Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[veekie]

Hey so, first time making a comment here, and I had some thoughts about Valaya. We've gotten some pretty sweet lore on the ancestor gods, and I've gotten the impression that dwarves express worship through good work, that their gods do not act through miracles but through dwarves acting by their teachings. Grimnir seems to be waxing in worship with Thorgrim declaring an Age of Vengeance, with good work being in the form of clearing out grudges. Grungni might have been the most venerated ancestor god during the dwarves' partnership with the elves, with all of the focus on runic and magical progress.

It just makes me wonder, was Valaya ever given importance to this degree? I mean, she IS credited as the founder of most karaks, dwarven culture, khazalid, protection from magic, and runes. Yet, she's seen almost as a simple fertility goddess, or one of ale. Reading about Gazul having an aspect that was not fit to be discussed anywhere made me think if Valaya had something of the same.

Valaya is ancestor god of Home & Hearth, Healing, and Brewing. Not only that, she's seen as the protector of dwarves. So, two things stand out to me. Home & Hearth, and protection. Home & Hearth screams 'god of civilization' to me, which seems, y'know, important given how much pride and being dwarves put in their culture. Protection is such a recurring theme in dwarven history and myth, with dwarves having to defend themselves again and again throughout time. So good work is by protecting the Karaz Ankor? Now, that is pretty broad, but considering she is seen as the Ancestor Queen, it might be something left to the royal clans who have the ability to act on the broader side. It brings me to the next headcanon step, that the three primary ancestor gods be seen as patrons on a descending level.

Valaya is patron of the Karaz Ankor as a whole, with a focus on karaks protecting each other (I'd say that the Thorgrim's aircorps is an example), unity through helping your fellow dwarf, and friendship through drink. And repaying dwarf-friends, like Belegar did! It is striving for unified Karaz Ankor and the future of it. This is seen in her tenets such as 'Always protect fellow dwarves from harm, especially at the hands of a dwarf enemy' and 'Always attend to the needs of the young'.

Grungni is patron of the clans, he taught all the skills that dwarves know, and is the one that fills the most in the life of dwarves. You make good work by honoring your clan and maintaining your hold. 'Render repair upon any such structure when it becomes unsafe.', 'Always work a mine to extract all ore and valuable stone to enhance the well-being of the clan and race.' etc etc

Grimnir is patron of the individual, of the warrior and their honor. He is hero figure and that's how he is emulated in the form of slayers. He's the one you call upon on the battlefield, and in fact, most of his tenets address the reader directly on how to behave on the battlefield 'Always assist a fallen comrade-in-arms.', 'Always press home an attack whenever so ordered by a superior.'

So I just talked about dwarves worshiping through good work, and you can certainly venerate Valaya through her brewing and healing aspects, but don't you think it's odd how Valaya is credited to so much, yet seem... minor compared to Grungni and Grimnir? Every dwarf in the heart of the Karaz Ankor owe their home and way of life to Valaya.
I believe her Home & Hearth aspect, at least on the level of kings and thanes, is purposely neglected. Because... what are you offering? Okay, say you're honoring Grimnir. You have returned from battling the enemies of the dwarves and can proudly say you personally struck out several grudges. That's good work. That's worship of Grimnir. Well, how about Grungni? You and your clan have just finished many axes and breastplates for the hold, excelling in the tireless work of maintaining the karak. That's good work. That's worship of Grungni.
Now say you're a king, someone who can trace their lineage directly to Valaya herself, and you try to venerate her by upholding Home & Hearth. ...Welp, failed step one. Even if YOUR karak is doing well, your duty lies also in the well-being of other karaks. Your neighboring karaks fell thousands of years ago, the Karaz Ankor is weak while many clans are either gone or isolated. Through no fault of your own, through no one's really, a karak expected help as demanded by Valaya, and received none. And so you and your hold did shoddy work. And it will continue to be shoddy work until the hold is retaken and you can make sure it does not happen again. Looking to the rest of the Karaz Ankor, you see you aren't the only one being pretty poor at following Valaya in her protector aspect, and ain't that something.

So you write down the grudges for those responsible, and you act with vengeance in the name of Grungni and Grimnir, and you protect what you have left in her name. But you are still reminded that what you are protecting is what's left of the people you and your ancestors could not save.

And you know, that's gotta be really tough to bear.

I believe that the dwarves are weighed down not only by grudges, but also by failing in an entire aspect of Valaya, Home & Hearth.

(wow this got headcanon-y and long. I was mostly just surfing the warhammer wiki and I was kinda baffled how epic Valaya's accomplishments were, yet still got shunted into a generic fantasy fertility goddess while playing second fiddle to her husbands. 's just ya know, how CULTURE is credited to her, like clans, art, language, fucking *runes*, and it's like, barely given any importance in canon stuff.)

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You honor Valaya with children and building homes.

 

[Lightwhispers]

-Order Gods, at least AFAIK, don't often talk freely to their followers AFAIK. Whether by choice, or because the worshippers won't understand.
Ranald's more social than many of the other male gods, but I have to point out that at Abelhelm's bedside, and for most of Mathilde's stay in Stirland, he did not talk either.

I get the impression that Mathilde's now-Heroic piety and special relationship with a fairly social god are very much skewing our impressions and expectations of the normal god-worshipper relationship.

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I will note that Boney has said that Ranald mostly communicates with Mathilde through omens and the like, rather than something more direct, because he enjoys teasing her. A priest or favored follower of, say, Sigmar with 20+ piety might well get direct communication.

 

[Redshirt Army]

Speaking of Valaya, isn't K8P specifically credited to her, to a greater degree than most dwarfholds?

 

[NuclearConsensus]

Speaking of Valaya, isn't K8P specifically credited to her, to a greater degree than most dwarfholds?

