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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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LadyLynn said:
Maybe The Lady like... does something like Windherding on the soul?
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Maybe it's a combination of somehow aligning the Damsel-to-be's souls towards those specific Winds and no others, and their staggeringly slowed aging (and possible timey-wimey liminal realm shenanigans) permitting them the necessary time to learn how to wield 2-3 different Lores in concert without risking Dhar.
 
On the topic of achieving High Magic, the entire thought process behind it is one that inherently buys into the Elven narrative of High Magic being the pinnacle of spellcasting and single-Wind magic being inherently lesser. There might be a way for College Wizards to technically achieve an extremely minor act of High Magic with the dedication of enough years of effort from the greatest minds in the Empire, but that's time that could be dedicated to literally anything else. It's like a velociraptor that's been told that fishing is the highest form of hunting and they're trying to figure out a way to make a fishing pole work with their little dinosaur talons, convinced that if one day they manage to hook and land a minnow they'll finally be worthy of recognition as a mighty hunter.

yeah yeah Jurassic Park got it wrong I know, pick your favourite dromaeosaurid
 
Deathbybunnies said:
What Sylvania needs is some kind of Warpstone magnet, strong enough to pull all the Warpstone (dust?) that was pumped into the ground by Vlad right up out of the ground. That sounds like the sort of thing that'd be catastrophic in the wrong hands, but aside from pulling Morrslieb out of the sky* I'm not actually sure that it would be all that dangerous in the hands of an enemy.

And then, of course, you'd need somewhere to dump all of that Warpstone. There's presumably a given quantity of Warpstone that's actually more dangerous to have lying around than opening a rift to the Warp to dump it into. Maybe throw a captured Brass Orb at it?

*Due to the tyranny of the inverse square law, you'd probably need something much more directed to manage this anyway, like a tractor beam.
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Perhaps the Far-Sea, it seems like the least inhabited part of the planet anyway? Or maybe on a rocket to the southern chaos wastes which can't get any worse anyway?
 
16 characters said:
Perhaps the Far-Sea, it seems like the least inhabited part of the planet anyway? Or maybe on a rocket to the southern chaos wastes which can't get any worse anyway?
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One of the videos or blogs about Cathay actually suggests the Far Sea is inhabited.

Didn't really go into detail, just that the Cathayan fleet interacts with many islands to their east.
 
Boney said:
On the topic of achieving High Magic, the entire thought process behind it is one that inherently buys into the Elven narrative of High Magic being the pinnacle of spellcasting and single-Wind magic being inherently lesser. There might be a way for College Wizards to technically achieve an extremely minor act of High Magic with the dedication of enough years of effort from the greatest minds in the Empire, but that's time that could be dedicated to literally anything else. It's like a velociraptor that's been told that fishing is the highest form of hunting and they're trying to figure out a way to make a fishing pole work with their little dinosaur talons, convinced that if one day they manage to hook and land a minnow they'll finally be worthy of recognition as a mighty hunter.

yeah yeah Jurassic Park got it wrong I know, pick your favourite dromaeosaurid
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The fact that we've picked Windherder but have never attempted to train our Arcane Marks feels kind of like an example of exactly this, honestly.

EDIT: The whole fixation on Ulgu tongs too, probably. I've definitely been guilty of this myself, haha.
 
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Boney said:
On the topic of achieving High Magic, the entire thought process behind it is one that inherently buys into the Elven narrative of High Magic being the pinnacle of spellcasting and single-Wind magic being inherently lesser. There might be a way for College Wizards to technically achieve an extremely minor act of High Magic with the dedication of enough years of effort from the greatest minds in the Empire, but that's time that could be dedicated to literally anything else. It's like a velociraptor that's been told that fishing is the highest form of hunting and they're trying to figure out a way to make a fishing pole work with their little dinosaur talons, convinced that if one day they manage to hook and land a minnow they'll finally be worthy of recognition as a mighty hunter.

yeah yeah Jurassic Park got it wrong I know, pick your favourite dromaeosaurid
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It's easy to forget that by canon's timeframe the Colleges of Magic have only been around for a little over two centuries. That's not a lot of time to reach the greatest heights of magical achievement, especially when you add in that each College has a relatively small number of Magisters (who in DL canon are the ones who have achieved something academically, save for journeymen that are close to taking their promotion exams). Additionally, not all Magisters are particularly academically inclined, they all have plenty of other things taking up their time, and there has been a period in which the Colleges were legally disbanded.

