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Favourite AoS/ Warmmer Lore Tidbits.


Avatar Rage

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So there a lot of lore tidbits in Warhammer's history, little nuggets of lore fluff that don't really have an impact anything major but are still cool. I have got thinking about some of my favourites and thought I should share them. But most importantly I am wondering if there are any lore nuggets that come to mind that you would like to share.

So let's get the ball rolling with some Chaos lore from one of the old Warriors of Chaos army books.

When Slaanesh rose to power among the dark gods he gifted the other greater chaos gods with a crown. These crowns were crafted and designed by Slaanesh, true items of beauty so perfect that it was impossible not to accept them. Nurgle and Tzeentch both took their crown and placed it on display in their realm, so they could admire it. Korne on the other hand became furious, the craftsmanship was so exquisite that it is said that the blood god felt something other than rage for a moment, this him angry. He took his world breaking sword and shattered it into trillions of pieces across the realms of chaos.  Immediately he felt a deep sorrow at the destruction of something so perfect and beautiful even he could appreciate it. So he sent his demons out to gather the pieces, once collected he reforged the crown himself. Once complete Khorne would have a moment of pride as he holds the finished crown. Then realising he created an item of beauty, not made for war, one he, himself had destroy the blood god was once again filled with rage. Once again he shattered crown to pieces and for another moment he felt regret again at its destruction. Eternally Khorne rebuilds and destroys this crown, his hatred to Slaanesh building with each cycle. 

This little tale is my favourite interaction between Khorne and Slaanesh, which in turn reminds me of something else from one for these old army books concerning the two gods. In a section describing the behaviour of Khorne's followers it describes some of them as individuals who seek a quick combat, holding back their rage as much as possible. These Khornate followers attempt to end a fight in one swift blow to the head. This was not just to collect the skull but to starve Slaanesh of potential power. These Champions of Khorne deny themselves their own bloodlust as this might cause them please, then end the fight quickly to prevent their opponent from feeling pain. Both pleasure and pain feed Slaanesh and Khorne hates that. Not every champion of the blood god would do this but it certainly was interesting to  think about.

Which makes the Bloodbound in AoS so interesting. With Slaanesh taking a reluctant step back from the mortal realms this has allowed servants of Khorne to embrace their bloodlust and enjoy battle freely.  The Bloodbound show a level of revelry on the battlefield that seems to suggest that with Slaanesh out of the way, Knornate worshipers are free to give in to their patrons bloodlust.

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That's cool, I like the little snippet about the Crimson Monarchy and the Sons of the Breton. I like the fact that the history of Nehekhara and Bretonnia live on in some small way. It's a nice way of saying that although models and armies may fall off sale every now and again, they still are still out there in the dark corners of the lore.

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The It was only ever just a little bit of fluff but I always really liked that in the WtW the worship of an aspect of Tzeentch was, at the least, tolerated within the Cathay Empire.

one of the vaguely interesting things about chaos in Warhammer is how there is a path to each chaos god through good intentions, martial valour, the quest for perfection, stoicism and hope for change.

Chaos is normally seen as this one way street that once you start heading down it inexorably leads to damnation, daemonhood or being turned into a writhing mass of jellied tentacles. But what if there was a way to control, avert or just slow that descent.

would a society that had some kind of barely disguised Confucion philosophy underpinning it have a better chance of dabbling in, or tapping into, the positive aspects of the dark powers without falling into ruination than a bunch of mediaeval German peasants covered in their own dung.

of course the risk is you end up with a load of Grey Jedi style fan nonsense but still it’s a fun thread to pick at.

a story I’ve been toying with, set in the AoS, is about a group of Azyrite explorers who stumble through a newly discovered realm gate and find a shining city and its society that survived the Age of Chaos intact.

it soon becomes apparent that the city freely worship all the Chaos gods but in their least ‘tear-your-head-off-turn-it-into-jelly-and-eat-it’ aspects. Sure every once in a while they have to offer up a sacrifice or two but it’s all pretty chill and nothing compared to what happens in the belly of a Scourge Black Ark that flies under the banner of Sigmar’s armies.

the question then becomes is it all a facade, another ploy by Tzeentch, are they dangerous, not just militarily but philosophically, if word got out that there might be a way to appease the big 4 without going full Kurgan what could that mean for the wider world and for Sigmar’s rule, would the SCE go in and kill them all even if they weren’t a threat etc etc.

Sorry going off on a tangent here but you can see why that particular throwaway line of fluff has always intrigued me.

