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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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About the Eltharin runes and Pantheonic Mandela... It could be the case that the reason some of them look like, as you say, "an artist spent 50 hours drawing it and then rushed the last few runes" is because the Anoqeyan/Eltharin/Praestantia was heavily influenced by hermeticism, western occultism like the Golden Dawn, and alchemical symbols?

The Winds of Magic especially look like some alchemical symbols.

So, the creators look into esotericism and occultism and mythology and religion when writing up their setting and mythology. They draw on symbols. They draw on archetypes. They also study history and mythology, and study the things that writers and poets and mythology writers studied, and the things they were inspired by. They attempt to draw on the same things that motivate and move mankind across man's history. And... they have some mixed success in putting it all together. I mean. They're doing something half nerdy, half serious, half "let's just throw in a cool reference, right?", and there are multiple writers, multiple editions, multiple stories, and there are years and even decades of this stuff.

So. Some of it is genuine and try hard, and manages to hit the mark and be genuine and cool as heck. Some of it is just references. Some of it is miss. Some of it is deliberately slightly sloppy; a history and mythology that is a mix of organic and the-Old-Ones-were-putting-this-together-but-didn't-finish, etc etc. Some of it is just "woops, that was a mistake." And some of it is just weird or crappy or whatever.

Some writers reference and use occultism seriously, in the sense that they are writing about magic and mythology and so they draw on the real world history and body of knowledge of mythology and occultism. And some of the writers just reference occult symbols and art just because you gotta reference it and meme about it right, you're writing about magic and everybody knows Warhammer is incredibly "I am very blatant and on the nose!" so let's just lift it wholesale, jumble a few words and letters, and bam.

But, well, Warhammer is actually pretty cool when it earnestly and genuinely takes and uses from Tolkien, real world history and symbols, and real world occultism.

... And, strangely, it's kind of earnest and genuine when it just goes "Fuck it. 80s metal cover. Yeah. That's Chaos and Druchii. Bitchin'!" Look, it just... ... yeah. It's Warhammer, man. It's got cool and earnest and silly stuff, and serious stuff, and is loved for it all.
Garlak said:
(Anyway! On to the Gods and Winds thing! ... I think "a god" mixing with "a Wind of Magic" just gets you Dhar, and results in a Dark Lore. i.e. We already have theurgy. It's sorcery. Maybe the Lore of Tzeentch is "the energy of the god Tzeentch" combined with "the Wind of Fire, the Wind of Metal, or both."
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Thinking about this again... maybe it's not completely right that "god" + "Wind" equals "whoops, you get Dhar"?

I mean, the Flame of Ulric. I think some, me among them, theorized that maybe it was some kind of Font of Ghur that... ... was claimed by Ulric, or... something'd by Ulric. (Because somebody drew a comparison between the effects of Ghur, and how it made animals wild and large, and... something. It was a while back.) Maybe it's not a Font of Ghur. Maybe it's an Aethyric Shunt. Maybe it's a Font of Ulric; i.e. it leads to Ulric's realm or something. Or maybe Ulric did mix with Ghur. Or maybe Ulric is able to feed on Ghur?

... I mean, the Thorned One apparition was able to eat Ghur, Hysh, and Ulgu. And Dark Hounds can eat Aqshy, while not being of Aqshy, as Gehenna put it. So maybe Gods can eat Winds, and can vomit the Winds back up?

Presumably, perhaps the reason some Apparitions can eat the Winds is, uh... Er. Maybe similar to the way humans can draw several different Winds to themselves by emoting or thinking it, and it doesn't form Dhar. Or how Mathilde can have the Seed of Rebirth in her arm, and Ulgu in her soul, and have other magic cast on her, and use the Whiskey Fireball magic item, and still be fine.

Maybe if you have an internal organ system that properly uses some Winds, and you are a spirit or apparition, you just... can run on several Winds just like that. Who knows.

... That one story about the Gods having a big fight, and there being tons of corpses, and then mentioning rats in there... And I think Taal or Ulric smashing something and creating the flat-topped mountain...

From a certain perspective, maybe that could be a retelling of old Great Horned Rat being up to its old tricks, and trying the same trick it succeeded at Kavzar, and the same trick that Nagash tried and succeeded at doing at Nehekhara... except in that case, the Gods caught on to it and stopped it flat before the Great Horned Rat could do it, maybe? Hmmm.


Also another weird thought. Myrmidia and a few other gods being brought down to mortal. Maybe it wasn't mortal mortal. Maybe it was just "mortal" "but with a huge tank of energy; but not immortal. Anymore, that is."

Maybe Kavzar was placed in that situation too.

And maybe he decided to go with Dhar to become immortal again.

Whereas Myrmidia decided to do it the long way around, and try to hit the needed critical mass (of... whatever is is a god or Old One creation or spirit or whatever, would have needed a critical mass of) to become immortal again. Or maybe not immortal, but powerful and influential in the Aethyr? Whereas Kavzar decided to accept a swifter path to relevance again. Maybe Kavzar decided that he wasn't going to get taken advantage of and betrayed again, and so he hurried on to the "coat yourself with Dhar" train instead.


