Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[chocolote12]

I am a bit unhappy with the tone of this discussion with regards to whether or not we should tell them. Either way we cut it, it's Mathilde doing the telling; she's not going to do it badly, or say something unverifiable that'll get us in trouble because we look like a liar -- part of our training that's been brought up in recent updates is explicitly looking like we know what we're doing, and making sure that that impression continues even after we open our mouth.

Should we? Is it useful? That's worth debating. But neither option is likely to have consequences as dire as they're being depicted. I'd like it if everybody could please not argue so heatedly. This vote will pass, but the voters will stick around, and it'd be nice if we could do so in a friendly fashion.

 

[newgman]

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork and strengthening of Ranald.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

 

[natruska]

I disagree as it's immediately after he just stole power from Mork and more importantly we've felt his presence close to us before when the Elector count died. That was written to show that Ranald had gained power.

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It doesn't take a lot of divine power to show up and be a comforting presence. We were actively calling in (not channeling, sorry) a (probably very substantial, if there was a chance of Ranald straight-up dying to Mork there) chunk of Ranald's divine power personally. That's what the candle to bonfire comparison is about - not his power in total, but the amount of power we've felt. Ranald moves subtly normally, nudges dice and cards around to give omens, etc. His presence when Abelhelm died was probably one of the strongest presences of his we'd ever felt, and that's nothing compared to him going all-in as some kind of divine avatar for a few moments.

edit: his presence in the tent was just a feeling, a incorporeal hand on our shoulder. That's nothing compared to him appearing in person, in the flesh as some kind of incarnate and giving us a divine artifact. It really seems like more of a "holy shit I just shook hands with cthulu" moment.

 

[Pyran]

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork and strengthening of Ranald.
[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol

[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.

[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

 

[Alratan]

It doesn't take a lot of divine power to show up and be a comforting presence. We were actively channeling a (probably very substantial, if there was a chance of Ranald straight-up dying to Mork there) chunk of Ranald's divine power personally. That's what the candle to bonfire comparison is about - not his power in total, but the amount of power we've felt. Ranald moves subtly normally, nudges dice and cards around to give omens, etc. His presence when Abelhelm died was probably one of the strongest presences of his we'd ever felt, and that's nothing compared to actively channeling his power as some kind of divine avatar for a few moments.

edit: his presence in the tent was just a feeling, a incorporeal hand on our shoulder. That's nothing compared to him appearing in person, in the flesh as some kind of incarnate and giving us a divine artifact. It really seems like more of a "holy shit I just shook hands with cthulu" moment.

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We were channeling Mork and then Gork's divine power, not his. He was just creating a void on the other end of his and Mathidle's connection to suck the power in.

He didn't appear in the flesh either. Mathilde saw Ranald in her mind's eye after she closed her eyes. He did manifest a coin out of the Aethyr, but not himself.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

It doesn't take a lot of divine power to show up and be a comforting presence. We were actively channeling a (probably very substantial, if there was a chance of Ranald straight-up dying to Mork there) chunk of Ranald's divine power personally. That's what the candle to bonfire comparison is about - not his power in total, but the amount of power we've felt. Ranald moves subtly normally, nudges dice and cards around to give omens, etc. His presence when Abelhelm died was probably one of the strongest presences of his we'd ever felt, and that's nothing compared to actively channeling his power as some kind of divine avatar for a few moments.

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Oh come off it.

You'd felt Ranald's presence before, both when he acted and when he merely provided company. It hasn't changed, but it hasn't changed in the way that a candlelight doesn't change when you ignite a bonfire - it is still fire, just so much more of it.

Yea right, that's trying to say that Ranald is merely closer to us. It has nothing to do with his accumulating more divine power. IGNITING A BONFIRE. Really. That's just him being closer to us. Not him suddenly gaining power. Your view of the text doesn't remotely fit a plain reading of it.

The imagery evokes the idea of a fire massively jumping in size. Not that Mathilde is suddenly closer to it. The amount is what has changed not the proximity.

