Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Sa'kage]

It's not like Teclis wouldn't have seen divine magic in action though..He did kinda fight with Magnus and Co against the everchosen after all.

Unless literally every single God decided to just not allow any battle miracles at all for some reason, Teclis more then any other elf should have seen a ton of divine magic.

 

[Erehwon]

[X] The Longshanks

 

[Codex]

It's not like Teclis wouldn't have seen divine magic in action though..He did kinda fight with Magnus and Co against the everchosen after all.

Unless literally every single God decided to just not allow any battle miracles at all for some reason, Teclis more then any other elf should have seen a ton of divine magic.

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Seeing doesn't mean understanding. Mathilde has seen tons of Divine Magic. She's probably seen far more demonstrations of direct divinity than Teclis. Certainly I doubt he had several different gods moving through his soul (Ranald, Mork, Gazul and now Ulric and Taal). She even has Avatar. That doesn't mean Mathilde understands Divine Magic in any sort of in depth way and can create a model for it.

 

[Valmond]

It's not like Teclis wouldn't have seen divine magic in action though..He did kinda fight with Magnus and Co against the everchosen after all.

Unless literally every single God decided to just not allow any battle miracles at all for some reason, Teclis more then any other elf should have seen a ton of divine magic.

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Teclis would have seen divine magic yes.
But that does not mean he would have drawn correct conclusions of it or had time to study it in depth.
It is possible that Teclis saw divine magic, interpreted it in the paradigm he was using, and then stated his assumptions as truth.

 

[DragonParadox]

Teclis would have seen divine magic yes.
But that does not mean he would have drawn correct conclusions of it or had time to study it in depth.
It is possible that Teclis saw divine magic, interpreted it in the paradigm he was using, and then stated his assumptions as truth.

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Right... see that is not credible to me. If baby journeyman Mathilde was able to tell that divine magic was not wind magic practically from the first time she saw Kasimir cast I do not think Teclis with his far greater experience and native skill would not be able to tell while witnessing a lot more divine magic in the war. 'He was just dogmatic and stupid' also fails when you consider that him not being dogmatic was the very reason he decided to teach humans wizards in the first place.

It feels too dismissive, elves are not perfect so of course one of their greatest minds made this obvious blunder, see we have this one second hand account written in another language to back it up.

 

[Codex]

Right... see that is not credible to me. If baby journeyman Mathilde was able to tell that divine magic was not wind magic practically from the first time she saw Kasimir cast I do not think Teclis with his far greater experience and native skill would not be able to tell while witnessing a lot more divine magic in the war. 'He was just dogmatic and stupid' also fails when you consider that him not being dogmatic was the very reason he decided to teach humans wizards in the first place.

It feels too dismissive, elves are not perfect so of course one of their greatest minds made this obvious blunder, see we have this one second hand account written in another language to back it up.

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He taught humans magic because they could be shields against the darkness. You overestimate the level of fondness and openmindedness that that requires. He was pragmatic, not an open minded accepting guy who could freely change his opinion when he sees new stuff. Almost every paragraph that focuses on him coming to the aid of the Old World mentions how important he believes humanity to be in the survival of the world. No particular mention is placed on him particularly caring for humans, and in Storms of Magic he considers them primitive and inferior. The only reason they succeeded in Binding Monsters where the Elves failed was because they could lower their minds to think like beasts, which Elves couldn't do.

 

[SurpriseMe]

Seeing doesn't mean understanding. Mathilde has seen tons of Divine Magic. She's probably seen far more demonstrations of direct divinity than Teclis. Certainly I doubt he had several different gods moving through his soul (Ranald, Mork, Gazul and now Ulric and Taal). She even has Avatar. That doesn't mean Mathilde understands Divine Magic in any sort of in depth way and can create a model for it.

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I think Teclis is wrong about divine magic, but I think he has seen more demonstrations of divine power than you are giving him credit for between his time spent with Alarielle and his various exploits with the power of Asuryan. I wouldn't be surprised if Mathilde has more experience by virtue of the gods moving through her soul, but I wouldn't categorize it as far more experience, more of a different type of experiences.

 

[Valmond]

Right... see that is not credible to me. If baby journeyman Mathilde was able to tell that divine magic was not wind magic practically from the first time she saw Kasimir cast I do not think Teclis with his far greater experience and native skill would not be able to tell while witnessing a lot more divine magic in the war. 'He was just dogmatic and stupid' also fails when you consider that him not being dogmatic was the very reason he decided to teach humans wizards in the first place.

It feels too dismissive, elves are not perfect so of course one of their greatest minds made this obvious blunder, see we have this one second hand account written in another language to back it up.

