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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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The "actually a dwarf" thing is bad to me because it just discards the possibility that human-Mathilde could accomplish significant things and instead just tries to effectively explain her accomplishments by going "actually, you were one of us all along, which is why you could do X" (when no, it's almost certainly just that humans can just sometimes do things that Dwarfs can't even if, for some Dwarfs, admitting that they are aren't just overall superior to those shoddy humans would be like eating their own beard)

I mean, it's good character writing, it's a neat way for the Karaz Ankor to solve the problem that Mathilde presents to their worldview and just generally works with everything present (with the more negative aspects of Dwarf culture that often gets overlooked when they are compared to other Warhammer cultures) and heck Mathilde might even take it well because she generally prefers Dwarfs to Humans, but it's still not great in it's implications. It's like a worse variant of "you're a credit to your race" racism, in that you can't even be a credit to your race, you were just 'truly' a member of the "competent" race all along.
 
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Tasoli said:
I don't want to goo too far in to this debate but this is not quite right isn't it. This is a religious matter. Assuming you are Christian how would you feel your country started a war with Pope for stealing you from their afterlife?
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Again, It's a very negative take on things.
There will be no war in this situation, because the grudge won't be evaluated until everything 'settles', and we've already paid off any debt incurred through our deeds: K8P, the Metalsmiths in the Okral and Karak Vlag.

Even by the most skewed reckoning, the Grudge was repaid many times over already:
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Accusation: You stole a dwarf from the afterlife!
Defender: But you blessed them with fortune, and they proceeded to become a great hero that saved the lives of at least twenty thousand dwarfs, and contributed to reclaiming two lost holds.
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Declaring a grudge with these conditions (to be evaluated later, and probably already paid off) is more of a "we would be willing go to war over this" declaration than a "we are going to war over this"

Karaz Ankor will not suddenly start making stupid demands of us, they know we are bound by other oaths before their "realization".
 
Tasoli said:
And I could be argued down to being headmaster to Library-research center* combination we are gong to build in K8P.

*Which is just an University isn't it?
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There is no reason why the hypothetical Great Library and hypothetical research institution need to be combined. There are obvious means by which they can collaborate and have synergy (research institute needs books, publications wind up in the library), but they don't need to be part of the same administrative apparatus, and I don't see a particularly good reason for Mathilde to be in charge of a library on a day-to-day level the way I see a really good reason for Mathilde to be running a research institute (i.e. dedicated research AP, it's so beautiful, I might cry, they should have sent a poet).

That said, assuming both of these things do in fact happen, what I expect in the long run is that eventually something that our modern eyes would recognize as a university will grow up around the Library, because when you have a giant repository of knowledge you get a community of scholars just as sure as getting ants when you have a giant pile of sugar, and that community of scholars will probably cross-pollinate with the research institute. But that's 1) a long-run sort of thing that assumes that K8P survives for decades more 2) not something Mathilde needs to take specific action to make happen.

(@Glau has written a lovely set of omakes that take place in the future where this has happened, which you can find under the Apocrypha heading.)
 
Yeah more than the research institute I want to do the Karak eight peaks university. and an arm of the collegue.
 
kingreaper said:
It's technically conceivable that the elementalists unknowingly, subconsciously, use the Eight Winds in extremely complicated and precise ways that no human who actually knows the Eight Winds model can do while consciously manipulating the Four Elements. But that would mean that they're better at using the Eight Winds because they don't know about those winds. Which seems incredibly counterintuitive.
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Virtually all human use of magic is that, as untrained people with the talent unconsciously shape multiple Winds at once based on what they're thinking and feeling in their moment of need that drives them to perform the magic. Using multiple Winds at once like this just drives you mad and tends to produce lots of miscasts.

Omegahugger said:
Honestly, I would be more worried if a high-ranking Magister didn't care about what a Lord Magister from what is essentially the College's equivalent to Witch Hunters thinks about them.

Since that implies a lot of confidence in their ability to take whatever we could throw at them.

EDIT: Like, this very update we had the power to singlehandedly end the career of one of Egrimm's Apprentices.
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Egrimm actually comes from the Colleges' closest equivilent to the Witchhunters, I believe.
 
