Or you could cast it as an opener and go in for a kill shot while they're confused as to what the hell just blew up their army. Obviously that would sacrifice the army you currently have, but who cares? Not necromancers.
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
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- Location
- Washington
One of the things dhar does to you is paranoia, so while they might not care as a matter of value, I'd guess most necromancer are pathologically unwilling to ever go fully "shields down" even when it's the right decisions, just in case there's some force lurking on the sidelines to swoop in.
- Location
- Hiding in the walls.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You could also just have your army safely out of range - it's not like it chains infinitely without regard for distance or material, or there would be some exciting explosions across most of everywhere any time someone finds out about it and doesn't realize before trying it out.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Yeah, I expect if the Second Secret was widespread, then Necromancer conflicts would often come down to one getting the drop on the other, take out their army with the Secret, then move in with their own.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Why would it blow up your own army?
If the armies are close enough the chain reaction might jump from one corpse to the next regardless of what side it's on.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Even if it's not the same spell that's animating the 2 armies?
Still Dhar constructs, the chain reaction should not care, the Second secret is not dispelling, it is setting a light to gunpowder.
I am confident that if the second secret was widespread, then necromancers and anyone with dhar construct armies would adapt to have them stand far enough apart, that you would not get large chain reactions anymore.
Would this require innovation in tactics/army composition etc? Yes. Is it better than your army being utterly worthless as soon as a half-competent spell caster stands close enough? Also yes.
My big wonder is how the Skaven never figured out the second secret of Dhar during all the time fighting Van Hal and/or others with undead armies. If the second Secret is an "I win," button against a necromantic army, (As long as you do not care about the Dhar aftermath, which the Skaven would not) and as long as someone on your side has enough understanding of Dhar to know the second secret, then you can use it to triumph over any pesky undead stopping you from harvesting warpstone.
My interpretation as to a likely reason this did not happen, is that once a necromancer is optimizing to stop the Second Secret taking out their army, provided they are competent or better at tactics, then it stops being an "I win," button.
Thus, it is only so effective now, because so few know about it?
Except, that doesn't fit with Vlad's army being taken out by the GT. Hmmm. Would he have potentially become stupidly overconfident because he had not seen it deployed against him yet, so in order to overwhelm more quickly, he packed his army in together beyond what was (Second Secret)SS safe?
Why did the Skaven never use it to destroy Van Hal's armies? Surely they had knowledge of the Second Secret, right? Intimate knowledge of Warpstone and Dhar is needed for much of their engineering.
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consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
There's also the possibility of things ending more like the performative mock battles we saw between two of the post Von Carstein regional vampire powers of Sylvania. If the end result of anything other than a perfectly executed plan is mutual annihilation, why risk eternity(before the Dhar finishes poisoning your brain anyway).
If the second secret was widespread, then so would the first. And the former Empire would be a blasted hellhole of necromantic warlords, because human armies can't compete with that shit, if any two bit loser can just push out another.
Boney has been pretty explicit about it when it was about why we can't share the second secret with the colleges and 'solve' necromancy.
Boney has been pretty explicit about it when it was about why we can't share the second secret with the colleges and 'solve' necromancy.
Yes and no. If the second secret is also known by all spellcasters, undead armies become pretty useless in real warfare.
It does mean that anyone who doesn't Have access to spellcasters are screwed though.
However, as the former Tzar of Kislev just learned, that's already true.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
You also have a situation where most of the people who do know the second secret don't want it to proliferate since they are the natural target of it. The land being a dhar blasted hellscape doesn't actually help you if you get stabbed, burned, and mixed with concrete after your army just exploded.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Skaven are forbidden by their god and their society from studying Necromancy.
We don't really know if the Second Secret is a thing in other Dhar disciplines?
Eh Empire society and goda are also not exactly happy about it. Didn't stop Mathilde!
The Horned Rat is a lot stricter than the gods of the empire
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
If any Skaven did figure out the Second Secret, they'd take it to the grave rather than share it and give up their advantage.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
The Horned Rat is lot more smite-happy when it comes to Skaven who might find a path to power that isn't dependant on him than the human gods are. Same with Skaven who try to swear themselves to one of the Chaos Gods.
This I find a better argument than "Horned Rat is more smite-happy". I mean, he is, but he's not omnipotent or omnipresent, of which Nurgle-tied Pestilens creeping in power is a great example. I think it's just Necromancy meshes even worse with Skaven mindset than it does with human ones, and any skaven that looks for power in it just fails early enough on its own.
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
Maybe the hypothetical skaven necromancer who has discovered the two secrets of Dhar is too busy trying to discern what the remaining eleven secrets are to actually put them to use?
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
I mean, you can use necromancy and dhar without using the second secret. So if you've got a few dozen skeletons that don't use it in an army that does, you've got a nasty surprises for anyone trying to chain detonate the whole thing.
First secret seems only situationally useful: if you need a lot of long-term dhar constructs that do not require upkeep to remain functional. For speed or for raw power it is probably easier and better to just wield raw dhar.
Might make sense why it's never really shown up on battlefields then, if the slann and the druchii know it but regard it as a clever trick for some very limited use cases.
First secret seems only situationally useful: if you need a lot of long-term dhar constructs that do not require upkeep to remain functional. For speed or for raw power it is probably easier and better to just wield raw dhar.
Might make sense why it's never really shown up on battlefields then, if the slann and the druchii know it but regard it as a clever trick for some very limited use cases.
- Location
- Oklahoma
The problem is that every time the second secret gets used to blow up an undead army, that dhar doesn't just disappear. Its still all there, just no longer in 'undead army' form.
Then they make a new undead army, which also gets blown up, etc etc.
Suddenly the entire Empire is Sylvania- pre-quest Sylvania, that is.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
I doubt this. Waystones still exist, it'll get sucked up. To become like Sylvania required much more than just dhar being in use.
It'll get sucked up, eventually. That's a process on timescales that vary between "way too long" and "are you sure it's actually happening?". And it'll get sucked up eventually, if the newly moved in inhabitants don't decide they like the place the way it is, and decide to make it so.
Also, Sylvania might be the most present dhar blasted wasteland, but it's not the only one. Bretonnia has it's own copy of Sylvania, so it's clearly not so rare.