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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Andres110 said:
Norscans definitely already worship Ulric. I can't remember exactly what the Kurgan worship.
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They're less detailed in canon, but in Divided Loyalties they worship a pantheon consisting of the sun, the moons, the four gods of chaos, and the winds of magic. Given they're based on Turkic or Mongol peoples, I'd wager that BoneyM is going with them having a full pantheon of 99 divinities (numbering well over 99, due to the exact composition of the divinities changing by tribe).
 
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The Karag Dum Expedition, Part 14: Karag Dum
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    [*] Use Rite of Way for the worst patches of rough terrain
    [*] Attempt to make contact with the Dolgan
    [*] Use Rite of Way for the moderately difficult ground
    [*] Attempt to make contact with the Yusak

    With the Expedition leaving the road and veering into the seemingly-endless steppes of the Kurgan, you've decided your best contribution to this Expedition would be to use Rite of Way to ease the journey over any difficult terrain, and to make contact with the Kurgan tribes whose territory lies in your path. Hopefully your established deal with the Dolgan will lay the foundation for a peaceful passage through their lands, and hopefully the fact that the Yusak have fallen from the favour of the Chaos Gods will mean they won't be looking for new enemies.

    Hopefully.

    As the steam-wagons turn off the road and onto the soil you take up position at the prow of the Alriksson alongside Borek, whose eyes rarely leave the northern horizon. You can feel the steam-wagon slow as the great wheels bite into the turf, but the great engine below grows louder and the many wheels keep turning, biting a deep furrow and leaving a trail of upturned black soil in its wake. Behind you the Magnus does the same, driving slightly to one side to avoid sinking deeper into the trails left by the Alriksson. If the great columns of smoke weren't enough, ten parallel black lines in the landscape will make it trivial for anyone with eyes to follow your trail, but then again stealth was never the plan. Speed and intimidation are how you hope to avoid conflict.

    With the Expedition still making relatively decent forward progress you refrain from assisting with Rite of Way as the engineers make their assessments, monitoring engine and axle stress, measuring speed with a modified chip log, and conversations being shouted back and forth or had by writing down messages, attaching them to a crossbow bolt, and then firing them at targets attached to the fore and aft of each steam-wagon's funnels. Only once so far had such a message missed the target, and Snorri has said that the bolt will remain embedded in the funnel until the Ranger responsible can knock it off with another. When a consensus is finally reached, the results are sent to Borek, who glances down at them and grunts. "No worse than expected," he says to you. "Barring any dramatic changes in the landscape, we should arrive slightly ahead of schedule."

    "Well, let's see if we can improve that," you say cheerily. "Might want to take a few steps back."

    [Rite of Way: Learning, 87+28-10(Winds overhead)+15(Windsage)=120.]

    You reach your hand upwards and with force of will you snag one of the overhead streams of Ulgu, causing it to break free of the overhead tapestry to swirl downwards towards the Alriksson and spiral around you. You feel giddy as you feel it engulf you, the thrumming energies throbbing in time with your heartbeat and flitting hither and thon in response to your slightest whim. With an effort of will you remind yourself of your purpose and channel the Wind through you and into your Staff, the altered dragonbone almost as permeable to Ulgu as your soul. Fog billows out from your staff and hands and mouth and eyes, pouring forward to embrace the terrain ahead.

    The first steam-wagon seem to surge as it hits the grey road you've made, and at the same time there's a yank on your soul as the spell demands much more energy to sustain its effects, so much more than they required on the Skull Road. But now more than ever before there is energy aplenty, fresh from the Aethyr and ready to shape the malleable world to your will, and you meet the demands with only a slight effort. Then a second yank as the Magnus reaches the road, then a third and a fourth and a fifth, and now the entire stream flows straight through you and out onto the turf below. If you attempted to hold this much energy it would tear you asunder in seconds, but you simply let it flow through you. The lever moves the world, but the fulcrum remains steady.

    This is what it is to be a Wizard. The robes, the rituals, the titles, the books, they were just decoration. To be a Wizard is to face the tide of power that would kill the world, and to bend that power to its defence.

    "Maybe more than slightly," you hear Borek mutter to himself behind you, and your smile widens.

    ---

    By the end of the first day the Expedition has grown familiar with the terrain and now knows how steep a hill can be and still be surmountable unassisted, and by dawn tomorrow the Knights will have a map ready for the day's travel that will give a route around the hills and bogs that dot the terrain. After most of a day immersed in Ulgu your thoughts flit about unfamiliarly, but a night's sleep surrounded by steel serves to ground you and you rise ready to face whatever the day will bring. The Knights have also reported regular contact with small groups of Kurgan, but so far both groups seem content with keeping a cautious distance. You hope to hammer that ad hoc ceasefire into a more solid agreement, and get confirmation that the Dolgan will cleave to their side of the deal.

