Souls Wars by Josh Reynolds

[Urauloth]

17 hours ago, shinros said:

He only developed naunce in times of legend sigmar when he has killed off most of his humanity and emotions. Honestly his origin book series was not all that good the author seemed like he prefered writing other characters. (After the first book he focused more on skaven.)

One common compliant that there are not enough chapters dealing with the actual character and he made some lore mistakes.

I wonder how "canon" the specific details of Nagash's mortal life are now. A significant number of backstories from the old world have been changed, and his origins, beyond the broad outlines, seem quite deliberately vague a lot of the time. He also doesn't really seem to remember being mortal (although as we're already discussing, it's clear that elements of that megalomaniac sorcerer lay heavy on the being we call Nagash now).
 

On 7/11/2018 at 3:28 PM, amysrevenge said:

Yeah but this sort of arguing is easy.

Khorne and Sigmar are the same.  [...]  If you compare just one or two things and ignore the rest.

This is a noteworthy comparison out of universe because they're both reductio ad absurdum extrapolations on aspects of Odin; the king of the gods in his golden hall who takes the souls of warriors to build an immortal army on the one hand, and on the other Hjaldrgegnir and Gapþrosnir - "the one in gaping frenzy", god of berserkers and lord of slaughter.

[Cèsar de Quart]

 

On 7/11/2018 at 3:40 PM, Kaleb Daark said:

Chaos however knows that things can be corrupted because for every noble emotion it has a base opposite. pride, envy, hatred, desire etc.  And this is what the chaos gods latch on to to form the seeds of rot.    Perhaps,  Sigmar in his innocence? naivety?  desire to believe mortals can rise above baser instinct and they will not be corrupted or affected by the same if chaos were not there to sow the seed.

Now, the important thing here is that Sigmar want his devoted to essentially live with their own thoughts, dreams and have their own mind.

 

I always think that the GW team don't develop the corrupting nature of Chaos enough. That there's not a lot of organic stories of how one falls into Chaos. It's always barbarians at the gates, cannibals, degenerates...

The mirror of noble emotions concept is one that I've always liked. Khorne being the subversion of the noble, honourable knight, Slaanesh that of the perfectionist, Tzeentch that of the curious wise man and Nurgle that of the caring healer. Of all those, Nurgle is the one that feels the hardest to be convinced of. Khorne promises strength, Slaanesh promises perfection, Tzeentch, occult wisdom, and Nurgle... disease? He offers a cure, but the cure is more disease, and unless this works like Mr Burns' overbooking of diseases with counter one another from that Simpsons episode, I really don't see the point. He may offer eternal life, but so do the others.

As for Nagash... can't he be corrupted?

[Morovir]

Nurgle offers acceptance of one's own mortality, and joy in the inevitability of death , so there will always be those who will fall to Nurgle. You may want to read some of Reynolds's books that feature the Most Suppurating and Blightsome Order of the Fly, as I think they would help to reconcile the idea of noble emotions with the worship of Nurgle.

[Cèsar de Quart]

4 hours ago, Morovir said:

Nurgle offers acceptance of one's own mortality, and joy in the inevitability of death , so there will always be those who will fall to Nurgle. You may want to read some of Reynolds's books that feature the Most Suppurating and Blightsome Order of the Fly, as I think they would help to reconcile the idea of noble emotions with the worship of Nurgle.

Thanks. That's an interesting notion for sure.

[Shadowcortax]

Hi, sorry if this is long or feels ranty.

I like the lore of aos and whfb, I have all but FEC of the death battletomes. But I'm confused about some things I've read in this thread. 

1. Nagash lore.   As I remember/understand it, when Sigmar freed Nagash and asked him to join up , Nagash reluctantly agreed on the basis of not wanting to owe anybody. And when he "betrayed" Sigmar it was more of, after all the others deserted Nagash found out his palace/city was under attack so he left to go save it. Sigmar felt Nagash had deserted him. So after he lost the battle from being too stubborn to retreat when he should have, he attacked Shyish. He carved a path through anything in his way in his rage, katakros was defeated and imprisoned, Ushoran (who was caged because he had gone insane and delusional from Neferata's curse) was freed, an exhausted (from defending his palace/city from chaos forces) Nagash was beaten down and nearly crippled, the souls of countless heroes (which were used by Nagash to defend the realm and it's people) were stolen/pilfered by Sigmar, then Sigmar departed for Azyr (where he would lock the gates and pout for years before using the stolen hero souls to make stormcast) leaving a swath of destruction in his wake (he smashed everything on his way in, villages, cities, people, everything that he viewed as nagash's that was in reach), as soon as Sigmar had left Archaon showed up and went to "kill" Nagash.       Nagash forged the realmstone chains that keep Slaneesh imprisioned.   The great black pyramid was supposed to act as a homing beacon, pulling all those souls who are "supposed" to be dead, to Shyish. Then the skaven mucked it up.    Tyrion, Teclis, Malerion,  and Morathi all started stealing aelven souls before they could reach Shyish. Not to mention chaos and what they took.   Nagash got fed up with it all and kinda went, "fine be that way, I'll get back what is mine another way".     Nagash is, while not exactly a overly benevolent ruler, he is at least a protective one of those that worship and venerate him.  Nagash doesn't want to kill everything, he just wants to make it so that death is inevitable, after all he views all those who live in Shyish and all the dead as his subjects.