 

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49 minutes ago, JPjr said:

The It was only ever just a little bit of fluff but I always really liked that in the WtW the worship of an aspect of Tzeentch was, at the least, tolerated within the Cathay Empire.

one of the vaguely interesting things about chaos in Warhammer is how there is a path to each chaos god through good intentions, martial valour, the quest for perfection, stoicism and hope for change.

Chaos is normally seen as this one way street that once you start heading down it inexorably leads to damnation, daemonhood or being turned into a writhing mass of jellied tentacles. But what if there was a way to control, avert or just slow that descent.

would a society that had some kind of barely disguised Confucion philosophy underpinning it have a better chance of dabbling in, or tapping into, the positive aspects of the dark powers without falling into ruination than a bunch of mediaeval German peasants covered in their own dung.

of course the risk is you end up with a load of Grey Jedi style fan nonsense but still it’s a fun thread to pick at.

a story I’ve been toying with, set in the AoS, is about a group of Azyrite explorers who stumble through a newly discovered realm gate and find a shining city and its society that survived the Age of Chaos intact.

it soon becomes apparent that the city freely worship all the Chaos gods but in their least ‘tear-your-head-off-turn-it-into-jelly-and-eat-it’ aspects. Sure every once in a while they have to offer up a sacrifice or two but it’s all pretty chill and nothing compared to what happens in the belly of a Scourge Black Ark that flies under the banner of Sigmar’s armies.

the question then becomes is it all a facade, another ploy by Tzeentch, are they dangerous, not just militarily but philosophically, if word got out that there might be a way to appease the big 4 without going full Kurgan what could that mean for the wider world and for Sigmar’s rule, would the SCE go in and kill them all even if they weren’t a threat etc etc.

Sorry going off on a tangent here but you can see why that particular throwaway line of fluff has always intrigued me.

 

That's really interesting. It reminds me of another old bit of lore where it was stated that there was infinite Chaos gods. The question then would lie into whether these were individual gods in their own right attempting to rise to power (like the Horned Rat did in AoS) or merely less aspects or demons of the big four.  Maybe tapping into these lesser aspects would not bring complete ruin or maybe it's the path of slow destruction.

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Over the past few months I’ve started reading some of the new AoS fiction before that the last Warhammer novels I read were pre-Black Library ones like Drachenfels, Plague Demon etc etc so not sure what they were like in the intervening 30 years but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at some of the characterisation.

There’s a lot more shades of grey than I was expecting, Scourge Privateers fight for Sigmar’s cities but are just awful, torturing slavers, likewise any DoK who feature are psychos, Kharadron range from the brutally mercantile to absolute murderous scumbags, Sylvaneth are crazed death dealing trees and Stormcast go from paladins of virtue to surly murder monks to barely constrained executioners.

Meanwhile we have Nurgle knights who are shown to be strict believers in honour and a form of chivalry, darkoath tribes that care for each other, and liches that plot to cause wars to try and bring peace between the living and the dead.

not saying it’s Tolstoy but the way they’re handling the idea of ‘good’ & ‘evil’ in a universe where chaos exists is probably a lot more interesting than they get credit for.

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3 hours ago, JPjr said:

Over the past few months I’ve started reading some of the new AoS fiction before that the last Warhammer novels I read were pre-Black Library ones like Drachenfels, Plague Demon etc etc so not sure what they were like in the intervening 30 years but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at some of the characterisation.

There’s a lot more shades of grey than I was expecting, Scourge Privateers fight for Sigmar’s cities but are just awful, torturing slavers, likewise any DoK who feature are psychos, Kharadron range from the brutally mercantile to absolute murderous scumbags, Sylvaneth are crazed death dealing trees and Stormcast go from paladins of virtue to surly murder monks to barely constrained executioners.

Meanwhile we have Nurgle knights who are shown to be strict believers in honour and a form of chivalry, darkoath tribes that care for each other, and liches that plot to cause wars to try and bring peace between the living and the dead.

not saying it’s Tolstoy but the way they’re handling the idea of ‘good’ & ‘evil’ in a universe where chaos exists is probably a lot more interesting than they get credit for.

The increased characterisation of Chaos characters has been a big win for AoS over the waning years of WFB with the Order of the Fly and the champions  from the Call of Archaon being notably good.     Plenty of shades of grey as you say with a move away from cardboard cut out villians to much more interesting characters. The snippets we’ve had for Destruction characters has shown fuller characters as well. 

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it definitely lends itself to some more interesting stories in the future if the writers want to go down that path.

