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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BoneyM said:
It doesn't seem like there was one shared pantheon in the time before Sigmar, as Taal was the God of the Taleutens and Ulric of the Teutogens, and the other tribes only seemed to start picking them up after they settled in the Reik Basin. That leaves Rhya and Manann as unknowns, and I'd speculate Rhya was either the Goddess of the Cherusens or an adoption of the Old Faith of the Belthani, and that Manann was the God of the Jutones. Whether the other patron gods have been forgotten, were Chaos Gods that were abandoned, or have faded into being minor regional Gods is an open question.

But it's entirely possible that the tribes shared a pantheon before they came into the Reik basin, and the Taleutens and Teutogens claim favour on the basis of tribal patrons. There's not much canon material of that era and a lot of it is vague and self-contradictory.

(there's also another possibility acknowledged in the material that Ulric, Taal, and Rhya all descend from a single deity with three seasonal facets)
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Oh yeah. Sorry I wasn't meaning in the orginised pantheon sense but more like how early scandinavians had Thor, Odin or Frey/Yg as their top god and or explicit patron, with the Ygling tribe in particular claiming that they where Yg's "chosen people" but all three where still part of a broarder myth culture united by shared language and geography. We see similar things with early Eqypt, Phonician/Canaanite/Isrealite, Ionian Greek and sub Etruscan italy as well. So even pre empire it was still accepted that Taal and Ulric where Brothers but who was top dog varied by tribe and only the Tuetogens claimed desent from ulric and the same whith the tribe that claimed Taal as their progenitor. That's just my interpretation of the avalible evidence though.
 
Mopman43 said:
Ghost Wizard?

Mathilde is a Dark Type through-and-through.

(Amethysts are obviously Ghost, Brights obviously Fire, Jade are Water/Grass, Amber are... Bug/Flying? Normal/Bug?, Celestials are Flying/Electric, Light Wizards are... also Electric? Electric/Psychic?, Gold Wizards are Steel)
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Why Bug for Ambers? Normal Flying fits fine. Lights are most likely Psychic and might also be Grass, just for Solar Beam and the occasional healing.
BoneyM said:
To worship is to empower,
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Is this actually something that a majority of (Old World) Human priests, theologians and scholars believe? That the likes of Ulric and Sigmar are empowered by and rely on acts of worship?
BoneyM said:
and Tilea and Estalia both claim Myrmidia as a primary deity.
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Do they claim her as a primary deity the way most of Greece claimed Zeus as theirs, with all the other Southern Gods each playing their role in both daily worship and special occasions and individual cities having varying patron gods, or more like the Western Empire, i.e. Myrmidian monotheism that shows great tolerance to other cults?
Jyn Ryvia said:
I agree, and when the topic came up before it did have the air of science curiosity.

but this time people were talking about spider bondages and cuddle Sex, just after someone (inappropriately) expressed their dislike of the topic and got punished for it.

so I think a charitable interpretation was that it was verging on thetitillation.

if only because the uncharitable interpretations is that it was taunting.
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There's also the much more charitable interpretation that it was just taking the premise of a joke and running too far with it.
Mopman43 said:
Unberogen were Sigmar's tribe, who would form Reikland.
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Sigmar and his tribe were Ulricans too though.
BoneyM said:
The Ulricans say they used to live in the area now known as the Wolf Lands in the Dark Lands, which they describe as once being a sort of Garden of Eden. It definitely isn't that any more. But aside from that, it's hard to get creative with creation myths when there's Elves and Dwarves about the place who have kept very detailed records, including when your ancestors arrived, who they displaced, and the time they got scared by curious Dwarves and ran away, leaving behind paraphernalia the Dwarves noted as being especially poorly made.
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That would explain the lack of "when did the god(s) create our tribe in particular" myths, but not the lack of "that's where the gods came from and that's how they made the world" myths.

Though we already talked about that. Sigmar, Ranald and Myrmidia do have origin myths and the other gods, iirc, both discourage the dogmatization of baseless speculation and remain silent on their true histories.
 
DragonParadox said:
Given that Ulric picked up wolves from Lupus after the tribes migrated methinks the Wolf Lands either were not called that originally or simply did not exist in the first place.

