Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Verdom]

Um, we are a page or three past it, but let's please NOT turn on Zuftbar's ancestral pumps. We know that Stirland was once covered by deep forests, and was scoured clean by a flood big enough to create a local god that still lingers.

I would recommend anyone thinking about the giant pumps to consider where the water will go.

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That was an omake.

 

[Belkar]

Im not really sure, but observation tells me people in general have this idea of steam engine equals industrial revolution equals railroads equals progress and then alls done. The (historical) industrial revolution is a complicated process that took a long time and the way it happened is from my understanding more of a culmination of several different processes happening at the same time that, if they happened at different time or without the others wouldnt have the impact they had or would even have backfired.
I simply interjected to direct the drive to use dwarven steamengine technology thats apparently focused on railroads to some useful endeavours. The empire doesnt have the other circumstances for something equal to an industrial revolution to happen, but that doesnt mean we couldnt secure existing technology to put it to use where its potential can develop in time. (I see the potential for steam engine in their capacity to enable mass production, which humans will happily adopt if it brings benefits to the arms industry, while it is utter anathema to dwarves)

 

[Lightwhispers]

For the usual late December reasons I'll be away from my computer for most of the next 48ish hours. Happy Mondstille, Keg End, King's Sleep, Hanil Khar, or your regional equivalent.

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Happy Hogswatch!

Thanks to Dynasty of Drunken Alcoholism's reminder of just how terrifying the forests and Beastmen are of this world, I've been toying with Windherder spells designed to maximize forest fires.

The slowest, most straightforward, probably most effective, and largest side-effect causing method doesn't even use Windherder: Celestial weather workers just divert rain from the region and cause a drought until everything is nice and flammable.

Windherder-wise I've been thinking about something along the lines of some combination of
-Bright magic BURNITY BURN BURN MOAAAAR FIRE
-Bright magic actually spend the minimal amount of energy infighting new fires when the existing fire fails to spread
-Grey magic acting as a carrier medium to let the fire and/or magic travel across smoke and shadows
-Jade/Amethyst magic ripping the life force out of trees to both make them more flammable and power the other spells
-Jade/Celestial magic: detect and avoid towns

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What would happen if a crazy Bright wizard decided to try casting Inexhaustible Flame on a forest fire?

 

[storryeater]

That was an omake.

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I am pretty sure the omake was based on Thogrimm's musings.

 

[MiracleGrow]

The best way to kick of a massive surge of industry for the Empire is fairly straightforward but really not simple.

I think a surge of industry will happen without any special tech from the dwarves. What the empire needs most of all is breathing room. If the Empire could have a peaceful decade or two. I fully expect a huge surge in innovation.

 

[T_of_A]

Windherder spells designed to maximize forest fires

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Note that this sounds like a way to slaughter entire villages of perfectly normal humans + burn down crops. The problem with wildfires is that they go out of control extremely easily, you see.

 

[DragonParadox]

Note that this sounds like a way to slaughter entire villages of perfectly normal humans + burn down crops. The problem with wildfires is that they go out of control extremely easily, you see.

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Also trying to burn down the forests wholesale would probably piss off any isolated wood elf communities within them. Those exist in practically every forest in the empire outside Silvania and the Forest of Shadows.

 

[guyfromtheplace1]

Im not really sure, but observation tells me people in general have this idea of steam engine equals industrial revolution equals railroads equals progress and then alls done. The (historical) industrial revolution is a complicated process that took a long time and the way it happened is from my understanding more of a culmination of several different processes happening at the same time that, if they happened at different time or without the others wouldnt have the impact they had or would even have backfired.
I simply interjected to direct the drive to use dwarven steamengine technology thats apparently focused on railroads to some useful endeavours. The empire doesnt have the other circumstances for something equal to an industrial revolution to happen, but that doesnt mean we couldnt secure existing technology to put it to use where its potential can develop in time. (I see the potential for steam engine in their capacity to enable mass production, which humans will happily adopt if it brings benefits to the arms industry, while it is utter anathema to dwarves)

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I'm not sure about mass production, because we don't have any of the machine tools that a steam engine would drive.
But I'm strongly attracted to the idea of steamboats on the empire's extensive river system, which would be likely to drive prosperity, centralization, and bigger armies.

Of course then you've got problems with how you're going to arm those armies in an era before Napoleonic machine tools making mass manufacture of muskets practical.

 

[Glau]

That was an omake.

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No? We know the god of floods is cannon, we know the torrent-gates are cannon, we know that thorgrim mused about how they would have put the waterfalls to shame by volume. It seems pretty clear that draining the black waters with the torrent-gates would happen quickly, and all the water would go into Stirland.

