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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Catpetter1981 said:
"It is every Expedition member's final duty to go into the Skaven goo, and become one with all the people."
- Loremaster Mathilde
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Well this gave me a right giggle.

"Eternity lies ahead of us, and behind, have you drunk your skaven goo?"

"I swear sometimes they're watching me."
Bozon Pete, College Magister, Metagenics Skaven Goo Division

... Okay Ill stop now. :oops:
 
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Glau said:
There's also a strand of performative dislike of romance that I see almost everywhere in geek culture; I attribute it largely to boys being conditioned to dislike girly things, but it doesn't have to be that way.
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It's not necessarily a dislike of "girly" things - some of it is some parts of geek/internet culture being a haven for people who don't conform to standard social norms, like the "seeking a mate is standard behavior, human existence is incomplete without romance and therefor all stories must have a romantic subplot or at least an implied pairing" assumption that seems to underlie what seems like every work of entertainment ever that wasn't made for kindergartners.

I don't think I'm fully Ace or Aro or whatever, but I probably lean in that direction a bit more than average, and I have nearly always reacted to pairings and romance plots with a feeling of "ugh, I came here for [comedy/action/mystery/wonder/robots/magic/cuteness/revenge/plothole-repair], why is this romantic plot tumor here weighing down the narrative" because authors give those plot elements the sort of weight they hold in a standard human psyche, which is far more weight than in mine, and I have come to accept that this will probably always be the case outside of niche writing by other people like myself.

Happily, sometimes romance is given a very light weight in a narrative, and what there is is sweetened with enough cleverness and humor that it never wears out its welcome when it shows up. This is helped by the structure of quests, where romance can generally be contained within one or two of the multiple discrete "thing the users voted for" chunks that comprise a given update instead of spreading out to choke everything in a chapter like some sort of literary kudzu. That appears to be the case so far here, so well done @BoneyM - keep up the good work!
 
HanEmpire said:
I think they use a mutually intelligible language with local dialects.

EDIT:
Here's the wiki page on it:
warhammerfantasy.fandom.com

Norsca

"Say what you will of us, call us heathens because we deny your weak pretender-god. Call us savages because we strike at you, but know this -- it is we who are closest to the Ruinous Powers. We, most favoured of the gods, shall burn your lands, revel in your suffering, and destroy you. Despair...
warhammerfantasy.fandom.com warhammerfantasy.fandom.com
I don't know how accurate it is to canon though.
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Well when in doubt, logic it out.
IRL steppe(and specifically steppe only) nomad tribes didn't really have a 'fixed' language canon. This is because of a number of major factors:
-Oral tradition.
-Extremely wide territories with very few people in them.
-Frequent osmosis from neighboring, more permanent cultures.

Words that don't get used, don't get kept.

What'd tend to happen as a result is that one tribe to another is usually fully mutually intelligible for a list of common subjects that both tribes encounter commonly, and then dissolve away into loanwords for rarer things.

Resonant said:
To specify a recent example of the Wizard Wrangler, the discussion got sidetracked into Who was best suited for the position, if Panoramia was even competent, etc.
However, the original sentiment was to create a continuity for, what certain people believed at the time, an important job while we were gone. I don't think most people minded who got the job so long as Mathilde handled it before leaving, otherwise it felt irresponsible.

Yes, the thread quickly latched onto the idea of Panoramia being appointed, as you say she's somewhat popular, but it's really disingenuous to immediately tar any mentions of her to be under the motivation of Romance or relationships. Why the heck were people jumping straight into accusations of Nepotism back then?

If anything, it's the dislike of Panoramia that constantly gets "shoehorned" into any discussion involving her, which is very obvious with how controversial opinions are always thrown about, constantly emphasizing how she isn't special and shouldn't get perceived special treatment, when that wasn't even the point.

EDIT: a word 'Perceived.'
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As far as I can tell the argument somehow mutated from "We should have a Wizard Wrangler appointed", which rapidly petered out as examples of how little actual authority is involved were highlighted.

To "Panoramia is an ideal Wizard Wrangler", which is a bit of a sudden leap when there's no actual justification for having an official wrangler at all, but got a lot more engagement, because rather than a binary "yes, there's such a status" and "no, there's nothing to this other than being a contact person", it became a dispute about her personal merits and all the old stuff got dredged up for a second go.

To which I'd say that by dint of seniority, knowledge, prestige and personal power, Cython would of course be the objectively best choice as biggest kitty on the block. :p
 
Questwolf said:
Good point. I assumed that the wagons where already at capacity but even if they are just bringing a herd of animals is probably the simpler solution. Still actually bringing a gyrocopter for the expedition would be awesome! Maybe we could outfit one of the wagons with a helipad - at the very least even a single gyrocopter would be an excellent scout.
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That'd cut down on everything else the wagons might carry and would be hard to maintain to boot.

Asarnil&Deathfang are there for all aerial scouting needs. Maybe we could entice Cython to come along for first hand research on the Ancestor Gods (wasn't Dum the place where Grimnir set out to the Chaos Wastes?) but even that's probably overkill and would leave Karak Eight Peaks more exposed.

