Aliya
Someone I might become
- Location
- Kazakhstan
- Pronouns
- They/She/It
Britain is evil joke. Well, partially a joke, partially common historical opinion.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
That is not what's happening. 'My kid is dead' is a stand in for 'my kid is damned/a changeling-demon/a monster'. Cutting out a loved one like that is something the population of the Empire is very good at since that is what they do to mutants. They have the social mechanisms and religious justifications in hand.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
I did sense a weird disconnect between how somebody like Mathilde or Elsbeth von Draken is treated by the peasants which seem to be fear mixed with respect that settles in to tolarance whereas as soon as a child shows magic they are thinking the worst and never wonder if the kid could be a good wizard too.
Almost like they have set aside wizards from witches in their minds and never wonder about where wizards come from. That connection seem to excape them which might make sense if nobody explained the difference at any point?
I dunno, I feel like there is a really funny explnation/omake somewhere in there but it escapes me so I am rambling.
I think the difference is that as a random peasant you can't really do anything about the Elsbeth von Drakens of the world, she's like a a force of nature that you hope will stay far, far away. It's not that the kind of person who thinks a wizard child is as good as dead believes in good wizards, it's that they have the basic survival skills not to piss them off. It's the same reason why when Vlad turned all the Sylvanian nobility into vampires and killed most of the priests the peasants didn't try to bring an angry mob to his door, they knew they would lose. For a significant portion of the Empire's population a wizard is what a vampire was to the inhabitants of Eastern Stirland, including the bits where they very privately suspect it's some kind of demon in human flesh.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Wizards aren't directly replacing obvious threats. They combat those threats, sure, but it's less of a direct replacement and an important distinction to make nonetheless. The giant spiders also would not be taking away their kids to be seen seldom if ever, nor is there a longstanding cultural prejudice where spiders are killed on sight for religious reasons. Like...the two are not equivalent situations.
They do though, that is called Journeying for a lot of the Colleges. And also Battle Magic but you would have to be a very unfortunate civilian in the Empire to see that being used.
I dont really see a disconnect.
People respect the godfather, the scarfaces, the kingpins, the yakuza leaders etc etc.
Once a criminal becomes powerful enough, they become pillers of their communities.
It's weird, but it's a very human thing.
It's the same with Elsbeth von Drakens, she become so powerful that she became a pillar Nuln.
People respect the godfather, the scarfaces, the kingpins, the yakuza leaders etc etc.
Once a criminal becomes powerful enough, they become pillers of their communities.
It's weird, but it's a very human thing.
It's the same with Elsbeth von Drakens, she become so powerful that she became a pillar Nuln.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I think what DeadmanwalkingXI meant is that Wizards aren't displacing the threats in Imperial forests with an obviously new and apparently more benevolent (or at least less threatening) scary thing that one can communicate with.
Which is true enough, but I'd counter that the We would not be such a thing either. As is, they cannot easily compete with Orcs, Beastmen and other assorted gribblies on an even footing. Not as just another part of the ecosystem. The only way they could make a dent is if they can use Human walled settlements as safe havens to retreat to. In which case we are back to having them be much more comparable to Imperial Wizards than to benevolent-neutral spirits or Elves or some other Other that's better than the other Others.
Which is true enough, but I'd counter that the We would not be such a thing either. As is, they cannot easily compete with Orcs, Beastmen and other assorted gribblies on an even footing. Not as just another part of the ecosystem. The only way they could make a dent is if they can use Human walled settlements as safe havens to retreat to. In which case we are back to having them be much more comparable to Imperial Wizards than to benevolent-neutral spirits or Elves or some other Other that's better than the other Others.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Let's not insult other people's country in the thread.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I more meant that they'd be displacing them and actually assuming their role in the ecosystem to some degree. Wizards don't do that. Also, this ignores the other points, which are frankly more important. There being no longstanding religious prejudice is perhaps the single most relevant, but not taking away kids is also relevant.
The We would do it to a greater degree than Wizards do. I'm not saying it'd be perfect by any means.
Get it out, put AU in front and get back to writing.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
It seems like we are missing the most relevant viewpoint for the empire wizard discussion: the person in the village with some magical talent who was never identified or trained by anyone.
We can see by the existence of cults and gaves that people are not as hostile to magic and chaos as the upper classes would like them to be. Cults need to recruit, which means they need to proselytize, which means they need to be able to exist semi-publicly without getting murdered by the common man.
So what does life look like for the most common type of magic user in the empire?
