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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Jyn Ryvia said:
But that doesn't mean she is old enough to understand abstracts: an 11 year old can learn to make a horse shoe, and remake that horse shoe if you ask them too.

but they aren't able to extrapolate why a Shoed house shoe is symbolic with wealth, or used as a sign of good luck, if you asked them without telling them beforehand.

while it's a little out of date, it's still roughly good.
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I fail to see how developmental chart influences any of the IC opinions of the people that expect Eike or any other actual child that is considered adult.

They are given some leeway, due to people realizing that no, they are old enough to be apprenticed and stuff, but they are actually not fully developed (hence the military brats starting as powder monkeys, not actual infantrymen that have to hold the line). Eike is supposed to become leader of EIC, and its never too early to network.
 
pucflek said:
I fail to see how developmental chart influences any of the IC opinions of the people that expect Eike or any other actual child that is considered adult.

They are given some leeway, due to people realizing that no, they are old enough to be apprenticed and stuff, but they are actually not fully developed (hence the military brats starting as powder monkeys, not actual infantrymen that have to hold the line). Eike is supposed to become leader of EIC, and its never too early to network.
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Whether or not Mathilde has unreasonable standards or even if the whole empire has unreasonable standards it won't make the kid anymore able to reason through abstract thoughts.
 
DragonParadox said:
Whether or not Mathilde has unreasonable standards or even if the whole empire has unreasonable standards it won't make the kid anymore able to reason through abstract thoughts.
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Well yes, obviously, but networking is not really a concept you need to understand to be doing it. And Mathilde is doing the brunt of the work here by introducing her to these people.

EDIT: Apprenticeships in middle ages (albeit Empire is out of those, mostly) tended to start anywhere from preteen to early to mid teens, and while i could not find a specific quote that would nail this even to the Merchant guilds, one could assume that it would be somewhat similar even there.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Whether or not Mathilde has unreasonable standards or even if the whole empire has unreasonable standards it won't make the kid anymore able to reason through abstract thoughts.
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Actually, yes it will. The rate of mental maturation is flexible to cultural and societal demands - that's why physical brain development these days has creeped forward all the way into late 20s, while simultaneously there are african tribes where children in the single digits command both the responsibilities and respect of full adults.

What you lose for such accelerated development isn't something I can speak to - but that it can happen, at least to the degree that talking to Eike about the responsibilities of the EIC isn't a waste of time, seems rather open and shut.
 
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Also mental maturity is a very individual thing, and while charts like that can be useful for general expectations, they're far from a rock-solid certainty for every single person. I've known several people, including myself, who didn't follow it to the letter.
 
[X] Kazrik and the Dwarves of Karak Azul
[X] Edda and the Cult of Valaya
[X] Gotri, the K8P Air Corps, and the Cult of Morgrim
[X] The We
 
BoneyM said:
I blended together Wizards and Priests and a touch of IRL Tengrism by establishing a pantheon of fifteen: one sun, two moons, four Gods, eight Winds. Winds give power and shape those that use them, so how do they differ to a Chaos God? Or so the logic goes. The sun and moons I didn't confirm one way or another, but it is plausible. Kislev has a sun god in Dazh and the Elves have a moon god in Lileath, perhaps there's a few 'regular' Gods still being worshipped by the Kurgan, just as the Gospodar retained their worship of Ursun in the steppes.

The other part of making the Kurgan 'function' was to have them vary based on latitude. Those that live in the south of the steppes are further from the Chaos Gods, but closer to the Skull Road between the Old World and Cathay so that they can raid and trade, and closer to the Chaos Dwarves so they can access quality weapons, and their lands are relatively normal steppes so they can maintain their herds with relative ease. They become more worldly and closer to the Winds, but in time the whispers of the Chaos Gods will call them north again. Those that live in the north of the steppes are closer to the Chaos Gods but are constantly tested by the Chaos Wastes - their herds and children mutate and their food comes more and more from the bizarre fungal growths that dot the landscape and the hunting and consumption of mutants of unidentifiable provenance rather than 'normal' crops and herding and hunting. They grow wilder and stronger and closer to the Chaos Gods. But they do not serve the Chaos Gods by lurking forever on the periphery of the Wastes, so they end up coming south again, either on their own to raid or as part of the entourage of an Champion or even an Everchosen. If they succeed they stake their claim on the land they've seized and grow worldly once more, if they fail then they're unlikely to want to draw attention to their failure by returning to the Chaos Wastes and the direct attention of the Chaos Gods, so they'll look for land in the southern steppes.