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Mathilde is very devout person with lot closer familiarity to the divine than most people have, probably including Teclis.
Also, no matter how smart, experienced, or eductated you are, you can still make mistakes, often especially if you are well educated and experienced and bump into something that goes against your education and experience.
So either Teclis was right, and divine magic is just like wind magic except priests are just silly for not realizing it, Teclis was lying and intentionally misled his human students for some reason, or Teclis was wrong.
Of the three, i find Teclis intentionally misleading his students in this case to be least likely.
I am also very suspicious of him just being correct, there seems to be more to divine casting and the gods than just mechanistic wind.
So that kind leaves me with just Teclis being wrong, and elven arrogance arrogance and not taking time (because he was kinda busy with this war thing that was going on, and then had to go to Ulthuan and never got around to visiting again) to research properly while refusing to admit to not knowing shit in front of all these humans seem like the most likely cause.

 

[Codex]

A reminder that Teclis said this in canon:

"The reason that Kadon succeeded in binding monsters where other mages failed was a simple one: rather than attempt to suppress his catspaw's primal instincts, Kadon embraced it. Kadon's Scrolls of Binding therefore stand in testament to an uncomfortable truth: that a primitive mind might work wonders where the careful reasoning of a more sophisticated one would surely fail. This thought is uncomfortable for any Elf to entertain but, if Ulthuan is to endure, its loremasters can no longer underestimate the magic of humans simply because the humans themselves are inferior"- Teclis (Storm of Magic Pg.85)

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He's not free of prejudice.

 

[DragonParadox]

Mathilde is very devout person with lot closer familiarity to the divine than most people have, probably including Teclis.
Also, no matter how smart, experienced, or eductated you are, you can still make mistakes, often especially if you are well educated and experienced and bump into something that goes against your education and experience.
So either Teclis was right, and divine magic is just like wind magic except priests are just silly for not realizing it, Teclis was lying and intentionally misled his human students for some reason, or Teclis was wrong.
Of the three, i find Teclis intentionally misleading his students in this case to be least likely.
I am also very suspicious of him just being correct, there seems to be more to divine casting and the gods than just mechanistic wind.
So that kind leaves me with just Teclis being wrong, and elven arrogance arrogance and not taking time (because he was kinda busy with this war thing that was going on, and then had to go to Ulthuan and never got around to visiting again) to research properly while refusing to admit to not knowing shit in front of all these humans seem like the most likely cause.

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Baby Journeywoman Mathilde did not have any great insight into gods, but she could see the distinction from the start. Also you are missing what I consider the most likely option, Teclis was talking the linguistic nightmare that is his native tongue and he was misunderstood all the more so as wel only have that account second hand and translated.

 

[Mopman43]

Baby Journeywoman Mathilde did not have any great insight into gods, but she could see the distinction from the start. Also you are missing what I consider the most likely option, Teclis was talking the linguistic nightmare that is his native tongue and he was misunderstood all the more so as wel only have that account second hand and translated.

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Why would he be giving a lecture to his students in Eltharin?

 

[Codex]

Baby Journeywoman Mathilde did not have any great insight into gods, but she could see the distinction from the start. Also you are missing what I consider the most likely option, Teclis was talking the linguistic nightmare that is his native tongue and he was misunderstood all the more so as wel only have that account second hand and translated.

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Ah yes, clearly he would be speaking his native tongue to a class of humans right after the war, somehow expecting them all to be fluent at it. And he wouldn't check the translated notes to correct them, despite this being the entire point of the teaching. So he just lets misunderstandings fly.

Might as well say that Teclis never taught anyone, because clearly he's so incompetent at it that he can't afford to double check his work and ended up providing no benefit at all in his lessons. This is a real bizarre train of thought.

 

[Valmond]

Baby Journeywoman Mathilde did not have any great insight into gods, but she could see the distinction from the start. Also you are missing what I consider the most likely option, Teclis was talking the linguistic nightmare that is his native tongue and he was misunderstood all the more so as wel only have that account second hand and translated.

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Yes, because Teclis is such a terrible communicator that he can't make himself understood by his personal students.

 

[Jeopardizer]

Diamond and graphite are basically the same thing and yet act and look very different from each other. Maybe Mathilde, for all her talent, could only perceive the differences and not the similarities between divine and arcane stuff.

 

[ReImagined]

Seeing doesn't mean understanding. Mathilde has seen tons of Divine Magic. She's probably seen far more demonstrations of direct divinity than Teclis. Certainly I doubt he had several different gods moving through his soul (Ranald, Mork, Gazul and now Ulric and Taal). She even has Avatar. That doesn't mean Mathilde understands Divine Magic in any sort of in depth way and can create a model for it.

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I mean, according to Elven dogma on gods:

Elven Religion
The Elven Gods are metaphors for the many facets of the Elven mind and soul.
The Elven Gods are shorthand for the ideals that Elves strive to reach, and the imperfections with which they must grapple.
The Elven Gods are a creation myth, providing a bevy of just-so stories to understand the many wonders of the natural world and the forces that gave rise to them.
The Elven Gods are mythologized taxonomy, the embodiment of the collective efforts of the Asur to impose order and understanding on an inherently chaotic world.
The Elven Gods are a magical force shaped and empowered by the collective psyche of their worshippers.
The Elven Gods are actual beings that once ran around the place, squabbled with each other, and hit Daemons with swords, and They like it when you do nice things for Them.
Elves believe all of the above to be simultaneously true.

