Old-NewHammer?

[Lior'Lec]

     Has anyone tried reconciling the settings for OldHammer and AoS? Or found a nice attempt at it online? I’m not thinking about the 9th Age here but rather a joining of these two very differently flavored settings with both “realities” existing side by side. Note: all of the following is just some quick brainstorming done as I write. This is nowhere near complete or even intended to be, it’s just ideas and questions (and sorry if this turns into some long winded ramble... it probably will). As to why... well Old Warhammer always had a grimmer, grittier feel to me and I loved the setting. Age of Sigmar is much more “epic fantasy” in my mind and I wanted to find a way to bring the two together without destroying either. I don’t know if it is really feasible but...

     I see two ways to do this: first the Old World isn’t actually destroyed during the End Times, and second the Old World is recreated by the raw power of the realms intermixing and formed from the memories of the new gods. In either example there would need to be some modifications to the history and/or fluff of some factions and the settings themselves. Races completely destroyed and/or decimated by the End Times could be transplanted to the mortal realms as they were in AoS, while others remain in the physical world instead. There are no Disposed or Free Guild in the mortal realms, they exist in the physical world. The Sylvaneth aren’t a part of the wood elf/wanderer faction because they’ve lost that connection to magic which allowed them to hold onto the physical world. 

1)     What if the world wasn’t destroyed during the End Times and instead the Mortal Realms were born? As the rifts are finally closed there is a cataclysmic explosion. Chaos thinks they have won, the world that was is gone. The mortal races believe they’ve won, but at a great cost: their world is greatly changed (nearly destroyed?) by the closing of the rifts, Magic no longer functions (or not like it used to?) and their gods voices are little more than a whisper of what they once were (if they answer at all?)

     The Avatars/New gods of AoS awaken to find themselves in the eight realms. Their old world is gone.  The age of myth continues more or less as written, but (most) factions formed of legacy armies do not exist (dispossessed, Swift hawks, wanderers, scourge privateers,  free guild, green skins, gitmob, etc). During this age of Myth the old world is slowly recovering and suffers something of a dark ages period. 

     The old world isn’t the same as it once was, portions of the mortal realms touch upon their reality making small areas of the world hostile hellscapes which ironically have the greatest connection to the gods (the edges of the mortal realms, where magic exists in its most raw form, bridge the gaps between realities). 

     Eventually, the old world is discovered by the AoS pantheon, but even though they have discovered their old home the gods themselves cannot enter it (similar to how the chaos gods cannot enter reality themselves) and mortals cannot enter the eight realms. The dark ages end and the world that was slowly comes back to something akin to what it once was. 

     The age of chaos comes. Pretty much as written the Ruinous Powers learn of the eight realms and begin their assault on this new reality. The nearly unrecognizable old world isn’t realized for what it is, it is simply another new realm to conquer (although it is a much smaller realm, only a fraction of the size of any of the other realms). Chaos cannot enter the old world directly, but rather must pass through one of the mortal realms first (they serve as an intermediary barrier between the physical world and the realm of chaos). Chaos incursions do occur but the war is mostly contained to the eight realms. Slaves to Darkness (and Dark Oath when/if released?) plague the Old World while the Everchosen, god-specific factions and Daemons flood the mortal realms. 

     Sigmar locks himself in the celestial realm. The war is lost, and while the realms fall to chaos the physical world suffers more and more incursions but hasn’t fallen yet. The old world becomes a grim dark place where war is nearly constant but until all of the mortal realms fall to chaos it still holds out. Daemons (once considered nothing but a superstitious myth of a bygone age) begin to assault them but cannot stay long. Sigmar takes most of his “recruits” from the humans of the physical world as they fight their own wars. The gods still hear the cries of their followers but are preoccupied by the wars within their own realms. 

2)     Mostly what’s written above remains, however the world that was actually was destroyed. A new ninth/tenth/eleventh realms is formed where the power of the eight realms intersect. This realm is formed of the memories of the gods, just as the seraphon are formed from the memories of the slann. 

     Each of the eight gods should have a realm they cannot enter using this method, similar to how the lords of shadow and light cannot enter their opposite’s realm. This helps keep the gods themselves from entering this physical realm while also allowing them to interact with it. This realm is physical while the “mortal realms” of AoS are spiritual. Chaos daemons have an even harder time manifesting here than other realms (necessary to explain why such a small world hasn’t been completely conquered already).

     As for opposing realms I’m not certain which realms could/should pair up. Light/Shadow, Life/Death, Celestial/Metal, Beasts/Fire? Maybe: Metal/Life, Beasts/Death, Celestial/Fire. The idea comes partly from the stories about Slaaneesh’s imprisonment and partly from a fan supplement for Advanced HeroQuest which took a different look at the winds of magic.