 

[Redshirt Army]

I am a bit unhappy with the tone of this discussion with regards to whether or not we should tell them. Either way we cut it, it's Mathilde doing the telling; she's not going to do it badly, or say something unverifiable that'll get us in trouble because we look like a liar -- part of our training that's been brought up in recent updates is explicitly looking like we know what we're doing, and making sure that that impression continues even after we open our mouth.

Should we? Is it useful? That's worth debating. But neither option is likely to have consequences as dire as they're being depicted. I'd like it if everybody could please not argue so heatedly. This vote will pass, but the voters will stick around, and it'd be nice if we could do so in a friendly fashion.

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I do agree with this. Ultimately, I expect the four options presented to more-or-less correlate to a different degree of risk taken for a different degree of reward.

Moving one "step" in either direction probably won't change much, especially since the sort of statements people were suggesting for the "mention Mork got weakened" option apparently fit the option one step down just fine too.

I think that a large chunk of the voters for both options would be fine with the same actual action taking place in the upcoming update, and have simply labeled it differently.

 

[DarkLight140]

There's been a fair bit of discussion centering on Mathilde's ignorance of exactly how significant the power theft was, and there's something to be said for that. But she's not operating in total lack of information regarding the scale of the theft here. She has this much:

He laughs again, in a tone laced with weariness and satisfaction, and you catch a glimpse of a featureless man sitting before a table with four towering stacks of jade-green tokens, which have already began to fade to various shades of grey. He takes one token from each pile, conceals them in the palm of his hand, and with a gesture reveals a single coin which he flips through the air to you.

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Mathilde saw the approximate size of the divine power stolen, as measured in coins, of which four were required to create her new divine artifact. Thus, the power theft can be measured in units of "ability to create divine artifacts about as good as Ranald's Coin". Now, the "towering stacks" could have twenty coins in them, fifty, or two hundred, but presumably Mathilde has a general idea of what the answer is there.

Directly connecting the unit "ability to create divine artifacts about as good as Ranald's Coin" to things like the total power of any god involved, ability to influence the world, or anything else useful is pretty difficult. But being able to say "Mork was lessened by about [ten/twenty/fifty] potent divine artifacts' worth of power" is nevertheless a useful and concrete measure which everyone will be able to appreciate and understand if she chooses to share it.

 

[Kornet]

I disagree as it's immediately after he just stole power from Mork and more importantly we've felt his presence close to us before when the Elector count died. That was written to show that Ranald had gained power. I would argue reading that scene any other way requires torturous motivated reasoning to see it that way. The imagery is a fire growing in strength not that Mathilde is closer to it.

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It can just as well be interpreted as Mathilde getting to a next step in her relationship with her god - which happened because of and exactly at the point of Mathilde completing a legendary labour in honor of her god. The beautification of St. Mathilde, if you will.

That's exactly how people become favoured souls in the settings, it fits to a t and is a somewhat less improbable occurence. I do not rule out your interpretation, but I strongly disagree about it being the only posible one, and (significantly less strongly) disagree about it being the more probable one.

 

[Alratan]

It can just as well be interpreted as Mathilde getting to a next step in her relationship with her god - which happened because and exactly at the point of Mathilde completing a legendary labour in honor of her god. The beautification of St. Mathilde, if you will.

That's exactly how people become favoured souls in the settings, it fits to a t and is a somewhat less improbable occurence. I do not rule out your interpretation, but I strongly disagree about it being the only posible one, and (significantly less strongly) disagree about it being the more probable one.

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People become venerated souls in this setting by getting killed, preferably martyred, and then being venerated by a god's cult as being an exemplar of some part of that god's doctrine.

You'll forgive me if I don't hope for that for Mathilde. Physical immortality is much more attractive than some people spinning a warp eddy into existence on the side of one of the larger warp vorticies that is the parent god from their worship and drawing what they believe to be Mathilde's face and the legend of her character on it.

 

[natruska]

Oh come off it.

You'd felt Ranald's presence before, both when he acted and when he merely provided company. It hasn't changed, but it hasn't changed in the way that a candlelight doesn't change when you ignite a bonfire - it is still fire, just so much more of it.

Yea right, that's trying to say that Ranald is merely closer to us. It has nothing to do with his accumulating more divine power. IGNITING A BONFIRE. Really. That's just him being closer to us. Not him suddenly gaining power. Your view of the text doesn't remotely fit a plain reading of it.

