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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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You know I just had a thought... if you pour AV on the artifact of a living god you get dead disconnected power right? What would happen if you pored it on the ashes of a dead god? It might be something boring like more of the Wind of Death, but it might also be something cool like more god ashes a substance which allows Elsbeth to perform feats of power far outside the normal domain of her Wind, so much so that they almost seem to infringe on the domain of the... well starts with an N. :V
 
Omegahugger said:
So you're saying there's a chance we can bind her as an apparition?
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The exact wording is "Unfortunately, she also suffers any extra effect that is listed as specifically damaging Daemons or the Undead (such as the Lore of Light Exorcism attribute)."

It's open to interpretation whether that will also extend to other effects, but I would assume not.
 
DragonParadox said:
You know I just had a thought... if you pour AV on the artifact of a living god you get dead disconnected power right? What would happen if you pored it on the ashes of a dead god? It might be something boring like more of the Wind of Death, but it might also be something cool like more god ashes a substance which allows Elsbeth to perform feats of power far outside the normal domain of her Wind, so much so that they almost seem to infringe on the domain of the... well starts with an N. :V
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We aren't sure what exactly a God is, but if there's no distinction between the God and its power then we might accidentally bring it back from the dead if we do this :D

Explanation: IIRC Kragg suggested that there's no difference between a God and a God's power before it is wielded/spent. This suggests Gods are basically giant balls of power, shaving off bits of themselves to do miracles and growing bigger when they get more power (through prayer?). Therefore if you pour AV on the "God ashes" and it recreates a pile of that God's power, you might accidentally recreate a really tiny God.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
We aren't sure what exactly a God is, but if there's no distinction between the God and its power then we might accidentally bring it back from the dead if we do this :D

Explanation: IIRC Kragg suggested that there's no difference between a God and a God's power before it is wielded/spent. This suggests Gods are basically giant balls of power, shaving off bits of themselves to do miracles and growing bigger when they get more power (through prayer?). Therefore if you pour AV on the "God ashes" and it recreates a pile of that God's power, you might accidentally recreate a really tiny God.
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I mean I am not sure that would be a failure condition, at least not unless the god is evil or something. See if you make a micro-god like as strong as a greater daemon but on this side of the Veil, because that is where the ashes are you could treat it like that... as a sane daemon, who owes you a favor, what with being alive and all, there are all sorts of cool things you can do with magic if you have that strong of an Aetheric being available.
 
Codex said:
BTW, apparently there is a canonical Talisman in Warhammer 8th Edition Rulebook available to all armies called the Seed of Rebirth, the same name as Mathilde's artifact. It gives a Regeneration 6+ save, which isn't as good as you might think, but it's decent protection for your average human Hero or Lord.

I think @deathofrats0808's iteration of Mathilde's tabletop stats gave her a Regen save instead of the way the Seed currently works in quest, which I thought was a simplification to make things more fair and less complicated, to let the game move quicker. I didn't know that they probably based it off the canonical item. Although I think the Regen save was better than 6+, which makes sense since the Seed we got was probably a really well made version.

To those who don't know though, in a Tabletop game Regen is shut down by Flaming Attacks. Technically Mathilde has immunity to fire so that never happens anyway (although Death's statblock gave her a 2+ ward save against Fire to make things more balanced), but I just thought it was worth noting.

EDIT: Apparently our item is called the Seed of Regrowth instead of Rebirth. Got confused. I guess it counts as an upgraded version of the Seed of Rebirth.
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I nerfed it to a regular 4+ Regen save. That was mostly because I was interested in trying to make a statline I could see GW actually creating for Mathilde, and there was no way they'd have a character come back from the dead more than once. And in 8th they dropped immunity to fire as a rule, and gave everyone who used to have it 2+ wards against fire instead. But yeah, I absolutely took the canon item and beefed it up a bit for Mathilde's Seed.
 
Codex said:
I skipped to the end of Throne of Tamurkhan so I can actually get a good look at Elspeth's stats for the first time. A lot of it is stuff I expected. Not that great in melee, Wizard level 4 with Loremaster (Death) (knows all Death spells), stuff like that.

Interesting things about her: First is that her Carmine Dragon's stats surprised me. It has WS 5 and S5 like a Sun Dragon (the weakest Ulthuan Dragon type), but has T6 and W6 like a Moon Dragon (middle dragon). The Carmine Dragon has Initiative 5, which is better than any standard Ulthuan Dragon, and 6 Attacks, which is equal to Star Dragons, the strongest Ulthuan Dragon type. Its leadership is 8, like a Moon Dragon. The Carmine Dragon's stats ping pong a lot between the different Dragon types.

