I assume that the "buzzing with energies" thing is because Ranald is skilled enough to windherd His own essence with Mathilde's Ulgu soul, but if Mathilde wanted to cast Ranaldian spells she'd have to be the one shaping His energies, and that's where the bad magic gets involved.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Pronouns
- They
I'm not familiar enough with the lore or Boney's WoGs to say definitively, but I do have the impression that the Nehekharans' shtick was how they were able to wield both with overlap.
And just for clarification on the Hedgewise:
Teclis poached some of the "most powerful and knowledgeable magic-users" from the Hedgewise as founders for the Grey College. I assume this meant they had been using Hedgecraft for long enough to develop into powerful users of their brand of magic. Despite this, there was no mention of compatibility issues when Teclis tried to teach the Hedgewise a new paradigm of Wind-based magic.
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- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Alright, I can get that. I often try to do the same.
I think that when you are doing something like that, though, it's important to clarify you're providing a rebuttal to The Argument rather than The Point The Argument Is In Favor Of, and perhaps provide arguments you think do a better job of making the point in question. Something like "that argument doesn't quite work for reasons x and y, but here's this other argument that i think makes the point better".
As is, you came across to me as trying to argue against the point of "kurtis doesn't fit into teclisean theory", which doesn't seem to have been your intent.
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- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It endears you to me, homie. I am a Pickle of Puns and Pedantry, as I've shared in this thread before:
...this reminds me that I should get back to proofreading and typo-hunting.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Right, but my point is that the whole thing of Hedgemagic is that it operates at a step removed from the magic itself, using ingredients heavily in it's castings to avoid backlash from the magic. There aren't any canon Marks for Hedgemagic. There are some for, as an example, Ice Witches and Hag Witches. Or casting Priests of all the major deities.
So I'm just not sure if there's anything preventing any Hedgewise from being able to join a College, even a non-Grey one.
Obviously, the ability to continue casting Hedgemagic once you do have Ulgu Marks thoroughly marks it as different.
Tone is... definitely something I'm rough on. I know I often come across as combative when that wasn't what I meant.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
I don't think the actual thrust of my argument got across here. Because since the option first appeared I've seen people saying essentially "Oh, we'd better do this soon before someone else has the same idea." and I wanted to oppose that idea right there.
The thrust of my argument isn't that Alkharad, specifically, was involved in raiding the ruins of Castle Drakenhof. It's a counter to the sentiment of urgency on this action that I've seen around, and he struck me as the most plausible vampire in the region to go after it. Being a vampire necromancer with not only an evil library but also students. Something that is becoming distinctly shorter and shorter in supply as time goes on. Is there a risk? Sure, but it's one that gets lower with time, not higher. The most plausible moment for all this to happen would probably have been in the immediate chaotic aftermath of Abelhelm's death and however long after Roswita took charge that it took for circumstances to settle.
My point is not that it might be gone, my point is that the single most likely person to have the same idea we did is already dead, and the best time for it to happen by malice is long gone.
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah, I see. That makes sense, yeah. "someone might swipe the books if we wait longer" probably isn't a major concern, for exactly the reasons you cited.
Another concern that remains in my mind, though, is that more time means there's more chance that water could leak down into unfortunate areas and damage the books, particularly the ones that were in Castle Drakenhof.
Finding damaged bookloot would be unfortunate, though I will say it isn't nearly as bad as the books having been grabbed by some unknown party already.
EDIT: tweaked wording a bit because I think I came across as more dismissive than I intended
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Before I get into my usual rambly and long half-repetition of stuff we already know and half theorizing, I've had a question about some possible Books to buy or read at the Eonir library at some point in some future; namely, books on Forest-Souls and stuff. Why? Well, simple;
... Also, other mentions of soul stuff...
But no, Panoramia had name-dropped "slow-soul of a tree" a long while back.
Rereading the We bits and about their soul, also made me wonder about similarities between them and a forest. (And also made me wonder about if the We could be the equivalent of a magic Forest, or the equivalent of Dryads, or something. i.e. The possibility that, the way that Eonir link to Dryads, or how there's sometimes little distinction between Eonir and Dryad sometime? Maybe the We can be sort of similar in terms of providing soul-stuff that magically-attuned people can link to. ... Alternatively, maybe the We are like Forest Dragons; in that they're Dragons that are connected to the Magical Forest in Some Way Or Something. But then, "can a We become a wizard's Familiar?" was an old question asked long long ago. It's just now the answer might potentially be "Well, maybe in the same way that some (elf) Wizards link to Dryads, to the Magic Forest, sort of way.")
... Or a living mountain, like some Mountains of Mourne were mythologized and rumored to be related to Sky Giants. (Either Sky Giants becoming them, or them turning into Sky Giants. Perhaps Dwarfs were carved from the same stone as Sky Giants; made miniature and shorter lived in order to not take so ungodly long to reach sapience as Sky Titans perhaps.)
(Whereas Elves were... created by or from or with their gods maybe. I speculated that the reason the elves are so non-committal about what their gods "actually are" is similar to how Boney phrased how an elf would be riven by indecision of which Wind to pick if he were forced to pick just one, and so he picks all of them, slowly at a time. Just like most elves do not commit to a Wind exclusively, perhaps they do the same with gods too; they do not want to lose the ability to get little divine tweaks and powers -- or big divine miracles and powers -- and so they carefully commit themselves to all of them at proper times and proper rates.)
