- Location
- Aotearoa
Theory of electromagnetism? Electric generators? Sometimes I wonder if we need a "this is not an uplift quest" tag. 
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I feel like this has a prerequisite of needing to have players not having Diplomacy/Charisma their dump stat.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There are Quests involving characters with good social skills. It's not ubiquitous, but they certainly exist. This, however, is not those Quests.
Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It actually super is - see e.g. Mathilde's genuinely terrifying Intrigue score, and frankly by now even her Diplo is well above average - but the thread is large and...fractious, if not outright factionalized. Mathilde has a sufficiently broad skillset, and Boney offers sufficient player freedom, that there are a wide array of largely unrelated types of things we can focus on (adventure, research, politics, self-improvement, etc.), & many/most participants have one or a few favorites among said types of things. I haven't been exactly scientific about this but the broad impression I've gotten is that the people who don't want to do politics are mostly not interested in politics (as compared to a preferred area like research or adventure), rather than thinking Mathilde would be incapable of getting stuff done if she really put her mind to it.
- Location
- Washington
The Vow of Celibacy is seemingly ALREADY not actually serving it's purpose of "preventing dynasties of Al-Ulrics" so I suspect getting Toddbringer okay with it would be cheaper than at points in times when it was more in force:
This is not to say "Toddbringer would agree to it for FREE" but I do think if it was the cost of bringing one of the camps Nordland is trying to rally over to the other side of the fold, a price that the other parties are actually willing to pay might be on the cards.
This is not to say "Toddbringer would agree to it for FREE" but I do think if it was the cost of bringing one of the camps Nordland is trying to rally over to the other side of the fold, a price that the other parties are actually willing to pay might be on the cards.
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
Look sometimes it's just fun to brainstorm how a radically different world would achieve technological progress if released from their mandated stagnancy. Also, the idea of using electric motors to power mechanical batteries is just very funny.Theory of electromagnetism? Electric generators? Sometimes I wonder if we need a "this is not an uplift quest" tag.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
I'm not sure I'd generally count Intrigue as a social skill.
- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
If nobody lives to report that you made a faux pas, did you ever really make one?
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
It is the stat that covers lies and deception (including spotting those things), so if you don't have it on your social character then you need them to roll like Anton to survive.
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Pretty much, any form of lying, trickery, or deceit as well as your ability to detect said lying, trickery, and deceit would fall under Intrigue as well as Diplomacy. The division of skills into Martial, Diplomacy, Stewardship, Intrigue, Learning, and Piety isn't perfect, there are cases where a skill can fall into an overlap where two or more stats could arguably apply.
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For example, Mathilde and Eike both have the "Economics" skill, but for Mathilde it's a Stewardship skill and Eike has it as a Learning skill—which of course changes their approach to it. Mathilde uses economics as a tool and is very practical about it, Eike on the other hand is more interested in the underlying philosophy and is probably more idealist in her approach towards it.
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And someone like the Bursar may very well have Economics as an Intrigue skill since she would specialize in forensic accounting in order to make sure everyone is paying their tithes and they aren't breaking the Vow of Poverty.
- Location
- Greece
Does it count if it happens late in the series, due to a mechanical overhaul and change in player priorities?
Cuz I'd argue threads/forge of destiny is currently sporting a very diplomacy build. It just took a few years and over a thread to get there, because, suprise suprise, the thread chose diplomacy as its dump stats at the start, so it had to reverse course.
Although the protagonist was always surprisingly effective at making friends despite her build, it just took her a while to refine that.
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Turn 42 Social - 2490.5 - Part 2
"Are you still a worshipper of Shallya?" you ask Eike casually one evening. Well, not quite casually, but there's not really a way to ask that sort of thing without it being abrupt to some degree. You instead did your best to say it in such a way that would express curiosity without judgement. You'd spent some time considering and came to the conclusion that that would be the least problematic tone.
"Intermittently," she replies after a moment of thought, setting her book aside and carefully not letting wariness into her voice. "There's a physician that hosts a gathering when their business is quiet, I attend when we're in Karag Nar for them."
"Why Her, if you'll forgive my curiosity?"
She goes quiet as she thinks about that for a while. "I like Her," she says simply. "I did for the reasons most do when I was a child. And now because the things She does, and that Her people do, are good in a simple and straightforward way. The things we do are good in a complicated way. It's refreshing."
