Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Both leading designs have parts that require dwarves.

It is not a difference between the two plans.

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Of the two, Better Future is a much better balance between elves and dwarves, with two components requiring each. The reverse engineering version skews heavily elves with three components requiring elves and only a single one needing dwarves. Saying it doesn't require dwarves is not correct, but it sure requires them a lot less comparatively.

 

[Ambit]

[X] Plan Building A Better Future

 

[Alratan]

Of the two, Better Future is a much better balance between elves and dwarves, with two components requiring each. The reverse engineering version skews heavily elves with three components requiring elves and only a single one needing dwarves. Saying it doesn't require dwarves is not correct, but it sure requires them a lot less comparatively.

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This isn't correct.

The reverse engineered plan only has two components that in the short run require elves. The other plan has a single component that requires elves.

The Grey Lord designed foundation can be made be any Wind using enchanter, so can be made by human wizards.

Remember that both elves and dwarves are elder races who look on very long time scales.

In the longer run, the reverse engineered plan will require one elven and one dwarven component. By contrast, the other plan will always require one elven and two dwarven components.

That means that for most of the time these Waystones are being made, the reverse engineered plan is equal and the other plan is not.

What you're proposing increases any poltical imbalance.

 

[consequences]

It does but at the same time most dwarf men don't seem to mind staying bachelors all that much.

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Imagine that every time you come up short in your relationship, it weighs on you. Forever.


Imagine knowing that if your shame at your failures gets too great to bear, your only recourse is shaming yourself further by forsaking your marriage and throwing yourself at the nearest monster.


I imagine it makes a heck of a tiebreaker for dawi that maybe kind of like the idea of a relationship, but don't feel a burning need to strive to live up to the romantic deeds of their fathers and their fathers' fathers. Sure, maybe the shame at not finding a partner makes you go slayer anyway, but at least this way you aren't abandoning that partner to go slayer.


Or I could be entirely off base in a variety of ways.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

This isn't correct.

The reverse engineered plan only has two components that in the short run require elves. The other plan has a single component that requires elves.

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Yeah, you're right, my bad, fair enough.

 

[Wiggy]

Actually this does raise an interesting question: absent enough of the Winds can a dwarf rune be powered with Dhar? I mean we know Kragg's rune can make heat out of Dhar by turning it into fire so it would not be beyond the realm of possibility even if it would be politically fraught.

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It came up in story actually, the Ancestor Gods had runes that could purify/be powered by dhar, and so could their immediate students, but nowadays it seems to just be Kragg and even then to an incredibly limited degree. Unless Thorek was lying of course but that seems unlikely. It was why we were worried for a bit about sending too much dhar to the dwarves because they can't make more.

 

[Mopman43]

It came up in story actually, the Ancestor Gods had runes that could purify/be powered by dhar, and so could their immediate students, but nowadays it seems to just be Kragg and even then to an incredibly limited degree. Unless Thorek was lying of course but that seems unlikely. It was why we were worried for a bit about sending too much dhar to the dwarves because they can't make more.

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Thorek said that some of the techniques were rediscovered by Alaric the Mad.

The mention of Kragg was just to demonstrate how limited they are, that if Kragg had spent his entire life doing nothing but making them, he could have covered maybe a 10th of Altdorf.

 

[Wiggy]

Thorek said that sone of the techniques were rediscovered by Alaric the Mad.

The mention of Kragg was just to demonstrate how limited they are, that if Kragg had spent his entire life doing nothing but making them, he could have covered maybe a 10th of Altdorf.

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Ah, serves me right not searching out the quote to check my memory lol.

 

[Valmond]

I think a Rune purifying an area of dhar is different from a Rune powered by dhar.
Now, both might, in theory, purify the area, but runes are presumably fairly low on energy consumption, so a rune not actively trying to purify an area is unlikely to do that much.

 

[Wiggy]

I think a Rune purifying an area of dhar is different from a Rune powered by dhar.
Now, both might, in theory, purify the area, but runes are presumably fairly low on energy consumption, so a rune not actively trying to purify an area is unlikely to do that much.

