Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Missing the Religion books, which is +17. In total it should be +96.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Earth
Then again, given how the GUoN only had books on all the gods up to Obscure, maybe the Esoteric Verena books were in fact the few that the Nuln Verenans directly kept for themselves.
- Location
- Canada
It seems more likely that Clan Moulder would be the one breaking down the door, as they're between the chaos dwarves and Vlag (unless the CDs made a lot more headway than we saw in the wake of the Lord of Change stirring things up). They probably make only slightly less money than the dwarves from raiding/attacking/taxing the trade flowing through the pass. Regardless of who it is however, there's definately some sort of army coming through if the pass closes permanently. Just look at how much went on between Marienburg and the Empire over a potential blockade.
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There is nothing about Verena that prevents one from reading 'bad' books, if anything you are kind of encouraged since the reason they preserve all lore is that they think all of it has worth. As for her oaths and Article Seven, reading that book was not in breach of them, we just cannot tell anyone about it because they would panic and 'don't read books that will panic your superiors into judging you unjustly' is definitely not a Veranan sentiment. Lying by omission is probably the most non-Verenan thing there, but a Grey wizard who serves her would have to make her peace with that long before it came to the necromancy book
- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
Hence my thoughts about a permanent closure. Like blowing up another mountain into the pass so it's filled with rubble, or something else. I'm not saying 'guard it and let no one pass'. I'm saying make it impossible to pass.
I don't think it's feasible right now. But this is something major that only a transcendant could get us, and I do think it would be hugely beneficial. It also makes it harder for the classic Norscan/darklands chaos invasion to link up into a single Horde. Yes, they can go over the frozen sea, but a ton of the mortal elements are going to starve to death doing this.
Personally, I'm a little scared that the next chaos invasion will bust through Vlag and destroy it, as it's sorta weak, Slaanesh is pissed about it, and its right in the usual firing line. Personally, I wish this was where Grimir's Third Axe was.
Note that this will almost certainly have huge knock on effects though, as Kislev will become poorer but safer, and that will echo into the northeastern Empire.
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By a strict reading of Article 7, reading the Libre Mortis is a violation.
But then again, under a strict reading of A7, so was writing and publishing the Necrarch paper, and we received no criticism from that.
There's a fuzzy line where studying something to counter or destroy ot is kinda necessary. I doubt we can slid the Libre Mortis in under that reasoning, however.
From a legal and moral perspective that would be relevant to a devout Verenan there is no functional difference between studying the Dhar spell we used as a basis for the Matrix and the Liber Mortis, both were works of Dhar we studied not to use but to improve our skill in other areas, the difference is in how the power Mathilde would gain should she choose to cross the line would look
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That still leaves the possibility of a punitive military expedition against Vlag for their actions and Chaos Dwarves are still as vengeful as normal Dwarves towards those that have wronged them even if they don't have a formalised system in the form of the Dammaz Kron. They may even try to take over Vlag entirely or force them to collapse their tunnels like the Norse Dwarves and isolate themselves from the world so they can set up a base of operations to start clearing the rubble. It'll take a long time and will be expensive as hell but in the long-term the loss of trade will outweigh the cost of clearing High Pass so it's still the more profitable choice in the long run, and given Chaos Dwarf lifespans especially among their elite they will be thinking on the timescale of centuries or more.
SakSak
Unbound
- Location
- The Cold Wastes of the North
I believe back when this was more vigorously discussed, the word of GM came down to something along the lines of 'Technically, reading a book like this could be argued to be fine and in line with the research mandates of the Colleges. In practice, because of the sheer terror the teachings of Liber Mortis have caused and the reputation the book has amassed, no one will be interested in the legalistic arguments and the torches come out.'
Would need to to track down the posts, but this is what I remember.
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
From a strictly legal perspective yes. But the interpretation of the legal perspective is viewed through the lens of the political perspective, and while the political perspective may be willing to overlook things like the Matrix and Necrarch paper arguably being illegal for the sake of common sense and pragmatism it will not overlook something like the Liber Mortis even if the Articles were formulated in a way that made reading the Liber Mortis unambiguously legal, and the Articles aren't formulated that way. Inter arma enim silent leges, "In times of war, the law falls silent", and while admitting to reading the Liber Mortis isn't an explicit declaration of war the Empire will effectively declare war against anyone who has read it regardless of their trustworthiness to preempt the slightest possibility of another Fredrick Van Hal. They may not have the original but they do have copies of the Liber Mortis and are aware of both the First and Second Secrets of Dhar as wall as how much of an existential threat a Wizard with the former might be.