    As the steam-wagons set off, you ride out with the Knights for a spell and then split off from them to try to encounter some of the locals alone. It doesn't take you long to spot a promising sign - a thin wisp of smoke rising from over the horizon, much smaller than the column at your back. You ride towards it, slowing as you do so; by the time you can see the flicker of light you're only at a trot, and when you can make out the figures around it you slow even further. You want there to be no possibility of mistaking your approach for a charge.

    By the time you reach them, they've long since spotted you, doused their fire, and mounted up, ready to fight or flee if necessary. Three of them look no different than any number of Gospodarin or Ungol horsemen you saw in Kislev, but the fourth has a strangely elongated head and a silver ring around his neck marking him as the leader. According to the books you've read both are signs of status; the children of prestigious Kurgan have their heads bound as infants to change their shape with the intention that an artificial mutation will attract truer ones from the Gods, and the torc is a display of martial confidence and an open challenge to all, saying that the silver belongs to anyone that can remove his head.

    "Blood or tea?" you say in Khazalid, an echo of what the Shaman you met first said to you, and the leader eyes you thoughtfully for a moment, his eyes flicking downwards to your Shadowsteed and then over to the column of smoke that marks the Expedition. Then he nods and points upward, to a point higher in the sky than the sun currently is, and you nod and point downwards. There's another exchange of nods, then the leader exchanges a few words with the others and they gallop off. You note the direction. You're sure they'd change direction when out of sight so they didn't point you directly at the nearest encampment, but it does indicate a direction where the encampment isn't.

    [Rolling...]

    As the sun nears the indicated point in the sky, you see your response approaching, and one much larger than the previous. You count fifty horsemen, and from their auras can spot three Shamans, one the Ghur Shaman you spoke to previously, the other two aligned to Aqshy and Shyish. The leader of the group is easy to pick out, as he wears metal pauldrons and both arms are ringed with an eclectic collection of silver and gold bands. But most obviously of all the only feature on his face is his mouth, the rest of it smooth, flat skin where eyes and a nose should be. Despite this apparent handicap his face is pointed straight at you as the band approaches, and your hands itch for Branulhune.

    They stop several meters from you, and the mouth of the leader issues a sibilant order, and the Ghur Shaman approaches, the two of you dismounting to close the final few meters. "Blood or tea, Shadowed Shaman of the Mountain Ring Clans?" he asks in guttural Khazalid.

    "Today, tea, Untamed Shaman of the Dolgan Tribes," you reply, and as last time he approaches to offer you a flask, and again you flick some north before forcing down the fermented horse milk.

    "This is Irnik, Slaaksho of the Four, who rules these lands," he says, gesturing behind him at the faceless chieftain. "I shall speak for him, for his tongue only speaks the Blessed Language. I had suspected that the metal longboats that sailed upon a sea of fog was your pilgrimage."

    You nod. "We have travelled far, and we have further yet to go. Our beasts are always hungry, and our blood is destined to stain other lands." You produce an ingot of unmarked silver from your robes and hand it over to the Shaman, who turns and throws it to the chieftain, who snatches it out of the air and considers it closely. A long, bright pink tongue emerges from the being's mouth, its unnatural length caressing the metal carefully before retracting with an audible snap. It nods.

    "It is agreed," the Shaman says. "How many beasts do you require?"

    "We shall buy up to sixty adult cattle now, and up to three hundred on our return journey, or the equivalent weight in other beasts." This, you had decided with the rest of the Council, was the best way forward. It left you with a thin margin of food at Karag Dum, but that was preferable to having exposed cattle atop the steam-wagons when you enter the Chaos Wastes proper.

    The Shaman nods, and turns and has a prolonged exchange with one of the non-Shaman Kurgan in the crowd. "We can fulfil this," he says when he turns back. "We shall meet you at the Yusak border with the first of the beasts."

    "We shall be seeking to return through these lands within the next two white-moon-cycles, when we will purchase the remainder."

    "Very well. We shall bring some of our herds to this area, and watch the border with the Yusak for your return. Your silver is pleasing to Slaaksho Irnik. May we both grow stronger to bring glory to our peoples and enjoyment to our Gods."

