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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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DragonParadox said:
I am saying that the fact that we do not already have any hint of Hedgewise Waysotone magic, or indeed any hint of Hedgecraft in the Grey Order while we are a lady magister is a hint that there may be very little lore there to find. It may well be that Hedgewise are able to learn grey magic but not the reverse, or it may simply be that as others have said all they knew has been explained away and integrated into the Teclisian worldview... in which case it is unlkely they have a lot of lore we would want for the project.

Of course it should be kept in mind that this is a 'unknown unknown' situation and you could be right there might be super secret religious lore that the founders were not able or willing to share with the secular colleges, but at least to me it seems more likely that there simply is not very much useful lore at all. I am still willing to put a AP down on the action, but I do not have high hopes for it, nor do I think it is urgent.
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No, this is not a situation where we have to guess or speculate. We know for a fact that Hedgecraft hasn't been explained by the Grey College because we've seen Hedge magic. The scrying spell cast by Baba Brzeginias was something unlike anything in the Grey College spellbook (or indeed any College spellbook). There's also this great summary by Codex on the Hedgefolk which includes their spell list, you can take a look and see a great number of effects that have obviously not been replicated by the Grey College, despite having very obvious uses: Sightstep and The Ousting to name just a few.

We also have Mathilde straight up saying that Hedgewise magic doesn't align with the Teclisian model:
Boney said:
The flip side to that is that very small amounts of Winds are much more malleable, to the extent that their identity can be completely lost. This is sometimes referred to as Earthbound Magic as small amounts of it can be drawn out of almost any mundane object, and this undifferentiated magical energy is believed to be what allows for witches, hedge wizards, the Hedgewise, and Elementalists to create magics that don't align with the Teclisean model.
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Religious spellcasters were also among the founders of the Colleges, and yet the Colleges most definitely don't understand divine magic, so it's not as if this is completely unprecedented:
Boney said:
And even though Teclis did not challenge the Empire's religious orders when they said that Divine and Arcane were completely unrelated, more than a few priests decided they were more attracted to the trappings of their deity than the deity proper and joined the Colleges instead.
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Now we can wonder why the traditions of the Hedgewise aren't kept by the Grey College. Maybe they didn't share them, maybe they were suppressed by a Patriarch that didn't think they have any worth, maybe they burned in a fire. Who knows. But the facts are:
  • The Hedgewise were among the founders of the Grey College.
  • The Hedgewise have magic that the Grey College does not understand and cannot replicate.
  • The Hedgewise oral traditions are either not known to the Grey College, or are kept from Mathilde.
None of those facts is in dispute.
 
From the wiki
warhammerfantasy.fandom.com

Great Vortex

The Great Vortex is a vast magical maelstrom at the heart of the island-continent of Ulthuan created in I, 79 (-4421 IC)[1b] by the High Elves as a means to absorb all the excess magic within the mortal world and banish the Daemons of Chaos from this plane of existence back to the Realm of...
warhammerfantasy.fandom.com warhammerfantasy.fandom.com

Thus are the magical energies of the world inexorably drawn, like the waters of a whirlpool, to Ulthuan's heart.[1a]

There the magic is drained from the world by the Great Vortex
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It doesn't say where the magic goes, but sending magic back into the Warp makes more sense than throwing it into space. There's also a moon made of Dhar in orbite, so it would also be ridiculously dangerous.


There's something else I've noticed while reading the page. I've seen mentioned several time in the thread that and in other places that Ulthuan is floating on the water, and that fact cited as one if the reasons Skavens can get there. But there's that part of the page:

Indeed, Uthuan's entire being is now sustained by magic. During a time known as the Sundering, the continent was wracked and shattered, its remnants saved from the hungry sea by desperate enchantments. Only by harnessing the vast power drawn in by the waystones can the Elves ensure that Ulthuan is not swallowed up by the ocean.[1a]
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From that extract, I don't think that Ulthuan is floating. I think it was a normal island that got wrecked by massive earthquakes when the Bitch-King tried to mess with the waystones, and is now literally held together by magic.

Another element is the fact that Ulthuan predates the Vortex at all.
 