Im not really sure, but observation tells me people in general have this idea of steam engine equals industrial revolution equals railroads equals progress and then alls done. The (historical) industrial revolution is a complicated process that took a long time and the way it happened is from my understanding more of a culmination of several different processes happening at the same time that, if they happened at different time or without the others wouldnt have the impact they had or would even have backfired.
I simply interjected to direct the drive to use dwarven steamengine technology thats apparently focused on railroads to some useful endeavours. The empire doesnt have the other circumstances for something equal to an industrial revolution to happen, but that doesnt mean we couldnt secure existing technology to put it to use where its potential can develop in time. (I see the potential for steam engine in their capacity to enable mass production, which humans will happily adopt if it brings benefits to the arms industry, while it is utter anathema to dwarves)

Click to shrink...

It's interesting how steam engines are the main focus of tech-peeps, but the huge change in living standard was largely driven by looms. Cheap cloth in volume mattered more than rail or metals or steam to the everyday person for close to a half-century after the invention of the steam engine.

And we've already got those guys in K8P working on their new loom designs there. I really don't think mucking around with steam tanks would be nearly as valuable as just driving that project forwards, if we want to push the empire towards industrialization.

Side note, I wonder if cotton or flax or hemp grows in the border princes. We are going to need more fiber crops than silk if this becomes a focus.

 

[DragonParadox]

Side note, I wonder if cotton or flax or hemp grows in the border princes. We are going to need more fiber crops than silk if this becomes a focus.

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I'm pretty sure nothing worth haveing grows in most of the Border Princes, not only is the land inherently poor, but it was the stomping ground of countless Waaghs. As seen with the caldera the greneskin ecosystem is voracious in drawing nutrients from the soil, requiring complex agricutltural and magical solutions.

 

[Glau]

I'm pretty sure nothing worth haveing grows in most of the Border Princes, not only is the land inherently poor, but it was the stomping ground of countless Waaghs. As seen with the caldera the greneskin ecosystem is voracious in drawing nutrients from the soil, requiring complex agricutltural and magical solutions.

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Hemp and a few other fiber crops grow well on bad soil, but I think there has to be more going on with the soil nutrition, else places that are green-skin dominated would produce smaller and smaller waaaghs over the centuries as nutrients are exhausted.

Thinking about this though- are orcs photosynthetic? What do they eat? And how do they manage to provision themselves when rampaging across a barren landscape?

 

[DragonParadox]

Hemp and a few other fiber crops grow well on bad soil, but I think there has to be more going on with the soil nutrition, else places that are green-skin dominated would produce smaller and smaller waaaghs over the centuries as nutrients are exhausted.

Thinking about this though- are orcs photosynthetic? What do they eat? And how do they manage to provision themselves when rampaging across a barren landscape?

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Orcs eat squig, squig eat everything and anything they can cram in their giant fanged maws. that said given the way they literally grow bigger and stronger pumping themlsves up for a duel and even bigger if they win I think it may be possible the greenskins eat the waagh itself to some degree.

40K's Orks are explicitly photosynthetic from what I recall but that is another species in another universe.

 

[Belkar]

The best way to kick of a massive surge of industry for the Empire is fairly straightforward but really not simple.

I think a surge of industry will happen without any special tech from the dwarves. What the empire needs most of all is breathing room. If the Empire could have a peaceful decade or two. I fully expect a huge surge in innovation.

Click to shrink...

Its the Empire. The only thing holding it together is the pressure from outside. If they get a peacefuld decade or two we get a Marienburg war if were lucky or a few elector counts skirmishing if not. And thats without someone getting some of the more fancy (read ruinous) ideas.

Even looms are only a single part of it. I could make the same argument about the land enclosures leading to a surge in food production and available workforce or the draining of swamps and the straigthening (?) of rivers leading to a lot of available arable land and the extinction of a lot of maladies.
The thing is all of this is to a certain degree useful and will lead to an increase in overall quality of life and/or production. Not all of this is easily implemented or cheap (most of it isnt). I dont believe it possible to introduce some kind of industrial revolution in the empire through our actions alone, especially not something even somewhat equalling the historical one, as that would need all of the above happening more or less at parallel. What I do believe is possible for us to achieve is to transfer some dwarven technology to the empire where it can be used, implemented and developed without the constrainst of dwarven craftsmanship and regulations. Its the best use I can think of for our dwarven favour/influence to longterm benefit the empire.

