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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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MiracleGrow said:
Pretty much how I always seen Orcs. I often compared them directly to those fancy little sealed terrarium bottles. Where its a self perpetuating ecosystem that only needs minor outside substance. Once it gets setup, it just keep going.

Sorry for literally repeating your point. I just think Sealed Terrariums are super cool 🥺
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its fine! i could stand to be less verbose sometimes (all the time).
 
As with virtually all "evil races" in various forms of fiction, making sense of warhammer often requires you to accept that a significant chunk of the canon text is at best prejudicial and biased.

Beastmen are my personal favourites here, honestly, because they've got bloody chariots. Quite famously so, Gorthor was only one of the most prominent beastlords to ride them into battle. Chariots are not something you can just slap together, no matter what the army books try to insist, that shit takes dedicated effort and specialist engineering knowhow. Similarly, they clearly have a significant metalworking tradition given all the weapons and armour they're toting around properly sized for their inhuman frames, and the Centigors either have the ability to make their own booze or a significant understanding of trade and commerce given how much of the stuff they famously consume.
 
Maugan Ra said:
the Centigors either have the ability to make their own booze or a significant understanding of trade and commerce given how much of the stuff they famously consume.
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This at least is a Relatively Simple spell in at least two schools of magic (Taste of Fire in Aqshy, Ferment in Ghyran). Beastmen overwhelmingly use Ghur and Dhar, but I'd not be surprised to see at least a little dabbling at the low-end of the pool in the Lore of "Big Mad" and the Lore of "Living with Living Things" among the shamans of a group of hate-filled forest-dwellers, or for some homebrewed equivalent to be found in the Lores they have more ready access to. And a little is all you need for a supply of booze to the tribe's elites.
 
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Brahigus said:
I'm pretty sure Games workshops minis are so expensive because there're singlehandedly paying for all the destro factions supplies.
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Now I'm imagining that taken to it's logical conclusion: Games Workshop and the Warhammer line as an in-universe company and product whos lore and are squabbled over by the different factions, with some holding the rights at different times. You can tell whos in charge at any moment because their the ones whos biases are reflected.

So End Times and the whole "Chaos will triumph, the world will be broken" is literally propaganda because The Four took over the studio for a bit, etc, etc.
 
Altom said:
Via the infamous Grimdarkness maintenance and intensification fund, I would presume.

So, what you are saying is that Tom Kirby is the true Everchosen?
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Well, the timeline shows him joining Games workshop in 1986 and 40k, where Chaos is basically as happy with the world as they could possibly be, first came out a year later in 1987.

So...

Who can say! :V
 
Boney said:
Rome is actually a really interesting example for looking at societies through this lens, because in the time period leading up to the Second Punic War, Cannae, and the necessity of pulling another 100k soldiers out of their asses, they hadn't developed a 'warrior caste' - the legionaries as they're usually thought of didn't exist yet. These were phalanx spearmen raised from their land-owning population that would be going back to that land once the fighting was done, and if you didn't own at least 100 denarii worth of property, you weren't worthy of being in even the lowest rungs of it - not just because they had to supply their own equipment, but also because that meant their first loyalty would be to the society that recognized their right to that property. So they were, like a nomadic society, putting themselves in a position where a bad enough military defeat would gut them. And it pretty much did. In any sane universe, Cannae would have been the end of the story of Rome.
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It's almost even worse than that. I mean, aside from the multiple roman armies Hannibal destroyed before Cannae.

I've read that the First Punic War totalled up a million casualties between both sides. Between how long it went and how many gigantic fleets the Romans had to replace after they were destroyed by storms or battles. Which is a ridiculous number given the world population of the day.

The second was only somewhat less casually-filled and much more compressed and quick.

And then the social war had a similar number of casualties as the first Punic, more civilian casualties, a quicker timeline, and was fought between former close allies and supposedly involved reprisals from both sides for the betrayal of fighting against them.

Boney said:
And... it kinda arguably was. Yes, they pulled out another 100k soldiers and ended up defeating the Carthaginians, but they did it by slashing the property requirements for their military - not just directly by repeatedly slashing the property requirements by a cumulative 90%, but also by fiddling their currency to indirectly drop the property requirements by another third. This set the stage for the final chapter of the Roman Republic, where Marius would complete the evolution of the legionary and create a true warrior caste - one that Julius Caesar would wield in a way that he never could have in its original form.
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I'm under the impression that Marius is overblown.
Historians initially attributed several reforms to him when only some of them were his, and attributed certain reforms that the archeological evidence doesn't back up having actually happened(that not actually being the date for the change in style of pilum/javelin), because some roman historian writing a century or more later attributed it all to Marius when he was explaining how the roman armed force went from their ancient state to the modern one. When really the change in fighting style, organization, and recruitment was more gradual, but it was something else that provided the sharp shock to finally disrupt the political stability of the legions that had had it's foundations worn away at over time.

