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Unless a wog says otherwise this seems to miss the point of the original poster's point maybe. The Rune of Valaya in Karaz a Karak as I understand it in this universe is what confers the metaphysical protection necesarry for Dwarfs to survive above ground post Cataclysm. And that the Rune seems to do this through the ritual involving the consumption of stone soup every Dwarf child goes through. If the Norse Dwarfs practiced it as well, then theyd also be conferred that same protection? In which case the High King could theoretically notice the population discrepancy and drain depending on how much info Azamar gives him. Which is what I think the original poster was saying?

Even if the northern holds dont supply power to the south theyd still be using if they follow that practice like the New Holds do.

Then again I could be mistaken about DLs dwarf canon.
The Norse Dwarves and the Karaz Ankor broke contact during the Coming of Chaos, right? The Waystone network that powers the Throne of Power and all the connected artifacts must necessarily postdate that, so I assume that the southern dwarfholds developed the network in concert with their new elven allies and implemented the Rune of Valaya-based protection upon them and the Norse Dwarves came up with something else. This would go a long way to explaining why the Karaz Ankor was so certain the North was lost, because the solution they implemented was obviously unavailable to their northern cousins, and so they'd conclude that the Norse dwarves not lost in the actual attacks would have undoubtedly petrified from the new hostility of the world to the Dawi.
 
The Norse Dwarves and the Karaz Ankor broke contact during the Coming of Chaos, right? The Waystone network that powers the Throne of Power and all the connected artifacts must necessarily postdate that, so I assume that the southern dwarfholds developed the network in concert with their new elven allies and implemented the Rune of Valaya-based protection upon them and the Norse Dwarves came up with something else. This would go a long way to explaining why the Karaz Ankor was so certain the North was lost, because the solution they implemented was obviously unavailable to their northern cousins, and so they'd conclude that the Norse dwarves not lost in the actual attacks would have undoubtedly petrified from the new hostility of the world to the Dawi.
You bungled the timeline I think? The Great Rune of Valaya has no set creation date I believe? And from the Thorgrim Interlude, I believe the implication is that the Waystones were used to REPLACE the power source of the Great Works. Emphasis here.
Which in turn would power the Great Works left behind by the Ancestor-Gods.
Which to me, implies the Great Rune of Valaya, and its Protections, predates the separation of the Norse Dwarfs. There was a centuries-long interim between the gates breaking and the vortex being raised where Daemons ran amock if my reading of the timeline is right. Its probably during this period, when the Ancestors are active and have an actual need for something to protect their people from the altered influence of the world, that the Great Rune was made. Either the Rune was powered by the high levels of ambient magic pre vortex but post-gate collapse, or some other more esoteric source is up in the air, but the Karak Waystones come AFTER the Great Works from how I read this as whatever powered them originally was no longer available.

This leaves the key issue I think, did the Norse Dwarfs benefit from the Rune of Valaya's protections or did they have their own defences? Again it's up the air, and is clearly dependent on a bunch of factors, but I think its the former. One question we have to ask is whether they got cut off before or after the Rune was made, which is debatable as the codex only says that a tide of daemons swept over their lands and cut them off from the southern Holds IIRC, but like I said there's a centuries-long interim between the polar gates collapsing and the Vortex being made.

Secondly, and more oddly, is whether the Rune of Valaya pre-dates or postdates the Stone Soup ritual itself. Follow me and consider this. If the Rune piggybacks off of an existing Dwarf practice for inducting a newborn into the Clan (which I think makes the most sense, since it saves a lot of work to implement on an already tradition-based people) then the Norse Dwarfs would more likely be protected by the Rune and therefore draw on its power. If the Stone Soup ritual was made in tandem with the Rune or shortly after, then it becomes dependent on the earlier question. So while I do agree the North doesn't have a Waystone Network, I think this certainty could possibly be more a limitation of Azamar's information readouts as well? Hard to say from the readout, but arguably having an accurate real-time pop count would be mentioned with everything else. we're just told Norn is seen as a Drain, but not how.

All in all....idk why Im debating this actually.

EDIT: AHA! Lore that supports my theory I think!

