Thanks, this is slightly bigger and a lot clearer than the one I had. It being from a paperback explains the resolution and why I had so much trouble finding it.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
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Thanks, this is slightly bigger and a lot clearer than the one I had. It being from a paperback explains the resolution and why I had so much trouble finding it.
pucflek
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Is it thought? Dwarven Beards have enough metaphysical weight that the sacrilege of Cloak of Beards can effectively slam down Runecraft, which is otherwise far too consistent. Like, cultural, yes. Only cultural? Maybe?
Page 6 of the 2nd Book in the War of Vengeance series, Master of Dragons.
Edit: Eshin-ed
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Mopman43
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If he didn't, he wouldn't be sitting on the throne and having people call him the Phoenix King.
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Now that I'm back home, I feel the need to ask a question. Ashes of Middenheim presents the scenario that Middenheim's initial city (Midgard) was built in cooperation with Dwarfs who already lived inside the mountain of Fauschlag/Ulricsberg in a place they called Grungni's Tower. I want to ask if that's something you're using?
The reason I ask is that it's not really mentioned in other sources, and Ashes is a bit weird in how it presents an Alchemist's Guild that is so extremely different from the one in Realms of Sorcery, and you chose to use the Realms of Sorcery one over the Ashes of Middenheim one.
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Iirc none other than Aenarion and Malekith (and Thinrael
) stepped into the fire without Sapherian mages protecting them from the flames. So while they were legitimate in the eyes of ulthuan, they may not have been fully approved by Asurayan.
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Morvael stepped into the flames unprotected and died, but the book says that the reason for his death was that no one was supposed to be able to handle stepping to the flame more than once.Iirc none other than Aenarion and Malekith (and Thinrael
So while they were legitimate in the eyes of ulthuan, they may not have been fully approved by Asurayan.
8th edition doesn't mention anything about Sapherian mages protecting the Phoneix Kings iirc.
Mopman43
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That's only a thing in the End Times.Iirc none other than Aenarion and Malekith (and Thinrael
So while they were legitimate in the eyes of ulthuan, they may not have been fully approved by Asurayan.
When Aenerion died, nobody actually knew he died - the last time he was seen alive was leading a force defend the ritual site where the Great Vortex was being created and he never came back, since he'd spent his dying moments returning Widowmaker to the uninhabited isle that held the Shrine of Khaine. This kind of made everyone nervous about crowning a new Phoenix King, because if the old one was still alive then whoever they put forward is automatically disqualified and then they've just burned the greatest Elf they could find for nothing. So they took precautions. Their seers focused for all they were worth on finding the most auspicious day to crown him on and the priests layered Bel Shanaar in all the protective enchantments they could so if Asuryan gave him the thumbs-down through no fault of his own they might be able to yank him out before it was too late. And Bel Shanaar went through the fire and came out the other side untouched.
Does this mean that Bel Shanaar didn't really have the Asuryan stamp of approval? Well, maybe? He turned out to be a pretty good ruler and Asuryan didn't start smiting people so maybe that's okay. And then when the next person to go into the flame is Malekith with Bel Shanaar's blood still dripping from his hands and he gets turned extra crispy for it, that can be seen as confirmation that the Flame's judgement is working fine, but it doesn't really disprove the 'maybe Aenerion's still stuck in the Vortex or something so it's stuck on burn everyone mode' theory. So they went through the same process of preparation that they did with Bel Shanaar. Caledor I is crowned and turns out to be a pretty good ruler, and after that the protective magic became just the way things were done.
This isn't End Times stuff, this has been canon since 4th Edition and was confirmed in 7th.
Does this mean that Bel Shanaar didn't really have the Asuryan stamp of approval? Well, maybe? He turned out to be a pretty good ruler and Asuryan didn't start smiting people so maybe that's okay. And then when the next person to go into the flame is Malekith with Bel Shanaar's blood still dripping from his hands and he gets turned extra crispy for it, that can be seen as confirmation that the Flame's judgement is working fine, but it doesn't really disprove the 'maybe Aenerion's still stuck in the Vortex or something so it's stuck on burn everyone mode' theory. So they went through the same process of preparation that they did with Bel Shanaar. Caledor I is crowned and turns out to be a pretty good ruler, and after that the protective magic became just the way things were done.
This isn't End Times stuff, this has been canon since 4th Edition and was confirmed in 7th.
