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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Parabola said:
...Now I'm thinking that a Star Wars/CK-ish quest would be cool. Direct Force powers could easily be Piety-based, with Learning being more about direct technological knowledge. Star Wars is mostly fantasy in space, so to speak, so thematically speaking it wouldn't even be that hard to replicate. It's just that the scale's a bit bigger, giant weapons are more commonplace, and continuity is very loose.

It's a shame I'm not actually that much of a Star Wars person or I'd seriously consider running something like that.
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There's a huge one here.
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May The Invisible Hand Be With You - (Star Wars CK2-Style Quest) Sci-Fi

A Long, Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away... It is a time of great strife in the...
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Parabola said:
...Now I'm thinking that a Star Wars/CK-ish quest would be cool. Direct Force powers could easily be Piety-based, with Learning being more about direct technological knowledge. Star Wars is mostly fantasy in space, so to speak, so thematically speaking it wouldn't even be that hard to replicate. It's just that the scale's a bit bigger, giant weapons are more commonplace, and continuity is very loose.

It's a shame I'm not actually that much of a Star Wars person or I'd seriously consider running something like that.
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There's at least two Star Wars CK2 quests (well, technically two, though one's a continuation of the other). They both have Piety be Force stuff and Learning be 'normal' technology. (For the most part, ofc there's always weird exceptions, especially with how the dice roll)
 
Glau said:
This was delightful and bittersweet. Who did you have in mind for the Magister's master?

Also I like that she calls Belegar "my king".
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Thank you.
His old Master is meant to be Eike, giving an indication of the time line.
K von Carstein said:
Nicely written🙂 What would you had in mind when writing that part? Mathilde being so attuned to Ulgu that she can cast instinctively?
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Thank you.
But I said no questions :V
Part of what's going on is that the boundaries between her and her environment are weakened, which is also why her body ("body") flies apart when she moves. Leaning into that allows her to teleport within the space her fuzzy soul inhabits. Also so much of her is Ulgu, that what she wants and Ulgu 'naturally' does, is hard to pick apart. Moving longer distances, which is what she's doing at the end (or is it?), does take a spell.
 
MooseHowl said:
I like that division of project members, but I think Zlata should be on Runes as well (you excluded her here).

That way there's a representative of every language and culture group. I imagine diversity of perspectives and histories would be helpful when deciphering magical Runes.
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When we were talking about Rune during the first day of the project every culture group had something to say except Kislev:
Boney said:
"The Rune has entered Eltharin unchanged from Anoqeyån," Lecturer Sarvoi says. "Its purpose, and its presence on every Waystone, has rendered it immune to stylistic drift."

"It is older than Anoqeyån," Hatalath says with a smile. "It is part of the script of the Old Ones."

"The cunning beings in silver ships," you observe.

Hatalath's smile fades and he gives you a long, thoughtful look. "Yes. Them."

"The same Rune can be found in High Nehekharan to mean 'obelisk'," Lady Magister Elrisse notes.

"It is the rune 'ogham' in Belthani script, usually translated as something like 'standing stone'," Magister Tochter follows.

You turn a questioning look to Zlata and Baba Niedzwenka, who remain silent, and then to Thorek. "It is known to Runesmiths," he concedes, "from before the time of Bel Shanaar and Snorri Whitebeard."
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I don't think they are just being coy, I think if that were the case we would have gotten some indication from Zlata (like with the leylines where she outright said she can't talk about it) or from Niedzwenka who might have just spilled the beans. So I am pretty sure Zlata wouldn't have anything to contribute, and while I generally err on the side of adding more project members rather than less there's already a lot of people involved in that action so I decided to leave her out.
 
It looks like Panoramia's mom really ticked her off, to me. The subject is giving me major "fuck you" vibes, though I guess It's possible it's not inflammatory at all. Entirely possible. It could be that Panoramia's paper actually reinforces her mom's stance and beliefs.



Though that second option isn't where I'd put my money.
 