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Considering that K8P bears (part of) her name, I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.

 

[Karugus]

Thorgrim did not even sent one Gyrocopter to potentially evacuate Anvils of Power, one can argue the practicalities of sending a meaningful force, but not the politically ruinous consequences of sending nothing particularly as it was as K8P was being retaken in its entirety. People joke that Mors helped more than the High King, that is only a joke, but the dragon definitely helped more. Thorgrim is in a very bad place when it comes to his image coming out of this and just how much worse it's going to get for him depends on how Belegar's realpolitik trait balances against fuming anger.

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Because Kragg would have never have left. Because the Anvil of Power would accomplish what exactly without the Rune Smith? Give it a fucking break. Thorgrim didn't send for the Anvil because it has never been within the remit and never will be for a Dwarf leader to tell his people when and where they can spend their lives. You talk about political shit shows and ignore how bad it would look to take Kragg's anvil and leave the expedition to hang? It's Kragg's and Kragg's right alone to decide when the Anvil is withdrawn and Kragg was obviously going to die on these eight hills if need be.

Your argument refuses to countenance that it could be wrong and that your preconceptions on the Anvil might be presumptive. I thank you for the fantastic example of what I'm speaking against.

I don't think he's a loser who didn't deserve his throne. I do think that the fact he had a siren going off in his head whenever he sat down, including sitting down to sleep, made him significantly less competent and capable than he would otherwise have been. From the moment he became High King he was barred from any form of rest other than standing up. That's enough to drive a human insane in weeks, a dwarf is more resilient but not infinitely so - someone screaming in their mind constantly is not going to leave them operating at full capacity.

In other words the problem wasn't Thorgrim, it was the Throne that made him unable to focus and think clearly and calmly.

EDIT: And more than that, the rule that said that only he could sit in it, and he could only sit in it. If he could have shared the duty then there would be two people aware of the problems both of whom had time to think about how to solve them with a relatively clear head.

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This is a whole different kettle of fish. Could the Throne have undermined Thorgrim's judgement? Yeah. Do I think casually sharing the burden is as simple as the stigma against sitting on it? We know the Eye of Gazul will violently reject someone using it who shouldn't. What's to say of the precautions inherent to the Throne and who's to say those precautions are undeserved. I'll point out that Alric explicitly chose Thorgrim to take up the burden, or at least waited to die to instruct him. And these Dwarfs, who undoubtedly have more mental resilience than most of their races were nearly driven to suicide by this knowledge. The enormity of how harmful this knowledge is to the Dwarfs, the civilization who can see the wonderful graph of their downfall probably escapes us. We don't have that sense of continuity being broken, the ingrained psychological need to rectify that which is wrong but having no solution.

That's the sort of thing that would be an incredible strain- but who can you trust to carry that strain without showing it to any uninitiated? How do you do so reconciling the secretive and selective nature of Dwarfs- where only an expert needs to know that given field? What happens if someone breaks under the strain? And it's rather telling as far as we know, despite this burden no High King has ever outright broken. A leadership role is inherently isolating to some degree or another, we can't even say with the complexity of these sort of runes that's not ingrained into it either.

In the end, I don't disagree that being able to share the load would be wonderful and probably great for Thorgrim's psyche, but I doubt it's as simple as finding a confidant for a number of reasons.

Yea, right, given a hundred and eighty years to solve the problem the best he could come up with is "Die." With respect there's something that never gets given nearly enough thought when people make posts like these. The fact that we as neutral observers are not actually stuck in a characters situation are able to see far more than they are, both in terms of what is going on around them and in terms of not being stuck in their doctrines and personality.

So yes I'm sure Thorgrim is a better tactician and strategist than every one in the thread, it doesn't matter because he's stuck in his doctrines and lanes of thought and wont come out of them. I've seen posts like this a lot in game threads over the years and it's always tedious to read. Ultimately the reason why the thread and questers can speculate and state with some conviction that we can make better plans is because we have a far wider perspective and vastly more context to base our decisions on than the characters in the story that are rooted in the one perspective they have and lacking the information they have, most importantly we aren't mired in their cultural obsessions and flaws.

Thorgrims flaw isn't that he refused to help K8P I think given what he knew that was the right decision. His flaw is that he has already given up, that mentality is fundamentally toxic to all decision making.

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Ah yes, the affirmation that our limited 3rd person perspective can tell us more than the first person expert of a dozen decades who's literally been stuck staring at information read outs the entire time. Who have such scathing insights into a culture who's language we don't know, who's every day lifestyle is opaque to us, who literally only found out the very surface world was poison to them without the right rituals. We can elucidate these issues, we have no need to understand the cultural context on which the Dwarfs have persisted for millenia. Why might we need those facts so that we might intuit how they impact the societal insitutions that have been laid out for the Dwarfs from the very beginning of their recorded history?

We don't need those, we're a think tank operating with a modern perspective. Never mind the information we don't have that the character absolutely does. Never mind the context we lack because we can only see the framework around which his culture and society is structured. What you seem to be failing to understand is you and I are just as prone to getting stuck on our own doctrines and personalities. How reflexive is the notion of metagaming? Of trying to apply different incidents to a current one based off of assumptions and implicit understandings? How easy is it for us to condemn Slayerdom as wasteful given our cultures tend to see suicide as an unfortunate waste of potential? I'm not even disagreeing with those notions, but we carry so much baggage of our own when we read a story, let alone try to shape and impact one like quests.