Also also. Ursun being the bear whose roar shatters reality. Somebody said it was weird that a bear of all things can do that, or that he is credited with restoring the sun or driving away winter or whatnot. Well... maybe that "shatter reality" ability is a thing ur-magic/Qhaysh users or Gods can do; it's just, Ursus is relatively good at it. And/or maybe he was the one who usually took up the duty of warding away winter in Kislev; it wasn't a unique ability he had, he just happened to be the one on winter-poking duty at the time.
... Or maybe it was a unique ability or trait.
Or maybe it was a unique ability, but it's linked to some object or quality or Aethyric real estate or ancient Old One mechanism, and Ursun happens to be the one who is bearing or in charge of that ability/trait/object/mechanism, and thus the one that roars or wards away winter.

Is winter (super?)natural to Kislev? Is winter and winter powers from the Widow? Or is winter in Kislev from some trapped beings, and the Widow manages it and takes it over? Or is winter from the interplay or trapped beings and Hysh, maybe Hysh used to trap them (and Hysh forces ice dragons so maybe Hysh has ice powers????) and the Widow weaponizes or manages or monitors this "run-off"?

Or maybe the land is winter in Kislev; in a similar-ish way to how Athel Loren might be Ghyran-y. And how I theorized "Huh, I wonder if the Ancient Sky Titan Lands, or the Mountains of Mourne, are the Ghur equivalent of Athel Loren?" Maybe Kislev is Hysh-y. Or icy and wintry.

I mean, Elementalism and Elementalists are things. So maybe it doesn't have to be Hysh. Maybe it can be the element of frost and winter and cold.
 
Garlak said:
About the Eltharin runes and Pantheonic Mandela... It could be the case that the reason some of them look like, as you say, "an artist spent 50 hours drawing it and then rushed the last few runes" is because the Anoqeyan/Eltharin/Praestantia was heavily influenced by hermeticism, western occultism like the Golden Dawn, and alchemical symbols?

The Winds of Magic especially look like some alchemical symbols.

So, the creators look into esotericism and occultism and mythology and religion when writing up their setting and mythology. They draw on symbols. They draw on archetypes. They also study history and mythology, and study the things that writers and poets and mythology writers studied, and the things they were inspired by. They attempt to draw on the same things that motivate and move mankind across man's history. And... they have some mixed success in putting it all together. I mean. They're doing something half nerdy, half serious, half "let's just throw in a cool reference, right?", and there are multiple writers, multiple editions, multiple stories, and there are years and even decades of this stuff.

So. Some of it is genuine and try hard, and manages to hit the mark and be genuine and cool as heck. Some of it is just references. Some of it is miss. Some of it is deliberately slightly sloppy; a history and mythology that is a mix of organic and the-Old-Ones-were-putting-this-together-but-didn't-finish, etc etc. Some of it is just "woops, that was a mistake." And some of it is just weird or crappy or whatever.

Some writers reference and use occultism seriously, in the sense that they are writing about magic and mythology and so they draw on the real world history and body of knowledge of mythology and occultism. And some of the writers just reference occult symbols and art just because you gotta reference it and meme about it right, you're writing about magic and everybody knows Warhammer is incredibly "I am very blatant and on the nose!" so let's just lift it wholesale, jumble a few words and letters, and bam.

But, well, Warhammer is actually pretty cool when it earnestly and genuinely takes and uses from Tolkien, real world history and symbols, and real world occultism.

... And, strangely, it's kind of earnest and genuine when it just goes "Fuck it. 80s metal cover. Yeah. That's Chaos and Druchii. Bitchin'!" Look, it just... ... yeah. It's Warhammer, man. It's got cool and earnest and silly stuff, and serious stuff, and is loved for it all.
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Most of the stuff that's really bugging me is stuff that almost can't be unintentional. How hard is it to draw horns on Eldrazor's rune and not draw horns on Drakira? How do you fuck that up?
The mandala is also a thing that appeared in a single book, so I think it's relatively safe from the "twenty authors wrote this thing and some of them were bad at their job" thing that plagues so much of the setting.

Also Eldrazor's rune is the ugliest, somehow managing to be both complicated and boring. This is not an opinion I'm stating an objective fact
Garlak said:
Thinking about this again... maybe it's not completely right that "god" + "Wind" equals "whoops, you get Dhar"?
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Damsels seem to manage God+Winds fine?
Garlak said:
... I mean, the Thorned One apparition was able to eat Ghur, Hysh, and Ulgu. And Dark Hounds can eat Aqshy, while not being of Aqshy, as Gehenna put it. So maybe Gods can eat Winds, and can vomit the Winds back up?
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I don't know if The Widow is "vomiting" Ice Magic, but there's definitely a "wind goes in, god stuff comes out" dynamic going on in the Kislev network, which in turn makes the notion of feeding winds to Gods at least somehwat plausible.
 
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New action for turn 41 unlocked:

[ ] Stare really hard at the Pantheonic Mandela in search of any and all possible meanings
-[ ] [COIN] The Gambler

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On a slightly more serious note, we've started to figure out some of the wind stuff. Notably, we've discovered that the thing that turns Aether into winds isn't reality, but something external to reality.

