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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I'd say that any elvish polity that has at least 75% of the population of the current least populous kingdom of Ulthuan can make a credible claim to being the 11th Kingdom of Ulthuan. Things would get more complicated if it were an elvish minority ruling a larger minority of other races, but that's getting into the weeds a bit.
 
MonkeyTypewriter said:
I'd say that any elvish polity that has at least 75% of the population of the current least populous kingdom of Ulthuan can make a credible claim to being the 11th Kingdom of Ulthuan. Things would get more complicated if it were an elvish minority ruling a larger minority of other races, but that's getting into the weeds a bit.
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Malekith: You know, i got something of an Elven population myself
 
Boney said:
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.
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Alright, so to break this down. Deathfang said that Abraxas was originally in Iz (Lustria), and according to the Cd-3 story, Iz's team was kind of wrecked extra hard by Chaos (probably because of Iz-1/Be'lakor being a traitor), so I'm pretty sure this is the part where Abraxas abandoned his first master. Deathfang's story only says that Abraxas sent himself into exile after the Coming of Chaos, so this is probably where the dragons (or at least Deathfang's people) lost track of Abraxas. Which is strange, because the elven myth we see here says Abraxas went on to serve elven gods, so shouldn't Caledorian dragons, who spend a lot of time with elves, still be able to keep track of one of their leaders doing things with elf gods? Or maybe this is just Deathfang in particular losing track?

Now, moving on, it's mentioned that Abraxas went on to serve a Cytharai, but the only mention I could find of Cytharai being associated with a dragon was Anath Raema killing Draugnir. This contradicts Deathfang's story, which goes with the myth where Draugnir died helping Vaul create Widowmaker. After that we get a mention of Isha being abandoned for Rhya, which corroborates Deathfang's insistence that they're two different goddesses.

And then we get a tie between human and elven myth, where Taal's battle with a great Dragon over what would later be Talabheim is also said to be Kurnous chasing after Abraxas for abandoning Isha. We don't get a mention of Abraxas after that in the elf myth, so maybe Abraxas actually died here as per the human myth. So then, according to this, Kurnous meets Rhya and runs off with her. Assuming Isha is Shallya (the merciful weeping goddess image, the healing/childbirth/fertility associations, and all the heart and tear imagery seem to suggest it, especially after we rule out Rhya), this might be the point where she was left free to have a relationship with Ranald.

This still leaves a number of questions, like how the Karnos thing with the almost-Kurnous sigil works if Taal and Kurnous are the same god. Or how this myth works with the one where Anath Raema tries to seduce Kurnous from Isha. And of course, like some people have mentioned, we don't know if there's intentional distortion of these myths to justify pilgrimages/tourism.
 
MonkeyTypewriter said:
I'd say that any elvish polity that has at least 75% of the population of the current least populous kingdom of Ulthuan can make a credible claim to being the 11th Kingdom of Ulthuan. Things would get more complicated if it were an elvish minority ruling a larger minority of other races, but that's getting into the weeds a bit.
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That's gonna be a sizeable oof, a lot of people very pointedly not looking in the direction of Nagarythe, and three more kingdoms.
 
@Boney Are Torothal (Laurelorn god of rain and rivers) and Sarriel (Laurelorn god of dreams) canon in DL? (Sarriel is said in Archives of the Empire 1 to be a demigod and a seer and to have lived in the Hippocrene tower once, so maybe they're a saint of Lileath?)

Boney said:
a suspected blood cult - that's sort of shorthand for 'we don't know if it's Khaine or Khorne or Ahalt or Vampires, but they're too into blood
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Also, was it intended for the Hochlander to mention a Chaos god by name here?
 
StormySky said:
@Boney Are Torothal (Laurelorn god of rain and rivers) and Sarriel (Laurelorn god of dreams) canon in DL? (Sarriel is said in Archives of the Empire 1 to be a demigod and a seer and to have lived in the Hippocrene tower once, so maybe they're a saint of Lileath?)
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Beings of those names exist. Their exact status is a complicated question, as Mathilde expounded this update.

StormySky said:
Also, was it intended for the Hochlander to mention a Chaos god by name here?
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Yes. The 'don't call them by name' thing is a common superstition but by no means universal.
 
I figured the elves would send someone but in such a loud way is well damaging . A large message in the sky that magical people can see is going to not only seen by colleges but chaos cults, vampires, necromancers, possible the empire religious cults. Which means that we can probably start to expect outside interference to the project soon.
 
Nurgle said:
I figured the elves would send someone but in such a loud way is well damaging . A large message in the sky that magical people can see is going to not only seen by colleges but chaos cults, vampires, necromancers, possible the empire religious cults. Which means that we can probably start to expect outside interference to the project soon.
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My impression is that the message was put up by the Colleges to get Mathilde over to Altdorf as quickly as possible.

