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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Babushka, babushka. Mathilde's going to have lots of magic grandmas and grandpas by the end of this project, I can already tell. Also, our numbers are growing pretty quickly. If both witches go through, that'll be… ten people, eleven if you count Max? And basically every major magical tradition in the Old World outside the Hedgewise and Damsels, unless you count the Colleges separately. This could be very interesting.
 
Ericwinter said:
Babushka, babushka. Mathilde's going to have lots of magic grandmas and grandpas by the end of this project, I can already tell. Also, our numbers are growing pretty quickly. If both witches go through, that'll be… ten people, eleven if you count Max? And basically every major magical tradition in the Old World outside the Hedgewise and Damsels, unless you count the Colleges separately. This could be very interesting.
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I do not think the Hedgewise are anymore major than the Elementalists, the latter are even legal.
 
Ericwinter said:
Babushka, babushka. Mathilde's going to have lots of magic grandmas and grandpas by the end of this project, I can already tell. Also, our numbers are growing pretty quickly. If both witches go through, that'll be… ten people, eleven if you count Max? And basically every major magical tradition in the Old World outside the Hedgewise and Damsels, unless you count the Colleges separately. This could be very interesting.
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Gotta collect 'em all!

I'm looking forward to when Mathilde somehow stumbles into recruiting the nehekarans. "Well, sure, we have dwarves, the project is really about collaboration and the synthesis of knowledge, and waystones are really just a kind of monuments, and who else is really good at monuments? Exactly."
 
The main group I'd like to get on board with next turns actions along with starting the project is the Amber College - we know Dragomas is interested so it shouldn't be that hard to get them on board, and we know the Shamans have some info on Waystones.
 
mathymancer said:
From what I can tell, Radixashen is in Athel Loren. Can't figure out anything else about him but that's where he's at. So Deathfang is saying that the Goddess he made a pact with when he joined Athel Loren was Rhya. Now, you can argue that the elves of Athel Loren for some reason don't worship that Goddess, or that they worship her on top of Isha, but I think that's the natural conclusion. It is all very strange, and I do think we should seriously consider the possibility that he's just straight up wrong.

Actually, Deathfang said "Draugnir joined with your Gods, but Radixashen joined with Rhya", indicating both that Rhya isn't Isha and that when Radixashen joined Rhya he didn't join with Isha. I think that indicates that if Isha is present in Athel Loren at the very least she wasn't there when Radixashen...joined with the forest? I have no idea.
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Well, the thing is that the arrival of High Elves and pact with the Forest is probably predated by the Dragons joining with High Elves.

I can't claim it as fact because there is no hard data, but i am pretty sure that Draugnir bound his faction of Dragons to Elves sometime in or before the reign of Aenarion. If we assume Radixashen pledged his alegiances around that time, then he predates the arrival of Isha through Ariel and Orion by several centuries, if not outright millenia, meaning that Rhya was already there and then the elves, because they obviously won't give up their gods just because of collonization or later little things like schisms, brought Isha into the mix.

Athel Loren itself is also probably its own entity, so its entirely possible that the ties there are something like

Isha + Kurnous(Ariel+Orion) -> Athel Loren(Spirits) <- Rhya(Radixashen)

Im just gonna assume there is an overlap because both have dealings with that particular forest, who essentially acts as a third entity, but they are not directly related.

Its like Durthu, isn't it? Durthu owes no fealty to the Elves and Isha except through the ancient pact they've made, but he certainly doesn't worship Isha and he is far more a representative of the actual Forest than she is.

To put it in entirely different way, Isha is goddess through the mortal tribe of people that live there, Rhya is the goddess through ... something, been a while since i read her domains, and they are both tied to the forest itself through their worshippers/ representants. But it doesn't need to necessarily mean that they are the same deity.
 
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I'm looking forward to making something from Drycha.

Wonder if Laurelorn has any history with her…? Yes I know they're not part of Athel Loren, but they're elves living in magical woods, that's more than enough basis for encounters over the millennia.
 
