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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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StormySky said:
Yeah, I read that article too, but it seems confusing that a book on non-forbidden magic would be a memetic hazard, and the explanation of humans simply not being able to handle theoretical multi-Wind knowledge (separate from the practical issue caused by Arcane Marks) seems unconvincing, especially when the whole thing was written by humans. One could argue that the individual contributors all focused only on their own Wind, but Mathilde can still read books about other Winds in her library and not go bananas.
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The book explicitly says that it applies the secrets of magic from each of the Eight Winds. I doubt Mathilde is going around reading the secrets of Winds that aren't Ulgu. I just assume that whatever is in the book is a bigger deal than some theoretical knowledge, considering the Ring connected to it randomly receives fragments of the Eight Winds of Magic and allows the user to cast a spell from one of the Eight Winds despite having no knowledge of it. It probably turned into a Magic Item out of significance and importance, rather than deliberate enchanting, and its secrets on the Winds gave it power over magic.

Still, that's only speculation derived from the information we have.
 
Codex said:
The Book of Volans was a record of the secrets of each of the Eight Colleges which Volans authorised in his hopes of the Colleges being able to harness the Eight Winds together by acquiring as clear and complete a picture of magic as possible.

The complete description is available in the page for the Ring of Volans. For ease of access, here's the quote:

"Volans was the greatest of the human pupils of Teclis, the founder of the Colleges of Magic. It was he who instructed the patriarchs of the colleges to commit their newfound knowledge into a single tome so that Teclis' teachings would never be lost. In all the Empire, it is the only source of arcane knowledge that does not distill the secrets of magic into one of its eight separate winds. However, the human mind is unable to master the full spectrum of sorcery, and every wizard who has attempted to read from the tome has been driven out of his mind. A magical seal was thus placed on the book to protect anyone else from a similar fate, a lock that only Volans' ring can open. This ring has ever since shared a mystical connection to the forbidden tome, and both resonate with raw magical power. A warrior who possesses the Ring of Volans is able, for a small time at least, to harness a tiny fraction of one of the eight Winds of Magic."

The Ring of Volans is an enchanted item that lets you have one random spell from one of the Eight Lores available as a Bound Spell. It's also the key to the Book of Volans.
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Given how unique and individualized human spellcasting is in DL, I suspect that the reason the Book of Volans is so incomprehensible is that it's basically that infinitely fractal flight school meme
Even an Elven Archmage might be completely confounded, heck maybe it'd be even worse for them
Reduced to a wreck gibbering about all the different flavors of chisel hands


Though it's still weird that reading it drives people mad instead of just giving them a splitting headache
Did Volans enchant the book so that it constantly beamed its contents straight to the reader's brain or something?
A book compiling all the knowledge of the different colleges really doesn't sound like it needs to itself be magical but apparently the Wizard disagrees with me there
 
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CrimsonOddball said:
Given how unique and individualized human spellcasting is in DL, I suspect that the reason the Book of Volans is so incomprehensible is that it's basically that infinitely fractal flight school meme
Even an Elven Archmage might be completely confounded, heck maybe it'd be even worse for them
Reduced to a wreck gibbering about all the different flavors of chisel hands


Though it's still weird that reading it drives people mad instead of just giving them a splitting headache
Did Volans enchant the book so that it constantly beamed its contents straight to the reader's brain or something?
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I covered this before, but not all instances of enchantment are intentional:
Codex said:
Being fair, the Jade Griffon is called that because it's made from enchanted Jade. That doesn't mean it's not enchanted by the Jade College, but it also doesn't mean it has to have been enchanted by the Jade College. My personal interpretation before you said that was that the Jade Griffon was enchanted by pure belief and cultural significance.

Page 202 of Realms of Sorcery says this:

"Not all magic items were intentionally created. Some developed special properties by being present during a significant event, such as on a battlefield where tens of thousands died or being used to slay a particularly loathsome Daemon. Other items might become magical after being stored in a holy (or unholy) place for centuries, while others still develop unexpected abilities simply by dint of their significance such as a suit of armour worn by a famous and beloved martyr.

