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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Boney said:
You are Autonomous Biological Weapon System Developer designate Cd-3, the third in command of the Research Continent formally designated Cd:Radixashen. Until this particular planetary rotation, you would have said that things were going very well in the shelter of the densely-wooded plateau of Cd, which teems with some of your finest work. The massive figures of the Cd/Zl-Large/Resistant-1 'Island Giant' project thrive on an island to the west, which had led to the development of the Cd/Zl-Large/Resistant-2 'Sky Titan' project, which were thriving in the mountains far to the east even if they did have significant trouble at lower elevations. Cd-Adaptive-1-Final 'Humans', your personal favourite and a lot more fun than those spoiled pets that were Qt-Adaptive-1-Final 'Elves', show enough promise that populations have been created for further development in both Zl and Cl, even if they did have a tendency to be a little too attached to just about everything. You hadn't had much to do with Cd-Resistant-1-Final 'Halflings', but you'll still bear a grudge in solidarity against the hacks of Cl for their blatant and unauthorized integration of parts of them for the so-called 'Ct-Resistant-1' 'Ogres' project, and you definitely had nothing to do with the troubles that Ct is now having with their migration patterns.

There were even whispers of an Adaptive/Resistant/Obedient-1 strain being worked on down in Zl, though for some reason they were very reticent to discuss the matter over the G-Web.

But today? Today, everything has gone wrong. Power fluctuations make doing any work impossible, the G-Web has crashed so you can't even fill your day with talking to your delightful counterpart in Qt, and for some reason you can't even load into your Deific Interface, Qt-DI3 'Tepok'. And now that tiresome bore and your best friend Cd-2 wants you to go with them to check on the Northern Polar Infrastructure team. And worst of all, you're so bored that you're considering it.

---

How you miss the blissful ignorance of just a few moments ago, when you thought all this was a technical glitch.

The Polar Gates are tearing themselves apart, malicious instructions interlaced with Daemonic malice tearing through systems they should never have been able to even dream of entering. Unimaginable masses of the splintered essence of the Eternal Enemy teem just on the other side of the barrier, waiting for the inevitable failure that Cd-2 was now doing everything in their power to delay. You have been instructed to return to Cd with all imaginable speed to bring reinforcements - not to prevent disaster, but to buy enough time to allow as many of the experiments as possible to be destroyed before they fall into the hands of the Eternal Enemy, with a scant few samples snatched by the last of the teem before they flee this planet forever.

To destroy almost everything you've worked on. Everything you shaped this world to achieve.

Must such a thing be done? Or might there be another way, if you flee to and raise the alarm of a more sentimental Research Continent instead?



[-] Cd

Cd is your native RC, and in your opinion the most prolific and sensible of those on this world. Perhaps too sensible. Cd-1 is ruthless when They have to be, and Cd-4 and Cd-5 obey Them utterly. They would agree with Cd-2 and would do what perhaps must be done to prevent your work from falling into the hands of the Eternal Enemy.

+ Will allow the projects to continue elsewhere.
+ Will maintain your relationship with your best friend, Cd-2.
? Will doom this world.
- You'll probably never see Qt-3 again.



[-] Qt

Qt are the least productive RC unless you count them sharing their pets with the Adaptive/Resistant-ImportedTemplate-0 'Dragons', but you'll admit what little they have created does show some promise. For some reason, Qt has developed an entire secondary Deific Interface Pantheon for their pets. That seemed a ridiculous waste of resources, but with the shutout of the mainline DIP they might be what saves this world.

+ Will allow the use of their secondary DIP to directly battle the forces of the Eternal Enemy.
+ Qt-3 is there.
? The unruly underlings of Qt may take the opportunity to loot the other Research Continents instead of helping.
- They're so tedious.



[-] Iz

After an early embarrassment with one of their team having smuggled their spouse along with them, Iz have spent all their time on this world creating servitors for Resistant/Obedient-ImportedTemplate-0 'Slann', but in doing so have produced some truly excellent strains. Iz-1 is almost as skilled as They think They are, and Iz-2 is even more so, and surely they are even now trying to restore access to the Deific Interfaces that can command the Slann and their servants. Perhaps this is the most straightforward way to avert disaster.

