The title was meant to evoke those videos. Glad it worked.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Earth
But then again, the Druchii are in Laurelorn, and though the Imperial leadership knows by now thanks to Mathilde and company telling them, they have no reason to inform the Asur. And then there's Teclis noticing the Waystone stuff, which provides an alternate reason for the Asur to be sending someone to Altdorf.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
No idea. Tis all speculation. Regardless I wasn't under the impression they were hiding, but pulled into a Nordland port flying their colours. Since the Graf felt Ulthuan would turn up shortly after my impression was that if the ambassador didn't know already he'd learn in short order. I don't think it changes things too much. If he started investigating because orders came from on high he'd have probably learnt about them and sent back messages about how the Druchi got there first emphasising the need for speed.
Edit: Slight revision, they sailed up the Schaukel, to the Eonir, but I can't imagine Nordland patrols and Hagendorf wouldn't have spotted them.
Anyway more speculation.
1) I would not be at all surprised if (as others have speculated) Eltharion being about as dwarfy as an elf gets wasn't part of the logic. He cares about vengence and killing all walking fungoids, both things dwarves can very much get behind. + I think he's probably not liable to insult them.
2) I don't know exactly how important Eltharion is, but I know he's warden of Tor Yvress and Prince of Yvress. I dunno if he's the defacto ruler, de jure ruler, or just first amongst equals, but he's important. So sending him is likely to show that Ulthuan is taking this seriously...at least if you know who he is. Furthermore he's likely respected, maybe even a bit of a celebrity back home so what he does is liable to be taken better.
3) I dunno if his orkoid bothering has actually happened I should emphasise this, but they might be hoping he has some cache in the Old World if that did happen.
4) And I imagine there's another side of Ulthuan politics, in that because (to me) he seems so politically neutral this maybe something of a ploy to get him to show what faction he falls into. As otherwise he's just sort of there with an independent power base, making people nervous.
All in all he strikes me as the best compromise candidate they could slap together between effectiveness and not creating too much political bullshittery.
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- Location
- Somewhere between the stars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Wouldn't tale of metal be know by most other factions that can use winds of Chamon? While allies of dwarf doing it, does risk relationship would the dwarves really be unfamiliar with the concept that Chamon can extract secrets like that? Surely they've meet generic tzeentch wizard #3941 whom has been screaming about how he's gonna steal all their secrets, at some point in time. It's been several thousand years after all-(Or even elven wizard during the golden age/War of Beard)
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Yeah, I think it's probably the Teclis stuff. Even if Ulthuan knew about the Druchii, that's a diplomatic issue, and Daroir or whoever is the Asur ambassador right now would likely take care of it.
Having one of Ulthuan's top experts in Waystones show up in the Colleges, regarding something that involves Mathilde specifically, right after Teclis noticed that the Empire's Waystone Network is being expanded, IMO points to them wanting to talk about Waystone stuff.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
From an in-universe perspective, Boney doesn't necessarily assume that every faction has the exact same spells as every other faction, so for all we know maybe humans invented the spell. Or the Elves taught it to the humans, but the Elves never thought to mention it to the Dwarves during their trading period because that would test relations. Maybe some Tzeentchian Wizard got access to the spell, but Dwarves aren't automatically going to believe the ramblings of a mad Wizard, and they're certainly not going to assume that what a Tzeentchian can do that their Imperial allies can also perform.
There are a lot of reasons as to why Tale of Metal isn't common knowledge among Dwarves.
- Location
- California, USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah, I see you have struck upon a grand fellowship shared between the wizards of the Colleges of Magic and the Elves of the golden age. I speak, of course, of your boss being very cross with you if you endanger this ancient alliance because you can't stop bragging about your nifty new magic spell. Truly an ancient and hallowed tradition.
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Boney's said outright that the Dwarfs finding out about the two Gold spells would result in the Dwarfs ending all trade relations with the Empire.
I don't see why he would have brought it up if it wasn't a risk.
