Not just the people living in the dorms, but also all the household staff, the guards, the mages and priests, everyone who was employed by House Elwyn, everyone who could be considered a member without being a direct blood relative of the Head of the House, where all simultaneously made unemployed and homeless.
House Elwyn controlled 2/25ths—8%—of the total political power, economic wealth, and social and cultural influences amongst the Eonir—across both the cityborn and the forestborn.
And all that power and influence vanished in the space of time it took for Khazrak to kill three elflords. But vanished where? Some of it would have been absorbed or taken over by the Crown and the other Major Houses. Some of it would have fled into the canopy of the forest. And some of it would have sunk into the cracks and fissures in cityborn society, where it remains, curdling into resentment at the loss of power and drop in status.
And then some strange, foreign, human mageling squats in your former master's house, hobnobbing with those far above her station, twisting Eonir society onto a path that would have filled your lord with revulsion.
... I don't really know where I'm going with—just being unnecessarily paranoid I guess?
Yes, but if you are a loyal, or "loyal", noble from, say, Nuln, that is more of an incentive than a deterrent. Cultis would also try to exploit that, no?
With the Nordland pushed out of the forest the pressure to stay in the city should be relived which happened about more than a decade ago in game, so long enough for cityborn to leave if they wished to. I imagine it took some time for cityborn to believe in the new status quo so it could be still happening as those waited to see if it would keep, finally got around to it. Which means the problems we see are not really new aside from some overcrowding which will self correct overtime.
Man, I followed a quote, decided to read a few chapters out of nostalgia, and now I'm most of the way through a reread lol. Man. Much as I love all the stuff we got, any time I hit a big crossroads it makes me sad we'll never see the paths not taken. What would have been different if Mathilde had made her home in the Abyss beneath 8 peaks instead of the peak? Would we have gotten the death tower? Would we have found something strange down in the depths? I just hit the waystone project vote and god are some of the other options fascinating. A shadow war against the rats in nuln, with an ancient dwarven ruin to explore. Ambassador to the dwarves for the empire could have gone in a lot of interesting ways and helped integrate the empire and the dwarves more. Taking over sylvania and warring with vampires and every other monster to be found there. And kingdom building in the border princes or swamp town. Man. As interesting as digging into the waystones has been, and while it probably is one of the highest value options for the setting, I suspect a lot of these would have gotten us a lot more adventure.
Yes, but if you are a loyal, or "loyal", noble from, say, Nuln, that is more of an incentive than a deterrent. Cultis would also try to exploit that, no?
It only takes one or two city blocks being turned into rubble or worse before the entire city realizes that if someone is setting up artillery in your neighborhood, either they die or you do.
@Boney
What's Mathilde's reputation among the Grey College and the Colleges of Magic as a whole like. I mean she's know for being the Dwarf Friend and someone with a meteoric rise, but what is the rest of her reputation like?
@Boney
What's Mathilde's reputation among the Grey College and the Colleges of Magic as a whole like. I mean she's know for being the Dwarf Friend and someone with a meteoric rise, but what is the rest of her reputation like?
The update in Eike's PoV went into it. The short version is that she's generally seen similarly to Dragomas, in that she walked off the edge of the map at the start of her career and has come back with a big chunk of power, influence, and knowledge.
Man, I followed a quote, decided to read a few chapters out of nostalgia, and now I'm most of the way through a reread lol. Man. Much as I love all the stuff we got, any time I hit a big crossroads it makes me sad we'll never see the paths not taken. What would have been different if Mathilde had made her home in the Abyss beneath 8 peaks instead of the peak? Would we have gotten the death tower? Would we have found something strange down in the depths? I just hit the waystone project vote and god are some of the other options fascinating. A shadow war against the rats in nuln, with an ancient dwarven ruin to explore. Ambassador to the dwarves for the empire could have gone in a lot of interesting ways and helped integrate the empire and the dwarves more. Taking over sylvania and warring with vampires and every other monster to be found there. And kingdom building in the border princes or swamp town. Man. As interesting as digging into the waystones has been, and while it probably is one of the highest value options for the setting, I suspect a lot of these would have gotten us a lot more adventure.
If I'd found the quest at the time of that vote, I would have gone for Swamp Town. I love the way the quest is going, but man do I love Lustria and the Lizardmen in the lore.
If I'd found the quest at the time of that vote, I would have gone for Swamp Town. I love the way the quest is going, but man do I love Lustria and the Lizardmen in the lore.
Warhammer Fantasy: Wizard's Best Friend - a Familiar's Quest
Turn 22 2489.5 Start Slowly - Planning phase.
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"...So we will spend the time split between the Mountain and the Forest, with a lovely stroll to the Vorbergland near the end of the month. And a short stop at Altdorf in two weeks time..."
You perk your ear a little higher. It seems that Mathilde had finished discussing the Schedule and plans for the next six months with WEB-MAT and the Waystone project. They just finished going over their travel itinerary.
You know what that means of course.
Now it's your turn to plan.
Mathilde scratches you behind the ears.
Right, Scratches now, planning later.
PLAN FOR THIS TURN - CHOOSE BETWEEN SIX AND EIGHT. ANY CHOSEN BEYOND THE FIRST SIX WILL COME WITH RISKS.
[ ] Locked tasks, half an action each
-[*] Playing Fetch - spend part of your time in Karak Eight Peaks fetching books for Cython, It's not the blushing virgins that the story books say are the main appetite of dragons, but it serve just as well to placate your most terrifying of neighbors
-[*] Peacemaking and Integration - Karak Eight Peak is one of the most cosmopolitan of realms in the old world, and one so freshly colonized with no tradition to aid in that. while most acknowledge that fact and address it, fewer care to think how that would effect the animals and pet of all those cultures. Spent time to familiarize and liaison with the cats, dogs, goats, spiders and whatever else that walk on a different among of legs then the standard. Would alert to any emerging issues plaguing the neglected front.
