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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Captain Spatula said:
Man, but 6 would of been something straight out of Mathilde's novels. Gazul gazes at her, her soul laid bare, only for Ranald to appear and then proceed to have a manly flex off with Gazul over who is closer to her.

Something straight out of a second rate romance novel. Probably.
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You know what would spice up this dry work of comparative theology?

A love triangle!!1
 
I'll admit it was looking forward to being taken over by Gazul (like Mork did that one time, or was it Gork?), Having the voice of an ancestor coming out of the wizard as he promises to burn down the souls of the enemies of his people would have been something to remember.

"The spirits of your ancestors, of the heroic fallen, of the women and and children who died here so long ago, they cry in rage at those who would try to repeat the woes of the past at this hour of triumph, they call for vengeance and they call for justice.

AND. I. SHALL. DELIVER!"
 
I am kinda sad we couldn't get more Gandalf points by learning how to "Wield a Secret Fire" or as close to one as we could get without Ranald having more a more elemental portfolio than I thought.
 
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Oh, and this was us just meditating, and it would have been a bit weird for Gazul to turn his gaze to us before the main event.
So I think possession shenanigans are still on the table!
 
You know, it is so like Ranald to step in and make sure that Mathilde does not get to close to another god or his domain, while also being subtle enough not to play his hand and ensure we get nothing.

So overall what I am trying to say is Ranald we (Mostly) love you, but you need to back off and stop being so possessive.
 
Oddly enough I think I prefer this result over the higher ones.
It feels a bit cheap to go Full Dorf after a single meditation session. Gradual buildup is more authentic.

Also it proves that Ranald can be a bit possessive. What, you run out of sixes buddy? :tongue: Aww, I'm just kidding, we got half a six, so that's something. :V
 
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Waaagh Birdmuncha, Part 3
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    • [*] Meditate with Gunnars to attempt to attune yourself with Gazul.

    [*] Kragg the Grim
    [*] Gunnars

    Dwarven Grandmasters are fastidious enough that there's no reason to check the work that went into the Eye of Gazul, but also dutiful enough that Kragg is doing so anyway. "The energies running through it should prevent any of the usual banes of steel," he says of the pillar in your foyer as he passes to climb the stairs up to the Grey Tower. "Would take a handful of decades to know for sure. For now," he pauses, and you can hear the grimace in his voice at those two words, "for now, it will suffice." He climbs almost all the way up to the floor of the Grey Tower that houses the Eye of Gazul, and pulls open a sliding steel door to gain access to the crawlspace below it. Metal handholds are placed in the roof every so often so someone inspecting the runes it contains can pull themselves along instead of having to crawl, and he picks up the lantern waiting just inside the door and with wiry strength that belies his age, he disappears into the narrow space, and you follow suit.

    Here, the pillar is flanked by a pair of wooden beams, imported from Araby and carefully coated in lacquer. Wood attuned to Ulgu is rare, but in the deserts of Araby some plants blossom only in the hours closest to dawn and dusk, hiding from the heat of noon, and this made the wood perfect as a transfer medium from your Ulgu-rich Room of Dawn and Dusk to the Eye of Gazul. Kragg levels a distrustful scowl at them and runs his fingertips over their length, checking for any imperfection in the protective layer of hardened tree sap, and then turns his attention to the steel base-plate that sits atop the incredibly long steel pillar, and the runes it bears.

    "Suitable," he admits after long scrutiny. "Not how I prefer things, but suitable. All this requires is to be as perfect a channel as can be made between the Rune below and the magics above, and all that makes it tricky is the volume of power that it needs to be able to bear. These Runes will do the job, you can be certain."

    "But?" you prompt, checking the wooden beams yourself. They are currently inert, but you can feel the energy contained in the room below, pressure pushing against a sealed door that will be opened when the moment is right.

    "But that's only a third of the picture," he says, rapping his knuckles on the steel plate. "The Runes are as good as I can make them, and Gazul can be depended upon. But the rest is up to your magic." He looks at you seriously, or as seriously as one can when both parties are lying on their back in a crawlspace and looking sideways at each other. "You're a reliable sort, more so than some Dwarves I've known. But the source of your power is unfettered and whimsical. It's why you've power despite barely entering your fourth decade, and it's why you've been able to do as much as you've done. But-" he looks to the lantern that flickers uneasily in his grip, and then to your shadow cast by his lantern, or what little he can see of it as it peeks out from behind you, hiding from the Runelord's scrutiny. "It's betrayed you in the past, and it will in the future."

