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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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picklepikkl said:
I don't know about the WHF canon, but in DL canon halflings have been pretty consistently presented as clever, aware of subtleties, and wise to the necessity of long-term planning.
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From my understanding, based on a few snatches I vaguely remember and the condemnations of a halfling fan I play WFRP 4e with, 2e trended more in the direction of "halflings are lazy, fat, and stupid". In 4e they've got the same overall range of cleverness, cruelty, heroism, self-interest, and wisdom as humans, though on average with more irreverence and taking on a proportionally greater share of the comic relief. 4e also gave them cultural variety with the Great Clans, such as the aristocratic Thorncobbles and the martial Ashfields, and of course characters of the same clan with greatly different personalities. (Contrast the snobbish Thelonius Hardcastle Monkenbridge Thorncobble XII with the brave, clever, compassionate Scealleah Thorncobble.)

I don't know how 1e and 3e handle halflings.

Codex said:
Their organised crime is a bit more widespread than that. Basically, if a particular job doesn't have Halflings, the Quinsberry Lodge will fight to get halflings in it. Even if it means blackmail, slander, libel and threats. Their purpose is to ensure that Halflings are treated equally to humans and that they prosper as a people, and they will do anything to make sure that happens.
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If we're talking 4e, there's also the Lowhavens, straight up the mafia Great Clan.
 
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Codex said:
My head hurts, but I'm done:

I'll probably look over it again sometime later because my brain's fried.
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Wonderful work. Thank you for your efforts in making a complex political culture full of proper nouns legible to questers with varying levels of background lore knowledge.
storryeater said:
Finally, I can outpedant picklepikkl .

Technically, what Boney said was not "there are no parallels to be drawn at all between the houses and their inspirations" but rather:



This means that, as long as we gain no metagaming advantage, parallels can exist and be drawn.

Since we learned that Teleri were the boatwrights before any decision involving them could even be reached, we thus gain no metagaming advantage from this parallel because the info we could infer we have been given anyway.
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Look, all I'm saying is that if we ever meet one of the Teleri, I hope Boney takes the opportunity to describe them "swanning about."
 
WhiteNights said:
How would we do this quest?
Out of personal interest, for our budding ass collection.
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Boney said:
Teufelheim's walls are lined with the corpses of wolves and bears and mountain lions, preserved by Dhar and ready to be animated at the slightest whim of the town's master
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Forget Drakenhof, Teufelheim's where the real action's at. The peasants might have looted the place, but this is where we can finally put our EIC spy network to good use! :V
 
Andres said:
There is a single off-hand mention of halflings having magic in one book and I've been told that was a copy-paste error from 1e. The entire rest of the edition says they don't have magic at all. It's never mentioned they have it, none of the named characters can do it, none of the magic careers are accessible to halflings, and in one case, the impossibility for halflings being wizards is why a halfling was made head of a wizard fan club.

Halflings have the ability to do magic in Divided Loyalties but not in 4e.

That said, who's the halfling that fell to dark magic? I can look it up and see if you are in fact correct.
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Sorry, forgot to come back to this.

Archives of the Empire Volume 1, page 46:
There are also some Halflings keen to import the knowledge and power found across the border. Few Halflings have magical gifts and even fewer turn to dark magic, but it's not unknown. Halflings are practical folk, and they live right next door to a land bursting with Dhar, ready corpses, and plenty of Warpstone to find. More than a few Halflings have decided it would be foolish to let all of that potential go to waste
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Glissandra Bigfeast is a precocious young Halfling from Haukern. She will pay a fine price for any and all books or magical artefacts brought back from Sylvania. Glissandra will tell sellers that she intends to 'archive the knowledge of that once-great kingdom lest it be lost forever'. But she's actually planning to raise the corpse of the Giant that she found while digging under her turnips.
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If it's contradicted elsewhere in 4e then fair enough.
 
picklepikkl said:
I guess the main issue is that it's not clear what they are for. They're kind of mystery boxes, and that makes it hard to spend AP on them
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My bet is that this is a groundwork option to further tbd options for each area. If I were boney, I'd give the thread multiple additional options for each, like deepening a relationship with a local notable, or solving a problem a grey wizard is useful for, or setting up a one-off bulk purchase of something.

I do want to look into the storm witch first, under this assumption.
 
Mopman43 said:
Sorry, forgot to come back to this.

Archives of the Empire Volume 1, page 46:


If it's contradicted elsewhere in 4e then fair enough.
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I was always unsure if Glissandra could in fact do that as a tie in to that "halflings can do magic" passage, or if she merely believed - wrongly - she'd be able to do so with the right books and artefacts. The word "precocious" is what sets the ambiguity for me.
 
StormySky said:
Uh, run around in some forest and shank 10 bears, then ask a tanner or butcher to process the furs?
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Yeah, the better question would be "what would it take to get Mathilde the character to do this quest".
Mostly because I'm already sold on it.

ReImagined said:
Forget Drakenhof, Teufelheim's where the real action's at. The peasants might have looted the place, but this is where we can finally put our EIC spy network to good use! :V
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Pre-preserved bear butt would be good, but I'm kind of eyeing fancier types of bear, like great bears, ice bears, and the new elemental bears.

Hmm. I think I'm starting to understand Yuri Barkov.
 
I'm actually bummed out. I was campaigning for a while on the whole Stormwitch from Laurelorn=same Stormwitch from Scarloc's warband, and I even made an omake about it. But the more we advance and find out just how much Athel Loren and Laurelorn were disconnected from each other, my hopes dwindle.

