Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting will open in 1 day, 18 hours
Reader mode
DragonParadox said:
Mathy was particularly bad, but as she said two updates ago the vast majority of families treat having a wizard kid as the kid dying. It is still pretty damn bad.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
She's not exactly an unbiased observer. The only ones we've actually seen were fine. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot out there that aren't. There certainly are. But we don't know how many that actually are.
On this, I'm not going to take her internal monologue as accurate.
 
BurnNote said:
She's not exactly an unbiased observer. The only ones we've actually seen were fine. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot out there that aren't. There certainly are. But we don't know how many that actually are.
On this, I'm not going to take her internal monologue as accurate.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean, you should. Mathilde´s bias is compounded by spending big part of her life in environment where young apprentices talked about how they got recruited.

She understands that only few had it as bad (or worse) than she did, and she knows it colours her expectations, but she very much does have empirical proof to support that bias.

EDIT:
Boney said:
When you were one Apprentice among many, you'd heard many of the stories of your fellows awakening to their magical ability, and the reactions of their families. Some had stories that rivalled your own for traumatic experiences, but the most common version was of a family reacting with muted despair, as if being told that their child was crippled or dying.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Its very clear.
 
Last edited:
Interesting thought for the We and exploring the empire...surely considering the relative sanity of the We and the utter craziness that goes on in the sewers of Nuln, Altdorf etc. Do you think there is a possible career path as ratcatchers...sewer guards etc for the We.

It would be a relatively degrading job. But the food sources seem plentiful and the We could experience city life with 5 - 6 spiders maybe making silk aboveground and interacting as ambassadores while the rest are gainfully employed in the war below.
 
pucflek said:
I mean, you should. Mathilde´s bias is compounded by spending big part of her life in environment where young apprentices talked about how they got recruited.

She understands that only few had it as bad (or worse) than she did, and she knows it colours her expectations, but she very much does have empirical proof to support that bias.

EDIT:

Its very clear.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Mathilde is far from a totally trustworthy narrator. Remember that thing where she doesn't know something, and then when it later comes up after she learned more she always knew it?

And again, I'm not saying that there isn't truth to it. But I'm not gonna bad that on Mathilde, who would have a very heavy selection bias.
 
BurnNote said:
Mathilde is far from a totally trustworthy narrator. Remember that thing where she doesn't know something, and then when it later comes up after she learned more she always knew it?

And again, I'm not saying that there isn't truth to it. But I'm not gonna bad that on Mathilde, who would have a very heavy selection bias.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There is a big difference between that and being part of an ecosystem of at most 5000 people who all went through apprenticeships and shared their stories and couple of anecdotes actually present significant statistical evidence.

We are not arguing hypothetical she never encountered, we are talking about lived experience.
 
pucflek said:
There is a big difference between that and being part of an ecosystem of at most 5000 people who all went through apprenticeships and shared their stories and couple of anecdotes actually present significant statistical evidence.

We are not arguing hypothetical she never encountered, we are talking about lived experience.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And I'm not saying there aren't bad stories. I'm saying we can't use Mathilde to judge, because even if she heard ten or thirty good ones for every bad, she'd remember the bad.

All those stories you mention, those are secondary evidence which we don't have access to. We know a few direct cases where things are fine. We know from the setting that broadly things probably suck. But not how much, since Boney will adjust things if he belives something couldn't work that way.
 
BurnNote said:
All those stories you mention, those are secondary evidence which we don't have access to. We know a few direct cases where things are fine. We know from the setting that broadly things probably suck. But not how much, since Boney will adjust things if he belives something couldn't work that way.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Which cases are those, outside of Jade College and this one right now?

Because even Wilhelmina and The Empress initially saw their children´s talent as a bother instead of a boon, and both of those had Mathilde there tilting the odds.

I feel the need to reiterate, there are roughly 4000 under-magister wizards. If Mathilde heard 10-30 stories from fellow apprentices about their families despairing to every good one, that would still represent a fairly significant statistical proof.

The population of colleges is so tiny that if twenty kids/young adults talk about their experience being shit, then thats pretty significant showing.