(Anyway, back to that first sentence of "Whereas Elves were... created by or from or with their gods maybe." I wonder if the Elf Gods were... maybe? kind of? similar(ish) to the Great Machines of the Winds, being more like cosmic principles or cosmic ideals, and so the aetheric principle/ideal of "Isha" was used to create the elves; or perhaps was narrated to create the elves rather than made-to, because the Aether is a place of ideas and weird shit. I don't think this is entirely true though. I think Elf gods are also, well, people or people-like. Maybe they're people that are also ideals or principles of Elf culture or elf psychology?)
(Whereas human gods are more grab-bag; they're whatever spirits or ascended humans managed to get enough cultural or aetheric momentum to get big enough to get a domain. Or maybe they were Aetheric first and connected to human cultures, and become human like, or something, or who knows.)
(The Great Maw, meanwhile, is Lavos that crashed down into the planet and burrowed into it and tried to sup on its Leylines. It's got its own metaphysical weight and existence, being from outside the world, and it burrows into the world in order to get at its deep magic or leylines or whatever. Just a random aside and speculation.)
Anyway, on to other stuff. Came across Regimand's infodump on the Shyish blades we found way back when.
-----
So, a thought I'd been having even before this; Arcane Marks is the human soul being transmuted into Wind, right? And then I reread this bit, and stumbled across how there was a belief that the Winds of Magic were the souls of the dead.
And I wondered if that might be true, in some way. Or at least, if it might be true for wizards. If Wizards turn their souls into their Wind of Magic, then if they've gone sufficiently far enough in the transformation, wouldn't their soul be made of one Wind?
This might be wrong of course; maybe it's not that the soul or parts of the soul turns into the Wind. Rather, to quote from the We quote again... "Magesight is often described as the ability to see souls, but what is usually seen is the ambient energies given off by souls, and the traces of Winds swirling about inside them. Seeing the soul itself is like trying to see the wick of a burning candle, both in difficulty and in likelihood to result in headaches." Maybe arcane marks are imprintings on souls which say "the ambient energies that will radiate off of you, will be Ulgu." It's not that the soul becomes Ulgu, it's that the soul's output or soul language it yells out into the world, gets switched to being "Ulgu." There's still a "you" shaped and amount of soul in there. You're still human rather than spirit. It's just that its native or main "language" is now Ulgu rather than Reikspiel.
(And the reason the swords failed in their enchantment, is twofold. One; the enchantment attempts to draw souls into the physical world. Souls are undifferentiated Aether, made up of and capable of leaking all 8 of the Winds. But this Aether transforms into the 8 distinct Winds when it enters the physical world. Since the enchantment tries to draw the souls into the physical world, that means it differentiates them. Differentiated Aether drawn into the same place equals multiple Winds drawn into the same place equals Dhar.)
(Or, more simply; enchantment tries to draw in magic and/or the Winds. The effect of trying to suck in Souls into the physical world results in Dhar due to them entering the world and thus splitting into the component Winds and then being sucked into the same place which equals Dhar. The effect of trying to suck in the Winds results in... sucking in all the Winds. Which equals Dhar.)
Anyway. Back to the "the Winds of Magic were the souls of the dead" belief and one potential possibility of "Maybe Wizards turn into more of the Wind?" And then when Wizards die, their soul goes to their gods. Or to an afterlife, like Morr's Garden. Probably? I guess? Presumably, these souls... help enrichen the safe area of the afterlife, or enrichen the friendly and non-Chaos part of the Aether? Thus providing for a healthy flow of souls? Or maybe providing more weight to that part of the Aether; it's like democracy or gravity in action.
Which might mean that the Gods and the Chaos Gods are in a tug of war over the souls of mortals. This is warfare on both the spiritual and the physical plane. A war for souls, and a war for life. (That seems a bit too simulationist or mechanical-like of an approach, but. I do think there's a spiritual and mystical and philosophical angle to it all, too. Rather than just a materialist-angle-but-described-as-spiritualist-because-this-is-ancient-history-stuff.)
I mean, we already either suspected or outright knew that -- that is, knew that the Chaos Gods wanted to corrupt the world and corrupt souls, and that the good Gods wanted... not that, basically.
This is just me wondering out loud.
Because I wonder if Wizards that go all the way in Arcane Marks... become mini-Elementals or Incarnate Elementals. ((I wonder if the reason an Incarnate Elemental summon requires a life sacrifice, is because it requires converting a whole soul into an equivalent amount of Wind? Because that's what creates or qualifies for being an Elemental; a being with a living-person-sized/shaped-soul's worth of soul, transformed into wind. i.e. This sounds like it ought to be possible to make Elementals out of animal souls or magical animal souls too. Or maybe just Apparitions.))
