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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BaseDeltaZero said:
Including the weaknesses you mention, perhaps Chaos is balanced against Order. Chaos proper is... somewhat limited in that it's pretty parasitic, but it's a real force multiplier and on a metaphysical level impossible to actually stop with any weapon the Forces of Order possess.

Not including those weaknesses? Orcs aren't really 'chaos', but there are a lot of them. Chaos can be incredibly powerful on an individual level, have literally super-magical (it's like supernatural, but even more so) infiltration powers, can do nonsense like 'bring all of their warriors from a thousand year time period to a single army', manifest troops out of thin air, etc. Yeah, they could win, if they really wanted to, but they don't - they want to corrupt, in asmuch the Chaos Gods can be said to have 'wants' in a conventional sense.
The Skaven, though...
The Skaven are a more material race, but they're also a race that has the entire old world utterly outmatched. The only reason they have not destroyed the surface dwellers is they have made the same calculations and concluded - rightly - that other Skaven are a bigger threat. Their population is in the billions, and they have some seriously insane tech. It's all incredibly unreliable and inconsistent, but the highs are modern equivalent. They have ICBMs, for instance, except sometimes they create a hole in reality instead of just a nuclear explosion.
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I disagree, a united Skavendom would be able to match and likely overcome almost all surface factions if they were to face them alone but I do not think they would be really a match for them as anything resembling a unified force, hell even the human factions would in my opinion more than enough to beat them if you give them anywhere the same degree of unity you want to give the Skaven. Almost all surface factions perform far better in the battlefield and while the Skaven have their superweapons the rest of the world has their gods and magic which I think easily outmatch the horned rat if not on their own than certainly as a group. I mean the Slann alone have the magic strength to basically reshape continents and there a lot more mages capable of destruction on a massive scale than Skaven superweapons.

K von Carstein said:
No, you're right. Skavens are more numerous than everyone else (except maybe the greenskins) and have machine guns, flamethrowers and combat gas. They could win easily if they weren't constantly backstabbing each other.

It's basically the same in 40k.
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I mean I agree that those are factors that weaken the predominat super-power in Wh40k but at least pre universe split I would have argued that said power was the Imperium and not Chaos or any of the other "evil" factions. I mean even with Imperium a moribund, largely stagnated mess for millenia none of the other factions are really capable of opposing it head on if it can concentrate its forces simply due to far larger ressource pool available to the Imperium.
 
Erandil said:
I disagree, a united Skavendom would be able to match and likely overcome almost all surface factions if they were to face them alone but I do not think they would be really a match for them as anything resembling a unified force, hell even the human factions would in my opinion more than enough to beat them if you give them anywhere the same degree of unity you want to give the Skaven. Almost all surface factions perform far better in the battlefield and while the Skaven have their superweapons the rest of the world has their gods and magic which I think easily outmatch the horned rat if not on their own than certainly as a group. I mean the Slann alone have the magic strength to basically reshape continents and there a lot more mages capable of destruction on a massive scale than Skaven superweapons.
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True. I wasn't considering the Lizardmen. The Skaven could obliterate every Order faction except the Lizardmen. Lizardmen could win, but it'd be... something of a phyrric victory, given it'd involve throwing around said continent-breaking level of magic, and the Great Plan requires those to be un-broken. Even with humans united... maybe necromancy spam could do it, but you've also got problems like 'Altdorf is now a pile of radioactive ash' to contend with, there are Skaven armies popping up everywhere... and yes, actual Skaven frontliners suck but that only matters so much when they outnumber you a thousand to one. The Dwarfs fare better because they basically already live in fallout shelters cum fortresses, Elves fare better because they can plausibly use magic to defend their island from nukes and the Skaven would have to make an actual naval landing, which would be a bad fight for them.

Erandil said:
I mean I agree that those are factors that weaken the predominat super-power in Wh40k but at least pre universe split I would have argued that said power was the Imperium and not Chaos or any of the other "evil" factions. I mean even with Imperium a moribund, largely stagnated mess for millenia none of the other factions are really capable of opposing it head on if it can concentrate its forces simply due to far larger ressource pool available to the Imperium.
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Tyranids They're currently in the process of doing just that. If the rest of the galaxy is discounted, it is plausible the Imperium could win, but it'd require (by, at the very least, the Imperium's own measure) something like mobilizing a full half of their population. Orks if they stopped infighting (so. No). Necrons in the snap of a mechanical finger if they didn't care about fucking up their galaxy lawn in the course of getting the damn kids off it.
 
