Oh sure it mattered to those families, it just did not matter to the Empire the way the British burning Hong Kong would.
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.
Oh sure it mattered to those families, it just did not matter to the Empire the way the British burning Hong Kong would.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Sure, but at that point you rather undercut your writing. You can't both present the High Elves as a powerful force people need to take seriously and as utterly failing at their main foreign policy goal.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I finished Storm of Chaos. It was certainly an interesting and actually fun book, giving me a good look at a bunch of units I knew of but didn't know had stats in the tabletop, and introducing me to plenty of new things. Uh... where to start? I guess I'll just list whatever comes to mind.
Uh, Valten is 18 years old in Storm of Chaos, which is crazy. Who let this child on the battlefield? It also doesn't make sense to me that the Dwarves would keep armor they intended to give to Sigmar for 2500 years and only just decide to give it to Valten now. They would have definitely given it to whichever Emperor was in charge. I bet they lied about it being made for SIgmar and when they heard that Teclis was coming with a horse for Valten they rushed to bring an armor from their vaults to give to Valten so they're not shown up by Elves.
The book is extremely explicit about Morathi being a Slaaneshi, and even gives her the option to lead a Slaaneshi army, have the Mark of Slaanesh and cast spells from the Lore of Slaanesh. 8th Edition is much more coy about all this and just says "Cult of Pleasure" this and that. Things changed a lot between editions. Also, explicit mentions that while Elves are highly resistant to mutation, certain Dark Elves like the Anointed have spent so much time in the Chaos Wastes that they're pretty mutated.
Grimgor straight up talks to Gork in the book and Gork tells him how to create a holy relic (Effigy of Gork), which indicates a great degree of communication from God to servant. Thank god he's no longer Gork's avatar.
Aislinn has a pretty interesting rule that lets his side shoot before the battle starts to represent his tactics. He also shuts down the "Intrigue at Court" special rule that High Elves have, whatever that means, which I suspect is to represent him despising intrigue. Good old fashioned raiding is where it's at. It's explicitly mentioned what's been hinted at before, that he "takes an almost cruel delight in using the sea mists to make demoralising attacks". Him having one tactic seems to be because he enjoys it (also because it's effective, even if it doesn't make friends).
I also finally got a look at the Sea Mages of Ulthuan. Apparently there's a lord version of the Sea Mage called the Storm Weaver. They seem to use standard Elf spells, but don't have Drain Magic. Instead they can choose one of two spells. Writhing Mists is a mist spell that remains in play and obscures a friendly unit, making them very hard to see (this can be cast even on untis that are in close combat with enemies). The spell is dispelled if the mage casts another spell, dismisses it, if the spell is dispelled, the mage dies or the friendly unit moves. The other is a spell that creates an Oceanid that lets out a haunting tune that can stop some of the shooting attacks that enemies make if they're closer to the Oceanid than the unit they're firing at. Overall, the two spells are heavily Ulgu themed.
Also, I didn't know that the three Assassins we saw in Karak Eight Peaks were a thing on the Tabletop. I thought they were typically solo Hero Units, but there is an Eshin Triad unit in Storm of Chaos representing three Assassins working together. There's also an Eshin Sorceror in Storm of Chaos, but no Lore of Stealth, the Sorceror only has Skitterleap.
Bretonnia has some interesting rules to represent the Errantry War, but I'm not sure if it's that good. You have to take a significant amount of Knights Errant (it's an Errantry War), and the Knights Errant get constant penalties to their Impeteousness (charging out of excitement). It seems easy to goad the Knights into a trap and slaughter them all, which I suppose what an Errantry War is like.
It's also nice to finally get a look at the Army of Middenheim in all its glory! Ulric Battle Prayers! Boris and Ar-Ulric stat blocks! Unique units and Magic Items! I'm happy to see Middenheim got something at some point. I will say, Boris' Talisman of Ulric is incredibly strong in 6th Edition. As long as he's alive at the end of the turn, he automatically regenerates all the wounds he lost, bringing himself to full health. No limit. I think it would need toning down if it was updated, maybe something like Orion's cloak.
