Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[King Arthur]

Honestly, you are thinking of using guns wrong. Only point them at things you want dead.

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To be fair .... it's actually pretty good for the whole killing people thing.

If the spell activates on someone succesfully .... best case scenario, the bullet kills them. Second best case scenario, no one realizes their still alive and there's no magic user to dispel the spell, so they just die slowly.

Even if neither of those happen ... it still makes them helpless until a magic user can swing by and save them, giving us all the time in the world to kill them for real.

This is basically a paralysis spell but better right? The causes the target to act dead thing means they can't move no matter how much they want to?

It's honestly a solid enchantment in my opinion. A lot of things in Warhammer can get hit by a bullet but not get wounded, this would take them right out of the fight and let us stroll up and chop their head off.

 

[The Lone badger]

We have used Mockery of Death as a paralysis spell on unwilling targets before.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Like, imagine you're playing Iron Wolf Quest:

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[] BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

These are not rational actors—they are chaos worshippers. They attack every intruder on their turf—it's not just survival to these people, it's religion. We cannot assume that the bloodthirsty daemon worshippers find us too intimidating to fight. Hell, they'll probably see us as a worthy challenge in the eyes of their unholy gods. Especially since we have a dragon. I know Norscans believe that the only way to enter Chaos Heaven is to die in battle against a worthy foe, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Kurgan have a similar belief.

If we send only the knights scouting, the best we're probably going to get is "The kurgan are mobilising, we've skirmished with their outriders, but the main body will be here in an hour." The worst is we lose the knights and then get ambushed. I don't remember how many knights we have—100? 200? What I do know is that they can not stand up to an entire kurgan tribe on the warpath by themselves.

But if we scout with Mathilde... well, I don't know what we'll find. But the chances that we'll find an opportunity to disrupt them before they mobilise are in our favour here. Maybe we'll kill a few scouts and keep them blind. Maybe we'll assassinate a few bosses and trigger a power struggle. Maybe we'll grab a warbanner and lob it in the direction of a rival tribe. Maybe we'll interrupt a ritual to separate Gork from Mork and use the excess energy to empower our own God .

Maybe we can't stop them, and we have to prepare for a pitched battle anyway. The only thing we lose by scouting is an opportunity to talk to Ruprecht, and quite frankly I think talking to the journeymen—the people we're actually responsible for—is of higher importance. We know almost nothing about the 40 year old journeywoman who "discovered" her talent for magic during a beastman raid. I smell a hedgewitch who bluffed her way out of the pyre and into the collage (and if so, good for her). Or maybe I'm just being excessively paranoid. Hmm, tried to come up with an "excellent insulator" joke here, but nope, I'm drawing a blank.

Also, we don't know what forces these guys have beyond a "dragon ogre" (and IC we don't know if it's awake or asleep, only that it exists, and that it's referred to as an "Old One" by a neighbouring tribe), and Gotrek has been complaining about the wheels on the Steamwagons for ages now. They are not invulnerable. They are not tanks. If something hits the wagons hard enough, we're in trouble. So lets go be trouble for the Iron Wolves instead. (Also, why are they called Iron Wolves? That's a bit of an ominous name. Do they have lots of chaos armour and/or chaos beasts? Is it because they are closest to the Chaos Dwarfs and buy a lot of metal weapons? Are they just silver haired?)

Ugh, sorry, this wasn't supposed to be so long and ranty. The whole thing kind of got away from me somewhere between "BLOOD" and "SKULLS" and took on a life of it's own (a bit like a typical friday night ). Sorry!

 

[matvprok]

These are not rational actors—they are chaos worshippers. They attack every intruder on their turf—it's not just survival to these people, it's religion.

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Chaos isn't that stupid and does not work that way, period.

 

[Omegahugger]

.........

If anyone can find a good image or a gif of a magical girl doing a kickflip, let me know.

Tough to find a good one.

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The best I could find is this.

Sadly, there are no known images of Outrageous Apple performing a kickflip, although she absolutely does so on the regular. Her clothing is always prepared for sick flips.

 

[Valmond]

[] BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

These are not rational actors—they are chaos worshippers. They attack every intruder on their turf—it's not just survival to these people, it's religion. We cannot assume that the bloodthirsty daemon worshippers find us too intimidating to fight.