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What confuses me is that they haven't even done anything with Malekith after Fantasy. You would expect after all the buildup from End Times that he would serve a pivotal role in Age of Sigmar, but he's mostly a side note in comparison to Morathi, who actually does stuff. Tyrion and Malerion are the only Incarnates who don't do shit. I assume Tyrion isn't available at the moment because all their resources were spent on V-Posing Teclis, but Malerion (Malekith renamed probably so they can trademark this name/don't want to compete with Marvel) was ghosted for 6-7 years. He still doesn't have a model, army or statblock.
 
Codex said:
What confuses me is that they haven't even done anything with Malekith after Fantasy. You would expect after all the buildup from End Times that he would serve a pivotal role in Age of Sigmar, but he's mostly a side note in comparison to Morathi, who actually does stuff. Tyrion and Malerion are the only Incarnates who don't do shit. I assume Tyrion isn't available at the moment because all their resources were spent on V-Posing Teclis, but Malerion (Malekith renamed probably so they can trademark this name/don't want to compete with Marvel) was ghosted for 6-7 years. He still doesn't have a model, army or statblock.
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My assumption of that, is that they were going to use him earlier, hence all the buildup.

But then all the shit in end times they did to build him up did the opposite, and instead made him by far the hottest potato.

so now they're just trying to age out of those that remember before bringing him back in.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
My assumption of that, is that they were going to use him earlier, hence all the buildup.

But then all the shit in end times they did to build him up did the opposite, and instead made him by far the hottest potato.

so now they're just trying to age out of those that remember before bringing him back in.
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There's also the fact that Matt Ward left after the End Times, and he was like, the primary writer for all the Elf stuff in 8th Edition.

The more I read his work, the more I see his mark, and my distaste only grows. So much of the shitty Elf stuff can be traced back to him, and maybe it's a coicidence that Elves disappeared from existence for the first three years of Age of Sigmar's runtime after he left, but I feel like there was no interest in picking up the pieces he left behind. Daughters of Khaine, Idoneth Deepkin and Lumineth Realmlords are in an all time high with constant book updates (well, Idoneth less so than the two others, but they recently got a book at least), but it doesn't escape me that it was only 2018 and beyond that they actually came back to the Elves, and Lumineth only came out in 2020 with one of the biggest army lists for a new army that I've seen.

There are more Lumineth models than Fyreslayer models (39 to 29), and Fyreslayers were released on AoS's launch year. I think something happened behind the scenes to cause a push for the Elves after a long break.
 
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Almost everything wrong with Ultramarines was what came from Matt Ward as well. Fans learned to hate the guy thanks to that really.
 
Tasoli said:
UltraSmurfs! And Marneus Calgar the Spiritual liege of ALL SPACE MARINES!

Incidently You were wondering how Melekit got to become Phonix King? I just learned that GW has rehired Matt Ward to write End Times. Should have known really.
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I believe he wrote 8th Edition Wood Elves, High Elves, Dark Elves and End Times:Khaine. The whole shebang. Everything Elven in 8th Edition had to do with him.

This isn't to say that all these books were bad. They had good and fun parts to them and I liked them for the most part (the non ET books I mean). It's just that the overall culmination of a lot of the negative things from Khaine come directly from his work, so it really sours his image. I don't think anyone can recover from making Malekith the Phoenix King.
 
K von Carstein said:
Wow. That's one third of Chrace, half of Nagaryth and two third of Tiranoc that got sunk! Presumably with most of their population. And GW told us that Malekith was accepted by the Asur as the rightful Phoenix King…
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Considering how we were discussing the the track record of elven kings of of Ulthuan this update... Maybe by the End Times, Asuryan had just gotten that fed up with the non-Malekith line? :thonk: :V
 
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The Phoenixian said:
Considering how we were discussing the the track record of elven kings of of Ulthuan this update... Maybe by the End Times, Asuryan had just gotten that fed up with the non-Malekith line? :thonk:
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If Asuryan decides that the guy responsible for more dead Elves than anyone short of the Chaos Gods is the one to pick, then the Asur really need to find a better god.

The conversation was mostly in regards to how the Eonir specifically would feel about the Phoenix Kings- overall, the only incompetent Phoenix Kings were Caledor II and arguably Aethis.

The Empire would be overjoyed if only 2 out of 11 Emperors were incompetent.
 
