Without food? Why without food? They don't need their arms to dance, they can still carry shit and/or load it onto beasts of burden.
Relatedly, saying "they don't need their arms to dance" makes me picture Grimgor Ironhide angrily riverdancing into the Empire to dance his way to vengeance and YOU WILL NOT TAKE THIS FROM ME
I thought that the whole thing from the spell is that it prevented you from doing vital functions at the same time it makes you dance until your feet bleed.
Otherwise it seems that it can very well be survived.
I think people are getting an overinflated idea of the power of the ritual, so a clarfication:
Only looking at the original Cursed Dancer infects you with the Dance. The Dance infection doesn't spread to second generation Dancers, only patient zero.
I thought it would be fun to go over all the rituals I've been able to find descriptions on. Note that many of them aren't really the type to be cast by the Colleges, as I'm including Necromancy, Daemonic and Divine rituals in here too. I hope this is helpful in showing examples to people of what rituals are like, including their ridiculous conditions, their effects and the possible backlash you'd get from casting it:
Daemonic. Very High difficulty. Requires at least 5 spellcasters, a full moon, the head of a Beastman shaman, two human sacrifices, one man and one woman both of whom haven't eaten in a week and a thimble of warpstone. Four hour casting time, if it fails the ritual backfires on the casters. Effect causes everyone within one mile with a WIllpower of less than 50% to turn into a beastman for 24 hours and go into a killing spree. The ritual reverts after 24 hours but anyone who survives doesn't come out mentally unscathed.
Arcane. High Difficulty. Requires a dragon's tooth, a diamond worth 500gc, a gong blessed by a dying priest and for the caster to be naked and painted with woad. Failing the ritual causes you to get swallowed by the earth. Eight hour casting time and a 3 mile range, the ritual affects an area equivalent to a small town. The ritual creates an earthquake lasting one minute that destroys all but the strongest buildings.
Arcane. Chamon only. I'm sure we all know what this does, Johann's done it. I'll copy paste the post I already made on it Gilding in relation to Johann:
Fingers and Toes are cosmetic, so he did them as part of Hands/Arm/Feet/Leg. Hands and Arms are separate processes, the Hands improving manual dexterity and the Arms improving Strength and increasing the Armor of your arm. The process is separate for each hand and arm, and I'm pretty sure Johann did it for each hand and arm instead of skimping on any of it.
Feet and Legs are also separate, and a separate process for the left and right ones. Feet grants bonuses to resisting fatigue on travel by foot, and leg grants armor of the Legs on top of boosting Movement. He probably did every single one of these.
There is no Torso Gilding in Realms of Sorcery for some reason, but I'm pretty sure that it should exist and Johann took it. He also took the Lung gilding which means he doesn't even need to breath air, which he told Mathilde that he uses on solo ventures, probably by using gas.
The Lung one is dangerous if failed, as it causes you pain every time you breath if you fail, but then we get to the very delicate part. The Head. The Head can either be done all at once, or separated into components such as Ear and Nose (eyes aren't included in the book for some reason, but it's clearly a thing). Ears improves hearing, Nose improves smell, and Eyes would logically improve sight. Head lets you gild everything at once, giving you the benefits of everything being gilded (improved senses overall) as well as boosted head armor. The downside is that it is one of two Gildings that results in instant death if failed.
There is another very dangerous gilding that results in instant death. The Heart. If you Gild it then you no longer feel emotional pain, which let me tell you I'm not sure if that's worth risking death.
The book only gives guidelines for these modifications, but you can get creative and gild more parts I'm pretty sure. The only ones in this list that are left for Johann are the Head ones and the Heart. After the disaster that happened with his eyes, I'm not sure if he's keen to possibly ruin his other senses, and I'm not sure he should risk death for the Head. The Heart is not worth it. Maybe he can do Liver or Kidneys or Intestines I guess. I'm pretty sure bones and muscles are linked to the limb in question so I don't think you can gild them directly unless it counts as a separate "organ".
