It was in the Maekelth books when it talks about what Morathi did with the new Phoenix king.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
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I can't speak for canon and have not read these books, but I can't imagine that that's the case as far as the quest proper goes. Unless Morathi had been drowning in free time, there's just no way she was involved in literally all of the cults' proper founding and centralization of power while also doing all her usual dark sorcery/Slaaneshi worship nonsense. And even if she had, I just can't imagine that Boney would let such ambiguous 'sabotage' last through... however many millennia it's been since then, and also in particular, through the diaspora of the elves.
For instance, Isha: The Eonir hold Her as their primary goddess because Laurelorn was founded by a Handmaiden of the Everqueen, but they've been firmly separated from Ulthuan proper for a long time and we don't really know their more in-depth beliefs regarding Her. If I had to guess, I'd say Isha is considered the true ruler of the gods, with Asuryan being emphasized as a mighty champion. That feels like something that could be considered a natural progression of how they would see the gods. Maybe it even counts as a regression - the position of Phoenix King is a relatively new one, whereas the Elves have had an Everqueen since time immemorial.
Certainly, the Isha that the Eonir worship is different from the Isha that the Asur worship, let alone compared to the Isha that the Asrai worship and who is literally just hanging out in Athel Loren as an embodied goddess. Even if you ignore Ariel (who I guess might not even be the same as she is in canon, for all we know she's Rhya or something), Kurnous is not present in Laurelorn as Isha's husband, and in fact isn't even in the inner part of the mandala. Which makes complete sense: instead of forming an accord with the wild parts of nature, the Eonir tamed it to their purposes.
The way I see it, they may as well be distinct faiths. I can't imagine any hypothetical sabotage would have lasted.
Voikirium
#1 Voltaire Hater
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I do believe Morathi could, for one simple reason, for all it shames me--so much that I must hide it.
More seriously, Morathi is perhaps the Elf who in the modern times of Warhammer best encapsulates the "Great and Terrible" thing that the Elves have going on. Her deciding she was pissed at the established order, uprooting it, and building it back to her standards in the time between Aenarion and the Sundering would be difficult...but she is supposed to be pretty smart herself, you know?
I like Morathi.
More seriously, Morathi is perhaps the Elf who in the modern times of Warhammer best encapsulates the "Great and Terrible" thing that the Elves have going on. Her deciding she was pissed at the established order, uprooting it, and building it back to her standards in the time between Aenarion and the Sundering would be difficult...but she is supposed to be pretty smart herself, you know?
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I guess in a vacuum I would have figured elf priests would be like elf mage: a priest of whatever God was needed at the moment, like a mage uses whatever wind is best at the moment.
So, like, elf priests and elf temples, but no elf priests *of a god*, you know?
So, like, elf priests and elf temples, but no elf priests *of a god*, you know?
No one who has read deep into the lore would say that Morathi did not do her best to worm her way into having influence with the powerful groups in Asur society after Aenarion's disappearanced as we see with Hotek and the Power she still holds over people like Helabron and the rest of the Cult of Khaine but I doubt she ever had much say in how the Priests of Vaul organized themselves before the Sundering for example.
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It was to get tributaries built, not waystones. And as far as I can tell, we already spent the AP to convince the Tzar to do the tributary rollout.
the tributaries is what i meant, there is no Kislav Tributaries timeline on the Org page
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Best I can find is this:
It's not 100% explicit, no. But we had the Bokha Palace Accords right after. And remember, updating the Organizations page or other infopages takes writing time Boney would rather spend on writing the next update.
I thought I remembered another quote saying something along the lines that the current step Kislev was doing was working on getting all the casters organized and on the same page rather than slapping down rituals immediately, but can't find it.
There was this passage that makes it pretty clear work of some kind is happening though:
Right now the Hag Witches and Ice Witches are busy with things. They've been suppressed and marginalized for the past eighteen decades. Trying to enact such a large project over all of Kislev would be very taxing for them. They, along with Kislev itself, essentially need to rebuild the organizational tools to achieve that.
In the mean time, we could finish the other possible Kislev tributaries so they can cover as much land with it as possible. Rather than being limited to where they can drag water spirits.
In the mean time, we could finish the other possible Kislev tributaries so they can cover as much land with it as possible. Rather than being limited to where they can drag water spirits.
Blackout
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For what it's worth, the passage from Malekith is as follows:
Which seems to me like something that would have happened naturally even without Morathi, as the elves spread out across the globe from Ulthuan and established colonies, and the distance from the established shrines makes conducting all of your worship in a single spot impractical.
As far as her motivations go, I would suspect that it's more to provide cover for her efforts to spread the Cytharai cults (which she is revealed to have been doing later in the novel) by bringing religion more into everyday life rather than something to be isolated into a single spot away from society, rather than her somehow being able to sabotage every cult on Ulthuan but this sabotage also never came up later.
(Or one can just disregard the Malekith novel entirely. That was always an option too.)
That sounds less to me like "Morathi personally set up every cult on Ulthuan", and more like "Morathi encouraged and popularized the idea of elven religion spreading to wherever there are elves, rather than remaining concentrated in a single shrine."
Which seems to me like something that would have happened naturally even without Morathi, as the elves spread out across the globe from Ulthuan and established colonies, and the distance from the established shrines makes conducting all of your worship in a single spot impractical.
As far as her motivations go, I would suspect that it's more to provide cover for her efforts to spread the Cytharai cults (which she is revealed to have been doing later in the novel) by bringing religion more into everyday life rather than something to be isolated into a single spot away from society, rather than her somehow being able to sabotage every cult on Ulthuan but this sabotage also never came up later.