Does Thorgrim see it as giving up? Or does he see it as making the most of what he has? Of trying to balance the scales as much as possible before they give way? The notion that grudges are incidental and irrelevant in the face of the survival of their species is a very human notion at that. Belebro could have just as easily embraced the Dwarf zeitgeist that demanded if the world was going to screw them over as an inevitability getting even was the best call. Before the thread declares Thorgrim wrong, how do we actually think most Dwarfs would react if they knew what Thorgrim knew? Because I don't think that the extinction of your species is an easy conclusion to reach. I don't think it's a matter of giving up for him so much as trying to do as much as he can. I don't think Thorgrim's stance would be disagreeable to the vast majority of Dwarfs, that when faced with oblivion, you make damn sure to get the pound of flesh oblivion owes you. It's easy to dismiss Thorgrim as having given up. You and I have never have had to live with that information, to seek solutions (up until today with our limited information), and to uphold the tenets of our civilization as solutions fail to materialize. Our fluke being successful doesn't give us any right to condemn decisions that weren't informed of said fluke.

 

[molochmanic]

You honor Valaya with children and building homes.

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Okay in hindsight after posting I see that I got stuck in my own head and implied that the only way to honor Valaya's aspect of Home & Hearth was to make a succesful defense of a karak... lol

I was too focused on the point that progress and expansion is scary cause you've already heaped so much dishonor on Valaya by letting her karaks fall with fears that you might do it AGAIN, that I just sort of... ignored the other stuff.

 

[Ganurath]

You honor Valaya with children and building homes.

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*glares dissapprovingly at the stagnant dwarven population growth rate*

 

[veekie]

*glares dissapprovingly at the stagnant dwarven population growth rate*

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Kazador and his wife are working on it

 

[zxzx24]

Because Kragg would have never have left. Because the Anvil of Power would accomplish what exactly without the Rune Smith? Give it a fucking break. Thorgrim didn't send for the Anvil because it has never been within the remit and never will be for a Dwarf leader to tell his people when and where they can spend their lives. You talk about political shit shows and ignore how bad it would look to take Kragg's anvil and leave the expedition to hang? It's Kragg's and Kragg's right alone to decide when the Anvil is withdrawn and Kragg was obviously going to die on these eight hills if need be.

Your argument refuses to countenance that it could be wrong and that your preconceptions on the Anvil might be presumptive. I thank you for the fantastic example of what I'm speaking against.

This is a whole different kettle of fish. Could the Throne have undermined Thorgrim's judgement? Yeah. Do I think casually sharing the burden is as simple as the stigma against sitting on it? We know the Eye of Gazul will violently reject someone using it who shouldn't. What's to say of the precautions inherent to the Throne and who's to say those precautions are undeserved. I'll point out that Alric explicitly chose Thorgrim to take up the burden, or at least waited to die to instruct him. And these Dwarfs, who undoubtedly have more mental resilience than most of their races were nearly driven to suicide by this knowledge. The enormity of how harmful this knowledge is to the Dwarfs, the civilization who can see the wonderful graph of their downfall probably escapes us. We don't have that sense of continuity being broken, the ingrained psychological need to rectify that which is wrong but having no solution.

That's the sort of thing that would be an incredible strain- but who can you trust to carry that strain without showing it to any uninitiated? How do you do so reconciling the secretive and selective nature of Dwarfs- where only an expert needs to know that given field? What happens if someone breaks under the strain? And it's rather telling as far as we know, despite this burden no High King has ever outright broken. A leadership role is inherently isolating to some degree or another, we can't even say with the complexity of these sort of runes that's not ingrained into it either.

In the end, I don't disagree that being able to share the load would be wonderful and probably great for Thorgrim's psyche, but I doubt it's as simple as finding a confidant for a number of reasons.

Ah yes, the affirmation that our limited 3rd person perspective can tell us more than the first person expert of a dozen decades who's literally been stuck staring at information read outs the entire time. Who have such scathing insights into a culture who's language we don't know, who's every day lifestyle is opaque to us, who literally only found out the very surface world was poison to them without the right rituals. We can elucidate these issues, we have no need to understand the cultural context on which the Dwarfs have persisted for millenia. Why might we need those facts so that we might intuit how they impact the societal insitutions that have been laid out for the Dwarfs from the very beginning of their recorded history?

We don't need those, we're a think tank operating with a modern perspective. Never mind the information we don't have that the character absolutely does. Never mind the context we lack because we can only see the framework around which his culture and society is structured. What you seem to be failing to understand is you and I are just as prone to getting stuck on our own doctrines and personalities. How reflexive is the notion of metagaming? Of trying to apply different incidents to a current one based off of assumptions and implicit understandings? How easy is it for us to condemn Slayerdom as wasteful given our cultures tend to see suicide as an unfortunate waste of potential? I'm not even disagreeing with those notions, but we carry so much baggage of our own when we read a story, let alone try to shape and impact one like quests.

Does Thorgrim see it as giving up? Or does he see it as making the most of what he has? Of trying to balance the scales as much as possible before they give way? The notion that grudges are incidental and irrelevant in the face of the survival of their species is a very human notion at that. Belebro could have just as easily embraced the Dwarf zeitgeist that demanded if the world was going to screw them over as an inevitability getting even was the best call. Before the thread declares Thorgrim wrong, how do we actually think most Dwarfs would react if they knew what Thorgrim knew? Because I don't think that the extinction of your species is an easy conclusion to reach. I don't think it's a matter of giving up for him so much as trying to do as much as he can. I don't think Thorgrim's stance would be disagreeable to the vast majority of Dwarfs, that when faced with oblivion, you make damn sure to get the pound of flesh oblivion owes you. It's easy to dismiss Thorgrim as having given up. You and I have never have had to live with that information, to seek solutions (up until today with our limited information), and to uphold the tenets of our civilization as solutions fail to materialize. Our fluke being successful doesn't give us any right to condemn decisions that weren't informed of said fluke.

