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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Dark as Silver said:
China dropping in to check on rome in the 4th century: Hey buddy been a while, traffic on the silk road was ridiculous, what've you been doing for the last century?

Not saying you're wrong, just that its funny.
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I'm not sure China has much to brag about for the 3rd and 4th century- collapse of the Han, 3 Kingdoms period, weakness of the Jin dynasty, etc.

(Then again, the Crisis of the 3rd Century didn't get a foundational work of literature about it, so I suppose China is still winning)
 
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Its pretty easy to miss internal strife of someone on the other part of the planet when you don´t hold a nightmare rectangle with a live feed of news doing their best to convince you the world is ending all over.
 
dptullos said:
???

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

29% of Roman Emperors died of natural causes! 29%!

Did Roman merchants just lie to the Chinese because they thought it was funny? Because that is pretty funny. It would be like Mongol traders convincing the Zulu that they were all committed pacifists.
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This video might be enlightening to you. Ever wanted to hear someone who's never been to Rome describe how to get there?

View: https://youtu.be/4XdPodNwSGU
 
Boney did say 'incredibly wrong but charmingly romanticized'. It's very easy to be mistaken about the history and circumstances of foreign countries even with the internet, where you have a lot of information at your disposal - is it hard to believe that the Chinese of that time and the Romans would be any different? And, if you already have a wrong or misguided idea of what another country is like, is it hard to imagine you'd go ahead and make up more stuff about them based on that misinformation?

The really important (and more fun) question we should be asking is: if Imperials are somewhat terrified of and/or fascinated by Cathay, would Cathayans think similarly of the Empire?

Would they hear the stories of how it's a land of dozens of gods that live mostly in harmony with one another and think "that's wild, how do they not tear themselves apart by having to worship so many?" Would they hear of Sylvania and its vampires and think that it's impressive that they have to continually beat down foes that simply won't stay dead? Maybe they'd think it's horrifying that there's so many Chaos-worshiping beastmen, and that they have to be at war constantly with them?

Or would they maybe think 'oh if they are mostly like Dragomas they may be overall pretty cool'?
 
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Parabola said:
Would they hear of Sylvania and its vampires and think that it's impressive that they have to continually beat down foes that simply won't stay dead?
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Cathay might have its own local vampire problem in a bloodline generally known (out of universe) as the Jade-Blooded.

I say might because its all a bit unclear and we don't know much for sure- the Jade-Blooded are alluded to in Night's Dark Masters, and one of the writers of the book wrote up a supplement for them, but the supplement was never officially released so nothing in it is canon.

Recent-ish Andy Hall confirmed that the Jade-Blooded are a thing in modern Cathay lore, but we don't really have a good idea of what they're like.
 
Candesce said:
They might be thinking more about the Roman Republic period? Which, while it did have some internal strife, was actually notably peaceful compared to just about everyone the Romans conquered.

Like, if you assume that the Roman Empire is pretty much the same as the Republic, and I wouldn't expect the Romans to try to highlight that distinction...
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I don't think we saw a hard distinction until the time of Domitian, when the Roman emperors finalized the transition from the fictional "first among equals" to semi-divine figures ruling with undisguised autocratic powers.

Augustus was technically just "first citizen", and you could pretend that Rome was still a Republic for quite a long time.

Parabola said:
Boney did say 'incredibly wrong but charmingly romanticized'. It's very easy to be mistaken about the history and circumstances of foreign countries even with the internet, where you have a lot of information at your disposal - is it hard to believe that the Chinese of that time and the Romans would be any different? And, if you already have a wrong or misguided idea of what another country is like, is it hard to imagine you'd

The really important (and more fun) question we should be asking is: if Imperials are somewhat terrified of and/or fascinated by Cathay, would Cathayans think similarly of the Empire?

Would they hear the stories of how it's a land of dozens of gods that live mostly in harmony with one another and think "that's wild, how do they not tear themselves apart by having to worship so many?" Would they hear of Sylvania and its vampires and think that it's impressive that they have to continually beat down foes that simply won't stay dead? Maybe they'd think it's horrifying that there's so many Chaos-worshiping beastmen, and that they have to be at war constantly with them?

Or would they maybe think 'oh if they are mostly like Dragomas they may be overall pretty cool'?
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I think there's room for a lot of takes, but I know what my preferred theory is. Obviously all of this is non-canon.

Noble savages. The Empire lives without the harmonious wisdom of the Emperor, so they can only be barbarians. However, they are far away from Cathay, and the only contact Cathayans have with Imperials comes from diplomats and merchants, who are very polite to their hosts. So they're good barbarians, the sort of people who have all kinds of noble virtues.

