I'm most skeptical about the "benevolent and beloved" part of that, given that pre-Teclesian human magic traditions were pretty low on the "sanity" side of things.
I could absolutely see a dynasty of magic users using their personal power to rule for some time, but even on the off chance they weren't straight up mainlining dhar, it still wouldn't have ended well.
What I will say is that self-proclaimed wizard lords taking over provinces happening over the centuries could make for a natural progression from Sigmar's "hell yeah I'll listen to Hedgewise advisors" era to early-Magnus's "all witches are heretics to be put to fire and sword immediately" era.
The wiki leaves out a bit. It looks like the 'Wizard Count' era was 2020 to 2121. Or thereabouts...that's the latest end-point it could have anyway (the book goes on to describe eras thereafter starting then). The wiki leaves out the era listed afterwards, skipping straight to the Great War.
The book also notes that how benevolent the first count was is...somewhat debatable. He mostly seems to have been smart and focused on his image (as befits, apparently, an illusionist). It lists various positive accomplishments but notes his motivations were opaque and he used trickery a lot. It specifically mentions him coming to power by 'ensorcelling' people, in fact.
Whether even that long is acceptable is another question entirely, but that's what the book actually says.
Ten Kingdoms of Ulthuan/Kingdom of Nehekhara/Naval Warfare doesn't seem like a half-bad set of three, and we can out-of-pocket the remaining Imperial books on the Druchii of Naggaroth to max that out too.
I think we could swap out Nehekhara with Naggaroth. We've got the lizardman papers to do and we'll probably talk to the diplomats or go to Ulthuan before we get to the Nehekhara books or the ring notes.
A tremendously valuable book for anyone seeking further information on one of the premier cities of the northern Empire! With excellent writing by Simon Wileman, Salzemund - City of Salt and Silver features such things as:
A guide to the history of this important port in the Empire's north.
The makeup of Salzenmund's government and their intrigues.
A detailed look at the most important locations and landmarks in the city.
Mysteries of Salzenmund, including a council of ghostly past rulers and an entity thought to be made of pure Chamon.
Details of how to manage smuggling operations and mining concerns in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
Articles on the mysterious Spites that haunt the forests of Nordland, and the Goblins who infest abandoned mines and tunnels.
Player options for Characters from the city and surrounding region.
Available to purchase on the Cubicle 7 website, DriveThruRPG, and your friendly local game store!
I'm most skeptical about the "benevolent and beloved" part of that, given that pre-Teclesian human magic traditions were pretty low on the "sanity" side of things.
I could absolutely see a dynasty of magic users using their personal power to rule for some time, but even on the off chance they weren't straight up mainlining dhar, it still wouldn't have ended well.
INDIVIDUAL magical humans were pretty low on the sanity side but by the time you get to anything approaching what could be called a "tradition" things get much more reasonable. It basically only takes one apprentice seeing their master going crazy from touching The Bad Magic Specifically to go "hey The Bad Magic Specifically is dangerous, only actually touch it in the direst emergency."
INDIVIDUAL magical humans were pretty low on the sanity side but by the time you get to anything approaching what could be called a "tradition" things get much more reasonable. It basically only takes one apprentice seeing their master going crazy from touching The Bad Magic Specifically to go "hey The Bad Magic Specifically is dangerous, only actually touch it in the direst emergency."
For the record, the Wizard Counts as presented were very much a tradition, the first one came out of nowhere and seems to have been sane (which could have all sorts of explanations), but from there it was a specific master to apprentice succession (rapidly also becoming a 'within the family' succession).
WFRP 4e: Salzenmund - City of Salt and Silver, page 10
In 2016 IC, the childless Count Wolfgar Ostrein was carried off by a giant eagle while hunting. He was succeeded by Talius the Exalted, first of the Magister Counts. In such a vast, fragmented domain as the Empire before Magnus, witch-hunters and Sigmarites struggled to assert their prohibition of wizardry. Talius was an opportunist who heard of events in Salzenmund and saw an opportunity.
He came to the city and used illusionist magic to grow his influence amongst the powers-that-be. In 2020 IC, with the support of ensorcelled nobles, generals, and guildmasters, he took control of both town and province to become Count Talius the Exalted.
Today, nobody knows anything about Talius's true name, appearance, or his real ambitions. He seems to have been a devious but benevolent autocrat. Talius founded a school for poor children, introduced the Cult of Verena to the town, reduced taxes, and improved trade with Ostlandand and Middenland. He also restored Nordland's Electoral status through further trickery.
In 2050 IC, Talius disappeared and passed his title to a former apprentice — Countess Ludmilla Gausser, more commonly known as 'The Sapphire Mask'. Several more Magister Counts followed Ludmilla by the same tradition of master to apprentice, although it soon became primarily a dynasty of Gaussers. The era of Magister Counts came to an end when Count Ernald Gausser inherited the title, a man who couldn't even read, let alone cast a spell.
