Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
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Indeed, the Chamberlain thought that the lizardmen are savage beastmen, and the only time a Slaan is mentioned in the story it's called "some sort of magical frog" and mentioned in passing like some funny anecdote. If the Empire knew that one of they're magister had survived a magical duel about a heir of the OO, it wouldn't have been mentioned so flippantly.
I don't think anyone except the lizardmen know about that, and they would have no reasons to tell it to anyone. And even if the Karaz Ankor learned it somehow, they couldn't do anything about it.
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
It'd require the Slann to communicate with other races, so it might be a very long while, if ever.
Especially given that the Slann don't see it as a cataclysmic event or anything, they don't have much reason to be discussing Geomantic adjustments from several millennia ago.
You Wouldn't Steal A...
Nah, it's not Necromancy.
It's a spell only a Dawizhufokri could cast.
"Dwarf torrent crafter", gained from rescuing many dwarfs from a sinking ship.
Saving Karaz Ankor is just that deed, but BIGGER. And more Zhuf Logic
You wouldn't steal a...
Year 2740
For nearly 3000 years the Empire has been the closest ally of the Karaz Ankor. Despite all odds and all obstacles, these two polities have maintained their friendship. Emperors both wise and foolish have come and gone, wars of the pennies have been fought between foolish nobles and dawi crafters, but the relationship of the polities as a whole have remained strong. Through the reign of Dieter IV, through the reinvention of ballistic sciences by the Empire's academics and artillerists, through the revolution of steam.
Yet now, finally in the age of information, and the creation the Empire wide web, it seems these relationship two allies are finally fated to crack, through the actions of a single person.
-----
The dawi did not care when the rise of the internet brought man's knowledge to all citizens. The Karaz Ankor was unconcerned when the human's greed and lust for knowledge turned information into a type of property that was constantly stolen.
The Dawi did not care. Until one day, perchance an engineer's guild apprentice logged onto the Empire wide web, and found confidential engineering guild schematics easily and freely accessible to all. Horrified, they ran to the Masters of the guild. The master's checked, the masters looked, and the master's found... everything.
Weaver's guild, Miners guild, and even... greatest horror of all, Brewmaster's guild. Someone had stolen all the secrets of the guilds of the Karaz Ankor and placed them for all the world to see. Created a place specifically to display them. It was called torrent.
Now relations are rapidly worsening, the guilds are out for blood, and the Empire is racing to find the creator of this site and offer up their head on a platter to the Karaz Ankor.
The Dwarf Torrent Crafter.
AN: Heh, "Dwarven torrent". I had this silly thought, so now you all have to as well. The Karaz Ankor guilds would probably not cope well with the idea of the internet. Or internet piracy.
- Location
- Chicago
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- She/They
Sorry, but in a world where tzeetch exists, the idea that a secret which could set two of the most powerful good factions at eachother's throats will remain safely buried forever is... Optimistic.
Most likely it's going to cone out at exactly the worst time- IE, if and when the slann and the dwarves start to cooperate against chaos, or something equivalent. Wait just long enough for them to build some trust and experience working together, when it'll hurt most, then get the dwarves to 'betray' the alliance. Wreck a whole bunch of things at once.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
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- Belgium
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In all of history, the Lizardmen have never cooperated with the dwarves. They are quite literally on the other side of the world, so any sustained interaction between the 2 is unlikely. Furthermore, Tzeentch would have to engineer a way for the secret to reach the dwarves from a credible source. Given that only the Slaans know about it and have no reason to tell the Dawi, I don't see how he could do so.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
What I expect is that what our library will do is constantly raise the floor on what is considered public knowledge.
"Well if the humans already know it then it can't be a secret"
"Well if the elfs are doing it then it can't be a secret"
Etc.
We will know we have won when guild trained dwarfs go to our library to look up references.
"Well if the humans already know it then it can't be a secret"
"Well if the elfs are doing it then it can't be a secret"
Etc.
We will know we have won when guild trained dwarfs go to our library to look up references.
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I'm sure Tzeentch would love it if the entirety of the Karak Anzor decided to suicide charge down into Lustria. And yeah I think that's probably would happen if the dwarfs were 100% convinced of the true fact that a magical frog one day going 'huh that looks strange' caused the Time of Woes.
However, I don't see that many viable paths for bird man to do so. First anything that's obviously from Tzeentch is gonna get disregarded out of hand; the Plotters got a bit of a credibility gap after all. So the info has to be laundered some how. But I don't see many ways for that to happen? The direct geomantic web manipulation done likely didn't leave any evidence and I don't think the Slaan kept records of some mundane thing to them.