[ ] As Per Orders: Be a Good Boy.
-[ ] What do you mean there is two We now? - investigate this new offshoot of the Araneae Sapiens and what may need to be done to address their new presence.
-[ ] Spooky Scary Spiders - while most workers and builders of the new library no longer reach for the axe each time a We spider sneak up on them, that is still short of the standard for ideal cooperation on the work needed for the library. Your present as a mediator could go a long way to smooth the tensions.
-[ ] Waystone dog walking - Mathilde is planning on investigating the missing Waystone link that should lay at Reikland. Join here and aid her in anything from searching for magic, Spotting irregularities and providing onboard entertainment for the trip.
-[ ] The EIC's hidden angel - Mathilde bring snacks, Mathilde own the EIC, EIC can bring goods from far away places. therefore EIC is vital infrastructure for the supply of snacks. Poke around for any legal or illegal threat among the tourist to your source of tasties.
-[ ] Tor Lithanel Pilgrimage - when before you quite enjoyed your walk through the city of the Eonir. This time you have a more concrete destination in mind. The newly build shrines to Ulric. While you are not of his pack, you are still a wolf. You know well the taste of the Lord of Winters. Time to test the honestly of this religious enlightenment of the elves.
-[ ] Familiar finding - it is quite pass time to find Panoramia a Familiar of her own. But what kind of a animal will you first search? Do you wish to share the joy of being Best Boy around or would you jealously hoard it and search for a different animal. Trigger a sub vote. [NEW]
[ ] Spreading your influence.
-[ ] It's been a while since you went and visited Belegar, go and cajole some headpats from him to see how much his mood has improved and if there is any future action needed to prevent another spiral.
-[ ] You are a wolf. the Ulricans likes wolves. spending time at their growing community could help Mathilde relationship with them. Not to mentioned tighter ties to their giant wolves could net you a powerful ally for whatever clandestine plans you might wish to enact in the future.
-[ ] the battle among the halfing about whatever dogs or cats are the best pets is still fiercely ongoing. Arrange a couple of increased publicity campaigns with the halfing children to swing the balance back in canine favor.
-[ ] Help the Ranger train new tracking dogs. involving yourself their training would get you a lot of friends in far off places. improving your ad hoc spy network reach to the areas surrounding Karak Eight Peak. [NEW]
[ ] Expeditions
-[ ] Aid Colonel Snuggles - the civilizations of the old world had solved rodent infestation a long time ago. Find a cat, pet a cat, pointing at rats optional. What wasn't solved is how to do it when the rodents in question are two foot in length and bear centuries of skaven inflicted mutations. And with the We still limited in their passage the task fall to the steely Colonel of the cat corps. marshal to the aid of your coreligionists and aid them in vanquishing the last remnant of the Menace below.
--[ ] include the Rathound packs in the hunt - relationship between your self appointed pack and your feline friends are still strained. Having the Rathounds assistance against their feral kin would aid in defrosting the tensions. Or it could increase them, Snuggles is as mercurial as all cats who live to her venerable age are.
-[ ] Scour for lost Lore in Karak Eight Peak - last two times didn't bear much fruit, but something deep inside you just know that there is something to be found. go on a search expedition to find lost runes for Kragg the Cheerful in hard to reach places of the Karak.
--[D] the Underhold - search the vast network of small tunnels that lay beneath Karak Eight Peak. One dog sized cave at a time.
--[D] Karag Zilfin - while no dwarf can enter by writ of truce, your master and you receive a slightly warmer reception, Cython will not complain if you dig for trashes in his backyard, as long as you are not foolish enough to touch his hoard.
--[ ] Lhune Deeps - Your eyes are sharper, and more attuned to magic, than any dwarf save a Runesmith. Search the Deeps for anything that the scouting parties have missed. It should be relatively safe after more then a decade of dwarven control. Should.
--[#] The Grand Abyss - the dwarves never managed to plume the full depth of the Abyss, not even in their height. What wonder lay there are manifold and unknown, but what is known are the many well equipped search parties that never returned, some even launched during the fabled Golden Age. If you could find their resting place, you could win a prize beyond many a reckoning. Lore long thought lost. Forbidden by explicit orders from Mathilde, only venture down there with her company.
[ ] Research and Self-Improvement
-[ ] Nose for Magic. Your sight for Magic is sharp as ever, thanks to your link to Mathilde, but as a wolf your nose is your best tool for tracking. See if you can teach yourself to perceive the winds through your Olfactory senses. while your sensitivity would not chance, it might led to complementary senses to what your eyes can produce.
-[ ] Pack learning. Giant wolves, Rathounds, carnivore subspecies of mountain goats, even some rather daring cats. You have quite the spread of hunting talents at your disposal. See if you there is something to learn and improve from this Varity that surround you.
-[ ] An Alpha, when the need calls. A wolf is a savage beast that roam the edges of the forests. A dog is a man's best friend. you straddle both of those lines, and so are best placed to help other cross it. learn more about the savage beast that roam the lands. and seek understanding on how one could draw them into your orbit.
-[ ] Combat training. One day, Mathilde will need you. not this day. not the next. but sure as dawn that day would come. Prepare yourself to the grim reality of living in this world.
-[ ] Sentinel training. But Mathilde never bring you when she expect combat, which mean that whatever combat may be will be unexpected one. You are unlikely to surpass her Grey Order training, but an extra pair of eyes never hurt. train your awareness and ability to spot and react to sudden ambushes.
