- Location
- Somewhere, probably Earth
It certainly doesn't come from going behind their back where divine magic is concerned. It's not even fear. It's 'hey bro, I mighta accidentally done a thing. Here's your juice back, sorry for nipping it.'
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Burned_Cookie
Very tired girl.
- Location
- Plato´s cave.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/It/Its
1. And in what glorious company we will be. Blind pursuit of our desired (knowledge) and convoluted scheming with no end goal in mind, we'd be at two out of four already!
2. If you trust that your plans are in Ranalds interests, pick faith. Ask him.
If you think that might kill the research tree… well then the excuse that Ranald wants it never worked in the first place.
NexysDhyArchen
Throne Breaker
An aspect that should be considered regardless is: Did all that Ranald type Vitae energy ADD to Ranald's? Yes, probably less than a percentage of a percentage. But still... there is no evidence that the Mirror Box is ever going to stop leaking barring destructive realignment. So we potentially have here an option to, ridiculously slowly but gradually, add to Ranald's power?
A hamster on a wheel won't power a light for long. A perpetual machine turning a generator could charge a star given time. A dwarven stored leaky faucet could empower a God.
A hamster on a wheel won't power a light for long. A perpetual machine turning a generator could charge a star given time. A dwarven stored leaky faucet could empower a God.
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Yeah except that is also killing the line of research for all time. Instead of you know keeping and not using that crystal for anything, which is not even a part of his power mind just an imprint.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
Also it's worth noting that Mathilde does still have this trait:
On the one hand, there's a god she already wouldn't mind stealing from. On the other, it does say renewed faith in other gods. So…
So... this is one hefty choice.
Truth is the most tempting option - high risk and high reward. That said I'd like to poke at hostile Gods before poking at Empire Gods if that's at all possible.
Truth is the most tempting option - high risk and high reward. That said I'd like to poke at hostile Gods before poking at Empire Gods if that's at all possible.
- Location
- Red Blood on Golden Shield
When the QM says that the research option is to vote truth, and he only explicitly says truth.
Then it means nothing more than truth is the research option.
Stop trying to have the cake and eat it too...
- Location
- Aotearoa
Aside from dreams of godhood, or nightmares of godly smiting, or fears of multi-Cult excommunication running through the thread, allow me to make an appeal to time management and responsible organisational leadership.
We've just started a potentially world-shaking project to create an alliance of secretive parties to collaborate in the reverse engineering of ancient Waystone magitech. Where we're seriously considering bringing in some Cults, by the by. And we've just decided to lead the Colleges' contributions, via WEB-MAT.
I want to finish that. We started it! I don't think it continues without us.
Oh, we also made ourselves Head Librarian to the foundations of what we hope will be the greatest repository of written knowledge in the Old World.
Adding to our backlog of action options a hitlist of heists to steal copies of these divine signatures seems like a long, long chain of actions to (hopefully) acquire safely, under possible Divine scrutiny- a list we may well never complete, because voting, and I for one would vote against those plans. Or if we do pursue it, it'll delay stuff we're already in line for doing, like those Waystones. And in turn further delay even more long anticipated opportunities, like Nagarythe, home of Ulgu Commando Elves.
I fear this an action sink for our hubris.
We've just started a potentially world-shaking project to create an alliance of secretive parties to collaborate in the reverse engineering of ancient Waystone magitech. Where we're seriously considering bringing in some Cults, by the by. And we've just decided to lead the Colleges' contributions, via WEB-MAT.
I want to finish that. We started it! I don't think it continues without us.
Oh, we also made ourselves Head Librarian to the foundations of what we hope will be the greatest repository of written knowledge in the Old World.
Adding to our backlog of action options a hitlist of heists to steal copies of these divine signatures seems like a long, long chain of actions to (hopefully) acquire safely, under possible Divine scrutiny- a list we may well never complete, because voting, and I for one would vote against those plans. Or if we do pursue it, it'll delay stuff we're already in line for doing, like those Waystones. And in turn further delay even more long anticipated opportunities, like Nagarythe, home of Ulgu Commando Elves.
