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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Glau said:
I think I've asked this before, but how sure are we that there is such a thing as one god wearing multiple faces? Manathlaan and Mannan seen like the best test case, but I don't think we've ever gotten confirmation.

So I think we need to treat it as still an assumption, that just because two differently named gods look largely the same if you squint, they are the same god.
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It's not necessarily something I believe myself, but it does seem to be Quest canon.

(And now Boney swoops in and calls me a fool)
 
I think dwarf runes work in the Teclisian model, they're just the Rasengan of earthbound magic, taking its base principles to their utmost extreme.

Earthbound magic says that if you use only a small amount of magic, you can impose your will on it to do whatever you want. Runes use a greater amount of magic and in turn requires a hell of a lot more willpower, which dwarves are uniquely able to pull off since they have maximum mortal willpower.
 
Gretel believes that Morr and Morai-heg are the same being, Mathilde felt familiarity when looking at a Nehekaran coin featuring Qu'aph, Deathfang thinks that Ranald and Loec are the same entity, Mathilde's found connections between Halétha and Kalita...

That doesn't mean that every god that has a similar domain is the same entity (see also Deathfang's insistence that Rhya isn't Isha), but the general concept of some gods having multiple names seems well established.
 
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So earthbound magic is strands of magic that has lost its identity, but is the identity just hidden or is it actually gone? like if a bit of chamon became earthbound magic, could it then be gathered and used as Ulgu? or does it always remain chamon
 
Glau said:
I think I've asked this before, but how sure are we that there is such a thing as one god wearing multiple faces? Manathlaan and Mannan seen like the best test case, but I don't think we've ever gotten confirmation.

So I think we need to treat it as still an assumption, that just because two differently named gods look largely the same if you squint, they are the same god.
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We are never going to be sure. We had that vote and we voted against fingerprinting gods.
 
dinomannitro6 said:
So earthbound magic is strands of magic that has lost its identity, but is the identity just hidden or is it actually gone? like if a bit of chamon became earthbound magic, could it then be gathered and used as Ulgu? or does it always remain chamon
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The identity is gone. You can only cast Petty and Lesser Magic using only earthbound magic, for any greater spells you need at least some of the Wind.
 
Andres said:
Stop asserting this as fact. You are unintentionally deceiving people into believing that this is a hard confirmed truth about the setting, rather than merely a common theory you personally subscribe to.
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That gods live in the warp/Aethyr? Where exactly do you think they live? Genuine question.

I did not for the record say she was born of belief, that is a theory, that gods live in the Aethyr is not only canon but quest canon Mathilde saw Ranald in the warp on the first round of coin experiments.
 
Boney said:
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."
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Rereading the quest, I have come to the opinion that this is not as much a gotcha answer to Panoramia's paper as it first appeared. (And to Panoramia and Mathilde)

It makes sense that they would not see it that way because Panoramia is watching a super contentious and emotionally fraught religious fight amongst her order, and Matilde is trained to be suspicious and not presume good intent.

However, presuming good intent on the part of at least some of those doing the assigning, this is a chance for Panoramia to strengthen her case significantly if she can thread the needle here and not either take the bog standard approach to the situation or fail.

She put forward a hypothesis in a paper, and they tossed her a tricky corner case. No one else has managed to help Sylvia to resolve her "addiction," so far, so Panoramia failing to resolve it would be more expected than not, and not earthshatteringly shameful. However, if she succeeds at threading the needle especially in a way that might be generalizable, then it greatly strengthens her case.
 
DragonParadox said:
That gods live in the warp/Aethyr? Where exactly do you think they live? Genuine question.
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Depends on the gods in question. Ursun hybernates in or north of Kislev, Valaya's sleeping under a mountain, Sigmar is trapped in the winds of Azyr, Rhya's in Athel Loren, and so on. The Chaos Gods are all in the warp but the rest of them have been and can be in bunch of different places.
 
Andres said:
Depends on the gods in question. Ursun hybernates in or north of Kislev, Valaya's sleeping under a mountain, Sigmar is trapped in the winds of Azyr, Rhya's in Athel Loren, and so on. The Chaos Gods are all in the warp but the rest of them have been and can be in bunch of different places.
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  1. According to Total War, fair enough, we have used stuff from there
  2. According to the End Times which are not canon in this quest
  3. According to the bloody End Times, see above (that part is remarkably dumb even by the rock bottom standards of End Times)
  4. That is not what Deathfang said, in his actual literal fairy tale for baby dragons I might add. He said she 'joined' with the ancestor of the Forest Dragons. If she is Isha she also joins with Ariel, that does not mean all of Isha is inside her
 
