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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Deathbybunnies said:
A gyrocarriage's engines are extremely loud. This was not a stealth insertion. If anything was there to object, they'd have shown up when Mathilde had Adela fly one into the heart of the clearing. And burning a bigger hole would hardly be a problem with Adela there. A Nexus is, as described multiple times in the update, just a big rock really. A team if dwarves could have it hitched up securely in less than an hour - more than long enough when a Waaagh has pulled every goblin in earshot away to attack the beastmen.
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I think the big rock might be a little too heavy to be pulled up via gyrocopter at all.
 
Parabola said:
If Bretonnia signs the Bokha Palace Accords, they'd be obliged to reveal their controlled nexuses, so in fact it's probably not much of something we'd need to negotiate - if they want waystones, they will sign. It's practically guaranteed.

Negotiations would be for stuff beyond that... which could end up being 'help us retake X nexus'.
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Just to note, signing the Accords is not necessarily a straightforward thing. It requires unanimous agreement from every existing signatory before Bretonnia could do so. Perhaps, as a condition for waystones, they could be required to be bound by the Accords before they actually become signatories (with the implicit possibility that they never become signatories), though I suppose it's also possible that as part of preparing for negotiations with Bretonnia, Mathilde could get from all of the current signatories what they would want from Bretonnia in exchange for allowing them to join.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
For a very long time, a great deal of the Badlands was ruled by human tribes, who were vassals to Nehekhara. They'd have directed the flow South to Nehekhara - a much more logical way of drawing resources down than just tearing out the nexuses, when the whole point of these things is to be pulling magic in. Especially when, again, Nehekhara had its own version of the Waystone network in its pyramids.

A gyrocarriage's engines are extremely loud. This was not a stealth insertion. If anything was there to object, they'd have shown up when Mathilde had Adela fly one into the heart of the clearing. And burning a bigger hole would hardly be a problem with Adela there. A Nexus is, as described multiple times in the update, just a big rock really. A team if dwarves could have it hitched up securely in less than an hour - more than long enough when a Waaagh has pulled every goblin in earshot away to attack the beastmen.
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There was no nexus to direct the flow of energy to in Nehekhara. Nehekhara could not have any nexuses without taking those nexuses from somewhere, like the Badlands. Nehekhara's network put the magic into the rivers. It did not use leylines. Nexuses are purely for networks that use the leyline transmission method. The Badlands were fought over between the greenskins and humans ever since the War of the Ancients ended. The first to take the badlands seem to have been the greenskins, who then got pushed back by Nehekhara and back and forth.

Note how Boney described moving a waystone in the last quote. Waystones are infinitely more replaceable and seem to be much smaller than nexuses. You are also going to have to convince dwarves to use this strange exotic method of getting the nexus that heavily risks destroying the nexus when they could just use the traditional method instead.

It was not a stealth insertion, yes. It was a rapid insertion. Mathilde got in, and got out instantly. Additionally, imagine those goblins coming back to a hole burnt in their canopy. They aren't morons. Mathilde couldn't have done it then, if I assume that it is possible in the first place, she only had her gyrocarriage. She would have come back, to goblins aware that someone baited them away to investigate their most holy shrine. That calls for the goblins to be brutally cunning in preparation for the next attempt.

Boney said:
That is, after all, the ultimate example of this technique, both that it's possible and of the inherent problem with it. Nehekhara was built atop the Great Vitae River and was incorporated into their version of the Waystone Network, which worked great for fueling about two and a half golden ages, but then stopped working great.
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Boney said:
Do the people on this project with more knowledge of Nexuses have reason to believe that rivers will need constructions on a similar scale as nexi to handle a Nexus-level of energy?
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Probably not. A leyline between nexuses is carrying all of that in a single 'pipeline'. The riverine methods use the flow of water (and we're talking about an absolutely mind-boggling amount of water) to do most of the work and are just using an artificial 'pipeline' for the Dhar.
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Boney said:
moving a [waystone] that would weigh dozens of tons without damaging it even slightly when the cutting edge of transportation technology goes 'neigh' is likewise not the sort of job anyone would be rushing to volunteer for.
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Parabola said:
It takes way more for something like that, I think. If it were as simple as being hero-worshiped, Magnus would be a god himself, wouldn't he? Even if it was just a minor one subordinate to Sigmar.

