The Problems with the Disciple of Khaine

[Xurré]

As per Browncoat’s suggestion to link to a single post with all points concerning the issue (with no such post existing yet) and considering that the same points keep coming up again and again regardless of the moderators forbidding the topic (and with me pretty much not responding to them at all) I decided to make this post, one article which hopefully shows, in detail, all the issues that have been raised regarding the Disciple thus far.

It is also my hope that the moderators take my suggestion and allow for a single place where issues with the Disciple can be discussed. Considering that all the points are in this first post (two actually since it didn’t fit in one) I think this would be the perfect place to do it.

Before beginning I do emphatically ask everyone to stay civil. I know that can be difficult, but if you feel too heated or want to say something nasty then take a step back and a few deep breaths. Or keep from posting for a little until you’ve cooled down. In the end this seems to be a very volatile issue (not completely sure why considering that there are solutions which would make everyone happy), so try and treat it with care. Thank you.



This article aims to detail all arguments against the Disciple of Khaine in the game Warhammer Online by EA Mythic. After some background it will look at the arguments in turn on a category basis, explaining each in detail. It will look at a number of counter-arguments that have been raised a lot and offer a number of alternatives before going into the conclusion. At the end of the article there will be a point list repeating all the arguments against the class.

The reasons for this article is both to explain the stance of those unhappy with the class as well as hopefully convince EA Mythic to see reason and change it. Let it be clear here that the aim is not to change the functionality of the class. The arguments aren’t against how the class functions; it isn’t against melee healers. The arguments are against the background of the class and it only aims to see that changed. The class can remain exactly as it is, as long as the name and background of the class are changed (which seems hardly an unreasonable request).


Background

For months leading up to EA Mythic unveiling the last classes for the dark elves there was a lot of heated discussion in the forums about what the healer class should and shouldn’t be. One side argued for a melee healer and the other side argued against a Khaine-based healer. Interestingly enough these two goals weren’t mutually-exclusive, but the arguments came about because the one side suggested, and fought for, a Khaine-based melee healer while the other side fought that, among other things, by reasoning that a melee healer isn’t needed at all and a ranged healer (the Sorceress) would fit a lot better. Thus arguments raged back and forth for months until finally the two sides realized that their goals weren’t incompatible.

Then Mythic released the classes, taking the worst possible course of action as far as the anti “Khaine-based healers” were concerned: they announced the Disciple of Khaine, with is a Khaine-based melee healer class. Thus the arguments flared up again only for many newcomers it had to be explained, again, that it wasn’t the fact that this was a melee healer which was the issue, that is wasn’t the gameplay mechanics which were the problem, but that the background of the class was the problem. Add to this that those in favour of a melee healer seemed to have forgotten that there was no need for this melee healer to be Khaine-based and things only got worse.

Instead of the community coming together in asking EA Mythic to make a change here things only seemed to escalate. As such, it seems, the need for this article as a single place with all the gathered arguments against the Disciple of Khaine and the question to the community to, this time, stand united with those fighting for improvement in the game. You might not care about the setting and the background that much, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t support those that do.


The God of Murder

The first, and possibly strongest, argument against the Disciple of Khaine is that Khaine is the god of Murder. Khaine is a god who wants to see life taken away; who wants to see wounds opened and blood flowing. His followers worship death and murder, all rituals devoted to him involving the taking of life and the flowing of blood. He is a cruel and harsh deity who doesn’t tolerate weakness and will gladly sacrifice his own worshippers if it suits him.

But healing is the bringing of life, the closing of wounds and the resurrecting of the dead. It is everything that goes directly against what Khaine stands for. If you close wounds then you’re not opening; you’re stopping the blood flow instead of making it start. If you bring back from the dead then you’re not making them dead. Life is flowing in the opposite direction of what you want it to. Healing is the antithesis of Murder.

“Kháine is the dread Lord of Murder – the patron of assassins and murderers” says the old Warhammer fantasy roleplaying book (1989 print, page 205). The 4th edition army book goes even further; “[Khaine] is the Elf god of war, murder, hatred and destruction. He is the destroying god, who represents to the Elves the fact that in order to for there to be life there must also be death, in order to have peace there must also be war, in order to have happiness there must be suffering, in order to have love there must also be hatred and murder.” (1995 print, page 6). But it goes further still, making clear that the dark elves purposely chose to spurn all which balances Khaine, “This is not the case for the Dark Elves. For them there is only one god, Khaine, because in their lives there is only death, war, suffering, hatred and murder. They have no time for life, peace, happiness or love, and thus no time for the Elven gods that represent these virtues. The Dark Elves have given themselves over entirely to the worship of Khaine. They let their dark sides control their lives and actively seek opportunities to cause death and carnage. They revel in their wickedness and gratify it at every opportunity.” Not only does is clearly link Khaine as a god of death and murder, not only does is clearly put that opposite life and love, but it also clearly shows how Khaine represents the heart of the dark elves, reflecting the druchii’s view on life.

This doesn’t mean that Khaine could not, technically speaking, give healing powers, that his worshippers could not decide to heal. That is not the issue. Simply because a priest of a god of peace and non-violence could decide to wage a war and kill people in the name of his deity doesn’t mean that it should be done. It doesn’t mean that the church for such a deity would go around training disciples into war and killing to achieve peace as that would be hypocrisy. The issue is that as a religion you stand for something and have to uphold this and if your religion stands for murder then you don’t go around healing someone. You don’t pray to the God of Eternal Darkness to fix your light bulb and you don’t pray to the Lord of Murder for life. For someone who worships death and murder healing someone is blasphemy.

Now, it has been argued that what the Disciples do isn’t really healing at all but “giving strength”. This seems decidedly weak at best and utter nonsense at worst. The game will likely be full of links between “wounding” and “bleeding” and such and decreasing hitpoints (if this isn’t called “health” straight up to begin with). And all the other healers will likely have no such compunction as to call healing “healing”. Yes, you could see what the Disciples do as “giving strength” or such, but the problem lies in that you’d have to do that to make the class work within the setting; they’d likely be the only class to do so (and, in fact, will have abilities themselves to “wound” other classes making them inconsistent to boot).


The Fallacy of “Heal to Kill”

The argument EA Mythic seems to make for why the Disciples heal, the explanation they give for how a healer can come to be in the Temple of Khaine, is that the Disciples heal so that those they heal can continue to kill in the name of Khaine. But this seems an utter fallacy for several reasons.

First of all, the way the game works, dark elf players will likely be more or less equally mixing with the Chaos and the Greenskin classes. If you wanted to you could probably play in a party with no other dark elves besides yourself. This makes roughly two-thirds of the characters the Disciple will heal something other than a dark elf. And the Chaos and Greenskin characters don’t worship Khaine at all, so healing them isn’t going to serve Khaine. “[Khaine] steals the souls of those murdered and sacrificed in his name, building his own dark realm” says the old roleplaying book (1989 print, page 205).

In fact, healing one of them harms Khaine in that not only are you neglecting to send this weakened human/orc/goblin to Khaine by killing him yourself, but that human/orc/goblin is then going to go on and kill not in the name of Khaine, meaning that their victims can’t be killed for the greater glory of Khaine anymore. And even among the dark elves the Disciple heals it’s not at all guaranteed that they all worship Khaine (as it’s likely that a fair number of players will “secretly worship Slaanesh”).

But even the healing of Khaine-worshipping dark elves causes problems. The druchii practice a form of social Darwinism which preaches that you should kill the weak to make the race strong. “But above all you must learn to be merciless, for we cannot allow weaklings to thrive while traitors still hold our ancestral lands” the dark elf army book says in the very introduction (2001 print, page 3). This reasoning, while hard to grasp for humans perhaps, says that by helping the weak you expend resources which could’ve been spent on the strong instead. It leaves someone who couldn’t take care of themselves to walk around and cause problems for society in the future. They were too weak to survive now so they’ll be too weak to survive in the future. And nowhere is this more epitomized than in the Temple of Khaine and the God of Murder.

Of course we’re just humans playing dark elves and as such the need for a healer is understandable in the game. But it shouldn’t be in their religion. As with many societies their religion is a reflection of the very heart of the druchii; their religion shows what morals and ethics they value. Their religion shows who they are and what they hold dear. To change that is to change the very nature of the dark elves. Now it is no longer “kill the weak” but “help the weak so that they can help you later” and you’re right on the slippery slope of typical human supportive behaviour where society is made strong by helping each other. And that is not the druchii. If there is a need for a healer then it is so much better to have one a bit outside the norm, a bit of an outcast, instead of corrupting the druchii heart with tenderness no matter how small. Khaine is a survival-of-the-fittest deity; if you’re not fit to kill for him on your own then you’re fit to die for him.

A true worshipper of Khaine would sooner cut any weaklings needing healing down themselves, claiming another kill in the name of Khaine, than help them so that they can get in the way or stab you in the back. And that goes whether it’s called “healing” or “giving strength”.


Witch Elves versus Disciples

But even ignoring what the Disciples do, namely heal, there are still further problems within the Temple. Namely the Disciples come in conflict with the Witch Elves.

The current army book describes Witch Elves as “the chosen brides of Khaine,” “maiden-elves who are wedded to Khaine,” and “[Khaine’s] chosen ones” (2001 print, page 10). They are described as performing rites and rituals (generally duties for the priesthood), as treating the battlefield as another temple to worship him on; they’re described pretty much as the warrior priestesses of Khaine, his chosen ones and the power within the Temple of Khaine.

Yet here come the Disciples of Khaine whom EA Mythic describes as “the chosen dark priests of the bloody handed god”. This directly conflicts with what the lore says, which pretty much describes the Witch Elves as the chosen priestesses of Khaine. And what’s worse they get healing and resurrection powers where even the most powerful and sacred and the Witch Elves’ artefacts, the Cauldron of Blood, does no more than rejuvenate at most a few times a year and then only for the most powerful and trusted of Khaine’s brides: the Hag Queens. This greatly trivializes the most sacred, most powerful and most holy of Khaine’s rituals. This wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the healing was done outside of the temple, because it disassociates it with it; Khaine isn’t going to give healing anyway to anyone, so be glad with what you get.

As such the very existence of the Disciples challenges the power and autonomy of the Witch Elves. Disciples are called Khaine’s “chosen ones” where Witch Elves have always been that, Disciples gain powers well beyond what Witches have access to, Disciples are warriors and priests just as Witches have always been. There is no way on earth that the Witch Elves wouldn’t act on this and slaughter each and every Disciple while they still had the advantage of numbers. There is no way that they’d let these usurpers, these heretics, challenge their rule. Yet in the game you have no other choice than to accept them, completely counter to their nature.

And even in gameplay terms there are issues in that there’s decided overlap between what abilities the Witch Elf would get and what abilities the Disciple would get. Because they’re both melee fighters and both members of the Temple of Khaine it’s exceedingly likely that any melee abilities one would know the other would too. Why doesn’t the Disciple know how to use poisons, as that’s something all adepts of the Temple would be familiar with? Why doesn’t the Witch Elf know some of the Disciples attack moves? The armybook lists a number of skills specific to the Temple (Dance of Doom, Touch of Death, Rune of Khaine, Hand of Khaine and Cry of War); which one of them gets which, because they’d make sense for both of them (assuming that the Disciple in the Temple would make sense to begin with).

Not only does the Disciple inject something into the Temple of Khaine which doesn’t belong there (i.e. healing), but they actively take away from what makes the Witch Elves so good and interesting; being chosen warrior priestesses of Khaine. It actively takes away abilities which could have been used to enrich the Witch Elf.


Disciples as Magic Users

The Disciple challenging the authority of the Witch Elves isn’t the only problem they cause by being a member of the Temple of Khaine. Another problem stems from them being magic users.

After all, the Temple of Khaine finds the use of magic distasteful. “Use of magic is distasteful to the followers of Khaine, and there’s a centuries-long feud between the Temple of Khaine and the Convents of the Sorceresses” the army book says (2001 print, page 6). In fact, Witch Elves aren’t allowed to use magic at all: “It is Morathi and Morathi alone of the Witch Elves who is allowed to wield magical power; like her son, Morathi feels no shame in creating laws and traditions for the control of others, whilst ignoring them herself.” (2001 print, page 52) (Another reason for why the Witch Elves would want to get rid of the magic-using Disciples.) It makes no sense for the Temple to not only suddenly do a 180 on this, but actively start to educate certain “disciples” in the use of magic, making them a magic-focused class.

What’s more one could argue that Morathi only forbade Witch Elves (and there’s no evidence that she did as the quote above seems to list them only because Morathi is a Witch Elf of sorts herself) since it’s only Witch Elves who hold power within the temple and would potentially want to use magic to challenge her Sorceresses. It seems that she forbade the Witch Elves from using magic because she wanted to keep magic out of the Temple of Khaine (the main rival to her Sorceress Convents); if there were more possible magic users within the temple she’d likely have forbidden them too. And hearing of magic-using Disciples would probably put her into action to get rid of them (and she’s got enough influence in the Temple to succeed).

The Temple has also always seemed as a place that purposely spurned magic, almost as if saying “we don’t need it”. The Witch Elves are forbidden from using magic, but they don’t fight this, don’t seem to try and circumvent it, in fact many are still loyal to Morathi who ordered it. It seems that the temple as a whole embraces it, as if saying “we don’t need gods to give us handouts, we make our own power”. This, again, fit very well with the dark elves making their own way. Now with Khaine suddenly giving them magic it makes them look weak, as if they couldn’t cut it on their own, as if Khaine is saying “there, there, don’t worry. You might be too weak yourself, but let me give you power.” And that simply doesn’t fit with the self-supposed superior image of the dark elves.

On the topic of magic there’s another issue that rises with the Disciples. In the past it has always been a mystery whether Khaine and Khorne are one and the same god, two completely separate gods or whether Khaine is part of Khorne who gained his own consciousness. But since Khorne is quite clearly against the use of magic and the Disciple of Khaine would prove that Khaine has no problem with magic that settles the question once and for all: the two are completely separate. This removes one big and interesting mystery from the universe and that’s a deep shame.

All in all the Disciple of Khaine would be problematic because they’re magic users within the Temple of Khaine, a temple which finds magic distasteful and which would likely be forbidden them.


The Most Unimaginative Choice

Next to all the conflicts and issue the Disciples cause in the background, the issues that they change the flavour of the setting, there are also the issues that they seem simple a rather unimaginative class choice (background-wise).

It seems as if whenever game developers needs to come up with a “healer” class they automatically tend to lean towards making that class a religious class. This is understandable, considering that religion has generally been something to support and nurture us in our human history, but the druchii religion is quite different (in fact the exact opposite). With the exception of the Archmage all healing classes in the game have some kind of religious connotation (including the Runepriest due to the use of “priest” in their name; wouldn’t have been that off to call them something else).

But in the dark elf background it always seems to be the Sorceresses, the dark magic users, who are referred to as the healers. They’re the ones who get the Soul Stealer (which is pretty much also what Disciples do) healing spells. True they can only be used to heal themselves in the tabletop game, but it is healing power nonetheless. Then there are also references to Sorceresses nurturing people back to health (from Morathi to Malus Darkblade’s sister in the novels). It could be argued that they used lotions and TLC to do it instead of magic, but it is still far more of a reference to healing than anything else for the dark elves.

So instead of going the Sorceress route or even coming up with something truly new we now have two blood priest type characters in the game. In fact, they seem pretty much the exact same except that one uses poison and does more damage and the other heals. For the rest you have pretty much two priests of Khaine. Both are melee fighters, both worship Khaine, both use bladed weapons, both want to kill, both drink blood, etc. In fact their background is pretty much exactly the same as for Assassins, they too are kidnapped as children and thrown in the cauldron, but survive to be trained by the temple, except for some reason (“eyes of molten brass”) they’re trained completely differently. If you’re going to come up with a completely new class at least come with something original, something that doesn’t already exist not only in the setting but as one of the other four classes you have. Make the class more than just a cross between a Witch Elf and a Warrior Priest with the background of an Assassin crossed with a Witch Elf. At least be somewhat original in your back story.

What’s more, it seems many people relate them with vampires and it’s likely that newcomers will know no better than to assume that they are. Already people seem to think the druchii are vampires due to their pale skin colour and penchant for dark clothing. But now with a class that sucks energy from their victims to heal and has a penchant for blood it’s going to be nigh-on impossible to convince them. Again, if you want to make vampires then make vampires as they do exist as an army in the Warhammer tabletop game.

Add the decidedly standard “evil elf” spiky look they’ve got going and what is probably the most generic name for a class ever (as “Disciple” could literally apply to every possible class in every race or archetype), and all in all the Disciple of Khaine is by far the least original and most boring class in the entire game. Of course that doesn’t mean that people can’t like it, but there’s hardly anything that jump out and says “wow, that’s original.”

[Xurré]

Much Better Alternatives

What makes matters worse is that there is absolutely no reason for the developers to go this route. There are much, much better alternatives available which do not cause these issues.

To begin with it grates, a lot, that EA Mythic opted to invent a new class for the dark elves while there are still so many other interesting units that a class could have been based on. Unlike with Chaos where after three classes they pretty much exhausted the human Chaos units the dark elves have many, many left: Beastmasters, (Blood)shades, Corsairs, Assassins, Executioners, Manflayers, maybe even Cold One Knights or Dark Riders (though the mount might cause issues); all of them are unique, separate and would make for some very interesting classes. And while none of them are healers as such a number of them would make for a great ranged class in which case the Sorceress could fulfil the support role. This way no new units would need to have been invented and dark elf players wouldn’t have to have been short-changed in the representation of the race the most enjoy. But it seems that ship has sailed.

But even with the invention of a new class there is absolutely no reason to make it a member of the Temple of Khaine, to make it what is likely the most problematic thing they could have made it. Without changing the mechanics of the class at all, just the name and the background (and with it the descriptions of abilities and such most like), there are a number of very interesting directions they could have taken (and still could take) the class in such that none of the above problems would exist (and no new ones would be introduced either).

Below are a couple of examples for the path they could have taken (and all of them could even be named “Disciple”), but with only a little effort it’s exceedingly easy to come up with numerous other possibilities (a shaman of some Shade tribe, a Corsair trained in medicine, a Slave Master able to heal slaves, the Drachaus’ personal caretakers, the druchii tasked with infiltrating the asur, a dark elf Herald using vile music to heal, etc, etc). Note that all the alternatives listed below pretty much exactly maintain the gameplay mechanics of the Disciple, they just change the background.

Alternative: Soultaker

In many ways the Soultaker (named after one of the ceremonial swords a Druchii noble caries) is the most straight-forward adjustment of the Disciple into something that isn’t a priest of Khaine while maintaining the gameplay as it is. The idea is to take the Soul Stealer spell Sorceress get and make this a group of mages specializing in spells of that type. This makes sense, because as the Warhammer rulebooks states, slaves can find their “souls seared to fuel the sorcery of Naggaroth.” (2006 print, page 170) The Soultakers are the mages who do that. These mages have trained themselves in martial combat as they have found that it is easiest to extract souls from victims through a blade/their open wounds. This group could be a specialist group from the Convents (that causes some overlap with the Sorceress, but to a lesser degree because one is ranged and the other is melee), or it could be mages trained in secret by the head of a noble house, or perhaps a group of renegade (‘illegal’) Sorcerers who have banded together. Or any of a dozen other options. With some creativity the class could be given a very rich and unique background. The benefit is that it’d be exactly like the Disciple, except it wouldn’t conflict with the established background (by not being an adept of the Temple of Khaine). Potentially it could even be combined with the next alternative.

Alternative: Torturer

The druchii delight in torture and inflicting pain, to the point that they’ve elevated it to a form of entertainment, a form of art; “they will take pleasure in performing a malicious act for no other reason than that it causes suffering to others” the old army book says (1995 print, page 4). “A Dark Elf will slowly torture a prisoner to death simply to see how how much pain they can inflict before the victim dies.” As such druchii society trains a number of Torturers (or use something like “Interrogators” or “Entertainers” or whatever is the name could cause rating issues). Some of these work to interrogate slaves and prisoners for information, but others work purely to entertain dark elves in elaborate flesh houses. A few even travel around to give private performances to nobles. And to be able to extend the lives of their victims as much as possible they have learned to use the very life force of their victims to heal them, only so that they can continue to torture them further for such is the cruelty of the dark elves. A few are even able to bring back to live those victims they’ve tortured to death, only to torture them more. And all of them are capable warriors for to be a good torturer one needs to be able to handle a blade and find the most painful places to strike. Now that the druchii are going to war they have been called to aid the fight, using their martial abilities to strike at the enemies and their healing abilities to lend strength to their allies.

Alternative: Anointed

The Druchii Anointed was introduced by Games Workshop in their Storm of Chaos campaign. The Anointed is, in essence, a dark elf Chosen of Slaanesh, a warrior who can be trained in magic as well (I think either dark magic or Slaanesh magic). This unit is a popular alternative for the Disciple in that it is a powerful unit (at least on-par with the Chaos Chosen), people feel that they look cool, people like Slaanesh and they currently already exist in the setting so it wouldn’t be a new invention. The big drawback of course is that they’re a Slaanesh-based unit, which causes a number of problems (Temple of Khaine and Cult of Pleasure don’t mix, and then there’s the whole sex thing Slaanesh has going). But potentially the Slaanesh references could be ignored or altered.


Devastating to Roleplaying

Though it is perhaps a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the Disciple of Khaine is likely to be devastating to roleplaying. One the one hand you have people steeped in the lore as presented by Games Workshop and the army books, on the other hand you’ve got people who are either unfamiliar with the problems to begin with or choose to abandon the setting’s consistency and accept the Disciple. And it is exceedingly likely that these two groups will clash, again and again and again, causing quite unintended and unwanted conflict in the game.

Some people might continually call Disciples heretics, perhaps going out of their way to degrade them. Others will ridicule Witch Elves for being nothing more than half-naked fighters. And some (like myself) might even go so far as to completely refuse to play together with Disciples. And considering how simple the solution is this kind of problems is something the game could well do without. All it can lead to is problems and eventually people leaving the game altogether because of it.

If the Disciple class is changed to still work exactly the same but have a different background then all of this can be avoided, making the game better for everyone involved in the process. EA Mythic has promised that despite them being released last the elves too would get the attention they deserved; given extra attention when serious problems arise that indicate something needs to change. Well, we say to EA Mythic: put your money where your mouth is and prove it, because the Disciple causes problems which simply aren’t acceptable.


Counter Arguments

Of course with all the arguments made against the Disciples there are also those who have counter argument, arguments in favour for the Disciple. Those that the author can recall will be listed here and answered.

Before doing that though, note that the point here isn’t that there aren’t reasons on which the class does work, but that with all the reasons for why it doesn’t and the available alternatives there is no reason to have the class be the way it is. If nothing changes for you, if nothing changes in these counter arguments, then why not make a change for the better.

Counter Argument: Games Workshop approved it

Probably the most heard counter argument is that Games Workshop approved it, so it must be fine. The argument here seems to be that since they own the IP they can do pretty much whatever they want with it. However, simply because they can does not mean that they should. Simply because they own the IP does not mean that every decision they make for it is automatically in its best interest. IP holders have been known to screw up and make mistakes before (midi-chlorians anyone). We’re saying that here is something that doesn’t jive with the lore, something that doesn’t fit with the setting, something which changes what the dark elves are. One can speculate on Games Workshop’s reasons or maybe they just made a mistake, but the end of the story always is that the Disciple does not work.

Counter Argument: WAR is Batman

Another popular counter argument is something that goes along the lines of “WAR is its own separate entity and its own universe. WAR’s lore is separate from the Warhammer lore.” That may all well be, but we want to play this game because it is a Warhammer game, not because it’s World of Warcraft with some Warhammer flavour and names. Batman doesn’t go around spinning webs and using them to fly around the city; there are certain things which make Batman Batman. Similarly there are certain things that make Warhammer Warhammer and Khaine being the Lord of Murder, the Temple of Khaine being about killing without mercy, etc are among those. A Disciple of Khaine changes that, changes the game from a Warhammer game to a somewhat Warhammer flavoured game.

Counter Argument: The lore changes

A misconception people seem to have regarding the arguments against the Disciple of Khaine is that the arguers don’t want to see the lore changed, that we hold it as some immobile truth that must remain exactly what it is. This is far from true, we’re overall quite open to change (and there’s plenty of it in WAR). But all such change should be to further the setting, all such change should maintain the core of what this is. No matter what the change, it still has to remain Warhammer. No matter what the change, dark elves should still be dark elves. But the Disciple doesn’t just add to the setting, introducing something new and exciting, it doesn’t sharpen the focus on something or improves on something which was lacking, it takes away from the setting and the flavour of the druchii. How successful would Star Wars be if it no longer contained jedi? The Disciple destroys what the Temple of Khaine is: a place of unrelenting murder and death.

Counter Argument: This isn’t tabletop

Another misconception seems to be that those against the Disciple of Khaine are somehow hung-up on the tabletop games and can’t see beyond their miniatures. People think that we don’t like the class because there isn’t a Disciple miniature or something. But this too is far removed from the truth as the tabletop game hardly even enters into the picture. It is the setting and the background that we’re most concerned with, taking into account all sources (army books, roleplaying game, additional sources like the Liber Chaotica, and even the novels to some extend even though their lore is often in dispute and seen as unofficial). True, most of the lore comes from the tabletop game books, but most of the lore we’re referring to here has no actual effect on the tabletop game. It’s not the miniatures we’re concerned with, it’s the Warhammer setting.

Counter Argument: It’s too late for change now

Perhaps the vilest counter argument made is that it’s too close to release now to change, that the class is locked in and won’t be altered. This completely ignores that we’ve been arguing against a healer in the Temple of Khaine from close to a year before the projected release. It seems also decidedly underhanded to release the most problematic class last (and considering the White Lion leaks it definitely was last); seems like a pathetic way to forestall any arguments against it. Earlier mistakes don’t excuse this one. Besides, EA Mythic has promised that the elves, despite being released last, would get equal attention. It’s not our fault that only now do we know of the class for certain to complain about it (and again, the arguments have been around well long enough for EA Mythic to notice and make changes to the class).

Counter Argument: But Destruction needs a melee healer

This is an old argument that’s listed more for completeness. The argument here is that EA Mythic had to implement the Disciple of Khaine since Destruction needed a melee healer to mirror the Warrior Priest. Not only is this ignoring the fact that they could have made the Zealot the melee healer (again, simply because the Disciple is the last to be revealed doesn’t excuse them dumping whatever leftover issues they have there). But even more to the point is that none of the arguments made against the Disciple are actually arguments against a melee healer. Again the mechanics of the class aren’t the issue, the background is. All the alternatives presented above are also melee healers; in fact they all function exactly the same as the Disciple.