You nod. There's a lot of different ways Grey Wizards make peace with the morass of grey areas and lesser evils that the Order is often forced to operate within, and patronizing the Cult of Shallya is probably one of the healthier ways you've heard of. "So you're more of an admirer of Shallyans than a Shallyan yourself?"
She considers that. "An appreciator, I'd say. And I suppose I'd like to be a supporter, once I have support to give."
You can't help but smile at that. "Those are fine things to be."
"But I don't consider myself bound by the Cult's strictures. There needs to be soldiers to protect and be healed by the Shallyans, or otherwise you won't have any Shallyans." She gathers up the courage to outright ask, "what about yourself, Master?"
"I don't make much of a secret that I have a good relationship with Ranald," you say, with an amused little smile at your understatement. "Much of what I do is aligned with His interests, and as a youth it struck me as only sensible to act in accordance with Him and receive His aid, than do so in spite of Him and hope for no worse than His indifference."
"Do you think that was the right decision for you to have made?"
It's a fair question. "My life would certainly have been simpler without Him, but I wouldn't say it would have been easier. I think Volans was right to have imposed an officially irreligious stance on the Colleges, but I think that there's a lot of Wizards for whom it makes sense to reach their own individual accords with the Gods. If you can square your duties as a Grey Wizard with the desires and affinities of Shallya, or with any other God you feel compatible with, then I think that it can be a useful relationship to pursue further."
She's quiet for a long time, and you turn most of your attention back to your reading as she digests that. "You've researched the Gods a fair bit, haven't you?"
"That might be overstating the matter, but yes, I've done some reading and discussing on the matter."
"What are They?"
"That's a big question." You take a moment to get your thoughts in order. "Volans theorized that the Gods 'need the faith of mortals to maintain their unique identities'. We can see for ourself that exertions of willpower are able to control the Winds, which are themselves energies of the Aethyr, so it stands to reason that willpower channelled through the faith of thousands could be a source of power or sustenance for the beings of the Aethyr. There seems to be a threshold, or a series of thresholds, where spirits that grow strong enough can become more and more conceptual in nature. A spirit of a tree becomes a spirit of a forest, and then a spirit of forests in general, and then, say, of something like 'growth' or 'fertility'. This seemingly unshackles them - or, ha, uproots them - allowing them to move and grow beyond their origins, both physically and metaphorically. When the Imperial Tribes arrived on this continent, they brought with them conceptual Gods, or possibly primordial versions of them. Because past a certain level of strength, a spirit stops being bound to a singular concept and starts being able to cultivate and defend a territory of sorts, made up of similar concepts. Mercy, compassion, and healing are all clearly related, but they are all separate concepts that Shallya nonetheless simultaneously embodies.
"At this point the Gods treat concepts as territory on a map, with blurry borders and territorial disputes and all. Taal and Rhya claim sovereignty over all nature between them, putting them at odds with 'lesser' Gods of things like Fertility, the Hunt, Rivers, and Bogs. Some of those, especially those within Talabecland, have been subsumed into the mythology of the Cults of Taal and Rhya, as aspects or manifestations or subordinate spirits, and others have been eliminated or pushed onto the fringes of society. Sigmar, Ulric, Taal, and Myrmidia all claim parts of warfare from different directions. Manann and Mathlann might clash for sovereignty over the ocean, or they might be the same being worshipped in different ways with different aspects emphasized by different cultures.
"Casting a shadow over all of this are the Chaos Gods, whose conceptual reach is vast enough that there are few concepts that at least one cannot taint. Ranald duels with the Plotter over chance and trickery, all of the war gods with the Wrathful, Shallya with the Diseased over the nature of compassion and succour, and wherever faith and its expression are taken to extremes, the Tempter lurks. This might be the most important role of the Gods, to refuse the Chaos Gods dominance over every concept they touch. I shudder to think of what life would be like if we were forced to cede all of that to the Four and cobble together an existence made of what little remains."
Eike is quiet for a while as she digests that. "So if that were the case, it would be a symbiotic relationship. They feed on our expressions of faith, and in turn shelter us from the influence of the Chaos Gods."
"That's the theory."
Eike frowns as she considers that. "Then there must have been a time when They were lesser. How did they gain a foothold against the Chaos Gods, if that was the case?"