+ Will prevent the ascension of the traitor Iz-1 as the first Daemon Prince of this world.
+ Will allow a complete recovery of Iz-DI2 'Sotek', instead of merely fragments of it.
+ Will save much of the Iz team, who are otherwise doomed.
? There may be a chance to restore at least some access to the Slann DIP.



[-] Zl

Zl are the only team that has approval to work on the extremely troublesome Resistant-ImportedTemplate-0 'Orks' strain, which has led them to making great progress towards the ultimate goal of the planet. They're a team of extremely experienced and adaptative superstars, and they may be your best chance to avert at least some of the coming disaster.

+ Will prevent the doomed and desperate attempt to mantle Gork and Mork, which will destroy Zl-1 and Zl-2 and unleash those Gods upon this world.
+ Will prevent the the loss of the Zl-Resistant-1-Final 'Orcs' and Cl/Zl-Adapative/Resistant/Obedient-1 'Goblins' strains to alien Gods.
? Will prevent the Resistant-NativeTemplate-0 'Promethean' abyssal evacuation.
? Will prevent the Zl diaspora.
- They don't have the best track record of playing nice with others, or even each other.



[-] Cl

Cl are insular and strange, but they get along better with the leaders of the Adaptive/Resistant-ImportedTemplate-0 'Dragons' than anyone else on the planet, and they're the only RC that hasn't lost or repurposed the Ship they arrived here with. They might be able to lead the Dragons into battle against the Eternal Enemy.

+ They are the only Research Continent that still has a fully intact and operational Ship.
+ Will prevent the corruption of the Large/Resistant-NativeTemplate-0 'Shartak'.
+ Will prevent the rebellion of most of the Cl team.
? Cl have grown closer to the Adaptive/Resistant-ImportedTemplate-0 'Dragons' than most of your kind would consider appropriate.



[-] Go and hide in the deserts north of Zl and hope everything sorts itself out

What?

- That makes no sense.
- Why would anyone even think you'd do that?



- It's not quite a social action, but I'm counting it as such anyway to make up for the one absent from the last social turn.
- Inspired by the SV First Chapter Contest. There's only a few ways to get first-er than this.
- This isn't going to be continued, it's more sort of a... QM-made nega-quest post, I guess?
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brb writing a 5000 word post on this

In the meanwhile some observations:
-Mention of 'densely-wooded plateau' implies Cd might be the top of Karak Norn, right next to Athel Loren (I don't think it can be Athel Loren itself, it's not a plateu is it?). In or near Athel Loren was one of our guesses for Cd's location, so that's neat.
-Cl is very heavily implied to be in the Far East, also our guess
-In general the five cities line up with our speculations prety well, so good job everyone (unless none of this is canon)
-Last line implies that the viewpoint characther is Ranald??? What?
 
Boney said:
Cd-3 and the Making of the World - A Warhammer Fantasy Old One Quest
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…wait. We have seen those before. The talk with Deathfang:
Boney said:
The continents were reshaped into five, and five cities were founded and our five leaders each joined with one. Draugnir with the city of Qt, Abraxas with the city of Iz, Radixashen with the city of Cd, Urmskaladrak with the city of Zl, and Kalgalanos with the city of Cl.
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I mean, Cd-3 said they were best friend with Cd-2, whom was holding back Chaos while Cd-3 was running back to alert everyone. A story which might ring familiar with Ulric and Ranald. Of course, given whole Gods thing, reality in process of physically breaking, these might be inspiration rather then actual Ulric and Ranald. But you know, there are some pretty darn similar concidences here
 
Sa'kage said:
I mean, Cd-3 said they were best friend with Cd-2, whom was holding back Chaos while Cd-3 was running back to alert everyone. A story which might ring familiar with Ulric and Ranald. Of course, given whole Gods thing, reality in process of physically breaking, these might be inspiration rather then actual Ulric and Ranald. But you know, there are some pretty darn similar concidences here
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Or perhaps the deific interfaces the Old Ones used to interact with mortal beings became autonomous rather than just being puppets.
 
