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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Derpmind said:

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I hate to be a killjoy but I don't think that joke works in this context, in the original comic the joke was that by trying to create a new standard as a solution to the problem they only made the problem worse even though it could have been helpful in theory. For the word set adding an additional definition has no conceivable way of making things better, it'll just exacerbate the problem, something like having the text on the panels read:
  1. Situation: There are 430 definitions for a single word
  2. "430?! Ridiculous! We need to develop another word to take up half of the definitions so it isn't as ambiguous." "Yeah!"
  3. Soon. Situation: There are 215 definitions apiece for two words
Would make more sense and be closer to the vibe of the original comic since in attempting to solve the problem they now have two words with an absurd amount of definitions instead of just one but even that doesn't quite work because it actually is a step towards solving the problem, repeat the splitting 7 more times dividing them into as close to equal halves as possible for odd numbers and you would have 256 words with a reasonable either 1 or 2 definitions apiece. I apologize if this comes across as in any way dismissive of your effort, I'm just trying to offer my opinion and some constructive criticism, something which is admittedly hampered by my own inability to provide a good alternative solution to the parts I'm criticizing which is what good constructive criticism should be, there might be a way to adapt the joke structure to work for set and its absurd number of definitions without sacrificing logic or the level of humor present in the original but unfortunately I personally can't think of one.
 
Adrian XXIV said:
- This army consists of the following units: Thane of Clan Huzkul, Undumgi Captain, Undumgi Spearmen, Undumgi Spearmen (Shields), Clan Huzkul's Swordwarfs, Undumgi Crossbowmen, Undumgi Handgunners, Clan Huzkul's Archers, Clan Huzkul's Sappers, Knights of The Winter Wolf, The We's Hunting Spiders, Cannons, Bolt Throwers.
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What's the thought behind Clan Huzkul having swordsmen and archers? No idea what Dawi think of using bows (not much I presume) but swords usually are Gazulite weapons and Belegar never lacked in weapons, even during the expedition.
Boney said:
This also creates an oddity in that most of this lore predates the prismation of dragons - in earlier lore all dragons shared the same statline as Caledorian dragons and there weren't any Wind-attuned dragons, so all dragons breathed fire, but with the creation of the Wind-attuned dragons and Chaos dragons and now Cathayan dragons, fire breath is a lot rarer than it used to be. Does this mean that the mysterious 'power' of dragonfire is being lost in what could be described as a degradation of dragonness in this diaspora? Or does this mean that the inherent power of dragon fire is why it is so mutable, and that it retains its powers or even takes on entirely new but just as potent forms of potential in these new forms? It's an interesting set of questions that GW never really grappled with.
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Well, presumably if Wind Dragons could do this then maybe some Runesmith would have tried to convince some non-Caledorian Dragon to collaborate at some point. Or at least that would be my take on it.
NexusEye said:
It depends on whether the Runes need the heat from dragon fire, some quality innate to dragon fire, or both. If it's one or three were out of luck but if it's two we might be in business, for some reason Cython's breath kept Birdmuncha frozen permanently despite the fact that isn't something Hysh magic can normally do implying it was some innate quality of dragon breath rather than normal magic.
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Or Hysh Dragons are Ice Dragons because for whatever reason Hysh is associated with cold in Dragon culture and icy spellwork fits their Hysh paradigm.
 
Rafin said:
Or Hysh Dragons are Ice Dragons because for whatever reason Hysh is associated with cold in Dragon culture and icy spellwork fits their Hysh paradigm.
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That's possible but I'm having a difficult time imagining why a space-faring culture would associate Hysh with cold, light is something emitted by stars that heats you up, especially since in space there's no atmosphere so you'll keep heating up until your own blackbody radiation emissions are high enough to cool you down and you reach thermal equilibrium, and while the thermal radiation you're emitting to cool yourself down is a form of light it would be infrared light, below the visible spectrum and not part of the colors that combine to make white, Hysh's color. Speaking of the color white and Hysh, white stars are reasonably hot stars like our sun which would appear white instead of yellow if it weren't for the atmosphere scattering the blue components across the sky and does appear white when viewed from space, cooler stars are orange and red, not white so their wouldn't be that type of association with Hysh.

One could link Hysh with coldness through icy planets, most forms of frozen volatiles are technically colorless when pure and completely solid but in practice they aren't and tend to scatter light and have a high albedo for all wavelengths across the visible spectrum, making them appear white. Dragon culture may have observed that icy planets and moons in the outer reaches of the star systems they travel to tend to be white and in the inner solar system the parts of the planets that were the coldest, the poles, tended to be white, they may have formed a link between cold and white and from white to cold.