I fear this an action sink for our hubris.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Do you have faith that Sigmar or Ulric would be so merciful? What of the Widow or the Lady? Or Khaine and Asuryan for that matter. Truth isn't going to end with just Ranald, it is committing acts against the gods of order in general.
- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
I mean, yes, fucking with the stuff that mysteriously nobody wants us to fuck with, our friendly and close allies included, for reasons rather strongly suggested to be in our interests to one degree or another, is a hard play.
His identity, y'mean. Gods can very well be argued to be their imprints, we're basically stealing His identity.
Something to consider is that the Gods may not have shared this knowledge previously, but there are all sorts of potential reasons for this. One is that there wasn't anyone in the cults with the correct academic background and mindset to do anything useful with it. Another is that, despite Mathilde's assumptions, the gods themselves don't know. None of the Empire's gods are gods of magic, so it maybe that they're in a situation like pre-modern humans, and they just don't know how their 'bodies' work. In this later case, Mathilde's faith may be blinding her to the possibility of the gods' own ignorance.
It's quite possible that the secrecy of the Cults about the nature of the gods is done to hide the fact that they know nothing about the subject. They may also not care. They may simply think the gods are the gods, and not consider the metaphysical principles beyond that a meaningful question. Who historically in the real world has studied gods from the 'how' perspective after all? Believes don't ask how a god performed a miracle.
More generally, as noted, Mathilde's proposed research path isn't to investigate Ranald in more detail, it's to investigate other gods. Now, if we pick Truth, presumably we have some control over how she does that. We could easily choose to restrict ourselves to examining the proscribed (non-chaos) gods, or very minor gods. We don't have to start with the major legitimate Cults of the Empire, or even ever go there.
It's quite possible that the secrecy of the Cults about the nature of the gods is done to hide the fact that they know nothing about the subject. They may also not care. They may simply think the gods are the gods, and not consider the metaphysical principles beyond that a meaningful question. Who historically in the real world has studied gods from the 'how' perspective after all? Believes don't ask how a god performed a miracle.
More generally, as noted, Mathilde's proposed research path isn't to investigate Ranald in more detail, it's to investigate other gods. Now, if we pick Truth, presumably we have some control over how she does that. We could easily choose to restrict ourselves to examining the proscribed (non-chaos) gods, or very minor gods. We don't have to start with the major legitimate Cults of the Empire, or even ever go there.
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?? Um. The point goes like this:
People share a story about Ranald.
Posters talk about and interpret that story.
Codex, and others, go: "Um guys you realize that from the context of the reading of that very story itself, the meaning of the story is 'Ranald didn't steal divinity, Ranald lied to humanity about ever being human'?"
It's like... Where does "If you choose to believe that wing of his cult" come in? The point was that this was an argument about the plain text reading of the story we were shared. And Codex was pointing out "Uh guys despite what you seem to have assumed this to be or mean from Fanon, the story pretty clearly says..."
Which, I mean, you can still go: "But I truly believe that Ranald was human and became divine. And that it happened through this particular story." (... Despite the fact that this story literally ends with the urchin going 'But that was itself a trick.' Eh.) But still.
Yes, exactly? It'd be like stealing (or researching the ability to be able to do so) the royal sigil/signet/whatever from Bretonnia or Kislev or Tilea or whatever? Countries which are not always the Empire's allies/friends, but are at minimum not their intractable enemies the way Chaos or Skaven or Chaos Dwarfs might be.
"Is this a good idea or non-asshole thing to do?" "Is this something for which you might get retaliation for?"
The point I am making is that deciding to commit identity fraud -- and everything that comes of and relates to being able to use divine energies without being granted the divine energies and miracles from the Gods -- is risky and arguably not super ethical. And also not very respectful of the Gods either too.
On that "maybe not very respectful of the Gods either too" note. Maybe it's better not to plumb the secrets of the divine, and to approach the Gods through the perspective of a faithful worshipper instead.
- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
Right, but literally just this update Mathilde noted the nigh infinite complexity of Ranald's power being possibly dangerous for her to comprehend in its fullness. And when we investigated the Coin, Ranald's warning carried with it an undertone of 'seriously you don't want to'. If Ranald just Didn't Know, I don't think he'd go out of his way to get Mathilde to not.
- Pronouns
- He/His/etc
Is there any way we can use this to discredit Sigmar and show that he's not a real god? Or at least inferior to the others?
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- Location
- Somewhere, probably Earth
The entire argument of 'losing this line of research' is predicated on the belief that, if we alert Ranald to the possibility we've discovered, we will receive an emphatic 'do not research' from him. This, to me, is an argument that We Should Not Research This.
If you think the Gods are deliberately hiding some big secret to power that we absolutely must suss out, then you aren't treating him as a friend, ally OR object of worship. You're treating him as an obstacle.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
You're ignoring the fact that Boney OOCly stated exactly what the "Don't" was talking about and it was explicitly about looking at Ranald in the warp not studying theurgy.
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- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
W-what? Sigmar's absolutely a real god, he's just one Mathilde has a grudge against.
- Location
- South Africa
I think that Truth will result in a situation like the Liber Mortis, expect dialed up to extreme - both the risks and potential results.
Burned_Cookie
Very tired girl.
- Location
- Plato´s cave.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/It/Its
Again I'd like to remind everyone that Faith is the option where we ask Ranald what to do with his undisguised imprint, which seems to be somewhere between a nude foto and a stolen ID.
I agree that he will kill our research options, but thats like saying "oh no our friend doesn't want us to sell their nudes/ nuclear launch codes for cash" and doing it behind their back instead.
Seems pretty shitty to me, regardless of any blowback.
And if there is anything he would want us to impersonate him for, or perhaps have us get him the signature of hostile gods, he will tell us.
I really see no way to pick truth that doesn't betray Ranalds trust in us.
I agree that he will kill our research options, but thats like saying "oh no our friend doesn't want us to sell their nudes/ nuclear launch codes for cash" and doing it behind their back instead.
Seems pretty shitty to me, regardless of any blowback.
And if there is anything he would want us to impersonate him for, or perhaps have us get him the signature of hostile gods, he will tell us.
I really see no way to pick truth that doesn't betray Ranalds trust in us.
- Pronouns
- He/His/etc
I didn't say we wouldn't be lying.
On that "maybe not very respectful of the Gods either too" note. Maybe it's better not to plumb the secrets of the divine, and to approach the Gods through the perspective of a faithful worshipper instead.
Really? How is that going for us then?
*looks around at the vast powers of Chaos at the Everchosen marching ever closer to the world's ruin as the elder races fade and the younger Fall*
Faith seems to be going great, no need for any revolutions of arcane understanding here.
Yes, yes I know hubris we should hug our good friend Ranald, I do not expect to win this argument anymore so I might as well quip about its flaws.
Tempter, is that you?
Try saying that to Dwarven Throng when they come knocking after you start spreading Guild Secrets.
AV can transform directly into Divine Enrgy huh... Did we ever scrutinised what exactly did AV transformed (or rather exploded widly IIRC) to when we exposed it to the Anvils? Because if AV can transform into Divine Energy, not only Winds, then maybe what we recharged the Anvils with was not Wind Magic, but Divine? By verifying what energies AV dissolves into upon contact might give us insight into the nature of Dwarven Runework.
As far as Mathilde knows, it's never been tested. Thorek created a way to split the AV and funnel the resultant Winds into the Anvil Runes without any direct contact.
- Location
- South Africa
I don't think that Faith is asking Ranald what to do and expecting to receive a stop. It is offering the sacrifice of what we have done, and for the sacrifice to be genuine we must stop. Thus the decision to stop research is done in the act of choosing Faith, not afterwards. (If faith was asking Ranald then we could always ignore his answer, thus Faith wouldn't be stopping the research)