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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Mopman43 said:
This is the main passage from Realms of Sorcery, judge for yourself:

Worth noting the second paragraph- Volans restrained himself from ever touching magic and solely trained his windsight, while Von Tarnus was a member of the Carroburg Greatswords and not a part of any magical tradition, but it was those two that took to his lessons the best.
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Ok, then that proves my theory that he only thought easy to use spells at the beginning to make people battle ready and did a lot of the Theory work afterwards with whoever was still alive.
 
Mopman43 said:
I really have to wonder what he was planning on putting in the curriculum that couldn't be done in over two decades. Even if he presumably spent a lot of time early on setting things up.

Guess he took his time because he thought there wasn't a rush.
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That and setting up a system that converted elf paradigm into a slapdash that humans could use without exploding instantly.
 
Mopman43 said:
This is the main passage from Realms of Sorcery, judge for yourself:

Worth noting the second passage- Volans restrained himself from ever touching magic and solely trained his windsight, while Von Tarnus was a member of the Carroburg Greatswords and not a part of any magical tradition, but it was those two that took to his lessons the best.
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Guy... read that passage.
Not only does it mention some of them had prior experience

Article:
it was the Empire's base magic users and those slightly more refined practitioners of secret and not-too-corrupted arts ...
Teclis, Finreir, and Yrtle taught relatively simple offensive spells— fireballs, lightning bolts, and ear-splitting noises

you overstated what they were taught.
Mopman43 said:
Battle Magic
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fireball is moderately complicated magic not capital B Battle Magic.
Boney said:
Fire Ball: You create several balls of fire and throw them. (That is exactly Shadow Knives but without "ignore armor" part)
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E:
Mopman43 said:
That was Battle Magic.
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You realise Battle Magic is a literal and strict categorisation of magic based on power and difficulty. Not any spell you can use in a battle?
Because its the latter but not the former.
 
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Fun fact: It is implied that Teclis decided Volans' wind for him:

"Due to his immense skill and ability, Teclis chose Volans to study the White Wind, Hysh, and when Magnus asked Teclis to form the Colleges of Magic, the Loremaster knew immediately whom he would leave in control of the White Order and all the Orders of Magic as their first Supreme Patriarch." Page 89 Realm of Sorcery

It is possible that Volans could have gone for any Wind and excelled at it, but I suppose Light Magic was the most immediately useful against a Chaos Invasion. Volans being who he is, he could handle the difficulty of Light Magic no problem.

And in case anyone is wondering what kind of personality Volans had...

"It is a vision of beauty! Of absolute wonder! It is so bright that it burns my mortal eyes as well as my immaterial ones! It shines like mother-of-pearl lit by a thousand suns, scouring me with absolute brilliance and yet filling me with indescribable elation. How tempting it is to reach out for it, to try to grasp it and weave it as I do the purity of Hysh. And yet I know that were I to try, it would be my end, for even gazing upon it with the unseen eyes of my Gift, I am brought low and must close myself off to its glory after but a fleeting moment. How I long to stand for even the shortest time in the body of our great master and mentor, Loremaster Teclis, and be thus enabled to reach out at touch the radiance that is Qhaysh..." —Extracted from the private journals of Volans, First Supreme Patriarch of the Orders of Magi (Page 36 Realm of Sorcery)

He is quite the dramatic individual.
 
Codex said:
Fun fact: It is implied that Teclis decided Volans' wind for him:

"Due to his immense skill and ability, Teclis chose Volans to study the White Wind, Hysh, and when Magnus asked Teclis to form the Colleges of Magic, the Loremaster knew immediately whom he would leave in control of the White Order and all the Orders of Magic as their first Supreme Patriarch." Page 89 Realm of Sorcery

It is possible that Volans could have gone for any Wind and excelled at it, but I suppose Light Magic was the most immediately useful against a Chaos Invasion. Volans being who he is, he could handle the difficulty of Light Magic no problem.

And in case anyone is wondering what kind of personality Volans had...

"It is a vision of beauty! Of absolute wonder! It is so bright that it burns my mortal eyes as well as my immaterial ones! It shines like mother-of-pearl lit by a thousand suns, scouring me with absolute brilliance and yet filling me with indescribable elation. How tempting it is to reach out for it, to try to grasp it and weave it as I do the purity of Hysh. And yet I know that were I to try, it would be my end, for even gazing upon it with the unseen eyes of my Gift, I am brought low and must close myself off to its glory after but a fleeting moment. How I long to stand for even the shortest time in the body of our great master and mentor, Loremaster Teclis, and be thus enabled to reach out at touch the radiance that is Qhaysh..." —Extracted from the private journals of Volans, First Supreme Patriarch of the Orders of Magi (Page 36 Realm of Sorcery)

He is quite the dramatic individual.
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...that man should have written poetry...
 