The truth has no inherent power to convince. In fact, the truth is very often less convincing than a well-crafted lie, because a lie can be honed down into a snappy soundbite to play to a specific audience while the truth is usually messy and complicated. 'The Asur did it to scorched earth the Old World out of spite' is a pretty convincing story that could ring true in Dwarven ears and would be just as disastrous if believed. 'Cathay did it because something something magical experiment' works quite well, they're far away, powerful, little-known, and magically advanced. They even have a massive crater right next door to them to play into the story - it's a thousand years too old to be connected, but they can't carbon date it, can they? In fact, if the crater thing is investigated further it might reveal that Cathay unleashed the Ogres on the world, and the dominoes from that felled a few Karaks. You could even pin it on Nagash, it happened at about the same time he was establishing Nagashizzar and he has a strong track record of collateral damage.
'The Slann did it' has a few inherent problems. The first is that it would have to actually be something like 'the Slann did it, they're the frog things on top of Lizardmen society, yeah the reptilian guys in Lustria, they're actually really advanced and the original builders of the cities they live in, and they were originally servitors of the Old Ones - you know who those are, right? - and are hugely devoted to their original plan that they don't actually know much about, so when they found... okay, first, do you know what 'continental drift' is? it's...'
And so on. It doesn't play to any Dwarven biases, it requires several layers of background knowledge to communicate, it requires rewriting what is currently believed about the inhabitants of Lustria. It's pretty unconvincing and convoluted. All it has going for it is that it's true, and that doesn't actually help it.
'The Slann did it' has a few inherent problems. The first is that it would have to actually be something like 'the Slann did it, they're the frog things on top of Lizardmen society, yeah the reptilian guys in Lustria, they're actually really advanced and the original builders of the cities they live in, and they were originally servitors of the Old Ones - you know who those are, right? - and are hugely devoted to their original plan that they don't actually know much about, so when they found... okay, first, do you know what 'continental drift' is? it's...'
And so on. It doesn't play to any Dwarven biases, it requires several layers of background knowledge to communicate, it requires rewriting what is currently believed about the inhabitants of Lustria. It's pretty unconvincing and convoluted. All it has going for it is that it's true, and that doesn't actually help it.
- Location
- France
On the other hand, Dwarf society is very well set up to create and disseminate new grudges. If you had access to a King or two and took the time and proof to convince them of this, you probably could get the entire Karaz Ankor to hate the Slann forever !
Thankfully the list of people with enough access, trust and esoteric knowledge to manage this is a very short one. Unless Mathilde learns a lot more stuff about Slann, I'd say that the list has zero people on it. And even if she did learn the source of that long-ago disaster, why would she tell the Dawi about it ?
Thankfully the list of people with enough access, trust and esoteric knowledge to manage this is a very short one. Unless Mathilde learns a lot more stuff about Slann, I'd say that the list has zero people on it. And even if she did learn the source of that long-ago disaster, why would she tell the Dawi about it ?
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- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Also if we're going for pure truth, wasn't there some mention of Skaven drilling a warpstone drill straight into the Slann's geomantic nodes at the exact wrong time during whatever they were doing with continental drift?
Not only is it basically impossible to figure out that the Slann might be responsible, but it's even more impossible to figure out that the Skaven might be responsible. (unless there was a Grey seer on-site for that drill incident, and they claim sole responsibility for the eathquakes in their own Skaven histories, because they disrupted something important, which the dwarves are about to be able to begin reading soonish)
And at that point, basically there's nothing we could do to incriminate someone. The only people who could incriminate are the Skaven self-incriminating, or the Slann somehow becoming interested enough in contemporary history to realize that there was something to self-incriminate about, then deciding to self-incriminate.
To be clear here, I think that if the drill thing actually happened and was noticed in the moment or the aftermath by Skaven magic users, there's a decent chance that they will claim responsibility in their religious and historical writings, so they can praise their own genius, or the Horned Rat's power and reach, or lambast whichever idiot got the Skaven caught up in the earthquakes as well.
So we really don't need to worry about the Slann getting blamed.
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Skaven don't have historical writings.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Now that seems extremely implausible.
Qrech has been motivated mostly by his desire for immortality through academia, it's extremely common for self-aggrandizing individuals to get other people to record and dramatize the events they take part in to seem impressive, and religious organizations keep historical records both as a side effect of their day to day functions, and as a side effect of the reluctance(both within and outside of said organization) to destroy past proclamations of said organization that were sent out via writing.
There should be historical writings.