I'm also more inclined to buy arguments that it was the Social War that changed the legions to be more willing to be politically interventionist and changed the Senate to be less respected, and Sulla's own prior strike against the Senate that made Caesar feel free to act as he did.
The Punic wars and especially the second one get a big rep because roman historians are really impressed with Hannibal, and by extension the whole Barca family.



Can't comment on the stuff about sigmar's empire itself. That all seems sensible to me.
 
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SaltyWaffles said:
And the societal damage from backstabbing, no-trust culture, a lack of industry, a lack of infrastructure, a lack of food in general, any threats to their cities at all, dhar poisoning, demographics, and attrition beyond a short-term purely-local level. (Except the Fire Dwarves.)

It really sucks when the enemy factions can't lose, they can only fail to win. Makes the stakes feel hollow at times.
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Not really intending to defend GW, but to be fair the "can't lose" thing only really applies to Chaos. The other factions have settlements you can destroy, VIPs you can kill (permanently), and territory you can conquer in order to weaken them and strengthen yourself, possibly even culminating in their complete elimination.

Now, in GW's canon that never, ever actually happens because GW really loves its grimderp, but at least theoretically it could, which many quests (including this for example) make use of.
 
Speaking of murdered VIPs, it's rather interesting to consider just what would become of the dark elves if Malekith and Morathi both died. Would they disintegrate into a bunch of petty city states, even more than they are already? Would they fall into a civil war until some figure or organization proved powerful enough to rally them together? At the end of it, would they even *care* about invading Ulthuan without Malekith there driving them forward? Sure, there's plenty of bad blood, but without Malekith there to provide unity and motivation, I expect they'd be more interested in personal profit than fighting an existential war.
 
Wiggy said:
Speaking of murdered VIPs, it's rather interesting to consider just what would become of the dark elves if Malekith and Morathi both died. Would they disintegrate into a bunch of petty city states, even more than they are already? Would they fall into a civil war until some figure or organization proved powerful enough to rally them together? At the end of it, would they even *care* about invading Ulthuan without Malekith there driving them forward? Sure, there's plenty of bad blood, but without Malekith there to provide unity and motivation, I expect they'd be more interested in personal profit than fighting an existential war.
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Try it and find out. :V
 
Wiggy said:
Speaking of murdered VIPs, it's rather interesting to consider just what would become of the dark elves if Malekith and Morathi both died. Would they disintegrate into a bunch of petty city states, even more than they are already? Would they fall into a civil war until some figure or organization proved powerful enough to rally them together? At the end of it, would they even *care* about invading Ulthuan without Malekith there driving them forward? Sure, there's plenty of bad blood, but without Malekith there to provide unity and motivation, I expect they'd be more interested in personal profit than fighting an existential war.
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The Time of Three Emperors: Dark Elf Edition?
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Dark Elf society is based on two statements, that Might Makes Right and also that Malekith Is Mightiest. If he gets ganked for good (and not just MIA like what happened when he faced Teclis), and Morathi isn't around to manage all the survivors towards making everyone as miserable as she is, then I imagine there'd be civil war, yes. Even in quest canon, Boney has gone out of his way to say something along the lines that if you try to get ambitious and enter the big leagues you enter the Betrayal Thunderdome.

Beyond a bunch of big-shots trying to become the ones that hold the reins of power, there is the very real and pragmatic argument that without Malekith, Naggaroth simply couldn't be organized enough to face Ulthuan's full might. Malekith is not just a fantastic wizard and swordsman, but a keen general, as well.

As to whether they would actually want to invade Ulthuan, if they had the organized capacity for it... I think the answer there is probably yes, due to how they have been told their entire lives that it is their Rightful Land and all that propaganda. But who knows if the desire would persist without Malekith hanging around and him being proven to Not Be As Hard A Dude as they thought he was.
 
Personally, in addition to the whole 'lore accounts are biased, tone everything down as much as possible' thing like has been mentioned prior with the Dark Elves where rather than constant blood orgies your average family will pool together to buy a single slave to sacrifice to the gods once a year, it's that evil factions just don't work as civilisations like the order factions (or irl civilisations) do, on a very foundational level. That is, rather than the foundation of a civilisation being a mass of people who come together to be more than the sum of its parts, evil factions are closer to one dude with way too much power, with the 'civilisation' being their subordinates/slaves they keep around because its more useful than them not being there, with said subordinates having varying capacity of leeching of their bosses power, which they may then use to get their own subordinates.

This is most obvious in necromancers, with one sorcerer supporting an army of undead slaves and maybe some apprentices, but I feel the Skaven and Dark Elves only really work because they've got some absurdly powerful magic users at their heads. Their food thing probably only works through literal magic, probably paid through by the blood of slaves for the Dark Elves and warpstone (and as such life expectancy) for the Skaven, and then only because the wizards at the head of their society keep the foundations for said food production working.

