Mostly familiar with Mathilde's other papers. It's a follow up from a comment Boney made a week ago about how societies that read academic journals probably think Mathilde is some sort of adventure with the attention span of a squirrel because each paper she writes is on a different topic.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
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Mostly familiar with Mathilde's other papers. It's a follow up from a comment Boney made a week ago about how societies that read academic journals probably think Mathilde is some sort of adventure with the attention span of a squirrel because each paper she writes is on a different topic.
Yes. The Conspiracy of Silence doesn't just prevent all-out war between Empire and Under-Empire, it provides a justification for not having that war that doesn't leave the justifier politically vulnerable.
Because the typical reaction to the revelation that there's a shitload of unchecked deadly enemies right below/above you is to try to change that with violence.
I am pretty sure it also blows out though the broken gates at the poles, or at least warpstoone dust does, I imagine some bigger pieces might as well.
Codex
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This is what Resistance to Chaos from page 100 of the core 2E rulebook does:
"Description: You are naturally resistant to the power of Chaos. You gain a +10% bonus on Will Power Tests to resist magic and other Chaos effects, and you are immune to Chaos mutation. However, you can never become a spellcaster of any type."
They can never become mutated, but they don't get immunity to the damage, and they don't even get a boost to Toughness, only Willpower.
"Avoiding mutually assured destruction" is a very concrete and tangible benefit to both sides.
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...you do know there's much more than one group of Witch Hunters, and that order focuses almost entirely on Sigmarite populations? There are no Sigmarites in the Moot. The only 'witch hunters' who would even go there are secular, and they have strict jurisdictions depending on their patrons, who again have no ownership or business in the Moot.
Let's see. Several centuries, and no witch hunter - who had no reason or authority to be there, no traveler learned enough to know what warpstone is, because 'literal solidified dark magic' is not widely known, most know it as 'wyrdstone' which is a big part of the black market, or wizard with the right skills and Windsense? That's more than plausible.
And all of this is even begging the question that these people have a) gone inside a Halfling's house and b) been shown their collection of Weird Stuff. Collecting knick-knacks is the closest most Halflings get to Adventure, so yeah it's gonna be a bit of a long-winded thing to sit through.
Next is 'secret police'. No, they're Fieldwardens. Just. Read the damn wiki. The source is 4th edition RPG on this, but I can't find the canon tier list. They're basically, yeah secret police. Guerilla commandos who know every damn scrap of the Moot and explicitly will fucking murder any humans who start shit. They do not protect or act in the best interest of anyone but other halflings.
Finally Eshin... yeah good luck even getting close enough to sniff a Halfling's rock collection without being discovered. Or does Clan Eshin send Assassins to just rustle through the belongings of random people in the hopes that they have warpstone?
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Codex
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There is literally nothing that says they focus on Sigmarite populations. They work as often in Middenland as they do in Reikland. This is also ignorning that Halflings explicitly worship Sigmar and it's noted as weird by humans in general. This is also ignoring that the Templars of Sigmar were partially secularised by Magnus the Pious. This is literally stated in text in this very quest.
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You have yet to provide the slightest bit of evidence or source that the witch hunters bother with the Moot. At all. Come on, cough up.
I think the question of 'are there human witch hunters in the Moot' may be well... moot as the Fieldwardens would probably fine the hell out of any idiot keeping the raw stuff of chaos out in the open, as a danger to all other living things.
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Warhammer has, over the decades, and dozens of authors, brought about a lot of lore.
Sometimes that lore is dumb.
This is one of those cases, that the halflings would have warpstone as mantle piece decoration is, quite honestly, beyond silly.
They would notice it, and then get rid of it, because they are not dumb, and do not wish to give the nobles of Stirland to come and take their land through what i would have to assume would be basically genocide.
If halflings find out one of them is stupid enough to keep warpstone as mantle piece decorations, they are not going to secretly murder witch hunters to keep that idiot secret, they are going to get rid of that idiot, and the warpstone.
Sometimes that lore is dumb.
This is one of those cases, that the halflings would have warpstone as mantle piece decoration is, quite honestly, beyond silly.
They would notice it, and then get rid of it, because they are not dumb, and do not wish to give the nobles of Stirland to come and take their land through what i would have to assume would be basically genocide.
If halflings find out one of them is stupid enough to keep warpstone as mantle piece decorations, they are not going to secretly murder witch hunters to keep that idiot secret, they are going to get rid of that idiot, and the warpstone.
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...so, the thing that happened maybe twice before I started qualifying everything I said from the novels with 'this is unlikely to be canon at all, but there's nothing else on this specific detail in higher tier source to contradict it' and the thing that happened once. Reel your shit back in.
Codex
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This is actually mean spirited. I'm sorry. I have no idea what's wrong with me lately.
