Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[MrHobbit]

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I had focused on the poachers because that is what my initial disagreement with your post. Did you not say that 'technically Laurelorn should have handed the poachers to Middenland'? That was you asserting that the Empire has an agreement of extra-territoriality with Laurelorn. Did you, or did you not say that? It's a simple yes or no question. (Executing poachers is also not evidence about whether the Eonir care about the lives of individual humans.)

I made no statements about whether Eltharion cares about individual human lives. What I would argue is that both pointing to him as a typical example of an elf and trying to apply facts about the Eonir to him are wrongheaded. It was Asarnil who said that the Empire is no slouch in the grudge department.

What blame can Laurelorn be assigned that is meaningful? Essentially none. Attempts to explain that the trees were important were guaranteed to go hilariously wrong. Nordland had agreed to abide by Laurelorn's restrictions, it failed. Obviously Laurelorn revoked the treaty once it was capable of it. Violence is never pretty, but it was made inevitable by the actions of Nordland.

You missed the meaning behind Cadaeth's statement. She mentioned that Laurelorn had chosen the path that would see the least dead. That's not the words of someone who was entirely fine with the deal, but they chose it because they felt they didn't have another alternative. It's not the words of someone from a society where they were entirely behind violently expelling colonists. Then she directly said that Laurelorn's government had been made fools of when they found out that the dwarves had a mage who understood foreign magic in Karak Eight Peaks. That Laurelorn could have gone without the violence at all by waiting and reaching out for Mathilde. So... yes. Your posts still read like there is a bias against the Eonir.

I'm back to the point where I ask you where you've been reading about Divided Loyalties' Nordland-Laurelorn conflict. Because this is almost all wrong again. The conflict is over. Boney's stated that if the Eonir had never made the deal, and gave the tresspassers the Athel Loren treatment, there wouldn't ever have been a war. But Laurelorn chose to compromise instead. In that same post Boney said that the problem has been solved. There's an entire update about how Nordland has instead turned to feuding with Middenland over the Cult of Ulric! Mathilde even mentioned that Laurelorn wasn't even guaranteed to ally with Middenland over it. What have you read that makes you think all of this? And there also hasn't been anything in-text to suggest that the terms of the treaty are ambiguous. Boney's mentioned before when treaties are ambiguous. The original treaty certainly still exists. You're making stuff up to try to pile more blame on top of Laurelorn!

But, ignoring that, it is funny that you brought up the Nazis. You know it wasn't Laurelorn doing the settler-colonialism here?

 

[hugo239111]

I had focused on the poachers because that is what my initial disagreement with your post. Did you not say that 'technically Laurelorn should have handed the poachers to Middenland'? That was you asserting that the Empire has an agreement of extra-territoriality with Laurelorn. Did you, or did you not say that? It's a simple yes or no question. (Executing poachers is also not evidence about whether the Eonir care about the lives of individual humans.)

I made no statements about whether Eltharion cares about individual human lives. What I would argue is that both pointing to him as a typical example of an elf and trying to apply facts about the Eonir to him are wrongheaded. It was Asarnil who said that the Empire is no slouch in the grudge department.

What blame can Laurelorn be assigned that is meaningful? Essentially none. Attempts to explain that the trees were important were guaranteed to go hilariously wrong. Nordland had agreed to abide by Laurelorn's restrictions, it failed. Obviously Laurelorn revoked the treaty once it was capable of it. Violence is never pretty, but it was made inevitable by the actions of Nordland.

You missed the meaning behind Cadaeth's statement. She mentioned that Laurelorn had chosen the path that would see the least dead. That's not the words of someone who was entirely fine with the deal, but they chose it because they felt they didn't have another alternative. It's not the words of someone from a society where they were entirely behind violently expelling colonists. Then she directly said that Laurelorn's government had been made fools of when they found out that the dwarves had a mage who understood foreign magic in Karak Eight Peaks. That Laurelorn could have gone without the violence at all by waiting and reaching out for Mathilde. So... yes. Your posts still read like there is a bias against the Eonir.