    ---

    Though the Knights and Winter Wolves remain watchful for any sign of treachery, the Dolgan prove as good as their word and you spend a few hours wielding magic to render lively, nervous cattle into still-breathing cargo, at which point the beasts are hoisted upwards to be tied down on the upper deck. It gives the other Wizards a chance to get used to casting in these conditions as they cast Sleep on the beasts to render them more vulnerable to Mockery of Death. By the time you reach the edge of Dolgan land the beasts have eaten their fill and then some, and at your current pace you'll reach Karag Dum with several days remaining before their return journey - more than enough for the return journey to relatively uncorrupted lands.

    Now you have only one penultimate unknown: the Yusak. All you know of them is that they, in the words of the Ghur Shaman, 'lost favour with the Four and seek lands further from them'. Perhaps this means they will be weakened and unwilling to seek conflict, perhaps this means they will be all too willing to in an attempt to regain their lost favour. So on the final day through Dolgan lands, the Expedition charts a particularly conservative path as you head north at full gallop.

    In the Empire, most borders are invisible, ephemeral things, marked on unreliable maps and argued about almost constantly. This border, at least, is quite different. Further north the eight-coloured stream of energies is joined by a ninth, uglier, heavier shade, as Dhar emerges from wherever it is Winds come from and sinks to the ground much sooner than the others, hanging in the air and seeping into the soil. The line where the unnatural arc of dark magic reaches the ground is as visible to mundane senses as it is to Magesight, as the vegetation changes abruptly from near-uniformity to a chaotic patchwork. In some places the vegetation is dying off, poisoned by the unnatural energies, and in others the grasses draw vigour from the Dhar, growing tall and stained with sickly colours. The landscape varies even further as you push deeper, and at points the land is scarred with roads appearing from nowhere and going nowhere. You spend some time considering a stone ziggurat worn almost into a pyramid by the passage of time or some other process, and you spend as little time as possible considering the distant flocks of figures too large to be birds that drift lazily through the sky.

    Eventually the grasses die out entirely, leaving the lands alternating between dry, dusty soil, unpleasantly sticky mud, and bare stone. Here and there mushrooms as tall as trees grow in clumps, dripping with mucus and emitting an unignorable stench like overripe fruit. It's around one of them that you find the first signs of the Yusak - a band of sheep crowding around the stalk of a mushroom that looked sicklier than the others, those closest to it taking bites out of its stalk. At regular intervals the ones eating stagger off to collapse to the ground, either sickened or intoxicated, and more press forward until finally it gives way. The sheep scatter out of the great falling weight, but as soon as it lands they turn and charge towards the swollen cap, butting and bleating at each as they each try to be first to the fruit of their labours. With sickened curiosity you watch as they gorge themselves on the soft flesh. You'd wondered how anything could live in the Chaos Wastes, and it seems you have part of your answer.

    Just as with the Dolgan, a stranger atop a magic horse watching but not attempting to steal the livestock is the sort of conundrum that would send a worried and confused Yusak herdsman to seek answers from the Tribe's authorities. Just as with the Dolgan, the troupe that eventually arrives to investigate you is led by someone dressed in the panoply of a Shaman. But this time, you can see no Winds surrounding him, and that doesn't leave a lot of options for what he could be a Shaman of. But you remind yourself that Branulhune is only a thought away and let him approach, and to your surprise he offers you blood or tea in guttural Khazalid first.

    "Today, tea," you respond, and you go through the usual ritual of dismounting and drinking with him.

    "I am a Shaman of the Yusak Tribes. I serve the White of the Two."

    You try not to show any indication of relief that he's a Shaman of Mannslieb. "I am a Shaman of the Mountain Ring Clans. I serve the Shadowed of the Eight. My Clan is travelling north on pilgrimage."

    "Ah. You seek to test yourself against the Dum?" he asks.

    You consider your response for a moment. "Yes," you reply, which is true, to a certain extent.

    [Rolling...]

    "All are welcome against the Dum," he says. "The Kul and the Kvellige are there now, but the southern front is available to you."

    "What state is Dum in?" you ask.

    He gives you an odd look. "Dum is as it has always been."

    "Ah." You decide against angling for further information. Something about your question seems to have been wrong. "We shall arrive within the quarter-cycle, with beast-mounts and metal ships. We do not seek quarrel with the Yusak."

    "Then pass, and feast upon the bounty of the land freely." You watch thoughtfully as he remounts and departs. He had something of a listless, distracted air to him, which could be indicative of hard times for the Yusak, but you don't know nearly enough about Kurgan moon-worship to say if that's out of character for a Shaman devoted to Mannslieb. In any case, you've got as close as you're likely to get to a non-aggression pact with the Yusak, so you consider the job done.