Cathayan books on the Empire tend to focus on honorable barbarian heroes who live in a frozen waste constantly besieged by malevolent spiky barbarians. They imagine Imperial nobles ruling from great halls, toasting each other with mead before they ride out to fight the Ruinous Powers. While these figures are unquestionably barbarians with all manner of strange customs and superstitions, they are quite romantic. Some authors, particularly those who live in cities, will emphasize the primitive virtues of a rough, proud frontier people.

Several very popular works of fiction feature a Cathayan hero/ine journeying to these barbaric lands, befriending the inhabitants, and defeating some scheme of the Ruinous Powers. They may or may not find true love along the way, depending on the genre.
 
dptullos said:
I don't think we saw a hard distinction until the time of Domitian, when the Roman emperors finalized the transition from the fictional "first among equals" to semi-divine figures ruling with undisguised autocratic powers.

Augustus was technically just "first citizen", and you could pretend that Rome was still a Republic for quite a long time.



I think there's room for a lot of takes, but I know what my preferred theory is. Obviously all of this is non-canon.

Noble savages. The Empire lives without the harmonious wisdom of the Emperor, so they can only be barbarians. However, they are far away from Cathay, and the only contact Cathayans have with Imperials comes from diplomats and merchants, who are very polite to their hosts. So they're good barbarians, the sort of people who have all kinds of noble virtues.

Cathayan books on the Empire tend to focus on honorable barbarian heroes who live in a frozen waste constantly besieged by malevolent spiky barbarians. They imagine Imperial nobles ruling from great halls, toasting each other with mead before they ride out to fight the Ruinous Powers. While these figures are unquestionably barbarians with all manner of strange customs and superstitions, they are quite romantic. Some authors, particularly those who live in cities, will emphasize the primitive virtues of a rough, proud frontier people.

Several very popular works of fiction feature a Cathayan hero/ine journeying to these barbaric lands, befriending the inhabitants, and defeating some scheme of the Ruinous Powers. They may or may not find true love along the way, depending on the genre.
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"No, Imperial, you are the Kislevites now."
 
dptullos said:
Cathayan books on the Empire tend to focus on honorable barbarian heroes who live in a frozen waste constantly besieged by malevolent spiky barbarians. They imagine Imperial nobles ruling from great halls, toasting each other with mead before they ride out to fight the Ruinous Powers. While these figures are unquestionably barbarians with all manner of strange customs and superstitions, they are quite romantic. Some authors, particularly those who live in cities, will emphasize the primitive virtues of a rough, proud frontier people.
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... Yeah, I can buy that.

Their equivalent of the Fremen Mirage, where people use texts that are nominally about foreign peoples to instead take positions on various local issues and discourse.
 
dptullos said:
I think there's room for a lot of takes, but I know what my preferred theory is. Obviously all of this is non-canon.

Noble savages. The Empire lives without the harmonious wisdom of the Emperor, so they can only be barbarians. However, they are far away from Cathay, and the only contact Cathayans have with Imperials comes from diplomats and merchants, who are very polite to their hosts. So they're good barbarians, the sort of people who have all kinds of noble virtues.

Cathayan books on the Empire tend to focus on honorable barbarian heroes who live in a frozen waste constantly besieged by malevolent spiky barbarians. They imagine Imperial nobles ruling from great halls, toasting each other with mead before they ride out to fight the Ruinous Powers. While these figures are unquestionably barbarians with all manner of strange customs and superstitions, they are quite romantic. Some authors, particularly those who live in cities, will emphasize the primitive virtues of a rough, proud frontier people.

Several very popular works of fiction feature a Cathayan hero/ine journeying to these barbaric lands, befriending the inhabitants, and defeating some scheme of the Ruinous Powers. They may or may not find true love along the way, depending on the genre.
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So basically just the early Empire, back in or near the times of Sigmar? Seems too realistic tbh :p
 
@Boney, Mathilde has a lot of Dhar knowledge and traits, from many different sources.
Does she think that there would be value in writing a "here's how Dhar works" book ? Obviously this would be the sort of thing that only gets published posthumously (or "only gets taken out of Dwarven vaults when Mathilde is dead and somehow Nagash has returned"). But could she produce any added theoretical value or useability ? Or is there no point in doing more than leaving the Liber Mortis in good hands when Mathilde passes ?
 