Arcane. Very High difficulty. Effect causes a target to dance until they die. Anyone who looks at the dancer must attempt to resist or they will join the dance. Other conditions include an incredibly well made lute strung with hair from a unicorn's mane, five gallons of the blood of agile dancers, and one pair of dancing shoes made by the finest cobbler of the "realm he cobbles". The caster must also be a dancer to cast this. Finally, in order to curse someone the caster need to spend four hours casting while the target is held immobile. If the caster fails the casting, they dance until they're dead, but they don't cause anyone who looks at them to dance too. Only a Shallyan caster with Cure Insanity can stop the Dance. It should be reminded that the Dance infection only occurs by looking at the original cursed Dancer, not at the ones they infect.
Arcane. Medium difficulty. Requires the boots of 100 soldiers, one coin of the wages of each soldier who will travel, an eagle's wing, and an order for deployment written on flawless parchment in ink made from the troop commander's own blood. This ritual is pretty complicated, but basically, it's a teleportation ritual with a ton of caveats attached to it. You can cast it with one person, or you can cast it with multiple people with no upper limit. Bear with me here, because there's a lot to go through:
Essentially, you and whoever is helping you cast the ritual cast throughout "all the hours of darkness in one night". If you're successful, you teleport an entire group of individuals, including the casters."The march's objective may be any natural place in the Old World to which the body could eventually travel, unbarred, on foot". It's important to note that this teleportation is basically acceleration rather than traditional teleportation, so it actually counts as a "full night's hard march". At least half the people being teleported have to be soldiers. The number of people being teleported depends on the total magic scores of every caster involved in the ritual. Each caster is in charge of a portion of the group. Each caster who fails the cast suffers the consequence alongside their portion.
What are the consequence? You get transported to somewhere random anywhere in the world. There's a reason most soldiers who go through this spell really hate it. Many of them see their friends disappear.
Arcane. Medium Difficulty. Requires a sheet of parchment made from the skin of a stillborn lamb and bearing the exact words of the oath written in the blood of a judge, a drop of the oathbreaker's blood and spit, and a vial containing the breath of one wronged by the breaking of the oath. The ritual must be cast within one mile of the oathbreaker and the oathbreaker may not speak a word for the 4 hour casting time of the spell. If the ritual fails, then you're forced to carry out the oath yourself. If the ritual is a success, you force someone who has sworn an oath and has either broken it or intends to break it, even if they swore said oath in jest, under compulsion or when blind drunk, to carry it out in both letter and spirit to the best of their ability. They will not be suicidal in doing it and will be capable of holding back for the right opportunity, but they will fulfill it to the best of their ability.
Daemonic. Very High difficulty. Requires the whole and unhewn corpse of a Daemon of Nurgle, a forty-pound candle made with the drippings of three dozen men killed by the Neiglish Rot, brackish water collected from three foetid swamps at least one thousand miles from each other, and the hand of a mad surgeon. The caster must also have survived the Neiglish Rot at least once in their life. If they fail the ritual they contract Neiglish Rot and auto fail their saving throws, resulting in near guaranteed death over the course of the illness. If they succeed, everyone within one mile must test for toughness or contract Neiglish Rot. I'll talk about it later, but NR is pretty horrific, and it's very serious business to get infected by it.
Arcane: High Difficulty. Requires a drop of blood taken from a male of the line since the previous sunset, a fist-sized chunk of warpstone, a solid silver goblet worth at least 100 gc, and a stillborn goat. No member of the lineage the ritual is being cast on may be expecting child or an auto failure happens. A failure results in your lineage being affected instead. A success means every single person from a particular family related to the individual you're targeting by blood will be infertile for all time. You can choose to affect only men or only women. 8 hour casting time.
High Nehekharan. High Difficulty. Requires a piece of stone from a Nehekharan building, a map of the tower drawn with the blood of a mason, the skull of a Stone Troll. Caster must be capable of Stoneworking. Failure results in one hand turning to stone permanently. 4 hour casting time, this ritual causes a 50 foot tall building to spontaneously form. The layout is determined by the map drawn as part of the ingredients.