Thinking to harness the greater magical energy found in the north near the Chaos Wastes, many of these Dwarfs moved into the northern reaches of the World's Edge Mountains until they came to Zorn Uzkul,
This, to me, must mean that the Norse Dwarfs separated post-Gate Collapse. No I do concede this segment,
The Norse Dwarfs never truly were called such a name when they first setup their holds within the Norscan mountains. Indeed, for during this time before the Coming of Chaos, these Dwarfs still considered themselves of the same kin to their brothers from the south. Yet as the storm broke, Grungni's messengers reached their northern brethren just about as the warp gates began collapsing. When the northern Dwarfs had emerged from their sealed mines, they found themselves surrounded by the beasts of Chaos and cut off from their southern kin. A few expeditions tried to find a route to the southern strongholds, but they were forced back each time. For now, the Chaos forces seem to be concentrating on spreading southward, and paid little attention the Dwarfs in their midst. Knowing that this situation could not last, the Dwarfs bolstered their fortifications, and waited.[1a]

The attack, when it came, was fierce. The outlying forts were overrun, but each did their part slowing the Chaos juggernaut. The retreating Dwarf warriors swelled the ranks of the defenders in the main forts further north. Hold by hold, battle by battle, the forces of Chaos were weakened and slowed. The war dragged on for years, with neither side gaining the upper hand. Then, one night, an unusually powerful storm unleashed its fury on the combatants, driving all into shelter. The next morning, under clearing skies, the Dwarfs had found that the foul creatures of Chaos had retreated from their gates. Scouting parties found little trace of their enemy except a handful of isolated warbands, which were quickly eliminated. Farther south, however, the Dwarfs found mighty warbands and many twisted creatures of Chaos standing between them and the Old World; they were safe for now, but still isolated.
Could imply otherwise. But! The former quote is from 2nd Ed Tome of Corruption apparently, which is more canonical to the quest IIRC, while this one is from 1st Ed Stone and Steel.
 
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You bungled the timeline I think? The Great Rune of Valaya has no set creation date I believe? And from the Thorgrim Interlude, I believe the implication is that the Waystones were used to REPLACE the power source of the Great Works. Emphasis here.
Sure, but in absence of knowledge that North has enough raw magic to actually power their Runes without the waystone network (which is a big if), the High Kings of the time would still be left with assumption that their Valaya runes failed because they did not have the alternative power source, and thus surely must be dead.

The rest of the analysis is pretty cool, i just don't think it really necessarily pertains to what Pickle and whoever it is that started off the talk was about in the first place.
 
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Sure, but in absence of knowledge that North has enough raw magic to actually power their Runes without the waystone network (which is a big if), the High Kings of the time would still be left with assumption that their Valaya runes failed because they did not have the alternative power source, and thus surely must be dead.

The rest of the analysis is pretty cool, i just don't think it really necessarily pertains to what Pickle and whoever it is that started off the talk was about in the first place.

If the Norse Dwarves benefited from the Rune of Valaya's protection as soulcake postulates, that should be a noticeable drain on the High King's 4X readout, especially during the Golden Age when there weren't any other 'New Holds' that sucked power without returning it.

The rune of valaya doesn't need to be powered by the Norse Dwarves if they were piggybacking off the original Rune in KaK.
 
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If the Norse Dwarves benefited from the Rune of Valaya's protection as soulcake postulates, that should be a noticeable drain on the High King's 4X readout, especially during the Golden Age when there weren't any other 'New Holds' that sucked power without returning it.

The rune of valaya doesn't need to be powered by the Norse Dwarves if they were piggybacking off the original Rune in KaK.
That would require they were not severed from the flow in its entirety. Its a lot of theorycrafting that does not yet have any support except the implications raised by "why has no High King ever noticed this". Considering that there haven't really been any total dunces of High Kings, one of them would in those nearly 7 millenia. Ergo the connection could not have possibly held out.
 
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So uh. There's a recollection of a drunkpost last night that I may have made, and I was kinda proud of my idea at the time? Sorry. Not sorry. Anyway.

Just to be sure that my idea wouldn't be useful in any circumstances @Boney, would you mind confirming the following:

Via wayshards (or some other method, I suppose) does Mathilde believe she (or the project as a whole) can find the location of the endpoints/tributary stones/waystones that use the Earthmagic channel method described in the latest partial updoot?

---
I ask because if your answer is no, I'll be invested enough to present my idea on how I think those Earthmagic-channels might be found (edited for shortness and clarity, with ms paint diagrams :p), but if the answer is yes; then there's no point :).

(Also, I used the term 'gravitational lensing' in my post, 'cuz you said stars, but... no. No lensing in my actual idea. That should have been deleted)
 
Via wayshards (or some other method, I suppose) does Mathilde believe she (or the project as a whole) can find the location of the endpoints/tributary stones/waystones that use the Earthmagic channel method described in the latest partial updoot?