The common explanation for these magical manifestations is that these items were magical all along, but only a person found worthy of them can unlock their powers. A bold knight's sword may have served its owner in killing countless Greenskins, but with the owner's death, the sword loses its special power against Orcs and Goblins until such time that a suitable heir is found.

While romantic, this explanation is likely false. In truth, these objects gain their magical powers in the same way that priests and cultists derive power from the gods. Through widespread veneration of a particular object, the object becomes a focus of thought and prayer and hope. In effect, the object, perhaps through the Realm of Chaos, conforms to the expectations of Humanity and as a result attains some measure of power."
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Sometimes, magic items spontaneously form from belief or circumstance instead of it being deliberate.

I also believe that while the Book likely contains knowledge of the human way of doing things, the description says "Record Teclis' teachings so it wouldn't be forgotten", so it shouldn't necessarily be too chiselhandy.
 
Codex said:
The book explicitly says that it applies the secrets of magic from each of the Eight Winds. I doubt Mathilde is going around reading the secrets of Winds that aren't Ulgu. I just assume that whatever is in the book is a bigger deal than some theoretical knowledge, considering the Ring connected to it randomly receives fragments of the Eight Winds of Magic and allows the user to cast a spell from one of the Eight Winds despite having no knowledge of it. It probably turned into a Magic Item out of significance and importance, rather than deliberate enchanting, and its secrets on the Winds gave it power over magic.

Still, that's only speculation derived from the information we have.
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Still, the wiki in general is written in this very, uhhh, what's-the-word-for-it tone that often uses exaggerated, dramatic, and IC language to describe things, that kind of sounds like what a bard or author would say to earn more coins from the shock factor. I wouldn't really trust that stuff to be directly transferrable to DL, which often tones tones down those exaggerations because they'd be impractical and have a hard time functioning outside of a vacuum.
 
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I wonder how often Teclis looks upon what he's created and goes "oh my god, what have i done", when he looks at human mages and their shennanigangs
 
StormySky said:
Still, the wiki in general is written in this very, uhhh, what's-the-word-for-it tone that often uses exaggerated, dramatic, and IC language to describe things. I wouldn't really trust that stuff to be directly transferrable to DL, which often tones tones down those exaggerations because they'd be impractical and have a hard time functioning outside of a vacuum.
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In this case, the wiki is not to blame. They've quite literally copied the exact wording of 8th Edition's description there. And in quest it is absolutely canonical that Horx read the Book of Volans and unleashed a Storm of Magic.
 
StormySky said:
Why would we even need to do that? I don't think it's illegal to claim use the precious metals that were found in your own ancestral hold, even if they were left there by long-dead foreigners. Sure, no need to trumpet that to everyone, but I don't see a point in specifically taking efforts to hide it either.
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Belegar explictly had the coins in the vault melted down by dwarves sworn to secrecy after the Orkal left, and Mathilde had to spend an AP rescue a representative sample. He obviously cares about it being a secret, so I'm not going bother arguing if such secrecy is needed and just point to "Belegar wants it secret".

My post was just a suggestion on how to (possibly) get favor while preserving the secret Belegar explictly wants kept:

Say the set of coins Mathilde have were found in the private hidden vault of a dead dwarven coin collector.
 
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Sa'kage said:
I wonder how often Teclis looks upon what he's created and goes "oh my god, what have i done", when he looks at human mages and their shennanigangs
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He wouldn't know. Teclis went out to get some milk and he hasn't been back in more than a century. All his direct disciples are dead by now. If he ever comes back, it'd be like the Patrick meme where he looks under his house and goes "who are you people????"
 
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Can I just say that I love how casually we can just throw out phrases like chiselhands and have it be a perfectly sensible and understood thing? Because I do. Thread culture is awesome.

Just a random thought.
 
Sa'kage said:
I wonder how often Teclis looks upon what he's created and goes "oh my god, what have i done", when he looks at human mages and their shennanigangs
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Oh gods! Why do they keep doing that* to thier hands!?"