 

[Mopman43]

Hemp and a few other fiber crops grow well on bad soil, but I think there has to be more going on with the soil nutrition, else places that are green-skin dominated would produce smaller and smaller waaaghs over the centuries as nutrients are exhausted.

Thinking about this though- are orcs photosynthetic? What do they eat? And how do they manage to provision themselves when rampaging across a barren landscape?

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I think most Greenskins come from dedicated mushroom ecologies like the one the Chiselwards were filled with. With the open soil only used before its completely exhausted and then abandoned.

 

[ReImagined]

No? We know the god of floods is cannon, we know the torrent-gates are cannon, we know that thorgrim mused about how they would have put the waterfalls to shame by volume. It seems pretty clear that draining the black waters with the torrent-gates would happen quickly, and all the water would go into Stirland.



It's interesting how steam engines are the main focus of tech-peeps, but the huge change in living standard was largely driven by looms. Cheap cloth in volume mattered more than rail or metals or steam to the everyday person for close to a half-century after the invention of the steam engine.

And we've already got those guys in K8P working on their new loom designs there. I really don't think mucking around with steam tanks would be nearly as valuable as just driving that project forwards, if we want to push the empire towards industrialization.

Side note, I wonder if cotton or flax or hemp grows in the border princes. We are going to need more fiber crops than silk if this becomes a focus.

Click to shrink...

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest Fantasy - Users' Choice!

As a Journeywoman, Grey Wizard Mathilde Weber is dropped into the deep end of intrigue and double-dealing after a surprise assignment to the necromancer-afflicted province of Stirland. Follow her trials, travails, feats and discoveries as she makes her way in the world and does her best to...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

The discussion of reactivating them spawned from an omake.

 

[me.me.here]

The thing about railroads/steam engines in the Empire is that it's a bootstrapping catch-22. Trying to solve it by getting dwarfs to hand over both tightly guarded secrets of metallurgy/engineering (steam engines/high quality steel) as well as secrets they may not even have (bulk production of steel) at the same time is kinda putting the cart before the horse.

The easiest and most effective way to solve a bootstrapping/catch-22 problem is to find an easier substitute or substitutes for one of the components and use it as a stepping stone. Case in point - if steel is too expensive and steam engines are unreliable (and expensive) then don't bother with either.

Just use wooden rails and animal teams or hand-powered carts - they're not as big an improvement, but they're still an improvement. The wood would need to be seasoned/waterproofed to diminish warping from weather, but that's a known process that is in the middle of being scaled up for increased boat production anyways that will likely be seeing a glut once the increased demand from riverine construction levels out. It doesn't solve the problem of rails being vulnerable, but you could lay the track along roads (side benefit of that is that merchants can just switch their animal teams from pulling a regular cart to a rail cart and keep similar routes) so that they're partially covered by existing Roadwarden patrols and then have individual carts bring some spare timbers and some hands with the skill to replace a broken stretch along just in case (it's possible that this might also be useful even if the railways are steel, as temporary wooden fixes for immediate bypasses that are then later replaced by another group).

Then once you've got a rail network, switching treated wood to steel rails or investing into steam engines is much less risky/speculative, since the end product would have a clear and obvious benefit rather than being something that would require another innovation/improvement to be used.

 

[Alratan]

In many ways it's easier to start with canals, and then build railways alongside them later once the economy has reconfigured to exploit the better transport links.

There may also be some interesting magical things that can be done with the Ghyran that will be absorbed by the water in canals.

 

[Asheram]

I'll have to agree with @Glau: If you want to improve the lives of the folk in the empire then you should look to improve, as they said, looms and agriculture. Threshing machines, seed drills, rice hullers, and since we were talking about flax and linen, mechanized linen production. Turning flax into linen is a long™ process.

Spoiler: Flax processing

And yes, seems audio is missing on this one

 

[DragonParadox]

The thing about railroads/steam engines in the Empire is that it's a bootstrapping catch-22. Trying to solve it by getting dwarfs to hand over both tightly guarded secrets of metallurgy/engineering (steam engines/high quality steel) as well as secrets they may not even have (bulk production of steel) at the same time is kinda putting the cart before the horse.

The easiest and most effective way to solve a bootstrapping/catch-22 problem is to find an easier substitute or substitutes for one of the components and use it as a stepping stone. Case in point - if steel is too expensive and steam engines are unreliable (and expensive) then don't bother with either.