Counter Argument: But I like the Disciple

That’s not really a counter argument, that’s an opinion. But fair enough, you like the Disciple, we happen to hate the Disciple. Still, I’ve never actually seen anyone who specifically likes the Disciple because of it being an Adept of Khaine; most anyone who likes it seems to like it for their mechanics (or possibly their looks). And as said countless times already we’re not actually arguing against those, we’re arguing against the background and against it being a priest of Khaine. Ask yourself, would you really like it all that much less if it wasn’t a Khaine-based class? Still a melee healer, still working exactly as the Disciple promises to, just with a slightly different name and background. If not then what reason is there left to keep the class as it is?


Conclusion

There are numerous reasons for why the Disciple of Khaine is so horrid, but the following are the main ones.

Khaine if the Lord of Murder

Killing and murder is pretty much the opposite of healing and resurrecting, aspects not only not what Khaine stands for, but directly counter to what he stands for. It’s made very clear in the lore that Khaine stands for the opposite of life, love, peace and happiness. And Khaine works so well as the god of the druchii because by choosing him the dark elves make clear that they can do without the balance of those concepts. As the god of murder he should not be tainted by including healing, not even to support killing (which in itself is a troublesome concept).

Disciples conflict with Witch Elves

A lot of what the Witch Elves are/were now suddenly the Disciples are. Where Witch Elves were the priestesses now suddenly the Disciples are, where Witch Elves were Khaine’s chosen now suddenly Disciples are, where Witch Elves were the power in the temple now suddenly Disciples are. Disciples healing and resurrecting trivializes the Cauldron of Blood and Disciples getting magic powers where the Witch Elves are forbidden (and where the temple had always seen magic as distasteful) is not only going to cause severe conflicts with the Witch Elves, but also put the Temple at odds with the Sorceress Convents. On top of that they’re both melee fighters, both have a penchant for blood and have a directly opposing view of how to serve Khaine (Witch Elves would rather die for Khaine than do something as sacrilegious as being healed in his name).

Take these two together and add in that the Disciples seem not very inspired and it should be clear how horrible the class is. Particularly when considering how much other possibilities there are which are all equally, if not more, viable and interesting and even maintain the Disciples gameplay. As such it is utterly inconceivable why the class shouldn’t be changed as it would make pretty much everyone happy.

As it is though these aren’t the druchii we fell in love with.


Addendum: Point Summary

What follows is a list of the points made in the preceding article.

Khaine is the God of Murder
Khaine isn't a life-giving god
Resurrecting is the opposite of killing
Closing wounds is stopping blood flow
Giving strength is ending suffering
Healing is the antithesis of Murder
“Heal to Kill” is a fallacy
Healing Chaos and Greenskins doesn't help Khaine
Healing non-Khaine worshippers hurts Khaine
Taking possible murder over certain death
Not even all dark elves are guaranteed to worship Khaine
Healing is against the dark elves' social Darwinism
(and Khaine, as their religion, represents the druchii heart)
Healing the weak will only give them the opportunity to get in the way
Khaine is a survival-of-the-fittest deity
A true worshipper of Khaine would claim the kill themselves
Disciples conflict with Witch Elves
Witch Elves are the chosen of Khaine, not Disciples
Witch Elves are Khaine's priestesses, not Disciples
Witch Elves are the power in the temple, not Disciples
If Khaine where to give magic powers it would be to his brides
Healing and resurrecting Disciples trivializes the Cauldron of Blood
(and trivializing the most sacred, most powerful and most holy of rituals is BAD)
Witch Elves would never accept such an order and would seek to kill all Disciples
(particularly considering that the Disciples preach a perversion of Khaine's faith)
There's a lot of overlap in abilities between Witch Elves and Disciples
(because both of them are melee fighters for the Temple of Khaine)
Like this there are two blood priests of Khaine
Magic doesn’t fit in the temple
The Temple finds the use of magic distasteful
It puts the temple at odds with the Sorceress Convents
Knowing of magic users within the temple Morathi would most likely forbid them
(same as she did with Witch Elves since they were the power in the temple)
The temple has always been about power from self; magic from a god makes them weak
It proves that Khaine isn't Khorne, removing mystery from the setting
Disciples are unimaginative (background-wise)
It's yet another religious healing class in the game
There have been far more indications that sorcerous magic heals for dark elves
It's the dark magic users who deal with stealing souls
Disciples overlap with the origin background for Assassins
Disciples overlap with the rest of the background for Witch Elves
Disciples are far too easily related to vampires
There are much better alternatives
Disciple is invented while there's numerous other unit which could've been a class
Sorceress would've been a much better fit for support, leaving another unit for range
There are many, many much better alternatives that don't cause such lore problems
(many of which don't change the functionality of the class at all)
Other Points
The class, with all the issues, is going to cause major problems for roleplaying
That Games Worshop approved it doesn't mean it's a good idea
Despite being "Batman" the setting should still maintain the Warhammer flavour
While lore changes are fine, they still need to keep the setting consistent
The miniatures have nothing to do with our complaints
The Dark Elves deserve to get just as development attention as the other races
A dark elf melee healer doesn't need to be a member of the temple of Khaine
Few, if any, of those who like the class seem to like them specifically for being a priest of Khaine
With the Disciple of Khaine these aren't the druchii we fell in love with


- Xurré

[Xurré]

...(space reserved for future additions)...


- Xurré

[Emeraldw99]

You are aware this is biased in your favor right Xurre? While I would like to see a post such as this describing the conflict, the problem is that it needs to be unbiased. This isn't. What you have, is an enormous post detailing why you don't like it and quite frankly, I'm not interested in debating with you anymore. It's over.

If you want to make an unbiased post, please go ahead.

[Xurré]

You are aware this is biased in your favor right Xurre? While I would like to see a post such as this describing the conflict, the problem is that it needs to be unbiased. This isn't. What you have, is an enormous post detailing why you don't like it and quite frankly, I'm not interested in debating with you anymore. It's over.

If you want to make an unbiased post, please go ahead.
That's because I wasn't trying to make an unbiased post, I was trying to make a post showing the argument as completely as possible from my side. If you want to show the argument as completely as possible from the other side (and I think I've at least touched on most points) then do so.

Besides, there has been every opportunity to give your input into this. Even before the class was announced I had a place where I much welcomed any discussion and all input. I would've much liked to see input from the other side, but none such was forthcoming (after all, people got what they wanted so they stopped caring I think).

This post, however, isn't just my views. It's the views of, I think, pretty much everyone who has issue with the class. And as such it has value.

[EDIT] Forgot to mention; Another reason why I didn't make an unbiased post is because I'm not unbiased and doubt I could possibly make an unbiased post. Now, I'm trying, trying really hard to come to terms here and find ways to make things work. But I feel like I'm not getting much support in this from the other side of the fence.

[EDIT2] I'll repeat my heartfelt request; please try and remain civil. Please try and refrain from bashing or trolling. If you disagree with the post then present your counter arguments. If you don't like the post or don't like me but have nothing else to say then please refrain from posting. Let's try and have a somewhat constructive discussion here. And to the moderators, please deal with unconstructive posts individually instead of locking the entire thread; doing that is just giving one side the ability to stop arguments altogether. Thank you.


- Xurré

[Kellaris]

Sorry to say, but ths is not problem with Disciple. This is problem with You.
I really can't understand why someone who if declared fan of Druchii and Temple of Khaine cannot be happy about another great part of the lore that have been revealed.

Why there cannot be 2 kind of chosens. Is Khaine so Narrow-minded that he cannot concentrate on 2 kinds of priests?
Why it is so hard to remember that Khaine is not only God of Murder? He is also God of many faces and one of them is God of War. And it is not so hard to understand that God of War heals his followers.
Why it is so hard to imagine that Disciples are Helleborn answer to Morathi anti-spellcasting laws?

I think In fact You are not Druchii fan. You are not Temple of Khaine fan also.
You are Witch Elf fan And You cannot stand that they are not the only ones any more.
Your love to Witch Elfes makes You blind to the fact, that disciples are best allies that Brides of Khaine have.
You may belive that it is better to be healed/resurrected by follower of slaanesh than by follower of Khaine. But I do not think that REAL Witch would agree with You.

Edit:
And I like Disciple becouse he is priest of Khaine

[Emeraldw99]

That's because I wasn't trying to make an unbiased post, I was trying to make a post showing the argument as completely as possible from my side. If you want to show the argument as completely as possible from the other side (and I think I've at least touched on most points) then do so.


Actually I feel like you haven't. As I said in another thread, this is based on assumptive deductions about the nature of khaine. I could slowly, and surely move through each point but it would take a long time and I am not sure I have the resources (time included) to do so. Also the counter arguements you mention are the most shallow of the ones that have been presented over time. Maybe they where the most common but I would hope you know that they were only a portion of the ones brought against your stance.



Besides, there has been every opportunity to give your input into this. Even before the class was announced I had a place where I much welcomed any discussion and all input. I would've much liked to see input from the other side, but none such was forthcoming (after all, people got what they wanted so they stopped caring I think).

This post, however, isn't just my views. It's the views of, I think, pretty much everyone who has issue with the class. And as such it has value.

[EDIT] Forgot to mention; Another reason why I didn't make an unbiased post is because I'm not unbiased and doubt I could possibly make an unbiased post. Now, I'm trying, trying really hard to come to terms here and find ways to make things work. But I feel like I'm not getting much support in this from the other side of the fence.


- Xurré

Your probably not getting much input from the other side because they feel they have won. There is little incentive to bring it up again for them. I participated originally because I thought the whole thing was interesting to talk about and enjoyed debating what is hypothetical constructs about the nature of a church and a god.

You have done very well Xurre, Prior to the post about The sorcs being ranged DPS, you had me convinced it would be SHade for RDPS and Sorc for Support. Thats how passionate I could feel you where. Your confidence about it was inspiring. However prior to that you did take a hostile stance. Shooting down other ways of viewing. Most counter arguments were hard, if not impossible till it was confirmed that Sorc was indeed RDPS. So I find it somewhat amusing your going to such lengths to "appease" the other side, when before (in keeping with a witch elf I'd say ;)) Would ruthlessly shoot down the opposition. This has likely led to some hostility.

I would like to see an unbiased post and I feel I could do it as I am quite frankly more interested in the discussions than the result but I feel that it is unproductive at this point. I am honestly not sure what new things could be gotten from it other than enlightening everyone on the nuances of the conflict, which they can do if they want to read Thesis's worth of text.

[Bulwyf]

I do not know if its possible to make an unbiased post since this will fall back on rather or not some people simply want the class in the game (the Witch Elf arguments for a year or more on this site) versus how lore breaking the Disciple class is for others.

I do not have the time at work to counter each specific argument you listed. As I find time I will try to refute the ones I feel are incorrect or perhaps simply another way of looking at it.

The quintessential bottom line for me is that the decision not to use a Sorcerress or magic based healer and instead use a religious based healer is going to class with established lore at some points. There is no getting around that. But I would suggest that while yes it is lore breaking we have already seen other gross examples of lore breaking (dwarf women in game, no female chosen or marauders, possiblity of Dark Elf mount being a nauglir for all DE classes just to name a few) that GW has approved of.

Do I wish they had kept the same mechanics and made it some form of a dark magic user? Yes, absolutely. However...I can see how it could work within the lore although again there will be some lore breaking with it still.

I can not help but think someone read the Malus Darkblade series, read book two I believe which has the Malus fighting the Chaos pirates action, and fell in love with Malus's crazy brother. The Disciple class is basically that brother except they use dual wielding slim swords versus the axe IIRC he used in combat. But the background is the same: put in the Caludron, has copper eyes, and was spared by Khaine which gives him an elevated status in the Temple of Khaine.

[Kellaris]

It is sad You see me as troll. I really belive what I say is a reason of Your hate to disciples and I did not mean to offend You in any way. You can be fan of WE as someone can be fan of Ironbreakers and don't like engineers. I have little problem with that. It becomes problem, when Ironbreaker fan starts to convine everyone that engineer is against the lore. Also, I'm quite happy this thread exist and i will start to answer Your points (slowly) and I hope it will not be closed. What really annoys me, is "Carthage must be destroyed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage_must_be_destroyed)" tactic performed by Disciples anti-fans and this includes advertising of Your "trueblood" forum.


The God of Murder

The first, and possibly strongest, argument against the Disciple of Khaine is that Khaine is the god of Murder. Khaine is a god who wants to see life taken away; who wants to see wounds opened and blood flowing. His followers worship death and murder, all rituals devoted to him involving the taking of life and the flowing of blood. He is a cruel and harsh deity who doesn’t tolerate weakness and will gladly sacrifice his own worshippers if it suits him.

Khaine, bloody handed god of War and Death - Armybook, page 10. It is entrance about Temple of Khaine. Most straightforward description of Khaine and his followers. God of murder is one of many aspects, and definately not the most important one. God of War is. And in war there is no rules. You figh to win and You use all tricks You have. At leas elves do. Maybe Khorne or Ulric berserkers have different approach, but I have no reason to think that elves do not like to be healed. They are extremly egoistic after all. Rituals involve death, of course. It would be stupid to ritually heal someone. Rituals are sacrifices made in hope of achieving something from god.
And he does not tolerate weakness. Just like Ulric. An some other gods i think. But still, Ulric gives some blessings to his priests. Why Khaine should not?
Sacrifices his own worshippers IF IT SUITS HIM. This means not always. He may also heal them if it suits him. He is a god and he will do whatever SUITS HIM.

/joke
Also, some twisted interpretation. If You prefer the "murder" aspect, then maybe resurrection is OK?. You know, You can murder the victim another time. More murders, more fun.
/endjoke


Not only does is clearly link Khaine as a god of death and murder, not only does is clearly put that opposite life and love, but it also clearly shows how Khaine represents the heart of the dark elves, reflecting the druchii’s view on life.

Taking this literally, faithful druchii should not be healed at all. No matter who heals, he is doing this against the will of Khaine, so he should be punished.
But this is MMO and healers are necessery.



For someone who worships death and murder healing someone is blasphemy.

True, but for someone who worships god of War, healing an ally is a good idea.
No matter if that ally is fellow Khainite or goblin.



The Fallacy of “Heal to Kill”
First of all, the way the game works, dark elf players will likely be more or less equally mixing with the Chaos and the Greenskin classes. If you wanted to you could probably play in a party with no other dark elves besides yourself. This makes roughly two-thirds of the characters the Disciple will heal something other than a dark elf. And the Chaos and Greenskin characters don’t worship Khaine at all, so healing them isn’t going to serve Khaine. “[Khaine] steals the souls of those murdered and sacrificed in his name, building his own dark realm” says the old roleplaying book (1989 print, page 205).

Again, too literally.
If said goblin is supporting Your side, he will help You kill the victim and soul will be claimed. If You let him die, You will be overhelmed and killed by hated enemy and no souls will be claimed. Some actions may help You achieve Your goals indirectly. This approach suits elven god well (It is not good for khorne, but we do not worship khorne, right?)


But even the healing of Khaine-worshipping dark elves causes problems. The druchii practice a form of social Darwinism which preaches that you should kill the weak to make the race strong. “But above all you must learn to be merciless, for we cannot allow weaklings to thrive while traitors still hold our ancestral lands”

If this interpretation is true, then no DE healer should exist. You are talking about DE here, not about the Temple.
Not everyone dying on battlefield is weak.

To be continued....

[Hellisch]

This topic is still being discussed?

[Ayetalam]

This topic is still being discussed?

Was that really needed? If you can't add to the discussion, don't post. Xurre is trying to keep this topic open so that the topic can be discussed maturely as she/he feels that there is a need for it to be still discussed. I stayed away from this for now because anything I say will not help and will be a repeat of what I've said before, and Xurre very well knows my arguments. But please be respectful of others and their wish to discuss it. I see it as a dead horse, you do aswell, but Xurre doesn't.

Also, just a quick note, Xurre, on your statement of why the other side isn't responding anymore, is because we see no need for it, our arguments have been backed by the decision of EAMythic and Games Workshop, so most of us see it as a subject we won. We have already gone past this argument and are more interested in the class, how to make it fit in its CURRENT form, and how to make it RPable and accepted in another topic.

So I am refraining from this argument for the time being.

All yours again Xurre.

Again, everyone, please be civil and don't be hats. We all are very heated on this subject but we are all people as well, if you don't agree with it or can't act mature and bring constructive discussion to the topic, don't post.

[Hellisch]

If I felt that my post had any less relevance than anything previously posted, I would not have posted it.

[Zunjin]

Still supporting your cause and putting my proof here. Cheers

[Hellisch]

Was that really needed? If you can't add to the discussion, don't post. Xurre is trying to keep this topic open so that the topic can be discussed maturely as she/he feels that there is a need for it to be still discussed. I stayed away from this for now because anything I say will not help and will be a repeat of what I've said before, and Xurre very well knows my arguments. But please be respectful of others and their wish to discuss it. I see it as a dead horse, you do aswell, but Xurre doesn't.

Also, just a quick note, Xurre, on your statement of why the other side isn't responding anymore, is because we see no need for it, our arguments have been backed by the decision of EAMythic and Games Workshop, so most of us see it as a subject we won. We have already gone past this argument and are more interested in the class, how to make it fit in its CURRENT form, and how to make it RPable and accepted in another topic.

So I am refraining from this argument for the time being.

All yours again Xurre.

Again, everyone, please be civil and don't be hats. We all are very heated on this subject but we are all people as well, if you don't agree with it or can't act mature and bring constructive discussion to the topic, don't post.

And while we're at it. Needed? This topic has been slaughtered (mostly by Xurre). The past 2 months have been nothing BUT this very discussion!

[Ethandril]

Oh boy, what a post Xurrè...

I really understand your points and most of it is reasonable too, but I want to add something
too, even when I can't post it like you (my english isn't that great, but I will try to make
it clear as possible).

The Disciple is a Dogma.

Why?

As far as I understand, how the Gods came to the World of Warhammer is, when
a whole nation belives in something, lets say in a God like Khaine, the Aethyr (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4978) manifests it. (Thanks Nerror for this post)

The Dark Elves belive in Khaine, as the God of Murder, but the High Elves belive that
he is more than just this, he is also the God of War. For the Humans he is the Brother
of Morr, the God of Death.
So, what is Khaine now? I think, he is all together, because the beliving of the races and
the chaos-energy "forces" him to be like that.

When the Disciple of Khaine exists in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Khaine must
execpt him also and this makes him to a dogma.

Khaine must do what the devotees belive.

[Foofmonger]

Very insightful and well written post Xurre!

I don't think it was very biased at all (and I happen to like the Disciple of game, and am not a lore fanatic). I think Xurre did a good job providing the counter arguments to her own (even though she did debunk many of them), but thats kinda the point.

Regardless, I know your feelings on the issue, and I think it was less biased then it could have been.

I think a lot of problems you currently have with the Disciple of Khaine is the name inherently (and the lore that goes around it). If they simply changed the name to something else, said it wasn't a Khaine based healer but based on something else (slaneesh, or just magic in general), then you probably wouldn't have a problem with it.

Like if the devs go, ok the class is now named "Soul Taker", doesn't have anything to do with the temple of khaine and they have been recruited by malekith for his invasion, you probably would like it a lot better.

[Sev]

A very lengthy, altho interesting post Xurre.

Do i agree with wot you say? I dont know. Do i support the other side? I dont know neither. But i do know that these questions really arent important anymore to this whole discussion about wether the Disciple is the right choice to be the Supporter for the Dark Elves or not.

I find it quite ridicolous to debate the matter anymore than it has already been. As i said, we know your feelings towards it, and we also know how the ones supporting the decision (that Mythic and GW made) think.You are very eloquent in the ways how you state your point of view and you have alot of background knowledge to back that up aswell. But all in all, as someone has posted before me, will you not be able to make an objective post about the whole situation. You are just too much drawn to one of the two sides.

I have been playing Dark Elves for a long time in TT, have read their stories and lore-wise i do somewot agree with you, it is a break to it, but game mechanic wise i dont agree at all. The Disciple is one of the best "new" classes i have seen in an Online RPG so far, the way he works, the way he looks, hell you should give mythic credit to wot they created there, a support class that will probably be played by alot of ppl. Does it really matter that much that lore has been bent a bit (for you prolly alot) for it? I dont think so.

Lore has been broken, again as someone stated before me, in numerous occasions. Be it no female chosens/marauders, female dorfs etc. but all in favours to make the game work better. I rather have a working game with bent lore than a game where everything is the way it was written down earlier on. Wot balance/weird game mechanics would that create?

Its a game after all, we play it and we enjoy it, but there have to be certain sacrifices made that it actually works for everyone to some degree.

I rather wanna read more of your posts concerning Dark Elves, background knowledge, everything, cause you seem to flow over with that, and its always a very interesting read, but am somewot tired of this Disciple-Hatret cause fact is, Mythic will not change it (rightly so - wot would be the point? if they do someone else would come along and say "i dont like XX" ;)). As i said before, its a game, and there will always be something about it or in it that will bug some of its players.

- Sev

[Kellaris]

Continued


Witch Elves versus Disciples

But even ignoring what the Disciples do, namely heal, there are still further problems within the Temple. Namely the Disciples come in conflict with the Witch Elves.

This conclusion is IMO very naive. Witch Elves are tools in hands of Hags - rulers of the temple. Just like disciples and assasins are.
Witch Elves are brides of Khaine and Assasins and Disciples are his children.
Witch Elves creates Disciples and Assasins and If theu wouldn't like it, They would stop it easily. But there is no need to do that. Witch Elves serve Khaine as Disciples are. But in different way. Just like assasins serve him in different way. There is no need for conflict, becouse they have different areas of expertise.



The current army book describes Witch Elves as “the chosen brides of Khaine,” “maiden-elves who are wedded to Khaine,” and “[Khaine’s] chosen ones” (2001 print, page 10). They are described as performing rites and rituals (generally duties for the priesthood), as treating the battlefield as another temple to worship him on; they’re described pretty much as the warrior priestesses of Khaine, his chosen ones and the power within the Temple of Khaine.
Yet here come the Disciples of Khaine whom EA Mythic describes as “the chosen dark priests of the bloody handed god”. This directly conflicts with what the lore says, which pretty much describes the Witch Elves as the chosen priestesses of Khaine.


And All of them can be chosen of Khaine. Even in "before Disciple" lore WE were not exclusively chosen. assasins were and are also "chosen" (Armybook, page 11) jet You have no problem with that.



And even in gameplay terms there are issues in that there’s decided overlap between what abilities the Witch Elf would get and what abilities the Disciple would get. Because they’re both melee fighters and both members of the Temple of Khaine it’s exceedingly likely that any melee abilities one would know the other would too. Why doesn’t the Disciple know how to use poisons, as that’s something all adepts of the Temple would be familiar with? Why doesn’t the Witch Elf know some of the Disciples attack moves?


Becouse Temple of Khaine knows more ways of killing people, than one elf can master in his life. So Khaine followers concentrate their training on different ways of harming others for more variety.



Disciples as Magic Users

The Disciple challenging the authority of the Witch Elves isn’t the only problem they cause by being a member of the Temple of Khaine. Another problem stems from them being magic users.

It is not that Temple has actively trains magic users. They were given to the temple thanks to the sacred ritual of Death Night. Is this gift of Khaine or itrigue of some Hags is unknown. But You do not throw away gift of Khaine. Even Morathi cannot forbid Disciples to use their innate abilities given by God himself. This would be blasphemy.



The Most Unimaginative Choice

Next to all the conflicts and issue the Disciples cause in the background, the issues that they change the flavour of the setting, there are also the issues that they seem simple a rather unimaginative class choice (background-wise).


Add the decidedly standard “evil elf” spiky look they’ve got going and what is probably the most generic name for a class ever (as “Disciple” could literally apply to every possible class in every race or archetype), and all in all the Disciple of Khaine is by far the least original and most boring class in the entire game. Of course that doesn’t mean that people can’t like it, but there’s hardly anything that jump out and says “wow, that’s original.”


Same can be said about WE and sorceress (nuker or would-be healer). The only original class we have is halbard wielding tank.

I Have to admit that I was sorceress healer supporter last year. I would like to have some non magic RDPS, but I understand there is no real ranged class among the druchii. Sad to say, bud shades are rather pathetic shooters (if You compare them to waywatchers or even WE scouts for example). Someone may say that they are similiar to shadow warriors and that's true. Shadow Warrioirs are in game only becouse of marketing "legolas factor". They are pathetic choice IMO. Jet they are here becouse this game needs to be sold In many thousands copies to exist next few years so I accept some marketing. In the same way I have accepted WE even if there were better choices. And If SW are here, Shades would be a dark copy of them. Nothing special.
Another point is that It would be unappriopriate for shade to deal more damage than sorcerer (and it have to be this way is shade is RDPS and sorc is support).
And lastly, 3 melee and 1 ranged class fits DE better than 2 melee and 2 ranged.

[Rathenau]

Indeed Ethandril, I would agree with you; whatever is believed become a reality.

First I want to say that your post is very well written Xurré, you should really think about trying your hand at writing a novel.

Anyway, Kellaris has put up some points that I agree with, to come degree at least, but with him blessing I'll pick up where he was forced to stop for the time being;

- Weakness.

I think being weak can be interpreted in many different ways, you Xurré seem to substitute weak for wounded. This is plain wrong, for as you would be weak when wounded then you wouldn’t be weak if you are not, thus if you never got wounded you would never be weak, thus if you never fought you would be the strongest. Somehow I very much doubt a coward can be perceived as the strongest of his race. (Yes some connections are misleading there but it serves only to illustrate.)

Then the obvious question begs what is weak, and is there a relation with being wounded? Well, weak is related to others of the same race against a given set of standards that we simply don’t have. Thus we can only guess at what would be perceived weak and being wounded can only be a contributing factor and never the defining reason for weakness.

Now then, is there a relation between weak and wounded? Well as said; yes, but where is the boundary? Is the strongest of the dark elf race with a cut on his arm weak? No, if that cut heals over time by his/her own body does that make him a sinner that should be put to the sword? Off course not, so you need a fine line where wounded translates into weakness. Can you set such a standard in general? No you cannot. You will need to judge that on a case to case basis, exactly what a healer in WAR will do. So again, this goes to show that you cannot use weakness and wounded as synonyms.

- The nature of the bloody handed god.

Well Kellaris said most of it already, but I just want to stress the problems with your interpretation of him: Khaine isn’t against life, happiness, ect. That is merely a conclusion you base on the fact that he does not support those. Saying he is against those would be a paradox, as to quote the very piece you typed out, backwards;

"For there to be death there must also be life, in order to wage war there must also be peace, in order for there to be suffering there must be happiness, in order to hatre there must also be love and child birth."

This isn’t just a funny twist of words, it is the truth. One is defined by the other. You can never know war if you never knew peace, for if you didn’t, how would you know there is any other state for a country to be in then war? Thus Khaine certainly isn’t against healing per say, he merely doesn’t favour it. I think he sees it as a necessary evil, as I do.

Well that will do for now, more later as well.