It honestly feels like there may have been a mirroring phenomenon going on, where the human gods and the elf gods ARE different, but the story they both played out was the same. IE, Loec and Ranald played the same roles in similar stories, but are NOT the same being.

The idea that two similar gods "are actually" the same seems to be remant of imperial Roman thinking, from the pax deus and their efforts to syncratize the skygods in their pantheon, expanded on through gardinerian witchcraft leading into the new age movements, where all goddesses were seen as the 'same' Goddess. Likewise for gods.

So it feels like the idea that gods can have different names in different areas and still be the same god is a remnant of imperial political philosophy. I personally prefer the 'names make individuals' model, because it respects cultural bloodlines much more, but I do acknowledge that the syncratic model seems to be what most people default to.

I suspect it doesn't actually apply here. The "form" of the elven gods (collectives of fractions of all elf souls) and human gods (independent entities that souls in their entirety are devoted to) looks like the relevant cleavage, which would keep them separate no matter how much overlap is otherwise implied.
 
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Glau said:
It honestly feels like there may have been a mirroring phenomenon going on, where the human gods and the elf gods ARE different, but the story they both played out was the same. IE, Loec and Ranald played the same roles in similar stories, but are NOT the same being.

The idea that two similar gods "are actually" the same seems to be remant of imperial Roman thinking, fro the pax deus and their efforts to syncratize the skygods in their pantheon.

I suspect it doesn't actually apply here. The "form" of the elven gods (collectives of fractions of all elf souls) and human gods (independent entities that souls in their entirety are devoted to) looks like the relevant cleavage, which would keep them separate no matter how much overlap is otherwise implied.
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I mean sort of, the Greeks and Romans did do it, but if you go far enough back those chariot riding, bronze wielding fellows who came out of the east and ended the Neolithic in western and southern Eurasia did have a sky god which then split into various incarnations throughout the Indo-European tribes. The Romans and Greeks were noticing real similarities at times rooted in common history.
 
DragonParadox said:
I mean sort of, the Greeks and Romans did do it, but if you go far enough back those chariot riding, bronze wielding fellows who came out of the east and ended the Neolithic in western and southern Eurasia did have a sky god which then split into various incarnations throughout the Indo-European tribes. The Romans and Greeks were noticing real similarities at times rooted in common history.
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As someone who STRONGLY prefers Athena to Minerva, I would push back against the idea that they worshiped the same gods in different incarnations. I'd propose instead that they had different gods based on the same phenomena. And then the imperial power pushed for simplification.

To bring it back to the thread, we have been told that Isha and Rhya are different beings. By one of the only things on mallus that could have actually spoken to both.

So either we assume we know better and the dragon is wrong, or the model we are using has unexplored flaws.
 
My theory on the gods is that they mirror the cardinal/elemental/mystical divide wind magic has. Elven Gods are Cardinal i.e. if you want to dance, you channel Loec, because he's the god of dancing, if you want to light a flame, you channel Aqshy, because that's the wind of flame. Humans, however, divide both the gods and the winds into mystical and elemental aspects. Taal, Karnos, and Kurnous are all the same god, the same way that mystical Ulgu, elemental Ulgu, and cardinal Ulgu are all the same wind, even though they all produce different effects.
 
Glau said:
As someone who STRONGLY prefers Athena to Minerva, I would push back against the idea that they worshiped the same gods in different incarnations. I'd propose instead that they had different gods based on the same phenomena. And then the imperial power pushed for simplification.

To bring it back to the thread, we have been told that Isha and Rhya are different beings. By one of the only things on mallus that could have actually spoken to both.

