That does raise a question though; in the dwarf mind, is it possible to surpass your elders? Josef Bugman was a darn good brewer, I don't recall anyone quibbling on that point, but would he be compared favorably against Great Great Great Grandfather Bugman, who it was said could take a fistful of barley and hops in one hand, squeeze them so hard that the juices came out pre-fermented and good enough to grace a king's tankard? (Also, who is the ancestor god of brewing?)
Considering that warhammer dwarfs are a whole cultural of old men going 'back in my day!' It's very hard.
At the very least I suspect that the title of 'the best ever' can only be given posthumously. The living can't surpass the dead.
And I imagine that without undeniable proff that the young dwarf is better, the assumption is the older 'best' is still the best.
And as time moves on it becomes harder and harder to compare, to the point that the old master gets literally Apotheosised to the point that no action a new master can take will convince the dwarfs culturally that he has surpassed the old master.
Still in my re-read, had to ask: can someone do an omake of the blinged out parade through the markets this must have been? I'm not confident writing dwarves.
This leads naturally into Prince Kazrik's trip to Barak Varr, which by the sound of it has been quite a success. Karak Azul has been effectively cut off from the world for all of living memory, and though Karak Azul is both famed and named for the iron mines, gold and gemstones have been accumulating for generations. A significant fraction of that wealth has hit the unsuspecting Barak Varr like a tidal wave, and many sellers of weapons, firearms, luxury goods, exotic materials, and countless other items Karak Azul couldn't produce for itself found themselves utterly bereft of goods and awash in gold and jewels.
If you want to buy something cheap, there's Altdorf. The city stands as a nexus of two waterways and three land routes, so manling traders travel by river and road to the capital of their Empire, where they compete for the attention and coinpurses of the nobles. Ah, that'd be sommat like a thane, if yer unfamiliar with the term. There's also their imitation engineers playing around with powder, and it's hard to forget that the Zhufokri schools make the place their home too. There's no shortage of manling craft available, if you're willing to accept a little substandard fare.
And if you want to buy something expensive, there's Marienburg, where one river flows into another into another and they all meet the sea. Convenient, that. Just make sure to avoid the Elgi, there's quite a few of them there in that blasted Embassy. Sets my beard ill at ease, it does. Now where was I? Right, trade. The Empire, and Bretonnia, those are the big ones. There's also links with the Tilean and Estalian cities. Remember to get an updated political map once you reach the markets, every decade there's some doge or triumvir faffing about with some declaration or another. More importantly, there's some traffic across the ocean to Cathay and Ind, and Lustria too. There's all sorts of things that can pop up, if you've got the eye and coin for it.
But if you want to buy something good, there's no place like Barak Varr...
So much for the morning rush. Mel sighed, taking a swig of her canteen as she glumly watched the crowded marketplace. Packs of pacing peddlers, swarms of sweaty sailors, throngs of marching dwarves. Barely a dozen customers for Mudhopper's 'Mazing Mixtures. Maybe she should've stayed in the Moot, like Ma always said. Or joined a ship like Da, they were always recruiting. If she brushed up on her aim, maybe she'd find a mercenary band, they were a funny lot. She'd overheard one telling a joke just last week about discovering the place where the sun didn't—
"Excuse me!" A gruff voice called out, interrupting that flow of thought. "I seek—"
Melanie 'just-call-me-Mel' Mudhopper yelped, choked on her water, and began coughing, holding up a hand as she doubled over. Ow. That might've went down the wrong pipe. But hey, a potential customer!
Blinking as her coughs subsided, she peered up at the heavily armored dwarf sipping from what must've been an expensive glass in front of her stall. His silvery breastplate gleamed in the lanternlit plaza, drawing her attention to the numerous bulging pouches on his person. "Pardon? Could you repeat that?"
"Alright there, lass? I was directed here to seek this strange and most unfamiliar concoction. Chai, I believe it's called?" he replied, his oddly flavoured variant of Reikspiel filtering slowly into intelligibility through her ears.
"Then you've come to the right place. Mel Mudhopper of Mudhopper's 'Mazing Mixtures at your service! We do serve Cathayan tea, or Chai. Also known as hot leaf juice." She smothered another cough. "That'll be two coppers for a cup." She hopped up, dusting off her apron before rummaging through the shelf.
"That won't be necessary. My hold wishes to pursue your supply in entirety, assuming you are not bound by prior arrangements. What would you judge to be a fair price?"
"Oh. Um. The whole thing?" Mel asked, carefully not dropping the the pot she'd grabbed and shoving it back under the counter.
"Aye."
