The Alter Kindred can be, but it's part time for them.
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.
The Alter Kindred can be, but it's part time for them.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
There is one exception made to this rule if that Bray was born as a Gave, since the 'gift from the gods' aspect supersedes not having horns.
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
This is all I can find on them:
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warhammer-fantasy.obsidianportal.com
Showcase: Wood Elves Alter Kindred Hero » Tale of Painters
This is the first character model in the showcase series of my winter themed Wood Elves. The rumors hint that the kindred system is being removed and replaced with straight themed character choices that fit those roles. Either way is fine by me and we’ll...
taleofpainters.com
This....er looks like completely fandom based stuff? Do you have a canon source you can quote at me in a fair use sort of way?
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I know this is confusing, but Bray Shamans are not Brays, they have Horns:
Well, stealing a bunch of norscan monuments does sound like a good time. They'd probably have to go in the extra restricted section though.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They exist in 6th Edition Wood Elves as part of the Kindred options. They were not included in 8th Edition.This is all I can find on them:
Obsidian Portal - Campaign websites for Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop RPGs
Obsidian Portal enables you to create campaign websites for tabletop roleplaying games. Better manage your group and your campaign, and have a better game.Showcase: Wood Elves Alter Kindred Hero » Tale of Painters
This is the first character model in the showcase series of my winter themed Wood Elves. The rumors hint that the kindred system is being removed and replaced with straight themed character choices that fit those roles. Either way is fine by me and we’ll...
This....er looks like completely fandom based stuff? Do you have a canon source you can quote at me in a fair use sort of way?
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oh...well I can understand ignoring ''soft retcon'' type stuff like that, if a source doesn't explicitly contradict or directly overule, considering it canon doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
Hence why I still talk about Necron Pariahs in 40k discussions now and then.
EDIT:
Hence why I still talk about Necron Pariahs in 40k discussions now and then.
EDIT:
To be clear thank you for updating me!
Without getting too deep into concrete turn plans (because I think it will just get lost in the shuffle of thread discussion and I'll have to post everything again when the turn votes approaches) I'll just like to note that the text is very explicit about needing to learn Nehekharan for the scrolls:
And it also seems we'll need it for the notes, which are also in Nehekharan:
This is partly why I want our third Waystone action (I agree about tributaries and the Reikland nexus) to be Runes. Best case scenario, we find out that there's value in Egrimm learning Nehekharan and we can do it through a WEB-MAT action, but even if we don't this action has a chance of telling us if there's any value for the Waystone project in Mathilde learning Nehekharan, which would better inform us as to whether or not it's worth the AP in the near future.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
This feels like something of a non-sequitur, since I was talking about Gaves (Beastman children born to regular human parents and abandoned in the woods), not Bray Shamans.I know this is confusing, but Bray Shamans are not Brays, they have Horns:
They're called Bray Shamans because they lead the Brayherd, and the Brayherd is the term used to refer to the collective of Beastmen, regardless of Brays.
Oh, and another exception exists for Turnskins of any phenotype of Beastman, since they all get looked down on regardless of how big their horns are.
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Perhaps the Laurelorn diplo actions should be counted as a "research" thing as well?
It is in the same ballpark of sorta needing a few AP and we get a payoff of knowledge and ability.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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- She/Her
Uh, wow. I have no idea why my brain just made up that you said Bray Shaman and not just Brays. I was so sure you said it. Not even the first time I see something that isn't there. Sorry about that.
I'm wary about training Egrimm in Nehekeran because Boney said he'd find it tedious and dull. Learning it for the Waystone project might be of value—except we already have a light order specialist who is familiar with Nehekeran.
It's the Max and powerstones thing all over again.
That'll be something to debate properly when making turn plans however.
The original draft of my comment did include Diplo actions such as Laurelorn and language learning, but I cut it because it seemed to be taking too much space.
That's not what Boney said:
Learning Nehekharan is a big ask so we shouldn't do it just because "maybe it will come in handy", but it is absolutely fine to do if there's a clear reason. Which is exactly why I want to look into Runes, which may well provide said reason.
And maybe it won't! Possibly we take the Runes action and we find out that the Light Order is no help at all, or that Elrisse has it covered, but it's not impossible that it'll turn out that Egrimm could be of assistance if only he learns Nehekharan. Yes, Elrisse already know Nehekharan, but Egrimm is an enchanter while Elrisse isn't which is significant as the use of runes is an enchanting technique, and in addition Elrisse is also the porter of the Light Order while Egrimm works for us full-time which means that he'll have more time to dedicate to the study of any Nehekharan texts the Light Order might have.
I really don't like the comparison to Max and the powerstones, which was a very obvious case of the thread attempting to shoehorn a WEB-MAT action for the sake of the action economy with no reasonable in-quest justification. Having Egrimm learn Nehekharan when he's a member of the Order whose main contribution to the project is Nehekharan lore is not the same at all.
Fair enough, I'd misunderstood the original statement. In that case learning Nehekeran through Egrimm is a valid action to take, should the Rune study require it.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I am very tired due to no sleep and I 100% interpreted "do the nut with Panoramia" in a very different way for a second there.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
Hear me out here. First, we rescue Tusky Stompers the Wonder Mammoth. Then we feed it the Nut to see what happens.
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Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A squirrel eating an Acorn from the Oak of Ages became big enough that it took multiple Asrai Glades working together to take it down. I don't want to think what would happen if you gave it to a Mammoth, since they're already considerably scarier than most Warhammer monsters (their Monstrous Arcanum stats are absurd, but to be fair it was a Chaos Mammoth).Hear me out here. First, we rescue Tusky Stompers the Wonder Mammoth. Then we feed it the Nut to see what happens.
On the other hand, I don't really like the squirrel story. It feels like a joke that the writers threw in, because it kind of throws so many things out of order within the universe's internal balance. If a Squirrel could do that much damage with a single Acorn, you have to wonder why the Asrai never used it offensively, even when the world was literally ending around them. Not to mention how much it strains the suspension of disbelief that the Forest needed Elves to protect it when it produces these terrors.
But hey, that's what happens when you look too deeply into something that is clearly supposed to be a joke.
(This is probably the point where someone replies to me explaining how everything can be explained away using this special narrative trick in order to maintain universal consistency.)