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Good news everyone, Iron Wolves went extinct centuries ago and we don't need to scout at all.
Any long running society must be, if not rational, atleast have modicum of self preservation built into it.
While suicidal charges are possible, they can't be the standard response, or other tribes would wipe them out (assuming they did not rip themselves apart first).

 

[Cheap Orange Knofe]

iLving Ancestor / Karugromthi: Those very rare Dwarves that reach the age of 400 are accorded the status of Living Ancestors. They typically have a driving motivation, either a thirst for knowledge, an ambition to fully master their craft, an unfinished task, or an unresolved Grudge that requires avenging, and will usually dedicate their entire life to this, however long it might take.

Most of the information comes from Stone and Steel, but since it was part of 1st Edition WHFRP (home of Necromancer Dwarves), parts have been tweaked here and there to fit with more modern canon.

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how different is this from golden age Dawi standards?

Santa Dawi is technically a Living Ancestor but is one of the younger rune lords.

 

[qwolfs]

If anyone can find a good image or a gif of a magical girl doing a kickflip, let me know.

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Maids are magic, right?

Spoiler: Kickflip

Couldn't find anything for magical girls specifically. But Suzushiro does a lot of this kind of art, so looking there might get you something close enough.

 

[storryeater]

Chaos isn't that stupid and does not work that way, period.

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Chaos is that stupid and would have won if it wasn't, imho. Chaos worshippers, however, are not the same as chaos, and they are (somewhat) smarter, I agree.

how different is this from golden age Dawi standards?

Santa Dawi is technically a Living Ancestor but is one of the younger rune lords.

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Different quest different (probably) rules.

 

[uju32]

Chaos isn't that stupid and does not work that way, period.

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You are kidding right?
We literally just fished out a Karag out of the Warp because Chaos had been taking their time with that project over a hundred and eighty years instead of killing them. And when we fished them out, two of the three factions on site defaulted to killing each other instead of fighting us.

That's just demons.

The Iron Wolves tribe in question canonically invaded Kislev to sack one city to the glory of the Dark Gods.
No economic or strategic reason involved, just religion. And the Ice Witches wiped out all forty something thousand of them to the last man.

Chaos adherents are not rational actors.
You are looking at a set of tribes who look on Chaos mutations as blessings, and deliberately disfigure their children who dont get some.
They may often seem like it, then something happens, some Chaos entity intervenes or some prophecy comes due and they go all frothing at the mouth.

 

[King Arthur]

You are kidding right?
We literally just fished out a Karag out of the Warp because Chaos had been taking their time with that project over a hundred and eighty years instead of killing them.

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To be fair, this was actually fairly reasonable.

They were taking their time to try and capture them alive, so they can try and corrupt them into being followers of Slaannesh. Living Dawi worshippers have to be worth a lot, especially if they can get one of their Runesmiths.

They did have, seemingly, all of the time, and it's not like it was really costing them anything.

You know until we fished the mountain out.

 

[Techmarine]

You are kidding right?
We literally just fished out a Karag out of the Warp because Chaos had been taking their time with that project over a hundred and eighty years instead of killing them. And when we fished them out, two of the three factions on site defaulted to killing each other instead of fighting us.

That's just demons.

The Iron Wolves tribe in question canonically invaded Kislev to sack one city to the glory of the Dark Gods.
No economic or strategic reason involved, just religion. And the Ice Witches wiped out all forty something thousand of them to the last man.

Chaos adherents are not rational actors.
You are looking at a set of tribes who look on Chaos mutations as blessings, and deliberately disfigure their children who dont get some.
They may often seem like it, then something happens, some Chaos entity intervenes or some prophecy comes due and they go all frothing at the mouth.

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If they're always that suicidal there would be no iron wolves left. Attacking Kislev could have been a desperate act to curry favour with their gods. For all we know chaos was getting bored of them and they didn't get as many boons as they used to get.

 

[uju32]

Good news everyone, Iron Wolves went extinct centuries ago and we don't need to scout at all.
Any long running society must be, if not rational, atleast have modicum of self preservation built into it.
While suicidal chrges are possible, they can't be the standard response, or other tribes would wipe them out (assuming they did not rip themselves apart first).