    You fight back a frown at his words. As much as you consider Ulgu to be yours, he's not wrong, and your recent forays into even the simplest of Battle Magics reinforce his point. You have not tamed Ulgu, you have merely made yourself a conduit to its liking, and all energies born of the Aethyr are capable of capriciousness. "It's the weapon I have," you say simply. "And I will use it to defend this Karak."

    "I don't doubt it for a moment," he says, starting to haul himself back out of the crawlspace. "But I trust you'll not take it as a slight if I do the same."

    ---

    With the Eye of Gazul given a reluctant nod of approval and most of the dust brushed off the two of you, you take a moment on the balcony with Kragg to look west and clear the dust from your throats with a tankard of ale apiece. You keep a barrel on the balcony, partly for convenience but mostly because the altitude keeps it nicely chilled, and you hide a smile as Kragg leans forward in his chair to subject Wolf to careful scrutiny, who does his best to return it.

    "Hmph," he finally says, which is Kragg for 'of course it's not as good as I'd like, but its flaws are not serious enough for me to completely disregard it'. "I'd prefer a good golem, but we've lost the secret of their making and you've still got yours, so perhaps there's something to it."

    At this sign of approval, Wolf curls up at Kragg's feet, and Kragg gives him a grudging scratch behind the ears. "Speaking of golems," you say leadingly.

    He snorts, and busies himself with a long draw from his tankard. "A week ago, if you'd asked me what I thought of applying the lost secrets of golem construction to an Earth Elemental, I'd have thought you even more insane than you have to be for your magic. But now..." He sighs. "If you'd found an ordinary golem, I'd have been ecstatic. But one tied up in Elven wizardry, a relic of our failed partnership with the Elgi of that floating rock of the Great Ocean..." He waves a hand at nothing in particular. "Five Runes, you say. I'd travel to the end of the world to see something with five Runes in it. But five Runes carved into the soul of an Elemental? I can't even look upon it. I wouldn't know where to start on reverse-engineering it. It's not an opportunity, it's a reminder of how far we've fallen, that even I cannot begin to comprehend what my Ancestors built here."

    "Are you giving up, then?"

    "Of course not," he says, giving you a withering look. "I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make sense of the damned thing, assuming we all survive today. I'm just well aware that I'll fail."

    ---

    Soon after Kragg departs to sort his extensive collection of Anvil-Runes for the coming battles, Gunnars arrives, and Wolf lets him in and receives his second Dwarven scratch behind the ears of the day for his efforts. He lets himself out onto the balcony where you still sit, staring broodingly down at the Caldera, and takes the seat beside you in silence.

    "Help yourself to the ale, if you've a mind," you say.

    "Thank you, but no," he says.

    "I'd have thought you'd have preferred that we meet at the Shrine in Karag Lhune, or in the tombs we worked on," you say.

    "If we were to speak of Gazul, Lord of Underearth, we would," he replies. "But we speak of Gazul of the Flame today, and Gazul of the Flame is most present in times and places very unsuitable for conversation. So here is no more ill-suited than anywhere else."

    "Very well," you say, setting down your tankard. "Tell me of Gazul of the Flame."

    "If you will allow me to guide you through questions, allow me to ask you: do Dwarves have souls?"

    You frown, confused. "Of course."

    "What is a soul?"

    You try to form an answer not drawing on the great deal of information the Liber Mortis had on the subject. "The energy that makes up what someone is. The part that departs when they die."

    "And the nature of that energy? I know that your Colleges know the answer."

    Well, if he's explicitly fishing for it. "Aethyr."

    "And yet Dwarves repel those energies."

    You frown again, thinking. "You repel Sevir. The Winds that the energies of the Aethyr become when exposed to this world." Your frown deepens as you ponder that.

    "We do not do so naturally," he says simply. "We have the metaphorical nature of stone. The energies you call Sevir strip away the metaphor. So every Dwarf is born under stone to protect them from becoming it, even those that live far from the mountains. Only when the rites of Valaya are performed can they withstand this world, and many go their entire lives without walking under the open sky."

    "Wait," you say, and take a moment. "Dwarven magical resistance isn't inherent?"

    He shrugs. "It is not biologically inherent. It is culturally inherent. The Karaz Ankor does not recognize the distinction, and even the Dwarves living among the men of the Old World remain loyal to our ways and our Gods. The only exception..."

    "The Fire Dwarves." Known to men as Chaos Dwarves, but the Dwarves are understandably a bit more circuitous about their shameful cousins.