What's wrong with the idea that the winds are deities?

They're staggeringly powerful, if very spread out, can be appealed to (…I think), and have some motive in their limited means of doing things in the real world. If you can definitely prove the final piece that they can manifest in prayer and worship, and it seems a bit radical, but not inherent wrong.
 
Shine said:
What's wrong with the idea that the winds are deities?

They're staggeringly powerful, if very spread out, can be appealed to (…I think), and have some motive in their limited means of doing things in the real world. If you can definitely prove the final piece that they can manifest in prayer and worship, and it seems a bit radical, but not inherent wrong.
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I don't think it's about the godlike nature of the Winds, or at least not just that. The Jade College has a problem with people who worship the Earth Mother (who is maybe Ghyran) because they want to exclude male and people not descended from the Druids. We know Panoramia is very opposed to this, and I suspect she will express it in her paper.
 
Shine said:
What's wrong with the idea that the winds are deities?

They're staggeringly powerful, if very spread out, can be appealed to (…I think), and have some motive in their limited means of doing things in the real world. If you can definitely prove the final piece that they can manifest in prayer and worship, and it seems a bit radical, but not inherent wrong.
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There's nothing wrong, just controversial. There's the druidic faith that's says it's a good, and Teclis that says it's not.
This tries to thread the needle and say that both are correct.
It's sources are also controversial.
Mathilde's contribution is probably her experience worth kurgan (who worship the winds as gods alongside the four) and ice witches (who hold an opposite position, because gods can be appeased)
 
K von Carstein said:
I don't think it's about the godlike nature of the Winds, or at least not just that. The Jade College has a problem with people who worship the Earth Mother (who is maybe Ghyran) because they want to exclude male and people not descended from the Druids. We know Panoramia is very opposed to this, and I suspect she will express it in her paper.
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That is a specific subset of Earth Mother worship:
Boney said:
Part of the 'Cult of the Mother' that formed the core of the Jade Order was matriarchal and matrilineal, and some families within it continue those traditions even though the modern Jade Order is more accepting of male Jade Wizards.
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Pan's mother is a hardliner. Not everyone who worships the Earth Mother holds the view that male Druids are not welcome.
 
Funnily enough, the in-universe idea of worshiping the Winds of Magic actually predates their formal introduction in the lore. In the (never published) Realms of Divine Magic supplement, there's a great emphasis on the idea of elemental worship as a form of pre-Old One religion, and you can sorta see the conceptual seeds for what would later become the Winds in a lot of how they're described. Channeled by different kinds of magic user, passing through Way/Ogham stones across the land to keep the world in balance, etc.

Interestingly, in that book, they're framed as subservient beings or "aspects" of the Earth Mother, who at that point - this predating the modern Old World mythology - was almost hyped up as sorta a one-true-god in planetary sense, distinct from the foreign interlopers, Chaos and Order alike, of the Warp.
 
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opalbucket said:
Funnily enough, the in-universe idea of worshiping the Winds of Magic actually predates their formal introduction in the lore. In the (never published) Realms of Divine Magic supplement, there's a great emphasis on the idea of elemental worship as a form of pre-Old One religion, and you can sorta see the conceptual seeds for what would later become the Winds in a lot of how they're described. Channeled by different kinds of magic user, channeled through Way/Ogham stones across the land to keep the world in balance, etc.

Interestingly, in that book, they're framed as subservient beings or "aspects" of the Earth Mother, who at that point - this predating the modern Old World mythology - was almost hyped up as sorta a one-true-god in planetary sense, distinct from the foreign interlopers, Chaos and Order alike, of the Warp.
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I assume they were going for a Gaia element where the planet itself was a primordial being with its own essence. In theory that may still be true, but gods are far more anthromorphized than the amorphous aspect of the planet itself. I imagine the lack of knowledge of the totality of the world is an obstacle to worshipping it in its totality rather than just a single part of it. People would rather pray to the River Reik than the abstract image of the world itself.
 
