Taal and the collages of Amber and Jade

[revenant J J]

Hello there I was wondering if my fellow Empire enthusiasts could help me out with something that has been nagging me for a while now. What is the relation between the cult of Taal and the Amber and Jade collages? To me the Amber and Jade wizards are two sides of the same coin in regards to the fantasy archetype of a Druid, one is a powerful healer and preserver of fertility and the natural flow of the essence of life and the seasons. While the other is the bestial spirit the hunter, shape-changer, kin of beasts and untamed by civilisation.

So are these wizards part of Taals flock? Or is there something else that divergences the priests of Taal from the wizards of Amber and Jade...

Reason why I ask is because I want to model my warrior priests from a different god and as my army is from Hochland Taal was the obvious choice!

Any help and suggestions on this would be much appreciated whether it be from army books, websites or source books from warhammer fantasy roleplay.

[Drasanil]

Life Wizards identify more with the 'Old Religion' which was pre-dates the arrival of the imperial tribes and their gods. Essentially they're the natural evolution of the nature worshiping cults that used to live in the old world. The closest in term of Imperial Gods would be Rhya Taal's wife, so still good, but Amber are likely full blown Taalites.

It's too bad warrior priests don't have access to ranged weapons IIRC, since Taal's priests are supposed to be more hunter than warrior.

[revenant J J]

Correct me if I'm wrong but divine magic and sorcery has always been quite vague in regards to separation and true definition. So I could for fluff reasons have my Amber and Jade wizards as 'wizard-priests' while for rule reasons I could model my warrior priests as Ulricans I suppose.

Maybe those who play warhammer fantasy roleplay could touch upon this subject as well, for instance are there rule differences between a priest of Taal and a Jade or Amber wizard?

[Drasanil]

Correct me if I'm wrong but divine magic and sorcery has always been quite vague in regards to separation and true definition. So I could for fluff reasons have my Amber and Jade wizards as 'wizard-priests' while for rule reasons I could model my warrior priests as Ulricans I suppose.

Aye that could work very well. Have Male Amber Wizards for Taal and Female Life Wizzies for Rhya, since they're often worshiped together.

Maybe those who play warhammer fantasy roleplay could touch upon this subject as well, for instance are there rule differences between a priest of Taal and a Jade or Amber wizard?

In V2 yes, no clue about V3, how significant is a matter of opinion. Though Taal and Rhya's spells overlap better thematically with Life/Beasts Lores, their actual rules/careers are near identical to priests of Sigmar and Ulric.

[Sandlemad]

Common cause, (some) common beliefs, just a different take on things. There's a similar comparison to be made between the Grey Wizards and the Witch Hunters, between the Gold Wizards and the Engineers, between the Amethyst Wizards and the Priests of Morr and between the Light Wizards and certain elements of the Church of Sigmar.

Strong crossover in goals and even methods but the priests of the Old World tend to have fairly conservative (if polite - see Liber Chaotica) views on magic users. The Colleges meanwhile seem to take the view that they know better than the priests themselves what the priests do in communing with their gods.
Nevertheless, you see wizards making use of certain religious icons as a matter of pragmatism, as with Celestial wizards and the twin-tailed comet. It looks to me like the Jade and Amber wizards do much the same with the remnants of the Old Faith.

If you can get your hands on the WFRP 2nd edition books Realms of Sorcery and Tome of Salvation, they cover this in great detail. There's a few bits you can pick up from Liber Chaotica: Tzeentch too.

[Arnizipal]

Correct me if I'm wrong but divine magic and sorcery has always been quite vague in regards to separation and true definition. So I could for fluff reasons have my Amber and Jade wizards as 'wizard-priests' while for rule reasons I could model my warrior priests as Ulricans I suppose.

In Warhammer Roleplay, a wizard-priest would be pretty much impossible.
To be able to become a divine spellcaster you need unshakable faith in your deity, but at the same time your faith will be undermined by your wizard training.

Sometimes members of the clery move to a wizarding carreer (priests of Morr to the Amethyst College for example) but they lose their divine powers when they learn how magic "truly" works.

