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I think that's from our favorite elven mercenary prince.
Silver Savage, if i recall correctly (i often don't).
Azrildrekked is the title we got from reclaiming K8P, roughly equivalent to either "one who undertook the journey of Karak Eight Peaks (Vala-Azril-Ungol)" or "Silver Undertaker".

Silver Savage is what Asarnil called us because elves like to mangle names to come up with meanings in Eltharin.
 
Dwarves do magic by carving Runes onto solid objects and you can't carve Runes onto a liquid. They used to have Runs that allowed them to put Runes on malleable objects like cloth and a variant of that Rune allowed Bok's creators to put Runes on the material side of it even as the stone it's made of shifts and flows due to its nature as an Elemental, it's possible that a Rune like that might allow you to put Runes on a liquid but if such a thing was ever possible that knowledge is long lost. Though it might be possible to enhance Dwarven booze by other indirect ways, for all we know there exists Okri Okrisson's Master Rune of Making Ale Age Really Really Well that you can carve on barrels and makes any ale you put in there age really really well. But that would be the Rune affecting the booze not the booze itself being magical.
My question wasn't about "why don't they inscribes runes on liquids", but rather "why do they have magic for solids - runesmithing - but no magic for liquids - like potion-brewing"? It's established lore that you don't strictly need to be a wizard to make explicitly magical potions, just magic ingredients, but there's no mention of them doing some kind of non-rune related magic to make magical alcoholic beverages.
 
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A bit of googling shows glimstones apparently shine somewhere between 5000 years and "forever" so, really apocalypse proofing that light source lol.
Okay that's either a type of inherently magical material, a material that's made magical via Runes so basically just Runelight, or it's at least partly made of some type of radioactive substance that glows from nuclear decay. Could be something with a decay energy similar to tritium but with a really long half-life, tritium glows but the beta rays and gamma rays it produces are really weak so it isn't really dangerous unless it gets inside your body somehow but tritium has a half-life of 12.32 years so it has to be something with a much longer half-life but a similar type of decay and no such substance exists in real life as far as I'm aware, it'd either have to the result of alternate laws of physics (either because the entirety of WHF follows different physical laws or because the presence of magic on Mallus is locally warping physics) or some undiscovered element in the island of stability, some element on the edge of the hypothetical continent of stability that isn't fully stable, or some type of exotic hypernuclear matter that's semi-stable.
My question wasn't about "why don't they inscribes runes on liquids", but rather "why do they have magic for solids - runesmithing - but no magic for liquids - like potion-brewing"? It's established lore that you don't strictly need to be a wizard to make explicitly magical potions, just magic ingredients, but there's no mention of them doing some kind of non-rune related magic to make magic alcoholic beverages.
Presumably because that's not how the Ancestors did it, if Valaya didn't put magical ingredients in what she brewed despite being the goddess of brewing and easily being able to acquire them given that she's an Ancestor-God presumably there's a reason she didn't do it and to do otherwise would be to break tradition and possibly do something that's a bad idea. Plus have you looked at the rules for potions in WHFRP 2nd edition which this quest is based off of? One of the possible effects of a badly brewed potion is straight up "you die" and every one of them have side effects of varying nastiness if brewed improperly even if it doesn't kill you, many of them permanent. The probability of screwing up making a potion isn't small either. Potions in Warhammer are very very dangerous things.
 
My question wasn't about "why don't they inscribes runes on liquids", but rather "why do they have magic for solids - runesmithing - but no magic for liquids - like potion-brewing"? It's established lore that you don't strictly need to be a wizard to make explicitly magical potions, just magic ingredients, but there's no mention of them doing some kind of non-rune related magic to make magical alcoholic beverages.
Who's to say that making magical alcoholic beverages isn't just what they call brewing? As previously stated, Dwarfen beers have effects that simply should not be possible with mundane alcohol, same way as astrologers on Mallus can genuinely read portents of the future from the stars without a single ounce of magical talent or tools.
 