I'd imagine that if the Elf Wizards or Dwarf Runesmiths had only had less than 2000 members spend 200 years trying to figure out magic part-time they'd have way less to show for it, even if we give them an Ancestor God/Slann/Old One/God to teach them the basics.
 
Do pieces of warpstone contain a finite amount of magical energy within them? Like, can they be exhausted or consumed in full?

EDIT: To elaborate on where I'm going with this rather than stretch it out over several posts...

If each piece of warpstone contains a finite amount of energy within it, then it may be possible to either modify the Waystones or create an equivalent structure that can target and draw out warp energy specifically, then safely vent it. Not as some kind of direct countermeasure to warp entities or what have you, more of a long-term terraforming process designed to denature the pulverized warpstone in Sylvania's soil.

No idea if that's feasible, though, or if anyone else has suggested it (apologies if so).
 
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etranger01 said:
Do pieces of warpstone contain a finite amount of magical energy within them? Like, can they be exhausted or consumed in full?

EDIT: To elaborate on where I'm going with this rather than stretch it out over several posts...

If each piece of warpstone contains a finite amount of energy within it, then it may be possible to either modify the Waystones or create an equivalent structure that can target and draw out warp energy specifically, then safely vent it. Not as some kind of direct countermeasure to warp entities or what have you, more of a long-term terraforming process designed to denature the pulverized warpstone in Sylvania's soil.

No idea if that's feasible, though, or if anyone else has suggested it (apologies if so).
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Actual research on the matter is super illegal, but observations suggest that there is a finite amount of energy contained within it but it has a strong tendency against burning clean, so use of it results in fragments, particulate, or other waste that will still do bad things to wherever it ends up but doesn't have enough power left in it to be worth trying to extract.

What the Jades do with it is something they're pretty quiet about. On the surface level because it's Jade Order business and secretiveness is the default, but possibly also because it's Druidic in nature, or because it involves something that could be considered touching the bad magic to an unfriendly eye, or because it might involve physically collecting up all the leftover warpstone and hiding it away somewhere.
 
Boney said:
Actual research on the matter is super illegal, but observations suggest that there is a finite amount of energy contained within it but it has a strong tendency against burning clean, so use of it results in fragments, particulate, or other waste that will still do bad things to wherever it ends up but doesn't have enough power left in it to be worth trying to extract.

What the Jades do with it is something they're pretty quiet about. On the surface level because it's Jade Order business and secretiveness is the default, but possibly also because it's Druidic in nature, or because it involves something that could be considered touching the bad magic to an unfriendly eye, or because it might involve physically collecting up all the leftover warpstone and hiding it away somewhere.
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I assume gods dont want it? For any reason.

I would think solid magic would make a great sacrifice but, well it is warpstone.
 
Isn't warpstone made of Dhar? The Waystone Network should be capable of dumping it's energies back into the warp.
 
Shard said:
Isn't warpstone made of Dhar? The Waystone Network should be capable of dumping it's energies back into the warp.
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So if we managed make waystone would it be against the articles to make it so they have a slot to put captured warpstone in? That way we aren't creating Dhar we are disposing of it.
 
Boney said:
What the Jades do with it is something they're pretty quiet about. On the surface level because it's Jade Order business and secretiveness is the default, but possibly also because it's Druidic in nature, or because it involves something that could be considered touching the bad magic to an unfriendly eye, or because it might involve physically collecting up all the leftover warpstone and hiding it away somewhere.
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I don't remember: what do Dwarves do with all the stuff? All those centuries of warfare against the Skaven means the Dwarves should have gotten good and efficient with dealing with those things in the post-battle cleanup.
 