I was also very surprised when the beginning of the book explicitly says "Volkmar is slain". I know he survived, so I was like, how the hell is he going to do a "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated?" Turns out Be'lakor straight up revives him, possibly days after his death. And he didn't revive him as an undead, it was a straight up revival, he wasn't even corrupted by it. Be'lakor just wanted to undo what Archaon did as a "gotcha" to prove he was superior and cause endless torture and misery to Volkmar by keeping him alive. His method of doing that was making Volkmar know the only reason he was alive is because a Daemon Prince revived him and kept him alive, then he nailed him to his banner and swung him around during battle to inspire the troops.
I haven't read that book that's supposed to recount the events of Storm of Chaos from a narrative perspective yet, but I also heard that he busted out of the banner by breaking it and ran around the battlefield half naked or something. Warhammer's crazy guys.
Uh, Valten is 18 years old in Storm of Chaos, which is crazy. Who let this child on the battlefield? It also doesn't make sense to me that the Dwarves would keep armor they intended to give to Sigmar for 2500 years and only just decide to give it to Valten now. They would have definitely given it to whichever Emperor was in charge. I bet they lied about it being made for SIgmar and when they heard that Teclis was coming with a horse for Valten they rushed to bring an armor from their vaults to give to Valten so they're not shown up by Elves.
The book is extremely explicit about Morathi being a Slaaneshi, and even gives her the option to lead a Slaaneshi army, have the Mark of Slaanesh and cast spells from the Lore of Slaanesh. 8th Edition is much more coy about all this and just says "Cult of Pleasure" this and that. Things changed a lot between editions. Also, explicit mentions that while Elves are highly resistant to mutation, certain Dark Elves like the Anointed have spent so much time in the Chaos Wastes that they're pretty mutated.
Grimgor straight up talks to Gork in the book and Gork tells him how to create a holy relic (Effigy of Gork), which indicates a great degree of communication from God to servant. Thank god he's no longer Gork's avatar.
Aislinn has a pretty interesting rule that lets his side shoot before the battle starts to represent his tactics. He also shuts down the "Intrigue at Court" special rule that High Elves have, whatever that means, which I suspect is to represent him despising intrigue. Good old fashioned raiding is where it's at. It's explicitly mentioned what's been hinted at before, that he "takes an almost cruel delight in using the sea mists to make demoralising attacks". Him having one tactic seems to be because he enjoys it (also because it's effective, even if it doesn't make friends).
I also finally got a look at the Sea Mages of Ulthuan. Apparently there's a lord version of the Sea Mage called the Storm Weaver. They seem to use standard Elf spells, but don't have Drain Magic. Instead they can choose one of two spells. Writhing Mists is a mist spell that remains in play and obscures a friendly unit, making them very hard to see (this can be cast even on untis that are in close combat with enemies). The spell is dispelled if the mage casts another spell, dismisses it, if the spell is dispelled, the mage dies or the friendly unit moves. The other is a spell that creates an Oceanid that lets out a haunting tune that can stop some of the shooting attacks that enemies make if they're closer to the Oceanid than the unit they're firing at. Overall, the two spells are heavily Ulgu themed.
Also, I didn't know that the three Assassins we saw in Karak Eight Peaks were a thing on the Tabletop. I thought they were typically solo Hero Units, but there is an Eshin Triad unit in Storm of Chaos representing three Assassins working together. There's also an Eshin Sorceror in Storm of Chaos, but no Lore of Stealth, the Sorceror only has Skitterleap.
Bretonnia has some interesting rules to represent the Errantry War, but I'm not sure if it's that good. You have to take a significant amount of Knights Errant (it's an Errantry War), and the Knights Errant get constant penalties to their Impeteousness (charging out of excitement). It seems easy to goad the Knights into a trap and slaughter them all, which I suppose what an Errantry War is like.
It's also nice to finally get a look at the Army of Middenheim in all its glory! Ulric Battle Prayers! Boris and Ar-Ulric stat blocks! Unique units and Magic Items! I'm happy to see Middenheim got something at some point. I will say, Boris' Talisman of Ulric is incredibly strong in 6th Edition. As long as he's alive at the end of the turn, he automatically regenerates all the wounds he lost, bringing himself to full health. No limit. I think it would need toning down if it was updated, maybe something like Orion's cloak.