Like, at what point does being against chaos excuse your sins? How much do other factions know what groups like the DoK or Scourge do in their private sanctums, and more importantly do they care?

It brings to mind one of Churchill's quotes... "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons"

Is Archaon/Chaos so bad that anything is permissible in the fight against them and in that case what are you fighting for if you're replacing it with something that's as bad just with fewer tentacles.

 

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I would say that yes, most of "lawful evil" factions want the Mortal Realms to exist, where Archaon want to destroy this and all other universes to starve Chaos Gods (basically God-Emperor, but without even a shred of good will for living beings), so all (almost all) tricks allowed.

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ah ok, cool, didn't think I'd seen any recent ones.

it's a really tricky one with god & Demi-god tier characters, how much do you use them or reveal details about them without ultimately diminishing them, the Sauron dilemma if you will.

Like I really enjoyed Mr Reynold's Plague Garden book and there were some great ideas and descriptions of Nurgle's realm in it but by the end a little part of me felt like the realm of chaos had become just that little bit tamer for it.

As I say tricky one to get right.

 

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Oh another piece of Chaos lore that intrigues me. There is a sub Chaos realm that is neutral to all the gods and immune to their ever shifting powers. No god has influence here, but it is where they gather and plot their schemes that involve alliances between multiple gods. No god can gain power in this realm.

Side note about the dark gods. I also love the little bit of lore that describes how the domains of the Chaos gods interact with each other and how when a rival God’s power expands it literally causes their domain to encroach on another’s. The expansion grows stronger among the direct rivals, so Khorne vs Slaanesh and Nurgle vs Tzeentch. 

The image of Khorne getting angry because beautiful Slaaneshi forests appear on his skull plains or Tzeentch getting annoyed at Nurgle because his plague garden has grown into his changing turf.

This might be my last Chaos lore nugget for a bit.

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For me it has to be dwarven Karaks, More from AoS then their Fantasy battle counterparts. (Though, admittedly, there really the same thing.)

Well hardly a new idea, its one of the most firm depictions of civilization in the new world. Few of the order armies really have an emphasis on the societies they craft. KO would probably be the closest, with the Baraks and KO code spanning and defining their society. All major cities, save a handful, can draw a direct line back to the now abandoned dwarven supercities. The Dispossosed built Ayzr, the free cities... the KO were dwarves who couldn't escape into Ayzr, so instead departed from the peaks into the skies.

Even though I want Disposessed released sooner rather then later, I'd adore the opportunity to see those old Karaks explored. Both as one being revitalized in an AoS flavor of grandiose, as well as realm spawning, runic labyrinths of destruction and chaos hordes. I dig sub-terrain geology and dungeon delving, and so far we have little of it.

Things grow more unstable as you move to the outer edge of the realms.... what happens if you dig too deep? :D

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Its arguably no longer canon, but I always liked the implication in the Old World, that the Chaos Gods took many guises, and were known by different names to different races. It makes you wonder how many so called gods are really just one of the Big Four in disguise.

The obvious example is Khaine, which was originally just the elvish name for Khorne. They've really backed off from that since the days when Witch Elves had the Mark of Khorne on their shields, but it used to be quite explicit that the Elves weren't immune to the corruption of chaos, and various cults had wormed their way right to the heart of their society.

Then there is Sotek, the god of the skinks, who I don't think is featured much any more. He was explicitly not an Old One, like the other Lizardman Gods. Instead he turned up to help the skinks fight off the Skaven, and gave them power in exchange for bloody sacrifice. The slann weren't too happy about this, but couldn't risk alienating the skinks, as more and more of them converted to Tenehuahin's new religion.

I've seen arguments that various other gods of the Old World were really the chaos gods, or potentially that, pre-End Times, all of them were...

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10 hours ago, Avatar Rage said:

That's really interesting. It reminds me of another old bit of lore where it was stated that there was infinite Chaos gods. The question then would lie into whether these were individual gods in their own right attempting to rise to power (like the Horned Rat did in AoS) or merely less aspects or demons of the big four.  Maybe tapping into these lesser aspects would not bring complete ruin or maybe it's the path of slow destruction.

Yeah! That tidbit made me believe khaine was actually a form of Slaanesh. All that beauty of battle, enjoyment of slaughter and of course the focus on outer beauty.  

Thats why my Slaanesh conversion project contains witch elves as daemonettes. 

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30 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

<cut some stuff>

Then there is Sotek, the god of the skinks, who I don't think is featured much any more. He was explicitly not an Old One, like the other Lizardman Gods. Instead he turned up to help the skinks fight off the Skaven, and gave them power in exchange for bloody sacrifice. The slann weren't too happy about this, but couldn't risk alienating the skinks, as more and more of them converted to Tenehuahin's new religion.