I've also had the odd thought of if Be'lakor is actually a corrupted Incarnate Elemental of Ulgu -- and perhaps Kairos Fateweaver and his fate-stuff is Azyr? -- or maybe he ate an Ulgu Elemental or bound it to him or something. Probably not. Probably he's just an ancient Daemon Prince who's best magic Lore is Ulgu. But it was interesting to think about. About the possibility that the Chaos Gods tried to usurp the Winds of Magic, or maybe they gained the ability to cast magic, by corrupting Incarnate Elementals with Dhar and turning them into Daemons or Daemon Princes. Which from then on serve as a connection between the Chaos God and the Wind of Magic, allowing the Chaos God to use that Wind of Magic. This'd mean that somehow sundering the connection between a primordial Daemon Prince and their main Wind of Magic, or perma-killing said Daemon Prince, might result in weakening the Chaos God's connection to that Wind of Magic. (You'd probably have to do that many times, because I doubt they only have one linchpin, so.) (And that's assuming that they can't just cast magic the way everyone can cast magic.)
A war for, or over, magic. And a war for/over souls -- followers.
Another odd idea I had; the Gods of Law. The Gods of Chaos. The Realm of Chaos.
I wonder if the reason the Aethyr is called the Realm of Chaos is because, in this current era, the Chaos Gods have the biggest coherent piece of the pie in the Aether. Not that they necessarily have the biggest piece of the pie (though they might); but rather, that they have the biggest coherent single-philosophy piece of the pie. Like a one-world-government or a single nation or philosophy trying to take over the world (even if said nation has lots of internal infighting) versus tons of nations or philosophies that allied together to oppose it.
i.e. Chaos is an overriding or new world order philosophy, as opposed to the Gods who are 'just' a big tent coalition opposing them all.
Anyway. The Gods of Law... are another way that the Aethyr (Aether? been using 2 e's rather than e and y...) could be. That is, if they had enough power, or enough influence, or whatever, they could be another unipolar movement in the Aether. You could have a world completely in the grip of the Gods of Law. And perhaps there are such worlds out there. Just as there might be other worlds out there in the grip of the Chaos Gods. (Even before 40K became a thing, there was some occasional bragging and bullshitting on the part of Daemons about how they were "so-and-so, Drinker of Worlds!" or whatnot.)
The Ghyran Nut. It's presumably one of those magic nuts from Athel Loren, from the world tree, and all that. It grows a big forest when planted. Or gigantifies an animal if eaten or something. How does it do that? Possibly by feeding a ton of Aether or Ghyran into a thing; maybe it's concentrated Forest-Soul stuff.
... Also, other mentions of soul stuff...
(After this, I had reread a social with Panoramia, where she mentioned tree souls.)
I'd thought that it was, I think, just Cadaeth or Paranoth that had recently mentioned the souls of the forest, when talking about Dryads and Tree-men.
But no, Panoramia had name-dropped "slow-soul of a tree" a long while back.
Rereading the We bits and about their soul, also made me wonder about similarities between them and a forest. (And also made me wonder about if the We could be the equivalent of a magic Forest, or the equivalent of Dryads, or something. i.e. The possibility that, the way that Eonir link to Dryads, or how there's sometimes little distinction between Eonir and Dryad sometime? Maybe the We can be sort of similar in terms of providing soul-stuff that magically-attuned people can link to. ... Alternatively, maybe the We are like Forest Dragons; in that they're Dragons that are connected to the Magical Forest in Some Way Or Something. But then, "can a We become a wizard's Familiar?" was an old question asked long long ago. It's just now the answer might potentially be "Well, maybe in the same way that some (elf) Wizards link to Dryads, to the Magic Forest, sort of way.")
... Or a living mountain, like some Mountains of Mourne were mythologized and rumored to be related to Sky Giants. (Either Sky Giants becoming them, or them turning into Sky Giants. Perhaps Dwarfs were carved from the same stone as Sky Giants; made miniature and shorter lived in order to not take so ungodly long to reach sapience as Sky Titans perhaps.)
(Whereas Elves were... created by or from or with their gods maybe. I speculated that the reason the elves are so non-committal about what their gods "actually are" is similar to how Boney phrased how an elf would be riven by indecision of which Wind to pick if he were forced to pick just one, and so he picks all of them, slowly at a time. Just like most elves do not commit to a Wind exclusively, perhaps they do the same with gods too; they do not want to lose the ability to get little divine tweaks and powers -- or big divine miracles and powers -- and so they carefully commit themselves to all of them at proper times and proper rates.)
(Anyway, back to that first sentence of "Whereas Elves were... created by or from or with their gods maybe." I wonder if the Elf Gods were... maybe? kind of? similar(ish) to the Great Machines of the Winds, being more like cosmic principles or cosmic ideals, and so the aetheric principle/ideal of "Isha" was used to create the elves; or perhaps was narrated to create the elves rather than made-to, because the Aether is a place of ideas and weird shit. I don't think this is entirely true though. I think Elf gods are also, well, people or people-like. Maybe they're people that are also ideals or principles of Elf culture or elf psychology?)
(Whereas human gods are more grab-bag; they're whatever spirits or ascended humans managed to get enough cultural or aetheric momentum to get big enough to get a domain. Or maybe they were Aetheric first and connected to human cultures, and become human like, or something, or who knows.)