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Sheesh, a bit aggressive. You're quoting the same piece of text at me without adding any new information or interpretation. Ranald just showed up for a heist that, if it failed, could've destroyed him completely. That's pretty clearly a higher level of presence than everyday godliness. You seem way too sure about what this must mean for a theological observation Matty made under duress.

We were channeling Mork and then Gork's divine power, not his. He was just creating a void on the other end to suck the power in.

He didn't appear in the flesh either. Mathilde saw Ranald in her mind/soul. He did manifest a coin out of the Aethy, nut not himself.

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Yeah, channeling is not the right word, but still. And I didn't mean 'in the flesh' in a literal sense, either.

 

[Thor's Twin]

I don't think we'll be able to judge how secure the Expedition is until we get good intelligence on what the threats are lurking in the other peaks and underground in the City of Pillars. For example if the warpgut trolls are an in progress Clan Moulder breeding/mutation program that will mean that a Master Moulder has a trigger that will be able to make them boil out of Kvinn-Wyr on command that's very different to if they're 'naturally' occurring and uncontrollable.

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That's a... terrible hypothetical to use for the purpose of illustrating a point. An entire uncontrolled ecosystem of trolls being mutated by a chunk of warpstone under the eyes of Clan Moulder? A huge chunk of warpstone? Left unattended by the hypothetical Master Moulder running these experiments? A member of a race obsessed with warpstone? There's no way such a large deposit of that valuable material would be left for trolls to determine who is most worthy. It would be used more directly by Clan Moulder, and not left lying around. There's no way the trolls are some kind of secret project orchestrated by the Skaven. It is much more likely that the trolls naturally developed an ecosystem there and ousted everyone else, and then either a meteorite of warpstone landed on the top or a secret dwarven room holding it was broken into by the trolls accidentally.

There are real, much more reasonable, threats that could threaten the stability of the expedition. The Skaven in the City of Pillars planning a brutal counterattack, the Greenskins in Karak Drazh coming into Karak-Eight-Peaks looking for a proper fight. Greenskins from the southeast flooding northwest to hit the East gates looking for a proper fight. The Greenskins in Karak-Eight-Peaks getting their act together and forming another Waaagh to oust us.

With the very real threats, creating wild theories of what could happen will only detract from dealing with the much more likely and reasonable threats all around us.

 

[chocolote12]

Oh come off it.

You'd felt Ranald's presence before, both when he acted and when he merely provided company. It hasn't changed, but it hasn't changed in the way that a candlelight doesn't change when you ignite a bonfire - it is still fire, just so much more of it.

Yea right, that's trying to say that Ranald is merely closer to us. It has nothing to do with his accumulating more divine power. IGNITING A BONFIRE. Really. That's just him being closer to us. Not him suddenly gaining power. Your view of the text doesn't remotely fit a plain reading of it.

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I feel that it is more likely that what we were sensing was Ranald having grown in power. However, please understand that their interpretation of the text is also very reasonable; it's unlikely that we've ever had a handle on the exact power of any god, so them simply being more present than usual is a very reasonable alternative.

It can just as well be interpreted as Mathilde getting to a next step in her relationship with her god - which happened because of and exactly at the point of Mathilde completing a legendary labour in honor of her god. The beautification of St. Mathilde, if you will.

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Us developing a semi-literally closer relationship with our deity is also quite possible, and has the benefit of this being pretty much the exact sort of event which would upgrade our relationship like that.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

I feel that it is more likely that what we were sensing was Ranald having grown in power. However, please understand that their interpretation of the text is also very reasonable; it's unlikely that we've ever had a handle on the exact power of any god, so them simply being more present than usual is a very reasonable alternative.

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I would have agreed with that reading of the text being possible were it not for the towering stacks of jade green tokens, and the fact that Mathilde thinks of it as Igniting a bonfire. It's that imagery of a sudden burst of increased power that makes me sure it's about quantity and not merely proximity as we've been close to him before.

Sheesh, a bit aggressive. You're quoting the same piece of text at me without adding any new information or interpretation. Ranald just showed up for a heist that, if it failed, could've destroyed him completely.