Still that seems like stretch, it's two degrees of separation and relies on things as basic as color association and the observation that ice tends to be white. I feel like there's probably some other reason dragons associate cold with Hysh or dragons don't associate cold with Hysh and something else is going on, possibly linked to other dragon weirdness like how dragons fly without using magic despite the square-cube law.
 
Rafin said:
Or Hysh Dragons are Ice Dragons because for whatever reason Hysh is associated with cold in Dragon culture and icy spellwork fits their Hysh paradigm.
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The virgin Mathilde: "The colleges just cannot agree on the placement of the Winds in the Wheel of Magic."

The chad Cython, probably: "Hysh is the opposite of Aqshy. I won't elaborate, but I will enticingly hint at what that means due to my mere existence as a dragon who breathes ice instead of fire."
 
@Boney, a question, would it be possible to build an even more portable variant of the Portentiv by simplifying it into a whistle with the air passing through a hole in a Dhar-sensitive material, either one of the materials already used in the Portentiv since they all seem Dhar-sensitive given every one of them switches from major to minor key when near Dhar or alternatively an exclusively Dhar-sensitive material so it isn't thrown off in the presence of another Wind, that reacts by changing its shape and thus the sound it makes when blowing air through it? To be clear I'm not asking for Mathilde to design yet another variant of the auditory seviroscope herself, what she's made is already good enough for the vast majority of use cases, it's good for stationary monitoring of local Winds and can be carried around by a team venturing into potentially dangerous areas by having a designated team member carrying it around and playing it while the rest of the group protects them. I'm just wondering if after publishing our paper about it it would be feasible for some other Wizard to take it and simplify it down into a purely Dhar detecting tool in exchange for making it even more portable, for situations like a lone Witchhunter without a team who can't both carry an unwieldy Portentiv and all the rest of their equipment without overencumbering themself and for which the current Portentiv design is not ideal. They likely wouldn't care about the levels of Winds other than Dhar and if the whistle could be shrunk down to the size of a flute or smaller they could just stick it in a bag. Would something like that be a reasonably possible potential adaptation another Wizard could make in the future?
 
NexusEye said:
@Boney, a question, would it be possible to build an even more portable variant of the Portentiv by simplifying it into a whistle with the air passing through a hole in a Dhar-sensitive material, either one of the materials already used in the Portentiv since they all seem Dhar-sensitive given every one of them switches from major to minor key when near Dhar or alternatively an exclusively Dhar-sensitive material so it isn't thrown off in the presence of another Wind, that reacts by changing its shape and thus the sound it makes when blowing air through it? To be clear I'm not asking for Mathilde to design yet another variant of the auditory seviroscope herself, what she's made is already good enough for the vast majority of use cases, it's good for stationary monitoring of local Winds and can be carried around by a team venturing into potentially dangerous areas by having a designated team member carrying it around and playing it while the rest of the group protects them. I'm just wondering if after publishing our paper about it it would be feasible for some other Wizard to take it and simplify it down into a purely Dhar detecting tool in exchange for making it even more portable, for situations like a lone Witchhunter without a team who can't both carry an unwieldy Portentiv and all the rest of their equipment without overencumbering themself and for which the current Portentiv design is not ideal. They likely wouldn't care about the levels of Winds other than Dhar and if the whistle could be shrunk down to the size of a flute or smaller they could just stick it in a bag. Would something like that be a reasonably possible potential adaptation another Wizard could make in the future?
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It would be possible, but it would require significant precision and expertise, and there's a hard ceiling on how expensive something Mathilde designs can be before it stops being useful, because then it's competing with enchanted items and hiring Wizards.
 
Boney said:
You're resting atop the Alriksson as the caravan negotiates its way around a corner when it happens. By the time it's audible over the engines of the steam-wagons, the clattering of falling stone has escalated into a full-blown avalanche, and there's a roar of draconic disapproval as the ground below the largest of the steam-wagons gives way, dragging it over the edge and out of sight as an extremely disgruntled dragon flaps his way free, carrying an even more disgruntled Elf in his talons. As the silence drags on you become more and more horrified, until at last there's an earth-shaking crash as the Urmskaladrak hits the ground far, far below.
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'...as the caravan navigates* its way...'
Boney said:
Time becomes meaningless as you do everything you can to negotiate a nightmarish maze of twisted metal and gore as you try to find survivors, or more accurately one survivor. Gotrek's knowledge of steam-wagons is irreplaceable, and without it there's that much less chance of being able to correct anything that goes wrong with them. But you're keenly aware that if he didn't survive the fall you have only a few minutes before he's beyond the grasp of the Seed of Regrowth, and though you've pulled out two more Dwarves that somehow survived the fall free of the wreckage, neither of them are Gotrek. And none of the recognizable corpses you've found are, either.
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'...you can to navigate* a nightmarish maze...'
 