I was also very surprised when the beginning of the book explicitly says "Volkmar is slain". I know he survived, so I was like, how the hell is he going to do a "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated?" Turns out Be'lakor straight up revives him, possibly days after his death. And he didn't revive him as an undead, it was a straight up revival, he wasn't even corrupted by it. Be'lakor just wanted to undo what Archaon did as a "gotcha" to prove he was superior and cause endless torture and misery to Volkmar by keeping him alive. His method of doing that was making Volkmar know the only reason he was alive is because a Daemon Prince revived him and kept him alive, then he nailed him to his banner and swung him around during battle to inspire the troops.
I haven't read that book that's supposed to recount the events of Storm of Chaos from a narrative perspective yet, but I also heard that he busted out of the banner by breaking it and ran around the battlefield half naked or something. Warhammer's crazy guys.
- Location
- Utrecht
Well, you can have the high elves having once been powerful enough to do the job, but having declined that they are no longer able to do so.
Or you can have them successful enough that the world hasn't gone spiralling.
Or trying hard, but it not being enough. The magnitude of the threat does not diminish the competence of those failing to stop it.
Or just being under too much pressure from other enemies to do a good job.
There's many ways you can spin it without actually affecting the high elves credibility at all.
- Pronouns
- It/Its
imagine if they trying recruit Malthide for Everchosen lmao
Tragedy works fine in cases like this. People took Gondor pretty seriously in LOTR even though it was a shell of its former self and ultimately doomed in its long vigil
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Intrigue at Court was an annoying special rule where the High Elves rolled for their general, rather than getting to pick it like everyone else.
The first and third of those still undercut the writing, because either the Elves are no longer powerful enough to be taken seriously (and are no longer seeking to protect the world) or are being outshone by whoever did stop the threat they were fighting (unless you imply the threat was powerful enough they needed an alliance, which raises the power of the threat). The second diminishes every other faction (they're not able to fight off these threats without the HE, which implies they're less powerful than the HE or the threat. Or both). The fourth is the best, but also goes against the long written idea that Ulthuan is an island paradise, only rarely attacked (because these enemies have to be a threat somehow to prevent Ulthuan just crushing them one by one).
It's why the two best ways of dealing with the idea of Ulthuan as world police IMO is 1) don't write them as that. This is the route GW took for much of the game's history. 2) Write them as intervening only rarely with military force. They can't afford to fight every battle, so they pick and choose their fights, and use diplomatic means to get other nations to help each other much of the time. It even plays into the idea that they're a great mercantile power, because they can leverage that to accomplish this.
Sure, but in LotR one of the whole points is that military force is hopeless. Gondor is presented as fighting a battle that cannot be won, because Sauron's armies are so much more powerful. That doesn't work if you want every faction to be more or less equal as GW did.
It is kind of the point of Warhammer too, the bad guys are going to win, a once great world spinning towards oblivion, like I said before the Tolkien runs strong in warhammer... stronger perhaps than its original authors intended.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh. I should also mention that Be'lakor the Dark Master has his own spell lore and unique rules. A lot of them are Ulgu themed, although that might be a coincidence because of Be'lakor's obsession with "Shadow" and "Night". "Whispers in the Darkness", "Night Wards", "Shadow Shroud", "Master of the Shadows". All of these skills have Ulgu-ish names and aside from Night Wards, Ulgu like effects. Aside from Coils of the Serpent and Bolt of Dark Light, his remaining spells also have an Ulgu theme. Nightmare (self explanatory), Fog of Death (self explanatory), and maybe Curse of the Dark Master?