What I'm actually expecting is a religious proclamation regarding that period of time. Either from that period of time, or sent out regarding the past.
Which has then made it into captured dwarven archives.
I want to say that odds are high enough that there are actually existent odds of the dwarves deciding to blame the earthquakes on Skaven. But not necessarily high chances.
Maybe something between 1/10 and 1/3 of the dwarves having something from the Skaven claiming responsibility.
And a 1/2 chance of some writing credibly claiming responsibility existing somewhere in the under empire.
This talk about Skaven makes me wonder.
What do you think the tower of tylos was supposed to be for on the first place? Back before Morghur was corrupted.
Something to do with warp stone maybe? A super tower-sized magic spell to try to manipulate warp stone meteors?
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"You think... you think any beyond your own scrap of hill knows or cares who you are? You think in fifty years any will remember? You are impossible, mad-thing. You do not know the meaning of forever. Look at me! I am still alive and already forgotten! We scurry through time, like the rats in Fizqwik's wheel. Over and over the same mistakes. I am glad to be done. I am sick of it. We steal so much from the dwarf-things, more than any care to admit, but never that. Respect for what is past."
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
If a Skaven has historical writings on hand, they will immediately alter them so that they are the ones that did everything right and their enemies are the ones that did everything wrong.
If you ask Ikit Claw who invented every Skryre weapon, he'd say Ikit Claw.
Qrech being able to achieve immortality in academia is only possible because he's writing for a human audience.
Children of the Horned Rat page 27
Weber'd by Boney posting the quote from Sleek Sharpwit, but still.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
...On a related note, I imagine that the conversation with Eltharion may feature a lot of Elven/specifically Asur bias on the matter of waystones. Most incidents of 'someone is actively messing with a waystone' have ended badly for people who care about living in a non-irradiated world. The Asur in general must be pretty leery of most waystones in the Old World having to be watched over by humans, given how the numbers in which they turn to the worship of dark powers and their own lust for power.
"I want to strengthen, maintain and build upon the Waystone network" is a true statement that Mathilde could say and it'd play directly against Elven bias. Eltharion might have an easier time believing statements or lies that paint her as a self-interested individual such as only wanting to clean the Empire of Dhar or whatever.
On the other hand, that bias of his may have taken a beaten given Waaaghbane and all that. I guess we'll see.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
"You admire the dwarf-things?"
"It would be nice to be remembered."
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- Location
- Earth
Sometimes it seems confusing that an outside group that doesn't know that much about the culture being discussed can give the same book bonus as that culture's native books (ie Imperial books on Athel Loren), but it makes sense in the case of the Skaven, with their native books being all about their societal structure and mentality, while outsiders can cover history (as in real history, and not random surviving pieces of propaganda).
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- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
They might not intentionally have them (which I doubt; I don't see how they could be writing fiction but not even have some sort of historical record) but they definitely have propaganda that happened to last longer than it needed to because it was carved into a cave wall and for whatever reason never removed. The weirdest things last the longest.
Hopefully we have enough Dwarven credit that if something like that ever does happen we can avert the worst case scenario.
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We absolutely do not have enough Dwarven credit for that, if we still had K8P's Transcendent Boon we might have been able to get Belegar not to cut off trade relations but it would take a Transcendent Boon from Karaz Ankor as a whole to stop the rest of the Karaks from cutting off trade. Mathilde would still be respected and welcome since she's not a Gold but all Gold Wizards other than maybe Johann and Max would become persona non grata within Karaz Ankor. The Dwarves discovering the Golds can steal their secrets could very well lead to the Gold College being dissolved so they'll resume trade with the Empire.
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- Location
- US
Was this in discord somewhere? The closest I've seen in this thread is that having a Gold Wizard reverse engineer dwarven firearms using Tale of Metal so that they can enchant Mathilde's sidearms would torpedo relations between the dwarves and the empire. But that was talking about actually doing it, not just having the possibility uncovered. For comparison, I'm sure they know that the Grey Order could probably steal all their manufacturing secrets, in theory. But it would be different to find out that it's already been done or attempted.
there a discord?
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Boney has explicitly stated that he doesn't want a Discord for this quest because Discord is hard to search and it would split the audience across two platforms, so probably not.
- Location
- Earth