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Actually there's this whole thing where the Phoenix Kings decided instead to enter the Flames of Asuryan with a team of mages warding and healing them. This means they didn't actually end up getting Asuryan's blessing and the legitimate divine right to rule over the Asur. In reality Caledor II was a total fraud of a Phoenix King and without a Phoenix King the Everqueen would have legally been the ruler once again of the Asur.
Edit. Ninja'd by the the QM
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This is something I've been aware of for a while, but if that's a thing it's something that Mathilde would have no way of knowing. Ulrican creed says that the mountain was a gift from Taal to Ulric, and it was uninhabited until Ulric led the Teutogens to it.
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That combination of sections of Ashes of Middeheim is actually one of my favourites, because it straight up says, this is what X believes, this is what Y believes, and then leaves you to make your own judgement - and it makes complete sense why each party believes what they do. Even better, while it gives you some justification to pick one option (the dwarf account seems most plausible given the motivations and likely evidence both sides have), it doesn't make it absolute.
It's one of those things that can cursorily look like a contradiction or ret-con, but is actually the kind of thing that happens all the time in real history, and historical myth making. The Tuetogen version of the story is classic myth building as part of ethnogenesis, and of course inconvenient details like pre-existing inhabitants who you started as guests of would fall by the wayside. On the other hand, dwarven pride could well explain why they've held onto a belief that their settlement of the 'Tower of Grungni' pre-dates humanity, because of course they came first, as they're the elder race.
Now, personally, I think it unlikely that, given the dwarves built a major road that went past the base of the place well before the Teutogens arrived that they wouldn't have taken over such a prominent rock formation, simply because it would have been the most comfortable place for them to build an outpost in the area, but that doesn't mean that they were still occupying it when the Teutogens arrived. I could easily see a sympathetic reading to the Teutogen story being that there was a mostly closed up pre-existing dwarven mine/outpost inside the rock when they turned up, which the dwarves still considered their own but only visited occasionally to make sure it hadn't been taken over by hostiles, as it no longer was a waystation on a trade route as it had been. Then, after a human tribe settledthe area, it was worth the dwarves reoccupying on a permanent basis as there was someone worth trading with there again.
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The Ulricsberg/Fauschlag is part of the Middle Mountains, and the reason that the Dwarfs abandoned the Middle Mountains is because they were mostly barren of resources by the point they had to leave. In fact, while reading Ashes of Middenheim, not once are any extensive mining operations actually mentioned in the book. The mountain being largely barren of resources means that it's unlikely a large amount of Dwarfs would live in the place, because they would much rather live in a mountain full of resources than a largely barren one.
This isn't to say that there weren't any Dwarfs, but I doubt the settlement, if it existed, was all that big. It would most likely be composed of some of the most stubborn Dwarfs who refused to go back to the Karaz Ankor because they wanted to make their own way. The humans coming in to form their settlement were probably a godsend, because say what you will about humans, but they're much better at farming and animal husbandry/hunting and general above surface stuff than Dwarves.
This isn't to say that there weren't any Dwarfs, but I doubt the settlement, if it existed, was all that big. It would most likely be composed of some of the most stubborn Dwarfs who refused to go back to the Karaz Ankor because they wanted to make their own way. The humans coming in to form their settlement were probably a godsend, because say what you will about humans, but they're much better at farming and animal husbandry/hunting and general above surface stuff than Dwarves.
Barren mountains have a peculiar effect on the Dwarven psyche, as it seems like on some level their mind insists that all the gold and jewels and whatnot have to be in there somewhere, and their continued failure to find anything just convinces them that an even bigger concentration is waiting to be found if they search a little further or deeper. Most settlements in the Grey Mountains are dedicated to chasing this dream, as the only known deposits of ores and gems of appreciable size are under Karak Norn.
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Dwarves take the sunken costs fallacy to whole new depths.
E: Damn... I should have said hole new depths.
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What happens when they run out of mountain?
I mean, eventually they will end up with nothing but a big hole where a mountain was.
What then?
In a way it is kinda weird that any of the old holds would have any ore deposits near them after thousands of years of active mining by the dwarves at a level humans in the real world have not been able to do until quite recently.
How much metal have the dwarves managed to mine in the past 5 thousand years, and how much is there left?
I mean, eventually they will end up with nothing but a big hole where a mountain was.
What then?
In a way it is kinda weird that any of the old holds would have any ore deposits near them after thousands of years of active mining by the dwarves at a level humans in the real world have not been able to do until quite recently.
How much metal have the dwarves managed to mine in the past 5 thousand years, and how much is there left?