[revenant J J]

Sometimes members of the clery move to a wizarding carreer (priests of Morr to the Amethyst College for example) but they lose their divine powers when they learn how magic "truly" works.

Would you be able to expand on this please? You have me intrigued as I really want to find out the differences between the priests of Taal and the Amber and Jade wizards.

Common cause, (some) common beliefs, just a different take on things. There's a similar comparison to be made between the Grey Wizards and the Witch Hunters, between the Gold Wizards and the Engineers, between the Amethyst Wizards and the Priests of Morr and between the Light Wizards and certain elements of the Church of Sigmar.

Strong crossover in goals and even methods but the priests of the Old World tend to have fairly conservative (if polite - see Liber Chaotica) views on magic users. The Colleges meanwhile seem to take the view that they know better than the priests themselves what the priests do in communing with their gods.
Nevertheless, you see wizards making use of certain religious icons as a matter of pragmatism, as with Celestial wizards and the twin-tailed comet. It looks to me like the Jade and Amber wizards do much the same with the remnants of the Old Faith.

If you can get your hands on the WFRP 2nd edition books Realms of Sorcery and Tome of Salvation, they cover this in great detail. There's a few bits you can pick up from Liber Chaotica: Tzeentch too.

Thank you for your input. I will try and hunt down those books, getting the core rulebook and armoury source book was hard enough though!

[Arnizipal]

Would you be able to expand on this please? You have me intrigued as I really want to find out the differences between the priests of Taal and the Amber and Jade wizards.

Spellcasting priests don't believe they are working the Winds of Magic. In fact they don't acknowledge they are casting spells at all.
In their opinion they are communicating with their deity, and perform miracles that way.
They way the miracles are done (though gestures and chants) has been passed down for generations and has become highly ritualised. Part of what makes the miracle work is the unshakable faith of the priest that his deity will answer his plea for divine intervention. How this works exactly is a mystery to the priest.

Wizards on the other hand, have a fairly good grasp on how the mechanics their spellcasting work. It's part of their education (handed down by Teclis when he created the Colleges). This, in turn, influences a wizard's view on the deities of the Warhammer World. They treat gods much more in the way the Elves treat gods: there is a healty respect for them but you don't dedicate your life to them (for in the end a deity is a fickle cloud of magical energy).
As such, priests who become wizards have their beliefs sorely undermined and generally can't cast divine magic anymore.

[Lord Squidar]

brilliant explanation, thats how it works for other races with wizard-priests too. i.e. the skaven.

The Grey Seers are, to the majority of the population, the profets of the skaven race, speaking from the mouth of the horned rat himself. They perform all sorts of "miracles", much of it just a placebo hand wave or shake of a staff, and skaven believe it. The grey seers themselves know that although the horned rat does speak (th 13th pillar for example) they are wizards, insanely powerful and crazy wizards =) Its why there is such a rivalry between them and skryre. If you can make your god speak by using the right machines, then what do you need the tyrannical grey seers for?

[Snorky_the_goblin]

To answer the OP, The wizards off the orders Jade and Amber tend to be real loners in general and do not like living amonst other men since us unknowing little people tend to raze what they try to preserve.
Getting to my point though, To place a wizard in an army you should really start thinking of a background, in thease cases probably defending a sacred grove or the like and not so much because they want to save others.

Also I have a thing for making warrior mages as level 1 or 2 and giving them some thematic gear such as the armour of Tarnus and or a sword of battle to make them capable fighters as well as mediocre casters...

My two cents.

[TheDungen]

Its likely the priests of taal unknowingly use the winds of beast and life in their prayers, just as the elvish worshipp of Isha is tightly bound to the lore of life. (every god in the elvish patheon seems to correspond to a wind of magic) But unlike the elves humans make a distinction between magic and miracles(propably because humans are not all magical creatures). The priests of taal propably see the wizards wielding the power of their god so casually without giving faith in return as sacrilege.