-[ ] Magic power. As a familiar, your link to your Master allow you to sent strength thought the Aethyr. Work on improving your ability to absorb power and transfer it under intense pressure.
-[ ] Pocket plane pondering. Cajole Mathilde to let you out to run around the Grey College pocket realm again. Close now to two centuries and yet the best minds of the Grey Order have yet to crack the secrets of the place they call home. While you strongly doubt you will do better, you can't do much worse. Move over two legs, now it's your turn. [NEW]
-[ ] Waystone leeching. of the wizards, only the Jades know how to harvest the winds from the Waystones. but you are not a wizard. and neither is your master solely such one, even if she often refuse to capitalize on it. see about trying to use your link to Ranald in order to devise a way to channel power from the waystones directly. This take Three actions. Immediate sub arc will commence upon taking this action.
[ ] Piety Ranald
-[ ] Ranald work though mysterious ways. but chief among his levers in creation are his animals. The cats, the crows the magpies. And should the mood strike you, you can join on the mischief too. Rewards Vary.
--[ ] The empty box - this box traveled from hand to hand in the Karak, yet each and every delivery of it ended the same way, in an empty box being given to the confused receiver. Where are the items that have been placed in it? Why does this box seem to have been passed between every name worth of note in the Karak? What reason does Ranald have to pass Nothing but air around? None can know. none save Ranald. and if you be a Good Boy and help him out on this endeavor, and promise to keep a secret, he just might share with you what this joke is all about.
--[ ] The bucket full of cheese - why are you carrying a bucket of cheese around? what faithful of Ranald or poor fool had wished for bucket of cheese well into the night? Why does the it have a love letter full of badly written Bretonnian poetry? And why do you taste thunder on the tip of your tongue? The answer lay at the end of this epic quest. But beware, some questions are best left unanswered. [NEW]
--[ ] Small deeds wrought large - this one is nothing special, a little misplacing of letter here, a coin left right there, the mug pushed a few finger length to the side, digging a little hole here, a howl in the middle of the night there. Must be all the dredge work that Ranald couldn't get the lazy cats to do. Little acts done all across the Karak. with nothing connecting them together. You can just do those little things and leave the tasks behind you. No need to overthink it. Just a little bit of scattered providence, nothing more. Ranald would surely have told you if there was a meaning behind all those little intervention combined. Surely.
--[ ] write in - Ranald needmustmight shall be amused.
- Spent time action has been removed due to threads voting wars. I understand the need to advocate the the petting action between whatever character you want, but it is meant to be a fluff scene. something which quite contrast with 80% of the thread arguments being about it. Fluff scenes will now be the sole preview of the QM's muse.
- Yes, the long awaited Waifu's Familiar vote is finally available, I know you all been waiting for it ever since you succesfully helped ship the MatPan ship. And while I expect the vast majority to vote for a Lady Wolf, I am leaving the option open for other types of animals as well.
-Ranald actions write-ins are still allowed, despite my better judgment. I am fine with innuendo, but I had to argue with the site staff for two hours after they locked up the thread because you all couldn't keep the thread jokes from going over the line. I'm willing to give it another chance, but please don't cause this mess again, I can and will ban you if need be.
If I'd found the quest at the time of that vote, I would have gone for Swamp Town. I love the way the quest is going, but man do I love Lustria and the Lizardmen in the lore.
I like Lustria too, and I'd love to see Boney's take on it. If this was a new quest, I'd vote for it. But considering it involved essentially giving up everything we worked so hard to build towards to go to the other side of the planet, it didn't look particularly appetising to me and to most voters. It's just too much of a departure from everything we know and love, purely out of a sense of adventure and mystery.
I like Lustria too, and I'd love to see Boney's take on it. If this was a new quest, I'd vote for it. But considering it involved essentially giving up everything we worked so hard to build towards to go to the other side of the planet, it didn't look particularly appetising to me and to most voters. It's just too much of a departure from everything we know and love, purely out of a sense of adventure and mystery.
It only takes one or two city blocks being turned into rubble or worse before the entire city realizes that if someone is setting up artillery in your neighborhood, either they die or you do.
If I'd found the quest at the time of that vote, I would have gone for Swamp Town. I love the way the quest is going, but man do I love Lustria and the Lizardmen in the lore.
I would have loved to see what Boney would have made of the Lizardmen, but going to Lustria would have meant to leave behind everything Mathilde build. Panoramia and Max may have come with us, but we would have lost contact with Belegar, Thorek, Anton, Egrimm and the possibility to watch over K8P and Sylvania from afar.
I would have loved to see what Boney would have made of the Lizardmen, but going to Lustria would have meant to leave behind everything Mathilde build. Panoramia and Max may have come with us, but we would have lost contact with Belegar, Thorek, Anton, Egrimm and the possibility to watch over K8P and Sylvania from afar.
Bit of a late reply, but I figured I might as well pour some gasoline on the fires of conspiracy.
Tlanxla I don't think makes sense, as they are almost certainly an Old One and presumabely left the world along with the others some time between the coming of Chaos and the completion of the vortex. Ranald on the other hand might actually be involved here, for reasons beyond the stuff I mentioned in my original post.
Ranald appears in two canonical myths about the coming of Chaos. In both of them it is said that he ran from the final battle, but in one of them ('Lord Ulric and the Making of the World') it is more specifically said that:
Article:
He ran far, far away, to the burning deserts in the south, and buried himself deep under the sand there.