Largely controlled by superstition, I'd expect, where the line between 'god-given power to help' and 'demonic temptation' is probably drawn based on how well they perform the local superstitions of protective rites. Did the healer witch turn twice widdershins and toss a pinch off salt over their shoulder? Yes? They're fine, everyone knows that wards off the evil gods. Oh, they just went straight to casting? They must be trying to corrupt the patient!
Stuff like that.
We can see by the existence of cults and gaves that people are not as hostile to magic and chaos as the upper classes would like them to be. Cults need to recruit, which means they need to proselytize, which means they need to be able to exist semi-publicly without getting murdered by the common man.
So what does life look like for the most common type of magic user in the empire?
Largely controlled by superstition, I'd expect, where the line between 'god-given power to help' and 'demonic temptation' is probably drawn based on how well they perform the local superstitions of protective rites. Did the healer witch turn twice widdershins and toss a pinch off salt over their shoulder? Yes? They're fine, everyone knows that wards off the evil gods. Oh, they just went straight to casting? They must be trying to corrupt the patient!
Stuff like that.
That is not I think the most common type of magic in the empire. Being a completely untrained magic user kills one or drives one insane sooner rather than later. Hedge Mages (in the nonspecific context) teaching other Hedge Mages bits and pieces they and their teachers before them accrued without even getting to the critical mass for a stable tradition sure there are plenty of those, but first generation perfectly ignorant talents burn out too fast. The ones that live get some kind of training for good or for ill.
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If you have no training, you either die or get training. The training might be from a cult, hedge mages, the colleges, or worse, but you will get training somehow or you will explode at some point.
Yep, unless you are Volans, but that is the mother of all technicalities.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
I think that typically involves a legal/socially acceptable pretext.
An underground fighting ring that secretly exalts Khorne, a painter's guild that worships Slaanesh, etc. The trick is that only the inner inner circle knows the truth, with everyone else going through stages of progressively less acceptable rituals until they're already damned and figure they might as well do it openly.
Or think they are already damned at least, Chaos is very good at pulling that trick.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
Years to decades timescale, right?
The trick is that the recruitment and training of wizards is largely dependent on luck (wizard is doing something else and sees a candidate) or the magically talented coming to them. Which means it's got to be a minority of all cases- wizards do not canvass the empire evenly by any stretch of the imagination.
So I do think being completely untrained is the most common out come for people with talent, and has been for centuries. Which means there's culture around it.
And probably points to the culture of magic being feared coming from a string of insane people doing bad things, rather than "magic" being feared in and of itself.
Months to years depending on how prone one is to emotional highs and lows I'd say. The RPG isn't a perfect model I know, but it snowballs fast if one just keeps hitting the miscast table.
Volans Georg is an outlier adn should not be counted
- Location
- Washington
If you are, say, just doing the local rituals that everyone in your community does but with a bit of only-semi-witting magical oomf, I wouldn't be surprised if that only rarely actually verges into grabbing at the winds instead of just basically being earthbound magic, so yeah, I agree that there is almost certainly a class of person through the empire who is not recognized as a Magic User but instead Someone Who Is Better At Local Superstition Than The Rest Of Us. How common that class of person is in comparison to everyone else, I don't think we have enough knowledge to speculate about though.
(Honestly, a lot of them probably fall into the category of "can grab the winds, but basically doesn't have windsight" which is strongly implied by the existence of "has windsight, but can't really actually grab the wins.")
(Honestly, a lot of them probably fall into the category of "can grab the winds, but basically doesn't have windsight" which is strongly implied by the existence of "has windsight, but can't really actually grab the wins.")
That is sadly not how human talent works, the capacity for magic does not run out if you if you accidentally put magic in some inoffensive thing, it is still going to trigger for emotional triggers and in fact since you used that 'muscle' the ability for the soul to reach out and do things it is going to be even worse than if you had done nothing.
There are three mutations
- Windsight, the ability to notice external magic
- Arcane Attunement or the ability to feel magic going through your soul
- Channeling, the ability to shape that magic into spells
- Location
- Washington
Not really consistent with the small but not insignificant number of people who only discover it relatively late in life. It's hard to imagine this all being true in a world where Alexandra Kohler also exists.
Alexandra Kohler exists.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Yeah, i think you have to have an ability to actually move the winds around at least. Its uncommon for kids to get it, but once you do have it, you better go to colleges right quick.
Alexandra Kohler did become Carry White, she just did it on the acceptable target of Beastmen trying to kill her. As to why she and a small but statistically relevant people discover their magic later in life, most likely they do not 'count' as having channeling until that last moment for reasons of soul development you would probably have to be Nagash levels of brilliant to figure out IC.