I'm back to the point where I ask you where you've been reading about Divided Loyalties' Nordland-Laurelorn conflict. Because this is almost all wrong again. The conflict is over. Boney's stated that if the Eonir had never made the deal, and gave the tresspassers the Athel Loren treatment, there wouldn't ever have been a war. But Laurelorn chose to compromise instead. In that same post Boney said that the problem has been solved. There's an entire update about how Nordland has instead turned to feuding with Middenland over the Cult of Ulric! Mathilde even mentioned that Laurelorn wasn't even guaranteed to ally with Middenland over it. What have you read that makes you think all of this? And there also hasn't been anything in-text to suggest that the terms of the treaty are ambiguous. Boney's mentioned before when treaties are ambiguous. The original treaty certainly still exists. You're making stuff up to try to pile more blame on top of Laurelorn!

But, ignoring that, it is funny that you brought up the Nazis. You know it wasn't Laurelorn doing the settler-colonialism here?

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I think the disconnect is that I am not arguing from a position of having complete knowledge of any of the events that are happening, that of the average person of the Empire. In the form of two semi-hostile polities not in terms of Middenland, Nordland and the Eonir but in the Empire and the Eonir. If the Eonir were concerned about not getting involved with Empire politics they should have handed them over to avoid the Appearance of Impropriety. So yes I said that because I was and am not trying to argue from the position of perfect knowledge. Nordland wants to make a fuss about the Eonir, why should the Eonir give them an excuse? Would an Ulrican from Talabecland really care that the slain ulric follower was a poacher or merely that he was slain? Most people don't operate with perfect information and to add to it is silly on the Eonir's part.

AGAIN it's from an average Nordlander perspective, a peasant doesn't know about the treaty, the silversmith doesn't know that the silver he works was technically stolen. All they know is their friends got disappeared, the Eonir did it and the Grand Baron isn't doing shit about it. It isn't about blame simply because everyone can be blamed. Mathilde made the point of saying when should have the Eonir go to war the first tree, hundredth? The opposite is true, when you deal in centuries in comparison to decades when should you revisit "solved" issues with them?

I would point to our actual interactions with the Eonir, the Grey lords, the house Maeglin and house Yavanna . We have extremely limited data sets and our interactions can't be viewed as normal because Mathilde isn't normal. We simply cannot and I doubt will ever know how the average Eonir will interact with the average citizen of the Empire. Mathilde is high up in most arena's and interacts in them, she has insitutional knowledge about Eonir that no one but nobles and diplomats have. How is a peasant that starts at zero and has no idea what the difference between Eonir, Asur and Asrai supposed to interact with a being centuries old who has more knowledge than he could ever dream of?

For arguing that I am missing Cadeath's point you seem to be missing mine as well, for every politician there are dozens of regular people who are dealing with the consequences. The high council was embarrassed, it was the least amount of dead possible. Congratulations there are still consequences, for short lived humans those consequences are still being felt. It doesn't matter that they regret the actions, that it could have been handled better what matters is what happened. They haven't spoken about it, haven't expressed regret outside of exactly one interaction and that would gall people. It isn't bias so much as a recognition that it is an uncomfortable truth that the Eonir don't want to acknowledge and have to if they wish to interact with the wider world. Nordland is in the wrong but for every person who recognizes that there is going to be another who hates elves, who simply sides with humans because that is what they should do, who doesn't really care it's a bunch of elves in one forest why not just kill them and be done with it? Imperfect knowledge and a lack of communication can cause wars, The war of the Beard was caused by the Asur hiding secrets, now both sides of this divide are hiding them. Nordland doesn't want the fact that they are in the wrong advertised and the Eonir don't want their solution to spread amongst humans either.

I... really can't tell what argument you are trying to make with the conflict question. The conflict got sat on hard so it shifted to a religious conflict. It's not like the people changed it went from troops marching to shouted words and possible schisms. Hardly solved but not one that is an immediate danger.