That could easily refer to Nehekhara. There's a Nehekharan God that seems like a possible guise of Ranald called Qu'aph, who we also have in-quest evidence might be related to Ranald (Mathilde once felt a sense of familiarity from looking at a coin which had what was probably Qu'aph's image on it). That arguably makes Him a worse fit for Tahoth Trisheros because the syncretisation of Hermes Trismegistus involved Gods from two different traditions so maybe we want one Nehekharan God and one non-Nehekharan God. On the other hand Qu'aph is a snake and Herme's symbol is a staff with two snakes around it, and some things about Hermes fit Ranald very well:
Article:
In literary works of Archaic Greece, Hermes is depicted both as a protector and a trickster. In Homer's Iliad, Hermes is called "the bringer of good luck", "guide and guardian", and "excellent in all the tricks".
[...]
Beginning around the turn of the 1st century AD, a process began by which, in certain traditions Hermes became euhemerised – that is, interpreted as a historical, mortal figure who had become divine or elevated to godlike status in legend.
[...]
[Regarding Herme's epithet as "tricky":]
Hermes is a deified trickster and master of thieves ("a plunderer, a cattle-raider, a night-watching" in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes) and deception (Euripides) and (possibly evil) tricks and trickeries, crafty (from lit. god of craft), the cheat, the god of stealth. He is also known as the friendliest to man, cunning, treacherous, and a schemer.
If true, this does not contradict Halétha's involvement in Tahoth Trisheros, either as a third God (thus giving meaning to the epithet of thrice-hero and confirming my hazy suspicions about a connection between Verena, Ranald and Halétha) or because Halétha is a territorial child of Ranald, which means that She was created from a part of Ranald. In the latter case Halétha might not have existed as a distinct entity when Tahoth Trisheros was active doing Tahoth Trisheros-y things, but can nonetheless be said to be have been a part of Him because the parts of Ranald that were involved in Tahoth Trisheros were later used to create Her (you can use similar arguments to explain how Ranald could have taken part in the coming of Chaos before He was born).
Ah, yeah. I should preface this by saying that I think that Constant Drachenfels, The Great Enchanter, can be compatible with modern canon with only a few changes; basically, we have a fair bit of need for something like magic to have been a thing before the 'Coming of Chaos' (and so Constant Drachenfel's binding of his spirit to his body and then replacing worn out bits of flesh with flesh stolen from others using magic is at least possible - he wouldn't be the inventor of 'Necromancy' as in Shysh tongs on Dhar, because he would not be using Wind Magic for any of this, and also he would predate 'Death Gods' so he would not have to find a way to cheat them of their due, and by the time Wind Magic and the Gods show up he would have no need of Necromancy in order to be undead because he was already a spirit bound to flesh and preemptively cut of from this newfangled 'Realm of Death' thing). The Old Ones did the vast majority of their design and instruction work before the Coming of Chaos, and we have some timeline issues that only make sense if there was something *like* magic that could be done with the energies that the Old One's Gates emitted - a lot of the Slann material for instance talks about how the Old Ones were so advanced that they had unified technology, magic, and religion. This would not have been the same as 'Wind Magic' or 'Chaos Magic' or even 'Earthbound Magic', as the Gates seemingly kept out the energies of the Chaos Gods (even when the Chaos Gods had active magically adept cultists in the form of the Fimir trying to make a path for them), and the Winds do seem to have been a new thing after the fall of the Polar Gates, but the learnings must have been transferrable in some sense, and I find it plausible that the Winds were designed as a fallback machanism by the Old Ones, hence why they had a bunch of experiments seeded about the place that seem designed to deal with one or two specific Winds*.
So, my ridiculous theory is that 'Tahoth Trisheros' was a group of three people *prior to the Coming of Chaos*, at the point where the Old Ones were preparing for the fall of the Polar Gates. The Old One of the trio left or died, and the human and the immortal servitor being stayed behind to fight Chaos. There are some canon indications that the Old Ones had artifacts that could prolong human life - though this might be old edition weirdness with the 40k connection and the Amazons being teased as essentially an underhive gang from basically Necromunda with access to stuff like juvenants - so the 'life time' problems of the human figure significantly predating the Coming of Chaos yet still being alive through it are solvable without reaching outside of canon.
Anyway, an interpretation of Volans' drive to secularize the Light order that I particularly like is the one where the Cult of Tahoth Trisheros was a mystery cult / initiatory society built up by the group of three Magi who act under the name 'Tahoth Trisheros', who predate 'Gods' as they are in the the Warhammer World post Coming of Chaos and so were not religious in that way, and were building a teaching structure (like the Truthseekers for instance) to bring other humans on board over time and continue the work, but were religious in the same way that the Old Ones were; but post the fallout of the Coming of Chaos the initiatory society splintered and different parts of it were hidden in or folded into various of the religions that sprang up, whether in Nehekhara or Ulthuan or scattered tribes of humans. And so the syncretisation happened in the opposite way to how it happened with Hermeticism in the real world. And when Volans had all of the various pieces arrayed in front of him, and not being of any of the religious Cults himself (being the kind of person who could intensely study the Winds of Magic for decades while holding himself back from dipping in to any of them), and seeing Teclis' "you were worshiping Ghyran and calling it The Earth Mother" thing, he might have been able to see that and hence start the process of secularization as a part of attempting to rescue the remains of the wisdom that they were the inheritors of.
*: My guess at the various waystone network type things and their Wind correspondence and any random musings I have attached to them:
- The Slann 'Geomantic Web': non-Wind (pre-Coming of Chaos) energy, then Earthbound energy, and maybe later again Qhaysh.
- The Albion oghams and etc: Ulgu, and are probably the first Wind aspected one; the Belthani (instruments of correction) originally hail from here (though those that would become the Belthani seem to have cloven to the Earth Mother / Ghryan rather than Ulgu), and Albion is one of the few unambiguous canon sources we have for Old Ones (or their immortal servitor-warden entities) directly instructing humans.