Alratan said:
Virtually all human use of magic is that, as untrained people with the talent unconsciously shape multiple Winds at once based on what they're thinking and feeling in their moment of need that drives them to perform the magic. Using multiple Winds at once like this just drives you mad and tends to produce lots of miscasts.
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Yes but the thing is the Elementalists are not insane. Even if the are suffering the effects it's obviously at a far lesser rate that the average hedge mage (term broadly used). So the question is how do they do it?
 
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Alratan said:
Virtually all human use of magic is that, as untrained people with the talent unconsciously shape multiple Winds at once based on what they're thinking and feeling in their moment of need that drives them to perform the magic. Using multiple Winds at once like this just drives you mad and tends to produce lots of miscasts.
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And using the four elements doesn't drive you mad or produce lots of miscasts. It's perfectly plausible for someone with no idea what they're doing to do worse than someone who knows - but for elementalists to be able to use their magic in the form of using multiple winds per element, without understanding anything about the winds and without going insane just doesn't fit with how much trouble it is to use even two winds without making Dhar.

It makes far more sense to believe that there's something to their Four Elements conception, and that they're not simply weaving the Eight Winds together in impossibly complex ways that Mathilde can't even conceive of without producing Dhar. (And without needing to know what those winds are so that they can avoid mixing them, as the Eight Winds model of Sevir would insist they should)
 
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IronFist said:
Edit: And to address the Johann part, we trust each other, and know enough of each other's secrets that we could probably just ask him outright what his mission is, and have a decent chance of getting a straight answer. He dropped whatever his new project was to follow us to the Wastes. There's a high degree of loyalty in that, same as with Max.
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He doesn't have a mission or a new project. That's rather the problem. With the skaven artifacts out of the way, there's nothing for him in K8P other than to be Mathilde's Hench4Life, and he's trying to figure out what to do next. A Magister of his talents could go many places and do many things, but he has to decide what he wants to do. The Expedition wasn't him dropping that, it was him using it to put off a decision.
 
Shinji117 said:
The "actually a dwarf" thing is bad to me because it just discards the possibility that human-Mathilde could accomplish significant things and instead just tries to effectively explain her accomplishments by going "actually, you were one of us all along, which is why you could do X" (when no, it's almost certainly just that humans can just sometimes do things that Dwarfs can't even if, for some Dwarfs, admitting that they are aren't just overall superior to those shoddy humans would be like eating their own beard)
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That's why I hate that « Mathilde was secretly a Dwarf all along » thing. It implies a human could never have done what she did, that only Dwarfs could (with the subtext « because they are inherently superior »). That attitude looks awfully like that of the Asur, who think humans are basically children.

Maybe there's another reason for the Dwarfs to have done that, and I'm ready to be convinced it was done for another reason, but it doesn't look good.
 
K von Carstein said:
That's why I hate that « Mathilde was secretly a Dwarf all along » thing. It implies a human could never have done what she did, that only Dwarfs could (with the subtext « because they are inherently superior »). That attitude looks awfully like that of the Asur, who think humans are basically children.

Maybe there's another reason for the Dwarfs to have done that, and I'm ready to be convinced it was done for another reason, but it doesn't look good.
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I mean, if the Asur tried to take (theological?) credit for Mathilde's accomplishment if she got Tongs working and showed them I would bet the reaction in the thread would be a little different.
 
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K von Carstein said:
That's why I hate that « Mathilde was secretly a Dwarf all along » thing. It implies a human could never have done what she did, that only Dwarfs could (with the subtext « because they are inherently superior »). That attitude looks awfully like that of the Asur, who think humans are basically children.

Maybe there's another reason for the Dwarfs to have done that, and I'm ready to be convinced it was done for another reason, but it doesn't look good.
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The Dwarf word for human literally means Shoddy. Yes Dwarves are every bit as arrogant about their superiority to humanity as the Elves are. The Dwarves are just more quiet about it.
 
