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And she's the thief Pope.
Thief Bishop. And if there's a biggest Thief Bishop (like the pope originally), it's probably Heidi. Though I don't think anyone will ever get the same level of dominance and centralization, given that a secretive mystery cult of a god of sneaking and rebellion is not very conductive to such. It's always going to be a collection of equal high priests, with some high priests equaller than others. But even building consistent power structures is difficult because the nature of most doings means that while Altdorf and other big cities will be more important, the people actually leading often don't stick around.

Heidi sticking in one place for a long time is kind of an interesting development in that way. Especially if Ranald the Dealer becomes an official thing. A merchant high priest will have have cause to stick around and be able to publicly exert power, so that could lead to more structure. But I don't think that could ever claim primacy. On public, 'official' policy, but the internal politics of the cult that produce the external policy will be heavily influence by the other facets.

Anyway, I do realise it's a joke, but there's some interesting thoughts related to it.
 
Any merchant high priest of Ranald the Dealer is going have to play things pretty carefully to not become the number one target of high priests of 4 others faces.
 
Chaos argues quite strenuously that Dhar is their natural property and jurisdiction, but they make that argument for everything else in the world, too. It certainly holds properties usually associated with Chaos and answers the commands of Daemons and the like quite readily, but it's also got a well documented history of being turned against Chaos. Perhaps the safest way to put it is that it's closer to Chaos than the Winds are.

I do not actually disagree with the conclusion nor have a real horse in the race, especially since my WHF experience comes almost exclusively from this thread, but I feel like I have to point out that chaos has a well documented history of being turned against chaos, so this does not feel like a conclusive argument, if its meant to be an argument and not word of QM I mean.
 
I do not actually disagree with the conclusion nor have a real horse in the race, especially since my WHF experience comes almost exclusively from this thread, but I feel like I have to point out that chaos has a well documented history of being turned against chaos, so this does not feel like a conclusive argument, if its meant to be an argument and not word of QM I mean.
But it's generally chaos turning chaos against chaos. Dhar doesn't have that, its just naturally there.
Like vampires are the biggest thing on my list of "why dhar doesn't belong to chaos." Because their souls are explicitly save from the chaos gods. Are they in any good shape? Not really but tzeentch himself could rock up and he'd have difficulty getting to a vampires soul.
And if dhar were of chaos that would never have happened. Souls are like the one thing chaos actually has a use for.
 
I do not actually disagree with the conclusion nor have a real horse in the race, especially since my WHF experience comes almost exclusively from this thread, but I feel like I have to point out that chaos has a well documented history of being turned against chaos, so this does not feel like a conclusive argument, if its meant to be an argument and not word of QM I mean.

There is a subtle but extremely important difference between turning against itself and being turned against itself. The former happens all the time, while anyone claiming to have achieved the latter tends to be about half an act away from going completely off the rails.
 
Huh, the 2nd Secret of Dhar is true to the nature of Chaos?
And a 'nonmagic' real world equivalent of the 1st Secret of Dhar.. yeesh, that sounds like pure pain.
 
There is a subtle but extremely important difference between turning against itself and being turned against itself. The former happens all the time, while anyone claiming to have achieved the latter tends to be about half an act away from going completely off the rails.
The issue with being turned against itself is that the distinction between that and a phase of corruption is that you can only see it in hindsight, when the person has either turned and you know it was corruption, or... well that's pretty much it, since being dead is only a decent protection from being turned, so there's no point where you can say "yup, this guy successfully did it".
 
The issue with being turned against itself is that the distinction between that and a phase of corruption is that you can only see it in hindsight, when the person has either turned and you know it was corruption, or... well that's pretty much it, since being dead is only a decent protection from being turned, so there's no point where you can say "yup, this guy successfully did it".
It's not so much hindsight as longevity. And if someone doesn't make it they seem like the same thing, but they really aren't.

Which leads into again, Necromancy. Which hasn't really been turned AGAINST chaos to a significant degree (although from sheer numbers it feels like some people have probably done it here and there) but we're going on thousands of years for "Aha, this really was all just secretly a tool of chaos from the start" to have turned up and it just... hasn't. In the form of necromancy dhar hasn't by and large been turned against chaos, but it absolutely has been turned to much more mundane forms of selfish, immoral, narcissistic purposes. And even more, by all indications chaos does not fucking like the fact that necromancy exists.
 
It's not so much hindsight as longevity. And if someone doesn't make it they seem like the same thing, but they really aren't.

Which leads into again, Necromancy. Which hasn't really been turned AGAINST chaos to a significant degree (although from sheer numbers it feels like some people have probably done it here and there) but we're going on thousands of years for "Aha, this really was all just secretly a tool of chaos from the start" to have turned up and it just... hasn't. In the form of necromancy dhar hasn't by and large been turned against chaos, but it absolutely has been turned to much more mundane forms of selfish, immoral, narcissistic purposes. And even more, by all indications chaos does not fucking like the fact that necromancy exists.

There is at least 1 chaos necromancer... but Kemmler is very much an outlier among necromancers. And chaos for that matter.
 
The only transformation Dhar seems to still have in it is into Runic Energy given the right runes.
Also Vampire (Necrarch) life fuel and magical effects of a baddie flavor.
but tzeentch himself could rock up and he'd have difficulty getting to a vampires soul.
I'm opening a complete tangent here, but I don't imagine Tzeentch to be among the categories of things that can "rock up", to the point that I am not sure what it would mean if it did. I expect that even in the Aethyr it is pretty much impossible to literally encounter the "true form" or "real body" of Tzeentch and that even if one encountered something that looks like the images we have and that claims to be the actual Tzeentch and is somehow neither lying nor deluded, then I would still expect the entity in question to contain far less than half of Tzeentch, even if it is an unfathomably greater monstrosity than any witnessed Greater Daemon. And if there even is anything like a singular will of Tzeentch, I would still believe it to be diffuse and decentralized across its domain in the Aethyr and beyond. To be frank, I think this is true for all Chaos Gods to some extent, but I also think that this would be especially true for Tzeentch in particular.
 
Thief Bishop. And if there's a biggest Thief Bishop (like the pope originally), it's probably Heidi. Though I don't think anyone will ever get the same level of dominance and centralization, given that a secretive mystery cult of a god of sneaking and rebellion is not very conductive to such. It's always going to be a collection of equal high priests, with some high priests equaller than others. But even building consistent power structures is difficult because the nature of most doings means that while Altdorf and other big cities will be more important, the people actually leading often don't stick around.

Heidi sticking in one place for a long time is kind of an interesting development in that way. Especially if Ranald the Dealer becomes an official thing. A merchant high priest will have have cause to stick around and be able to publicly exert power, so that could lead to more structure. But I don't think that could ever claim primacy. On public, 'official' policy, but the internal politics of the cult that produce the external policy will be heavily influence by the other facets.

Anyway, I do realise it's a joke, but there's some interesting thoughts related to it.
Mathilde is Thief Pope and if Heidi wants the position she can do what any self respecting Thief Pope would do and steal it from us.
 
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