Derpmind said:
Pinging @soulcake for no reason.
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Wha—

Boney said:
The most basic way to do it would just have a dragon breathing fire through the hole in your forge where the bellows normally goes, but Runes and Runesmiths being the way they are, all of those are plausible and more besides. It's the sort of thing that an entire quest could be made about and then that quest could win User's Choice Best Ongoing Quest in 2022.
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Sorry boss the only thing in stock is 3 Shard Wyrm eggs kept in magical stasis that were looted off a Meargh that then get fed the power of an Arcane Fulcrum to hatch into three sapient Shard Wyrms whose personalities can be summed up by the following meme:


Don't got no Dragon Fire used to make Runes, fresh out actually dunno when they'll come back in stock. Its a shipping issue, there's a mail strike going on or something idk.
 
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Boney said:
It would be possible, but it would require significant precision and expertise, and there's a hard ceiling on how expensive something Mathilde designs can be before it stops being useful, because then it's competing with enchanted items and hiring Wizards.
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I understand that there's a limit to how much effort it takes to put together a Dhar detecting auditory seviroscope before it's cheaper to buy a Dhar detecting enchanted item but wouldn't a purely Dhar detecting be cheaper? You don't need eight different pipes each sensitive to different Winds and you could already make a basic version of it by taking out one of the pipes and blowing air through it using your lungs instead of bellows and I understand miniaturizing it would add difficulty and level of expertise needed but I would've thought that the reduction in cost and complexity from dividing the number of pipes by eight and getting rid of the bellows and keyboard would have more than made up for that. I thought the main reason we made it sensitive to all Winds instead of just acting as a dark magic detecting tool was to give it utility as a research tool and let you know things like whether the dark magic blowing through the town is just Dhar or Dhar and Shyish indicating Necromancy. I'm not trying to argue with you about anything, you're the QM after all, I'm just confused as to why a significantly stripped down version of something we already made would have any significant chance of being more expensive that the original unless for whatever reason miniaturizing it even somewhat is incredibly difficult.
 
NexusEye said:
I understand that there's a limit to how much effort it takes to put together a Dhar detecting auditory seviroscope before it's cheaper to buy a Dhar detecting enchanted item but wouldn't a purely Dhar detecting be cheaper? You don't need eight different pipes each sensitive to different Winds and you could already make a basic version of it by taking out one of the pipes and blowing air through it using your lungs instead of bellows and I understand miniaturizing it would add difficulty and level of expertise needed but I would've thought that the reduction in cost and complexity from dividing the number of pipes by eight and getting rid of the bellows and keyboard would have more than made up for that. I thought the main reason we made it sensitive to all Winds instead of just acting as a dark magic detecting tool was to give it utility as a research tool and let you know things like whether the dark magic blowing through the town is just Dhar or Dhar and Shyish indicating Necromancy. I'm not trying to argue with you about anything, you're the QM after all, I'm just confused as to why a significantly stripped down version of something we already made would have any significant chance of being more expensive that the original unless for whatever reason miniaturizing it even somewhat is incredibly difficult.
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There are a significant number of things that resonate with Dhar. A lot of them are illegal. A lot more are a bad idea to keep on your person. Most of the rest would become very bad to keep on your person after exposing them to Dhar. That cuts your options down significantly. It's possible that research and investigation and prototyping might find something that exists in the sweet spot of detection and safety and legality and minitiarizability, but it wouldn't be trivial or automatic.
 
Boney said:
There are a significant number of things that resonate with Dhar. A lot of them are illegal. A lot more are a bad idea to keep on your person. Most of the rest would become very bad to keep on your person after exposing them to Dhar. That cuts your options down significantly. It's possible that research and investigation and prototyping might find something that exists in the sweet spot of detection and safety and legality and minitiarizability, but it wouldn't be trivial or automatic.
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But aren't all the materials we're using in the Portentiv already Dhar-sensitive since they shift from major key to minor key in its presence, indicating they do react to Dhar, couldn't some future Wizard use one of those? It might be thrown off by false positives from the presence of the Wind it is sensitive to but that seems like a manageable problem, make two variants the first a whistle using the Ghur-sensitive material from the Portentiv for use is civilized areas like towns and cities where there won't be any wild beasts and the second a Chamon-sensitive version for use out in the wilderness where there'll be no metal to attract Chamon.
 