Turn 39 Social - 2489 - Part 3
When you had been told there was going to be some sort of diplomatic soiree in the anterooms of the Silver Tower that you were invited to attend as a representative of the Empire, you had a few guesses as to what it may be about. Those guesses needed substantial revising after a Druchii Ravenship sailed up the Schaukel and docked at the city, flying three flags depicting an eye, a pegasus, and a hydra, and in doing so attracting only a few curious onlookers and a greeting delegation rather than a raising of the alarm. You send sketches of its flags to the Grey Order with an urgent request for information, and though the response is prompt, it's also scanter than you'd like. You're told that the flags represent three of the six major city-states of Naggaroth: Ghrond, the headquarters of the order of Sorceresses and domain of the Queen Mother of the Druchii, Hag Graef, the city atop a sprawling network of mines and quarries that make it second only to the capital in wealth and power, and Clar Karond, the shipyard and breadbasket of Naggaroth. Notable by their absence are the other three flags: the clutched moon of the capital Naggarond is missing, suggesting that this is either unofficial or a gambit of the Queen Mother, rather than the King, and that the bloody heart of the Khainite stronghold of Har Ganeth and the harpy of the Corsair capital of Karond Kar are absent suggests that those present could be as reasonable as the Druchii are capable of being, since they left the fanatics and the slavers at home.
What the letter does not tell you is that you're authorized to speak on behalf of the Empire in such a gathering. Such trust was already granted to you when you were given the role of Lady Magister, and needs not be restated, even if it would be comforting to hear it now. You're painfully aware that what little reading you've done of material concerning the Druchii are very unlikely to be applicable to the coming challenges. Though you know you have nowhere near enough time to actually do it, you mentally run through the contacts and funds you could have taken advantage of to secure all the written knowledge of the Druchii to be found in the Old World and yearn for more time. Then you set that yearning aside, make sure your robes are neat and clean - not for the first time, you thank all the Gods that the robes of office of a Lady Magister count as formal dress - and do your best to spend the mere days before the gathering productively.
---
By the time of the gathering itself, you've calmed down a bit and gotten your thoughts in order. While the Druchii are reprehensible in practically every respect, from an entirely Imaschiavellian perspective they can be considered to be mostly someone else's problem. Though their corsairs do periodically visit the coasts of the Empire, such coastlines are already thoroughly preyed upon by the Norscans, so what little infrastructure and what few population centres exist on that coastline are either fortified well enough to make any raid on them more trouble than its worth, or so minor that their loss is hardly noticed. Their only other direct impact on the Empire is in the form of piracy, and with them competing for prey with the Norscans, the pirates of Sartosa, the corsairs of Lashiek and Al-Haikk, the zombie pirates of the Vampire Coast, and the fleets of the Skaven and the Chaos Dwarves, it's hard to say whether their absence from that motley pack would reduce the total amount of piracy or simply result in a greater share of the plunder for everyone else. The overwhelming majority of their attention is focused on their millennia-long internecine war with Ulthuan, and there are those in the Old World who would argue that keeping the Asur distracted is to the Empire's benefit. After all, the Druchii never lent military support to a breakaway state of the Empire.
You're greeted at the door by a servant that leads you to the Queen, and you ask her what brings the Druchii here. "Yourself, of course," she says, smiling mischievously at your look of shock. "Indirectly, that is. Even if they knew about it, I doubt they'd have any interest in the Waystone Project for its own sake. They have sufficient skill with Dhar to make use of all that is available, rather than needing infrastructure to whisk it away. But if Ulthuan has a foothold in the Old World, then they'll want one too, if only to keep tabs on what Ulthuan is up to and to watch for opportunities to interfere with it... but I digress. In truth, since we're working with humans, there was no reason for us not to also put out feelers to the two claimants of the Phoenix Throne to see if we can play them against each other. The board between them has been stalemated for so long that the introduction of even a minor piece is one that either could be tempted into paying handsomely for."
"You think they might be convinced to contribute to the Project just to spite Ulthuan?"
"I'll leave whether the opportunity is given to them up to you, but I think they'd do literally anything to spite Ulthuan. And in this specific scenario, there'd be no downside for them. If everything goes according to plan, then they can parlay that into countering Ulthuan's influence and interests in the Old World. If something goes wrong, then it creates problems that Ulthuan has to fix, because it's Ulthuan that's most directly dependent on the integrity of the Great Vortex. And in either case it has a good chance of widening the rift between Ulthuan and the Empire, which is something they'd delight in all on its own. But what they're formally here for is the more prosaic forms of trade while we dance about the possibility of endorsing one candidate or the other. There's few Elven societies that wouldn't pay a premium for novel luxuries, of which we've developed many over the years, and the Druchii have an endless hunger for new kinds of beasts. We won't be shipping off any Unicorns or Great Stags, of course, but there's less salubrious inhabitants of the darker corners of Laurelorn, and Boris has said he'd be more than happy for our hunters to scour the Drakwald." She opens her mouth to continue, and then halts mid-step, staring through an archway into a room filled with buzzing conversation, her face falling. "Oh no, it's Uncle Harathi. Sorry, I have to handle this."
You have barely a moment to process this before she's gone, and with her gone you are now vulnerable and are ensnared by a nearby conversation. There is a set of physics at work in gatherings like this that you're helpless to fight against once you're this engulfed, and do your best to tread conversational water as the currents and eddies of the soiree pull you to and fro, and before long you find yourself drawn towards one of the three guests and the apparent leader of the Druchii delegation, who has just topped up her drink and wrapped up a conversation as you reach her with such ease that it's only her smirk that tells you that it was no accident. Dreadlord Ylrishen of Hag Graef - you managed to pick the name up while circulating - is dressed in ornate black full plate armour trimmed with gold, as well as a purple cloak and at least five knives. Her long white hair reaches down to the back of her knees - presumably in battle it would be tied up under her helmet, which she isn't currently wearing - and the clawed gauntlets she is wearing must make her careful holding of a crystal goblet rather difficult. Her face is starkly attractive in an intimidating sort of way, all smooth skin and sharp angles, and rather than the aloof superiority that you might expect from such a woman, her gaze is surprisingly intense as she studies you, as though trying to decide whether you'd make better prey or product.
"Greetings, Sorceress," she says to you, her voice an amused and aristocratic drawl with a hint of roughness.
"And to you, Dreadlord Ylrishen."