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Apologies if I'm coming across that way it's certainly not my intention. I just have a strong view on the current discussion. I'll try to curb my enthusiasm.

 

[Alratan]

That's a... terrible hypothetical to use for the purpose of illustrating a point. An entire uncontrolled ecosystem of trolls being mutated by a chunk of warpstone under the eyes of Clan Moulder? A huge chunk of warpstone? Left unattended by the hypothetical Master Moulder running these experiments? A member of a race obsessed with warpstone? There's no way such a large deposit of that valuable material would be left for trolls to determine who is most worthy. It would be used more directly by Clan Moulder, and not left lying around. There's no way the trolls are some kind of secret project orchestrated by the Skaven. It is much more likely that the trolls naturally developed an ecosystem there and ousted everyone else, and then either a meteorite of warpstone landed on the top or a secret dwarven room holding it was broken into by the trolls accidentally.

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There's a huge chunk of warpstone right there and the skaven are not far away from it at all. My view was that there's only a few reasons it wouldn't have been extracted and mined out already, and one is if some skaven leader had a good reason to stop all the other skaven from taking it. It's not as if the skaven don't have the perfect equipment to clear out trolls from a tunnel complex, or have any problems with scouting. They'd have tracked a warpstone meteor fall and knew it was there as well.

A Master Moulder with a lair-workshop hidden inside the mountain where the Ranger couldn't penetrate could explain it.

It's just one amongst many options.

 

[Kornet]

People become venerated souls in this setting by getting killed, preferably martyred, and then being venerated by a god's cult as being an exemplar of some part of that god's doctrine.

You'll forgive me if I don't hope for that for Mathilde. Physical immortality is much more attractive than some people spinning a warp eddy into existence on the side of one of the larger warp vorticies that is the parent god from their worship and drawing what they believe to be Mathilde's face and the legend of her character on it.

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I'm not so sure that death and worship are really required. Sure, they help a lot by providing warppower, but there shouldn't be anything stopping a god from providing the same, and in this quest there is strong precedent for gods (well, Ranald) going for actual miracles for some of his more favored followers.

Now, what exactly the most increased Favor from Ranald and our new (speculated) relationship will mean, I have no fucking idea. My first guess would be more common and more blatant divine interventions, but it is nothing but a guess.

Sorry that I can't continue the discussion, but it's past 2am fir me and I really should be sleeping.

 

[natruska]

Apologies if I'm coming across that way it's certainly not my intention. I just have a strong view on the current discussion. I'll try to curb my enthusiasm.

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It's all good. I'm a bit tired and I jumped in on the argument from outside with a very certain sounding post, so that was probably a bit annoying. I get it.

 

[Alratan]

I'm not so sure that death and worship are really required. Sure, they help a lot by providing warppower, but there shouldn't be anything stopping a god from providing the same, and in this quest there is strong precedent for gods (well, Ranald) going for actual miracles for some of his more favored followers.

Now, what exactly the most increased Favor from Ranald and our new (speculated) relationship will mean, I have no fucking idea. My first guess would be more common and more blatant divine interventions, but it is nothing but a guess.

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I'm pretty sure the Empire's definition of venerated soul requires that you're dead, just like the Catholic Church's definition of a Saint.

As for increased favour from Ranald, that's probably the Coin.

 

[cestus41]

Ok ok so things got a bit heated but what if we do as we did with vanhal give the publicly consumable bits to the council and then the rest in confidence to the king and Karag if any the king DESERVES to know what shit went down in his hold and Karag has allready figured out we where the cause NO WAY he didn't feel at least some of what the fuck whent down .

 

[SuperSonicSound]

I'm not so sure that death and worship are really required. Sure, they help a lot by providing warppower, but there shouldn't be anything stopping a god from providing the same, and in this quest there is strong precedent for gods (well, Ranald) going for actual miracles for some of his more favored followers.

Now, what exactly the most increased Favor from Ranald and our new (speculated) relationship will mean, I have no fucking idea. My first guess would be more common and more blatant divine interventions, but it is nothing but a guess.

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Venerated souls are pretty much all long dead. It's also not really a hmm I want to say status for a persons soul to be. It's not like say you have different levels of soul and a venerated soul is the next stage. It's just what the laity and the cult leadership have as a view of a person.

