Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
The main exception was the Vampire Wars.
Having a whole bunch of Necromancer minions was a large part of the danger behind Vlad, Konrad, and Mannfred.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Having a whole bunch of Necromancer minions was a large part of the danger behind Vlad, Konrad, and Mannfred.
Has anyone did a what if Mathilde in the other colleges yet?
- Location
- Australia
- Location
- USA
Partly, if you count Mathilde Weber herself as "anyone":
Abelheim Van Hal came to the Electors Meet with a pile of recently acquired Strigoi skulls, and that is part of why he was made an Elector Count. Perhaps his was not alone, but tbh, we don't really know either way.
dinomannitro6
all your gender is belong to us
- Location
- The Land Where The Sunflowers Bloom
See: Abelhelm with his halberd before he became Elector Count
Abelhelm van Halberd
There'd undoubtedly be a justification for it within the metaphysics of the mystery cult, but It is extremely difficult to find a mystery cult that isn't weird about sex in one way or another. And that's before you factor in an attunement with a magical energy that interferes with their ability to maintain normal interpersonal relationships.
Huh. Wonder if it's different for dragons, because Cython definitely had kids after the point they were Hysh enough to disdain silly little things like biological gender.
Thought that was jedi lol.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
I don't think that was said? Mathilde asked if Cython sired or laid the eggs, and Cython said that they were now magic so it doesn't matter.
I mean Cython still wants to catch light and eat it due to being a dragon, so I think it is indeed different for them.
About the Lights and celibacy there is one other thing that might shed some light on the matter. From what I recall Nehekaran priests also had to be celibate, not saying there is any connection, just a fun fact... 
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NavySeel
"I don't know what I'm doing."
- Location
- Places
Hard to really judge what that means since the Light Order takes a lot from Nehekara, it could be that it's somehow vitally important, or it could be a cultural hold over, like Jade's matriarchal tendencies.About the Lights and celibacy there is one other thing that might shed some light on the matter. From what I recall Nehekaran priests also had to be celibate, not saying there is any connection, just a fun fact...
About the Lights and celibacy there is one other thing that might shed some light on the matter. From what I recall Nehekaran priests also had to be celibate, not saying there is any connection, just a fun fact...
It could be an actual remnant of that; the fact that the Mortuary Cult recruited the eldest sons of monarchs and then didn't let them have children for dynastic reasons. Or it could be cargo cult-ing. The originator of the tradition, whenever it was, either pre or post foundation of the College, could have learned that and imitated it after coming up with some post-hoc rationalisation without doing it for the same reason the Mortuary Cult did.
Note that it was just the Mortuary Cult priests that had to be celibate. Other priests, such as the Priest-Kings themselves, didn't have to be.
To be fair we do not know what the non-Mortuary non-Royal priesthoods did, some or all of them could have imposed celibacy.
Presumably the Necrotects magic was divine, although we don't know if they were ordained priests. I don't think there's any suggestion they were celibate.
Given they were the ones who actually designed and led the construction of pyramids, presumably they'd be particularly dedicated to Tahoth.
A mystery cult descended from them, or indeed any Nehekharan survivors or based on their texts, could well have adopted celibacy even if they didn't previously practice it because that's just what high status priests do and they're clearly high status priests.
I'm not even sure we know if there were non-royal, non-mortuary cult priests. It could have been like the proto-imperial tribes where the (sacred) monarch was the priest of all the gods. This would make sense why the king eldest son of the king became a member of the mortuary cult, if being a priest was seen as an inherently royal duty. It also aligns with the Lore of Nehekhara which both liche priests and royal priests use having spells granted by all the gods.
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Do we know that they had magic?
There's mention of them inscribing Runes taught to them by the Liche Priests, but it certainly seems like the Souls portion of the War Statuary was taken care of by the Mortuary Cult.
In battle they can bolster the strength and magically reshape the stone of their statues to repair damage with their prayers.
They didn't do the soul manipulation bit, but they seem to do the stone manipulation bit of the statues.
The priests implant the souls that provide guidance/intelligence, but it seems the Necrotects do something magical to the statues to make them able to move.
