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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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NexusEye said:
I like grimdarkness fine but my problem is that in Fantasy and especially 40K it all too often strays into grimderp territory.
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Yeah, imho bad grimdark = having nothing to say, making things bad just because beyond sanity and logic would allow, creating misery for no story reason only for the "spectacle" , having a diabolus ex machina go after every good thing that happens, and portraying every single sapient being as either evil, etremely dark grey or naive.

Berserk and Worm have almost none of those (some misery for spectacle is unavoidable in the genre, I guess) which is why they should be reccomended (like anyone on SV hasn't been reccomended Worm allready, lol)

But really, the interesting thing is how much grimdark is about presentation. One Piece takes place in very grimdark settings, and the villains of Steven Universe wouldnt be out of place as a WH40K faction, objectively, but the way the stories unfold and the attitude of the stories towards human nature, good winning, optimism triumpthing et all means that the story itself feels very bright and optimistic. Homestuck is somewhere in the middle, but considering that its setting may actually surpass WH40K cosmic horror wise, being in the middle and not appearing to be grimdark is an achievement in itself...

In short: dark writing has as many bad tropes as bright writing, and its those that should be avoided imho rather than the kind of writing itself.
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
Huh, that would work. For the first (and hopefully last) time, I sort of wish Mathilde was Azyr instead of Ulgu, so that building a rocket to launch vampire corpses into space was within her remit.

If we ever get word of anyone trying to get to space or building a rocket, we should bring it up as a possible use they can tout for funding.
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A Mathilde who was Blue instead of Grey would be a very different Mathilde.
 
DragonParadox said:
The world is likely to end before Mathilde hits old age for a wizard and it is our job to do our best to solve that. It's a damn dangerous job.
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It's almost like I was concerned with the symptoms of aging killing us. Cause I can shrug off some backpain and lowered reactionspeed, but the same is not true when one is menaced by orcs, you know?

Omegahugger said:
Now now, some of us are intending to make sure mortal wounds aren't enough to kill her either.

... And by some of us, I mean like "would probably lose a vote to the necromancy faction".


You say "tricked", but it is worth noting that vampirism is the most effective way to avoid dying. Alkharad even had his own villain speech about how he would eventually return, even if it took half a dozen centuries. Vampirism works more or less as advertised.
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It says immortality for great evil and it gives immortality for great evil. The word people are looking for is tempted.

Dain II Ironfoot said:
I do get a feeling that if we take the necromancy option we would have to leave behind everything we build up until now and im not to keen on that
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Is there anyone seriously advertising for the true evil route? Really? After all this time?

Omegahugger said:
I am still not entirely convinced that's how she got it and that she doesn't in fact have two divine sponsors.

It would not be a surprise if Shallya and Ranald were working together, after all, to try and wrest control of the Empire from that... Not always equally effective dolt( Sigmar) .


Either that, or that vampires can survive the end of the world.
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"You were clearly not listening when I said immortal."

storryeater said:
Orcs have done weirder things.
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"Yous said all in big pink-ones terretory. We in terretory.

So:

Name: Big Fang
Occupation: Raiding
Familiy status: ate them all"

Twelve imperial scribes were lost that day.
 
storryeater said:
Berserk and Worm have almost none of those (some misery for spectacle is unavoidable in the genre, I guess) which is why they should be reccomended (like anyone on SV hasn't been reccomended Worm allready, lol)
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...You know, I really want to contest you on the Worm part of that, but this isn't the place. Suffice to say I agree with your next paragraph. The setting itself is semi-functional, but the writing is painfully bad. I don't actually know much about Berserk so I can't talk about that though.
 
storryeater said:
Yeah, imho bad grimdark = having nothing to say, making things bad just because beyond sanity and logic would allow, creating misery for no story reason, only for the "spectacle" , having a diabolus ex machina go after every good thing that happens, and portraying every single sapient being as either evil, etremely dark grey or naive.

Berserk and Worm have almost none of those (some misery for spectacle is unavoidable in the genre, I guess) which is why they should be reccomended (like anyone on SV hasn't been reccomended Worm allready, lol)

But really, the interesting thing is how much grimdark is about presentation. One Piece takes place in very grimdark settings, and the villains of Steven Universe wouldnt be out of place as a WH40K faction, objectively, but the way the stories unfold and the attitude of the stories towards human nature, good winning, optimism triumpthing et all means that the story itself feels very bright and optimistic. Homestuck is somewhere in the middle, but considering that its setting may actually surpass WH40K cosmic horror wise, being in the middle and not appearing to be grimdark is an achievement in itself...

