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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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jjffjhjf said:
so that's something we could probably go out and get another great deed to use with our currently unspent great deed to help close the gap on by getting a Barony
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If we wanted to be on top of nobility, Sylvania was right there in the last job selection. Marquess would be only second to EC. That is top 20 most powerful nobles in the Empire.

We passed on that for waystones which arguably made Mathilde better wizard but wizardly equalent of the Marquess job is Supreme Matriarch and we are nowhere near that.
 
BurnNote said:
I'm not sure that's the best example. Talking about the republic, as far as I know, the biggest barrier to becoming a Senator and joying the highest echelon was having enough money to bribe your way into the required offices, and then enough money to execute them so that you could take the next highest (since you'd have to pay for the expenses). That's firmly a monetary barrier. Of course, that money generally came from either large lands, or else conquest, so what would be under the authority of the first estate in medieval Europe. But that separation just does not apply in Rome (High Priest was also a political office you'd have to go through to become a Senator).
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It's a bit more complicated than that. Even a very rich equites might not want to become a senator because of the restrictions imposed on the class, but I was in any case referring to the social barrier between lower and higher nobility if you hadn't gone through the process. It's not like it's that hard for rich lower nobility to elevate their status in the empire either, but if they haven't put in the effort there's absolutely a barrier in place.
 
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Tasoli said:
If we wanted to be on top of nobility, Sylvania was right there in the last job selection. Marquess would be only second to EC. That is top 20 most powerful nobles in the Empire.

We passed on that for waystones which arguably made Mathilde better wizard but wizardly equalent of the Marquess job is Supreme Matriarch and we are nowhere near that.
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We are increasing our metric pile of foreign contacts significantly though. Which means..... I have no idea? Somewhere along the way I forgot which line to go up related to what kind of powerbase? Feudalism gets confusing.
 
Romv said:
Pontifex maximus was basically a political office, but it wasn't part of the standard track to consul. It was a handy stepping stone, though, since it involved planning the parties. And that can make you very popular; just ask a certain Gaius of the Julii.
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You mean the one that ended up with more knives in him than the average cutlery store? :V
 
Boney said:
That said, these details are often lost on regular citizens of the Empire and you could use the ambiguity to fast-talk someone into believing that Mathilde is Dwarf nobility if you really wanted to.
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Considering that the Chancellor of the Seal needed us to explain him the subtleties of the Dwarven political system, how many non regular citizens are there in the Empire under this definition?

Artemis1992 said:
I guess it would break down harder in a more D&D-ish setting, where the power of a reasonably experienced and equipped adventurer-party is much harder to dismiss.
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Eh, I think a decent army should realistically be able to take out an under level 10 party if the DM is realistic, and an above level 10 party should be extremely uncommon in universe, like, less that 0,1% of adventures, even if PCs do get a relatively smooth path to it as an exception depending on the adventure's tone. But these are just my worldbuilding biases about power levels involved in a functioning system.

Genderite said:
You are of course both forgetting one piece of Mathilde's bling that is absolutely priceless. That being our precious Snake Deamon in a box.
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Huh, that one may indeed worth the most after the Morb book is finished, assuming it will last forever and not break eventually, that is.
 
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storryeater said:
Considering that the Chancellor of the Seal needed us to explain him the subtleties of the Dwarven political system, how many non regular citizens are there in the Empire under this definition?
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That part was actually cultural secret of sorts. Mathilde only really got to see it because of how long she had been there, who she was with and how favoured she was. Whereas the thane distinction is something that scholars and people that have more than entirely passing diplomatic contact will probably know.
 
pucflek said:
That part was actually cultural secret of sorts. Mathilde only really got to see it because of how long she had been there, who she was with and how favoured she was. Whereas the thane distinction is something that scholars and people that have more than entirely passing diplomatic contact will probably know.
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Not quite secrets, just something Dawi do not bother clarifying nor want to clarify. More like something that is understood implicitly... if you are an insider.

One could make a similar argument about Thanes.
 