StormySky said:
Alright, so to break this down. Deathfang said that Abraxas was originally in Iz (Lustria), and according to the Cd-3 story, Iz's team was kind of wrecked extra hard by Chaos (probably because of Iz-1/Be'lakor being a traitor), so I'm pretty sure this is the part where Abraxas abandoned his first master. Deathfang's story only says that Abraxas sent himself into exile after the Coming of Chaos, so this is probably where the dragons (or at least Deathfang's people) lost track of Abraxas. Which is strange, because the elven myth we see here says Abraxas went on to serve elven gods, so shouldn't Caledorian dragons, who spend a lot of time with elves, still be able to keep track of one of their leaders doing things with elf gods? Or maybe this is just Deathfang in particular losing track?

Now, moving on, it's mentioned that Abraxas went on to serve a Cytharai, but the only mention I could find of Cytharai being associated with a dragon was Anath Raema killing Draugnir. This contradicts Deathfang's story, which goes with the myth where Draugnir died helping Vaul create Widowmaker. After that we get a mention of Isha being abandoned for Rhya, which corroborates Deathfang's insistence that they're two different goddesses.

And then we get a tie between human and elven myth, where Taal's battle with a great Dragon over what would later be Talabheim is also said to be Kurnous chasing after Abraxas for abandoning Isha. We don't get a mention of Abraxas after that in the elf myth, so maybe Abraxas actually died here as per the human myth. So then, according to this, Kurnous meets Rhya and runs off with her. Assuming Isha is Shallya (the merciful weeping goddess image, the healing/childbirth/fertility associations, and all the heart and tear imagery seem to suggest it, especially after we rule out Rhya), this might be the point where she was left free to have a relationship with Ranald.

This still leaves a number of questions, like how the Karnos thing with the almost-Kurnous sigil works if Taal and Kurnous are the same god. Or how this myth works with the one where Anath Raema tries to seduce Kurnous from Isha. And of course, like some people have mentioned, we don't know if there's intentional distortion of these myths to justify pilgrimages/tourism.
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Then you get the question of where Sigmar comes in, because the sole canon source for Abraxas existing is a story about Sigmar wounding him in battle.
 
Nurgle said:
I figured the elves would send someone but in such a loud way is well damaging . A large message in the sky that magical people can see is going to not only seen by colleges but chaos cults, vampires, necromancers, possible the empire religious cults. Which means that we can probably start to expect outside interference to the project soon.
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azyr college messages are automatically coded, because you can't really write in the stars, only place things up there that can be interpreted as messages. and how those are intepretted correctly is a college kinda secret

it's effectively a book cypher written in the stars made of dots on pages. dot on right eye of third person in previously decided book, page 436. which is either an A, or that someone hostile has found your location three days ago and you need to move out west before they reach you. that kind of thing.

except the images are constellations and the pages are times of day and dates.

then the rest of it was also coded again via a different cipher.
 
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On a related note, I imagine this will flash through Mathilde's head next update:
Boney said:
Ranaldian Saints
Because of how unstructured the Cult of Ranald is, they tend to only be know to the local Ranaldian community. Mathilde only knows about Saint Grey, Saint Grey, and Saint Grey. Saint Grey fought in the Great War Against Chaos, and introduced the worship of Ranald to the nascent Grey Order. Saint Grey planted the idea in Grom the Paunch's mind that he'd find better fights outside the Empire. And Saint Grey rode nonstop across the Empire to bring warnings to Journeymen of Dieter IV's outlawing of the Colleges.
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... It's a good thing that there is zero chance that Mathilde will actually mention this to an outsider, let alone to someone who suffered Grom's full brunt, and also zero chance that Saint Grey's actions were officially approved anyway.

Much like with us and our recent Tzaricide, the Grey Order is in the business of trying to create trustworthy members, not hover around their shoulders and micromanage their actions according to one centralized authority. If Saint Grey's actions ever came to light, the Grey Order would instantly disavow her, or point out that it may just be a story.
 
Parabola said:
On a related note, I imagine this will flash through Mathilde's head next update:


... It's a good thing that there is zero chance that Mathilde will actually mention this to an outsider, let alone to someone who suffered Grom's full brunt, and also zero chance that Saint Grey's actions were officially approved anyway.

Much like with us and our recent Tzaricide, the Grey Order is in the business of trying to create trustworthy members, not hover around their shoulders and micromanage their actions according to one centralized authority. If Saint Grey's actions ever came to light, the Grey Order would instantly disavow her, or point out that it may just be a story.
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There is always the possibility that it's just a legend and it never actually happened, just a story that is spread in the Grey Order to try to explain why Grom went off and left.

Not like Grom or Blacktooth would be able to say anything about it.


...Does anyone in the Empire even know that Grom landed in Yvresse? Or do they just know that he sailed into a storm and was never found again?
 
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