[Lord Tareq]

First of all I want to applaud Xurré for making such a clear (and lengthy) post about this.
I also am quite astonished by the childish behaviour of several individuals, who immediately jump to conclusions and start bashing Xurré about how its her problem and thats its over now etc. Seriously grow up.:rolleyes:

That said, I think its important players now have a clear source of info about why they, especially on roleplaying servers, will be encountering "hostile" roleplaying behaviour when they do play a Disciple.
I can see how a new player not into Warhammer lore will happily roll a Disciple thinking it looks cool, encounters a group of Black Guard that starts (in character) threatening him and call him heretic. The new player is confused, perhaps interprets it as just unfriendly behaviour, may decide to stop playing, etc.. Therefor a post like this is very good, so relatively new players can instantly see why certain people will dislike the Disciple class, and possibly adapt (for example by deciding to roleplay not being part of the temple).

In fact I think this summary should be stickied, its definately worth it.

[Zeldias]

First of all I want to applaud Xurré for making such a clear (and lengthy) post about this.
I also am quite astonished by the childish behaviour of several individuals, who immediately jump to conclusions and start bashing Xurré about how its her problem and thats its over now etc. Seriously grow up.:rolleyes:

That said, I think its important players now have a clear source of info about why they, especially on roleplaying servers, will be encountering "hostile" roleplaying behaviour when they do play a Disciple.
I can see how a new player not into Warhammer lore will happily roll a Disciple thinking it looks cool, encounters a group of Black Guard that starts (in character) threatening him and call him heretic. The new player is confused, perhaps interprets it as just unfriendly behaviour, may decide to stop playing, etc.. Therefor a post like this is very good, so relatively new players can instantly see why certain people will dislike the Disciple class, and possibly adapt (for example by deciding to roleplay not being part of the temple).

In fact I think this summary should be stickied, its definately worth it.

I don't mean to be nitpicky, but it seems to me that if the game's lore describes them as being within the temple, but people roleplay as if the Disciple is the heretic, I don't think it's the Disciple that should adapt by RPing as not being within the temple. That just sounds like bullying to me.

Otherwise, I can see why people might have issues and all that, and I can appreciate these issues. Do people really feel it's so outrageous, though? I mean, that's not an attack; I remember being on the opposite side of a debate like this when WoW's Burning Crusade came out and I was aggrieved at the whole technology-and-Light-stealing-elves thing.

[Lord Tareq]

I'm not saying people intend on playing a Disciple must adapt, I'm simply saying this topic is insightful to those planning on playing a Disciple as to why they may encounter hostile roleplaying. If they decide they will adapt by simply ignoring those roleplayers, or by changing their characters background is completely up to them, but at least they can read the reason why in a well-written, clear topic.

[Kellaris]

First of all I want to applaud Xurré for making such a clear (and lengthy) post about this.
I also am quite astonished by the childish behaviour of several individuals, who immediately jump to conclusions and start bashing Xurré about how its her problem and thats its over now etc. Seriously grow up.:rolleyes:

That said, I think its important players now have a clear source of info about why they, especially on roleplaying servers, will be encountering "hostile" roleplaying behaviour when they do play a Disciple.
I can see how a new player not into Warhammer lore will happily roll a Disciple thinking it looks cool, encounters a group of Black Guard that starts (in character) threatening him and call him heretic. The new player is confused, perhaps interprets it as just unfriendly behaviour, may decide to stop playing, etc.. Therefor a post like this is very good, so relatively new players can instantly see why certain people will dislike the Disciple class, and possibly adapt (for example by deciding to roleplay not being part of the temple).

In fact I think this summary should be stickied, its definately worth it.

Seriously, You are overestimating the size of anti-Disciple movement. :rolleyes:

Seriously, I doubt that Xurre have written this to warn Disciple fans why they will be bullied. I think She rather try to convince others that Disciples should be bullied (against current lore). And it is sad that someone with so much time and writing skill waste theese resources in hope to destroy other people gameplay.


The main reason why I started True Blood was as a place for discussion and planning, a way to organize things in the hope of getting rid of the Disciple of Khaine.

- Xurré

[Shalaa]

What can i say, theres no way id make a deciple on an rp server even though i like the way they look, the reasons are obvious and im not going to explain why.

A couple of points to ponder over

1/ A long time ago i used to play TT as the undead, it was a single army back then and GW totaly destroyed the lore and split it into two factions.

2/ Once upon a time Bretonions had war machines then they returned being totaly against them and now they have them again.

Yes the lore can change and still be fun maybe we will see the deciple introduced into the dark elf army books, lets face it the above examples are every bit as drastic lore wise.

/Disclaimer purchased fire extinguisher wargear card before posting >.<

[Jinsei]

I've typed a few drafts of this but everytime it comes across too harsh for me..so bear with me if my tone seems a little brash. I wish this dead horse hadn't been rezzed...for the 4th time...:neutral:

The entire debate in my mind(with a few exceptions) comes down to people's expectations for the dark elf classes not being met. Many of these people were hoping that the Sorceress would be taking the healing slot, opening up a spot for another potential DE class as opposed to letting a class created specifically for an MMO take over the healing slot which would leave the Sorceresses as ranged DPS. It's a valid concern; I'd be pretty disheartened if my favorite class from the IP didn't make it in as a career. ( It did make it BTW, BG ftw :razz:)

The other side of the arguement also boils down to people not being able to accept Khaine as anything other than a god of death. He's not Khorne folks. He's Khaela Mensha Khaine, a god of WAR and MURDER. These traits don't always mean BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD KILL KILL KILL, which I don't think many of the "purists" can get over. They are much more sophisticated then that. War isn't all about killing one side, it's about tactically trying to outmanuever your adversary and planning ahead for potential scenarios while being prepared to act in kind. That's exactly where the basis for the disciple's gifts come into play. They're not Holy Light or Blessed Gifts from Sigmar, they're souls being ripped from the body of an enemy brutally murdered and used as a type of fortification. Same with murder. Murder takes planning and preparation and on a scale so grand as the genocide of an entire race of people is alot of murdering. In fact, the murderers might need a bit of assistence from their deity. I might be wrong on these figures, but I'm pretty sure that for every dark elf there's about 2-4 high elves in Ulthuan. That's not good odds, no matter how well trained the druchii are. What better way to get strength to overcome these odds by getting the blessing of the lord of murder?

Another aspect of this debate I see is in the form of the perception of Khaine and his cult. Hell, its the root of the entire arguement! Would Khaine, the lord of murder, assist his murderers by granting them boons? Obviously, what good would worshipping a lazy god do to help your cause? Nothing at all. The other issue is the temple hierarchy which we know from the TT as:
Morathi and Hellebron vie for control of the temple with the hag queens on the next rung of power, followed by witch elves. Assassins and Executioners are the militant wings of the temple, focused on one of the thousand aspects of Khaine. Honestly, the disciple could fit above or equally with the witch elves or they could be detatched from the ruling body alltogether and be added as the leaders of the millitant wing of the temple, which I think fits very nicely. The other issue I have is with the witch elves being the only clergy of the temple. Why would the Druchii buy into such a selfdestructive and wasteful if all the temple does is just demand sacrifice and do nothing for them outside of battle every few decades!?! It doesn't make sense.There is nothing in the lore about how the average druchii worship Khaine besides the WEs and the temple itself. What about the commonfolk? Do they just expect to be a potential sacrifice on Death Night or the Harvest of Souls? No, there's gotta be something else. And that something else is the disciple, blessing the families who have given great service to the temple great boons from the Bloody Handed God.

I also am quite astonished by the childish behaviour of several individuals, who immediately jump to conclusions and start bashing Xurré about how its her problem and thats its over now etc. Seriously grow up.:rolleyes:
Just wanted to respond to this from the other side of the argument... We see all these discussions about the DoK in the exact same childish light as you "purists" do. Only we see the spoiled angry child crying and crying and crying about not getting their way. The class is in and there's nothing short of an entire beta server uprising that's gonna change it. The people who hate the disciple are a minority (a vocal one, but still a minority) and most of the effort spent on trying to "rectify" a "mistake" could be much better served with butchering the weak-willed Asur.

[Jinsei]

Seriously, You are overestimating the size of anti-Disciple movement. :rolleyes:

Yeah, I agree with you there. Many of the people who loathe the disciple intent on RP'ing will be in the minority and I wouldn't be suprised if the movement to label disciples as heretics will be redirected at the whistleblowers themselves. There are many more people who find the Disciple awesome and wish to play one than those who would rather see it expulsed from the current WAR backstory.

[Hoodwink]

Personally I think that adding the Disciple was a change for the better. For a race as cunning and conniving as the dark elves it seems especially silly to me that one group should hold so much power.

So what if two conflicting groups have to get along with each other in the interests of the greater good?

The DE's self destructive nature is especially tedious when it comes to role playing. I doubt it's fun for anyone to have to listen to some self important diva bark orders at them and threaten to kill anyone who disagrees.

I think Witch Elves needed to be taken down a peg, even though I don't think the disciple necessarily does that.

Something needed to hold the dark elves together on the battleifeld and in my opinion only a Khainite healer could have done that.

[Hellisch]

I just want to apologize to the Lorist. You are completely within your rights to create strife and hate within the game. I fully understand there has always been hate within DE society. I am being childish by trying to bury it. This thread (along with several hundred others stating the same exact things) will be very helpfull when new players are trying to figure out why they are being hated on. I doubt highly, however, that any of those types of players are lurking around the WHA forums right now. I should have followed my instincts and let this one go like the last time it was discussed, and the time before..... and before... and... and...

[shotgunbadger]

Alright, I can't stand some people in this forum for this reason:

Though you admit it may be self-fufilling, you in your "ZOMG DISCIPLES WILL KILL RP" say this And some (like myself) might even go so far as to completely refuse to play together with Disciples.So, you refuse to even try. Why should I as a disciple player feel any obligation to make RP a plesent thing just for you and your ilk if you have outright said "Oh well I'm not gonna play with them". You don't know every Disciple in the game yet, you don't know how many of them will be roleplayed, you right here have basically damned a class because you're having a hissy.

Now, let's talk more.

You claim that they have no place in the lore, so, I assume that in your mind the only people in the Church of Khaine are Witch Elves or Assassins? The Armybook has said it's a complex group, but the only units we have mentioned are those two. So, let's pretend there's an NPC Priest of Khaine, will you refuse to aknowlage him? Oh no! He's not in the army books, he must not exisist!

There are many ways a Disciple can fit in the Church, as normal priests who are seen as blessed to a form of 'blood magi', but simply because they don't fit in YOUR idea of the lore you will not give them a CHANCE.

THAT is a falicy (sp?) of your own, you poisoned the well.

As for the idea that a Khaine healer can't help Khaine, well I can't say much to that, I imagine you're also the kind who feel the only way to represent a worshipper of Khorne is the mad Berzerker?

[Hellisch]

*EDITED for content*

[Tastreth]

Ok, honestly, what are you trying to achieve Xurre? Mythic is NOT going to change the class name, functionality, or the backstory. So what will these posts accomplish? Lets see . . .

1: They will make more players hostile towards Disciples, particularly on RP servers. Players acting like jerks/flat out ignoring other players is not a good thing for gameplay. Simple as that.

2: They will drive people away from the class. Yay, less healers! Need I say more?

3: They will encourage increased flaming and thread de-railments. Yes, I know that's not your intention, but not everyone on the forums is as mature as you or Lord Tareq or some others that have posted here. Continued discussions will almost definitely result in more thread locks.

Oh, one more: These posts are really, really, really annoying for most of us who actually want to play the class.

[Dukha]

Oh, one more: These posts are really, really, really annoying for most of us who actually want to play the class.

Oh, I don't know about that. Of course I'm probably not very representative here as I am not planning on actually rolling a Disciple except as maybe an alt later on and I won't be rolling it on an RP server anyways. Gameplay wise they look really really interesting and even if I'm usually not that attracted to healers they're probably the ones I'm most eager to atleast try out.
But from a lore stand point, well it's been said already. Piece by piece I agree with Xurrés post. Sure, I can sympathize with people that are annoyed at seeing their favourite career being trashed in that fashion. But I'm having a hard time understanding that annoyance since it don't seem to be coming from equally dedicated lorefans. If all you care about is gameplay and cool looks then why even bother? Personally I care because I'm kinda worried about how well though out the quest lines, tome of knowledge entries and so on will be. Silly little reason right? ;) I am however content at the moment to wait it out and see how it will play out in game. I fully sympathize however if others are not as patient. And if you consider this topic a dead horse and so on then please stop feeding it! Just bow out and do something else with your time.

And just so I tie back to the original topic and some of the responses:
It was never, ever EVER, yeah really NEEVER about the functionality of the career but ONLY and I'm really serious here only about the background (did you se me say it was only about the background?). Apparently thats a quite common oversight whenever this is debated, I can't imagine why...

[mongoose]

I also want to lend my support to this thread and the right of Xurre to post it.

I will say that I curse you you vile Witch Elf for being so completely through and stealing every single one of my supporting arguments! You left me with absolutely nothing to contribute except my support :-P

I wont bother to respond to some of the naysayers though. I did so in my thread but will leave it in Xurres capable hands to rebut them here.


Its also good to see you back btw.....I was a bit worried that you had chosen to take a permanent vacation from the WHA. :D

[Zunjin]

I like to save this tread before its to late. Like many posts Xurre done before she often start with that she doesnt want any flaming but discussion. Even if she so happen to write that she thinks the disciple class as: boring, generic and even putting she hates it, the post as a whole IS very informative. It is NOT claiming how anyone should play, it isnt saying that the disciple shouldnt exist, and it isnt calling anyone a idiot. Its simply a plea that some of us support without ( atleast me but I think many others ) wanting to destroy the class some of you already gone to love. Also if you read it through it tries to clear alot of missunderstooding we have had with eachother.

In the end this is maybe just a difference in personalities. Some people just like more insight while others are more easy going. Or sees it totally differently.

[Anglakhel]

Introduction:

I can respect Xurré’s passion for the issue of the Disciple of Khaine. However, I object to the implication that anyone that approves of the Disciple of Khaine doesn’t understand or value the lore of Warhammer. There are a great many interpretations that can be made of the existing lore and background of Warhammer. No two people are going to have an identical interpretation of the evidence. Not even Games Workshop has a consistent interpretation of the Warhammer world. The world is always growing and changing for a number of different reasons. The Disciple of Khaine is a change to the existing lore of the druchii that Mythic felt would be a strong addition to represent the druchii in their RvR MMO: WAR. I’m one person at least that thinks the Disciple can work quite neatly with the existing lore of the Temple of Khaine and strongly believes that the Disciple is far more interesting and appropriate as a worshipper of Khaine rather than some other variant.

These arguments have all been made before and have been responded to in great detail on many occasions. It’s a bit perplexing why Xurré has chosen to only highlight the weakest arguments for the Disciple and then summarily dismiss them. If you’re going to bother bringing up potential counters to your arguments, you should try and make them at least appear as strong arguments before you knock them down. As is, Xurré’s post completely ignores that the most substantial arguments have engaged the core objections head on rather than attempting to claim all is fine cause Mythic said so. I consider myself well educated in the lore of Khaine and the Dark Elves and think I have a sophisticated understanding of mythology and I strongly disagree with Xurré’s interpretation of the core of Khaine’s cult and power.


The Core Argument Against the DoK - Healing is against Khaine's Nature:

Xurré laid out a lot of arguments, but the fundamental argument asserts that since Khaine is a Lord of Murder he would not, or could not, grant his followers powers of healing or life giving. According to the argument: “Healing is the antithesis of Murder.” Not only is “Healing the antithesis of Murder,” but “For someone who worships death and murder healing someone is blasphemy.”

The Response:

I find these arguments incredibly problematic. They contain huge assumptions about the nature of Khaine and don’t have any sort of solid foundation in or out of the lore. Nowhere in the existing lore surrounding the worship of Khaine does it state that Khaine is opposed to healing or that his followers consider healing to be blasphemy. This is an interpretation of the lore. It is one persons view of what a murder cult would believe and in the case of the druchii and the Temple of Khaine, I don’t think it is well supported by the evidence. I certainly think it’s possible to imagine a Murder cult that considers any form of healing to be a blasphemy, but it’s also quite easy to imagine a Murder cult that uses Murder to steal life giving energies so that they might heal themselves or others. For example, many cannibalistic cultures hunt and murder sentient beings so that they may consume them and absorb their life energy. The act of murder steals the life energy from one being so that it might be absorbed by another being.

Death Night and the Cauldron of Blood:

Looking closely at the evidence from the existing lore, we find in the center of Khaine’s worship a powerful healing, or life-giving, ritual. Death Night is the most sacred day for the druchii and the Temple of Khaine. The Witch Elves forcibly take many, many druchii and sacrifice them to Khaine. Their blood is used to fill the most sacred relics of Khaine’s cult, the Cauldrons of Blood. The magic of the Cauldrons and Khaine’s power steals the life energy of the sacrificed victims and transfers this energy to Khaine’s most favored Brides: the Hag Queens. Khaine promises his Brides that they will live eternally and that the Cauldrons will restore their youth, strength, life, vitality, and beauty.

So, we find at the very heart of Khaine’s cult a powerful ritual that steals the life energy from some and transfers that life energy to Khaine’s chosen. This is a direct counter to the argument that “Healing is the antithesis of Murder.” Death Night does not make Khaine less of a Murder god. His followers murder to please Khaine and in exchange for their service he rewards them granting them some of the life energy stolen from the victims they have sacrificed to him.

The Cauldrons of Blood are also used by the druchii in great battles. The Temple will march to war with the druchii armies and bring the Cauldrons of Blood with them. The Cauldrons incite a terrible frenzy in the chosen of Khaine. They become far more deadly while filled with his murderous frenzy, but we’re also told that the “magical properties” of the Cauldron “serve to sustain and protect them” (4th Ed AB, pg 16). The description of the Cauldron goes on to include:

. . . [T]he magical properties of the Cauldron will protect the Keeper of the Cauldron, the Cauldron’s guardians, and any other Witch Elves that are nearby. Roll a D6 for each Witch Elf within 18” of the Cauldron that is slain. On a roll of ‘6’ the Witch Elf is saved by the magical properties of the Cauldron and is not removed as a casualty.

So, here within the existing mechanics and lore of the TT Warhammer we find Khaine sustaining and protecting his worshippers. It is not much of a stretch to read the saving throw as resurrection of those slain while serving Khaine. The exact nature of how that would occur needs detailing, but the end effect is that a character that was slain is returned to life to kill in Khaine’s name. It is quite easy to see how Mythic would chose to use the cult of Khaine when they needed a Career for the Dark Elves capable of resurrection.

Further TT / Lore Counter-Examples:

As another counter-example from the existing lore and TT mechanics, let us consider the “Armour of Eternal Servitude”. According to the 6th Ed AB, pg 19:

Oaths of loyalty and dedication to Khaine were sworn at the time of the armour’s forging, and the wearer is granted extended life to serve his god.

In game terms, the armor gives the wearer an extra saving throw to protect them and it grants them the ability to regenerate their wounds. Here is Khaine’s power being channeled through a magical artifact to heal one of his devoted worshippers. Again, healing is not opposed to Khaine’s nature. He seems perfectly capable of granting restorative energies to aid his followers so that they may live and prosper and continue to kill and murder in his name.

The Nature of Khaine?:

Some of those opposed to the Disciple of Khaine would have us believe that Khaine, as a Lord of Murder, is incapable of Healing, Support, Sustaining, and Protecting his worshippers. According to their arguments, Khaine only wants bloodshed and Murder and he is opposed to anything that stops or reverses the flow of blood. If this were true, why would Khaine ever aid or protect his worshippers? If Khaine simply wants death and bloodshed why ever aid the druchii? Simply put, Khaine gets more devotion, more murder, more death, more cruelty, more terror, more fear, if he supports and protects his worshippers.

Now, I think it’s important for the lore to represent Khaine’s violent and murderous nature. He is cruel, jealous, arbitrary, violent, and even petty at times. He is many things. So many things in fact that the druchii revere him as the Thousand Faced Lord of Murder. He is not simple and easily defined and I think the arguments attempting to prove that Healing are antithetical to his nature depend on being able to easily reduce his nature to one simple thing. I think the argument ultimately fails and further reduces the glory and splendor of Khaine and his cult.

The Disciple of Khaine:

No one has proposed that the Disciple of Khaine should be some sort of benevolent Healer. The Disciple of Khaine is violent and murderous. The Disciple of Khaine studies the murderous rites of the Bloody Handed God and serves Khaine’s will on the battlefield. The Disciple is a chosen champion of Khaine, and like Khaine, the Disciple has the power on the battlefield to determine who should live and who should die. The Disciple murders the enemies of Khaine and steals their souls for Khaine. Khaine permits the Disciple to channel some of that murderous energy back to his allies to protect them, sustain them, bless them, heal them, and even return them to the battle when it appears they were slain. The Disciple can still be cruel and arbitrary and praise the strong while despising the weak.

Final Thoughts:

I’m not going to go through and address all the arguments one by one. I really think this discussion is counterproductive. Once the foundational argument has been addressed, most of the other arguments are hopelessly circular. They’re basically variations of “The DoK shouldn’t exist, therefore I’ll interpret it in a way that is destructive to the existing lore”. The Disciple of Khaine does introduce some new things to the Temple of Khaine and does require some adjustments in the existing lore, but it does not effect, or require, the destruction of the existing Temple. There have been a great many posts addressing all the various arguments and offering other interpretations that are not destructive to the lore. I’d much rather see the energies of fans of the druchii lore channelled into figuring out the details of how the Disciple of Khaine fits into and complements the existing lore rather than insisting that it unravels the essence of the Warhammer universe.

[Browncoat-WHA]

Greetings folks,

First off, I'd like to thank Xurre for an informative post. It seems a lot of time and effort was put into it and that is to be recognized. There are too many times when "tl;dr" is echoed in forum circles and people should be allowed to post with as much detail as they feel like as long as their points are clear.

Now, that being said, a few points.

Folks have called for this to be stickied. The problem I have is exactly what Emeraldw99 hit upon in the first page of this thread. The post fails to present both sides of the argument in the same manner. To sticky something like this would be to indirectly acknowledge that this particular viewpoint on the issue has more validity over it than any other. Sticky threads that attempt to compile information on a hot topic need to present both sides of the topic with equal level of detail and as little bias as possible.

The reason that we sometimes clamp down on frequently discussed hotly debated topics is not to be jerks, but because empirical evidence suggests that after a while, people on both sides of a topic can't discuss it without becoming angry and making it completely unproductive, while people in the middle of the debate participate but eventually become exasperated at the infighting. This is something everyone is at fault for, despite various people's opinions. The most egregious offenders get infractions and get banned - not for expressing their opinion, but for doing so in a manner that is clearly meant to be destructive to a discussion. There are a few choice examples in this thread, too.

All this being said, I can understand and see how this topic has people that want to discuss it, on both sides of the coin. If you want my honest opinion, I think it's going to turn into another unproductive flame-fest which I will have to deal with by closing and doling out infractions. But - I'll tell you what. I'll leave it up to the community for now. Prove me wrong, and the community will benefit from having good discussion. Prove me right, and I won't have any choice but to do what needs to be done to keep things productive. Either way, productive discussion wins out.

Now, an admin may overrule me, but here's what I'm thinking. The first I see of a downhill trend in this thread, or when it fails to live up to its purpose it will get closed, not counting purposeful trolling attempts. Folks, PLEASE use Report Post to tell us about these posts. I have seen a lot of people indirectly imply that we look at some posts but not others. You would be honestly surprised to see how many moderation items are the result of your peers and not anything we did on our own. If you don't report it, we might miss it. Use Report Post.

In addition, if Xurre or anyone else wishes to compile as comprehensive and informative of a post about why the Disciples are not a problem with the current lore and are in support of it, then we might get something which we can consider stickying and either closing as an informative item for people to sig-link, or having discussion in - no guarantees or promises about this, but we'll see. If it's good, I'll even edit it together myself so we have both sides of it in the right place and then I can happily consolidate any discussion to it as well. We all win. :)

So - I challenge you, Dark Elf forums. I challenge you to be respectful of both sides of this issue and I challenge you to be able to discuss this topic without it going south, but this is its last chance.

Let's see what the results are.

[ChosenOne]

My post is more of a question then a viewpoint I suppose.

Why is it that a God of War/Murder would be an unbending avatar of death?

We come to an age where War is everywhere. That would make it seem to me that his faces of war would really come to the forefront here. His glory to be furthered by the people he has obviously taken as his own.

Yes the High Elves still see him as a god of war but its the Dark Elves that have fully embraced him. Of course he would favor them in this struggle. The Disciples seem to be GW's new approved way of showing this.

A god of murder doesnt have to desire everyone to be murdered, but instead holds the power of such in his hand. To take life or to deny death. The Disciple does both of these and in what seems to be a very vicious fashion.

So the question is, why would a god of war and murder not want the side that venerates him to come out on top? Why would he not reveal the full nature of his control?

Doesnt seem to me that the disciples lessen the witch elves but instead are a symbol of the god they believe is above all others and would be revered and protected by the brides.

For they are the BRIDES of Khaine and the disciples are like his children. Am I way off base with this?

[Feralas]

Okay, let me begin by saying that I am by no means an expert on Dark Elves. I don't play the TT much, and I don't play Elves. That said, let me begin my post-

Lore will never translate perfectly into an MMO. You will always have lapses of lore, twists, changes and some breaks. But it is supposed to be living lore. The Warhammer world is not frozen in time, it moves on (well, at least it's supposed to) in time. Things change.

You have come up with some seemingly reasonable alternatives to the Disciple. Have you considered that Mythic has already tried to use them, and they did not work correctly within the game or lore? Besides that, you would never have been happy if those alternatives were released as the class. You would have started the same movement, most likely, against that class.

Beyond that, you refuse to even play with the class. In addition to the fact that, while you may not like it, your entire guild idea is based on hate, you will not even give the class a chance. You don't know exactly how the Disciple will work, mechanically or within the lore. While we have a general idea of both, we don't know the specifics.

[Morag]

If you want my honest opinion, I think it's going to turn into another unproductive flame-fest which I will have to deal with by closing and doling out infractions. But - I'll tell you what. I'll leave it up to the community for now. Prove me wrong, and the community will benefit from having good discussion. Prove me right, and I won't have any choice but to do what needs to be done to keep things productive. Either way, productive discussion wins out.

If you want my honest opinion you should just close it now and save yourself some grief a few days down the line. There is really no need to rehash the same thing over and over again regardless of how long the OP is.

I think you anti-DoK people need to come to grips with reality here. You are a minority of a minority, they aren't going to change it just to make you happy. You have every right to not like the choices they are making but you need to understand just because you don't like certain things it doesn't mean they are wrong or need to be changed to fit your narrow view of the game. Also, I have no problem with your I'm-taking-my-ball-and-going-home mentality in regards to the Disciple. All I ask is that you let me know what server you play on when the game goes live so my friends and I can make some Order characters and stomp you into the ground because you can't play nice with your healers.

