The Advisor a.k.a. Messenger of Tzeentch
It was a novel concept to have the Advisor, once a high ranking Wizard of the Empire of Man who was possessed by Tzeentch for trying to gleam some essential knowledge from a Book of Chaos, to serve every race as the perception was that the Advisor was helping the player-controlled faction so that their successes would make progress towards some unknown goal in the greater scheme of things as was probably planned out by Tzeentch. But now that the Gods of Chaos are going to arrive in force through a daemonic incursion for this game, what does that mean in regards to his true loyalties? Is the Advisor really going to keep serving every race which is not only stale and predictable but also self-defeating since he is also helping the Forces of Order to thwart Chaos and ruin Tzeentch's grand plans?note Or is he (finally) going to be restricted to serving as advisor to only the Chaos-aligned factions which will then allow the Neutral and Order races to have their own advisors for a change?- It actually wouldn't be out of character for the Advisor, as a servant of Tzeentch, to actively work against Tzeentch. Tzeentch needs opposition - Everything that he represents requires an adversary of some kind. If no other adversary presents itself, he has to become his own adversary. More than any other Chaos God Tzeentch is explicitly and repeatedly stated to be ultimately self-sabotaging because of this conundrum, and his followers repeatedly plot and scheme against each other and against their own God because that's exactly what he needs them to do. He is more aware than any of his followers that plans stop being necessary once ultimate success is achieved, so if he ever achieved ultimate success he would no longer be necessary himself and would likely stop existing altogether.
- Okay. But the reason why the Advisor wasn't well received in Warhammer II was because he didn't have any sort of relevant bearing to the plot. He was just there, even if it didn't make sense in the lore for him to be there. Amongst High Elves, they would be somewhat skeptical of the Advisor. Amongst Dark Elves, they would've been very suspicious of his intentions or opportunistic to the idea of enslaving him. Amongst Skaven, the Advisor would have to be very lucky not to have them kill him at a moment's notice let alone become tolerant enough to permit him to be in their presence. And amongst Lizardmen, the Slann would've sensed the Advisor's affiliation to Tzeentch and had him executed on sight. Come to think of it, how did the Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, and Vampire Coast also not suspect the Advisor's affiliation with Tzeench which would've been reason enough for them to kill him? And as for the Greenskins, how could the Advisor convince them not to chop off his head without revealing his actual powers and allegiance?
- Tzeentch is the god of deceit and conspiracy. The first game shows us that the Advisor is a Sorcerer of Tzeentch and his bird is a disguised Lord of Change. Between the two they'd be able to lie, manipulate, or blackmail their way into any social or political circle, barring factions that don't have a circle to infiltrate like the Vampire Coast. While not narratively important like in the first game, it's still not unusual for him to be there for most of the factions.
- Turns out to be explained in the ending: This is a prequel. The advisor is not, in fact, fully corrupted yet. In the ending, he is fully corrupted, and goes on to handle the first and second games.
- It actually wouldn't be out of character for the Advisor, as a servant of Tzeentch, to actively work against Tzeentch. Tzeentch needs opposition - Everything that he represents requires an adversary of some kind. If no other adversary presents itself, he has to become his own adversary. More than any other Chaos God Tzeentch is explicitly and repeatedly stated to be ultimately self-sabotaging because of this conundrum, and his followers repeatedly plot and scheme against each other and against their own God because that's exactly what he needs them to do. He is more aware than any of his followers that plans stop being necessary once ultimate success is achieved, so if he ever achieved ultimate success he would no longer be necessary himself and would likely stop existing altogether.
Be'lakor's reinforcements
- During the final battle against Be'lakor in the Forge of Souls, Be'lakor continuously summons demon reinforcements to harass the player throughout the level. These reinforcements include Soul Grinders, which makes sense because Be'lakor is building an army of them. What doesn't make sense is that all the other reinforcements are ordinary demons of the Chaos Gods; besides his Soul Grinders, Be'lakor is stated to have no army, so logically this must be whom the demons belong to. However, Be'lakor openly hates the Chaos gods, and the Gods themselves likely aren't on board with accepting new members so they have no reason to assist him in any way, especially since Be'lakor announces that his plan is to eat them once he's absorbed Ursun's power. Moreover, Be'lakor himself states that the Chaos Gods can't interfere in the Forge of Souls, which presumably includes sending their servants: your faction's army only gets there via a charged-up Tome of Fate. So why, and how, are the Chaos Gods or their armies helping him?
- While daemons are normally bound to their chaos Gods, they do have a measure of free will (which is how Tzeentch convinced Skarbrand to betray Khorne, after all), so it's not out of the questions that Be'lakor managed to sway some other daemons to his cause.
- This makes some sense as the vast majority of Be'lakor's forces are Lesser demons and beasts of Chaos, who would be easier to mentally dominate than Greater demons, which Be'lakor's army seems to entirely lack. That said, Chaos demons' existence can also be revoked at will by said Chaos Gods the moment they act against their patron god's interests, so even if Be'lakor was able to sway them to his side they wouldn't be able to help him much. I think it would make a lot more sense for Be'lakor's forces to be primarily Warriors of Chaos, since they're not dependent on the Chaos Gods for their physical existence.
- Demons can be summoned and bound against their will. Human wizards can do this, you better believe Be'lakor can. The Chaos Gods are not involved in the transaction, he's just summoning them like any Chaos magic user might. But, being who he is, he can do so on a much larger scale. As for using Chaos Warriors, demons are more practical for Be'lakor. Humans need feeding.