She looks you up and down, eyes flicking from your shadow to the shadows and wisps of smoke clinging to you. "Fascinating. You humans really do take every scrap of magical knowledge you get your hands on and wring it to the last morsel, don't you? A pity the usurpers got to you before we did, who knows what you might have accomplished with better instruction."
"And what would have been the price of that tutoring?" you ask, in a voice that could technically be considered polite.
She tuts. "Nothing beyond your Empire's capacity to withstand. Don't let the usurpers mislead you, cruelty is just one of the many blades that we masterfully wield."
"And one, it seems, that would need regular rehoning."
She smiles, making no attempt to disagree. "It is a fundamental truth of this world that all civilization is paid for in suffering." She angles her glass to catch the light of a nearby sconce. "All forms of governance are means of dictating who it is that will do that suffering. So many object to the Druchii because we freely admit that which they invent entire realms of philosophy to try to conceal. Tell me, would you take the life of a Goblin to save the life of a human of the Empire?"
"Of course," you say.
"What about a Goblin that did not directly threaten the life of a human, but was raiding their farmland and thus would starve them to death in the long term?"
"I do see where you're going with this."
"Then you see that there is only logistical differences between the slaying of a Goblin raider to save a human from starvation, and the enslaving of a human to feed the Druchii. And by embracing the truth of the matter, we have been able to greatly increase the efficiency of the transferral of suffering, so that the maximum value is extracted from each slave, minimizing the total number of beings that need suffer - for reasons of cost rather than morality, I'll grant you, but the effect is the same."
"The Greenskins I've combatted have been those in a state of war with the Empire or its allies, though," you say, though you see the counterpoint coming before you even finish the sentence.
"All of them? Every single one? Or do you simply assume that is the case because it so often is, and act accordingly? The overwhelming majority of experiences that the Druchii have with humans is defending our northern border from the Hung and the Dorstan, and our coasts from the Norscans. If this has led us to assume that all the humans of the Great Ocean are offshoots of these, then it is a mistake that the righteous Asur also made until a mere couple of centuries ago, and it is one we have a lot more shed blood to justify. Entire cities in Naggaroth exist solely as a bulwark against the northern tribes." She takes a sip of her drink, then looks mildly surprised and gives it a curious look. "And despite all that, here we are, seeking a cure to our ignorance and rebuilt ties with our lost kin. We have taken no states of the Empire as vassals, we have sent no Sorceresses against your armies. Let our actions prove our superiority to the Asur, rather than letting their poisoned whispers doom us to an eternity of enmity simply because they got to you first."
You give the appearance of thinking over her words as you resist the urge to narrow your eyes at the Dreadlord, and then you take a breath and actually think over her words. The cruelty and brutality of the Druchii are legendary, but if they were all entirely true, then they would describe a society that could not exist for more than a few decades, let alone the millennia of apparent stability it's achieved. Downgrade those fancies to less lurid and more sustainable forms of harshness and you have something that might be thought justified, or at least understandable, when visited upon those humans that were enslaved because they threw themselves against the thousand miles of Naggaroth's northern border at the orders of the Chaos Gods.
If that was the case, then could that be overlooked, in the same way that the Empire does the more dubious institutions of its human neighbours? After all, the Empire's ban on slavery is more an accident of history than a purely moral stance, as Sigmar had enforced it to give the newly-united tribes one less reason to raid each other. And there are plenty of agitators that argue that the institution of slavery lives on in various forms throughout the Old World, and the ones that point to serfdom and debt bondage might have a point, even if they do tend to get drowned out by the rather shriller ones that consider religion or taxation forms of slavery.
And even if you don't believe any of these arguments, there may be value in at least pretending to. You've done business with worse than the Druchii, and it may be to the Empire's betterment if Ulthuan is given reason to rethink spending all its influence in the Old World on propping up Marienburg's belligerence. There are many forces that prey upon the Empire, and though the Druchii could easily be argued to be one of them, they wouldn't have any compunction against arming the Empire against the others if they thought it was in their interest.
"You have given me much to think about," you say to her. "That said, your words would ring all the truer if they were matched with a ceasing of raids on the Empire's coastline."
She gives a negligent shrug. "I cannot speak for all of my kind, just as you cannot speak for all of yours. There are always rabble from Karond Kar who will raid anywhere and feel no compunctions against lying about the provenance of their cargo." She gives you a considering look. "That said, a better understanding between our people might result in all sorts of information flowing back and forth. Clar Karond and Karond Kar are bitter rivals, and Clar Karond would profit if Karond Kar needed to come to them to replace ships lost by a chance encounter with that navy of yours. A few such opportune encounters and they would learn to seek softer shores." She drains her glass and starts craning her neck to seek a refill. "Give the matter some thought. My door will be open to you, should you wish it to be. Dalakoi, Sorceress."
---
The hithers and thons of the flow of conversation takes you from one end of the room to the other, and in doing so you manage to pick up the gist of the trouble with 'Uncle' Harathi - great-great uncle to Queen Marrisith, and also half-nephew to Malekith and therefore, you think... great-nephew-in-law to Morathi? In the current era he is an ancient and respected Grey Lord, but there was a time when he was little more than a child and a student of magic in Saphethion, the former capital of Saphery, and when the Civil War started he survived the civil war on the airborne streets, and then the transformation of the city into an enormous engine of war and the subsequent battles it fought in, and then the crash of the city into the Annulii Mountains during the Sundering, and then the long journey from the mountains back to civilization. And what awaited him at the end of all of that was banishment in all but name to Laurelorn, where his sister, Handmaiden to the Everqueen, was overseeing a research expedition to study the area. In time that Handmaiden became the first Queen of the Eonir and Harathi became one of the Grey Lords, but it seems that even large amounts of time are not reliable healers of emotional wounds among the Elves.
You exercise what little control you can manage over your course to try to direct yourself away from that potential drama and instead find your path taking you towards the other remaining Druchii, Captain Maktig of Clar Karond. As you brace yourself for another mental duel with an ancient mind of cruel cunning, the gaze that turns to you is instead a forlorn and guileless one.
"Have you ever been to sea?" he asks, in a voice with only the most battered shred of hope remaining in it. You get the impression he's asked that question quite a lot already, and received the same answer every time.
You open your mouth to dash his hopes, then remember something. "Once, technically. Over the Frozen Sea."
