- Location
- Utrecht
@kingreaper : What did Mathilde do with the Necromantic enchanted weapon the vampire had?
[WHF] The Broken Mirror - A Divided Loyalties Peggy Sue
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
It's being disposed of safely by Starke (the Porter).
- Location
- Utrecht
We don't have a handy volcano this time around.
As I understand it the grudge is technically with the Underempire and the Horned Rat, but all Skaven are aligned with at least one of the two, or very soon to be deceased.
- Location
- Earth
And Grudges against Lahmians and other Vampires are - on paper - only against those individuals and organizations.
And yet after millennia with the only experience with them being betrayal and more grudges no one's willing to take a chance any more.
Raising a Skaven from birth seems pretty pointless. There are plenty of human orphans in need who we could offer a significantly better quality of life to if we wanted to adopt.
On the Necromantic sword, I wonder if Mathilde could learn anything about other styles of enchanting by destructively analysing it. The Lahmian sisterhood have a very, very ancient spell crafting and enchanting tradition after all.
The Lahmians probably have a very interesting style of using Ulgu as well. Vampires, particularly non-necrach vampires tend not to directly use Dhar, after all, so they're likely to use pure Ulgu for their shadow magic.
On the Necromantic sword, I wonder if Mathilde could learn anything about other styles of enchanting by destructively analysing it. The Lahmian sisterhood have a very, very ancient spell crafting and enchanting tradition after all.
The Lahmians probably have a very interesting style of using Ulgu as well. Vampires, particularly non-necrach vampires tend not to directly use Dhar, after all, so they're likely to use pure Ulgu for their shadow magic.
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- Location
- India
Is it possible to convert separatist rats into Ronald worship? Or is it impossible?
- Location
- Utrecht
Keep in mind that a high proportion of ranald worshippers are criminals. Even Skaven following the protector in the empire are indistinguishable from normal infiltrators working to undermine the empire.
It would not be a good look on Ranald.
Ranaldite skaven within skaven society = yes. But they probably get smote by the horned rat. So it's very dependent on how well ranald hides his touch.
Within the empire = absolutely no go.
- Location
- Utrecht
It depends on how the individual breaks from the Horned rat
Ranald would be much more attractive to someone who said "Fuck the horned rat and everything he stands for" as opposed to someone who said "Fuck the horned rat, I'm just out for myself."
Admittedly the latter are more common than the former.
Tzeentch can be seen as very much opposed to the Horned Rat's style of tyranny. Tzeentch Cults can and often are revolutionary organisations that want radical reform of their society. Tzeentch isn't about personal ambition, it's about the desire to change the world in general, including for other people as well.
- Location
- Utrecht
it may start out that way.... but it probably won't stay that way for very long, with chaos being chaos.
- Location
- Earth
Rereading this I had a thought:
How many assassination attempts failed to go beyond "We want to" because no one knows where we sleep?
I cannot see why not, Chaos is evil and self-destructive, but there is no reason it has to be selfish. Think of the standard Nurgle cultist who wants to spread the gifts of Papa Nurgle. That but with revolution can be a Tzeench cult.
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
It's possible. The whole "leaving the fold gets you turned to ash" is clearly overblown given the fact this is the third civil war where one side is said to have betrayed the Horned Rat.
Mathilde's suspicion is that it may be true for spellcasters of the Horned Rat, who have a direct channel to him - possibly even for all those born with the grey fur (and sometimes horns) that mark them as his chosen - but it cannot be true for all Skaven.
A minimum ofRereading this I had a thought:
How many assassination attempts failed to go beyond "We want to" because no one knows where we sleep?
Papa Nurgle is the chaos god associated with community and (non-romantic) love. He's the very personification of "misery loves company". Tzeentch followers cannot begin to compare to his level of brotherhood.
Not to say that they can't form cults of aligned individuals, but they'll never have the same level of comforting embrace with them that Nurgle offers, because Tzeentch pushes change and a constant alliance of trust is not change; revolutionaries tied to Tzeentch will freely betray each other in order to be in charge of the form the post-revolution world will take. It's just that said betrayal can wait until they're decently sure there's actually going to be a revolution.
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Vote closed
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
On the other hand, both sides may claim to be the true worshippers of the Horned Rat, and that the other side is misguided, and then when the Civil War comes to an end it's declared that this was all just a misunderstanding as it was the previous two times.
This would be similar to what happened with the partition of the Cult of Mannan that I mentioned before.
After all, both Plague Priests and Grey Seers are both granted the same spells apparently by the same god while being at war with each other. When the Horned Rat is granting identical miracles to the the leadership of both sides in the Civil War it's hard to say that either aren't worshippers in good standing.
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- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
The point I was making is that it's clear that it's not actually plausible to most of the leadership - because if they truly believed it they wouldn't be able to believe that Pestilens were traitors.