(Or one can just disregard the Malekith novel entirely. That was always an option too.)
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K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
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Yeah, it doesn't sound bad at all, on the contrary it's probably one of the only good things Morathi ever did.
I think it's Realms of Sorcery but it might be Tome of Salvation that says that the elven resistance to dedicating yourself to a single god came from the example of Aenarion's dedication to Asuryan, which lead him to resist the creation of the Great Vortex because it would weaken His power in the world.
Afterwards, the elves realised that such mono-dedication was too dangerous, so they don't allow it. Malkeith clearly rescinded that prohibition amongst the Druichi, probably in part because he and Morathi couldn't believe that Aenarion was wrong.
This makes a different interpretation of the 'pleasure' cults possible, that it was a conflict between forms of worship in general, with the cults being those elves forming Cults analogous to Old World humans*, and the elves who suppressed them keeping to the rules against dedicating themselves to a single god.
* Note that Nehekharans and pre-Tilean influence proto-Inperial tribes seem to have worshiped more like the idealised description of modern elves, not dedicating themselves to a particular god, but to an even greater degree, instead having priests who are responsible for dealing with their entire pantheon, not just one god. The form of worship, whether of a single god or a pantheon as a whole, seems to be much less than of an inherent trait than Mathilde/Asarnil IC believes, and is instead culturally produced/contingent. That's not surprising, in the RW people often mistakenly believed that cultural features were caused by inherent biological 'racial' traits.
Afterwards, the elves realised that such mono-dedication was too dangerous, so they don't allow it. Malkeith clearly rescinded that prohibition amongst the Druichi, probably in part because he and Morathi couldn't believe that Aenarion was wrong.
This makes a different interpretation of the 'pleasure' cults possible, that it was a conflict between forms of worship in general, with the cults being those elves forming Cults analogous to Old World humans*, and the elves who suppressed them keeping to the rules against dedicating themselves to a single god.
* Note that Nehekharans and pre-Tilean influence proto-Inperial tribes seem to have worshiped more like the idealised description of modern elves, not dedicating themselves to a particular god, but to an even greater degree, instead having priests who are responsible for dealing with their entire pantheon, not just one god. The form of worship, whether of a single god or a pantheon as a whole, seems to be much less than of an inherent trait than Mathilde/Asarnil IC believes, and is instead culturally produced/contingent. That's not surprising, in the RW people often mistakenly believed that cultural features were caused by inherent biological 'racial' traits.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
It's Realms of Sorcery.
Even beyond the existence of, for example, the Priests of Vaul and Phoenix Guard, the Everqueen shows that they were never strictly following that idea.
The Everqueen easily can be argued to have been grandfathered in, and is also a special case because she's literally an Avatar of Isha.
As for the blind priests of Vaul* and the mute Phoenix Guard. Their sacrifices don't prevent them enjoying or engaging in other things. When they're off shift they can sire/bear and bring up children, dance, play musical instruments, learn for the pleasure of learning, etc. They don't have to be hermits mono-focusing on emulating a si mg or chosen god.
* as a side note, I find it a bit theologically odd (aka GW didn't think about it) that the priests of Vaul blind themselves, as their god wasn't inherently or voluntarily blind. He didn't blind himself, he was mutilated by Khaine in an act of violation and domination to better enslave him.
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Blackout
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Realms of Sorcery says that Aenarion was overcome with Asuryan's power, and speculates that this is why he opposed the creation of the Great Vortex, but it says nothing about this being why elves don't dedicate themselves to a single god. (In fact I don't recall ever seeing "elves ban dedication to a single god" outside of Divided Loyalties, or at least in such strong terms as what Asarnil used)
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
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- Vermont
I'd have sworn there was a passage in Realms of Sorcery saying Aenarion's example warned against hewing too closely to gods, but now I can't find it.
Closest I've found so far is page 124 of Tome of Salvation saying that the Elves embody the gods in their actions and don't have any formal religions.
I distinctly remember it as well. I'll have a search through my books when I get home.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Morathi old enough to remember the Old Ones or something?
Or maybe I'm thinking of something else?
Or maybe I'm thinking of something else?
She is old enough to remember the Coming of Chaos, but that does not mean she necessarily remembers the Old Ones personally. We know very little of how much the Old Ones interacted with the elves in those times and Morathi herself does not enter into history as any kind of arch-mage of scholar, but as an elf rescued and then wed to Anaerion in the classic
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Blackout
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According to Sword of Caledor, which is once again a Black Library novel so of dubious canonicity for this quest, she tried to warn the elves of the Coming of Chaos, only for the elves to ignore her and be "taken by surprise when the Daemons of Chaos came and the Old Ones fled or were destroyed". Which if true would indeed make her old enough to remember the Old ones.
For what it's worth, the armybooks contradict this account by stating that the Old Ones disappeared before the daemons arrived, and put about a thousand years between "Old Ones disappear" and "Daemons attack Ulthuan, Aenarion rallies the elves to fight them".
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- Location
- Utrecht
Morathi as a Kassandra archetype.
Except instead of getting locked in a tower, she schemed her way to power and got revenge that way.
infinityDivided
Prince Of Doom
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- USA
People were coming up with ideas for Mathilde's "title" after this post was made, right? Does anyone remember any of them? The only one I remember was Don't Make Her Choose Between Us Or The Dwarves Because We Won't Like Her Answer.
- Location
- Aotearoa
I had a few suggestions I fancied may have flitted through Algards mind, were he aware of the full extent of our ambitions.
When She Returned From Hell A Rumour Spread That