So there's a constant cycle where individual tribes will move from place to place based on their needs and desires and their successes and failures. Some, like the Kul, might have live deeper in the Wastes and closer to the Gods for generations, and they might never leave until they lose the favour of their Gods and need to retreat from Their attention. Others, like the Dolgans, might find more value in reliable southern terrain and access to trade, to the extent that some Dolgans have been absorbed into Kislevite society. Then there's oddities like the Iron Wolves, who live further south not because of a preference for reality, but because they worship a Dragon Ogre that's asleep in the mountains.
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I posted this in a thread about remaking the Chaos Gods, quoting it here for people who might be interested in the worldbuilding behind the Kurgan and in case I try to find this post later and forget it was in another thread and drive myself insane trying to find the right keywords to search for.
 
Just spent the past weekend reading the quest, thanks BoneyM for an enjoyable, often hilarious, and occasionally epic read.

Got a couple of things I wondered about that I didn't find mentioned in the FAQ or the plans. The first was about the K8P college branch. We got permission from the colleges, but the transcendent boon from K8P was spent on getting a future huge library, so are we actually allowed to set up in K8P? Do we have facilities or are we running this whole thing out of the penthouse? It hasn't really been a problem before since the wizards were there on retainer for Belegar through Court Wizard Mathilde, but that won't be the case in the future. Unless Belegar just hires the whole research branch I guess.

On to the library, I had a possibly great, possibly disastrous idea. Cython is an ice dragon, who according to the wiki are really lazy, associated with Hysh, and from the quests seems to be interested in knowing as much stuff as possible. The reason, beyond possibly the charming company, that it comes flying over to Mathilde occasionally is to borrow books. If we told it that we are getting a library set up, where the dwarves will be bringing books from across the world to it to read, then could it pretty please stop making the dwarves anxious and accept becoming something like "The Guardian of The Library" or "Librarian You Do Not Mess With" and just spend its days reading while occasionally freezing solid Waaarghs that interrupts its reading time? Runs the risk of it considering the library its hoard, but I got the impression that it is smart enough to realize that the dwarves would stop bringing it books if it did that. Considering that it apparently had just been sleeping on top of the mountain and didn't know who the ancestor gods were I would guess that there is a lot of reading material out there that it might be interested in. No idea if anyone has brought it up before, though I wouldn't be surprised. Might honestly be sorta inevitable once it realizes it is sleeping atop a huge library, though I guess hilariously it might never learn since it doesn't have a reason to poke around.

On Eike being a wizard, the vibe I sorta got while reading was that she had been guided by Wilhelmina for a long time into her future role of EIC owner, and I'm not sure how dedicated she is to it or if she just does her chores to make oma happy. Might be that she sees the colleges as an escape from a role her parent figure had decided for her and grips it with both hands when it appears. Guess we'll see

On the current vote I honestly really want Kragg, and not because of the grumpy grandpa energy he has. Kragg is grumpy and combative, and he probably hates that people waste his time, which is honestly understandable since he is one of a couple of people carrying the dwarven race on his back while incessantly being pestered by people wanting trinkets, or worse people trying to steal his runes, but we haven't really seen how he acts around children. Dwarven children are rare and presumably precious to a clan, so do that extend to a sort of cultural indulgence of children, even manling children? how would he react to someone with stars in their eyes at the mention of him being The Runesmith, A Really Big Deal without the pestering for trinkets?
 
