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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Codex said:
At least with a greatsword, the weight is mostly evenly distributed. With a hammer, the weight is concentrated at the head. The longer your hammer is and the heavier the head is the more out of balance the hammer becomes, making it super unwieldy.
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You can argue the same thing with greataxes. The only saving grace for the dwarves is that at least they're pragmatic enough (and, uh, short enough) to not make their axes too long.

At least, most of the time. I wouldn't be surprised if a Slayer ended up with a freakishly-long two-headed greataxe "because Slayer."
 
silentorphan said:
You can argue the same thing with greataxes. The only saving grace for the dwarves is that at least they're pragmatic enough (and, uh, short enough) to not make their axes too long.

At least, most of the time. I wouldn't be surprised if a Slayer ended up with a freakishly-long two-headed greataxe "because Slayer."
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That is true, but the thing about axes is that they're thin as to have a sharp edge, so even if you exaggerate it, there's still a limit to how ridiculous it can look and how heavy it can be. With the hammer presented there, the hammer head is incredibly wide and large.

And I mean, I equally complained about Korhil's axes. Those axes are clunky and ridiculous to a similar extent.
 
I think Ghal Maraz's design makes sense for a one-handed or hand-and-a-half weapon, and that it was made by and for Dwarves and that the 'signature pose' for it is it being held aloft in one hand makes me seem like that's about its intended size. But it has this problem of getting scaled up in art to emphasize its impressiveness and importantness. Proportions that make sense for something that can be wielded one-handed become absurd if scaled up to a weapon as long as the wielder is tall.

What entertains me is that the same problem would apply just as much IC as it does OOC. The Empire is probably filled with these paintings and statues of Sigmar wielding an absolute monster of a poleaxe, and then people see the real thing and it's less than half the size they were expecting. Maybe that's part of why rumours of it being a fake keep cropping up.
 
Well, to some extent, as a hammer that was the primary weapon of two gods (and also might have runes on it, I'm not sure) I could see an argument that it just isn't as heavy for its wielder as it should be based on its mass.
 
Legionman said:
Well, to some extent, as a hammer that was the primary weapon of two gods (and also might have runes on it, I'm not sure) I could see an argument that it just isn't as heavy for its wielder as it should be based on its mass.
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It's not just the weight, it's the leverage. A hammer of that size is unwieldy regardless of weight as a result of its structure, making the movements over extended and far too wasteful even if you swung it fast enough. If the runes of Ghal Maraz applied to the entirety of the shaft making it more like a staff, I'd understand that argument, but if only the head is supernaturally powerful, then the size is more of a detriment than a benefit.
 
Quick important question. If Mathilde was able to turn into a dragon, would she wear her belt thingy around her neck like necklace? It's for something I'm working on.
 
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Here's why I agree with the whole "Ghal Maraz being giant makes no sense thing" ... it was originally a Dwarven weapon.

Consider the size of a Dwarf in comparison to the size of a human.

Even a large dwarven two handed weapon must be, at it's biggest, a hand and a half weapon for a human.

This isn't about weight or strength, just the pure logistics of how you someone actually holds a weapon. A weapon large enough that it needs to be used two-handed for a human would be comically huge for a dwarf.
 
@Boney I understand that you might not want to get caught up in the minutae of linguistic differences between dialects of Eltharin when we have so little informaiton about the language from canon material, so feel free to ignore this question if you feel like it. However, I want to ask:

What did you settle on as the primary differences between the Eltharin dialects, specifically Yen-Eltharin and Tar-Eltharin, the Laurelorn vs Ulthuan dialects? And how close is Mathilde to achieving understanding/fluency/proficiency of any level in the dialect? Are there differences in the written script or has it remained unchanged for 4000 years?

Again, I understand if you'd rather not answer. These details are relatively minor after all.
 
Codex said:
What did you settle on as the primary differences between the Eltharin dialects, specifically Yen-Eltharin and Tar-Eltharin, the Laurelorn vs Ulthuan dialects? And how close is Mathilde to achieving understanding/fluency/proficiency of any level in the dialect? Are there differences in the written script or has it remained unchanged for 4000 years?
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On paper, Mathilde speaks Tar-Eltharin. In reality, Mathilde speaks Teclis-Eltharin plus two centuries of an unknown amount of Grey Order drift. Mathilde speaking Eltharin would probably sound odd to literally everyone but other Grey Wizards. And 'Tar-Eltharin' itself probably doesn't exist - Ulthuan has ten kingdoms, has had eleven Phoenix Kings from six of those kingdoms, and has the Everqueen providing a cultural counterbalance, which would prevent any regional dialect from achieving dominance. The closest thing to a 'pure' Tar-Eltharin would probably be the Lothern dialect: a blend of the Eataine dialect with influences from Avelorn (from the Everqueen) and Caledor, Yvresse, and Saphery (from having supplied eight of the Phoenix Kings). But Teclis is from Cothique. 'His' accent, and therefore Mathilde's, would probably be more familiar to Marienburgers than it would be to Lothernites.