"Good question. According to a Dragon I discussed the matter with, the Chaos Gods did have dominance over this world for a very long time, and the Shartak - usually called 'Dragon Ogres' - and Fimir are remnants from that era. But an alliance of the Dragons and a now-gone race generally referred to as the Old Ones came to this world and pushed back their influence long enough for spirits to develop, and possibly assisted some of them in doing so. That is why Chaos flows from the poles, because those were the frontiers that Chaos was pushed back to."
"Came to this world from where?"
"That's a big question. The Old Ones aren't around any more to ask, and most of the surviving Dragons that weren't born on this world are sleeping under the Kingdom of Caledor in Ulthuan. Those Dragons consider those that we know of in the Old World, the ones that allow themselves to be bound to a Wind like our neighbour is to Hysh, to have betrayed their nature as nomads between worlds. All we know for sure is that the Chaos Gods exist on these other worlds, which is why they can be thwarted despite their power - most of their attention is almost always elsewhere. There are some that claim to have seen visions of these other worlds, but these accounts are heavily censored and those that record them usually end up on a pyre or in an asylum."
Eike's expression of serious thought is one that looks out of place on a face that young. "Where do Gods like that of the Orcs and the Skaven and the Fire Dwarves fit into this?"
"Hard to say. There certainly seems to be some sort of difference there, as instead of having entire pantheons like the humans and Elves and Dwarves, they have one or two Gods that seem to face no competition. Most religious authorities consider them to be lesser Chaos Gods, if such things exist, or particularly successful Higher Daemons. It could be that they're Gods that have staked out concepts alien to human minds, and that this makes them able to entirely dominate the beings They rule over. Or it could be that there's no fundamental difference and this trend is just happenstance, though it seems unlikely considering how neatly the divide is between the pantheons of the 'Civilized Realms' and the deific monodominance of the 'Enemies of Man'." You frown as you consider it further. "Cathay might be a counterexample, what little I know about them suggests they may only have one or two Gods. Though they might just deify their current Emperor, if the title of 'Dragon Emperor' isn't literal."
Eike goes quiet as she considers that, and though she doesn't ask you any further questions, you do notice a few books on theology intermixed with her reading materials over the coming weeks. There's a fair bit that you know and a great deal that you suspect that you haven't outright said, and you can tell that she can tell that those unspoken words are floating overhead, unseen but not unfelt. The lure of those secrets are a strong lure for any Grey Wizard worthy of the title, and you've no doubt that in proving herself worthy of those secrets, she'll uncover ones equal to or greater than them.
---
Laurelorn's agreements with Nordland, back when they were still being honoured, were based on strictly limiting human encroachment into it, so no provisions were made for Eonir passage into human lands. Their agreement with Middenland is a very different one, based on proselytism and common cause against Beastmen and Nordlanders. This makes it a matter of prestige for Middenland, rather than one of monetary profit, and this means that instead of squeezing out every pfennig, Middenland has included a number of things that would hopefully prove to be incentives to maintain the relationship. One of those is a right of free passage to citizens of Laurelorn through Middenland, which gives them implicit permission to travel freely through any province of the Empire that isn't explicitly excluding them.
The barrier to taking advantage of this is the peculiar laws of the caste system of the Eonir. The most obvious restriction of this is that the Forestborn cannot spend a night within the walls of Tor Lithanel, but arguably even more restrictive is that unless given explicit permission, Cityborn cannot spend a night outside of them without losing that status. Said permission has historically only been given to Eonir directly serving the crown, usually in a diplomatic or military capacity. This means that the Cityborn are not in a position to do any travel, as very little of the Empire can be reached, appreciated, and returned from within a single day.
There exists, you're aware, an undercurrent of envy that the lower classes of Cityborn had of the Forestborn and their relative freedom, but that freedom had been rather ephemeral when the world of the Eonir ended at their borders and it was largely a question of having to sleep in a city or having to sleep in a tree. With an entire continent opening up, the more adventurous of the Forestborn have been taking advantage of a freedom that had previously largely been a freedom to starve and freeze in the wilderness. The stories they're spreading upon their return are perhaps a bit vindictively embellished for the Cityborn audience that flow into the groves and odeons they make their declarations from, then embellished even further when retold by their Cityborn admirers.