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Nods approvingly*

All that being said.

I think it would be cool to apply that empathy to the people arguing against Thorgrim as well.

People are worried. For many of them "the death of the dwarven race" was just starkly highlighted.

 

[Boney]

@BoneyM , I apologise for bothering you in Christmas, but since you are here, I may as well ask:

If we use a Great Deed in a way that would produce another Great Deed (as a direct result, not a rules lawyer result, say, if we get evidence the Grand Theogonist is a chaos cultist and we use the deed to make the Emperor listen to us and consider the evidence, not if we ask for a barony and then use it to raise an army and kill chaos worshippers) would that be a wash (+-0) Great Deed wise, or would that refund the Great Deed we spent due to us using it in such a way for a true +1?

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Wash.

 

[zxzx24]

Wash.

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That makes sense, seeing as if we needed to use the great deed we probably didnt have any other proof...

 

[Boney]

@BoneyM Have you rolled for what loot the dwarfs find in the vaults?

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Not yet.

 

[13th Bee]

Kazador and his wife are working on it

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Edda and Kazrik are as well.

 

[me.me.here]

Shackle inaccessible, the rest long unpowered and no longer understood.

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So, uh, slight syntactic ambiguity here. Is the Tectonic Shackle both inaccessible as well as unpowered/no longer understood, or would Kragg or some other runesmith be able to make use of the Shackle should the KA manage to reclaim both Thunder Mountain and enough additional holds/waystone nodes to be able to power it?

 

[Ericwinter]

Because Kragg would have never have left. Because the Anvil of Power would accomplish what exactly without the Rune Smith? Give it a fucking break. Thorgrim didn't send for the Anvil because it has never been within the remit and never will be for a Dwarf leader to tell his people when and where they can spend their lives. You talk about political shit shows and ignore how bad it would look to take Kragg's anvil and leave the expedition to hang? It's Kragg's and Kragg's right alone to decide when the Anvil is withdrawn and Kragg was obviously going to die on these eight hills if need be.

Your argument refuses to countenance that it could be wrong and that your preconceptions on the Anvil might be presumptive. I thank you for the fantastic example of what I'm speaking against.

This is a whole different kettle of fish. Could the Throne have undermined Thorgrim's judgement? Yeah. Do I think casually sharing the burden is as simple as the stigma against sitting on it? We know the Eye of Gazul will violently reject someone using it who shouldn't. What's to say of the precautions inherent to the Throne and who's to say those precautions are undeserved. I'll point out that Alric explicitly chose Thorgrim to take up the burden, or at least waited to die to instruct him. And these Dwarfs, who undoubtedly have more mental resilience than most of their races were nearly driven to suicide by this knowledge. The enormity of how harmful this knowledge is to the Dwarfs, the civilization who can see the wonderful graph of their downfall probably escapes us. We don't have that sense of continuity being broken, the ingrained psychological need to rectify that which is wrong but having no solution.

That's the sort of thing that would be an incredible strain- but who can you trust to carry that strain without showing it to any uninitiated? How do you do so reconciling the secretive and selective nature of Dwarfs- where only an expert needs to know that given field? What happens if someone breaks under the strain? And it's rather telling as far as we know, despite this burden no High King has ever outright broken. A leadership role is inherently isolating to some degree or another, we can't even say with the complexity of these sort of runes that's not ingrained into it either.

In the end, I don't disagree that being able to share the load would be wonderful and probably great for Thorgrim's psyche, but I doubt it's as simple as finding a confidant for a number of reasons.

Ah yes, the affirmation that our limited 3rd person perspective can tell us more than the first person expert of a dozen decades who's literally been stuck staring at information read outs the entire time. Who have such scathing insights into a culture who's language we don't know, who's every day lifestyle is opaque to us, who literally only found out the very surface world was poison to them without the right rituals. We can elucidate these issues, we have no need to understand the cultural context on which the Dwarfs have persisted for millenia. Why might we need those facts so that we might intuit how they impact the societal insitutions that have been laid out for the Dwarfs from the very beginning of their recorded history?

We don't need those, we're a think tank operating with a modern perspective. Never mind the information we don't have that the character absolutely does. Never mind the context we lack because we can only see the framework around which his culture and society is structured. What you seem to be failing to understand is you and I are just as prone to getting stuck on our own doctrines and personalities. How reflexive is the notion of metagaming? Of trying to apply different incidents to a current one based off of assumptions and implicit understandings? How easy is it for us to condemn Slayerdom as wasteful given our cultures tend to see suicide as an unfortunate waste of potential? I'm not even disagreeing with those notions, but we carry so much baggage of our own when we read a story, let alone try to shape and impact one like quests.

Does Thorgrim see it as giving up? Or does he see it as making the most of what he has? Of trying to balance the scales as much as possible before they give way? The notion that grudges are incidental and irrelevant in the face of the survival of their species is a very human notion at that. Belebro could have just as easily embraced the Dwarf zeitgeist that demanded if the world was going to screw them over as an inevitability getting even was the best call. Before the thread declares Thorgrim wrong, how do we actually think most Dwarfs would react if they knew what Thorgrim knew? Because I don't think that the extinction of your species is an easy conclusion to reach. I don't think it's a matter of giving up for him so much as trying to do as much as he can. I don't think Thorgrim's stance would be disagreeable to the vast majority of Dwarfs, that when faced with oblivion, you make damn sure to get the pound of flesh oblivion owes you. It's easy to dismiss Thorgrim as having given up. You and I have never have had to live with that information, to seek solutions (up until today with our limited information), and to uphold the tenets of our civilization as solutions fail to materialize. Our fluke being successful doesn't give us any right to condemn decisions that weren't informed of said fluke.