As far as the Nazi point goes... You realize I was comparing the Nordlanders to Nazi's not the Eonir right? The French were perfectly happy reoccupying the Rhineland for good reasons to them but it doesn't matter to the average German. The Nordlanders are disaffected, spurned by their supposed allies and being blamed for everything, worse their economy is in the tank because of it. They are angry and want someone to blame and the Eonir are right there, visibly different and a convenient scapegoat for all the political blunders that the guilds and nobility have made.

 

[Valmond]

I mean, no, one of them very funnily describing befeathering human heads by way of arrows.

It's just, you know. As has been mentioned. Poachers usually get death sentence, its really not in any way out of the norm.

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And that's fully in the get of my lawn and leave me alone territory.
Humans stay out of Laurelorn, and there is no problem.
But humans have not stayed out of Laurelorn, for 800 years, so there was, and is, a problem.

 

[DragonParadox]

AGAIN it's from an average Nordlander perspective, a peasant doesn't know about the treaty, the silversmith doesn't know that the silver he works was technically stolen. All they know is their friends got disappeared, the Eonir did it and the Grand Baron isn't doing shit about it. It isn't about blame simply because everyone can be blamed. Mathilde made the point of saying when should have the Eonir go to war the first tree, hundredth? The opposite is true, when you deal in centuries in comparison to decades when should you revisit "solved" issues with them?

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The average Norlander is horrifically ignorant of everything from history to magic to geopolitics, their opinion should be discounted in this instance and it will get discounted in all instances because they are a peasant in a very non-representative society. Sadly the average Norland noble is almost equally ignorant, but they do understand 'bigger stick diplomacy'.

 

[hugo239111]

The average Norlander is horrifically ignorant of everything from history to magic to geopolitics, their opinion should be discounted in this instance and it will get discounted in all instances because they are a peasant in a very non-representative society. Sadly the average Norland noble is almost equally ignorant, but they do understand 'bigger stick diplomacy'.

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I do understand the point you are making but I have a pretty easy counter... Gavirlo Princep was an average man but he was born in a time of troubles, An Empire ruled over his homeland and made decisions that hurt him, his culture and his people. He decided to kill a man that was representative of all the woes of him and then the world was at war. 99% of the population had no idea who this man was yet his actions were the cassus belli that saw an Empire dissolve, millions die and the world was never the same.

Even in this world of big stick and bigger stick diplomacy people have agency, and that agency can have unforeseen effects. It's easy to say the peasants don't matter, but there is a reason that after the Jacquerie revolt in France was suppressed so heavily, for every noble and wizard there are dozens, hundreds of peasants and farmers. They are easy to dismiss but what happens when they all say no? The Plebian revolt brought Rome to a standstill, and that was just by saying we aren't willing to do what you want. It usually doesn't work but in a world where chaos and cults is always waiting for an in, pissed off, powerless peasants are quite literally their bread and butter to fill out the numbers and those numbers can drown you.

The knife in the dark is given great weight, but it can be wielded by anyone. I mean Mathilde got into a noble's chambers as an apprentice by being asked to carry his snack in, piss off enough "little" people and you find your food poisoned and everyone of your guards knifed by cutlery.

 

[MrHobbit]

I think the disconnect is that I am not arguing from a position of having complete knowledge of any of the events that are happening, that of the average person of the Empire. In the form of two semi-hostile polities not in terms of Middenland, Nordland and the Eonir but in the Empire and the Eonir. If the Eonir were concerned about not getting involved with Empire politics they should have handed them over to avoid the Appearance of Impropriety. So yes I said that because I was and am not trying to argue from the position of perfect knowledge. Nordland wants to make a fuss about the Eonir, why should the Eonir give them an excuse? Would an Ulrican from Talabecland really care that the slain ulric follower was a poacher or merely that he was slain? Most people don't operate with perfect information and to add to it is silly on the Eonir's part.

