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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Shane_357 said:
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.
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You seem to be assuming that no one knows what warpstone is—if you see a green rock, and you know that green rocks sometimes fall from the sky, and that there is also a giant green evil death moon that tries to kill people twice a year—well, you don't need a high school education to join those dots together.

Also, the events of the Mordheim wargame happened in IC1999, about 500 years ago, and the consequences of the looting and pillaging of that cursed city is why no one wants to touch warpstone—because nearly everyone involved died.
 
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DragonParadox said:
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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Smugglers usually do not place the goods the smuggle on the mantle piece.
Being a warp stone smuggler, who gets hanged for it if caught, is very different from hanging them around as mantle piece decorations, if you start allowing that, it has very different connotations, and gives the nobles who want you already dead lot better excuse.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
You seem to be assuming that no one knows what warpstone is—if you seek a green rock, and you know that green rocks sometimes fall from the sky, and that there is also a giant green evil death moon that tries to kill people twice a year—well, you don't need a high school education to join those dots together.
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I object to this characterisation of poor Morrisleb. We don't know what they're like! Maybe they're actually a super sweet and lovely moon that can't help being what it is!

By the way, I find it amusing that apparently, "Sleb" means "Beloved". That's why Mannisleb is called that, because it's beloved of Manaan. It just seems a bit funny to me that Morrisleb is the beloved of Morr. Like, yeah I get it the moon causes a lot of death, but it's a bit odd to associate a god that you respect with a moon that rains mutating rocks down on you.
 
Valmond said:
Smugglers usually do not place the goods the smuggle on the mantle piece.
Being a warp stone smuggler, who gets hanged for it if caught, is very different from hanging them around as mantle piece decorations, if you start allowing that, it has very different connotations, and gives the nobles who want you already dead lot better excuse.
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Hence why the authorizes would not allow it, but as it would be so remarkably dumb and therefore rare, it is unlikely the authorities would have cause to fear that it would get out to the outside world.
 
DragonParadox said:
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'.
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Look, to be utterly honest if I personally touch a rock and it burns, I am sure as fucking hell coming back with a box to carefully tip it into because 'ooh what's this'.
Boney said:
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.
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To my understanding, all it requires is for Halflings to be a canon-degree of xenophobic and untrusting of anyone over 5 feet, to the point of getting them out of their houses/province as quickly as possible and never trusting anyone from Averland/Stirland in any capacity. And uh. Yeah, halflings tend to be really fucking 'dull' from what I read of how their characters act. Not out of actual stupidity, but this weird sort of 'enforced naivete', that might be half 'not living in utter terror of everything around them from birth' like Empire humans and half just not giving a fuck about anything but their happy content lives and ensuring those lives continue by killing anything that dares come in to start shit. Halfling adventurers are rare as hell apparently and I can't find a single halfling academic. They just seem to not give a shit about the genre they're supposed to be existing in. Hell, one of the most 'ambitious' halfling characters that comes to mind is the one from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Hirelings of the Old World, who saw some fancy Talls in ballgowns and coaches and has decided that she wants that damnit and has mostly survived to get as far as she has on luck. Not sure about the canonicity of that book though, because as I said earlier I cannot find the bloody canon tier list.
 
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Also, the events of the Mordheim wargame happened in IC1999, about 500 years ago, and the consequences of the looting and pillaging of that cursed city is why no one wants to touch warpstone—because nearly everyone involved died.
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What's more offensive in 4e to me than anything Archives did is that the Sisters of Sigmar are still on that same plotline 500 years later. They get one paragraph and one adventure hook in the Altdorf book and both are about Mordheim/wyrdstone. It badly needed to move the Sisters' story on.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Hence why the authorizes would not allow it, but as it would be so remarkably dumb and therefore rare, it is unlikely the authorities would have cause to fear that it would get out to the outside world.
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Wait, do you have a source specifically on Halfling Warpstone smugglers? I know that there are Halfling criminals, but I don't know of any offhand from canon that would smuggle something as dangerous as Warpstone.
 
WRT Warpstone/Wyrdstone discourse, it seems from the warning signs on Chaos Vegas that not everyone knows they're the same thing, which is why they have to forbid it three different ways:
Boney said:
"Have you brought any of the following goods to Uzkulak: bound Daemons, precious stones or metals from Nehekhara, any seed, bud, fruit, or cutting from Athel Loren, unshielded warpstone, spherical devices made of brass, Vampire body parts, any item created or possessed by the Skaven Clan Pestilens, gilded skulls made of black bone, anything from the Temple-City of Zlatlan, any mummified bodies of large, frog-like beings, unshielded wyrdstone, any kind of projectile capable of moving on its own, any of Kadon's Scrolls of Binding, golden whistles, instruments stringed with unicorn hair, keys made of crystal, or any sort of stone that glows with a green light?"
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Shane_357 said:
because as I said earlier I cannot find the bloody canon tier list.
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I gotchu. From WoQMs for FAQs info threadmark:
Boney said:
Canonicity (for Quest purposes)
Tier 1: The Quest itself is primary canon.
Tier 2: WoQM applies unless it violates Quest canon (which I assume it has or will at some point).
Tier 3: Army Books (6th+), WHFRPG 2e - reasonably safe to assume that the fluff in these is canon unless the Quest or WoQM says otherwise. Game mechanics should not be taken as canon.
Tier 4: Black Library, White Dwarf articles - canonish, but the QM may not be familiar with them and the details are likely to end up varying if they are used.
Tier 5: Licensed video games, Warhammer Armies Project, WHFRPG 3e & 4e - mostly only used for things that aren't otherwise covered in higher tiers, and by default are not canon.
Tier 6: Army Books (pre-6th), WHFRPG (1e) - the Dwarf Priests Know Necromancy Zone. May be looted for ideas from time to time but is usually completely incompatible.
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As an aside, or perhaps a new topic considering the current one has gotten pretty heated and I get the vibe a number of people don't really want to talk about it anymore...