EDIT: What´s more, i am pretty sure she would remember the good ones all the more so out of sense of envy or purely as the outliers that such cases would be. Getting nearly burned at stake with your own family handing you over for something that someone else celebrates has got to be a pretty big source of some sort of feeling when you are a kid and hear that shit.
 
Last edited:
Well, lets see.

Don't believe we have any idea for Johann's or Max's backgrounds. Max still carries a surname, so perhaps he's on decent terms with them?

…is Max Bretonnian? If so they might just be happy that the Fey didn't take him.

I believe Egrimm said he is an orphan?

Panoramia comes from wizards.

Adela is definitely still connected to her family.

…Anybody ever notice that the Hochlander's last name is Von Bechafen? Bit odd.

Hubert is still in contact with his family, though hard to say how close they are.

Gretel strikes me as a possible urchin sort of background? Don't really have any details.
 
DragonParadox said:
Mathy was particularly bad, but as she said two updates ago the vast majority of families treat having a wizard kid as the kid dying. It is still pretty damn bad.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
See "American Wake."

Moving across the known world was broadly considered as similar to dying for huge percentages of the population. If a relative left for America, or the Orient, or Tunisia, the odds of you either seeing or hearing from them again were not good at all for the vast majority of people.

I'd put forward that one of the reasons the Undumgi would not consider moving across the known world to spend years training as the same thing as dying, is that the vast majority of them did just that.
 
Mopman43 said:
…Anybody ever notice that the Hochlander's last name is Von Bechafen?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes:
Codex said:
You know, looking back at the Hochlander's name, a question comes to mind. I know his family originated from Ostermark, which is why he is a "Von Bechafen" (the current capital of Ostermark). What I question a little is why he retains the last name despite his family moving to Hochland.

I actually do question why some people have elaborate and unique family names, like I dunno, the Holschwig-Schliesteins, Unfahigers, or Todbringer etc. Whereas others have last names referring to geographical regions or settlements, like Joerg von Zavstra or Friedrich von Schlafebild.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Boney said:
All surnames had meaning once, whether that be related to what a person does, where they lived, who their parents were, or what clan or tribe or dynasty they're affiliated with, but to a lesser or greater extent that meaning inevitably becomes detached from reality over time. At some point a surname stops being something that gives you information about a person and starts being a mostly arbitrary label for a family. Which is why Mathilde is called 'weber' when she doesn't make cloth out of fiber.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Mopman43 said:
Gretel strikes me as a possible urchin sort of background? Don't really have any details.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Mathilde theorized this herself. Apparently her surname could imply that she was an orphan raised by Morrites.
Boney said:
You've got a theory or two along those lines - Maurer is the traditional surname of masons, but it's also a common one given to foundlings and orphans raised by the Temple of Morr.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't think we ever got clear confirmation for this, but it fits what we know.
 
Lonkas said:
Interesting thought for the We and exploring the empire...surely considering the relative sanity of the We and the utter craziness that goes on in the sewers of Nuln, Altdorf etc. Do you think there is a possible career path as ratcatchers...sewer guards etc for the We.

It would be a relatively degrading job. But the food sources seem plentiful and the We could experience city life with 5 - 6 spiders maybe making silk aboveground and interacting as ambassadores while the rest are gainfully employed in the war below.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Deep in the new underground of Nuln, the Ratcatcher-We considered its new alliance to the Nuln-We.

Gold food is five-eighths sufficient. Small-four-legs food is one-eighth sufficient.

Hopefully the hunting tunnels could be two-eighths sufficient. Surely there had to be some creature nearby that could be hunted.
 
Mopman43 said:
…is Max Bretonnian? If so they might just be happy that the Fey didn't take him.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Gaynesford is an English surname, so a Bretonnian origin strikes me as unlikely. Also I found out that Maximilian de Gaynesford is the name of a current professor of philosophy at the University of Reading.

HanChenYou said:
See "American Wake."

Moving across the known world was broadly considered as similar to dying for huge percentages of the population. If a relative left for America, or the Orient, or Tunisia, the odds of you either seeing or hearing from them again were not good at all for the vast majority of people.