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Ulricans in Talabecland don't give a shit because they are in Talabecland. Quite far away from Laurelorn. How is word of specific incidents going to draw notice? People disappearing in the forests is entirely normal. Is it even greater in incident than beastman killing humans, or greenskins? It is just something that makes a wood seem spooky, of which the Empire has an near infinite amount of spooky woods. To surrender humans over to the Empire, would be to surrender Laurelorn's sovereignty. Laurelorn's problem with Nordland happened because Laurelorn surrendered its sovereignty! There is no appearance of impropriety involved here. The Empire does not claim that its peasants are free to violate the laws of its neighbors at their whim. Neither is it ever going to be willing to go to war to protect the rights of its peasants to poach. A handful of deaths happening every so often is negligible.

The average Nordlander has a negligible impact on Nordland's foreign policy. Need I remind you that this is a feudal monarchy? The people making the decisions, the nobles, do recall the treaty and they know full well that Nordland would outright lose a war.

I brought up Cadaeth's statement because you said, and I quote, "This is the only statement we get from an Eonir (since you have a problem with them being called elves apparently) about the disappearances. We don't hear about it from the Queen, not from a single other person in Laurelorn brings it up, what does that say to you exactly? Because that reads let's ignore the blood on the floor for political reasons, whether or not this is right or wrong is irrelevant. Perhaps Boney hasn't gotten around to it, perhaps it's such a bad situation that the politicians don't want to kick off a war. Until such time as it is explained you have to operate under the assumption that Every man, woman and child inside of the Laurelorn forest accepted such actions."

Let's see, you claimed that was the only statement we got from the Eonir about the disappearances (which was false), every Eonir saw morality as irrelevant (also false), and that we should assume that every individual down to the last child in Laurelorn tolerates the actions (which is doubly false, but even so, what the hell?). Not just the men, but the women and children too!

There is no interaction between average citizens of the Empire and the Eonir. The average Eonir does not speak Reikspiel and has only started to realize that there is a world beyond Laurelorn and that they can do tourism. There's going to be filtering of xenophobia by that fact alone. They aren't going to start fucking World War One by being asshole tourists.

Also it's a false comparison between the Asur not talking about the Druchii and the Eonir not talking about the lornalim. It's completely BS. There is a perfectly legitimate reason that even humans would recognize. You don't need to have brought up the trees at all. It's Laurelorn's land and the humans trespassed. Don't like it? To bad! Feudalism sucks! There's probably something more relevant closer to you, average citizen of the Empire in Hochland! It's also extremely silly even ignoring the fact that nobody who matters would help Nordland. If Laurelorn tried telling the magophobic peasants that the silver and gold trees are necessary for moving magic around, they're going to hear magic and precious metals, and rip them up.

I directly linked you to Boney saying that there isn't any need to cut the Gordian knot about the relations between Laurelorn and Nordland. Boney said the problem was solved. Boney said the problem evaporated. Further, as Boney had pointed out in that comment, war with the Empire was only a threat because Laurelorn had allowed settlement of the War of Frost. If they had killed any imperial sticking their nose in, it wouldn't have been a problem. It went from what would have been stochastic deaths over millennia, to 'ten thousand people expelled or killed in a year.' The latter was a lot more of a problem before the alliance with Middenland. But now the entire Empire has had their attention brought to it. The most threatening population centers are gone. Nordland can't use the threat of the Empire anymore. There's also the Bohka Palace Accords.

I brought up the Cult of Ulric schism because Nordland's political capital is focused on that. The Grand Baron has recognized that he can't do anything, so he jumped to something he could do. That is, stick it to the Teuetogen supremacists. That and perhaps a spoiler.

 

[DragonParadox]

I do understand the point you are making but I have a pretty easy counter... Gavirlo Princep was an average man but he was born in a time of troubles, An Empire ruled over his homeland and made decisions that hurt him, his culture and his people. He decided to kill a man that was representative of all the woes of him and then the world was at war. 99% of the population had no idea who this man was yet his actions were the cassus belli that saw an Empire dissolve, millions die and the world was never the same.