Necromantic. High Difficulty. Requires the sword arms of ten dead soldiers, a drum made of bones and Human skin, a fragment of Warpstone the size of a skull, and a barrel of rum. An assistant must continuously beat the bone drum while the four hour ritual takes place.The ritual raises up to 30 skeletons or zombies. The difference between these and standard undead is that they don't count towards how many undead the caster is limited to controlling, there is no time limit for them, and they listen to orders no matter how far they get from the caster. They remain even if the caster is slain. If the caster fails the ritual, the undead turn on them.
Arcane. Medium Difficulty. Requires the hearts of five followers of Khorne or Shallya or a combination of both, a Griffon's feather, a calf born in the last spring in the lands targeted. It must be cast on the highest ground in the area to be affected. Takes 4 hours to cast. Success means a rain of blood for one hour over an area of five square miles, feeding vampires on the march and disheartening the enemy. Failure means a rain of holy water instead.
High Nehekharan. Incredibly High difficulty. Requires the hands of a midwife, the last drop of a Human's blood, a Dragon's tooth, the womb of a cow raised on blood, the remains of a Vampire. 4 hour casting time, and it may only be cast on an "accursed location", which means an area where a large scale tragedy has taken place. Failure on the ritual causes the caster to suffer the same tragedy as those in the accursed area. A successful cast returns a Vampire to unlife. The caster need to not only be successful, but beat the casting roll by five. If the casting roll is not beaten by five, then the Vampire doesn't come back but difficulty lowers a little. The ritual can be attempted again in another accursed location that is at least 20 miles away. Each failed cast takes years away from the caster's life.
Necromancy. Medium Difficulty. Requires the birth caul of a sailor, a ship that sank with her crew, the hands of a drowned priest of Manann, a ship's manifest written in blood, a fist-sized chunk of Warpstone. Failure causes the caster to be tormented by visions of being drowned in an ocean of damned souls. Success in this four hour ritual means that a sunken ship rises from where it's resting place. There are as many skeletons or spectres as there were crew when it sank. The ship is as rotten as it was on the ocean floor but it rots no further. The ship needs no wind on its sails, it moves at an even speed regardless of weather.
Divine. Very High Difficulty. Requires a quart of blessed liquid (different cults prefer different liquids, including fresh water, brine, animal blood, and beer) and a holy symbol of your cult. The caster must purify themselves for a full week and then spend a further two days contemplating divine texts before drawing their holy symbol with the blessed liquid and casting for 1d10+4 hours. Casting becomes easier on holy days and holy ground. A failed cast causes the caster's god to retaliate viciously with their Vengeance. A successful one summons a divine servant, which differs based on the god and the variation of the ritual cast. This can summon a holy animal, a Venerated Soul, or an odd manifestation like a twin tailed comet for Sigmar and a Cat's Paw for Ranald. Whoever summons the Divine Servant has absolutely no control over it, and it does what it pleases. The caster must have a very good reason for summoning, or they will suffer the Wrath of the Gods.
Divine. Difficulty fluctuates based on the size of the area consecrated. The materials are variable but generally involve blessed liquid, holy symbol, sacrifice appropriate to the cult, a fitting site and sometimes more. Casters must purify themselves beforehand. Most widely known divine ritual. If properly cast it boosts all divine casters of the particular god within the consecrated area and holds certain implications against specific creatures like Vampires. If failed, the ritual makes it look like it worked but it didn't.
Divine. Sigmarite only. Shallyans have their own version called Rite of Casting Out. Ritual casts out a Daemon possessing someone. Medium Difficulty for the actual cast, the difficult part is the battle against the Daemon. Requires an illuminated copy of The Book of Sigmar, the sign of the hammer or twin-tailed comet, new Priestly vestments, rope and nails for binding, a vial of holy water, a hammer, a goat (or some other animal) or mirror, and a roaring fire. Also needs the Exorcist to spend three consecutive days prior to casting the ritual in meditation and prayer. Once they are finished, they gather their witnesses, one to see and watch, one to help, and at least one who is bound to the victim by blood or marriage. The helpers must bind the victim to a tree with stout rope and nails, while the Exorcist readies the animal (or mirror) to contain the fiendish entity. Failure results in the Daemon becoming more resistant to exorcism, or if a miscast occurs allows the Daemon to possess the exorcist. Success means the fight actually begins as the Exorcist and Daemon get into a battle of wills. The process is long and arduous and can end in either victory or defeat.