I'd put forward that one of the reasons the Undumgi would not consider moving across the known world to spend years training as the same thing as dying, is that the vast majority of them did just that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean, sure. But wizards have more freedom of movement than most and the reaction would likely be very very different if the kid had been accepted as a prestigious apprentice elsewhere. Even if dad to be parted, the parents would likely still be excited for the child's opportunities. Magic though, is largely seen as a curse, and socially unacceptable.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
Gaynesford is an English surname, so a Bretonnian origin strikes me as unlikely. Also I found out that Maximilian de Gaynesford is the name of a current professor of philosophy at the University of Reading.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Bretonnia is the closest stand-in for England, though.

It's certainly not German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, or Polish/Russian.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
Gaynesford is an English surname, so a Bretonnian origin strikes me as unlikely. Also I found out that Maximilian de Gaynesford is the name of a current professor of philosophy at the University of Reading.


I mean, sure. But wizards have more freedom of movement than most and the reaction would likely be very very different if the kid had been accepted as a prestigious apprentice elsewhere. Even if dad to be parted, the parents would likely still be excited for the child's opportunities. Magic though, is largely seen as a curse, and socially unacceptable.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If I am a French peasant and am told my 10 year old daughter is going to go far away and study in some city called Melange (Milan), and she will be unable to leave for at least 6 years, and after that will be taken as the apprentice to some famous, almost nobility. I would not really trust that she would remember how to get back.

There is no postal system out in the boonies, so I cannot send letters, if I could even write.
She is going to be taught to write, but only the priest here can read, and he doesn't want to have anything to do with her school.

She has to go or else she will die.

Is it unreasonable for us to hold a funeral as we say a meaningful and tearful adieu to our dear daughter?
 
Last edited:
Imperious said:
I don't think Leoncoeur is meant to be a particularly English name either.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In Total War, Bretonnian nobles have French accents and the Peasants all have English accents.

I'm looking through the suggested Bretonnian names and it's a mix of very French and some English/Anglo-Saxon ones.

I'm not saying that Bretonnia is Very English, I'm saying they're closer than any other human nation. Which isn't a high bar.
 
If Ulthuan was Britain, then Maliketh being the rightful king and chosen of Asuryan wouldn't be an asspull, but a completely expected truth. :V
 
BurnNote said:
She's not exactly an unbiased observer. The only ones we've actually seen were fine.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We don't actually know much of anything of the family lives of those we've seen
Only Adela is known to still be regularly involved with hers
The rest are quite physically distant

I suppose they could be regularly sending letters to their families, but we haven't seen it
Or any indication of what their baggage or lack thereof is with their families
 
Mopman43 said:
Bretonnia is the closest stand-in for England, though.

It's certainly not German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, or Polish/Russian.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Mopman43 said:
I don't think Max is from Ulthuan.

(I think you can make parallels to the British Empire in Ulthuan, but there's nothing especially English in their names or anything)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In terms of history and some of the things they've done, Ulthuan is England, but geographically, the true analogue is Albion.

:V Clearly Max is as unsociable as he is because he doesn't want anyone to know his true place of origin.
 
Mopman43 said:
Bretonnia is the closest stand-in for England, though.

It's certainly not German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, or Polish/Russian.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Eh. I'm not sure there really is any stand in for England, weirdly. Albion is for Celtic England, but we can safely discount that. Maybe somewhere on the border with Bretonnia? Then you'd have the French influences and the German ones.

HanChenYou said:
If I am a French peasant and am told my 10 year old daughter is going to go far away and study in some city called Melange (Milan), and she will be unable to leave for at least 6 years, and after that will be taken as the apprentice to some famous, almost nobility. I would not really trust that she would remember how to get back.

There is no postal system out in the boonies, so I cannot send letters, if I could even write.
She is going to be taught to write, but only the priest here can read, and he doesn't want to have anything to do with her school.

She has to go or else she will die.

Is it unreasonable for us to hold a funeral as we say a meaningful and tearful adieu to our dear daughter?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I just fundamentally disagree that the problem the notoriously magicphobic populace of the Empire has with their kids being magical is that they'll have to leave.

Aliya said:
If Ulthuan was Britain, then Maliketh being the rightful king and chosen of Asuryan wouldn't be an asspull, but a completely expected truth. :V
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What? How so?
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting will open in 1 day, 18 hours
Remove ads
Back
Top