Boney said:
Cl are insular and strange, but they get along better with the leaders of the Adaptive/Resistant-ImportedTemplate-0 'Dragons' than anyone else on the planet, and they're the only RC that hasn't lost or repurposed the Ship they arrived here with. They might be able to lead the Dragons into battle against the Eternal Enemy.

[...]

? Cl have grown closer to the Adaptive/Resistant-ImportedTemplate-0 'Dragons' than most of your kind would consider appropriate.
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So what I'm getting here is, in reverse order, "Cathayan moon empress is an old one" and "the floating palace above the cathayan capital is a relatively intact old one ship."
 
Boney said:
the G-Web has crashed so you can't even fill your day with talking to your delightful counterpart in Qt, and for some reason you can't even load into your Deific Interface, Qt-DI3 'Tepok'.
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Boney said:
Qt are the least productive RC unless you count them sharing their pets with the Adaptive/Resistant-ImportedTemplate-0 'Dragons', but you'll admit what little they have created does show some promise. For some reason, Qt has developed an entire secondary Deific Interface Pantheon for their pets. That seemed a ridiculous waste of resources, but with the shutout of the mainline DIP they might be what saves this world.

+ Will allow the use of their secondary DIP to directly battle the forces of the Eternal Enemy.
+ Qt-3 is there.
? The unruly underlings of Qt may take the opportunity to loot the other Research Continents instead of helping.
- They're so tedious.
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Mm. So, from what I understand Qt is Ulthuan. Which would make the "delightful counterpart" Loec, since this is obviously Ranald. Or what once may have been Ranald's past before shit got cray cray in reality. What's interesting is that Defiic Interfaces seem to be something different from the things that would eventually become gods. It seems to be more something that the proto gods could upload themselves to? But both the ones mentioned are what the Lizardmen nowadays know as their gods, Topek and Sotek. Even though Topek is for some reason attached to Ulthuan, not Lustria.
 
reignonyrparade said:
The delightful counterpart is Isha or Laddrielle, whichever elf goddess it is that Shallya is a human version of (I'm a diehard "it's Isha" person but there are arguments for both.)
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Okay, that does make sense. I was thinking it would be counterpart in the terms of equivalent and probably sharing the same number, which would make sense with the similarities between Ranald and Loec.

And I guess the fact that there's a defiic interface Ranald uses based in Ulthuan would explain why Loec and Ranald are so similar, since it means he definitely went there a lot. Even if it somehow changed from Topek to Loec somewhere along the way.
 
I think I know what some of these are, but I can't say I can figure out all of them. As fun as this is, it's not the easiest to read because of all the code-words and obfuscation.
Boney said:
It was once. Reality has gotten a bit less authoritative since then, and causality isn't what it used to be.
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Hmm...
[-] Go and hide in the deserts north of Zl and hope everything sorts itself out

What?

- That makes no sense.
- Why would anyone even think you'd do that?
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After the 5th timeloop, Cd-3 gave up and hid in the desert. Surprisingly, this time, the planet survived. Oops?
 
Welp. Not surprised that the pre-Ancestor Dwarven gods apparently hate each-others' guts. Can't tell if Ranald is an Old One or "just" one of their specially made god-program things.

And most importantly: Shallya is a confirmed cutie :V
 
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Ok there's a lot more to talk about but for now I'll just go over the five cities cause that's actually pretty short relatively speaking.

A brief reminder on the five cities and the five continents. Last time the thread speculated on them this is more or less where we landed:

Qt - speculated to be Quintex (Continent: Naggaroth). The city where Draugnir went to, and widely speculated to be where the elves were created.
Iz - speculated to be Itza (Continent: Lustria), heavily associated with the Slann.
Cl - speculated to be either 'Lost City of the Old Ones', a landmark that appears in maps of the Far East, near the gates of Calith, or maybe the gates of Calith itself (Continent: Far East).
Cd - speculated to be in the Continent: Old World. Associated with the dragon Radixashen, who is in turn associated with Ahtel Loren. Guesses included Albion, the Middle Mountains, Norsca and the vicinity of Athel Loren. No landmark with a name that fits the letters Cd has been suggeted, though I've semi-seriously said it might be Caledfwlch.
Zl - More or less certain to be Zlatlan (Continent: whatever you call Southlands + Araby + Nehekhara).