Mel frowned, calculating with her fingers. A fair price? For all of it? Bound by oath? What was a fair price? Um. Let's see... bought five crates in inventory from the last caravan. Roughly one hundred pounds of product per crate, selling at three silvers per pound, so five hundred pounds for fifteen hundred silvers. Twenty silvers per gold, so one hundred silvers for five gold, fifteen hundred silvers for seventy five gold, at cost. Add in ten percent markup, that's seven and ten, eighty two and ten, another ten percent is ninety, then add taxes... but wait. About one spoon per pot, about nine spoons per pound, nine hundred spoons per hundred pounds, forty five hundred spoons in five hundred pounds. Two coppers per, so ninety hundred, or nine thousand coppers. Divide by twelve, which is four and three. Three thousand divided by four, so fifteen hundred, seven hundred fifty... silvers... right, started with pots. Five drinks per pot, so multiply by five... by four is three thousand again, then add once, three thousand seven hundred fifty silvers. Now to convert that to gold...
The dwarf snorted. "Lass, let's not wend to fetch an abacus just yet. How about this, I have no interest in dealing with some moneychanger's fancy contraption when I could be spending that time securing more goods in the market. I will offer an even thousand for your inventory, which from what I can see is at least those crates you have stacked up. If that's insufficient, then send a petition about Bengi Beartooth of Karak Azul's purchase of chai in service of Prince Kazrik's party and we'll bring it up to market price plus a generous percentage for your trouble, you have my oath."
"A thousand silver? I don't think that's nearly enough for the whole thing, but it would be enough for maybe—"
"Silvern? What do you take me for, a petty swindler? Gorl, good, solid, Gorl. Ah, that'd be gold in your language."
A thousand gold was... "Twenty thousand silver!?"
"Aye, I reckon that's the change rate. Though if you'll permit my beardlings to carry it off immediately I can offer a bit extra right now to sweeten the deal." The obscenely wealthy dwarf reached into one of his belt-pouches. "Would this ruby be a satisfactory down payment? I'll admit it's a little on the small side, but I'm sure we can work out an arrangement."
"I'm sure we can." she agreed faintly. "Say, would your hold be interested in any other drinks? I've got some special Arabyan brews here I think you might like..."
Missed the mark on the 'parade of bling' premise by a bit, but that's just how the story unfolded. Poor Mel can't afford a location where that'd materialize more blatantly. In the aftermath, she desperately tried to contact her suppliers for more product, but they were all bought out earlier. Maybe she'll retire to Eight Peaks, she's heard good things.
Working Currency Ratio: 1gc = 20s = 240p | 1s = 12p
Mel's Inventory: 500 pounds of tea (total cost of 75gc = 1500s)
Mel's Suppliers' Markup Idea: 500 pounds of tea (sale of 75gc + 7.5gc = 82.5gc + 7.5gc = 90 gc + taxes?)
"You trespass over this?" Indignant fury rose though His being. "You steal your way into the Glittering Realm, to ask us which Manling she should Pursue?!" With violent intent He strode forth.
"The gold one, Obviously"
And stopped, turning to look back towards His Brother.
Betrayed! Ooooh- betrayed. Dawi, how could you do this to your sibling?
This is great for both the way Ranald went to Heidi to break about what he was about to do, and for the way the ancestors reacted to the shit stirring.
I mean, OF COURSE they would all have an opinion, right?
So much for the morning rush. Mel sighed, taking a swig of her canteen as she glumly watched the crowded marketplace. Packs of pacing peddlers, swarms of sweaty sailors, throngs of marching dwarves. Barely a dozen customers for Mudhopper's 'Mazing Mixtures.
Thank you! I appreciate the little gazetteer snippets you do almost as much as the main stories, and I have to say I *really* did not expect anyone to take me up on that request when I made it.
Excellent to have it now though!
There has been a lot of really good omake work lately, not gonna lie.
By the time he entered the mountain he was told was called Karag Nar, Willus was already rattled. Instead of a gate in the side of a mountain he'd been expecting, a gate between two mountains had opened into a idyllic farm valley dotted with cottages and filled with Halflings, giving him the momentary but terrifying thought that he'd gotten turned around at some point and ended up at the Moot.
You say that jokingly but this is warhammer so even the nice Halflings are basically the mafia in a lot of places. If you see a charming halfling community you might have just walked into the part of town.
For something imported from Cathay I would expect gold rather than copper. This is the sort of luxury item where the supply is measured in 'leafs per year' not crates per month.
Its rooted in the land, the Moot has the best farmland in Stirland while the rest of the province is making do with crappy soil, they're working with rich, uncontaminated floodplains. That sort of thing spurs the reconquista urges in the nobility, and for the common folk, all it takes is people being blatantly different and separated to hate and fear the other.
