The thing is that Cartography will take a lot of actions to get done, assuming 1 action to scout each remaining peak in detail and 1 action to enchant the war room, which is a lot of assuming. And it's not a thing our wizards can really help with; Max is useless, Johann is sneaky has no options when faced with a watchful guard station other than "punch it" whereas we can just walk right through it without them noticing, and neither of them can enchant.
Queekish or Moulder Mysteries both are things where we can probably leverage our Golds so that our AP aren't in quite so terrible a state as they have been this year.
... hmmm Moulder Mysteries sounds interesting, and I think King-Bro would like an excuse to murder the lot of them to ease some of the guilt of not murdering them the first time.
right now its 'the smart thing' to leave them there, but if its no longer the 'smart thing' then he can have some good old fashioned therapy murdering.
Nah, i mean yes, but for testing, you need a runesmith or better yet, runelord. Mathilde does not understand runes much. They run orthogonally to conventional magering and while she can say that she thinks Vitae will basically shorten the process of recharging, she can ´t do jack shit without getting her hands on high tier rune anyway. At which point you have to ask yourself if it wouldn ´t be better to ask if Runelord couldn ´t do it with less risk and better. There is a question of whetever Kragg wouldn ´t just sit and ponder the matter for two centuries even after knowing it works because he just has to test it really thoroughly.
Which is why it was brought up that we should try to find some semi radical runesmith who would be willing to say that it at least works somehow, and only then present it to him and say, hey this does this and that, could you just check? Also, added bait of Runelords unleashing anvils of dooms on unsuspecting once a century, but once a battle becoming a viability. You better believe they really love doing that part. Something that could speed it up? Gotta push it as fast as it can go.
The thing is, before we present it to a runesmith, we want to know basic facts about it, like "what causes it to change state" and "what will it do to you if it spills on you." The advantage of the AV project, as I understand it, is "getting those research actions subsidized by being part of our job."
Only by turning it into our actual job. Well, we know Dreng's job this year has been to scout other peaks. Maybe the coming council meeting will shed some light on how that's going. It's a long time before we need to decide.
... hmmm Moulder Mysteries sounds interesting, and I think King-Bro would like an excuse to murder the lot of them to ease some of the guilt of not murdering them the first time.
right now its 'the smart thing' to leave them there, but if its no longer the 'smart thing' then he can have some good old fashioned therapy murdering.
The thing I like about Moulder Mysteries is that our Golds are tailor made for it. Breach the Unknown on one side, Law of Logic and Patient on the other. We can do 3 actions per turn on it without breaking a sweat (1 from each minion, 1 from us), more than that if interrogating our prisoner counts. It is the AP-hell-friendliest option, I think.
I am pretty sure we did that already. Like, the original test to research its properties was by no means complete, but it was still pretty comprehensive.
The thing I like about Moulder Mysteries is that our Golds are tailor made for it. Breach the Unknown on one side, Law of Logic and Patient on the other. We can do 3 actions per turn on it without breaking a sweat (1 from each minion, 1 from us), more than that if interrogating our prisoner counts. It is the AP-hell-friendliest option, I think.
There is actually a good argument for giving up some of the credit for AV by making it the assigned project, and that is that K8P gets that credit, which could help K8P get more mages.
There is actually a good argument for giving up some of the credit for AV by making it the assigned project, and that is that K8P gets that credit, which could help K8P get more mages.
sept the problem is that King-Bro wants more Dwarfs in the halls, not manlings.
not that he won't take the Manlings, but I really don't want to see what happens if he wakes up one morning and realises that K8Ps is more a man kingdom with a Dwarf king then a true Dwarf Hold.
I am pretty sure we did that already. Like, the original test to research its properties was by no means complete, but it was still pretty comprehensive.
It could be possible to perform more experiments in the time you've put aside, but instead you're going to go make significant changes to how the liquid is being stored.
[ ] Investigate the exact circumstances required to induce a transformation.
