People that go poking around in the forests of the New World sometimes come out with golden plaques, sometimes come out with strange stories of humanoid lizards, and a lot of the time don't come out at all. And there's a band of small ones running around the place selling their services as mercenaries in exchange for those plaques.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
People that go poking around in the forests of the New World sometimes come out with golden plaques, sometimes come out with strange stories of humanoid lizards, and a lot of the time don't come out at all. And there's a band of small ones running around the place selling their services as mercenaries in exchange for those plaques.
- Location
- Space
Would a magister even have been an option anywhere else? I was under the impression that the only reason Stirland got away with having a magic user as a spymaster was because they were constantly on war footing and so their spymaster would be aimed mostly at enemies of the empire instead of other provinces.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
Knowing the thread, I suspect we'd turn it into Badass Damsel Quest. Which would be pretty awesome, actually.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I know you didn't mean bad by this, but I personally find this disturbing. Nearly half of the Damsels being people who had their gender forcibly changed and having to suffer gender dysphoria just to fit a storyteller's gender aesthetic would be... bad. Maybe some few boys who are changed into Damsels would find themselves appreciative of the change, but that'd be less than 1 in 100. The amount of Damsels who would experience severe lifelong gender dysphoria makes this idea very unlikely to be functional in any real way. If the Damsels are merely supposed to present an image of being female, that's one thing, but having their souls magically messed with to forcibly change them into women brings up a bunch of really gross implications.
Again, I know you didn't mean to imply any of that. And I still lay the blame for any Bretonian sex-creepyness on whatever Games Workshop writers decided to make Bretonia have an unexplained (but often implied to be evil) gender disparity in its casters. But forced gender reassignment does not have good history or good science behind it.
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TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
Given that Bretonnia is straight up stealing from Arthurian myth at every opportunity, any sinister explanation seems unlikely. What definitely fits is storing heroes away in fairyland for the day they're needed.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Arcane mark don't just change the body, but also the soul it doesn't need good science behind it. No science involved at all.
- Location
- Earth
Dysphoria requires that the mind doesn't change, when the mind is precisely the most malleable part of what changes.
- Location
- Canada
So I was just thinking about this...
Ljiljana seems to have meant serve in the sense of a servant, as opposed to serve in the sense of two people playing tennis and having a grand old time ignoring any semblance of rules while frequently aiming for the head, groin, out-of-bounds, or scenery.
It would be more diplomatic if we don't clarify that to her, though.
...and I believe there may have been a miscommunication.
Ljiljana seems to have meant serve in the sense of a servant, as opposed to serve in the sense of two people playing tennis and having a grand old time ignoring any semblance of rules while frequently aiming for the head, groin, out-of-bounds, or scenery.
It would be more diplomatic if we don't clarify that to her, though.
Pempelune
Fanfiction Deep State
Honestly, a transgender quest where a boy is taken by the Lady, learn Damsel Magic and has his body and mind changing to fit could be very interesting.
Touchy subject, though.
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Can't agree. Quest format is usually not one for nuance, and it would be really easy to slide from insightfully weird to offensively weird territory.
Given most of the Winds give arcane marks that turn you into an eldritch abomination barely recognisable as human, I argue they would be getting off lightly.
- Location
- Greece
Eh, I think it depends on the author, not the format imho. Boney, for example, is pretty good at making things nuanced.
Mind you, it would most likely be mishandled unless the author is an expert of the subject(best to be a tran person themselves) in addition to being an excellent author and very good at drawing boundaries, but I think it is more of an author skill check than an impossibillity of the format.
Edit: hope that doesn't violate the QM's request, I figured that since I am talking about the subject of a hypothetical trans person quest, it is a very different thing from what the QM asked us not to discuss. If it does, I am willing to erase this comment. I do not want to cause distress.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
It's the mental uncanny valley effect. Eldritch abomination are too far away to trigger it.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
If the Karak Vlag thing actually works out, I'm a little worried about what Thorgrim might do. Think about it:
Major Holds reclaimed due to the presence and aid of Thorgrim Grudgebearer, High King of the Karaz Ankor: 0
Major Holds reclaimed due to the presence and aid of Mathilde Webber, a human that messes with magic: 2
You can see how this might cause a bit of a legitimacy crisis in the eyes of the dwarven people.
Major Holds reclaimed due to the presence and aid of Thorgrim Grudgebearer, High King of the Karaz Ankor: 0
Major Holds reclaimed due to the presence and aid of Mathilde Webber, a human that messes with magic: 2
You can see how this might cause a bit of a legitimacy crisis in the eyes of the dwarven people.
- Location
- Greece
I only have secondhand sources of WH lore, so this is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one: has there been anyone, high king or not, present in the reclamation of more than 1 Karak?
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'd say rather that what other dawi would see is, "King Belegar reclaimed one Hold when everyone thought it couldn't be done. Then Belegar sent us a khalazid-queekish dictionary so we can start reading the mail of the rats. Then Belegar sent out one of his people to bring back another Hold. Maybe this Belegar fellow knows what he's doing, and we should start looking to him for leadership."
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Speaking of leadership, it's at this moment I'm realizing what a huge favor the Grey College did by granting a Lord Magister title before we left. We could be looking at arguments with the other Magisters in the group right now, but Mathilde is the one with the "L" in front of her magister title and the prestige that goes with that. If she says this is the way to proceed, even van Horstmann isn't going to argue with her.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Yes: Johann, Maximillian, and Mathilde. One and a half credit for Hubert, Esbern, and Seija, and possibly one and a half credit for some of the Knights of Taal's Fury and Winter Wolves. There has never been a full, permanent reclamation of a major Karak in canon.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
And we're definitely putting it to good use. Really living up to the title, here.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This. Its worth remembering that Belegar was/is a High King candidate.
Thorgrim is not in competition with Mathilde, they simply do not function on the same level. Now Belegar, the champion of Radicalism and patron of the aforementioned Umgi wizard, yes he could claim to be doing a better job than Thorgrim at reclamation.
- Location
- Greece
We (an by extension other people listed) haven't yet reclaimed a second Karak though?
I mean... thats counting the chickens before they hatch.
Also, wow, we were the first to ever reclaim 1.
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notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Not being at the same level makes it worse, not better. Another, younger Dwarf King doing better than Thorgrim just means that there's a good chance that they get to be the next High King. A human that mucks about with magic being instrumental in reclaiming holds when the High King isn't could be seen as a dereliction of duty, and might make Thorgrim unpredictably.
That's why I put 'assuming that the Karak Vlag thing works out.' There's a difference between planning out the lives of chickens when you don't have any eggs, and considering what would happen if your eggs hatch.