Also this is a case where the mainland's specism/xenophobia on both sides would insulate them from believing the truth. The general attitude towards Lustria is "pity those lizard beastfolk savages destroyed the previous civilized folk," so any claim that no, they're master casters who broke the damned underway on a whim has a really big uphill battle. For the slaan/lizardmen side they ain't talking about anything.
I'd say I'd worry more about a plot where Tzeentch uses its levers in the Asur (that's another thing, pretty sure Tzeentch doesn't have that many direct levers within the Slaan to try and manipulate them) to frame them for somehow breaking the underway via idk arranging papers about tectonic plate movements and experiments with geothermal energy to be discovered at a very inconvenient time. The actual truth is would be just that absurd and unbelievable to everyone involved.
- Location
- Canada
If Daemons turning factions against each other was as easy as popping their heads in to shout about why they should fight there wouldn't be any civilization at all
No one sensible is going to listen to the Tzeentchian daemon going "hey, literally everything wrong with your life is due that guy over there that you've never seen or heard of before, you should go fight him, trust me bro"
And the Dwarves finding actual believable evidence of the matter is hindered by the fact that the Lizardmen are on the actual opposite end of the World and know nothing about them so thinking about any interaction is like counting chickens before you've built the farm
Also speaking frankly Dwarves aren't one of the "two most powerful" good factions
They may have had the argument once, but they've spent thousands of years dwindling and unlike the Asur they haven't been able to pull together and stabilize
Blame whatever specific calamity for it, but it's true
And they don't have that big an impact on the world outside their borders, being insular and busy as they are with trying to survive
As Boney noted, the Karaz Ankor has already been dead for a long time
And ironically, the fact that Karaks haven't been able to support each other is the only reason the remnants of Karaz Ankor have survived
It's a very precarious time for them right now
For all the hope and optimism about them finally pulling out of their downward spiral
Finally starting to be interconnected and pooling resources again also means that they could easily drag each other down if something goes wrong, the next few centuries are very make or break for them I think
Not sure whether the Lizardmen meet the criteria to be considered the most powerful good guy faction either, but that's harder to judge from an entire continent away
Especially since we haven't seen them at all yet and have no idea what they've been up to, if anything
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K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
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That wouldn't sound credible at all to the KA. If the Asur had the ability to rearrange the tectonic plates, they would have used it against the Druchii before the Dawi.
- Location
- Who knows?
Yes this is true, but I still maintain this would be more plausible and thus obtainable as a Tzeentch plot than convincing anyone of the actual truth.
- Location
- Chicago
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- She/They
It's only a matter of waiting for the slann to do something gigantic that makes everyone re-evaluate them, then laundering the knowledge in a way that has the dwarves just ask them directly.
Basically, as soon as the slann do anything that matters, the dwarves can be used to shank them. And keeping the slann on the sidelines is a win for chaos.
The real issue here is that the slann did, in fact, utterly fuck the dwarves. That's not going to change, but the reasons that the fact isn't known will eventually change.
It's why I call it a time bomb.
Basically, as soon as the slann do anything that matters, the dwarves can be used to shank them. And keeping the slann on the sidelines is a win for chaos.
The real issue here is that the slann did, in fact, utterly fuck the dwarves. That's not going to change, but the reasons that the fact isn't known will eventually change.
It's why I call it a time bomb.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
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Imo, the most powerful nations in the world are Ulthuan, the Lizardmen, Cathay and the Underempire. Ulthuan is trying to be everywhere at once so can't focus on anything, the Slaans are the only way for the Lizardmen to act globally and are sleeping a lot, Cathay looks like it likes to stay in their corner and the Skavens can't work together.
The lizardmen live on the other side of the world, I doubt the Dawi would try anything against them. It's not like they can send armies across the ocean, past the Asur fleets and hope to survive on a continent they know nothing off, especially given that they simply don't have any army to waste for that kind of thing. At most it would be a few Slayers suiciding themselves in the jungle.
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Much like the Roman Empire after the fall of Rome, it is only mostly dead and therefore slightly alive.
The Slann do not do gigantic things these days and it is in Chaos' best interest that they never do anything gigantic again because the gigantic thing they are most likely to do is fuck over chaos on a cosmic scale. If Tzeench tries to poke them awake as part of some plot to get the dwarfs mad at them I suspect the other Three would shank him so hard Kairos would regain the ability to see the present.
Also any dwarf attempting to talk to a Slann would likely be killed out of hand for being on the wrong continent.
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- Location
- North Wales
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- He/Him/His
The Gold College, kicking Tale of Metal scrolls under the table when Dwarven Guildmasters come calling: "Haha, yeah, totally crazy that that might be a thing, yeah?"