"Oh? Visiting the Fire Dwarves?"
"Not that time. I was coming back from an expedition into the Chaos Wastes and cut across the Frozen Sea to reach Kislev via Norsca."
He looks baffled and impressed in equal measure. "Why would you go into the Chaos Wastes?"
"To see what was there."
He stares at you a while longer, then grabs a glass from someone nearby to thrust into your hand so he can clink his against it. "That's the only sensible thing I've heard in four thousand miles of rough seas. Tell me about it all."
You comply, carefully editing out the true purpose of the voyage and the company you had, which still leaves a fairly gripping yarn of battling Daemons, raiding Skaven lairs, visiting Uzkulak, bartering with Kurgan, and duelling Norscans. By the time your reimagined caravan has reached Kislev once more you've attracted quite a crowd, and you wrap it up by lingering regretfully on you having to decide against attempting to purloin a mammoth from the Norscans. Maktig shakes his head in amazement. "By Mathlann, you're wasted here on land. Join my ship and I'll pay you a Sorceress's share and you'll have a cabin all to yourself."
You take a moment to entertain the possibility before shaking your head. "My current job isn't one that can be just walked away from."
"So I figured, but I had to try. Say, you ever encountered the other kind of Dwarves? The Stone Dwarves?"
You smile. "A time or two."
"Are they as fierce on land as they are at sea?"
"From what I understand, they're rather out of their element at sea, so I'd say even more so."
"That must be quite a story," he says promptingly.
You take a breath and begin to weave together and tell a suitable yarn on the fly.
---
After a surprisingly enjoyable time spinning yarns with Captain Maktig, you part ways with him and surrender yourself to the inevitability of being drawn towards the last Druchii delegate, Sorceress Myrielh of Ghrond. But there's an eddy in the currents because, it seems, the Queen has failed to properly corral the renegade Grey Lord and now everybody's side-eyes are on the confrontation occurring in one corner of the room.
"My, my," the Grey Lord says, eyeing up a Sorceress with severely frayed composure, who is wearing what looks like the front and back quarters of a skirt and a metal bustier that must be absolutely freezing to what little of her it covers. "The dress codes Auntie Rathi enforces have changed dramatically since she taught me."
"The First Sorceress sends her regards, Prince Harathi," she says in a voice only slightly quavering with nervousness.
"Only her regards? Nothing else this time? No poisons, no kidnappers, no assassins? A shame. I've had quite some time to hone my skills since her last offering to me. Tell me, does she still teach the quarter-spinwards turn on her vortices?"
There's a moment of hesitation. "I have not had the honour of being personally taught by the First Sorceress, but-"
"Because if she is, she's playing the same games with you that she did with Sapherion. It gets you to the point of being able to cast a little faster, but it prevents any real mastery until you spend more time unlearning it than it saved you in the first place." The Sorceress does not react, but her lack of reaction instead of reacting with any sort of confusion or denial is apparently enough for Lord Harathi. "So she is. Well, to be fair to her, she might not be outright sabotaging the Dark Convent, she just may not have had the time to teach you properly among all of her other distractions. She's only had six or seven millennia to do so, after all. Hardly any time at all to a woman with as many little hobbies on the side as she has."
"The Dark Convent are ever loyal to the Queen Mother of Naggaroth," the Sorceress says with practiced firmness.
"And nobody else, I'm sure. And yet here you are, on an expedition with only equal status to Clar Karond. I never knew Auntie Rathi to willingly play second to anyone but my dear uncle. Are you sure she sends her regards? Are you sure she knows of this visit at all?" The Sorceress seems to have regained some of her composure, and only stares back, managing not to give anything away. "Tch. That's a shame. It would be a waste of a perfectly good murder if she didn't even know you were here."
As Harathi flaunts away, the Sorceress takes a breath, the Winds rippling and a series of dirty looks turning her way as she recentres herself. Dhar blooms and writhes within her and she seems to transform without externally changing in any way, her outfit going from ridiculous affectation to a flaunting of her dominance over the elements, the traces of Dark Magic clinging to her going from an elusive whiff of foulness to a sickly-sweet scent that hovers just between cloying and enticing, and the gaze that turns to you is almost fully restored to that familiar look of superiority. "Elven society is built out of feuds and resentments that were old long before any of us were born," she says with a laugh that almost manages to conceal her rattled nerves. "Compared to such beings, the difference between you and I seems to vanish."
"From a certain point of view, I suppose," you say cautiously.
"It is my pleasure to be Sorceress Myrielh of Ghrond, and at your service."
"Lady Magister Mathilde Weber of the Grey Order, at yours," you respond. Thankfully, millennia of back and forth have established firm precedent that no matter how creative someone tries to get, the rote phrase 'at your service' means nothing more than to be willing to listen to what they have to say.
She smiles at you, and then gives you a more calculating gaze that suddenly turns surprised. "Have you... pierced your soul with Ulgu? Repeatedly?"
You look down at yourself, and wave away some of the mist clinging to you. In Tor Lithanel there's much less smoke than in human cities, so currently most of it is perfume. "That would be one way to describe it."
"How do you manage that? Wouldn't breaching the surface tension of the soul that many times be ruinous to its integrity?"
"Not if it's performed from within."
"It's self-inflicted?" she says, looking closer with an expression of delighted horror. "We knew that you'd received some instruction from the usurpers, but hadn't realized you'd developed upon it yourselves in such a bold way."
"We do our best. What is it that brings a representative of Ghrond to the Elthin Arvan?" you say, changing the subject before you're forced to undermine the unexpected impression you've made. "Most visits from the Druchii to our corner of the world are to isolated coastal hamlets."
"Only on the rare occasions that the Norscans don't get to them first," she counters with a sniff. "Very few of the cuts your Empire is forever bleeding from come from Druchii blades. In fact, I believe that much more of your blood has been shed by the riders of the bastard steeds to the west in any one of the wars you've fought, than has been by all the Druchii Corsairs throughout history, and yet you ride to war alongside them when circumstances dictate you must."
You try not to show too much agreement at that. For all that Bretonnia did fight alongside the Empire in the Great War Against Chaos, there have been the Third and Fourth Parravon Wars since then. The Third started before the dust had fully settled from the Great War, and the Fourth was recent enough that some of the songs about it are still floating around. "Perhaps. What's the point you're angling towards, Sorceress?"