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So, I don't particularly want to get in the middle of this, or even refute your points, but I've been watching this conversation go on all day, and thought I'd say something before going to bed. My problem with Thorgrim, personally, is not necessarily what he did, or even why he did it, but how. There are a thousand and one reasons for him to have sent help, and a thousand and one reasons for him to have not, and I feel that the fact it was even a roll defines that pretty well. It could have gone either way. If Thorgrim had simply refused to commit troops, with or without an explanation, I would be entirely okay with it. What makes it a mess however, and as far as I can tell what truly inflamed this whole hatred of the guy, were two simple words, the only words big and important enough for Boney to actually quote: "Die well".

Now, with this recent knowledge we have gained of Dwarfkind's imminent demise and Thorgrim's awareness of it, I can easily understand why he would say that, at least on the surface. If his race is going to die anyways, they might as well make their deaths worthwhile in avenging as many grudges as possible. And asking us to try to understand that perspective in its entirety is entirely fair. On the flipside of the coin, however, you should also expect Thorgrim to understand.... well, not our perspectives, as that would be rather impossible, but that of the person he was interacting with through that message, namely Belegar/Mathilde acting in Belegar's stead. And as a High King with as much experience as Thorgrim has, having already been ranted at once about Belegar's stance, he should be well aware that Belegar and his people could only ever take those words as an insult, since putting aside the explicit and rather unique circumstances Thorgrim is facing regarding the fate of his species, there is only one time those words could really be uttered without being insulting, namely when a person is about to sacrifice themselves for another's sake--although, admittedly, Slayer's are an exception to this, but Belegar was not a slayer so that doesn't count. Thorgrim knew this, had to know that Belegar would take it as a deep insult, and yet still added it to the letter anyways.

that was a choice. Perhaps he made it because he thought it worth imparting the message, perhaps he was being spiteful for some stupid reason, but regardless, Thorgrim chose to leave something that would undoubtedly be taken as an insult in the letter. And when someone chooses to be insulting, those who have been insulted, such as Mathilde both as a member of the K8P's forces left to die, as Belegar's Loremaster, and the person who wrote the message in the first place--and through Mathilde, us--have every right to feel outraged, regardless of why it happened.

Don't misunderstand, this is not about right or wrong. I'm not going to say Thorgrim was a bad king, a good king, or get into any arguments about what we should do in response. I am simply saying that people have every right to be offended by it, right or wrong. A trust broken for the greater good is still a trust broken, just as blood spilled with good reason is still blood spilled.

 

[chocolote12]

So, I don't particularly want to get in the middle of this, or even refute your points, but I've been watching this conversation go on all day, and thought I'd say something before going to bed. My problem with Thorgrim, personally, is not necessarily what he did, or even why he did it, but how. There are a thousand and one reasons for him to have sent help, and a thousand and one reasons for him to have not, and I feel that the fact it was even a roll defines that pretty well. It could have gone either way. If Thorgrim had simply refused to commit troops, with or without an explanation, I would be entirely okay with it. What makes it a mess however, and as far as I can tell what truly inflamed this whole hatred of the guy, were two simple words, the only words big and important enough for Boney to actually quote: "Die well".
Now, with this recent knowledge we have gained of Dwarfkind's imminent demise and Thorgrim's awareness of it, I can easily understand why he would say that, at least on the surface. If his race is going to die anyways, they might as well make their deaths worthwhile in avenging as many grudges as possible. And asking us to try to understand that perspective in its entirety is entirely fair. On the flipside of the coin, however, you should also expect Thorgrim to understand.... well, not our perspectives, as that would be rather impossible, but that of the person he was interacting with through that message, namely Belegar/Mathilde acting in Belegar's stead. And as a High King with as much experience as Thorgrim has, having already been ranted at once about Belegar's stance, he should be well aware that Belegar and his people could only ever take those words as an insult, since putting aside the explicit and rather unique circumstances Thorgrim is facing regarding the fate of his species, there is only one time those words could really be uttered without being insulting, namely when a person is about to sacrifice themselves for another's sake--although, admittedly, Slayer's are an exception to this, but Belegar was not a slayer so that doesn't count. Thorgrim knew this, had to know that Belegar would take it as a deep insult, and yet still added it to the letter anyways. that was a choice. Perhaps he made it because he thought it worth imparting the message, perhaps he was being spiteful for some stupid reason, but regardless, Thorgrim chose to leave something that would undoubtedly be taken as an insult in the letter. And when someone chooses to be insulting, those who have been insulted, such as Mathilde both as a member of the K8P's forces left to die, as Belegar's Loremaster, and the person who wrote the message in the first place--and through Mathilde, us--have every right to feel outraged, regardless of why it happened. Don't misunderstand, this is not about right or wrong. I'm not going to say Thorgrim was a bad king, a good king, or get into any arguments about what we should do in response. I am simply saying that people have every right to be offended by it, right or wrong. A trust broken for the greater good is still a trust broken, just as blood spilled with good reason is still blood spilled.

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Could you please break up your post into smaller paragraphs? I can't make heads nor tails of most of it, sorry.

 

[Boney]

So, uh, slight syntactic ambiguity here. Is the Tectonic Shackle both inaccessible as well as unpowered/no longer understood, or would Kragg or some other runesmith be able to make use of the Shackle should the KA manage to reclaim both Thunder Mountain and enough additional holds/waystone nodes to be able to power it?

Click to shrink...

Shackle unpowered and no longer understood.

 

[Ericwinter]

Could you please break up your post into smaller paragraphs? I can't make heads nor tails of most of it, sorry.

Click to shrink...

Sorry about that, I get really wordy at times. I did the best I could, but a lot of it directly correlates without much break in thought. It looked better on the computer at least.

