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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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AFAIK, the Scared Flame is supposed to be a covenant. As long as the Flame burns, Middenheim won't fall. It's similar to something like the Sacred Fire of Vesta in Rome, which symbolised a similar thing (although there is more of a fire connection there). Even outside of that, gods can be linked to things they are not the gods of. Sigmar is linked to the two tailed comet as a symbol, without being the god of comets for example. Verena has a sword symbol.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
AFAIK, the Scared Flame is supposed to be a covenant. As long as the Flame burns, Middenheim won't fall. It's similar to something like the Sacred Fire of Vesta in Rome, which symbolised a similar thing (although there is more of a fire connection there). Even outside of that, gods can be linked to things they are not the gods of. Sigmar is linked to the two tailed comet as a symbol, without being the god of comets for example. Verena has a sword symbol.
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Symbols still tend to mean something. Verena's sword is symbolically the sword of justice, which is one of Verena's aspects. Sigmar's connection to the twin-tailed comet comes from the fact that the comet appeared in the sky when he was born. Ulric's connection to the Sacred Flame comes from a time when he punched a mountain and set it on fire. I think one of those stories is less thematically coherent than the others.
 
mathymancer said:
Symbols still tend to mean something. Verena's sword is symbolically the sword of justice, which is one of Verena's aspects. Sigmar's connection to the twin-tailed comet comes from the fact that the comet appeared in the sky when he was born. Ulric's connection to the Sacred Flame comes from a time when he punched a mountain and set it on fire. I think one of those stories is less thematically coherent than the others.
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Not really? Unlike the other two, the flame isn't symbolic of Ulric himself, but of a promise he made. And that makes perfect sense, he put a physical symbol into teh world to show his followers "hey this is a thing I promised to you, and if I break that promise (or you do), it'll stop being a thing".
 
deathofrats0808 said:
Not really? Unlike the other two, the flame isn't symbolic of Ulric himself, but of a promise he made. And that makes perfect sense, he put a physical symbol into teh world to show his followers "hey this is a thing I promised to you, and if I break that promise (or you do), it'll stop being a thing".
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Was the flame a promise to the humans who settled the area? The flame predates Middenheim, and was there before the Teutogens first showed up to settle the area. And in the Ulrican myth which I mentioned and which started this discussion of Ulric's flame in the first place the flame isn't used to seal any sort of promise, it's used to burn Chaos because lighting cleansing flames by hitting things with hammers is a thing that Ulric can do apparently.
 
I've got a theory for a Ranald/Loec Asuryan connection, what if they didn't mantle Asuryan but instead gave the abandoned mantle sentience/sapience by killing the Widows siblings at the urging of Isha and using them as kindling/fuel to jumpstart the Asuryan divine interface.

Admittedly this doesn't explain the Ulric Asuryan divine fire that burns the unworthy connection, but maybe Asuryan was originally Ulric's/cd-2's interface, and cd-2 found themselves unable to log into it, because getting a stable signal wasn't possible at the time or something.
 
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mathymancer said:
There's a throwaway line in LUMW about how the charge of the Chaos hordes tore up the coast of Norsca, and the drowning of the field by Manann is said to be the origin of the Sea of Chaos which is between Norsca and the Northern Wastes.

MF says more than 'Great Pyramid' - it says the defenders were driven up the pyramid to the "Diamond Throne". That seems like a clear description of Asuryan's Great Pyramid, the one from which He rules the heavens. This is also what OS appears to say but there it says "Flaming Phoenix, whom all had thought dead, returned from atop His Gleaming Pyramid", and I think it's possible to read that as Asuryan joining the battle and bringing the pyramid with Him, rather than the pyramid being the original location of the battle.

