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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Altom said:
By the way, Maugan Ra Codex , since you have read the Turmoil, do they provide any justifications or reasons for the lore changes, the imperial provinces and fake Ghal Maraz in particular?
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I haven't read the Turmoil, I've read Archives of the Empire 1st Edition, which goes over the structure of the Empire before the Enemy Within campaign, so the Empire is split along the 1st Edition lines. A lot of it stuff from 2nd Edition and the like, so they definitely knew their stuff and did their research, something that Cubicle 7 are very good about. It's just that it inexplicably has a bunch of stuff that's off or different for the Campaign. The way it's written, it's basically always been this way.

I don't know about the Ghal Maraz plotline.
 
Altom said:
By the way, @Maugan Ra @Codex , since you have read the Turmoil, do they provide any justifications or reasons for the lore changes, the imperial provinces and fake Ghal Maraz in particular?
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The Ghal Maraz plotline is actually really interesting.

Basically the plot is that Sigmar took the real Ghal Maraz with him when he went east, and the one that the Emperors have been using since then was a replica taken up for legitimacy purposes. In 1e this was presented as a ridiculous farce done by the Cult of Sigmar for political gains, in 4e it's something that most people don't actually know - the replica is a rune weapon in its own right, and over two thousand years truth and myth have become hopelessly muddled.

In the 1e adventure your PCs are sent off after the real Ghal Maraz as... basically a plot mandated thing, the Ar-Ulric and Grand Theogonist both get divine visions that this would help to heal the divisions in the Empire and they conscript your band of adventurers into doing it for them, since you are by this time known to the Electors and proven to be reasonably competent. You actually meet Yoda at one point - an actual Dwarf Wizard who levitates about via magic inside his little cave and talks about how he met Sigmar one time.

In 4e the Emperor is being represented by a body-double at the Elector's meet, because the real Karl-Franz is badly sick. He gets into an argument with Boris Todbringer (sparked by religious schisms and a border dispute), Boris swings for him with his runefang, the "Emperor" blocks with his hammer... and the fake Ghal Maraz shatters into pieces beneath the blow.

The quest to recover the "real" Ghal Maraz is thus in 4e both far more of a longshot, because nobody knows for sure if it is even out there, and also really desperately important because the symbolic weight of "The Ulrican Elector of Middenheim broke Sigmar's Hammer in the middle of the Elector's Moot" is fucking terrifying and everyone involved is desperately suppressing the news as hard as they can because holy fuck. Hence why they are forced to rely on a bunch of deniable adventurers instead of a small army of Reiksguard.
 
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Altom said:
fake Ghal Maraz in particular?
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Codex said:
I don't know about the Ghal Maraz plotline.
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Spoilers the thing.
Long story short, on Sigmar's Last Roadtrip out the Empire, he used Ghal Maraz to seal a Changer of Ways in a hidden structure in Blackfire Pass. The hammer the Dwarfs gave "back" to the Empire some years later is therefore fake, but I'm not sure it's said what it actually is.

The CoW is actually manipulating the Purple Hand cult (or whatever they are called) to free it. The players find it, kill it, and take the hammer yo Karl, who gives them a pat on the back and then buries the incident. No idea what happens to the false Ghal, but it's probably in a deep vault.

Edit: sniped
 
Yeah the Enemy Within is an old 1st edition adventure being updated and brought forward, and this is what happened in the 1st edition so they felt the need to keep it.

Of course back in 1e Karl Franz was a senile old fool who went on a mad rant and then just up and fucking died in front of everyone in the Elector's meet, and when Boris refused to vote for his son as the next Emperor the prince starting crying, then screaming, then mutated into a horrible beast and killed both Ar-Ulric and Todbringer in a rage.
 
Altom said:
True but is has been decades of lore based on the original retcon. Undoing it now, especially given the End Times still exist seems very counterproductive
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The End Times doesn't exist for 4E. They don't care about it. It was made years after ET as part of a licensing deal with GW, who have basically given all the rights for Warhammer RPGs away to them.

If you want a justification, the justification is they wanted to update "One of the Greatest Campaigns ever written". That is literally all they wanted to do, and they brought the original writers back to do it.
 
Even discounting 1st edition, something was always up with Ghal-Maraz. Sigmar took it with him when he went into the east; in some tellings, returning it to the dwarfs was even his stated purpose for leaving. Sigmar was never seen again. And yet, Ghal-Maraz remains in use today. Nobody's under any obligation to like the explanation offered for that mystery, but the mystery itself has always been present.
 
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pucflek said:
I want an adventuring party with a good skaven so bad. A skaven mad scientist except his plot isn't to blow up this or that dwarf hold but Horned rat instead.

Or an escaped storm vermin who moonlights as a hedge knight from Bretonnia who took a vow to never reveal his visage and actually has blessing of The Lady. That would be hilarious.

(I have actually already got married to the second idea and now it is my firm conviction that one such as that actually exists and i refuse to relinquish it).
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A whole party of secret good Skaven, all hiding their identities from each other.

Hell, you might even be able to incorporate some Skaven numerology, where everyone knows that someone else is secretly a Skaven (and it's different for each member), but not that everyone is a Skaven.
 