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What Teclis told the Colleges seems to be the line on magical force. The bit on them being actual beings would seem to contradict the Teclisian theory that the Colleges have developed from his teachings, but I doubt it would contradict Teclis' actual beliefs, assuming he adheres to elven religion.

 

[Codex]

Diamond and graphite are basically the same thing and yet act and look very different from each other. Maybe Mathilde, for all her talent, could only perceive the differences and not the similarities between divine and arcane stuff.

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It's not just Mathilde. The entirety of the Colleges accepts that Teclisean theory doesn't work for Divine Magic and many other types of magic. They all know it's not a universal theory and that it doesn't apply here. Mathilde alone, ok. 180 years of Magic study shows that Divine Magic just isn't the same. Yes there are likely similarities. They draw on the same power source. Teclisean theory still says that they are the same, just dressed up differently, which the Colleges knows not to be true.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Mathilde's culture and upbringing teaches that gods are separate from winds, and that wizards use winds whilst gods use priests.

Her observations match this understanding.

Teclis believes that winds and gods are both shaped by the person using them.

We can assume his observations match his understanding.

This does not mean Mathilde is dumb and Teclis is smart, or vice versa.

It means both of their observations are tainted by their cultural biases.

 

[Valmond]

The way i see it, the elven magical paradigm is like a scientific theory.
It models a portion of reality accurately enough to be useful, but it does not map the whole universe, and trying to interpret everything through it is futile, at best.

 

[Codex]

I also think Teclisean theory is useful for Wind Magic, especially in the way that the Empire and Elves do it because that's derived from the Elves. I also think that using it for everything is inaccurate and bound to come with inconsistencies and misconceptions. Sometimes, a theory is only good in its field, not when used to apply to every single thing in reality.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

The way i see it, the elven magical paradigm is like a scientific theory.
It models a portion of reality accurately enough to be useful, but it does not map the whole universe, and trying to interpret everything through it is futile, at best.

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At the very least, the Elven paradigm on magic can not understand Rite of Way, the same way Mathilde's Teclisian paradigm can't understand Elementalism—and yet both of those exist.

 

[LilyWitch]

Yep. Most theories are not universal theories. Universal Theories that are 100% correct in every instance don't really exist. See how even our best set of theories for physics still don't actually explain everything pefectly. Just most things correctly most of the time.

 

[DragonParadox]

Ah yes, clearly he would be speaking his native tongue to a class of humans right after the war, somehow expecting them all to be fluent at it. And he wouldn't check the translated notes to correct them, despite this being the entire point of the teaching. So he just lets misunderstandings fly.

Might as well say that Teclis never taught anyone, because clearly he's so incompetent at it that he can't afford to double check his work and ended up providing no benefit at all in his lessons. This is a real bizarre train of thought.

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I think so yeah, at least he would not be speaking Reikshpiel which is rather unfit for the nuances of magic.

 

[IronFist]

Windsight is a function of the soul.
Elves and Humans have different souls.

Could it be that Elves just can't see something that is obvious to Humans, because their souls are that different?

I'm inclined to think yes. "We can't lower ourselves enough to see it" is just the most elven way to say it.

 

[Raiseth]

Divine Magic is the same as Arcane Magic… which one?

The magic of Chaos Gods? The same gods who generally don't give a fuck about their followers and can randomly mutate them into a useless Chaos Spawn for shits and giggles.

The magic of elven gods, who are considered aspects of their souls, society and individual philosophy, with the only difference between priests and wizards is the shape of the hat they are wearing on their head?

The magic of human gods, who strictly regulate the miracles available to their followers in order to insulate them from the energies of the Aethiric Wastes and reinforce their legends and domain over certain concepts?

The magic of dwarves, who hit magic with a hammer until it stops resisting, as their ancestors taught them to?

In the first place, every single race seems to have their own methods to channel the winds, even within the bounds of the same magical theory. Forget unifying the theory of divine magic and arcane magic, or even unifying arcane magic as cast by different species, or fuck, different polities.

Unify arcane spellcasting under the Teclisian theory of magic that produces vastly different results for humans and elves, with both species literally unable to do what the other does.

 

[Glau]

It's weird that there's this assumption running that magic and the winds have an objective reality to then beyond individual species.

Given that magic requires a mind to be used or shaped, it seems impossible to tell if the common parts of magic are a sign that magic has it's own consistent character, or if minds are similar and magic is entirely mutable.

We've go winds, divine, Dhar, AV, elemental, runic, waaagh, yin and yang, and deep magic. Those are all existing magics in the lore that are incompatible with eachother. We have know some of them can change into other types. Other types seem static, either completely separate or end-states to chains of other changes.

We also know that individual species can only use certain types of these energies- and we have a great example of Mathilde using winds and getting bent by divine in order to use waaagh. So it requires souls to change to use other energies.

My guess is that this whole system is much more indeterminate than it seems, and the key is the souls. Only by understanding the difference between an elf soul and a human soul can we understand if there is an actual difference between divine and wind magic.