How would you 'fix' Destruction in the lore?

[froo]

I think it would be interesting to see some sort of great waaagh but is actually spurred on by the various shamans of Destruction and the coalescing of all the weird magics end up spawning additional gods so that Destruction has a minor pantheon as well of gods that want to challenge Gorkamorka for supremacy.

 

That way, each army could have additional infighting and create more dimension to the whole faction rather than "everyone follows this guy, the end"

[Yoshiya]

I agree that the actual lore is great and they just need some time to shine and get stuck into the story. Not every faction needs to have some grand world domination scheme.

More characters would be great too. I'd love for the destruction focused story to be focused not on Gordrakk getting a huge Waagh! and running through the lands, but for a Fist of Mork to show up as a rival (be they orruk, grot, ogor or some new race) and gather their own giant Waagh! The ensuing chaos that comes from the two massive Waaghs! fighting for supremacy, both not really caring about the other races but bringing them in to their fights anyway through the sheer scale of them would be a great story.

For example the two forces could meet on a great plain near a Free City and the fighting spills out to the Free City itself which gets overcome with the sheer primal energy that comes from two massive Waagh forces colliding. Wild animals across all the realms would be overcome with fury and engage in great stampedes wiping villages off the face of the realms.

The forces of Order find themselves in a race against time to prevent one of the Fists from being victorious and taking control of both Waaghs and turning their attention to the cities for real. Meanwhile Khorne revels in the fighting, whilst Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh are all concerned that the single minded (and thus difficult to tempt) forces of Destruction will wipe out the mortals they corrupt to give them power in the mortal realms.

Nagash finds the death caused by the Waaghs useful for raising his legions to ever greater numbers but their unpredictable nature makes them hard to control and thus a wild card in whatever great schemes he has planned and thus joins in the fight.

[paul7926]

Lots of ideas here and I can see there is a general split between those wanting Destruction to have more of a grand plan and take part in the main story lines and those that are happy with the idea of being a pure force of nature that nobody can deal with precisely because they don't have a grand plan and can't be bargained with.

For my money I'm happy either way as long as what we get is fleshed out with more story line and characters and we lose the comedy element that got a little too much for my personal taste over the last 20 odd years.  I don't mean that it all has to be ultra serious and dark just dial it back a bit (To be fair they have done that with Ironjawz  so there is hope).

@Yoshiya That sir is something I'd buy to read.

[ledha]

2 hours ago, Luke82 said:

All that’s needed to bring the Destruction faction into a better place is to let them actually Destroy some stuff. There’s nothing wrong with being a perennial foil to the heroes, as long as you’re an actual threat. Let the Stormcast actually take a beating from a waaaagh and bingo, instant narrative credibility.

The orcs, ogres, and goblins should be a terrifying prospect, an enemy that cannot be bargained with or persuaded away, the war for its own sake is their goal. There is no choice but to stand and fight them head on.

Have you read the realmgate wars ? in Godbeast, grots who find the power of waagh and courage in themselves after centuries of fear and opression from chaos just go full rampage and kick out a whole stormhost as well as the chaos guys corrupting their lands

[Ollie Grimwood]

I would add to my earlier comments that they need not to be just Green nasty humans. If 40K they’ve done a good job of making an Alien race and culture. They need  motivations, goals, politics and the like but these need to Orruk, Grot, Ogor, Troggoth ones not evil green humans ones. 

I’m also a big fan of the spore/fungi link rather than them being mammals 

Most importantly they need stories where they are protagonists rather than just being antagonists for everyone else. 

[Luke82]

31 minutes ago, ledha said:

Have you read the realmgate wars ? in Godbeast, grots who find the power of waagh and courage in themselves after centuries of fear and opression from chaos just go full rampage and kick out a whole stormhost as well as the chaos guys corrupting their lands

I have not but I am hoping to pick up the books at some point, sounds awesome.

[JPjr]

Been thinking about this over night and have decided to throw some more $5 words together and quack on for much, much much longer than is ever necessary...

So anyway If we look at this as strictly a 'Lore' issue rather than  actual game mechancis/models then I'm starting to feel like the problem may, in many ways, start just with the name DESTRUCTION for the respective Grand Alliance. We make too much, and limit ourselves, by viewing it in a Manichean way when really it was just a handy name to distinguish them as not 'good' but not CHAOS in newly launched the game system.