[ ] Investigate how living things react to exposure to the Vitae.
[ ] Investigate how the Vitae reacts to Dwarven magic-dampening Runes. (2 Dwarf favours)
[ ] Attempt to interest one of the currently present Runesmiths in the interaction between Runes and Vitae. (Will start at the top and work your way down)
[ ] Call in favours to get a specific Runesmith to examine the interaction between Runes and Vitae with you. [ ] Investigate how the Vitae reacts with Divine Magic.
[ ] Investigate how the Vitae reacts to a power stone.
[ ] Investigate how the Vitae reacts to being subjected to power stone creation methods.
[ ] Instead of seeking the secrets of the blood, simply see if it can be weaponized in some way.
There is actually a good argument for giving up some of the credit for AV by making it the assigned project, and that is that K8P gets that credit, which could help K8P get more mages.
No, seriously, WoG is that said event is something that no one talks about and that everyone treats as if it never happened, primarily since this is the sort of thing that the Colleges were made to prevent.
You are correct in that things are more complicate than I've made them out to be. Treating everything as smug offs and ending up with a friendly Rivalry is the goal for intra-College relations at the moment, both for outside viewers and for reality.
It's part of why Matty gave her little speech about College Solidarity and the point of using College Influence to better yourself through the strengths of others.
And with some luck, by the time that Mandred is able to make his bid for Emperor, things will have cooled down that far.
Well, I said I would, and I'm somewhat surprised I did. Criticism welcome.
Mandred Grosherde's first name was a relic of events surrounding his birth- rats had gotten into the larder, and his mother had named him after the Ratslayer in a fit of pique. He did not use his last very much- it was the result of when merchants from the Stirlandian League had conducted a census on Sonningwiese and the hamlets surrounding it; they assigned surnames to be able to tell the three dozen Mandreds and Johanns apart, and Mandred had been one of the last. With the merchants at wit's end to find something different about Mandred from all the other Mandreds- they had named one Crookback, and another Poxface- they finally settled on the size of his herd, which was at least slightly larger than anyone else's in a dozen leagues. He did not like merchants, as a rule.
He did not think of himself as a complicated man. His early years had been uneventful, either tending the herd or getting up to his own mischief- to this day, he denied any knowledge of how Old Man Bilder's herd had gotten half-way to Potting before they'd been corralled. Once his youth had passed and his father had died in his sleep, Mandred was left to tend the herd and to marry, which he did ably enough on both counts. They had had nine children before being satisfied that enough would live, with two never reaching a month and a third falling down a well at six. He thought of them, sometimes, but generally managed to keep his mind on the two-thirds that lived, which is not a bad ratio, not as bad as some had it.
Monsters only occasionally troubled Sonningwiese, and never in strength; a few goblins here, a mindless zombie here. Little enough for a few rocks and a club to handle. The worst he had ever known was half-a-dozen starving wolves, and they had first run into Gretel's ornery old goose and were in no condition to trouble anyone after that. Attacks by the dark things of the world were things that happened in other places, places with more cows and more crops. As far as Mandred was concerned, the Important Places could keep all of that for themselves, he was more than satisfied with his sheep and his goats.
It was not as if they did not have pleasures of their own. Johann-with-the-one-eye kept up a still and traded the hooch for only slightly more milk than it took to make it. Markus carved little wooden figurines, and his wife roamed all through the hills for plants to make into dyes for them. They sold them on Marktag for only a few coppers, and every hut in three days walking distance had at least one of them. Every Festag, the locals come together for some music, and Gretel's son could read and conduct and went to Sonningwiese every few months for more sheets.
Truly, the most interesting events that Mandred was ever aware of were always those that involved his new liege-lord; the Dämmerlichtreiter, Mathilde Weber. Mandred hadn't quite known how to take their new liege when she introduced herself, none of them had, but the rumors were that she had personally dismantled the Stirlandian League, so she couldn't be all bad, really, even with the magic. Frankly, with as little as she was around, what did it even trouble them that she was cursed with the stuff? She was Important, so she was doing that over somewhere else, not around Sonningwiese. Fine enough, really- give those Necromancers and Orcs a taste of their own medicine.