That said I was not saying that it is unreasonable for the Imperials not to have much of a mythic time, just pointing out how those sorts of differences make parallels to actual history or religion of less use than they otherwise might have.
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I'm pretty sure the Wolf Lands have shown up on maps of the current Dark Lands.
 
Rafin said:
Is this actually something that a majority of (Old World) Human priests, theologians and scholars believe? That the likes of Ulric and Sigmar are empowered by and rely on acts of worship?
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A more mainstream belief is that the Gods always have the power to intervene but need to be pleased by their worshippers for them to be willing to do so, but either way the effect is the same: more worship means more of that God's stuff happens. No priesthood is going around telling people that they could just not worship and their God would still do their thing anyway.

Rafin said:
Do they claim her as a primary deity the way most of Greece claimed Zeus as theirs, with all the other Southern Gods each playing their role in both daily worship and special occasions and individual cities having varying patron gods, or more like the Western Empire, i.e. Myrmidian monotheism that shows great tolerance to other cults?
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They see Myrmidia as the Goddess of civilization in general and their civilization in particular, which makes the other Gods subordinate to Her in all matters that relate to Tilea and Estalia.
 
Rafin said:
Why Bug for Ambers? Normal Flying fits fine. Lights are most likely Psychic and might also be Grass, just for Solar Beam and the occasional healing.

Is this actually something that a majority of (Old World) Human priests, theologians and scholars believe? That the likes of Ulric and Sigmar are empowered by and rely on acts of worship?

Do they claim her as a primary deity the way most of Greece claimed Zeus as theirs, with all the other Southern Gods each playing their role in both daily worship and special occasions and individual cities having varying patron gods, or more like the Western Empire, i.e. Myrmidian monotheism that shows great tolerance to other cults?

There's also the much more charitable interpretation that it was just taking the premise of a joke and running too far with it.

Sigmar and his tribe were Ulricans too though.

That would explain the lack of "when did the god(s) create our tribe in particular" myths, but not the lack of "that's where the gods came from and that's how they made the world" myths.

Though we already talked about that. Sigmar, Ranald and Myrmidia do have origin myths and the other gods, iirc, both discourage the dogmatization of baseless speculation and remain silent on their true histories.
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I'm not saying the Teutogens were the only Ulricans, just that they were the ones most associated with him.

Like, if the other tribes had Ulricans, the Teutogens were Ulricans. Even to this day they're associated- there's large chunks of the Cult of Ulric that believe that only people of Teutogen descent can be leaders in the Cult.
 
BoneyM said:
A more mainstream belief is that the Gods always have the power to intervene but need to be pleased by their worshippers for them to be willing to do so, but either way the effect is the same: more worship means more of that God's stuff happens. No priesthood is going around telling people that they could just not worship and their God would still do their thing anyway.
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I think Chaos sometimed argues that way, with the conclusion that since the Gods will do their thing anyway, you might as well worship so they do their thing in a more beneficial way.
 
BoneyM said:
A more mainstream belief is that the Gods always have the power to intervene but need to be pleased by their worshippers for them to be willing to do so, but either way the effect is the same: more worship means more of that God's stuff happens. No priesthood is going around telling people that they could just not worship and their God would still do their thing anyway.
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But that more mainstream belief would have an impact on the perceived morality of worship. It would either make the intervention of their god less focused because the god is spread out helping many devout followers (in case of strictly finite power) or be more or less irrelevant. What would matter is how many followers there are of a particular god in a particular region or jurisdiction, because many prayers to one god makes that god more interested in that particular location. Things like how harsh a winter is or how often a non-impersonated smiting happens would not have a positive correlation with amount of worship(ers) under this model.
BoneyM said:
They see Myrmidia as the Goddess of civilization in general and their civilization in particular, which makes the other Gods subordinate to Her in all matters that relate to Tilea and Estalia.
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Subordinate in what way though? Myrmidia as a head of a pantheon and Myrmidian priests claiming (and getting) authority and knowledge over the priests and flock of other gods, with most people being Myrmidians that also frequently worship the others where appropriate? Or authority in the form of henotheism, with the other cults being completely separate, but still tolerated as inferior religions?
Mopman43 said:
I'm not saying the Teutogens were the only Ulricans, just that they were the ones most associated with him.