In short: dark writing has as many bad tropes as bright writing, and its those that should be avoided imho rather than the kind of writing itself.
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One of my favorite writers is Peter Watts whose work is generally even more depressing than 40k but the difference is that his work is depressing in a smart and interesting way, the fact that his settings are dark in a plausible way both makes it captivating and more depressing in an fascinating way because it seems like it could actually happen. A completely horrible setting is as boring as a completely perfect one, contrast is what makes stories worth experiencing and even if you choose to paint in only black if you use different shades of black you can make your art so much more enjoyable and engaging. 40k very rarely does this though thankfully the writers of Fantasy seem much more familiar with the concept.
 
Ericwinter said:
...You know, I really want to contest you on the Worm part of that, but this isn't the place. Suffice to say I agree with your next paragraph. The setting itself is semi-functional, but the writing is painfully bad. I don't actually know much about Berserk so I can't talk about that though.
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Berserk is a really good manga that created the whole trend of humongous swords with its popularity (that is right, it was the first to use it). It has amazing art and deep character writing and plot. Just a warning, it overdoes it in grim spectacle and the first 2 volumes seem painfully edgy nowadays, because one does not yet understand why the mc acts like that, but in retrospect, they read very different. It is also unfinished and stuck in hiatus hell, so if you do not want to suffer that, do not start it.
 
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Voikirium said:
The thing is, Warhammer Fantasy, I mean it started dark and grim yes, but it was not built the same way 40K was from the beginning where literally everything was awful and there were no heroes at all and everybody was trapped in the worst regime possible.

Volkmar? 40K he'd be a piece of shit, in Fantasy he actually is trying to save the Empire because he loves it and its people.
Louen? The finest knight of the Realm even after they all forgot how to write, in 40k he'd be the worst of the whole bunch one way or another.
Sigmar? A genuine hero deity who cares for his people and scares away the Dark; we've seen what that's like in 40K and he's a xenocidal fascist piece of shit that the Four mock.

But as 40K got more and more popular it started leaking in and metastasizing until it ruined everything and finally performed a coup-de-grace so GW could have its Fantasy 40K. But even long before that it was ruining the tone.
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Agreed.

Furthermore, at its core, Warhammer Fantasy gives the realistic option of Order factions teaming up.

Yes, the good guys are greyish in tone and deeply imperfect, but they are also (mostly) perfectly capable of working together and preserving the world from Entropy.

You don't really get that in 40k.
 
storryeater said:
Worm have almost none of those
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The story where everything is failing on all levels as literally no human ever acts out of anything but the most petty of reasonings as all everyone ever does feeds into the system of "if Kyubey was braindead and incompetent" and every last bit of hope is wretched from the story whenever something good happens to anyone ever?

The story in wich the MC shoots a baby because that is a better option?!

Compared to that and others like it, I must say that this world isn't even all that grimm dark. Sure, it does lose and I know next to nothing of what comes after the world we are currently seing, but there are so many people doing good things for right reasons, as the world manages to unite enough and scrounge up the hope to fight of the borderline unstoppable apocalypse for millennia.

Edit: Ninja'd, but at the rate this thread accumulates posts I suppose that goes almost without saying.
 
storryeater said:
Berserk is a really good manga that created the whole trend of humongous swords with its popularity (that is right, it was the first to use it). It has amazing art and deep character writing and plot. Just a warning, it overdoes it in grim spectacle and the first 2 volumes seem painfully edgy nowadays, because one does not yet understand why the mc acts like that, but in retrospect, they read very different. It is also unfinished and stuck in hiatus hell, so if you do not want to suffer that, do not start it.
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I've always felt that, setting-wise, Berserk can basically be described as: Take WF, remove every faction except the Empire and Chaos, then have the Empire not know about Chaos or do anything to effectively fight them, while keeping everything else the same with the witch burnings and infighting and etcetera.
 
Mopman43 said:
I've always felt that, setting-wise, Berserk can basically be described as: Take WF, remove every faction except the Empire and Chaos, then have the Empire not know about Chaos or do anything to effectively fight them, while keeping everything else the same with the witch burnings and infighting and etcetera.
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But Chaos in Berserk is actully competent and not bent on destroying the world, so there is that. Also, in Berserk, the chosen analogues are not brainwahed, their corruption is highly indivindualised, but they always have a choice.