BoneyM said:
No, apart from the main ones, the ancestor gods are the literal ancestors of those doing the worshipping.
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Is it always blood ancestors? Or would someone like your great grandmaster (your master's master's master) in the art of blacksmithing be an acceptable 'ancestor' to worship/pray to?
 
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kingreaper said:
Is it always blood ancestors? Or would someone like your great grandmaster (your master's master's master) in the art of blacksmithing be an acceptable 'ancestor' to worship/pray to?
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To my understanding, it's more that if you perform suitably awe-inspiring deeds as a dwarf, following generations of your Clan will venerate you as an Ancestor God, a transcendent exemplar of what a dwarf is supposed to be, and someone to aspire to match in achievements. The founders of a new Clan tend to be such examples.

But no, for blacksmithing, you'll more likely pray to Grungni or Smednir, because they're universally perceived to be the peak of dwarf ability for such.
 
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I think that the Destruction vs Order match-up is in a way self-balancing. The stronger and more geographically widespread the Order forces grow, the less do the Destruction forces infight. Especially when it comes to Orcs that's a question of sheer demographics. The more they border Order nations and the less they have swathes of land to themselves the more likely they are to krump Umies instead of fellow Boyz by sheer chance.
pucflek said:
I just realized that barony of Blutdorf will die out if Anton doesn't find his one true love. Or adopts, i forgot that this is a thing nobles do sometimes.
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Why's that? Do we know that he has no living aunts, uncles or cousins traceable in anyone's genealogy books?

His Jade aunt most probably died, but did she die without children? And was she the only family he had?

Full on barony reverting to the liege should be rare outside of recently elevated from commoner barons or purposeful shenanigans by local rivals. What happened to the Hauptandersens was an extreme case.
Tasoli said:
Rosvita is not married isn't she?



Huh.
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I don't see it. They had a bad first impression of each other and probably didn't interact much since.
Sir_Travelsalot said:
But no, for blacksmithing, you'll more likely pray to Grungni or Smednir, because they're universally perceived to be the peak of dwarf ability for such.
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I guess the question is whether a blacksmith would always worship just Smednir when it comes to his craft, or whether additionally worshipping what would essentially be Smednir's "Saints" (in Empire terms) is a thing.
 
Rafin said:
Why's that? Do we know that he has no living aunts, uncles or cousins traceable in anyone's genealogy books?
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The update with gift giving has Mathilde's mind narration say that she is rather sad when she enters the room with Anton and his dad because she has been told that his family is waiting there.

Its entirely possible i interpreted this badly and it just means there are rifts in their family and noone else bothered to come, but it read to me more like there are quite simply no other members of his family.
 
Rafin said:
I guess the question is whether a blacksmith would always worship just Smednir when it comes to his craft, or whether additionally worshipping what would essentially be Smednir's "Saints" (in Empire terms) is a thing.
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1) There are no 'saints' in Warhammer Fantasy, the term 'Venerated Soul' is what is used. It was introduced in Tome of Salvation and the creators said it should replace every past use of the word 'saint' in Warhammer, since they wanted to distance Fantasy from both 40k and Catholicism.
2) I'm fairly certain there's no equivalent to saints in dwarfen ancestor worship. You're either an Ancestor God or you're not, whether that's to all dwarfs or just to your own clan.
 
Sir_Travelsalot said:
1) There are no 'saints' in Warhammer Fantasy, the term 'Venerated Soul' is what is used. It was introduced in Tome of Salvation and the creators said it should replace every past use of the word 'saint' in Warhammer, since they wanted to distance Fantasy from both 40k and Catholicism.
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We're in Boneycanon, where there are saints because "venerated soul" is a pointlessly convoluted phrase to mean literally the exact same thing.