Like, if the other tribes had Ulricans, the Teutogens were Ulricans. Even to this day they're associated- there's large chunks of the Cult of Ulric that believe that only people of Teutogen descent can be leaders in the Cult.
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I thought that Ulric was also very much the main god of Sigmar's Unberogen. And before there was Sigmar's peace in the lands, the Unberogen, who occasionally warred with the Teutogens and definitely weren't their vassals, would need their own religious leaders. And even if they acknowledged a Teutogen Ar-Ulric, they'd still need an explanation for why it is okay for their Ulrican priests to bless warriors that occasionally clashed with those Teutogens loyal to the Ar-Ulric.

It makes sense though that modern Teutogen-nationalists would consider people with Unberogen ancestry to be unsuitable, seeing how their tribe decided to "make a new god".
 
K von Carstein said:
Is it a reference to something?
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Just that there are a limited number of descriptions of noses that show up in fiction and mostly they are left unmentioned. "Aquiline" shows up a lot because it's a wonderful word and one of the few adjectives that you see pretty much only used in the contexts of noses and nowhere else, but usually if the author doesn't have a specific noteworthy thing to say about someone's nose, it just gets no description.

Though as the thread was quick to point out, I left out a number of stereotypical nose-descriptions that do show up a fair bit.
 
Rafin said:
But that more mainstream belief would have an impact on the perceived morality of worship. It would either make the intervention of their god less focused because the god is spread out helping many devout followers (in case of strictly finite power) or be more or less irrelevant. What would matter is how many followers there are of a particular god in a particular region or jurisdiction, because many prayers to one god makes that god more interested in that particular location. Things like how harsh a winter is or how often a non-impersonated smiting happens would not have a positive correlation with amount of worship(ers) under this model.
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This seems to have a set of underlying assumptions that reduce the Gods to unthinking automatons with a set and unchanging 'budget' of worldly influence that must always be fully spent and is distributed according to zero-sum prayer algorithms. While that could be an interesting model, it's absolutely not the sort of thing I'm talking about here. Under the mainstream model, if a God is more pleased, They intervene more because of it. If They are not, They withhold their intervention. That is why it is important to please the Gods.

For example: under this model, if everyone everywhere pleases Rhya, then the harvest will be bountiful everywhere. If nobody anywhere pleases Rhya, then there will be famine everywhere.

Rafin said:
Subordinate in what way though? Myrmidia as a head of a pantheon and Myrmidian priests claiming (and getting) authority and knowledge over the priests and flock of other gods, with most people being Myrmidians that also frequently worship the others where appropriate? Or authority in the form of henotheism, with the other cults being completely separate, but still tolerated as inferior religions?
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I have not fleshed out the exact dynamics of interfaith dialogue in countries the quest has never even visited.
 
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Magery said:
Truth be told, I rejected the first couple of reports on this post. The idea of 'dragon fucker' as an insult as opposed to something that prompted a flurry of :chadyes: in the chat was quite surprising to me. It's just a more specific version of monsterfucker, and if nothing else the success of The Shape of Water is quite indicative that it's become almost mainstream to look at something with more eyes than teeth and go "well I guess I'm no longer protected under the constitution".
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How... how the fuck am I meant to react top this?
 
BoneyM said:
This seems to have a set of underlying assumptions that reduce the Gods to unthinking automatons with a set and unchanging 'budget' of worldly influence that must always be fully spent and is distributed according to zero-sum prayer algorithms. While that could be an interesting model, it's absolutely not the sort of thing I'm talking about here. Under the mainstream model, if a God is more pleased, They intervene more because of it. If They are not, They withhold their intervention. That is why it is important to please the Gods.

For example: under this model, if everyone everywhere pleases Rhya, then the harvest will be bountiful everywhere. If nobody anywhere pleases Rhya, then there will be famine everywhere.
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The famine example fits what I meant with smiting not being positively correlated to worship under this "always powerful gods crave validation/obedience" model. Using famine as a threat would be her agenda here and worshipping her less wouldn't prevent her from causing it of she wants to. So worshipping her more is not really morally questionable.

Under the "worship grants power" model though it could make sense to "punish" Rhya if she abuses her stick. Less worship would mean that she has less ability to negatively affect the harvest. So the harvest would either fall along natural lines (which may well be less than what Rhya's baseline blessing provides) or people could even empower a new or minor harvest deity enough to take over Rhya's job. The latter is not something that would work under the mainstream model because the minor deity would still have to content with an angry Rhya that is just as powerful as before.