While the Shrine of Asuryan is definitely built in imitation of Asuryan's pyramid I don't think the Asur claim that it is the pyramid of Asuryan, as that pyramid is supposed to be in the Heavens with Asuryan Himself. Of course it could still be that the Shrine of Asuryan was built upon the place where the Gods gathered to fight Chaos or whatever, perhaps the place where the Qt Deific Interfaces were connected to or something like that. On the other hand our best guess for Qt is Quintex, which isn't in Ulthuan.
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LUMW describes a series of events altering the land, forming the River Reik and the coast of Norsca. It then describes the Gods fighting against Chaos in a battle that "raged for a thousand years." Ulric's flame and Manann creating the sea of Chaos are described after that, but to combat the Skaven, which you have already pointed out weren't around for another thousand years. I take the chronology of all the events in LUMW with a grain of salt both because the author was clearly cherry-picking and rearranging things to feature Ulric, and because causality isn't what it used to be. I think that it is likely there was a whole war instead of a single battle, that involved high yield divine weaponry that reshaped geography on several occasions.

I agree that we don't have a good fix on where the final battle against Chaos went down, though my theory is that the flames represent weapons systems that were hard but not impossible to move, and so they ended up being left at the site of significant battles, and not at the locations of the cities where they were originally.

mathymancer said:
Cadaeth mentions a "Frozen Throne of Ulric", which I believe is quest original. The closest thing someone suggested when I asked if it had a canonical source was the Order of the Winter Throne, but their wiki page does mention a mysterious "Throne of the Snow King" which is hidden somewhere in Norsca, and Norsca is the closest region to the supposed flooded battlefield.
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I don't know what to make of the Frozen Throne of Ulric, but I do find it interesting that it is another parallel with Asuryan's Great Pyramid. I am inclined to think that there are 2 similar but separate thrones in play here, each as the literal or metaphorical control point for an Old One weapon system.

@Boney is the Frozen Throne of Ulric quest original and does Mathy know anything about it? Is it mentioned in in any of the books on Ulric that we have in the library and is it connected to any other Ulrican myths?

Wiggy said:
Well, while we're back on the topic of gods and creation myths. Didn't somebody refer to Norsca as a shattered prison at one point? I wanna say Borek? It doesn't seem to match any of the city locations from the sidestory, so I'm kinda wondering what that leaves for options.
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Boney said:
Why Ekrund, pinned between the Badlands and the sea? Why Norsca, the shattered remnants of another prison? Why the Middle Mountains, desolate and cursed? Why risk everything to travel across the Dark Lands and the Great Ocean, often never to be heard from again?
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This is a good point, Norsca really doesn't match any of the theorized city locations. I think we will need more data to figure out what this means, but this is a big hole in existing theories. Ekrund and the Middle Mountains are also a little weird, because Boney has pointed out that the Dwarves like to follow mountain ranges. They may be close enough to the Middle Mountains that the dwarves could find them and Borek is just being too paranoid.

deathofrats0808 said:
AFAIK, the Scared Flame is supposed to be a covenant. As long as the Flame burns, Middenheim won't fall.
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If the flame represents an Old One weapon system this may be rather literal. Has Middenheim been besieged by chaos before?
 
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LawsOfRobotics said:
The forests are a more low grade siege than I was thinking of. The Skaven might count depending on what kind of siege it was. I was thinking something more like the Siege of Praag during The Great War.
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Bringing up the forests was about the Beastmen living inside that have almost certainly besieged Middenheim many times.

During the Black Plague, Middenheim was the main city to withstand the Skaven assault- it was almost certainly entirely encircled for some time.
 
LawsOfRobotics said:
@Boney is the Frozen Throne of Ulric quest original
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This question seems benign at first glance, but what it actually amounts to is asking me is to confirm or deny whether the Order of the Winter Throne is sitting on something significant or not.

LawsOfRobotics said:
and does Mathy know anything about it? Is it a metaphorical or literal throne mentioned in Ulrican scripture and is it connected to any other Ulrican myths?
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Mathilde knows little about Ulric and nothing about His throne.
 