So either we assume we know better and the dragon is wrong, or the model we are using has unexplored flaws.
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My idea was less that they are the same god and more than some of them had a common origin which mirrors the linguistics roots of the peoples who worshiped them and that was noticed by ancient peoples as much as modern ones
 
Glau said:
As someone who STRONGLY prefers Athena to Minerva, I would push back against the idea that they worshiped the same gods in different incarnations. I'd propose instead that they had different gods based on the same phenomena. And then the imperial power pushed for simplification.
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I'm not sure that the distinction is meaningful, given that Greek and Roman religion is firmly relegated to "myth" in modern times. It's historical fact that both came from the same proto-mythologies, and whether that makes them different incarnations of the same being or different gods entirely is a theological question that implicitly assumes they exist at all.

It's a rather more pressing line of inquiry in Warhammer, of course.
 
Ancient greeks themselves had some very different interpretations of their gods depending on which city state you were in, and those interpretations changed over time.
So having gods with different names, and very different personalities, be actually the same god, is not really that out there.
 
Ericwinter said:
Babushka, babushka. Mathilde's going to have lots of magic grandmas and grandpas by the end of this project, I can already tell. Also, our numbers are growing pretty quickly. If both witches go through, that'll be… ten people, eleven if you count Max? And basically every major magical tradition in the Old World outside the Hedgewise and Damsels, unless you count the Colleges separately. This could be very interesting.
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DragonParadox said:
I do not think the Hedgewise are anymore major than the Elementalists, the latter are even legal.
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The Hedgewise are kind of an extension of the original human traditions of the Old World. I would say they're a fairly significant addition, mostly because they have a lineage all the way back to the founding of the empire who haven't been "corrected" by elves.
The Kislevites also haven't been corrected by elves, but their traditions are from the east and came with their migration.
Though we should probably bring on a major Cult as well, not Sigmar because Mathilde still bears a grudge, but maybe Taal or Ulric for the same reasons as the Hedgewise.
Also, we're still technically missing the Asari as a major magical tradition, but they seem unlikely to be willing to join, the xenophobic pricks.
 
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Getting back to the vote though, one more reason to chose hag witches is we do not really have much that would interest them specifically, I do not think Mathilde will be running around these woods chasing evil fey anytime soon. By contrast as soon as we have anything from the project, any hint that we can drive back the Za Boris will move heaven and earth to give us that state backing.
 
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Yeah, I suspect that if we have any promising results at all, getting access to Kislev to poke around could be as simple as telling Boris "we have something we can try that might drive back the Za."

Though, of course bringing even just the Ice Witches in mean that Kislev already does get knowledge of whatever the project pulls together, without formally backing the project.
 
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One oddity of Roman syncretism is that Odin and Mercury are considered the same god; that's why in northern Europe the third day of the week is "Odin's day" (Wednesday, Onsdag) whilst in southern Europe it's "Mercury's Day" (Mercredi, Mercoledì). This was the day that the Romans paid homage to Odin/Mercury, so the day got named after them depending on the name/language spoken in that region.

Odin is the god of Generals and Magicians, whilst Mercury is the god of Merchants and Bankers. The Romans equated the two because both are depicted as travellers and wanderers (Gandalf the Grey is explicitly based on Odin the Wanderer). Mercury is also associated with Hermes, god of messengers, and Thoth, god of knowledge.

But it goes deeper—Gandalf is based on Odin in his guise as the Wandering Magician, and the Grey Order of Warhammer Fantasy are based on Gandalf. Mathilde, a shadow wizard, however, is much closer in aspect to Odin the General, with her skill in military command and the unconventional alliances (Odin swore a blood oath with the Jotun Loki, and orchestrated an alliance between the Aesir and Vanir tribes to oppose their mutual enemies the Jotun).

Mathilde Grey Wizarded so hard that she accidentally ended up channelling the wrong aspect of Odin.
 
[x] [KISLEV] Waystone Project: Kislev
[x] [WIDOW] Waystone Project: Ice Witches

I saw a really interesting write up (maybe it was here) that during end times when Asyuran showed up it was actually just Ranald in a mask, as we know Ranald wasn't there for the final battle. There was more evidence for the theory but just something interesting
 
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