Burned_Cookie
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Given that the warhammer universe is partly powered by perception, I would not be surprised if dwarven mountains are bugger on the inside, the unstruck stone extending always just far enough beyond the deepest shafts to seem limitless.
That or the dwarves have actually dug a gargantuan system of mine tunnels into the bedrock of huge parts of the old world, either or.
Ulricsberg seems slightly separated from the Middle Mountains, with quite a few miles of forest and a major road north of Middenheim before reaching the rest of the range. It's regularly described as standing alone and towering above the surrounding Drakwald forest. It's not one mountain amongst many, but an isolated flat topped pillar sticking up out of the forested plains around it.
Also, Ashes of Middenheim says pretty much exactly the opposite about mining operations beneath Grungni's Tower:
Human history records that the rock was untouched when Artur and the Teutogens found it, and accords the local Dwarfs only a minor role in assisting them to reach the top of the holy Ulricsberg, but Dwarfen records tell a different story. Before Humans came to found a city here, the rock on which Middenheim now stands was known to the Dwarfs as Grazhyakh Grungni, or Grungni's Tower. For centuries, Dwarfen miners had laboured within the rock, bringing out a steady stream of gold and other minerals from its core.
That seems pretty extensive to me.
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I did a little googling and learned a new kind of shorthand used to describe the amount of recoverable material in a mine: Mt, meaning 'million tonnes'. That's of the metal, not of the ore that needs to be processed to get that metal. And there are individual mines with hundreds or even thousands of extractable Mt. So yeah, the Dwarves probably aren't going to running out of mining to do, not when they're doing it by hand.
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Well the Underway is a thing.
Which just serves to demonstrate my point.
How is there any metal left in the ground?
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Technically there was already a lot of tunnels down there, given that it was big enough to host ecosystems of gribblies that never see the light of day, then the dwarfs extended it, then the goblins and skaven extended it further, and here we are. There are undisclosed Things down there, the Shard Dragons and Troglodons are just the tip of the iceberg.
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So I'm reading Spires of Altdorf, and I have a question. I really don't know much about taxation and especially taxation history due to unique circumstances of the country I live in, but is this:
"Ordinary folk can expect to pay out as much as half their earnings to the state. Most pay just under a third of their coin in tax, but a rare few enjoy some sort of protected status."
Is this a reasonable tax policy for Altdorfers? I think I can do the math myself, but it's a bit bothersome so I'm just going by feeling. Half/one third of your earnings seems unbelievably harsh, to the extent that the average Altdorfer might struggle to live. The next line actually says that this is the reason why the citizenry of Altdorf riot at the drop of a hat.
Except, it doesn't seem logical to me that a city can survive constant riots. Occasional ones, understandable, but at what point do the riots get to the place where society is no longer reasonably capable of surviving?
"Ordinary folk can expect to pay out as much as half their earnings to the state. Most pay just under a third of their coin in tax, but a rare few enjoy some sort of protected status."
Is this a reasonable tax policy for Altdorfers? I think I can do the math myself, but it's a bit bothersome so I'm just going by feeling. Half/one third of your earnings seems unbelievably harsh, to the extent that the average Altdorfer might struggle to live. The next line actually says that this is the reason why the citizenry of Altdorf riot at the drop of a hat.
Except, it doesn't seem logical to me that a city can survive constant riots. Occasional ones, understandable, but at what point do the riots get to the place where society is no longer reasonably capable of surviving?
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
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I think it's reasonable if you assume it's a combination of every tax, rather than just what we'd call income tax. So a lot of it is done under sales tax instead.
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Presumably cost of living is low enough to allow for that.
And by living i mean barely surviving in the slums while suffering from malnutrition.
Protected status would probably mean members of guilds, specific cults, knightly organizations, etc...
Also insane amounts of being paid under the table or being compensated through non monetary means that is not counted as "earnings".
And by living i mean barely surviving in the slums while suffering from malnutrition.
Protected status would probably mean members of guilds, specific cults, knightly organizations, etc...
Also insane amounts of being paid under the table or being compensated through non monetary means that is not counted as "earnings".
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As far as I know, Mathilde is one of those protected from taxes. She only has to pay her Tithe to the College and she's set. No other taxes are mentioned for her. Even when she was a Journeywoman, the Tithe was only 10% of her earnings, and then it dropped to 5%, and now she doesn't even pay taxes.
I imagine the Colleges themselves are what pay the more complex taxes.