*Chisel-fingers tend to be disturbing to look upon.
Codex said:
He wouldn't know. Teclis went out to get some milk and he hasn't been back in more than a century. All his direct disciples are dead by now. If he ever comes back, it'd be like the Patrick meme where he looks under his house and goes "who are you people????"
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Better than the Old Ones. Teclis been to the store for a while, but it is taking them a realllly long time to get those ciggarettes
 
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Codex said:
He wouldn't know. Teclis went out to get some milk and he hasn't been back in more than a century. All his direct disciples are dead by now. If he ever comes back, it'd be like the Patrick meme where he looks under his house and goes "who are you people????"
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Now to be fair, it was just suppose to be a normal grocery store trip. Teclis had no idea that elf!goverment would swoop in and kidnapp him.

I do wonder how many if his students were annoyed at Ulthuan for that. Though now i'm imagining Volan and Co going "Elf's dad been kidnapped..It's up to us to save him now" invades Ulthuan for Teclis
 
picklepikkl said:
My intention is to vote all four new additions to the Waystone Project we haven't yet talked to (Tochter/Zlata/Aksel/Sarvoi), with my priority being Tochter and Zlata because we didn't get them last turn, plus our various followups.
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Aksel should be a priority for this turn, because we still have the Father on. I don't think Aksel will suddenly mistrust us next turn, but if we're going to ask him for details on Halétha we better do it now when both She and he find us especially trustworthy.
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Speaking of the future, thoughts on next turn? For Waystone actions, I want Max on the Waystone gold, and maybe we can force Egrimm to sit down and finally write that windfall paper? For personal actions, we should probably pick up the apprentice training, and if we can spare it the powerstone creation lessons. For the EIC we'll probably have some new options depending on how the HQ action goes. Library I want to do two actions if we can fit it in—book mining, and Vlag, although we may have to hire scribes instead.
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I think's it's too soon to talk about Waystone actions because we don't yet know what they will be. What we can do is talk about which non-Waystone related actions we want, and when the turn arrives and we see what Waystone actions we have we can see which of those are our priority and take those. I think my highest piority is apprentice training, as you say, and if we can spare another personal action I would love to codify Rite of Way already. If we have a free WEB-MAT action maybe powerstone creation lessons, although I feel dirty about laundering actions through WEB-MAT like that, or maybe finally study those kurgan weapons.
Ericwinter said:
So… the Golds have had a store of the capstone metal for basically their entire existence, right? I wonder if any of them have ever just used Breach the Unknown on it, or Tale of Metal. Even if they're really not supposed to poke the Waystones, I would be amazed if nobody actually did. Given it's apparent similarities to a mundane metal IRL, they might already have the knowledge to make more and just never used it because that would only give them more illegal material to possess.

Hopefully our golds can figure it out just fine.
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From my Waystone research avenue post:
mathymancer said:
-For the purpose of actually studying this, see in the Gold's record if casting Breach the Unknown on this stuff is safe. If note, put Max to work on studying the old-fashioned way.
-And obviously just take the Gold Order's note on this stuff if they're fine giving them, though this might require us to bring them on the project and this might be too much of an investment when we need them for a single task.
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You know what would be crazy? If we find out that this golden alloy is the same stuff Johann's arm is made of.
 
Codex said:
He wouldn't know. Teclis went out to get some milk and he hasn't been back in more than a century. All his direct disciples are dead by now. If he ever comes back, it'd be like the Patrick meme where he looks under his house and goes "who are you people????"
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Sa'kage said:
Now to be fair, it was just suppose to be a normal grocery store trip. Teclis had no idea that elf!goverment would swoop in and kidnapp him.

I do wonder how many if his students were annoyed at Ulthuan for that. Though now i'm imagining Volan and Co going "Elf's dad been kidnapped..It's up to us to save him now" invades Ulthuan for Teclis
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If he, for some reason, forgot to at least send a letter informing his Imperial acolytes that he's now stuck as general manager for the entire grocery store franchise (or whatever the metaphor is) and won't be coming back soon (if ever), that's on him.
 