"My point? My point is that you owe so much to a single precocious youth sharing the tattered scraps of the pale shadow of the past that is the White Tower. Imagine what you could achieve with just a few secrets from my ageless mistress."
"Your mistress in Ghrond, or your mistress elsewhere?"
She appears unruffled by the question. "Are you knowledgeable enough to meaningfully differentiate between the two?"
Not really. Oh, you've heard a few legends of dubious provenance about Morathi over the years, but they have the salacious ring of propaganda rather than anything grounded in truth, and you don't know anything at all about whoever might be her counterpart in Clar Karond. So you simply nod in acknowledgement and move on. "And what price would your mistress, wherever she may be, demand in exchange?"
"Knowledge for knowledge. Every corner of the world has its mysteries, and as you well know, most of your Empire has never seen the visit of a single Druchii ship. Descriptions of those within your reach, and samples of whatever of them can be sampled and transported, would garner quite a bit of her attention and gratitude, and would be paid for handsomely."
"Better terms than I expected, but it does contrast rather glaringly with the origin of our Orders."
She snorts. "Your Orders should have learned that impulsive generosity is so very fleeting when your princeling abandoned you. That my mistress would speak to you as one scholar to another is a kindness, because that is a relationship you can rely upon to last, and one you will know you have earned."
You allow yourself to nod in slight approval at that. As grateful as the Orders were and are to Teclis, that he promised to return after seeing to personal business in Ulthuan and then never did is something that weighed on the minds of many that knew him, and still a perhaps embarrassing amount today. The self-interest of the Druchii might be seen as a rather more reliable rock upon which to build a relationship. "And would such a relationship preclude future predation upon our shorelines? Both present and future?"
She grins in a way that is difficult to describe as unpleasant, even though it is thick with smug savagery. "Should such a relationship be established, we could do more for your hopes of a revanched shoreline than merely promise not to prey upon them. Your errant subject has benefited greatly from the patronage of our oldest enemy, and we would welcome an opportunity to demonstrate both the limitations of Ulthuan's beneficence and the depths of Naggaroth's maleficence. The contrast between them, I assure you, would be quite staggering."
You try not to be tempted. You try not to think of a sunken steamship, of Dwarven corpses floating in black water. Of obscenely wealthy families threatening to starve the Empire for the crime of building canals on the other side of the continent simply because they might slow their acquisition of even more wealth. "I have no doubt."
"As you shouldn't," she says, giving you a look that's as approving as it is patronizing. "Well, we'll be back and forth quite often as we bring word back and forth between thrones. Should there be anything we need discuss, leave word for us and I'll pay you a visit next time I'm in this surprisingly charming example of pre-Betrayal architecture." She waves her fingers in farewell and pivots with an undoubtedly deliberate swing of her hips and swish of her skirts to delve back into the crowd. You frown after her, already having started to unpick exactly how many ways pursuing the opportunities that these three Druchii represent could blow up in your face, and how many ways they could catapult your many projects forward.
- Opinions expressed by Druchii are solely their own, and do not express the views or opinions of the writer.
What the letter does not tell you is that you're authorized to speak on behalf of the Empire in such a gathering. Such trust was already granted to you when you were given the role of Lady Magister, and needs not be restated, even if it would be comforting to hear it now. You're painfully aware that what little reading you've done of material concerning the Druchii are very unlikely to be applicable to the coming challenges. Though you know you have nowhere near enough time to actually do it, you mentally run through the contacts and funds you could have taken advantage of to secure all the written knowledge of the Druchii to be found in the Old World and yearn for more time. Then you set that yearning aside, make sure your robes are neat and clean - not for the first time, you thank all the Gods that the robes of office of a Lady Magister count as formal dress - and do your best to spend the mere days before the gathering productively.
---
By the time of the gathering itself, you've calmed down a bit and gotten your thoughts in order. While the Druchii are reprehensible in practically every respect, from an entirely Imaschiavellian perspective they can be considered to be mostly someone else's problem. Though their corsairs do periodically visit the coasts of the Empire, such coastlines are already thoroughly preyed upon by the Norscans, so what little infrastructure and what few population centres exist on that coastline are either fortified well enough to make any raid on them more trouble than its worth, or so minor that their loss is hardly noticed. Their only other direct impact on the Empire is in the form of piracy, and with them competing for prey with the Norscans, the pirates of Sartosa, the corsairs of Lashiek and Al-Haikk, the zombie pirates of the Vampire Coast, and the fleets of the Skaven and the Chaos Dwarves, it's hard to say whether their absence from that motley pack would reduce the total amount of piracy or simply result in a greater share of the plunder for everyone else. The overwhelming majority of their attention is focused on their millennia-long internecine war with Ulthuan, and there are those in the Old World who would argue that keeping the Asur distracted is to the Empire's benefit. After all, the Druchii never lent military support to a breakaway state of the Empire.
You're greeted at the door by a servant that leads you to the Queen, and you ask her what brings the Druchii here. "Yourself, of course," she says, smiling mischievously at your look of shock. "Indirectly, that is. Even if they knew about it, I doubt they'd have any interest in the Waystone Project for its own sake. They have sufficient skill with Dhar to make use of all that is available, rather than needing infrastructure to whisk it away. But if Ulthuan has a foothold in the Old World, then they'll want one too, if only to keep tabs on what Ulthuan is up to and to watch for opportunities to interfere with it... but I digress. In truth, since we're working with humans, there was no reason for us not to also put out feelers to the two claimants of the Phoenix Throne to see if we can play them against each other. The board between them has been stalemated for so long that the introduction of even a minor piece is one that either could be tempted into paying handsomely for."
"You think they might be convinced to contribute to the Project just to spite Ulthuan?"
"I'll leave whether the opportunity is given to them up to you, but I think they'd do literally anything to spite Ulthuan. And in this specific scenario, there'd be no downside for them. If everything goes according to plan, then they can parlay that into countering Ulthuan's influence and interests in the Old World. If something goes wrong, then it creates problems that Ulthuan has to fix, because it's Ulthuan that's most directly dependent on the integrity of the Great Vortex. And in either case it has a good chance of widening the rift between Ulthuan and the Empire, which is something they'd delight in all on its own. But what they're formally here for is the more prosaic forms of trade while we dance about the possibility of endorsing one candidate or the other. There's few Elven societies that wouldn't pay a premium for novel luxuries, of which we've developed many over the years, and the Druchii have an endless hunger for new kinds of beasts. We won't be shipping off any Unicorns or Great Stags, of course, but there's less salubrious inhabitants of the darker corners of Laurelorn, and Boris has said he'd be more than happy for our hunters to scour the Drakwald." She opens her mouth to continue, and then halts mid-step, staring through an archway into a room filled with buzzing conversation, her face falling. "Oh no, it's Uncle Harathi. Sorry, I have to handle this."