 

[me.me.here]

What makes it a mess however, and as far as I can tell what truly inflamed this whole hatred of the guy, were two simple words, the only words big and important enough for Boney to actually quote: "Die well".

Click to shrink...

The actual passage about the letter is as so

But the document in your hands turns all that pride to ash, as you had quickly checked with Princess Edda to confirm you did have the rights you thought you did and then broken the seal of the High King as the acting ruler of Karak Eight Peaks. The Khazalid it contains is brusque, and centres on a single point: 25,000 Dwarves. 500,000 greenskins.

Die well, it closes, and bears the signature of High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer.

Click to shrink...

Thorgrim explicitly gives his logic for refusing to aid K8P, and it's entirely a numbers call that Everpeak either can't project enough power to make a difference or that in doing so it would suffer unacceptable losses. It's not really about how insulting Belegar would find "Die Well" to be that made Thorgrim include it. "Die Well" was included as the postscript/final goodbye of the letter, and it's essentially what dwarf culture dictates should be told to doomed warriors.

 

[Karugus]

Nods approvingly*

All that being said.

I think it would be cool to apply that empathy to the people arguing against Thorgrim as well.

People are worried. For many of them "the death of the dwarven race" was just starkly highlighted.

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Oh I understand people are anxious over this issue and are seeking solutions with good intentions. And I probably should have been a bit more sympathetic, but it's important we apply ourselves to the problem as what we're capable of, rather than condemnation born of misplaced protagonism when we don't have remotely all the facts.

Wnating to help the Dwarfs here isn't wrong, and apologies if I implied that's where I found fault.

So, I don't particularly want to get in the middle of this, or even refute your points, but I've been watching this conversation go on all day, and thought I'd say something before going to bed. My problem with Thorgrim, personally, is not necessarily what he did, or even why he did it, but how. There are a thousand and one reasons for him to have sent help, and a thousand and one reasons for him to have not, and I feel that the fact it was even a roll defines that pretty well. It could have gone either way. If Thorgrim had simply refused to commit troops, with or without an explanation, I would be entirely okay with it. What makes it a mess however, and as far as I can tell what truly inflamed this whole hatred of the guy, were two simple words, the only words big and important enough for Boney to actually quote: "Die well".

Now, with this recent knowledge we have gained of Dwarfkind's imminent demise and Thorgrim's awareness of it, I can easily understand why he would say that, at least on the surface. If his race is going to die anyways, they might as well make their deaths worthwhile in avenging as many grudges as possible. And asking us to try to understand that perspective in its entirety is entirely fair. On the flipside of the coin, however, you should also expect Thorgrim to understand.... well, not our perspectives, as that would be rather impossible, but that of the person he was interacting with through that message, namely Belegar/Mathilde acting in Belegar's stead. And as a High King with as much experience as Thorgrim has, having already been ranted at once about Belegar's stance, he should be well aware that Belegar and his people could only ever take those words as an insult, since putting aside the explicit and rather unique circumstances Thorgrim is facing regarding the fate of his species, there is only one time those words could really be uttered without being insulting, namely when a person is about to sacrifice themselves for another's sake--although, admittedly, Slayer's are an exception to this, but Belegar was not a slayer so that doesn't count. Thorgrim knew this, had to know that Belegar would take it as a deep insult, and yet still added it to the letter anyways.

that was a choice. Perhaps he made it because he thought it worth imparting the message, perhaps he was being spiteful for some stupid reason, but regardless, Thorgrim chose to leave something that would undoubtedly be taken as an insult in the letter. And when someone chooses to be insulting, those who have been insulted, such as Mathilde both as a member of the K8P's forces left to die, as Belegar's Loremaster, and the person who wrote the message in the first place--and through Mathilde, us--have every right to feel outraged, regardless of why it happened.

Don't misunderstand, this is not about right or wrong. I'm not going to say Thorgrim was a bad king, a good king, or get into any arguments about what we should do in response. I am simply saying that people have every right to be offended by it, right or wrong. A trust broken for the greater good is still a trust broken, just as blood spilled with good reason is still blood spilled.

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This is all fair- I can't excuse what Thorgrim said- though I do think it wasn't necessarily obvious to him how inflammatory a response it was. Keep in mind Thorgrim came into power right after the fall of Karak Vlag and Karak Dum. Given the heir is the only person besides the High King that's informed, I think this is where some of Thorgrim's own preconceptions come into play.

I don't think Thorgrim understood that Belegor was a young idealistic king determined to safeguard his people even in the face of Dwarf culture and practices. That's the flip side of 18 decades of fatalism that I defended him with. Look at what it might have seemed to him- another Hold over extended grasping for the past, with it's King out of position, hostiles on myriad fronts with a million orcs marching on a position that for Dwarfs- might as well have been unfortified. I think this update kinda says it all with how much Thorgrim thinks about K8P and the answer is not that much until it's right before him. Die well was the wrong thing to say, but I think it was rooted in thoughtlessness more than anything else, and at the end of the day I can't begrudge someone trying to do the right thing for that alone all that much.

 

[Ericwinter]

The actual passage about the letter is as so

Thorgrim explicitly gives his logic for refusing to aid K8P, and it's entirely a numbers call that Everpeak either can't project enough power to make a difference or that in doing so it would suffer unacceptable losses. It's not really about how insulting Belegar would find "Die Well" to be that made Thorgrim include it. "Die Well" was included as the postscript/final goodbye of the letter, and it's essentially what dwarf culture dictates should be told to doomed warriors.

Click to shrink...