Its rooted in the land, the Moot has the best farmland in Stirland while the rest of the province is making do with crappy soil, they're working with rich, uncontaminated floodplains. That sort of thing spurs the reconquista urges in the nobility, and for the common folk, all it takes is people being blatantly different and separated to hate and fear the other.
So basically, sidestory is 'stuff that could've plausibly happened off-screen in the main story-line for non-main characters*.' Everything else is apocrypha.
*Some exceptions exist.
Nice idea, terrible detail. You vastly underestimate the difficulty of travel between Cathay and the Old World.
If ships could make that trip with anything approaching regularity the Silk Road would not be considered Important.
For something imported from Cathay I would expect gold rather than copper. This is the sort of luxury item where the supply is measured in 'leafs per year' not crates per month.
To address your first point, he Warhammer setting tries to mirror real world history. By quest canon, we already have people sailing to Lustria, so it makes no sense to reach Lustria but not Cathay, since New World conquistadores are predated by Eastern-bound ships in the real world. The real world silk road collapsed after the Mongol Empire did, and that's a pretty similar state to how the Warhammer setting's silk road works. Which also happened to lead to increased shipping efforts. So the trip is dangerous, but not impossible. That's my justification, at least. The warhammer wiki also places communities of Cathayans and Indians(really, GW?) in Marienburg, but that's less defensible.
As for the availability of tea, well, here's what I used as references:
First came the merchants, then came the tinkers, then came craftsmen of every imaginable type, and now you can get your shoe repaired, your knife sharpened, your clothes laundered, and top it off with a nice cup of Arabyan coffee or Cathayan tea, all without leaving the gallery.
That's in Eight Peaks. If the price is gold per leaf, then who's going to buy it? I doubt anybody in a mercenary town would be able to afford it, and it certainly wouldn't be in shops for the public, it'd be special commissions for royalty.
If those were not wonders enough, the markets of Barak Varr rival the harbour in grandeur and are greater even than those of Altdorf or Marienburg. You see barrels and mounds of spices that you've previously seen only in measures of pinches and pouches, entire bolts of precious silk stacked as haphazardly as if they were the most inferior wool, and under the careful watch of guards of a dozen nationalities or more, handfuls of precious stones glimmering brilliantly in the torchlight. Everywhere you look there are wonders, drawn in from every corner of the world, whether from long, gruelling oversea voyages that round entire continents, or from overland trips through territory held by greenskin and undead and other, even fouler threats.
Seems to have plenty of supply to me. Remember, the Karaz Ankor is a tad bit more advanced than the Empire, and been on those trade routes for longer, and is better positioned on them.
The major eastern human polities are Cathay (another name for China), Nippon (Japanese name for Japan), and Ind (India with the ia chopped off). They got lazier the less they wrote about them, and they wrote very little about any of those three.
I think all we have on Nippon is that Clan Eshin trained there, and Ind all I've seen is that it's "the land of a thousand gods" and that the wax for the scholar candle magic item comes from there.
Idk, there has to be some way to conjugate an archaic form of 'India' into something that's not exactly the same as what's currently used xD
Edit: I mean, even "Arabyan" has a letter changed!
Idk, there has to be some way to conjugate an archaic form of 'India' into something that's not exactly the same as what's currently used xD
Edit: I mean, even "Arabyan" has a letter changed!
It's actual canon, I looked into it, forgot the book but I could probably find it for you.
It's also worth noting that it's written from the perspective of the imperials, they might not actually be beastmen anymore then Skaven or Lizardmen are, and both of those factions have been called beastmen by the ignorant.
Still, even from the incredibly biased Imperial perspective, their seen as Noble beings by the locals and are willing to protect and come to the defense of local villages and towns in exchange for food.
This is a limited surface view of a biased outsiders account, there's sure to be a lot they missed. I wouldn't be surprised if there are parts of Ind where the Tigermen just live in human communities, or if they even have their own societies comparable to the Wood Elves or something.
I just think it's easy to view them as potentially being more then "neutral or good" Beastmen.
I'll have a little word with people who'll have a little word with people. If it all ends in disaster pray you never hear a word of it again, but if everything goes as it should this might be a nice little feather in your cap. Needless to say, if your guest spills anything else of interest I want to hear about it."
Listen, if they can do the deep dive into an obscure Siberian wrestling form for Khuresh then they can put some effort into Ind, the damn nerds. grumblegrumblegrumble
(from the Norwegian distinction - indianere in the Americas, indere in the subcontinent.) Or Indish?