So it's possible that gods run along similar lines—that they are aether that has had a nature/identity/fursona imprinted onto it by an external force—possibly mortal belief, possibly something self imposed.

The question is, if this is correct, where are the gods getting the Aether from, without being transformed by the winds or by Chaos? And how do they have family relationships if they are just... Clouds of self aware magic? Why are some gods temporarily mortal (Sigmar, Mrymidia, Morghur)?

I wonder if that's how elementalism works—you strip out the existing identity of a wind (easily if you start with earthbound magic) and then build it up whilst imposing another identity upon it, until you've got something that's like a wind, but isn't and is entirely localised within your kitchen.

---

Back to shitposting, Gods are NFT's and Aether is the Blockchain. Wizards and priests are monkey JPEGs.
 
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Is there any sensible way to find out who the artist that drew the Mandala was? Maybe chat them up on Twitter or wherever? I guess artist credit at the back of the book?
 
mathymancer said:
Damsels seem to manage God+Winds fine?
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Based on a bunch of "The Warhammer tabletop armybooks have Damsels choose between 3 different Winds" "The Damsels are said to be servants of the Lady, priestesses" = "... Damsels must be able to wield multiple Winds, and be priestesses too!" conclusions people drew over the years and repeated it again and again over time. "Also there's the Nehekharans too! That's supporting evidence for our Damsel theories stuff."

(That sort of stuff all used to be fresh and exciting and interesting... 5 or 10 years ago. Now it just feels like repetitions from people who've just been looking for That One Warhammer Game That Finally Lets Them Get, And Feel Like They Earned It, High Magic. The one game that'll finally use all their theories they've built up over the years of playing in these quests. Where all their tracking of various books, and various quests, will finally be validated or be put to use.)
(Meanwhile, I will forever remember stuff like a certain person arguing very academically and earnestly and seriously about how "Well technically, Nehekharans aren't undead because..." in a conversation topic about how most people would react to Nehekharans being spooky scary skeletons. I kind of felt like "looks like a skeleton" would probably top most people's reactions. Also also, I kind of felt like "looks like a skeleton" probably qualified as "Yes, that's an undead. Watchu talkin' about Willis?" I will also forever remember him jumping on the opportunity to sell cannons to the Bretonnians, reasoning that since gods will react and by morphed by their worshippers, clearly that means that narratively-speaking games-speaking, this meant this was the start of the "change the Bretonnians the change The Lady by selling guns" quest chain. (It turned out it was a subverted or corrupted Damsel involved instead. Maybe the lesson here is don't jump to your most preferred theory worldview to explain things.))
(... That didn't really have anything to do with your comment, and was a bit of a detour -- hence it being in parenthesises -- but I just felt like getting that off my chest. The detour wasn't meant to debunk your statement or anything tho'. I mean heck, your statement of "Well, the Damsels manage it so... who knows?" probably just merits a "Yeah, shrug, who knows what's up with that?" from me. But I was reminded of old debates and how some things and worldviews have just sorta... set in.)

Anyway. Some possible explanations or ideas or things...

One possible interpretation of "Damsels can cast from the Winds of..." could be "So, you know how the Empire has 8 orders of magic wizards? Bretonnia basically only had 3." i.e. The Damsels don't use 3 Winds. There are 3 types of Damsels. This isn't saying a given Damsel can use 3 Winds. It's just saying there are 3 types of Damsels.

Another interpretation is simply: "We don't want to come up with a new magical lore, or divine lore, every time for every book -- though some like the Wood Elves will get their own lore! -- so we'll just have this divine magic be the mechanical equivalent of 'just go into the basic reference rulebook which had the basic rules, and pick from one of these Lores, but remember that it's actually divine magic rather than wind magic."

Alternatively alternatively, some gods can wield the winds. And so their priests can wield those winds.

It's just, people really like Implications and Deep Lore and so they like to find reasons why or how Qhaysh might be possible for humans, or ways that Divine Magic and Wind Magic can mix and etc. And they try to figure out a way to have a character discover it or create it in any given quest they come to.

I mean. I remember reading the Gotrek and Felix books. And wherein it seemed like Maximilian Schreiber was just flat-out using several Winds of Magic; or, well, not Winds but... energies or essence with colors. Like, at times he's described as manipulating green essence to heal or something, (I think it was in Daemonslayer when he's healing Ulrika from her sickness in the siege?). And, well, I think there was uncertainty or retcons as to whether Maximilian was a Gold Wizard or a Light Wizard.

So it seemed like, well, some things just seemed like less of a big deal at times, in some eras of the writings and in some canon. ("Ah, but that was from Felix's perspective and he probably made stuff up, therefore it isn't an authoritative view on magic. Unlike Night's Dark Masters, which... etc etc" Fine. Whatever.) If you wanted to be a big badass wizard? You were defined by how big and badass your spells and effects were. By how deep and esoteric your lore was. What secrets you knew. Your esoteric knowledge and mysteries. It was more... sword and sorcery-y.