    He nods again. "As we are naturally, we cannot exist in the world that was created by the Coming of Chaos. We in the west survive by Valaya's protection. They in the east have a different patron. We are alien to the world that exists today, and we exist only because we refuse not to, and because the Ancestor Gods have made it possible. Such is known to every Dwarf that has entered adulthood. The next part is one of the secrets of the Cult of Gazul, and needless to say, if you misuse what I am to tell you, it will result in your name being entered into the Dammaz Kron."

    "Of course." You'd expected no less.

    "The same once applied to the souls of Dwarves who died. Gazul of the Flame is he who conquered the Underearth."

    "Wait, so..." You stop, and frown. You'd taken Underearth as the Dwarven name for their afterlife and thought nothing more of it. But Dwarves are always literal. "It's not of the Aethyr, is it?"

    "It was before Gazul of the Flame," he says with a smile. "A part close to our world, known as the 'Glittering Realm'. Thungni discovered it, and the secrets he found are held sacred by the Runelords. But Gazul of the Flame conquered it, and severed it from the rest of the Aethyr. The Aethyr is," he waves a hand skywards. "Out there, at least metaphorically. More literally, some sort of sideways in a dimension imperceivable to us, but not, perhaps, to you. But either way, entirely separate and outside of what we call reality. The Underearth is not, it has been made within and of this world."

    "The vigil over the dead," you realize. "You're not just protecting the soul from predators. You're redirecting it."

    "Its natural impulse is to go up and out, back to the realm that birthed it. If that occurs it is not a tragedy, as we believe that what makes us who we are makes our soul-stuff stubborn enough that it will return once more to the Karaz Ankor. But it is wasteful, and unfair to subject a soul more than once to this reality that rejects us."

    "That's how the Eye works," you say slowly. "The Vigil cuts the soul free and nudges it downwards. The Eye burns it free and shoves it upwards."

    "Just as Gazul of the Flame burned the Glittering Realm free of the Aethyr."

    ---

    Gunnars spends the next few hours guiding you through meditation that is supposed to make the Underearth perceptible to you, normally done to help quell the grief of those who have lost loved ones or to bolster the courage of those soon to die. You're not sure if it's due to your metaphysical nature or just because you're attuned to a very different God, but you don't find much of use in the sessions, and your attention keeps wandering as you digest this new piece of information on the nature and history of the Ancestor Gods. No wonder the Dwarves venerate them so.

    As the sun approaches its apex and Gunnars prepares to leave, you try to draw him into conversation once more, and once more he's as evasive as he ever is. But then he stops himself mid-sentence. "You deserve frankness. I had a life before I swore myself to Gazul," he says simply. "I sacrificed my history to serve Gazul, Lord of the Underearth, and I sacrifice my present to serve Gazul of the Flame. You are seeking something that is not there. Gunnars, servant of Gazul, is all there is. If you wish to know of Gazul or the Dwarves, I will tell you all you have earned, which is much. But that is all I have to offer."

    He wishes you luck, gives Wolf another pat, and leaves.

    ---

    To be continued.

    - Lore exposition and combat is a hell of a tonal shift and I've got to take care of some other things besides. The next update will come as soon as I can write it.
     
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    • DragonParadox said:
    I don't think Kragg is teaching us runelore so we can explain what's going on. He's not that radical, then again given enough time who knows...
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    Kragg might not... but Thorek -- who teaches Prince Kazrik runelore for the sake of politics, who has a host of students to advance runelore, who is dedicated mind, body, and soul to advancing runecraft and using it to solve new problems... Thorek might be more interested, if it were only the basics in exchange for the chance to study how to craft some thing with five runes.
    (I'm playing Thorek's hype man now, I think)
    (I wanna social him)
     
    BoneyM said:
    Piety:
    Ancestor Gods: You've grown to know and appreciate the Ancestor-Gods of the Dwarves. +1 Piety
    Gazul (1/3)
    Morr: You didn't earn the secrets you know of His, but the mighty blows you've struck against the Necromancers and Vampires of Sylvania hopefully go some way to easing how awkward it might be when you finally meet Him.
    Old World Pantheon (Northern) (1/3)
    Old World Pantheon (Southern): Having grown up in Stirland and then Altdorf, you've known of the more civilized Gods of the Old World for most of your life: Morr, Verena, Myrmidia, Shallya, and Ranald.
    Transcendent Ranald: Your relationship with Ranald is not one of temples and priests. He is your oldest and most annoying friend.
    Sigmar (2/3)
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    Big changes to Piety on the Character Sheet.
     
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