Mandred wouldn't have thought of her much at all, if it weren't for Markus's boy, who'd gone to be a swordsman in the army and came back short an arm and with all sorts of stories. Of undead of all sorts, of strange papers you filled out that kept them from rising again by noting what they looked like, of an Elector Count with a runefang and all, of whatever in Sigmar's name a cannon is, but most of all, of their liege, the Dämmerlichtreiter. Of how she rode, of how she fought, and of how she took command of an army on the brink of ruin with the count dead and right in the midst of Drakenhof. And he told one last story, of how she tore the dreaded structure down to the ground and killed the Vampires inside.
Mathilde Weber would likely never know of it, but after all of those stories went around and around and around again, all through Sonningwiese and back again with new details that Mandred didn't quite know were true but liked to think were anyway- he didn't much like the odds of any human against a dozen Vampires in close-combat, but if she was of the very shadow itself and wielding a greatsword in one hand and Orc Hewer in the other, who was he to judge?- Markus got quite a few requests for little figures on horses with swords, and his wife had to ask around for quite a ways to get enough grey paint to get them all done right.
And then she returned, just as all the hubbub had ended, waving around bags of gold and building a manor for herself, and a blacksmith, a granary. And a year later she was back again with the same, hiring his own son Rolf- well learned in his numbering- as Steward to oversee all sorts of improvements to the area, from evening out the roads to building a dairy. And if Mandred still didn't want anything to do with the Important Places and the trouble that went hand in hand, he'd admit that he liked the thought of adding cheese to the diet.
And she'd revealed her worship of Ranald as well at the time. Mandred didn't go out of his way to appease the god of chance, but he certainly didn't go out of his way to anger said god either. He thought it better for the Dämmerlichtreiter to hold strongly to a god than to not, and a god of luck seemed all the better to avoid the dangers of magic that Mandred could not enumerate on, but was quite certain were numerous. The merchants that had once owned the land had called Ranald the god of thieves, but if they were only preying on merchants, than he didn't see how that was any kind of problem.
And she'd gone off again, no doubt to do other things that he wanted no part of but was more than happy to appreciate from afar. The Blacksmith was willing to make small fixes in exchange for some of Johann's hooch, and Rolf was kept altogether too busy overseeing the estate to follow in his father's footsteps as far as mischief went. Mandred personally traded for some of the first batch of cheese out of the dairy, and found he quite liked it indeed. The bailey went up, and until it had to serve its purpose it worked well enough as a place for the younger boys and girls to run around with sticks, with the boys calling themselves Abelhelm or Sigmar or Magnus, and the girls always, always the Dämmerlichtreiter.
Life went on, and Mandred would admit if pressed that he thought themselves better for her.
"Still stalled on the damn ratling gun, but I've been working with Panoramia with the ooze we found. It can digest just about anything organic and turn it into... well, more of itself. We're feeding it to some of the cattle and they seem to like it okay, we're up to three months without ill effects at half their diet."
"That's," you pause, consider. "Possibly a really big deal." You consider further. "And might answer some questions about Skaven logistics."
"It's a matter of how far we can scale without running into deficiencies," Panoramia says. "The Halflings have agreed to scale up tests, so we'll be starting sample groups of goats and sheep on 10%, 25%, and 50%. That seems to be as much as they're willing to eat without becoming upset and uncooperative. If they're still doing okay at one year in, we'll start draft cows, milk cows and horses at Ulrikadrin. After five years, we slaughter and do full autopsies."
I actually had "[] Start cultivating one of your plants..." in one of my drafts of Panoramia Quest, but I focused on Estalian Pine instead of Black Lotus for some reason.
I have just realized that getting a "Clear Skies" button probably makes our tower one of the greatest places in the world to build an astronomical observatory...