    ---

    Forewarned by you of the terrain ahead, by the time the Expedition reaches what you're considering to be the border of the Chaos Wastes proper everyone is braced for what they encounter, and though there's a ripple of shock through everyone present as they set eyes on it for themselves, nobody is entirely taken aback by it. Now more than ever the Rite of Way proves itself as it gets the Expedition through the rapidly-changing terrain at a fast pace and without setbacks, circling around strange ruins and mushroom copses as it pushes relentlessly north. Each day leaves you mentally drained by the effort of keeping the flow of Ulgu as free as you can of the Dhar that's all too eager to cling to and corrupt any other Wind it touches. Several times you have to put out spot fires on your robes as the Runes on your Belt purge errant Dhar, and you're starting to worry what it would mean for anyone else to wield magic here.

    The mostly flat landscape starts to grow rugged as you approach the foothills of Karag Dum, and nervousness gives way to anticipation in the atmosphere of the steam-wagons. You stay quiet, occupied with the dark mutterings you heard from numerous sources about what fates might have befallen Karag Dum, and what lengths they might have gone to to avoid them. The temperature has been steadily falling as you ventured further north, but here it grows hotter and drier as the ascent continues. You pass tattered banners hammered into the bare stone of more varieties than you can identify, most seemingly Kurgan, some completely unfamiliar to you, and others completely wiped clean by the hot, gritty wind that seems to be blowing directly into your face. And then the Alriksson crests a final rise and the landscape opens up before you, and you barely manage to release the Rite before shock tears it from your grasp.

    You'd seen pictures of Karag Dum, the tallest of a small cluster of mountains approached through an exposed vale. But now it stands alone, jutting out from a great crater that you find yourself on the lip of. Directly below you is bone-white sand, interrupted regularly by actual bones that grow thicker on the ground the closer it is to Karag Dum. And with shocking abruptness the desert gives way to disturbingly familiar forest that now rings the base of Karag Dum, burying the bottom third of it in apparently primeval forest that by all accounts was not there a mere two centuries ago. And as you stare and as the Alriksson continues trundling forward, you see a figure at the edge of the forest, standing taller than a man and taller still when you consider the skull-adorned frill that juts from its skull.

    In a flash of realization, you know why your question had confused the Yusak Shaman. When he spoke of Dum, he did not mean the Dwarfhold of Karag Dum.

    He meant Cor-Dum.

    As you watch reality flinch away from him, Morghur the Shadowgave, immortal demigod of the Beastmen, bellows a warbling prayer to the mountain that has become his Herdstone, and from the trees countless more voices join him.


    To be continued.
     
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    • notanautomaton said:
    They're less detailed in canon, but in Divided Loyalties they worship a pantheon consisting of the sun, the moons, the four gods of chaos, and the winds of magic. Given they're based on Turkic or Mongol peoples, I'd wager that BoneyM is going with them having a full pantheon of 99 divinities (numbering well over 99, due to the exact composition of the divinities changing by tribe).
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    Wouldn't surprise me if they've gone full on syncreticism with various gods getting smooshed together into one. Ala Selene and Helios getting absorbed into Apollo and Artemis. Given the Aethyr it might even be literal smooshing! You can also do the Greek/Roman thing where the gods have different aspects/faces/titles that represent vastly different parts of them (like you prey to Apollo Acerse'come for sweet hair and Apollo Acestor to get over the flu) which also might be local gods that got slooped up into the bigger one over time!

    Also wow, I now appreciate (?) the wonders of seeing Booney roll the die in real time and wondering what the hell the update will turn out to be. GDI Dum.
     
    Uh oh.

    What exactly does it mean that the mountain has become his Herdstone?
     
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    Yep the easy part of the journey is over, thankfully we have a dragon and several hundred monstrous Knights that should help quite a bit.
     
    A_Somebody said:
    Wouldn't surprise me if they've gone full on syncreticism with various gods getting smooshed together into one. Ala Selene and Helios getting absorbed into Apollo and Artemis. Given the Aethyr it might even be literal smooshing! You can also do the Greek/Roman thing where the gods have different aspects/faces/titles that represent vastly different parts of them (like you prey to Apollo Acerse'come for sweet hair and Apollo Acestor to get over the flu) which also might be local gods that got slooped up into the bigger one over time!
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    With the Tengri a lot of it comes from local gods, rather than syncretism. A group that lives around a great mountain probably includes the god of that mountain in the 99, while a group that lives far away from the mountain probably does not. Though discussion of the IRL religion of the Turkic and Mongol peoples is probably off topic for this thread.
     
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