The Time of Four Sieges
The years between 2121 IC and 2184 IC are known as the 'Time of Four Sieges'.
2020 IC
Count Talius the Exalted becomes the first of the Magister Counts. He orders the construction of a magical tower, leads the Salzenmund Guard to fight off an army of Barrow Kings in the Silver Hills and, through sorcerous trickery, persuades electors in Nuln to restore Nordland's Electoral vote.
2083 IC
Green Pox grips the town. Magister Count Florian Gausser duels with a Nurglite sorcerer over the Ormsdeep and defeats him, ending the plague.
Reading through that again, Talius (and thus likely his successors) read very much like Ulgu users to me. Illusions, trickery, overly dramatic names, and so on.
Reading through that again, Talius (and thus likely his successors) read very much like Ulgu users to me. Illusions, trickery, overly dramatic names, and so on.
Unlikely due to the timeline, I think. If it was part of the plan it wouldn't have happened until Talius was ready to take over but he had to get there and spend 4 years setting his takeover up after the Count got carried off.
Honestly, kinda sounds like PROBABLY not, because a magister-count who cares more about passing off the throne to their kid than to their apprentice as has been going on for a while, probably doesn't care too strongly about teaching an apprentice in the first place.
I do have some questions regarding current projects.
Mostly whether the Sevirscope will become a paper option on its own, or whether we'd want to complete a design of an auditory version before publishing a larger paper.
And whether it's possible to try to get the Rider in Red to go after Necromancy at range as well as manifesting to defend the caster. Train it to do either depending on what condition it's summoned in? Or whether keeping both options simple would require capturing two of the things.
But I'm thinking I'll get the author's attention with these later if the rest of the thread doesn't have answers.
After the social events.
don't think there is much room to implement it. Mathilde would have probably heard of the guy unless the existence of them was harshly and succesfully made secret. At the very least, it would somehow clash with Mandred updoot advice on the wedding, thought the words were iirc vague enough that him not coming up could make sense.
What's the Dwarven standard for 'talent', anyway? Do the more selective guilds turn away anyone who doesn't show an intuitive knack for it, or is it more a matter of being able to keep up?
I do have some questions regarding current projects.
Mostly whether the Sevirscope will become a paper option on its own, or whether we'd want to complete a design of an auditory version before publishing a larger paper.
The visual Seviroscope is already a possible paper, though it's a bit bare-bones given that it's only the instructions on how to make and operate it, and as such has the Timeless tag.
I think it's possible the auditory and visual Sevioscopes will be merged into a single, more impressive paper, though.
And whether it's possible to try to get the Rider in Red to go after Necromancy at range as well as manifesting to defend the caster. Train it to do either depending on what condition it's summoned in? Or whether keeping both options simple would require capturing two of the things
Boney's stated before that you can only train a given Apparition for a single thing, so our bodyguard Rider can't also be used for charging at groups of enemies or pursuing a single target, for instance.
Besides which, Riders in Red don't specifically hunt Necromancers, they are attracted to people who use battlefield magic - as in spells that actively cause damage. It's the Black Essence or the Whispering Darkness that hunt users of Dark magic in general. Those are the ones who people floated the idea of having them chase necromancers or whatever on their own.
"Some people kinda 'it's not who's going to let me, it's who's going to STOP me'-ing it during the chaos of the age of the three emperors" is really not the same thing as it happening during the modern era of "we actually have a unified set of rules."
Certainly different institutions will have different perspectives of "Nordland was ruled by a line of Magister-Counts" vs "The Seat of Nordland was Vacant with a line of Warlock Squatters."
The visual Seviroscope is already a possible paper, though it's a bit bare-bones given that it's only the instructions on how to make and operate it, and as such has the Timeless tag.
I think it's possible the auditory and visual Sevioscopes will be merged into a single, more impressive paper, though.
Boney's stated before that you can only train a given Apparition for a single thing, so our bodyguard Rider can't also be used for charging at groups of enemies or pursuing a single target, for instance.
Besides which, Riders in Red don't specifically hunt Necromancers, they are attracted to people who use battlefield magic - as in spells that actively cause damage. It's the Black Essence or the Whispering Darkness that hunt users of Dark magic in general. Those are the ones who people floated the idea of having them chase necromancers or whatever on their own.
As you well know from your discussions of the matter with the Knights of Ulrikadrin, the matter of the growing schism within the Cult of Ulric is an extremely sensitive one, so you reluctantly put aside your tried and tested information-gathering method of showing up somewhere in full Lady Magister regalia and bothering people until they tell you what's going on. Instead you send a letter to the offices of the Provost and the Librarian of the Grey Order and ask for a surface-level briefing of the matter, and after it is prepared you set aside an afternoon the next time you're passing by Altdorf to go through the materials they've accumulated on the topic, from historical background of the dispute to the events currently unfolding within it. Nothing in it is especially secret or sensitive, but you smile at the sheer breadth of the information the Grey Order is able to deliver on short notice.