Presumably because that's not how the Ancestors did it, if Valaya didn't put magical ingredients in what she brewed despite being the goddess of brewing and easily being able to acquire them given that she's an Ancestor-God presumably there's a reason she didn't do it and to do otherwise would be to break tradition and possibly do something that's a bad idea. Plus have you looked at the rules for potions in WHFRP 2nd edition which this quest is based off of? One of the possible effects of a badly brewed potion is straight up "you die" and every one of them have side effects of varying nastiness if brewed improperly even if it doesn't kill you, many of them permanent. The probability of screwing up making a potion isn't small either. Potions in Warhammer are very very dangerous things.
NexusEye, the argument "they don't because they don't" frustrates me. As for your comment on potion rules, I will say that the book also has rules for making arcane magic items and that they're different from the rune magic items, so I don't see why a dwarf equivalent to potion-brewing is impossible and that they absolutely must use the standard potion-brewing rules.
 
A tributary helps drain even massively-tainted areas because magic soaks into everything and when it soaks widely enough it becomes earthbound magic. If you take away that earthbound magic, then it leaves room for more magic to soak in and then that gets taken away too. In places like Praag, the transition point might be a meter underground instead of just in a rock sitting on the ground, but it's still there.

life goes on. And if the thrill of living is gone, that won't stop it.

I wasn't expecting a little ditty about King Jack and Lady Magister Diane.

Do Mathilde shouldn't have Ironhammer as her family name there, since she is Belegar's wife (from what I understand)?

Angrund is the name of the clan, Ironhammer is Belegar's epithet. It's also the name of the hammer that is the symbol of the Angrund claim of rulership over Karak Eight Peaks and is depicted on their banner, so it's commonly associated with the Angrunds in general.

Silk was really the big draw for the caravans to and from Cathay. I suppose now the main trade good coming West will be spices.

What do they even bring back from the Old World? Different spices?

Also glasswares, woolen textiles, horses, alcohols, Dwarven goods, furs, woods, and precious metals.

...kinky.

I mean, I wouldn't mind, but it'd be a bit out of character for Boney, I think :rofl:

I write Mathilde with a wide variety of gentle taboos she's secretly intrigued about breaking not because I support those taboos, but because her being hypersensitive even to the mild stuff allows for easy access to character moments you have to start giving content warnings for if your protagonist is more jaded. Splashing around in the shallow end can be a lot of fun if you refuse to allow yourself to be desensitized to it. But if I thought the story would benefit from an unexpected shibari convention and Mathilde having to bluff her way through it, I absolutely would write it.

My question wasn't about "why don't they inscribes runes on liquids", but rather "why do they have magic for solids - runesmithing - but no magic for liquids - like potion-brewing"? It's established lore that you don't strictly need to be a wizard to make explicitly magical potions, just magic ingredients, but there's no mention of them doing some kind of non-rune related magic to make magic alcoholic beverages.

Dwarves conceptually jive with solid things like stones and metals. Dwarves like alcohol but they don't especially conceptually resonate with it or the process that it arises from. Their breweries are always finely-tuned devices of metal and artifice instead of something that allows them to have a direct relationship with the process. If you want to get right down to it, it's because Tolkien based Dwarves on Brokkr and Sindri and the Sons of Ivaldi from Norse mythology when he was writing the tropes that would later get incorporated into Warhammer, and they were all blacksmiths and crafters. If he'd based them on, say, Fjalar and Galar, who killed the God of Wisdom to make the Mead of Poetry from his blood, then the Dwarves would have an affinity for alcohol in a way that might allow for alcohol magic, but would also be very different in a lot of other ways.
 
Who's to say that making magical alcoholic beverages isn't just what they call brewing? As previously stated, Dwarfen beers have effects that simply should not be possible with mundane alcohol, same way as astrologers on Mallus can genuinely read portents of the future from the stars without a single ounce of magical talent or tools.
Just an FYI, in this quest at least the explanation for how astrologers can read the future from the movements of stars in the sky is because there's a layer of Azyr in the atmosphere between them and the stars, the stars don't actually move the Azyr merely creates an illusion by warping the light that passes through it where the stars apparent positions appear to move in ways that correspond to events that might or will happen in the future.
NexusEye, the argument "they don't because they don't" frustrates me. As for your comment on potion rules, I will say that the book also has rules for making arcane magic items and that they're different from the rune magic items, so I don't see why a dwarf equivalent to potion-brewing is impossible and that they absolutely must use the standard potion-brewing rules.
I'm not saying "they don't because they don't", I'm saying "they don't appear to be doing this thing so logically there must be reason for that and given that we're talking about Dwarves the most likely reason for any idiosyncratic behavior is tradition". And Dwarves have different rules for making magic items because they have Runecraft which is different from Wind magic, unless they have a fundamentally different way of making magical beverages than chucking magical ingredients into a pot and mixing it together like humans do than it stands to reason they would have to follow all the same rules and take all the same risks as humans do when brewing potions. What evidence do you have that they have an alternate method of potion-making?
 
