Rogue Explorator Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 I have been quiet about it recently, but I still maintain my believe (hope, to be honest) that we are heading towards an eventual return of "Ushabti" as AoSified faction. It might sound unreasonable, but all the components are in place: -Shadeglasses ability to bind Souls -Nagash hoarding massive amounts of Shyish Realmstone -Shadeglass being a refined form of Realmstone -Nagash doing everything he can to get the Souls denied to him (Stormcast, reclaimed Elves, to a lesser degree, Chaos Champions) -These Souls being particularly powerful ones -The question of what Nagash plans to do with these Souls when he has them Binding these Souls to Shardglass infused construct bodies just seems like a pretty good way to keep them out of his enemies hands (as this story shows, Stormcast have experts for capturing incorporeal ghosts, so deploying them as Nighthaunt just hands them back on a silver platter) and get a powerful new fighting force in one strike. It is far from assured, but there is enough for me keep up my hopes. It would still be a long way out, but we are just getting started with the Soul Wars and this would be the sort of thing to happen around the end, so who knows. Guess we get ghosts or maybe some other undead first around Summer. If the question what happens with the captured Stormcast/Aelf Souls gets resolved I can quietly burry my theory, if does not, I am honestly drawing blank what else the Soulwar could lead up to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antonio Rodrigues Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 7 hours ago, chord said: So working for Sigmar will be like working at a large corp for years... Good call! Definitively today I had a meeting that was like being hammered by the Six Smiths... I think I lost part of my soul... AJ, the Corpcast Eternal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lousy Beatnik Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 6 hours ago, xking said: There is noting new here. We already know that the reforging process was painful and flawed, scarring the soul and also do to nagash's interference. Yeah, I've read so much about how new this is (here and elsewhere) but we knew this day one. I guess the "almost escaped, nah, thrown back in" part (which I really enjoyed) is new? Either way, I'm happy to see it in a short story. If anything, it makes me feel we won't get evil/death Stormcast, quite the opposite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nin Win Posted April 28, 2018 Share Posted April 28, 2018 I like that he wasn't willing to kill the undead forms of his former people and that they killed him anyway and then he still didn't want to let go of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AthlorianStoners Posted April 28, 2018 Share Posted April 28, 2018 I think everyone’s overstating Sigmars evilness. the destroyed stormcast had mind games played on him by nagash and it was corrupting/interrupting the reforging. The corrupted parts of the souls were discarded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nin Win Posted April 28, 2018 Share Posted April 28, 2018 I think that's fair. It seems strange that the soul identified the undead forms of people it knew as if they were the same people. Even in zombie apocalypse movies people seem to realize that it's not little Timmy anymore pretty quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kramer Posted April 28, 2018 Share Posted April 28, 2018 13 hours ago, Antonio Rodrigues said: Good call! Definitively today I had a meeting that was like being hammered by the Six Smiths... I think I lost part of my soul... I once had a date that felt like that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binabik15 Posted April 28, 2018 Share Posted April 28, 2018 20 hours ago, Ar-Pharazôn said: Everyone is focusing on the Stormcast wizard, but I need that lightning gheist as a model immediately. I build a Gheist-caller after the short story featuring one, but not yet the gheists and spirits for his skirmish band. Will try and do a proper lightning gheist now. Might use the Cauldron of Blood bearer model as a base, I can't think of anything more fitting and as easy to get right now. 21 hours ago, WarbossKurgan said: I really don't think that's where they are going. There won't be an "evil Stormcast" faction. Stormcast will stay as the Order faction serving Sigmar that they already are. What we are seeing is the slow decay of their humanity, so they will eventually become like automata. They won't be able to perceive right or wrong, they will just do the job they are given. It will be down to those in charge of them to decide what those jobs are and how they can deal with the consequences. The moral ambiguity is what makes them exciting and interesting! The old over simplified good-vs-bad tropes are tired. We need this stuff in AoS to add some depth to the stories. This is something else I want for Skirmish. Almost down to a t. My plan was a couple of SC "golems" -mindless SC who suffered too many or too cruel/taxing reforgings- led by a commander type that is part smith and part torturer in look and part Lord-Relictor in function. Healing their bodies and armour and directing them in battle. Additional models would be minders that attract the unthinking SCs with noise by ringing bells or clashing weapons on shields (and shouting) and light by bearing torches. Maybe a magical floating flame representing the hearthfire of a forge that is directed by the smith and uses Aetherwing rules. The golems would be dark/burnt metal with heavy battle damage and destroyed helmet(s) revealing emotionless face(s) on one or two, with most weapons replaced with less difficult to use ones like spiked maces or similary brutal and crude looking things. I'm still busy