Which means that a fourth interpretation could be: "It's Imperial Wizards that are doing things 'wrong'(ish)."

It is the Empire's wizards that tend to mono-focus on a single Wind.

Why? Well... maybe because it gets them more power faster. Or maybe because there are 8 orders, whereas other nations have a magic tradition that only focuses on one arcane lore, or on 2 or 3 or 4 winds. So maybe it's an organization, and culture/history, issue. With the Empire's wizard school being assembled the way it is. And hey, part of the reason it's assembled the way it is is because it was set up with the help of Elves. Who, admittedly, heavily drew from the Empire's own pre-existing magic traditions. But maybe this resulted in both smushing them together, and also, keeping them separate too. i.e. They brought them all together into one city... ... but also taught them not to mix their Winds.

Over time, the orthodoxy of Warhammer Fantasy (whether canon lore or quest and fandom) seemed to go with a "Don't mix the Winds; you get Dhar. Period." approach. In older times, it may not have been as absolute, or as straightforward as that.

... One weird factoid I remember, and wish I could source easily so it isn't just an old memory in my head bugging me, is that Albion's Truthsayers had a spell-list that was the Ghyran spell-list... ... but the top spell was Transformation of Kadon instead. Ayup. They used Ghyran but could transform into a giant monster. Go figure.


Actually, thinking about the Empire's wizards again...

... I wonder.

Could it be as simple as "It's the location, silly. It's the learning place. It's the filled-with-one-Wind campuses."? That is... the way that Teclis's big contribution to making magic safer for humans to use -- other than instruction and books of course -- was by... ... providing them a rich and pure magical environment.

The Imperial Wizards are way better at avoiding the whole "Probably will inevitably touch Dhar and go nuts. Or at least a bit nuts." thing, is because they spend years in an otherwordly campus?

((Erm. Well I mean, duh. We know this is the case, we are literally told this. But.))

What I mean is that: "Previously, even an all-Aqshy-using mage... would have gone a bit nutty and probably gotten some Dhar taint." i.e. Before the Colleges of Magic, even if somebody tried to use the same regiment of magic, if they had tried to be a Bright Wizard or Gold Wizard before the Colleges, they still would have been rolling the dice on their sanity. ... Or maybe they would only have been rolling the dice on their sanity if they wanted to go all the way up to Battle Magic?

... And now I wish I could remember if "The Damsels of Bretonnia go away to the Lady's realm in order to learn magic for a while" was just a quest-created thing for KnightErrant's quests, or if KnightErrant based it on something. Because if so, that would be an intriguing similarity there. That, a big reason for whether a magical tradition would be stable, sane, and powerful, would be if "Well do you have the chops to have a dedicated other-realm to it? Or is your civilization or organization not mystically potent and rich enough for that?"

Bretonnia has the Lady, who has major holy places and mystical magic stuff going on...

Kislev has magical winter stuff...

Nehekhara had a bunch of obelisks and pyramids and stuff...

The Hedgewise have Haletha and the Forest of Shadows. And there was the other forest in the Empire whose magic got turned off and drained...

The Colleges of Magic here and now have liminal realms...

Hrm. Idea seems to check out a bit? Admittedly, it's doing some heavy lifting on the basis of "Well Bretonnia and the Lady is sort of talked about and described in the various lore and stuff as feeling like you could say that... ((Or maybe it's just due to Athel Loren being next door.))" "Same for Kislev. It just sort of feels like it has a magical liminal realm, y'know?"

Plus, liminal realms in Divided Loyalties are their own thing and invention, and a bit different from other quests and stories versions of other-realms.
 
Garlak said:
Based on a bunch of "The Warhammer tabletop armybooks have Damsels choose between 3 different Winds" "The Damsels are said to be servants of the Lady, priestesses" = "... Damsels must be able to wield multiple Winds, and be priestesses too!" conclusions people drew over the years and repeated it again and again over time. "Also there's the Nehekharans too! That's supporting evidence for our Damsel theories stuff."
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It's explicitly stated in Knights of the Grail.

Damsels learn either Life or Beasts, then learn the one they don't know, then learn Heavens when they become Prophetesses.
 
Garlak said:
The Hedgewise have Haletha and the Forest of Shadows.
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Just to comment on the Hedgewise stuff:
Nordland and Ostland (and maybe Ostermark) Hedgewise have Halétha and the Forest of Shadows. Middenland Hedgewise have Ranald. Talabecland Hedgewise have a variant of the Old Faith apparently, various other splinter factions of the Hedgewise have various other Gods.
 
Garlak said:
... And now I wish I could remember if "The Damsels of Bretonnia go away to the Lady's realm in order to learn magic for a while" was just a quest-created thing for KnightErrant's quests, or if KnightErrant based it on something.
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That's more-or-less canon.

Every child in Bretonnia that is discovered to be capable of magic is taken away by the Fey Enchantress.

The girls eventually reappear as Damsels, the boys are never seen again.