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Boney said:
Is the information you're after here an actual number? Because working that out would be a significant amount of work.
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No, was just pondering on the definition of regular.

Also have the bad habit of forgetting that replying to the QM with a question implies I want an answer from the QM when I am more interested on bringing up interesting points for the thread in general, and indeed most people would read it the first way.:oops:
 
storryeater said:
Not quite secrets, just something Dawei do not bother clarifying nor want to clarify. More like something that is understood implicitly... if you are an insider.

One could make a similar argument about Thanes.
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Not really, because if someone asks, they will bluster about the first but explain the second.

If you ask what Old Holds are, the vast majority of dwarves will name the "old holds" but they won´t tell you what Gotri told us. If you ask the intricacies of what Thane means, you are probably going to get a straight answer. Thats a pretty substantial difference.
 
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pucflek said:
Not really, because if someone asks, they will bluster about the first but explain the second.

If you ask what Old Holds are, the vast majority of dwarves will name the "old holds" but they won´t tell you what Gotri told us. If you ask the intricacies of what Thane means, you are probably going to get a straight answer. Thats a pretty substantial difference.
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Would they though? Dawi do not tend to explain many of their "obvious" things in general, and even diplomats would not really think to ask. People who have not been exposed to different cultures, even smart ones, have a habit of making assumptions and never correctin, and this goes doubly when multiple species are involved. Just look at the bullshit medieval people believed about the Middle East, or the Far East.

And even if the Chancellor would know, the fact that the top diplomat knows just expands the definition of non regular a tiny bit.
 
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storryeater said:
Considering that the Chancellor of the Seal needed us to explain him the subtleties of the Dwarven political system, how many non regular citizens are there in the Empire under this definition?
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There is a definite lower boundary of people who don't have any idea of Dwarven hierarchy at all. This applies to pretty much all peasants who weren't directly involved in Dwarven projects (like digging canals). Similar applies to the nobility. Without special interest, either academic or concrete, there isn't much of a reason to learn the intricacies of another state's military ranks. Similar applies to the Cults, with the maybe exception of the Cult of Sigmar, for whom academic interest is dogma.
 
TheBigMole said:
There is a definite lower boundary of people who don't have any idea of Dwarven hierarchy at all. This applies to pretty much all peasants who weren't directly involved in Dwarven projects (like digging canals). Similar applies to the nobility. Without special interest, either academic or concrete, there isn't much of a reason to learn the intricacies of another state's military ranks. Similar applies to the Cults, with the maybe exception of the Cult of Sigmar, for whom academic interest is dogma.
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I mean, we can definitely fast talk those that know absolutely nothing with technicalities. Whether they care is another issue.

As for the cult of Sigmar, they are not actually as big Dawi experts as they are Dawi fans, but its possible the more scholar oriented ones do know because of that reason, yes.
 
storryeater said:
Would they though?
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There is literally no reason not to. The idea that in two and a half millenia of living and fighting side by side literally no scholar ever thought to ask is frankly ludicrious. And unlike for many other questions, they would not get a grumbling and silence because there is no reason whatsoever to not explain.
 
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The subleties of Karaz Ankor and how Holds are kinda sorta technicly but not really subservient to the High King is not something Dawi like to talk about, even amongst themselves, because it reminds them of how badly things have gone and how far from the "ideal" they are from.
Thane's, are not that, while most people in the empire might not be aware of the intricacies, it is not something dawi keep quiet about so a motivated scholar or a diplomat should have no real problem learning about it.
 
pucflek said:
There is literally no reason not to. The idea that in two and a half millenia of living and fighting side by side literally no scholar ever thought to ask is frankly ludicrious. And unlike for many other reasons, they would not get a grumbling and silence because there is no reason whatsoever to not explain.
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The question is not "would anyone know, ever"

The question is how many (never said there were none) people know. Yeah, scholars have probably found the knowledge, and the occassional Dawi focused diplomat too. But even if they wrote it down, how many people have read the book, considering how rare books are, Mathilde's obsession nonwithstanding? Heck, even if one is a Dawi scholar, what diferentiates Dawiologist 1 who has the correct information written down, from Dawiologist 2,3 and 4 who have books that are full of misconceptions, which even Dawiologist 1's isn't completely free of?