Shard said:
Isn't warpstone made of Dhar? The Waystone Network should be capable of dumping it's energies back into the warp.
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Only once burned. It'd be like asking why a mage can't directly control a power stone or an elemental like they do the Winds, it's in a different form.

Well, I say that, but then there was the whole thing where when Belegar captured Eight Peaks fully, warpstone was outright decaying off the walls. So the waystones might have a method to handle it we just don't know about, or it was only because the warpstone was in the system already.
 
zxzx24 said:
I assume gods dont want it? For any reason.

I would think solid magic would make a great sacrifice but, well it is warpstone.
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The sort of Gods that would look favourably on a sacrifice of warpstone aren't the sort of Gods you want the attention of.

Shard said:
Isn't warpstone made of Dhar? The Waystone Network should be capable of dumping it's energies back into the warp.
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If you had a way to convert the matter of warpstone into the energy of Dhar cleanly, safely, and reliably, then yes, the network would be able to take care of the rest. But the Colleges don't have a way to do that, and all indications are that it's fundamentally impossible to do anything cleanly, safely, and reliably with warpstone.

silentorphan said:
I don't remember: what do Dwarves do with all the stuff? All those centuries of warfare against the Skaven means the Dwarves should have gotten good and efficient with dealing with those things in the post-battle cleanup.
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All Mathilde knows is it gets sealed up in very sturdy containers and taken away.

Execute/Dumbo said:
Well, I say that, but then there was the whole thing where when Belegar captured Eight Peaks fully, warpstone was outright decaying off the walls. So the waystones might have a method to handle it we just don't know about, or it was only because the warpstone was in the system already.
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It fell off the walls. It didn't disintegrate or melt or get absorbed, it just fell off. Then trolls ate it.

Boney said:
In Kvinn-Wyr, Trolls that have licked and gnawed at warpstone for decades shove and scratch and bite at each other for the chance to grab fistfuls of the stuff and shove them into their slavering maws as it crumbles from walls, leaving clean, bare stone underneath.
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Execute/Dumbo said:
Only once burned. It'd be like asking why a mage can't directly control a power stone or an elemental like they do the Winds, it's in a different form.

Well, I say that, but then there was the whole thing where when Belegar captured Eight Peaks fully, warpstone was outright decaying off the walls. So the waystones might have a method to handle it we just don't know about, or it was only because the warpstone was in the system already.
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The method might even be in our captured rat books. It is just so insane that Mathilde didn't take it seriously.
 
Boney said:
If you had a way to convert the matter of warpstone into the energy of Dhar cleanly, safely, and reliably, then yes, the network would be able to take care of the rest. But the Colleges don't have a way to do that, and all indications are that it's fundamentally impossible to do anything cleanly, safely, and reliably with warpstone.
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Would it be potentially worthwhile looking into a way that the Waystones or something like them could accelerate warpstone decay? Or maybe creates a warp-aspected magical vacuum? (Would it have to be perfectly spherical?)
 
etranger01 said:
Would it be potentially worthwhile looking into a way that the Waystones or something like them could accelerate warpstone decay? Or maybe creates a warp-aspected magical vacuum? (Would it have to be perfectly spherical?)
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It would require a deep understanding of the fundamental nature of Warpstone to have any idea how to induce or accelerate warpstone decay, which is a rare thing to find in acceptable research partners.
 
zxzx24 said:
Feeding warpstone to trolls sounds like a really not good way to get rid of it.
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There is no good way to get rid of warpstone.

At least trolls appear to be able to digest warpstone, so your problem transforms from "bunch of warpstone plus gnarly troll" to "even gnarlier troll."

This is one of those cases where moving the problem does not, strictly speaking, solve the problem... but it at least gives you a new, excitingly different problem you may be better equipped to deal with.
 
Boney said:
It would require a deep understanding of the fundamental nature of Warpstone to have any idea how to induce or accelerate warpstone decay, which is a rare thing to find in acceptable research partners.
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That makes sense! It is fortunate that Skaven engineers and sorcerers are famously super warm and friendly, so we can probably just get Qrech to introduce us to one or even several.

Really glad we didn't take the Count of Sylvania option.
 
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