(Explanations of the boys vary from 'they serve the Lady personally in her court' to 'they're slaves for the Wood Elves', depending on the source)
 
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Looking at Loec's rune has me thinking—there's four distinct vertical lines, each of which bisects at least one of the two horizontal lines. Now several of the pantheon runes have vertical lines, but those are typically one central line supporting the "head" and two longer lines on each side representing arms.

Loec doesn't fit that pattern (if it can be called a pattern). His "arms" appears to be the upper horizontal line, and the lower horizontal line curves around into His body. As such, I can't help but wonder if it's a reference to the four faces of Ranald. Gambler, Deceiver, Night Prowler, Protector. I wonder if the number of horizontal lines represents their importance—the Gambler on the far left, hanging down, Deceiver and Protector bisecting both horizontal lines (and creating a pattern of repeating X's), and the Night Prowler rising above to support the Cadai crown. The Gambler isn't really associated with Loec, but trickery, aid, and shadows are.

Of course, I'm sure it's easy to justify any order for the four faces, those were just the ones that made sense to me. Also on a second look, the left and rightmost lines look very similar to the objects—a pair of hammers?—being held by Vaul. Drakia also has one, and Khaine has two so maybe a weapon or a knife?

Okay, scrapping that idea, the four lines are not the four faces, but the outer two are knives He's holding. Maybe the box in the middle is the four faces? Four crosses making a square? I've been looking at this rune for too long, because it now looks like He's doing the Usain Bolt victory pose.

Final thoughts—Lileath has the exact same "feet"/base as Loec does, something that isn't shared by any other god (Hekarti and Atharti seem to have a similar looking base, but it's just different enough to be a different type of swoosh, so I'm unsure if that's connected). Lileath also has four vertical lines below Her head (creating a row of crosses), same as Loec. And if you squint, a crescent isn't that different from a V. She even has one of the tear drops Loec has.

... Gods dammit I think I just convinced myself that the Lady is a daughter.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Looking at Loec's rune has me thinking—there's four distinct vertical lines, each of which bisects at least one of the two horizontal lines. Now several of the pantheon runes have vertical lines, but those are typically one central line supporting the "head" and two longer lines on each side representing arms.

Loec doesn't fit that pattern (if it can be called a pattern). His "arms" appears to be the upper horizontal line, and the lower horizontal line curves around into His body. As such, I can't help but wonder if it's a reference to the four faces of Ranald. Gambler, Deceiver, Night Prowler, Protector. I wonder if the number of horizontal lines represents their importance—the Gambler on the far left, hanging down, Deceiver and Protector bisecting both horizontal lines (and creating a pattern of repeating X's), and the Night Prowler rising above to support the Cadai crown. The Gambler isn't really associated with Loec, but trickery, aid, and shadows are.

Of course, I'm sure it's easy to justify any order for the four faces, those were just the ones that made sense to me. Also on a second look, the left and rightmost lines look very similar to the objects—a pair of hammers?—being held by Vaul. Drakia also has one, and Khaine has two so maybe a weapon or a knife?

Okay, scrapping that idea, the four lines are not the four faces, but the outer two are knives He's holding. Maybe the box in the middle is the four faces? Four crosses making a square? I've been looking at this rune for too long, because it now looks like He's doing the Usain Bolt victory pose.

Final thoughts—Lileath has the exact same "feet"/base as Loec does, something that isn't shared by any other god (Hekarti and Atharti seem to have a similar looking base, but it's just different enough to be a different type of swoosh, so I'm unsure if that's connected). Lileath also has four vertical lines below Her head (creating a row of crosses), same as Loec. And if you squint, a crescent isn't that different from a V. She even has one of the tear drops Loec has.

... Gods dammit I think I just convinced myself that the Lady is a daughter.
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I am genuinely insluted that this is what convinced you The Lady is a daughter.

Anyway. Loec's rune seem to incorporate Issth, which means dexterousness and trickery. That's the "hands" that remind you of Vaul. The basis of Lileath rune seems to be Cython, the symbol of Lileath. Neither of those things explain the four vertical lines (if there's really anything to explain there) but regarding the tear, that's just a pretty common shape in Eltharin runes, literally every God in the inner ring aside from Kurnous has at least one, so I wouldn't make much of that.

(yes, Cython means The serpent and Issth means Serpent of Light. No, I do not want to talk about Asaph and Qu'aph and I'll deny that they have anything to do with this, don't try me)
 
Rafin said:
Is there any sensible way to find out who the artist that drew the Mandala was? Maybe chat them up on Twitter or wherever? I guess artist credit at the back of the book?
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Mat Ward is listed as a writer for both Uniforms and Heraldry of the High Elves and Dark Elves (8th edition), but both books only list a cover artist (Dave Gallagher and Paul Dainton), not an artist in general.

(8th edition WE doesn't list either writer or artist, though I believe Mat Ward is known to have also written for it?)
 
Mopman43 said:
(Explanations of the boys vary from 'they serve the Lady personally in her court' to 'they're slaves for the Wood Elves', depending on the source)
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And End Times went with 'Lady was using them to make an army of even magic-kier magic knights', because the existing kingdom's worth of magic knights was apparently insufficient.