Also, there are other factions and magic users, they just tend to not get featured as much. Why, there is a faerie kingdom (that is also very good aligment wise) for example.

Ericwinter said:
...You know, I really want to contest you on the Worm part of that, but this isn't the place. Suffice to say I agree with your next paragraph. The setting itself is semi-functional, but the writing is painfully bad. I don't actually know much about Berserk so I can't talk about that though.
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Burned_Cookie said:
The story where everything is failing on all levels as literally no human ever acts out of anything but the most petty of reasonings as all everyone ever does feeds into the system of "if Kyubey was braindead and incompetent" and every last bit of hope is wretched from the story whenever something good happens to anyone ever?

The story in wich the MC shoots a baby because that is a better option?!

Compared to that and others like it, I must say that this world isn't even all that grimm dark. Sure, it does lose and I know next to nothing of what comes after the world we are currently seing, but there are so many people doing good things for right reasons, as the world manages to unite enough and scrounge up the hope to fight of the borderline unstoppable apocalypse for millennia.

Edit: Ninja'd, but at the rate this thread accumulates posts I suppose that goes almost without saying.
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Maybe we can discuss that on PM? If you guys want?
 
storryeater said:
But Chaos in Berserk is actully competent and not bent on destroying the world, so there is that. Also, in Berserk, the chosen analogues are not brainwahed, their corruption is highly indivindualised, but they always have a choice.
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My main point was to broadly describe the setting, and I think it basically gets you there. Yes, it fails in the specifics, but getting the feel was more my point.

Also, the fairy kingdom took like 35 volumes to show up, and I don't think knowledge of it is integral to understanding Berserk.
 
Mopman43 said:
My main point was to broadly describe the setting, and I think it basically gets you there. Yes, it fails in the specifics, but getting the feel was more my point.

Also, the fairy kingdom took like 35 volumes to show up, and I don't think knowledge of it is integral to understanding Berserk.
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Yeah, but it was about talking settingwise.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Briefvoice on Dec 22, 2020 at 5:55 PM, finished with 1428 posts and 279 votes.
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I have to admit, I wasn't expecting the vote to be this close for this long. Combe takes the lead by 1 vote again.
 
Voikirium said:
The thing is, Warhammer Fantasy, I mean it started dark and grim yes, but it was not built the same way 40K was from the beginning where literally everything was awful and there were no heroes at all and everybody was trapped in the worst regime possible.

Volkmar? 40K he'd be a piece of shit, in Fantasy he actually is trying to save the Empire because he loves it and its people.
Louen? The finest knight of the Realm even after they all forgot how to write, in 40k he'd be the worst of the whole bunch one way or another.
Sigmar? A genuine hero deity who cares for his people and scares away the Dark; we've seen what that's like in 40K and he's a xenocidal fascist piece of shit that the Four mock.

But as 40K got more and more popular it started leaking in and metastasizing until it ruined everything and finally performed a coup-de-grace so GW could have its Fantasy 40K. But even long before that it was ruining the tone.
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On this.

The biggest thing Fantasy always had over 40k is it actually had hope. 40k is basically, even now with the return of Guilliman, the lack of hope with Sci-Fi.

The world had faced the apocalypse several times over and won. The Empire of Man had not only survived, but at times, have prosper. Technology was processing forward, be it very slowly.


The Empire of Karl Franz is stronger, more advanced and united than the Empire of Magnus the Pious, which in turn was greater than the collect of barbarian tribes united by Sigmar.

Great War against Chaos? Chaos vs the Empire which had just reunited after a thousand years, Kislev and a few Dwarf holds...and Chaos still lost.

And the End Times...is Games Workshop not thinking "What about chaos losing?" Because it has lost many times.

End Times basically let Chaos and Skaven for that matter win and keep winning, and presented as completely unstoppable and indestructible, pretty tossing out all the times Chaos has lost and the victories of the mortals against it, and kept killing the cast.

(Even Storm of Chaos, Karl Franz is able to pull off his greatest act of diplomacy in which he created the Conclave of Light, uniting the Old World as well as the Elves and Dwarfs into a united front. Yes, it fell apart soon afterward, but the fact remains something like it was able to be forge in the first place to defeat Chaos once more speak volumes.)
 