- Nehekhara's pyramids and the Vitae River: Hysh, and possibly also Shysh. Tahoth the Architect.
- The Worldroots/Oak of Ages: Ghyran network (and maybe but probably not Ghur). The Earth Mother? Taal/Rhya? An Old One experiment where they left before it was fully built? Radixashen?
- Herdstones: a dhar corrupted Ghur network, and I have a theory that the Beastmen basically come from an internal contradiction in King Taal (Kingness plus not-civilisation). Alternatively, if the Earth Mother is Ghyran and The Green Man is Ghur, then any unwary coupling between them would produce Dhar - so it is possible that the Herdstones are the corrupted remains of a Ghur network, that the Oak of Ages/Worldroots and Herdstones were supposed to work together, and the attempts of Beastmen to corrupt the Oak of Ages/Worldroots are so persistent because of this.
- Grand Cathay's Compass/Great Wall system: I believe these are an Azyr and Chamon network, built out of/with foretelling and calculation. The Dragon Emperor and the Moon Empress - different aliens than the Old Ones?
- Grand Cathay might also have a Yin/Yang network of some kind overlaying or being scaffolded from their Azyr+Chamon network, though if this is a thing it seems like maybe they are using the Compass/Great Wall system as a base to try and build this much more complicated system on top of.
- The Waystones and Vortex: Dhar and Qhaysh. Hoeth, along with maybe Vaul, and some leftover impressions from Old One teachings.
- The Karak's: Rune Energy.
- Laurelorn's network: is...??? Maybe spirit energy? Maybe something else?
Edit:
- Kislev's leyline network: Winter?
- The Kurgans: ...???
Ah, yeah. I should preface this by saying that I think that Constant Drachenfels, The Great Enchanter, can be compatible with modern canon with only a few changes; basically, we have a fair bit of need for something like magic to have been a thing before the 'Coming of Chaos' (and so Constant Drachenfel's binding of his spirit to his body and then replacing worn out bits of flesh with flesh stolen from others using magic is at least possible - he wouldn't be the inventor of 'Necromancy' as in Shysh tongs on Dhar, because he would not be using Wind Magic for any of this, and also he would predate 'Death Gods' so he would not have to find a way to cheat them of their due, and by the time Wind Magic and the Gods show up he would have no need of Necromancy in order to be undead because he was already a spirit bound to flesh and preemptively cut of from this newfangled 'Realm of Death' thing). The Old Ones did the vast majority of their design and instruction work before the Coming of Chaos, and we have some timeline issues that only make sense if there was something *like* magic that could be done with the energies that the Old One's Gates emitted - a lot of the Slann material for instance talks about how the Old Ones were so advanced that they had unified technology, magic, and religion. This would not have been the same as 'Wind Magic' or 'Chaos Magic' or even 'Earthbound Magic', as the Gates seemingly kept out the energies of the Chaos Gods (even when the Chaos Gods had active magically adept cultists in the form of the Fimir trying to make a path for them), and the Winds do seem to have been a new thing after the fall of the Polar Gates, but the learnings must have been transferrable in some sense, and I find it plausible that the Winds were designed as a fallback machanism by the Old Ones, hence why they had a bunch of experiments seeded about the place that seem designed to deal with one or two specific Winds*.
So I'm not convinced by most of your ideas, but the part about magic predating the Polars Gates failing is just clearly true, at least if you believe Deathfang:
The worlds danced in the grip of their magics, and the sun grew larger in the sky as the ice began to melt.
[...]
The great machines begin to fail and the energies they were supposed to harness began to pour into the world, and the Ruinous Powers began to mould those energies - but the machines were more clever than they expected, as most of the energies were transformed by their passage into the world into forms that followed their own natures, rather than the orders of the Ruinous Powers.
[...]
In the end, the greatest creation of the cunning beings were those they created by accident. With the great machines sealing the world against the Ruinous Powers, the combined beliefs of their creations had accumulated and grown into an entirely new form of life.
So a careful reading will show that:
1. The Old Ones were doing "magic" before their Great Machines failed.
2. The Great Machines were supposed to use the energy of the Aethyr when they were functional. It was letting those energies flow into the world that was their failure.
3. The Great Machines sealed the world against Chaos, which allowed the non-Chaos Gods to rise. Again, this is something that appears to have happened when the machines were functional - the coming of Chaos did flood the world with magic which allowed e.g. Asuryan to have an avatar in reality which could bonk daemons with a sword but Asuryan seems to have been around before that.
I think the Old Ones likely cut off a piece of the Aethyr from the rest, which allows there to be a 'Realm of not-Chaos' where not-Chaos Gods could rise, and could allow them to use the energires of the Aethyr to do stuff, maybe with something like the Winds.
[+] Social interaction initiated by someone else (locked in)
[*] Panoramia
[*] Thorek
[*] Max
[*] [SCRIBE] Locals
Max's workshop in Karak Eight Peaks has been in active use for a decade now. It is no longer merely a place full of metal, it is a place where metal died and was reborn. Such a place is a lodestone for Chamon under normal circumstances, but when a Gold Wizard was actively wielding the Wind to help along that rebirth, it creates by accident a place as attuned to the Wind of Metal as any deliberate process could manage. In the process, he has driven off some of his neighbours and attracted others who find their personality or profession resonate with the Yellow Wind. His workshop here in Tor Lithanel is not quite at that same level, but it is well on its way to it from Max duplicating his preferred array of implements, which add up to a shockingly large weight of metal, making them far too weighty to shuttle back and forth as needed.