I've seen arguments that various other gods of the Old World were really the chaos gods, or potentially that, pre-End Times, all of them were...

Sotek gets mentioned as a god that's worshiped by some Free Guild soldiers in a recent book (I think it was Black Pyramid, although I also recently read Heart of Winter ... so it might have been in there). I was surprised by the reference, since he's always been a Skink god.

So he's not completely gone.

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Just now, michu said:

I thought during End Times it was revealed that Old Ones were basically Slann from the previous world (it was definitely the case for elven gods).

I don't recall them mentioning the old ones in the end times but they did reveal the current pantheon of gods was from a world that was destroyed by chaos. Asuryan was basically the "sigmar" of the whfb world. So it's largely been a cycle, since in the everchosen battletome after the warhammer world was destroyed Archaon spent his time conquering other realms and worlds via the realm of chaos. 

Now to be somewhat ontopic I like the expansiveness of the AOS setting, where your dudes can come up against almost anything. Plus what makes me grin like a kid is the fact a Slaan could be part of your local government/grand conclave.  

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1 minute ago, shinros said:

Now to be somewhat ontopic I like the expansiveness of the AOS setting, where your dudes can come up against almost anything. Plus what makes me grin like a kid is the fact a Slaan could be part of your local government/grand conclave.  

Now imagine trying to convince almost omniscient toad-mage that he's wrong.

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Time for some Sotek tidbits 

Although not one of the Old Ones that delivered the Slaan to the Old World he was considered to be an Old One. But that was not always the way. Tenehuahin was the one that received Soteks first calling and found a stone tablet prophesying the coming of the Skaven and their plagues, but also the coming of the forgotten Old One, Sotek. The Slann considered this to be heracy and ignored the prophecy, many even forbade the other Lizardmen from interacting with the prophet.

The prophecy foretold that if the ratmen were sacrificed then Sotek will strike them from Lustria. So the Prophet sacrificed the Skaven in their droves. Soon an army grew around him and the spawning pools began spawning red crested Lizardmen, saurus and skinks alike. Soon the Slann took notice and requested to see the tablet. The Slann took the tablet for a brief time (by their standards), they came to the conclusion that it was a tablet left by the Old Ones. 

It was then with the Slann’s blessing that the skink prophet continued his campaign. Eventually the embodiment of Sotek appeared as an enormous serpent creature, accompanied by countless snakes. This avatar struck a killing blow against the Skaven force at the time, driving their invading force out of Lustria. From then on Sotek, god of serpents was revered along side the founding Old Ones.

 

Going over this bit of lore does make me believe that Sotek could be linked to the Dracothion. A being that watched over the Lizardmen in their time of need. A great serpent to guide them. (Note that a lot of official art for the Seraphon have the red mark of Sotek)

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I don't know why but the fact that the Wardroth beetle that Alarielle rides effectively bursts into a thousand fireflies when she wants to is just a really evocative imagine in my mind.

I just imagine this angry god swooping down from above towards her foes, surrounded by a glowing swarm of tiny spites. As she touches the ground, the swarm starts to coalesce around her feet, slowly growing into this huge beetle that loans over those that dare challenge her.

It's not really a huge addition to the lore of anything but I just love the little details like that that add to the overall picture.

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Hi first time posting on TGA. I haven't read much black library (most of my Aos lore comes via 2+ tough on YouTube) so I could have missed something entirely... .. but it seems to me there is a lot of space to expand on how chaos worshipping societies work. In terms of settled chaos societies in the world that was you had norsca, chaos dwarves and skaven (the last two not worshipping the big 4 though). The main beastmen and chaos warriors just seemed to roam around killing stuff cause they are evil etc. 

In Aos there is so much more room. Like how is a khorne worshipping city meant to work? There is a lot of detail about the path of skulls but what about your average guy who isn't really that into it and just goes to Khorne church for Christmas and Easter? Is a khorne city just like  a free guild city but everyone loves going to gladiator arenas or getting into drunk brawls?  Do they have any kind of civilian government? If everything is just a mass slaughter fest 24/7 then what do they eat? 

Going back to the main thread of the topic I guess what I'm saying is I really like the tidbits about normal life in the mortal realms,most of which seems to from an Order perspective. Like the guy from the malign portents story who was just a bitter angry old guardsman or how the stormcast at the start of soul wars loves apples because he associates apples with being in a home he can no longer remember. 

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