Mathilde is still several steps below that.
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Boney said:
For better and for worse, Warhammer Fantasy is a setting where there are exceptional individuals who can achieve things that are impossible under normal circumstances. The fundamental metaphysics of the setting bend around the existence of Lords and Heroes who can individually change the fate of entire battles.
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I think that what I am asking, is not if Matilde is already a deity, but if these resonances in the warp have meaningful effects in the creation and augmentation of these hero units.

Speaking of Magnus, didn't Magnus do a lot of things that were both improbable, and possibly could have been strongly helped by a gathering chorus in the warp around the individual "Magnus."

I am wondering if being actively worshipped like this, or having been the inspiration for a legend or whatever, has narrative effects.

Fear of Cavalry spawns Red Riders. What does a common belief in a grey rider that fights evil and gives benefits(not sure what they believe) create?

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Maybe that is a potential post facto explanation for (often somewhat supernatural) traits that come at the end of a campaign or long segment.
 
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[x] Fiddle

The Changer went down to Stirland, he was lookin' for a soul to steal...
 
HanChenYou said:
I think that what I am asking, is not if Matilde is already a deity, but if these resonances in the warp have meaningful effects in the creation and augmentation of these hero units.

Speaking of Magnus, didn't Magnus do a lot of things that were both improbable, and possibly could have been strongly helped by a gathering chorus in the warp around the individual "Magnus."

I am wondering if being actively worshipped like this, or having been the inspiration for a legend or whatever, has narrative effects.
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While I definitely think people who are sufficiently legendary have some effect on the Aethyr, I think we could attribute a good chunk of the things Magnus did to how the Empire was facing an existential crisis and the gods picked him to be the guy pulling everyone together.

The gods saw that their followers were all at each others' throats so they agreed on giving their approval to a single guy so that everyone would just stop already and follow him - and that guy happened to be Magnus. The rest - rallying people, being a strong leader of men... most of those things very easily could have just been entirely due to Magnus' natural people skills and willpower.

HanChenYou said:
Fear of Cavalry spawns Red Riders. What does a common belief in a grey rider that fights evil and gives benefits(not sure what they believe) create?
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IIRC one theory surrounding Apparitions is that they're born of the fears of wizards specifically - fear of being run down by cavalry because they're fragile targets (Riders in Red), hunted down by hounds (Dark Hounds), being burnt at the stake as a witch (Handmaidens/Lost Child), being taken by the metaphorical and literal darkness (Whispering Darkness/the Black Essence), losing sight of who you are and becoming unrecognizable to who you used to be (Wisdom Asp), etc. It could easily be that the collective fears of wizards are amplified more than those of regular people, honestly.

I suppose that to test out this theory, we could dedicate Mathilde's every waking moment to hunting down and killing necromancers and chaos sorcerers world-wide, so that we generate enough fear in them that naturally-spawned Grey Riders could start being a thing or something - but let's be real, we don't have the patience to do only a single thing for decades or centuries on end.

The better example, I think, is Sigmar. Sigmar became a god after his death somehow. Perhaps creating and uniting the Empire at the time was what allowed him to do this - after his death, his cult formed itself and became very popular. I don't think that was all there was to that - some sources suggest he found some way into Morr's Realm and maybe got the rest of the Old World's Gods' approval, I think - but gods are beings of the Aethyr, worship and devotion are good for them.

If, very hypothetically, Mathilde dedicated her entire life to legendary feats on the level of Sigmar, maybe, maybe she would end up as a minor goddess of some kind, I think. But we'd absolutely have to earn it. If it was easy to become a god, there'd be more of them out there.
 
Parabola said:
The gods saw that their followers were all at each others' throats so they agreed on giving their approval to a single guy so that everyone would just stop already and follow him - and that guy happened to be Magnus. The rest - rallying people, being a strong leader of men... most of those things very easily could have just been entirely due to Magnus' natural people skills and willpower.
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I disagree with the order you present that in- I'd say it was more like Magnus was already gathering everyone together, and then the gods looked at the leaders that were resisting him like, 'What are you doing!?'
 
fishsicles said:
The Changer went down to Stirland, he was lookin' for a soul to steal...
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Dunno, that whole song just seems much more Slaanesh than Tzeench.

... The hilarious thing is, if someone is indeed so good in the fiddle he trounces even Slaanesh and is proud about it, they should theoretically be easy prey to Slaanesh... but can Slaanesh offer them anything actually? They have achieved greatness without their help, they do not need Slaanesh.
 