"When I was a Journeyman, I thought it would be as simple as making a tool, then using it to make a better tool, then using that to make an even better tool ad infinitum," Max says to you, running a hand over the hanging tools. "As if the quality of a tool was a completely linear scale, and that it was directly increased by the quality of the tools that made it. I now realize that it's much more complicated than that, but the basic premise remains applicable: that properly applied, the Lore of Metal can allow a blacksmith to achieve results beyond their skill level. And there's an ancillary benefit: that when approached with the proper mindset, practice performed under Law of Logic can teach you more than practice under normal circumstances." He gives a self-deprecating little chuckle. "It could be that I've lost sight of my original goal, but if the only permanent transfiguration I achieve is to transform myself into an extremely skilled blacksmith, I would still consider that worthy."
"Even so, this is more tools than I've ever seen in any Dwarven workshop," you observe.
"That's true, and it's a complicated topic. The Dwarves have a Toolmakers Guild, but it's a young guild, and in times past tradesmen would make their own tools. Having specialized craftsmen do it makes a lot of sense for most guilds. Better tools makes for better goods, and a Master Toolmaker could make a better saw or hoe than your average forester or farmer. But it didn't catch on for the Metalsmiths because they can make their own metal tools for much cheaper while being better off for having made it exactly to their needs instead of to a standard template. But a century or so back the High King made a decree that if a Journeyman made their own tools, they still had to pay dues to the Toolmakers. So it's becoming more and more the norm for a smith to have a set of standardized tools made by a Toolmaker, instead of everyone making their own set for their own specific set of needs and hands."
You frown as you consider that. "That sounds... uncharacteristic of Dwarves, actually."
He gives a bashful chuckle. "I'm describing it as someone who takes pride in their own unpractically wide selection of hand-made tools. It does make sense if you consider that it allows a crafter to do their best work with someone else's tools, instead of only being able to operate at their peak within their own workshop. They can work to full effectiveness in a mine, or an outpost, or on a battlefield. It's what made the Okral possible, that the same tools could be found in just about every workshop throughout the Karaz Ankor, and that they could be used to full effect by just about every crafter to be found within it. From the perspective of Dwarves that have embraced that approach, needing specialized tools is a crutch of the insufficiently skilled. But I'm a Wizard. Entire roomfuls of accoutrement is entirely normal for us. So I'm taking that to its natural extreme by crafting specialized tools to my own specifications and preferences at every opportunity.
"And," he says, eyes brightening as he swerves into a tangent, "that's a topic of fascination in itself, now that we're making inroads with the Eonir. So much of our own practices are influenced by the Dwarves that there's very little variance between the tools used in the Empire and those used in the Karaz Ankor, but the Elves developed their own solutions to the same problems long before the Elves and Dwarves crossed paths. I know better than to describe any one in particular as being superior to the alternative, but there are undeniable strengths and weaknesses to each solution, and if you have both tools at hand then you've got two strengths, right? And after that I went looking further, and while Tilean and Estalian tools are clearly derivative of Elven designs, there are other cultures that are... well, not untainted, but either uninfluenced or showing original insight, or possibly some third influence. I was kicking myself when I first realized that the sickle that I've seen a thousand times on Panoramia and Tochter is distinctly different to our Dwarven-influenced knopfsichel or the Elven-influenced harpē of Tilea. Tochter's pointed me towards the archeological specimen storage of the Jade Order's investigations into their origins so I'm going to be looking into those next time in Altdorf, and then I realize the Kislevites came over the mountains a thousand years ago, they've got to have their own set of implements, right? So I-"
His enthusiastic monologue begins to fade into the background as your attention turns elsewhere, but then it fades back in when he mentions Roppsmenn woodworkers whose tools consist solely of various kinds of axes, and the part of your mind that's never not looking for connections draws a circle around that and links it to the axe-dense Hedgewise culture of Ostermark with a question mark. After that there's no turning your attention away from the conversation, so you instead lean into it instead, and after you suggest the Nehekharans and he wonders if they wouldn't have been influenced by the nearby Elven colonies on the Arabyan coast, it spills over as you find and rope in Elrisse and Sarvoi to give their own perspectives on the issue and you resign yourself to the rest of the day being immersed in this archaeo-taxonomic investigation into handtools.
---
On a typical Wellentag, the streets of Marienburg would be crowded with people and goods moving to and fro, and with the people trying to sell goods and services to the crowds. This day is very different. What few people can be found on the streets are moving quickly and avoiding all eye contact with each other, and only a few boats are moving only the most urgent of cargo. There is a storm brewing, both literally overhead and metaphorically below, and the tang in the air has a touch of divine fury to it. Manann's displeasure rolls through the city as thick as the morning fog, and nobody wants to be in the vicinity when He and His soldiers make the source of it known.
A peal of thunder rips overhead, and as the echoes fade away they reveal the tolling of bells that has begun all over the city, following the cue of the three bells atop the Grand Cathedral of Manann. As rain begins to fall, the few remaining pedestrians accelerate to finish their business, spurred not so much by the drumming of rain as the declaration of war inherent in it. Services to bless the footsoldiers of the faithful conclude across the city, and temple doors swing open to spill Templar-Marines into the streets. Falling into step behind them come the black-capped city watchmen and a rainbow of family militias, the pointed absence of one in particular declaring to all the grim business that they are now set upon.
---
House Akkerman, you had been only vaguely aware, was one of the ten families of Marienburg's Directorate. Now their legacy is the ruin and bloodstains you now look upon, having arrived in response to invitation carried by bird and courier. "A full-blown pleasure cult?" you repeat in surprise.
"Aye," says Arkat Fooger. "We'd thought it was just the upper levels of the family, but it wasn't just the family militia that held the walls when the Templars arrived. We've started going over everything they've touched in the past decade to see what else we might have overlooked."
"I'm surprised you're not trying to keep this quiet."