I think they are probably just going to get rid of the Warpstone unless someone actually got hurt from the stupid.
K von Carstein
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The witch-Hunter have jurisdiction on the whole Empire, not just the Sigmarite parts.
The witch-hunters are paranoid people obsessed with fighting Choas and rooting out traitors. As Codex an I have mentioned, they definitely have reasons or rights to be there. And I don't think you need a Mathilde-level windsight to see warpstone as what it is. And there was definitely wizards coming in hzlfling homes during those centuries, even if only for a cup of tea.
The « secret police » part was sarcasm, intended to show how implausible I find that the fieldwarden managed to kill the countless people who undoubtedly saw those tokens.
Again, across such a long period of time the probability that a skaven entered a halfling home and saw that watpstone is close to 1.
Edit: also, as Codex said warpstone is dangerous to touch even for halfling, so I doubt they would just put it on their chimney.
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On the topic of fieldwardens, in 2nd edition "Fieldwarden" is a basic class that any halfling character can start with at character creation. It is not an elite unit. Its stats are similar to the "Outlaw" basic class (actually a little weaker than the outlaw), but with one noticeable difference—a fieldwarden can start with Academic Knowledge (necromancy) as one of their skills. There is no way they wouldn't recognise what warpstone is, and choosing to put it on the mantelpiece at home is just dumb.
Codex
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There are two instances in the very book that mentions warpstone that talk about Witch Hunters and Halflings either working together or harboring suspicions:
". Due to this unsavoury but very necessary duty, veteran Field Wardens often surprise other adventurers (Priests and Witch Hunters are often very surprised indeed) with their experience in combating necromancy."
'The land is beautiful and verdant, and the people are warm and welcoming. That's very suspicious, wouldn't you say?' – Andulla Sorgewarze, Averland Witch Hunter
There is absolutely no reason to somehow suspect that Witch Hunters see the Moot as a no go zone. If you want to prove that this is the case, then maybe you should be the one providing the evidence.
". Due to this unsavoury but very necessary duty, veteran Field Wardens often surprise other adventurers (Priests and Witch Hunters are often very surprised indeed) with their experience in combating necromancy."
'The land is beautiful and verdant, and the people are warm and welcoming. That's very suspicious, wouldn't you say?' – Andulla Sorgewarze, Averland Witch Hunter
There is absolutely no reason to somehow suspect that Witch Hunters see the Moot as a no go zone. If you want to prove that this is the case, then maybe you should be the one providing the evidence.
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When someone is enough stupid to risk a bloody genocide of your race/ethnic group in a world as harsh as Warhammer, you probably won't take changes on it actually being just an accident.
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It probably would not lead to anything near that scale. We know from canon that there are plenty of halflings who work as warpstone smugglers and yet all halflings have not been killed over it. Keeping it on your mantelpiece is like that but dumber because you do not get paid and endanger your family.
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You all seem to be assuming that full knowledge of what warpstone is is common. Misconceptions of it as 'wyrdstone' and being just 'magical and miraculous' are pretty common. Wasn't it the entire plot of the Mordheim wargame, that non-corrupted humans wanted it? It's a glowing rock, in a fantasy world. If a halfling farmer whose never read a damn book fishes it out of a stream, how exactly is he going to know that this is magic radioactive waste.
It's in the 4e source that I references that being 'warm and welcoming' is a front. They're constant dicks underneath a veneer of 'oh sorry just not used to humans' to anyone who doesn't earn their trust to make them leave. They do not trust humans. Also they despise and never trust Averlanders.
Unless I mistake myself that's talking about adventurers as in the Warhammer Fantasy RPG protagonist concept. You're essentially pointing to a description of interactions between an adventuring party as that 'humans (Witch Hunters/Wizards) are often extremely surprised when the Fieldwarden they've found themselves travelling beside due to the game conceit is good at killing undead' and saying it's evidence that those humans come into the Moot commonly?
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Because the first time it touches his skin it is going to burn like acid and the first time his cat lightly brushes against it the poor thing is going to die or grow tentacles. That is of course assuming he does not go with the sensible precaution of peasants all over the continent: 'if it is not divine magic anything supernatural is probably dangerous'.
It does seem pretty dumb for 4e to say that it's common for Halflings to use as decoration something that makes them a target for Witch Hunters, Wizards, Skaven, Chaos cultists, rogue magic-users, and thieves, as well as it causing their pets to keel over. There might be ways to justify it taking a while for someone to notice, but when there's that many families doing it, that many groups that would react to it, and five centuries that have passed since the expedition, it's dumb. Especially since all it would take is for one Halfling anywhere to ever learn how dangerous and valuable and illegal it was to spread the word that people should really get rid of that stuff, or at least not have it openly displayed. This lore requires Halflings to be simultaneously extremely ignorant and extremely good at keeping a secret they don't even know they're supposed to keep.