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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Ericwinter said:
I mean, if greenskin society had enough, you know, society he maybe would be. :V
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They have a semi currency system made of "Teef" and "Scrap". It was mostly scrapped in later Editions, but older variations of Orcs had that currency system. There was also an old narrative piece that focused on the perspective of an Orc and it was revealed there that Orcs love everyone they're fighting. They genuinely love the soldiers of the Empire and the fights they give. They also think that fighting is a two way enjoyable sport that everyone's engaging in, and they're genuinely confused at all the hard feelings humans sometimes have. Aren't they having as much fun?

In later Editions Orcs are far more meanspirited, but in older ones they just want everyone to have a good time. The good time being a good fight.
 
Codex said:
"Mystics and Showmen" was the example Mathilde brought up when she was talking with Panoramia, but all things considered she might have wanted to make her Wind sound more impressive/admirable to her date. Conwoman doesn't sound as catchy as a mystic or show(wo)man.
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I imagine it's also nearly habitual for a grey wizard. One of the big important tasks for the Grey College is making sure there aren't any Ulgu Conman, and that the public doesn't feel at risk of getting screwed by Ulgu conmen.

She might not mention that for the same reason that she doesn't mention becoming a daemon bomb: That only happens when you do it wrong.
Artemis1992 said:
You could say the same of Mathilde.

She has little direct inclination to be an Assassin and her god is not a fan of violence either.

Yet we do have the skills and we occasionally find ourselves in situation where assassinations are the best path forward.
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But Ranald is at least a god of sneakiness. That's 50%, and honestly the rarer half, because all gods are ok with violence when directed against Chaos and such, and there's a bunch of war gods (Sigmar, Ulric, Myrmida,...) while there's not that many gods of sneakiness. (Ranald's opion of violence is also a whole theological debate I don't care to get into right now).

So Mathilde at the very least had an inclination towards sneaking, and from my reading, didn't have a particular disinclination towards fighting. (When she got out of the college, she soon went looking for trouble in Eagle Castle, resolved it by stabbing. So far it doesn't say much either way, because she was quite sheltered to that point. But her reaction to violence wasn't "Let's not do that again", it's "Let's make sure I don't suck at it next time")

And yes, Mathilde's choice of Ranald isn't the be all end all of her personality. But we know a whole lot more about it than we do about Eike, based on having access to her internal monologue, circumstances and sheer screen time. And it's still a pretty good basis for judging her personality (though she is more pious than most).

So taking Eike's choice as indicating that she doesn't want to fight and kill things seems reasonable, until we get to know her better.
 
BurnNote said:
And while it's true that Eike's faith in Shallya is not ironclad (hell, we have no idea where it's from really serious to casual interest), the fact that it's her chosen faith does indicate her personality leans that way. AFAIK, there's no external pressure on her to choose that, and if she was inclined to assassination by personality, she'd have chosen a different god. It's not like there's a shortage of gods that offer that possibility.
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There's a lot of war gods (because duh, Warhammer) but 'good' assassination related deities aren't as prevalent.

Targeted assassination viewed as a mercy when the alternative is bloody combat can be considered as touching on Shallya's domain in the same way that running around with a large sword and commanding armies touches on Ranald's domain when done in the same way Mathilde does it.
 
Zero Gravitas said:
Targeted assassination viewed as a mercy when the alternative is bloody combat can be considered as touching on Shallya's domain in the same way that running around with a large sword and commanding armies touches on Ranald's domain when done in the same way Mathilde does it.
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…Man, it's always weird to look at Mathilde's typical modus operandi, and then remember that she's one of the most pious Ranaldites around. It makes sense from an inside perspective, but good gods a lot of people would probably be confused at first glance.
 
Zero Gravitas said:
There's a lot of war gods (because duh, Warhammer) but 'good' assassination related deities aren't as prevalent.

Targeted assassination viewed as a mercy when the alternative is bloody combat can be considered as touching on Shallya's domain in the same way that running around with a large sword and commanding armies touches on Ranald's domain when done in the same way Mathilde does it.
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The closest thing to an Assasination God out there is Khaine, and I wouldn't say that Khainites are "good" at assasination. This is their strictures after all:

• All death is sacred, but only murder is sacred to Khaine.
• Murder is an act of devotion—do not rush it.
• Murder is its own reward.
• Do not let an opportunity to kill pass you by. Each such moment is a blessing given by Khaine.
• Murder by the hand of another is good, murder by your own hand is better.
• Do not betray the cult, even in death.
• Do not conceal the work of Khaine, even if it leads to your discovery

It's comical how evil the Cult of Khaine is.
 
K von Carstein said:
Maybe the « do not conceal the work of Khaine » means « don't try to make it look like an accident » instead of « don't try to hide your implication »?
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I assumed that's what it meant, but if you keep killing people and making it obvious it's a murder then the evidence pointing to you is going to pile up quickly and you will get caught.
 