with my witch hunters and the Tzeentch gladiators that I thought I could build real quick, so the idea sat in the back of my mind for a few...months. I'm so slow 18 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said: Ready ? CONVERT ! EDIT : Oh ! Another point going for my theory (above) is that the different Stormcast logos we have seen so far (on the Shadespire card or Soul Wars cover) represent an anvil + lightnings , and the Stormcast in today's story is guarding the... Anvil of Apotheosis, where souls are reforged in lightnings. That was my first idea for the lightning gheist but it is terribly expensive and hard to get as a bit and the whole kit is not something onr could use for anything else except maybe Nagash Death Pyramids terrain pieces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HorticulusTGA Posted April 28, 2018 Share Posted April 28, 2018 1 hour ago, Binabik15 said: (...) This is something else I want for Skirmish. Almost down to a t. My plan was a couple of SC "golems" -mindless SC who suffered too many or too cruel/taxing reforgings- led by a commander type that is part smith and part torturer in look and part Lord-Relictor in function. Healing their bodies and armour and directing them in battle. Additional models would be minders that attract the unthinking SCs with noise by ringing bells or clashing weapons on shields (and shouting) and light by bearing torches. Maybe a magical floating flame representing the hearthfire of a forge that is directed by the smith and uses Aetherwing rules. The golems would be dark/burnt metal with heavy battle damage and destroyed helmet(s) revealing emotionless face(s) on one or two, with most weapons replaced with less difficult to use ones like spiked maces or similary brutal and crude looking things. (...) Excellent ! In one fluff bit (maybe in the Stormcast or Tzeentch battle tome), there was a Lord-relictor leading a unit of black armored Stromcasts that were reforged too many times and lost their mind into a Silver tower, their broken spirits immune against the magic of Tzeentch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KillagoreFaceslasha Posted April 28, 2018 Share Posted April 28, 2018 On 27/4/2018 at 4:04 PM, chord said: So working for Sigmar will be like working at a large corp for years... Hello Janice, I am Sevastus of accounting. Have you seen Zachariah? Oh, so he's gone to a scheduled hunt with some business partners? Thanks. Please, don't forget tomorrow is the anual company witch hunt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinros Posted April 29, 2018 Share Posted April 29, 2018 So sigmar is not the whole "Bright" deity people expected him to be. I like that more greyness is being injected into the gods. What is going on in that story is essentially self-sabotage lol. Now we know why Oberyn the Bold is so bold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ungface Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 3 hours ago, xking said: If sigmar was intentionally choosing heroes to be his stormcast and then was intentionally destroying what made them heroes(their personality and emotions). That indeed would be self-sabotage. Luckily (according to Phil kelly during a GW stream) we know The reforging is flawed, as sigmar was not able work out all kinks, As he was forced to unleash the stormcast early. To stop chaos form completely conquering the mortal realms and absorbing them into the realm of chaos. So we know it is not intentional. We also know that nagash is interfering with the reforging process somehow. Sigmar needs to work out these reforging issues if he is to have any long-term success. Look at what makes Imperius or Vandus Hammerhand so successful and some of his greatest champions. It was their personality and will. If you not know who Imperius is here you go. http://ageofsigmar.wikia.com/wiki/Imperius Hasnt it been like a 1000 years since the first reforging? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ungface Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 2 hours ago, xking said: I don't know. Why you ask? Because that should be long enough to sort out the kinks in the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMMachine Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 3 hours ago, Ungface said: Hasnt it been like a 1000 years since the first reforging? If I remembered correctly, the time that has passed between Realm Gate Wars and the Malign Portents should be about 100 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue Explorator Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 1 hour ago, Ungface said: Because that should be long enough to sort out the kinks in the process. It is arguably one of the flaws of AoS that the timeline is at best extremely unprecise. Afaik, we do not even know remotely how time is measured, no dates are given for any events. I think the most precisemeasure we have at all is that there has been a rough number on the length of the Age of Chaos given. In fact for many events, there is not even any certainty in which of the three ages they took place. For example, I do not think up to BT Idoneth, there has been any clear statement wether the Aelven gods have captured Slaanesh and started extracting Souls in the Age of Myth or the Age of Chaos. We know they where deep in their little plot of dealing with Slaanesh at the tail end of the Age of Myth (it is given as the reason they where not around to fight the Invasion of Chaos), but have no idea how far along they where with their plans at the time. I would not be surprised if BT:ID does not clear up the matter any more. In this context it is rather futile to try and sequence important events chronologically, let alone attatch numbers to them. I do not think this is an oversight on the part of GW or a consequence of AoS being a rather new