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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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All this talk about cults makes me wonder if Mathilde's next project could be hunting down Order heretics and defending smaller godlings like Fenn or perhaps Lupus.

If the major gods like Ulric are worshipped polytheistically; does that mean when integrating let say Lupus the Wolf into Ulric the Wolf. That there is a smaller gain overall for Order?

This could be something to explore and if able to write a paper on it might change the empire to be more polytheistic. 😅

Im thinking if worship works kindof like a pyramid, then worshipping multitudes would give a strong base but concentration on one would elevate the god above others though more precariously... /Random mushings.
 
Fehu said:
All this talk about cults makes me wonder if Mathilde's next project could be hunting down Order heretics and defending smaller godlings like Fenn or perhaps Lupus.

If the major gods like Ulric are worshipped polytheistically; does that mean when integrating let say Lupus the Wolf into Ulric the Wolf. That there is a smaller gain overall for Order?

This could be something to explore and if able to write a paper on it might change the empire to be more polytheistic. 😅

Im thinking if worship works kindof like a pyramid, then worshipping multitudes would give a strong base but concentration on one would elevate the god above others though more precariously... /Random mushings.
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Hmmm... is it possible that, while the gods are indivinduals with preferences, each major god is actually multiple smaller gods in a trenchcoat?

This would actually explain a lot of the contradictions and mysteries in the setting, if each "god" was actually multiple smaller gods that decided to form a company for franchising purposes.
 
Ithuriel said:
Time doesn't really fit evenly under any of the winds because most of the colleges end up brushing against time-shenanigans.

Ulgu has wibbly-wobbly timey wimey stuff like Melkoth
Shyish has a lot on enthropy and the forward flow of time.
Ghyran is big on cyclical time like the seasons.
Azyr of course flows into the future and can be used to read it.
Hysh messes with space and time somewhat and has their whole gotta go fast thing.
Chamon can be used to look backwards in time even though it's very constrained.

Most winds can mess with time a bit but if you want anything to really mess with time you probably need High Magic.

TLDR: All the time traveling apprentices coming to kill us will be elves.
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It looks like they're really just messing with time as an extension of their themes.
 
I heard a rumour that a heretic branch of the cult of Verena has infected Marienburg, engaging in behaviour like burning books, consorting with chaos and introducing typos.

Furthermore, I consider that Marienburg must be destroyed
 
das_slash said:
I heard a rumour that a heretic branch of the cult of Verena has infected Marienburg, engaging in behaviour like burning books, consorting with chaos and introducing typos.
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Jokes aside, I do not think even uber heretical Verenans would burn books.

Some nonheretical Verenans may burn books that are infohazards (see the nine tomes of Nagash) , but chaos consorting ones would have no reason to.
 
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Jyn Ryvia said:
Lady of the Lake: the main argument is if she is the goddess of Bretonnia, and so should be worshipped by all, or the goddess of nobility and chivalry, and so be restricted to the knights and nobles.
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I struggle to see how this can be an argument in-universe.
The Lady of the Lake is, by far, the most active and responsive god on the planet. Unless she is deliberately trolling people (which seems directly opposed to her portfolio) I can't see how a definitive answer wasn't reached long ago.
 
storryeater said:
Jokes aside, I do not think even uber heretical Verenans would burn books.

Some nonheretical Verenans may burn books that are infohazards (see the nine tomes of Nagash) , but chaos consorting ones would have no reason to.
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Never underestimate what people can mentally justify to themselves. Here's a few possible options:
  • Books are expensive, which is an unfair advantage for the rich, and so knowledge should not be kept in books, and books should be removed.
  • True knowledge is that which is understood. Books cannot understand, so only humans can have true knowledge, the transmission of knowledge should be from man to man, and books lead people from the path of true knowledge, so they must be removed.
  • Any book that contains falsehood should be destroyed, as falsehood is the opposite of knowledge. Depending on how strict you are about falsehood, that means any book. (And incidentally, it's a short hop from removing books for falsehood to removing people for the same)
 
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BurnNote said:
  • True knowledge is that which is understood. Books cannot understand, so only humans can have true knowledge, the transmission of knowledge should be from man to man, and books lead people from the path of true knowledge, so they must be removed.
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I'm pretty sure that's an actual ancient greek philosophy about that: that only oral tradition could pass on true knowledge because only a thinking person could critically think about the value of what they pass on, while a scroll would pass on knowledge regardless of its value.

thank god they lost that debate.
 