While the wizards peopably dislike the priests for not addmitting they use magic and their following of ancient tradition that actually has nothing to do at all with the results.

One must also remember that the practice of magic was punishable by death up to the founding of the collage of magic 2304 IC. Also all non-collage-of magic-magic practices are still forbidden, a law which is enforced by the templars of sigmar (witch hunters).

The amber/jade wizards and the cult of taal, propably gets along better than some of the other collages get along with some of the other religions. Seeing how these collages practice rituals ina similiar manner and share many of the similiar holy sites with the cult. Similarities between the jade wizards and the truthsayers of albion have been stated also similarities between the trutsayers and the cult of taal.

In reality an outside viewer (say an elf) wouldnt see the diffrence but neither one would enjoy being mistaken for the other. (although i can imagine a jade/amber wizard posing as a priest to avoid the common people's suspicious attitude towards wizards, the witchhunters wouldnt like this though).

as for what someone said earlier that elfs dont dedicate their lives to a god, there are priests of Asuryan in the sundering and both Allarielle of Avelorn and Ariel of Athel Loren are described as avatars of Ishas power. There's also a temple of Korunos in Tor Achare.

[R-Love]

Wizards on the other hand, have a fairly good grasp on how the mechanics their spellcasting work. It's part of their education (handed down by Teclis when he created the Colleges). This, in turn, influences a wizard's view on the deities of the Warhammer World. They treat gods much more in the way the Elves treat gods: there is a healty respect for them but you don't dedicate your life to them (for in the end a deity is a fickle cloud of magical energy).
As such, priests who become wizards have their beliefs sorely undermined and generally can't cast divine magic anymore.

Or you can take the best of both worlds and become a Sorcerer, and worship gods where being a fickle cloud of magical energy is expected. Though the gods who have Sorcerers as priests tend to be the ones whose clergy's are tolerant of thoughts like "I wonder if I can remove this dude's skin without killing him." Whether that's a a bonus or a flaw, meh.

One must also remember that the practice of magic was punishable by death up to the founding of the collage of magic 2304 IC. Also all non-collage-of magic-magic practices are still forbidden, a law which is enforced by the templars of sigmar (witch hunters).

Bear in mind however, that a large portion of the original Jade wizards recruited by Teclis were members of the Old Faith that had gone off the radar, so presumably they evaded the greater part of Witch Hunters tender care. Exactly what the traditions of the Old Faith were is somewhat vague, however. The majority (two-thirds or so) of them accepted Teclis' explanation though, so it's possible they had a better understanding if Chaos than the more modern religions. It was almost definitely influenced by the beliefs of the Truthsayers, though, so the question is, how much of the truth did they pick up from the Truthsayers, how much did they pick up from the Slann in turn, and much was made up along the way? Not that we'll ever know...

The amber/jade wizards and the cult of taal, propably gets along better than some of the other collages get along with some of the other religions. Seeing how these collages practice rituals ina similiar manner and share many of the similiar holy sites with the cult. Similarities between the jade wizards and the truthsayers of albion have been stated also similarities between the trutsayers and the cult of taal.

Not surprising, since the old myths of Taal & Rhya are likely heavily based off a combination of the Old Faith, and what little they knew of the Kurnous & Isha from Elvish ruins (If I'm not mistaken, Tome of Salvation notes the original Tilean names for them are almost identical to Kurnous & Isha). Quite likely the only two that get along better are the Amethyst College and the Priests of Morr, if them.

as for what someone said earlier that elfs dont dedicate their lives to a god, there are priests of Asuryan in the sundering and both Allarielle of Avelorn and Ariel of Athel Loren are described as avatars of Ishas power. There's also a temple of Korunos in Tor Achare.