      In that supplement they broke the winds into two groups of four with a “light” and “dark” aspect of each of the four classical European elements of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. The lore of “high magic” was the four “light elements” combined while the lore of “dark magic” was the combination of the four “dark elements”. Chaos magic was the embodiment of all eight winds. I’ll try to look the supplement up later and refresh myself on their take. 

     Anyway... sorry I think this may have gotten rather long winded but I won’t try to edit/shorten it. Does anyone else have some ideas, input, or references to add? I’d love to hear other players views on the possibility of merging these two realities. 

[EccentricCircle]

Interesting idea and one which I've toyed with a bit myself.

It is entirely plausible that if the Old World somehow survived the End times then it could have been cut off from the newly formed mortal realms. There doesn't need to even be any metaphysical barrier. Spellcasters on the Old World simply don't realise that there are whole other realities within the Winds of Magic, and beings in the Mortal Realms don't know that the Old World still turns. The only path between them is through the Realm of Chaos, and very few venture there and return.

To borrow Planescape terminology, you could say that the Old World is the Prime Material Plane. It is a physical world which exists as it always did (potentially changed somewhat by the events of the End Times). Each Wind of Magic flows into the world through the Realm of Chaos, forming transitive planes which lead to an Outer Plane which embodies the Lore of Magic that wind represents.

The Aetheric Void and Realm of Chaos then exist as transitive Planes which Connect the Eight Mortal Realms, and various Demiplanes such as the Hidden Gloaming, the All Points and others. The Aetheric Void is Coterminous with all of the Mortal Realms, and thus allows Realmgate Travel from one to another. However it isn't Coterminous with the Old World. Only the Realm of Chaos is, being Coexistant with everything in all realities (Old World, Mortal Realms, 40K, and any other Parallel universe GW cares to invent).

Apologies to anyone who doesn't speak fluent Planescape, but it is the most comprehensive system for describing Planar Cosmologies for a reason!

[VBS]

Yes! I thought about this (and other possibilities) a few times. It can actually go into any direction and get quite wacky, as there seems to be a lot of ways of adapting it.

I think it would be easy to make a post-ET Old World that hasn't been destroyed yet integrates all the newer stuff from AoS: After the rift collapses, the wild winds of magic basically make the Old World a "mini-Mortal Realms" with different regions adopting plane features according to which wind settles in place. Or KO being the remnants of Dwarves exiled from their mountains, ID being a product of Ulthuan sinking, SCE are constructs by Sigmar/Gelt to rebuild the Empire (I think this was the initial intention), etc, etc, etc.... 

But on a different note, I really like your idea at 1) ! One of the alternatives I was thinking is similar:

• The rift collapses, sucks in everyone in a few miles around Middeheim and you get all the Mortal Realms created, new Gods, Age of  Myth/Chaos/Sigmar, etc.... As expected. Buuut, the Old World remains behind. It's just a barren depressing place after everything got utterly raised to the ground during the ET. All Gods, Incarnates and Heroes are no longer, translated to the Mortal Realms by the rift. The saturation and concentration of magic along the rift collapse as sucked out all forms of magic except for a few residual bits that float around the barren Old World lands... Wizard are scarce, and revered due to their rare and now might power. The sheer destruction of the ET leaves no place to might kingdoms and armies, but rather small groups wandering aimlessly.

 

• So the Old World devolves into some Dark Ages where there is barely magic, no gods, no heroes and civilization is pretty much destroyed/decadent. Where the agents of Chaos roam freely (don't they always?) and the remnants of the other races that were left behind (not translated to Mortal Realms by the rift) desperatly struggle to survive and re-build their ancient glory. GRIM-*******-DARK!!!! A tabula rasa for the Old World (but more Grim Dark of course!). 

 

• I like the idea of the new Gods slowly trying to contact the world back but can't quite get there (no portals/magic or whatever) and that Chaos also has some sort of limitation. It gives a desperate and nihilistic vibe to the whole thing: God-like beings knowing that their former home is somewhere out there in the great empty Void, yet not being able to return or help one bit, feeling hollow and powerless despite being freaking Gods, ever reduced to simple witnesses of a condemned world clinging desperately to existence... If that ain't GRIM DARK, I don't know what is!!!!

This way, you have a single universe with two different visions coexisting (the regular Mortal Realms + the über-grim Old World), offering great possibilities. I would love to see (or probably should make?) a map of the Old World post-ET with all the continents wrecked and landscapes changed as described in the books. 

Enough ramble, but I'd buy into this idea in a heartbeat 

 

3 hours ago, EccentricCircle said:

It is entirely plausible that if the Old World somehow survived the End times then it could have been cut off from the newly formed mortal realms. There doesn't need to even be any metaphysical barrier. Spellcasters on the Old World simply don't realise that there are whole other realities within the Winds of Magic, and beings in the Mortal Realms don't know that the Old World still turns. The only path between them is through the Realm of Chaos, and very few venture there and return.

