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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Shard said:
The fact that it has magic?
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I am using this post to jump off and say something, not to attack you, but...

It always seemed curious to me that magic was used to justify any and all deviations from reality a story had. I feel like that is unfair. People do not complain about a story being unrealistic because it isn't real, they complain about its logical consistency : magic explains what magic explains and is in turn explained by the (meta)physics of the created universe, what magic does not explain is not explained by magic and thus lacks explanation if it is unrealistic.

Granted, that doesn't mean every unrealistic thing that doesn't get explained by magic has to be squashed or the story is bad. Some, like people stuttering or uhhing or pausing or forgetting what they were talking about or meandering get omitted to make writing more concise, only reapplied per exception to show something about the character or the scene or to make a joke. Other stuff may be too irrelevant or troublesome for the story told, and would add too little or even make it less fun if added, and so they are omitted for good reasons. Some stories, like some comedies, require a degree of such deviation to function. And at a certain point, you'll need an entire team of experts to write what you want to write about, so some stuff are skipped because scrutinizing everything is insane, too much work and not beneficial to the story in any extent comparative to the workhours and expertise put in. There is a term for all of this, artistic license, and its hella valid, not every work has to be perfectly realistic except for what is explained, in fact, very, very, very few are, even gritty realism stories often cannot be, as at the very least dialogue is prettied up.

What I am, however, trying to say is just that... the reason isn't and shouldn't be "its magic", because that is irrelevant to the reason people seek explanation (logical consistency, which magic often does have in fantasy, not a 1:1 recreation of our world). Magic doesn't break suspension of disbelief because everything is explained, or at least presented as a meaningful mystery, if that makes sense.
 
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storryeater said:
I am using this post to jump off and say something, not to attack you, but...

It always seemed curious to me that magic was used to justify any and all deviations from reality a story had. I feel like that is unfair. People do not complain about a story being unrealistic because it isn't real, they complain about its logical consistency : magic explains what magic explains and is in turn explained by the (meta)physics of the created universe, what magic does not explain is not explained by magic and thus lacks explanation if it is unrealistic.

Granted, that doesn't mean every unrealistic thing that doesn't get explained by magic has to be squashed or the story is bad. Some, like people stuttering or uhhing or pausing or forgetting what they were talking about or meandering get omitted to make writing more concise, only reapplied per exception to show something about the character or the scene or to make a joke. Other stuff may be too irrelevant or troublesome for the story told, and would add too little or even make it less fun if added, and so they are omitted for good reasons. Some stories, like some comedies, require a degree of such deviation to function. And at a certain point, you'll need an entire team of experts to write what you want to write about, so some stuff are skipped because scrutinizing everything is insane, too much work and not beneficial to the story in any extent comparative to the workhours and expertise put in. There is a term for all of this, artistic license, and its hella valid, not every work has to be perfectly realistic except for what is explained, in fact, very, very, very few are, even gritty realism stories often cannot be, as at the very least dialogue is prettied up.

What I am, however, trying to say is just that... the reason isn't and shouldn't be "its magic", because that is irrelevant to the reason people seek explanation (logical consistency, which magic often does have in fantasy, not a 1:1 recreation of our world). Magic doesn't break suspension of disbelief because everything is explained, or at least presented as a meaningful mystery, if that makes sense.
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It's not just magic, it's the existence of long-lived people as well as giant daemonic enemies, the ability of WHF humans to survive physiological and psychology damage that would kill or drive insane an IRL human. The deathworld nature of the setting.. when making a discussion on culture one needs to consider the emergent nature of culture. Culture does not exist in a vacuum.. assuming the growth of, for example, languages in WHF would parallel reality is silly when there are so many factors in WHF affecting the development of language. Like magic.

You pretty much have to work from the ground-up for everything we take for granted. How does science work when magic can literally reverse cause and effect and also regularly does so? What does religion even look like when gods grant real and tangible rewards and cause true magical effects in reality? How does that work with wizards who can by definition do magic and perform miraculous acts? How does this proliferation of relative 'lol' at reality affect people's willingness to cling to their beliefs..?

Ask one seemingly simple question in the context of a setting, and you quickly realize that the answer might take weeks to articulate.
 
Shard said:
It's not just magic, it's the existence of long-lived people as well as giant daemonic enemies, the ability of WHF humans to survive physiological and psychology damage that would kill or drive insane an IRL human. The deathworld nature of the setting.. when making a discussion on culture one needs to consider the emergent nature of culture. Culture does not exist in a vacuum.. assuming the growth of, for example, languages in WHF would parallel reality is silly when there are so many factors in WHF affecting the development of language. Like magic.

You pretty much have to work from the ground-up for everything we take for granted. How does science work when magic can literally reverse cause and effect and also regularly does so? What does religion even look like when gods grant real and tangible rewards and cause true magical effects in reality? How does that work with wizards who can by definition do magic and perform miraculous acts? How does this proliferation of relative 'lol' at reality affect people's willingness to cling to their beliefs..?

Ask one seemingly simple question in the context of a setting, and you quickly realize that the answer might take weeks to articulate.
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I agree with that, thus my whole second paragraph. I am just clarifying that its not why the questions gets asked.
 
It's a bit like China - even though there was sometimes hundreds of years between dynasties, and not all the successor states even wanted to reunify China, the idea of a reunited China did still exist and people pulled off reunification several times with hundred+ year gaps.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
I mean, if you look at history that way, the EU would have been impossible.