The second interesting thing is that the Carmine Dragon's breath attack is pretty unique. Most breath attack have the Breath Weapon rules, they're a cone originating from the caster and inflict an auto hit, but you still have to roll to wound and armor saves can be taken.

The Carmine Dragon's breath attack is fired like a damn canonball. Anything in the same path as the Carmine Dragon suffers D3 wounds automatically with no armor saves allowed, which is pretty crazy. You also can't misfire with the breath attack. It's a good thing it's only once per game.

The third interesting thing are her magic items. A scythe with Killing Blow and +1 boost to her dispel attempts, and the infamous god dust in her hour glass. Apparently the hourglass gives her limited control over death and time, letting her reroll one die roll every player turn (which is two rerolls per game turn). If she doesn't reroll during a turn, she regains one wound she lost earlier in the game. I assume narratively this is worked out as winding time back.

The final interesting thing is that she has a trait called Darkwalker. Apparently she's so suffused by the Wind of Death that she is considered to be walking the edge between life and death. As such, she is semi ethereal or something, so all attacks get a -1 to wound against her and she has Immune to Psychology. The interesting thing about this though, is that all effects that only work on Daemons and Undead, like the Light Magic Exorcism, works on her.
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That hourglass I'd insanely powerful :o
 
deathofrats0808 said:
I nerfed it to a regular 4+ Regen save. That was mostly because I was interested in trying to make a statline I could see GW actually creating for Mathilde, and there was no way they'd have a character come back from the dead more than once. And in 8th they dropped immunity to fire as a rule, and gave everyone who used to have it 2+ wards against fire instead. But yeah, I absolutely took the canon item and beefed it up a bit for Mathilde's Seed.
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Funnily enough, even your nerfed version is stronger than the canonical Jade Griffon, Volkmar's magic item (5+ Regen Save). GW were very tame about the majority of the Empire's magic items, which makes sense considering they're the "low magic" faction (weapons like Ghal Maraz and Runefangs are outliers).

On another topic, I've noticed something about the current crop of P/Matriarchs in DL.

Namely, that many of them are frankly ridiculous.

Elspeth is obvious. You know, ashes of a dead god and all that. Dragomas has also been discussed extensively, he is certainly absurdly powerful by any metric. But I think it bears mentioning that the others are no slouches either.

Rereading Storm of Magic, it seems to me like Paranoth and Algard are really big deals. Paranoth is one of the few humans (and maybe the only currently living human?) with a Mythical Artifact in Storm of Magic. I mean, all things considered its effect isn't that ridiculous (it protects a pretty big area the size of an encampment, turning a forest/swamp/hill whatever into a "building"), but it's still considered a Mythic Artifact. And he has to be absurdly powerful to travel "every road in the Old World and Ind". In canon he expands his portfolio to all the roads between Naggarond and Cathay.

Algard is also not to be underestimated. Algard is one of the few mages to get a spotlight in the book with a scenario presented for his Towers of Screaming Death, which I should remind people are teleporting towers that "no longer reside fully within the mortal realm" and also they don't obey paltry rules like physics and gravity.

The whole "moving the sun around" thing he just casually threw out is apparently part of his M.O. Algard just casually breaks the rules of physics. It should also be noted that the name of his towers bear a startling similarities to a particular feature known as the "Portal of Screaming Death". As the name implies, you enter the portal and you die.

But hey, that's just four out of eight. Alric is very powerful, having maintained three terms, but he's pretty old and likely getting weaker. Reichtard is described as not a risk taker and we don't know much about him. Feldmann is more of a politics guy than a powerful caster. We don't know much about Stossel. Maybe things are balanced out as a result of that.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the very important fact that Paranoth's magic item is called "Paranoth's Piquet Fence". Crucial detail.
 
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Codex said:
Funnily enough, even your nerfed version is stronger than the canonical Jade Griffon, Volkmar's magic item (5+ Regen Save).
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I'm pretty sure the Jade Griffon is just enchanted with Earthblood. They have the same effect, and well, it's the Jade Griffon, with Earthblood being the signature spell of Jade Wizards.
 
IronFist said:
That hourglass I'd insanely powerful :o
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It is pretty good, but it's not all powerful. Elspeth can only reroll dice that "concern her or the Carmine Dragon". It's debatable whether she can even reroll enemy dice at all (although I'd say she probably can, as long as it's something that looks to attack her or her dragon), because Tamurkhan, while a cool book, is not particularly clearly written from a rules standpoint.

Codex said:
Funnily enough, even your nerfed version is stronger than the canonical Jade Griffon, Volkmar's magic item (5+ Regen Save). GW were very tame about the majority of the Empire's magic items, which makes sense considering they're the "low magic" faction (weapons like Ghal Maraz and Runefangs are outliers).
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The Empire's magic items range from fantastic, but overpriced to loreful, but terrible with only a handful of exceptions.
 