(The Great Maw, meanwhile, is Lavos that crashed down into the planet and burrowed into it and tried to sup on its Leylines. It's got its own metaphysical weight and existence, being from outside the world, and it burrows into the world in order to get at its deep magic or leylines or whatever. Just a random aside and speculation.)
Anyway, on to other stuff. Came across Regimand's infodump on the Shyish blades we found way back when.
There was a belief back then that the Winds of Magic were the souls of the dead, so some twit wizards put enchantments on the weapons to absorb ambient winds thinking that would mean it would eat the souls of those killed with it. Nasty stuff, except wrong in literally every way." He closes the case with a click. "So instead you end up with the swords sucking in all sorts of magic and it ends up mixing and curdling and next thing you know it's Dhar.
-----
So, a thought I'd been having even before this; Arcane Marks is the human soul being transmuted into Wind, right? And then I reread this bit, and stumbled across how there was a belief that the Winds of Magic were the souls of the dead.
And I wondered if that might be true, in some way. Or at least, if it might be true for wizards. If Wizards turn their souls into their Wind of Magic, then if they've gone sufficiently far enough in the transformation, wouldn't their soul be made of one Wind?
This might be wrong of course; maybe it's not that the soul or parts of the soul turns into the Wind. Rather, to quote from the We quote again... "Magesight is often described as the ability to see souls, but what is usually seen is the ambient energies given off by souls, and the traces of Winds swirling about inside them. Seeing the soul itself is like trying to see the wick of a burning candle, both in difficulty and in likelihood to result in headaches." Maybe arcane marks are imprintings on souls which say "the ambient energies that will radiate off of you, will be Ulgu." It's not that the soul becomes Ulgu, it's that the soul's output or soul language it yells out into the world, gets switched to being "Ulgu." There's still a "you" shaped and amount of soul in there. You're still human rather than spirit. It's just that its native or main "language" is now Ulgu rather than Reikspiel.
(And the reason the swords failed in their enchantment, is twofold. One; the enchantment attempts to draw souls into the physical world. Souls are undifferentiated Aether, made up of and capable of leaking all 8 of the Winds. But this Aether transforms into the 8 distinct Winds when it enters the physical world. Since the enchantment tries to draw the souls into the physical world, that means it differentiates them. Differentiated Aether drawn into the same place equals multiple Winds drawn into the same place equals Dhar.)
(Or, more simply; enchantment tries to draw in magic and/or the Winds. The effect of trying to suck in Souls into the physical world results in Dhar due to them entering the world and thus splitting into the component Winds and then being sucked into the same place which equals Dhar. The effect of trying to suck in the Winds results in... sucking in all the Winds. Which equals Dhar.)
Anyway. Back to the "the Winds of Magic were the souls of the dead" belief and one potential possibility of "Maybe Wizards turn into more of the Wind?" And then when Wizards die, their soul goes to their gods. Or to an afterlife, like Morr's Garden. Probably? I guess? Presumably, these souls... help enrichen the safe area of the afterlife, or enrichen the friendly and non-Chaos part of the Aether? Thus providing for a healthy flow of souls? Or maybe providing more weight to that part of the Aether; it's like democracy or gravity in action.
Which might mean that the Gods and the Chaos Gods are in a tug of war over the souls of mortals. This is warfare on both the spiritual and the physical plane. A war for souls, and a war for life. (That seems a bit too simulationist or mechanical-like of an approach, but. I do think there's a spiritual and mystical and philosophical angle to it all, too. Rather than just a materialist-angle-but-described-as-spiritualist-because-this-is-ancient-history-stuff.)
I mean, we already either suspected or outright knew that -- that is, knew that the Chaos Gods wanted to corrupt the world and corrupt souls, and that the good Gods wanted... not that, basically.
This is just me wondering out loud.
Because I wonder if Wizards that go all the way in Arcane Marks... become mini-Elementals or Incarnate Elementals. ((I wonder if the reason an Incarnate Elemental summon requires a life sacrifice, is because it requires converting a whole soul into an equivalent amount of Wind? Because that's what creates or qualifies for being an Elemental; a being with a living-person-sized/shaped-soul's worth of soul, transformed into wind. i.e. This sounds like it ought to be possible to make Elementals out of animal souls or magical animal souls too. Or maybe just Apparitions.))
I've also had the odd thought of if Be'lakor is actually a corrupted Incarnate Elemental of Ulgu -- and perhaps Kairos Fateweaver and his fate-stuff is Azyr? -- or maybe he ate an Ulgu Elemental or bound it to him or something. Probably not. Probably he's just an ancient Daemon Prince who's best magic Lore is Ulgu. But it was interesting to think about. About the possibility that the Chaos Gods tried to usurp the Winds of Magic, or maybe they gained the ability to cast magic, by corrupting Incarnate Elementals with Dhar and turning them into Daemons or Daemon Princes. Which from then on serve as a connection between the Chaos God and the Wind of Magic, allowing the Chaos God to use that Wind of Magic. This'd mean that somehow sundering the connection between a primordial Daemon Prince and their main Wind of Magic, or perma-killing said Daemon Prince, might result in weakening the Chaos God's connection to that Wind of Magic. (You'd probably have to do that many times, because I doubt they only have one linchpin, so.) (And that's assuming that they can't just cast magic the way everyone can cast magic.)
