It's been a ride, but I will say that it has been pretty civil (with like, one exception) just lots of debating and because of 60+ pages, lots of reiterated info...
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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.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
Worshipper: "Oh mighty God, we offer onto you this lamb as a symbol of our devotion and love."
God: appears, to accept the sacrifice: "IAM THE LORD THY GO-"
Worshipper "Take the fucking lamb and eat it, god! Eat it! Now!"
God: is seriously freaked out, and so accepts the lamb as that seems the quickest way out of this situation
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Faith
We have enough rabbits to chase down their holes. We really don't have time to work out the very nature of divinity - we can do so much good without risking it all on this. If Ranald backs it, well, great, but I feel like we're closing off a timesink if we don't pursue this.
We have enough rabbits to chase down their holes. We really don't have time to work out the very nature of divinity - we can do so much good without risking it all on this. If Ranald backs it, well, great, but I feel like we're closing off a timesink if we don't pursue this.
You know I wonder how Teclis, the source of much of the confusion on the divine that the Colleges have, would react to being told what we found? As the first Patriarch of the Colleges I imagine he would be intrinsically trusted so we might be able to swing telling him... you know if we somehow draw his eye down the road.
Teclis: So let me get this straight, you gutted a unaligned daemon and started slathering its guts over places and items of divine significance, to figure out what gods are?
Mathilde *beaming*: Yes, isn't it great?
Teclis: You know maybe I should have just taken the time to explain it to Volans. Also do you have more of those daemon innards?
Teclis: So let me get this straight, you gutted a unaligned daemon and started slathering its guts over places and items of divine significance, to figure out what gods are?
Mathilde *beaming*: Yes, isn't it great?
Teclis: You know maybe I should have just taken the time to explain it to Volans. Also do you have more of those daemon innards?
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Darth.
Definitely a heretic
- Location
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
God (internally): "Oh my Me, this is some deep sheep I'm in, this person's utterly crazy what do I do, don't want to make them cross, that didn't work so well for my kid."
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- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
- Pronouns
- She/They
I'd hate for the pursuit of this to disrupt the Waystone Project but it's something I'd like to have on the pile of things to do, at the very least. Also, I'm quite dubious of the back-and-forth and assertions about what Ranald would want us to do. I think the key point is that Truth is something that Mathilde can fairly easily reconcile with her faith in Ranald, without feeling like she's defying or disobeying her god. It's still a huge gamble though, and I'd caution against the notions that everything will be fine if Mathilde gets caught out or that this is a problem that can be safely "kicked upstairs" in an emergency.
I am more than a little uncomfortable with the prospect of barging into holy places and conducting experiments, but otherwise I'd like the line of inquiry to be kept open and I see Truth as the option that best reflects that.
[x] Truth
I am more than a little uncomfortable with the prospect of barging into holy places and conducting experiments, but otherwise I'd like the line of inquiry to be kept open and I see Truth as the option that best reflects that.
[x] Truth
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I know how you feel. It makes me wish we had pick one of the low activity options for next project. Because this Divine research seems like as big a deal as the waystone project in it own way.
I really don't think so, actually, simply because it's likely to take a long time to take the pictures of gods' signatures in a deniable way. We can't pile multiple AP into hunting down minor gods relics and sanctified temples because that's too obvious. Instead we're likely to test items that we come across anyway, like the altar we stole from the Kurgan.
- Location
- Moscow
From the meta standpoint there's nothing more important than Waystone project. The next Everchosen appearance is far too close for comfort, and we really, really don't want to meet him with the weakened network.
But that's meta, and no way (heh) to know it in-character.
But that's meta, and no way (heh) to know it in-character.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
We may not know ic that the next Everchosen is coming, but that doesn't mean that the Waystone project isn't first priority in character. It would be a game changer to fight Choas, and a major contribution to protecting the world.
While I do rather agree with the general sentiment that mucking about with cults where the political fallout could be massive should definitely not be our first move, I kinda feel it's important to note that the only guaranteed benefit of this avenue of research is the ability to perfectly identify a deity if we have a relic and the appropriate cross references.
That does mean getting the cross references is kinda important.
Not poking Sigmar before we know poking gods doesn't lead to immediate alarm bells being rung and a high priest trying to kill us is just good sense.
But not ever taking Sigmar's fingerprints means the only way to identify whether this weird cult is a Sigmar splinter is to get fingerprints of literally everything else it could be.
Also, even if we did limit ourselves to stuff like "make sure it's not one of the four with a mustache" we might end up creating a Sigmar fingerprint on accident anyway, by poking at a weird tiny cult we didn't realise was a Sigmar splinter.
That does mean getting the cross references is kinda important.
Not poking Sigmar before we know poking gods doesn't lead to immediate alarm bells being rung and a high priest trying to kill us is just good sense.
But not ever taking Sigmar's fingerprints means the only way to identify whether this weird cult is a Sigmar splinter is to get fingerprints of literally everything else it could be.
Also, even if we did limit ourselves to stuff like "make sure it's not one of the four with a mustache" we might end up creating a Sigmar fingerprint on accident anyway, by poking at a weird tiny cult we didn't realise was a Sigmar splinter.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Or maybe we can just learn enough about Divinity so that we can harness Mathilde's Avatar trait to be able to tell Godly Signatures from exposure rather than having to take a signature through AV.