T_of_A said:
@Boney, Mathilde has a lot of Dhar knowledge and traits, from many different sources.
Does she think that there would be value in writing a "here's how Dhar works" book ? Obviously this would be the sort of thing that only gets published posthumously (or "only gets taken out of Dwarven vaults when Mathilde is dead and somehow Nagash has returned"). But could she produce any added theoretical value or useability ? Or is there no point in doing more than leaving the Liber Mortis in good hands when Mathilde passes ?
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I remember the answer being along the lines of "It's really hard to teach to counteract Dhar without teaching how to use Dhar, though it *may* be possible to decouple the two with a *lot* of dedicated work, and it's definitely too dangerous to be published while the author is still alive"
 
Blackwing said:
I remember the answer being along the lines of "It's really hard to teach to counteract Dhar without teaching how to use Dhar, though it *may* be possible to decouple the two with a *lot* of dedicated work, and it's definitely too dangerous to be published while the author is still alive"
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Yes, I'm aware. My question is "could Mathilde write a book on how to use and counter Dhar that would be any more useful, detailed or easy to understand than the Liber Mortis ?"

We already have access to the most long lasting, secure and trustworthy caretakers for such a book (Belegar & Co). They could easily keep it in reserve until the next Great Vampire War goes bad, like the Sigmarites do with their copy of the Liber Mortis. But if our book would just be a Liber Mortis rehash, there's not much point bothering to write it !
 
T_of_A said:
Yes, I'm aware. My question is "could Mathilde write a book on how to use and counter Dhar that would be any more useful, detailed or easy to understand than the Liber Mortis ?"

We already have access to the most long lasting, secure and trustworthy caretakers for such a book (Belegar & Co). They could easily keep it in reserve until the next Great Vampire War goes bad, like the Sigmarites do with their copy of the Liber Mortis. But if our book would just be a Liber Mortis rehash, there's not much point bothering to write it !
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Well, we have dhar insight on top of necromantic insight, so I'd say we could usefully add the corpus.
 
I'd be up to trying to get some secrets from the Druuchi (or flex on her, that would also be pretty cool). Personally I feel they could be useful to counter the Druuchi on the Elfication or any other we come across
 
BeepSmile said:
Sorry if this has already been suggested, but couldn't Mathilde just ask Belegar to make it a law that new wizards are sent to the colleges in Altdorf?
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He doesn't need to. He's probably fine with any result that isn't 'dark magic user', and at any rate, the Colleges very much prefer to ask for consent than to force people to go to them - it's counterproductive to force someone to join your magical tradition, because it fosters resentment. That's basically why the ones who do that are mostly dark magic users - they don't usually worry about long-term stability.

It also wouldn't be the end of the world if the child in question went to a Cult, as long as it was the one of their choice or it suited them. If they were already dedicated to a god, probably that one. If they're not particularly dedicated to any one god and their parents have a profession that pushes them in a certain direction, they may go to an appropriate god (e.g. if they're the child of a KAU scribe, going to Verena).

While we did pick wizard for Eike and Mandred both, this is a stranger, and we may feel less inclined to tip the scales in a particular direction.
 
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pucflek said:
Kinda feels too soon. Might as well wait until we style on dhar some more.
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We have it explicitly stated that we are as good at Dhar as it is possible to be without ever having actually used it. Which is to say better than most Dhar users. However that means that we have peaked unless we want to pass though that bottleneck.

I don't think that there is any case of a Dhar users only just getting into the field with even half the theoretical foundation Mathilde has. Still currently we are basically an ivory tower academic when it comes to Dhar.
 
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fictionfan said:
I don't think that there is any case of a Dhar users only just getting into the field with even half the theoretical foundation Mathilde has. Still currently we are basically an ivory tower academic when it comes to Dhar.
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The only comparison that I can think of is Volans and his legendary windsight. The guy studied the eight winds for decades without touching it, which is not so different from our own study of Dhar.

Of course, he then got personal tutoring from Teclis before he started using that knowledge. I don't think the equivalent option is available to us.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The only comparison that I can think of is Volans and his legendary windsight. The guy studied the eight winds for decades without touching it, which is not so different from our own study of Dhar.

Of course, he then got personal tutoring from Teclis before he started using that knowledge. I don't think the equivalent option is available to us.
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Redshirt Army said:
The equivalent would be Nagash deciding to treat Mathilde as a protege, for some inexplicable reason.
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Or possibly Vlad! That'd be even more inexplicable.

I guess there's also Malekith, which at least could have the veneer of "abandon Teclis' teachings, join my cool club that hates Chaos and also Ulthuan".
 
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