ReImagined said:
Wouldn't they just be the same as Imperial books? I don't think they would have needed to come up with the idea of converting if it weren't new to them, they'd just claim to already worship him.
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It would be imperial books, essentially, but more accessible. We can't get anything but surface details on the gods, because humans take cult secrets very serious. Elf keep the really deep lore secret, so we could probably get books we normally wouldn't from there. Though that's only if the Ulricans have shared that sort of thing (likely, the bossman wants to make this work, and critically influence how it goes down), and it made it's way into the library.
 
ReImagined said:
Wouldn't they just be the same as Imperial books?
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We already have Extensive Imperial books on Ulric. I think what @Nerdasaurus Rex is asking about is if we can buy the more Esoteric books that the cults won't sell from the Library of Mournings. It has already been noted on several occasions that the Library of Mournings does not restrict access to books that might contain Divine secrets in the same way that the cults do, so we might be able to get access to those secrets by proxy if they have been shared with the Eonir. I suspect the answer is no, or if yes we may trigger the Library of Mournings becoming more restrictive with books on Divinity in the future.
 
ReImagined said:
Wouldn't they just be the same as Imperial books? I don't think they would have needed to come up with the idea of converting if it weren't new to them, they'd just claim to already worship him.
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Even if they only have translated Imperial texts, they might have Obscure/Antiquarian/Esoteric books that we couldn't normally buy through our normal contacts (Imperial divine books only go up to extensive). Also, it might be interesting to see what the Eonir have written about Ulric—He's been part of their pantheon for about a decade now, so there must be some books about Him, even if it only goes up to the +1 bonus due to a lack of breadth on the topic.
 
LawsOfRobotics said:
LUMW describes a series of events altering the land, forming the River Reik and the coast of Norsca. It then describes the Gods fighting against Chaos in a battle that "raged for a thousand years." Ulric's flame and Manann creating the sea of Chaos are described after that, but to combat the Skaven, which you have already pointed out weren't around for another thousand years. I take the chronology of all the events in LUMW with a grain of salt both because the author was clearly cherry-picking and rearranging things to feature Ulric, and because causality isn't what it used to be. I think that it is likely there was a whole war instead of a single battle, that involved high yield divine weaponry that reshaped geography on several occasions.

I agree that we don't have a good fix on where the final battle against Chaos went down, though my theory is that the flames represent weapons systems that were hard but not impossible to move, and so they ended up being left at the site of significant battles, and not at the locations of the cities where they were originally.
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Fair points. Honestly I take everything in LUMW with several grains of salt, not just the chronology, and as I said if the Sacred Flame of Ulric wasn't a thing that definitely exists in Middenheim I wouldn't believe it was a thing at all.
LawsOfRobotics said:
Ekrund and the Middle Mountains are also a little weird, because Boney has pointed out that the Dwarves like to follow mountain ranges. They may be close enough to the Middle Mountains that the dwarves could find them and Borek is just being too paranoid.
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The Middle Mountains could be Waystone related, since we do know there's a nexus in the Middle Mountains - the Brass Keep. No idea about Ekrund, and with the Badlands network destroyed we couldn't confirm the presence of a Waystone there even if it was founded on one.
 
Boney said:
All the way up to Esoteric.
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On the one hand that's great, we definitely want more insights into the Cult of Ulric considering the current political situation. On the other hand, if the Ulrican schismatics ever find out that the Eonir are sharing what they consider Cult secrets they could use that against the Ar-Ulric, so maybe we should warn them to not do that? But only after we buy them ourselves, of course.
 
Pretty sure that Boney's said before that we can get Ulric books up to Esoteric via our Ulrikadrin contacts anyway. I'm on mobile so I can't look the quote up, though.
 
Parabola said:
Pretty sure that Boney's said before that we can get Ulric books up to Esoteric via our Ulrikadrin contacts anyway. I'm on mobile so I can't look the quote up, though.
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Beep Boop here's your requested quote:

Boney said:
Regular and Extensive available for money, going further requires contacts in the Cult in question. Except books on Ranald, which you can get for money alone, and Ulric, which you can get through Ulrikadrin.
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