Luckily (in this case) humans have short attentions.
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The EU is not united in that way.
nothingtoseehere said:
It's a bit like China - even though there was sometimes hundreds of years between dynasties, and not all the successor states even wanted to reunify China, the idea of a reunited China did still exist and people pulled off reunification several times with hundred+ year gaps.
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My impression of Chinese history is that those generally happened as a result of one of the successor states conquering the others at spearpoint and forcibly imposing one guy's claim, whereas Magnus the Pious managed to mostly talk every partial ruler into laying down their competing claims and accept him as Emperor despite their de facto independence of centuries.
 
Exmorri said:
Magnus the Pious managed to mostly talk every partial ruler into laying down their competing claims and accept him as Emperor despite their de facto independence of centuries.
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When you have A) Enemy coming to kill you and B) The Gods coming down and basically saying follow this guy, it tends to help.

I'm also waiting for Warhammer lore for Cathay. "Average Evil Guy (named Aeg) worshipping Tzeen started a civil war. *Insert population of Empire + Bretonnia* died in this war."
 
So, minors details in the world to nitpick for fun.
BoneyM said:
"Olorin retired back when I was an Apprentice. Algard is the current Magister Patriarch."
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What does retiring look likes for Lord Magisters?
We know Alric went back to LM duties after his ignoble handling of supreme patrich and he might started sharing the title(or at least the responsibilities) of Patriarch of the light order with some scary gal called Mira.
And mister not!gandalf wasn't part of the circle of LM to welcome Mathilde into their ranks.

So...?
Did he really retire and smoke his pipe and harasses good upstanding halfings in the not!shire?
Does he still work to expand the greys understanding of magic in the background as a sort of half retirement?
Did he handed off his Patrich responsibility and went to a secret mission under the cover of retirement?
Do we have some sort of 'Patriarchs never die' after this one MIA too many?

Personal theory is he went to a retirement from active duty in the order to study Ulgu and all the other curios mysteries that his long career had given him, and might do some one off assignment to the Greys once in a while when they need his skills, or maybe he took a duty of long vigil that does not require that much effort that he can both serve the order and have his lay off time.

It's just that I don't see someone who live for a bloody long time(giving he went into retirement) and mastered Ulgu to such extend to really ever stop studying it in one form or another, and I also don't believe that any grey with enough personal responsibility to take the mantle of Magister Patriarch to completely fob of his service to the Empire.

Basically what I say is that we need this action in the next social turn.
[jk] Find Olorin in the Moot and ask him what is the best substance to smoke with a dragonbone pipe.

Edit: crap, Mathilde doesn't have a dragonbone pipe does she? mixed her up with the other shadowmancer MC I'm following.
Through giving her chair, staff and pauldrons, that is only a matter of time until she get a kickass dragonbone pipe.
 
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seekingflame said:
So, minors details in the world to nitpick for fun.

What does retiring look likes for Lord Magisters?
We know Alric went back to LM duties after his ignoble handling of supreme patrich and he might started sharing the title(or at least the responsibilities) of Patriarch of the light order with some scary gal called Mira.
And mister not!gandalf wasn't part of the circle of LM to welcome Mathilde into their ranks.

So...?
Did he really retire and smoke his pipe and harasses good upstanding halfings in the not!shire?
Does he still work to expand the greys understanding of magic in the background as a sort of half retirement?
Did he handed off his Patrich responsibility and went to a secret mission under the cover of retirement?
Do we have some sort of 'Patriarchs never die' after this one MIA too many?

Personal theory is he went to a retirement from active duty in the order to study Ulgu and all the other curios mysteries that his long career had given him, and might do some one off assignment to the Greys once in a while when they need his skills, or maybe he took a duty of long vigil that does not require that much effort that he can both serve the order and have his lay off time.

It's just that I don't see someone who live for a bloody long time(giving he went into retirement) and mastered Ulgu to such extend to really ever stop studying it in one form or another, and I also believe that any grey with enough personal responsibility to take the mantle of Magister Patriarch to completely fob of his service to the Empire.

Basically what I say is that we need this action in the next social turn.
[jk] Find Olorin in the Moot and ask him what is the best substance to smoke with a dragonbone pipe.

Edit: crap, Mathilde doesn't have a dragonbone pipe does she? mixed her up with the other shadowmancer MC I'm following.
Through giving her chair, staff and pauldrons, that is only a matter of time until she get a kickass dragonbone pipe.
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I assumed that "retired" was a euphemism and that Olorin is dead.
 
Nonsense, he took his halfing buddy and sailed west to Ulthuan, he managed to convince them he was a long lost buddy cop of the elven pantheon, and he is totally cool enough to hang out in their Tower of Hoeth.

...I like to think that there are a bunch of retired Lords and Ladys Magisters just hanging around chilling in the Tower, with them flexing on their monowind attunement superiority over the elves and create all kind of knifty things, all the while the Loremasters watching then doing the equivalent of a master degree in math while basically just messing around, and work desperately to try and study all the shenanigans they create with their personal connection to the winds.

It also help that any Wizards over 180(?) are likely to have been one of the original students of Teclis, so he enjoys having some of his old friends around who are not stuffy thousands years old Loremasters.
 
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