Mopman43 said:
I'm pretty sure the Jade Griffon is just enchanted with Earthblood. They have the same effect, and well, it's the Jade Griffon, with Earthblood being the signature spell of Jade Wizards.
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Being fair, the Jade Griffon is called that because it's made from enchanted Jade. That doesn't mean it's not enchanted by the Jade College, but it also doesn't mean it has to have been enchanted by the Jade College. My personal interpretation before you said that was that the Jade Griffon was enchanted by pure belief and cultural significance.

Page 202 of Realms of Sorcery says this:

"Not all magic items were intentionally created. Some developed special properties by being present during a significant event, such as on a battlefield where tens of thousands died or being used to slay a particularly loathsome Daemon. Other items might become magical after being stored in a holy (or unholy) place for centuries, while others still develop unexpected abilities simply by dint of their significance such as a suit of armour worn by a famous and beloved martyr.

The common explanation for these magical manifestations is that these items were magical all along, but only a person found worthy of them can unlock their powers. A bold knight's sword may have served its owner in killing countless Greenskins, but with the owner's death, the sword loses its special power against Orcs and Goblins until such time that a suitable heir is found.

While romantic, this explanation is likely false. In truth, these objects gain their magical powers in the same way that priests and cultists derive power from the gods. Through widespread veneration of a particular object, the object becomes a focus of thought and prayer and hope. In effect, the object, perhaps through the Realm of Chaos, conforms to the expectations of Humanity and as a result attains some measure of power."
 
Given the Cult of Sigmar's long persecution of the druidic circles that would become the Jade order perhaps the griffon was looted off one of them some time in the misty dawn of time and a particularly daring Grand Theogonist said 'well it heals and does not seem to give any tentacles, I'll just take it for myself.' That would explain both why it is identical to one of the effects of the Lore of Life (and made of jade) as well as how it might be older than the Colleges.
 
DragonParadox said:
as well as how it might be older than the Colleges.
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What indicates that?

The description, far as I'm aware, just says:
This talisman is carved from enchanted jade and is said to have been blessed by Magnus the Pious himself. The Jade Griffon hangs upon the Grand Theogonist's chest, glowing with a green inner light that suffuses Volkmar with regenerative powers.
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Mopman43 said:
What indicates that?

The description, far as I'm aware, just says:
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That description is what makes me think it was enchanted by cultural belief. There's a bunch of artifacts all related to Magnus that have odd origins, and I think from the paragraph I quoted, it makes sense why anything related to Magnus would become enchanted. The guy is second to only Sigmar in terms of cultural significance.
DragonParadox said:
Well that means that the item is at least that old, which would align with the very first Jade wizards, but I do not think it is likely that the Cult of Sigmar would have trusted magic when it was so new.
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This assumes that the enchantment is Arcane in nature, as in someone enchanted it.

In 7th (or 6th?) Edition, there is a magic item called the "Shroud of Magnus".

It was never stated to be enchanted, and in fact the story around it seems to suggest that no one would have dared done so. It's just that Magnus had such a powerful presence and story that his shroud became enchanted through belief.

The mechanical effects are a 5+ Ward save and immunity to all Dark/Skaven/Chaos Magic cast on a person with the Shroud as well as their unit. If translated to 8th Edition it would likely be 5+ Ward Save and Magic Resistance (3) against those types of magic.
 
What is more Interesting I find about the fact that Elspeth is vulnerable to things that effects demons or undead, is that it seems her existence is such it is almost akin to a demon or undead with her having some of their vulnerabilities, the possible reason for this, is that it is possible that she is almost akin to the incarnates the Colleges could create or summon through human sacrifice or more specifically an incarnate for the wind of death as it would explain why she is vulnerable to spells against undead along with demons.
 
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Codex said:
That description is what makes me think it was enchanted by cultural belief. There's a bunch of artifacts all related to Magnus that have odd origins, and I think from the paragraph I quoted, it makes sense why anything related to Magnus would become enchanted. The guy is second to only Sigmar in terms of cultural significance.

This assumes that the enchantment is Arcane in nature, as in someone enchanted it.

In 7th (or 6th?) Edition, there is a magic item called the "Shroud of Magnus".

It was never stated to be enchanted, and in fact the story around it seems to suggest that no one would have dared done so. It's just that Magnus had such a powerful presence and story that his shroud became enchanted through belief.

The mechanical effects are a 5+ Ward save and immunity to all Dark/Skaven/Chaos Magic cast on a person with the Shroud as well as their unit. If translated to 8th Edition it would likely be 5+ Ward Save and Magic Resistance (3) against those types of magic.
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Both 7th and 6th. 6th has it give immunity to some types of magic, but 7th just has it give Magic Resistance 2.
 