Daemonic. Medium difficulty. Ritual from the Codex of Unspeakable Damnation. Requires a bowl of the caster's blood, a sacrificial knife covered in Human excrement, and a Human sacrifice. The Human must be nude and painted in profane sigils and runes invoking the names of Tzeentch. The caster must forgo using magic for 8 hours and abstain from alcohol and stimulants for a week. Failure causes the caster to glimpse Chaos, blasting away sanity. Success draws the soul out of the victim, killing them in the process and turning the soul into a ball of stretchy ectoplasm. The ball lasts for a few weeks and can be expended at any point to boost a singular spell significantly. 1 hour casting time.
Arcane. Easy. 1 hour casting time. Requires the caster's body to be nude and covered in arcane sigils from head to toe with ink mixed from the caster's own blood and expensive compounds (20 gc). The ritual must be cast before sleep, and the caster must sleep in a circle made from a chaos follower or Daemon's blood. Daemon's blood boosts the spell, making it easier to cast. Failure causes the caster to suffer unadulterated Chaos, blasting sanity. Success in the ritual allows the user to transport their soul to the Aethyr into one of the Legendary Locations in the Realm of Chaos. The spirit form is invincible to harm but not insanity, and what is seen by the caster is likely to leave them disturbed. Seeing the Legendary Locations provides an unprecedented level of knowledge and understanding of Chaos. This ritual is from the non-redacted version of the Liber Malefic, available in the Cathedral of Sigmar's archives.
Daemonic. Every detail in this ritual varies based on the circumstances. Difficulty is determined by the power of the Daemon being summoned, casting time is dependent on the Daemon, ingredients are determined by the Daemon, and the consequences of failure are dependent on the Daemon and its power level. Generally the consequences are severe and involve insanity and mutation, and depending on the Daemon straight up death. Ritual can involve drawn Octagrams so the caster can make the process of containing the Daemon and contesting its willpower to gain control easier. If the caster has the Daemon's True Name, it makes things much easier as it allows direct summoning and proper containment, as well as domination of the Daemon in question. Certain Daemons can be bound as familiars. Well, technically any Daemon can be bound as a familiar as long as an agreement is reached, but there's a reason you don't try to bind strong Daemons as familiars.
It's probably easier to just snap your fingers and blow up all the undead with the Second Secret like a boss.
... That being said, with the Ring of Regrowth we could actually get the hearts ethically. And since Mathilde is a Ranaldite, you could argue that stealing the hearts of Shallyans is a Sacred Task.
Arcane. Medium Difficulty. Requires the hearts of five followers of Khorne or Shallya or a combination of both, a Griffon's feather, a calf born in the last spring in the lands targeted. It must be cast on the highest ground in the area to be affected. Takes 4 hours to cast. Success means a rain of blood for one hour over an area of five square miles, feeding vampires on the march and disheartening the enemy. Failure means a rain of holy water instead.
The spell is intended to be cast by Vampires, so I'm not sure the author of the book considered the consequences there. I imagine there must be some limitation to prevent it from being used that way. Maybe the limitation is arbitrary, like the fact that the ritual is typically found in Vampire Grimoires so they generally end up getting burnt instead of the information being copied down.
Relatedly, saying "they don't need their arms to dance" makes me picture Grimgor Ironhide angrily riverdancing into the Empire to dance his way to vengeance and YOU WILL NOT TAKE THIS FROM ME
Camera opens on DANCE CAPTAIN MAGICAL MATHILDE slamming her hand down on a table as she addresses her dance group. Her lieutenants JITTERBUG JOHANN and DANCE-DANCE PAN-PAN are front and center, listening intently.
MATHILDE
We've got to focus up! The competition this year is BRUTAL. Yet, also cunning.
Camera switches to GRIMGOR IRONBOP and his GREEN DANCE KREW on stage. They are absolutely tearing up the stage. Literally - some of their dance moves involve ripping up sections of the stage and then using them as platforms to launch their krewmembers into the air for incredible flips. Camera stays on their amazingly athletic display of sheer dance prowess as Mathilde continues to speak in V.O.