Right, I think I've had enough. I'll end by saying that I never said they have an alternative method of potion-making.
I apologize if I misunderstood what you were saying but this bit
I will say that the book also has rules for making arcane magic items and that they're different from the rune magic items, so I don't see why a dwarf equivalent to potion-brewing is impossible and that they absolutely must use the standard potion-brewing rules.
Seemed to imply you believed Dwarven potion-making could potentially follow different rules than standard human potion-making which would imply using a different way of making potions and led me to believe you thought they might have a different method of potion-making, hence the content of my reply. It seems there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line and my interpretation of what I read was not the meaning you were trying to communicate when you wrote it down. However I still don't know what you did mean by what you wrote, could you please clarify where I misread things? I know you said you had enough but I would like to avoid miscommunications like this in the future by learning from my mistakes but I'm currently still unsure of what my mistake was meaning I can't learn from it. Could you please explain to me what you were trying to say and how I misinterpreted things so I can endeavour to make sure so I don't make a mistake like this again? Again I'm sorry for my misunderstanding of what you were saying.
 
I said:
"Dwarves have an alternative to normal magic crafting, so why don't they have an alternative to normal potion-brewing?"
You thought I said:
"Dwarves have an alternative to normal potion-brewing."
Thank you, I'll do my best to learn from this interaction so that my future interactions with others don't involve the same type of misunderstanding on my part as that which has occurred here. I apologize for any unpleasant or frustration I may have caused you due to my error.
 
Random thought but the talk about how nexuses are used by polities got me thinking about how Altdorf takes on the wind of the current supreme patriarch/matriarch.

"So witnessed," comes the chorus from the leaders of the other seven Orders, and a pulse of Ghur rises from the Staff of Volans and floods outwards, disrupting the magical barriers, pushing open the doors, and flooding into the streets beyond. For eight more years the Amber Brotherhood will lead the Colleges of Magic, Dragomas will advise the Emperor, and Ghur will blow stronger than any other Wind in Altdorf.

The wording implies that the staff is the entire mechanism for this and I don't know canon well enough to know if that tracks. Considering the amount of power involved in that and that Dragomas isn't in the city 24/7 it seems like something else would have to be involved. Altdorf nexus would be near the top of the list of culprits. Teclis made the obsidian hall so it seems plausible he gave it a function that by winning the contest it triggers this but that's total speculation

@Boney does Mathilde know how the city's wind alignment works or have any reason to suspect the nexus might be involved and worth studying?

[X] Pan's Treehouse
[X] Orb Reveal
[X] Silk
[X] Lord Seilph, the Mystic
[X] Skull River Ambush
 
The wording implies that the staff is the entire mechanism for this and I don't know canon well enough to know if that tracks. Considering the amount of power involved in that and that Dragomas isn't in the city 24/7 it seems like something else would have to be involved. Altdorf nexus would be near the top of the list of culprits. Teclis made the obsidian hall so it seems plausible he gave it a function that by winning the contest it triggers this but that's total speculation
Looking back on this I think you're right, the energy level involved is much more likely to be supplied from the Nexus rather than the staff, the pulse of Ghur from the staff may just be a signal to the Nexus to flood the city with Ghur, a redundant one in this case since it's already doing that but tradition is tradition. It wouldn't even involve a significant energy upkeep, sure flooding the city with a Wind would be magically expensive once but after that's over with you just need to make sure the Wind doesn't leak out of the city and you can maintain a constant ambient high level of that Wind, if a Supreme Patriarch/Matriarch of the same Wind wins the next contest the Nexus just keeps on doing what it was doing, if an SP/SM or a new Wind wins the Nexus has to flood the city with that new Wind causing a temporary drop in the amount of that Wind reaching Ulthuan and the Great Vortex but it'll also be sucking the old Wind up so it doesn't mix and cause Dhar meaning there'll be an equivalent temporary spike in the level of the old Wind reaching Ulthuan and the Vortex so the net magical energy being transmitted would remain the same, only the composition would be temporarily altered.
 