Click to shrink...

They are Chaos adherents. Living in an area close enough to the Chaos Wastes that direct intervention of the Four or their agents is taken for granted, and their disfavor is literally the sort of thing that makes tribes move and or die.
Its not going to be particularly hard for a favored tribe to replenish its losses organically.

Seriously, inhabitants of places where Chaos holds a lot of influence, where Chaos Champions walk in the flesh, do not have any obligation to hold to the limitations and consequences of places like the Empire.
And failing to please the Dark Gods is a much more existential threat than irrationality.

 

[reignonyrparade]

Chaos adherents are not rational actors.
You are looking at a set of tribes who look on Chaos mutations as blessings, and deliberately disfigure their children who dont get some.
They may often seem like it, then something happens, some Chaos entity intervenes or some prophecy comes due and they go all frothing at the mouth.

Click to shrink...

Chaos adherents are no less rational actors than average, responding to Living In The Chaos Wastes. Even if this isn't north enough for The Full Chaos Waste Experience, it's far enough north that you still don't get to just Not Have A Relationship With The Chaos Gods.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Good news everyone, Iron Wolves went extinct centuries ago and we don't need to scout at all.
Any long running society must be, if not rational, atleast have modicum of self preservation built into it.
While suicidal chrges are possible, they can't be the standard response, or other tribes would wipe them out (assuming they did not rip themselves apart first).

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Warfare is a cornerstone of their beliefs, and they see death in battle as the ultimate expression of divine glory. When the armies of Chaos gather in the north, the tribes of the Kurgan respond. They abandon their herding grounds to take up arms alongside the swollen hordes of Daemons and Mutants in their crusade to wipe out the Old World. This willingness not only stems from their sense of duty to the Dark Gods but also because such wars are advantageous. The destruction of an enemy city gives the Kurgan access to more resources and keeps their own population in check.

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(emphasis mine)

Suicidal charges are how they prevent overpopulation. Dying in battle is their preservation instinct, only the thing that's being preserved isn't the individual but the clan as a whole. These people are not Mongolians or Huns, who ruled large empires through clever and tactical use of warfare. They are Fantasy Barbarians dedicated to evil and malicious gods who seek only destruction—and those gods do not care who is destroyed.

Or we could assume the bloodthirsty, daemon worshipping, death cultist warmongers are going to see the dragon and say "Oh shit, I left the oven on, bye!"

 

[Valmond]

They are Chaos adherents. Living in an area close enough to the Chaos Wastes that direct intervention of the Four or their agents is taken for granted, and their disfavor is literally the sort of thing that makes tribes move and or die.
Its not going to be particularly hard for a favored tribe to replenish its losses organically.

Seriously, inhabitants of places where Chaos holds a lot of influence, where Chaos Champions walk in the flesh, do not have any obligation to hold to the limitations and consequences of places like the Empire.
And failing to please the Dark Gods is a much more existential threat than irrationality.

Click to shrink...

So why bother scouting when clearly chaos is going to deus ex machine the iron wolves into winning?
You are ascribing way more power and direct intervention capacity for chaos than it has this far down south.

 

[Asheram]

Random thought about our sudden Dwarfhood: Has anyone thought about how the clerics of Gazul will react?
Either we're one of those dwarves who haven't been directed to the glittering realm, or we're one of those souls from before Gazul. The first one of these might give us some trouble if they take it personally.

 

[matvprok]

You are kidding right?
We literally just fished out a Karag out of the Warp because Chaos had been taking their time with that project over a hundred and eighty years instead of killing them. And when we fished them out, two of the three factions on site defaulted to killing each other instead of fighting us.

That's just demons.

The Iron Wolves tribe in question canonically invaded Kislev to sack one city to the glory of the Dark Gods.
No economic or strategic reason involved, just religion. And the Ice Witches wiped out all forty something thousand of them to the last man.

Chaos adherents are not rational actors.
You are looking at a set of tribes who look on Chaos mutations as blessings, and deliberately disfigure their children who dont get some.
They may often seem like it, then something happens, some Chaos entity intervenes or some prophecy comes due and they go all frothing at the mouth.

Click to shrink...