Even in this world of big stick and bigger stick diplomacy people have agency, and that agency can have unforeseen effects. It's easy to say the peasants don't matter, but there is a reason that after the Jacquerie revolt in France was suppressed so heavily, for every noble and wizard there are dozens, hundreds of peasants and farmers. They are easy to dismiss but what happens when they all say no? The Plebian revolt brought Rome to a standstill, and that was just by saying we aren't willing to do what you want. It usually doesn't work but in a world where chaos and cults is always waiting for an in, pissed off, powerless peasants are quite literally their bread and butter to fill out the numbers and those numbers can drown you.

The knife in the dark is given great weight, but it can be wielded by anyone. I mean Mathilde got into a noble's chambers as an apprentice by being asked to carry his snack in, piss off enough "little" people and you find your food poisoned and everyone of your guards knifed by cutlery.

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Gavirlo Princep would have lived and died in obscurity but for the fact that he happened to be a spark to a barrel full of gunpowder that covered a continent. No such barrel exists in Eonir-Empire relations. Say a random peasant manages to kill an Eonir dignitary, it's unlikely but not impossible, the Empire can blame Chaos or any of the Cults of the Forbidden Gods (not Khaine though that would be impolitic) and make some show of purging them. It would lead to a cooling of relations certainly, but the Eonir have a clear political objective in remaining engaged and those incentives will not change with any single death.

Also no one is having a peasant revolt over this, the most likely causes for those are starvation and religion, the first of which is not in play and the second of which we would have some warning of if it starts properly (the rebel Ulricans are not rabble-rousing).

 

[Boney]

@hugo239111, I think the disconnect here is that the argument you claim to be making (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that you would personally like the Eonir more if they were more considerate towards human peasants, and you think that doing so would be the morally correct thing for them to do. That's fine in itself, but even though you've phrased this as your personal opinion, when people have disagreed with you, you've debate it with them like it's a matter of objective fact that can be debated. And while moral culpability can, to an extent, be debated, the arguments you are making seem to keep veering into implications that there's various forms of imminent disaster that will befall the Eonir if they keep acting in the way that they are, and that draws even more disagreement.

I think what it comes down to is that the Melian Dialogue is being recreated in this thread, with you as the Melians arguing right and wrong, while some of the rest of the thread is playing the roll of the Athenians, pointing out that 'right is only in question between equals in power'. In the past, the the Eonir were one city against an Empire, suffering what they must; now they are one great city and its allies against a single province, and now in turn they are doing what they will.

 

[reignonyrparade]

while the rest of the thread is playing the roll of the Athenians, pointing out that 'right is only in question between equals in power'.

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I'm arguing right and wrong, i'm just arguing the things @hugo239111 is saying are wrong are instead actually cool and good and my friend

 

[deathofrats0808]

Neither is it ever going to be willing to go to war to protect the rights of its peasants to poach.

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Note that even if it was in the Empire's interest to go to war with Laurelorn (and there's a cold-blooded argument that it is, that the land it would gain (particularly largely tamed forest) is valuable enough to do so) no EC will countenance doing so because it's in the interest of every EC that borders are respected and their neighbors can't start taking chunks out of their province.

 

[Valmond]

Also no EC wants other EC's to suddenly become much richer and more powerful by gaining the area of Laurelorn, or suddenly getting a new EC to dilute the power of their vote.
Now, if someone did suddenly take over Laurelorn and want to join the empire as EC, it would be different, but any EC trying to advocate for it would face opposition from every other EC.

 

[DragonParadox]

At the end of the day the whole point of the Waystone project was to do an end run on the whole Eonir-Empire diplomacy conundrum and it has been wildly successful. If we really want to be worried about something internal to the Empire I'd worry about the Sigmarites trying something stupid to keep the Ulricans from capitalizing on all that political capital their coreligionists have been racking up.