MATHILDE (V.O.)
They're sweeping regionals, and people are saying they're a lock to take imperials too. We're going to need something new. Something nobody would ever expect from us. We're going to need... Caddie.
Camera cuts back to Pan-pan. She gasps. Johann looks equally outraged and shocked.
PAN-PAN
Seriously? You want to bring HER into this?
MATHILDE (grimly)
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Camera cuts to Mathilde and her lieutenants stalking up to CAN'T-TOUCH-THIS CADDIE. The beautiful blonde is lounging on her artisanal wooden furniture in her woodland estate. She smirks at them.
CADDIE
Well, well. Look who's come crawling back.
Mathilde visibly grits her teeth.
MATHILDE
You know we wouldn't be here if it wasn't important.
CADDIE
Oh? Realize you missed your ex already?
PAN-PAN
She is so over you, bitch.
CADDIE
Yet, you clearly can't stop thinking about how she was under me.
Mathilde is turning red but cuts in before this can devolve further.
MATHILDE
Enough! Look, we don't need you to get along with us. We just need you to bring it. That is... if you think you can.
Caddie stands up and steps over to Mathilde in one graceful flow. Her face is extremely close to Mathilde's, significant height difference notwithstanding.
CADDIE
Oh, consider it BROUGHT.
Camera smash cuts between snippets of Mathilde and her dance group performing an amazing routine. Highlights are: Caddie and Pan-pan summoning magical plants from the wooden stage to support their moves - Mathilde teleporting around the stage and coordinating dance moves with her own illusory duplicates left behind by the teleporting - Johann throwing Mathilde forty feet into the air where she lands on thin air and performs several acrobatic moves before dropping down onto a cushion of magical plants.
Camera cuts to Grimgor and his krew standing offstage in the wings. His gob is clearly smacked. He then slowly breaks into an absolutely enormous grin showing off every tusk.
GRIMGOR
Well then boyz. I guess it's time to get PROPPA STUCK IN!
His krew lets out a deafening cheer and charges onto stage. The camera cuts to a title screen where each word slams in one at a time.
Fun fact: I don't know if there were any subtle clues that would enable you to tell, but I've never actually seen a Step Up movie! But I assume that the antagonist is usually a rich blonde girl and the rivalry between her and the lead is rife with barely subtextual homoerotic tension, so I just went with that as the premise for an "old enemies/lovers unite to defeat a greater threat" story. But with dance. The blonde girl was going to be an OC, but then I remembered we had Cadaeth and couldn't not. And obviously, everybody has to have a DANCE NAME. That's how you know that they're dancers!
Months later you travel to collect it from the Enchanter, Magister Wolfgang Scheunacht, a neatly-dressed and well-groomed young Magister with black hair and a fresh-looking burn stretching from his eyepatch to his neck.
Oh. I was browsing Spires of Altdorf and I found out that Wolfgang is a canon character. I'm not giving out any additional details just in case of spoilers, but I don't think Boney will use the canon information anyway.
Man, the thread madness is strong this time around...
Seriously though we might want to take that college course in rituals, it is the only branch of readily available magic that Mathilde does not have access to. Even if she never uses a single ritual there is something to be said for knowing about them for the sake of a more well rounded understanding of her art. Also it might help with disrupting or even, if we are feeling brave, subverting enemy rituals, like we did with the Gork and Mork one.
Lastly given that ritual magic is the only way we know of to attain effects beyond Cataclysm spells in scope I think it is at the very least a fair start to understanding the very high energy Waystones
[Yes I know this is an oddly in depth segue from the omake of the dancing orc, but i just had my Covid booster today and am a little loopy with low grade fever, apparently taking the silly and making it serious is how it manifests]
The way Boney portrays Dwarves, they don't jump straight to slaughter and they won't jump to genocide over trade caravans. They ask for compensation first, and failing that they declare a grudge and set out to deal with said grudge. They aren't the unreasonable war mongers of canon, and even canon didn't portray them as genocide happy warriors until the War of Vengenace novel. It doesn't "make sense" that Dwarfs would jump to genocide, even to settle scores, because that's just not how they do things in DL. There can be a couple bad actors sure, but in that case the High King would definitely punish them and wouldn't sanction such activities. The Dwarfs have a semi-reasonable society that's survived for thousands of years, 2000 of which involved an alliance with the Elves, and jumping to genocide is not a reasonable recourse for how they are presented in DL as a polity.