And Kellaris, I have trouble disagreeing with anything you say, ever. Keep on rocking my Polish brotha!

edit: typo

[Slash]

And while we're at it. Needed? This topic has been slaughtered (mostly by Xurre). The past 2 months have been nothing BUT this very discussion!

If you take notice, Xurré didn't post once in the "Disciples vs. Lore" thread, so please do not point fingers and incorrect information to try and provoke others.

If people are still willing to discuss in a mature fashion (which unfortunately some have not. Instead opting to scream "omfg shut up" and "QQ"), I see no reason to ban discussion. If you consider it a "dead horse" issue do not post, simple as that. Nobody is forcing you.

I think its a great idea to put a post where a clear list of arguments (for and against) Disciples. Just as Lord Tareq said, That said, I think its important players now have a clear source of info about why they, especially on roleplaying servers, will be encountering "hostile" roleplaying behaviour when they do play a Disciple.
I can see how a new player not into Warhammer lore will happily roll a Disciple thinking it looks cool, encounters a group of Black Guard that starts (in character) threatening him and call him heretic. The new player is confused, perhaps interprets it as just unfriendly behaviour, may decide to stop playing, etc.. Therefor a post like this is very good, so relatively new players can instantly see why certain people will dislike the Disciple class, and possibly adapt (for example by deciding to roleplay not being part of the temple).

People say that the anti-Disciples will be a minority; and for the most part they are right. However, if your RP you will meet them, and for a new player that knows not of the level of "hatred" others reserve for the Disciple it will be an overwhelming experience for them.

In addition it is an interesting debate and discussion and very informative. If I knew nothing of the Disciple or Warhammer Lore, I would be glued to the screen reading this. I believe understanding and acknowledging other peoples views is an intelligent strand of thought. And I many times have commended those whom have made good arguments for the Disciple (Ang and Ayet mainly) as well as against. Perhaps more for against though :-P.

Kudos Xurré. Amazing post.

[Xxpect]

It has been my experience that the vast majority of people who play MMO's do not roleplay, and most people who do roleplay usually research their race, class and history. Also most roleplay servers develop their own protocols of behavior and will often enforce (or attempt to enforce) their view of proper role playing. Since it doesn't appear that there is enough objection to the lore of the Disciple to get Mythic to change it, might I suggest that the OP develop your own lore once the game is released and see if you can't convince all the people on the RP server you play on to adapt what you think to be the proper lore for the Disciple. If a large majority of roleplayers feel the same way as the OP, this should not be too difficult to achieve.

I personally don't care if the career is called Foo-Foo-Bunny and came into being by springing out of a monkeys butt.

Just to be clear, none of my comments are meant to belittle anyone's opinion or feelings or nullify the validity of their arguments. It just seems that the objectives of getting Mythic to change the name and lore of the Disciple is not going to bear fruit and a different approach to dealing with the perceived lore issues should be attempted.

[Morag]

People say that the anti-Disciples will be a minority; and for the most part they are right. However, if your RP you will meet them, and for a new player that knows not of the level of "hatred" others reserve for the Disciple it will be an overwhelming experience for them.

In addition it is an interesting debate and discussion and very informative. If I knew nothing of the Disciple or Warhammer Lore, I would be glued to the screen reading this. I believe understanding and acknowledging other peoples views is an intelligent strand of thought. And I many times have commended those whom have made good arguments for the Disciple (Ang and Ayet mainly) as well as against. Perhaps more for against though :-P.

Hate to break it to you but if you seriously believe there will be any sort of backlash against DoK players besides a few bitter people who can't let go then you are in for a surprise once you start playing. The majority of the people complaining about it now will get over it by the time the game comes out and you'll see them grouping with Disciples just like everyone else on the Destruction side. The vast vast majority of players don't even care about this issue at all.

Besides, do you realize just how immature it comes off when someone says they are going to ostracize another player just because they picked a class they thought sounded cool (and had nothing to do with the creation of)? If those people were really as strong in their convictions as they claim then they would speak with their wallets and not even buy the game. By buying and playing the game and treating other players who picked a class you don't like for whatever reason like crap just makes you a whiner and an and doesn't send any sort of message to Mythic.

[Josue]

DoK really does seem bland and uninspired, I was hoping for something much more interesting. I don't really know much about the lore, but DoK look and sound like so much crap. Hence, the only class that I'm really not interested in whatsoever.

[Kellaris]

But from a lore stand point, well it's been said already. Piece by piece I agree with Xurrés post. Sure, I can sympathize with people that are annoyed at seeing their favourite career being trashed in that fashion. But I'm having a hard time understanding that annoyance since it don't seem to be coming from equally dedicated lorefans.

Don't make a mistake of measuring "lore-dedication" by lenght of the post. Someone may be very dedicated, but he/she has kids/house duties/ more restrictive job or beta acces and he do not want/cannot spend half of a day to reply Xurre's posts in proper way. It does not mean that She is most dedicated or that She is right.
Also, I think that many people give up, becouse they see that there is no way to convince the other side and the discussion is pointles. After all, Xurre openly says that She is Right and Games Workshop is wrong. What else on this world could convince her if lore authors are not enough??

Also, I think You are taking whole situation backwards. The current lore includes Disciples, so Disciple defenders are lore defenders. This thread is meant to convince people, that one of many interpretations of previous lore was better than current lore.
And Yes, one of many interpretations. Many people reading the same armybook have different interpretation of theese scraps of knowledge found there.
Who is right? This is the matter of faith.


And just so I tie back to the original topic and some of the responses:
It was never, ever EVER, yeah really NEEVER about the functionality of the career but ONLY and I'm really serious here only about the background (

Really never? And this:
Disciple of Khaine is by far the least original and most boring class in the entire game
is also about bacground?

[Ganymed]

I'm not saying people intend on playing a Disciple must adapt, I'm simply saying this topic is insightful to those planning on playing a Disciple as to why they may encounter hostile roleplaying. If they decide they will adapt by simply ignoring those roleplayers, or by changing their characters background is completely up to them, but at least they can read the reason why in a well-written, clear topic.

a bit more objective would have been fine though for a "topic that is insightful to those planning on playing a Disciple" ...

[Lord Tareq]

Also, I think You are taking whole situation backwards. The current lore includes Disciples, so Disciple defenders are lore defenders. This thread is meant to convince people, that one of many interpretations of previous lore was better than current lore.
And Yes, one of many interpretations. Many people reading the same armybook have different interpretation of theese scraps of knowledge found there.
Who is right? This is the matter of faith.



There is no lore, old or current, that even mentions something resembling a Disciple of Khaine, let alone includes it. Calling Disciple defenders lore defenders is the most rediculous thing I've ever heard so far on Warhammer Alliance, sorry. Did you even read Xurré's post?


a bit more objective would have been fine though for a "topic that is insightful to those planning on playing a Disciple" ...Not really, it states very clearly why certain people will dislike the Disciple, in that way it is insightful. It doesn't have to provide both sides of the argument since that is not relevant at all to encountering hostile roleplaying.

[Kellaris]

There is no lore, old or current, that even mentions something resembling a Disciple of Khaine, let alone includes it. Calling Disciple defenders lore defenders is the most rediculous thing I've ever heard so far on Warhammer Alliance, sorry. Did you even read Xurré's post?

Yes I did. I have answered it also.
You may like it or not, but this (http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/armiesofWAR/DarkElves/Careers/Disciple.php) is official site with "GW approved" stamp.
It is lore now.

Also, if we belive that Malus novel series stays with the lore:

I can not help but think someone read the Malus Darkblade series, read book two I believe which has the Malus fighting the Chaos pirates action, and fell in love with Malus's crazy brother. The Disciple class is basically that brother except they use dual wielding slim swords versus the axe IIRC he used in combat. But the background is the same: put in the Caludron, has copper eyes, and was spared by Khaine which gives him an elevated status in the Temple of Khaine.

And if in Your opinion any sources that are not Armybook are not "real" lore, I think this game is not for You. You know, we have Zealots, sniper Engeneers with one barrel machineguns and sentry guns, Dwarfes riding bear propelled bikes, Choppas and KotBS(not in army book after all), most propably White Lions with lion pets and coldone mounts for everyone, and many more. This is all new stuff created by Mythic and it IS lore now. At least in this game. Take it or leave it.

[Zunjin]

Considering hostile roleplaying:
While I think it is a good intention to warn players that they may play a class that will be bad treaten ( the disciple ) in rp enviroments it should be totally uneccesary. If you want to play your characther as opposite to the whole class ( the disciple ) and call em heretics and such you should first ask the person in question if his ok with that rp approach. If he isnt and dont want to be called heretic, you might well accept it and either roleplay with him differenlyt or leave him for another more acceptable person. This I consider good manner.

Also Kellaris. As you havnt read Xurre's post obvisiouly there is a counter argument that this isnt about if its in the army books or not. I dont think Tareq think differently to that.

[Lord Tareq]

Yes I did. I have answered it also.
You may like it or not, but this (http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/armiesofWAR/DarkElves/Careers/Disciple.php) is official site with "GW approved" stamp.
It is lore now.

Also, if we belive that Malus novel series stays with the lore:


And if in Your opinion any sources that are not Armybook are not "real" lore, I think this game is not for You. You know, we have Zealots, sniper Engeneers with one barrel machineguns and sentry guns, Dwarfes riding bear propelled bikes, Choppas and KotBS(not in army book after all), most propably White Lions with lion pets and coldone mounts for everyone, and many more. This is all new stuff created by Mythic and it IS lore now. At least in this game. Take it or leave it.

Thanks for deciding for me that this game is not for me, really mature.

This game is not lore, in the same way the Malus Darkblade novels are not lore. They are both products based on the existing lore. Malus Darkblade had some pretty disturbing lore errors.
In those novels they made the Black Guard into spearmen, with the Endless being the new bodyguard of Malekith, inexcusable.
However in WAR, Black Guard are once again the bodyguards of Malekith. Why? Because what happens in the Malus Darkblade novels is not part of the lore, and neither is what happens in this game.

The examples you gave are examples of adding onto a class for gameplay purposes, something completely different to creating a complete new class that does not fit the existing lore at all.

[Rathenau]

...Also Kellaris. As you havnt read Xurre's post obvisiouly there is a counter argument that this isnt about if its in the army books or not. I dont think Tareq think differently to that.

What is this madness Zunjin? You make no sense at all. If I read your post correctly you seem to be stating that Kellaris hasn't read the opening post by Xurré? If you are, I truly have no idea how your line of reasoning works. You think he just randomly quotes parts from it? Or have you missed his first post?

And about it not being about the army book? That is ridiculous; off course it is about the army book, that is where most, if not all, of the lore comes from! It's even mentioned approximately 8 times by Xurré in the opening posts alone.

About it being new lore or not, it is for WAR at least. I do hope we'll see more of the disciples of Khaine in the TT game but one can only hope, I'm still waiting for the next release of the Dark Elves anyway. And Tareq, your definition of lore is rather incorrect. If you discount books that have been approved by Games Workshop you might as well discount the army books and the rulebook itself. Then you are left with nothing.

And there will be things that do not match in any grand background story, you will always have that when more then one individual works on a it. And as said before, deciding if something is against the lore is a matter of opinion, we are currently in the progress of stating why it isn't against it.

[Lord Tareq]

And Tareq, your definition of lore is rather incorrect. If you discount books that have been approved by Games Workshop you might as well discount the army books and the rulebook itself. Then you are left with nothing.


I'm not saying I discount the books, simply that I discount things that conflict with the "real" official lore. To take the Black Guard again for example, do you see them as regular spearmen, or as the bodyguard of Malekith?
If you see the novels as real lore then you should see them as regular spearmen.
I for one see them as being the bodyguards of Malekith, since that is what the armybook says, what the unit description says in the TT game, and what the description on the gw-website says about them.

[Kellaris]

Thanks for deciding for me that this game is not for me, really mature.

Assumption about my maturity based on words You put into my mouth are beggining of flame war predicted by Browncoat. If You do not want this thread to be closed, I suggest to stop it.



The examples you gave are examples of adding onto a class for gameplay purposes, something completely different to creating a complete new class that does not fit the existing lore at all.
Question if it fit the existing lore or not is still under discussion.
There are a few counters to Xurre's post in this thread, that remain unanswered, so do not be so fast in claiming victory.

About lore sources, I think I can agree with You that Armybook is only reliable source of lore knowledge.
But that gives us about 1,5 pages of knowledge. Not too much.
If You RP a bit, You propably know that despite there is tons of sources about empire and roleplaying here, every GM makes it different. So even if we have lot of lore (hundreds of pages) there is some space for interpretation and creativity. I would say 50%-80% of lore and 50% to 20% of creativity.
There is only a one source of information about Dark Elves and Temple of Khaine and it concentrates on military aspect, not roleplaying one. So we have 20% of lore and 80% of creativity. There are several ways to imagine how Disciple fit into the Temple and Temple Lore. You just need to stop concentrating on negatives, and be creative.
Or one may just read some ideas that have been posted on this forum last few days.


@Zunjin. Please quote this, becouse I cannot find anything. May be PM.

[Zunjin]

I might just stop here. Its obvious that whatever anyone says the counterpart will not understand. I didnt mean that he hadnt read the post. I meant that he might not understood the point behind the counter argument for armybooks. That is to preserve the warhammer setting and it is in the end of "this is not tabletop". For some is changing the god for dark elves is changing that setting. Including a zealot for chaos on the other hand is not ( it practically already are there ), and including choppa isnt either ( same, already there ). Cold ones are a nobles mount and every characther in the game is consider to be above the normal person. The other examples I leave up for discussion.

To counter my own argument about changing the warhammer setting you could say that already including healing is changing the warhammer setting. Agreeable, but becouse you already are changing it doesnt mean you have to continue changing without bounds.

[Zunjin]

About lore sources, I think I can agree with You that Armybook is only reliable source of lore knowledge.
But that gives us about 1,5 pages of knowledge. Not too much.
If You RP a bit, You propably know that despite there is tons of sources about empire and roleplaying here, every GM makes it different. So even if we have lot of lore (hundreds of pages) there is some space for interpretation and creativity. I would say 50%-80% of lore and 50% to 20% of creativity.
There is only a one source of information about Dark Elves and Temple of Khaine and it concentrates on military aspect, not roleplaying one. So we have 20% of lore and 80% of creativity. There are several ways to imagine how Disciple fit into the Temple and Temple Lore. You just need to stop concentrating on negatives, and be creative.
Or one may just read some ideas that have been posted on this forum last few days.
.


I also consider it to be the best thing to be creative with what you got. I already given my support how to roleplay á disciple in another tread here in the disciple forum. It doesnt mean I agree with the class background, but for the sake of other players and pure interest in rp I putted that aside.

[Zoatibix]

The God of Stupid Evil People?

“The first, and possibly strongest, argument against the Disciple of Khaine is that Khaine is the god of Murder. Khaine is a god who wants to see life taken away; who wants to see wounds opened and blood flowing. His followers worship death and murder, all rituals devoted to him involving the taking of life and the flowing of blood.”


And blood is the life. There are plenty of examples in fiction and reality of people taking life, souls, blood, vital essences to make themselves stronger, or younger, or more healthy. Sometimes they do so at the behest of a deity, and receive a portion of that stolen vitality in return.

The Druchii Lore already features such a ritual as we know.

Healing is not the bringing of life but the maintaining of life. If Khaine is so against the continuation of life beyond its natural end then he would not have given out the tools to perform the Death Night rituals in the first place.

You paint Khaine as a moron unable to look ahead and weigh up the pros and cons of his actions. But clearly he can.

Example: A babe is tossed into the Cauldron on Death Night. His soul will go straight to Khaine. Job done. But instead of this innocent babe perishing in quick but terrible agony Khaine actively steps in and saves him. He preserves life. He saves the child.

Your assertion that Khaine does not preserve life is thus removed.

By saving one life at this time he potentially gains an Assassin. If this Assassin surives his training then in eighty years or so he will begin to reap blood and souls for his God. He makes an informed decision that what he gains later will be greater than what he can have right now.

And that’s how the Disciple of Khaine functions. By preserving another ‘handful of seed’ our God gambles on reaping a richer harvest. The DoK will eventually bring him more blood, more souls, more fear whilst enabling others to fight longer and harder. Druchii cannot fight wars of attrition. Not only are they too smart for that but they simply don’t have the numbers or the sheer toughness to grind an enemy down.

Khaine is not the war god of a bunch of morons. He is the God of War, Death, Destruction, etc of a bunch of very long lived, very, very clever elves. He might want our lives tomorrow but he’s smart enough to play the long game, too. The Asur may only be able to see him as an unrelenting berserker but that’s because they do not understand him they way we Druchii do.


The Fallacy of “Heal to Kill”

The argument EA Mythic seems to make for why the Disciples heal, the explanation they give for how a healer can come to be in the Temple of Khaine, is that the Disciples heal so that those they heal can continue to kill in the name of Khaine.


Point Zero: For RP reasons all Witch Elf players must refuse all healing during combat. By not dying in combat they are denying Khaine souls. The moment you accept a heal in combat you have just accepted your own ‘fallacy’.

Oh, and you must definatley not be healed by the servant of another race’s god. Continuing to fight alongside said servant is helping them to serve their deity, not Khaine.

Killing your allies by omission when they could help you reap a greater harvest is Stupid Evil ™

And even among the dark elves the Disciple heals it’s not at all guaranteed that they all worship Khaine (as it’s likely that a fair number of players will “secretly worship Slaanesh”).

Indeed. And that’s why as a strict RPer you will only be able to fight in groups consisting entirely of Witch Elves. By fighting alongside anybody else you could be strengthening another God.

Additionally, since we are going for the Druchii Darwin Awards lets not patch up any of our fighters who were injured once the battle is over. They were and are weak, so we will just pile them on Khaines altar. Unfortunately that does mean that our armies will quickly dwindle in number to the point where we will be nothing more than an irritation to the hated Asur and Chaos will sweep out of the North and consume our cities.

We might be able to fight our way back into our ancestral lands but without allies the increasing numbers of Dwarfs and Humans coming to the warfront will overwhelm us. By healing them we keep ourselves strong.

‘No, I’m the Chosen One!’
Khaine has many brides. He also has a few adopted children, the Disciples. Both can be important to him. They are part of the family but the relationships are different.

It is quite possible for the Witches to still conduct all the rituals in the Temple. There are real world religions in which some types of ‘priest’ can conduct rituals while others cannot.

IRL example from when I used to attend church. We had a minister who gave sermons, lead services, organised all the community stuff etc. But he couldn’t give Communion. Every service he had to stop at that point and hand off to a priest who was allowed to give it. If Communion Guy was at another parish or could not attend, then our minister could not give communion.

The DoK is probably like that. They may pray and sacrifice in small groups or individually to Khaine (as is right and proper) but they will partake in day-to-day rituals conducted by Hags, just as the Witch Elves do.

The DoK doesn’t use poisons because Khaine wishes him to use other methods. There are many sects, many methods of bringing murder and death. Plus, time spent learning to use poisons is time not spent learning to do his main Disciple duties. In TT terms the Disciple is likely to be as rare as an Assassin. I think it will involve equally demanding and life threatening training. (We’re likely to see an inflated number of Disciples as we are Archmages, mind you.)

I can have a team of five people, each hand picked but for a different role.
Disciples as Clerics

Magic is distasteful, yes. But is that arcane or divine magic? It better not be the later because otherwise ladies I’m gonna have to confiscate that big old magic Cauldron you got there. Khaine gave the Witch Elves the Original and Best ™ Magic Cauldron.

It’s also a kick in the nuts to the argument that Druchii cannot accept ‘crutches’. No crutches means no rejuvenation each year to fight or lead the temple another day. You are old, weak. Your time has placed and there are plenty of young up and coming Witches who will take your place.

The Temple has a political feud with the Convenant, yes. But the Witch Elves recognise and willingly accept the Morathi as one of their leaders when she is both Hag and Sorceress. Maybe they have some distaste for this but they just have to get on with it.

Khaine can still be an aspect of Khorne. Different avatars of the same god can have dissimilar traits. Khaine isn’t a carbon copy of Khorne in the first place. Being worshipped by a strongly magical race it is not surprising that he tolerates (even if barely) the use of magic. Khaine is a god. He can be ‘different’ to Khorne, while being Khorne…whilst actually not being Khorne. Kinda whacky and mystical, I know but that gods for you.

The Disciples aren’t using the Dark Arts. Their power is Divine magic directly from Khaine. Therefore they don’t trigger the prophecy. They are small in number, and as I’ve mentioned may have not authority within the Temple. So they do not represent the kind of threat that a large number Witch Elf ‘mages’ would do.

Morathi cannot simple decree them put to death because Khaine himself has spared them and made a point of marking them as His. Daddy doesn’t love you any less just because there’s a new baby in the house.
The Most Unimaginative Choice

I myself don’t find them the most fresh and cool idea on the block but that’s opinion. It can’t be taken as an argument.

A pale, savage yet beautiful priestesses who preys on the rest of her kin, drinks blood and uses it to preserve her eternal youth is hardly in any position to start ing about people being mistaken for vampires.

My Witch Elf could equally be dismissed as some kind of harlot because of the way she dresses.

I’ve seen plenty of units in various games called Black Guard, Chosen, Zealots, etc These names are popular in fantasy and sci-fi. With two dozen classes it isn’t surprising that we’re going to see some recycling from other sources.

Sure, there are Alternatives

Maybe there are. But this topic is about the Disciples, and why they were chosen.

[Ganymed]

This game is not lore, in the same way the Malus Darkblade novels are not lore. They are both products based on the existing lore. Malus Darkblade had some pretty disturbing lore errors.



so if this game isnt lore for you, why are u even argueing here over disciples?

lol?

u dont take the game as a serious addition to lore obviously, so u just can ignore all the altered stuff in this game, cant u?

[Ganymed]

for some reason I cant quote zoatibixs post .. :-o

anyway: the thing u said about khaine beeing a moronic god and all, hits it pretty clearly.

actually I find it quite funny, that someone like xurre, with all his eloquent writing and worked out posts, sees khaine as such an one-dimensional god. really, all this "khaine is just a god of murder and never will allow healing" makes me want to puke, how can any1 possibly support such a primitive, moronic god, which isnt a god amongst others for dark elves, but their main if not sole one.

xurres one-dimensional, totally unimaginative khaine-concept is that of khorne, and thats it.

the only way khorne works for chaos is cause there are 3 other major chaos gods out there, which bring variety.

and about the "it isnt in the army book so its totally impossible that it exists": well, u cant argue with people that stick to that can u? either people are able to use their imagination to fill out gaps within the stories presented in there, or they arent.

[Zoatibix]

Plus even the Witch Elves have changed over the years. They used to wear nice protective mail vests that covered them from neck to knee.

Then Khaine (in his aspect of Games Workshop, a terrible entity that will bleed your wallet dry) decided he preffered bikinis.

Edit: Also, Khaine values asthetic beauty. Only beautiful Elven maidens can become Brides. If you got hit with the ugly stick then no matter how good your fighting skills, sorry, we don't want you.

He could restore the strength of the Hags without restoring their beauty but he likes pretty things.

[Lord Tareq]

so if this game isnt lore for you, why are u even argueing here over disciples?

lol?

Because the game is based on Warhammer and I'm going to play it, obviously.

u dont take the game as a serious addition to lore obviously, so u just can ignore all the altered stuff in this game, cant u?

That is exactly what I'm going to try and do, but its quite hard to completely ignore an entire class, that is also the only Dark Elf healer class, so probably pretty much needed for groupplay.

[Ethandril]

What should I say about this?

It makes me sad, that people, who don't want the Disciple to be a part of Warhammer:
Age of Reckoning, refuse to play with people who likes the idea and even worser they
gonna treat the Disciple-players with bad manners.
Do you really want this? Everyone wants to have fun to play W.A.R.

I found it quite amusing, that the Temple of Khaine and the Sorceresses have a vendetta,
they don't trust each other. If you are a "strong" roleplayer in the Name of Khaine, you
have to refuse to group with all Sorceresses too. Ok, you can life without RDPS, but
when you refuse the Disciple of Khaine to heal you, how long do you think you will fight?
Sure, you can leave your group or let a zealot or shaman heal you, but as a roleplayer,
do really want this, when the Dark Elves see every other race as victims?

So who is left to fight with you?

To the Alternativs:

A dark magic bases healer would be ok for me too, but as a Witch Elf or Assassin (I know
that they are not ingame) you have to refuse to group with them also, because of the
vendetta.

Slaanesh-based healer is just, let's say, he has as much to do with healing like Khaine,
you would just change a god, thats all. (and a lot of slaanesh-lore friends won't execpt
this...)

At the End the real question is: Is it Lore, which changes or the years or need to changed
to make a great game or is it Law, when it's not ok, you have to take the consequents?

[Slash]

Apparently anybody with a differing opinion is an idiot, fanboi, whiner and or arsehole. And this entire thread (which was meant for polite discussion). Has turned into an attack of everybody who does not agree with Disciples.

If you are "over" discussing Disciples then don't post, it isn't brain surgery. However, there are those who are trying to learn about the Disciple (and peoples views towards them), discuss the impact of Disciples to WAR and Warhammer IP etc. And if you can contribute nothing worthwhile to the discussion please I beg do not get it closed. You may not like the post, but others do and would appreciate it if everybody could act like mature adults.

On Topic: I believe that there are ways to make the Disciples fit in to the lore, exceedingly difficult as they may be. Ang had an idea of the Disciples being the children of Witch Elves and Khaine (obviously not physically). This would place the Disciples below Witch Elves in at least the order of the Temple, and create some interesting back story; as Witch Elves would virtually be the Sires and Khaine would be the bearer. Obviously I have other concerns over the Khainite healer.

In addition I hope its not the blood that heals the players and rather Dark Magic. If the Disciples just killed in the name of Khaine and healed completely separately, it would solve a lot of problems.

If Khaine gave his "children" a great abbility for killing, and perhaps by chance they happened to learn healing from Sorc it would be great, and I would condone it. However, as It stands now the healing is done in Khaines name. Would it effect anyone if it wasn't? Honestly? It wouldn't take much on Mythics part to alter it slightly to make everybody happier.

[Dan gerous]

*EDITED for content*

[Bulwyf]

for some reason I cant quote zoatibixs post .. :-o

anyway: the thing u said about khaine beeing a moronic god and all, hits it pretty clearly.

actually I find it quite funny, that someone like xurre, with all his eloquent writing and worked out posts, sees khaine as such an one-dimensional god. really, all this "khaine is just a god of murder and never will allow healing" makes me want to puke, how can any1 possibly support such a primitive, moronic god, which isnt a god amongst others for dark elves, but their main if not sole one.

xurres one-dimensional, totally unimaginative khaine-concept is that of khorne, and thats it.

the only way khorne works for chaos is cause there are 3 other major chaos gods out there, which bring variety.

and about the "it isnt in the army book so its totally impossible that it exists": well, u cant argue with people that stick to that can u? either people are able to use their imagination to fill out gaps within the stories presented in there, or they arent.