EDIT: And the "loyal" side think Pestilens, followers of 'Nurglitch', get their miracles from Nurgle.
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They may believe that they'll prove that Pestilens are traitors by winning, that in winning they'll demonstrate that the Horned Rat favours them and so has always favoured them.
They may also believe something more subtle, that they're in a war to determine the nature of their own god, that he's for example, been influenced too strongly towards his plague aspects by the plague priests and that by winning this war they'll remove a traitorous influence on him. Just as Mathilde believes that the current Grand Theogonists is a bad influence on Sigmar.
In Skaven culture, denouncing a rival that is paying off a mutual superior and claiming that they're a traitor and their motives are suspect must be pretty common. Treason can be pretty expansive. They may be trying to persuade the Horned Rat that Pestilens are traitorous as much as they're trying to persuade the rank and file warlord clans. The Seer-Lord may be constantly praying to the Horned Rat, saying things like 'Just look at his name - Nurglitch is blatantly a Nurgle plant trying to suborn your people.' while the Horned Rat ignores him and happily accepts the worship of the Brotherhood of Plague.
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- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
It's technically possible that The Horned Rat is capable of and willing to turn any and/or every Skaven to ash if they betray him, and the entirety of the Skaven Underempire other than the Pestilent are 100% wrong about what constitutes betrayal of the Horned Rat - including Qrech teaching Queekish not counting.
But you're the same person who claims that gods can't communicate clearly. So that'd make The Horned Rat a billion times more powerful than any other god.
Mathilde is not going to believe that, and you really shouldn't either.
(Especially as the WFRP canon is pretty clear that he can't - most spellcasting skaven who betray him disintegrate. But not all. And it only happens with spellcasters. And, well, clan Eshin are perfectly capable of disintegrating folks.)
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I strongly doubt that the Horned Rat can turn any random Skaven to ash if they betray him. Particularly if they don't believe they've betrayed him. However, if a magically capable Skaven who has had some equivalent of baptism to him believes they've betrayed the Horned Rat, I could easily believe that they're effectively cursed to have particularly bad miscasts that manifest in certain ways that produce the effect of being smote by him.
However, I could believe that the Horned Rat is lot more powerful than the rest of the gods, as he has a lot more worshippers and mortal agents he can use as channels for his will into the material world. Not to mention that he's the only god we know of being summoned into the material world in millennia.
Gods being apparently able to inflict worshippers or apostate ex-worshippers with blessings and curses related to their portfolio isn't logically to whether they can talk to them, not is it a question of power. Morr, for example, as god of dreams, may have a more direct route of communication with His priests when they cast the appropriate spell that is simply not in theme for other gods, who may have to resort to more indirect methods to send them omens they have to interpret.
The Grey Seers cast the same spells from the same Lore of Plague as Pestilens does though...
And at the end of the previous two civil wars they accepted Clan Pestilens back into the fold as worshippers in good standing (or rather, we're directly ordered to do so by the Horned Rat manifested on the material plane). Nurglitch was personally tested and blessed by the Horned Rat using the Black Pillar not that long ago, while he and the other plague priests were using the same Lore as they do now.
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Isn't the point of all this discussion 'will the Horned Rat intervene if Mathilde tries something'? And i think the answer in both approaches is 'only if he notices that's it's not skaven being skaven and wins a game of obfuscation with the god of cheating'. Mathilde is almost uniquely positioned to infiltrate Skaven, and the last vote going against that - and i voted for that - shows that voters are a bit fatigued by Skaven right now.
And honestly, factions to vote one way or another will grow up naturally. I wouldn't expect that there will be many voters invested into makingTau' Skaven freehold quest, but there will be more biting for 'detonate the black pillar and the council of 13' even if the first is more likely to work and work long term.
Voters man. I'm actually kind of sad that that 'enmity of Tzeentch' trait was not taken, well because demons and what i'm thinking is 'no this is too ambitious'. Being ambitious is how you become a major thorn (or a god of magic as was probably the endgame of that).
And honestly, factions to vote one way or another will grow up naturally. I wouldn't expect that there will be many voters invested into making
Voters man. I'm actually kind of sad that that 'enmity of Tzeentch' trait was not taken, well because demons and what i'm thinking is 'no this is too ambitious'. Being ambitious is how you become a major thorn (or a god of magic as was probably the endgame of that).
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- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
Ummm, well...
Grabbing a Bite:
1) Left arm
2) Eyes
3) Right arm
4) Torso
5) Left leg
6) Right Leg
Grabbing a Bite:
1) Left arm
2) Eyes
3) Right arm
4) Torso
5) Left leg
6) Right Leg
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
This D2 may well be the deciding factor of Mathilde's Demise:
1) The whole arm.
2) Just the lower arm.
1) The whole arm.
2) Just the lower arm.