She currently has no way to find Belthani tributaries or anything that functions similarly, but I don't understand why she might need to develop a way to do so.
 
She currently has no way to find Belthani tributaries or anything that functions similarly, but I don't understand why she might need to develop a way to do so.
Oh. I had the vague idea that it might be useful somehow to know where they are/be able to map them, but now you mention it... no utility springs to mind. Nm then :).
 
The entire point of the Waystone Project being a group activity is that Mathilde is not obliged to personally confirm literally everything. Cadaeth, the person whose entire job it is to grow tributaries, says that the only significant difference between the operation of the Belthani stones and the Lornalim is in the depth they operate from, and the Belthani stones taking advantage of the tendency for leyines to form and flow easier along cardinal directions easily accounts for those differences. The information Mathilde has available to her agrees with that, so job done, box ticked, mystery solved, the project can move on. Mathilde does not personally have to go out there with a shovel and dig a leyline up unless she has reason to doubt the original hypothesis, and doing so will be taking time away from her contributing to translating Anoqeyan and deciding whether the naughty stones need to be destroyed or confiscated.
I wasn't actually thinking about tributaries, which I agree would be pointless, I was thinking of the Leylines between actual Waystones, which I don't believe have been covered yet? Of course, if you tell me that there's no difference between the two then there's no point.
 
I wasn't actually thinking about tributaries, which I agree would be pointless, I was thinking of the Leylines between actual Waystones, which I don't believe have been covered yet? Of course, if you tell me that there's no difference between the two then there's no point.

It's not impossible that digging up the leyline might result in it continuing completely undisturbed through thin air and allowing everyone to inspect it without obstruction and at their leisure, but there are other potential results and many of them could be considered negative.
 
I'd also since come up with the idea of borrowing a submarine from Barak Varr to take a look at it flowing through the sea, but if the QM says we already know anything it'd tell us then it's again pointless.
I think we need a really good reason to borrow one of those for anything... Remember we don't have any favours with Barak varr and our dwaven contributers also don't have anything with them except a bit of trade. a submarine is probably even more a military assets then a gyrocopter and we only got that through a big favour.
 
Apologies if this feels like a rehashing of other discussions, I just wanted to collate our metaphysical puzzle pieces so far, and put out a couple questions for future turns/action plans. I feel like we have some important corner pieces, and half of the colors of the box picture. And that's pretty good!
I don't think that you are rehashing other discussions and I'm all for nailing down our understanding of how winds behave. I have some comments on this specific section.
The Vortex*1 > Nexuses > Waystones > Leylines > Tributaries*2 > Dhar*3 > Enchanted Objects > Resonant Objects >*4 - Stone
Regarding the Vortex:
"Why push or pull when there's something at hand that will do it for you? Dhar wants to return from whence it came, and it pulls on the other Winds. If you add one other Wind it'll just get sucked into the Dhar which is counterproductive if you want to make use of that Wind elsewhere, but if you have at least two you can set them up in a stable diametric orbit, as they repel each other exactly as much as the Dhar attracts them."
If I'm getting Sarvoi right, he's saying that Dhar - not the winds in general, Dhar specifically - is pulled towards the Vortex. The eight winds are pulled towards Dhar, so if you get some Dhar on route to the Vortex any wind you throw at it will come along on the ride, but it's not clear to me that the winds on their own are pulled towards the Vortex and I think the implication is that they aren't.

Regarding tributaries:
There's not even anything to corrupt like there are with Waystones, the magical inflow is through the natural tendency of earthbound energies to seek equilibrium.
Two things I want to note here. The first is that tributaries specifically handle earthbound magic, and while that's just small amounts of winds it does have a different nature from the winds, the most crucial of which is that there aren't eight flavours of earthbound magic that repel each other and that turn to Dhar if they are forced to stick together (I think, anyway). This will naturally lead to very different behaviours.
The second thing is just to reiterate what you pointed out in your asterisk, this appears to just be magic flowing into a vacuum. Earthbound magic is seemingly drawn to tributaries only in the sense that smoke in a smoke filled room is drawn to an open window, or that water is drawn to a sink. The interesting part of the tributaries isn't how they draw their magic, it's how they send it forward.