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Imagine trying to ask a dwarf to make an incredibly inefficient rune that does nothing much so it'll consume as much power as possible and get rid of dhar lol.

 

[Altom]

It came up in story actually, the Ancestor Gods had runes that could purify/be powered by dhar, and so could their immediate students, but nowadays it seems to just be Kragg and even then to an incredibly limited degree. Unless Thorek was lying of course but that seems unlikely. It was why we were worried for a bit about sending too much dhar to the dwarves because they can't make more.

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My interpretation was not that only Kragg knows those runes but rather that the runes were the easiest and the weakest of their kind, so even Kragg could only scale them up very poorly.

 

[Alratan]

It also depends on what the limits of those Dhar purifying runes are. If they can purify functionality limitless amounts of Dhar but only within a tiny volume of effect, if Kragg could teach the rune and less skilled runesmiths could reproduce it then it could still be very useful in combination with Waystone techniques.

You'd build a Waystone that sucked in all the Dhar within the area around it and add the Dhar purifying rune at some point in the Waystone, so that as the dhar flowed down the 'pipe' through the Waystone it would pass through the tiny volume that the Rune affected and the Dhar would be consumed

Then, with the Dhar gone, it could flow away.

This would work very nicely with the riverine transmission mechanism, as you could just dump the purified Winds in the river and not need a special mechanism to deal with the Dhar.

Thinking about it, if the Waystone was made from sufficient inflammable and heat proof material, the Dhar burning rune we have on our belt would do the job, although it would make Waystone light up.

 

[picklepikkl]

This isn't correct.

The reverse engineered plan only has two components that in the short run require elves. The other plan has a single component that requires elves.

The Grey Lord designed foundation can be made be any Wind using enchanter, so can be made by human wizards.

Remember that both elves and dwarves are elder races who look on very long time scales.

In the longer run, the reverse engineered plan will require one elven and one dwarven component. By contrast, the other plan will always require one elven and two dwarven components.

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This is accurate as far as it goes, but it's worth pointing out that in practice, any Waystone with the reverse-engineered component is going to be almost entirely elf-produced for the foreseeable future. Why? Because we gave House Tindomiel right of first refusal on all Wind-based components for Waystones in the Empire, and if we're rate-limited by the need for Archmages, Tindomiel's people will definitely be able to keep up with demand. So until the reverse-engineered component has been slimmed down to something more people than Archmages can do (which takes dozens or hundreds of Waystones) and House Tindomiel can no longer meet demand, every Imperial Waystone of this design will be produced by House Tindomiel in almost its entirety, the only exception being the part that requires an Archmage (which is still elven) and the Rune.

 

[Alratan]

This is accurate as far as it goes, but it's worth pointing out that in practice, any Waystone with the reverse-engineered component is going to be almost entirely elf-produced for the foreseeable future. Why? Because we gave House Tindomiel right of first refusal on all Wind-based components for Waystones in the Empire, and if we're rate-limited by the need for Archmages, Tindomiel's people will definitely be able to keep up with demand. So until the reverse-engineered component has been slimmed down to something more people than Archmages can do (which takes dozens or hundreds of Waystones) and House Tindomiel can no longer meet demand, every Imperial Waystone of this design will be produced by House Tindomiel in almost its entirety, the only exception being the part that requires an Archmage (which is still elven) and the Rune.

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You've got a very good point, but while that's true for Waystones in the Empire, but there'll be a major demand for Waystones in Kislev, and in Bretonnia if they join up, that may exceed the Empire's demand. Then there's demand from the client Border Princes' the dwarves are setting up, and possibly from Tilean and Estalian states, etc.

This is a short term issue though, as when it becomes possible for non-archmages to make them it becomes less of a constraint.

It's also a thought that it might be more efficient and safer for more components of a Waystone to be manufactured and assembled in one place rather than requiring more complex supply chains.

I also think there's a symbolic difference between needs to be made by elves and is made by elves, but people's views may vary.

