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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Something I greatly appreciate about the 6th Edition books are that they give details that the more recent books don't, likely because they expect you to have read the earlier Army Books so they only give a "summary" of some of the lore from previous editions. The downside of that approach is that if you start on 8th Edition, you miss the flavor and characterisation of some of the characters that appear.

An excellent example of this is Wurrzag in the book I'm reading. 6th Edition goes really in depth on his backstory and provides a level of understanding in regards to him that I never expected going in. He was born with odd prophetic dreams and a strong connection to "Da Big Green" ever since he was a child, so the old cantankerous Shaman in his tribe who brooked no rivals kicked him out in the wilderness when he was "just a young pup" (side note, young Orcs are referred to as pups in the book for some reason). He ventured across the jungle confused and scared for many days that turned to years expecting to die, but all the animals avoided attacking or preying on him and even protected him when he recieved the visions that constantly plagued him, and he grew to be more in tune with nature in his wandering years until one day he was led into some sort of temple.

He enters, falls through the floor and comes across a mask that he wears and which gives him an image of a young Savage Orc Shaman who entrusts him with a mission from Gork and Mork to find the "Once and Future Git, so that he may draw the axe from the Gaffastone once again". He then goes back to his tribe, turns the Shaman who threw him out into a Squig, and tells his tribe to follow him, he'll find the Git.

I don't think I properly conveyed the exact feelings of the text as I read it, but it was strangely flavorful. I got to see Wurrzag as a young, scared and confused person, which I never expected to see. In 8th Edition, very little of that is present. Sure he has his "Power Squig" as a magic item/companion that coughs up Power Dice, but 8th Edition only says that it was once a Shaman that Wurrzag transformed. It gets a different layer added to it when you know who he turned into a Squig.

Also, he seems powerful in 6th Edition. Level 4 Shaman with access to both Big and Little Waaagh, he had a +1 to all spells he could cast and could never miscast.
 
6th is a lot more personal IIRC. Less historical, more individual recollections. The Dwarfen and HE sections on the War of the Beard are fascinatingly interesting, both because of what they say on their own and how they present the same events as viewed by both sides.
 
Codex said:
Orcs and Goblins 6th Edition said something that made me blink and do a double take, but that I found quite interesting:

"Orcs continue to grow bigger throughout their lives. How big they get has nothing to do with how much or what they eat, but more to do with their status. The more important they get the bigger they grow and the tougher and more important they become. Only when an Orc runs up against a bigger, tougher and meaner boss Orc who firmly puts him in his place does he stop growing." Page 11

This is so bizarre. Orcs grow in size proportional to their importance, and only stop growing in size when another Orc puts them in their place. But what if there isn't an Orc to put them in place? What happens when you're top of the pile? Clearly there has to be an upper limit to size, because I don't think there are any Giant sized Orcs running around.
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I read that too somewhere, but for me the opposite side of the coin is what confuses me. What newborn runt of an Orc doesn't repeatedly get "put in his place" from the start? And if submitting to bigger Orcs immediately stunts you, how do any but the oldest Orcs in a given group manage to amount to anything ever?

Like, the moment an Orc falls out of his mushroom or whatever and finds himself surrounded by something other than Grots, someone will knock him over the 'ead and take his meal. And said someone is bound to be at least a bit bigger and more experienced at 'ead krumping than a newborn.

I mean it's possible that Orcish society is actually a strictly hierarchical gerondocracy with promotions only happening because someone in a leadership position miscalculates a risk (pretty common) or because someone even higher up was unhappy with someone below him (also pretty common) or outsider attacks or freak accidents (also pretty common). But that would kind of change the image I had of how Orc society works.
 
Rafin said:
I read that too somewhere, but for me the opposite side of the coin is what confuses me. What newborn runt of an Orc doesn't repeatedly get "put in his place" from the start? And if submitting to bigger Orcs immediately stunts you, how do any but the oldest Orcs in a given group manage to amount to anything ever?

Like, the moment an Orc falls out of his mushroom or whatever and finds himself surrounded by something other than Grots, someone will knock him over the 'ead and take his meal. And said someone is bound to be at least a bit bigger and more experienced at 'ead krumping than a newborn.