Alratan said:
Why would it do that? AV isn't that unstable.
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It is that unstable
Oh sure physically you could carefully dunk a newborn Dwarf into Aethyric Vitae without causing it to go kaboom, though probably best to go about slowly
But you've forgotten a very important factor
VItae reacts to emotion
In fact it reacts to emotion more easily than it reacts to actual magic being cast by a Wizard

BoneyM said:
The lizards are naturally quite terrified when they arrive, and you can see a very faint ripple in the ambient Shyish. Intelligent enough to fear death.

A single drop of Vitae glistens upon the scales of a terrified lizard for a moment, before exploding into Winds and sending the test subject skittering away in panic. You coax the poor creature into a nice dark box to nurse its bruise and move on to a second test subject, and you douse most of the lights, move quietly, and provide some of the surplus test subjects from the first two phases. The lizard calms somewhat as it eats, and though it watches you carefully, it does not react to the dropper moving slowly over it. The drop of Vitae lands atop its back and the creature freezes for a moment, before carefully returning to its feast. The drop moves slowly down its side and then falls onto the floor.
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BoneyM said:
You skip right past Aves and onto Mammalia to test your newfound hypothesis, and a few volunteers suffering bruised hands later confirms it: a sufficiently strong emotion of a type attractive to the Winds will spark the transformation, and for some reason it requires less Wind concentration from emotion than it did from your own manual concentration of Ulgu in previous experiments.
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It's part of the reason why it is safer for Dwarves to handle Vitae, as their antimagic nature overrides this fact, enabling them to safely handle the substance no matter their emotion
BoneyM said:
A very sceptical squad of Dwarven volunteers very carefully replicates these tests, and though the Vitae does slide away from the prodding of a Dwarven digit, the repellent effect isn't enough to have it crawl up a test tube. The volunteer's emotions prove irrelevant to the Vitae, and the only way they are able to spark the transformation is via agitation.
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BoneyM said:
It is safe to handle by Dwarves as long as they are gentle, as their emotions do not sufficiently stir the Winds. Non-magical sentients must remain gentle and also serene, as too much of the wrong emotion will draw a Wind to them which could transform the Vitae.
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But since this hypothetical experiment uses a Dwarf baby that hasn't yet been granted Valaya's antimagic blessings they'll be vulnerable, and a baby being dunked in liquid is rather unlikely to be serene... Babies in general aren't likely to be serene
Of course enough Vitae to dunk a baby in blowing up would probably kill everyone around it, so being stone is rather moot

Though you could try to very carefully drip a tiny amount onto a sleeping baby perhaps, just be careful not to disturb what must be a peaceful sleep or it is going to react

Of course this is all moot anyway because there's no way in hell any Dwarf parent would consent to any of this, or deny their child Valaya's protection for any longer than it takes to apply it
 
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Historyman14 said:
On this.

The biggest thing Fantasy always had over 40k is it actually had hope. 40k is basically, even now with the return of Guilliman, the lack of hope with Sci-Fi.

The world had faced the apocalypse several times over and won. The Empire of Man had not only survived, but at times, have prosper. Technology was processing forward, be it very slowly.


The Empire of Karl Franz is stronger, more advanced and united than the Empire of Magnus the Pious, which in turn was greater than the collect of barbarian tribes united by Sigmar.

Great War against Chaos? Chaos vs the Empire which had just reunited after a thousand years, Kislev and a few Dwarf holds...and Chaos still lost.

And the End Times...is Games Workshop not thinking "What about chaos losing?" Because it has lost many times.

End Times basically let Chaos and Skaven for that matter win and keep winning, and presented as completely unstoppable and indestructible, pretty tossing out all the times Chaos has lost and the victories of the mortals against it, and kept killing the cast.

(Even Storm of Chaos, Karl Franz is able to pull off his greatest act of diplomacy in which he created the Conclave of Light, uniting the Old World as well as the Elves and Dwarfs into a united front. Yes, it fell apart soon afterward, but the fact remains something like it was able to be forge in the first place to defeat Chaos once more speak volumes.)
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Case in point, as I understand Storm of Chaos was End Times, essentially, except without as many Diabolus ex Machina aspects and with player participation, and Chaos lost hard.
 