I also don't think we understand enough about the network to really make a hierarchy of wind attractiveness. Are winds attracted more to Waystones than to Dhar, for example? How would we ever determine this? It makes sense to say that Dhar attracts winds exactly as much as they repel each other, because we can compare amounts of Dhar and winds, but how many strands of Dhar are equal to a Waystone? If it takes 1000 strands - or whatever units you use for winds - of Dhar to pull on a wind as much as a Waystone, is Dhar more or less attractive than a Waystone? I'm also not sure that winds are drawn to leylines at all, it seems that they flow more easily through them but that's not the same as being attracted to them (though I imagine we'll get an answer to this and other questions when we see the results of the leylines research action).
 
I wasn't actually thinking about tributaries, which I agree would be pointless, I was thinking of the Leylines between actual Waystones, which I don't believe have been covered yet? Of course, if you tell me that there's no difference between the two then there's no point.
There is also the possibility that digging that deep would disrupt them, perhaps even permanently at worst so... not really a great idea.

"Oh look, a power cable, lets poke it with excavator"
 
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Why can Ghyran be pulled out of/sourced from stone, as in that scene where Mathilde told Pan how she finds a big Magic stat attractive? (surface-exposed stone??)
The reason for this is that the Karaks themselves are Waystones. It's part of why Belegar didn't want Mathilde to mess around with the local Waystone network in Karak Eight Peaks even if the project was based there. The entire mountain serves as a Waystone, and so Panoramia can draw Ghyran from anywhere in it as long as she has a connection to the conductive stone.
 
It's a cultural copy paste from when Scandinavians started colonizing the British Isles and proved quite enticing to the local women since they engaged in actual hygiene, which IIRC was out of vogue at the time for what I'm sure were stupid reasons. Outside of that context it doesn't really work, medieval Europe had a very well established bathing culture that only fell by the wayside when Victorian era puritans railed against bathhouses as dens of sin but still wanted to feel superior to the 'dark ages' so depicted the people of that era as even less clean.
I read on the topic before. The Roman Empire loved the shit out of their baths and built them everywhere, which made hygiene economical and enjoyable. However, such places were often associated with the sex trade and other forms of decadence, which made them unpopular with Church authorities.

As maintenance got worse however, bathhouses became disease ridden easily, as warm and wet environments where lots of people washed together spread diseases and fungal infections easily. This made it easy for prexisting dislike for public baths as dens of sin to be pushed and then expanded to a distaste for washing too often.

Couple that to the amount of work needed to draw and heat water to have a bath and you can see how it fell out of vogue.
 
So I've been thinking about the Belthani stones and well... even assuming the stars align and the Jades can make them with just the lore they have with the aid of the Earth Mother I do not think we can do it that way. It probably needs human sacrifice right and it needs said sacrifice right there on the stone, the tributary, of which there is need all across the Empire and beyond. We might be able to keep one or two instances of human sacrifice quiet out in the boonies, but doing so for dozens, scores is a bridge too far. All the more so when you consider how it is likely to play out if reveled.

We need to understand how the stones work and then reproduce them without human sacrifice.
 
Unless a wog says otherwise this seems to miss the point of the original poster's point maybe. The Rune of Valaya in Karaz a Karak as I understand it in this universe is what confers the metaphysical protection necesarry for Dwarfs to survive above ground post Cataclysm. And that the Rune seems to do this through the ritual involving the consumption of stone soup every Dwarf child goes through. If the Norse Dwarfs practiced it as well, then theyd also be conferred that same protection? In which case the High King could theoretically notice the population discrepancy and drain depending on how much info Azamar gives him. Which is what I think the original poster was saying?

Even if the northern holds dont supply power to the south theyd still be using if they follow that practice like the New Holds do.

Then again I could be mistaken about DLs dwarf canon.
I swear there's WoB that the Norse Dwarfs have a different practice for protecting their holds, but I'm not having much luck finding it.

@picklepikkl?
 
So I've been thinking about the Belthani stones and well... even assuming the stars align and the Jades can make them with just the lore they have with the aid of the Earth Mother I do not think we can do it that way. It probably needs human sacrifice right and it needs said sacrifice right there on the stone, the tributary, of which there is need all across the Empire and beyond. We might be able to keep one or two instances of human sacrifice quiet out in the boonies, but doing so for dozens, scores is a bridge too far. All the more so when you consider how it is likely to play out if reveled.

We need to understand how the stones work and then reproduce them without human sacrifice.
We don't actually know that human sacrifice is required; it might be, but there's other explanations for a single image of a person lying on an altar.

Even if it does, we've still got two more kinds of tributary to examine. I expect our final solution to be a mashup of all three.
 
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