Angelform said:
I struggle to see how this can be an argument in-universe.
The Lady of the Lake is, by far, the most active and responsive god on the planet. Unless she is deliberately trolling people (which seems directly opposed to her portfolio) I can't see how a definitive answer wasn't reached long ago.
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Yeah, the Fey Enchantress would just have to say her opinion on the matter at court and boom! Everyone is on the same page.
 
Angelform said:
I struggle to see how this can be an argument in-universe.
The Lady of the Lake is, by far, the most active and responsive god on the planet. Unless she is deliberately trolling people (which seems directly opposed to her portfolio) I can't see how a definitive answer wasn't reached long ago.
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Nitpick, but I think the chaos gods (including HR and Hashut) are more , or at least equally active.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
I'm pretty sure that's an actual ancient greek philosophy about that: that only oral tradition could pass on true knowledge because only a thinking person could critically think about the value of what they pass on, while a scroll would pass on knowledge regardless of its value.

thank god they lost that debate.
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Socrates was against writing, because then people would be unable to remember things properly.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
because that how religious politics work!
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The Fey Enchantress is directly chosen by the Lady. When the head of your religion can casually ask her goddess what's the right option about a theological debate, it tend to be pretty convincing. There's also the fact that every Grail Knight has spoken to the Lady, including the king. I find unlikely that in 1500 years not one of them thought to ask about the subject.

When your god interact regularly with his followers, that let much less room for theological debate.
 
I suspect the whole "Lady, for everyone or only nobility" thing is just writers being stupid.
Either lack of research on writers and lazyness on editors part, or nobody actually taking 5 seconds to think about how interventionist and quite chatty god would influence the theology of their religion.
 
storryeater said:
Nitpick, but I think the chaos gods (including HR and Hashut) are more , or at least equally active.
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Not within the physical world at least.

Every knight of Bretonnia can call upon the Blessing Of The Lady, a tangible manifestation of power. Every Grail Knight has encountered the Lady in person. At least a significant proportion of Questing Knights get direct (if heavily stylised) communication from the Lady on a regular basis. Every Damsel-to-be is taken into the Lady's realm for tuition.

The Chaos gods ignore the overwhelming majority of their followers.
 
It's quite possible that when different Grail Knights ask the question, they get different answers, depending on what your take on Warhammer gods is.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
I'm pretty sure that's an actual ancient greek philosophy about that: that only oral tradition could pass on true knowledge because only a thinking person could critically think about the value of what they pass on, while a scroll would pass on knowledge regardless of its value.

thank god they lost that debate.
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How do we know they lost the debate though? Maybe it's like antinatalists, even if they won the debate on the merits the losers would be the ones writing history anyway. 🤔

K von Carstein said:
Yeah, the Fey Enchantress would just have to say her opinion on the matter at court and boom! Everyone is on the same page.
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Valmond said:
I suspect the whole "Lady, for everyone or only nobility" thing is just writers being stupid.
Either lack of research on writers and lazyness on editors part, or nobody actually taking 5 seconds to think about how interventionist and quite chatty god would influence the theology of their religion.
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Are you familiar with the phrase "If only the Tsar knew" ? Attributed to Russian serfs suffering under the depredations of cossacks, nobles and other middle management - surely there's a reasonable man at the top of the system, he could come in and solve our problems!
The Tsar being an interventionist and chatty man did not solve the problems, and did not stop the serfs thinking that the Tsar was capable of solving their problems. If only he weren't being misled by his evil vizier and the deceitful court. If only someone could get a message to him. If only he knew what the boyars are doing. If only...
 