ReImagined said:
I have to admit, I wasn't expecting the vote to be this close for this long. Combe takes the lead by 1 vote again.
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This is the closest vote we've got in a while. Maybe ever. Also one of the most popular in terms of how many people voted.

Also really interesting since the other close and popular votes were either long term hype stuff like the romance and the Liber Mortis or crucial mid battle stuff.
 
Historyman14 said:
On this.

The biggest thing Fantasy always had over 40k is it actually had hope. 40k is basically, even now with the return of Guilliman, the lack of hope with Sci-Fi.

The world had faced the apocalypse several times over and won. The Empire of Man had not only survived, but at times, have prosper. Technology was processing forward, be it very slowly.


The Empire of Karl Franz is stronger, more advanced and united than the Empire of Magnus the Pious, which in turn was greater than the collect of barbarian tribes united by Sigmar.

Great War against Chaos? Chaos vs the Empire which had just reunited after a thousand years, Kislev and a few Dwarf holds...and Chaos still lost.

And the End Times...is Games Workshop not thinking "What about chaos losing?" Because it has lost many times.

End Times basically let Chaos and Skaven for that matter win and keep winning, and presented as completely unstoppable and indestructible, pretty tossing out all the times Chaos has lost and the victories of the mortals against it, and kept killing the cast.

(Even Storm of Chaos, Karl Franz is able to pull off his greatest act of diplomacy in which he created the Conclave of Light, uniting the Old World as well as the Elves and Dwarfs into a united front. Yes, it fell apart soon afterward, but the fact remains something like it was able to be forge in the first place to defeat Chaos once more speak volumes.)
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Storm of Chaos. GW says Chaos Wins, the fans say fuck that. Chaos loses the narrative campaign utterly, so GW gives them a mulligan. Chaos gets its ass kicked again.
 
Changing my vote because I didn't see Ruprecht on the list.

[x] Scouting near the convoy
[x] Ranging far ahead of the convoy
[x] Thane Borek Forkbeard
[x] Head Engineer Gotrek Gurnisson
[x] Head Ranger Snorri Farstrider
[x] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger
 
[X] Head Engineer Gotrek Gurnisson
[X] Head Ranger Snorri Farstrider
[X] Thane Borek Forkbeard
[X] Visit the combes that Qrech told you about
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger
 
DragonParadox said:
Vampirism works by binding the soul to the body, even in death and thus keeping the soul in the material realm. If chaos swallows the planet there is no material realm
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Sure there is - Mannheim and Mordheim are both physical objects in the material world, just because they aren't on Mallus doesn't mean they don't exist. I mean come on, do you really think one of GW's works wouldn't have room for moon-vampires to be a thing?
 
Ericwinter said:
Case in point, as I understand Storm of Chaos was End Times, essentially, except without as many Diabolus ex Machina aspects and with player participation, and Chaos lost hard.
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Aranfan said:
Storm of Chaos. GW says Chaos Wins, the fans say fuck that. Chaos loses the narrative campaign utterly, so GW gives them a mulligan. Chaos gets its ass kicked again.
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If only GW went to even something close to that. Chaos would have taken three or four hundred years to recover as the Four falls into a very, very long period of infighting.
 
So, for the chance off a lesser evil then two sidequests.

tactical voting to knock chaos Vegas of the list.

[X] Head Engineer Gotrek Gurnisson
[X] Head Ranger Snorri Farstrider
[X] Thane Borek Forkbeard
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger

edit: can't do it, it's against my gaming morals to vote for something I'm just not interested in.
 
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Historyman14 said:
And the End Times...is Games Workshop not thinking "What about chaos losing?" Because it has lost many times.

End Times basically let Chaos and Skaven for that matter win and keep winning, and presented as completely unstoppable and indestructible, pretty tossing out all the times Chaos has lost and the victories of the mortals against it, and kept killing the cast.
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Ericwinter said:
Case in point, as I understand Storm of Chaos was End Times, essentially, except without as many Diabolus ex Machina aspects and with player participation, and Chaos lost hard.
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Storm of Chaos was never meant to be End Times though. It was always going to end with status quo, the problems arose when GW's planned storyline and the player participation clashed, and GW overrode the latter, which people were very annoyed about. End Times meanwhile was GW's decision to kill the setting very dead because it wasn't profitable as a war game anymore. They didn't forget about Chaos having the opportunity to lose, they just deliberately wrote so they didn't because the creation of AoS was the entire point.
 
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