Ramhotep the Visionary made a unit of warsphinxes for Arkhan the Black, and it's strongly implied it was much more involved and important than just carving them. He also made a mask that allowed him to adopt the likeness of others, which seems like it would need to be magical.
They can also specifically create magical wards on the tombs they build.
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Stone is associated with Hysh, right? I wonder if something like a Light tributary would be possible. The thematic resonances are all there to make it possible.
- Location
- Australia
Only in Warhammer tabletop, WFRP 1e, WFRP 4e, and Age of Sigmar.
I agree with most of the post but as for this bit:
If the Nehekarans were anything like Egypt, which ah... seems likely, they had plenty of cults dedicated to one or more gods. Also logically the Mortuary Cult would have been bad at certain tasks, particularly having to do with domains opposed to death, preservation and the like. It's not like you can have the king do most of those jobs themselves either, unlike a small tribe in the boonies of the northern lands trying not to get eaten by beastmen Nehekara had a large urbanized population and a vast systemic agriculture built off the back of damns and canals. The Priest King cannot show up to bless all the fields and the local tomb Feng Shui expert probably does not know how to do it.
- Location
- Greece
Keep in mind that all I know about w40k is from popcultural osmosis, random videos and this thread. I have a lot of popcultural osmosis to go around, but I have not read the bigger than some books wikipedia page about the Horus legacy or any of the rulebooks or anything. That said, I still feel confident enough to leave some comments. If there is proof that what I said below is dreadfully wrong, feel free to rub it in my face.
To play devil's advocate, "There is no such thing as innocence, only varying degrees of guilt." is probably not a motto justifying the inquisitors killing everyone, but rather, killing anyone they want with no oversight or questioning, being for good or petty reason.
Note, I am not defending this morally, just saying it does have an underlying logic in an authoritarian regime. This is actually an authoritarian tactic, making little laws that sound logical but that everybody breaks or has to break by accident/just to get by, so that they can selectively enforce them whenever they want to get rid of enemies while seeming lawful and painting the enemy as a lawbreaker. The "worst regime known to man", based on this quote, seems to have perfected this process by not even needing a crime.
Of course, this still causes incredible dysfunction (duh) I just think this is a little more complicated than "inquisitors be killing everyone they see because they are omnicidal fanatics"
You probably know W40k much more than me, but honestly, given how dysfunctional authoritarian regimes are (a thing that, notably, even I know was carried over to W40k, making it much, much more dysfunctional than any real regime ever was), I can't help but think that they could still combat all the horrors of the universe, if only they changed the way they function. Sure, that is easier said than done, but my point is, I think the problem they actually have is not some invisible enemy or lack of great men that could change things, but internal corruption, bigotry, fanaticism and stupidity inherent in authoritarianism preventing them from best utilising their resources.
How many potential Emperor tier characters have been killed before achieving the fullness of their power because they were psykers (potentially to keep the useless husk that is the current Emperor alive)? How many Ciaphas Cains has the Imperium killed because they didn't have his reputation, so their tactical acumen was thought of as cowardice? How many scientists could have recreated the weapons of old, or even ascend humanity to the old ones tier, if there wasn't an ignorant cult having a monopoly of science?
I think the tragedy is that, for all the external problems, the worst enemy of the Imperium of man is actually not chaos, or the orcs, or the tyranids,or the Necrons, but rather, the Imperium of man.
Fantasy works much better because, for all its moral failings, standard feudalism is, genuinely, a more effective way of doing things than authoritarianism. There is a reason feudal regimes were stable, while authoritarian regimes tend to self cannibalize until they fall.
To play devil's advocate, "There is no such thing as innocence, only varying degrees of guilt." is probably not a motto justifying the inquisitors killing everyone, but rather, killing anyone they want with no oversight or questioning, being for good or petty reason.
Note, I am not defending this morally, just saying it does have an underlying logic in an authoritarian regime. This is actually an authoritarian tactic, making little laws that sound logical but that everybody breaks or has to break by accident/just to get by, so that they can selectively enforce them whenever they want to get rid of enemies while seeming lawful and painting the enemy as a lawbreaker. The "worst regime known to man", based on this quote, seems to have perfected this process by not even needing a crime.