Just because you can't trace the logic (due to lack of information or else) does not mean there's no logic in their behaviour. Attacking that Kislevite city could be done out of desperation, and looting city is always an economic boon after all, if raid is successful. Mutations thing is our (players') moral standpoint mostly - they totally could see mutations as beneficial to certain degree.
Societies as a whole can't ever be completely irrational and stupid - that's an axiom. Else they wouldn't exist anymore. Don't ever ascribe irrationality and "cos they're Chaos and EEEEEVIL" motivations to anyone until you're run out of all other assumptions. Setting of this quest isn't your bad cartoon for small children.
Sorry for being spiteful, just the "Evil Guys doing Evil Things because they're Evil, no questions needed" thing strongly ticks off me. Same thing as my rant about "Order" and "Destro".
Edit: also why am I even trying when other people explain same things better and calmly.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

So why bother scouting when clearly chaos is going to deus ex machine the iron wolves into winning?
You are ascribing way more power and direct intervention capacity for chaos than it has this far down south.

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Because we can deus ex them into losing by finding them, identifying exactly how they threaten us, and then disrupting that threat. Information is power, and right now we simply don't have enough to figure out how to stop them ROFLstomping us. That's why we're calling for the scouting action.

Random thought about our sudden Dwarfhood: Has anyone thought about how the clerics of Gazul will react?
Either we're one of those dwarves who haven't been directed to the glittering realm, or we're one of those souls from before Gazul. The first one of these might give us some trouble if they take it personally.

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Ranald got grudged. I think they did take it personally.

 

[reignonyrparade]

They are Fantasy Barbarians dedicated to evil and malicious gods who seek only destruction—and those gods do not care who is destroyed.

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Eh... this far south, there's a lot of Fantasy Barbarians dedicated to evil and malicious gods who are about as dedicated to those gods as your gun totin' city slicker Middenheimer is dedicated to "Self reliance only please" Ulric. Ah yes, Khorne cares not from where the blood flows but also today somebody's got to watch out for the herds, somebody's got to cook dinner, somebody's got to make sure the kids aren't doing anything TOO stupid. What you're quoting is even talking about "when the armies of chaos gather in the north." That's not a suicidal charge. Yeah a lot of people are going to die, even on their side, but of course they think they personally are a bunch of individual badasses who are more likely to survive than average.

 

[Valmond]

(emphasis mine)

Suicidal charges are how they prevent overpopulation. Dying in battle is their preservation instinct, only the thing that's being preserved isn't the individual but the clan as a whole. These people are not Mongolians or Huns, who ruled large empires through clever and tactical use of warfare. They are Fantasy Barbarians dedicated to evil and malicious gods who seek only destruction—and those gods do not care who is destroyed.

Or we could assume the bloodthirsty, daemon worshipping, death cultist warmongers are going to see the dragon and say "Oh shit, I left the oven on, bye!"

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Whoever wrote that either had no fucking clue how populations work in primitive societies, or did not care.

Population remains in check just fine from random raiding and child mortality. The idea that Kurgans have this huge surplus of population that has to be constantly culled through battle is insanely unrealistic.
Sure, fine, you can find a text blurb depicting kurgans as insane and suicidal barbarians we are allowed to murder without a thought.
Personally i hope Boney does something less, silly, with them.

Because we can deus ex them into losing by finding them, identifying exactly how they threaten us, and then disrupting that threat. Information is power, and right now we simply don't have enough to figure out how to stop them ROFLstomping us. That's why we're calling for the scouting action.

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Nope, nope, won't work, Chaos will stop us from winning, that's just how things work here, nothing we can do.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

Eh... this far south, there's a lot of Fantasy Barbarians dedicated to evil and malicious gods who are about as dedicated to those gods as your gun totin' city slicker Middenheimer is dedicated to "Self reliance only please" Ulric. Ah yes, Khorne cares not from where the blood flows but also today somebody's got to watch out for the herds, somebody's got to cook dinner, somebody's got to make sure the kids aren't doing anything TOO stupid. What you're quoting is even talking about "when the armies of chaos gather in the north." That's not a suicidal charge. Yeah a lot of people are going to die, even on their side, but of course they think they personally are a bunch of individual badasses who are more likely to survive than average.