I should also mention that the Lore of Shadow might be one of the most common spell lores btw. I haven't done the counting just yet, but the Colleges of Magic, Beastmen Bray Shamans, Dark Elf Sorceresses (Morathi in particular), High Elf Mages, Wood Elf Spellsingers/weavers, Shadow Dancers, Shadow Warriors (Probably), Mist Mages (Most Likely), Mist Walkers (Probably), Drycha (Standard Branchwraith casts from Life, she casts from Shadow), Slann, the Fey Enchantress, the Blue Scribes, Kairos Fateweaver, Lucrezzia Belladonna (Apocryphal, but she chooses Shadow or Death), Vampires, Slaanesh Mages/Daemons are naturally attuned to Ulgu, Chaos Sorcerors in general, Dark Emissaries, Sayl the Faithless, the Lammasu (look them up, you might be surprised), and Fimir Balefiends.
I feel like I missed something. In Boney's universe there's also the Kurgan Shaman of the Eight, which might be a separate tradition from traditional Chaos Sorcerors (like the Vitki of the Norse, which are not necessarily Chaos Sorcerors btw, they're Hedge Wizards in the mechanics for WFRP not Chaos Sorcerors). And there's the Fire Spire of Praag but that place was destroyed. Oh, and there's the Gnomes, who are naturally attuned to Ulgu. Whether they exist or not is up to Boney, but they live in the Mirror/Midden Moors in Middenland.
I should also mention that the Lore of Shadow might be one of the most common spell lores btw. I haven't done the counting just yet, but the Colleges of Magic, Beastmen Bray Shamans, Dark Elf Sorceresses (Morathi in particular), High Elf Mages, Wood Elf Spellsingers/weavers, Shadow Dancers, Shadow Warriors (Probably), Mist Mages (Most Likely), Mist Walkers (Probably), Drycha (Standard Branchwraith casts from Life, she casts from Shadow), Slann, the Fey Enchantress, the Blue Scribes, Kairos Fateweaver, Lucrezzia Belladonna (Apocryphal, but she chooses Shadow or Death), Vampires, Slaanesh Mages/Daemons are naturally attuned to Ulgu, Chaos Sorcerors in general, Dark Emissaries, Sayl the Faithless, the Lammasu (look them up, you might be surprised), and Fimir Balefiends.
I feel like I missed something. In Boney's universe there's also the Kurgan Shaman of the Eight, which might be a separate tradition from traditional Chaos Sorcerors (like the Vitki of the Norse, which are not necessarily Chaos Sorcerors btw, they're Hedge Wizards in the mechanics for WFRP not Chaos Sorcerors). And there's the Fire Spire of Praag but that place was destroyed. Oh, and there's the Gnomes, who are naturally attuned to Ulgu. Whether they exist or not is up to Boney, but they live in the Mirror/Midden Moors in Middenland.
Last edited:
I think that could be a cool plot. Stealing the Mantle of Everchosen. Would require a team to pull off that heist.
We've proven Ranald is able to yoink blessings during a ritual.
We now have confirmation that divine magic can be imitated by AV.
Purpose: Preventing future Everchosen from manifestiing. Perhaps creating a champion of out own.
Thus, we need to subvert the everchosen ritual and replace the gods with ones of our own choosing to ensure they cannot use the ritual again.
But we require more than one god to counter each of the 4. three to properly stop the enemy from raising another everchosen.
Sigmar, Ulric, Myrmidia(Team more than Rage) vs Khorne
Ranald, Heinrich & Verena(Free Information Market) vs Tzeentch
Shallya, Taal & Rhya(TEAM BALANCED LIFESTYLE) vs Nurgle
Esmeralda, Mannan , Morr( Ship, Hearth, Coffin) vs Slaamesh
Or we could just create our own.... But I doubt anyone could balance 12 gods.
Heh. Probably why it would seal the everchosen blessing in the first place.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
I disagree. IMO, Warhammer is not presented as being inevitably doomed. It's presented as being in danger, even growing danger, but evil does not have a guaranteed victory. The Elves and Dwarfs are generally presented as being lesser sons of greater fathers as it were, but the Empire and Bretonnia are certainly not depicted as failing. Beset by danger perhaps, but hope still survives.
Be'lakor's 8th edition ruleset made him a Loremaster (Lore of Shadow) IIRC. He's very linked with Ulgu.
Last edited:
The Empire has decayed massively since its heyday, look at all the lost provinces and they have only had a small recovery since Magnus. Bretonia is a little less developed but even they have a province full of vampires and monsters.