Yen-Eltharin would probably be a lot closer to the Eltharin of the Golden Age than Tar-Eltharin. Laurelorn is very isolationist, has had only four leaders, each of which was raised by their predecessor, and has a very concentrated population, all of which makes for a lot less cultural drift. The only 'foreign' influence would be fragments of Forestborn slang leaking through.

The written script of Eltharin is logographic, and so the original lexicon would be unchanged, but there would have had to be a lot of additions over the years for neologisms. This would probably be the biggest obstacle to communciation between the different Elven populations - for each concept that the original Eltharin didn't cover but has needed covering since then, each of the populations would have had to decide for themselves whether to ignore it, describe it using existing words, or coin a new word and therefore new character for it. The modern Yen-Eltharin lexicon is probably noticeably smaller than any of the other dialects due to their isolationism reducing the amount of new concepts they would have encountered and needed to coin words for over the years.

But despite all that the dialects are all mutually intelligible, and Mathilde would be able to understand and be understood by speakers of any of the dialects. There just seems to be less linguistic drift in the setting than in reality, possibly because of pretty much all the languages having either Old One or Daemonic or both in their bones, and so the words aren't arbitrary sounds that have been assigned meaning pretty much at random, they carry a hint of genuine conceptual resonance that gives the languages more sticking power.
 
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Boney said:
On paper, Mathilde speaks Tar-Eltharin. In reality, Mathilde speaks Teclis-Eltharin plus two centuries of an unknown amount of Grey Order drift. Mathilde speaking Eltharin would probably sound odd to literally everyone but other Grey Wizards. And 'Tar-Eltharin' itself probably doesn't exist - Ulthuan has ten kingdoms, has had eleven Phoenix Kings from six of those kingdoms, and has the Everqueen providing a cultural counterbalance, which would prevent any regional dialect from achieving dominance. The closest thing to a 'pure' Tar-Eltharin would probably be the Lothern dialect: a blend of the Eataine dialect with influences from Avelorn (from the Everqueen) and Caledor, Yvresse, and Saphery (from having supplied eight of the Phoenix Kings). But Teclis is from Cothique. 'His' accent, and therefore Mathilde's, would probably be more familiar to Marienburgers than it would be to Lothernites.

Yen-Eltharin would probably be a lot closer to the Eltharin of the Golden Age than Tar-Eltharin. Laurelorn is very isolationist, has had only four leaders, each of which was raised by their predecessor, and has a very concentrated population, all of which makes for a lot less cultural drift. The only 'foreign' influence would be fragments of Forestborn slang leaking through.

The written script of Eltharin is logographic, and so the original lexicon would be unchanged, but there would have had to be a lot of additions over the years for neologisms. This would probably be the biggest obstacle to communciation between the different Elven populations - for each concept that the original Eltharin didn't cover but has needed covering since then, each of the populations would have had to decide for themselves whether to ignore it, describe it using existing words, or coin a new word and therefore new character for it. The modern Yen-Eltharin lexicon is probably noticeably smaller than any of the other dialects due to their isolationism reducing the amount of new concepts they would have encountered and needed to coin words for over the years.
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I know Teclis is from Cothique, but hasn't he spent more time in Saphery than he has in Cothique? I've lived in one location my whole life, but when I was a kid I used to speak arabic in Fus'ha (formal arabic) because I watched tv a ton as a kid, and all the cartoons used that dialect. When I grew up and stopped watching those cartoons and interacted more with people who spoke the local dialect, I lost that accent and just started speaking in the standardised urban dialect of my area.

My point is, wouldn't Teclis most likely be speaking in a Sapherian dialect rather than a Cothiquan one?

EDIT: Also, your description of Eltharin really hits a lot of notes with Arabic's history to me. We really struggle to understand each other depending on the region we come from, and we have so many words specific to our accents that some of us might as well be speaking different languages.
 
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Codex said:
I know Teclis is from Cothique, but hasn't he spent more time in Saphery than he has in Cothique? I've lived in one location my whole life, but when I was a kid I used to speak arabic in Fus'ha (formal arabic) because I watched tv a ton as a kid, and all the cartoons used that dialect. When I grew up and stopped watching those cartoons and interacted more with people who spoke the local dialect, I lost that accent and just started speaking in the standardised urban dialect of my area.