Parabola said:
While I definitely think people who are sufficiently legendary have some effect on the Aethyr, I think we could attribute a good chunk of the things Magnus did to how the Empire was facing an existential crisis and the gods picked him to be the guy pulling everyone together.

The gods saw that their followers were all at each others' throats so they agreed on giving their approval to a single guy so that everyone would just stop already and follow him - and that guy happened to be Magnus. The rest - rallying people, being a strong leader of men... most of those things very easily could have just been entirely due to Magnus' natural people skills and willpower.


IIRC one theory surrounding Apparitions is that they're born of the fears of wizards specifically - fear of being run down by cavalry because they're fragile targets (Riders in Red), hunted down by hounds (Dark Hounds), being burnt at the stake as a witch (Handmaidens/Lost Child), being taken by the metaphorical and literal darkness (Whispering Darkness/the Black Essence), losing sight of who you are and becoming unrecognizable to who you used to be (Wisdom Asp), etc. It could easily be that the collective fears of wizards are amplified more than those of regular people, honestly.

I suppose that to test out this theory, we could dedicate Mathilde's every waking moment to hunting down and killing necromancers and chaos sorcerers world-wide, so that we generate enough fear in them that naturally-spawned Grey Riders could start being a thing or something - but let's be real, we don't have the patience to do only a single thing for decades or centuries on end.

The better example, I think, is Sigmar. Sigmar became a god after his death somehow. Perhaps creating and uniting the Empire at the time was what allowed him to do this - after his death, his cult formed itself and became very popular. I don't think that was all there was to that - some sources suggest he found some way into Morr's Realm and maybe got the rest of the Old World's Gods' approval, I think - but gods are beings of the Aethyr, worship and devotion are good for them.

If, very hypothetically, Mathilde dedicated her entire life to legendary feats on the level of Sigmar, maybe, maybe she would end up as a minor goddess of some kind, I think. But we'd absolutely have to earn it. If it was easy to become a god, there'd be more of them out there.
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In this quest at least, Sigmar seems to have something weird going on with Sotek. And he's the only one we can almost reasonable confirm as having been mortal once. So actual Gods may require some kind of Old one shenenigants to start spawning/Ascending
 
Boney said:
Belegar's brow furrows, his initial wary frown giving way to one of careful consideration. "There might be something to that," he says after some rumination. "Part of why the debates are dragging on is because they can. The refounding of the Ironforges is going to be entirely from scratch, all of the secrets that were once unique to them are now all either lost or absorbed into the Thungnissons or the Ironbrows, so there's nothing to tempt anyone into transplanting themselves to here. But Karak Vlag's Runesmiths were descendants of those driven enough to go north on the research expeditions, but loyal enough to remain within the World's Edge Mountains - that's a respected combination. And they had a very respected reputation for stone-based Runes, where most others specialize in metal-based. All the orphaned knowledge that might be recovered from their notebooks and private libraries... that would get some heads to turn. It would give me a pick to wield in this whole situation." He looks to you. "For this to not come across as you intruding on business that you shouldn't, I would have to cast you as the avalanche that uncovered the seam. Not the most flattering role."
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Kind of funny that this is the second time that Mathilde accidently gets involved in Runesmithing politics, the other being Thorek's recruitment to the Waystone project. I wonder how this one is going to shake out. On the one hand I kind of feel like the Ironbrows are the obvious candidates; according to Belegar they already have the lead, Thorek is famous for recovering lost lore, and he already demonstrated that he's not afraid to go against the rest of the Runesmithing Guilds if he thinks there's a need. And Kragg, being famously traditionlist even for a Runesmith, will probably keep to the party line about how Vlag's Runesmithing Guild is kind of illegitimate, so this seems like it should be a done deal. But on the other hand, apparently Vlag was notable for being especially good with stone, so Kragg might be tempted by the possibility of them having some knowledge that'll allow him to make a breakthrough in the study of Bok.
Boney said:
"Empire authority over Kislev Wizards?" Interestingly, they use the Reikspiel word for Wizard instead of the Khazalid Zhufokri or any of the less flattering alternatives.
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I remember when the visitor to Karak Vlag update dropped and some people were talking about how The Protector's shenanigans mean that the Vlagians might have gained an appreciation for Wizards, since there's a line in that update that mentions they now know not only of the risks Mathilde took while fighting the daemons, but also the risks that Mathilde takes every time she casts magic. I wonder if this is why they're using unusally polite language to refer to Wizards.
Boney said:
Concealed among those shipments is a few shelves worth of books for you to sort through at your leisure, mostly in Reikspiel with a minority in Kislevarin dialects.
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...or maybe they're just using the Reikspiel term for Wizards because their understanding of human magic comes from books written mostly in Reikspiel.