The roots of the schism, you mentally summarize as you go through a deskful of papers that have been set aside for you, run parallel to the history of the Nordland Hedgewise. During the time of Sigmar, the tribe of people that would become Nordlanders split in two, with some staying within the Forest of Shadows and remaining loyal to their patron Goddess Halétha and others following King Marius into the lowlands of Westerland in an attempt to claim it as the Jutonsryk. Historians are divided as to whether they settled those lands and Marienburg was named after Marius, or whether they were trying to invade the lands of the Endals and Marienburg was named after King Marbad. In either case, the Endals were eventually victorious, and the Jutones were forced to return to the Forest of Shadows. But they did not do so directly - they passed through the lands of the Teutogens, ancestors of the Middenlanders, and while doing so converted to their God, Ulric. Instead of returning in shame to a land and Goddess they abandoned, they returned as conquerors. The Haléthan loyalists, now called the Was Jutonians, were split into two groups as some survived on the outskirts of Jutonian society and some fled east into the lands of the Udosians, and they would go on to become the Nordland and Ostland Hedgefolk. This set the stage for the Jutonians to become the Nordlanders, and also laid the foundations for the complicated relationship with their coreligionists in Middenland.
Nordland was not one of the founding provinces of the Empire - its Runefang, Crow Feeder, was originally granted to the Endals. But Middenland brought it into the fold by force during the March to the Frontiers as a vassal, bleeding it of silver until the era of Drakwald Emperors, where Emperor Boris Goldgather granted Nordland independence and a Runefang to weaken his family's ancestral rivals in Middenland. This independence came just in time for the Black Death, and Norscans migrated in large numbers to the towns and villages of Nordland cleared out by disease and likely would have conquered all of Nordland outright, had the Skaven Wars not arrived. Norscan and Nordlander put aside their differences - and, according to the more dramatic recountings of the history, the siege of Salzenmund - in the face of the invasion from below. When the dust had settled the Norscans decided to make a permanent peace with the Nordlanders, foreswear the Chaos Gods in favour of Ulric, and swear fealty to the Elector Count of Nordland. How much of that was due to kinship forged in battle and how much was due to the arrival of a freshly-crowned Emperor Mandred Skavenslayer at the head of the Imperial Army is open to interpretation. But though the Norscans had saved Nordland, their incorporation into the province and eventually the intermingling of their customs and bloodlines with that of Nordland drove another wedge between them and the Middenlanders, with their beliefs in the superiority of unmixed descent from the Imperial Tribes in general and the Teutogens in particular.
During the strife of the Time of Three Emperors, the missteps of the Ar-Ulrics of the time - who were, like all Ar-Ulrics to this day, Middenlanders of Teutogen descent - in backing the Ottilian Emperors of Talabecland, and their eventual ignominious return to Middenheim, led to the subjugation of that office by Middenland's temporal ruler. The most obvious and detested part of that was the enforcement of a Vow of Celibacy upon the priesthood of the Cult of Ulric that lasts to this day. To enforce this, or perhaps to avoid having to actually enforce this, the Ar-Ulric decreed that all women would be expelled from the priesthood. Needless to say, Nordlander Ulricans were not convinced that their priests should suffer for the failed politicking of the Ar-Ulric and most stopped even pretending to follow the decrees of the Middenland Ulricans, and for most of that tumultuous period Nordland sided with the Elected or Marienburg Emperors, rather than the Ottilian or Wolf Emperors. And though the rise of Magnus the Pious restored the unity of the Empire, his confirmation of the authority of the Ar-Ulric did little to heal the rift within the Cult of Ulric.
With tensions between Nordland and Middenland so high, all of the political, racial, and sexual rifts within the Cult of Ulric are wider than ever. The two main rallying points on Nordland's side are the High Priest of Salzenmund, the foremost Ulrican Priest within Nordland, and the High Priestess of Sudfast, the leader of an all-female Ulrican Temple that dates back at least two thousand years. They're not quite in open revolt, but they're clearly maneuvering for when they will be, and are preaching a populist doctrine that seeks to open up the wider priesthood to women once more, and the higher ranks of it to those not of Teutogen descent. With the physical borders drawn right down the border between Nordland and Middenland - a narrow and heavily forested strip of land hemmed in by the Middle Mountains on one side and Laurelorn on the other - the matter will not, thankfully, be settled by violence. The only way this comes to a conclusive end is if one side is able to garner enough support of the wider Cult of Ulric to drown out the voices of the other, and thus the attention of the two factions is turning to the farflung branches of the Cult. The natural other major players would be the High Priests of Talabheim and Wolfenburg, who hold authority over Talabecland and Ostland Ulricans respectively. Neither has made moves towards one side or the other yet - the Talabheim branch of the Cult of Ulric has a long and complicated history with the Middenheim leadership, and the Ostland branch tends to stay out of politics - but the most natural result of the undoubted overtures being made is that Ostland sides with Nordland and Talabecland with Middenland, reinforcing the stalemate.