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Assuming Tzeentch knows. The Chaos gods are powerful but I'm always wary of ascribing them prowess they don't have. Tzeentch might suspect the Slann, but considering Lizardmen don't seem to turn to Chaos and the Slann don't write things down I'm not sure it's possible for Tzeentch to know for sure, much less be able to conjure up prof.
- Location
- Chicago
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- She/They
You have my proposed sequencing backwards. The idea was that chaos has a tool to punish the slann IF they do anything big.
And given that, the grudge with the elves, and the time bomb that is tales of metal, it almost send like the dwarves are being set up to be the faction that dooms the world in the final epic confrontation between chaos and good.
Which, honestly, is pretty plausible to me. We've seen a number of high profile IRL people sacrifice the greater good on the altar of their personal honor- Comey and Mueller are the ones that spring immediately to mind.
It would be a Shakespearean tragedy, the immovable object of the 'tree remembers what the ax forgets' of the dwarves meeting the unstoppable force of 'everything is an acceptable sacrifice for the plan/beating chaos' of the slann/other factions.
The god of magic knowing who did a working large enough to break continents seems like a safe assumption to me.
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- Who knows?
Actually yeah I think this would be much more likely to blow up. I honestly have no idea how you'd solve this especially since Mathilde making dwarves more accepting of magic might increase the chances of this happening.
It's like beforehand any magic whatever was a giant mental "DO NOT TOUCH" for dwarfs. Except now there might be a small slight percentage with an academic interest in College Magic and what it can do thanks to Mathilde showing magic can be cool and dwarfy. The chances of discovering the Gold Colleges spell rolodex are thus increased from the complete disinterest before.
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K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
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- Belgium
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Imo, the Dwarfs won't do anything to the Lizardmen because they just can't do anything to them, and the idea they could somehow doom the entire world if they tried seems far fetched.
Kairos Fateweaver can see perfectly the past. If he missed a spell powerful enough to move tectonic plates, I don't see how he can see anything at all.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Eltharion…probably a good move.
1) I imagine by elf standards they picked him very fast. I can only imagine Ambassador Daorir has been sending increasingly pointed messages about the Druchii since they showed up.
2) With that in mind IMO he's not a bad pick personality and priority wise. I don't think he cares too much about the distant past he's more concerned with the now, he's likely not to assume non elves won't have anything to offer, his big enemy is an obese goblin after all, and his focus is one that most people can agree with snd steps on no toes.
3) Futhermore I don't believe he has much baggage. Send Imrik for example and only is Caledorian pride in play so is shit like the cloak of beards. Similarly someone for Sapphary will be influenced by Teclis, Avalorn the Everqueen and so on. To the best of my knowledge Eltharion is pretty aloof from Ulthuan entanglements so best of both worlds there.
4) He may have been coming this way regardless as part of his campaigns.
5) In addition to potentially having know how with waystones already his campaigns in the badlands may give him some insight into the problem of the badlands and other areas where the network is just gone.
My interpretation, but we could definitely do worse.
1) I imagine by elf standards they picked him very fast. I can only imagine Ambassador Daorir has been sending increasingly pointed messages about the Druchii since they showed up.
2) With that in mind IMO he's not a bad pick personality and priority wise. I don't think he cares too much about the distant past he's more concerned with the now, he's likely not to assume non elves won't have anything to offer, his big enemy is an obese goblin after all, and his focus is one that most people can agree with snd steps on no toes.
3) Futhermore I don't believe he has much baggage. Send Imrik for example and only is Caledorian pride in play so is shit like the cloak of beards. Similarly someone for Sapphary will be influenced by Teclis, Avalorn the Everqueen and so on. To the best of my knowledge Eltharion is pretty aloof from Ulthuan entanglements so best of both worlds there.
4) He may have been coming this way regardless as part of his campaigns.
5) In addition to potentially having know how with waystones already his campaigns in the badlands may give him some insight into the problem of the badlands and other areas where the network is just gone.
My interpretation, but we could definitely do worse.
NavySeel
"I don't know what I'm doing."
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That title put the image of one of those anti piracy videos but with Ranald.
"You wouldn't steal a dwarven soul"
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Does he know about the Druchii?
I mean fair enough if you get past that first hurdle, I do not think that will ever be passed since it seems to be based on a misunderstanding as fundamental as assuming dwarfs can forgive and forget. The Slann will never do anything big again, they are malfunctioning robots unable to repair the infrastructure they require to survive. if they do by some miracle do anything big it will not be diplomatic because that is way too far outside operating procedures, akin to expecting an automated bulldozer to develop a theory of political science.
- Location
- Utrecht
The timing says yes, imo.
Nothing gets the Asur moving like the Druchii stealing a march on them.