K von Carstein said:
That's why I hate that « Mathilde was secretly a Dwarf all along » thing. It implies a human could never have done what she did, that only Dwarfs could (with the subtext « because they are inherently superior »). That attitude looks awfully like that of the Asur, who think humans are basically children.

Maybe there's another reason for the Dwarfs to have done that, and I'm ready to be convinced it was done for another reason, but it doesn't look good.
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It's a good reminder that the Dwarfs aren't the perfect paragons of goodness that a good portion of this quest and others likes to view them as.
 
Can we please avoid another argument about how the thread views Elves and Dwarfs?

Somehow I think the last couple times went through everything thoroughly enough...
 
A reminder that Teclisian magical theory explains almost all of the magic in warhammer either directly or indirectly. The major exception is divine magic which high elves don't seem to have for some reason. Elementalism is one of the only things it doesn't explain and that has more to do with the fact that it is a remnant of 1st edition than anything else. While there will be some in universe explanation I suspect it will fit under the wind based worldview along with almost everything else. The idea that they have a miracle solution that isn't wind based just seems unreasonable.
 
Shinji117 said:
I mean, if the Asur tried to take (theological?) credit for Mathilde's accomplishment if she got Tongs working and showed them I would bet the reaction in the thread would be a little different.
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And they would have even more ground for it, even if it would still be completely ridiculous and unacceptable. After all, who taught magic to humans?
 
kingreaper said:
And using the four elements doesn't drive you mad or produce lots of miscasts. It's perfectly plausible for someone with no idea what they're doing to do worse than someone who knows - but for elementalists to be able to use their magic in the form of using multiple winds per element, without understanding anything about the winds and without going insane just doesn't fit with how much trouble it is to use even two winds without making Dhar.

It makes far more sense to believe that there's something to their Four Elements conception, and that they're not simply weaving the Eight Winds together in impossibly complex ways that Mathilde can't even conceive of without producing Dhar. (And without needing to know what those winds are so that they can avoid mixing them, as the Eight Winds model of Sevir would insist they should)
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Given that magic in the setting appears highly shaped by the individual, it doesn't seem impossible that it works as 8 winds for Mathilde because she was taught to perceive it that way, and people who were taught 4 elements have it work that way, too....
 
Ithuriel said:
A reminder that Teclisian magical theory explains almost all of the magic in warhammer either directly or indirectly. The major exception is divine magic which high elves don't seem to have for some reason. Elementalism is one of the only things it doesn't explain and that has more to do with the fact that it is a remnant of 1st edition than anything else. While there will be some in universe explanation I suspect it will fit under the wind based worldview along with almost everything else. The idea that they have a miracle solution that isn't wind based just seems unreasonable.
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Teclisian magic explains divine magic just fine, just as it explains Chaos Gifts, you made a deal with and Aetheric being and now it is mutating you to its liking and advancing its interests through you.
 
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Briefvoice said:
He doesn't have a mission or a new project. That's rather the problem. With the skaven artifacts out of the way, there's nothing for him in K8P other than to be Mathilde's Hench4Life, and he's trying to figure out what to do next. A Magister of his talents could go many places and do many things, but he has to decide what he wants to do. The Expedition wasn't him dropping that, it was him using it to put off a decision.
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Huh. I thought he'd gotten a new assignment
 
Ithuriel said:
A reminder that Teclisian magical theory explains almost all of the magic in warhammer either directly or indirectly. The major exception is divine magic which high elves don't seem to have for some reason.
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Divine Magic, Waaagh magic, Rune Magic, Kislevian Ice Witches, Bretonnian Damsels, Elementalists: it explains everything other than most of the magic that isn't high elves or imperial magic.
 
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NotQuiteLurker said:
Given that magic in the setting appears highly shaped by the individual, it doesn't seem impossible that it works as 8 winds for Mathilde because she was taught to perceive it that way, and people who were taught 4 elements have it work that way, too....
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And yet the Slann mage priests who could break gods over their knee use the eight winds. Also if you look up over the steppes you will see eight winds, not only if you are a College trained mage but even if you are a kurgan shaman who had never heard if Ulthuan. It can't all be subjective, it is at once too glib and explains too little.
 
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