Boney said:
After a few hours for the Goblins to muster and charge off, you have Adela fly to the point where the Waaagh had been concentrated and find a point where the canopy is interrupted by a lattice of spiderweb. The battle between your curiosity and caution is decided when Adela points out that the clearing is too regular to be natural, formed by a rectangle of ancient trees that cannot have been cultivated by Goblin hands, and the girl needs only a word from you to unleash flames onto the webs and burn enough of a hole through them for the Gyrocarriage to fit through - though only after waiting long enough to see if there are any remaining spiders that might respond to this destruction, of course. Adela touches down inside the clearing without powering down the engine, and the moment you step out you can feel it. The power of Mork, yes, but it is out of tune with the power you're familiar with, underlaid with something else. This holy place is a pentiment, a palimpsest - a surface layer over something deeper and older and truer. The shadows here are impenetrably deep, and would remain so even if the webs above were removed entirely. They retreated in a circle around the hole of sunlight that Adela's fire let in not as a surrender to it, but as a welcome.

You called on a divinity to seek something ancient and lost, and in this place, it is impossible for that divinity to find anything but this. This place was sacred to Them before the name and form that you know, before the name and form that others know, before any name still spoken on this world. This place is more ancient than anything you can name, and more lost than anything you can comprehend.
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Obviously this is fascinating, but it's really had to figure anything out about what this spot is and why it's so sacred to Ranald (or to Ranald's predecessor, or whatever). The sum total of clues here, as far as I can tell:
-There's lore in TW:WH that indicates that some groves in The Forest of Gloom are sacred to Loec.
-The mention of this thing being super ancient and all that seems to obviously point towards the Old Ones.
-I would argue that the use of 'Them' rather than 'Him' is another point in favour of the Old Ones. In the Sidestory, Cd-3 refers to Their fellows and Their deific interfaces soley with They/Them pronouns.
-I've missed it on first reading, but the clearing is specifically noted to be rectangular. I might be jumping at shadows here, but this feels a bit unusual. I kind of feel like a natural holy site in a forest ought to be circular, if it's to have any clean geometric shape at all. This is kind of a reach, but could the rectanguler shape be yet another sign of the Old Ones, with their sharp lines and rectangular pyramids?

So okay, probably an Old One site and also another Loec/Ranald connection. But why though? Cd, the continent that the sidestory heavily implies should be associated with Ranald's Old One form/predecessor, seems to have been in the area we now call the Old World plus Norsca and Albion (and possibly the Dark Lands, there seems to be some ambiguity there). So ok, we should expect those sort of ancient sites to be somewhere in that large area, but why The Forest of Gloom specifically? I can't really think of any good reason. I tried playing around with the world map a bit, drawing straight lines from the Forest of Gloom and seeing if they hit anything interesting, since I figured the Geomantic Web mostly used straight lines, just like the Waystone network. This didn't really pan out. The most I can say is that you can pick some points in the Forest of Gloom that are directly east of Athel Loren (associated with Radixashen, who is the dragon flight leader associated with Cd) and directly south of the eastern end of Norsca (where we kind of think Cd's "capital" might have been). Maybe you can even find such a spot that is specifically directly south of Kraka Drak, and that's two dragon associations at once! ...yeah as you can see this is incredibly tenuous, but there's really no Forest of Gloom lore to work with so what can you do.

Boney said:
"It also has some folkloric weight to it," Egrimm muses. "An instrument that twists itself off-key in the presence of danger is the sort of thing I'm sure I've heard a folktale about somewhere. And if we say it works because it's made from some sort of holy wood or something, that'll be that much easier for some to accept."

"The reputation of your Order will make that more easy to convince people of," you say.

"And yours, in some areas," Egrimm replies with an odd little smile. The tone he used is odd, an inch away from well-practiced slickness but some element deliberately left out to prevent it all from harmonizing, which must have taken more effort than actually following through. Your first thought is that he's toying with you, but he's not watching you closely enough for that. He's not amused by your reaction, but by his own - he's mocking himself for defaulting to that form of oily flattery when it's entirely unnecessary.