That is all true, but not really relevant to how a Verenan Mathilde would have reacted as opposed to a Ranaldian one which is where all this started from. As long as she was covered legally and morally a follower of the Goddess of Law and Knowledge would have read the book and gained the knowledge.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
I'm not sure it would even take them that long. They could probably just magic it away. Or build a machine to break it for them. The Chaos Dwarfs have a damn train in canon, and there's a version desgined for breaking fortess walls.
Think I found the posts related to it. Shown below here.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I wonder if there's any way to only shorten the pass - leave it wide enough that trade caravans can still pass, but not wide enough that most armies could do so at a reasonable pace. Otherwise... I'd be inclined to do some favor trading.
According to Thorek in the latest social, Vlag's gonna need a generation for their mining or smelting to get back to normal dwarf standards, but they're even better stonewrights than they were before they disappeared. And we know that they would really rather remain connected to the rest of the world, build connections with others. And of course, that would include Kislev, their closest neighbors.
So I'm thinking: Why not ask Vlag to massively help improve Kislev's infrastructure, whether it be roads or forts or homes? Even now they're still recovering from the Great War, so I'm sure they could use whatever advantage we could give them. And in exchange, Kislev... well, there's a lot of things we could ask of them, but in general I imagine the best use would be something that strengthens Vlag in turn. What exactly is probably its own subject of discussion, but it'd probably be for the best if the two made each others' lives pleasant.
Verena is also the goddess of justice and laws. I would assume they care about laws quite a bit. Individual Verenans will vary in how they priorities following the law vs saving knowledge, how they interpret the law in the first place, and in handling the risk of someone blowing up a country. And while "I didn't want to destroy the book" would get you some sympathy, it's not like she didn't have options. She could've given the book to someone else, like say a Verenan, but the Sigmarites have a good track record as well.
I'm a bit confused by your point, someone just pulled a GM post as to how you could make a solid legal argument for how reading it is legal, it should just panic people into acting like tyrants:
Technically there's a very strong argument to be made that simply reading the Liber Mortis for ideas of what can be done with conventional magic is exactly the same sort of thing as your Matrix, but the reputation of the book completely changes the equation. This isn't a novel cantrip of an unknown necromancer, this is the how-to guide written by the man who made Sylvania synonymous with the restless dead. Learning that there's an original and unredacted copy of the book in existence, let alone in the possession of a wizard, would be likely to panic conservative members of the powers-that-be as well as giving them all the justification they need to err on the side of burning the witch.
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Everything that can be filled in can be dug out.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
She is the Goddess of Justice, not the Goddess of Law. How a person interprets Justice varies from person to person, like if your morality is entirely dependent on what's legal or not, but not a single Verenan stricture even tells you to follow the law. It simply tells you to be Just.
A Sigmarite is more likely to be a Legalist than a Verenan.
Yet another reason to dislike Sigmar.
Small nitpick here, but I am fairly sure that Cult of Sigmar does allow some particularily trusted scholars access to their unredacted copy. There was a WoG on that and IIRC even some wizards (Lights) were allowed.
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
Clan Moulder and Chaos Dwarfs are on entirely different sides of the High Pass, it is Vlag that is between Moulder and the CDs.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
I only read it for the Skaven Warfare Articles!
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
In-quest Moulder also holds territory east of the Pass- Qrech used to be Warlord there, and Mathilde visited during the Dum expedition.Clan Moulder and Chaos Dwarfs are on entirely different sides of the High Pass, it is Vlag that is between Moulder and the CDs.
(Well, Qrech's combe itself was being taken over by Chaos Dwarfs when Mathilde was there, but there were 7 combes so probably some of them are still in Moulder paws)
It shuts off trade with Cathay so that's not necessarily great.
It isn't like Kislev or the Empire habitually trade with the Chorfs.
Not sure if how I'd feel about us using our Transcendent boon just to better Vlag/Kislev relations from a narrative POV.
Like Vlag and Kislev alread have decent relations. Mathilde often does stuff for the common good but not to the extent of giving away a really high end boon so that two fairly distant polities that already get along fairly well would get along somewhat better.