Then again, Bretonnia got destroyed entirely offscreen in End Times, so that might not have been an inaccurate assessment...
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Okay, scrapping that idea, the four lines are not the four faces, but the outer two are knives He's holding. Maybe the box in the middle is the four faces? Four crosses making a square? I've been looking at this rune for too long, because it now looks like He's doing the Usain Bolt victory pose.
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I see it too, but instead of the Usain Bolt pose, he's doing a little dance. The bottom left rune almost looks like an inverted jester's shoe. He's doing that little walk thing of bringing up each leg up to your chest each time you take a step that jesters do before going up to their kings before laying down some really hot wisdom disguised as mockery.

...Alternatively, his body is just a hashtag with extra bits.
 
Mopman43 said:
It's explicitly stated in Knights of the Grail.

Damsels learn either Life or Beasts, then learn the one they don't know, then learn Heavens when they become Prophetesses.
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I mean, human wizards can wield multiple winds too. The Empire colleges just don't because Teclis said it was a bad idea and he was likely right. The limit to one and only one wind is technique, not hard limitation. The problem is protecting one's soul from arcane marks that make casting other winds even riskier, and having a god take active and direct ownership of it likely helps with that.
 
Mopman43 said:
It's explicitly stated in Knights of the Grail.

Damsels learn either Life or Beasts, then learn the one they don't know, then learn Heavens when they become Prophetesses.
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Fouredged Sword said:
I mean, human wizards can wield multiple winds too. The Empire colleges just don't because Teclis said it was a bad idea and he was likely right. The limit to one and only one wind is technique, not hard limitation. The problem is protecting one's soul from arcane marks that make casting other winds even riskier, and having a god take active and direct ownership of it likely helps with that.
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True, humans can wield multiple Winds but the Empire doesn't know how and it's stupidly risky and possibly needs Divine assistance to pull off. Maybe Mathilde can change her Soul with either Wind Ascension or Theurgy to pull it off, but as she is now even if she learns to use multiple Winds it's really open to failure.
 
I wonder if directly teaching mortals magic introduces vulnerability for gods. I'm mostly thinking of Nagash and Nekehara, and the Widow and the prophecy of the guy who will ruin ice magic for the whole class. It would go a long way towards explaining why the Imperial cults are so secretive, if the gods have a clear example of what happens when some wizard with more ambition than sense learns all your deep Lore and turns you into a vending machine.

On the other hand it could just be the material advantage of having a monopoly on some sort of expertise is sufficient pressure to keep the churches secretive in the absence of divine directives not to.
 
ArcanaVitae said:
True, humans can wield multiple Winds but the Empire doesn't know how and it's stupidly risky and possibly needs Divine assistance to pull off. Maybe Mathilde can change her Soul with either Wind Ascension or Theurgy to pull it off, but as she is now even if she learns to use multiple Winds it's really open to failure.
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We have WAY too many ulgu arcane marks to even risk trying. Our soul is significantly made of ulgu and trying to funnel any other wind through it has an insane risk of dhar. The only other "wind" we likely could wield "safely" would be a dhar like necromancy, and even then we would likely need to stick to an ulgu flavored dhar.
 
Garlak said:
... One weird factoid I remember, and wish I could source easily so it isn't just an old memory in my head bugging me, is that Albion's Truthsayers had a spell-list that was the Ghyran spell-list... ... but the top spell was Transformation of Kadon instead. Ayup. They used Ghyran but could transform into a giant monster. Go figure.
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Ah, found it. It was in Storm of Magic.

MAGIC:
A Truthsayer is a Level 2 Wizard. He can be upgraded to a Level 3 Wizard for 35 points. A Truthsayer uses either the Lore of Beasts or the Lore of Life.

When selecting spells, a Truthsayer can exchange one spell for the Transformation of Kadon, instead of the usual signature spell.

So, while it says "pick either Beasts or Life", rather than both, and while it's a short write-up and it doesn't specify "You can only exchange for Kadon if you pick Beasts, obviously" because it's, well, a short write-up and so it may simply be leaving things unstated because it assumes that we'd know that obviously only the Beasts-using Truthsayer would be picking it... It does seem like the write-up does just, um, allow for a Truthsayer to cast Lore of Life spells and to also have Transformation of Kadon as a trump card.

Admittedly, Liljana (I think it was her? or one of the Ice Witches) did have a "turn into a Frostfiend" spell, interestingly enough. (And I think if I checked the wikis, I could find some kind of "Beast of Ulgu" "Beast of Aqshy" spells that got added with 4th Edition, or maybe earlier, I dunno. Which isn't the same as a Transformation spell per se, buuut.)

Y'know, I'm kind of starting to wonder whether it's possible, or plausible, for some magical traditions or some wizards to just somehow pull off Arcane Marks from multiple winds without Dhar. Or, like, if they prep their souls (possibly by having a Deity work on them? Or maybe magical tattoos?) to pre-prepare where they would get any future Arcane Marks; e.g. making sure that if they got an Arcane Mark on their hair of one Wind, they would automatically make sure their other Wind or Winds arcane marks would not go to their hair. "I've got Ghur in my left arm and Ghyran in my right arm. I just need to make sure they don't mix. Easy-peasy."