The first story you hear is of what you take to be the Reikwald, as they speak of their initial horror and emerging wonder at a vast and apparently healthy forest without any vestige of an oversoul. Without millennia of immersion in high levels of ambient magical energies, and without any native spirits to meddle, the flora and fauna to be found within strike the Forestborn as pure and primeval, and they speak at length of the insights into the basest nature of trees and animals they thought they knew everything about. To you, an owl that sees your soul and speaks riddles of the deepest wisdom seems very noteworthy, but it seems that to these Elves, one that does nothing but hoot and devour small animals is the novelty. The Forestborn in question also speaks at length about how they had returned richer than they had left, as they had been used to hunting deer that were capable of identifying a trap and bartering with local spites to disarm it.
The next came from a devotee of Kurnous, a God that has been demoted from the upper echelon of the Eonir pantheon, and says that they have uncovered a myth completely unknown to the Elves - one you quickly recognize as that of Taal's Victory, where Taal's battle with a great dragon carved out the Talabec and formed the crater of the Taalbaston, but told with a lot more characterization to the being only identified as 'Ancient Wyrm' in most Taalite tellings. They speak of the Great Dragon they believe to be Abraxas with respect but not reverence, as according to Elven legend he betrayed his first master for one of the Cytharai, then Them for Isha, then finally abandoned Isha, Ulthuan, and the knowledge of Elven historians. This teller identifies the service of Rhya as Abraxas' final destination, and speaks of Kurnous pursuing and violently chastising Abraxas for his disloyalty to Kurnous' wife, but in doing so encountering Rhya for the first time and falling victim to the same charms that had snared the Dragon. Under the name Taal, this Forestborn says, Kurnous rules over a forest at least ten times larger than that of Chrace, and they believe that a deeper communion with Kurnous is possible there than anywhere within Laurelorn.
When one Forestborn speaks at length of a city that blows thick with Ghur, it takes you a few minutes to realize they're speaking not of Talabheim but of Altdorf, where Dragomas' continued role as Supreme Patriarch causes his Wind to dominate the streets. The tale of a hunter becoming more lost in Altdorf's streets than they had ever experienced in the depths of any forest is surprisingly gripping, even if the parts where they hunt the feral dog packs to sell to the piemen turns your stomach. They talk with detached fascination of the endemic warfare of the human packs that mark their territory with glyphs and colours instead of clawmarks and urine, of its very many and assorted spires and the seemingly bottomless depths of its undercity, and of the sheer size of a city that has districts larger and more populous than Tor Lithanel. It's a strange experience to hear a city you thought you know so well described as a place as alien to the speaker as Tor Lithanel once was to you.
Of surprising interest to the speakers and their audience are the open plains of Averland and the Veldt. Entire generations of Elves have lived and died without ever knowing the sight of open grasslands from horizon to horizon, and they seem to find the experience either disquieting or thrilling, depending on whether they arrived on foot or on a steed. Also looming appropriately large are the World's Edge Mountains - knowing only the Middle Mountains and considering them a very poor imitation of the Annulii Mountains of their dimly-remembered homeland, seeing for themselves that this continent has peaks that could rival them for grandeur seems to have captured the imaginations of many. Then there's the rivers of the Empire that some have fixated on, as where the northern Empire has only a handful of perfunctory rivers that flow in mostly straight lines from inland to a notoriously treacherous sea, the rest of the Reik Basin being interwoven with one massive, interconnected, and fairly traversable river system has some describing it as the Empire's very own Inner Sea.
All of these wonders are beyond the reach of the Cityborn, and for once it is the richest and most influential of them that are feeling the bite the keenest, as they are the ones most jaded and starved for novelty. This tension could be addressed by granting diplomatic sinecures to those with the influence to request them, allowing the rich and powerful the privilege of travel with a mumbled explanation about deepening diplomatic ties between the Eonir and their new allies. That this hasn't happened probably indicates that this disquiet is being cultivated, the pressure being contained and allowed to build. If done carelessly this would eventually lead to an explosion, but this sort of pressure can be a very useful motive force if properly harnessed. Eonir society seems like it is set to undergo several major changes in the coming decades, and in each of them the hand of the Queen seems to be at work, moulding the eventual shape of the society to come.