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henkalv said:
Just spent the past weekend reading the quest, thanks BoneyM for an enjoyable, often hilarious, and occasionally epic read.

Got a couple of things I wondered about that I didn't find mentioned in the FAQ or the plans. The first was about the K8P college branch. We got permission from the colleges, but the transcendent boon from K8P was spent on getting a future huge library, so are we actually allowed to set up in K8P? Do we have facilities or are we running this whole thing out of the penthouse? It hasn't really been a problem before since the wizards were there on retainer for Belegar through Court Wizard Mathilde, but that won't be the case in the future. Unless Belegar just hires the whole research branch I guess.
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Mathilde has more than enough goodwill that running the branch out of Karag Nar isn't a problem. The exact details of what facilities go where are yet to be decided, and might be backburnered since the focus of it in at least the medium term is going to be on the other side of the continent.

henkalv said:
On to the library, I had a possibly great, possibly disastrous idea. Cython is an ice dragon, who according to the wiki are really lazy, associated with Hysh, and from the quests seems to be interested in knowing as much stuff as possible. The reason, beyond possibly the charming company, that it comes flying over to Mathilde occasionally is to borrow books. If we told it that we are getting a library set up, where the dwarves will be bringing books from across the world to it to read, then could it pretty please stop making the dwarves anxious and accept becoming something like "The Guardian of The Library" or "Librarian You Do Not Mess With" and just spend its days reading while occasionally freezing solid Waaarghs that interrupts its reading time? Runs the risk of it considering the library its hoard, but I got the impression that it is smart enough to realize that the dwarves would stop bringing it books if it did that. Considering that it apparently had just been sleeping on top of the mountain and didn't know who the ancestor gods were I would guess that there is a lot of reading material out there that it might be interested in. No idea if anyone has brought it up before, though I wouldn't be surprised. Might honestly be sorta inevitable once it realizes it is sleeping atop a huge library, though I guess hilariously it might never learn since it doesn't have a reason to poke around.
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Cython does not value books or knowledge in the abstract. It values books that contain knowledge that is immediately helpful in its quest for metatheological axioms, and even that is more of a hobby than it is a deeply-held conviction. And it is quite rightly confident that if there are books that it wants, it can acquire them through announcing that they want them and that nobody wants a bored dragon for a neighbour, and then waiting for the books to be dropped on its doorstep. It would take much more than a library card to get it to promise to defend the library from all comers.
 
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BoneyM said:
Mathilde has more than enough goodwill that running the branch out of Karag Nar isn't a problem. The exact details of what facilities go where are yet to be decided, and might be backburnered since the focus of it in at least the medium term is going to be on the other side of the continent.
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It helps that K8P really isn't hurting for space.
 
BoneyM said:
Cython does not value books or knowledge in the abstract. It values books that contain knowledge that is immediately helpful in its quest for metatheological axioms, and even that is more of a hobby than it is a deeply-held conviction. And it is quite rightly confident that if there are books that it wants, it can acquire them through announcing that they want them and that nobody wants a bored dragon for a neighbour and waiting for the books to be dropped on its doorstep. It would take much more than a library card to get it to promise to defend the library from all comers.
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...Somewhat unrelated, but how hard would it be to hire Cython for some research projects? Both legally and practically speaking. I doubt we could ever get they as a long-term proponent of the College Branch, but individual instances might be nice. If nothing else they're old enough to probably know something about Waystones, especially since I think I remember them choosing to live in geomantically focused areas a lot.
 
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Ericwinter said:
...Somewhat unrelated, but how hard would it be to hire Cython for some research projects? Both legally and practically speaking. I doubt we could ever get him as a long-term proponent of the College Branch, but individual instances might be nice. If nothing else he's old enough to probably know something about Waystones, especially since I think I remember him choosing to live in geomantically focused areas a lot.
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I believe Cython identifies as a "they", not a "he".
 