I think what snuffed it out is Boney just straight up saying that there is no "Athel Loren expert" in Laurelorn. It just killed the theory for me.
 
@Boney

1. Is the Librarium Secularum secular or cultic? It's connected to the Grand Cathedral of Sigmar and you need to be from the Cult to enter, but on the other hand there's its name and you can also enter if you're from a respected institution, and the library counts the Colleges of Magic as such.
2. What about the Aquila Academies? They're "dedicated to Myrmidia" but I'm not sure if they're formally part of the cult.
3. The witch hunters' Great Temple? Not sure if the organisation's secular right now or back under the control of the Grand Theogonist.
4. Do Valaya and Quinsberry books have stuff on library organisation like Verena and Hoeth books do?
 
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Codex said:
I'm actually bummed out. I was campaigning for a while on the whole Stormwitch from Laurelorn=same Stormwitch from Scarloc's warband, and I even made an omake about it. But the more we advance and find out just how much Athel Loren and Laurelorn were disconnected from each other, my hopes dwindle.

I think what snuffed it out is Boney just straight up saying that there is no "Athel Loren expert" in Laurelorn. It just killed the theory for me.
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Maybe she only traveled with Scarloc while he was outside Athel Loren and his band was such a ragtag group that trying to form opinions on Athel Loren based on them would be like forming an opinion on the Karaz Ankor purely off of K8P?
 
In general I think the best look 2e gives of Halflings is the section in Shades of Empire on the Quinsberry Lodge, and there at least, I wouldn't say they come across as lazy or stupid.

Fat and uncouth, but that comes with the territory.
 
Andres said:
@Boney

1. Is the Librarium Secularum secular or cultic? It's connected to the Grand Cathedral of Sigmar and you need to be from the Cult to enter, but on the other hand there's its name and you can also enter if you're from a respected institution, and the library counts the Colleges of Magic as such.
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'Secularum' refers to the topics of the books inside it, rather than the authority it falls under.

Andres said:
2. What about the Aquila Academies? They're "dedicated to Myrmidia" but I'm not sure if they're formally part of the cult.
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Depending how you look at it, it's either not a part of the Cult of Myrmidia, or an independent sect in its own right.

Andres said:
3. The witch hunters' Great Temple? Not sure if the organisation's secular right now or back under the control of the Grand Theogonist.
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It's not formally under the command of the Cult of Sigmar, but it is very heavily influenced by it and it's unlikely they'd turn down a request from the Grand Theogonist.

Andres said:
4. Do Valaya and Quinsberry books have stuff on library organisation like Verena and Hoeth books do?
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No.
 
Well, no spending the Great Deed on the Librarium, but I guess now we can mess with the witch hunters a bit, so it evens out.
 
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Jyn Ryvia said:
Its interesting how quick they were to jump that ship, but why is probably info that we need to actually look for.
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Kurnous is part of the Outer Mandala. You will notice that all the houses that vie for a single god are doing so for a god in the Inner Ring. Kurnous seems to have been the only Outer God to get two houses fighting over him. It was probably like two kids fighting over scraps, so they might have left for greener pastures.
 
I think a very distinct difference between Laurelorn and Athel Loren is that the Eonir dominated their forest. They've transformed it and cultivated it to their benefit, and they place an incredibly large emphasis on their city and city life.

The Asrai on the other hand, made pacts with the forest. They couldn't transform or cultivate it even if they tried, and I don't think they tried. They attempt live side by side with the environment instead of dominating it.

When viewed from that perspective, it's obvious why Kurnous aligns with the Asrai more than the Eonir. The Eonir aren't all that wild.
 
Codex said:
What might be surprising is that Khaine is not covered by any of the Major Houses. I suppose there isn't any demand for a Major House dedicated to War?
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Cadaeth suggested that there is demand for a war God that isn't Khaine, presumably because Khaine is terrible:
Boney said:
But we are willing, indeed happy, to pay reverence to Ulric as the God of Winter and Wolves, and some amongst us are positively intrigued by a God of War that isn't the Bloody-Handed God
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Codex said:
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.
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Mmm.

Morrs-lieb. 'Lieb' is indeed 'dear' or 'beloved', in real-life German.
Reikspiel doesn't really pretend it isn't basically Deutsch with serial numbers filed off.

As for why it's beloved of Morr, apparently the moon is the seal on a huge ass chaos gate in the sky… according to the imperial legends of Morr, at least, the actual truth of the matter is this is a giant piece of one of the broken machines of the Old Ones, which exploded when Chaos first invaded through the poles.
 
Boney said:
I'm away from my PC for Easter, if someone hasn't chased this down by Tuesday remind me and I'll go digging.
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@Boney, Empire of Man is very much a fan term, not an official term. It's showed up in the Informational posts and exactly six times in the updates:
Boney said:
Do you now swear, by Sigmar and all the Gods of the Empire, that you will honour and defend the Empire of Man?"
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Boney said:
[Maximilian teaching the We: Learning, 62+16+10(Patient)+7(Library: The Empire of Man)=95.]
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Boney said:
[Instil Corporate Policy: Stewardship, Breakpoints 40/80: 96+19+7(Library: The Empire of Man)=122.]
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Boney said:
"As part of the ancient alliance between the Empire of Man and the Karaz Ankor
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Boney said:
Empire of Man (2/3)
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Boney said:
[Skill: Diplomacy / Empire of Man advances to Basic.]
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