Codex said:
This isn't to say that all these books were bad. They had good and fun parts to them and I liked them for the most part (the non ET books I mean). It's just that the overall culmination of a lot of the negative things from Khaine come directly from his work, so it really sours his image. I don't think anyone can recover from making Malekith the Phoenix King.
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This is the guy who broke the 7ed with his Deamon codex so hard 8th had to be launched to correct it as anything else failed.
K von Carstein said:
You mean Papa Smurf? The Spiritual Liege is Gulliman 😉
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Nope that is later thing when Matt ward first wrote the concept of Spiritual Liege he actually put forth Ultramarine Chapter Master as said liege because all other Space Marine Chapters admired both Ultramarines and Codex that much and all chapters used Codex unless they had mutations that made it impossible like Blood Angels or were rebellious brutes like Space Wolves. And while other Chapters were not the blood of Gulliman therefore inferior they never the less knew there proper place as followers of the Codex.

It is as stupid as it sounds.
 
Mopman43 said:
The conversation was mostly in regards to how the Eonir specifically would feel about the Phoenix Kings- overall, the only incompetent Phoenix Kings were Caledor II and arguably Aethis.
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There is no arguably with Aethis. Ulthuan was turned into swiss cheese during his reign with how many spies and informants managed to sneak into his court. He was known as the "poet" but really his decadence pushed the Kingdoms into a level of complacency that screwed them over when the Druchii attacked once again. He was assasinated by a guy he thought was his friend with his only notable achievements being encouraging art pieces and self expression before Ulthuan was torn apart by war once again.
 
The Phoenixian said:
Considering how we were discussing the the track record of elven kings of of Ulthuan this update... Maybe by the End Times, Asuryan had just gotten that fed up with the non-Malekith line? :thonk:
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Malekith tried to destroy the Vortex, which would have destroyed the world. He's directly responsible for the near-destruction of the Karaz Ankor and the decline of Ulthuan, two very strong anti-Choas polities. He caused the death of more elves than anything except the collapse of the Polar Gates.

Except for Caledor II, most of the PK were pretty alright. Aenarion, Caledor I, Bel-Hathor and Bel-Khoradris were great ones. Proportionally, that's a better track record than the Empire.

Codex said:
He was known as the "poet"
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The Druchii knows him as « The Mad », and I must agree with them on that count.
 
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Codex said:
There is no arguably with Aethis. Ulthuan was turned into swiss cheese during his reign with how many spies and informants managed to sneak into his court. He was known as the "poet" but really his decadence pushed the Kingdoms into a level of complacency that screwed them over when the Druchii attacked once again. He was assasinated by a guy he thought was his friend with his only notable achievements being encouraging art pieces and self expression before Ulthuan was torn apart by war once again.
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You know I am reminded of that conversation we had about the gods of the elves. I wonder if that is what it looks like when an elf allows himself to be overly impacted by the Cadai. I mean they do represent 'the world as it should be' so being blind to the evils of the world to the point of self-destruction would fit the bill. Mind we do not know if elves can fall in such a way to the lighter side of the Pantheon, but given that we see plenty of excesses from those who worship the Cytharai too much I can see how that might work.
 
K von Carstein said:
Malekith tried to destroy the Vortex, which would have destroyed the world. He's directly responsible for the near-destruction of the Karaz Ankor and the decline of Ulthuan, two very strong anti-Choas polities. He caused the death of more elves than anything except the collapse of the Polar Gates.

Except for Caledor II, most of the PK were pretty alright. Aenarion, Caledor I, Bel-Hathor and Bel-Khoradris were great ones. Proportionally, that's a better track record than the Empire.
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Bel-Hathor's section spends more time talking about Finubar than it does Bel-Hathor. Most Phoenix Kings get such brief blurbs about them that I'm not confident in calling most of them "great". They're pretty alright in general, but most of them are just people, flaws and all.

Morvael for example, bless his heart, was called the "Impetous" by his own people for a reason. He was unqualified for the position granted to him and he did his best but his best was not enough, and one of Lileath's legendary artifacts was lost during his reign because he gave it to his son before a voyage where he disappeared, and he was relatively incompetent in military endeavours at a time where the Druchii were launching assaults. If it weren't for his boyfriend close friend General Mentheus, Ulthuan would have been doomed in its military expeditions.

I like Morvael, but I got to tell it like it is. He was kind of a bad choice.
 
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