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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Yeah, I do at least think Caledor II would probably oppose an enemy invasion. He has at least that over Dieter IV.
 
For the sake of fairness, the closest Dwarven equivalent to Dieter IV or Caledor II seems to be High King Logan Proudbeard, who was captured alive by the Waaagh of Ugrok Beardburner and held captive for a year before being rescued. The timeline is too vague to be sure but it also looks like he was reigning during the fall of Karak Eight Peaks, Karak Izril, and Karak Drazh, and there's no mention of any Karaz-a-Karak contribution to their defences.
 
BoneyM said:
The Dwarves besieged Tor Alessi fourteen times and only succeeded once: when the defence was commanded by Caledor II.
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There's some interesting inconsistencies with this in the wikis. I've seen a source claim that Caledor only fought in the war personally for one year, and I've seen a source claim that he fought virtually from the beginning. I don't have access to any of the relevant books though. So I'm unsure which is true.
 
Some of the recentish discussion made me think further about the Rune of Eternity and the Karak-Waystones. With the Rune of Eternity, there's not really a lot to go on in canon, but if you focus on just quest canon then we know it seems to function as an interface for the energy network of the Karaz Ankor. I'm going to assume that the Karak-Waystones send the excess energy they don't immediately use to power their various Runes, and once it arrives a KaK the RoE does its calculations and sends it to where it is needed.

Perhaps one of those is eventually the dwarves themselves via the Rune of Valaya?

It could be the Rune of Valaya protects the Karak it is placed on as a whole, but the Rites every dwarf goes through upon birth ties them to the nearest Rune as well. For a substantial amount of dwarves, that would be the nearest Grey or Black Mountain Karaks and we know they only receive energy. If you then take the example of Bok and the runes engraved on its soul equivalent, it is possible that the Rites are a way of doing this to each dwarf soul as well, except its just the Rune of Valaya. It would make a certain amount of sense then if the Karak Rune of Valaya sends the energy it receives onwards, to every dwarf that has had the Rites performed and is within its range, to power their soul rune. Combine that with the power loss from being transmitted long distances and I imagine a ton of inefficiencies in the network that have been accumulating over the millenia from lack of maintenance. In this situation, I wouldn't be surprised if the power draw by the Young Holds was around half the total even if they only account for a third of the dwarf population, including the Imperial and other dwarves.

Of course, this is pure speculation based on several assumptions, so make of it what you will, I guess.
 
BoneyM said:
The spiders all lack any mechanism to create or detect noise far outside the human-detectable spectrum, indicating that their means of inter-We communication is likely to be magical.
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BoneyM said:
We call home, where a Web-Weaver carried in your arms rejoins the oversoul of the We but remains unmoving, as per the last set of instructions it received before leaving in the first place.

So, sound. Perhaps higher pitched than you can hear, perhaps lower, it doesn't matter terribly much.
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Was this discrepancy ever addressed? was Johann just pretending to know anatomy? he was just pretending to know anatomy wasn't he?
 
das_slash said:
Was this discrepancy ever addressed? was Johann just pretending to know anatomy? he was just pretending to know anatomy wasn't he?
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He looked for ears and arrived at the correct answer that the spiders possessed none. That their hairs are able to detect vibrations well enough to function as hearing isn't all that easy to figure out, up until very recently it was generally thought that spiders were deaf to all but very loud and very close sounds, and it wasn't until they started messing around with electrodes in spider brains in 2016 that they discovered otherwise.
 
BoneyM said:
He looked for ears and arrived at the correct answer that the spiders possessed none. That their hairs are able to detect vibrations well enough to function as hearing isn't all that easy to figure out, up until very recently it was generally thought that spiders were deaf to all but very loud and very close sounds, and it wasn't until they started messing around with electrodes in spider brains in 2016 that they discovered otherwise.
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The rabbit holes one can go down for a character to be appropriately and scientifically wrong in an investigation for a quest is truly staggering
 
Sir_Travelsalot said:
Bad as it was, the War of Vengeance didn't almost destroy the Vortex. Seeing as how that's an automatic lose condition for anything on Mallus that isn't Chaos, yes, I am seriously comparing it.
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This feels like it's rather missing the point that the contexts were rather drastically different between the two events, as the Karaz Ankor and Ulthuan were both vastly weaker than they were during the War of Vengeance. You know. In large part because of the War of Vengeance. That's the thing; when you permanently gut the strength of your own realm and the strength of the other greatest order faction in the Old World, you get to share the responsibility for every single bad thing that happens because they weren't strong enough to stop it thereafter. Could the Karaz Ankor have weathered the Time of Woes far better if not for the terrible losses taken in the War of Vengeance? Undoubtedly. Would Malekith even still be alive, much less an ongoing threat to everybody, if Caledor II had asked the Karaz Ankor for help rather than pointlessly antagonizing it? I'm very dubious. And you can carry on like that through every other calamity that followed without Ulthuan or the Karaz Ankor having the strength to stop it, up to and very much including the rampage of Grom the Paunch and everything that was a part of it.

