Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Only evidence for an Old Ones connection I'm aware of is that the they put some giants in Albion to help guard the Waystones there with the Druids.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Utrecht
Hammers, of course
He's the God of the Empire. His domain is the provinces and people of the Empire, and the defence thereof. The closest things He has to domains outside of that is 'hammers are neat' and 'Dwarves are bros'.
He is ultimately the Patron god of the Empire: 'Sigmar is the Empire, and the Empire is Sigmar'
that's both the strength and weakness of his cult. incredibly strong and relevant in the empire. but doesn't travel well.
he is a god of civilization... in the empire. he is a god of art!... in the empire. he is the god of progress!... in the empire Etc etc.
outside of that, he ends up competing with gods that have way stronger claims to any one domain. even as a war god he plays 3rd place at best.
at most, he has a minor aspect as a god of hummers in Tila I think.
eshin'd.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
The full description of the former is 'hammers are neat, and are even neater when used to smack evil in the face'.
I'm guessing you already started (and finished) on the experiments as the vote didn't matter for them?
Turn 40 Results - 2489.5 - Part 5
You'd only gotten partway into your telling of Belegar of your mishap before he'd sent runners to Kragg and Gunnars and had you explain the rest on the way up to your tower, the rest of the Gyrocarriage filled with as many Hammerers as will fit. "The likes of that need only the slightest opening to get their words in, if they put their mind to it," Gunnars explains to Belegar after their initial examination of the room. "A resonant dream on the wrong night, a violent death in the wrong place, a malicious phrase of Dark Tongue translated into music and stuck in the wrong head. Or, of course, rogue magical energies in the wrong experiment. The attention of such a being is dangerous, of course, but its words alone have only the power they are allowed to have. It can be dangerous if it reaches the ear of the weak-willed, but if the target was an average Dawi or Undumgi then some counselling and a careful eye would be sufficient. For the likes of a Grey Wizard, the training they give their Magisters is better than that of most Witch Hunters, so there need be no concern at all."
"Are you concerned?" Belegar asks you.
You give it some thought. "More that I have such a being's attention at all than by that they were able to slip a message through the liminal barrier."
"Which is certainly creased," Kragg says as he moves back and forth through the part of the room where the experiment was performed, and you can see the liminal barrier rippling slightly as he passes. "Strength is inconsistent, and overall weaker than it was before. Not enough to be dangerous on its own, but definitely enough that it would be dangerous to use this place for experimentation for at least the next year. I'd give it at least a decade before it's as safe as it was before this happened, but after a year it'd still be safer than anywhere else you might be playing damn-fool games with mystery fluids."
"Is this a danger unique to wielders of the Winds?" Belegar asks cautiously.
Kragg snorts. "Unfortunately not. There was a time when even the most blockheaded of Apprentices to Thungni's art would know better, but in these modern times it's not unknown for this sort of thing to arise from training or experimentation without proper fundamental education or supervision. If you push hard enough on the energies of Chaos they start pushing back, so every now and then you get some blockhead with more reach than grasp who thinks that whacking the Aethyr hard enough to draw the wrong sort of attention makes things safer. Older than her have managed worse for stupider reasons."
Belegar stares hard at the spot in the air where the Vitae penetrated, as if trying to manifest Magesight by sheer stubbornness. "What's the worst case scenario if something did punch all the way through?"
"Up here is isolated enough from magical energies that whatever came through would only have what was being experimented on to sustain itself," Kragg says. "Minus whatever was lost to actually making the breach in the first place. It could bring energies through with it, of course, but it's zero sum, it's either a larger force coming through or a smaller force that can last longer. There are other magical energies in the other towers, of course, but we knew they would be around Zhufokri experiments, so we built them sturdy. Unless they knew exactly how they were made - and they don't - it would take more effort to get at those energies than they'd gain by doing so."
"And it's likewise isolated from any other potential victims," Gunnars says. "Besides which, the Undumgi are militarized enough that they'd respond quickly to an attack even from an unexpected direction. Unless bolstered by the emergence of a Cult to support it - and we are watching out for that sort of thing - whatever comes through would only manage limited damage before evaporating or being fended off."
