It's not that complicated. Thane is basically "a general" - military chain of command term, that, like human counterpart, is often but not always the top dog in term of nobility and power. Every person that needs it for work - diplomats, high nobles, merchants, military higher ranks, their aides, servants and butlers - need to know and understand this to do their jobs properly. Likewise people raised in imperial dwarven culture or with a touch of dwarven culture.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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According to the best synthesis she can make of Elven records, legends, and this new myth, the timetable goes something like this: Abraxas left the service of someone or something or somewhere called Tlanxla to follow Loec to war against the Daemons during the Great Catastrophe, then left Loec for Isha, then left Isha for Rhya, then got bonked by Kurnous for abandoning Isha (immediately after this, Kurnous shacked up with Rhya) then got bonked by Sigmar for... being a dragon, presumably. No records Mathilde has found postdate that encounter, but all accounts of the fight say that Sigmar only wounded Abraxas. And if the Cult of Sigmar is saying that Abraxas survived instead of taking the opportunity to add another notch to His belt, then he probably survived.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
What differentiates them is that Dawi exist, engage in diplomacy with Empire and share like third of Imperial Border. Like yeah its not gonna be "peasants know this" but a significant chunk of anyone who is anyone has all the reasons to find out and the competent ones will.
My point is not that half of an Empire knows but the initial comparison was inherently flawed. It is by no means anywhere close to the obscurity of the information that Karaz Ankor is really not that much of an empire. But it is something a significant part of Clergy and Ruling class has the means and reason to access and the competent ones will. Thats still a fairly small number of people but there is a several orders of magnitude of difference between "literally only one person this side of the continent is privy to that information" and "if you ask in any of the dwarf holds or sufficiently experienced and educated member of Sigmar´s clergy from south or east, you will get an answer".
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- Location
- Greece
I think this is viewing the world in too modern a lens, in the middle ages people, even nobles, rarely knew what even the country next to them was like, they were often carried by the fact that they shared a common religion and certain historical mythology (Greek and Roman).
The Karaz Ankor may share a border but it does not share any of these stuff. Plus, the Empire is huge. So there would be a lot more misconceptions, just like there were a lot of misconceptions on the Middle Ages about non Christian countries even among scholars. And this info is obscure enough to not be known to anyone whose job isn't to be a Dawi diplomat.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Like the biggest church in the entire nation you mean.
Being dwarf friends is literally a scripture of their biggest religion.
Like yes, great point, a baron Muppet from barony of Fucknowswhere, Ostland probably does not know this. Noblemen from Averland or Ostermark very well might.
We are also not in middle ages, we are in reneissance and Enlightenment era.
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- Location
- Greece
In practice, being Dawi friend does not seem to translate to knowing a lot about em.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Yes, because majority of the empire are peasants, not learned men. This does not extend to the Nobility that has to regulary treat with them and Clergy of Sigmar that is there to translate when they can´t do it on their own. I don´t see where the issue is here.
Its certainly not an information that the Chief Diplomat in Charge of the Empire´s Foreign relations has to ask the only person in existence that is aware of some little tidbit kind of obscure and the implication that its anywhere even close to that is silly.
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- Location
- Greece
The issue is that the way this works is counterintuitive to Empire culture and obscure enough to not be one of these flashy things everyone gets briefed on about Dawi like Grudges and Runes.
... Not that most nobles bordering Dawi really understand Grudges in depth given the story about underpaying them a few coins.
A lot of people have the datapoints 'Dwarves from Old Holds are said to act like X' and 'Dwarves I know from supposed Old Holds act like Y' in their heads. It takes a specific set of circumstances to get most people to consciously notice a discrepancy like that, and a specific type of person to investigate further if it's not causing them any problems. Most people who have reason to engage with the discrepancy will resolve it with something like 'I guess Karak Kadrin is different' or 'their outward-facing Dwarves must act differently for diplomatic reasons' or even 'the Dwarf I know is One Of The Good Ones'. It takes not just a lot of interaction with Dwarves, but an interaction with a wide range of Dwarves of different Holds and backgrounds and opinions who are willing to speak candidly, to gain enough of an understanding to be able to present a single unified theory of what's going on.
"How dare you abandon Isha for... oh wow those are some very fertile tracts of land."
I hope Abraxas is still alive somewhere, and we could find him. Would be very interesting to talk to someone with such a rich history, that stretches back all the way to the Lizardmen before the Catastrophe.
Hey, actually, when did this bonking of Abraxas by Sigmar happen, and when did the Dragon Emperor first show up?
Could Abraxas have said "Fuck this place, everyone keeps bonking me, I'm gonna go east"?
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Which is something that i assume is applicable to thinks like "cultural rifts in Karaz Ankor" but not to titles that are universal across most of it.
Especially when there are people whose entire job is to introduce guests by the full list of titles.
Especially when there are people whose entire job is to introduce guests by the full list of titles.
- Location
- Greece
Point is, most do not care enough to investigate such minutiae.
- Location
- Planet Earth
Huh, the Chamberlain must have been really happy to talk to Mathilde then, for both gaining that experience and then explaining it on request.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Well, I think that it inherently couldn't have occured before Sigmar was born, so around -30 IC as a definite minimum.