Just use wooden rails and animal teams or hand-powered carts - they're not as big an improvement, but they're still an improvement. The wood would need to be seasoned/waterproofed to diminish warping from weather, but that's a known process that is in the middle of being scaled up for increased boat production anyways that will likely be seeing a glut once the increased demand from riverine construction levels out. It doesn't solve the problem of rails being vulnerable, but you could lay the track along roads (side benefit of that is that merchants can just switch their animal teams from pulling a regular cart to a rail cart and keep similar routes) so that they're partially covered by existing Roadwarden patrols and then have individual carts bring some spare timbers and some hands with the skill to replace a broken stretch along just in case (it's possible that this might also be useful even if the railways are steel, as temporary wooden fixes for immediate bypasses that are then later replaced by another group).

Then once you've got a rail network, switching treated wood to steel rails or investing into steam engines is much less risky/speculative, since the end product would have a clear and obvious benefit rather than being something that would require another innovation/improvement to be used.

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I feel like this needs an image to make my point. This is the Empire (not even our empire but that of Karl Franz decades from now):



Note that towns, cities, fortresses all of them are islands in a sea of green. That sea is filled with beastmen, goblins and worse things. It is hard enough to keep roads open, one of the reasons the Empire prefers the rivers is that beastmen make far worse pirates than they do roadside ambushers. Now the thing about both these groups of gleefully savage enemies of the empire is that they can use fire just fine, as a lot of burned down villages can attest. If you lay down hundreds of miles of unguarded wooden tracks they will get burned, unlike dirt roads with take a lot more effort to destroy.

 

[Mopman43]

Hmm, I feel like the Ostermark canal is the only real prospect canal-wise in the Empire- at the very least, any other possibility seems like it'd be much longer. At least, going off of the river maps I've seen.

I do have one idea for another though- connecting an offshoot of the Grismerie with an offshoot of the Reik. Getting through the Grey Mountains wouldn't be easy by any means, but the Dwarfs certainly didn't balk at having to go through the Black Mountains.

And I definitely feel like it'd be useful- the Grismerie runs through 7 or 8 different Dukedoms, but has the substantial issue that one of those Dukedoms, the one at it's mouth, is Mousillon. Connecting it to the Reik would mean you could bypass it entirely and just trade straight with the Empire. Bypass Marienburg too.

Spoiler: Map

Side-note: Building a canal between the Grismerie and the Brienne seems doable, they get decently close near their ends. The main issue is that "their ends" are in Athel Loren. Probably not feasible, to say the least.

 

[Asheram]

Had a look at the map. Our fief is roughly 100 or so kilometers from the Stir so building a factory up there is a tad bit bothersome. Darn this vow of poverty or I'd suggest looking into getting a flax processing plant.
Edit: Might be something for the EIC though.
Edit2: Though on consideration, I reckon they deal more with wool.

 

[Bucarcar]

Hmm, I feel like the Ostermark canal is the only real prospect canal-wise in the Empire- at the very least, any other possibility seems like it'd be much longer. At least, going off of the river maps I've seen.

I do have one idea for another though- connecting an offshoot of the Grismerie with an offshoot of the Reik. Getting through the Grey Mountains wouldn't be easy by any means, but the Dwarfs certainly didn't balk at having to go through the Black Mountains.

And I definitely feel like it'd be useful- the Grismerie runs through 7 or 8 different Dukedoms, but has the substantial issue that one of those Dukedoms, the one at it's mouth, is Mousillon. Connecting it to the Reik would mean you could bypass it entirely and just trade straight with the Empire. Bypass Marienburg too.

Spoiler: Map

Click to shrink...

The issue would be the utterly abbysmal amount of funds, time and workers you'd need for this to even operate. I mean, the Suez took 10 years to complete and it costed, like 60M$ with more modern equipment.

 

[gale]

In a bar, two people meet; one a man in a grey and black robe covering his arms, while the other was a woman in a white and gold adventuring outfit. "Are you sure about this, Irma?" The man asks with a worried look on his face. "I am sure, Elric, even if the witch hunter tries something, Dame Weber would get involved." She replies while putting a hand on the man's shoulder to comfort him.

After a while, the door to the bar opens, letting two people enter. One, a man in witch hunter garb, and the other a woman in black robes with a witch hunter's hat. One could mistake them both as witch hunters if you did not know who the second one was. The first was Leopold Wahl, a veteran witch hunter, while the other? Mathilde Weber, the Dämmerlichtreiter.

As the two enter, the bar goes quiet. The witch hunter speaks, " We are here looking for the man know as Elric Rowohlt." In reply, and immediately, most of the bar points towards the man as he facepalms with his left hand, then raises it to show where he is.

"You will be coming with us," Leopold calls with a grim face. Elric gets up and walks to him and Dame Weber while Irma giggles in the background. Dame Weber seems bored more than anything while all this goes on.