Of course, this still causes incredible dysfunction (duh) I just think this is a little more complicated than "inquisitors be killing everyone they see because they are omnicidal fanatics"
You probably know W40k much more than me, but honestly, given how dysfunctional authoritarian regimes are (a thing that, notably, even I know was carried over to W40k, making it much, much more dysfunctional than any real regime ever was), I can't help but think that they could still combat all the horrors of the universe, if only they changed the way they function. Sure, that is easier said than done, but my point is, I think the problem they actually have is not some invisible enemy or lack of great men that could change things, but internal corruption, bigotry, fanaticism and stupidity inherent in authoritarianism preventing them from best utilising their resources.
How many potential Emperor tier characters have been killed before achieving the fullness of their power because they were psykers (potentially to keep the useless husk that is the current Emperor alive)? How many Ciaphas Cains has the Imperium killed because they didn't have his reputation, so their tactical acumen was thought of as cowardice? How many scientists could have recreated the weapons of old, or even ascend humanity to the old ones tier, if there wasn't an ignorant cult having a monopoly of science?
I think the tragedy is that, for all the external problems, the worst enemy of the Imperium of man is actually not chaos, or the orcs, or the tyranids,or the Necrons, but rather, the Imperium of man.
Fantasy works much better because, for all its moral failings, standard feudalism is, genuinely, a more effective way of doing things than authoritarianism. There is a reason feudal regimes were stable, while authoritarian regimes tend to self cannibalize until they fall.
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SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Worth noting that for all of the Empire's failings, it never failed in the same spectacular way that Ulthuan did twice over, with the Sundering and then the War of the Ancients.
Especially in the latter case, where the Phoenix King doing something unbelievably stupid brought Ulthuan into a devastating and entirely avoidable war with their once close ally.
In the Empire, the Emperor deliberately and knowingly inflicting an act of war against dwarven ambassadors (or any ambassadors from an allied country) would see that emperor promptly opposed, deposed, and denounced. The elector counts and nobility under him would absolutely not support an unjustified war against an ally just because their sovereign called for one. Ulthuan, on the other hand, marched in near-lockstep, with only some of the Old World colonies and Asarnil rejecting the call.
Seriously, the amount of damage and death Ulthuan could have averted by just deposing Caledor II and, at worst, delivering his (and only his) head to the dwarves, is immense.
The reason the Empire and the Karaz Ankor have gotten along so well despite the Empire's general unreliability is because the Empire is and has never been a threat to the Karaz Ankor and its interests. Even on a provincial level, war with the dwarves is something you DO NOT DO, EVER. Loyalty is not unconditional, even if it would require something truly extraordinary for disloyalty to be justified (such as, say, an unjustified declaration of war against an ally). So even in the Era of Three Emperors, the Karaz Ankor was not threatened.
We see the virtues and flaws of both systems, but the biggest contrast is the scale of their failings, and the Empire's are nowhere near as bad as Ulthuan's. Even the Karaz Ankor avoids the general authoritarian failings because its ultimate sovereign is heavily bound by the weight of duty and tradition--declaring war against an ally would require something so extraordinary and outrageous that it would have the entire Karaz Ankor in agreement with him by default, which is exactly what the Phoenix King did.
In general, the Karaz Ankor and Empire of Sigmar complement each other very well. The dwarves are a priceless pillar of stability, trustworthiness, reliability, and quality to the Empire's numbers, adaptability, and diversity. Every joint Empire-Karaz Ankor effort we've seen in this quest has produced far greater results than either one of them could alone, and at a far lower cost, too, right from the start. Throw Laurelorn and Kislev into the mix and you get the goddamn Waystone Project, which is poised to succeed far better than just about anyone could have expected.
The Empire effectively broke up 1500 years into its existence and it only exists in the present thanks to literal divine intervention on the eve of a Chaos invasion. Yes they did not screw up as much as Caledor the Second, but then they never had the power to do so. You are right, it has never been a threat to the Karaz Ankor, among other reasons because it cannot and everyone in its political elite knows this.
- Location
- Greece
That sounds more stable than any Empire I know of.
1500 years is a lot, and Empires tend to fragment.
But a lot less stable than Ulthuan which is the comparison at hand.