@BoneyM Would it be possible to build an observatory at the top of one of the towers?
Two key components, an upscaled petty magic item from Mathilde for the mirror and a big light projector from whoever. One of the Golds for the optics and a chemical or rune light.
So far I haven't weighed in on it, but I have to say I haaaaaaaate the "murder all the trolls" plan.
It sacrifices verisimilitude, competent strategy, conpetent tactics, characterization, and interesting writing all on the altar of nebulous "shinies". Yes, I will expand on that:
• No, Belegar will not assign the task of clearing a mountain to one person. Even Mathilde, even with her super sword. It is ludicrously inefficient to assign someone with Mathilde's talents to take care of what is basically hostile wildlife, instead of doing something better with her time.
• On a strategic level, Karag Wyr does nothing but increase our number of hostile active fronts by one. There is no reason to touch it for years to come.
• On a tactical level, the only reason to take Karag Wyr is if we also intend to take Karag Mhonar. Killing trolls one at a time with a sword, even Branulhune, is not a quick process. When we do take Karag Wyr, we will want to do it as quickly as possible, with as little warning as possible. That means Bright Battle Magic, potentially ancestor runes, and a mass Irondrake attack. It does not mean having your best assassin focus on the dumb brutes instead of on the actual organized enemy forces.
• On a characterization level, I cannot for the life of me see this as something Mathilde would actually want to do. Literally this update, her response to someone killing a troll was not "wow, neat, I should do that", it was "but y tho?". Spending six months mechanically butchering her way through a ridiculous number of very strong, very tough, very stupid enemies sounds like a very boring chore she would rather avoid.
• On a narrative level, "mathilde personally killing ten thousand trolls by ambushing them one by one in sequence" is just about the most boring possible action I could possibly imagine. It is the literal equivalent of watching paint dry.
Call in a Bright Battle Wizard and bounce off their character and lovingly detail the apocalypse of flame they call down.
Call in Kragg and have him crack the Volcano in two and consume them all in lava in a single stroke.
Lure them into a trap and smite them with our fully operational battle mountain.
There are just so many better ways to deal with the trolls.
The entire suggestion is emblematic of the worst, most powergamey parts of the questing tradition, and I reject it absolutely.
So I have to ask, what is the narrative point of Mathilde killing all the trolls singled handed? Assuming it is in fact 100% safe it's not actually impressive or interesting to read about, so what is left? Dwarfs showering Mathilde with praise and favor for the boring repetitive murder-fest? That does not sound worthwhile to read.
I'd rather be doing research, hell I'd rather be building a temple of Ranald and I don't even care about that action that much.
Some questers interact with a quest by attempting to 'win' it. To them, that Mathilde can take the mountain herself without expending vast amounts of favor or dwarvish lives means it SHOULD be done.
As for weather massacring a mountain of trolls would be exciting or not, I think we can trust Boney M to deliver somehow or other, though I'm usually the last person to want more stabbing scenes.
It sacrifices verisimilitude, competent strategy, conpetent tactics, characterization, and interesting writing all on the altar of nebulous "shinies". Yes, I will expand on that:
...
The entire suggestion is emblematic of the worst, most powergamey parts of the questing tradition, and I reject it absolutely.
Exactly this. It's the epitome of murderhobory. It's a ludicrously unreasonable thing for any person in-universe short of Nagash to actually contemplate doing.
My view of Project Nightlight:
Two key components, an upscaled petty magic item from Mathilde for the mirror and a big light projector from whoever. One of the Golds for the optics and a chemical or rune light.
• On a characterization level, I cannot for the life of me see this as something Mathilde would actually want to do. Literally this update, her response to someone killing a troll was not "wow, neat, I should do that", it was "but y tho?". Spending six months mechanically butchering her way through a ridiculous number of very strong, very tough, very stupid enemies sounds like a very boring chore she would rather avoid.
