Background question from a warhammer campaign I was in

[m1acca1551]

You can always chalk it down to the humans being a younger race who have no respect for there elders and view them with total distrust. That upstart witch hunter though can be added... lol

[Lord-Caerolion]

In that case, I'd still say the Dwarves would declare a grudge, but it would be solely against the Templar in question, not those he misled. After all, he's questioning your honour, saying that you would needlessly attack innocent civilians, and is doing so in a very underhanded way.

[R-Love]

As a note though, my dwarven character was one who cared more about looking honorable than actually being honorable. In the previous campaign, he secretly worked with some skaven to further faction goals (finding the karak which we fought the orcs over in this campaign), so I still hold that my biggest mistake was going public with the idea.

This is honestly probably far more common than the background would admit, but more for petty things. Very few Dwarfs would ever work with Skaven or Greenskins (though even then, there'll be one or two), not only because it's dishonourable, but because they've been raised from birth to hate them, and because it's stupid. There are only two kinds of people who try to deal with Skaven - those who think they're crafty enough to get the better of them and avoid reprisal (Who are informed of the stupidity of this view, repeatably, in the back), and those who know so little about them they honestly think they'll keep their promises(ditto, except it's the face). Dwarfs know enough about Skaven not to make either of those mistakes. That being said, Dwarfs are still individuals, and there will be some who aren't overly fond of death by monster for every misdeed, and even a few who would be willing to let their whole clan die for the right reward (after which they will book it as fast as they can to somewhere with no other Dwarfs). Remember that the other main feature of Dwarfs is greed, and that doesn't get on with honour very well...

Second Question

Campaign 1: Dwarfs move into an Imperial town. One Templar player (witch hunter faction) has a grudge against dwarfs so he burns the town down and blames it on us. And when we offer to help rebuild it, he instigates anti-dwarf riots. He proceeds to impede us every step of the way in the campaign, nearly leading to outright war.

Campaign 2: It starts, and the Imperial faction demands an apology from us in exchange for us working together. We refuse, and end up working closely with a subsection of their faction (Marienburg merchants).

Post campaign, a number of players argue that we should have just apologized. Naturally, no dwarf player agrees.

So, here is the question: Given that we didn't ever have the resources to fight the Imperials over this, we never wrote down the grudge. Instead, we wrote it down to them being idiots and did our best to stay as far away from them as possible, while working with those whom we could actually trust. Given this situation, was this the proper dwarven thing to do? Or should we have declared a grudge, and attacked them if they got to close?

In this situation, you definitely should have recorded the Grudge, and sure as hell shouldn't give an apology. Every Grudge should be recorded in one book or another, from a war to the time Gurni sounded a little to disrespectful when he said hello. However, the proper response here, both from a Dwarf perspective and pragmatism, is to bury an ax in his gut and dump at the closest Temple of Sigmar (or at least told a Church official they could trust). Respect for the Dwarfs is one of the basic tenants of the Sigmarite church, and any Witch Hunter acting like this is going to be reprimanded very sharply. With a noose. The Templars are harsh, they'll burn down entire villages, but only when it's necessary, and they do not tolerate people giving them a bad (worse?) name (Impersonating a Witch Hunter is a capitol offense). Extreme force should actually be necessary (or perceived to be), and disobeying Church doctrine, framing one of the people that were his Lord's closest allies, for nothing more than a personal grudge, is most definetly not. Anyone who does that is clearly a heretic who's been corrupted by the Ruinous Powers, and stopping him is a civil service. If anything, the Church should be apologizing to you, and give you his head (and something shiny, as compensation for your trouble)

[grumbaki]

Thanks for the responses! R-Love, to elaborate a bit...

In campaign 1, we demanded recompense from the Templars, who refused. Then, the leader of the Templar faction fell to chaos, which pretty well shamed the entire lot of them.

Campaign 2, the Templars became a larger Sigmarite faction, and our dwarfs from Barak Varr joined a larger dwarf faction from multiple holds. The Crusaders (previously called Templars), were out for their former leader's head (he became the leader of the chaos faction). We dwarfs rebuked any call for an apology, and insisted that the best we'd do is say that the Templars were led astray by their heretical commander. That, that they should keep the Templar who burnt down the town far, far away from us.


All of that said, aye, we should have recorded a grudge. Sad thing though, when you actually have to worry about supply lines and fighting multiple enemies at once, the desire to exact a grudge against someone who could still be an ally seems less appealing. I put that down to the human in me...