You have barely a moment to process this before she's gone, and with her gone you are now vulnerable and are ensnared by a nearby conversation. There is a set of physics at work in gatherings like this that you're helpless to fight against once you're this engulfed, and do your best to tread conversational water as the currents and eddies of the soiree pull you to and fro, and before long you find yourself drawn towards one of the three guests and the apparent leader of the Druchii delegation, who has just topped up her drink and wrapped up a conversation as you reach her with such ease that it's only her smirk that tells you that it was no accident. Dreadlord Ylrishen of Hag Graef - you managed to pick the name up while circulating - is dressed in ornate black full plate armour trimmed with gold, as well as a purple cloak and at least five knives. Her long white hair reaches down to the back of her knees - presumably in battle it would be tied up under her helmet, which she isn't currently wearing - and the clawed gauntlets she is wearing must make her careful holding of a crystal goblet rather difficult. Her face is starkly attractive in an intimidating sort of way, all smooth skin and sharp angles, and rather than the aloof superiority that you might expect from such a woman, her gaze is surprisingly intense as she studies you, as though trying to decide whether you'd make better prey or product.
"Greetings, Sorceress," she says to you, her voice an amused and aristocratic drawl with a hint of roughness.
"And to you, Dreadlord Ylrishen."
She looks you up and down, eyes flicking from your shadow to the shadows and wisps of smoke clinging to you. "Fascinating. You humans really do take every scrap of magical knowledge you get your hands on and wring it to the last morsel, don't you? A pity the usurpers got to you before we did, who knows what you might have accomplished with better instruction."
"And what would have been the price of that tutoring?" you ask, in a voice that could technically be considered polite.
She tuts. "Nothing beyond your Empire's capacity to withstand. Don't let the usurpers mislead you, cruelty is just one of the many blades that we masterfully wield."
"And one, it seems, that would need regular rehoning."
She smiles, making no attempt to disagree. "It is a fundamental truth of this world that all civilization is paid for in suffering." She angles her glass to catch the light of a nearby sconce. "All forms of governance are means of dictating who it is that will do that suffering. So many object to the Druchii because we freely admit that which they invent entire realms of philosophy to try to conceal. Tell me, would you take the life of a Goblin to save the life of a human of the Empire?"
"Of course," you say.
"What about a Goblin that did not directly threaten the life of a human, but was raiding their farmland and thus would starve them to death in the long term?"
"I do see where you're going with this."
"Then you see that there is only logistical differences between the slaying of a Goblin raider to save a human from starvation, and the enslaving of a human to feed the Druchii. And by embracing the truth of the matter, we have been able to greatly increase the efficiency of the transferral of suffering, so that the maximum value is extracted from each slave, minimizing the total number of beings that need suffer - for reasons of cost rather than morality, I'll grant you, but the effect is the same."
"The Greenskins I've combatted have been those in a state of war with the Empire or its allies, though," you say, though you see the counterpoint coming before you even finish the sentence.
"All of them? Every single one? Or do you simply assume that is the case because it so often is, and act accordingly? The overwhelming majority of experiences that the Druchii have with humans is defending our northern border from the Hung and the Dorstan, and our coasts from the Norscans. If this has led us to assume that all the humans of the Great Ocean are offshoots of these, then it is a mistake that the righteous Asur also made until a mere couple of centuries ago, and it is one we have a lot more shed blood to justify. Entire cities in Naggaroth exist solely as a bulwark against the northern tribes." She takes a sip of her drink, then looks mildly surprised and gives it a curious look. "And despite all that, here we are, seeking a cure to our ignorance and rebuilt ties with our lost kin. We have taken no states of the Empire as vassals, we have sent no Sorceresses against your armies. Let our actions prove our superiority to the Asur, rather than letting their poisoned whispers doom us to an eternity of enmity simply because they got to you first."
You give the appearance of thinking over her words as you resist the urge to narrow your eyes at the Dreadlord, and then you take a breath and actually think over her words. The cruelty and brutality of the Druchii are legendary, but if they were all entirely true, then they would describe a society that could not exist for more than a few decades, let alone the millennia of apparent stability it's achieved. Downgrade those fancies to less lurid and more sustainable forms of harshness and you have something that might be thought justified, or at least understandable, when visited upon those humans that were enslaved because they threw themselves against the thousand miles of Naggaroth's northern border at the orders of the Chaos Gods.
If that was the case, then could that be overlooked, in the same way that the Empire does the more dubious institutions of its human neighbours? After all, the Empire's ban on slavery is more an accident of history than a purely moral stance, as Sigmar had enforced it to give the newly-united tribes one less reason to raid each other. And there are plenty of agitators that argue that the institution of slavery lives on in various forms throughout the Old World, and the ones that point to serfdom and debt bondage might have a point, even if they do tend to get drowned out by the rather shriller ones that consider religion or taxation forms of slavery.
And even if you don't believe any of these arguments, there may be value in at least pretending to. You've done business with worse than the Druchii, and it may be to the Empire's betterment if Ulthuan is given reason to rethink spending all its influence in the Old World on propping up Marienburg's belligerence. There are many forces that prey upon the Empire, and though the Druchii could easily be argued to be one of them, they wouldn't have any compunction against arming the Empire against the others if they thought it was in their interest.
"You have given me much to think about," you say to her. "That said, your words would ring all the truer if they were matched with a ceasing of raids on the Empire's coastline."
She gives a negligent shrug. "I cannot speak for all of my kind, just as you cannot speak for all of yours. There are always rabble from Karond Kar who will raid anywhere and feel no compunctions against lying about the provenance of their cargo." She gives you a considering look. "That said, a better understanding between our people might result in all sorts of information flowing back and forth. Clar Karond and Karond Kar are bitter rivals, and Clar Karond would profit if Karond Kar needed to come to them to replace ships lost by a chance encounter with that navy of yours. A few such opportune encounters and they would learn to seek softer shores." She drains her glass and starts craning her neck to seek a refill. "Give the matter some thought. My door will be open to you, should you wish it to be. Dalakoi, Sorceress."