A very boring chore until one day, two months in, while thoroughly exhausted, she slips up and gets illuminated when attacking a mutated troll with glowing vomit, and then dies to a miscast in the attempt to escape.
Yep, no way I can see Mathilde wanting to do it. She very definitely knows the danger of miscasts.
Well, I said I would, and I'm somewhat surprised I did. Criticism welcome.
Mandred Grosherde's first name was a relic of events surrounding his birth- rats had gotten into the larder, and his mother had named him after the Ratslayer in a fit of pique. He did not use his last very much- it was the result of of when merchants from the Stirlandian League had conducted a census on Sonningwiese and the hamlets surrounding it; they assigned surnames to be able to tell the three dozen Mandreds and Johanns apart, and Mandred had been one of the last. With the merchants at wit's end to find something different about Mandred from all the other Mandreds- they had named one Crookback, and another Poxface- they finally settled on the size of his herd, which was at least slightly larger than anyone else's in a dozen leagues. He did not like merchants, as a rule.
He did not think of himself as a complicated man. His early years had been uneventful, either tending the herd or getting up to his own mischief- to this day, he denied any knowledge of how Old Man Bilder's herd had gotten half-way to Potting before they'd been corralled. Once his youth had passed and his father had died in his sleep, Mandred was left to tend the herd and to marry, which he did ably enough on both counts. They had had nine children before being satisfied that enough would live, with two never reaching a month and a third falling down a well at six. He thought of them, sometimes, but generally managed to keep his mind on the two-thirds that lived, which is not a bad ratio, not as bad as some had it.
Monsters only occasionally troubled Sonningwiese, and never in strength; a few goblins here, a mindless zombie here. Little enough for a few rocks and a club to handle. The worst he had ever known was half-a-dozen starving wolves, and they had first run into Gretel's ornery old goose and were in no condition to trouble anyone after that. Attacks by the dark things of the world were things that happened in other places, places with more cows and more crops. As far as Mandred was concerned, the Important Places could keep all of that for themselves, he was more than satisfied with his sheep and his goats.
It was not as if they did not have pleasures of their own. Johann-with-the-one-eye kept up a still and traded the hooch for only slightly more milk than it took to make it. Markus carved little wooden figurines, and his wife roamed all through the hills for plants to make into dyes for them. They sold them on Marktag for only a few coppers, and every hut in three days walking distance had at least one of them. Every Festag, the locals come together for some music, and Gretel's son could read and conduct and went to Sonningwiese every few months for more sheets.
Truly, the most interesting events that Mandred was ever aware of were always those that involved his new liege-lord; the Dämmerlichtreiter, Mathilde Weber. Mandred hadn't quite known how to take their new liege when she introduced herself, none of them had, but the rumors were that she had personally dismantled the Stirlandian League, so she couldn't be all bad, really, even with the magic. Frankly, with as little as she was around, what did it even trouble them that she was cursed with the stuff? She was Important, so she was doing that over somewhere else, not around Sonningwiese. Fine enough, really- give those Necromancers and Orcs a taste of their own medicine.
Mandred wouldn't have thought of her much at all, if it weren't for Markus's boy, who'd gone to be a swordsman in the army and came back short an arm and with all sorts of stories. Of undead of all sorts, of strange papers you filled out that kept them from rising again by noting what they looked like, of an Elector Count with a runefang and all, of whatever in Sigmar's name a cannon is, but most of all, of their liege, the Dämmerlichtreiter. Of how she rode, of how she fought, and of how she took command of an army on the brink of ruin with the count dead and right in the midst of Drakenhof. And he told one last story, of how she tore the dreaded structure down to the ground and killed the Vampires inside.
Mathilde Weber would likely never know of it, but after all of those stories went around and around and around again, all through Sonningwiese and back again with new details that Mandred didn't quite know were true but liked to think were anyway- he didn't much like the odds of any human against a dozen Vampires in close-combat, but if she was of the very shadow itself and wielding a greatsword in one hand and Orc Hewer in the other, who was he to judge?- Markus got quite a few requests for little figures on horses with swords, and his wife had to ask around for quite a ways to get enough grey paint to get them all done right.