I mean it's possible that Orcish society is actually a strictly hierarchical gerondocracy with promotions only happening because someone in a leadership position miscalculates a risk (pretty common) or because someone even higher up was unhappy with someone below him (also pretty common) or outsider attacks or freak accidents (also pretty common). But that would kind of change the image I had of how Orc society works.
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Presumably there is natural growth as well as importance growth. Being important is how a greenskin keeps growing after they reach what would be their normal size. Then there's the issue that the ones who are already important don't actually gain much from keeping newborns down, they need to challenge above them or if they are a Boss on their own right they need to grow the Waaagh by conquering places.

It does seem to be true that challenging an established Boss is hard if you're a subordinate, but established Bosses tend to take a lot of risks to grow the Waaagh and get into a lot of fights with other heroes so their deaths are hardly uncommon.
 
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065tdsa said:
Presumably there is natural growth as well as importance growth. Being important is how a greenskin keeps growing after they reach what would be their normal size. Then there's the issue that the ones who are already important don't actually gain much from keeping newborns down, they need to challenge above them or if they are a Boss on their own right they need to grow the Waaagh by conquering places.

It does seem to be true that challenging an established Boss is hard if you're a subordinate, but established Bosses tend to take a lot of risks to grow the Waaagh and get into a lot of fights with other heroes so their deaths are hardly uncommon.
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I think it's important to realise that not all Greenskins are the same level of intelligence/cunning or skill. Certain greenskins are going to be more skilled or more intelligent than others, or pick up things faster and therefore surpass those above them even with a disadvantage in terms of size/strength.

What made Gorbad Ironclaw so scary wasn't immense power in personal combat. It was the fact that he was an astonishingly intelligent and patient strategist and commander, which was incredibly rare for an Orc. Their society has a tendency to encourage certain features, but it certainly isn't a homogenous one where everyone turns out the same. Variety is an emphasised part of Greenskins, because they are one of the most adaptive living beings in all of Warhammer.
 
Another aspect to the whole "strength = size" thing is that "size = strength". The reason Grom the Paunch was able to rise the ranks as quickly as he did was because he was big and fat from eating uncooked troll-meat. The Goblin Warboss that destroyed Bugman's Brewery, Git Guzzler, was similar from drinking so much.
 
If you are not big enough to hit someone and take their stuff, you wait until they are not looking and then you hit them and take their stuff.

Greenskins have two gods; One who is Brutal, yet Cunning, and One who is Cunning, yet Brutal. Don't underestimate their ability to scheme and plan, especially if that plan involves violence.
 
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Aule said:
Why them too? I don't think tomb kings are bothering anyone at this point of time?
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As long as you don't take their shit, yes. But if you do… The Grey College had to scramble to send a Nehekharan artefact to Norsca, and a few months later a Nehekharan fleet laid waste to the Norscan coast.

One Light Magister graduated without leaving Altdorf, because a Tomb King attacked the city (probably to take back something that was stolen from him) and she participated in the defense.

Moral of the story: don't take the mummy gold, idiot!
 
K von Carstein said:
As long as you don't take their shit, yes. But if you do… The Grey College had to scramble to send a Nehekharan artefact to Norsca, and a few months later a Nehekharan fleet laid waste to the Norscan coast.

One Light Magister graduated without leaving Altdorf, because a Tomb King attacked the city (probably to take back something that was stolen from him) and she participated in the defense.

Moral of the story: don't take the mummy gold, idiot!
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rule 1
 
K von Carstein said:
As long as you don't take their shit, yes. But if you do… The Grey College had to scramble to send a Nehekharan artefact to Norsca, and a few months later a Nehekharan fleet laid waste to the Norscan coast.

One Light Magister graduated without leaving Altdorf, because a Tomb King attacked the city (probably to take back something that was stolen from him) and she participated in the defense.

Moral of the story: don't take the mummy gold, idiot!
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Well yes, but how did they find way into Roswita's profile that Codex made? XD
 
K von Carstein said:
As long as you don't take their shit, yes. But if you do… The Grey College had to scramble to send a Nehekharan artefact to Norsca, and a few months later a Nehekharan fleet laid waste to the Norscan coast.

One Light Magister graduated without leaving Altdorf, because a Tomb King attacked the city (probably to take back something that was stolen from him) and she participated in the defense.

Moral of the story: don't take the mummy gold, idiot!
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At least in canon, that was Arkhan the Black, so he was almost certainly doing his own thing.
 
Aule said:
Why them too? I don't think tomb kings are bothering anyone at this point of time?
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Roswita's good against undead in general, not specifically undead from the Sylvania region. 'Nehekharan Undead' gets specified alongside 'Undead' because it has slightly different mechanical effects and is thus its own special rule, but it's still undead so anti-undead stuff works against it. The Lore of Light's got a bonus against Nehekharan Undead models because they're still undead.
 