To be fair, the way Boney portrays Dawi is as indivinduals. The fact that they have institutions that prevent that sort of thing does not mean said institutions always work, nor that all Dawi always toe the line correctly, just that their society can function.
echnically speaking 33%-50% taxation is, at least in theory, believeable. That's roughly what we pay here in Denmark*, and people are plenty capable of surviving here. And we do also have a 25% sales tax in addition to that.
*Is what I would say if I earned enough to pay taxes...
Of course, whether or not a society on the Empire's technological level could do it I have absolutely no idea, and I like to believe Denmark in general has a better welfare system than a civilisation that still relies on barber-surgeons, but still, there's a precedent.
That kind of taxation taxation does work when the money gets returned in public benefits, yes, (meaning the average citizen may have to actually pay less for certain things, sometimes less overall than they would pay with a lesser taxation rate) but Altdorf seems to be... too feudal to do that?
Can I interest you in A Practical Guide to Evil? The setting is one where story tropes are as real as the laws of physics, and potentially have equally lethal consequences for those who fall afoul of them.
On a side note, I would like to point out that 33% of the ethical considerations behind casting Father W'soran's Architect disappear if you use your own blood for it. You already must be a stoneworker and going from there to being a stonemason is not too difficult when you aren't a Dawi.
Now, you still have to use ritual levels of Dhark magic and take a stone from a Nehekaran settlement (two equally dangerous and immoral actions), but Abel darn it, the possibilities are worth it! Everybody knows that every androsexual magister loves tall towers, just imagine the jealous looks on their faces when they realise that we can erect one in just four hours!
Everybody knows that every androsexual magister loves tall towers, just imagine the jealous looks on their faces when they realise that we can erect one in just four hours!
Fun fact: I don't know if there were any subtle clues that would enable you to tell, but I've never actually seen a Step Up movie! But I assume that the antagonist is usually a rich blonde girl and the rivalry between her and the lead is rife with barely subtextual homoerotic tension, so I just went with that as the premise for an "old enemies/lovers unite to defeat a greater threat" story. But with dance. The blonde girl was going to be an OC, but then I remembered we had Cadaeth and couldn't not. And obviously, everybody has to have a DANCE NAME. That's how you know that they're dancers!
To be fair, I think "mildly embarrassing" is underselling it a bit. If the Dwarves had the option of pretending the Dawi Zharr didn't exist to outsiders, I think there's at least a fair chance they'd take it. One thing the Dwarves and Elves have always had in common is debilitating excesses of pride, and part of that is not wanting to confess your greatest shames to outsiders.
That said, Caledor II did still handle it like a git.
... Could it be that Caledor II mistakenly thought, or feared, that the Asrai/Eonir colonists were behind it?
Boney did just have a post where he mentioned that the Old World colonies had recently tried to gain acknowledgement as a kingdom, only to be refused, and... Shit, what if that was what happened? What if Caledor II thought that it was the colonists that were doing this, and due to internal (well, Ulthuan-Old World 'internal') political pressures, didn't want to/wasn't able to put pressure on the colonists?
Given that the Druchii were performing false flag attacks, they could easily have been disguised as Old World colonists when doing it. (Or as Ulthuani spec-ops up to shady stuff or something. Or something.)
So maybe Caledor doesn't know that it's the Druchii doing this, and thinks its some kind of Old World radicals or rabble-rousers or terrorists or something, but he doesn't want to throw the colonists under the bus or maybe doesn't want to admit that Ulthuan doesn't have total control over the Old World...
... No, still doesn't fully make sense. If they could blame some extremists in the Old World for this, they'd just do that. And use that as a reason to crack down on them or to reassert order or something. Individuals or groups in the Old World that are fucking things over for both Ulthuan and the Elves that live in the Old World? You bet they'd just blame it on the Old World rebels if they were dressed in Old World Elf apparel.