Please see my other thread started on this board. I agree with you that its insane to think Khaine as the de facto SOLO god for the Dark Elves would only be seen in such a limited fashion.

I also find it illogical to the point of amusement to think that any society would NEVER heal anyone who became injured in it. The druchii soceity would have died off within three years if they ONLY things they did as a society were murder each other.

[Ethandril]

....

I also find it illogical to the point of amusement to think that any society would NEVER heal anyone who became injured in it. The druchii soceity would have died off within three years if they ONLY things they did as a society were murder each other.

And an example is Malekith and Morathi, she loves her son and haven't let him die, when
he was fatal wounded through the flames.

[Slash]

And an example is Malekith and Morathi, she loves her son and haven't let him die, when
he was fatal wounded through the flames.

She healed and raised him back to health herself, not in the name of Khaine.

[Bulwyf]

Thanks for deciding for me that this game is not for me, really mature.

This game is not lore, in the same way the Malus Darkblade novels are not lore. They are both products based on the existing lore. Malus Darkblade had some pretty disturbing lore errors.
In those novels they made the Black Guard into spearmen, with the Endless being the new bodyguard of Malekith, inexcusable.
However in WAR, Black Guard are once again the bodyguards of Malekith. Why? Because what happens in the Malus Darkblade novels is not part of the lore, and neither is what happens in this game.

The examples you gave are examples of adding onto a class for gameplay purposes, something completely different to creating a complete new class that does not fit the existing lore at all.


Actually I consider the Darkblade series lore unless it directly contradicts with the army book. And to be honest GW will change lore as they need to. The very fact Mythic got GW's approval to MAKE the Disciple class is just another example.

The Disciple class is based almost exactly off Malus Darkblade's one brother. I defy anyone whose read those books and knows which brother I am talking about to tell me otherwise. They have the same eyes, the same background and the same fanatical devotion to Khaine. I didn't see any WE in those books tapping him on the shoulder and telling him that he didn't fit into lore or that his devotion to Khaine was "less" than theirs.

[Ethandril]

She healed and raised him back to health herself, not in the name of Khaine.

I didn't say anthing about Khaine, or did I? ;)

It was my comment on this quote:


also find it illogical to the point of amusement to think that any society would NEVER heal anyone who became injured in it. The druchii soceity would have died off within three years if they ONLY things they did as a society were murder each other.

[Slash]

Actually I consider the Darkblade series lore unless it directly contradicts with the army book. And to be honest GW will change lore as they need to. The very fact Mythic got GW's approval to MAKE the Disciple class is just another example.

The Disciple class is based almost exactly off Malus Darkblade's one brother. I defy anyone whose read those books and knows which brother I am talking about to tell me otherwise. They have the same eyes, the same background and the same fanatical devotion to Khaine. I didn't see any WE in those books tapping him on the shoulder and telling him that he didn't fit into lore or that his devotion to Khaine was "less" than theirs.

While the Darkblade series is an excellent read, and a great way to learn about the basics of Druchii culture. I take them lightly. Nobody has ever dared call them official lore, just as nobody has claimed against they are not. However, when I find contradictions riddled through it, I do begin to doubt it as a legitimate source of lore.

Offtopic: Speak of the devil I ordered Lord of Ruin today (haven't read that one yet) :razz:

[Bulwyf]

She healed and raised him back to health herself, not in the name of Khaine.

Yes, just like those Hags and Witch Elves don't extend their lives through Khaine by Cauldrons of Blood? Oh wait...

[Slash]

I didn't say anthing about Khaine, or did I? ;)

It was my comment on this quote:

No you didn't, my apologies. However, nobody is arguing that there shouldn't be a healer at all, people are against it being in Khaines name. (Read my post at the top of this page to see my views :))

[Bulwyf]

While the Darkblade series is an excellent read, and a great way to learn about the basics of Druchii culture. I take them lightly. Nobody has ever dared call them official lore, just as nobody has claimed against they are not. However, when I find contradictions riddled through it, I do begin to doubt it as a legitimate source of lore.

Offtopic: Speak of the devil I ordered Lord of Ruin today (haven't read that one yet) :razz:

I call it lore. It is the only GW approved writings we have on normal druchii society. Unless it directly contradicts the army book I consider it GW's stance on druchii society. Malus Darkblade is in the army book, not just a randomly created character, and the series is telling his life story. That IMO makes it official.

[Slash]

Yes, just like those Hags and Witch Elves don't extend their lives through Khaine by Cauldrons of Blood? Oh wait...

Lets not drag that old cat in here lol, it has been argued a lot in previous threads. I do however, disagree. I don't really consider it healing (I'm not going to go on about it here though). Also in TT the cauldron offensive and doesn't heal or protect anybody.

[Zoatibix]

She healed and raised him back to health herself, not in the name of Khaine.

Indeed. But the point is she did nurse him back to health. If Druchii are funnelled into the idea of automatically killing anybody who shows an ounce of weakness then their race will quickly die out. They have to help each other out now and again even if only to have somebody else to take the enemy's spear tip another day.

the Druchii are highly intelligent and long lived. You can't plot and induldge in intrigue very well if your only strategy is to reflexively stab things..

in TT the cauldron offensive and doesn't heal or protect anybody.

The TT version of the Cauldron provides a Ward Save. So yes, it does protect people.

[Ethandril]

Yes, just like those Hags and Witch Elves don't extend their lives through Khaine by Cauldrons of Blood? Oh wait...

Morathi healed Malekith through dark magic, don't know which one, since she use
dark magic, is the favorite bride of Khaine and she is the High-Priestess of the Cult
of Slaanesh too...

[Slash]

I call it lore. It is the only GW approved writings we have on normal druchii society. Unless it directly contradicts the army book I consider it GW's stance on druchii society. Malus Darkblade is in the army book, not just a randomly created character, and the series is telling his life story. That IMO makes it official.

Agree to disagree then :D? I have already stated why I don't consider it official lore. There is really no right or wrong answer here, its all quite grey I would say.

[Bulwyf]

Lets not drag that old cat in here lol, it has been argued a lot in previous threads. I do however, disagree. I don't really consider it healing (I'm not going to go on about it here though). Also in TT the cauldron offensive and doesn't heal or protect anybody.

Er...extending someone's lifespan abnormally and returning their youth to them is what I would consider some pretty damn good healing actually. :p

As such the lore clearly shows Khaine will heal when it suits him. I do not see how much of a stretch it is then to think that in the last war of the world he would aid his followers.

[Bulwyf]

Agree to disagree then :D? I have already stated why I don't consider it official lore. There is really no right or wrong answer here, its all quite grey I would say.

Oh yes, we'll have to agree to disagree because GW hasn't said either way. I do take the BL books that chronicle the lives of actual army book characters as official lore though since its by defaut the life story of said characters in the actual army book.

[Slash]

But the point is she did nurse him back to health. If Druchii are funnelled into the idea of automatically killing anybody who shows an ounce of weakness then their race will quickly die out. They have to help each other out now and again even if only to have somebody else to take the enemy's spear tip another day.

the Druchii are highly intelligent and long lived. You can't plot and induldge in intrigue very well if your only strategy is to reflexively stab things..

I never mentioned healing in general wasn't excepted. People dislike Disciples because they heal in the name of Khaine.

The TT version of the Cauldron provides a Ward Save. So yes, it does protect people.

From Lord Tareq:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=582133&postcount=169
From:http://uk.games-workshop.com/darkelves/update/2/

EDIT: Wow we have certainly covered some distance in the last 30mins-hour haven't we, more than a full page :p.

[Ethandril]

I never mentioned healing in general wasn't excepted. People hold grudges over Disciples to to the fact they are healing in Khaines name.


What is Morathi? She is the favorite Bride of Khaine and she healed her son Malekith, ok
Khaine might have nothing to do with this, but by the statemt "survival of the fitest" or
"kill the weak", Morathi should let her son die.

[Zoatibix]

Khaine isn't benevolant. He doesn't do anything because "it's the right thing" or because it makes him warm and fluffy inside.

He does it because it furthers his aims: war, death, killing.

1. He intervenes to save the Babes who become Assassins. He invests a small amount of his energy for an expected return later on.

2. He rejuvenates his followers. He keeps valuable political experience. But he could keep that just by extending their lives. Restoring their beauty shows a clear intrest in things other than death.

3. The Cauldron projects an aura of protection on the TT.

[Slash]

What is Morathi? She is the favorite Bride of Khaine and she healed her son Malekith, ok
Khaine might have nothing to do with this, but by the statemt "survival of the fitest" or
"kill the weak", Morathi should let her son die.

There is nothing wrong with somebody who follows Khaine to heal (I'm feel like im repeating myself a lot here). However, healing in his name is what some people are opposed to.

[Kellaris]

Apparently anybody with a differing opinion is an idiot, fanboi, whiner and or arsehole. And this entire thread (which was meant for polite discussion). Has turned into an attack of everybody who does not agree with Disciples.

It is funny conclusion, becouse I have answered a number of Xurre's arguments on the begining of this thread. And since that time I have not seen a single answer to my arguments. But, I have been indirectly called troll and directly immature.


However, as It stands now the healing is done in Khaines name. Would it effect anyone if it wasn't? Honestly? It wouldn't take much on Mythics part to alter it slightly to make everybody happier.
Not everybody. There is a group of people (including me) that likes the idea of priest of Khaine and his divine gifts. I wouldn't play Disciple i f he would be some rogue socerer. Becouse he would be plain melee healer without any Lore.
I will play Disciple, becouse Khaine is my favourite warhammer god and I like the idea of Khaine priests (Not priests of god of murder, but Priests of Bloody Handed God of WAR) and I can see a great connection between them and existing lore.

[Slash]

I wouldn't play Disciple if he would be some rogue socerer. Because he would be plain melee healer without any Lore. I will play Disciple, because Khaine is my favourite warhammer god and I like the idea of Khaine priests (Not priests of god of murder, but Priests of Bloody Handed God of WAR) and I can see a great connection between them and existing lore.

Sorry If I pitched my idea poorly. He wouldn't be "some rogue sorcerer, who melee's" (which sounds interesting anyway ;)). He would be a fanatical follower of Khaine, who has been given special gifts to reap death and murder upon inferior peoples. In addition they would be taught by Sorc to heal, so it would have no ties with healing and Khaine. Only lets kill more things (especially High Elves) and Khaine.

[Zoatibix]

There is nothing wrong with somebody who follows Khaine to heal (I'm feel like im repeating myself a lot here). However, healing in his name is what some people are opposed to.

Then those people need to explain the three situations in the Dark Elf Army Book where Khaine himself intervenes to protect or rejuvenate people. Their argument rests in Khaine himself being diametrically opposed to such activity.

[Ethandril]

There is nothing wrong with somebody who follows Khaine to heal (I'm feel like im repeating myself a lot here). However, healing in his name is what some people are opposed to.

Ok, I don't get it.... healing, mending or use any other term for it is not allowed in the
name of Khaine, but healing when you "just" follow Khaine and his "rules" is ok?
This must be something like "Khaine light".... :D

Or is Khaine more than the God of Murder for the Dark Elves?

[Kellaris]

Sorry If I pitched my idea poorly. He wouldn't be "some rogue sorcerer, who melee's" (which sounds interesting anyway ;)). He would be a fanatical follower of Khaine, who has been given special gifts to reap death and murder upon inferior peoples. In addition they would be taught by Sorc to heal, so it would have no ties with healing and Khaine. Only lets kill more things (especially High Elves) and Khaine.
I can see Your point now, but I still cannot understand inability to accept pure logic of Zoatibix post (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=627386&postcount=55). Lets say it straight: Do You really think Khaine is stupid mindles berserker?
Please answer this question in straight text.
Becouse I think he is a bit more complicated. He was created and revered by elves, so he cannot be stupid. He is god of many aspects. Khaine is not only about murder. There is also War, treachery and deceit. Druchii culture is based on Khaine philosophy and vice versa. And Druchii are not stupid. They will not leave allies to die until theese allies will not fulfill their job. Khaine will not let his follower di until he will do his job. Khaine is not stupid. And he is god so he can heal if he wish. As far as his followers will be happy and will give him sacrifices in return it is OK.

[Slash]

Then those people need to explain the three situations in the Dark Elf Army Book where Khaine himself intervenes to protect or rejuvenate people. Their argument rests in Khaine himself being diametrically opposed to such activity.

Khaine isn't benevolant. He doesn't do anything because "it's the right thing" or because it makes him warm and fluffy inside.

He does it because it furthers his aims: war, death, killing.

1. He intervenes to save the Babes who become Assassins. He invests a small amount of his energy for an expected return later on.

2. He rejuvenates his followers. He keeps valuable political experience. But he could keep that just by extending their lives. Restoring their beauty shows a clear intrest in things other than death.

3. The Cauldron projects an aura of protection on the TT.

Off the top of my head

1. The babies survive because they are worthy of Khaine, worthy to murder and pillage in his name. This isn't healing, please.

2. He restores their beauty as a gift yes, they are his brides. Any self respecting husband would want his murdering machines of feminine fury looking their best while they skin you alive. This isn't healing. Giving temporary immortality isn't exactly healing either, they bathe in sacred blood and it temporarily increases their life span. I wouldn't call this healing. Just as I wouldn't call the Witch King eat his fruit of immortality (one which didn't need to be constantly replenished) healing. Because it isn't.

3. See my post (Lord Tareq's really) above. This isn't healing

I acknowledge that you do not agree with me, and nor I you. That doesn't make either of our arguments less than one another.

If you need further convincing I suggest you look more intimately at Xurre's post. There are plenty of reasons to back up people disliking the Disciple.

[Slash]

Ok, I don't get it.... healing, mending or use any other term for it is not allowed in the name of Khaine, but healing when you "just" follow Khaine and his "rules" is ok? This must be something like "Khaine light".... :D

Or is Khaine more than the God of Murder for the Dark Elves?

I don't have to play basketball in Gods name, just as much as Disciples don't have to heal in Khaines name, and use gifts "he gives" to do it. (Sorry for using a silly analogy, but I wanted to pick something that exaggerated).

You can still be a follower for Khaine, and heal with dark magic. Thats a different thing to "The Bloody Handed God of Murder has bestowed me healing powers, I heal you" **throws blood at people**

[Ilairon]

The God of Stupid Evil People?

“The first, and possibly strongest, argument against the Disciple of Khaine is that Khaine is the god of Murder. Khaine is a god who wants to see life taken away; who wants to see wounds opened and blood flowing. His followers worship death and murder, all rituals devoted to him involving the taking of life and the flowing of blood.”


And blood is the life. There are plenty of examples in fiction and reality of people taking life, souls, blood, vital essences to make themselves stronger, or younger, or more healthy. Sometimes they do so at the behest of a deity, and receive a portion of that stolen vitality in return.

The Druchii Lore already features such a ritual as we know.

Healing is not the bringing of life but the maintaining of life. If Khaine is so against the continuation of life beyond its natural end then he would not have given out the tools to perform the Death Night rituals in the first place.

You paint Khaine as a moron unable to look ahead and weigh up the pros and cons of his actions. But clearly he can.

Example: A babe is tossed into the Cauldron on Death Night. His soul will go straight to Khaine. Job done. But instead of this innocent babe perishing in quick but terrible agony Khaine actively steps in and saves him. He preserves life. He saves the child.

Your assertion that Khaine does not preserve life is thus removed.

By saving one life at this time he potentially gains an Assassin. If this Assassin surives his training then in eighty years or so he will begin to reap blood and souls for his God. He makes an informed decision that what he gains later will be greater than what he can have right now.

And that’s how the Disciple of Khaine functions. By preserving another ‘handful of seed’ our God gambles on reaping a richer harvest. The DoK will eventually bring him more blood, more souls, more fear whilst enabling others to fight longer and harder. Druchii cannot fight wars of attrition. Not only are they too smart for that but they simply don’t have the numbers or the sheer toughness to grind an enemy down.

Khaine is not the war god of a bunch of morons. He is the God of War, Death, Destruction, etc of a bunch of very long lived, very, very clever elves. He might want our lives tomorrow but he’s smart enough to play the long game, too. The Asur may only be able to see him as an unrelenting berserker but that’s because they do not understand him they way we Druchii do.


The Fallacy of “Heal to Kill”

The argument EA Mythic seems to make for why the Disciples heal, the explanation they give for how a healer can come to be in the Temple of Khaine, is that the Disciples heal so that those they heal can continue to kill in the name of Khaine.


Point Zero: For RP reasons all Witch Elf players must refuse all healing during combat. By not dying in combat they are denying Khaine souls. The moment you accept a heal in combat you have just accepted your own ‘fallacy’.

Oh, and you must definatley not be healed by the servant of another race’s god. Continuing to fight alongside said servant is helping them to serve their deity, not Khaine.

Killing your allies by omission when they could help you reap a greater harvest is Stupid Evil ™

And even among the dark elves the Disciple heals it’s not at all guaranteed that they all worship Khaine (as it’s likely that a fair number of players will “secretly worship Slaanesh”).

Indeed. And that’s why as a strict RPer you will only be able to fight in groups consisting entirely of Witch Elves. By fighting alongside anybody else you could be strengthening another God.

Additionally, since we are going for the Druchii Darwin Awards lets not patch up any of our fighters who were injured once the battle is over. They were and are weak, so we will just pile them on Khaines altar. Unfortunately that does mean that our armies will quickly dwindle in number to the point where we will be nothing more than an irritation to the hated Asur and Chaos will sweep out of the North and consume our cities.

We might be able to fight our way back into our ancestral lands but without allies the increasing numbers of Dwarfs and Humans coming to the warfront will overwhelm us. By healing them we keep ourselves strong.

‘No, I’m the Chosen One!’
Khaine has many brides. He also has a few adopted children, the Disciples. Both can be important to him. They are part of the family but the relationships are different.

It is quite possible for the Witches to still conduct all the rituals in the Temple. There are real world religions in which some types of ‘priest’ can conduct rituals while others cannot.

IRL example from when I used to attend church. We had a minister who gave sermons, lead services, organised all the community stuff etc. But he couldn’t give Communion. Every service he had to stop at that point and hand off to a priest who was allowed to give it. If Communion Guy was at another parish or could not attend, then our minister could not give communion.

The DoK is probably like that. They may pray and sacrifice in small groups or individually to Khaine (as is right and proper) but they will partake in day-to-day rituals conducted by Hags, just as the Witch Elves do.

The DoK doesn’t use poisons because Khaine wishes him to use other methods. There are many sects, many methods of bringing murder and death. Plus, time spent learning to use poisons is time not spent learning to do his main Disciple duties. In TT terms the Disciple is likely to be as rare as an Assassin. I think it will involve equally demanding and life threatening training. (We’re likely to see an inflated number of Disciples as we are Archmages, mind you.)

I can have a team of five people, each hand picked but for a different role.
Disciples as Clerics

Magic is distasteful, yes. But is that arcane or divine magic? It better not be the later because otherwise ladies I’m gonna have to confiscate that big old magic Cauldron you got there. Khaine gave the Witch Elves the Original and Best ™ Magic Cauldron.

It’s also a kick in the nuts to the argument that Druchii cannot accept ‘crutches’. No crutches means no rejuvenation each year to fight or lead the temple another day. You are old, weak. Your time has placed and there are plenty of young up and coming Witches who will take your place.

The Temple has a political feud with the Convenant, yes. But the Witch Elves recognise and willingly accept the Morathi as one of their leaders when she is both Hag and Sorceress. Maybe they have some distaste for this but they just have to get on with it.

Khaine can still be an aspect of Khorne. Different avatars of the same god can have dissimilar traits. Khaine isn’t a carbon copy of Khorne in the first place. Being worshipped by a strongly magical race it is not surprising that he tolerates (even if barely) the use of magic. Khaine is a god. He can be ‘different’ to Khorne, while being Khorne…whilst actually not being Khorne. Kinda whacky and mystical, I know but that gods for you.

The Disciples aren’t using the Dark Arts. Their power is Divine magic directly from Khaine. Therefore they don’t trigger the prophecy. They are small in number, and as I’ve mentioned may have not authority within the Temple. So they do not represent the kind of threat that a large number Witch Elf ‘mages’ would do.

Morathi cannot simple decree them put to death because Khaine himself has spared them and made a point of marking them as His. Daddy doesn’t love you any less just because there’s a new baby in the house.
The Most Unimaginative Choice

I myself don’t find them the most fresh and cool idea on the block but that’s opinion. It can’t be taken as an argument.

A pale, savage yet beautiful priestesses who preys on the rest of her kin, drinks blood and uses it to preserve her eternal youth is hardly in any position to start ing about people being mistaken for vampires.

My Witch Elf could equally be dismissed as some kind of harlot because of the way she dresses.

I’ve seen plenty of units in various games called Black Guard, Chosen, Zealots, etc These names are popular in fantasy and sci-fi. With two dozen classes it isn’t surprising that we’re going to see some recycling from other sources.

Sure, there are Alternatives

Maybe there are. But this topic is about the Disciples, and why they were chosen.

QFT.

I was going to write up a long post of counterpoints to Xurre's 'arguments' - perhaps I still will -, but I must say, this post does a good job of that already. My hat's off to Zoatibix.

[Kellaris]

I don't have to play basketball in Gods name, just as much as Disciples don't have to heal in Khaines name, and use gifts "he gives" to do it. (Sorry for using a silly analogy, but I wanted to pick something that exaggerated).

You can still be a follower for Khaine, and heal with dark magic. Thats a different thing to "The Bloody Handed God of Murder has bestowed me healing powers, I heal you" **throws blood at people**

Do you realize that Your statement stand against Xurre arguments?
Becouse She claims that Temple members dislikes magic to the point of hate.
Also, Your idea is still chosen priest of Khaine so entire "vs Witch Elves" paragraph stands against You.
Not to mention antimagic law for the Witch elves or The entire temple (depends from interpretation.

[Slash]

I can see Your point now, but I still cannot understand inability to accept pure logic of Zoatibix post (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=627386&postcount=55). Lets say it straight: Do You really think Khaine is stupid mindles berserker?
Please answer this question in straight text.
Becouse I think he is a bit more complicated. He was created and revered by elves, so he cannot be stupid. He is god of many aspects. Khaine is not only about murder. There is also War, treachery and deceit. Druchii culture is based on Khaine philosophy and vice versa. And Druchii are not stupid. They will not leave allies to die until theese allies will not fulfill their job. Khaine will not let his follower di until he will do his job. Khaine is not stupid. And he is god so he can heal if he wish. As far as his followers will be happy and will give him sacrifices in return it is OK.

Of course Khaine isn't stupid. Nobody has implied so. And of course Druchii aren't either. On the battlefield (perhaps not outside though :p) I'm sure the Dark Elves would do anything to claim victory, including healing. Healing does not need to be associated with Khaine, and logic would tell us it is not the logical idea. While Khaine may have many aspects (and I'm doing research across many sources to learn every piece I can), healing wouldn't be the first one to come to mind (if in fact there was one. I will not comment any more on whether there is or isn't at this stage), obviously.

[Zoatibix]

The babies are babies. Do they kill in some kind of Monty Python Killer Rabbit way? Flying across the battlefield and gurgling as they rip the throats from their enemies?

No, they don’t. Khaine has to weigh up what they will be worth to him in the future. He makes an investment in the here and now. I know it isn’t healing – it is protection as I quite clearly stated.

The point is that instead of taking one soul now he can save it and get a hundred souls in the future. The Disciple can keep Druchii and their allies alive now and reap a hundred souls in the future.

Again, we’re back to ‘Khaine likes to look at pretty ladies’. He could simply, as I’ve said, make them strong enough to kill again. If he is so hung up on just killing stuff he wouldn’t waste energy on their looks. Valuing their looks proves he has intrests outside killing and death.

And again, he is spending a bit of his energy to keep his followers alive so that they can gather more souls for him down the line.


As to your third point I could have sworn that the Attendants to the Cauldron receive a Ward Save either in this version or the previous one. I’m not able to check my book atm. I’m not talking about the wide area re-rolls. If I’m wrong then obviously I withdraw this particular point.

[Slash]

Do you realize that Your statement stand against Xurre arguments?
Becouse She claims that Temple members dislikes magic to the point of hate.
Also, Your idea is still chosen priest of Khaine so entire "vs Witch Elves" paragraph stands against You.
Not to mention antimagic law for the Witch elves or The entire temple (depends from interpretation.

I am not a carbon coppy of Xurre, thank you. We have similar views but not identical. The temple in my opinion is opposed to Witch Elves using magic, and while I think the superiors still find magic "distasteful", I don't believe it is totally outlawed, other than Witch Elves. The Temple simply prefers a more brutal approach ;).

In regards to "vs Witch Elves", If you read through my posts, I have said stated the way which I think Disciples should be implemented into the Temple, and it is a viewed shared by Ang too (other side of the fence). If they were interjected into WAR like this, I would see it is much more appropriate than, the Disciples are mini-Jesus now.

[Ilairon]

Of course Khaine isn't stupid. Nobody has implied so. And of course Druchii aren't either. On the battlefield (perhaps not outside though :p) I'm sure the Dark Elves would do anything to claim victory, including healing. Healing does not need to be associated with Khaine, and logic would tell us it is not the logical idea. While Khaine may have many aspects (and I'm doing research across many sources to learn every piece I can), healing wouldn't be the first one to come to mind (if in fact there was one. I will not comment any more on whether there is or isn't at this stage), obviously.

So you're saying Khaine, god of - among other things - warfare, wouldn't do anything to claim victory; rather, he'd spurn his followers for thinking tactically and strategically in areas of combat, bloodshed, and murder? That does sound like a god from Warhammer. In fact it even sounds like a god whose name begins with K, 'fraid it's Khorne, though. Zoatibix put it nicely:

Healing is not the bringing of life but the maintaining of life. If Khaine is so against the continuation of life beyond its natural end then he would not have given out the tools to perform the Death Night rituals in the first place.

You paint Khaine as a moron unable to look ahead and weigh up the pros and cons of his actions. But clearly he can.

Example: A babe is tossed into the Cauldron on Death Night. His soul will go straight to Khaine. Job done. But instead of this innocent babe perishing in quick but terrible agony Khaine actively steps in and saves him. He preserves life. He saves the child.

Your assertion that Khaine does not preserve life is thus removed.

By saving one life at this time he potentially gains an Assassin. If this Assassin surives his training then in eighty years or so he will begin to reap blood and souls for his God. He makes an informed decision that what he gains later will be greater than what he can have right now.

And that’s how the Disciple of Khaine functions. By preserving another ‘handful of seed’ our God gambles on reaping a richer harvest. The DoK will eventually bring him more blood, more souls, more fear whilst enabling others to fight longer and harder. Druchii cannot fight wars of attrition. Not only are they too smart for that but they simply don’t have the numbers or the sheer toughness to grind an enemy down.

Khaine is not the war god of a bunch of morons. He is the God of War, Death, Destruction, etc of a bunch of very long lived, very, very clever elves. He might want our lives tomorrow but he’s smart enough to play the long game, too. The Asur may only be able to see him as an unrelenting berserker but that’s because they do not understand him they way we Druchii do.