NexusEye said:
But aren't all the materials we're using in the Portentiv already Dhar-sensitive since they shift from major key to minor key in its presence, indicating they do react to Dhar, couldn't some future Wizard use one of those? It might be thrown off by false positives from the presence of the Wind it is sensitive to but that seems like a manageable problem, make two variants the first a whistle using the Ghur-sensitive material from the Portentiv for use is civilized areas like towns and cities where there won't be any wild beasts and the second a Chamon-sensitive version for use out in the wilderness where there'll be no metal to attract Chamon.
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I think we might be talking past each other. I think you might have taken me saying 'yes, but it would take some effort' to your original question as actually me saying 'no'. If that's not the case and we're just quibbling over exactly how much effort it would take and what approaches there might be and what materials might be used and what problems that might have and how those problems might be addressed, we're going waaay too far into the weeds for a hypothetical and let's just replace the whole question of exactly how it'd happen with 'try it and find out'.
 
Boney said:
I think we might be talking past each other. I think you might have taken me saying 'yes, but it would take some effort' to your original question as actually me saying 'no'. If that's not the case and we're just quibbling over exactly how much effort it would take and what approaches there might be and what materials might be used and what problems that might have and how those problems might be addressed, we're going waaay too far into the weeds for a hypothetical and let's just replace the whole question of exactly how it'd happen with 'try it and find out'.
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Sorry, I thought you were saying "yes but it will be difficult" to which I asked "why would it be difficult?" and the answers you gave didn't seem to make sense as to why it would've been more difficult resulting in me keeping on asking for clarification due to genuine confusion, I didn't realize you were trying to tell me "no". Let's just drop the subject and agree that miniaturized Dhar sensitive auditory seviroscopes can't be made because, to give a vaguely plausible magibabble answer off the top of my head, "the nonlinear relationship between Dhar sensitivity and size in standard Wind-sensitive materials resulting in miniaturization causing disproportionate reduction in Dhar response" or something like that and that barring a breakthrough made by someone trying it and finding out they aren't viable. I wasn't even looking for Mathilde to design such a thing, I was just wondering if it was possible for some other Wizard to potentially make it in the future whether near or distant. It isn't a big deal and I'm sorry things got out of hand, tone is hard to communicate through text and I've never been the best at social sills but that's an explanation not an excuse, I never meant to not take no as an answer from you.
 
NexusEye said:
Sorry, I thought you were saying "yes but it will be difficult" to which I asked "why would it be difficult?" and the answers you gave didn't seem to make sense as to why it would've been more difficult resulting in me keeping on asking for clarification due to genuine confusion, I didn't realize you were trying to tell me "no".
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I think you misread my post. You were correct, I wasn't trying to tell you 'no'.

It works in this specific configuration. Mathilde knows that because she tested a whole bunch of different materials with the help of relevant experts and assembled the ones that worked best, and all the ones that didn't work, or worked only in certain scenarios, were never on-screen. Might it work in a smaller configuration? Maybe. Maybe not. To find out, build a prototype and go out and test it. Are there limitations? Are there edge cases where it gives false positives? Test it in different scenarios. Can any arising problems be adapted to? And now you're at an AP's worth of effort, which is what I meant by it being difficult. It requires specialist skills and it requires a non-trivial time investment, it's not just taking the schematics and changing the scale from feet to inches. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't, maybe I'll have an idea for an interesting way for those efforts to come up in the quest at some future point, maybe I won't.
 
Boney said:
I think you misread my post. You were correct, I wasn't trying to tell you 'no'.

It works in this specific configuration. Mathilde knows that because she tested a whole bunch of different materials with the help of relevant experts and assembled the ones that worked best, and all the ones that didn't work, or worked only in certain scenarios, were never on-screen. Might it work in a smaller configuration? Maybe. Maybe not. To find out, build a prototype and go out and test it. Are there limitations? Are there edge cases where it gives false positives? Test it in different scenarios. Can any arising problems be adapted to? And now you're at an AP's worth of effort, which is what I meant by it being difficult. It requires specialist skills and it requires a non-trivial time investment, it's not just taking the schematics and changing the scale from feet to inches. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't, maybe I'll have an idea for an interesting way for those efforts to come up in the quest at some future point, maybe I won't.
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Gah, you're right I did misread your post, it seems I rolled a Nat 1 on my reading comprehension.