Back to order factions, these may be hurt by taking out their leadership, though the real foundation is the culture shared by the people, which would take truly extreme levels of damage to shake. Which happens, but it's rare. The evil factions on the other hand might be able to arbitrarily absorb absurd mook casualties because thier greater population isn't the foundation for their society, but if you manage to take out the leaders, I expect they collapse practically overnight.

Take out Malekith and Morathi and I don't think the Druchii will last long, fracturing and being wiped out by the Asur in short time (relative to elves). Take out the whole ruling cast somehow and they may well all starve in a season or two. Contrast this with any order faction where taking out the leaders results in short term disruption, but they'll recover so long as the people and culture survive.

Extremely difficult because the weakest of these factions leaders, the true leaders, is possibly Malekith? With Chaos and Skaven and Greenskins 'faction leaders' in at least this foundation sense being literal gods, but it explains why dealing with them permanently is so difficult.

Though there is one form of evil faction which has more vulnerable leaders, that being the undead. And really 'factions' of undead are wiped out all the time comparitively, even if the greater magic knowledge survives letting more pop up.

So yeah, in conclusion, don't ask me about the Beastmen. I have no fucking clue.
 
Wiggy said:
Speaking of murdered VIPs, it's rather interesting to consider just what would become of the dark elves if Malekith and Morathi both died. Would they disintegrate into a bunch of petty city states, even more than they are already? Would they fall into a civil war until some figure or organization proved powerful enough to rally them together? At the end of it, would they even *care* about invading Ulthuan without Malekith there driving them forward? Sure, there's plenty of bad blood, but without Malekith there to provide unity and motivation, I expect they'd be more interested in personal profit than fighting an existential war.
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I think they would have a civil war that would causes massive casualties, until the Choas nomads from the North invade and force them to somewhat unite to prevent themselves from being wiped out. After that I imagine it would be low-intensity conflicts most of the time, with a few major ones from time to time. No single Druchii city seems powerful enough to unilaterally impose it's law on the others. That said, I think the 2 port cities would be the most influential due to the fact that most of the slaves come from them.
 
Maugan Ra said:
Beastmen are my personal favourites here, honestly, because they've got bloody chariots. Quite famously so, Gorthor was only one of the most prominent beastlords to ride them into battle. Chariots are not something you can just slap together, no matter what the army books try to insist, that shit takes dedicated effort and specialist engineering knowhow. Similarly, they clearly have a significant metalworking tradition given all the weapons and armour they're toting around properly sized for their inhuman frames, and the Centigors either have the ability to make their own booze or a significant understanding of trade and commerce given how much of the stuff they famously consume
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Might be possible to explain the beastmen by saying that they Chaos Dwarfs have a thriving export market and are very happy to take payment in slaves.
 
fictionfan said:
Might be possible to explain the beastmen by saying that they Chaos Dwarfs have a thriving export market and are very happy to take payment in slaves.
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Depends on if those Beast Paths can get all the way to the Zorn Uzkul.

Otherwise I think having functioning trade routes going from the Drakwald all the way to Uzkulak requires more civilization than the chariots do.
 
Mopman43 said:
Depends on if those Beast Paths can get all the way to the Zorn Uzkul.

Otherwise I think having functioning trade routes going from the Drakwald all the way to Uzkulak requires more civilization than the chariots do.
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That beast path could even be an old underway tunnel.

Also explains how the Chaos Dwarfs are able to keep sending kill squads into the empire.
 
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I will admit the logistics of beastmen selling slaves to the chaos dwarfs is tricky.

How about beastmen trading Warpstone to the Ratmen? The Scavken aren't going to sell them quality or anything reliable, but they should be willing to take advantage of a bunch of beastmen.
 
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Wiggy said:
I believe that was explained in quest with submarines. Which is a hell of an accomplishment techwise lol.
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It is, but so does Barak Varr.
Boney said:
Karaz-a-Karak has an air force. Zhufbar are the ones inventing all those excellent weapons. Barak Varr has ironclads and submarines.
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As Boney points out in that post, this is in many ways a time of innovation for the Dawi. It's an unfortunate side effect that they often feel shame at said innovation.
 
Mopman43 said:
Depends on if those Beast Paths can get all the way to the Zorn Uzkul.

Otherwise I think having functioning trade routes going from the Drakwald all the way to Uzkulak requires more civilization than the chariots do.
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Beast Paths aren't actually magical, I should note.

Total Warhammer made them a kind of teleport/fast transit for the sake of game mechanics, but the actual army books are pretty clear that they're literally just paths trampled through the wilderness by migratory herds of beastmen. A hunter could pretty literally stumble across them if they happened to be roaming somewhere remote that they've not been before, and if they're smart they'll turn right back around and thank Taal nobody was using the path at that precise moment.
 
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