"The limiting factor for that lot isn't the amount of strength they can bring to bear, it's how much they can maintain in reality," Kragg agrees. "And keeping that low is the whole purpose of the Waystone Network, of which the Karak itself is a part. A lot would have to go very wrong over a long period of time for there to be enough ambient energy anywhere in the Karak to maintain a meaningful invasion force."
Belegar nods as he digests that. "So it's not so much the experimental mishap that made this so alarming, but that it was compounded by the eye of such a being being turned this way in the first case." He gets a series of nods in response. "Which is likely because the retrieval of Karak Vlag spoked their wheel."
"It seems that way," you say. The being could easily have been lying about that, but you've only locked blades with the forces of Chaos a handful of times and that was the most dramatic encounter you've had.
Belegar nods again and relaxes slightly. "I do appreciate you bringing this to my attention, and expect you to do so again if things escalate further, but for now I'm happy to consider this Zhufokri business that was handled by Zhufokri, same as the occasional explosion atop Karag Lhune. Just make sure it stays handled."
You exhale in relief. "Thank you for your trust."
---
As you explain matters to Algard, he starts to rummage through his paperwork subdimensions for specific reports, and by the time you're wrapping up most of the surface of his usually-clear desk is covered. "Everchosen, Everchosen," he says to himself. "You know, before Asavar Kul there wasn't even widespread consensus that it was even a meaningful title, just a way for Norscan Champions to steal a bit of legitimacy from Morkar the Uniter, the closest they've ever come to a Sigmar. But a Kurgan claiming the title of Twelfth Everchosen and having the Norscans fall in line without any friction put paid to that. Ever since there's been a constant clamour over trying to fill out the roster, and of course everyone claims that the Chaos Champion that their province or country or Cult can take credit for slaying is definitely an Everchosen. Bretonnia says Kharan, Ostermark says the Dark Master of Mordheim, Hochland says Gorthor, all three provinces that had forces at Ostwald Moor say Harald the Hammer, Remas says Erghal Bloodhard. Walther says that there's a Druchii legend that Malekith recruited or enslaved one, Lady Magister Grey says that the Chaos Dwarves like to boast that they manipulated one into clearing a bunch of competition out of the Dark Lands, and even the undead Priest-King of Khemri claims to have killed one. All in all, there's at least three times as many candidates as there's been actual Everchosen, and that's not counting however many we might never have heard of. In any case, if it's time for a Thirteenth to rise, that would explain some of the infighting we've seen among Chaos cults recently. At first we thought it was knock-on effects from the Karak Vlag business, actually."
"How so?"
"Just as the Aethyr reflects reality, so too can the politics of the Chaos Cults reflect the Aethyr. If Higher Daemons start fighting, so too do Cults aligned with them. At the same time that you were yanking Karak Vlag back into the mountains, the Six-Cult of the Soulflayer and the Nine-Cult of the Eldritch Watcher went to war with each other, detonating decades of secrecy and careful recruitment in the process as Witch Hunters waded in and finished off the survivors."
"Well, at least I can put a Use-Name to the voice," you say, with forced lightness. Not a True Name, of course. That would be too easy.
"Since then there's been clashes between Norscan Reavers and Fimir in the Wasteland, and clashes at sea between other Norscans and a Plague-Fleet, and some sort of surreptitious war in Bretonnia between an undead host headed by a skeletal Chaos Lord and the Duke behind the False Grail business. You're not the first to mention competing for Everchosen as a possibility." He rearranges some of the papers and sighs. "We'll keep an eye on the situation, of course, but even if we knew for sure that it was happening, it's hard to convince anyone to mobilize until the forces of the enemy start doing the same. I do hope it takes its time and the Gods smile on the coming generation. Luitpold is no Magnus, and Vladimir is definitely no Alexis."
"Any advice for dealing with the Daemon itself?" you prod.