Thank you for patiently explaining things, that makes things much clearer.
 
NexusEye said:
Set has the most meanings of any word in the English language, in 1989 the Oxford English Dictionary listed 430 definitions that the word set could mean and that number may have increased since then. The confusion is understandable in the absence of additional context to clarify things.
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Set only has 1 real definition, to place something face down. It comes from ancient Egypt, and everything else is irreverent people trying to apply it to things other than the sacred Egyptian game of duel monsters.
 
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NexusEye said:
Set has the most meanings of any word in the English language, in 1989 the Oxford English Dictionary listed 430 definitions that the word set could mean and that number may have increased since then. The confusion is understandable in the absence of additional context to clarify things.
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Amusingly, while that was the case, 'set' has been overtaken by 'run' in the years since.

Boney said:
It would be possible, but it would require significant precision and expertise, and there's a hard ceiling on how expensive something Mathilde designs can be before it stops being useful, because then it's competing with enchanted items and hiring Wizards.
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Sounds like something that could be particularly appropriate for dwarven craftsmen, as people like Rangers and Gyrocopter pilots might find such a device very useful and provide a market for them.

If made at scale it could be a niche export good as well.

Perhaps the underemployed Cityborn of Laurelorn would also find it an interesting niche export - they'd probably be better at tuning magically sensitive instruments as well. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the elves didn't already have various forms of the arts that didn't make use of magically sensitive/resonant materials/acts/sounds that included the ambient Winds as part of the work.
 
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Andres said:
@Boney, what does "set" mean in this case? Is it some technical smithing term? Is it done at the start or end of the inscribing?
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The closest match I could find for "set" as a smithing term is for a specific type of hammer called a "set hammer":
"In smithing, "set" typically refers to a type of hammer, specifically a set hammer, which is used for shaping and smoothing metal in tight areas without leaving large hammer marks. It is an essential tool for achieving fine details in metalwork."

"A set hammer is a type of hammer used in blacksmithing, typically with a hollowed-out face, that serves as a swage or flatter for shaping metal. It is designed to create smooth surfaces and work in tight corners without affecting the surrounding area."

However, I don't think this is what GW were referring to with that passage (perhaps apart from the "work with fine detail in a small area, without affecting the surroundings").

The way I see it, "some of the greatest runes require Dragon's Fire to set them into Gromril" means either one or both of these two possibilites:
  1. These runes are of such high complexity and fine detail that Dragon Fire is needed to make the Gromril pliable enough to carve them correctly.
  2. These runes require a boatload of magical energy to properly activate, and Dragon's Fire is the only substance that both has that amount of energy and is actually usable in smithing (you try and work an extremely tough piece of metal while blasting it with liquid nitrogen, the way a dragon like Cython's Breath works).
As for the specific meaning of "set [the runes] into Gromril" in that passage, I don't think it means anything more special than "properly inscribe [the runes] into Gromril".

Occam's Razor and all that.
 
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Boney said:
the suffix -ril simply means a beautiful metal
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@Boney is this based on your analysis of the use of "ril" in various words (e.g. combining "brilliant-shining gold" and "old dwarf wrinkles") or do you have a source outright saying that's what it means?


Dwarf Player's Guide, page 24
Born of the exodus from Karaz Ankor of Dwarfs dispossessed from its fallen holds and despairing of ever returning, the holds of the Vaults, Black, and Grey mountains are a regular irritant for the High King. At their formation, the High King condemned them as cowards and entered grudges against each and every one, which the western holds returned with grudges of their own. This situation lasted for a thousand years, and they avoided war with each other only because of Karaz Ankor's pressing need to fight Orcs, Goblins and Skaven.

Eventually the pressure of war led the High King to attempt reconciliation. He tore out the relevant pages in his Book of Grudges and sent them to the Dwarfkings of the western holds with a message that all grudges were withdrawn. He declared the Dawi of the western mountains were again welcome in Karaz Ankor and expressed the hope that reconciliation would lead to their reunion with Karaz Ankor — as well as their warriors and gold.
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Previously I'd covered this and had the focus on how there was a schism between east and west and that the west was straight up no longer part of the Karaz Ankor, but I've realised there's another thing to focus on: grudges can in fact straight up be withdrawn. Sure, most grudges last forever until repaid, but if a dwarf wants to for whatever reason, they can just declare it null. Heck, given the timeframe involved, it looks like you can declare your predecessor's grudges null too.
 
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