Valmond said:
The subleties of Karaz Ankor and how Holds are kinda sorta technicly but not really subservient to the High King is not something Dawi like to talk about, even amongst themselves, because it reminds them of how badly things have gone and how far from the "ideal" they are from.
Thane's, are not that, while most people in the empire might not be aware of the intricacies, it is not something dawi keep quiet about so a motivated scholar or a diplomat should have no real problem learning about it.
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Yeah, sure, anyone motivated enough to take a trip to ask that specific question would probably know, as well as anyone who spends enough time among the Dawi. How many people are these? If we exclude the ones who decide to stay to a Karak full time and as such are only maybe citizens of the Empire in technicality, if at all, I doubt there are more than a hundred in the whole Empire, if that. Trips back there were tedious, slow and dangerous, we got lucky and solved that problem via a spell crit and later a gyrocopter, but for most this kind of thing is unacceptable.

The only guys likely to know apart from us are merchants and their guards, (and even then its a coin toss) and the occassional dedicated scholar or diplomat.

Edit: Admitedly, imperial Dawi and those that ask them probably boost these numbers.
 
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storryeater said:
Yeah, sure, anyone motivated enough to take a trip to ask that specific question would probably know, as well as anyone who spends enough time among the Dawi. How many people are these? If we exclude the ones who decide to stay to a Karak full time and as such are only maybe citizens of the Empire in technicality, if that, I doubt there are more than a hundred in the whole Empire, if that. Trips back there were tedious, slow and dangerous, we got lucky and solved that problem via a spell crit and later a gyrocopter, but for most this kind of thing is unacceptable.

The only guys likely to know apart from us are merchants and their guards, (and even then its a coin toss) and the occassional dedicated scholar or diplomat.
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The point is that this is not secret information, not hidden, and has not been for centuries.
People who have need to know it, would be able to find out, because it will be written in the big book of dwarves in a library of most universities, bigger Sigmarite temples/monasteries and government offices.

So bringing up us having to tell actively hidden knowledge to the imperial whatsit has nothing do with it.

Specific number? Easily hundreds, maybe thousands.
Altdorf alone would probably have hundred or more easily from all the government officials to priests to merchants to scholars to soldiers/officers who have fought beside dwarves.
Empire is big, it has lot of people, and dwarves are important to them on multiple levels, so the number of people who will know about them at some level islikely to be higher than one might expect.
 
Boney said:
They speak of the Great Dragon they believe to be Abraxas with respect but not reverence, as according to Elven legend he betrayed his first master for one of the Cytharai, then Them for Isha, then finally abandoned Isha, Ulthuan, and the knowledge of Elven historians.
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Is there any more information about Abraxas in our books from the Library of Mournings? In particular, is his Cytharai master identified?
 
Valmond said:
The point is that this is not secret information, not hidden, and has not been for centuries.
People who have need to know it, would be able to find out, because it will be written in the big book of dwarves in a library of most universities, bigger Sigmarite temples/monasteries and government offices.

So bringing up us having to tell actively hidden knowledge to the imperial whatsit has nothing do with it.

Specific number? Easily hundreds, maybe thousands.
Altdorf alone would probably have hundred or more easily from all the government officials to priests to merchants to scholars to soldiers/officers who have fought beside dwarves.
Empire is big, it has lot of people, and dwarves are important to them on multiple levels, so the number of people who will know about them at some level islikely to be higher than one might expect.
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Its not about being hidden, its about it being exotic. Even if you fought besides Dawi, you wouldn't know much except that Thanes are high ranking commanders. And would the big book of Dawi knowledge, assuming it exists, contain info about such a subtle distinction? Most such encyclopedias do not bother with this kind of minutiae, especially when written by medieval and not modern scholars.
 
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