder; Sigmar is also included in the Halflings' pantheon.
 
Andres110 said:
If I'm remembering something that Boney said right, Ranald symbolism integration is, in the case of the library, folly. Ranald symbolism has meaning only if you made the symbolism yourself. If you duped some workers into making a big X, it doesn't count.
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But how are we supposed to make cats ourselves?? This is an impossible standard!
 
@Boney, some Khazalid courtesy of WFRP 4e: The Horned Rat, page 21. As far as I can tell they aren't references.
Derived from the Reikspiel word for vapour, 'the damps' is a miners' term for a variety of gases that can collect dangerously in an underground passage. The four most feared are firedamp (Khazalid bomlof), whitedamps (hvitlof), stinkdamp (aeglof), and blackdamp (kvelof).
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