StormySky said:
@Boney For someone to be promoted to Lord Magister, do the "ability" and "reliability" qualifiers also mean that they need to have a wider spread of skills rather than just monofocusing on their specialty, or is just being consistently really good at your thing over long periods of time enough?
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The latter.

StormySky said:
Also, is the Book of Volans Horx used to start the NoaTAD really one of those memetic hazards, or did he just miscast something listed in it that was beyond his capacity and have part of the backlash ruin his mind?
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It's not generally known whether those results were the book working as intended, the result of mishandling, or some security mechanism being tripped, and the Lights don't seem inclined to share.
 
Boney said:
The latter.
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That does provide some hope that Johann might reach Lord Magister if he keeps on trucking, even if he can't manage some aspects of his Wind. I don't know if that's something he wants, but then again, he hasn't been very clear on what he wants as of late. He's just been going with the flow ever since we've given away the one project he was seemingly determined to pursue, supposedly as a means to proving himself.
 
Codex said:
That does provide some hope that Johann might reach Lord Magister if he keeps on trucking, even if he can't manage some aspects of his Wind. I don't know if that's something he wants, but then again, he hasn't been very clear on what he wants as of late. He's just been going with the flow ever since we've given away the one project he was seemingly determined to pursue, supposedly as a means to proving himself.
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Johann wants to be recognized and treated as a fully competent Wizard in his own right instead of a pity project. Mathilde doesn't really see much of his ambitions because she's already fulfilling them.
 
No wonder there isn't any option to explore his goals in the social turns, since he's already fulfilling them. That makes me happy.
 
BeepSmile said:
Just had an idea on how to launder our coin knowledge (to make a paper)* that preserves the secrecry of where they came from so no one thinks to look at Belegar: The coins were found in the hidden private coin collection of someone who died during the long siege of K8P.

*I dunno if we are going to get favor for such a mundane topic, I do think we will, even if it is less than if we were doing a Uni of Altdorf quest.
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If we were going to launder ancient coins of unknown provenance, the best way would be saying we found them while book-mining at Drakenhof.
 
Thinking about the way magic works in DL, I've come up with analogies on how I think it fits together.

An Elven mage, a Human Hedgewise (or Elementalist), and a Teclisean mage go to sign their life's work. Another Elven mage looks on.

The Elf gets out his eight quills, each with a different width. Meticulously they craft an intricate calligraphic artwork using lines with up to eight different thicknesses. Lines weave in between each other like lace, in a manner they have done for centuries.
The onlooker nods in approval, a clean and well-practiced signature, that still allows for variation with enough effort.

The traditional Human magic user doesn't bother with quills, and takes a worn stamp lovingly carved by their great-great-great-great grandparent, and stamps their family's seal on the page. The mark shows a beautiful, precise picture, if less elegant than the Elf's signature.
The onlooker notices that the inked image contains lines with the same thickness as the Elven quills, but dismisses the result as rigid and artless.

The Teclisean mage takes out a pen made in the image of a single of the Elven mage's quills, it is very worn and stained with ink. In a quick, practiced move they scrawl out a surprisingly complicated sketch, cleverly incorporating their name.
The onlooker approves of the attempt at mastering a proper writing instrument, but thinks they really should get to learning how to use the full set. They dismiss the clever approximations of the other Elven quills as sloppy penmanship.


These are analogies, so they don't fit perfectly of course (otherwise they wouldn't be analogies). The Elven mage is also assumed to be a Tower of Hoeth style mage using High Magic, the other Elven traditions may or may not be closer to the Human methods.
(The signatures are spells, the lines are the Winds, the onlooker is the memetic amazed Elf the thread loves, if toned down a bit)
Divine magic in WHF could fit in with the traditional magic group - and it was the impression I got at first - but I get the impression that in DL the Gods have/are their own 'Wind' so to speak.

Another analogy (similar to what has been used in the thread before) is that the High Magic user is a scientist looking at the concept of fire, while the Hedgewise is a lay person looking at their hearth. The scientist understands the chemistry and physics of fire and can make it do things that seem very strange to a lay person, but the fact that a lay person doesn't know those things doesn't keep them from cooking their dinner.
 
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