A war for, or over, magic. And a war for/over souls -- followers.
Another odd idea I had; the Gods of Law. The Gods of Chaos. The Realm of Chaos.
I wonder if the reason the Aethyr is called the Realm of Chaos is because, in this current era, the Chaos Gods have the biggest coherent piece of the pie in the Aether. Not that they necessarily have the biggest piece of the pie (though they might); but rather, that they have the biggest coherent single-philosophy piece of the pie. Like a one-world-government or a single nation or philosophy trying to take over the world (even if said nation has lots of internal infighting) versus tons of nations or philosophies that allied together to oppose it.
i.e. Chaos is an overriding or new world order philosophy, as opposed to the Gods who are 'just' a big tent coalition opposing them all.
Anyway. The Gods of Law... are another way that the Aethyr (Aether? been using 2 e's rather than e and y...) could be. That is, if they had enough power, or enough influence, or whatever, they could be another unipolar movement in the Aether. You could have a world completely in the grip of the Gods of Law. And perhaps there are such worlds out there. Just as there might be other worlds out there in the grip of the Chaos Gods. (Even before 40K became a thing, there was some occasional bragging and bullshitting on the part of Daemons about how they were "so-and-so, Drinker of Worlds!" or whatnot.)
"Jaime had never realised that trees made a sound when they grew, and no-one else had realised it either, because the sound is made over hundreds of years in waves of twenty-four hours from peak to peak. Speed it up, and the sound a tree makes is vrooom."
Voting closed, writing has begun.
Voting closed, writing has begun.
- Location
- USA
"Hey, Panoramia."
"Yes, Mathilde?"
"Do trees make sounds when they grow?"
"...You Greys ask the weirdest questions."
Can't believe it's over 7 years that Pratchett's gone.
While I'm at it:
"How fast did a forest's heart beat? Once a year, maybe. Yes, that sounded about right. Out there the forest was waiting for the brighter sun and longer days that would pump a million gallons of sap several hundred feet into the sky in one great systolic thump too big and loud to be heard."
"How fast did a forest's heart beat? Once a year, maybe. Yes, that sounded about right. Out there the forest was waiting for the brighter sun and longer days that would pump a million gallons of sap several hundred feet into the sky in one great systolic thump too big and loud to be heard."
- Location
- South Africa
Can't believe it either. I actually googled to double-check.
Aether was a theoretical element used to try to explain things like light and gravity by various early philosophers and scientist, while aethyr was a plane of existence from Enochian occultism, so for this quest's purposes the spelling 'Aethyr' is most appropriate.
(Unfortunately I can't really respond to the rest of the post without running the risk of inadvertently spoiling some extremely deep metaphysics, but I will say I really liked this post.)
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Wait, so you're not actually a necklace?
inb4: well, technically the necklace is the chain, and pendant is the part that hangs on it.
glyph
completely and utterly fine
Well then! If we ever run out of AV, nothing that a bit of good old necromancy won't be able to fix.
Great post by the way, I really enjoyed reading that.
Aliya
Someone I might become
- Location
- Kazakhstan
- Pronouns
- They/She/It
Actually, I have a speculation on how to get extra AV: so, the reason The Winds are produced instead of AV is cause the entry into the world from the direct Aethyr portals is too rough. However, due to mirrors not actually being portals, the snek and its juices don't actually encounter that rough entrance from Aethyr into Materium. Mayhaps, then, we could utilise the Ulgu pocket dimension, which is between the Aethyr and Materium, and try to blur the borders between the dimensions and the Aethyr there analogous to the way snek does it with mirrors. Mind you, a fail in such an action would produce a portal spewing out demons in all likelihood.
When a plan starts with 'here is how we safely open a portal to the Warp' it is time to slowly walk away from the person proposing it and call for the Magisters Vigilant.
There's a lot here, way more than I feel I can reply to. Hope you won't mind a few scattered remarks to specific points.
I really don't think that's right. When Mathilde saw a glimpse of Ranald, she described Him as 'like a soul, but much greater', and Ranald isn't undifferentiated Aethyr - it's a distinct kind of energy from the winds and from whatever the AV is, as our AV experiments demonstrate. So divine energies at least definitely aren't undifferentiated Aethyr, and if Mathilde is corret that divine energies are different from souls in degree rather than in kind than souls aren't either.
Besides, I think it is possible to draw out the souls of creatures to the physical world - the Animus Imprisoned is one spell that does that - and I'm pretty sure that when that happens the soul doesn't explode into winds. And souls touch the winds all the time - wizard souls most obviously - and if they were anything like AV they would explode into winds every time they did that.
When Cython and Mathilde discussed the dwarf pantheon one point that was made was that Dawi souls react differently to the Aethyr than many other souls. Cython speculated that this made them uninteresting to most Gods, perhaps because their souls are less useful than other souls, with the notable exception of Hashut. We do know that the Glittering Realms is an afterlife cut off from the rest of the Aethyr, which makes sense if most Gods can't 'use' Dawi souls in their afterlifes as they do with other mortal souls. Cython then continues to speculate that maybe the halflings are similar, and I'm pretty sure their theory is that distinct pantheons arise when mortal souls have natures distinct enough that one God can't accomdate both. Cython originally thought that the elven pantheon was the only one, but since they have become convinced that the dwarven pantheon is different they are searching for explanations as to why, and that is one possible explanation. In which case, the question of whether or not humanity and the elves can/do worship the same Gods is in large part a question of how different or similar human and elf souls are.