EDIT: They're catholic-style saints just with the name changed to something unwieldy. If they'd called them Venerates it might work, or Glorified, or Ascended - but making a two-word, five-syllable term as replacement for one one-syllable word just makes things awkward for no good reason.

EDIT2: Then again, they went on to replace Elves with Aelves and Dwarves with Duardin, so maybe they were just testing the waters for "exact same thing but with a more awkward name" :p
 
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Sir_Travelsalot said:
I don't recall any mentions of Living Ancestors being worshipped like the Ancestor Gods, at least not before their deaths. Which is a thing with Venerated Souls in Warhammer, where they embody a specific part of a god's sphere of influence that you can pray to.
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It's not an exact equivalent. But we don't really know how the ancestor worship works either. For one, I don't think there's any divine casters among the dwarfs, so religion already works differently. It's my reading dwarfs don't really expect intervention the way humans do. A human praying to Ranald/Shallya/Sigmar/whoever asks for help with a problem (or is saying thanks for help with a problem). A dwarf prays for guidance (or in praise of how awesome their ancestor was).

And Living Ancestors are definitely sources of guidance. So I do think they fill the roll of intermediary between yourself and the higher power.
 
According to Tome of Salvation, dwarves don't pray, they tell stories about their Ancestors' deeds and they swear oaths and curse in their name.
 
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Alratan said:
According to Tome of Salvation, dwarves don't pray, they tell stories about their Ancestors' deeds and they swear oaths in their name.
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Dwarves don't pray as part of religious ceremonies, and "do not seem to pray" but it also states "worship is a private matter" suggesting that they may pray in private. Or they might not. Or it might depend on the dwarf, because it's private and personal and not something that gets taught.
 
Or maybe prayer is taught, but it is done so from parent to child, or master to apprentice, creating in effect a mini guild/clan secret in the form of prayer to the ancestors.
 
kingreaper said:
We're in Boneycanon, where there are saints because "venerated soul" is a pointlessly convoluted phrase to mean literally the exact same thing.

EDIT: They're catholic-style saints just with the name changed to something unwieldy. If they'd called them Venerates it might work, or Glorified, or Ascended - but making a two-word, five-syllable term as replacement for one one-syllable word just makes things awkward for no good reason.

EDIT2: Then again, they went on to replace Elves with Aelves and Dwarves with Duardin, so maybe they were just testing the waters for "exact same thing but with a more awkward name" :p
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Exact same thing but with a more trademarkable name, I believe. :) See the fuss about Games Workshop trying to go after people who used "Space Marine".
 
BurnNote said:
It's not an exact equivalent. But we don't really know how the ancestor worship works either. For one, I don't think there's any divine casters among the dwarfs, so religion already works differently. It's my reading dwarfs don't really expect intervention the way humans do. A human praying to Ranald/Shallya/Sigmar/whoever asks for help with a problem (or is saying thanks for help with a problem). A dwarf prays for guidance (or in praise of how awesome their ancestor was).

And Living Ancestors are definitely sources of guidance. So I do think they fill the roll of intermediary between yourself and the higher power.
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what if Ancestors do intervene... but only when a Dawi is crafting, and the reason they have so many Guild secrets is because they are ashamed that their crafting is miracle originated?

Yeah, ik this is EXTREMELY unlikely, but ya know, a lot of their works are absurd even for modern technology on their long lastingness, what if its more than meticulousness that makes them so?
 
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kingreaper said:
Dwarves don't pray as part of religious ceremonies, and "do not seem to pray" but it also states "worship is a private matter" suggesting that they may pray in private. Or they might not. Or it might depend on the dwarf, because it's private and personal and not something that gets taught.
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I mean, in the Karak Azgal book, there's a temple to an obscure Ancestor God
actually a Slaaneshi dwarf cult
that no one seems to consider anything unusual, and they have public ceremonies and scheduled gatherings.
 
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storryeater said:
what if Ancestors do intervene... but only when a Dawi is crafting, and the reason they have so many Guild secrets is because they are ashamed that their crafting is miracle originated?
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Tome of Salvation says that the ancestor gods do intervene in response to dwarves invoking their name, it's just rare and a small edge rather than a major miracle.
 
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