Maybe Caledor would have punished the Old World colonists, but he may well not have admitted to the dwarves that he feared he'd lost control of them enough that they'd be attacking the dwarves.
Also, Grudglore tells us that even pre-War of the Beard, military conflicts between elves and dwarves did happen, just as other sources tells us that in the same period there were small wars between dwarf holds. It was a time of peace between the overall empires, but individual elements of them did go to war with each other.
Caledor may have just thought it was more of the same kind of low level conflict and not realised how big a deal it was, and thought the dwarves were bitching about something that was relatively normal.
Necromantic. High Difficulty. Requires the sword arms of ten dead soldiers, a drum made of bones and Human skin, a fragment of Warpstone the size of a skull, and a barrel of rum. An assistant must continuously beat the bone drum while the four hour ritual takes place.The ritual raises up to 30 skeletons or zombies. The difference between these and standard undead is that they don't count towards how many undead the caster is limited to controlling, there is no time limit for them, and they listen to orders no matter how far they get from the caster. They remain even if the caster is slain. If the caster fails the ritual, the undead turn on them.
This seems like a very strange ritual that is reasonably balanced for the RPG, but doesn't work for larger scale parts of the setting. Almost like "baby necromancer's first big ritual". A a skull sized fragment of warpstone and four hours of time from a mage is a reasonable tradeoff when you're making a force to contend with or complement half a dozen adventures, but not for more big name necromancers throwing around hordes of thousands.
This seems like a very strange ritual that is reasonably balanced for the RPG, but doesn't work for larger scale parts of the setting. Almost like "baby necromancer's first big ritual". A a skull sized fragment of warpstone and four hours of time from a mage is a reasonable tradeoff when you're making a force to contend with or complement half a dozen adventures, but not for more big name necromancers throwing around hordes of thousands.
Hm, in retrospect that could maybe have worked. I think my brain didn't go there because I'm not aware of her ever entering the conversation as a potential romantic partner for Mathilde, and my mind was already stuck on homoerotic rivalry as the vibe that was being sought. So the stupid sexy forest stepped forward instead.
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?
Important consideration, ores are actually extremely common, basically any rock color other than white/grey has some mineral content.
Most mines stop being exploited when they run out of ores that are easily extracted that contain a high proportion of metal to slag. And the processes is such that even the waste slag or tailings often still contain a lot of metal.
So provided you were willing to spend a lot of time and effort, you could feasibly work a mine until theres literally no rock left in it
Maybe Caledor would have punished the Old World colonists, but he may well not have admitted to the dwarves that he feared he'd lost control of them enough that they'd be attacking the dwarves.
Also, Grudglore tells us that even pre-War of the Beard, military conflicts between elves and dwarves did happen, just as other sources tells us that in the same period there were small wars between dwarf holds. It was a time of peace between the overall empires, but individual elements of them did go to war with each other.
Caledor may have just thought it was more of the same kind of low level conflict and not realised how big a deal it was, and thought the dwarves were bitching about something that was relatively normal.
This seems like a very strange ritual that is reasonably balanced for the RPG, but doesn't work for larger scale parts of the setting. Almost like "baby necromancer's first big ritual". A a skull sized fragment of warpstone and four hours of time from a mage is a reasonable tradeoff when you're making a force to contend with or complement half a dozen adventures, but not for more big name necromancers throwing around hordes of thousands.
The Hordes of thousands occurs when you keep casting this ritual over and over. There's nothing stopping you from casting this spell more than once, and this spell means that the undead you control don't count towards your limit, will last until they're destroyed, and will remain even after your death.
Even the consequene of the spell is trivial. 30 skeletons turned against you doesn't matter all that much if you're a good enough necromancer. The only hard part is getting enough Warpstone to do it.
The reason for the skull sized fragment imo is that you're trying to make this permanent. Magic doesn't like permanence, and you're trying to make 30 undead permanent. It's like enchanting 30 objects at the same time. The warpstone lets you cheat here.
Also a reminder that Necromancers can summon a decent number of undead on top of this horde, albeit there's a limit to how much and the horde exceeds that limit, it just so happens that killing the necromancer collapses the undead risen in this manner. This ritual means killing the necromancer isn't the end.