- Location
- Norway
Ulgu is aligned with confusion. Read far enough into any topic, not just mathematics, and it'll be confusing until/unless you've studied your way to expertise. Conclusion: Sufficiently advanced topics are indistinguishable from magic.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
For that reason, I don't think we should try it. That's a big breach of the Articles, and extremely dangerous for us.
Édit: it's also very likely not in character for Mathilde to something that has a high risk to summon demons.
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Actually, speaking on the topic of "language" once more...
If you have multiple language-stamps on your soul, it comes out garbled. Dhar. The Chaos Gods rule or control Dhar. (Daemons aren't made of dhar, they're made of... divine stuff. They generate dhar from existing in the world. I think I remember that being mentioned once.)
So. Magic. The language of the Aethyr. Or, rather, a language of the Aethyr. There are probably some more "fundamental" languages... but it's still probably correct to compare them all to languages; because even Anoqeyan and pre-Anoqeyan (presumably the language the Old Ones spoke amongst themselves, rather than the language they used to denote and approximate all of the definition of the Warhammer World's Aethyr) were ultimately made by living beings and evolved from the cultures of those living beings. And those living beings were influenced by their minds and bodies and souls too. Where the line of turtles to the bottom stops, nobody knows.
It might be too much to wonder about truly cosmic laws or universal principles while only having one planet and one Aethyr to work off of. Or perhaps not! Gravity and the other Forces are pretty universal. So's math. ... I half-suspect that the Winds might have been quasi-objective-ish or fundamental-Forces-of-the-universe-y-ish, just... It's like that one Stargate SG-1 episode where they encountered a universal or galactic language spoken by Precursors, and it was based on not math but elements or molecules I think. (I think. Been a long time since I saw Stargate SG-1.) (Checking real quick, and yeah I'd remembered correctly.)
And then Dwarf runic language is just programming or engineering or mathematics. Very very grounded and specific.
... Maybe Familiars are when you make or teach another being, whether physical or spiritual, to speak in your personal language? Or maybe it's just when you connect your souls. (Well, you assuredly do connect souls of course, but.) Hrm, anyway.
Another thought I'd been having while doing some rereads...
... I'd been feeling like there was changed in the atmosphere or the feel or tempo of things with the switch from Stirland/expedition/K8P/Karag Dum to the Waystone Project and... what I finally put into words was... "something about maps and location?" Like, "we had a map of the place we were at" and "we felt like it was taking place in a given location". (Even when it's a journey, at least then, the progressive progress is part of the shifting location-ness.)
A good map can make you get invested in a place. The location or place as a setting.
((Some of the 4th Edition maps, for example, are an abomination. Look at that. What the hell kind of map is that. That's too much detail, I can't use that. That's too much detail to remember or keep straight, and it's also too much detail to really be usefully useable in a game. I prefer the other types of Warhammer maps. They give enough detail for you to know where stuff is at, while also giving some wiggle room too. And then for further wiggle room, there was the delightful bit where the maps had a old-timey-map-feeling where they were all partly stylized and incomplete and exaggerated and thus disagreed with each other too.))
Back in Karak Eight Peaks, we generally had to think about what settlement or fort was connected to where; what approaches were opened or which connected to others; we had to think about what area we held, where the fronts were, where we could be attacked from, and where we were secure. Several geography things even became part of the plot, such as when we had to roughly calculate how much coverage the Eye of Gazul would provide to Karak Eight Peaks. And when we had to send our armies to and fro during the Karakbowl at the end.
Back in Stirland, we weren't in charge of as much at the time, so we didn't handle such things ourselves too much. But the map featured prominently-ish turn after turn, as it was filled in with colors as we advanced and gained territory. And the characters always kept the geography in mind when talking about how far places were from one another, or where each place was in relation to the other.
Now, we still care about all that.(History still matters too; a few pages ago, Boney gave us the bit with Nordland and the Jutones and Was Jutones. 's cool stuff.) When we set the Foundations, the characters talked about where the Waystones where and drew it on a map, and posters did the same. The flow of energy and where it intersected with political boundaries matters a ton. It matters for politics and diplomacy, as it could dictate "Shit, we're going to have to talk to <x province/x nation/city> aren't we?" or it could affect what policy or advice we give to the Emperor or Electors like "Please don't start a war with X place any time soon, it might make things get a bit dicey." Or we just play it cool and keep our cards to the chest, and just keep that in mind for the future. But, maps and borders matter.
But, it's, well... I dunno. Maybe it's because we don't have a nice main map or two of Tor Lithanel, the way we had several for Karak Eight Peaks -- some canon maps, some Boney-made, and all showing you a different perspective or angle of Karak Eight Peaks. Some showed borders, some showed pictures of the mountains themselves and it was gorgeous art, some just had the 8 mountains and Citadel and lines that showed which place had a path to which place.