As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm not saying he didn't have or give his reasons, that's all well and good, but with the past spat Belegar and him have had, plus whatever happened that we haven't seen, he should still be aware it would be an insult, and unless Dwarf culture also dictates you should insult doomed warriors, he could have simply left that part out of the letter. Even if he decided the original tradition was better, it's still a choice he had to make, and he chose the one that insults Belegar. My point is that I—and others in the thread—are well within their rights to be angry about that. How we express that anger is another matter entirely, but the opinion itself should not be belittled or disregarded.

Oh I understand people are anxious over this issue and are seeking solutions with good intentions. And I probably should have been a bit more sympathetic, but it's important we apply ourselves to the problem as what we're capable of, rather than condemnation born of misplaced protagonism when we don't have remotely all the facts.

Wnating to help the Dwarfs here isn't wrong, and apologies if I implied that's where I found fault.

This is all fair- I can't excuse what Thorgrim said- though I do think it wasn't necessarily obvious to him how inflammatory a response it was. Keep in mind Thorgrim came into power right after the fall of Karak Vlag and Karak Dum. Given the heir is the only person besides the High King that's informed, I think this is where some of Thorgrim's own preconceptions come into play.

I don't think Thorgrim understood that Belegor was a young idealistic king determined to safeguard his people even in the face of Dwarf culture and practices. That's the flip side of 18 decades of fatalism that I defended him with. Look at what it might have seemed to him- another Hold over extended grasping for the past, with it's King out of position, hostiles on myriad fronts with a million orcs marching on a position that for Dwarfs- might as well have been unfortified. I think this update kinda says it all with how much Thorgrim thinks about K8P and the answer is not that much until it's right before him. Die well was the wrong thing to say, but I think it was rooted in thoughtlessness more than anything else, and at the end of the day I can't begrudge someone trying to do the right thing for that alone all that much.

Click to shrink...

The one problem with this is that it depends on Thorgrim not understanding Belegar's stance. I could believe that—except Belegar said it straight to his face when we went to mark out grudges. Unless Thorgrim was willfully blind to that entire conversation, which has not been the implications at all, then he should know exactly where Belegar stood. That's why I believe he knew it would be an insult and still chose to make it, regardless of his reasoning.

But yes, I don't begrudge him anything else out of that, nor claim he did not have valid reasons, simply that I am angry regardless. I can control that anger, but will not deny it.

anyways, I'm going to bed now. Merry Christmas all, and hopefully things will have moved onto happier subjects by the time I wake up.

 

[Guile]

So, I don't particularly want to get in the middle of this, or even refute your points, but I've been watching this conversation go on all day, and thought I'd say something before going to bed. My problem with Thorgrim, personally, is not necessarily what he did, or even why he did it, but how. There are a thousand and one reasons for him to have sent help, and a thousand and one reasons for him to have not, and I feel that the fact it was even a roll defines that pretty well. It could have gone either way. If Thorgrim had simply refused to commit troops, with or without an explanation, I would be entirely okay with it. What makes it a mess however, and as far as I can tell what truly inflamed this whole hatred of the guy, were two simple words, the only words big and important enough for Boney to actually quote: "Die well".

Now, with this recent knowledge we have gained of Dwarfkind's imminent demise and Thorgrim's awareness of it, I can easily understand why he would say that, at least on the surface. If his race is going to die anyways, they might as well make their deaths worthwhile in avenging as many grudges as possible. And asking us to try to understand that perspective in its entirety is entirely fair. On the flipside of the coin, however, you should also expect Thorgrim to understand.... well, not our perspectives, as that would be rather impossible, but that of the person he was interacting with through that message, namely Belegar/Mathilde acting in Belegar's stead. And as a High King with as much experience as Thorgrim has, having already been ranted at once about Belegar's stance, he should be well aware that Belegar and his people could only ever take those words as an insult, since putting aside the explicit and rather unique circumstances Thorgrim is facing regarding the fate of his species, there is only one time those words could really be uttered without being insulting, namely when a person is about to sacrifice themselves for another's sake--although, admittedly, Slayer's are an exception to this, but Belegar was not a slayer so that doesn't count. Thorgrim knew this, had to know that Belegar would take it as a deep insult, and yet still added it to the letter anyways.

that was a choice. Perhaps he made it because he thought it worth imparting the message, perhaps he was being spiteful for some stupid reason, but regardless, Thorgrim chose to leave something that would undoubtedly be taken as an insult in the letter. And when someone chooses to be insulting, those who have been insulted, such as Mathilde both as a member of the K8P's forces left to die, as Belegar's Loremaster, and the person who wrote the message in the first place--and through Mathilde, us--have every right to feel outraged, regardless of why it happened.

Don't misunderstand, this is not about right or wrong. I'm not going to say Thorgrim was a bad king, a good king, or get into any arguments about what we should do in response. I am simply saying that people have every right to be offended by it, right or wrong. A trust broken for the greater good is still a trust broken, just as blood spilled with good reason is still blood spilled.

Click to shrink...

Thorgrim: "What is he going to do, die poorly just to spite me?"

I feel like to Thorgrim Grudgebearer, 'Die well' is like us telling someone 'Good luck.' And then that somebody's like 'Fuck you, I don't need luck' and storms out. And you (Thorgrim) are left going, '???'

 

[ReImagined]

I was going to go on a small (politely worded) rant, but Guile hit the nail on the head.

 

[SaltyWaffles]

Thorgrim: "What is he going to do, die poorly just to spite me?"

Click to shrink...

Worse. He's gonna achieve the most lop-sided victory against a Waaagh in dwarf history...just to spite you.