And then she returned, just as all the hubbub had ended, waving around bags of gold and building a manor for herself, and a blacksmith, a granary. And a year later she was back again with the same, with a stout fellow hired as Steward to oversee all sorts of improvements to the area, from evening out the roads to building a dairy. And if Mandred still didn't want anything to do with the Important Places and the trouble that went hand in hand, he'd admit that he liked the thought of adding cheese to the diet.
And she'd revealed her worship of Ranald as well at the time. Mandred didn't go out of his way to appease the god of chance, but he certainly didn't go out of his way to anger said god either. He thought it better for the Dämmerlichtreiter to hold strongly to a god than to not, and a god of luck seemed all the better to avoid the dangers of magic that Mandred could not enumerate on, but was quite certain were numerous. The merchants that had once owned the land had called Ranald the god of thieves, but if they were only preying on merchants, than he didn't see how that was any kind of problem.
And she'd gone off again, no doubt to do other things that he wanted no part of but was more than happy to appreciate from afar. The Blacksmith was willing to make small fixes in exchange for some of Johann's hooch, and the Steward turned out to be quite handy at spoons and joined them on Festag. Mandred personally traded for some of the first batch of cheese out of the dairy, and found he quite liked it indeed. The bailey went up, and until it had to serve its purpose worked well enough as a place for the younger boys and girls to run around with sticks, with the boys calling themselves Abelhelm or Sigmar or Magnus, and the girls always, always the Dämmerlichtreiter.
Life went on, and Mandred would admit if pressed that he thought themselves better for her.
This also brings up an issue that I tried to ask Boney about earlier, do we have the manpower to spread between the different mountains?
We are currently holding two peaks of the K8P and we're having little difficulty defending it all once we get the Tower up to 100%, but as it is? I'm currently just waiting for the counterattack, and how brutal it'll likely be.
So this sent me on a bit of a quote-seeking mission, looking for information about the likely size and significant features of the various peaks. Here's what I've got.
"Karag Lhune was once a quiet corner of the Karak," he says as the two of you walk out of the now-empty Hall, King Belegar's bodyguard shadowing you as unobtrusively as a fully-armoured Dwarf can be. "Filled with the odds bits-and-pieces that couldn't quite fit in the more-populated Mhonar or Rhyn or Zilfin. Temples, airship docks, the school and apprentice barracks, an overflow vault. Now the entire Dwarven population of Karak Eight Peaks fits into the Chiselwards, and could quadruple before we'd need to start excavating new rooms."
The dwarven equivalent of back-of-the-envelope calculations say that if the imminent assault is able to take Karag Lhune from at least the Chiselwards upwards, then they would only need to take Karag Nar (the mountain between Karag Lhune and the East Gate, which was much less built up than the two main mountains of Karag Lhune and Karag Zilfin) and either establish or rediscover a route through the mountain to Und-Uzgar to be reasonably secure. This is, however, based on a whole lot of conjecture, and there'll undoubtedly be other threats that need to be dealt with before the Expedition can be declared successful.
"First, overland to the Citadel." He points to the massive structure dominating the lip of the central valley. "It's centrally located, dominates the central caldera, and is incredibly defensible. The downside is it places us far from the main parts of the hold, in Karag Lhune and Karag Zilfin.
While the majority of the Karak's most important locations are located in Karag Lhune or Karag Zilfin, none of the mountains were left untouched during the Dwarvern Golden Age. Karag Nar was the nexus point for some of the Karak's most important neighbours - the long-isolated Karak Azul and the now-fallen Karak Izril via the Underways, and a popular detour on the Old Silk Road back when it was just the Silk Road. It once contained embassies, taverns, hostels, bunkhouses, markets, all the accommodations required to make visitors welcome - not just Dwarves, but Elves too, and even men - not the ancestors of the Empire, but the Nehekharans who had not yet been transformed by the terrible power of Necromancy.