Silently, without any indication of anything amiss, the three walk into a guard station nearby. After a while, Dame Weber leaves, then near night Leopold goes, and at midnight Elric is allowed out. They all meet up at Elric's workshop around midnight; waiting for all three is Irma with a smile.

"If you lied, I will kill you myself," says Dame Weber with a stern look, as she looks over notes and pictures of Rat men and humans meeting and trading something.

"I am sure Dame Weber," replies Elric as he walks over to his workbench, where he nervously starts working on some pistols and bombs and whispers blessings over them. While Dame Weber looks over notes, Elric works on guns, Irma counts nearby gold coins, and Leopold looks around the workshop, looking for hidden signs of heresy, corruption, and other deviations.

Walking around, Leopold eventually comes to the back of the workshop, where something huge is hidden underneath a canvas. Something almost too big to fit in the multi-story hall. Nearing it, he slides a pistol out from its holster, intending to lift the canvas, only to be interrupted by a gasp from Mathilde, causing him to hurry back, hand on his sword.

As he returns to the forefront, he first hears a humming before spying Mathilde looking at Elric with surprise, astonishment, and guarded wonder. Looking at the man in question, Leopold stops in shock as butterflies made of smoke and embers fly around him. Changing from humming, Elric begins to sing, causing one butterfly after another to enter the guns and bombs, causing Irma to silently scoff; "Showoff."

Staring at Elric, they all notice a few butterflies go to Elric's right arm, infusing themselves within the fabric and possibly whatever lays underneath, staining his robe even more black. After a few more seconds, he stops singing, then smiles as he moves over and gives Irma a few bombs. She gleefully took them out of his hands, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, causing a blush to appear on the man's face as he looked away in embarrassment.

Leopold, stunned until now, finally gets over his shook, unsheathes his sword, and growls, "What. Was. That." At that, Mathilde smiles and replies, "That was something new and interesting. The spirits fused, no, infused themselves into the weapons and bound themselves. How is that possible? Their own nature, or perhaps the blessings?" She asks no one in particular, mumbling the last part out as she sinks into contemplation.

Irma laughs, then speaks, "If you can find out how he does it, I will pay you. He never told me, and well, I have known him for years."

Leopold only scoffs, gesturing with his weapon. "I need to see your right arm and your sigil of Isolde." Having already expected this, Elric slowly stands and moves his robe so his right metal arm is visible and, with his left hand, pulls out an amulet emblazoned with a clockwork heart after a nod from Leopold.

After looking over the arm and sigil, Leopold asks, "What do you have that is bigger than a multi-story hall?" Irmas giggles increase to near laughter as Elric blushes and squares his shoulders, pride battling with artisan humility. "That would be a porotype; I will show you if you keep its existence secret." After receiving nods from both Leopold and Mathilde, Elric leads them to the canvas covering the porotype. When it is pulled off, they all see it. Seeing their faces, Elric looks away, mumbling, "S'not finished. Still needs tweaks and improvements. Also, a Lord of Ash, couldn't get one to inhabit it so far."

After that, they all returned to the main room, Elric and Leopold still a bit tense, to talk, eat, and plan for their next move. During that time, Mathilde asked Elric: "I wonder... why did you join the cult of Isolde?" At that, Irma glanced at Elric with a worried look. For his part, he only looks at his rights arm with an undecipherable expression, then speaks up with a low voice, "I was raised into it, but that is not all. Given what the Avengers Own did to my family." Hearing that, Leopold gives him a look of understanding, buried as it may be under a mask of self-control, before mentally pushing the feelings away. He might feel sympathy, but he had a job to do.
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Note: This, a crossover with whf-of-gods-guns-and-industry but well it in a possible future with a combination of both timelines.

 

[Asheram]

Side-note: Building a canal between the Grismerie and the Brienne seems doable, they get decently close near their ends. The main issue is that "their ends" are in Athel Loren. Probably not feasible, to say the least.

Click to shrink...

If we're going that route, and depending on which map Boney prefer on the Empire side, we might have a possible very connection by Karak Zilfin between the Brienne and the River Soll beneath Nuln.
But, as you say, it passes through Athel Loren.

 

[King Arthur]

I feel like I'm missing something about this canal project by the way.

How does it benefit Barak Varr while also hurting Marienburg?

It connects Black Water Lake to the River of Aver Reach. Looking at the map it definitely helps out Zhufbar a ton, but I don't see how it connects to Varr without going through the ocean all the way around Bretonnia, and it hits the ocean at the point where the city of Marienburg is, which if anything would bring it more traffic.

Am I missing something? Fundamentally misunderstanding something?