Do you guys think enchantment could be a good road to making the Branulhune style something we could teach to others?

Like, inventing and codifying a shadowsword spell is one thing, which would make it something we could probably write a book about and then it could be learnable by any Grey Wizard of the right skillset.

But there might be more possibilities to making our Branulhune style usable to others, like weapons with the right enchantments. Maybe we could try and replicate the functionality of Rune of the Unknown, or maybe we could try and do something based on Substance of Shadow, or maybe even do something with Windherding. Brights and Amethysts have their lightsaber spells, so maybe there's something there?

If inventing a shadowsword spell doesn't work out the way we'd like, it'd be nice to have fallback options... or perhaps the enchantment road has certain potential that the shadowsword spell road doesn't.
 
picklepikkl said:
WRT Warpstone/Wyrdstone discourse, it seems from the warning signs on Chaos Vegas that not everyone knows they're the same thing, which is why they have to forbid it three different ways:


I gotchu. From WoQMs for FAQs info threadmark:
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I did mention that it's possible for someone to know that they're not the same thing, I just also said that it isn't likely they'd survive for long. If you don't treat Wyrdstone like you do Warpstone, you'll quickly find out they're the same thing.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Also, the events of the Mordheim wargame happened in IC1999
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This is a cute reference to the fact the game book was published in 1999. Not much to do with current thread conversation, but it's a little detail I like.

Shane_357 said:
Or just in a locked box on a mantlepiece. I actually have a couple of those for keeping meaningful nick-knacks in.
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Considering that IRL that'd likely be plutonium, that's a bad idea.
 
Dumb theorizing on warpstone. I think it's both radioactive alongside it naturally radiating dhar. You could never touch it and protect yourself from dhar and it will still get to you that way. It would explain why it's almost impossible to handle safely in the current tech level of the setting.
 
LadyLynn said:
As an aside, or perhaps a new topic considering the current one has gotten pretty heated and I get the vibe a number of people don't really want to talk about it anymore...

Do you guys think enchantment could be a good road to making the Branulhune style something we could teach to others?

Like, inventing and codifying a shadowsword spell is one thing, which would make it something we could probably write a book about and then it could be learnable by any Grey Wizard of the right skillset.

But there might be more possibilities to making our Branulhune style usable to others, like weapons with the right enchantments. Maybe we could try and replicate the functionality of Rune of the Unknown, or maybe we could try and do something based on Substance of Shadow, or maybe even do something with Windherding. Brights and Amethysts have their lightsaber spells, so maybe there's something there?

If inventing a shadowsword spell doesn't work out the way we'd like, it'd be nice to have fallback options... or perhaps the enchantment road has certain potential that the shadowsword spell road doesn't.
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While I would love to see Mathilde take 5 grey wizard under her wing and turn them into a squad of magic sword wielding bad ass assassins. The problem is see is spending AP to make it happen.
 
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MiracleGrow said:
Dumb theorizing on warpstone. I think it's both radioactive alongside it naturally radiating dhar. You could never touch it and protect yourself from dhar and it will still get to you that way. It would explain why it's almost impossible to handle safely in the current tech level of the setting.
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Mathilde uses lead to contain Warpstone, so that might or might not support your theory considering lead's effect on radiation.
 
Codex said:
Mathilde uses lead to contain Warpstone, so that might or might not support your theory considering lead's effect on radiation.
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Still means that she blasts herself with rads everytime she opens the box. It would keep it secure but opening it and trying to use it for something else leads to unfun situations. While the lead box helps their is many other little things you have to be careful about when interacting with radioactive objects that people in setting don't know about yet.

But she should be fine either way. The output probably isn't high enough to cause any issues for with her limited interactions with it.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Hence why the authorizes would not allow it, but as it would be so remarkably dumb and therefore rare, it is unlikely the authorities would have cause to fear that it would get out to the outside world.
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And it remains rare because you make absolutely certain it does not happen again.
Now,my first comment was somewhat hyperbolic because of how silly the idea that people would be murdering witch hunters to protect someone who keeps warpstone as mantlepiece decoration.
But i think you are seriously underplaying how, bad, it is, or how risky it would be if anyone hears that a community allows (by which i mean "had, and did not stop it before someone else found out") something like that.
Yes, one incident probably would not spark stirlandians attacking Moot, but it is one more excuse for people who are really looking for them.
Unless people who find it on you really, really like you, i do think first response would be to get rid of the warpstone, and whoever was stupid enough to bring it into the community.
 
Shane_357 said:
Or just in a locked box on a mantlepiece. I actually have a couple of those for keeping meaningful nick-knacks in.
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Most people don't expose highly toxic and dangerous materials on their mantelpiece, even if it's in a locked box.
Shane_357 said:
Gonna be more honest, I actually for some weird neurodivergence reason have no instinctual aversion to death and don't really care about cancer, so yes I would certainly keep a random piece of plutonium because 'neat'. At least use a lead box though.
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Maybe a few halflings would do that, but I really don't think that it would be a widespread practice.
 
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