- While daemons are normally bound to their chaos Gods, they do have a measure of free will (which is how Tzeentch convinced Skarbrand to betray Khorne, after all), so it's not out of the questions that Be'lakor managed to sway some other daemons to his cause.
Kairos Fateweaver's Knowledge of the Present
Much is made out of the fact that although Kairos Fateweaver has perfect knowledge of the past and the future, they're blind to the present. However, considering that every "present" moment has been in the future until it happened - and, for that matter, will be past once it has and relative to a further point in the future - shouldn't Kairos have perfect knowledge of those as well, regardless?- He does. Kairos is limited not by the information he has access to but his ability to access it. He knows everything that has happened and might happen, and given enough time and an unchanging set of parameters he can always make the right decision. The problem is that as the timeframe he has to work with becomes shorter the parameters change quicker and he has to sift through information faster and he eventually reaches a point where all the knowledge in the universe can't help him because he can't think fast enough to make use of it. He might know how to stop an ogre from becoming Tyrant in 50 years by looking at all the possibilities and arranging fate so the ogre does not become Tyrant, but if that ogre is swinging a club at him he can't sift through all the ways he could potentially dodge the club to see which ways would succeed before the club hits him. He needs access to the power of a real god, in the form of Ursun's eyes, to be able to overcome this handicap.
- There's also a matter of priorities that Kairos has to take with regards to the future. The future isn't actually fixed the Warhammer world, so Kairos sees not a set timeline of future events but a mass of possibilities and how each one might be brought about. He can't be everywhere and do everything so he has to follow the probabilities but the probabilities can still end up wrong. Take Yuri shooting Ursun. Kairos no doubt saw that coming as the most likely result and planned accordingly, more so as Yuri resisting his corruption became a vanishingly small prospect and the future narrowed. But in the moment Yuri still had the choice. However unlikely it was possible for him to resist in that last moment and not wound Ursun. Had he pulled off that longshot everything Kairos had planned for it would have collapsed in an instant and he'd have to start over.
Boris is very forgiving.
I realise it might be hard to manage in game but it seems like if you're playing as Kostaltyn and you conquer (rather than beat by supporter score) Katarin then awaken Boris Ursus than he wouldn't be inclined to help the Supreme Patriarch so much as wring his scrawny little neck for killing his daughter.- She's not dead. Legendary Lords don't die in Total War Warhammer, they simply get rendered irrelevant. If something causes them to become relevant again they will come back. This is a trick often used by players to confederate Legendary Lords who got taken out before they could confederate - By organizing a rebellion in that Lord's home territory, then letting the rebellion succeed, the faction will re-emerge and the Legendary Lord, unless previously confederated, will reappear as their leader.
Of Emperors, Kings and Confederation.
As of Immortal Empires a problem has occurred to me. Most of the time the difficulty of confederating major factions makes sense. Most of the faction types don't have an overall leader, do have one but they are not actually present as a Legendary Lord (High Elves, Cathay) or they are but the culture is so fractious and treacherous it often doesn't matter (Dark Elves, Chaos Warriors to some extent). The problem is Karl Franz and Louen Leoncoeur. Both are the overall leaders of their nation and at least most of the other Legendary Lords of their factions are supposed to be deeply loyal. Having Volkmar, Markus, Alberic or Repanse actually refusing their Emperor or King (as appropriate) seems very Gameplay and Story Segregation. I'm wondering if trying to downplay this is why all those Lords start far away from their mainlands.- Karl Franz isn't the unquestioned Emperor - When the game starts he's just the Elector Count of Reikland. He can call himself Emperor all he wants but that doesn't mean the other Elector Counts are going to listen to him, and at the start they're only humoring him because it doesn't require them to do anything. The entire Imperial Authority mechanic represents his effort in getting the other Elector Counts to accept him as Emperor and become loyal to him.
- Elector Counts, sure. But Volkmar and Markus are personally loyal to Karl. Volkmar voted him in as Emperor and Markus owes his position to him. It's not the minor lords and Balthasar I'm questioning, it's those two.
- With Louen it's twofold - First, attacking him as another Bretonnian faction grants the game's only negative defeat trait, penalizing you for fighting him, and second, he's not actually Bretonnia's leader. The Fay Enchantress has more political clout than Louen does because the not-present Lady of the Lake is Bretonnia's true faction leader; if she decides via the Fay Enchantress that someone else is King, then that person is King, and Louen gets demoted to Duke of Couronne.
- Again, that's is why I didn't include Morgiana in the list and also minor Bretonnian Lords don't always match up to standards. Alberic and Rapanse however are true chivalric knights. It's the idea of those two refusing royal edicts that is an issue.
- This is a perfectly valid point with the Dwarfs, who have a universally-acknowledged single leader, High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer, and who are legendarily loyal to the point they've never experienced a civil war in their entire history, something no other faction except maybe the Lizardmen can claim. While confederation still makes sense in that the confederating lord can just let Thorgrim do his High King thing while they take the throngs and go marching out, war between Dwarfs would be the ultimate Gameplay and Story Segregation.
- Don't disagree except on the Lizardmen. They certainly have had civil wars in the past, generally as a result of Slaan having a disagreement over interpretation of the Great Plan.