Runesmiths are medium-key wizards. Like, I've looked at a bunch of dwarf stuff this past few weeks and runesmiths don't just make magic items, they themselves seem to have magic powers, at least to some extent. By far the most obvious expression of that is the fact that they can make magic items, but there's other stuff too.

First is the literary quotes which @Blackout collected here.

Second is this artwork from Dwarfs 8e and the Dwarf Player's Guide:

Third is the lore and game mechanics of army books, such as Dwarfs 8e and Forces of Fantasy.
In battle, Runesmiths aid their side by dampening enemy magic - earthing spells harmlessly before they can wreak havoc amongst the Dwarfs. They do this in the same manner as they capture the Winds of Magic to forge magic items, and they often bring along rune-covered talismans to aid in this endeavour. [...] Whether by some gift of Grungni, or perhaps as a side effect of centuries of beating magical runes into white-hot metal, when a Runesmith feels the rage of battle, his weapons, and those of friendly forces around him, begin to glow and radiate heat as
if remembering the forgefires from which they were created. This aura of power has proven effective in helping blades penetrate the armour or toughened hides of any foe.

Forgefire: All friendly infantry models in a unit joined by a Runesmith or Runelord gain the Armour Piercing special rule. Should the Runesmith or Runelord leave the unit or be slain, the unit loses the special rule immediately.
To break down this quote, it isn't saying that runesmiths use runes to dispel spells, it's saying runesmiths use their runesmithing gifts to dispel spells, and that they sometimes use talismans to make that dispelling stronger. And then after that, it says that a runesmith makes their unit's weapons light up on fire and make them armour-piercing, not as a result of runes or anything, but because of an inherent ability of theirs. DPG's Forgefire talent calls you a "living battery of runic power".

Runesmiths have inherent magical ability. It's not in the same way as wizards of other species, but they have it. It makes their eyes glow, they activate magical effects with incantations, they splinter rock with trails of light and cause runic grimoires to glow, they have weapon-fire magic auras, and they can dispel spells the same way they can grab a fistful of Winds of Magic and shove it into an object.

@Boney how wizardy are runesmiths in Divided Loyalties?


Dwarfs 7e page 30
The Runesmiths Guild claims descent from Grungni's son Morgrim. For this reason, the Runesmiths sometimes refer to themselves as the Clan of Morgrim, although they are not the only clan to claim descent from Grungni or his sons.
Dwarfs 8e page 36
The ancient Guild of Runesmiths is one of the oldest and most respected institutions in all the Karaz Ankor. According to legend, its origins stretch back to the days of Grungni, the great Ancestor God of Mining, Master of the Forge and Lord of the Runes. The Runesmiths Guild claims descent from Grungni's son. For this reason, the Runesmiths sometimes refer to themselves as the Clan of Morgrim, although they are not the only clan to claim descent from Grungni or his many sons.
This is so god damn weird.

Dwarfs 4e page 92 Kragg the Grim
The old Dwarf is jealous of his lore and protective of his reputation and so far he has not shared the secret of his master rune with any of his apprentices, so only he may use it. Perhaps some day the master will teach it to his successor, but so far he has not found a Runesmith worthy enough to inherit his knowledge.
It seems that, at least in the old lore, Kragg does in fact have apprentices, he just doesn't teach them everything he knows. This is apparently common going by Dwarfs 8e page 36:
When a Runesmith judges the time is right, he chooses a young relative to be his apprentice and reticently teaches him, for an apprentice has to prove his worthiness to wring out even the most basic steps of the craft from his Master. Many powerful runes have been lost over time simply because a Runesmith could find no one he considered worthy enough to gain his innermost knowledge.
Also man it is weird reading these older books and the default pronoun gender is masculine. I'm way more used to gender-neutral pronouns as the default. I don't think I'm the only one; I had to correct a bunch of they/them to he/him when I was proofreading 4e's greenskin sourcebook.
 
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