---
There are many ways for news to travel through the Old World. The least urgent goes with the postal carriages that trundle their way between the major cities on a regular basis. More urgent than that goes via a postal courier who changes horses at every waystation to maintain a respectable speed. After that comes the pigeon post. The penultimate levels of urgency calls for couriers mounted upon griffins or pegasi, most of whom are nobles or Wizards of significant rank and need a matter of considerable urgency to sway them from whatever they're currently doing.
Most people are unaware that in times of great need, there are other, more arcane ways to send the most urgent of messages. Your first indication that this has occurred is when Hubert alights on your balcony one day, carrying news that had been emblazoned upon the sky itself for those with the eyes to see it. The bulk of the message he relays to you vocally - that the Asur had sent a delegate to discuss a matter with the Colleges of Magic, and that it would be appreciated if you could make yourself present to handle the matter as soon as reasonably possible. The rest was enciphered, as is reasonable when the night sky is to be your notice board, and you try a few intermediate ciphers before you manage to tease out the remainder of the message, which consists of the identity of the Elf in question. Not Teclis, unfortunately, nor any of the other very few living Asur you know the names of offhand. You can only hope, as you signal for your Gyrocarriage, that this 'Prince Eltharion of Yvresse' is a reasonable sort of Elf.
"Intermittently," she replies after a moment of thought, setting her book aside and carefully not letting wariness into her voice. "There's a physician that hosts a gathering when their business is quiet, I attend when we're in Karag Nar for them."
"Why Her, if you'll forgive my curiosity?"
She goes quiet as she thinks about that for a while. "I like Her," she says simply. "I did for the reasons most do when I was a child. And now because the things She does, and that Her people do, are good in a simple and straightforward way. The things we do are good in a complicated way. It's refreshing."
You nod. There's a lot of different ways Grey Wizards make peace with the morass of grey areas and lesser evils that the Order is often forced to operate within, and patronizing the Cult of Shallya is probably one of the healthier ways you've heard of. "So you're more of an admirer of Shallyans than a Shallyan yourself?"
She considers that. "An appreciator, I'd say. And I suppose I'd like to be a supporter, once I have support to give."
You can't help but smile at that. "Those are fine things to be."
"But I don't consider myself bound by the Cult's strictures. There needs to be soldiers to protect and be healed by the Shallyans, or otherwise you won't have any Shallyans." She gathers up the courage to outright ask, "what about yourself, Master?"
"I don't make much of a secret that I have a good relationship with Ranald," you say, with an amused little smile at your understatement. "Much of what I do is aligned with His interests, and as a youth it struck me as only sensible to act in accordance with Him and receive His aid, than do so in spite of Him and hope for no worse than His indifference."
"Do you think that was the right decision for you to have made?"
It's a fair question. "My life would certainly have been simpler without Him, but I wouldn't say it would have been easier. I think Volans was right to have imposed an officially irreligious stance on the Colleges, but I think that there's a lot of Wizards for whom it makes sense to reach their own individual accords with the Gods. If you can square your duties as a Grey Wizard with the desires and affinities of Shallya, or with any other God you feel compatible with, then I think that it can be a useful relationship to pursue further."
She's quiet for a long time, and you turn most of your attention back to your reading as she digests that. "You've researched the Gods a fair bit, haven't you?"
"That might be overstating the matter, but yes, I've done some reading and discussing on the matter."
"What are They?"
"That's a big question." You take a moment to get your thoughts in order. "Volans theorized that the Gods 'need the faith of mortals to maintain their unique identities'. We can see for ourself that exertions of willpower are able to control the Winds, which are themselves energies of the Aethyr, so it stands to reason that willpower channelled through the faith of thousands could be a source of power or sustenance for the beings of the Aethyr. There seems to be a threshold, or a series of thresholds, where spirits that grow strong enough can become more and more conceptual in nature. A spirit of a tree becomes a spirit of a forest, and then a spirit of forests in general, and then, say, of something like 'growth' or 'fertility'. This seemingly unshackles them - or, ha, uproots them - allowing them to move and grow beyond their origins, both physically and metaphorically. When the Imperial Tribes arrived on this continent, they brought with them conceptual Gods, or possibly primordial versions of them. Because past a certain level of strength, a spirit stops being bound to a singular concept and starts being able to cultivate and defend a territory of sorts, made up of similar concepts. Mercy, compassion, and healing are all clearly related, but they are all separate concepts that Shallya nonetheless simultaneously embodies.
