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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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mathymancer said:
I'm still not sure what this means Mopman43 suggested the Amazons as a possible linguistic intermediary between the Norscans and the Lizardmen, and I think this might be our best bet, and the language graph from the Collections of Important Information might support this conclusion:

Three languages directly descend from Saurian: two Lizardmen dialects and Amazonian. There's an uncofirmed link between Norscan and Amazonian, which is in the opposite direction than the one we would hope for (Amazonian influenced by Norscan rather than vice versa) but it's also uncofirmed so it's not too hard to imagine that the information there is a bit off and the true link is bi-directional. This would make Norscan the closest language to Saurian that would conceivably be available for study. It's still a bit of a strange theory, because it requires us to posit that the amount of peaceful contact between Norscans and Amazons was enough to have a very noticable effect on Norscan writing.
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The Golden Arm we found is covered in Lizardman Sigils. If a Norscan or Skeggi someone managed to figure out how to use a stolen arm, or other mysterious golden weapons and armour etc, It doesn't seem much of a stretch to me that after many glorious golden deeds they achieved their people would start copying the sigils for luck or because they're now stylish (Slann Chic.scroll) or because they think it'll make their stuff magic too. With time that could easily work it's way into standard language.
 
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Leolu said:
The Golden Arm we found is covered in Lizardman Sigils. If a Norscan or Skeggi someone managed to figure out how to use a stolen arm, or other mysterious golden weapons and armour etc, It doesn't seem much of a stretch to me that after many glorious golden deeds they achieved their people would start copying the sigils for luck or because they're now stylish (Slann Chic.scroll) or because they think it'll make their stuff magic too. With time that could easily work it's way into standard language.
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And to be fair to the Norscans Lizardman script might actually be magically reactive enough that scribbling it on your stuff would do something. After all the closer one is to Old One/Daemonic the more magic is influenced by the language and the Lizardmen are very close.
 
picklepikkl said:
That's true, but I'm also just not very fussed about Blessed Weapon given the givens? Like, have you noticed that Mathilde basically never uses it? That's because she has Branulhune, which is already a magical weapon and so our specific Blessed Weapon Mastery is useless, because our Mastery just makes casting it a free action instead of giving some extra effect. If Eike has a Journey where she finds herself using Blessed Weapon a lot, she may well develop her own Mastery of it just as we did from our dangerous Journey that does have an extra effect and so won't be totally useless when wielding magic weapons, and if she doesn't, then when she inevitably does some good stuff for the dwarves and cashes in Favour for a runed weapon of her own, then Mathilde's Blessed Weapon Mastery would be redundant.

That said, I may be an outlier on the "I would be happy if Eike learned zero more of our Masteries" scale. Rather than sculpt her, I want to equip Eike with the tools to sculpt herself. I care much more about her Skills and Traits than about her Masteries.
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It's exactly when Eike starts her Journeying that a Mastered version of Blessed Weapon would be most useful. So far as we've seen in this quest, permanently enchanted weapons are just better than temporarily magically enhanced weapons, especially if you can get a Runesmith to make one for you. But that's not the kind of equipment a Journeymanling is supposed to have.

As for it sculpting Eike? I just want to give her a better tool to help herself. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think it's likely to hinder her own self development. And since there's a lot of pull to spend an AP to teach her Mathilde's Shadowsteed spell specifically, teaching her Blessed Weapons at the same time is an easy addition to that action.
 
Sounds to boost magic, Dispel because it is the reason the colleges exist in miniature, skywalk for mobility.

[x] [ENCHANT] Freeform
[x] [PORTATIV] Portentiv
[x] [SPELL] Sounds
[x] [SPELL]Dispel
[x] [SPELL]Skywalk
 
Where did the Norscans come from anyway? The Belthani came from Albion/the west, the Teutogens came from the Dark Lands/the east, but where are the Norscans from?

Skeggi was the first colony in the New World. But how did they find it and get enough people over there? What if the first settlers were returning to their original homeland? What if Norsca is an Amazon colony?
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Where did the Norscans come from anyway? The Belthani came from Albion/the west, the Teutogens came from the Dark Lands/the east, but where are the Norscans from?

Skeggi was the first colony in the New World. But how did they find it and get enough people over there? What if the first settlers were returning to their original homeland? What if Norsca is an Amazon colony?
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Skeggi was founded in 888 IC by the Norse explorer Losteriksson, so well after they'd been present in the Old World- one of the many foes that Sigmar fought in his time were the Norsi, the ancestors of the Norscans who he pushed out of the Reik Basin.
 