[Slash]

The babies are babies. Do they kill in some kind of Monty Python Killer Rabbit way? Flying across the battlefield and gurgling as they rip the throats from their enemies?

The way I see it is Khaine kills all of the babies apart from the ones he can tell will be worthy and will have the abbility to kills countless others in his name. He simply spares their lives, he doesn't protect them. Just because somebody spares your life doesn't mean they are protecting you.

[Zoatibix]

They are dumped in a cauldron full of boiling blood and yet by Khaine's will they don't die because at that moment he protects them.

[Slash]

They are dumped in a cauldron full of boiling blood and yet by Khaine's will they don't die because at that moment he protects them.

Or their predetermined strength and immunity to the blood. Those are the babies that are worthy to become true servants in Khaines name. Because they are worthy they come out unscathed. Khaine didn't protect them, they protected themselves from Khaine's test and thus become his chosen.

EDIT: Sorry to leave you guys its 2:40 here and I have work tomorrow. I've enjoyed tonight, its been clean and productive :razz:, while still dripping with just a tad of Druchii poison. None of this "omfg fanbois QQ's burns my ears", or "Your an idiot for not being able to see Khaine clearly will not heal you, stupid heretic". I will check in later.

[Ilairon]

I am not a carbon coppy of Xurre, thank you. We have similar views but not identical. The temple in my opinion is opposed to Witch Elves using magic, and while I think the superiors still find magic "distasteful", I don't believe it is totally outlawed, other than Witch Elves. The Temple simply prefers a more brutal approach ;).


Druchii aren't brutes though. There's nothing brutish about any of the Elven races in Warhammer to be perfectly honest. Among other things, it's a bit of a stretch to say that the Temple prefers a more brutal approach when they employ assassins (some of the most precise and lethal killers in the Warhammer world) and executioners who consider murder a work of art to be carried out with great care. Witch Elves draw fear, envy, and sexual desire from other members of Druchii society, wading through combat in a dance of death, and Disciples seem to be awe-inspiring, blessed by Khaine, warriors that can commune with their god to call on divine magic.

[Slash]

Druchii aren't brutes though. There's nothing brutish about any of the Elven races in Warhammer to be perfectly honest. Among other things, it's a bit of a stretch to say that the Temple prefers a more brutal approach when they employ assassins (some of the most precise and lethal killers in the Warhammer world) and executioners who consider murder a work of art to be carried out with great care. Witch Elves draw fear, envy, and sexual desire from other members of Druchii society, wading through combat in a dance of death, and Disciples seem to be awe-inspiring, blessed by Khaine, warriors that can commune with their god to call on divine magic.

Your right brutal may not have been the best choice of words. More like intimate? Hows that. Now I actually have to sleep :razz:. See ya.

[Ilairon]

Or their predetermined strength and immunity to the blood. Those are the babies that are worthy to become true servants in Khaines name. Because they are worthy they come out unscathed. Khaine didn't protect them, they protected themselves from Khaine's test and thus become his chosen.

EDIT: Sorry to leave you guys its 2:40 here and I have work tomorrow. I've enjoyed tonight, its been clean and productive :razz:, while still dripping with just a tad of Druchii poison. None of this "omfg fanbois QQ's burns my ears", or "Your an idiot for not being able to see Khaine clearly will not heal you, stupid heretic". I will check in later.

Immunity to boiling blood? As newborn babes or Druchii toddlers I doubt they manage to protect themselves from the boiling blood. Even if it wasn't boiling, you'd expect they'd drown to death, what with being small, meek, weak, and not knowing how to swim.

Your right brutal may not have been the best choice of words. More like intimate? Hows that. Now I actually have to sleep :razz:. See ya.

Intimate? Do you mean intimidating (if not then back to 'Intimate?')? That'd work, albeit it still probably is not the best. The Temple seems more calculating than anything - the intimidation is one reflected facade of that behind-the-scenes calculation.

And goodnight too! Australia, I take it?

[Zunjin]

This isnt meant for ing but there are a comic serie that came before the books on Malus. Much of the content in it is different from what happens in the books ( or atleast so I heared ). What I mean to say is that its impossible to point at one stated fact without coming in conflict with another when invindual writers write on the same subject. Take all Black library books with a little more care then facts stated in armybooks ( which are upgraded for each version ). Im not saying that they are worthless as they obvisiouly served their purpose to inspire to the class in question as someone pointed out.

[Xurré]

Too much to reply to… arg… and I already wrote two such huge replies to this topic today.


It is sad You see me as troll.
Sorry if that came across as wrong, but that second edit was a general statement. It’s all too easy for people to try and troll a thread like this to get it closed. Wasn’t meant at you.

You can be fan of WE as someone can be fan of Ironbreakers and don't like engineers. I have little problem with that. It becomes problem, when Ironbreaker fan starts to convine everyone that engineer is against the lore.
But can you understand an Ironbreaker fan wanting to do such a thing when the Engineer starts taking large chunks of what made the Ironbreaker cool in the first place away from them? Because it seems that’s what the Disciple is doing; taking things away from other classes in an attempt to make them seem interesting.

Khaine, bloody handed god of War and Death - Armybook, page 10. It is entrance about Temple of Khaine. Most straightforward description of Khaine and his followers. God of murder is one of many aspects, and definately not the most important one.
Yet Khaine is regularly referred to as the “God of Murder”; the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying book (1989 print) even has it as its heading “KHAINE Lord of Murder”. I’m sure that he has other aspects, but it seems that—for the dark elves at the very least—murder seems pretty much the most important aspect of it.

The High Elves are pretty much alone in worshipping him more as a god of war; and even there I think the high elves see war and murder as pretty much the same thing.

But this is MMO and healers are necessery.
Yes, but it is not necessary for this healer to be in the Temple of Khaine.

If this interpretation is true, then no DE healer should exist. You are talking about DE here, not about the Temple.
Not everyone dying on battlefield is weak.
I think druchii would argue with you there; if you’re dying on the battlefield then you were too weak to avoid being hit. Remember, don’t follow human logic, follow druchii logic.

As to that there should exist no healer… probably true. But this is an MMO and healers are necessary. But by putting this healer in the temple you’re fundamentally changing the heart of the druchii, fundamentally changing what the race is. It is just so much better to have a healer who’s more on the fringes of society (at least certainly not in the very heart of it).




Khaine must do what the devotees belive.
It’s an interesting view (and I hope you don’t mind me summarizing your post by just quoting the above line) and certainly one I’ve heard before. I say though that it doesn’t really change anything; in fact if anything it makes my point of the Disciples conflicting with the Witch Elves only stronger as they now have even more reason to get rid of any potential healers within the temple who would preach a dogma counter to their own.

Nobody wants to see their god changed, certainly not if you’re the main priesthood of that god’s religion.




Very insightful and well written post Xurre!

I don't think it was very biased at all (and I happen to like the Disciple of game, and am not a lore fanatic). I think Xurre did a good job providing the counter arguments to her own (even though she did debunk many of them), but thats kinda the point.

Regardless, I know your feelings on the issue, and I think it was less biased then it could have been.
Thank you. :)




I have been playing Dark Elves for a long time in TT, have read their stories and lore-wise i do somewot agree with you, it is a break to it, but game mechanic wise i dont agree at all. The Disciple is one of the best "new" classes i have seen in an Online RPG so far, the way he works, the way he looks, hell you should give mythic credit to wot they created there, a support class that will probably be played by alot of ppl. Does it really matter that much that lore has been bent a bit (for you prolly alot) for it? I dont think so.
I haven’t said a thing against the mechanics of the class. In fact, I’m quite sure it’ll be quite fun to play and I’m happy to see that in this EA Mythic found something that a lot of people seem to enjoy (I could repeat old arguments we’ve had, but I can definitely accept a melee healer working like the Disciple does). So there I’m sure EA Mythic can be given credit.

The background though is probably the poorest, most hodgepodge and uninspired construction I’ve ever seen. All they seem to have done is take the cool elements from other classes—the way Assassins are created, a whole lot from the Witch Elf including status, position, zeal and lust for blood, as well as various other aspects such as the Sorceress’ Soul Stealer spell—and jammed it together into one class. If you’re going to create something new then at least create something new; something original. At least work with the setting instead of ripping it to pieces and gluing it back together like they seem to have done.

At this point I have absolutely nothing against the gameplay of the class, but I do have a huge issue with the background. And as such all I’m asking is to change the background (maintaining the gameplay exactly as it is). I don’t think that’s too much to ask.




And All of them can be chosen of Khaine. Even in "before Disciple" lore WE were not exclusively chosen. assasins were and are also "chosen" (Armybook, page 11) jet You have no problem with that.
The Assassins are chosen by Khaine to survive and become Assassins; the Disciples are the “chosen dark priests of the bloody-handed god”. There’s a distinct difference; one can choose something without making it you “chosen ones”. The Witch Elves are quite clearly described as Khaine’s “chosen ones”, as his priestesses, and as such these new “chosen dark priests” conflict with that.




First I want to say that your post is very well written Xurré, you should really think about trying your hand at writing a novel.
Thank you. I hope to, just never seem to find the time to write (probably because I spend too much time writing replies on forums :p ).

I think being weak can be interpreted in many different ways, you Xurré seem to substitute weak for wounded. This is plain wrong, for as you would be weak when wounded then you wouldn’t be weak if you are not, thus if you never got wounded you would never be weak, thus if you never fought you would be the strongest. Somehow I very much doubt a coward can be perceived as the strongest of his race. (Yes some connections are misleading there but it serves only to illustrate.)
Not quite; it’s not the being wounded itself that makes one weak (as I’m sure Witches wouldn’t mind being wounded either and have the blood flow from them). It’s the need to be healed that makes one weak, needing the hand-out from your god. It makes it so that the druchii aren’t a self-reliant race anymore and instead need divine powers to be strong.

What makes you weak is not being able to avoid getting into a situation where you need the help. A coward who avoids the conflict altogether would be another kind of weak. Simply because A implies B doesn’t mean that not A implies not B.

Well Kellaris said most of it already, but I just want to stress the problems with your interpretation of him: Khaine isn’t against life, happiness, ect. That is merely a conclusion you base on the fact that he does not support those. Saying he is against those would be a paradox, as to quote the very piece you typed out, backwards;
It’s not just that he doesn’t support those that makes me say that; it’s because the background information pretty much directly says it. It clearly states that Khaine is a got of murder and hatred, clearly states the he exists as the opposite of life and love, and clearly states that the dark elves spurned that which he opposes to only worship him, leaving only murder and hatred for them.

That’s based on the 4th edition army book for the dark elves; I think I quoted the passage somewhere else already (and segments of it in the article).

"For there to be death there must also be life, in order to wage war there must also be peace, in order for there to be suffering there must be happiness, in order to hatre there must also be love and child birth."
That’s the high elf view on things, that to have one you need the other. The dark elves have forsaken this, leaving only death, war, suffering, hatred and murder. That is what makes them so interesting; that they have forsaken the very things that we hold dear.

I would also argue that you can’t just turn an implication around like that. That A implies B doesn’t mean that B also implies A.

Thus Khaine certainly isn’t against healing per say, he merely doesn’t favour it. I think he sees it as a necessary evil, as I do.
Seeing it as a necessary evil doesn’t mean that you not only train your priests into its use, but then also make them your chosen ones. If they wanted the route of “healing is necessary evil” they would secretly take these children with eyes of molten brass away somewhere far outside the temple and have them trained there, denying any connection with the temple. That way they would be the spurned children, the unwanted . And they wouldn’t use Khaine’s power directly, but use the other healing available to the druchii (that of the Sorceress’ Soul Stealing magic most likely).




I also want to lend my support to this thread and the right of Xurre to post it.
Good to see you again, mongoose. I almost feared that you’d gone to that great cave system in the sky (eh, what?). That’d be such a waste of a good soul. ;)

I will say that I curse you you vile Witch Elf for being so completely through and stealing every single one of my supporting arguments! You left me with absolutely nothing to contribute except my support :-P
Oh, don’t worry little rat. You’re well represented in that article. In fact I literally copied one of your posts for it. ;)

Its also good to see you back btw.....I was a bit worried that you had chosen to take a permanent vacation from the WHA. :D
Nah, was just on Christmas holiday, planned way before anything to do with Warhammer. The timing (of the release of the final class) was just a bit unfortunate.




…
I already responded to this post in another forum so I’ll refrain from making the same reply here. Hope you don’t mind.




And that’s all I have time for right now. Just one more quote I saved.

I think a lot of problems you currently have with the Disciple of Khaine is the name inherently (and the lore that goes around it). If they simply changed the name to something else, said it wasn't a Khaine based healer but based on something else (slaneesh, or just magic in general), then you probably wouldn't have a problem with it.

Like if the devs go, ok the class is now named "Soul Taker", doesn't have anything to do with the temple of khaine and they have been recruited by malekith for his invasion, you probably would like it a lot better.
I saved this quote for last because I want to emphasize that, yes, that’s exactly it. If the Disciple didn’t have anything directly to do with the Temple of Khaine I’d definitely like it a lot better. In fact I’d probably make an alt for it.

I’m not asking to remove the class at all; I’m just asking to take it out of the Temple of Khaine.


- Xurré

[Lord Tareq]

3. See my post (Lord Tareq's really) above. This isn't healing



About the Cauldron, it does give some form of protection. My original post you linked to was about someone thinking rerolling to-wound rolls in the TT game was defensive, while it actually is offensive. However the Cauldron does provide protection to all nearby witch elves, in the form of a 6+ wardsave (meaning, everytime a witch elf is killed you roll a dice, on a 6 the killingblow is magically stopped)

I'll quote the armybook; "The baleful (=menacing) energies seeping from the Cauldron give all Witch Elves within 24" of it a 6+ Ward save."

However its not healing, and reserved only for the most favored of Khaine, his brides.

[Anglakhel]

I never mentioned healing in general wasn't excepted. People dislike Disciples because they heal in the name of Khaine.



From Lord Tareq:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=582133&postcount=169
From:http://uk.games-workshop.com/darkelves/update/2/

EDIT: Wow we have certainly covered some distance in the last 30mins-hour haven't we, more than a full page :p.

The Cauldron does protect and arguably heals or even resurrects Witch Elves. I cited the evidence in my earlier post.

In the 4th/5th Edition it explicitly describes the Cauldron returning "slain" Witch Elves to the battle if they make the save. In the 6th Ed the power was initially diminished and the general ward save removed. When GW updated the Dark Elf list they returned the Ward Save that protects the Witch Elves. It can be found online and it's in the later printings of the 6th Ed AB.

The Cauldrons of Blood are also used by the druchii in great battles. The Temple will march to war with the druchii armies and bring the Cauldrons of Blood with them. The Cauldrons incite a terrible frenzy in the chosen of Khaine. They become far more deadly while filled with his murderous frenzy, but we’re also told that the “magical properties” of the Cauldron “serve to sustain and protect them” (4th Ed AB, pg 16). The description of the Cauldron goes on to include:


. . . [T]he magical properties of the Cauldron will protect the Keeper of the Cauldron, the Cauldron’s guardians, and any other Witch Elves that are nearby. Roll a D6 for each Witch Elf within 18” of the Cauldron that is slain. On a roll of ‘6’ the Witch Elf is saved by the magical properties of the Cauldron and is not removed as a casualty.

So, here within the existing mechanics and lore of the TT Warhammer we find Khaine sustaining and protecting his worshippers. It is not much of a stretch to read the saving throw as resurrection of those slain while serving Khaine. The exact nature of how that would occur needs detailing, but the end effect is that a character that was slain is returned to life to kill in Khaine’s name. It is quite easy to see how Mythic would chose to use the cult of Khaine when they needed a Career for the Dark Elves capable of resurrection.

[ChosenOne]

Of course Khaine isn't stupid. Nobody has implied so. And of course Druchii aren't either. On the battlefield (perhaps not outside though :p) I'm sure the Dark Elves would do anything to claim victory, including healing. Healing does not need to be associated with Khaine, and logic would tell us it is not the logical idea. While Khaine may have many aspects (and I'm doing research across many sources to learn every piece I can), healing wouldn't be the first one to come to mind (if in fact there was one. I will not comment any more on whether there is or isn't at this stage), obviously.

I will tell ya what is logical. That Mythic could not have made the disciple without GW's consent. GW is the one that made up all the lore about Khaine. They MADE him. Its illogical to try and say you know more about him then the folks that created him.

Argue it all you want, its not going to change and you are not going to prove GW is inept and doesnt know the lore. There is no argument to prove that.

[Seldaren]

The background though is probably the poorest, most hodgepodge and uninspired construction I’ve ever seen. All they seem to have done is take the cool elements from other classes—the way Assassins are created, a whole lot from the Witch Elf including status, position, zeal and lust for blood, as well as various other aspects such as the Sorceress’ Soul Stealer spell—and jammed it together into one class.

Nothing has been taken away from the Witch Elves, I really wish you would realize that. As it seems to be the source of much of your dislike of the Disciple, the fact that it seems to dimish your Witch Elves in some fashion.

Witch Elves are still the leaders of the Temple, still the High Priestesses. Morathi and her Hag Queens are still the undisputed rulers of the Temple.
I think this is something that will be wonderfully portrayed in the game itself. But it's not something that comes across in a short description for the two classes.

The similarities are there because they are all Temple trained and raised. They may well even have common teachers. With Witch Elves acting as martial instructors and Disciples acting as magical instructors.

IMO Disciples, Witch Elves and Assassins can all be considered to be the same "rank".
Before, there were two Factions in the Temple. Now there are three. I would imagine that all three have the sort of political in-fighting that Druchii so delight in.

The Assassins are chosen by Khaine to survive and become Assassins; the Disciples are the “chosen dark priests of the bloody-handed god”. There’s a distinct difference; one can choose something without making it you “chosen ones”. The Witch Elves are quite clearly described as Khaine’s “chosen ones”, as his priestesses, and as such these new “chosen dark priests” conflict with that.

Here's another thing. How exactly are WEs chosen? I think even you have said that they do not come from the Cauldron. They are taken in by the Temple in other ways.

This is how I see things working out.
Male and female children are thrown in the Cauldron on Death Night. Those that survive become Assassins (males and females), but, those emerging with molten-brass eyes are taken and trained as Disciples.
That is why they are described as "chosen", because they survived the Cauldron.

Witch Elves are also chosen, but it's probably more of a from birth sort of thing. No Cauldron throwing involved. They were born into the grace of Khaine, they did not recieve it via a third-party like the Cauldron.

To me, that makes them more special in Khaine's eyes.

[Xxpect]

First, I would like to say I have enjoyed hearing the mature arguments for and against the Disciple lore. I have learned a lot. I personally do not have any interest in the final outcome, but am enjoying a good debate. I would like to comment on the following post:
[quote=Lord Tareq;627311]
This game is not lore, in the same way the Malus Darkblade novels are not lore. They are both products based on the existing lore. Malus Darkblade had some pretty disturbing lore errors.
In those novels they made the Black Guard into spearmen, with the Endless being the new bodyguard of Malekith, inexcusable.
However in WAR, Black Guard are once again the bodyguards of Malekith. Why? Because what happens in the Malus Darkblade novels is not part of the lore, and neither is what happens in this game.

Lore is not black and white. It is more like an historical account. History can be very different depending on the viewpoint of who recorded the history and what evidence is available to support that history. History is malleable. Think of it like a murder trial where all the evidence so far has supported the fact that the defendant is guilty and you have no doubts that the defendant is guilty, until new evidence is presented that completely changes your mind. Up until that new evidence was presented, you were convinced that it was a fact that the defendant was guilty. When you learned that last bit of evidence, it completely changed your perceived history of the defendant. As new information is found, entire chunks of history can change. How about the fact that Pluto is no longer a planet? Lore changes and just because you don't like or agree with the changes doesn't mean the changes did not take place. So saying that this game is not lore, or the novels are not lore is like saying that you should not consider all of the evidence presented in a trial. GW is the judge, they have already said this evidence is allowable and you must consider it as evidence.

I hope this post does not offend anyone, I just wanted to try to differentiate between lore and fact.

[Kellaris]

But can you understand an Ironbreaker fan wanting to do such a thing when the Engineer starts taking large chunks of what made the Ironbreaker cool in the first place away from them? Because it seems that’s what the Disciple is doing; taking things away from other classes in an attempt to make them seem interesting.


There is a point. There is no taking away. It is sharing. Engeneer is tough little guy with beard and he can hit hard with his axe or something. But Ironbreaker do not become weaker. Here is the same. They may be both chosen priests of Khaine. They may share some similiarities and still be different. They can even worship different aspect of Khaine (same like Assasins revere Thousand Faced God of Murder aspect and Executioners revere Executioner aspect). There is no taking away. There is sharing and cooperation.



Yet Khaine is regularly referred to as the “God of Murder”; the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying book (1989 print) even has it as its heading “KHAINE Lord of Murder”.

I'm sure You know that WFRP is written from human point of view. Humans worships only one aspect of Khaine. Elves knows better.



The High Elves are pretty much alone in worshipping him more as a god of war; and even there I think the high elves see war and murder as pretty much the same thing.


And I think You have written something different before;):

[Khaine] is the Elf god of war, murder, hatred and destruction. He is the destroying god, who represents to the Elves the fact that in order to for there to be life there must also be death, in order to have peace there must also be war, in order to have happiness there must be suffering, in order to have love there must also be hatred and murder.”




I think druchii would argue with you there; if you’re dying on the battlefield then you were too weak to avoid being hit. Remember, don’t follow human logic, follow druchii logic.

There comes very personal interpretation of druchii logic. This kind of logic do not work on battlefield. On battlefield 100 soldiers will beat 100 warriors. Thanks to cooperation. And to cooperate with someone, minimal amount of trust is required. You are messing high end politics (treachery and backstabbing) with low lewel soldiery that requires cooperation and trust. Teammates care for each other, becouse in group they are stronger than alone.



As to that there should exist no healer… probably true. But this is an MMO and healers are necessary. But by putting this healer in the temple you’re fundamentally changing the heart of the druchii, fundamentally changing what the race is. It is just so much better to have a healer who’s more on the fringes of society (at least certainly not in the very heart of it).

Disciples are too few to be heart of society. Witch Elves are and nothing will change that. Check the class description. There is even less disciples than assasins. Do not mess MMO population with lore population.
Example: Bright wizzard. By WFRP, 1/10000 citizens of Empire is born with gift of magic. There is 8 colleges so 1/8 gifted will become wizzard. 1 wizzard per 80.000 people. But in MMO they will swarm over You. This is MMO simplification.
Disciples are few, and they live in shadow. The existence of few individuals cannot change what the race is.




Nobody wants to see their god changed, certainly not if you’re the main priesthood of that god’s religion.

Maybe with exception of situation when the God and the Cult will be stronger. Becouse in this situation Priest will grow stronger too.





The background though is probably the poorest, most hodgepodge and uninspired construction I’ve ever seen. All they seem to have done is take the cool elements from other classes—the way Assassins are created, a whole lot from the Witch Elf including status, position, zeal and lust for blood, as well as various other aspects such as the Sorceress’ Soul Stealer spell—and jammed it together into one class. If you’re going to create something new then at least create something new; something original. At least work with the setting instead of ripping it to pieces and gluing it back together like they seem to have done.

There comes Witch Elf coolnes stealing factor. You have had no objection to propose soul stealing sorcerer instead, and this would be exactly the same copy.




At this point I have absolutely nothing against the gameplay of the class, but I do have a huge issue with the background. And as such all I’m asking is to change the background (maintaining the gameplay exactly as it is). I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

I strongly disagree here, becouse the background is the thing that I like most about them. Gameplay is cool, baut background rocks




The Assassins are chosen by Khaine to survive and become Assassins; the Disciples are the “chosen dark priests of the bloody-handed god”. There’s a distinct difference; one can choose something without making it you “chosen ones”. The Witch Elves are quite clearly described as Khaine’s “chosen ones”, as his priestesses, and as such these new “chosen dark priests” conflict with that.

There is no material about WE creation rites. Maybe there is hundred aspirants, and Khaine choose some of them and rest is sacrificed?
There is no point with playing with words here. If there would be Assasin character, there would be exactly the same entrance in their profile 9"chosen by Khaine")
Carrer profiles are subjective. Carrer profiles are advertising. Same with Armybook entrances. Dark Elf history is a bit different than High Elf history. They are subjective.
In all possible carrer/unit descriptions, words like : chosen, great, best are used frequently and often contradict each other. They are subjective.




Not quite; it’s not the being wounded itself that makes one weak (as I’m sure Witches wouldn’t mind being wounded either and have the blood flow from them). It’s the need to be healed that makes one weak, needing the hand-out from your god. It makes it so that the druchii aren’t a self-reliant race anymore and instead need divine powers to be strong.

What is the reason of making sacrifices to god if You get nothing in return?

[Lord Tareq]

There comes very personal interpretation of druchii logic. This kind of logic do not work on battlefield. On battlefield 100 soldiers will beat 100 warriors. Thanks to cooperation. And to cooperate with someone, minimal amount of trust is required. You are messing high end politics (treachery and backstabbing) with low lewel soldiery that requires cooperation and trust. Teammates care for each other, becouse in group they are stronger than alone.


Actually this isn't true for the Druchii, since the Druchii are not rational and logical at all. Back in the days of the Dark Elf TT revision, GW Darj Elf designer Gav Thorpe stated the reason Dark Elf spearwarriors are inferior to High Elf spearwarriors is because they don't trust eachother, and therefore are unable to fight as efficient in a close-knit phalanx formation as their High Elven brethren.

[Kellaris]

Actually this isn't true for the Druchii, since the Druchii are not rational and logical at all. Back in the days of the Dark Elf TT revision, GW Darj Elf designer Gav Thorpe stated the reason Dark Elf spearwarriors are inferior to High Elf spearwarriors is because they don't trust eachother, and therefore are unable to fight as efficient in a close-knit phalanx formation as their High Elven brethren.

Oh yes, Gav Thorpe - public enemy no.1 of all DE players ;)
Here comes my personal interpretation: I don't buy it. This is excuse for Mr. Thorpe, becouse he failed to design DE in the way they are described, as elite force. He design only armybook in recent GW history that have to be improved, becouse army was so weak. An our so called "finest warriors in the world" loosing badly with so called "citizen militia" was a small, but very funny problem, so he comes with this funny explanation. But I don't buy it.
If I would do that, I would have to admit that Druchii army is weaker than their so called weaker bretherens. I will not admit that.

[damsel]

I have read a lot of the arguements, now I am not sure if khaine is unable to grant healing powers, as that can be really complicated and time-consuming philisophical arguement that generally ends with people just talking about what they think he is and not really what lore sources (talking army books here not novels) say about him.