"At this point the Gods treat concepts as territory on a map, with blurry borders and territorial disputes and all. Taal and Rhya claim sovereignty over all nature between them, putting them at odds with 'lesser' Gods of things like Fertility, the Hunt, Rivers, and Bogs. Some of those, especially those within Talabecland, have been subsumed into the mythology of the Cults of Taal and Rhya, as aspects or manifestations or subordinate spirits, and others have been eliminated or pushed onto the fringes of society. Sigmar, Ulric, Taal, and Myrmidia all claim parts of warfare from different directions. Manann and Mathlann might clash for sovereignty over the ocean, or they might be the same being worshipped in different ways with different aspects emphasized by different cultures.
"Casting a shadow over all of this are the Chaos Gods, whose conceptual reach is vast enough that there are few concepts that at least one cannot taint. Ranald duels with the Plotter over chance and trickery, all of the war gods with the Wrathful, Shallya with the Diseased over the nature of compassion and succour, and wherever faith and its expression are taken to extremes, the Tempter lurks. This might be the most important role of the Gods, to refuse the Chaos Gods dominance over every concept they touch. I shudder to think of what life would be like if we were forced to cede all of that to the Four and cobble together an existence made of what little remains."
Eike is quiet for a while as she digests that. "So if that were the case, it would be a symbiotic relationship. They feed on our expressions of faith, and in turn shelter us from the influence of the Chaos Gods."
"That's the theory."
Eike frowns as she considers that. "Then there must have been a time when They were lesser. How did they gain a foothold against the Chaos Gods, if that was the case?"
"Good question. According to a Dragon I discussed the matter with, the Chaos Gods did have dominance over this world for a very long time, and the Shartak - usually called 'Dragon Ogres' - and Fimir are remnants from that era. But an alliance of the Dragons and a now-gone race generally referred to as the Old Ones came to this world and pushed back their influence long enough for spirits to develop, and possibly assisted some of them in doing so. That is why Chaos flows from the poles, because those were the frontiers that Chaos was pushed back to."
"Came to this world from where?"
"That's a big question. The Old Ones aren't around any more to ask, and most of the surviving Dragons that weren't born on this world are sleeping under the Kingdom of Caledor in Ulthuan. Those Dragons consider those that we know of in the Old World, the ones that allow themselves to be bound to a Wind like our neighbour is to Hysh, to have betrayed their nature as nomads between worlds. All we know for sure is that the Chaos Gods exist on these other worlds, which is why they can be thwarted despite their power - most of their attention is almost always elsewhere. There are some that claim to have seen visions of these other worlds, but these accounts are heavily censored and those that record them usually end up on a pyre or in an asylum."
Eike's expression of serious thought is one that looks out of place on a face that young. "Where do Gods like that of the Orcs and the Skaven and the Fire Dwarves fit into this?"
"Hard to say. There certainly seems to be some sort of difference there, as instead of having entire pantheons like the humans and Elves and Dwarves, they have one or two Gods that seem to face no competition. Most religious authorities consider them to be lesser Chaos Gods, if such things exist, or particularly successful Higher Daemons. It could be that they're Gods that have staked out concepts alien to human minds, and that this makes them able to entirely dominate the beings They rule over. Or it could be that there's no fundamental difference and this trend is just happenstance, though it seems unlikely considering how neatly the divide is between the pantheons of the 'Civilized Realms' and the deific monodominance of the 'Enemies of Man'." You frown as you consider it further. "Cathay might be a counterexample, what little I know about them suggests they may only have one or two Gods. Though they might just deify their current Emperor, if the title of 'Dragon Emperor' isn't literal."
Eike goes quiet as she considers that, and though she doesn't ask you any further questions, you do notice a few books on theology intermixed with her reading materials over the coming weeks. There's a fair bit that you know and a great deal that you suspect that you haven't outright said, and you can tell that she can tell that those unspoken words are floating overhead, unseen but not unfelt. The lure of those secrets are a strong lure for any Grey Wizard worthy of the title, and you've no doubt that in proving herself worthy of those secrets, she'll uncover ones equal to or greater than them.