Ultimately the expedition has to be a hard in/out affair; even if Dum still resists we can either evacuate or; if things are going really well and Karak Dum can still last for decades to centuries; try to set up supply lines.

There's no universe where the numbers we have are enough to actually reclaim Dum. Like no way, no matter what Borek's thinking.
 
das_slash said:
Uh, imagine the amount of character growth they had to ignore in order to make that argument, next we'll be hearing about not asking Kragg for advice, since he was, presumably, at some point, a beardling.
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Blasphemy, Kragg was born old.

Glau said:
There's also a strand of performative dislike of romance that I see almost everywhere in geek culture; I attribute it largely to boys being conditioned to dislike girly things, but it doesn't have to be that way.
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I think, but I may be wrong, that the actual reason is that most mainstream romance sucks. You tend to get one of 3 things, or even a combination thereof: overly sacharine, glorified abusive relationships, or stupid misunderstandings meant to create conflict out of nowhere.

There is good romance out there, (I really really like Beastars the most) and I am pro romance here in this quest, (I trust Boney to make it good or at least to not make it unpleasant), but I'd be lying if I didn't say that part of the reason I advocate for dragon romance may subconsciously be because it has an intrinsic conflict that avoids the usual trappings of bad/unrealistic mainstream romance.

(btw, I am not implying Pan is any of these things. I have never actually bashed her or any romantic partner on this thread, and I am not planning to. In fact, her scenes would have won me over if Bookwyrm's scenes weren't hitting it out of the water. Just describing my original primal instinct here.)
 
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I'll be honest, I like romance, and I think it's cute in pretty much every circumstance where a good writer writes it. Boney is a wonderful writer, and I am pretty satisified with every romance option, even the dragon now that the dragon has been fleshed out.

I normally just read and don't make a fuss, but I just wanted to support Boney and say I'm chill with whatever happens; I really like this quest and don't want it to disappear.
 
veekie said:
Well when in doubt, logic it out.
IRL steppe(and specifically steppe only) nomad tribes didn't really have a 'fixed' language canon. This is because of a number of major factors:
-Oral tradition.
-Extremely wide territories with very few people in them.
-Frequent osmosis from neighboring, more permanent cultures.

Words that don't get used, don't get kept.

What'd tend to happen as a result is that one tribe to another is usually fully mutually intelligible for a list of common subjects that both tribes encounter commonly, and then dissolve away into loanwords for rarer things.
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We should not get too wrapped up in IRL examples though. Historically steppe tribes did not have dealings with magicians that used a common tongue in their magic and Daemons who spoke an enternal language of madness and damnation. The Dark Tongue is likely the thread that binds a lot of steppe tongues together in a way IRL tribal dialects would not.
 
DragonParadox said:
We should not get too wrapped up in IRL examples though. Historically steppe tribes did not have dealings with magicians that used a common tongue in their magic and Daemons who spoke an enternal language of madness and damnation. The Dark Tongue is likely the thread that binds a lot of steppe tongues together in a way IRL tribal dialects would not.
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Hardly, the steppe nomads of IRL borrowed a big chunk from the Chinese dialects simply owing to it being the most persistent entity they shared a border with for over three thousand years. Trade tongues leak

Same deal with Dark Tongue.
Though I don't think Chaos was in the habit of marrying spare princesses to upcoming nomad chiefs to get them in line.
 
veekie said:
Hardly, the steppe nomads of IRL borrowed a big chunk from the Chinese dialects simply owing to it being the most persistent entity they shared a border with for over three thousand years. Trade tongues leak

Same deal with Dark Tongue.
Though I don't think Chaos was in the habit of marrying spare princesses to upcoming nomad chiefs to get them in line.
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Humans being what they are I suspect there must have been someone who tried to marry a daemon at some point. :V
 
Don't want to talk about it too much, but I think one factor that is amplifying the issues around Romance, is the fact that it's not actually locked in stone. Now Practically speaking it is, Panoramia is at the point of actual romantic dates and had a solid lead over the other candidates, so the odds of them overtaking her are very low. However since we have not had the actual Lock-In vote yet, this is still technically an open issue, which leaves many people in a state similar to preparing for a test they know they'll fail.

But I do have some hope that once the vote is actually called, that some people might receive that strange catharsis that comes about after you finally took and Bombed said test.

But for the whole "Head Duckling" Debate, I say just tell them not to fuck shit up while were gone? Adela will do things with Gotri, Panoramia will grow food, and Gretel will... Dramatically lounge over furniture?(IDK what she does)(That's a joke). I trust them all to not blow up the Karak while we're gone. And the only other wizards that show up, do so at our behest, so unless we sent a letter we forgot about I think we're fine on that front.
 