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DragonParadox said:
  1. According to Total War, fair enough, we have used stuff from there
  2. According to the End Times which are not canon in this quest
  3. According to the bloody End Times, see above (that part is remarkably dumb even by the rock bottom standards of End Times)
  4. That is not what Deathfang said, in his actual literal fairy tale for baby dragons I might add. He said she 'joined' with the ancestor of the Forest Dragons. If she is Isha she also joins with Ariel, that does not mean all of Isha is inside her
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The Lady of the Lake lives in a lake (which only makes sense, really) according to some source
 
Boney said:
No, it's more about larger creatures having increased reach than it is about a lack of experience. Branarhune's tricks don't really work on someone who can bonk you while their torso is still out of swording range.
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Ok, then if Mathilde teleports in then they should have an almost as hard time defending as if they were human scale, because the first response is not to retreat the torso but instead interpose something else in the way?

I recall that the oversized fiend twisted around and interposed it's talons in the way of Branarhune, instead of moving the torso/neck out of reach?
 
Glau said:
I think I've asked this before, but how sure are we that there is such a thing as one god wearing multiple faces? Manathlaan and Mannan seen like the best test case, but I don't think we've ever gotten confirmation.

So I think we need to treat it as still an assumption, that just because two differently named gods look largely the same if you squint, they are the same god.
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There's many examples of Gods being considered different names for the same being by a character in the story, some more plausible than others. Cython famously loves fitting human Gods to elf Gods, but we have indication that he probably went too far at least once - he's pretty sure that Kurnous and Taal are the same being, but the investigation of the Cult of Karnos gave pretty strong evidence that Taal and Kurnous are separate beings despite looking very similar. I definitely agree with you that we shouldn't assume similar Gods are definitely the same being and I think the Cult of Karnos is something of a cautionary tale in that regard. Ljiljana talked about Ranald getting some Gods killed at Salyak's request, which probably implies a connection between Ranald and Salyak and the elf pantheon but even more likely implies that Salyak is Shallya, which is already a pretty common theory in and out of the story. Deathfang says Rhya isn't Isha, but also identifies the energies of Ranald as the energies of Loec, and Mathilde got a sense of familiarity from looking at a picture of the Nehekharan God of subtlety and snakes, Qu'aph. So and so forth.

I would say that the most clear-cut example we got in the quest was Halétha, Haleth, and Kalita. Aksel straight up told us that the Cults of Haleth (there are two different Cults worshipping a Goddess by that name) were guises of Halétha, and that they rose up when worshippers of Halétha that were worshipping Her away from their native communities had to hide their worship to avoid persecution. We already suspected those Goddesses might be related because of their names, and our books on Minor Gods of the Empire confirm that the timeline fits Aksel's story (those Cults rose when the Cults of Taal and Rhya were gaining influence in the Forest of Shadows, and those Cults likely persecuted the Cult of Halétha). What was more of a revelation was Aksel telling us that the Kislevite God Kalita is a guise of Halétha, and gender aside this is very surprising because based on what we know of Halétha those Gods do not look very similar at all. Kalita does kind of resemble Ranald the Dealer, so Mathilde sort of figured maybe that's the way to explain it.

Now if you really want to insist you can say that even that isn't confirmation, maybe Aksel is wrong, but Aksel isn't saying "those Gods look similar to my Goddess so clearly They are Her", he is saying "those Cults were founded by followers of my Goddess who were hiding their worship, this is a historical fact I'm aware of", so I really think we can take him at his word. The way to super-double-confirm this would be to talk to followers of Haleth or Kalita with the Father active and see if they trust us (but maybe that's not enough of a confirmation - what if Ranald is lying and secretly making our coin more useful than advertised???) which honestly is an additional OOC reason why I think we can trust Aksel here, it would be kind of a mean red herring if he was wrong.
 
HanChenYou said:
Ok, then if Mathilde teleports in then they should have an almost as hard time defending as if they were human scale, because the first response is not to retreat the torso but instead interpose something else in the way?

I recall that the oversized fiend twisted around and interposed it's talons in the way of Branarhune, instead of moving the torso/neck out of reach?
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I think thats just the power of Branarhune, rather than a part of the fighting style
 
HanChenYou said:
Ok, then if Mathilde teleports in then they should have an almost as hard time defending as if they were human scale, because the first response is not to retreat the torso but instead interpose something else in the way?

I recall that the oversized fiend twisted around and interposed it's talons in the way of Branarhune, instead of moving the torso/neck out of reach?
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If teleporting had been built into the sword style from the start, then sure, something like that might be reflected in the trait. But it hasn't been, and if it had, it would have been much more difficult to create, much more difficult to master, and would mean that only highly skilled Grey Wizards would ever be able to learn it.
 