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We're well past the point where you can credibly claim this isn't the chaos wastes any more. "This far south" makes it sound like you're talking about kislev.

So why bother scouting when clearly chaos is going to deus ex machine the iron wolves into winning?
You are ascribing way more power and direct intervention capacity for chaos than it has this far down south.

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Not what Uju32 actually wrote. On any level, frankly I'm not sure how you came away with that read.

Nope, nope, won't work, Chaos will stop us from winning, that's just how things work here, nothing we can do.

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[DragonParadox]

Just because you can't trace the logic (due to lack of information or else) does not mean there's no logic in their behaviour. Attacking that Kislevite city could be done out of desperation, and looting city is always an economic boon after all, if raid is successful. Mutations thing is our (players') moral standpoint mostly - they totally could see mutations as beneficial to certain degree.
Societies as a whole can't ever be completely irrational and stupid - that's an axiom. Else they wouldn't exist anymore. Don't ever ascribe irrationality and "cos they're Chaos and EEEEEVIL" motivations to anyone until you're run out of all other assumptions. Setting of this quest isn't your bad cartoon for small children.
Sorry for being spiteful, just the "Evil Guys doing Evil Things because they're Evil, no questions needed" thing strongly ticks off me. Same thing as my rant about "Order" and "Destro".
Edit: also why am I even trying when other people explain same things better and calmly.

Click to shrink...

While the mortal servants of the Dark Gods have to possess some degree of rationality the same is not true to the daemons and 'a daemon told me to fight this convoy' is a rational reason to attack the dragon. After all the worst the dragon can do is kill you

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Nope, nope, won't work, Chaos will stop us from winning, that's just how things work here, nothing we can do.

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So what, give up, go home, and stop fighting to make the world a better place? Since chaos is too powerful to fight we shouldn't even bother to try?

 

[uju32]

If they're always that suicidal there would be no iron wolves left. Attacking Kislev could have been a desperate act to curry favour with their gods. For all we know chaos was getting bored of them and they didn't get as many boons as they used to get.

Click to shrink...

Again, they are Chaos adherents in an area where Chaos influence runs fast and deep. The favor of the Four keeps them alive just fine.
I will repeat, this is not the Empire; these are the Great Steppes.
Dont assume what holds true back home with regards to population holds true here.

To be fair, this was actually fairly reasonable.
They were taking their time to try and capture them alive, so they can try and corrupt them into being followers of Slaannesh. Living Dawi worshippers have to be worth a lot, especially if they can get one of their Runesmiths.

They did have, seemingly, all of the time, and it's not like it was really costing them anything.
You know until we fished the mountain out.

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They could have gone in and captured them faster, THEN attempted to subvert them when in captivity. Instead they tried to draw it out.
Im not complaining that they did so, but we both know they could have finished this much faster if they so chose, especially given the amount of power they had access to.

Chaos adherents are no less rational actors than average, responding to Living In The Chaos Wastes. Even if this isn't north enough for The Full Chaos Waste Experience, it's far enough north that you still don't get to just Not Have A Relationship With The Chaos Gods.

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Thats fair.

So why bother scouting when clearly chaos is going to deus ex machine the iron wolves into winning?
You are ascribing way more power and direct intervention capacity for chaos than it has this far down south.

Click to shrink...

Who said anything about Chaos Deus Ex? If they were going to Deus Ex anything, they wouldnt need the Iron Wolves.

Chaos is not always united, and is often juggling many balls, which affects the amount of power they can bring to bear on a single matter.And they can be fractious as fuck. We literally just saw this at Vlag, where the Slaaneshi killed the Bloodthirster they called in for reinforcements.
Thats the only reason this expedition stands a chance. Why they act through catspaws.

But that does not imply that things are safe because we may only be facing a fraction of their attention.
We've already run across three Greater Daemons in this expedition thus far, killed the Keeper of Secrets, watched the Bloodthirster die and the Lord of Chaos retreat, and we've not even gotten to the Wastes yet.

Seriously, we're walking into the ante-chamber to Hell, our landwagons are slowing to a crawl, and people are actually disputing whether the lady with the best Windsight should be out there scouting against the Chaos-worshipping Kurgan tribe that was explicitly called out to be serving a Dragon Ogre. Kinda boggles my mind here.