This is very interesting. This reminded me of something I think I read in GiantSlayer about 15 years (?) ago. I lost my copy since, but I'm quite certain (flawed memory or simple mental inventions haha) there is a passage in the book where Felix is talking to Teclis (or a Daemon?) where the later mentions the existence of "countless world beyond the veil ready to be consumed by Chaos" or something along the lines when in Albion. Sort of like the Bubbles-theory when AoS was still not out. Parallel worlds (like the Mortal Realms), oblivious to Old World inhabitants except for those that roam freely in the Realms of Chaos (daemons). 

Maybe I'm making all this up  , but I'm sure I've read it somewhere!

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by VBS
Extra-quote

[Greyshadow]

Yes, I am planning a short piece of prose about Bretonnian Knights who were fighting a battle at the moment when the world gate collapsed and how they were protected by a Damsel and emerged, unbeknownst to them, around a thousand years later in Ghur. 

My reading of the lore leads me to believe that events like this were not only possible but likely.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Greyshadow

[Lior'Lec]

     @VBS I really like some of your ideas, but think the best way to do a merger of this magnitude would be making as few changes as possible (essentially just enough to avoid “plot holes” and answer “why?”’s). So while the sinking of Ulthuan idea is awesome (seriously my executioners drowned and now they must feed on your soul to survive!) I’d keep the KO and ID firmly in the mortal realms of AoS. Keeping the tone and feeling of each setting the same would be important. I’ve always had a soft spot for AHQ, and in that game a simple +1 WS sword was a massive treasure unlike its successor WHQ so the thinning of magic really resonates with my own mental image of the aftermath of the End Times. 

     I doubt I would do it, but I’m so tempted to go back through years of lore and black library books to start something like this. I know if I did it the empire would definitely be history. It’s only something remembered and romanticized about in stories. No one today would actually believe the empire ever existed (and in their mythologies each race claims it was their people who ruled the empire and saved the world). Humans have their own kingdoms now, as do the Elves and Dwarfs but the nations of old are long forgotten. AoS armies stick to the mortal realms and require magic (summoning) to enter the physical world while mostly the WFB/compendium armies would live in the physical world. 

[novakai]

as I recalled correctly during the Age of Myth, Sigmar drifted in the mortal realm with the actual core of the old world with him, fast forward now he has that core floating in Azyr. 

 

Edited May 4, 2019 by novakai

[Whitefang]

Seems it's the time to make a list of old elements from old world which successfully survive into mortal realms.

[Greyshadow]

An interesting idea @Whitefang. I think it all lives on to some extent whether that be in rare texts, cultural memory or in the minds of the Gods. Even Bretonnia and Khemri survive in the lore as the Knights of the Breton and Chrimson Monarchy.

[Greyshadow]

Not sure the idea of the OP is a good one. I loved the Old World with great passion but Age of Sigmar is where it is at. If you miss the dark and grit, it is all there and then some in AoS.

[JPjr]

Sadly one doesn’t seem to exist and I’m not near my laptop to create it myself, so just for a second let’s all imagine a picture of the Ice Queen of Kislev singing ‘Let It Go’...

Edited May 4, 2019 by JPjr

[EccentricCircle]

27 minutes ago, JPjr said:

Sadly one doesn’t seem to exist and I’m not near my laptop to create it myself, so just for a second let’s just imagine a picture of the Ice Queen of Kislev singing ‘Let It Go’...

I've always thought that the Dark Oath Warqueen needs a Khornate version actually.

[Nacnudllah]

Here's an idea for you:

A group of World-that-was Empire refugees who awakened in the mortal realms formed a new religion where they believed that the mortal realms were but a test of their faith.  They believed that when they died in these new realms, they would be returned to their lives before.  Their belief was so strong that the raw stuff of Shyish formed a region into a dark reflection of the World-that-was.

[Lucio]

26 minutes ago, Nacnudllah said:

Here's an idea for you:

A group of World-that-was Empire refugees who awakened in the mortal realms formed a new religion where they believed that the mortal realms were but a test of their faith.  They believed that when they died in these new realms, they would be returned to their lives before.  Their belief was so strong that the raw stuff of Shyish formed a region into a dark reflection of the World-that-was.

See this is where my mind went too. Your favourite elements of the World that Was appear in Shyish, the inhabitants unaware that their world ended.

 

In fact, take it a step further, the souls there because they won't accept they're dead, so they move through their motions of thier lives, tortured by half remembered dreams of their demise until they face up to what happened and can move on.

[Oath Stoned]

You might like this. 

The way i see it GW get to use Old World lore as canon whenever they want. I took it a little further and also merge the Total Warhammer lore. I have about 6000pts into this project.