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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I think Mathilde needs to do a lot more elf diplomancy and than some Ulric diplomancy , followed by Nordland diplomancy before we talk about peace treaties or trade.
 
Chlof said:
I'm still of the opinion that the whole middenland/nordland thing falls firmly outside of being our problem.
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I kinda agree, but I also see the argument that the laurelorn/Nordland thing might seriously screw us over, and that's deeply bound to the middenland/Nordland stuff. So us trying to at least see if we can help is a thing I'm for. I just don't think that we can do much.
 
Boney said:
And both they and Laurelorn have pretty strong grounds to paint Nordland as the villain in this saga, so would firmly reject the framing that Nordland's former economic prosperity should be restored at all, since it was built on stolen land and felled lornalim.
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Cool. I thought I remembered you saying something like that before, but couldn't find it in multiple searches and didn't want to assert "hey, I remember Boney saying that Laurelorn would not be into this sort of thing" without evidence.
Boney said:
Hey, remember the time when Drakwald collapsed and Middenland was able to snip off a big chunk of it and greatly increase their power and wealth and prestige? Because Middenland probably does. Their God is Ulric, not the status quo.
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When was this? I had no idea that the Middenland-Nordland rivalry was that intense; basically everything I know about WHF comes from this quest or supplementary wikidives.
 
Frankly I think people are also underestimating the price the elector count of Nordland would put on 'Is seen to be willing to be bought off for 1/3 of their territory.'
 
picklepikkl said:
When was this? I had no idea that the Middenland-Nordland rivalry was that intense; basically everything I know about WHF comes from this quest or supplementary wikidives.
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When Drakwald died to Laurelorn and the Black Plague/Beastmen, it's territory was split between Nordland and Middenland.

It's worth noting that in the history of the Empire in 2nd edition, Nordland spent a substantial period during the Time of 3 Emperors as a vassal to Middenland. There's no love lost there.
 
Tobtorp said:
I just don't think that we can do much.
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I mean, the best way of Mathilde specifically helping to resolve that situation would to keep doing what we're doing with the Waystone project. Nordland's primary problem is that expanding into the forest of shadows and expanding into laurelorn are, or at least were, equally dangerous. If we make the forest of shadows more habitable via reclaiming it's waystones then that should be less of an issue.
 
Chlof said:
I mean, the best way of Mathilde specifically helping to resolve that situation would to keep doing what we're doing with the Waystone project. Nordland's primary problem is that expanding into the forest of shadows and expanding into laurelorn are, or at least were, equally dangerous. If we make the forest of shadows more habitable via reclaiming it's waystones then that should be less of an issue.
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But most of the Forrest of shadows is in other Provinces with only a fraction of it in Nordland.
 
Boney said:
And both they and Laurelorn have pretty strong grounds to paint Nordland as the villain in this saga, so would firmly reject the framing that Nordland's former economic prosperity should be restored at all, since it was built on stolen land and felled lornalim.
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So what I'm hearing is that we should totally use our Great Deed to have the question of Laurelorn receiving rulership over Nordland and their Elector vote as just reparations for thousands of years of treaty breaking put forward.:V
 
Nurgle said:
But most of the Forrest of shadows is in other Provinces with only a fraction of it in Nordland.
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There's a rather large swathe of the forest that's almost half the size of Nordland that is de jure within Ostland's border but is de facto unclaimed and untouched by imperial hands. I'm sure there'd be tensions between Ostland and Nordland but I'd definitely rather that than what's going on at the moment.
 

So, a big part of provincial legitimacy in the Empire comes from 'these are the lands of our people since the time of Sigmar and before'. The modern province of Reikland, for example, lines up fairly well with the borders of the Unberogen tribe. Stirland with the Asoborns, Talabecland with the Taleutens, Averland with the Brigundians, Hochland with the Cherusens, Ostermark with the Ostagoths. Middenland started with the land of the Teutogens and absorbed the lands of the Thuringians after the destruction of Drakwald, and Wissenland started with the land of the Merogens and absorbed the lands of the Menogoths after the destruction of Solland. So far, so simple.

Cast your eyes north, however, and you encounter a big chunk of land with no tribal claimant. The part of it that's Laurelorn makes sense, but why's there nobody in the Forest of Shadows? It's scary as fuck, sure, but so was the Drakwald. Who lives there?