Leolu said:
The Golden Arm we found is covered in Lizardman Sigils. If a Norscan or Skeggi someone managed to figure out how to use a stolen arm, or other mysterious golden weapons and armour etc, It doesn't seem much of a stretch to me that after many glorious golden deeds they achieved their people would start copying the sigils for luck or because they're now stylish (Slann Chic.scroll) or because they think it'll make their stuff magic too. With time that could easily work it's way into standard language.
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I guess that's possible...but like with the Amazons, it still feels to me that something like this would lead to pretty minor effects. Lizardmen glyphs becoming such a big part of Norscan language through the medium of magic items feels a bit out there, unless Lizardmen magic items are very popular in Norscan society, which I don't think is the case?
Mopman43 said:
Well, it's possible that the Norscans simply didn't have a writing system until the Amazons developed one?
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Chaos Monoliths have writing on them, don't they? I would imagine they predate the founding of Skeggi.
 
Mopman43 said:
Dark Tongue runes as a high script and Amazonian ones as a low script?
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Maybe that can work. Let's say that Norscan writing was originally very rare, only used in religious contexts like marking monuments and such, with the alphabet borrowed from Dark Tongue (or possibly Norscan writing is simply written Dark Tongue at this point). Then Norscans settle in Lustria, and possibly due to cultural influence from the Amazons (???) start writing more. 'High Norscan' is unsuited for day-to-day writings, and quite possibly magically resonant in ways that are inconvenient, so the Norscan settlers borrow the Amazons script. Then when they get back to Norsca their new writing system has very little competition so the eventual Norscan script is mostly Amazonian with a bit of Dark Tongue influence???
 
[X] [PORTATIV] Portentiv
[X] [SPELL] Sounds
[X] [SPELL]Dispel
[X] [SPELL]Skywalk
[X] [ENCHANT] Freeform
 
The Phoenixian said:
Dhar playing in the minor key would basically mean that whenever three notes of a chord are played
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Well, mathematically, it is much easier to make the organ sound wrong and very out of tune, instead of making it switch to minor, which could also sound good.

There are an awful lot more combinations of frequencies that can make it suddenly sound terrible, instead of just carefully changing only the the 3rd and maybe the 7th.
 
DocMatoi said:
Collegiate Newspapers:

Ulgu Uikly
The Hierophant Herald
[a series of constant smoke signals in the amber hills]
Druid's Digest
The Tolling Bell Tribune
BLAZE!
The Altdorf Journal of Echo-gnomics
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Collegiate newspapers and their audience among mundanes
Ulgu Uikly is also a highly respected cultural journal, with a byline on the Altdorf and nuln theatre circuits
The herald is the best source for theological drama in the middle levels of the cult of sigmar
The smoke signals combine to form a sleazy gossip rag but almost no one can read it so it's very hard to verify unless you are a shaman
Druids digest is also a planter's almanac and is the biggest connection between the peasant-farmers and the college
The tribune has a highly entertaining obituaries section, notable for reporting the often embarrassing last thoughts of the deceased up to the moment. Popular among the urban poor, who keep an eye out for their landlords' names in the headlines
BLAZE! is not just an aqshy research journal, but also the old world answer to Soldier Of Fortune- all the newest and fanciest pointy sticks, pop guns, and big hats for the aspiring coin-warrior
 
HanChenYou said:
Well, mathematically, it is much easier to make the organ sound wrong and very out of tune, instead of making it switch to minor, which could also sound good.

There are an awful lot more combinations of frequencies that can make it suddenly sound terrible, instead of just carefully changing only the the 3rd and maybe the 7th.
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You don't want it to sound so discordant that it gets retuned to the point of uselesness by some well meaning idiot.
 
DocMatoi said:
Collegiate Newspapers:

Ulgu Uikly
The Hierophant Herald
[a series of constant smoke signals in the amber hills]
Druid's Digest
The Tolling Bell Tribune
BLAZE!
The Altdorf Journal of Echo-gnomics
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This one seems to be missing the Celestials, I think, assuming the Altdorf Journal of Echo-gnomics is the Golds?

But that'd make sense. A Celestial newspaper may as well be all about the horoscopes and odd riddles that are deliberately ambiguous.
 
Boney said:
There are buildings called 'factories' where standardized goods are mass produced on assembly lines,
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To be fair, if the aim is to produce arms, many medieval streets would already be similar to such an assembly line, just instead of putting the unhilted sword in a bin that is carted to the hilt assembly area, the customer would get a recommendation to use the artisan across the street for all their hilt needs. Further down the street might be a highly recommended leatherworker specializing in scabbards. Also, standardization is one reason why many swords had cruciform hilts extremely similar in proportion to the floor plan of the local church.

A lot comes back to coal, though, even beyond its use as a fuel in steam engines. The puddling process was important for the industrial revolution because it allowed the use of coal to refine a volume of steel and iron that is impractical to refine using charcoal, but if the alternative to charcoal is a reliable Bright wizard, it might be cheaper to just cut down another forest, beastmen or not. Without loads of coal and relatively cheap and homogenous steel, a lot of the innovations of the industrial revolution just aren't practical.
 
[-] [PORTATIV] Ominous Harmonic Noting Organ
Love the abbreviation, but I think calling something "ominous" is a bit cheap

[X] [PORTATIV] Portentiv
[X] [SPELL] Sounds
[X] [SPELL] Dispel
[X] [ENCHANT] Freeform
 
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