If we just take the general interpretation of it as just/solely a catch all for aggressive brutes with no desire to do anything beyond fight and eat (poor asexual sods don't even get to round that out with '******' thanks to this game/our culture's weird prudishness) then that's always going to be inherently limiting.

But just as the lore has expanded to show that DEATH contains myriad different societies and kingdoms, including both the living and the dead, and that the, supposedly 'good', forces of ORDER have many facets and range from murderous puritanical zealots, to murderous blood cults to murderous nice guys, DESTRUCTION could and should be shown to be more than just one dimensional.

Warhammer's always pillaged history, normally in what we'd now call extremely problematic ways, and a lot of the armies that make up the flavour of DESTRUCTION have leaned heavily on a caricatured view of the Mongol Empire and Barbarian hordes.

But rather than just being a horde of bloodthirsty nomad savages the Mongol Empire at it's height was more than twice the size of Europe as a whole, yes it did its fair share of razing cities, taking slaves and curb stomping other empires but under various Khans its people enjoyed religious freedoms unheard of in Europe, progressive taxation systems, leaders who raised up and rewarded common men over the aristocracy, and built beautiful buildings decked out with mechanical wonders from around the world.

Not saying that we should abandon 30 years worth of characterisation, you can still have the orcs, ogres etc that we all know and (some) love, but they keep going on about how each of the realms is vast beyond comprehension, so there has to be room for more advanced cultures under the umbrella of DESTRUCTION, a name which in my fictional scenario is really just racist propaganda by those stuffy Azyrites.

Not saying it would help 'in-game' but I'd still be interested to read some stories about some human adventurers/traders who get lost & have some Marco Polo'esque escapades in a genuinely unlike anything we've seen in Warhammer before more advanced goblinoid empire. Just as like with the Kharadon Overlords it could be a fresh take on an old fantasy stereotype. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Beliman]

18 minutes ago, JPjr said:

Not saying it would help 'in-game' but I'd still be interested to read some stories about some human adventurers/traders who get lost & have some Marco Polo'esque escapades in a genuinely unlike anything we've seen in Warhammer before more advanced goblinoid empire. Just as like with the Kharadon Overlords it could be a fresh take on an old fantasy stereotype. 

Grotbag skuttlers 'ere we go!!!

[JPjr]

4 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Grotbag skuttlers 'ere we go!!!

Edging ever closer to my fever dream of aerial battles between KO and giant inflated Squig Aircraft Carrier/Zeppelins that launch Top Gun style Grot Doom Divers.

[Mincemeat]

24 minutes ago, JPjr said:

Warhammer's always pillaged history, normally in what we'd now call extremely problematic ways, and a lot of the armies that make up the flavour of DESTRUCTION have leaned heavily on a caricatured view of the Mongol Empire and Barbarian hordes.

But rather than just being a horde of bloodthirsty nomad savages the Mongol Empire at it's height was more than twice the size of Europe as a whole, yes it did its fair share of razing cities, taking slaves and curb stomping other empires but under various Khans its people enjoyed religious freedoms unheard of in Europe, progressive taxation systems, leaders who raised up and rewarded common men over the aristocracy, and built beautiful buildings decked out with mechanical wonders from around the world.

This. I'd love to see GW lean into the Mongol /Norse themes in gutbusters and beastclaws. I loved the lore about Greasus Goldtooth turning the Ogre Kingdoms into an actual polity with goals and interaction with other races beyond eating them, would be great to see something similar in the Realms, like a development of the golden horde of the gutlord stuff in GA: Destruction.

Hell, even the progressive taxation stuff could make its way in as a protection racket, which what I've fluffed my gutbusters as running. Farmer pays 9/10ths of his cattle and the ogres keep the chaos armies out, whilst the Ogors get easy meat and a good scrap. 

[SuperHappyTime]

I see Destruction has two problems:

1. Segregation/Ghettoization has split the most interesting parts from generic orcs/goblins/ogres, but have not received the love a few Order factions have (see Sylvaneth, Daughters).

2. Too much overlap with Chaos, and both could be described as murder/raze everything.

These problems don’t seem too hard to fix:

1. Add Firebellies and Maneaters back into Gutbusters and give them an identity. Recombine generic Orcs with bonesplitterz, keep Ironjawz separate, but give them a different flavor. Keep the grots split, but design a unique identity to Gitmob compared to the other two.