 

[Nasr]

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.

 

[masterofmadness]

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.

I just realized I forgot to vote for this option.

 

[Thor's Twin]

There's a huge chunk of warpstone right there and the skaven are not far away from it at all. My view was that there's only a few reasons it wouldn't have been extracted and mined out already, and one is if some skaven leader had a good reason to stop all the other skaven from taking it.

It's not as if the skaven don't have the perfect equipment to clear out trolls from a tunnel complex.

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The Skaven leader would then have to possess the ability to protect the chunk of warpstone, and yet we've seen none of those Skaven protections around the warpstone or around the mountain. Furthermore, we haven't seen any of the other telltale signs of Clan Moulder experimentation. We haven't seen the classic signs of mutation or surgical experimentation on the trolls, and we certainly haven't seen the Clan Moulder beast masters corraling and controlling the trolls. I've never even heard of Skaven giving up control and authority over something simply to allow for the possibility of natural selection choosing the best troll to slobber over the warpstone.

The most likely and reasonable explanation for why there is warpstone there and we don't see Skaven crawling all over the mountain trying to extract is that the Skaven don't know that it's there. That the Skaven slaves sent to scout out the mountain took one look at all the trolls and turned around to report that the mountain was infested with trolls and nothing of value was there.

I find it much more likely that if the Skaven knew that the Warpstone was there, they would act in their typical manner regarding warpstone, not change their behavior for an unnecessarily complicated, uncontrolled, and unrewarding experiment.

 

[chocolote12]

I would have agreed with that reading of the text being possible were it not for the towering stacks of jade green tokens, and the fact that Mathilde thinks of it as Igniting a bonfire. It's that imagery of a sudden burst of increased power that makes me sure it's about quanity and not merely proximity as we've been close to him before.

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We've been really much more devout than most in the Empire could claim, yes, but not enough that I'd call us unique; most Priests with his Lore were probably around the same ballpark (that's actually a fairly ridiculous level of devotion, but it sounds like a lot of people because we're talking about a good chunk of civilization).

If his presence increased because he ballooned in power, and not because our relationship grew deeper, then that would imply that everybody else at that level of devotion also felt the difference. All of them, across the empire. Marienburg (whichever City worshipped him openly, anyway) at least would be pretty riled up at the occurrence, in a good way.

I don't think that that happened. However, there's no point in arguing about it; we can just ask our friend back in Stirland if he noticed the difference in a few weeks, and drop it until then.

I'm pretty sure the Empire's definition of venerated soul requires that you're dead, just like the Catholic Church's definition of a Saint.

As for increased favour from Ranald, that's probably the Coin.

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I think Ranald works slightly differently than the favor system, but can be described in those terms.

You'll notice that our actual reputation with each faction does not go down after spending favors, and won't unless we wrong them somehow; getting the belt didn't remove our dwarf friend status, and such.

I imagine that Ranald despises leaving unpaid favors, and works to pay them back in turn as fast as he can (good karma doesn't require you to do anything to cash it in, it just comes to you, and he's a god of Fortune), but our actual relationship levels with him only grow, as long as we don't make him unhappy.

This encourages us to continue doing things that he enjoys, so that we can enjoy his personal positive attention (such as maintaining the shrine for the bonus), while not causing him to forget who's been really good to him. A positive relationship between friends, but one focused on the next big venture we're going to be doing together, rather than sitting back and being congratulated over the past.

That is, it's favor in that he favors us, not that he owes us a single instance of favor.

 

[Kornet]

I'm pretty sure the Empire's definition of venerated soul requires that you're dead, just like the Catholic Church's definition of a Saint.

As for increased favour from Ranald, that's probably the Coin.

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One last post.


Well for Christianity it actually doesn't. Sainthood is merely recognised after death. It is achived during life.

It's just that the Church doesn't believe it's possible to be sure while the suspected saint is still up and and about and could in theory do something outrageous in the future.

The Orthodox church (that's the one I am sure about. I am 90% sure it's the same with the Catholics) maintains that most saints are actually never recognised and are lost to obscurity, but that doesn't make them any less saint.

I expect that warhammer and is not that different in that aspect.