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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Klaus said:
Our curiosity isn't worth his pain. We can tell the Karaz Ankor they tried their best. Beyond that, let's let it go.
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The possibility of recovering lost rune lore is well worth his pain. Getting the aid of Dum's engineers is well worth his pain. Sorry, but I just don't care that much about the emotional wellbeing of someone who's just abandoned us that I would sacrifice the wellbeing of the expedition and/or the entire Karaz Ankor.
 
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kingreaper said:
Karag Dum remembers some things that others don't. So while there's no guarantee they remember how to use and redirect the flow to power superweapons, it's entirely possible that they do.
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And yet another reason to rebolster Dum.

Because for all that I have heard massive DOOM SAYING (heh) I must say that the old argument "they can´t hold out for much longer" might very well be false. After all, if they haven´t already fallen, then they might actually stand tall with just the slightest push of extra help.

And if they have fallen to become an enemy of chaos... well an enemies enemy...
 
SuperSonicSound said:
The best runelords now are probably little better than Entry level Master rune smiths from the golden age.
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If even that.
But my point was that i might be more knowledgeable about nuclear reactors than lot of runelords are about runecraft compared to what the masters at the height of the craft were capable.
We can't make any assumptions on what they could do, because we have no idea how much they know, and how fragmentary that knowledge is.
Knowing about the waystone network does not mean they know how to do anything specific with it, or to it.
 
kingreaper said:
The possibility of recovering lost rune lore is well worth his pain. Getting the aid of Dum's engineers is well worth his pain. Sorry, but I just don't care that much about the emotional wellbeing of someone who's just abandoned us.
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Mathilde cannot recover lost rune lore, she knows literally nothing about rune lore and we didn't do the one training action that might have potentially helped to learn arcane khazalid. Mathilde isn't a runesmith, there's no way we recover anything useable and even if we some how achieved this impossible goal Kragg and Thorek would probably throw it all away because it's provenance is tainted by it being from a group of 'chaos' dwarves.


Burned_Cookie said:
And yet another reason to rebolster Dum.

Because for all that I have heard massive DOOM SAYING (heh) I must say that the old argument "they can´t hold out for much longer" might very well be false. After all, if they haven´t already fallen, then they might actually stand tall with just the slightest push of extra help.

And if they have fallen to become an enemy of chaos... well an enemies enemy...
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Good lord, HOW. How do you want to rebolster Dum? It's thousands of miles away from the nearest non-shit hole place that could offer any support with literally four different factions of enemies in the way. There's no way we make the journey ever again.

Like Burned cookie explain what you think we will find that will absolve all this and mean the Karaz-Ankor will go "Oh yea that's totally fine, lets send a few tens of thousands of dwarves into the jaws of chaos to help dum"
 
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kingreaper said:
The possibility of recovering lost rune lore is well worth his pain. Getting the aid of Dum's engineers is well worth his pain. Sorry, but I just don't care that much about the emotional wellbeing of someone who's just abandoned us.
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Remember the axe?
Any runelore from Dum is almost certainly going to be considered tainted, to a point where runelords might by unwilling to independently learn of anything resembling it on their own.
Bringing back Karag Dum Runelore might, paradoxically, set current runecraft back, instead of moving it forward.
 
[x] THEORY: I. Don't. Know. What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.
[x] THEORY: I think I still owe Borek like 1800 gold.
[x] [ACTION]: Turn back.
[x] ACTION: Expedition: Digs in; Mathilde: Investigates
[x] ACTION: Infiltrate Karag Dum to gather information.
[x] ACTION: Mathilde will infiltrate the hold and look for more answers. In the mean time the convoy should circle the Steam-Wagons and avoid provoking a fight they can't win. If she has not returned within 24 hours they should turn back and attempt to make their way back to civilisation to inform the Karaz Ankor, Empire and Kislev what they found.
 
Valmond said:
Remember the axe?
Any runelore from Dum is almost certainly going to be considered tainted, to a point where runelords might by unwilling to independently learn of anything resembling it on their own.
Bringing back Karag Dum Runelore might, paradoxically, set current runecraft back, instead of moving it forward.
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If it's like the axe, then Kragg would just lock it up and bury it. It wouldn't set runecraft back, whatever that may mean

(Setting runecraft back sounds like something Kragg might like, actually)
 
kingreaper said:
Karag Dum remembers some things that others don't. So while there's no guarantee they remember how to use and redirect the flow to power superweapons, it's entirely possible that they do.
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While I agree that this shame is a great pain to the poor fellas, I cannot say that the sacrifice of their suffering wouldn´t be worth it to stop the expansion of the chaos wastes.
 
SuperSonicSound said:
Mathilde cannot recover lost rune lore, she knows literally nothing about rune lore and we didn't do the one training action that might have potentially helped to learn arcane khazalid. Mathilde isn't a runesmith, there's no way we recover anything useable and even if we some how achieved this impossible goal Kragg and Thorek would probably throw it all away because it's provenance is tainted by it being from a group of 'chaos' dwarves.
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There may well be living runelords in that hold. Hell, there might be ones in there older than Kragg. And while the Dawi can be judgemental they are capable of understanding things such as "I'm not the one who set up the whole Morghul thing, I was just holding out until the Karaz Ankor could rescue those of us still loyal" or "we were using secrets passed down within our hold by Grimnir, of which the rest of the Karaz Ankor were never informed" or any number of other possible situations.
 
Guile said:
If it's like the axe, then Kragg would just lock it up and bury it. It wouldn't set runecraft back, whatever that may mean

(Setting runecraft back sounds like something Kragg might like, actually)
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The runelords might feel honorbound not to study anything even resembling the carft found, making learning of new things, like what Thorek is trying to do, more difficult.
 