 

[DragonParadox]

So, about the current winning vote, I don't know if this was mentioned (I've had a bit of a flu over the last few days and I might have missed something going through the thread), but has anyone thought of how this prototype in particular would be seen by the likes of Eltharion? I mean thanks to that reverse-engineered storage this looks like the kind of stone the Asur are already making, it has the same manpower limitations, the Asur could have gotten the same results, just about by simply teaching the Eonir how to do it. Not exactly what Eltharion was after.

 

[Alratan]

Actually, thinking about it, Tindomel's position w.r.t. Waystone manufacture, is only true if the runesmiths will sell unlimited numbers of carved Waystone runes to Timdomel. If they ration or set quotas on the supply, that's not the case.

If the runesmiths guild say that they're only getting (n)one rune a year, House Tindomel can only make (n)one of the design a year, and the Empire is free to buy from anyone else who the runesmiths will supply, unless Tindomel locks down an exclusive supply contract with all the archmages, including the Grey Lords and any members of rival Houses.

So, if the dwarves find Tindomel's legal monopoly on the Empire's supply undesirable, they can very easily break it, as they have an actual monopoly on a critical component of the design and Tindomel doesn't. The latter just have a verbal agreement with an loophole you can drive a land monitor through.

So, about the current winning vote, I don't know if this was mentioned (I've had a bit of a flu over the last few days and I might have missed something going through the thread), but has anyone thought of how this prototype in particular would be seen by the likes of Eltharion? I mean thanks to that reverse-engineered storage this looks like the kind of stone the Asur are already making, it has the same manpower limitations, the Asur could have gotten the same results, just about by simply teaching the Eonir how to do it. Not exactly what Eltharion was after.

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He also wanted something less vulnerable to sabotage and enemy action, which a dual transmission Waystone is.

It's also only hopefully temporarily subject to the same manpower limitations, and as an elf he hopefully takes the long view.

Edit: we also don't know that the Asur are currently making any Waystones at all. He may well have been bluffing.

 

[DragonParadox]

He also wanted something less vulnerable to sabotage and enemy action, which a dual transmission Waystone is.

It's also only hopefully temporarily subject to the same manpower limitations, and as an elf he hopefully takes the long view.

Edit: we also don't know that the Asur are currently making any Waystones at all. He may well have been bluffing.

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I'm not sure dual transmission does that much for the kind of sabotage he had in mind i.e. some orc takes a pickax to it, but more importantly I am not sure how well the Asur prince will take the argument of 'humans are going to learn to do this incredibly complex thing none of them can presently do.' I mean why would be think we are not blowing smoke?

 

[Broccoliccoli]

I am probably wading into an existing discussion here, but is the plan for 'reverse-engineered' to hunt for a Von Tarnus to simplify things or to just hope the elves don't just improve it in a way only useful to them themselves to maintain the political benefits?
They kinda have strong genuine reasons to keep that component beyond mortal skill.

 

[DragonParadox]

I am probably wading into an existing discussion here, but is the plan for 'reverse-engineered' to hunt for a Von Tarnus to simplify things or to just hope the elves don't just improve it in a way only useful to them themselves to maintain the political benefits?
They kinda have strong genuine reasons to keep that component beyond mortal skill.

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[ ] [STORAGE] Reverse-engineered
Requires Von Tarnus or an Elven Archmage. Very difficult, low cost. Difficulty and requirements will reduce over time if built in large numbers.

It is taken as a given that the difficulty will reduce, not sure why or how, but that is the option we have been given.

 

[Wiggy]

I mean, we agreed to share our research results with him, not cater to his whims and needs. If Eltharion is annoyed our first waystone is quality instead of cheap mass produced trash he can spam, well, that's on him underestimating our ambition.

 

[Alratan]

I'm not sure dual transmission does that much for the kind of sabotage he had in mind i.e. some orc takes a pickax to it, but more importantly I am not sure if the Asur prince will take the argument of 'humans are going to learn to do this incredibly complex thing none of them can presently do.' I mean why would be think we are not blowing smoke?