Codex said:
I don't mind that plot point in general, I just don't like it being ascribed to Karl Franz, the guy who instituted Window Taxes in his home city and sent the Reiksguard to trample rioters. Karl Franz isn't a good guy, he's a ruthlessly practical person who only does stuff if it provides clear benefits. He is described as one of the best statesman in the history of the Empire. Unilaterally passing such a ridiculously unpopular law because he had a change of heart doesn't strike me as in-character.

I say this as someone who does want mutants to be given a chance. I'm just not sure if it's Karl Franz who's supposed to give it to them.
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True, but I admit I got a soft spot for Franz.

This is me rambling off in a completely different direction here. But in the games our tabletop group runs for WHF. We actually ran with the idea that Karl Franz was able to get support for a law like this. It opened up a lot of fun options for characters in this setting. I for instance got to play a gangster with four arms(actually got art of her made) and she frequently quick drawed four pistols at the same time. That campaign was incredible and the GM was very good at what they did.

So my words to any future GMs. Give that lore change a try and you'll get more fun characters from your players.
 
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MiracleGrow said:
True, but I admit I got a soft spot for Franz.

This is me rambling off in a completely different direction here. But in the games our tabletop group runs for WHF. We actually ran with the idea that Karl Franz was able to get support for a law like this. It opened up a lot of fun options for characters in this setting. I for instance got to play a gangster with four arms(actually got art of her made) and she frequently quick drawed four pistols at the same time. That campaign was incredible and the GM was very good at what they did.

So my words to any future GMs. Give that lore change a try and you'll get more fun characters from your players.
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The beauty of RPGs comes from creative freedom. The books are a suggestion. As long as everybody at the table is having fun, you've won at the game. I would probably play a different setting if my players wanted to play a bunch of cool mutants, but I don't see any issues with playing around with it in WHF if that's the game you want.
 
Codex said:
The beauty of RPGs comes from creative freedom. The books are a suggestion. As long as everybody at the table is having fun, you've won at the game. I would probably play a different setting if my players wanted to play a bunch of cool mutants, but I don't see any issues with playing around with it in WHF if that's the game you want.
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As it turns out, out of the five people in each camapign. It's usually only one or two each time who opt for mutant stuff. So it is never the entire party. WHF 4e offers that nice crunchy and dangerous combat our group likes with a decent amount of fantasy sprinkled in. We played Zweihander a decent amount before and that's like beating yourself in the head with a club.

WHF has that nice setting that is stupid easy to tweak into a setting that works for the group. Kinda like pathfinders Glorian setting.
 
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CrimsonOddball said:
Edict of Tolerance
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It's a little different in 4e. It takes place in 2512 IC and the exact text is substantially different. This is the 4e edict:

Dark as Silver said:
Ah are the evil anti!chaos gods of order back?
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Solkan is back in 4e and he's gonna be one of the focuses of the next book, but I think the term "Law God" is absent. I believe he's just another god now, though still bad.

Mopman43 said:
You and the rest of the fandom.
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I actually like acknowledging 3e because it had the best art in all of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It was really nice to see it when I was going through the books.

Maugan Ra said:
Basically the plot is that Sigmar took the real Ghal Maraz with him when he went east, and the one that the Emperors have been using since then was a replica taken up for legitimacy purposes. In 1e this was presented as a ridiculous farce done by the Cult of Sigmar for political gains, in 4e it's something that most people don't actually know - the replica is a rune weapon in its own right, and over two thousand years truth and myth have become hopelessly muddled.
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Just to add a little bit of info here for the 4e replica, but it was never a deception. At the start, it was openly known it was a replica, that it was meant to be a spiritual successor to the real thing. There wasn't a conspiracy to hide its true nature as with the skaven, it was just slowly forgotten.

MiracleGrow said:
I for instance got to play a gangster with four arms(actually got art of her made)
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That's really cool art and she looks like a really cool character! Can I ask who the artist is?

MiracleGrow said:
So my words to any future GMs. Give that lore change a try and you'll get more fun characters from your players.
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Something you might like to know, but that Mutant Edict in 4e? Might still be in effect. To my knowledge, the book explicitly says the edict was rescinded in only one of the campaign's endings, and that ending isn't the true ending.
 
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K von Carstein said:
Lupin teaches DADA so I can see why he would be Light, but wouldn't Sirius be another Bright?
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Eeeeeh maybe? I was trying to lean into his wolf form, and connection to Dementors, but Bright make more sense if he's a subversion of a typical "Black"

Edit: Oh I also wanted to spread them out a bit, otherwise they would just all be Amber Wizards
 
Dragonofelder said:
Eeeeeh maybe? I was trying to lean into his wolf form, and connection to Dementors, but Bright make more sense if he's a subversion of a typical "Black"

Edit: Oh I also wanted to spread them out a bit, otherwise they would just all be Amber Wizards
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So to continue the trend Dumbledore would be a Celestial, Hermione Gold, Harry and Ron Brights, Snape Grey, Voldy an ex-Amethyst turned Black Magister and Bellatrix a Slaaneshi sorceress (because torture).
 
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