Huh, that makes me wonder...Has Mathilda ever seen Qhaysh being weaved in action? After getting all her wind-sight upgrades? I can't recall any atop my head, so was wondering how she'd describe that

Because Volan, the human guy basically the best wind-sight is having some pretty...serious reaction to that
 
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Sa'kage said:
Huh, that makes me wonder...Has Mathilda ever seen Qhaysh being weaved in action? After getting all her wind-sight upgrades? I can't recall any atop my head, so was wondering how she'd describe that
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I don't think we have seen any elven mages do serious magic, they talked a lot about it but it he's never had a reason to cast...

Edit: correcting myself here, they never had a reason to cast Qhaysh. We did see the cast shadowsteed just from seeing it once, and i think we saw the opening of the grey mages pocket dimension.
 
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Okay, I don't expect us to do this next turn, but I've come up with a good reason why we should think about studying the Kul weapons sometime soon.

The last time the Empire fought the Kul was 200 years ago during the War Against Chaos, which was lead by a Kul warlord.

This means that all the military data the Empire has on the Kul is about 200 years out of date. Researching the weapons we have will be able to inform people on their current military and magical capabilities, so that if another warlord decides to come south the Empire will know what they are facing and possibly how to deal with it.

Even if we don't learn any new enchanting skills from it (I personally suspect it's an Azyr enchantment of some sort) knowledge of what weapons our foes use will always be useful.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Okay, I don't expect us to do this next turn, but I've come up with a good reason why we should think about studying the Kul weapons sometime soon.

The last time the Empire fought the Kul was 200 years ago during the War Against Chaos, which was lead by a Kul warlord.

This means that all the military data the Empire has on the Kul is about 200 years out of date. Researching the weapons we have will be able to inform people on their current military and magical capabilities, so that if another warlord decides to come south the Empire will know what they are facing and possibly how to deal with it.

Even if we don't learn any new enchanting skills from it (I personally suspect it's an Azyr enchantment of some sort) knowledge of what weapons our foes use will always be useful.
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I see the reasoning but honestly if we have time to research something I hope we do the nut... I really wanna know what the nut does ...
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Okay, I don't expect us to do this next turn, but I've come up with a good reason why we should think about studying the Kul weapons sometime soon.

The last time the Empire fought the Kul was 200 years ago during the War Against Chaos, which was lead by a Kul warlord.

This means that all the military data the Empire has on the Kul is about 200 years out of date. Researching the weapons we have will be able to inform people on their current military and magical capabilities, so that if another warlord decides to come south the Empire will know what they are facing and possibly how to deal with it.

Even if we don't learn any new enchanting skills from it (I personally suspect it's an Azyr enchantment of some sort) knowledge of what weapons our foes use will always be useful.
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I don't really recall much about the weapons, but is there any reason we should research it ourselves rather than donate them to the Colleges so people with more time on their hands can do it instead?
 
Codex said:
He is quite the dramatic individual.
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Maybe Qhaysh really does look that amazing in motion, who knows. Mathilde has seen the winds in variety of situations, and also in their primordial form via AV (which was originally referred to as "Qhaysh juice"), but not Qhaysh itself.

But yes, possibly Volans was just really dramatic.
 
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As far as we know, AV is not actually made of the Winds. It's pure 'stuff of the Aethyr', and it happens to be the case that when in physical world this normally gets turned into an equal amount of the Winds. And for some reason, most likely because it isn't transferred into reality in the 'normal' ways (like through the polar gates, or another portal), this transformation doesn't happen with AV immediately.
So most likely, if primordial Winds are simply Winds just after their production, any Winds produced by the conversion of AV are primordial with whatever different properties that implies. At least for a while.
 
Parabola said:
Maybe Qhaysh really does look that amazing in motion, who knows. Mathilde has seen the winds in variety of situations, and also in their primordial form via AV (which was originally referred to as "Qhaysh juice"), but not Qhaysh itself.

But yes, possibly Volans was just really dramatic.
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It's less the contents of what he's saying and more the way he's saying it. The guy writes poetry in his private journals.
 
Boney said:
You shake your head. "Not this far north, it took me a week of meditation to spot a Waystone-sized leyline in Reikland. Maybe if there were any in, say, southern Tilea or Estalia the background magic might be low enough for me to be able to spot it..." You consider further, then shake your head. "No, then there'd be less magic flowing to spot. By the mechanics of the tributary, the amount flowing out will never be higher than the background magic level I'd be trying to spot it through."
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While the levels would never naturally be above those of the background magic, could a mage push magic into the tributary-stone while another mage observed the way that magic flowed out?