Codex said:
The closest thing to an Assasination God out there is Khaine, and I wouldn't say that Khainites are "good" at assasination. This is their strictures after all:

• All death is sacred, but only murder is sacred to Khaine.
• Murder is an act of devotion—do not rush it.
• Murder is its own reward.
• Do not let an opportunity to kill pass you by. Each such moment is a blessing given by Khaine.
• Murder by the hand of another is good, murder by your own hand is better.
• Do not betray the cult, even in death.
• Do not conceal the work of Khaine, even if it leads to your discovery

It's comical how evil the Cult of Khaine is.
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And yet it's only a twist from a group of stalwart guardians, depending entirely on what counts as 'opportunity'. If it requires acting according to the law, then it's suddenly not all that nasty. There's actually a pretty broad spectrum from chaotic evil murderhobo to lawful neutral guard that could all fit under the scriptures.
Jreengus said:
How do these cultists not all get caught? Murder everyone you get the chance to and don't try to disguise those murders!
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First one hinges on what the cultist considers an opportunity (notably, you're not suposed to rush it, which doesn't work with 'kill everyone you see all the time'). Second one doesn't mean you have to tell everyone it was you. You just can't pretend it was an accident, or more hardline, that it wasn't an act of devotion to Khaine.

Like, you could imagine an arena fighter who considers each fight an opportunity for murder. Doing it under other circumstances would be rushing it, and therefore improper. He'd still kill someone who's shit talking him (that's clearly a god given opportunity), but he could function.

I imagine the Dark Elves do it: Proper Murder requires ritualistic components, and so the devout don't just go around killing willy-nilly and no warning.
Jreengus said:
I assumed that's what it meant, but if you keep killing people and making it obvious it's a murder then the evidence pointing to you is going to pile up quickly and you will get caught.
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Warhammer offers plenty of situations for sanctioned murder. Be it guard or mercenary, you don't need to kill civilians.
And also plenty of situations for murder where you have plenty of friends to protect you, like banditry or piracy, where you're not more at risk than other bandits or pirates.
 
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Khainites don't hide that the Cult of Khaine is in town. They carve the sigil of Khaine on the skin of their victims or paint the symbol on the walls with blood.

They also have this initation ritual from Night's Dark Masters Page 11:

"It is a common trial for initiates of the Murder Lord's cult to kidnap innocents and cut a passage of the books into their victims' flesh before letting them escape. The victims spend the rest of their lives with heresy scarred into their skin, an act which is said to greatly please the God of Murder."

The passages mentioned are from their holy books, the Books of Blood. The only notable passages that have been found of this book are from the skin of Khainite victims.

Again, these guys are ridiculous.
 
Codex said:
"It is a common trial for initiates of the Murder Lord's cult to kidnap innocents and cut a passage of the books into their victims' flesh before letting them escape. The victims spend the rest of their lives with heresy scarred into their skin, an act which is said to greatly please the God of Murder."
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That's obviously not cool, but the strictures, in isolation, made me think of this guy:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NZDwZbyDus
 
…Huh. I just realized something. Johann is pretty tall, right? Like, the usual picture of him is that big muscled alchemist guy, right? Him and Mathilde must make quite a pair, in that case. I mean, just imagine what they look like. This big, blind, muscle man made mostly out of gold with a weird lizard arm thing, and a tiny woman surrounded by mists and shadows with a big-ass sword, tall hat, three separate pistols, and a staff made out of dragon bone… who happens to be the one in charge.

I wonder if Mathilde could ride on his shoulders…

"Run me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!"
 
The strictures about the marks and routine killings are pretty inspired by serial killers right?

Is the murder-god less about mass death like in wars and more murder in the legal sense like killing someone with malicious intent ?
 
Swantree said:
The strictures about the marks and routine killings are pretty inspired by serial killers right?

Is the murder-god less about mass death like in wars and more murder in the legal sense like killing someone with malicious intent ?
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In human society, yeah, because there are other War Gods. To Elves, he is the god of killing in general, which includes anything from war to malicious murder. Dark Elves are just as bad if not outright worse than human cultists of Khaine and they actively make sure people suffer and sacrifice slaves by slicing their hearts out and stuff, but Asur pray to Khaine when there's a war even if they don't actually like him all that much.

I mean, if a person actually likes Khaine, then that's usually a red flag. Nobody who likes him turns out well adjusted.
 
silentorphan said:
Why bother? Aethyric Armor means that he can just pick her up and throw her into a bunch of bad guys without needing to worry about her
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Better yet, he can throw her and then Mathilde throws Branulhune. Enemy gets hit by cannonball like sword, and then Mathilde dropkicks it even deeper into the enemy for massive damage.

What's that? I'm in the wrong genre? That can't be right.
 
You know with all these discussions about who Eike's patron god should be, I have the most fantabulous solution. Let's just find the daughters of Ranald and Shalya and then introduce them to Eike. Problem solved.
P.s. And also before any forced conversion let's just remember last time did not go very well.
P.P.S. I am just joking.
 
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Remake said:
You know with all these discussions about who Eike's patron god should be, I have the most fantabulous solution. Let's just find the daughters of Ranald and Shalya and then introduce them to Eike. Problem solved.
P.s. And also before any forced conversion let's just remember last time did not go very well.
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It is not up to us who she worships and I do not think it is reasonable for her to be drawn to the daughters just because she is drawn to Shayla. I mean ask any Verenan if they would like to serve Shaylla or Myrmidia instead.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
For all we know, maybe Eike has a piety score of 6 or something and only picked Shallya because she had to choose somebody.
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She at least liked her enough to want to spend time feeding doves.

Ultimately, we don't know what Eike's feelings on the matter of violence are, and we won't without asking her. It is not impossible by any means to both worship Shallya and see violence as necessary- the Plague Wardens are literal Priests of Shallya that see a large degree of violence as necessary.

Or she might hew to Shallyan pacifism quite strongly. We'll adapt if so.
 
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