---
Laurelorn's agreements with Nordland, back when they were still being honoured, were based on strictly limiting human encroachment into it, so no provisions were made for Eonir passage into human lands. Their agreement with Middenland is a very different one, based on proselytism and common cause against Beastmen and Nordlanders. This makes it a matter of prestige for Middenland, rather than one of monetary profit, and this means that instead of squeezing out every pfennig, Middenland has included a number of things that would hopefully prove to be incentives to maintain the relationship. One of those is a right of free passage to citizens of Laurelorn through Middenland, which gives them implicit permission to travel freely through any province of the Empire that isn't explicitly excluding them.
The barrier to taking advantage of this is the peculiar laws of the caste system of the Eonir. The most obvious restriction of this is that the Forestborn cannot spend a night within the walls of Tor Lithanel, but arguably even more restrictive is that unless given explicit permission, Cityborn cannot spend a night outside of them without losing that status. Said permission has historically only been given to Eonir directly serving the crown, usually in a diplomatic or military capacity. This means that the Cityborn are not in a position to do any travel, as very little of the Empire can be reached, appreciated, and returned from within a single day.
There exists, you're aware, an undercurrent of envy that the lower classes of Cityborn had of the Forestborn and their relative freedom, but that freedom had been rather ephemeral when the world of the Eonir ended at their borders and it was largely a question of having to sleep in a city or having to sleep in a tree. With an entire continent opening up, the more adventurous of the Forestborn have been taking advantage of a freedom that had previously largely been a freedom to starve and freeze in the wilderness. The stories they're spreading upon their return are perhaps a bit vindictively embellished for the Cityborn audience that flow into the groves and odeons they make their declarations from, then embellished even further when retold by their Cityborn admirers.
The first story you hear is of what you take to be the Reikwald, as they speak of their initial horror and emerging wonder at a vast and apparently healthy forest without any vestige of an oversoul. Without millennia of immersion in high levels of ambient magical energies, and without any native spirits to meddle, the flora and fauna to be found within strike the Forestborn as pure and primeval, and they speak at length of the insights into the basest nature of trees and animals they thought they knew everything about. To you, an owl that sees your soul and speaks riddles of the deepest wisdom seems very noteworthy, but it seems that to these Elves, one that does nothing but hoot and devour small animals is the novelty. The Forestborn in question also speaks at length about how they had returned richer than they had left, as they had been used to hunting deer that were capable of identifying a trap and bartering with local spites to disarm it.
The next came from a devotee of Kurnous, a God that has been demoted from the upper echelon of the Eonir pantheon, and says that they have uncovered a myth completely unknown to the Elves - one you quickly recognize as that of Taal's Victory, where Taal's battle with a great dragon carved out the Talabec and formed the crater of the Taalbaston, but told with a lot more characterization to the being only identified as 'Ancient Wyrm' in most Taalite tellings. They speak of the Great Dragon they believe to be Abraxas with respect but not reverence, as according to Elven legend he betrayed his first master for one of the Cytharai, then Them for Isha, then finally abandoned Isha, Ulthuan, and the knowledge of Elven historians. This teller identifies the service of Rhya as Abraxas' final destination, and speaks of Kurnous pursuing and violently chastising Abraxas for his disloyalty to Kurnous' wife, but in doing so encountering Rhya for the first time and falling victim to the same charms that had snared the Dragon. Under the name Taal, this Forestborn says, Kurnous rules over a forest at least ten times larger than that of Chrace, and they believe that a deeper communion with Kurnous is possible there than anywhere within Laurelorn.
When one Forestborn speaks at length of a city that blows thick with Ghur, it takes you a few minutes to realize they're speaking not of Talabheim but of Altdorf, where Dragomas' continued role as Supreme Patriarch causes his Wind to dominate the streets. The tale of a hunter becoming more lost in Altdorf's streets than they had ever experienced in the depths of any forest is surprisingly gripping, even if the parts where they hunt the feral dog packs to sell to the piemen turns your stomach. They talk with detached fascination of the endemic warfare of the human packs that mark their territory with glyphs and colours instead of clawmarks and urine, of its very many and assorted spires and the seemingly bottomless depths of its undercity, and of the sheer size of a city that has districts larger and more populous than Tor Lithanel. It's a strange experience to hear a city you thought you know so well described as a place as alien to the speaker as Tor Lithanel once was to you.