Anyway, I don't think that Rhya is the best example, because her "normal" preferences when happy are very pro-social as far as I know and her smiting can look very similar to her absence or impotence.

But if one takes someone like Stormfels for example, more worshippers would lead to more water/monster based troubles in general if he's empowered by it while leading to less if he is just pleased by it and thus lenient on his worshippers.

Ultimately what I'm getting at is just an exploration of how much the moral weight of worship akin to voting would be something that IC mainstream theologians would recognize. OOC the official quest lore might say that gods are empowered and thus worshipping questionable gods might decrease utilons, but under mainstream IC beliefs as you presented them people wouldn't know or believe that and thus be more tolerant of other religions than they "should" be I guess.
 
Rafin said:
The famine example fits what I meant with smiting not being positively correlated to worship under this "always powerful gods crave validation/obedience" model. Using famine as a threat would be her agenda here and worshipping her less wouldn't prevent her from causing it of she wants to. So worshipping her more is not really morally questionable.

Under the "worship grants power" model though it could make sense to "punish" Rhya if she abuses her stick. Less worship would mean that she has less ability to negatively affect the harvest. So the harvest would either fall along natural lines (which may well be less than what Rhya's baseline blessing provides) or people could even empower a new or minor harvest deity enough to take over Rhya's job. The latter is not something that would work under the mainstream model because the minor deity would still have to content with an angry Rhya that is just as powerful as before.

Anyway, I don't think that Rhya is the best example, because her "normal" preferences when happy are very pro-social as far as I know and her smiting can look very similar to her absence or impotence.

But if one takes someone like Stormfels for example, more worshippers would lead to more water/monster based troubles in general if he's empowered by it while leading to less if he is just pleased by it and thus lenient on his worshippers.

Ultimately what I'm getting at is just an exploration of how much the moral weight of worship akin to voting would be something that IC mainstream theologians would recognize. OOC the official quest lore might say that gods are empowered and thus worshipping questionable gods might decrease utilons, but under mainstream IC beliefs as you presented them people wouldn't know or believe that and thus be more tolerant of other religions than they "should" be I guess.
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Prayer affects the amount of budget, and influences how that budget is spent.

It doesn't work as a stick against the gods, because gods have more endurance than civilization.

If a civilization decides to withhold worship from Rhya to get her to do something, the famine that happens from her absence will cripple society faster than it will hurt Rhya.

Rhya does "Worship me, and be rewarded with plentiful harvests."
Stromfels does "Worship me, or be punished with vicious storms and monster attacks."

If sailors stopped appeasing Stromfels to control him and reduce his power, they could do it... but sooner or later they would give up, because they need the Stromfels to cooperate.

The Gods are OLD and they have plenty of power saved up.
 
IronFist said:
Prayer affects the amount of budget, and influences how that budget is spent.

It doesn't work as a stick against the gods, because gods have more endurance than civilization.

If a civilization decides to withhold worship from Rhya to get her to do something, the famine that happens from her absence will cripple society faster than it will hurt Rhya.

Rhya does "Worship me, and be rewarded with plentiful harvests."
Stromfels does "Worship me, or be punished with vicious storms and monster attacks."

If sailors stopped appeasing Stromfels to control him and reduce his power, they could do it... but sooner or later they would give up, because they need the Stromfels to cooperate.

The Gods are OLD and they have plenty of power saved up.
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The trick wouldn't be just withholding power. It would be diverting power. Like worshipping Manann instead of Stormfels, so that as Stormfels' power wanes, Manannn can shield you from his tantrums due to his own surge in power. And since Stormfels is the less friendly sea god and his "products" are less worth the payment in prayer, his "corporation" should end up bankrupted over time. But if, as the mainstream believes, prayer doesn't equal power then worshipping Stormfels might become more appealing because even if he is (and maybe always will be) weaker than Manann overall, his wrath is more quickly painful and always will be.
 
Sir_Travelsalot said:
Did you mean Manann? Because Stromfels worship is proscribed in the Old World.
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Stromfels himself does not care about being proscribed.

Edit:In the same way the criminal organization running a protection racket doesn't particularly care it's illegal. They still make money off it.

Crackpot theory: Manann is running the protection racket, and gives a cut of the loot to Stromfels so that Stromfels keeps being the bad guy to Manann's good guy.
 
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