 

[CrimsonOddball]

So, I don't particularly want to get in the middle of this, or even refute your points, but I've been watching this conversation go on all day, and thought I'd say something before going to bed. My problem with Thorgrim, personally, is not necessarily what he did, or even why he did it, but how. There are a thousand and one reasons for him to have sent help, and a thousand and one reasons for him to have not, and I feel that the fact it was even a roll defines that pretty well. It could have gone either way. If Thorgrim had simply refused to commit troops, with or without an explanation, I would be entirely okay with it. What makes it a mess however, and as far as I can tell what truly inflamed this whole hatred of the guy, were two simple words, the only words big and important enough for Boney to actually quote: "Die well".

Now, with this recent knowledge we have gained of Dwarfkind's imminent demise and Thorgrim's awareness of it, I can easily understand why he would say that, at least on the surface. If his race is going to die anyways, they might as well make their deaths worthwhile in avenging as many grudges as possible. And asking us to try to understand that perspective in its entirety is entirely fair. On the flipside of the coin, however, you should also expect Thorgrim to understand.... well, not our perspectives, as that would be rather impossible, but that of the person he was interacting with through that message, namely Belegar/Mathilde acting in Belegar's stead. And as a High King with as much experience as Thorgrim has, having already been ranted at once about Belegar's stance, he should be well aware that Belegar and his people could only ever take those words as an insult, since putting aside the explicit and rather unique circumstances Thorgrim is facing regarding the fate of his species, there is only one time those words could really be uttered without being insulting, namely when a person is about to sacrifice themselves for another's sake--although, admittedly, Slayer's are an exception to this, but Belegar was not a slayer so that doesn't count. Thorgrim knew this, had to know that Belegar would take it as a deep insult, and yet still added it to the letter anyways.

that was a choice. Perhaps he made it because he thought it worth imparting the message, perhaps he was being spiteful for some stupid reason, but regardless, Thorgrim chose to leave something that would undoubtedly be taken as an insult in the letter. And when someone chooses to be insulting, those who have been insulted, such as Mathilde both as a member of the K8P's forces left to die, as Belegar's Loremaster, and the person who wrote the message in the first place--and through Mathilde, us--have every right to feel outraged, regardless of why it happened.

Don't misunderstand, this is not about right or wrong. I'm not going to say Thorgrim was a bad king, a good king, or get into any arguments about what we should do in response. I am simply saying that people have every right to be offended by it, right or wrong. A trust broken for the greater good is still a trust broken, just as blood spilled with good reason is still blood spilled.

Click to shrink...

As I understood it the issue wasn't in the wording, or at least the wording didn't do anything worse than maybe unintentionally rub salt in the wound. Belegar might very well have taken what Thorgrim probably intended to be innocuous final parting words badly, but if he did it was because of what the message prior to "die well" conveyed not the closing phrase itself. Telling what you believed to be a warrior facing their last stand to die well isn't an insult in it of itself, and in a world like Warhammer it's probably a fairly common sentiment.

The problem is here:

The Khazalid it contains is brusque, and centres on a single point: 25,000 Dwarves. 500,000 greenskins.

Die well, it closes, and bears the signature of High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer.

Click to shrink...

Thorgrim was rather blunt about things;
"You are at best outnumbered 20 to 1, you're fucked and I won't send reinforcements to a lost cause. Die well." Frankly no amount of sugar coating was going to make that palatable to Belegar.
Now that stance is rather cold but it's not impossible to see where Thorgrim's coming from, his job as High King demands that he weighs the entire Dwarven Empire in his decision making, as he saw the situation it looked hopeless and he believed reinforcements would only cost more lives. He acted according to what he believed the situation demanded of him, accepting another tragic loss in order to preserve the Karaz Ankor as a whole and he probably didn't mean anything more than what he said in his closing statement, if you are to die then die well.

That said Belegar and co still take issue with that letter for writing them off as beyond hope, it's easier to look at Thorgrim's decision impartially when you aren't the statistic in question being sacrificed, being told that you're doomed and no one is coming to answer your call for help is a bitter message to swallow, no matter how logically it's presented to you.
This is made worse by the existing tension between the two already, Thorgrim doesn't believe that Belegar's cause will pan out, he thinks that the reclamation is doomed to failure and has accordingly done little to help since their initial falling out. Sure his official/unofficial stance has been "prove me wrong" but it's clear he doesn't expect Belegar to surprise him, in that respect his letter may not actually say "I told you so" but it's still a fact that he never really believed in what Belegar was selling and essentially took the call for aid as vindication of that non belief.

And I suppose there's also Thorgrim utterly failing to take into account the various other factors in play besides the number of Orcs to Dwarves, such as the Undumgi, the various mercenaries, the Halflings, the sheer concentration of Artillery present, two of the greatest Runelords equipped with Anvils of Doom or the vulnerability of an Orc Waaagh jogging to 8 Peaks the long way around to the West Gate. I'm not entirely certain of why this is, maybe he was so convinced everything was hopeless that he didn't bother keeping up with such information or taking it into consideration.




As an aside People have mentioned him not bothering to send any evac as damning evidence of malice but given what we know that isn't how it works

@BoneyM, question about dwarf law: Belegar is sovereign within his own Karak, right? Meaning that command devolves along his command structure? Regardless of who happens to be visiting?

I expect the answer to that is "yes," but I want to set people's mind at ease that KaK cannot send anyone who has legal authority to assume strategic command, even if the High King came himself.

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Correct.

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If he believed that Belegar wouldn't be willing to back down and evacuate then there wasn't anything he could do about it, he can only send assistance to any course of action Belegar approves of. That still speaks badly of the gulf between the two that Thorgrim didn't think he could trust Belegar's judgement not to cost more lives if he sent aid mind you. Though ironically prior to the update with the letter people were actually worried he'd send gyrocopters to evac people, afraid that he'd undermine the defenses trying to pull VIP's out.