Deathfang is capable of doing it. He recognised the "Dancer's" energies from Mathilde, and he's not even a spellcaster and obviously doesn't have AV.
- Location
- Sweden
What dragons assume doesnt have to be the actual reality; or perhaps dependant on who looks at it, it will act differently.
Nevertheless, I think Cython would have mentioned it if Ranald equalled Loec. (Did it?)*
*Why doesn't english have a genderless 'it' word for people... grumble.
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My hope is the by picking up enough divine imprints Mathilde will be able to start recognising commonalities and themes, like oh if it feels like that the god is associated with theft and it feels like that they are associated with magic etc and will be able to recognise gods without needing to take their imprint. Even if we never get to that stage I am 100% ok with just not being able to identify empire friendly gods if the alternative is trying to steal their signature somehow, the risk of getting caught just isn't worth the benefit given that Mathilde doesn't make a habit of tracking down potential cults.
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SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
People are forgetting that if Mathilde operates in the presence of priests she will come to learn what those energies feel like even with out finger printing them we don't actually need the crystals for all of the gods just the obscure ones so we can definitely say yes this presence doesn't look or feel like the presences I've seen from friendly priests calling their miracles down.
- Location
- Oklahoma
If that's the case, we don't need the crystals at all, they're just shortcuts.
(I don't think that's the case.)
- Pronouns
- He/His/etc
Once we BECOME AS GODS we will have all the time in the world to pursue all our research opportunities. Really this is the opposite of a timesink.
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm pretty sure the crystals will give deeper insight than just the ability to ID gods, but we will likely find out more after Mathilde had had more than a minute with a single crystal. IDing gods is just the lowest of low hanging fruit, something Mathilde can already do without crystals but that becomes easier with them.
Any judgement call will be just that our judgement call, based on our biases and understanding, what makes the crystals special is they are an objective experimental basis that does not count on our windsense for interpretation. You might or might not be able to recognize a familiar face under a disguise, but if the prints match, the prints match.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
Exactly iding gods is the lowest hanging fruit ( and made MUCH easier) what else we can get is pretty much unknown atm until we have more than a single Ranald crystal to work with.
[x] Faith
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Alright, I've had a good night's sleep, and I feel like I advocated a little too hard for the "plausible deniability" theory yesterday.
I want to reaffirm that the plausible deniability theory is only a theory, and not something we know for sure. It is something I think is plausible, and it would be very nice if it were the case, but it is not something one should rely on.
Truth is an option that risks Ranald's disapproval. That is the fact of the matter. If you believe that risk is worth the potential payoff here, then that's fine, but don't convince yourself that the risk isn't there.
I want to reaffirm that the plausible deniability theory is only a theory, and not something we know for sure. It is something I think is plausible, and it would be very nice if it were the case, but it is not something one should rely on.
Truth is an option that risks Ranald's disapproval. That is the fact of the matter. If you believe that risk is worth the potential payoff here, then that's fine, but don't convince yourself that the risk isn't there.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So I'm still 30 pages behind and my internet's been on-and-off the last hour. (So sorry if this has already been brought up.) But I finally figured out what was bugging me about this vote: The arguments are that [] Truth gets us something. Something wondrous, powerful, world-changing, etc. But [] Faith get us nothing. Maybe a pat on the head. But that's it.
Thing is, I don't believe that's true. The only true "nothing" option is [] Prudence. And just because we only know what [] Truth might give us, that being a scientific understanding of divinity, that doesn't mean [] Faith might not gain us a result equally as valuable. Maybe it's a mystery box compared to a certain thing, sure, but is it truly of so little value as people make it out to be?
As for what that mystery might be, we do have some hints:
Again, the only gives-nothing option is [] Prudence. This isn't choosing between something and simply not having anything. It's a choice between two different paths, and while we have a better idea what one of those paths might lead to, ultimately I have a hard time believing that anywhere near as unequal as the discussion (as far as I've seen) has made them out to be.
Thing is, I don't believe that's true. The only true "nothing" option is [] Prudence. And just because we only know what [] Truth might give us, that being a scientific understanding of divinity, that doesn't mean [] Faith might not gain us a result equally as valuable. Maybe it's a mystery box compared to a certain thing, sure, but is it truly of so little value as people make it out to be?
As for what that mystery might be, we do have some hints:
These are two traits we had as options following the Karag Dum expedition. [] Truth, obviously, corresponds to the first trait. It takes us on the path to developing a scientific understanding of divinity. But I'd argue that [] Faith might take us on the path that the second trait would have given us: A better social understanding of the gods. Better ways to interact with and work with Ranald and others. After all, do Priests not have their own secrets? Does Heidi not have some deep understanding and knowledge to pull off her Ranald-Shallya youth-giving blessing? Does not Ljiljana have some huge ties to multiple gods in order to pull off the Bearicane?
Again, the only gives-nothing option is [] Prudence. This isn't choosing between something and simply not having anything. It's a choice between two different paths, and while we have a better idea what one of those paths might lead to, ultimately I have a hard time believing that anywhere near as unequal as the discussion (as far as I've seen) has made them out to be.