---
The hithers and thons of the flow of conversation takes you from one end of the room to the other, and in doing so you manage to pick up the gist of the trouble with 'Uncle' Harathi - great-great uncle to Queen Marrisith, and also half-nephew to Malekith and therefore, you think... great-nephew-in-law to Morathi? In the current era he is an ancient and respected Grey Lord, but there was a time when he was little more than a child and a student of magic in Saphethion, the former capital of Saphery, and when the Civil War started he survived the civil war on the airborne streets, and then the transformation of the city into an enormous engine of war and the subsequent battles it fought in, and then the crash of the city into the Annulii Mountains during the Sundering, and then the long journey from the mountains back to civilization. And what awaited him at the end of all of that was banishment in all but name to Laurelorn, where his sister, Handmaiden to the Everqueen, was overseeing a research expedition to study the area. In time that Handmaiden became the first Queen of the Eonir and Harathi became one of the Grey Lords, but it seems that even large amounts of time are not reliable healers of emotional wounds among the Elves.
You exercise what little control you can manage over your course to try to direct yourself away from that potential drama and instead find your path taking you towards the other remaining Druchii, Captain Maktig of Clar Karond. As you brace yourself for another mental duel with an ancient mind of cruel cunning, the gaze that turns to you is instead a forlorn and guileless one.
"Have you ever been to sea?" he asks, in a voice with only the most battered shred of hope remaining in it. You get the impression he's asked that question quite a lot already, and received the same answer every time.
You open your mouth to dash his hopes, then remember something. "Once, technically. Over the Frozen Sea."
"Oh? Visiting the Fire Dwarves?"
"Not that time. I was coming back from an expedition into the Chaos Wastes and cut across the Frozen Sea to reach Kislev via Norsca."
He looks baffled and impressed in equal measure. "Why would you go into the Chaos Wastes?"
"To see what was there."
He stares at you a while longer, then grabs a glass from someone nearby to thrust into your hand so he can clink his against it. "That's the only sensible thing I've heard in four thousand miles of rough seas. Tell me about it all."
You comply, carefully editing out the true purpose of the voyage and the company you had, which still leaves a fairly gripping yarn of battling Daemons, raiding Skaven lairs, visiting Uzkulak, bartering with Kurgan, and duelling Norscans. By the time your reimagined caravan has reached Kislev once more you've attracted quite a crowd, and you wrap it up by lingering regretfully on you having to decide against attempting to purloin a mammoth from the Norscans. Maktig shakes his head in amazement. "By Mathlann, you're wasted here on land. Join my ship and I'll pay you a Sorceress's share and you'll have a cabin all to yourself."
You take a moment to entertain the possibility before shaking your head. "My current job isn't one that can be just walked away from."
"So I figured, but I had to try. Say, you ever encountered the other kind of Dwarves? The Stone Dwarves?"
You smile. "A time or two."
"Are they as fierce on land as they are at sea?"
"From what I understand, they're rather out of their element at sea, so I'd say even more so."
"That must be quite a story," he says promptingly.
You take a breath and begin to weave together and tell a suitable yarn on the fly.
---
After a surprisingly enjoyable time spinning yarns with Captain Maktig, you part ways with him and surrender yourself to the inevitability of being drawn towards the last Druchii delegate, Sorceress Myrielh of Ghrond. But there's an eddy in the currents because, it seems, the Queen has failed to properly corral the renegade Grey Lord and now everybody's side-eyes are on the confrontation occurring in one corner of the room.
"My, my," the Grey Lord says, eyeing up a Sorceress with severely frayed composure, who is wearing what looks like the front and back quarters of a skirt and a metal bustier that must be absolutely freezing to what little of her it covers. "The dress codes Auntie Rathi enforces have changed dramatically since she taught me."
"The First Sorceress sends her regards, Prince Harathi," she says in a voice only slightly quavering with nervousness.
"Only her regards? Nothing else this time? No poisons, no kidnappers, no assassins? A shame. I've had quite some time to hone my skills since her last offering to me. Tell me, does she still teach the quarter-spinwards turn on her vortices?"
There's a moment of hesitation. "I have not had the honour of being personally taught by the First Sorceress, but-"
"Because if she is, she's playing the same games with you that she did with Sapherion. It gets you to the point of being able to cast a little faster, but it prevents any real mastery until you spend more time unlearning it than it saved you in the first place." The Sorceress does not react, but her lack of reaction instead of reacting with any sort of confusion or denial is apparently enough for Lord Harathi. "So she is. Well, to be fair to her, she might not be outright sabotaging the Dark Convent, she just may not have had the time to teach you properly among all of her other distractions. She's only had six or seven millennia to do so, after all. Hardly any time at all to a woman with as many little hobbies on the side as she has."
"The Dark Convent are ever loyal to the Queen Mother of Naggaroth," the Sorceress says with practiced firmness.
"And nobody else, I'm sure. And yet here you are, on an expedition with only equal status to Clar Karond. I never knew Auntie Rathi to willingly play second to anyone but my dear uncle. Are you sure she sends her regards? Are you sure she knows of this visit at all?" The Sorceress seems to have regained some of her composure, and only stares back, managing not to give anything away. "Tch. That's a shame. It would be a waste of a perfectly good murder if she didn't even know you were here."
As Harathi flaunts away, the Sorceress takes a breath, the Winds rippling and a series of dirty looks turning her way as she recentres herself. Dhar blooms and writhes within her and she seems to transform without externally changing in any way, her outfit going from ridiculous affectation to a flaunting of her dominance over the elements, the traces of Dark Magic clinging to her going from an elusive whiff of foulness to a sickly-sweet scent that hovers just between cloying and enticing, and the gaze that turns to you is almost fully restored to that familiar look of superiority. "Elven society is built out of feuds and resentments that were old long before any of us were born," she says with a laugh that almost manages to conceal her rattled nerves. "Compared to such beings, the difference between you and I seems to vanish."
"From a certain point of view, I suppose," you say cautiously.
"It is my pleasure to be Sorceress Myrielh of Ghrond, and at your service."