 

[K von Carstein]

Note that even if it was in the Empire's interest to go to war with Laurelorn (and there's a cold-blooded argument that it is, that the land it would gain (particularly largely tamed forest) is valuable enough to do so)

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That's true, but there's also something else. Even with the whole Empire united, everyone knows fighting Wood Elves in their own forests is extremely costly. Who's going to pay that bloody bill? If Laurelorn isn't an existential threat, every EC would be trying to do as little as they can and wait for the others to actually take the ground before muscling them out of it.

 

[Valmond]

The existence of Grey Lords alone means that trying to take Laurelorn would cost armies, not armies worth of casualties, just, literal armies.
Nobody wants to be the person who is short an army or two when the dust settles.
And suddenly loosing an army, men, gear, officer corps and all, would leave major holes in the defensive and offensive capasity of the empire.
Giving orcs, beast mean, Bretonnia, etc, room to operate with less opposition.

 

[reignonyrparade]

The existence of Grey Lords alone means that trying to take Laurelorn would cost armies, not armies worth of casualties, just, literal armies.
Nobody wants to be the person who is short an army or two when the dust settles.

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In fairness, I'm not sure the decision makers in question actually KNOW this. That being said, the decision makers who don't know this mostly aren't entirely sure about the difference between the wood elves north of middenland and the wood elves in bretonnia, so they're likely still judging "what would it be like to straight up invade laurelorn" within a range of magnitude as "what would it be like to straight up invade athel loren" and deciding to look somewhere else for treasure and glory.

 

[Valmond]

In fairness, I'm not sure the decision makers in question actually KNOW this. That being said, the decision makers who don't know this mostly aren't entirely sure about the difference between the wood elves north of middenland and the wood elves in bretonnia, so they're likely still judging "what would it be like to straight up invade laurelorn" within a range of magnitude as "what would it be like to straight up invade athel loren" and deciding to look somewhere else for treasure and glory.

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Individual EC's might not know it.
But anyone bringing it up to the Empire as a whole would very quickly be told about it by the college's, who do know.
Which is part of why Laurelorn making an ally out of one province is such a big deal.
Because now any attempt to make trouble with Laurelorn is an internal matter between Elector Counts, which will mean bringing in the Emperor and rest of EC's to mediate and vote, which brings in the College's as people who will be consulted for wtf is going on iwth the spooky magic forest and spooky magic people in it.

 

[Altom]

Nordland having a claim to Marienburg is mentioned in the 8th edition army book, but it never really specifies the nature of the claim or that Nordland was at any point ruling Marienburg.

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I went to double check and according to my copy of the army book page 21, "MARIENBURG CITYPORT OF MERCHANTS"

...the city remains so fiercely independent that Theoderic Gausser of Nordland (nominally the ruler of Marienburg) is forbidden to return under pain of excruciatingly hideous death.

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Going by this Empire considers Marienburg to be part of Nordland .

 

[Boney]

I went to double check and according to my copy of the army book page 21, "MARIENBURG CITYPORT OF MERCHANTS"

Going by this Empire considers Marienburg to be part of Nordland .

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No. The Empire considers Marienburg independent, because it is independent. The Empire also considers that Marienburg should never have stopped being a subject of the Empire under the terms that Magnus the Pious left it: the Province of Westerland under the control of Marienburg's Directorate. Theoderic Gausser claims to be the proper ruler of Marienburg because he claims to be the proper heir to Barony of Westerland, but that title hasn't existed for over two hundred years.

If Theoderic Gausser somehow managed to take and hold the city, the Empire might shrug and restore the title of Baron of Westerland and make him the Elector Count of Westerland, but that still wouldn't make Marienburg part of Nordland - it would just mean that Nordland and Marienburg were under the control of the same person.

 

[DragonParadox]

If Theoderic Gausser somehow managed to take and hold the city, the Empire might shrug and restore the title of Baron of Westerland and make him the Elector Count of Westerland, but that still wouldn't make Marienburg part of Nordland - it would just mean that Nordland and Marienburg were under the control of the same person.

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...and ideally it would stop being the same person in a generation I bet. Not many elector counts want one of them to have two votes.