Also compare the advances of the Empire with the losses of say the Lizardmen and things look really bleak. The colleges of magic aren't going to be holding back the Wastes anytime soon and the toads are dying.
At least that is the case in canon, this quest has it a little better.
The recovery since Magnus was enormous. Pre Magnus the Empire basically didn't exist - just three loosely connected successor states.
After Magnus the Empire is united, has an unified powerful magical tradition and has been undergoing a cultural and technological renaissance.
Well yes , but my point is that it is still less than it was during say Sigismund the Conqueror's day and hell even if I am not right and this is the best the Empire has ever been, does that make up for all the Skaven gains, all the greenskin gains, all the chaos gains combined? Does it make up for the weakening of the dwarfs and elves as well as the Lizardmen?
It is not even a contest, the Empire might be an ever brighter point of light, but far too many other lights are going out.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
The Empire has also gained gunpowder, magic, steam-powered tanks, at least two engineering colleges, and is half-way through the industrial revolution. Territory is not how I would be judging this.
Not really? Sure, the world is on a knife-edge, but it's not reached "inevitable doom" yet. If the forces of order could manage to put aside their differences, and actually work together for longer than the next immediate crisis, they could still win. IMO, that spark of hope is why Warhammer is a fun setting. It's not as grimdark and nihilistically pointless as 40K.
- Pronouns
- It/Its
If all else fails the Vampires can always pick up the pieces, they don't have to deal with corruption and the like and can use necromancy, which is very, very useful, since it can be used as an excellent source of free labour, freeing up the people to do other things, which, now that I'm thinking about it, could lead to some very nice outcomes
Yeah if the forces of order... that is to say all of them could put aside their differences they could pull the world back from the brink, so then why expect the high elves to be able to hold back the tide alone, or consider them a failure for not being able to do it alone? That is where this conversation started after all.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
The Skaven gains are somewhat counterbalanced by ever more infighting, though they are a serious problem. The greenskin gains though I would argue kind of don't matter beyond denying them to the Dwarves? They've always been nigh-uncountable hordes trying to stamp out civilisations, but they don't actually gain very much from holding all those fallen Karaks beyond "another place Greenskins accumulate, when they already have the entirety of the Badlands for that.
I'm not clear on whether the Dark Elves are any better off than they used to be. I suppose the Dawi Zharr have gained ground but they aren't a major faction.
- Location
- Earth
You mean the Skaven that just recently had such a civil war that at least one major Clan was permanently driven into extinction.
With Mathilde kicking them while they were down.
With Mathilde succeeding on the greatest intelligence scoop against them ever: their language
It's an entirely different game now.
The Greenskin gods themselves have lost power to Ranald, both weakening those gods and empowering Ranald. We don't know exactly what those consequences are, but Boney has stated they are there.
Ties were made between the Empire and Kislev with the Dum-expedition, especially since their Ice Witch returned alive.
Right now Mathilde is making more ties with the waystone project.
And that's only part of what we were directly involved in. I doubt other LMs and people lack for achievements of their own.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
For the Greenskins, their major gains aren't territorial, they're Black Orcs becoming more common and learning how blacksmithing works.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's also a possible recent schism between Gork and Mork. The only evidence we really have for that is the failed ritual and Da Howlaz being incredibly perisistent in hunting down the Red Fang Orcs, but I think it's a reasonable possibility to say that the Skaven aren't the only ones undergoing a period of inner turmoil.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
It's a shame we didn't roll a 6 at the right moment, Boney said later the result would have been a global Goblin-on-Orc civil war.
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Is that the same 6 that would have resulted in Ranald having a nasty run in with Slaanesh? I'm happy to have missed that one if so.
- Location
- Earth
The civil war dice was the d100 dice, we rolled 60ish IIRC.
80+ would've been civil war.
40-60 would've been reroll with more extreme result, possibly recursive reroll
Tracked down some WoB's on the greenskin civil war thing, because I didn't know that had been a possibility and I got curious:
We rolled a "63", leading to a good, but not dramatic, result.
We rolled a "63", leading to a good, but not dramatic, result.