"Lady Magister Mathilde Weber of the Grey Order, at yours," you respond. Thankfully, millennia of back and forth have established firm precedent that no matter how creative someone tries to get, the rote phrase 'at your service' means nothing more than to be willing to listen to what they have to say.
She smiles at you, and then gives you a more calculating gaze that suddenly turns surprised. "Have you... pierced your soul with Ulgu? Repeatedly?"
You look down at yourself, and wave away some of the mist clinging to you. In Tor Lithanel there's much less smoke than in human cities, so currently most of it is perfume. "That would be one way to describe it."
"How do you manage that? Wouldn't breaching the surface tension of the soul that many times be ruinous to its integrity?"
"Not if it's performed from within."
"It's self-inflicted?" she says, looking closer with an expression of delighted horror. "We knew that you'd received some instruction from the usurpers, but hadn't realized you'd developed upon it yourselves in such a bold way."
"We do our best. What is it that brings a representative of Ghrond to the Elthin Arvan?" you say, changing the subject before you're forced to undermine the unexpected impression you've made. "Most visits from the Druchii to our corner of the world are to isolated coastal hamlets."
"Only on the rare occasions that the Norscans don't get to them first," she counters with a sniff. "Very few of the cuts your Empire is forever bleeding from come from Druchii blades. In fact, I believe that much more of your blood has been shed by the riders of the bastard steeds to the west in any one of the wars you've fought, than has been by all the Druchii Corsairs throughout history, and yet you ride to war alongside them when circumstances dictate you must."
You try not to show too much agreement at that. For all that Bretonnia did fight alongside the Empire in the Great War Against Chaos, there have been the Third and Fourth Parravon Wars since then. The Third started before the dust had fully settled from the Great War, and the Fourth was recent enough that some of the songs about it are still floating around. "Perhaps. What's the point you're angling towards, Sorceress?"
"My point? My point is that you owe so much to a single precocious youth sharing the tattered scraps of the pale shadow of the past that is the White Tower. Imagine what you could achieve with just a few secrets from my ageless mistress."
"Your mistress in Ghrond, or your mistress elsewhere?"
She appears unruffled by the question. "Are you knowledgeable enough to meaningfully differentiate between the two?"
Not really. Oh, you've heard a few legends of dubious provenance about Morathi over the years, but they have the salacious ring of propaganda rather than anything grounded in truth, and you don't know anything at all about whoever might be her counterpart in Clar Karond. So you simply nod in acknowledgement and move on. "And what price would your mistress, wherever she may be, demand in exchange?"
"Knowledge for knowledge. Every corner of the world has its mysteries, and as you well know, most of your Empire has never seen the visit of a single Druchii ship. Descriptions of those within your reach, and samples of whatever of them can be sampled and transported, would garner quite a bit of her attention and gratitude, and would be paid for handsomely."
"Better terms than I expected, but it does contrast rather glaringly with the origin of our Orders."
She snorts. "Your Orders should have learned that impulsive generosity is so very fleeting when your princeling abandoned you. That my mistress would speak to you as one scholar to another is a kindness, because that is a relationship you can rely upon to last, and one you will know you have earned."
You allow yourself to nod in slight approval at that. As grateful as the Orders were and are to Teclis, that he promised to return after seeing to personal business in Ulthuan and then never did is something that weighed on the minds of many that knew him, and still a perhaps embarrassing amount today. The self-interest of the Druchii might be seen as a rather more reliable rock upon which to build a relationship. "And would such a relationship preclude future predation upon our shorelines? Both present and future?"
She grins in a way that is difficult to describe as unpleasant, even though it is thick with smug savagery. "Should such a relationship be established, we could do more for your hopes of a revanched shoreline than merely promise not to prey upon them. Your errant subject has benefited greatly from the patronage of our oldest enemy, and we would welcome an opportunity to demonstrate both the limitations of Ulthuan's beneficence and the depths of Naggaroth's maleficence. The contrast between them, I assure you, would be quite staggering."
You try not to be tempted. You try not to think of a sunken steamship, of Dwarven corpses floating in black water. Of obscenely wealthy families threatening to starve the Empire for the crime of building canals on the other side of the continent simply because they might slow their acquisition of even more wealth. "I have no doubt."
"As you shouldn't," she says, giving you a look that's as approving as it is patronizing. "Well, we'll be back and forth quite often as we bring word back and forth between thrones. Should there be anything we need discuss, leave word for us and I'll pay you a visit next time I'm in this surprisingly charming example of pre-Betrayal architecture." She waves her fingers in farewell and pivots with an undoubtedly deliberate swing of her hips and swish of her skirts to delve back into the crowd. You frown after her, already having started to unpick exactly how many ways pursuing the opportunities that these three Druchii represent could blow up in your face, and how many ways they could catapult your many projects forward.
- Opinions expressed by Druchii are solely their own, and do not express the views or opinions of the writer.
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I always just assumed that any animals that lives long enough in Athen Loriel, especially near the Oak of Ages, is automatically utterly eldritch in nature, a half-spirit given flesh that apes 'animalistic' behaviour because such is its nature, hence the utterly bewildering things (such as Norse myth references) that go on in there, so deep in the woods.
This is almost certainly not true, but I want it to be.
Edit: Oddly timed update. Hurrah!
This is almost certainly not true, but I want it to be.
Edit: Oddly timed update. Hurrah!
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prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
>Silicon Valley Dark Elves.
Thanks, I hate it.
Edit:
>Be a millenia-old dark elf pirate lord
>Be stuck in a mixer with a bunch of smelly apes
>Do none of these people ever go on a boat?
>For the gods' sake, I just wanna sail
Thanks, I hate it.
Edit:
>Be a millenia-old dark elf pirate lord
>Be stuck in a mixer with a bunch of smelly apes
>Do none of these people ever go on a boat?
>For the gods' sake, I just wanna sail
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DocMatoi
Theoretical Lover of Girls
- Location
- within 2 hours of the White House
- Pronouns
- They/Them
oh no, i like him
Well I will give the dark elves this, they do temptation a lot better than Chaos for the strong willed. That said the reasons not to engage with them stand:
- We would be walking into a forest of thorns when it comes to the Dwarfs and Kiselv at the very least
- We have no way to verify what they tell us
- They are likely to ask for a price we would find distasteful, now or later.