 

[Aule]

The existence of Grey Lords alone means that trying to take Laurelorn would cost armies, not armies worth of casualties, just, literal armies.
Nobody wants to be the person who is short an army or two when the dust settles.
And suddenly loosing an army, men, gear, officer corps and all, would leave major holes in the defensive and offensive capasity of the empire.
Giving orcs, beast mean, Bretonnia, etc, room to operate with less opposition.

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You had them at "Bretonnia".

 

[Andres]

All this to say, where would linguistic drift even come from?

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Maybe the Skarrenawi? The Hill Dwarves didn't come back home (except as refugees, presumably temporarily), but they still had contact with both Belthani and Karak Dwarves. The Skarrenawi drift from Belthani contact, and Karak Dwarves drift from Skarrenawi contact. The Norse Dwarves ended up deviating a fair bit just from trade and diplomatic ties with the Norsii, so maybe the same happened further south, with a degree of separation and thus less - but not no - drift.

Another option is the Empire, for much the same reason as the Norse Dwarves.

But if we're following that logic, shouldn't we have seen more deviation from the Karak Dwarves by now? The Norse Dwarves would've only traded with the Norsii for some centuries before they all turned to Chaos, and in that time their language drifted way more than the southern holds did after two and a half millennia of trade with a much huger people with way more potential for cultural exchange.

Maybe this is Everpeak's influence at play? The capital exerting some kind of cultural pressure demanding that holds speak and write the proper way or get called out as failing the ancestors, which the Norse Dwarves would've been wholly insulated from by their isolation.

 

[Boney]

Maybe the Skarrenawi? The Hill Dwarves didn't come back home (except as refugees, presumably temporarily), but they still had contact with both Belthani and Karak Dwarves. The Skarrenawi drift from Belthani contact, and Karak Dwarves drift from Skarrenawi contact. The Norse Dwarves ended up deviating a fair bit just from trade and diplomatic ties with the Norsii, so maybe the same happened further south, with a degree of separation and thus less - but not no - drift.

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There is an underexplored bit of potential in the different types of 'outside' roles, their varying levels of respectability, and the cultural interchange they'd enable. Most traditionally there'd be the miners, who just go from Karak to mine and back, and then there'd be Prospectors who seek out new mines and Ironbreakers that go into unsafe mines. Then you have traders, hunters, herbalists, woodcutters. Then most outre of all, the Rangers. A lot of those would have regular contact with whatever outsiders are nearby, and the way they're thought of by the rest of the Karak would dictate what effect that would have. If, say, Rangers are considered to be a necessary evil by the old and stodgy but 'cool' by the young, then you have an avenue for loanwards to become slang.

 

[Andres]

"...the Moist Earth, the Mother of all life {two obscure symbols} Dryad, Naiad, Nymph {list of unknown symbols} Gods {two lines obscured) devastation {crack in stone} came from beyond the {half a line worn away} silver ships {seven unknown symbols} deep waters, fertile, and {three lines worn away} Worship Her {two unknown symbols} nurture Her land {one line worn away} we are Her children, we are the Belthani..."

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I'm wondering if this is significant in some way. Together with the rest of the text, it sounds like they're introducing themselves, but to whom? The spirits or gods of the land? Elves? Maybe they're their own recipients, some new cultural group declaring to themselves who they are now and what their mission is.

 

[Sir_Travelsalot]

...and ideally it would stop being the same person in a generation I bet. Not many elector counts want one of them to have two votes.

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According to Shades of Empire, Gausser wouldn't even wait that long; the plan after (successfully) invading Marienburg is to hand the title of Prince of Salzenmund over to the Von Nikse family, who used to hold the title, thereby making a strong ally out of what is currently his most staunch opposition in Nordland.

 

[Mopman43]

According to Shades of Empire, Gausser wouldn't even wait that long; the plan after (successfully) invading Marienburg is to hand the title of Prince of Salzmund over to the Von Nikse family, who used to hold the title, thereby making a strong ally out of what is currently his most staunch opposition in Nordland.

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Prince of Salzenmund, but not Elector-Count of Nordland.