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Remember that a leyline based Waystones isn't just vulnerable to an orc taking a pick ax to it, they're vulnerable to an orc taking a pickax to any one of multiple different Waystones up to hundreds of miles away.

That's exactly the scenario he faced, Waaagh Grom rocked up and invaded. Even cities and towns that didn't fall or hadn't even been attacked yet would have had their Waystones risk failure and so any Waystone powered infrastructure fail in turn because they lost control of the countryside and downstream Waystones were knocked out by the greenskins.

Leyline based Waystones are much more vulnerable to attacks on the wider network in a way that riverine ones aren't.

In terms of credibility, we managed to design the Waystone - and the pitch to him isn't that humans will learn to do an incredibly complex thing, but that ancient elven archmages from before the Sundering will simplify the process of making the enchantment to the point that it isn't too complex for humans to do any more.

It is taken as a given that the difficulty will reduce, not sure why or how, but that is the option we have been given.

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Probably because the kind of elves with drive to become archmages want the world to be better protected from the rising tide of Chaos but don't want to spend the rest of their lives sitting in a workshop doing the same very difficult, boring job over and over again, as they have lots of much more interesting things they'd prefer to spend their AP on. They have a very strong personal incentive to make it possible for non-archmages to create the enchantment.

 

[picklepikkl]

Remember that a leyline based Waystones isn't just vulnerable to an orc taking a pick ax to it, they're vulnerable to an orc taking a pickax to any one of multiple different Waystones up to hundreds of miles away.

That's exactly the scenario he faced, Waaagh Grom rocked up and invaded. Even cities and towns that didn't fall or hadn't even been attacked yet would have had their Waystones fail and so any Waystone powered infrastructure fail in turn because they lost control of the countryside and downstream Waystones were knocked out by the greenskins.

Leyline based Waystones are much more vulnerable to attacks on the wider network in a way that riverine ones aren't.

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Based on this Boney post I don't think that's accurate.

Between half and a quarter of all the Waystones in the network have been destroyed. Given what the network needs to look like, that, to my mind, supports my understanding of the situation.

If you don't want to discuss it anymore fine, but with up to half of the Waystones missing, and presumably any Waystones upstream of those missing ones that survive being inactive, I think it's very plausible that a high proportion of the surviving Waystones in the Empire fall into that category, assuming the druids at least, were going around switching off Waystones to prevent cascade failure. Destroying even a quarter of the nodes in a network with multiple layers should leave loads of orphans cut off from the central nexuses.

It could easily be that only a small fraction of the original network being active is required to prevent the Empire going to Hell, but that's not enough to drain enough magic to prevent the mutation/corruption/etc that one that wasn't a shadow of itself would prevent. I'm not arguing that it isn't doing anything at all. Just that most of it isn't working.

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Boney, are the majority of the Empire's waystones inactive?

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No.

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So, empirically, the routing on leyline-based waystones is not as fragile as you're concerned about it being.

 

[Alratan]

Based on this Boney post I don't think that's accurate.



So, empirically, the routing on leyline-based waystones is not as fragile as you're concerned about it being.

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Or, in the Empire, when Waystones were destroyed cascade failure usually happened, and that's why between a quarter and half of all of them are missing, because when one went, there was no one to disable the ones upstream so they blew up.

Ulthuan wouldn't have that bad a problem, as they'd have people on hand to switch off more upstream Waystones. Note that key assumption in my line of reasoning about the druids, as that's where it falls down.

What else would Eltharion have meant when he talked about the original design's particular vulnerability to destruction or sabotage? These are objects that largely survived intact without repair for several millenia. Individually they're incredibly resilient.

 

[Aranfan]

The only place in the Empire with a disrupted waystone network is Sylvania. Which constitutes way less than a quarter of the Empire.

 

[DragonParadox]

The only place in the Empire with a disrupted waystone network is Sylvania. Which constitutes way less than a quarter of the Empire.

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The Drakenwald is still technically in the Empire and it's hard to argue that Ostland's stones are doing too well with two fallen nexuses, who knows how many stones that place has lost under the shadow of the trees.