But... the combination of splitting our time between Laurelorn and the presence of the Social Actions, which are sort of time-agnostic or location-agnostic, can kind of play merry-hell with one's innate sense of "Where is this game taking place?" That is, it's generally always obvious where a scene is set or where it's happening. And of course it's obvious where the general game is taking place, but... hrm.
I can't exactly put a precise finger on what exactly I am complaining about. Or even if it is a hundred percent valid a complaint at all. As, understandably, we are commuting between Tor Lithanel and Karak Eight Peaks. And we also have a personal gyro-copter too. And our job now involves more cross-Empire travel now. I don't know if teleport travels would solve, or worsen, the 'issue' I am having with this. I don't know if this is an issue at all. (But that's understandably a "Boney only has so much time and focus for some things and not others" thing as was mentioned recently-ish. Usually in regards to the Dramatis Personae.) (Though... as understandable an explanation as that is, that also feels a bit sad too. Because that, too, gave a concrete feel of advancement or discovery or personality. We were connecting to people more and uncovering more about them and all.) (So on the one hand, but on the other hand... I dunno.) Certainly I'm not sure anything should be changed or anything voted or the game changed just for my sake or anything, nor for us to get locked into place in a location!, so...
Maybe I just miss having a "main map of the new place and old place" plonked around, often appended to the bottom of an update, and also in the informational posts too?
Players still make maps of the Waystones too tho', so... I dunno.
Maybe I'm just having more trouble picturing the local places of Tor Lithanel and Laurelorn? The places and people don't feel as strongly set yet. Back in K8P, you had the 8 mountains and you had the Und-umgi and the mercenaries and the Clan and such.
Here, Tor Lithanel feels more like "a selection list". ... Ah, maybe that's it.
Maybe because the place where we are at, and the people we are interacting with, feel more like "a menu bar with some lists" rather than "physical people" and "locations"?
I dunno why I'd feel better if I had a funky stylized map with, like, the Dreaming Wood as just a big purple splotch off to one side with "Hatalath" as the under-title to it, and then several stylized towers or houses or walls in other places on the map with "Tindomiel" at one spot and "Sarvoi" in parenthesis beside it or underlined under it. Or a round table with 3 elf names on one side of it, and 7-8 human and 1 Dwarf name on the other side of it. Buuut. xD
Maybe having something you can point to makes it feel more real?
Maybe there's some metaphorical insight into Anoqeyan (and Hatalath I think said that there was a language before Anoqeyan too so), Runic Dwarf, and Dhar-speak there?
If you have multiple language-stamps on your soul, it comes out garbled. Dhar. The Chaos Gods rule or control Dhar. (Daemons aren't made of dhar, they're made of... divine stuff. They generate dhar from existing in the world. I think I remember that being mentioned once.)
So. Magic. The language of the Aethyr. Or, rather, a language of the Aethyr. There are probably some more "fundamental" languages... but it's still probably correct to compare them all to languages; because even Anoqeyan and pre-Anoqeyan (presumably the language the Old Ones spoke amongst themselves, rather than the language they used to denote and approximate all of the definition of the Warhammer World's Aethyr) were ultimately made by living beings and evolved from the cultures of those living beings. And those living beings were influenced by their minds and bodies and souls too. Where the line of turtles to the bottom stops, nobody knows.
It might be too much to wonder about truly cosmic laws or universal principles while only having one planet and one Aethyr to work off of. Or perhaps not! Gravity and the other Forces are pretty universal. So's math. ... I half-suspect that the Winds might have been quasi-objective-ish or fundamental-Forces-of-the-universe-y-ish, just... It's like that one Stargate SG-1 episode where they encountered a universal or galactic language spoken by Precursors, and it was based on not math but elements or molecules I think. (I think. Been a long time since I saw Stargate SG-1.) (Checking real quick, and yeah I'd remembered correctly.)
And then Dwarf runic language is just programming or engineering or mathematics. Very very grounded and specific.
...
... Maybe Familiars are when you make or teach another being, whether physical or spiritual, to speak in your personal language? Or maybe it's just when you connect your souls. (Well, you assuredly do connect souls of course, but.) Hrm, anyway.
Another thought I'd been having while doing some rereads...
... I'd been feeling like there was changed in the atmosphere or the feel or tempo of things with the switch from Stirland/expedition/K8P/Karag Dum to the Waystone Project and... what I finally put into words was... "something about maps and location?" Like, "we had a map of the place we were at" and "we felt like it was taking place in a given location". (Even when it's a journey, at least then, the progressive progress is part of the shifting location-ness.)
A good map can make you get invested in a place. The location or place as a setting.
((Some of the 4th Edition maps, for example, are an abomination. Look at that. What the hell kind of map is that. That's too much detail, I can't use that. That's too much detail to remember or keep straight, and it's also too much detail to really be usefully useable in a game. I prefer the other types of Warhammer maps. They give enough detail for you to know where stuff is at, while also giving some wiggle room too. And then for further wiggle room, there was the delightful bit where the maps had a old-timey-map-feeling where they were all partly stylized and incomplete and exaggerated and thus disagreed with each other too.))