The Dragon Emperor had already been ruling Cathay for millennia by that point.
The problem with going east to avoid a bonking is that you run into orgres at some point.
Ah, drat. I thought I had a big brain moment for a moment there.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Most people don´t care to investigate calculus but a significant amount of people can do it.
"Most" is relative general term that does a lot of heavy lifting and there is a world of difference between the upper and lower delimiter on demographics it encompasses.
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For example:
Most is the 50 million imperial citizens that aren´t Mathilde who knows that Karaz Ankor has such rifts.
There are couple hundred thousands that know what thane is and I would bet that there is at least a couple thousand people in there that are aware of what Thane means exactly. Either way most would not know, because that is still minority. But there is pretty big difference between 1000+ and 1.
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Abraxas got bonked during Sigmar's mortal lifetime, probably somewhere from -10ish to 40ish. Founding of Cathay is a couple thousand years before that. If anything it might be more possible that Sigmar said "fuck this place, nobody lets me bonk the dragons, I'm gonna go west".
True, but there's a deeper context that would be likewise restricted to a few experts: the title of Thane was once entirely restricted to the Dwarven equivalent of nobility, because once the Karaz Ankor was mighty enough that any battle they were involved in was one they chose in advance to get involved in and were always able to properly set up the chain of command, and the leaders for a given force would be the ones that led those Dwarves in peacetime. The modern reality that anyone in the chain of command can be elevated to Thane if necessary, and they will retain the title permanently unless they fuck it up, is an admission that unplanned battles are now enough of a fact of life that Dwarven society can't afford to turn down any battle-tested leader. Even a human that got thrust into the position by the Air Bud rule.
Interesting. Tlanxla is, as we all know, a ruined Lizardmen temple-city and also an Old One God of war who rides the sky in a chariot or something. Deathfang said that Abraxas joined the Old Ones in the city of Iz, which we have long suspected to be Itza, and the sidestory more or less confirmed that the continent of Iz is Lustria, so Abraxas being in Tlanxla or serving Tlanxla scans.
Tlanxla also makes an appearance in an Asur myth about the coming of Chaos, where Tlanxla's Sword of Judgement is apparently a powerful weapon in the hands of a daemon called Ulgu, which is stolen by Hoeth during the Coming of Chaos to aid Him in the battle agianst the Dark Gods. This may or may not be a metaphor of Hoeth mastering Ulgu - which according to Marriseth is the first wind He mastered according to legend, and whose rune is called by the Grey Order The Sword of Judgement - but if it is it then one wonders what Tlanxla has to do with it. Loec is obviously also associated with Ulgu, so perhaps Abraxas leaving Tlanxla for Loec during the coming of Chaos is some sort of metaphor for Ulgu? Or perhaps it's a lot more literal, the city of Tlanxla fell during the Great Catastrophe (and possibly Tlanxla Themselves - if there was an Old One by that name - died, since the sidestory says that the Iz team is doomed) so Abraxas went away and found someone else to work with. Maybe he picked Loec because of the Ulgu connection, or maybe because Loec already had good rapport with a great dragon (Loec and Draugnir were famously buddies).
In the myths told by Heidi it was actually Ranald who stole a sword during the coming of Chaos, before handing it to Verena. In that story it's Morr's sword, just like in the human myth Lord Ulric and the Making of the World, but let's assume all those myths are refering to the same event. I think a possible synthesis suggests itself: Loec, who is also Ranald, learned of a weapon of Tlanxla from His servant Abraxas who served Tlanxla, or possibly was given it outright. That weapon was later given to Hoeth, who is also Verena, or possibly that Loec and Hoeth teamed up to get that weapon, and possibly that weapon is Ulgu or something. And then we can keep going by saying that Isha is Shallya and Abraxas leaving Loec for Isha is a hint about the relationship between Ranald and Shallya, and then the whole Rhya thing is...uh....I'll get back to you on that one.
Also, isn't Loec one of the Cadai? Was the original quote in which Abraxas's second master was said to be one of the Cytharai a mistake, or did the Eonir who told that myth have a different conception of the Cadai/Cytharai divide (is that a thing? is the division of Gods into the two sub-pantheons at all a matter of debate among the elves?) or is it one of those famous theological discrepancies which the Eonir will surely refuse to clarify if asked about?
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Sigmar: Too much dragon boinking, not enough dragon bonking.
Loec is the most common named God for who Abraxas was serving during the Coming of Chaos, so Mathilde's gone with that for her Grand Unified Theory. There are other references to Abraxas working with a Cytharai instead and if you add them all up they outnumber those that say Loec, but a name is rarely given, and sometimes he's just said to have been vaguely working with them collectively. When a name is given, it's usually Ereth Khial or Manann or Eldrazor.
Which God is on which side of the Cadai/Cytherai divide is pretty consistent between the Elven socities, what changes is what the divide actually means.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Most of the damage was concentrated in the pelvis region.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
One more thing Sigmar has taken from us. We could´ve talked Ranald into introducing us.