See the part labelled 'Jutones'? They're the people that would become known as the ancestors of Nordland. They're not in Nordland at the time of this map because they're busy fighting with the Endals over what we know as Marienburg and the Wasteland. Then it was known as Marburg, and the Endals say it was founded by King Marbad as the capital of Weysterland, and the Jutones say it was founded by King Marius as the capital of Jutonsryk. Okay, this is easy enough to explain, right? The Jutones lost, went east into the terra nullius of the Forest of Shadows, and founded Nordland. Bam, easy.

Not quite. They weren't settling the Forest of Shadows, they were returning to it. Let's talk about the Was Jutones.

In most sources, 'Was Jutones' is treated as just another name for the Jutones, but there's a clear demarcation between the two. When King Marius led the Jutones west on their ultimately doomed attempt to settle the unforested lowlands, not everyone followed him. Those that remained in the Forest of Shadows became known as the Was Jutones, and their name should be on that big unlabelled chunk. But when the apostate Jutones were finally driven off by the Endals and had no choice but to return in ignominy to the Forest of Shadows, they did not cut right through Laurelorn to do so, because the Eonir were still in 'warning shot to the face' mode. They travelled along the Great North Road in the lands of the Teutogens and via Middenheim. When the Jutones returned to their Was Jutone kin, they did not do so as humbled penitents. They did so as conquerors in the name of their new God, Ulric. Some submitted while others fled east, splitting the Was Jutones in half: those of what would become Nordland, and those of what would become Ostland.

The Was Jutones became a footnote in the victor-written history of Nordland, and one that was written as small and as rarely as possible, lest it undermine the legitimacy of Nordland's Jutone-descended rulers.
 
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Boney said:
So, a big part of provincial legitimacy in the Empire comes from 'these are the lands of our people since the time of Sigmar and before'. The modern province of Reikland, for example, lines up fairly well with the borders of the Unberogen tribe. Stirland with the Asoborns, Talabecland with the Taleutens, Averland with the Brigundians, Hochland with the Cherusens, Ostermark with the Ostagoths. Middenland started with the land of the Teutogens and absorbed the lands of the Thuringians after the destruction of Drakwald, and Wissenland started with the land of the Merogens and absorbed the lands of the Menogoths after the destruction of Solland. So far, so simple.

Cast your eyes north, however, and you encounter a big chunk of land with no tribal claimant. The part of it that's Laurelorn makes sense, but why's there nobody in the Forest of Shadows? It's scary as fuck, sure, but so was the Drakwald. Who lives there?

See the part labelled 'Jutones'? They're the people that would become known as the ancestors of Nordland. They're not in Nordland at the time of this map because they're busy fighting with the Endals over what we know as Marienburg and the Wasteland. Then it was known as Marburg, and the Endals say it was founded by King Marbad as the capital of Weysterland, and the Jutones say it was founded by King Marius as the capital of Jutonsryk. Okay, this is easy enough to explain, right? The Jutones lost, went east into the terra nullius of the Forest of Shadows, and founded Nordland. Bam, easy.

Not quite. They weren't settling the Forest of Shadows, they were returning to it. Let's talk about the Was Jutones.

In most sources, 'Was Jutones' is treated as just another name for the Jutones, but there's a clear demarcation between the two. When King Marius led the Jutones west on their ultimately doomed attempt to settle the unforested lowlands, not everyone followed him. Those that remained in the Forest of Shadows became known as the Was Jutones, and their name should be on that big unlabelled chunk. But when the apostate Jutones were finally driven off by the Endals and had no choice but to return in ignominy to the Forest of Shadows, they did not cut right through Laurelorn to do so, because the Eonir were still in 'warning shot to the face' mode. They travelled along the Great North Road in the lands of the Teutogens and via Middenheim. When the Jutones returned to their Was Jutone kin, they did not do so as humbled penitents. They did so as conquerors in the name of their new God, Ulric. Some submitted while others fled east, splitting the Was Jutones in half: those of what would become Nordland, and those of what would become Ostland.

The Was Jutones became a footnote in the victor-written history of Nordland, and one that was written as small and as rarely as possible, lest it undermine the legitimacy of Nordland's Jutone-descended rulers.
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One thing I find weird about that map is that the Udoses, who from other canon sources founded Ostland and were ruled from a castle on the Sea of Claws, don't seem to own the vast majority of modern Ostland. Most notably, all the bits that are on the Sea of Claws.
 