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Chlof said:
I have to ask, is this an opinion you've formed from actually reading romance? Cause of these three, the only one that's really valid is the glorification of abuse and that's not a problem you run into often in most romance fiction that gain any relevance in the mainstream.
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I may be seeking the wrong venues , I imagine dedicated romance novels or comics would have evolved past that and I probably just aren't looking on the right places. But I really have to say that I really rarely see anything that does not fit one of those 3 cattegories on the mainstream or when romance is a sidestory to another plot.

May be a cruel ouroboros, when you need to be a part of the romance scene to find good romance but find yourself subconciously not wanting to go to the romance scene because of what romance is outside the romance scene.

That said, again, I have seen some good romance.
 
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veekie said:
To which I'd say that by dint of seniority, knowledge, prestige and personal power, Cython would of course be the objectively best choice as biggest kitty on the block. :p
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I like more scenes with Cython, and I don't see much in a way of objecting against Cython, but it does seem that a silent majority of the thread ensures that the Dragon gets pushed down into fifth place, for whatever reason - Dragon voters usually give the Dragon strong momentum, but later voters, especially lurkers seem to vote in a way that ends up with the Dragon falling into fifth place. I know the vocal minority shares the sentiments that the Dragon is the drama-free and fascinatingly unique choice (that quite neatly sidesteps the conventional romance question altogether), but I sense that the Dragon vote is also tied strongly to the Ulgu Ascension topic, because both of them come from the same line of reasoning/long term vision of Mathilde's future.
 
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Andmeuths said:
I like more scenes with Cython, and I don't see much in a way of objecting against Cython, but it does seem that a silent majority of the thread ensures that the Dragon gets pushed down into fifth place, for whatever reason - Dragon voters usually give the Dragon strong momentum, but later voters, especially lurkers seem to vote in a way that ends up with the Dragon falling into fifth place.
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I was being flippant. And Dragon seems hugely popular. Making it to 5th even once is hard!
 
Guys, I know you have good intentions with the new way of talking about romance or to give Boney a hug in essay form.

But I think that post of BoneyM was less 'find a new why to argue it' and more a 'shut up for a bit please'

@BoneyM your to polite sometimes.
 
[X] Seek passage and supplies for the Expedition
The thread's various logistics arguments have convinced me that after adding in hundreds of people, we should probably look for a way to supply them a bit more.
Glau said:
(RIP A Cloudy Path)
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You know, the author regularly reappears and promises that it'll continue!
It hasn't happened yet though, sp don't get your hopes up too much.
 
@BoneyM
A bit of a digression, it's something that Mathilde should/could reasonably know but it might clash with your "bazaar" style of quest management, in which case forget that I asked, I am *not* trying to put you on the spot or anything, just curious.

Does Mathilde know if anything notable is happening in other Karaks, like Karak Zilfin or Karak Hirn?
 
People like to talk about their favorite thing, even when it's not necessarily productive. And we have nothing to replace this current thread madness with. People have tried, but trying to talk about what to vote for next turn rarely manages to wrestle down thread madness and the other things, like Kurgan linguistics, are either asked and answered easily or a niche interest.

I think the only way to handle this is if we do a self-imposed soft ban on everything romance and Panoramia related just until the next chapter comes. And every meta discussion about those two subjects too.

This said, here's my own candidate for thread madness: Let's brain storm all the ways that we could actually get Cython to come join us.

BoneyM has already shot down all types pf quid pro quo, promises of collaboration or exchange of expertise.

Someone else recently suggested to entice him with the idea that Karag Dum is the last known location of an Ancestor Gods.

Another idea would be asking him about the Kurgan practices of worshipping Winds and celestial orbs. Cython acknowledges the power of gods and how they can be both fluid and physically affected by beliefs. Is he at all interested in how Kurgans have made his own power source an anthropomorphic entity?
 
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veekie said:
As far as I can tell the argument somehow mutated from "We should have a Wizard Wrangler appointed", which rapidly petered out as examples of how little actual authority is involved were highlighted.

To "Panoramia is an ideal Wizard Wrangler", which is a bit of a sudden leap when there's no actual justification for having an official wrangler at all, but got a lot more engagement, because rather than a binary "yes, there's such a status" and "no, there's nothing to this other than being a contact person", it became a dispute about her personal merits and all the old stuff got dredged up for a second go.

To which I'd say that by dint of seniority, knowledge, prestige and personal power, Cython would of course be the objectively best
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Yeah alright, I can see how the thread gets carried away and tries to make an idea larger or more feasible than it actually is, including justifying Panoramia becoming a Liaison.

Though, the main point stands. It gets quite aggravating to have an argument spark off everytime Panoramia is involved with an expressed idea, brought into general attention, or during campaigns for more scenes with her.

'Thread madness' sometimes means getting sidetracked exploring niches and weird ideas, including topics of Romance and Panoramia. I don't like the idea of either becoming Censored or Taboo topics simply because it's too contentious to bring up, and future discussions trying to avoid it or quickly move on because it then devolves into unproductive and heated debates.

But yeah, this is all I'm trying to say on the matter, hopefully decreasing the incidences of controversy. I don't want to rehash things or provoke further hostility so I'll stop with this.
 
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