But, one thing that I do know is that the disciple DOES diminish the importance of the cauldron of blood, the very piece of equipment that gives them birth. One main function of a cauldron of blood has always been to give hags their yearly rejuvinating bath, they take it once a year and most are ugly before there next bath (which would bring one to conclude that if they could bath more than once a year they would, but they can't). The Disciple of Khaine though seems to be able to throw around not only heals and cosmetic changes, he seems to be able to reattach/regrow limbs and even resurrect the dead (it would be one thing if it was only game mechanic but it says that he can resurrect the dead in the fluff piece which means, in my honest opinion, that we may need to consider the lore implications of this.)

So, why would hags still go through all the trouble of doing the cauldron if they could just ask a Disciple to heal them? there are two answers, both which can be bad for the disciple. The first is that the disciple is unable to do this, which would mean that the return of youth the hags experience is different from traditional healing (maybe more of a rebirth or other metaphorh). OR The disciple of khaine is unwilling to, which would mean that there is now a authority issue in the temple. (well there is the 3rd answer, but I think it is a little unproductive which is EAmythic and GW didn't think this paradox through enough, and the DoK implication doesn't consider his relationship to the rest of DE society and the temple.)

So either way, In my humble opinion the Disciple of khaines ability to heal, which may be possible for khaine to give, but that is debatable, is still an issue no matter what, because it seems to demean the power of the cauldron. The cauldron appers to take many many deaths lots of blood and a entire year in order to recharge, but the Disciple of Khaine will be healing people daily? This is really my biggest issue with them.

also, them kinda stealing the Witch elfs blood-loving priest gimmick

[Rathenau]

In regards to the healing of age, that's a pretty simple one. Only one kind of magic can prolong the lifespan of any creature and that is necromancery. It is what drove the master of things undead to become what he is now, and what drove the lich priests of ancient Nehekhara to study for many ages. So no healing cannot restore youth to anyone.

On a small side note, as necromantic magic is part of chaos itself, it might be in reach of the chaos gods though I doubt it is used a lot if at all by them.

[Zoatibix]

mortals often need necromancy to restore youth tis true. Gods however have Divine magic. And we can clearly see that Khaine can use His divine powers to restore youth.

[Shalaa]

Actually this isn't true for the Druchii, since the Druchii are not rational and logical at all. Back in the days of the Dark Elf TT revision, GW Darj Elf designer Gav Thorpe stated the reason Dark Elf spearwarriors are inferior to High Elf spearwarriors is because they don't trust eachother, and therefore are unable to fight as efficient in a close-knit phalanx formation as their High Elven brethren.

NOOOOO /raises crucifix pls noo dont mention the devils name :( pls have mercy on us all, even Druchii cannot be so evil ! >.<

Ok on topic, well im still sat on the fence on this debate its been very good so far. Any good points i raise tend to get ignored so i wont bother. All i want to know realy is how people will feel if the Deciple appears in the next DE army book, are we still going to get theese threads or will it be accepted?

[Anglakhel]

But, one thing that I do know is that the disciple DOES diminish the importance of the cauldron of blood, the very piece of equipment that gives them birth. One main function of a cauldron of blood has always been to give hags their yearly rejuvinating bath, they take it once a year and most are ugly before there next bath (which would bring one to conclude that if they could bath more than once a year they would, but they can't). The Disciple of Khaine though seems to be able to throw around not only heals and cosmetic changes, he seems to be able to reattach/regrow limbs and even resurrect the dead (it would be one thing if it was only game mechanic but it says that he can resurrect the dead in the fluff piece which means, in my honest opinion, that we may need to consider the lore implications of this.)

So, why would hags still go through all the trouble of doing the cauldron if they could just ask a Disciple to heal them? there are two answers, both which can be bad for the disciple. The first is that the disciple is unable to do this, which would mean that the return of youth the hags experience is different from traditional healing (maybe more of a rebirth or other metaphorh). OR The disciple of khaine is unwilling to, which would mean that there is now a authority issue in the temple. (well there is the 3rd answer, but I think it is a little unproductive which is EAmythic and GW didn't think this paradox through enough, and the DoK implication doesn't consider his relationship to the rest of DE society and the temple.)

So either way, In my humble opinion the Disciple of khaines ability to heal, which may be possible for khaine to give, but that is debatable, is still an issue no matter what, because it seems to demean the power of the cauldron. The cauldron appers to take many many deaths lots of blood and a entire year in order to recharge, but the Disciple of Khaine will be healing people daily? This is really my biggest issue with them.

also, them kinda stealing the Witch elfs blood-loving priest gimmick

I don't think the Disciple being able to heal and support her allies on the battlefield diminishes the power of the Cauldrons of Blood. This has been an old debate on the forums regarding the nature of the Cauldron of Blood.

In my opinion, granting immortality, even if it must be ritually replenished on a yearly basis, is one of the greatest gifts a god may grant his followers. The Cauldron channels life energies from the sacrificial victims into the chosen Brides of Khaine and eternally preserves them, even turning back thousands of years of age and decay.

Raw healing is a far more common occurrence. Wounds can heal on their own (especially in a MMO where a few seconds out of combat will see your character right as rain). Bones repair. Healing magics may accelerate the rate at which wounds heal, they may allow the victim of the wound to ignore the pain of the wound and act as if it never occurred, but they don't grant the victim immortality. General life giving and restorative magics don't reverse the aging process. They don't remove mortals from the cycle of life.

It takes far greater life giving magics to reverse natural (or unnatural) aging. It takes far greater restorative energies to prevent someone from ever dying a natural death.

Medical practices have mastered treatment of all manner of wounds over the centuries, but they have not conquered aging and death. You can keep closing wounds and treating the bodies decay, but it will keep decaying until you can no longer repair the damage as quickly as the systems of the body die.

So, it has always perplexed me when people have argued that the Cauldron of Blood's lifegiving powers are trivial or illusory. Khaine makes a pact with his Brides and promises that age and decay will not claim them so long as they love and worship him. They will be eternally young, beautiful, and powerful until they die in battle.

The Disciple of Khaine having the power to heal wounds and stop death on the battlefield is related to the magic of the Cauldron of Blood in that both emanate from Khaine and both require bloody sacrifice and murder to fuel the transfer of lifegiving energies. However, in my opinion, the Cauldron of Blood is far more miraculous in the powers it manifests and the gifts it grants to the Brides of Khaine.

[Kellaris]

I The Disciple of Khaine though seems to be able to throw around not only heals and cosmetic changes, he seems to be able to reattach/regrow limbs and even resurrect the dead (it would be one thing if it was only game mechanic but it says that he can resurrect the dead in the fluff piece which means, in my honest opinion, that we may need to consider the lore implications of this.)
I advice to take MMO healing (http://www.secretlivesofmobs.com/index.php?strip_id=32) a bit less seriously.;)
In Warhammer world, even priess of Shalya (best healers here) cannot resurrect or regrow limbs.
This is just an necessery MMO simplification (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=628096&postcount=23).
You wouldn't like to roll a new character, becouse Your old one was hurt and cannot cast spells without his/her arm.;)

[Ethandril]

Originally Posted by Ethandril
Khaine must do what the devotees belive.

It’s an interesting view (and I hope you don’t mind me summarizing your post by just quoting the above line) and certainly one I’ve heard before. I say though that it doesn’t really change anything; in fact if anything it makes my point of the Disciples conflicting with the Witch Elves only stronger as they now have even more reason to get rid of any potential healers within the temple who would preach a dogma counter to their own.

Nobody wants to see their god changed, certainly not if you’re the main priesthood of that god’s religion.

First, I don't mind that you summarized my post just to the punshline (s.o.), I'm glad
that someone actually read it and response to it, it's more that I was hoping for. :D

I have to agree, that nobody wants that their god will be changed, but as I stated in my
post, Khaine is bound on the belivings of every single race or in other terms, of every single
Cult in his Name.
In my opinion, Khaine is more for the Druchii's that the God of Murder, when Druchii's
pray to him for aid in a battle, for "help" if they need him, Khaine will response, in one
way or another.

Further, I understand your arguments why the Disciple conflicts with the Temple, but again,
for me (thats just my opinion, since I can't talk for anyone else), the Witch Elves have not
lost her position in the Temple or in the Eyes of Khaine (as far as I see it).

They, and they alone, are his Brides, his chosen ones, who gives him "life". The Assassins
are his chosen adepts, they belive in him as the thousend-faced Lord of Murder.
The Disciple of Khaine belives that Khaine, the bloody-handed God also protects his
followers, if they need him. They got his "permission" during the ritual in the Cauldron
of Blood.
Makes this the Disciple a part of the Cult of Khaine in the Druchii-socitey, I say yes. Should
the Disciple be a part of the Temple, leaded by the Witch Elves, I say yes, but even if he
belives in another aspect of Khaine, the Disciple needs the Witch Elves, since they are his
primary priestess, nothing will change this and without them there won't be any Disciples
too.
Maybe it's better that the Disciple isn't seen as a "Part of the Temple of Khaine", more
as a "Part of the Cult of Khaine".

I hope Xurrè, you understand my opinions about the Disciple too.

Edit: found an error, sorry!

[Lord Tareq]

Oh yes, Gav Thorpe - public enemy no.1 of all DE players ;)
Here comes my personal interpretation: I don't buy it. This is excuse for Mr. Thorpe, becouse he failed to design DE in the way they are described, as elite force. He design only armybook in recent GW history that have to be improved, becouse army was so weak. An our so called "finest warriors in the world" loosing badly with so called "citizen militia" was a small, but very funny problem, so he comes with this funny explanation. But I don't buy it.
If I would do that, I would have to admit that Druchii army is weaker than their so called weaker bretherens. I will not admit that.

Although I dislike Gav as much as most other Dark Elf players (never, ever, let a die-hard Dwarf fan design an elven army:mad: ) He is the current leading authority, and what I don't get is how you can have issues with certain people not accepting an invented new class that has at the very least some lore issues, yet yourself you do not take what the loremaster himself says for being true.:p

[mongoose]

I know that I said I wasnt going to get into this but it seems there is way too much for even Xurré (ha ha....I learned how to make your silly accent mark :p) to respond to so I will do my part......the twisted evil rat I am :twisted: :skaven:

If you take notice, Xurré didn't post once in the "Disciples vs. Lore" thread, so please do not point fingers and incorrect information to try and provoke others.


That was my thread and Xurré didnt post in it only because he was on vacation at the time of its posting and subsequent early closure due to excessive flaming/trolling.


In addition I hope its not the blood that heals the players and rather Dark Magic. If the Disciples just killed in the name of Khaine and healed completely separately, it would solve a lot of problems.

But we know its not through Dark Magic because that is the realm of the Sorcs to learn. The Disciples are only taught that which is from Khaine making all healing/rezzing divine in origin and only by Khaines will.

a Disciple harvests the essence of their enemy and offers it to Khaine in exchange for fell blessings and dark powers. These dark gifts allow the Disciple to tend to the needs of the Dark Elf host, mending bones, suppressing pain, and even raising critically injured warriors to fight again

please dont interpret the use of the word "dark" here as meaning Dark magic. Dark only is an synonym in this paragraph to represent evil (similar to the use of the term "fell")



This game is not lore, in the same way the Malus Darkblade novels are not lore. They are both products based on the existing lore. Malus Darkblade had some pretty disturbing lore errors.

To play the Devils advocate for a sec..........we actually dont know this isnt going to become official DE lore. There is every possibility that Mythic and GW hatched this idea jointly. Remember that the 7th ed DE book is most likely being written as we speak so whos to say if this abomination wont show up in all it heretical glory as the future of the DEs.

It would be sad yes but we all know doing something of this scope isnt out of the realm of possibilities for GW.



I also find it illogical to the point of amusement to think that any society would NEVER heal anyone who became injured in it. The druchii society would have died off within three years if they ONLY things they did as a society were murder each other.

There is healing and then there is basically divine intervention from your God. I believe the Durchii do heal their wounded but most probably dont go to extreme measures (Morathi not withstanding......she and Malekith buck the system anyways so.....) If they are too weak to survive their wounds then its best the die now so they dont become a burden.

I could see the practice of medicine/healing existing in DE society but only to the point of being an obscure practice and not one of lofty study like you might see in say High Elf circles. (we are still talking about conventional non magical doctoring)

Er...extending someone's lifespan abnormally and returning their youth to them is what I would consider some pretty damn good healing actually.

As such the lore clearly shows Khaine will heal when it suits him. I do not see how much of a stretch it is then to think that in the last war of the world he would aid his followers.

If its such "damn good healing" then why isnt it permanent? :rolleyes: and why exactly does it require more and more frequent baths the older the Hag gets? :roll:

Some of you keep asserting that extending life must = healing but the two can be similar but still mutually exclusive.

If it is true healing as you claim it to be then why cant the cauldron heal someone suffering from a rotting disease, burn scars or grievous wounds? If Hellebron herself lay at the feet of a cauldron bleeding out, the best a bath would do is make her a pretty corpse, nothing more. Hummmm, that dosent sound like real healing to me ;)

I have used this example NUMEROUS times and have yet to have any of you "cauldron = healing" people refute this little example.

What is Morathi? She is the favorite Bride of Khaine and she healed her son Malekith, ok
Khaine might have nothing to do with this, but by the statemt "survival of the fitest" or
"kill the weak", Morathi should let her son die.

As I stated above, Morathi and Malekith seem to both be above normal practices. If you read the fluff it almost seems as if they both hatched this whole Cult of Khaine thing as a grand scheme to give purpose to their followers but dont personally buy into it themselves.

The simple saying "do as I say not as I do" applies to them.

The Cauldron does protect and arguably heals or even resurrects Witch Elves. I cited the evidence in my earlier post.

In the 4th/5th Edition it explicitly describes the Cauldron returning "slain" Witch Elves to the battle if they make the save. In the 6th Ed the power was initially diminished and the general ward save removed. When GW updated the Dark Elf list they returned the Ward Save that protects the Witch Elves. It can be found online and it's in the later printings of the 6th Ed AB.

Shame on you Mr Talking Shield. You are taking what is clearly a TT mechanic explanation and trying to use it to support lore.

[T]he magical properties of the Cauldron will protect the Keeper of the Cauldron, the Cauldron’s guardians, and any other Witch Elves that are nearby. Roll a D6 for each Witch Elf within 18” of the Cauldron that is slain. On a roll of ‘6’ the Witch Elf is saved by the magical properties of the Cauldron and is not removed as a casualty.

If we are to take this as the actual text (sorry but remember I have the crappy 1st printing) then all it says is if you roll a 6 then then "hit" basically never happened and was instead blocked by the magical properties of the cauldron.

The word "slain" is a term used to describe a WE who took a hit, nothing more and certainly not the cauldron returning a dead person to life :rolleyes:

Nothing has been taken away from the Witch Elves, I really wish you would realize that. As it seems to be the source of much of your dislike of the Disciple, the fact that it seems to dimish your Witch Elves in some fashion.

Witch Elves are still the leaders of the Temple, still the High Priestesses. Morathi and her Hag Queens are still the undisputed rulers of the Temple.

Actually, while it dosent say so in plain English, the wording of the Disciple description does certainly point to the Witch Elves holding a diminished role in the temple and to the service of Khaine, while elevating the Disciple to the role as his "true" chosen.

Now weather this even applies to Hellebron and the other hags we really dont know but again, the Disciples are now the TRUE chosen (unlike those crappy old chosen) and are given divine powers (something even the hags dont possess), taught the most sacred rites and are second only to Khanie as Masters of Death (isnt that what the WEs basically were....masters of killing?:rolleyes:). It certainly implies that the WEs and Hags got kicked to the curb once the Disciples showed up.


The similarities are there because they are all Temple trained and raised. They may well even have common teachers. With Witch Elves acting as martial instructors and Disciples acting as magical instructors.

Uh no, not really. Only the Disciples are allowed to wield the true power of Khaine. You dont instruct those unworthy to receive his gifts.


Here's another thing. How exactly are WEs chosen? I think even you have said that they do not come from the Cauldron. They are taken in by the Temple in other ways.

This is how I see things working out.
Male and female children are thrown in the Cauldron on Death Night. Those that survive become Assassins (males and females), but, those emerging with molten-brass eyes are taken and trained as Disciples.
That is why they are described as "chosen", because they survived the Cauldron.

Witch Elves are also chosen, but it's probably more of a from birth sort of thing. No Cauldron throwing involved. They were born into the grace of Khaine, they did not receive it via a third-party like the Cauldron.

To me, that makes them more special in Khaine's eyes.

[/quote]

This is a point I have brought up previously. I believe the female babies would be taken on Death Night and raised as WEs while male infants are given to the cauldrons.

With the Disciples now though this contradicts this little piece of lore. You cant very well have female Disciples unless every infant is now offered to the cauldrons. If they merely survive they turn into Assassins or WEs but if they got the eyes they become Disciples.

So much for lore right?

And if they are chosen why is there a distinction between being merely "chosen" and being the TRUE chosen? I dont know how being the true chosen could make it any more clear that the Disciples are more special to Khaine than simply chosen.

I don't think the Disciple being able to heal and support her allies on the battlefield diminishes the power of the Cauldrons of Blood. This has been an old debate on the forums regarding the nature of the Cauldron of Blood.

In my opinion, granting immortality, even if it must be ritually replenished on a yearly basis, is one of the greatest gifts a god may grant his followers. The Cauldron channels life energies from the sacrificial victims into the chosen Brides of Khaine and eternally preserves them, even turning back thousands of years of age and decay.

Raw healing is a far more common occurrence. Wounds can heal on their own (especially in a MMO where a few seconds out of combat will see your character right as rain). Bones repair. Healing magics may accelerate the rate at which wounds heal, they may allow the victim of the wound to ignore the pain of the wound and act as if it never occurred, but they don't grant the victim immortality. General life giving and restorative magics don't reverse the aging process. They don't remove mortals from the cycle of life.

It takes far greater life giving magics to reverse natural (or unnatural) aging. It takes far greater restorative energies to prevent someone from ever dying a natural death.

Medical practices have mastered treatment of all manner of wounds over the centuries, but they have not conquered aging and death. You can keep closing wounds and treating the bodies decay, but it will keep decaying until you can no longer repair the damage as quickly as the systems of the body die.

So, it has always perplexed me when people have argued that the Cauldron of Blood's lifegiving powers are trivial or illusory. Khaine makes a pact with his Brides and promises that age and decay will not claim them so long as they love and worship him. They will be eternally young, beautiful, and powerful until they die in battle.

The Disciple of Khaine having the power to heal wounds and stop death on the battlefield is related to the magic of the Cauldron of Blood in that both emanate from Khaine and both require bloody sacrifice and murder to fuel the transfer of lifegiving energies. However, in my opinion, the Cauldron of Blood is far more miraculous in the powers it manifests and the gifts it grants to the Brides of Khaine.

And with all that being said the Cauldrons still cant mange to do what you consider common. You would think if they could do what you consider a higher form of healing that mending a broken bone should be a piece of cake, right?

Again why is this longevity of life not permanent (becoming increasingly more temporary as time goes on)?

Sorry but this temporary longevity ability is not greater than PERMANENT healing of wounds, mending of bones and even bringing the dead back to life (stopping death? oh come on....its RESURRECTION and you know it).

Temporary and fleeting life extension is > bringing the dead back to life?

I honestly dont know how you can type that and still believe it.

[Slash]

That was my thread and Xurré didnt post in it only because he was on vacation at the time of its posting and subsequent early closure due to excessive flaming/trolling.

You right I only mentioned that because somebody accused Xurré (I'm still copping and pasting the é :confused:) of being the main instigator over the last 2 months, when really he/she wasn't even here to do it. Obviously Xurré would have though. I'm not de-crediting your post, it was great :-o.


But we know its not through Dark Magic because that is the realm of the Sorcs to learn. The Disciples are only taught that which is from Khaine making all healing/rezzing divine in origin and only by Khaines will.

a Disciple harvests the essence of their enemy and offers it to Khaine in exchange for fell blessings and dark powers. These dark gifts allow the Disciple to tend to the needs of the Dark Elf host, mending bones, suppressing pain, and even raising critically injured warriors to fight again

please dont interpret the use of the word "dark" here as meaning Dark magic. Dark only is an synonym in this paragraph to represent evil (similar to the use of the term "fell")

I understand that, and perhaps I put it poorly (It was late :?). By hope I really meant wish, I know it is not the current way. However, that is what I would like to happen.

[Bulwyf]

The obvious answer mongoose to the Cauldron not granting immortality forever is because th people using it would then have no reason to do anything else to *earn* that favor. Khaine wants them to keep feeding him souls in the Warp. In return he grants them a boon as long as they keep their end of the bargain. But the net result is that yes, he does in fact heal them and on top of that grants them youth and beauty as well.

That's a pretty nice deal for a god that some of you would have us believe would rather commit Warp suicide by letting 90% of his believers die than grant some priests a healing boon in return for yet more blood and death.

[Bulwyf]

I will tell ya what is logical. That Mythic could not have made the disciple without GW's consent. GW is the one that made up all the lore about Khaine. They MADE him. Its illogical to try and say you know more about him then the folks that created him.

Argue it all you want, its not going to change and you are not going to prove GW is inept and doesnt know the lore. There is no argument to prove that.

This is the real answer as to why the Disciple is in but lore fans don't like it. I sure didn't like it when they ripped out Squats and basically mothballed Chaos Dwarfs as well. GW has routinely changed lore as they see fit. That's just the truth.

[Morag]

Apparently anybody with a differing opinion is an idiot, fanboi, whiner and or arsehole. And this entire thread (which was meant for polite discussion). Has turned into an attack of everybody who does not agree with Disciples.

Don't take words out of context to make it seem like you are being attacked for your differing opinion. What I said was:

...By buying and playing the game and treating other players who picked a class you don't like for whatever reason like crap just makes you a whiner and an and doesn't send any sort of message to Mythic.

If you don't understand that then let me elaborate.

A new player buys Warhammer Online and decides to create a Disciple for whatever reason. They log in and all the sudden some guy is giving them a hard time. This guy feels that Disciples are against the lore or whatever and his bitterness is causing him to project his feelings onto this new player who had nothing to do whatsoever with the creation of Disciples.

I am saying people who do this are whiners and assholes. At no point did I ever accuse anyone in this thread of being either.



Anyways, I'm having a hard time taking this thread seriously now since it seems like the only reason Xurré has a problem with Disciples is because her favorite unit shares some (fluff) roles with the new Disciples.

But can you understand an Ironbreaker fan wanting to do such a thing when the Engineer starts taking large chunks of what made the Ironbreaker cool in the first place away from them? Because it seems that’s what the Disciple is doing; taking things away from other classes in an attempt to make them seem interesting.



Also, on the topic of healing being taboo for a priest of Khaine... Essentially the Dark Elves are fighting a war on all fronts. Many of them are going to get hurt and killed. That is just how war is, it doesn't matter how awesome or how clever you are, at some point, someone is going to buy the farm.

If Dark Elves are the only ones without healing they would be at a severe disadvantage and attrition alone will simply wear them down to the point of nonexistence. Who is going to kill in the name of Khaine when all of the Dark Elves are in body bags because High Elves didn't get the memo that Khaine isn't about healing your allies? Doesn't seem very smart of clever to me being the only god who doesn't grant his followers healing powers in a place where war is everywhere.

[Slash]

Don't take words out of context to make it seem like you are being attacked for your differing opinion.

I wasn't referring to you directly or even indirectly. There have been others who have since been Edited, that were bringing the discussion down.



A new player buys Warhammer Online and decides to create a Disciple for whatever reason. They log in and all the sudden some guy is giving them a hard time. This guy feels that Disciples are against the lore or whatever and his bitterness is causing him to project his feelings onto this new player who had nothing to do whatsoever with the creation of Disciples.

I am saying people who do this are whiners and assholes. At no point did I ever accuse anyone in this thread of being either.

I agree it is not fair on the Disciple player. Most who enter WAR will never ever know of this wild debate. However, its a good thing to have place where one could learn about it, and understand that if the RP it might happen to them and to simply prepare for that rather than be complete perplexed and confused when or if it does.



Anyways, I'm having a hard time taking this thread seriously now since it seems like the only reason Xurré has a problem with Disciples is because her favorite unit shares some (fluff) roles with the new Disciples.

It is not the only reason.



If Dark Elves are the only ones without healing they would be at a severe disadvantage and attrition alone will simply wear them down to the point of nonexistence. Who is going to kill in the name of Khaine when all of the Dark Elves are in body bags because High Elves didn't get the memo that Khaine isn't about healing your allies? Doesn't seem very smart of clever to me being the only god who doesn't grant his followers healing powers in a place where war is everywhere.

Nobody is saying Druchii cannot have healing, people are arguing Khaine should not grant them. That is all. Nobody would have an issue with Disciples if they just killed in Khaines name and healed by themselves (well some might have a small issue with the Temples distaste for magic; however, we have to compromise at times). But they don't as it stands they heal through healing gifts given by Khaine, and it was not necessary to do this.

[Kellaris]

Although I dislike Gav as much as most other Dark Elf players (never, ever, let a die-hard Dwarf fan design an elven army:mad: ) He is the current leading authority, and what I don't get is how you can have issues with certain people not accepting an invented new class that has at the very least some lore issues, yet yourself you do not take what the loremaster himself says for being true.:p
In fact, I could accept what he say as "GW stamped" lore. But not when he is desperately trying to find slightest excuse for his obvious failures. Especially so idiotic one.
Spearmen 1 trust spearmen 2 enough to fight 1 ft from him, bu he don't trust him enough to fight 0,5 ft from him. It's not even silly. It's pathetic.
Luckilly, it is not written in any official source so I can ignore it.

As You see, I'm not GW fanatic. Especially not after recent HE armybook. I know that they make tremendous mistakes from time to time. But GW approval is one of many arguments for Disciple.

Back to topic. I dont have Issue with people not accepting new class.
As I said somewhere before, there is so little real lore about DE that everyone hve a different view on them. 20% of lore and 80% of subiective interpretation.
In my interpretation of lore Disciples fit very well.
In Your interpretation they don't fit.
As a result I will have excellent time playing one and You will be unhappy every time You will see Disciple in game. This is Your choice, becouse You know the lore well And You choose pesimistic approach. You can choos what You like.
I have an Issue with people constantly spreading propaganda about Disciples being wrong. Becouse someone that do not know the lore may belive them. And only real result will be destruction of this newcomer gameplay.
Until this topic stays in this thread, It is cool, becouse the reader can see both versions of the picture.
I have issue with seeing this:
"True Blood (http://trueblood.tk/) - Because healing in the name of Khaine, the God of Murder, is blasphemy."
on General Gameplay forum. Or in language pool. This is Madness.

[Kellaris]

It is not the only reason.


Not the ony one. But only serious one.;)
You cannot take too seriously the debate about Khaine do not heal in game when it is enough to sit on Your for 10 seconds to be completly healed and regenerated or it is enough to wait 10 seconds to be reborn after death with all Your skills and equipment magically transfered to Your new body.
Or in other words if we talk about lore healing is not really healing. Healing is healing only in game mechanic. That's simple :D

[Tastreth]

I have an Issue with people constantly spreading propaganda about Disciples being wrong. Becouse someone that do not know the lore may belive them. And only real result will be destruction of this newcomer gameplay.