Of surprising interest to the speakers and their audience are the open plains of Averland and the Veldt. Entire generations of Elves have lived and died without ever knowing the sight of open grasslands from horizon to horizon, and they seem to find the experience either disquieting or thrilling, depending on whether they arrived on foot or on a steed. Also looming appropriately large are the World's Edge Mountains - knowing only the Middle Mountains and considering them a very poor imitation of the Annulii Mountains of their dimly-remembered homeland, seeing for themselves that this continent has peaks that could rival them for grandeur seems to have captured the imaginations of many. Then there's the rivers of the Empire that some have fixated on, as where the northern Empire has only a handful of perfunctory rivers that flow in mostly straight lines from inland to a notoriously treacherous sea, the rest of the Reik Basin being interwoven with one massive, interconnected, and fairly traversable river system has some describing it as the Empire's very own Inner Sea.
All of these wonders are beyond the reach of the Cityborn, and for once it is the richest and most influential of them that are feeling the bite the keenest, as they are the ones most jaded and starved for novelty. This tension could be addressed by granting diplomatic sinecures to those with the influence to request them, allowing the rich and powerful the privilege of travel with a mumbled explanation about deepening diplomatic ties between the Eonir and their new allies. That this hasn't happened probably indicates that this disquiet is being cultivated, the pressure being contained and allowed to build. If done carelessly this would eventually lead to an explosion, but this sort of pressure can be a very useful motive force if properly harnessed. Eonir society seems like it is set to undergo several major changes in the coming decades, and in each of them the hand of the Queen seems to be at work, moulding the eventual shape of the society to come.
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There are many ways for news to travel through the Old World. The least urgent goes with the postal carriages that trundle their way between the major cities on a regular basis. More urgent than that goes via a postal courier who changes horses at every waystation to maintain a respectable speed. After that comes the pigeon post. The penultimate levels of urgency calls for couriers mounted upon griffins or pegasi, most of whom are nobles or Wizards of significant rank and need a matter of considerable urgency to sway them from whatever they're currently doing.
Most people are unaware that in times of great need, there are other, more arcane ways to send the most urgent of messages. Your first indication that this has occurred is when Hubert alights on your balcony one day, carrying news that had been emblazoned upon the sky itself for those with the eyes to see it. The bulk of the message he relays to you vocally - that the Asur had sent a delegate to discuss a matter with the Colleges of Magic, and that it would be appreciated if you could make yourself present to handle the matter as soon as reasonably possible. The rest was enciphered, as is reasonable when the night sky is to be your notice board, and you try a few intermediate ciphers before you manage to tease out the remainder of the message, which consists of the identity of the Elf in question. Not Teclis, unfortunately, nor any of the other very few living Asur you know the names of offhand. You can only hope, as you signal for your Gyrocarriage, that this 'Prince Eltharion of Yvresse' is a reasonable sort of Elf.
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- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I don't know the canon, but I do know dramatic irony, so I assume that ending on this line is meant to make lore-knowledgeable people wince and go "ooooooooh."
Sovereign Hunt
A Concentric Circle
- Location
- Bereft of Name
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Partway through the update, t should presumably be "it".
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
Prince Eltharion is known as "The Grim", after his entire family and most of his people were slaughtered by Grom the Paunch.
He is mainly known for his immense hatred of Greenskins and being completely humourless and serious at all times. When he appears in the Defenders of Ulthuan/Sons of Ellyrion novels (which Boney may or may not be using) he is depicted as blunt to the point of rudeness, treating any strangers with constant suspicion and barely giving once-close acquaintances so much as the time of day.
infinityDivided
Prince Of Doom
- Location
- USA
Error spotted.
- Location
- USA
Ah yes Asur Batman. A reasonable one as long as your not a filthy greenskin.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
I am always happy to meet Elf Batman.
Ivan the Not-so-Terrible
AH MEW CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE
- Location
- Mikonyan’s USSR
On the one hand, he's sorta like Elf Batman. On the other hand, he's a humorless obsessive paranoid hunting the world's fattest Goblin.
Sovereign Hunt
A Concentric Circle
- Location
- Bereft of Name
If I'm not mistaken, this is probably the point in the timeline where Eltharion tried to wipe out all the Greenskins in the Badlands.
So K8P is probably (in a few years) about to be hit by the collateral of the mega-Waaagh that forms in response to said Greenskin genocide.
So K8P is probably (in a few years) about to be hit by the collateral of the mega-Waaagh that forms in response to said Greenskin genocide.
- Location
- Space
Mathilde showing off that high intrigue stat.