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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Merry Christmas, happy upcoming Kwanzaa, Hanukah, and happy spirit of the holidays in general to those of different faiths. May your lives be a little bit happier, and our world a bit nicer. Never stop trying to be good people.
 
DragonParadox said:
It should be noted there are never going to not be Everchosen. If we beat this one the next few centuries are almost guaranteed to bring another one. I mean Kull was less than two centuries ago. An Everchosen is always a reason to unite, it's just that some people *cough*humans*cough* forget too quickly.
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It might be that next Everchosen might decide go hit Naggoroth and become Dark Elf problem.
 
Tasoli said:
It might be that next Everchosen might decide go hit Naggoroth and become Dark Elf problem.
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True, but then again they might not. If every two centuries on average could bring all consuming war for the destruction of the world to your door, it is probably worth a long term consideration of all-consuming war for the destruction of the world in your plans. The consequences of one showing up are so dire that a wise ruler should plan for them doing so every time.
 
MrHobbit said:
Boney mentioned it would be able thirty years until the Karaz Ankor had repopulated to the extent that it can afford to retake another Karak. But I can't find the quote. I believe it was said before Thorgrim revealed the Eyes of Grimnir and announced the commencement of the Second Silver Road Wars. @picklepikkl do you recall it?
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Hell yeah I do.
Boney said:
The population of the Karaz Ankor is stretched thin. The K8P Expedition soaked up pretty much every single potential Young Hold settler and outcast willing to seek redemption, and even then conventional Dwarven military theory would say it needs four times as many Dwarves as it has to be defensible. It's only because of the addition of the Halflings, the Undumgi, Ulrikadrin, the work of the Okral, and the Sword of Gazul to the equation that people are able to feel safe in K8P. A Karak Drazh reclamation, even if it could wave a magic wand and move in tomorrow without a single loss, would not have the numbers to defend it. And Karak Drazh can't just turn over one Karag and the surface to non-Dwarven settlers to keep from experiencing too much cultural friction, it's one big Hold contained within a single mountain. It's probably at minimum a Dwarven generation until Drazh could even begin to be planned in earnest.
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I'm all about those citations.
 
DragonParadox said:
Gathering books and not reading them would be odd, the priests of Hoeth worship knowledge not the physical form of books, if they think knowledge is worth preserving they'd probably read it, if they think it isn't because humans are stinky or something they would not. There might be a legitimate theological debate between different factions in the White Tower over this.
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Thinking about it some more, a compromise might be to collect books written by humans as, essentially, ethnographic studies, rather than explicitly for the official contents of them.
 
Regarding their attitudes towards non-elven knowledge, it should be noted that in Giantslayer Teclis mentions that after the Third Vampire War the White Tower sought out books written by Vampires because they were being burned by the Witch Hunters in the Empire, and they felt like all knowledge should be preserved.
 
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Hmm... I think 50-100 years is correct. But closer to 50 than 100.

Iirc, Karak Vlag spent ~180 years in the warp, and there are 2 or 3 generations that were born in that timespan.

But it was warp time, so... it's still up in the air.
 
IronFist said:
Hmm... I think 50-100 years is correct. But closer to 50 than 100.

Iirc, Karak Vlag spent ~180 years in the warp, and there are 2 or 3 generations that were born in that timespan.

But it was warp time, so... it's still up in the air.
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Vlag probably isn't a good metric for the Karaz Ankor as a whole, once the people who choose to die did so the survivors had to repopulate and the divergent culture would have encouraged marrying early. Not to mention that without a economy beyond survival there would have been little in the way of bride price needing to be paid.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Vlag probably isn't a good metric for the Karaz Ankor as a whole, once the people who choose to die did so the survivors had to repopulate and the divergent culture would have encouraged marrying early. Not to mention that without a economy beyond survival there would have been little in the way of bride price needing to be pad.
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Fair.

Hopefully K8P's reconquest, Vlag's return and Thorgrim's "I should have been like Grungni" statement will give the dwarfs a bit more hope, and incentive to be less ossified.

K8P will also have a divergent culture, eventually, I think. It just hasn't been long enough yet.
 
picklepikkl said:
Hell yeah I do.

I'm all about those citations.
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Thanks! I'm not actually where I got 60 years at minimum now. I thought that the retaking of Mount Silverspear was 30 years off and that repopulating enough to retake another Karak would take thirty years. But I can't find what made me think that. I think I just mixed it up with something else.

Karak Ungor would probably need less population to hold than Karak Drazh. Regardless, the time frame wouldn't be significantly different. It might be for Mount Gunbad, surely it wasn't anywhere close to the population of Drazh or Ungor. Gunbad would be hardest to deploy soldiers to and the hardest to isolate. But it is also the smallest and would need the least population and would have the least amount of inhabitants already living there. Drazh and Ungor would be a lot easier to isolate and deploy soldiers too. But they're also enormous. And that's all before including all of the wonders of the Ancestors in the calculations about which is the most important to reclaim.

I wonder how feasible it would be to reactivate the Karaz Ghumzul nexus. Though it might link in through Ungor. If nothing else, Thorek would probably have a free hand to study it.
 
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IronFist said:
Fair.

Hopefully K8P's reconquest, Vlag's return and Thorgrim's "I should have been like Grungni" statement will give the dwarfs a bit more hope, and incentive to be less ossified.