Or maybe Arcane Marks, and/or Wind-mixing, aren't as absolute in some Warhammer books, settings, canon, or fanon, as we now assume them to be?

I mean, we operate from the simple and straightforward basic logic of:
"You can't mix Winds because that gets you Dhar. You can't practice multiple Winds safely because you will inevitably get Arcane Marks. Arcane Marks are a Wind-attracting or Wind-replacing-a-bit-of-you type of mutation. Therefore, having multiple Wind Arcane Marks results in Dhar."
"QED, the big problem with human wind casting is the Arcane Marks."

And that just gets simplified as the common wisdom of "Well, you can't do multi-Wind because Arcane Marks. Arcane Marks mark your soul with a Wind, and if you get them from multiple Winds, it's bad news bears territory."

Which, well, that is how it works.

But it also makes me wonder what the heck is going on with other spellcasting traditions.

Also, arcane marks -- in this specific form and type of consequences of having them and the logical assumptions we make about them, I mean -- came about from the RPG book spellcasting ones. A source of canon which gets applied to the lens that one views the rest of Warhammer Fantasy canon and stories through.

Not to mention "So how, exactly, do other spellcasting traditions exist -- and exist enough to get identifiable marks or archetypes -- when they probably aren't just 'using tiny amounts of Wind' but also presumably aren't using the Winds individually/fully either?" Ice Witches, okay, they're divine and so get divine marks, right. But Hag Witches? How/why do they get marks? Is the spirit-binding thing part of the spellcasting lore, or is it just something that that tradition managed to find and incorporate, kind of like the Ambers/Golds/etc also being able to bind spirits? Or something else?


Hm. Well. Anyway, time to change the subject and switch to theorizing and sharing another interesting idea I had; the Axe of Grimnir, and the Slayer tradition.

Why is it, does one think, that Prince Morekai -- presumably himself a badass combatant, and well-equipped with armor and talismans, and such -- wasn't able to wield the Axe of Grimnir to the same effect that Gotrek, or Borek in this quest, was?

My theory?

The Slayer tattoos.
Boney said:
"Dwarf culture is inherited," he says simply. "Well, all culture is, I suppose. But ours is inherited with purpose."
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Boney said:
Only when the rites of Valaya are performed can they withstand this world, and many go their entire lives without walking under the open sky."

"Wait," you say, and take a moment. "Dwarven magical resistance isn't inherent?"

He shrugs. "It is not biologically inherent. It is culturally inherent. The Karaz Ankor does not recognize the distinction, and even the Dwarves living among the men of the Old World remain loyal to our ways and our Gods. The only exception..."
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Boney said:
Thorgrim fought with the constant chafing of the march of time to keep from snapping at and dismissing the ambassador. He had a duty, at least for however much longer the Karaz Ankor lasted.

Incoming Transport, said a third readout, passed on by a lookout that did not question why procedures demanded they note observations aloud. Vala-Azril-Ungol colours.
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"Holy shit, the Throne of Power was a literal throne of power -- meaning, energy, battery energy -- all along?"
"... Dwarfs do love to be literal and to lionize nouns... I guess we didn't realize just how accurate that name was."

((Also also, "Wow that turned out to be more literal than thought" has interesting implications for things like the other treasures of Karag Dum we know of; the Hammer of Fate and the Axe of the Runemasters. What if the Hammer of Fate is able to wield or interact with Azyr or with fate in some ways? Or maybe the fate or the Dwarfs specifically? And maybe the Axe of the Runemasters allows you some console commands for the way the Dwarf rune systems work? Or maybe lesser than that; maybe just letting you apply tweaks or mods to finished runic items.))

What do Slayers hope and wish for? To go off and fight and die, and, ideally, to have their Dooms be witnessed and remembered. They want it to be known that they died. And ideally they want to have died well. And of course the tale of Grimnir, or his end or vanishing, is about how he went off to fight Chaos.

Valaya's blessing protects from petrification.

What if the Slayer tattoos do something like "put Grimnir's eyes upon you"?

What if that is the reason that Gotrek, and in here Borek, were able to do what Prince Morekai wasn't able to do?

Because it was the combination of holding the Axe of Grimnir with the Slayer tattoos that did it.

... Possibly in addition to "having physically traveled to Karag Dum" too. Dwarfs are big on responsibility, on physically having eyes-on in order to determine and make sure things are right. Belegar's crown having to physically get close enough to Thorgrim's throne. The expedition Dwarfs insisting to Mathilde that, yes, they absolutely had to be part of the initial group that would go into Karak Vlag and try to determine what happened, because it was just proper that way. So, the best or most thorough or dependable Dwarf traditions and magical techniques would rely upon and take advantage of and intertwine with Dwarf habits and mindsets, and vice versa. It just makes sense to do things in ways that make sense for your people.

And Karak Vlag venerated Grimnir as "the foe of chaos", as we were told. It was Grimnir's last stop on the way to the north.