Aule said:
Why them too? I don't think tomb kings are bothering anyone at this point of time?
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Witch Hunters and Warrior Priests have special rules that work against Nehekharan Undead exactly as they would against regular Undead, but the rules have to specify both because Undead and Nehekharan Undead are different rules. Similar but different.

Almost everything that works on Undead works on Nehekharan Undead.
 
Boney said:
The effect is too contained and short-lived to be disrupted at range like conventional magic can be, the 'spell' is extremely basic and only lasts an instant at a time. By the time the bullet leaves the barrel all that's acting on it is physics. A Runepriest at very close range might be able to prevent a Ratling Gun from firing, but at that range a crossbow would do the job too.
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Could a new rune be designed from the ground-up to apply an equivalent effect to the 'you explode now' cantrip that Mathilde came up with?
 
Boney said:
Off the top of my head I don't think there's any mental magics like this, the mind magics work on either giving the subject a new way to perceive raw objective data or by inputting emotions, sensations or stimuli. Putting thoughts directly inside someone else's head seems like a very tricky thing to get right. Also let's not start brainstorming magics Mathilde has no way to create, the ever-growing list of ones Mathilde could theoretically make but never gets around to is already a bit much without opening the doors to literally everything.
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Isn't that more or less what Grey College used to put Skaven infodump (and many others as told by our former master) inside Mathilde's head?
 
Boney said:
The words echo unpleasantly in your head, and grow. A thought unfolds uncomfortably in your mind, and you're taken back to a day forgotten some fifteen years ago. A voice, unfamiliar to you, droning in a bored voice. "Number thirty-two. The Ratmen and the Conspiracy of Silence. If you believe you are accessing this memory in error, please contact the Grey College at your earliest convenience." Information blossoms, summoned by a name erased from history. A terrible enemy, an empire underground. Numbers, mutability, wizardry, technology, stealth, poison, disease, all the ingredients to wipe out humanity, missing only one: unity. Knowledge suppressed so that they felt secure enough to war among themselves. Emperor Mandred, whose death plunged the Empire into centuries of civil war, slain by ratman assassins. Once he was known as the Skavenslayer; now he is the Ratslayer, and given another century or two, perhaps he will be the Beastslayer.
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Hmm, could be "regular" hypnosis put to 11.
Boney said:
"A few. Most of the big ones you'll probably never need. There's a big one a bit further south from your current playground, but it's going on twenty-five centuries without a whisper and thank Sigmar for that. One's just a how-to-stop-a-Waystone-from-exploding that we keep tucked away so those Journeying don't get it into their heads to seek them out, but can still deal with one gone bad if they trip over it. There's one for if you're stupid enough to go to Lustria, one that basically says 'don't touch the mummy gold, idiot' after an overambitious twit came home proud as punch of a sceptre he'd stolen from a pyramid - we jumped into the fastest ship in Altdorf Harbour and nipped across the Sea of Claws and threw it in the general direction of the Skaelings, and a week later every sailor in Marienburg is telling stories about the Curse of Zandri wandering up and down the Norscan coast. I've heard there's two in the Dark Lands, but never been curious enough to go poking around there. Terrible place. Oh, one for the Blighted Marsh to say get the hell out of the Blighted Marsh without giving the full story." He scratches his chin in thought. "I think that's all the major ones. Or maybe just the ones I know about. Far as I know, the rest are all 'run away and call for help with this codeword' warnings for specific Black Magisters - problem with them is that so many of them end up blowing themselves up in some godforsaken nowhere, but we can't take them off the books because every now and then one will re-emerge after thirty years and start raising hell." He frowns. "What was I- oh yes, rats. Honestly the best advice I could give for those bastards is find some Dwarves and point them in the right direction. They know what they're doing."
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Have we activated the Waystone one yet? Or still waiting to trip over the one got bad?
 
IronFist said:
Rituals, then?

I kinda want to take that class, if that's the case.
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This is sort of like the dimensional stuff Algard can do.

I think I or someone else asked if we could possibly learn what Algard could do like make pocket dimensions and stuff, and Boney said something to the effect of "if this was the kind of stuff that was part of the curriculum, you would have access to it as a Lady Magister". Can't remember the exact wording, but the vibe I got was that the Grey College has a number of capabilities that even the LMs don't have authorisation to learn.
 
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