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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Tzeentch: Menacingly *Honks* the secrets of the universe in your ear.

What's up with Tzeentch's obsession with birds anyway? Is there some lore on why his Greater Daemons are usually birds?
 
Boney said:
Also I think that you're using augury to mean 'a prediction that is unreliable to the point of uselessness' but that sort of linguistic gambit doesn't work so well in a setting where divination is provably real and has significant chunks of religions and wizard orders dedicated to it.
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My point was more that divination is unreliable and open to interpretation making it doubly hard to do any kind of comparative statistical analyses on.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I know we're all calling Tzeentch a "bird", and that I am one of those people doing that, but I just want to take a brief break from the endless treadmill of paranoia for some mild pedantry: Tzeentch doesn't actually look like a Lord of Change, His most common form is much closer to that of a Horror.



Of course, Tzeentch, being the God of Change, can take any form He desires, so there's nothing saying He can't look like a bird, but I just wanted to clarify that it's not something he's especially known for.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled existential terror.
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Personally, I'm calling the Smug Bird the Smug Bird specifically to refer to that, specific, unnamed and unknown but presumed Lord of Change that crank called Mathilde last update, not all of Tzeentch.

We don't specifically know that the Smug Bird is a Lord of Change, but it is probably a bird, and it is definitely smug.

EDIT: And, as a bonus, in the event of mistaken identity upon encountering another, only-later-learned-to-be-different Lord of Change, it won't be a false name, because it will still be a Smug Bird.
 
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Raikazin said:
If we used tzeentch magic to close the liminal realm, have we not violated our oaths already?
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Mathilde tried not to take the help, she is literally incapable of untangling herself from the blessing, I suspect a wizard less adept in dealing with the divine would not even be able to sense that she is being helped, that said from a particularly strict interpretation of Article 7 yes, but I do not think Mathilde wants to hand herself in for execution so we should use a less strict interpretation.

Edit: Mathiilde'd and there's our out.
 
pucflek said:
Birds are often symbol of cleverness and/or knowledge. I assume he is hijacking that symbolism. Lot of order gods use it.
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Yeah this. Crows for cunning, owls for knowledge, and then you can get into all the sacred bird symbolism.

I suspect phoenixes to somehow be involved given the motifs of change and fire. It'd be a neat way to tie a lot of things together.
 
Raikazin said:
If we used tzeentch magic to close the liminal realm, have we not violated our oaths already?
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I don't think we used Tzeentch's magic per se. At no point were we in actual control of Tzeentch's power.

Instead Tzeentch's magic wrapped itself around ours and went "I'll copy whatever you're doing" - and that was closing the rift.

If this counted as violating our oath Tzeentch could make any magister who was ever near one of his daemons (or mortal wizards) violate their oath just by having the daemon/wizard copy whatever the magister was doing.

EDIT: That is a hilarious image though - a pink horror helping to pull orphans out of a burning building, in order to convince everyone that the Aqshy mage who's trying to do the same is a Tzeentch cultist.
 
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Weird late night idea that's bouncing around my head, but what if Tzeentch doesn't actually make plans—what if He is plans? Like, everyone's plans, all at once? He's hollow, He has no personal objective or motive, but is just a mirror of everyone else's objectives.

If I plan to go to the store, and someone plans to mug me on my way there, that's not a contradiction—but they are both part of Tzeentch, because that's all He is. Everything goes as planned, because one of those plans will succeed at the cost of the other, and He cares not which plan wins because they are all of the same value to Him.
 
kingreaper said:
I don't think we used Tzeentch's magic per se. At no point were we in actual control of Tzeentch's power.

Instead Tzeentch's magic wrapped itself around ours and went "I'll copy whatever you're doing" - and that was closing the rift.
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My reading was that it was what was available and we took and used it directly, although we couldn't really avoid it if we wanted to do anything.

Basically, we spaced the room of all its oxygen, and then couldn't speak to activate the safety measures, but we breathed in anyways because the alien vessel vented some of its atmosphere for us.

Also, the Alien atmosphere was pretty great, because birds know where to get the good stuff.
 
Dragonofelder said:
Well technically daemons are just parts of a Chaos God given their own "separate" sentience.
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They have enough agency to be subverted and used against each other, as Skarbrand shows.

Daemons might be made from the same stuff their gods are, but that doesn't mean they are just extensions with no will of their own.
AzrielIlluminare said:
Tzeentch: Menacingly *Honks* the secrets of the universe in your ear.

What's up with Tzeentch's obsession with birds anyway? Is there some lore on why his Greater Daemons are usually birds?
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Tzeentch is a furry confirmed.

Okay, meta reason, I think, is that in the early lore he was equated with Odin as god of knowledge, wisdom and runes, and Odin had ravens, so Tzeentch also has bird minions.

Two-headed eagle popular in heraldry in our history has probably much more sinister connotations in Warhammer.
 
chocolote12 said:
My reading was that it was what was available and we took and used it directly, although we couldn't really avoid it if we wanted to do anything.

Basically, we spaced the room of all its oxygen, and then couldn't speak to activate the safety measures, but we breathed in anyways because the alien vessel vented some of its atmosphere for us.

Also, the Alien atmosphere was pretty great, because birds know where to get the good stuff.
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I'm going to quote the relevant part, so that we can both be a bit closer to accurate:
You reach forward with your soul and bury talons of willpower into the newly-created fabric of reality.

[snip talking]

Tendrils of the purest magic burrowing through reality seep into your now magic-starved soul and your grip on reality redoubles and redoubles again.

[snip talking]

You don't even know where to begin rejecting the strength that even the slightest wisp of the energies of the Changer of Ways has given you, and even if you could, it would render you unable to do that which needs to be done.
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Tzeentch's magic seeps into Mathildes soul, presumably into those talons of willpower, without her choosing to allow it - and she doesn't yet know how to throw them off.

So choosing to breathe it in is somewhat off, but my wrapping analogy is also off. It's more like the alien atmosphere punched Mathilde in the gut and then charged into her lungs while she was gasping...
 
So, I was working on Part 2 of All Roads Lead to Matorca, and I've realized that I don't actually know the patron deities of half the party. Mathilde favors Ranald, obviously, and I'm fairly certain Johann has found an enthusiasm for the Ancestor Gods, but Egrimm's meta-ambiguity means I don't know what deity he claims to worship, and I don't remember it ever coming up for Max. Anyone know if I'm just forgetting details, or do I have room for creative license?
 
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