Back in Karak Eight Peaks, we generally had to think about what settlement or fort was connected to where; what approaches were opened or which connected to others; we had to think about what area we held, where the fronts were, where we could be attacked from, and where we were secure. Several geography things even became part of the plot, such as when we had to roughly calculate how much coverage the Eye of Gazul would provide to Karak Eight Peaks. And when we had to send our armies to and fro during the Karakbowl at the end.
Back in Stirland, we weren't in charge of as much at the time, so we didn't handle such things ourselves too much. But the map featured prominently-ish turn after turn, as it was filled in with colors as we advanced and gained territory. And the characters always kept the geography in mind when talking about how far places were from one another, or where each place was in relation to the other.
Now, we still care about all that.(History still matters too; a few pages ago, Boney gave us the bit with Nordland and the Jutones and Was Jutones. 's cool stuff.) When we set the Foundations, the characters talked about where the Waystones where and drew it on a map, and posters did the same. The flow of energy and where it intersected with political boundaries matters a ton. It matters for politics and diplomacy, as it could dictate "Shit, we're going to have to talk to <x province/x nation/city> aren't we?" or it could affect what policy or advice we give to the Emperor or Electors like "Please don't start a war with X place any time soon, it might make things get a bit dicey." Or we just play it cool and keep our cards to the chest, and just keep that in mind for the future. But, maps and borders matter.
But, it's, well... I dunno. Maybe it's because we don't have a nice main map or two of Tor Lithanel, the way we had several for Karak Eight Peaks -- some canon maps, some Boney-made, and all showing you a different perspective or angle of Karak Eight Peaks. Some showed borders, some showed pictures of the mountains themselves and it was gorgeous art, some just had the 8 mountains and Citadel and lines that showed which place had a path to which place.
But... the combination of splitting our time between Laurelorn and the presence of the Social Actions, which are sort of time-agnostic or location-agnostic, can kind of play merry-hell with one's innate sense of "Where is this game taking place?" That is, it's generally always obvious where a scene is set or where it's happening. And of course it's obvious where the general game is taking place, but... hrm.
I can't exactly put a precise finger on what exactly I am complaining about. Or even if it is a hundred percent valid a complaint at all. As, understandably, we are commuting between Tor Lithanel and Karak Eight Peaks. And we also have a personal gyro-copter too. And our job now involves more cross-Empire travel now. I don't know if teleport travels would solve, or worsen, the 'issue' I am having with this. I don't know if this is an issue at all. (But that's understandably a "Boney only has so much time and focus for some things and not others" thing as was mentioned recently-ish. Usually in regards to the Dramatis Personae.) (Though... as understandable an explanation as that is, that also feels a bit sad too. Because that, too, gave a concrete feel of advancement or discovery or personality. We were connecting to people more and uncovering more about them and all.) (So on the one hand, but on the other hand... I dunno.) Certainly I'm not sure anything should be changed or anything voted or the game changed just for my sake or anything, nor for us to get locked into place in a location!, so...
Maybe I just miss having a "main map of the new place and old place" plonked around, often appended to the bottom of an update, and also in the informational posts too?
Players still make maps of the Waystones too tho', so... I dunno.
Maybe I'm just having more trouble picturing the local places of Tor Lithanel and Laurelorn? The places and people don't feel as strongly set yet. Back in K8P, you had the 8 mountains and you had the Und-umgi and the mercenaries and the Clan and such.
Here, Tor Lithanel feels more like "a selection list". ... Ah, maybe that's it.
Maybe because the place where we are at, and the people we are interacting with, feel more like "a menu bar with some lists" rather than "physical people" and "locations"?
I dunno why I'd feel better if I had a funky stylized map with, like, the Dreaming Wood as just a big purple splotch off to one side with "Hatalath" as the under-title to it, and then several stylized towers or houses or walls in other places on the map with "Tindomiel" at one spot and "Sarvoi" in parenthesis beside it or underlined under it. Or a round table with 3 elf names on one side of it, and 7-8 human and 1 Dwarf name on the other side of it. Buuut. xD
Maybe having something you can point to makes it feel more real?
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I wonder what would happen if you put AV into contact with soulstuff.
Would the AV turn into more soulstuff of the person in question?
I feel like the meetings every turn have always served to sorta make the characters feel more rooted in whatever location they're consistently meeting in.
So maybe as we have more turns and keep gathering for meetings in Laurelorn every turn, the quest will start feeling more rooted in Laurelorn?
Would the AV turn into more soulstuff of the person in question?
Maybe it's also that we've only had one meeting for the Waystone Project so far?
I feel like the meetings every turn have always served to sorta make the characters feel more rooted in whatever location they're consistently meeting in.
So maybe as we have more turns and keep gathering for meetings in Laurelorn every turn, the quest will start feeling more rooted in Laurelorn?
The only way I can think of to get AV into contact with a soul would be to feed it to a vampire, since they actually have the mechanism to metabolize soul stuff to begin with. Sadly I do not think we will be getting a friendly vampire anytime soon.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
We already did this. Remember that there is no difference between a god and soul which means when we have fingerprinted Ranald it was his soul stuff we did to. Human souls should be no different.
- Location
- South Africa
Source for this please.