Exmorri said:
How do we know they lost the debate though? Maybe it's like antinatalists, even if they won the debate on the merits the losers would be the ones writing history anyway. 🤔


Are you familiar with the phrase "If only the Tsar knew" ? Attributed to Russian serfs suffering under the depredations of cossacks, nobles and other middle management - surely there's a reasonable man at the top of the system, he could come in and solve our problems!
The Tsar being an interventionist and chatty man did not solve the problems, and did not stop the serfs thinking that the Tsar was capable of solving their problems. If only he weren't being misled by his evil vizier and the deceitful court. If only someone could get a message to him. If only he knew what the boyars are doing. If only...
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Then again the Tsar was never a god. If the lady wanted to force Bretonians to do anything she could simply by making respecting hr will a condition of getting the Lady's Blessing or the aid of Damsels.
 
I don't know, personally, I think even divine intervention couldn't get people to stop arguing about what a thing means and whatever.
 
Mopman43 said:
I don't know, personally, I think even divine intervention couldn't get people to stop arguing about what a thing means and whatever.
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Didn't Magnus wrangle the Ulrican's accusing him of being chaos in disguise by litteretly yeeting himself into the flame of Ulric and surviving and they took it as a sign he wasn't chaos and followed him and Ulric didn't come down himself to slap the Ulricans for their bullshit?

Either way i do agree with you it doesn't solve every disagreement considering the peasent rebelions in Brettonia but it does work from time to time.
 
Raydom said:
Didn't Magnus wrangle the Ulrican's accusing him of being chaos in disguise by litteretly yeeting himself into the flame of Ulric and surviving and they took it as a sign he wasn't chaos and followed him and Ulric didn't come down himself to slap the Ulricans for their bullshit?

Either way i do agree with you it doesn't solve every disagreement considering the peasent rebelions in Brettonia but it does work from time to time.
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And I can guarantee you there's some group of crazies that are convinced it was faked somehow.
 
Valmond said:
I suspect the whole "Lady, for everyone or only nobility" thing is just writers being stupid.
Either lack of research on writers and lazyness on editors part, or nobody actually taking 5 seconds to think about how interventionist and quite chatty god would influence the theology of their religion.
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I'm not sure it's so simple.

If the Lady does listen to peasants, then it's in the interest of knights to downplay that, so they can keep power and authority for themselves (the role of a knight would be a little like a saint in catholicism: Not a source of miracles themselves, but an intercessor to the higher power that can grant them). It wouldn't even be hard, since the lady does give nobles more regard, so it's fundamentally true.

On the other hand, say the lady doesn't listen to peasants. Ok, great, now who's a peasant? If it goes purely by blood, then by now pretty much every peasant will have some noble blood somewhere in his tree. Maybe you need a minimum amount of noble blood? Then bastards of the first generation would still qualify (or there'd be some knights that can't get a blessing because their mother didn't care for her husband, and you'd risk a slow extinction because the "impure" heritance accumulates). And what about peasants raised to nobility? That happens, if rarely. And what about foreign nobility?
Now, the lady could have some system of assigning noble status that works and handles the various edge cases, maybe with some sort of magic, but it would be hard to impossible to communicate. And I don't think prayer visions are useful for technical discussions. The answer they'd get if asked would probably amount to "divine wisdom"

Really, I think the lady answers the prayers of knights. By default, nobleborns get to be knights, and peasants have to do some impressive shit to qualify (possibly in the presence of either a knight or damsel). But that rule is also a matter of case-by-case, so it also amounts to "divine wisdom".

All that is leaving aside the issue that warhammer gods may not have a single mind/opinion on any given topic. Even a deity who has a clear opinion might not find it that easy to communicate it.
 
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While depictions of Bretonnia vary, it seems more likely to me that peasants are allowed to worship the lady than not. There are stellar examples like Repanse, but also in the fact that Grail Knights see it as their duty to preach in out of the way locations that wouldn't draw many nobles consistently and how they tolerate peasants following them on miniature pilgrimages. There's also the fact that enough Peasants are familiar with the Lady that there are splinter cults that claim the Lady is a servant of Shallaya. (Ironically the main evidence these splinter cults use is that the Grail Knights and Damsels are much kinder than the typical noble toward peasants. At the same time, the Grail Knights and Damsels are the most enthusiastic about supressing such splinters.)
 
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