That, plus, I am guessing that Gotrek killing magical things and daemons, and thus spilling their energy, possibly might have powered up the axe and/or the tattoos. Or maybe the tattoos needed to be linked to something -- the Axe, the journey to Karag Dum, something else? Hm.

Also, another thing I suspect? That Gotrek could slowly be refining himself into a mindset applicable to Grimnir and/or to perma-killing Daemons; namely, maybe the requirement for fully slaying Daemons is something, well, conceptual. That is, maybe it's partly a matter of mindset or perspective; it's not just about killing a spirit or Daemon with swords or with magic, it's also about being so focused and devoted to daemon-killing that you yourself become "a thing of death-dealing". You turn yourself into the ultimate warrior. Or maybe that's just the requirement, or some of the requirements, for Dwarfs. Other races or other circumstances may have other prerequisites or things or stuff. Still. I liked it as a theory.

And if nothing else, "the tattoos, the axe, and the career -- being a Slayer -- are all resulting in Gotrek becoming attuned to or a big champion or avatar or channeler or lay-priest of Grimnir" seems viable.

... Also, the theory about the Slayer Tattoos, if true, might have interesting implications for the Slayer Kings. Maybe there's more than one reason they got those tattoos, and pass them down to every King and Prince. Maybe it has to do with the Eyes of Grimnir. Heck, maybe the Eyes of Grimnir used to interact with the other Axe of Grimnir (IIRC Thorgrim has one) and/or with Grimniric tattoos; but over time, or due to the great calamity that befell the Karaz Ankor with the underpassageways, some of that knowledge of why it was so, was lost. ((Okay, maybe not; the Eyes of Grimnir provide overwatch along Karaz-A-Karak's thing. While the Third Axe of Grimnir is in Peak Pass, where Karak Kadrin is. Buuut. Who knows. There was a princess of Karaz-A-Karak coming to Karak Kadrin, before being slain by Skaladrak Incarnadine, which started the Slayer King thing so... who knows.)) But "If x, then do y" still remained, so they applied it. I mean, we've batted around theories that Belegar's crown might be a control object for Bok haven't we? Who knows. Still. The possibility that the Slayer Kings took on the Slayer tattoos and Slayer duty, because the tattoos were an integral or important part of some Great Work or tradition or something, and they had to resort to this form of "backup" when they lost... something... and that as a side-effect of resorting to this last resort, or maybe a requirement of doing so, was that... they had to become Slayers. Man, wouldn't that suck if that were so. If it was a double-whammy of having failed immensely in some ways, and needing the tattoos.

Or maybe the tattoos would help... but they don't have an Axe of Grimnir. Or a key to the pass that opens it up. Or the Eyes of Grimnir. Or some other thing. So maybe they're just waiting for the proper conditions to crop up again. Waiting for longer than Thorgrim has waited with the "low battery power" sound in his ear. Though at least they didn't have the ringing sound. Just the Slayerhood.


Some possible issues with some of the theories; the Karag Dum dwarfs might have known some of this stuff, and so if they'd known about the tattoos and axe thing, they might have put tattoos -- or have a Priest of Grimnir apply some rites or blessings -- to Morekai. Gotrek might or might not have had the tattoos when he found the axe. Gotrek had to be lucky in the first place to find the axe, which may or may not have been luck, or fate, or who knows what. Admittedly, maybe since responsibilities are a big thing, Prince Morekai didn't want/couldn't become a Slayer or gain Slayer tattoos.

... Or maybe, uh, Grimnir just... wasn't able to save Prince Morekai. I mean, Grimnir was able to keep his body and the axe safe for close to 2 centuries before Gotrek stumbled upon... but maybe that was all he was able to do, after Morekai died.

Still though. I do think it reasonable to think that the tattoos of a Slayer might maybe do something. And that, in accordance with "Oh, huh, Dwarfs are surprisingly practical or literal huh?" it might be... "makes a dwarf's Doom be observed by Grimnir and/or the Ancestor Gods" (since Dwarfs want to have their Doom be known of, and because of the way Dwarfs like to have eyes-on or physical presence or physical proof of things to verify stuff) or "slowly shapes or forges a Dwarf to be a foe of Chaos and a warrior, like Grimnir would want or the Karaz Ankor would require or find helpful" or something like that.

EDIT: Or maybe it's simpler. Maybe the tattoos serve as a "friend-or-foe identifier" for Grimnir.

That, if you have them and go far enough north, Grimnir will recognize you and know not to smite you.

After all. Grimnir went off to the north to fight Chaos. And Slayers go off into the most dangerous situations. Maybe the tattoos are a FOF thing, if a Slayer goes far enough north. Or maybe an FOF thing for some of Grimnir's works or some of Grimnir's artifacts or runic workings or something.
 
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Garlak said:
But it also makes me wonder what the heck is going on with other spellcasting traditions.
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They are so good they never miscast :V

Lady probably provides some default blessing that prevents transmutation of the soul and maybe the Albionesse are just built different.

The basic eight winds have relatively uniform consequences (with some outliers that still fit the common theme). So the difference is probably not on the winds and how they are used but on who is using them.
 
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