The reign of Dieter IV was a disaster for one generation (including the elves and dwarves), and an encumbrance on the Empire thereafter, though to progressively lessening degrees as humans bounce back far faster. The reign of Caledor II is a disaster for everyone forever.
 
Fayhem said:
This feels like it's rather missing the point that the contexts were rather drastically different between the two events, as the Karaz Ankor and Ulthuan were both vastly weaker than they were during the War of Vengeance. You know. In large part because of the War of Vengeance. That's the thing; when you permanently gut the strength of your own realm and the strength of the other greatest order faction in the Old World, you get to share the responsibility for every single bad thing that happens because they weren't strong enough to stop it thereafter. Could the Karaz Ankor have weathered the Time of Woes far better if not for the terrible losses taken in the War of Vengeance? Undoubtedly. Would Malekith even still be alive, much less an ongoing threat to everybody, if Caledor II had asked the Karaz Ankor for help rather than pointlessly antagonizing it? I'm very dubious. And you can carry on like that through every other calamity that followed without Ulthuan or the Karaz Ankor having the strength to stop it, up to and very much including the rampage of Grom the Paunch and everything that was a part of it.

The reign of Dieter IV was a disaster for one generation (including the elves and dwarves), and an encumbrance on the Empire thereafter, though to progressively lessening degrees as humans bounce back far faster. The reign of Caledor II is a disaster for everyone forever.
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Something i should feel note worthy to add to how shit Caledor's reighn was with word of boney of what could have been except wasn't because of Caledor II bullshit.
BoneyM said:
If Ulthuan had explained that distinction, the Golden Age could have featured a united Ulthuani and Dwarven fleet stamping out the upstart insurrectionists of Naggaroth. But that would have been a mildly uncomfortable conversation for the Phoenix King, and we can't have that.
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Elves and dwarves possibly teaming up to fuck over the new druchi while they were young and not terrorizing the world would have been a very different world for Warhammer fantasy if that came to be if Celedor could of actually talk shit with the dorfs.

Perhaps the Elves could have been their for the dwarves in the time of Woes when the Slann decided to re - arrange the underground stuff but they weren't because of the war of the beard and we all know how that went.

Either way I think it's undeniable that Caledor's actions are perhaps caused the most shit to the setting and contributed to much of the forces of darkness existing today, mainly the druchi's reign of terror led my Malekith across the world much to the pain to all civilized races, The Dwarves and elves large decline which possibly could have been stopped to some degree and when i talk of decline for the elves i mean the fact their homeland is filled with ghost cities and largely underpopulated compared to day's past, and the lost of how to make new waystones to keep forth the forces of chaos from mulching the setting into it's new toy before they get bored.

Probably forgetting a few other things but yeah he has caused a lot of shit for the setting today although perhaps for the best to give way to man's rise, the empire but time will tell on that part if they ever reach a golden age.
 
BoneyM said:
For the sake of fairness, the closest Dwarven equivalent to Dieter IV or Caledor II seems to be High King Logan Proudbeard, who was captured alive by the Waaagh of Ugrok Beardburner and held captive for a year before being rescued. The timeline is too vague to be sure but it also looks like he was reigning during the fall of Karak Eight Peaks, Karak Izril, and Karak Drazh, and there's no mention of any Karaz-a-Karak contribution to their defences.
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What do Orcs, like, want or do with a captive Dwarven High King?
 
If we want to talk about rulers getting blamed for the weakening of their realm after their rule, the worst emperor is clearly Mandred Skavenslayer, because his rule ended with a thousand years of civil war :V

And really, Dieter IV inspired all future Emperors to greater heights, so he must've been a pretty good one.
 
Raydom said:
Perhaps the Elves could have been their for the dwarves in the time of Woes when the Slann decided to re - arrange the underground stuff but they weren't because of the war of the beard and we all know how that went.
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I was tempted to jump in and defend Caledor before reading that he truly did just make a near endless series of bad decisions which ultimately led to his death. But also it's probably not worth getting super worked up about a could have been. Both the dwarves and elves were huge, powerful, and supernaturally proud kingdoms who were increasingly encroaching on land each considered their own. From Rome and Persia, to Britian and France, even the USA and USSR. We know how that song and dance ends. Maybe they could have had a few more centuries of wealth and plenty. But I think its far more likely an elven phoenix king would take advantage of the time of woes rather than stretch out their hand to help.
 
We should also remember the relative power and influence of Karaz Ankor and Ulthuan at their peak, and empire at its peak.
The ability for random emperor to fuck things up just is nowhere near what High King or Pheonix King has even today, let alone when their nations were at the height of their power.
 
Both sides would've recovered from the War of the Beard just fine, as they both had their core territories remain virtually unscathed by the war, if they both weren't constantly hit by later events starting just after the war that did hit their core territories. The Dwarfs had the Time of Woe cripple them, and the High Elves were worn down by millennia of war with the Dark Elves.
 
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