K8P will also have a divergent culture, eventually, I think. It just hasn't been long enough yet.
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I would argue that it already does, if only slightly so. Yes, it's inherently somewhat segregated, but at the same time they have humans, halflings, wizards, a dragon, and giant spiders living in their Karak and they're happy about it. Their closest military allies are a bunch of humans riding wolves, their first loremaster was a wizard who they built a tower for on the top of one of the eight mountains, and they officially gave Cython the mountaintop they were living in. They're guarded by humans and spiders along with their own soldiers, their food comes from halflings they protect rather than humans far away, halflings that are as devoted to and skilled at growing and cooking as any proper dwarf is to their own trade.

I think the major divergence we'll see from them is the belief that while dwarves are clearly the best at doing dwarfy things, other races might be as good or even better then them at doing other things, and some of those things are worth doing. The fact that dwarves cannot spin silk doesn't mean silk isn't worth making, the halflings are good enough at farming that it wouldn't just be a waste of dwarf-time trying to do it themselves, it would actually be a challenge to reach their skill in it, and humans, halflings, wizards, the We, and even a dragon all meaningfully contributed to the military reconquering of K8P, most of them in ways that dwarves aren't actually very good at.
 
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I'll have to hunt down the references; but from what I can find both Karak Kadrin and Barak Varr have historic human quarters inside the holds (who seem to be Karaz Ankor humans in the same way there are Imperial dwarves in the Empire), and Zhufbar has a human town on the surface above the hold.

Large numbers of humans living in and on top of dwarf holds seems quite normal. This probably shouldn't be surprising, as back before Sigmar some dwarf holds apparently had human vassals*; and there have been strong institutional relationship between the Empire and the Karaz Ankor since the time of Sigmar.

* at least one of the proto-Imperial tribes supplied cavalry to serve alongside dwarf armies.
 
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If humans, halflings, We and such could colonize the surface of the World Spine, holding the Karaks woud be much easier for dwarves with pressure from above lessened and close-by allies to help against the threats from bellow.

Of course, it's not like the valleys of the World Spine seems like prime real estate right now being uninhabitable wastelands filled with gribblies but still. Purging methodically, hiding near/between Karaks and other dwarven fortifications, using Panoramia's bio-engineered crops, etc. I could almost see it as a possibility. If enough effort and treasure was invested to bring in and help support the colonists... and dwarves are rich and hard-working.

In a way, Gretel's kingdow could almost be seen as such an effort, if in much more lenient conditions.
 
picklepikkl said:
I think Tasoli was wondering if there was any [LIBRARY] option that allowed for getting books from Ulrikadrin, because they are opposed to spending personal money instead of the KAU budget.
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Boney said:
Sure, you could write in something along the lines of 'Library Ulrikadrin Ulric'. It's not the most efficient of library purchases, but that fits since it wouldn't be the most streamlined process.
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Parabola said:
As for buying Ulric books out of pocket being "crazy inefficient", I want to point out we only have three options available to us:
  1. We buy them out-of-pocket via Ulrikadrin. This is only 100 gc.
  2. We use our giant library budget solely on Ulric books, when 'normally' the budget covers around ~1500 gc (Barak Varr books, as a reference). This is essentially asking Belegar to save us up 100 gc.
  3. Get an agreement with the Cult of Ulric and then copy those books with our scribes. 0 gc, but it would take a whole two whole actions, which are infinitely more valuable than any monetary amount. It's hard to justify pushing for that only on the basis of Ulric books.
    1. Alternatively, try to get an agreement with the Collegium Theologica - it's an Ulrican institution, so it miiight have the holiest of Ulric's books, though not guaranteed. At least for this you'd be able to justify it by saying we'd get a lot more than just Ulric books, and hopefully not much overlap with the University of Nuln.
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FYI I don't know if Boney has changed his mind but he previously said we are allowed to buy all the imperial books on Ulric through a Library of Mournings purchase.

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Does the Library of Mournings have books on Ulric, and if so, can we buy them?
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Boney said:
They don't have ones with unique insight into Him, but you could get Imperial books via them.
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Mopman43 said:
Do they have any books above Extensive?
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Boney said:
All the way up to Esoteric.
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Sparsebeard said:
If humans, halflings, We and such could colonize the surface of the World Spine, holding the Karaks woud be much easier for dwarves with pressure from above lessened and close-by allies to help against the threats from bellow.

Of course, it's not like the valleys of the World Spine seems like prime real estate right now being uninhabitable wastelands filled with gribblies but still. Purging methodically, hiding near/between Karaks and other dwarven fortifications, using Panoramia's bio-engineered crops, etc. I could almost see it as a possibility. If enough effort and treasure was invested to bring in and help support the colonists... and dwarves are rich and hard-working.

In a way, Gretel's kingdow could almost be seen as such an effort, if in much more lenient conditions.
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The problem with this is you want to turn every dwarf into Belegar. Now one might ask, how is that a problem, Belegar is great? He is indeed, but he is also a deeply troubled dwarf because he won the hold of his ancestors in ways his ancestors would probably not approve of. If you need halfliings and wizards to reconquer Karaks, what is the point of retaking them to begin with? Not to live in them certainly, there are plenty of other holds with room in them, the entire dwarf population would fit in KaK.

Of course we the players who have read the Thorgrim interlude know the answer to that question, to get more power in the network, but that is not going to become common knowledge anytome soon.
 
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