"Eventually we all pick up the kind of enemy that can't be solved with a knife," he says. "The danger of such beings shouldn't be underestimated, but can be overstated. It plots and it plans, of course, but remember that it's still a Daemon. Sometimes they'll rattle your cage just to see you bounce off the walls. And, of course, the 'conspicuously pay attention to someone to cause them to be distrusted by others' caper is one of the oldest ones in the book. If you gather some actual evidence of what it's up to, if it's up to anything at all instead of just claiming victory through a mouthful of blood, we can start moving to counter it. But until then, be alert but not rattled. If you start spending several times more effort trying to unravel its words than it spent speaking them, you begin a game you can never win."
"What if that's what it's counting on?"
"What if you getting out of bed in the morning is what it's counting on? Better people than either of us have driven themselves mad that way. No, unless it's levelled more than the usual volley of smug insinuations your way, there's not much more to be done."
You very carefully react as though there was nothing more than that. "Thank you for your time, Magister Patriarch," you say, and rise and begin to leave the office.
"Oh, and Lady Magister?"
You turn, and are barely able to catch the glowing orb and its payload of Hysh as it hurtles towards you, and frown at its scrutiny and subsequent inactivity. "Why couldn't you just hand it to me?"
"I could say it's so you let your guard down, but honestly it's because if it does its work on someone sitting right across from me, it messes with my paperwork enchantments."
- May everyone enjoy any holidays they might be celebrating this time of year without worry about Daemonic disclosure hanging over their head.
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Unless the vote's close enough that it could still swing, I usually start writing to see if it's going to cooperate that day before I officially close the vote, and sometimes I get writing and forget to close it. Hence the usual 'writing has begun' instead of something like 'writing will now begin'.
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
Well, I guess it's a good thing he remembered that this time. I distinctly remember it detonating his paperwork pockets the last time Mathilde got daemon-checked.
Also yay, everything went well!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And that would be an unholy disaster. The daemons of Paperwork are a particularly malevolent bunch.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It's a Christmas Eve Eve miracle!
View: https://twitter.com/dril/status/134787490526658561
occassional -> occasional
View: https://twitter.com/dril/status/134787490526658561
goddammit Algard stop reading the fucking thread this is just rude
- Location
- Earth
So N'Kari and Sarthorael, if I'm getting my titles right.
So Krell and Maldred, if my wiki-searching skills aren't that terrible.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Interesting that Maldred's around- he died to plague during the Affair and didn't reappear that I'm aware of.
But yeah, skeletal Chaos Lord certainly rings like Krell- and possibly without Kemmler?
- Location
- Oklahoma
So it looks like we should avoid further experiments that might punch holes in reality for the next two turns- at least in the Room of Calamity.
Well, I would call the invitation to be everchosen pretty smug, but maybe not an insinuation.
Well, with our newfound free space where dangerous magical experiments used to be, I would like to suggest Branarhune as a substitute.
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- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
This delays the galaxy dunk and AV book, since I imagine we'd want to do both the Orbs of Sorcery construction and the new attempt at the liminal realm inside the Room of Oh Shit Oh God Oh Fuck No, but I guess we can use our AP on some other research for the next two turns? Windherding, maybe, or some of our artifact backlog? I really don't want to play games with this and risk things getting much worse.
Anyway, this went pretty well, assuming Algard is playing it straight and not secretly telling the rest of the Colleges that our work can't be trusted. Guess I was overly paranoid in my vote.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
So avoid experimenting in the Room of Oh Dhar for a while, and keep a slightly closer eye on it until the crease in reality heals, and we should be good. Also, no visible attention/suspicion beyond the mandatory demon-check from Algard for reporting this, and the hint on the everchosen seems to be useful. Also, nice to get some advice and context from other experienced zhuf experts (Kragg and Algard) on the situation.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
On this plus side, it makes a lot of space for non-spell research. Maybe we can get around to reading the Elf's books about the Lizardman rubbings?
- Location
- Canada
Liminal Realms yes, but we can detonate arbitrarily small quantities of AV at a time when making the Orbs, which can probably keep the danger down to acceptable levels.
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
Don't we need the null room to make the
edit: Mathilde'd by the pickle