So let's go over what this sidestory tells us about each and how it lines up with our latest speculations:

Cd
Boney said:
Karak Norn differs from most Karaks in that its mountain is topped by a wooded plateau instead of a normal rocky peak. In that wooded plateau is a 'regular' nexus that Mathilde suspects predates most of the Karak, and possibly is the reason for it being there in the first place.
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Boney said:
densely-wooded plateau of Cd
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(also the mention of an island to the west puts Cd somewhere east of Albion)

Qt
Confirmed to be where the elves were created. Also seems to confirm that the elf pantheon was created there.

Iz
Confirmed to be associated with the Slann. Not exactly confirmed to be Itza, but come on it's called the first city and it's name Itza I think this one is pretty solid.

Cl
Very heavily implied to be in the Far East, with the "getting along with dragons" suggesting a connection to Cathay and the whole ogre thing.

Zl
'The deserts north of Zl' line up with Zl being Zlatlan.

So yeah, I would say this more or less confirms that the five cities are more or less where we thought they were, probably, and it gives a possible location for Cd which we didn't have before.
 
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This is very OOC and not something Mathilde could use (unless we roll really well on those rubbings), but it does seem to indicate that the Old Ones are the gods. That would indicate some interesting things about the state of the Great Plan. The Slann after all behave as it the Old Ones are gone which might mean that the survivors simply do not have the codes to talk to them, but also... the Gods live in the Aethyr which is really odd for beings that had to have come here in ships silver or no. I think instead of the Old Ones literally being the gods, they were the biological beings who served as a template for the Gods, basically all of the gods are rogue VR avatars, where the virtual means 'Aetheryc'.
 
DragonParadox said:
This is very OOC and not something Mathilde could use (unless we roll really well on those rubbings), but it does seem to indicate that the Old Ones are the gods. That would indicate some interesting things about the state of the Great Plan. The Slann after all behave as it the Old Ones are gone which might mean that the survivors simply do not have the codes to talk to them, but also... the Gods live in the Aethyr which is really odd for beings that had to have come here in ships silver or no. I think instead of the Old Ones literally being the gods, they were the biological beings who served as a template for the Gods, basically all of the gods are rogue VR avatars, where the virtual means 'Aetheryc'.
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And some of the Old Ones may have had multiple of those Aethyric avatars, which might explain some similarities - or different Old Ones may have shared avatars or used different instances of the same avatar template, to make it more confusing.
 
DragonParadox said:
This is very OOC and not something Mathilde could use (unless we roll really well on those rubbings), but it does seem to indicate that the Old Ones are the gods. That would indicate some interesting things about the state of the Great Plan. The Slann after all behave as it the Old Ones are gone which might mean that the survivors simply do not have the codes to talk to them, but also... the Gods live in the Aethyr which is really odd for beings that had to have come here in ships silver or no. I think instead of the Old Ones literally being the gods, they were the biological beings who served as a template for the Gods, basically all of the gods are rogue VR avatars, where the virtual means 'Aetheryc'.
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It does also state that they use the deity network to communicate with the Slann. Of which currently only Sotek is really "active", and the options said that most of Iz team would be doomed including Sotek being in fragments. And with the rise/recovery(?) of Sotek it's noted that the Slann is becoming more active and less asleep. Might be a natural result of the network of Gods coming online for the Slann, so Sotek might been only old one/God capable of actually communing with the Slann
 
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DragonParadox said:
the Gods live in the Aethyr which is really odd for beings that had to have come here in ships silver or no. I think instead of the Old Ones literally being the gods, they were the biological beings who served as a template for the Gods, basically all of the gods are rogue VR avatars, where the virtual means 'Aetheryc'.
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I mean, while they're two different universes (but mirror each other somewhat), in 40K the Old Ones were in that weird place of being partly biological and partly warp stuff. So it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to have retreated into a safe-space in the Warp or something, or to have completely cast-off their fleshy bits. So the Old Ones could literally be the Gods.
 
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