The Knights of the White Wolf, the Cult of Ulric's militant wing and the largest Templar Order in the Empire, are theoretically loyal only to the Ar-Ulric, but the existence of Ulrikadrin stands as a monument to the rift within it. Of its sects and suborders, the Teutogen Guard, the Ar-Ulric's personal bodyguard, and the Brotherhood of the Axe, a suborder thick with Teutogen-supremacist beliefs, can be assumed to be siding with the Ar-Ulric. The Sons of Ulric, a secret and heretical sect within the Knights that believe themselves to be literally descended from Ulric and therefore the only suitable leaders for the Cult and the Empire, are outlawed and heavily persecuted in Middenland, so they're natural allies of the Nordlander Ulricans, unless they choose to repudiate the self-proclaimed fractional demigods. The Fellwolf Brotherhood, the portion of the Knights permanently attached to the Army of Middenland, are following the lead of Middenland's Elector Count in remaining uninvolved in the conflict. And Ulrikadrin, you learned from Hubert, has been approached by both sides, with the Ar-Ulric offering a return to the pack and Nordland their choice of Frote or Neues Emskrank as a monastic demesne. While there are certainly those among them that would like to return to the Empire, having to do so as part of a widening schism within the Cult they're still faithful to troubles them.
There are also a few other Ulrican Knightly Orders that you know of that might be moved to back one side or the other. The Knights of the Order of the Grey Wolf are unlikely to be shifted from their oaths to keep Grey Lady Pass open, but their deeds and opinions are respected within the Cult of Ulric. The same could be said of the Knights of the Northern Cross, an ascetic order with a monastery in the Middle Mountains that battle constantly against the evils that call it home. The Knights of the Bloody Fist could be argued to be more of a mercenary band than a Knightly Order, but either side could tempt them with gold or land to back them. And there's non-Ulrican Knights that might become involved, too - the Knights Panther are technically secular but they do swear their oaths to Sigmar and Ulric, and they have a large presence in Middenheim and close links to the Knights of the White Wolf. And the Knights of the North Star are likewise secular but based in Salzenmund, and though they've yet to get involved, they're likely to follow the Grand Baron's lead.
Then there's the original instigation, if not the instigators, of these troubles: the Elves of Laurelorn and their adding of Ulric to their Pantheonic Mandala, and the nascent Priesthood being assembled by House Ellemakil. Though it was the Ar-Ulric that claims credit for their conversion, they're not necessarily destined to side with him in this trouble - after all, the Eonir are likely to prefer a levelled Cult hierarchy, rather than one that has them subordinate to human authority. The Ar-Ulric could head off that problem by promising them a free hand to see to Ulrican matters within Laurelorn, but doing so formally would aggravate those within the Cult that already disagree with the addition of non-humans to the faithful.
The final wildcard in all this mess is a really tricky one. The Order of the Winter Throne are a monastical sect that believe that Ulric is going to cleanse the powers of Chaos from the world with Evernacht, an apocalyptically prolonged and vicious winter, and that their duty is to be ready and able to survive however long it takes for the world to thaw once more. Most of the Order do so by building and stocking monasteries in the coldest and most remote parts of the continent, but an extremist portion do so by burning silos and storehouses to the ground in winter as sacrifices to Ulric, and to force people to learn to survive frozen privation. The frozen fortresses of the Order can be found throughout Nordland, Ostland, Kislev, and even parts of southern Norsca, but even this doesn't account for the surprising amount of reach and influence they have within the Cult. If they could be recruited to one side or the other, they could shift the balance in the struggle for the soul of the Cult of Ulric.
Part of you is happy that you're able to file all of this under someone else's problem, but another, deeper part of your mind is already noting the pressure points where influence could be brought to bear to bring the different groups under one banner or the other, and tallying up the amount of influence one could wield by playing kingmaker, and the amount of strife that could be avoided if this matter was put swiftly and forcibly to rest. You allow the mental notes to be made and tuck them away neatly in a corner of your mind, just in case.
Honestly this update was kinda boring to read. I know it's what people voted for but this felt like reading a wiki rather than the usual cool social stuff.
I am looking forward to the rest of the options, though.
Interesting, but hopefully Mathilde doesn't have to get involved with the extremely fraught internal problems of a religion she's not part of. Good to know just in case, though.
Honestly this update was kinda boring to read. I know it's what people voted for but this felt like reading a wiki rather than the usual cool social stuff.
I am looking forward to the rest of the options, though.