setting (for most fantasy settings, a numbered timeline is one of the first elements created). I think this is a conscious stylistic choice by GW, it reinforces the mythological characteristics of the setting. All that said, I think the question of how long Sigmar had to work out the flaws is actually immaterial to the question of why the flaws are still existant. Remember that the reason there are Stormcast in Shadespire is that they where sent out looking for a solution to the reforgings fault in the Shadeglass and lore of the Katophanes. Simply put, it does not matter how much time Sigmar had to work out the kinks in the system, because he never had the resources and knowledge to do so to begin with. He has to send agents into one of the most dangerous and out of the way places outside of Azyr in a (desperate?) bid to find a solution. This tells us he has likely expended all possible venues of improvement he could make with the entire power and learning of Azyr (and its refugees from all other Realms)at hand. The reforging is a mythic act of divine magic, not an engineering project. Sigmar can not just throw funding at his scientists and wait for them to work out the bugs. By the information we have, working out the flaws may even be impossible, the very concept of reforging Souls may be impossible to perfect, a flawed idea from the start (all "reforged" aelves have to contend with simmilar issues so far). Particularly as long as there is a ticked of Death God equal in power to Sigmar and a pantheon of even greater Chaos Powers specialised in corruption doing their very best to mess up the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinros Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 10 hours ago, xking said: If sigmar was intentionally choosing heroes to be his stormcast and then was intentionally destroying what made them heroes(their personality and emotions). That indeed would be self-sabotage. Luckily (according to Phil kelly during a GW stream) we know The reforging is flawed, as sigmar was not able work out all kinks, As he was forced to unleash the stormcast early. To stop chaos form completely conquering the mortal realms and absorbing them into the realm of chaos. So we know it is not intentional. We also know that nagash is interfering with the reforging process somehow. Sigmar needs to work out these reforging issues if he is to have any long-term success. Look at what makes Imperius or Vandus Hammerhand so successful and some of his greatest champions. It was their personality and will. If you not know who Imperius is here you go. http://ageofsigmar.wikia.com/wiki/Imperius The reforging process does destroy their personality and emotions that very thing happened in the story. That is the main flaw of the reforging process. That's the sad reality of immortality they obtain which I think is amazing. Also I know who Imperius is. I just like this adds another grey layer to the setting, the lore writer of LON Nick outright stated on stream. if you want the end of chaos follow nagash it's why all the chaos gods are freaking out in the malign portent supplement over whatever sigmar is doing. What Nagash want's will eliminate the very thing that sustains their existence. That's the grey layer to the death alliance. It's nice what Sigmar wants but how he does things will forever perpetuate chaos and I like that. Grungi's words in spear of shadows now makes a lot of sense to me now after reading this story. We also know why stormcast will never question sigmar or their mission that part is essentially when Nagash examined them in LOU. The very reforging process prevents any "bad" stormcast. As rogue said there might not be a way to fix the process just look at all the aelves that are being remade. All of them have problems and I suspect Tyrion's aelves won't be immune to this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaleb Daark Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 new story is up https://malignportents.com/story/to-end-the-everwinter/ I like it, remind me of the wight king's shenanigans in Game of thrones with all the dead just picking themselves up. As it was, I played a game last week, for fun at the local store - basically a nice day long table with people just showing up and putting stuff down - for the death players we added a twist where instead of summoning as such they could cast the spell to summon but get back all the living slain at the end of that turn - and if there was more than one player they get to divvy up as they see fit, we decided on the model having half wounds to a minimum of 1, and no special abilities but otherwise everything was fair game - very funny seeing my war mammoth together with fifteen blood reaver, who were killed by a load of tedious skyfire shooting re-animated to the death player's joy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuneBrush Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 I want an undead Stonehorn! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired4War Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 I'd love to see undead models from all the races...but I'm not holding my breath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tailessine Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 Good to see a destruction point of view, and that beastclaw are not the 'hilariously unintelligent'' ogors of yesteryore. Would so love a mechanic like this in game where death players can bring back slain enemy units. Undead archaon perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacDuff Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 If Nagash can bring the dead back to life, what armies might be safe? Sylvaneth? Seraphon? Stormcast? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. White Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 Another tricky thing about an AoS timeline would be...timeline according to which realm? It's entirely possible they run on different chronology, not all created at the same time, have different 'rotations/revolutions/whatever', etc. A date on one realm may be something else entirely on another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamose Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 On 4/30/2018 at 7:56 AM, Rogue Explorator said: In this context it is rather futile to try and sequence important events chronologically, let alone attach numbers to them. I think this is a conscious stylistic choice by GW, it reinforces the mythological characteristics of the setting. Simply put, it does not matter how much time Sigmar had to work out the kinks in the system, because he never had the resources and knowledge to do so to begin with. The reforging is a mythic act of divine magic, not an engineering project. I couldn't have put it better myself. The mythological, not just fantastical, flavor of AoS is one of the things I love most about it. Our science does not have to apply to this setting and it's people. One of the big ironies of many Fantasy settings is the decidedly philosophic (lover of knowledge) nature of their fans. Its not the faith-based crew that overwhelmingly nerds out over Lord of the Rings. One of the biggest "you just don't get it" qualities of the fans is their refusal to try to accept fantastical, impossible things in fantasy settings without demanding scientific explanations of the setting. There's merit to accepting magic in a story as magic without needing an explanation. Demand too hard and you get "midichlorians" and no one wants that. Far more important to story than scientific explanations is simple internal consistency in the setting. If speaking the word "Glendale" and while dancing the Watusi summons a tiny juniper bush with a top hat, then it damn better summon that bush everytime even if no one can explain why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue Explorator Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 2 hours ago, xking said: By the way. Aelven souls are not "reforged". What the aelf gods are doing is not the same thing as what Sigmar is doing. Such as the aelves that are made by the gods don't have any issues. Morathi's aelves are perfectly fine, Besides the male souls she intentionally cursed to be weak anyway. The only aelves that have issues are the Idoneth Deepkin, but that is because of the corruption from being in the stomach of slaanesh. Not because of the aelven souls being restored to new lives. There is a reason I wrote "reforged" and not reforged. Clearly the aelven gods are doing something different from Sigmar. Both are, however, repurposing and shaping Souls in ways Souls are propably not supposed to be (imo, of course). As for the pathetic males of Moriathis Scathborn, there is more to it. To quote"For Morathi, those spirits too weak or damaged to accept full reconstitution were destined to become leathanam - an aelven word for half-soul" "Only the weakest and most broken of souls retrieved from Slaanesh by Morathi are used to create male aelves" (BT:DoK, pages 9 and 26). Morathi does not want powerful men in her ranks, even cursing those born naturally to her temples to siphon them, and thus has a useful "bin" to throw useless souls into. But it seems at least to me, that a more powerful, long lived "proper" aelf could never have been created from these Souls. All "new aelf" project would have gotten some of these "duds" and have to content with them somehow. And wether the utterly monstrous Melusai and Khinerai are really fine is a matter of perspective. They fulfil their purpose for Morathi, but how much they where supposed to be as they are is very questionable (of course, Morathi is the kind to claim they are all according to plan, even had they turned out much worse). Certainly, they can not be what Tyrion and Malerion have in mind for the future of aelves and thus they can not cut the corners that Morathi has cut, nor pour in as much shadow and blood magic. So, I think I can maintain confidence in my stance that there are inherent issues with just taking a soul and repurposing it, as both Sigmar and the aelven gods are doing in their own way. Tyrion and Malerion will propably have their own workaround for these issues on their projects, it will be interesting to see how well they work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue Explorator Posted May 4, 2018 Share Posted May 4, 2018 New story up, this one is about Kharadron: https://malignportents.com/story/wyrmstar/ Spoiler So, a good old zombie apokalypse. I can not say I like having plague zombies in Death. Even though a good effort was made to differentiate this zombie plague from Nurgles gifts, I had hoped GW would keep Death entirely clear of "Chaos territory" in AoS. I feel that sort of constrain would force Death to be developed more into directions Chaos does not offer, making the Undead of AoS more unique. On the other hand, it is the first such case in MP, all together GW has done a pretty good job keeping Death unique from Chaos in AoS. The Kharadron really show of their dark side here. Not unexpected, the BT is pretty clear that they can be ruthless profiteers, but nicely done none the less. Edit: Almost forgot: It is interesting that none of the Kharadron turn in this story. With the Wyrmstars light explicitly the cause of the zombiefication, we can eleminate their survival gear as reason for their protection. In one of the recent "ask Grombrindal" the White Dwarf boasts duradin can not turn Undead. Looks like that is no empty boast, though I would not think it is full immunity to Undeath, just a very high resistance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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