2. For Chaos, they need to be building strongholds for the foreseeable future war effort. For Destruction, elaborate on how they are a part of the “natural order”, a cycle of building, destruction, and rebuilding that helps keep the realm of Chaos from taking over.

[Moonlightwolf]

There really are not any problems with the current destruction lore. The different manifestations of their culture and worship of gorkamorka are all laid out to some extent in grand alliance destruction (apart from fimir) and all except the generic orruks and gitmob grots feel like they have a faction core that could be easily fleshed out. The idea that they are one dimensional is kind of misleading. Yes some destruction factions love to fight and eat but then you have grot factions which are more about survival or zealotry, Gutbusters have a symbiotic relationship between big ogors and small grots. Spiderfangs think that giant spiders are gods Even a 1 model faction like firebellies is given enough to inspire an entire army built around the suneater cult. It just takes time destruction will have its day just as the ghosts are having now.

[The Hermit King]

I like the idea of them being an antagonist faction. There should be an inevitability that they will always fail, but that it never really matters, because there'll always be next time, like a cartoon villain. I feel like crazy, unrealistic plans could be given to characters and although they are invariably thwarted by a plucky hero/incompetent villain, this would be fun, give them a sense of purpose, but also not make them into a superpower, after all, should a warlord ever manage to rise to the top, they'll always be a cunnin' right hand man willing to stab him in the back...

[kenshin620]

2 hours ago, SuperHappyTime said:

1. Add Firebellies and Maneaters back into Gutbusters and give them an identity. Recombine generic Orcs with bonesplitterz, keep Ironjawz separate, but give them a different flavor. Keep the grots split, but design a unique identity to Gitmob compared to the other two.

I think the opposite for Bonesplitterz and Ironjawz for the greenskin thing. Seeing that Ironjawz are the evolution of Black Orcs, it seems more likely they would beat up lesser orruks to make them follow them. Bonesplitterz meanwhile are the "odd boyz" that are too primitive for the typical orruk (outside of a few charismatic bosses/shamans).

 

For Gitmobs, would be nice if they went full Hobgoblin Steppe Horde, especially since ogors lost that identity.

 

I think one interesting thing about fluff is that it is pretty subjective about whats boring and whats exciting (usually there are exceptions, BoC I'm looking at you!)

For example despite having THE MOST fluff and THE MOST Characters, some people probably complain Stormcast Lore is "boring".

[Hankster]

18 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

I think back to Grom the Paunch and Gorbad Ironclaw and Grimgor Ironhide.  Those guys cut meaningful swaths across the Old World.

Heck yeah! Grom the Paunch and his narrative line was one of GW's very best. 

I really don't think Destruction is really in need of any major changes. 

I mean come on, Destruction already has some of very best lore and stories already. That story about gangs of Orruks defacing Archaon's fancy statues and realm gates was by far the best of the short pieces. The only issue is that right now stories about Destruction are quite short an lacking identifiable characters. To fix that all Destruction needs is a few more named characters beside Gordrakk cutting swaths of destruction(he he!) across the realms. They could easily build out the warbosses introduced in Malign Portents, give them backstories, and then follow their WAAAGH!s across the realm of death or wherever they go. Once that's set up its easy to have them meet up with Gordrakk to form the mightiest of WAAAGH!s. Then you follow this band of misfit warbosses on their marry destructive way.   ...just think of all the fancy Chaos statues they could deface.  

 

[JPjr]

OK... curveball, scrub the serious answers and let's lean into the ridiculousness.

What if a new realm spanning waaaaaaaaagh was started not by some Ogor or Oruk Megaboss but instead by three Goblins sat on each other's shoulders whilst wearing a long trench coat?

[Ollie Grimwood]

2 hours ago, SuperHappyTime said:

 

1. Add Firebellies and Maneaters back into Gutbusters and give them an identity. Recombine generic Orcs with bonesplitterz, keep Ironjawz separate, but give them a different flavor. Keep the grots split, but design a unique identity to Gitmob compared to the other two.

 

I don’t think issue is narrative it’s lack of models, both Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz fit really well they just need a wave 2 to pep them up.  I don’t see Greenskinz fitting very well with Bonesplitterz any more either narratively or aesthetically seeing as though the models and anatomically different now.  Like Ironjawz they are a separate entity now 

Just recombing stuff just seems to me as an uninventive and restricting.  The Firebellies could be developed into a Fire aligned counterpart to BCR and Maneaters even using the WFB stuff them fit AoS very well. 