Nighthaunt.     They usually don't indiscriminately attack innocents, they just sweep through a town and take those who should have died or those that linger afterwards too long. They will however attack armed people and those that fight back against them.

Sigmar.   Acts like a child sometimes, with no thought to the consequences. Like when he rampaged through Shyish (leaving a clear and under defended path for Archaon and Chaos), when he had his Stormcast Eternals break through the barrier around the Everqueen's safe haven to "help" (leading Nurgle forces straight to them), or when he brought the core of the world-that-was around with him everywhere (while it unknowingly had Chaos tainting it which led them right to the Mortal Realms).  He and his forces cause damage with no regard for anyone around them or the damage they cause.

Pharus Thaum.     When transformed by Nagash his appearance was very different: His armour bore the heraldry of a long-vanished city-state of Realm of Shyish whilst a stylised hourglass occupied the centre of his chest-plate. Crossed scythes were engraved into the backs of his gauntlets, and heavy chains draped his shoulders and torso like a sash. His helmet was shaped as a skull, surmounted by large curving antlers of bone, the cheek-guards swept back into bat-wing shapes. Thick robes, stained with grave matter, cloaked his limbs and lower body but when his concentration failed both seemed no more substantial than smoke.   

Makes it sound like he still looks vaguelylike a Stormcast Eternal but made from death and spirit.

 

Chaos gods. I thought they represented: 

Khorne - wrath/anger

Tzeech - indecision 

Nurgle - fear of death/dying

Slaneesh - excess/overindulgence

Edited September 23, 2020 by Shadowcortax

[michu]

2 minutes ago, Shadowcortax said:

The great black pyramid was supposed to act as a homing beacon, pulling all those souls who are "supposed" to be dead, to Shyish. Then the skaven mucked it up.

That pyramid was for a ritual that would turn everyone into undead - think Nehekhara but on (multi-)global scale.

[Shadowcortax]

14 minutes ago, michu said:

That pyramid was for a ritual that would turn everyone into undead - think Nehekhara but on (multi-)global scale.

 That's not what I remember reading in the battletome.

[michu]

It was in one of the short stories for Malign Portents. The Great Black Pyramid, I think.

Edit: It was actually both - kill all living things and gather their souls in Nagashizzar.

Edited September 23, 2020 by michu

[Shadowcortax]

14 minutes ago, michu said:

It was in one of the short stories for Malign Portents. The Great Black Pyramid, I think.

Edit: It was actually both - kill all living things and gather their souls in Nagashizzar.

I'll have to check that out. Someone is borrowing my malign portents book.

[EMMachine]

27 minutes ago, Shadowcortax said:

I'll have to check that out. Someone is borrowing my malign portents book.

If you don't mean the give away book from some convention you won't have luck. Those stories shouldn't be part of the campaignboik. The shortstories were published on MalignPortents.com which was shut down weeks ago and is now redirecting to ageofsigmar.com .

Someone read the stories on Youtube so this could be a source as well or if someone still has the epubs.

[Shadowcortax]

5 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

If you don't mean the give away book from some convention you won't have luck. Those stories shouldn't be part of the campaignboik. The shortstories were published on MalignPortents.com which was shut down weeks ago and is now redirecting to ageofsigmar.com .

Someone read the stories on Youtube so this could be a source as well or if someone still has the epubs.

I have the book from the box.

[Sttufe]

I dunno man you seem like a huge Nagash supporter, might history be a bit twisted in his favor for you? 😉

[Shadowcortax]

2 minutes ago, Sttufe said:

I dunno man you seem like a huge Nagash supporter, might history be a bit twisted in his favor for you? 😉

Maybe? I'm just going off what I remember reading, in which Nagash while not necessarily the nicest person, isn't the incarnation of pure evil that a couple people on this thread are hyping him up to be.  

From what people on here are saying he wants everything dead, but in the battletomes he doesn't. He's just super pissed off that people keep stealing souls from him. I mean how would Sigmar feel if Nagash started stealing stars from him? He'd probably throw a hissy fit like the overgrown child he is and smash some things belonging to Nagash. All Nagash did was try to recover what was stolen and install a big ol' vacuum lock.

[Sttufe]

T'was a funny comedic thing my friend, since you were constantly advocating nagash I was making a joke that you were like a nagash thrall...

[Shadowcortax]

9 minutes ago, Sttufe said:

T'was a funny comedic thing my friend, since you were constantly advocating nagash I was making a joke that you were like a nagash thrall...

I got the joke. And decided to make a jab at the god/man-child in the stars that plays with toy soldiers he makes from tin(sigmarite) (he even named the metal after himself) in return😲🤗

Edited September 23, 2020 by Shadowcortax