"Some of the families wanted to - Akkerman had been part of the Kuyper bloc, after all - but the Cults voted in favour of disclosure. It'll hurt our good name for a few years, but if it turns out the Akkermans have been getting up to evils in our name it'll be a lot worse if we hadn't made the truth known." He shakes his head. "Say what you might about the Sigmarites, at least when they were around people used to think twice about getting on the wrong side of the Mountain Dwarves."
"You think they might have been behind the mining?"
"I think the possibility existing is enough reason to get our disavowals in now."
You nod. "Such forces have been unusually active lately," you observe. "Might be why they went down fighting instead of sacrificing whoever it is you suspected and rebuilding - their rivals wouldn't have given them the time to do so. Who looks to be in line to replace them in the Stadsraad?"
"House de Roelef."
You rifle through your memories for the name, and find it in your previous conversation with the Dwarf during the wedding at Karak Eight Peaks - they're the family that currently dominates luxury imports from Tilea, Estalia, and Araby. "I thought you said they were the ones with the most to lose by the canal opening."
"I also said that it wasn't nearly as much as everyone is making it out to be. Everyone's looking to abandon a ship that's just had some of the wind taken out of its sails, and it's letting the de Roelefs pick up options and interests and contracts for silvers on the guilder."
"It's the wealthiest families that have seats in the Stadsraad, isn't it?"
He snorts. "Such is the entirely coincidental pattern among the entirely fair elections of the Burgerhof."
"How is 'wealth' decided when the value of things like options and interests are so open to debate?"
"Ways and means," he says with a smile.
Ways and means largely established by the bankers and moneylenders and insurers, you would already have been willing to wager, and you now take his smugness as confirmation.
You spend the day interviewing various Marienburgers that were either involved in or witnessed the attack on the Akkerman manor, and being shown what remains of hidden rooms within it. Though you're far from an expert in the matter, their words and the unpleasantly pleasant malaise that lingers in the air is certainly damning enough for you to write a report to that effect. Should Marienburg be implicated in wrongdoings throughout the Old World, their disavowals will ring slightly truer for having been written in advance - and to many Dwarven ears for having been attested to by yourself, which is undoubtedly why you were asked for by name. Not true enough to completely pull Marienburg out of the fire, but perhaps enough to avert the next Sack of Marienburg being at Dwarven hands. While part of you has felt at times that Marienburg has a certain amount of harsh justice owed to them, nothing good comes from allowing the machinations of Chaos to play out unhindered.
---
The academic calendar of the Jade College is built around the ebb and flow of the seasons, as the Green Wind itself ebbs and flows with them. At first glance this makes perfect practical sense, with theory and lore being taught when Ghyran is scarce and sluggish and more practical lessons scheduled for when it is more abundant and responsive. However, it is the equinoxes and solstices that reveal the surviving mysticism underneath, as the evaluations and promotions that take place on these days are made part of festivals and ceremonies much older than the Colleges of Magic. This torn identity is why Panoramia has found such comfort a very long way away from Altdorf, and why she has been so reluctant to return to it to be evaluated for a rank she has long since earned. The simple fact of the matter is that she does not wish to pay thanks and venerations to whichever being may be behind the sobriquet of the Earth Mother, not with the unanswered question dangling heavily over the head of the Order. But nor can she find it in herself to do as Paranoth does and argue for a complete severance of the Druidic traditions, or what many irreligious others do and merely mime along to the chants. Her return to Altdorf has only come about because she is finally ready to lock horns directly with the matter, come what may.
To this end, she has written and published a paper: A New Perspective on Ghyranic Faith, drawing from the works of Volans and the words of Cython, as well as some of your own observations about the relationship between reality and the Winds. The argument put forth within will inevitably be subject to just as much evaluation as the rest of the tests that decide whether someone is to be presented with the gold sickle that is the symbol of a Jade Magister, and by binding it to her evaluation she has ensured that the assembly of High Druids cannot place the matter into the eternal limbo that has engulfed the question of the Jade Order's religiosity. The traditions of the Order of Life dictate that Journeyman are to be evaluated and either promoted or not on Sonnstill, which means Panoramia has turned her promotion prospects into a roadblock that will force the hand of the High Druids.
'All things,' the paper's abstract reads, 'from the greatest beings of the Aethrian to the least mote of soil, act in accordance with their natures. All endeavours, however humble or ambitious they may be, succeed or fail based on how well one accounts for those natures. It is for this reason that Volans, when laying down the doctrine that would dictate how magic is to be wielded in our lands, argued against the involvement of the Gods. The nature of the Gods comes from the same place that all momentum, identity, and personality in the Aethrian does: the collective minds and emotions of mortals. This uncountable multitude of minds gives rise to unimaginable complexity that is the root of the divine mysteries of the Cults, and is why Magisterial doctrine is not built upon the continued benevolence of deities.
'The nature of the Winds, in contrast, comes from the physical world; the nature of Ghyran is dictated by soil and water, by life and growth. It is a nature already found within every living being, and cultivating our understanding of these things is already the chief concern of our Order. The Green Wind asks nothing of us, and when it acts in accordance with our wishes, it is because we have created circumstances where doing so is in accordance with its nature. Yet despite asking nothing, it shapes everything. There is no God that shapes the lives of its worshippers more than Ghyran will have shaped the most powerful and respected of Jade Wizards.
'When Teclis came to the Druids and revealed that the God they thought they worshipped was, in fact, the Green Wind of Ghyran, it shattered their faith, driving two thirds into the nascent Order of Life and the remainder into hiding. Ever since our initiates have picked at the remaining shards, seeking some inner truth to put lie to Teclis' revelation. In doing so we overlook the truth we already live, the divine mysteries we already pursue. We ignore the prayers that are our spells and the pilgrimages that are our harvests. The answer that our grandmothers should have given to Teclis all those years ago is the one I believe the Order of Life should embrace: Yes, we worship Ghyran.'