My point is, wouldn't Teclis most likely be speaking in a Sapherian dialect rather than a Cothiquan one?
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Today? Yes. When he came to the Old World? Not really. He was pretty much a teenager by Elven standards at that point, and his childhood had been the majority of his lifetime.
 
Boney said:
Today? Yes. When he came to the Old World? Not really. He was pretty much a teenager by Elven standards at that point, and his childhood had been the majority of his lifetime.
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...Wasn't he like in his 200s by that point?

Belegar, right now, is 90 years old. He's a fullbeard adult, king of Karak Eight Peaks and with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and by Elven standards he would be considered a child?

Elven vs Dwarf life cycles confuse me.
 
Codex said:
...Wasn't he like in his 200s by that point?

Belegar, right now, is 90 years old. He's a fullbeard adult, king of Karak Eight Peaks and with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and by Elven standards he would be considered a child?

Elven vs Dwarf life cycles confuse me.
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Elf lifespans are a lot longer than dwarf ones. We do not get a standard number for them, but it is pretty normal to see a millennia old elf whereas there is only one dwarf that old in all the world and his name is Kragg. It could well be that they used to have more comparable lifespans, but then the Age of Woe hit the dwarfs while the elves had more of a breather so now elf society, in all its forms is a lot more healthy psychologically then the dwarfs are.
 
DragonParadox said:
Elf lifespans are a lot longer than dwarf ones. We do not get a standard number for them, but it is pretty normal to see a millennia old elf whereas there is only one dwarf that old in all the world and his name is Kragg. It could well be that they used to have more comparable lifespans, but then the Age of Woe hit the dwarfs while the elves had more of a breather so now elf society, in all its forms is a lot more healthy psychologically then the dwarfs are.
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That is genuinely frustrating to me. I've always been under the impression that the Dwarf and Elven races are equal, even now after their decline, as GW seem to indicate that even the Asur are declining.

But every single piece of lore seem to indicate that the Elves are superior to the Dwarves and their kingdom and that's irritating. It just doesn't sit right with me how the Dwarves get shafted so often.
 
Codex said:
EDIT: Also, your description of Eltharin really hits a lot of notes with Arabic's history to me. We really struggle to understand each other depending on the region we come from, and we have so many words specific to our accents that some of us might as well be speaking different languages.
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I've not researched it much, but my Wikipedia-level impression is that post-standardization Arabic's history would have a lot of similarities with that of Eltharin: a single language anchored by written texts that still drifted over time due to age and culture and different foreign influences, but is still largely mutually intelligible across its dialects.

Codex said:
...Wasn't he like in his 200s by that point?

Belegar, right now, is 90 years old. He's a fullbeard adult, king of Karak Eight Peaks and with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and by Elven standards he would be considered a child?

Elven vs Dwarf life cycles confuse me.
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IIRC Teclis would have still been in double digits at that point. I haven't fully researched the matter but so far my impression of the Elven life cycle is that it would be heavily classist, and Elven farmers and shopkeeps and whatnot probably have the similar life stages to Dwarves but the nobility are considered to be children for a lot longer. Dwarves have a similar dynamic, in that in any other profession Belegar would be considered of respectable age but he's still seen as young for a King by many.
 
Codex said:
That is genuinely frustrating to me. I've always been under the impression that the Dwarf and Elven races are equal, even now after their decline, as GW seem to indicate that even the Asur are declining.

But every single piece of lore seem to indicate that the Elves are superior to the Dwarves and their kingdom and that's irritating. It just doesn't sit right with me how the Dwarves get shafted so often.
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It does make geopolitical sense though, the elves are on a floating island, the dwarfs are in the mountains that are in the path of every horror on the old world from skaven to greenskins to Chaos
 
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Codex said:
But every single piece of lore seem to indicate that the Elves are superior to the Dwarves and their kingdom and that's irritating. It just doesn't sit right with me how the Dwarves get shafted so often.
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Elves living longer than Dwarfs dates as far as Tolkien. Given that he was a major influence on fantasy in general (including Warhammer), I think that's the answer.
 
DragonParadox said:
It does make geopolitical sense though, the elves are on a floating island, the dwarfs are in the mountains that are in the path of every horror on the old world from skaven to greenskins to Chaos
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The dwarfen glory might be easier to recover. It's likely that many of the old vaults are still intact. Who knows what there might be from THE GOOD OLD DAYS
 
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Boney said:
Dwarves have a similar dynamic, in that in any other profession Belegar would be considered of respectable age but he's still seen as young for a King by many.
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Is Belegar the youngest Dwarf king then? And who would be the oldest? Ungrim Ironfist, maybe? He was the favourite for High King 200 years ago.

... Man, that would have been wild if the Slayer King became the High King instead of Grudgey McGrudgeface.
 
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