We want more not less l they need to developed into full factions. 

I agree on the Grots I was thing the Moonclan could be the ones who tend the fungus fields of newly growing Greenskinz and Squigs ensuring the propagation of the species. They could have it that the other types of Greenskin  forget this as they go for a bit of narrative spice.  Might be a bit close to 40K for them though 

[paul7926]

28 minutes ago, JPjr said:

OK... curveball, scrub the serious answers and let's lean into the ridiculousness.

What if a new realm spanning waaaaaaaaagh was started not by some Ogor or Oruk Megaboss but instead by three Goblins sat on each other's shoulders whilst wearing a long trench coat?

I'm assuming they would be Mo, Curly and Larry (probably way too old a reference for a vast majority of the forum)

[kenshin620]

45 minutes ago, JPjr said:

OK... curveball, scrub the serious answers and let's lean into the ridiculousness.

What if a new realm spanning waaaaaaaaagh was started not by some Ogor or Oruk Megaboss but instead by three Goblins sat on each other's shoulders whilst wearing a long trench coat?

Are you sure it's not a mutated turtle underneath that Trench Coat? ?

 

35 minutes ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

The Firebellies could be developed into a Fire aligned counterpart to BCR

While it'll likely end up as "accurate" as Disney's take, I'd love Polynesian faction Firebellies! AoS has far less excuses to stick with generic medieval fantasy compared to WFB (which had the "everything happens in the Old World" problem so Cathay, Ind, and Nippon had no good reason to ever migrate there)

[SuperHappyTime]

32 minutes ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

I don’t think issue is narrative it’s lack of models, both Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz fit really well they just need a wave 2 to pep them up.  I don’t see Greenskinz fitting very well with Bonesplitterz any more either narratively or aesthetically seeing as though the models and anatomically different now.  Like Ironjawz they are a separate entity now 

Just recombing stuff just seems to me as an uninventive and restricting.  The Firebellies could be developed into a Fire aligned counterpart to BCR and Maneaters even using the WFB stuff them fit AoS very well. 

We want more not less l they need to developed into full factions. 

I agree on the Grots I was thing the Moonclan could be the ones who tend the fungus fields of newly growing Greenskinz and Squigs ensuring the propagation of the species. They could have it that the other types of Greenskin  forget this as they go for a bit of narrative spice.  Might be a bit close to 40K for them though 

Ollie, are you fearful that if we combine factions that they can’t be split off again later down the road?

The way I see it now, AoS has multiple armies that can’t compete for time with others because they are too small, not as fluffed out, not competitive, and won’t be any of those until they receive the book focus that the others have received.

Warmahordes has done a great job of taking their 9+ factions and developing multiple (3-5) different themes for each. There’s no reason they can’t make a Thunderscorn faction next year, or a full Firebellies faction at a later date if it is recombined with Gutbusters to make both armies more likely to be played short term. Those army themes still exist.

[Ollie Grimwood]

3 minutes ago, SuperHappyTime said:

Ollie, are you fearful that if we combine factions that they can’t be split off again later down the road?

The way I see it now, AoS has multiple armies that can’t compete for time with others because they are too small, not as fluffed out, not competitive, and won’t be any of those until they receive the book focus that the others have received.

Warmahordes has done a great job of taking their 9+ factions and developing multiple (3-5) different themes for each. There’s no reason they can’t make a Thunderscorn faction next year, or a full Firebellies faction at a later date if it is recombined with Gutbusters to make both armies more likely to be played short term. Those army themes still exist.

I am a little. 

I’m hoping that those splits have been made because they already have stuff in mind.  They seem to lack logic otherwise.   The Order ones make sense but many of the Destruction ones don’t unless they are harbingers of things to come. 

[kenshin620]

14 minutes ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

I’m hoping that those splits have been made because they already have stuff in mind.  They seem to lack logic otherwise.  

It's likely the latter, with a few I think they really wanted to Squat or at the very least quarantine (back in the old management)

COUGH Lion Rangers COUGH

 

 

[Avatar Rage]

Needs more WAAAGH.

Honestly though I just think they need a big old campaign like Death have just had. I am confident that the writers would do something exciting.

[Hankster]

Did you guys see the Destruction tease at Blood and Glory?

[Arkanaut Admiral]

I did.  It seems like Destruction is finally going to get some love!