Dheer said:
What is more Interesting I find about the fact that Elspeth is vulnerable to things that effects demons or undead, is that it seems her existence is such it is almost akin to a demon or undead with her having some of their vulnerabilities, it the reason for this is that it is possible that she is almost akin to the incarnates the Colleges could create or summon through human sacrifice or more specifically an incarnate for the wind of death as it would explain why she is vulnerable to spells against undead along with demons.
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I suppose that's what happens when you dive super hard into your Wind. There are multiple mentions that Elspeth is quite old, but piecing together the hints, this is what I got:

The phrase "three generations" is used a lot, specifically to denote how long she's been a creepy wizard at the edge of Nuln. This means that Elspeth graduated the Colleges and attained a scary reputation three generations ago, but that's a very vague and imprecise measurement. Google tells me that a generation is 25 years, but it can also vary. If we were to take into account that a generation is indeed 25 years, and Tamurkhan's invasion is in 2511 IC, then that would place her at 2511 - 75= 2436 IC could roughly be the time in which she started being a creepy person around the edges of Nuln. That still doesn't tell us at what point she decided to do that. Did she graduate to Magister and do it immediately? Or did she work her way to Lady Magister before doing that? How long did she spend on the study phase? How old was she when she joined the Colleges? Lots of unknowns.

It's explicitly stated that she studied and graduated from the Colleges, so I would say the lower limit for her age would be around 95 years old, and the upper limit could have her be one of the first students taughte by Teclis if you want to go that way. That would put her at around 200+ years old or something.

Also, I think I should mention that Elspeth comes from a "long bloodline touched by the Winds of Magic, a bloodline that has produced both monsters and saviours in its time", so she's not exactly a normal Wizard in the first place. She's naturally attuned to the Winds of Magic.
 
Codex said:
I suppose that's what happens when you dive super hard into your Wind. There are multiple mentions that Elspeth is quite old, but piecing together the hints, this is what I got:

The phrase "three generations" is used a lot, specifically to denote how long she's been a creepy wizard at the edge of Nuln. This means that Elspeth graduated the Colleges and attained a scary reputation three generations ago, but that's a very vague and imprecise measurement. Google tells me that a generation is 25 years, but it can also vary. If we were to take into account that a generation is indeed 25 years, and Tamurkhan's invasion is in 2511 IC, then that would place her at 2511 - 75= 2436 IC could roughly be the time in which she started being a creepy person around the edges of Nuln. That still doesn't tell us at what point she decided to do that. Did she graduate to Magister and do it immediately? Or did she work her way to Lady Magister before doing that? How long did she spend on the study phase? How old was she when she joined the Colleges? Lots of unknowns.

It's explicitly stated that she studied and graduated from the Colleges, so I would say the lower limit for her age would be around 95 years old, and the upper limit could have her be one of the first students taughte by Teclis if you want to go that way. That would put her at around 200+ years old or something.

Also, I think I should mention that Elspeth comes from a "long bloodline touched by the Winds of Magic, a bloodline that has produced both monsters and saviours in its time", so she's not exactly a normal Wizard in the first place. She's naturally attuned to the Winds of Magic.
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Elspeth von Draken may well be much much older than the Colleges she currently serves. There is one line touched by the winds of magic that sounds a lot like like Von Draken... the von Draks, the people who were lord of Silvania before Vlad. The last mortal Von Dak died in 1797 IC 690 years ago. If she did indeed attain some sort of Shysh ascension then time would leave no mark on her and Teclis would have certainly wanted to bring her on board if he had met her or knew of her.
 
DragonParadox said:
Elspeth von Draken may well be much much older than the Colleges she currently serves.
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I doubt that she'd be described as a former student of the colleges if she was intended to be older than them, especially much older.

DragonParadox said:
There is one line touched by the winds of magic that sounds a lot like like Von Draken... the von Draks, the people who were lord of Silvania before Vlad. The last mortal Von Dak died in 1797 IC 690 years ago.
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Main issue there is that I don't think any known member of the von Drak line could be described as "saviors".
 
DragonParadox said:
Elspeth von Draken may well be much much older than the Colleges she currently serves. There is one line touched by the winds of magic that sounds a lot like like Von Draken... the von Draks, the people who were lord of Silvania before Vlad. The last mortal Von Dak died in 1797 IC 690 years ago. If she did indeed attain some sort of Shysh ascension then time would leave no mark on her and Teclis would have certainly wanted to bring her on board if he had met her or knew of her.
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I'd like to remind you that Drak means Dragon, and she rides a Dragon. It can be as simple as that. Warhammer has plenty of Drak stuff, because Dragons are very popular in fantasy settings. Her name being Draken isn't a strong enough connection for that.
 
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