- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
It wasn't an exclamation of disbelief. Or it was, but not towards you. Riding into battle without a helmet is just a really stupid thing to do. More so by far than eschewing a breast plate in favor of thick clothing. I get it if Ulric demands it from his clergy. Clergy often does mind boggling stuff as signs of devotion. But demanding it from the rank and file is extremely unreasonable. Especially when making your own helmet (even just a reinforced wood and leather one) is much easier than making those ranged weapons he just considers "cowardly". So it's not even about self reliance. Next Ulric is going to forbid woolen headwear in winter as well. Ah, who am I kidding. He probably already does. Protecting your ears from frostbite is playing god and encroaching on His domain.
How did these tribes even survive the pre-Imperial age? I guess purely through blessings and divine protection. Which is a good strategy for Ulric to bind them to himself. But kind of makes the whole "self reliance" thing a sham, at least on the civilizational level.
I am specifically worried that Kislev's special and divinely enhanced and maintained Waystone Network might become a blindspot in the foundational paradigm we'll develop. I'd rather pay a bit more for an Ice Witch to sit in and do little more than scoff at stuff than recruiting them only once they become "relevant" and be caught with our pants down, so to speak.
I know I am repeating myself, but my dream team includes a total of four more recruitments (Hekartines, Hoethians, Halethans, Ice Witches) where most others in this thread are more than ready to start after two more recruitments.
Maybe you're right and it's all up to education, but it's not the feeling I got back when Boney chimed in in the whole "is Elven magic inherently superior to Human magic" discussion. My understanding was that Elves are incapable of making spells do stuff they are not supposed to be mechanically capable of doing, let alone capable of inventing new spells by accident. And that their souls are just less malleable and prone to change.
Again, this may be because they learn the ins and outs of each spell in too much detail for it to leave any space in their minds which allows for enough ignorance for them to even subconsciously go "but that could work this way too". But that kind of contradicts two WoG we got on spell creation. Namely that a) codifying a spell makes it into a sort of black box where people can learn it without understanding it's underlying mechanisms and logics. And b) Mathilde and other Human spell creators should theoretically be capable of teaching their spells to Elves. My conclusion of these facts is that an Elf doesn't need to be fully informed of every detail of a spell's functioning in order to be willing and able to cast it. And my corollary conclusion is that Elves learn and cast spells sometimes imperfectly, yet suffer from Arcane Marks far more rarely. Just like they suffer from mutations more rarely despite living under the same green moon.
Which category do you consider Shadow Warriors, Dragon Riders and Mist Mages to belong to? The second one I guess?