Ericwinter said:
...Somewhat unrelated, but how hard would it be to hire Cython for some research projects? Both legally and practically speaking. I doubt we could ever get him as a long-term proponent of the College Branch, but individual instances might be nice. If nothing else he's old enough to probably know something about Waystones, especially since I think I remember him choosing to live in geomantically focused areas a lot.
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There's no issues legally, the Dwarves don't have any Grudges against it and the Empire doesn't have any dragon-specific laws, and there's plenty of precedent for working with sentient non-humans. Practically, it would depend entirely on whether it's a topic Cython would be interested in, and if they're not, you'd need to find something to pay them with that they can't simply acquire themselves.
 
BoneyM said:
Cython does not value books or knowledge in the abstract. It values books that contain knowledge that is immediately helpful in its quest for metatheological axioms, and even that is more of a hobby than it is a deeply-held conviction. And it is quite rightly confident that if there are books that it wants, it can acquire them through announcing that they want them and that nobody wants a bored dragon for a neighbour, and then waiting for the books to be dropped on its doorstep. It would take much more than a library card to get it to promise to defend the library from all comers.
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There's the sheer convenience factor though. Since it seemingly spent its time sleeping on top of a mountain and didn't know what the ancestor gods were I would think that it is hard for it to get the motivation together to harras the local polity for a book it doesn't even know exists. Having an ever-expanding theology bookshelf just next door that it can access whenever it rustles up the motivation to do something seems like a fair trade for occasionally walking down into the valley and freezing something if they seem like they are about to burn the bookshelf down. I don't expect them to fly around the Badlands, more that it will have some enlightened self-interest.
 
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henkalv said:
There's the sheer convenience factor though. Since it seemingly spent its time sleeping on top of a mountain top and didn't know what the ancestor gods were I would think that it is hard for it to get the motivation together to harras the local polity for a book it doesn't even know exists. Having an ever-expanding theology bookshelf just next door that it can access whenever it rustles up the motivation to do something seems like a fair trade for occasionally walking down into the valley and freezing something if they seem like they are about to burn the bookshelf down. I don't expect them to fly around the Badlands, more that it will have some enlightened self-interest.
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The thing about Dragons is that while they are extremely powerful, they still have a lot of predators. There's a Vampire bloodline dedicated to hunting down and draining them, other Necromancers want to kill them and raise them as mounts, the Druchii do everything in their power to capture and break them, Daemons seek to corrupt them, Bretonnian Knights want to fight them for glory, adventurers want to kill them for components and their hoards, Slayers seek them out for a glorious death, Ogres want to eat them, Dragon Ogres and Fimir still bear a grudge against their species, and on and on. Even the Colleges have a vault full of Scrolls of Binding that they start giving thoughtful looks when they realize there's a Dragon nearby. And unlike the Dragons of Caledor, Wind Dragons don't have a thalassocratic superpower guarding them while they sleep. So for Cython to have lived long enough to become an Emperor Dragon, it does not just indicate power, but also an element of discretion. Cython has abandoned entire continents when the neighbours started looking a bit too unruly for their liking. So it's not going to sign up for picking fights it doesn't have to unless there's something really juicy in it for them.
 
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Ericwinter said:
That's kind of impossible, given the We only count as one being. And the Karak probably isn't big enough for many of them to split off into their own, if at all.
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Do they actually have that sort of limitation? Figured they were a bit like Zerg in that a certain concentration of individuals functioned like relays for the hive mind and the only reason that they haven't blanketed the badlands is cause it was squished between Skaven and Greenskins, and that it was wise enough to realize that a sustainable population was better than unsustainable growth. Hunters apparently break off when they get too far away, but I thought that was cause there wasn't enough We around to pool cognitive resources with.
 
Honestly, the one thing we have that Cython can't get elsewhere and will *want* is the aethyric vitae. It's likely to give them some clues about what is on the other side of the warp gates where gods are- and it is utterly unique and previously unknown in the world.

LockedMind said:
Isn't Soizic's Journal about four years behind the current events ATM?
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Shush. ;)

It does help that the level of detail related to K8P drops off pretty quickly during and post Okral.
 
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