Incidentally, koans are totally on brand for Grey Wizards, and I'm shocked there hasn't been a meme or threadmadness about wizard koans yet. Or did I just miss out on it.
IIRC the Light Wizards have cornered that market and the Greys only dabble.
Ulgu is confusion, Hysh is revelation, so a koan engages both, Ulgu when you first hear it, Hysh when you figure it out.
...except a
proper Ulgu koan is deliberately incomprehensible, and as such, declared "No Fun" by koan connoisseurs.
What you guys see: A Bulwark of defiance against the endless tides of Chaos
What I see: Two ramps over a twisting grind rail
Its a kickflip zone so you can headbutt/axe the evil sun.
It doesn't. It still requires some thought on the part of the Wizard to keep from steering through a field of stakes or whatever.
Hmm, I *think* its possible to reorient your perspective so that the stakes are the level that the spell keys off of, but that'd render the spell the "super draining" version.?
I like the symmetrical version of Karag/k Dum more - it's like an evil sun or a wrecking ball hanging over the mountain, representing an ever-present apocalpytic threat, and they are the bulwark it falls upon, protecting the Below (geographically seen the Karaz Ankor, metaphorically seen the Glittering Realm and the souls of all dwaves) with their defiance and eventually their sacrifice. The symmetrical version screams IMPENDING DOOM and taking it as their coat of arms speaks of the typical dwarven stoicism and stubbornness - "We are doomed? So what? We will show them doomed! Chaos will shatter against our mountain!"
Hmm, I think they were just being literal here:
Mountain right below the Chaos Gate, being the first to endure whatever pours out of it.
The eight pointed star in dwarf writing wouldn't refer to Chaos so much as the
Gate wouldn't it?
Fair enough. If that's how it works, then that's how it works. I was thinking otherwise due to this:
Seems to suggest that if Mathilde decided to 'waste' power, spell would cover all tracks.
I think that'd basically be a separate spell. The reason the spell is stable after designing it is that we basically locked down most of the variables in it. You can't just 'rollback' the spell to an earlier design step, its a mental trick.
The wiki swaps between both because it's been called either at some point in time. The Tabletop books call it Karak Dum in all the maps I can find that actually include the keep (8e general book, 7e and 6e Warriors of Chaos), while the Gotrek and Felix novel call the hold Karag Dum (Daemonslayer).
In quest I don't think Boney has ever called it anything other than Karag Dum so I assume that's the one that we're expected to use.
Alternative:
-Karak Dum was when the Fortress against Dum still stands.
-Karag Dum is after it has fallen OR referring to the mountain in which Karak Dum resides.
-Other fallen Karaks are still named Karak because its
possible, just ridiculously expensive and difficult to reclaim them.
-Karak Dum has been lost to the Chaos Wastes and thus is factually impossible to reclaim.
In which case I think the dwarves on the expedition would use Karak, other dwarves may use Karag if they believe this is a lost cause.
-- should we also have a New Paper available for the Fog Path spell now too? We wrote a paper for Mathilde's MAP I believe, or did something to share it at least, so. Or is it still not quite fully ready for publishing, because we've only just barely completed it and cast it a few times, and haven't seriously used it much yet?
We need to make the spell comprehensible to others first. Currently its an incomprehensible mess of spell optimization fog and water metaphors, which non-Mathilde Ulgu wizards literally can't make the mental connection between "how does waves and mathematics ignore terrain obstacles when you treat fog like liquid water?".
We'll need to research that some way too. But have no real idea how to do that. Barring, I dunno, sticking some mushrooms in some Ranaldite shrines or gambling parlors or something... (I'd wander about hoping to get lucky with Ancestor Gods but, uh, Goblin-originating Mushrooms, human wizard researching things, and Dwarf theology... erm, touchy subject I think. Maybe if some can grow when exposed to Gazul's anti-light, but.) Or the already afore-theorized "What if we dip some AV onto Ranald's Coin? Would that make Divine Ranald Energy?" idea. But even then, I have no real idea what you'd do with such energy if it even worked out. Or if it's even possible like that.
Honestly, it might turn out to be the case that any theoretical Divine Munchies would have to be holy cooking done by the respective Cults. That seems more appropriate to me, somehow, y'know? It's not something as simple as "Plop mushroom in God-aspected place; get God-aspected mushrooms out!" It's a matter of rite and tradition. Of ritual. It has to be something that slots into the culture of the worshippers or god; like if the mushrooms became a traditional food of sailors sailing out into the world, then you might get Manaanite priests being able to do something with them. Or if mushrooms became associated with thieves or gamblers somehow.
Which means it might be most possible... ... for the likes of Esmeralda and Rhya. Goddesses of food and agriculture-related things. Esmeralda is the only one we can really try though; the only one we have real ability and potential to immediately try out. All we have to do is just give some Mushrooms to the Halflings. Let them start farming some Mushrooms, and cooking with them.
Valaya might be another possibility, if the Dwarfs are willing to have any goddamn thing to do with freaking mushrooms that were taken from Grobi. Can you make Mushroom beer or ale? Can you turn Mushrooms into an alcoholic drink somehow?
The problem is you need an environment thats passively soaked in that energy such that it dominates the ambient energy. That means a Holy Site, not just a temple.
Where is Asarnil joining the caravan?
Everyone is joining at Praag. Mathilde had the option to join later if she wanted because Gyrocopters mean that she could skip ahead and save a month of travel.