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notanautomaton said:
One thin I find weird about that map is that the Udoses, who from other canon sources founded Ostland and were ruled from a castle on the Sea of Claws, don't seem to own the vast majority of modern Ostland. Most notably, all the bits that are on the Sea of Claws.
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Believe that'd be land of the Was Jutones that Ostland took.
 
notanautomaton said:
One thin I find weird about that map is that the Udoses, who from other canon sources founded Ostland and were ruled from a castle on the Sea of Claws, don't seem to own the vast majority of modern Ostland. Most notably, all the bits that are on the Sea of Claws.
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At the time of that map they were getting beaten back pretty hard by the Norsii and their capital on the Sea of Claws was under siege, which is what the pointy bit of the Udoses border is reaching towards.
 
HanEmpire said:
Is that why the Nordlanders claim so much land as theirs? I thought it was just inferiority complex from being conquered by the Norse.
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Naw, game of states - ultimately how much land you claim is how much land you can hold.
Legitimacy just determines how likely someone else would contest it.

Historical legitimacy means your people are highly motivated to hold it and your opponents don't want to challenge it too much lest people start challenging their historical claims.
 
Legitimacy based on history is a house of cards, but as long as everyone pretends it is a castle, it might as well be.
So it is in almost every rulers interest to do so, even when dealing with a rival.
 
Part of the problem is that Salzenmund's industry depended on silver and lumber stolen from Laurelorn, and the Elector Count cares about Salzenmund in particular because:
Boney said:
Nordland's capital Salzenmund is a chartered free town, which puts the Elector Count in a tricky position where he has to pay more attention than he otherwise might to the concerns of the city's nobles and guilds, most of whom had built fortunes around the silver and lumber that they no longer have access to.
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The lumber issue is one thing, and I'm not sure how to solve it - if importing wood was a solution then I imagine they would already be doing it. But setting that aside for a moment we still have the problem of silver, and here is the solution none of you are seeing: the Karaz Ankor. The Karaz Ankor has plenty of silver to trade, and could easily make up for the loss of the lornalim silver. Instead of forging trade ties between Nordland and Laurelorn, which might annoy Middenland and which will be hard to politically justify in Laurelorn, we forge trade ties between Karak Eight Peaks and Nordland. Normally establishing strong ties with dwarves isn't really conductive to peaceful realtions with elves, but in this case it would be. Thorek is working on establishing trade relations with Laurelorn, and between that and the Waystone project both Laurelorn and Nordland will find that a new war means losing their new trade partners.

What's that? You ask how could we make Karak Eight Peaks trade silver to Nordland? What would Nordland give in return, and how will this possibly end up profitable enough for them to make up for the loss of a nearby source of mostly free silver? Well, you see, I have a truly marvelous plan for this, which the margins of this post are too narrow to contain.
 
mathymancer said:
Part of the problem is that Salzenmund's industry depended on silver and lumber stolen from Laurelorn, and the Elector Count cares about Salzenmund in particular because:

The lumber issue is one thing, and I'm not sure how to solve it - if importing wood was a solution then I imagine they would already be doing it. But setting that aside for a moment we still have the problem of silver, and here is the solution none of you are seeing: the Karaz Ankor. The Karaz Ankor has plenty of silver to trade, and could easily make up for the loss of the lornalim silver. Instead of forging trade ties between Nordland and Laurelorn, which might annoy Middenland and which will be hard to politically justify in Laurelorn, we forge trade ties between Karak Eight Peaks and Nordland. Normally establishing strong ties with dwarves isn't really conductive to peaceful realtions with elves, but in this case it would be. Thorek is working on establishing trade relations with Laurelorn, and between that and the Waystone project both Laurelorn and Nordland will find that a new war means losing their new trade partners.

What's that? You ask how could we make Karak Eight Peaks trade silver to Nordland? What would Nordland give in return, and how will this possibly end up profitable enough for them to make up for the loss of a nearby source of mostly free silver? Well, you see, I have a truly marvelous plan for this, which the margins of this post are too narrow to contain.
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Better to not do it at all. Nordland's desire for the Laurelorn's resources is based on greed and greed alone. Give them wood and silver from another source and they'll just want yet more wood and silver, preferably from the Eonir who they'll still hate for denying them the resources and territory they want. The best way to secure peace is to keep Nordland weak and politically isolated. Attempting to appease them with treasure and allies will backfire. If you want to discourage Nordland from war, set the Karaz Ankor up with the Eonir alone to create an incentive for the dwarves to defend their trade partner.
 
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What the Nordland situation needs is enforcement of the existing treaty, and possibly punching Nordland nobility in the face.
Because any bribes just means kicking the can down the road as they figure that, hey, we can make even more money by accepting the bribe, and then stealing from Laurelorn.
 
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