It likely wouldn't tell us anything new, but it seems like it might help confirm what we already suspect is going on.
 
Tobtorp said:
Actually do we know if there isn't a "Big Book of Volans Waxing"? Maybe that's introductive reading for the lights?
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Volans wrote a bunch. He wrote letters to the College and his Private Journals aren't so private, and it seems he even published books. Some excerpts from Realm of Sorcery 2E:
"...and so it was the collapse of this "Gateway" to the shadow realms beyond, or at least the Elves suggest, that led to the making of the world as it is today. The vast area of instability created by its collapse enabled many of the sentient fragments of the mortal world's dreams and nightmares that existed within the Realm of Chaos to manifest themselves to some degree upon the physical plane. These entities were then free to pursue their incomprehensible whims and compulsions with the mortal inhabitants of our world. Ulthuan's most ancient texts described how most of these entities were small, wild things—beings we might now recognise as the Fay or Faerie, the various sprites, aquatic nymphs, dryads, and elemental beings of the natural world. Yet there were also other larger and more powerful entities that began to appear after the collapse of the Old One's gateways. These larger entities, creatures of thought and magic, had no physical shape of their own, and they took on forms dictated by the fears, beliefs, and expectations of the mortals they began to prey upon. In the same way, the simple deities the elder races had created across the millennia suddenly stopped being mere concepts or items of faith and became actual beings with immense powers and independent identities—they truly were the first Daemons, the first Gods."
—Extracted The Elder Races, Penned by the late Supreme Patriarch Volans. Translated into modern Reikspiel by Patriarch Verspasian Kant

"Although most Humans, possessing souls that are both dim and flickering, have a very poor sensitivity to the Winds of Magic, a minority like those of us gathered here today, are for whatever reason more sensitive to this energy and possess souls that shine like beacons to those with the eyes to see them. People such as this are potential wielders of magic, and if they are trained correctly, they are able to consciously control and use magical energy to affect, and even remake, aspects of the Mortal Universe, just as we Magisters of the Imperial Colleges do."
—An extract from the third letter to the Colleges of Magic, written by the first Supreme Patriarch, Volans. Translated into modern Reikspiel by the current Patriarch of the Order of Light Magister Verspasian Kant
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You might notice something from both of these excerpts. Yes, despite only being 180 years old or less, Volans was writing with Old Reikspiel. I'm pretty sure cultural drift isn't that fast, so he was just... writing in an old dialect.
Ask yourselves, how do spellcasters actually bind and control magic? We possess the ability to perceive and touch the Winds of Magic in some way. That we possess this ability does not necessarily imply that we know how to use it, any more than any ordinary Human born with two eyes and two hands can read or write without first being taught. Magisters control magic through the use of techniques and formulae that have been discovered through logical deduction and controlled trial and error across the centuries. On the other hand, priests and clerics are able to perform miracles solely by merit of the strength of their beliefs and faith.

I am sure it has not escaped any of your notice that the more genuinely pious and faithful the cleric, the more successful his or her prayers for divine miracles and blessings seem to be. Have not the Theogonist of Sigmar and even Emperor Magnus himself been known to perform the most startling of feats? I, the elected Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, trained by mighty Teclis himself, must stretch myself to replicate any of them, from Magnus's ability to banish the greatest of Daemons, to his recorded ability to dispel sorceries of some of Tzeen'eth's most powerful sorcerers—all because of his genuine and absolute faith in the might of Sigmar Heldenhammer.

Why is it the instinctive beliefs and emotions of clerics are just as successful in controlling magic as the considered, practiced and logically deduced enchantments of the diverse Magisters? Because, my brothers and sisters, although the Aethrian itself has existed since the beginning of time, all momentum, identity, and personality within the Aethrian has been formed by the thoughts and feelings of mortals. That is, the Gods themselves are the creations of mortal experience. Although we mortals are at the mercy of Gods and Daemons, they are still our creations and not the other way around.

If all Gods and Daemons are manifestations of the mortal world's thoughts, dreams, and feelings, then could this not explain why they react so readily to the faith of those who worship them? Could it be that some or all of the Gods actually need the faith of mortals to maintain their unique identities? They could be drawn to particularly strong demonstrations of faith, both to feed off of it and to encourage even greater levels of faith in the believer. This could perhaps explain why the servants of Chaos are often so much stronger in their spellcraft and wield more powerful magics than we Magisters of the Empire. These Sorcerers can both manipulate the Winds of Magic as we Magisters do and also have an immense faith in, and a direct link to, their Daemonic Gods.