---
While the Jade College is usually quite welcoming to visits from other Orders, the holy days of the solstices and equinoxes are an exception, open only to those who have dedicated their lives to the Order. So you loiter near the entrance of the College at the time Panoramia said she would emerge, and when she finally does it is with weariness etched on her soul and a deep frown on her face - but with the gold sickle of a Jade Magister upon her hip. She makes her way over to you and into your arms, and her breath tickles your neck as she groans out decades of complicated emotions that have been alchemized into frustration.
"They gave me an Apprentice," she says after she gathers enough will to lift her head once more. "One who'd be Journeying now if there wasn't concerns about her losing herself to magical addiction."
"Ah," you say as you consider that. Magical addiction is poorly understood by the Colleges, with even fundamental facts like whether it's an addiction to spellcasting itself, to exposure to the raw Wind, or even just to surroundings attuned to that Wind still being debated - or even if it actually is just a single phenomenon rather than a number of different disorders that manifest similarly. It was relatively unknown in the Grey College, possibly because the nature of the Wind puts a hard limit on how much Ulgu can be applied to a given area before the effects start being less agreeable to its wielders. Someone too magically confounded is no longer able to experience confusion or doubt at all, and too-thick mist just becomes opaque. Or it might be because there is a natural apex of ambient Ulgu at dawn and dusk that cannot be rivaled or extended by any artificial means. But more primal Winds like Ghyran and Aqshy lack these natural protections against escalation, and the hard limits on how much a given area can be overgrown or burned until it is no longer satisfying to one enthralled by their Wind is only reached long after the area has become very hostile to continued life.
Others still argue that there was no such thing as magical addiction, and the acts blamed upon it were simply power being misused, the same way a naturally strong peasant of poor character might use violence to enforce their will on others, or a noble of poor character might abuse their authority to fuel their vices. That someone who causes destruction with magic and then blames addiction is doing so to cover for malice or poor judgement.
In any case, it was a mercilessly artful counter to Panoramia's argument in favour of veneration of Ghyran itself: to place in her care someone whose domination by the Jade Wind was a burden to the Jade Order. The assignment itself was at surface a rebuke by burdening a newly-minted Magister with a substandard Apprentice they had not sought, but beneath that was a refutation of Panoramia's thesis with an example of someone who could be said to already follow that philosophy and brought suffering to themself and others thereby. It neatly cornered Panoramia: she could either refuse the Apprentice, which would make her lose any credibility, because if she could not guide a single Apprentice, what makes her think she can lay down a path for the entire Jade Order? Or she could take on the Apprentice and encourage a following of the will of Ghyran, which could very easily deepen the addiction and result in a walking disaster of an Apprentice that would forever be a black mark not just on Panoramia's arguments, but on her career as a whole. Or she could walk the Apprentice back from the brink of magical addiction by enforcing Collegiate authority over that of the whims of Ghyran, which would force Panoramia herself to actively argue against her philosophy from being a rival to the secular and deitatic branches of the Jade Order's schism.
"Her name is Sofia," Panoramia says distractedly. "She's Estalian. She ended up with us after a chartered Witch Hunter caught her in southern Stirland." You wince. Anyone that arrives at the borders of the Empire and claims magical ability can get transport to Altdorf, so for her to be travelling within the Empire with magical abilities raises serious questions as to what she's up to. For her to be in Stirland only adds to those questions, because she would have had to travel through quite a lot of the Empire to get there, even if she arrived via the Border Princes. "When was that?" you ask, counting back the years worriedly.
"Early eighties, probably."
"Ah," you say again. So just after the stamping out of the Black College. That adds an extremely bad answer to why a foreign magic-user might have been travelling through the eastern provinces. Though it might not have been her choice - necromancers, being in the business of not taking 'no' for an answer from death, aren't in the habit of taking it from prospective recruits. Perhaps she'd been abandoned in Stirland after some wretched kidnapper had found that their customer base had come down with a bad case of Battle Wizard.
"No solid proof," Panoramia continues, "but it was enough that the Amethysts didn't want her. But for her to be getting a third chance with me, even if it serves a political purpose, means she must show promise."
"And the Jades have had eight years to hammer the Articles into her, and you'll be able to work with what's left isolated from other influences," you say, joining in her search for a silver lining.
"And if I can't whip her into shape, I'll hand her back to the Order, or to Gunnars, and be done with it." She smiles sadly. "That's what Ma still doesn't get. This wasn't me playing her game, this was me presenting terms. Every concession I'm willing to make is in it. If they still won't accept it, me and my golden sickle are very comfortable staying in Karak Eight Peaks, far away from them and their games."
You give her a soft smile and squeeze her shoulder in commiseration, and the two of you turn and begin your long trip home.
- The Toolmakers Guild thing is canon, and this is my attempt to make sense of it.
- 'Aethrian' is the term Volans used for the Aethyr, also known as the Realm of Chaos or the Warp, possibly because 'Aethyr' is also used in some places as a collective term for the Winds of Magic.
OK so... just asking you understand: How do we make the Jade Order eat their words? I mean manifestly humiliate them so much that whoever came up with this little 'rebuke' never shows their face in public? 👿
I'm thinking the Hekratians might be the ones with a deep and mystical enough understanding of the wind to solve magical addiction in humans while worshiping Ghyan. Do you guys think Sarvoi is up for it?
Huh I was expecting elves but Fooger telling us about things in Marienburg means a lot. I would like to become involved in his business because he is one of the richest imperial dawi in cannon.