Klaus said:
Making Borek talk about this is cruel. As great as this shame is, he would rather we came at him with a branding iron than have to talk about it, it's just that painful.

Our curiosity isn't worth his pain. We can tell the Karaz Ankor they tried their best. Beyond that, let's let it go.
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It fucking is.

People died getting him here. Effort was spent getting him here that could have been spend in more productive places (those landships are several fucktones of resources and dwarf-hours). And "I'm sorry, we tried our best" just doesn't cut it. Mathilde faced active slavery just a few hundred or so feet away and turned away from it. She will have to deal with that choice later.

It's not just Mathilde's curiosity, it's every person involved and who were affected by this outlay of resources' curiosity. How many die because there are that many fewer cannon? How many died because the wizards involved were not doing other things? The Knights of Taal's Fury could be actively saving people via killing Beastmen in the Empire right now, but they came here, to watch this wanker walk off without a single satisfactory explanation - and by satisfactory I don't mean emotionally satisfactory; I mean "an explanation, no matter how stupid the choices made actually were"

Now there is an argument to be made that the risks involved are not worth it - all arguments for "leave now" that are based on that are valid imo.

But Borek's pain? I acknowledge that he is feeling pain and I do not care. Well, I care because it has influenced his actions and choices to... not give any answers, but beyond that? Do I care about his suffering for its own sake? Yes. But compared the pain that will result from the people asking "why" and not having an answer, people asking "what was it even for?" then it is negligible. If we do get to ask questions in private, I think Mathilde should cast Atheric Armour and then throw some fists because of his choice in this moment. No 'fair fight' bullshit, just uneven "I am hitting you because you did this"


I am ok with Borek suffering pain to get answers that can be brought back. Not some shitty "We did the best we could".
 
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kingreaper said:
There may well be living runelords in that hold. Hell, there might be ones in there older than Kragg. And while the Dawi can be judgemental they are capable of understanding things such as "I'm not the one who set up the whole Morghul thing, I was just holding out until the Karaz Ankor could rescue those of us still loyal" or "we were using secrets passed down within our hold by Grimnir, of which the rest of the Karaz Ankor were never informed" or any number of other possible situations.
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Yea and if there anything like Kragg they'll tell mathilde to piss off at best if she asks them for their Runic knowledge. That's at best. They don't know Mathilde.
 
SuperSonicSound said:
Yea and if there anything like Kragg they'll tell mathilde to piss off at best if she asks them for their Runic knowledge. That's at best. They don't know Mathilde.
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I don't expect them to give Mathilde any knowledge. I hope that there will be at least one that likes the idea of coming south with us and talking to other dawi that aren't stuck in one Karag - maybe even find an apprentice.
 
SuperSonicSound said:
Good lord, HOW. How do you want to rebolster Dum? It's thousands of miles away from the nearest non-shit hole place that could offer any support with literally four different factions of enemies in the way. There's no way we make the journey ever again.

Like Burned cookie explain what you think we will find that will absolve all this and mean the Karaz-Ankor will go "Oh yea that's totally fine, lets send a few tens of thousands of dwarves into the jaws of chaos to help dum"
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No one said that had to happen. Just the advice of someone who has a truly alien perspective, that off a grey Lady Magister, may very well prove to give them quite the magical edge.
 
Valmond said:
The runelords might feel honorbound not to study anything even resembling the carft found, making learning of new things, like what Thorek is trying to do, more difficult.
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Any runelord who felt bound in such a way would never look at the craft found in the first place. So they wouldn't know if something resembled it, because they never looked at it.

Kragg only looked at the axe because he didn't know where it came from. If he'd known for sure it was Dawi Zharr it would have been melted down with nary a glance.
 
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BoneyM said:
- The landscape around Karag Dum has changed, including the disappearance of the smaller mountains around it, the growth of a forest around its base, and the appearance of a desert around the forest. It is also hotter here than anywhere else in the Steppes. Apart from the forests covering the lower parts of it, the exterior of Karag Dum appears unchanged.
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Where did the mountains go? They weren't destroyed, an explosion would still leave rubble.
 
Klaus said:
Where did the mountains go? They weren't destroyed, an explosion would still leave rubble.
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Blasted into rubble which got ground down into the sand somehow over time? I mean, it'd take some heavy grinding but it's not beyond the realms of possibility, especially in the wastes.

Or dimensional displacement? Or maybe Chaos just vanished them to make it easier to attack.

One of the many mysteries that make me sure there's more to what we're seeing than a simple "Dwarves allied with Morghur"
 
BeepSmile said:
It's not just Mathilde's curiosity, it's every person involved and who were affected by this outlay of resources' curiosity.
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Every person other than maybe Mathilde wants to go home right now. If you care about them the way you claim to, then Turn Back is the only option. The expedition has successfully discovered the fate of Karag Dum and it is horrible. Job's done, they achieved the goal they set out for.
 
The transformation of the surrounding area happened all at once: The Kurgan say that Dum is as it has always been, and 300 years is basically the blink of an eye as far as oral traditions are concerned. If the terrain had been changing over time there'd have been some mention of it having progressed or continued, not stayed static. And we're speaking Khazalid, which I think - @BoneyM, confirm? - would have used completely different words for "completely static" and "progressing at the same rate as always".
 
Klaus said:
Every person other than maybe Mathilde wants to go home right now. If you care about them the way you claim to, then Turn Back is the only option. The expedition has successfully discovered the fate of Karag Dum and it is horrible. Job's done, they achieved the goal they set out for.
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We won't know that until we hold council and hear their opinions. Do not take it for a given before that.
 
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