Exactly. Your, (Xurre, Ethandril, Lord Tareq, Kellaris, etc.), interpretation of the lore is not necessarily the only possible interpretation. Until GW comes out and confirms one side or another, I think it's pretty foolish to create threads like this so that new players can be "educated" about faulty lore. Guess what, it ain't faulty till GW directly says it is.

There are good arguments for both sides, but at this point, no one is being convinced. I've seen the same points, both for and against, posted by multiple people multiple times. It's simply going to spiral further into a flame war. Such is the nature of these things.


p.s. The Disciple and his lore are in game. That won't change. Get used to it, work with it, be flexible. Please.

[Morag]

I wasn't referring to you directly or even indirectly. There have been others who have since been Edited, that were bringing the discussion down.

Ok, fair enough. Seemed like you were commenting directly on what I said since I hadn't seen any posts using those words and I really don't appreciate people twisting what I say into something else.

Exactly. Your, (Xurre, Ethandril, Lord Tareq, Kellaris, etc.), interpretation of the lore is not necessarily the only possible interpretation. Until GW comes out and confirms one side or another, I think it's pretty foolish to create threads like this so that new players can be "educated" about faulty lore. Guess what, it ain't faulty till GW directly says it is.

Well, GW has given their blessing on Disciples, so that's really a moot point. The problem is that some people feel that they know better than GW about what bits of lore are ok to be added and/or changed. Sorry you guys don't like it, doesn't mean it's bad.

Anyways, I pretty much agree with the rest of your post.

[mongoose]

The obvious answer mongoose to the Cauldron not granting immortality forever is because the people using it would then have no reason to do anything else to *earn* that favor. Khaine wants them to keep feeding him souls in the Warp. In return he grants them a boon as long as they keep their end of the bargain. But the net result is that yes, he does in fact heal them and on top of that grants them youth and beauty as well.

Well yes, that is the exact reason why. Poor example on my part. :mad:

But I still am waiting to hear why the cauldron cant heal even the smallest of cuts, cure the common cold or even heal a burn scar. Surely such a great healing font such as this could perform such a minor task :rolleyes:

Also why does it take literally hundreds of souls to make just one Hag beautiful for a short period of time but it takes only one soul to bring another back from the dead? This sort of trivializes the cauldron when the power over death can be doled out to pretty much anyone for a single soul in return.


That's a pretty nice deal for a god that some of you would have us believe would rather commit Warp suicide by letting 90% of his believers die than grant some priests a healing boon in return for yet more blood and death.

Im not part of that "some of you" and would never suggest that the race commit suicide.

I do believe that the Durchii believe that only the strong survive and the weak should left to die however. ;)




I will tell ya what is logical. That Mythic could not have made the disciple without GW's consent. GW is the one that made up all the lore about Khaine. They MADE him. Its illogical to try and say you know more about him then the folks that created him.

Argue it all you want, its not going to change and you are not going to prove GW is inept and doesnt know the lore. There is no argument to prove that.This is the real answer as to why the Disciple is in but lore fans don't like it. I sure didn't like it when they ripped out Squats and basically mothballed Chaos Dwarfs as well. GW has routinely changed lore as they see fit. That's just the truth.

I find this statement highly suspect especially when I read things like th following:

Back in the days of the Dark Elf TT revision, GW Dark Elf designer Gav Thorpe stated the reason Dark Elf spearwarriors are inferior to High Elf spearwarriors is because they don't trust eachother, and therefore are unable to fight as efficient in a close-knit phalanx formation as their High Elven brethren.

Seems to me that the mere mention of this Gav Thorpe guys name sends you long standing DE players scattering into the night screaming bloody murder. Why is that exactly? :rolleyes:

Now wasnt this person the DE 'goto' guy for GW at one time? Surely the DE designer for GW would know how the DE army works better by default than mere players but you people are suggesting this official GW person knew jack?

So it is possible for players to possibly know more than someone at GW. Hummmm, interesting and contradicts the above statement. ;)

[Anglakhel]

But I still am waiting to hear why the cauldron cant heal even the smallest of cuts, cure the common cold or even heal a burn scar. Surely such a great healing font such as this could perform such a minor task :rolleyes:

Also why does it take literally hundreds of souls to make just one Hag beautiful for a short period of time but it takes only one soul to bring another back from the dead? This sort of trivializes the cauldron when the power over death can be doled out to pretty much anyone for a single soul in return.


All the available evidence is subject to the interpretation of individuals. It is your interpretation that the Cauldron would be unable to heal even the smallest wound. Personally, I think the Ward Save can be interpreted as healing wounds, whether is knits bones back together, allows the Witch Elves to ignore the pain, or otherwise restores them to the battle when it seems they've taken a mortal wound. There is plenty of room in the existing mechanics and lore to interpret the Cauldron as having restorative powers that include what you assert it cannot do. Beyond the existing TT mechanics, we have no idea what powers the Cauldrons may possess outside of Death Night or upon the battlefield.

Further, I continue to believe that eternal life requires far greater restorative energies and magic than healing wounds. In most fantasy settings, Warhammer included, while healing magics may exist, generally preserving life indefinitely is a far rarer, and far stranger power. While some deities may grant their worshippers healing powers, for example, they almost never grant them abilities that allow them to stop aging and live eternally.

Finally, this is ultimately why this topic is non-constructive, in my opinion. The evidence can be interpreted in a number of ways. In this case, Mythic, with the tacit approval of Games Workshop, has chosen to accept and highlight interpretations that allow for Khaine's murderous powers to grant the Disciple of Khaine divine magics that steal life from their victims and channel it to their allies.

So, the Disciple of Khaine is in the official lore for WAR. Which makes more sense? Trying to interpret the existing lore in a fashion that creates conflict between players in the game, or using the interpretations of the lore that make sense with the existence of the Disciple?

You're all welcome to continue trying to find problems with the Disciple of Khaine and refusing to acknowledge that your own interpretations may not be the ultimate vision of Warhammer. While I have no claim to authority when it comes to Warhammer lore, I find my personal interpretation of the lore plenty flexible to accommodate the Disciple of Khaine and other inventions from Mythic. I'll excuse myself from this thread, and any similar threads that may pop up, and focus on discussing the lore of WAR with those that are excited about the actual game being created for us.

[Bulwyf]

Well yes, that is the exact reason why. Poor example on my part. :mad:

But I still am waiting to hear why the cauldron cant heal even the smallest of cuts, cure the common cold or even heal a burn scar. Surely such a great healing font such as this could perform such a minor task :rolleyes:

Also why does it take literally hundreds of souls to make just one Hag beautiful for a short period of time but it takes only one soul to bring another back from the dead? This sort of trivializes the cauldron when the power over death can be doled out to pretty much anyone for a single soul in return.



Im not part of that "some of you" and would never suggest that the race commit suicide.

I do believe that the Durchii believe that only the strong survive and the weak should left to die however. ;)




I find this statement highly suspect especially when I read things like th following:

Back in the days of the Dark Elf TT revision, GW Dark Elf designer Gav Thorpe stated the reason Dark Elf spearwarriors are inferior to High Elf spearwarriors is because they don't trust eachother, and therefore are unable to fight as efficient in a close-knit phalanx formation as their High Elven brethren.

Seems to me that the mere mention of this Gav Thorpe guys name sends you long standing DE players scattering into the night screaming bloody murder. Why is that exactly? :rolleyes:

Now wasnt this person the DE 'goto' guy for GW at one time? Surely the DE designer for GW would know how the DE army works better by default than mere players but you people are suggesting this official GW person knew jack?

So it is possible for players to possibly know more than someone at GW. Hummmm, interesting and contradicts the above statement. ;)

What Gav Thorpe may say about one TT unit is completely different than GW proper making changes to lore. It wasn't until I think 2004 that they finally answered the "Squat Question" on why they got rid of them. The reality is that they already had removed them about ten years or so before the explanation. GW can change, and has changed, and will change its IP as it deems fit.

As for the Cauldron how do you know it does NOT heal wounds if it was used that way? When those girls take a dip into it and get rejuvenated I would wager it must logically remove whatever harmful effects the body may be in as it restores its youth. It wouldn't make much sense for Khaine to restore a diseased person to youth and beauty and not treat the disease (or another wound) at the same time.

The reality is that the TT army books don't go into many details at all on druchii society. As other people have mentioned what do normal mundane Dark Elves do with Khaine in their ordinary lives? Witch Elves are rarely seen, they aren't out there spreading the gospel of Khaine. Assassins are too busy killing people and Executioners are Temple guards. So there must be some kind of regular priest class out there spreading the faith. How can anyone say with 100% factual knowledge that regular druchii don't pray to Khaine for healing since he's their only real god? How do we know the priests (Disciples in this case) can't bestow healing if Khaine deems the person worthy?

We know Khaine spares babies at his own whim to become his true chosen. Why can't Khaine spare other people as well as long as it fits his needs? There is NOTHING in the army book that 100% states this is impossible to do.

[Shalaa]

Seems to me that the mere mention of this Gav Thorpe guys name sends you long standing DE players scattering into the night screaming bloody murder. Why is that exactly? :rolleyes:

Now wasnt this person the DE 'goto' guy for GW at one time? Surely the DE designer for GW would know how the DE army works better by default than mere players but you people are suggesting this official GW person knew jack?

So it is possible for players to possibly know more than someone at GW. Hummmm, interesting and contradicts the above statement. ;)

For me this has nothing to do with the Dark elves i never actualy used a dark elf army but i can write an essay on the cockups he made and he has little to do with the army books anymore. /wonders why >.<

[Morag]

But I still am waiting to hear why the cauldron cant heal even the smallest of cuts, cure the common cold or even heal a burn scar. Surely such a great healing font such as this could perform such a minor task :rolleyes:

Also why does it take literally hundreds of souls to make just one Hag beautiful for a short period of time but it takes only one soul to bring another back from the dead? This sort of trivializes the cauldron when the power over death can be doled out to pretty much anyone for a single soul in return.

Maybe it's because the power of the "true chosen" of Khaine simply dwarfs that of the second rate, minor church functionaries known as Witch Elves. Those chicks need to get with the program already, how can they expect to keep up with these fresh-out-of-the-box Disciples using such out-dated technology like the Cauldron of Blood, please.

All joking aside, I would be willing to guess that it's because you are comparing fluff text to game mechanics. I wouldn't want to have my healer have to kill "literally hundreds" of people just to rez one person. Seems that for the sake of game play and sanity the Disciple will be able to raise people in much the same fashion as the other healers. Thanks Mythic, I'm sure that the Dark Elf players will appreciate it. Well, most of them anyways.

You're all welcome to continue trying to find problems with the Disciple of Khaine and refusing to acknowledge that your own interpretations may not be the ultimate vision of Warhammer. While I have no claim to authority when it comes to Warhammer lore, I find my personal interpretation of the lore plenty flexible to accommodate the Disciple of Khaine and other inventions from Mythic. I'll excuse myself from this thread, and any similar threads that may pop up, and focus on discussing the lore of WAR with those that are excited about the actual game being created for us.

Well said, can we lock this thread now and move on with our lives?

[Slash]

Well said, can we lock this thread now and move on with our lives?

I understand why you want it closed; to you there is nothing left to discuss. However, not everybody is you. If you do not wish to post anymore, do just that, please don't request a thread be closed because you are finished with it.

[Morag]

I understand why you want it closed; to you there is nothing left to discuss. However, not everybody is you. If you do not wish to post anymore, do just that, please don't request a thread be closed because you are finished with it.

That's because there is nothing left to discuss. Seriously, this thread is just a recap of all the arguments that have been made here since Disciples were unveiled. No one is going to convince anyone to change their opinion about the career. All we're doing at this point is just cycling through the same points made in other threads.

Think about it, really think about it. Are you going to change mine or others opinions of the DoK? Wouldn't you have already done it if you could? Am I or others going to change your opinion? Are they really going to change the Disciple because a few people on some internet forum don't like the career? Have you ever been struck by lightning before? Is there really anything fresh we can bring to this topic? Doesn't everyone get both sides by now?

Yes, we know you aren't happy with it, other people are though (including Mythic and GW). The Disciple is here to stay whether you like it or not, it's time to let it go and move on to more constructive discussions.

Also, I found this quote to be very ironic.

However, not everybody is you.

edit: typo

[Ethandril]

... There are good arguments for both sides, but at this point,
no one is being convinced. I've seen the same points, both for and against, posted by
multiple people multiple times. It's simply going to spiral further into a flame war. Such is
the nature of these things. ...

You are right Tastreth, we are starting to turn in cycles at this point, 9 pages later we
haven't found a solution where both sides can live with it.

So, why don't we use page 10+ to work on a solution, together and not against each other?

As I stated in this post (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=628291&postcount=117) befor, I tryed to work out a solution, for a better understanding,
I post it this time more specific and will use questions/answers so we are able to find a
solution faster.

-------------------

Question: Is it possible, that Khaine is more for the Druchii's than the God of Murder?
Yes, he could be more than just the God of Murder, if the majority of the Druchii's
follow him as their primary god and pray to him for aid in a battle or for help if
they need him most. Khaine will responds, in one way or another.


Question: Are there more Cults of Khaine in the Dark Elves-society?
Yes, the Temple of Khaine, home of the Witch Elves and Assassins, is known as the
primary Cult of Khaine, they belive in him as the God of Murder or the thousend-faced
Lord of Murder.
The other great Cult of Khaine, are the Executioner of Har Ganeth, they belive in Khaine
as the Executioner over Life and Death of someone.


Question: Who are Disciples of Khaine?
The Disciples of Khaine belive in Khaine as the Great Shepherd of War and that he
aids his followers in great battles.
To get his permission, they have to pass the Ritual of the Cauldron of Blood during the
Death Night in the Temple of Khaine. When someone is worthy, he leaves the Cauldron
with eyes of molten brass, burning with the hatred of the Dark god Khaine.


Question: Does this make the Disciple of Khaine a part of the Temple?
Yes and No, the Temple and the Ritual is needed for the Disciples to get the permission of
Khaine, but it can be seen as a seperated Cult of Khaine. It's the reason of the secret war
between the Witch Elves and the Disciples.


Question: But the Witch Elves are his chosen ones and not the Disciples...
The Witch Elves are the Brides of Khaine, his chosen priestesses in the Temple, but they
belive in an other aspect of Khaine than the Disciple. They follow him as the bloody-
handed God and see the battlefields just as another Temple of Khaine.
The Disciples of Khaine are his chosen "Shepherds of War", during great battles or in times
of War, he aids his followers through them.


Question: But what about the struggle between the Cults of Khaine?
The three Cults of Khaine, the Temple of Khaine with the Witch Elves and the
Assassins, the Executioner of Har Ganeth and the Disciple of Khaine tolerate, but don't
trust each other.
Each Cult follows a specific aspect of Khaine, but the struggle between the Witch Elves
and the Disciples is well known and it has been reported, that they fight for the Favor of
Khaine in a secret war.

Question: Why they fight for the Favor of Khaine?
The Witch Elves are the Guardians of the Cauldrons of Blood, based on an ancient relic
given by Khaine to his first High-Priestess, Morathi. The Cauldron of Blood is very important
to the Witch Elves, when they bath in it, the life-energy of their victims passes into them
so they remain forever young and beautiful.

But the Cult of the Disciples is young, even in the terms of the Dark Elves and not many
Cauldrons have passed the thousends of years, when they were made.
Unwilling to give one of their relics to the Disciples, the Witch Elves made a pact with
them. They have to get the permission of Khaine only once a year, during the Death Night,
were the Adapts of Khaine, the Assassins are also chosen.

Even when the Witch Elves are the Brides of Khaine and are against some of the aspects
of the Cult of the Disciples, they have to follow the will of Khaine.
Full aware of this, some Disciples see the Witch Elves just as a mean to an end, and this
can not tolerate the Witch Elves, since they are his Priestess, his chosen Brides and on the
top of this arrogance, the Disciples need them for the ritual, because none of the Disciples
knows it.

(to be continued...)

------------------------

It's possible to find a solution, I made a start, I don't want to convince someone, what I
would like to see is tolerance, like the Cults of Khaine in the Druchii-society.

Edit: Lol, I just saw, that my post is the first on page 10. I think Khaine wants,
that we find a solution.... in one way or another ;)

[Ganymed]

You are right Tastreth, we are starting to turn in cycles at this point, 9 pages later we
haven't found a solution where both sides can live with it.

...

It's possible to find a solution, I made a start, I don't want to convince someone, what I
would like to see is tolerance, like the Cults of Khaine in the Druchii-society.

Edit: Lol, I just saw, that my post is the first on page 10. I think Khaine wants,
that we find a solution.... in one way or another ;)

I very much appreciate your work and the general direction you are heading for ethandril.

finally some constructive way to deal with this whole matter, instead of the pure destructive way xurre et al are taking.

[Eltair Shadowblade]

* Edited for Content *

[Tastreth]

Wow, I love how you didn't address any of the arguments at all . . . You just insulted those arguing for the Disciple, and acted like your preconceived notions on the topic were the final, undebatable truth.

Redundancy and flaming FTL. Can we lock this now?

[Ganymed]

* Edited for Content *

[Thrakkesh]

Guys, post constructive critique or don't post at all.

Even if somebody else starts it. If you think he's being rude, report him to a mod.

[Zunjin]

*EDITED for content*

[Kilrogg-WHA]

Keep the discussion civil guys or we'll have to lock this. Thanks.

[Morag]

*EDITED for content*

Don't be an idiot. First of all Kellaris is Polish, so english isn't even his first language. Secondly, for someone calling out another person on their grammar you might want to spell check your post first, because your spelling and grammar are terrible.

Mythic already said you will be fighting key figures from the table top setting. Just watch some of the older video journals where they show some of their encounter designs. Also, Disciples are hardly lore . They are just an addition to the WAR setting that fleshes out some of the Dark Elf society as well as filling the needed healer role. The reason some people have a problem with it is because they feel it infringes on the current temple factions (i.e. Witch Elves) or they think that Khaine shouldn't be giving his priests healing powers as it conflicts with the whole "god of murder" thing.

[mongoose]

All the available evidence is subject to the interpretation of individuals. It is your interpretation that the Cauldron would be unable to heal even the smallest wound. Personally, I think the Ward Save can be interpreted as healing wounds, whether is knits bones back together, allows the Witch Elves to ignore the pain, or otherwise restores them to the battle when it seems they've taken a mortal wound. There is plenty of room in the existing mechanics and lore to interpret the Cauldron as having restorative powers that include what you assert it cannot do. Beyond the existing TT mechanics, we have no idea what powers the Cauldrons may possess outside of Death Night or upon the battlefield.

No its not "my" interpretation but GWs. Nowhere has it EVER stated in either the mechanics or fluff lore that the cauldron actually heals. It restores only youth and beauty but those are very different from actually closing an open wound. Now Im sure that Hags do die (although I cant cite a specific example) but how could this be possible if the cauldrons actually heal? Shouldnt you just be able to take the hags corpse to the nearest cauldron, plop them in and have them restored back to life? Strangely it has never happened.....I wonder why :rolleyes:

Also, you would think if the cauldrons did heal that Morathi would have found some way to heal her broken son with one. Surely since these two buck conventional rules all the time anyway Morathi would have found some way to heal Malekith with it but yet she had to nurse him back to some measure of health on her own.

So its by the specific omission of said descriptions about the cauldron healing that I assert my proof.

As to the TT ward save again you are trying to twist a TT mechanic and the way certain steps are resolved with meaning that the cauldron heals them which is an incorrect assumption. The magical energies of the cauldron on a roll of a 6 stop the missile attack from ever happening, in effect blocking it. Its just that you roll all the attacks first and THEN resolve weather the ward save takes place.

And why is it that this ward save dosent protect the WE from a blade?


Further, I continue to believe that eternal life requires far greater restorative energies and magic than healing wounds. In most fantasy settings, Warhammer included, while healing magics may exist, generally preserving life indefinitely is a far rarer, and far stranger power. While some deities may grant their worshippers healing powers, for example, they almost never grant them abilities that allow them to stop aging and live eternally.

And I agree with you but bringing someone BACK from the dead is orders of magnitude above the simple mending of a broken bone. Someone can still live if they are old but death is about as permanent a condition as you can get.

Resurrection >>>>>>> Longer Life >>>> Healing

You seem to always avoid he resurrection part of the issue. :rolleyes:


So, the Disciple of Khaine is in the official lore for WAR. Which makes more sense? Trying to interpret the existing lore in a fashion that creates conflict between players in the game, or using the interpretations of the lore that make sense with the existence of the Disciple?

Actually what I feel you are doing it trying to make obvious contradictions with existing lore work by twisting and contorting them. Sure you have made it work if you looks at it just so but its now so distorted as to be hardly recognizable from its original form.

And just so we are clear, for me this discussion has very little to do with what will go on within WAR and I have no desire to grief Disciples. I might call them heretics and abominations in fun but I personally will not be going to the lengths Xurré has suggested. (this is where we part company philosophically speaking ;))

Hell I may very will end up playing one because they look like a very cool class but that will never get me to accept how this class changes so many of the Durchii fundamental beliefs and ideals and to basically destroy the Dark Elves as we have known them up to this point.


As for the Cauldron how do you know it does NOT heal wounds if it was used that way? When those girls take a dip into it and get rejuvenated I would wager it must logically remove whatever harmful effects the body may be in as it restores its youth. It wouldn't make much sense for Khaine to restore a diseased person to youth and beauty and not treat the disease (or another wound) at the same time.

Again by the fact that they have never mentioned it performing such things and doing so is against the very nature of what Khaine is all about. Now if you can show me just a single example of the cauldron being used to bring a dead hag back to life or even to close an open would then I will believe your explanation but until then I stick by what has (or more importantly) what has NOT been said about what the cauldrons can and cant do. ;)


The reality is that the TT army books don't go into many details at all on druchii society. As other people have mentioned what do normal mundane Dark Elves do with Khaine in their ordinary lives? Witch Elves are rarely seen, they aren't out there spreading the gospel of Khaine. Assassins are too busy killing people and Executioners are Temple guards. So there must be some kind of regular priest class out there spreading the faith. How can anyone say with 100% factual knowledge that regular druchii don't pray to Khaine for healing since he's their only real god? How do we know the priests (Disciples in this case) can't bestow healing if Khaine deems the person worthy?

I disagree. While we might not know ALL the answers we do know more than people might think.

As to the "regular" priest class.....thats the Witch Elves. We know they are the ones who perform all the rites and rituals. (or at least did until the Disciple) They are for all intents and purposes the temples clergy.

We also know that the Durchii dont (or should I say didnt :rolleyes:) pray to Khaine for healing because its not the Dark Elf way. Its not in their nature to ask their god to heal the weak or to ask for forgiveness. Its just not the nature of the Dark Elves or their god to do so. We know that Khaine is a jealous, uncaring and cruel god and this is reflected in the way the people behave. They are a harsh society and to do as you suggest would be contrary to how they function as a people. This would be similar to us praying to God to kill someone. You just dont do it because we know God (if you believe in one) dosent answer those types of prayers because its runs contrary to the universally accepted believe that he is a benevolent being.


We know Khaine spares babies at his own whim to become his true chosen. Why can't Khaine spare other people as well as long as it fits his needs? There is NOTHING in the army book that 100% states this is impossible to do.

No there is nothing that directly states that but as I keep saying its not so much what the books say but more what they dont and have NEVER said thats important imho. That coupled with the things that have been said about the people and Khaine dosent jive with the picture you and a few others keep trying to paint.

So while you say "spare" I say "chose". There is a definite difference. Spare implies forgiveness and benevolence which is not something Khaine does. In fact the armybook states that Assassin babies are chosen and not spared.

For me this has nothing to do with the Dark elves i never actualy used a dark elf army but i can write an essay on the cockups he made and he has little to do with the army books anymore. /wonders why >.<

The point though is that it is possible for even GW people themselves to not know what the hell they are talking about and maybe, just maybe, there are players who know the canon about a particular subject better than GW.

Maybe it's because the power of the "true chosen" of Khaine simply dwarfs that of the second rate, minor church functionaries known as Witch Elves. Those chicks need to get with the program already, how can they expect to keep up with these fresh-out-of-the-box Disciples using such out-dated technology like the Cauldron of Blood, please.

Interestingly this is exactly how I feel the Disciples are represented in WAR and they very reason why I have a problem with them. Thanks


All joking aside, I would be willing to guess that it's because you are comparing fluff text to game mechanics. I wouldn't want to have my healer have to kill "literally hundreds" of people just to rez one person. Seems that for the sake of game play and sanity the Disciple will be able to raise people in much the same fashion as the other healers. Thanks Mythic, I'm sure that the Dark Elf players will appreciate it. Well, most of them anyways.

Well what choice do we really have at this point?

And its comparing fluff to fluff written for WAR because of the need for a particular mechanic. There were better ways to do this but Mythic and GW chose a poor path to work out this mechanic imho.

That's because there is nothing left to discuss. Seriously, this thread is just a recap of all the arguments that have been made here since Disciples were unveiled. No one is going to convince anyone to change their opinion about the career. All we're doing at this point is just cycling through the same points made in other threads.

As I have said before this isnt about trying to change the Disciple in WAR because I personally dont think it will never happen but that shouldnt stop me from continuing to disagree with the decision. I think that GW made a bad decision by approving of (or even possibly suggesting) this class.

My greatest worry is that this deviation from the DE lore will indeed bleed over into the established lore and have GW completely change the way the DE society works (outside of WAR)


Yes, we know you aren't happy with it, other people are though (including Mythic and GW). The Disciple is here to stay whether you like it or not, it's time to let it go and move on to more constructive discussions.

If you feel this way why do you continue to post in this thread? Why cant you just "let it go" and ignore it? :roll:

[Garthilk]

1,2,3..

Okay, breathe in.. and out. In with the good, out with the bad. Now that I've got that out of the way. This game is WAR, it's not the exact same lore as any of the other games. It's similar lore, not the same. Not only that but it seems that far too many people in this thread can't seem to obey the very simple forum rules.

Locking.

[Browncoat-WHA]

Mod Pile-on!

Well, it seems that the community made its decision. As expected, people are pretty much argued out, so what happens is A)The argument is circular, B)People's exasperation comes out in their posts in the form of cheap jabs and insults, and C)People who would normally participate have finished discussing it, lessening the productivity of it being open. The proof is in the pudding guys - just take a look at what's been posted since page 4. While there was some maturity in the thread and I applaud that, the discussion did nothing to convince me that the topic isn't dead.

But...this thread serves a purpose closed. It now is the best assemblage of arguments for and against the Disciple in the lore, so we'll expect from now on that the topic has been indeed discussed to death, is a dead horse, and won't be brought up again. Linking this thread will be a good reference point. Thanks for the contribution.