Liber Chaotica explains it in more detail, but effectively, the reason the Elves dedicate themselves less the Gods is because they saw what happened with Aenarion (ie, many bad things), and decided "Yeah, let's not do that." It's not that they have no priests or temples at all, but far less of them. So they're won't be any large cathedrals full of worshipers or lifelong priests, but small shrines with serving part-time as a priest when a large ceremony is needed, and mainly personal prayers. There will, naturally, be exceptions, with people giving their whole life to their god in large temples, but they'd be mainly at major holy places (such as the Shrine of Asuryan, the Forge of Vaul, and similar) or important people (The Everqueen, the Pheonix King, Loremaster of Hoeth, etc). During the Sundering, the idea of separating oneself from the Gods would be fairly new, so there would still be a few serious priests left (especially somewhere like the Shrine of Asuryan, probably the most important Elven holy site anywhere). Can't say on the Temple of Kurnous you mentioned, would depend on the time (Sundering?), and the size of it (Though honestly, Most of Kurnous' temples would probably be pretty small. Doesn't really seem like the churchiest guy). Ariel...well, the Wood Elves are a different kettle of fish entirely - they've basically given themselves over to a god already. They may think of it as Kurnous & Isha, and that suits it's purpose well enough to let them believe it...

[ryng_sting]

The background I've seen suggests the Priesthood of Morr strongly dislike the Amethyst College for communicating with spirits, for treading on their thematic turf in general (because they have knowledge rather than faith), and mutter under their breaths about them being little different from Necromancers.

It doesn't stretch credibility that more than a few of their number left for the Amethyst Order either, nor of the resentment that has created over time.

[Drasanil]

The background I've seen suggests the Priesthood of Morr strongly dislike the Amethyst College for communicating with spirits, for treading on their thematic turf in general (because they have knowledge rather than faith), and mutter under their breaths about them being little different from Necromancers.

Fun fact, there's also a radical Cult of Morr that thinks Doktors are as bad as necromancers for saving people with otherwise fatal wounds and denying Morr his due

As for the Morr/Amethyst relationship, I thought it was all in all a good one since the Amethyst college are on the forefront of undead fighting in the empire. Sure there's always the temptation to go bad, but that's par for the course for any wizard.

[TheDungen]

The temple of Koronus is present. cant remember where i read it. The priests of Vaul at the anvil also blinds themsleves that seems like a one way deal. So is that oath of the phoenix guard. I havent read liber chaotica but i can agree that the elves seem to have a diffrent way to deal with their gods. I'd say that priests ar emore of teachers and guides in spirutal matters than a neccessary thing for worship. I remember the 6th edition HE army book mentioneing a week of feasting in the name of Asuryan once every ten years (the fesival of light celebrating the victory of aenarion and caledor).

As for the wood elfs they ar ealso decendants of the elves that fought on aenarion's side. they'd be as vary as any other elves. As foir their worship of koronus and isha who are we to say that they do not? The forest of loren could be a part of Isha's consciousness together with other similiar forests like the Gaen vale on Ulthuan. After all the idea that the elven gods are dead is a wh 40k thing and gods cant really die anyway (unless being starved from emotion).

Also i think a few of the human gods are the same as elven ones, taal is koronus for an example either learned from the ruins or taught to the humans by more open minded asrai. Isha is the same as Rhya and propably the same as the lady of the lake (even if its ariel thats the lady of the lake then its jsut Ishas avatar). Or elves themselves, Myrmidia for an example sounds alot like an elf.

[CommanderCax]

Reason why I ask is because I want to model my warrior priests from a different god and as my army is from Hochland Taal was the obvious choice!

Bagrian, the High Priest of Taal in the La Maisontaal campaign, used Amber magic to represent his "divine" powers in WFB. So, it would certainly be fitting to use Amber wizards as Priests of Taal in your army.

Check out this thread for some more insight regarding "divine" and arcane magic.

Sometimes members of the clery move to a wizarding carreer (priests of Morr to the Amethyst College for example) but they lose their divine powers when they learn how magic "truly" works.

As mentioned in the aforementioned thread, Viggo Hexensohn, the current Patriarch of the Amethyst College, is a former Priest of Morr if I remeber correctly.

[TheDungen]

Thats kinda cool, wish they'd make him high patriarch, Baltasar Gelt was always lacking in character anyway.