Belegar had made a fair few promises on behalf of the legendary riches of Karak Eight Peaks, but the main treasure vaults of the Karak were almost exactly opposite the Expedition, under Karag Zilfin, and the lesser ones were within Kvinn-Wyr and beneath the Citadel.
In the end, however, the unknown dangers of the Chiselwards win out. It takes some understanding of Dwarves to understand why a center for childcare and education would be so worrying - an orphanage and school in Altdorf would scarcely take up a city block, after all. But Dwarf culture differs very strongly from that of the Empire, as every Dwarf child of a reputable Clan is guaranteed an education and a bed until their childhood comes to a close until the age of thirty. On top of that, the apprentice barracks of the Chiselwards were open to any Dwarf not yet a Fullbeard of seventy years. In most Holds, the majority of children would be housed by their Clan instead of the Karak, but the legendary reputation of Karak Eight Peaks, the Queen of the Silver Depths, caused the Karak to swell with refugees from the Dwarfholds that fell in the Time of Woe. Overflowing with the orphans of a thousand tragedies, the Chiselwards expanded, then expanded again, until Karag Lhune, once the temple district of the Karak, was almost entirely given over to the housing and education of an almost unmanageable underclass of refugees.
Then the Southern Holds' doom approached, and many Clans of Karak Izril and Karak Drazh sent their youngest to Karak Eight Peaks for safety, and the Chiselwards expanded one last time. Tragically, Eight Peaks was the first of the Southern Holds to fall.
So the Chiselwards were not, as one might imagine, a few communal bedrooms and a handful of classrooms. They were a sprawling warren hastily expanded time and time again until they encompassed a huge portion of Karag Lhune, and that was before three thousand years of Goblin occupation. It is for that reason that when you finally reach a decision, your destination is the maze at the root of the mountain, rather than the highway below. "Good hunting," Belegar grunts to you as you head off, unconcealed envy in his voice.
The inside of the mountain that's been carved out is significantly smaller than that of Karags Lhune or Nar, and instead of the right angles Dwarves usually favour it follows the zigs and zags of a silver vein exhausted millennia ago. It seems this mountain was mostly used as a base of operations for miners pursuing veins further afield, either far below or on the other side of Death Pass.
"Karag Rhyn was once the home of smelting at Eight Peaks, it will be again. Smednir's home is there." Gunnars nods in acceptance. "If there's no further business?" A round of headshakes. "Very well. Go about it."
Back in the day Zilfin was the largest and most developed, with Rhyn and Mhonar as the runners-up and Nar as the guesthouse. Lhune, Karagril, Yar, and Kvinn-Wyr were all Small at the time. This is the time that Belegar was talking about in the most recent chapter. But everyone pulled back to Lhune as Karak Eight Peaks fell, so it slowly ballooned in population capacity up to Large as they expanded the Chiselwards repeatedly. For this reason, Lhune and Zilfin are referred to as "main mountains", because according to our latest records they were the two largest and most developed when the dwarfhold fell.
Some of this is speculative (i.e. we have a near-total absence of information about Yar) but I think it's reasonable based on the information we have available. Good enough to base some discussion and planning on, at any rate. When it comes to "where can we hold", obviously the larger the Population Supported rating is the more difficult it would be to fill the mountain's halls, and obviously the tougher the fight to take a place is likely to be.
If Zilfin is actually filled to capacity with Clan Skyre there's a good chance that there are near as many of them as everyone else in the Karak combined, or so I'd wildly speculate. We could drown in a sea of skaven trying to take that place. But if Yar is actually Small, and that's the only place that Eshin are, then it's likely that the Clan Eshin presence in Karak Eight Peaks is actually quite limited because even though they and Skyre each have one mountain there's a massive disparity in actual livable, carved-out space in that mountain, potentially to the point that Skyre outnumbers them by an order of magnitude or more.