Boney said:
If teleporting had been built into the sword style from the start, then sure, something like that might be reflected in the trait. But it hasn't been, and if it had, it would have been much more difficult to create, much more difficult to master, and would mean that only highly skilled Grey Wizards would ever be able to learn it.
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So there will not be a discounted version of that bonus for plus sized opponents given a teleport.

Second, we can't add it to the sword style now with another action or three.

Good to know.
 
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HanChenYou said:
Rereading the quest, I have come to the opinion that this is not as much a gotcha answer to Panoramia's paper as it first appeared. (And to Panoramia and Mathilde)

It makes sense that they would not see it that way because Panoramia is watching a super contentious and emotionally fraught religious fight amongst her order, and Matilde is trained to be suspicious and not presume good intent.

However, presuming good intent on the part of at least some of those doing the assigning, this is a chance for Panoramia to strengthen her case significantly if she can thread the needle here and not either take the bog standard approach to the situation or fail.

She put forward a hypothesis in a paper, and they tossed her a tricky corner case. No one else has managed to help Sylvia to resolve her "addiction," so far, so Panoramia failing to resolve it would be more expected than not, and not earthshatteringly shameful. However, if she succeeds at threading the needle especially in a way that might be generalizable, then it greatly strengthens her case.
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My take on it when the update came out was that this is both a political whammy, and also a test. As they say, if Panoramia wants to put her own path for the entire Jade Order, then she should at least be able to guide a single Apprentice... But of course, it's the Apprentice most suited to implicitly counter her position as Ghyran-as-a-god-to-worship and present difficulties.

But if anyone can thread that needle, it's her, the highly-dedicated woman who went out of her way to drop a religious bombshell onto her own Order.

HanChenYou said:
Ok, then if Mathilde teleports in then they should have an almost as hard time defending as if they were human scale, because the first response is not to retreat the torso but instead interpose something else in the way?

I recall that the oversized fiend twisted around and interposed it's talons in the way of Branarhune, instead of moving the torso/neck out of reach?
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dinomannitro6 said:
I think thats just the power of Branarhune, rather than a part of the fighting style
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That Higher Daemon did have an incredible -30 penalty from being incredibly distracted fighting both Asarnil and Deathfang when Mathilde jumped in, but it was a situational penalty, not something inherent to Branulhune + teleporting. Mathilde did the same to finish off Alberich in Talabheim, and he didn't get a penalty presumably because he was not being grappled by one of the oldest dragons out there.

Boney said:
[Instant reinforcements: Req 50, Learning, 45+28=73.]
[Swing: Martial, 4+23=27 vs 39+40-30(Unaware)-10(Wounded)=39.]

You could picture it so perfectly in your mind: you appear standing on Deathfang's neck, sword already mid-swing, and you take the Daemon's head neatly off its shoulders. You save Deathfang, Asarnil pledges eternal friendship, Deathfang shares some juicy dragon secrets, happy ending for everyone but the Tempter. The Daemon has other ideas. In an instant its talons are out of Deathfang's neck and catching Branulhune in mid-air, and though daemonic ichor spills forth, it manages to arrest the swing of the runic blade. It catches your gaze in its own, and in a moment you know that it was capable of offering you any pleasure imaginable and some that weren't, but all it was willing to grant you was pain.
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Boney said:
[Alberich vs Longshanks: Martial, 61+26+25(patron)-20(heavily injured)=92 vs 31+20+5(crowd assist)+4(???)=60.]
[Mathilde interrupt: Martial, 86+23+12(???)=121.]

Seemingly heedless of his injuries, Alberich draws a bone dagger from his tunic with his remaining hand and throws himself forward, moving with sinuous and unnatural grace around the arrows loosed at him and closing on the lead Longshank, who has only his own knife to raise in defence of himself. The next few seconds might have gone very badly for the Longshanks and any in the crowd with the bravery to assist them, but Alberich's focus on the foe in front of him is all the opportunity you need. With a moment of concentration and a few muttered syllables you appear behind him, and Branulhune passes in a neat and perfect arc through Alberich's neck, sending a spray of blood over the Longshank who was heartbeats away from having his own spilled, and a head rolling across the cobblestones.
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DragonParadox said:
If we are going to get magic books from the people who put traps in their magic training why ask for Dhar which we cannot cast and only know second hand and not Ulgu which we do cast and might therefore actually better see the traps in? Not that I think we have anything which could do it but... Actually no, there is a thing which might interest her if we are willing to make a very dodgy trade, AV. For the record I am not suggesting we do it, just pointing out we can
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I wouldn't buy magic books the Druichi have written. I'd buy magic books they've stolen from other people.
 
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