Indeed, this could help explain the frightening power of those sorcerers who are dedicated to the Daemon God Tzeentch, for their God is the first and greatest God of the study of magic. In addition to their almost priestly powers of supplication, the Change Lord's Sorcerers also posses a divinely inspired knowledge of spellcraft that often far outstrips that of all other spellcasters.

Even though this might be true, I do not believe that we, the Magisters of the Imperial Colleges of Magic, should follow their example and choose for ourselves Gods to wholly dedicate ourselves to and beg favours from, to use in conjunction with our own arcane spellcraft. Nothing in this life or the next is free, and whilst I am willing to trust in my own abilities and limitations, and accept any errors I make while weaving my spells, I do not wish to trust the continued benevolence of a deity whose need for my faith and dedication might far outweigh my own need for His or Her aid.
—from Magister Volans' third letter to the Colleges of Magic. Extracted from the Liber Chaotica, Compiled by Richter Kless
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If you're particularly sharp, you might recognise one of the lines here as having been used by Mathilde. Not once, but twice:
Boney said:
A hefty question, but one you are not approaching unassisted. "Winds are reliable and ambient. 'I do not wish to trust the continued benevolence of a deity whose need for my faith and dedication might far outweigh my own need for His or Her aid.' That was said by Volans, the first leader of the Empire's Colleges of Magic."

"It is a vital difference, and one that makes all the difference in the wisdom of adopting one or the other. The Winds are available freely, acting according to their nature in the same way that air and water and soil are. But I observe that though Hysh asked nothing of me, it has dictated as much of my life and preferences and activites as the most demanding God. Could you say differently?"
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Boney said:
"'Nothing in this life or the next is free,'" you quote, "'and whilst I am willing to trust in my own abilities and limitations, and accept any errors I make while weaving my spells, I do not wish to trust the continued benevolence of a deity whose need for my faith and dedication might far outweigh my own need for His or Her aid.'"

"Pretty words," she says after a moment of thought. "Your Volans, yha?"

"Yes."

She opens her eyes and looks at you. "But you do not follow his advice, do you? Was not just you staring down Karneth, was it? If child in blizzard emerges with a new friend, they are one to watch. Even if yours is not quite so respectable as a bear or wolf or owl."
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Volans was quite bold, and I'm pretty sure Mathilde admires him.
"The Aethrian is the Void—the final element of Existence—the intangible element that has no visible or quantifiable form in its own right. The Aethrian has no dimension, mass, or volume, and yet still it is everywhere. It has no substance, but all substances and every process in existence are implicitly linked to it. All magic and divination, regardless of its form or source, depends upon the manipulation of the Aethrian's raw energy, and through the manipulation of this energy, or magic, every other element, state, and process within the Mortal Universe can also be manipulated and changed."
—an extract from Magister Patriarch Volans' third letter to the Colleges of Magic
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Volans' third letter to the Colleges of Magic was pretty hefty I think.

That's basically it for Volans' writing in Realm of Sorcery. There is one more thing though, and that is Volans' theory:

"It is an interesting question as to whether the perception of these Winds as eight separate colours is a result of the function of the parts of the mind that perceives it. The separate Winds may not actually have any colour of and in themselves, but the mind is structured in such a way that the separate Winds are interpreted as having specific and consistent colours. Or likewise, the appearance of the Winds as separate colours might be a product of some kind of perceptual conditioning, taught by Teclis of Ulthuan to the more primitive spellcasters of the Empire and then re-affirmed and deepened through the evolving dogmas and expectations of each new generation of Collegiate spellcasters. It might then be the expectations of the Magisters who draw upon the Winds that makes them appear within the mind's eyes to have a specific colour.

Many novices to the Orders of Magic have asked why it should be that Aethyric energy should have any colour at all, especially considering the random and shifting nature of the non-place that spawns it. Over two centuries ago, Magister Patriarch Volans theorised that the reason Humans see the distinct colours of the Winds of Magic is because that is the optimum way Humans perceive them. Perhaps those born with Aethyric senses are inclined to interpret the energy of transmutation visually as distinct colours? It's an interesting train of thought."

"Loremaster Teclis of Ulthuan trained our ancestors in the arcane arts to perceive these colours as they flow across the world, then draw them to ourselves in a controlled manner and bend them to our will. Perhaps, as Magister Volans theorised so long ago, the reason Human Magisters cannot safely utilise magic in the same way and to the same degree as the powerful mages of Ulthuan is because Humans perceive the Winds as separate colours. Human visualisation may be a limitation of our minds."

I'm sure Mathilde has a few books made by Volans or referencing Volans in her library. Definitely under the Magic section, probably on Sevirric theories and concepts.
 
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