Codex said:
I assume they were going for a Gaia element where the planet itself was a primordial being with its own essence. In theory that may still be true, but gods are far more anthromorphized than the amorphous aspect of the planet itself. I imagine the lack of knowledge of the totality of the world is an obstacle to worshipping it in its totality rather than just a single part of it. People would rather pray to the River Reik than the abstract image of the world itself.
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They were definitely going for a Gaia sort of thing, though they don't exactly anthromorphize it either - it's specifically laid out that her followers don't see the Earth Mother as a person, but an abstraction of nature itself. But the worldbuilding just seems to take it as a given that the natural world 1) has a will that makes itself known independent of any worship, and 2) is incredibly powerful. And I really do mean powerful; in this version of the setting, the Earth Mother is as strong as all the Chaos Gods put together, and the Great Catastrophe is a stalemate where she's strong enough to mostly close the Polar Gates. (The Vortex doesn't exist at this point, and the Elves have no role in creating the Waystone Network.)

Early Warhammer had a weirdly environmentalist bent that got more or less overridden by other concepts, though you can still see echoes of it in the modern setting. Elemental power getting recontextualized as a force external to the planet is a good example.
 
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Codex said:
I assume they were going for a Gaia element where the planet itself was a primordial being with its own essence. In theory that may still be true, but gods are far more anthromorphized than the amorphous aspect of the planet itself. I imagine the lack of knowledge of the totality of the world is an obstacle to worshipping it in its totality rather than just a single part of it. People would rather pray to the River Reik than the abstract image of the world itself.
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Particularly as you can; if you try hard enough find the spirit of the Reik and have a chat with her, and it seems that she has significant control over her river, so if you live on or near her banks keeping her happy is pretty important, in a way propitiating what is described as an abstract rather than sovereign force in the source we have may seem less critical to everyday life.

On a side note; I wouldn't be surprised if her mourning of her departed husband has influenced local folklore, as it's apparently something she talks about with visitors.
 
opalbucket said:
Early Warhammer had a weirdly environmentalist bent that got more or less overridden by other concepts, but you can still see echoes of it in the modern setting.
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Far as I know early Warhammer had some surprisingly progressive bits considering the time period. Unfortunately, with time and changes in the staff I've noticed a trend towards co-opting the narrative to make a more consumer friendly product that attempts to not be too controversial for the hobbyists, primarily cis, straight white men in their 20s-40s with disposable income. It feels like the hobby space has been trending that way for a while, but at least modern AoS has a more diverse space than it used to be.

There's also the whole "is it satire or does it contribute to the system that it attempts to criticise" thing:
 
Codex said:
There's also the whole "is it satire or does it contribute to the system that it attempts to criticise" thing:
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While I agree with the spoiler one does also have to admit that people can be a bit thick, especially as they get more extreme. Few humans are as impervious to satire as genuine reactionaries.

Yes of course the IoM are the good guys. What do you mean it is an unspeakable dystopia one would not wish on one's worst enemy? Look at how shinny and gold it is.:V
 
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Codex said:
Far as I know early Warhammer had some surprisingly progressive bits considering the time period. Unfortunately, with time and changes in the staff I've noticed a trend towards co-opting the narrative to make a more consumer friendly product that attempts to not be too controversial for the hobbyists, primarily cis, straight white men in their 20s-40s with disposable income. It feels like the hobby space has been trending that way for a while, but at least modern AoS has a more diverse space than it used to be.
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I mean, what happened is actually very straightforward. In 1991, Tom Kirby - who is about as much of a Corporate Guy as you can get - bought out the company from the investors more or less over the heads of the original creators of the franchise. After that, pretty much all of the political elements of the setting were sidelined immediately.
 
Branulhune is made out of gromril, which is lighter than steel, so it weighs less than an imperial greatsword does. But it isn't weightless, and it's a property of the metal, not the runes.
 
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