"There are mystics in eastern province troupes that find grey to be the colour that gets the best reception," Kas... agrees?
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This is a very cute character beat for Egrimm, but what is he actually referring to? When we went on the Waystone mapping action Egrimm seemed to be unaware of the Hedgewise, but presumably by now he knows about Aksel, and he probably assumes - along with the rest of the Wizards on the project - that Aksel is a way for Mathilde to launder Grey Order secrets. So...did he do some research and learn of the Hedgefolk, or does he think that the Grey Order has some pull with this 'Cult of Halétha' that Aksel is a member of?
Boney said:
[ ] Portativ
The portative organ is a row of flues with associate keys played with one hand and a small bellows operated with the other, which can be easily carried on one's back or slightly less easily in one's arms. Its size makes it less convenient than more easily portable instruments, but will make it more easily maintainable by anyone that can work metal than something more fiddly might be. While full-size organs are most commonly associated with the Cult of Sigmar, more portable ones remain popular even in areas where Ulric or Taal and Rhya are more dominant.
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I don't really have strong feelings about the instrument that we'll end up using. If it was some sort of machine and we had to vote for a name then I would have easily voted for Wind Chimes, as it is a very punny name, but actual chimes are not a great aesthetic choice imo. Portable organs are currently in the lead, and that seems like a pretty decent choice, though I will find it kind of funny if Mathilde ends up picking a small version of an instrument most commonly associated with the hated Sigmar.
 
mathymancer said:
-I've missed it on first reading, but the clearing is specifically noted to be rectangular. I might be jumping at shadows here, but this feels a bit unusual. I kind of feel like a natural holy site in a forest ought to be circular, if it's to have any clean geometric shape at all. This is kind of a reach, but could the rectanguler shape be yet another sign of the Old Ones, with their sharp lines and rectangular pyramids?
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:V Perhaps we should draw lines from each corner of that rectangle to the opposite corner and create an X, then see what that does to Ranald.
 
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BurnNote said:
Ranald isn't a big fan of violence, but Loec thinks stabbing is a part of a proper party, which the orks would heartily agree with.
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This varies (I realize I say this a lot) in that the Shadow Weavers (and by extension Shadow Warriors) have a connection to Loec and constrain their stabbing to known enemies, so.

(My poor, poor Asrai)
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I'm suggesting it be carried between multiple gyrobombers, not a single one.
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I think there's a good chance such a load would be too heavy, large, and unwieldy to carry between any number of gyrobombers period.

The other factor is that a nexus may not be something you can move without a lengthy deactivation process, during which we'd be sitting ducks for an attack.
 
Voikirium said:
This varies (I realize I say this a lot) in that the Shadow Weavers (and by extension Shadow Warriors) have a connection to Loec and constrain their stabbing to known enemies, so.

(My poor, poor Asrai)
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Correct my if I'm wrong, but this is the image I had in mind:

Shadowwarrior A: Ugh, this party is so boring. Singing and dancing is nice, but it's missing spice.
Shadowwarrior B: Well, at least try to enjoy, tomorrow there's Bad People to foil.
Shadowwarrior A: Wait, we could give them an invite, then let them feel dagger's bite.
Shadowwarrior A: A genius Idea! Let's grab some tortilia, to go with the goring.
 
BurnNote said:
Correct my if I'm wrong, but this is the image I had in mind:

Shadowwarrior A: Ugh, this party is so boring. Singing and dancing is nice, but it's missing spice.
Shadowwarrior B: Well, at least try to enjoy, tomorrow there's Bad People to foil.
Shadowwarrior A: Wait, we could give them an invite, then let them feel dagger's bite.
Shadowwarrior A: A genius Idea! Let's grab some tortilia, to go with the goring.
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Can't speak on Boney Hammer obviously, and I have my own biases (namely I considered the paragraph about how the Asur are above hate from 5E based), but the High Elves aren't in the "party by killing people" camp, not even the Shadow Warriors, who are more the tricky part of Loec anyway. They take some pleasure in killing the Druchii, but even they acknowledge That's Bad, Everybody, so they go to Lileath for forgiveness.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
I think there's a good chance such a load would be too heavy, large, and unwieldy to carry between any number of gyrobombers period.

The other factor is that a nexus may not be something you can move without a lengthy deactivation process, during which we'd be sitting ducks for an attack.
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It might be, or it might not - it really depends on how big this rock is. We know it's big, but it'd have to be pretty massive for multiple gyro carriages working together not to be able to lift it.

I don't think it would need deactivating though - this is the main part of a Nexus that was never turned on and got nicked, not one that was ever in use.
 
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