The Rumour Thread

[sandlemad]

54 minutes ago, Snorri Nelriksson said:

Lovecraftian elements in warhammer are chaos,so non need for other things that will be only a lore problem imho.

I dunno, there's different ways you can take it. When folks say they'd enjoy a more Lovecraftian feel to the idoneth I think they just mean an eerie alien feel, strange things rising from the stygian depths of the ocean on a stormy night. More Dagon than Cthulhu and more of an aesthetic than something actually tied into the cosmic horror/unknowable eldritch beings of Lovecraft's work.

Honestly I feel like you can get about 80% of the way there with the right paintscheme. The 'Eavy Metal studio idoneth have a rather bright and vibrant tropical feel to them which doesn't exactly match that approach though. Something darker and older feeling would help.

[Clan's Cynic]

23 minutes ago, Snorri Nelriksson said:

It depends what "Lovecraftian" means.
If is just the "fishmen" part is possible,even with more "fishy" Namarti Idoenth.
If it is about the "unspeakable horror gods" part that niche are the big 4, and as @edmc78pointed out some things were mentioned by BL books but it's hard to justify when the chaos gods exists, anything that is below them is not unspeakable (more so when just squahed by Sigmar hammer or other pantheon god power).

I'd say Chaos is closer to Clive Barker than Lovecraftian. Chaos has shades of the latter, but it isn't really all that mysterious or 'unknown' to us as readers. Slaanesh is straight up Hellraiser. 

[The Brotherhood of Necros]

Personally, I feel there’s a huge scope for Lovecraftian influences across the Mortal Realms. The metaphysical realm edges, the sheer scale of the realms, and the infinitesimal people — so tiny and insignificant compared to the ancient horrors and unspeakable things that sleep and wake and dream through the Ages — all help to build that sense of the unknown which I associate with Lovecraftian world-building.

Sentient mountains, inside which stir the desiccated remnants of an ancient hive, scuttling horrors glimpsed but never seen.

The incalculable minds of reptilian star-gods, patient, alien and cold. 

Even Kharadron airships, descending from the clouds in a nimbus of steam and rain and wheezing metal, must seem terrifying and wondrous in equal measure to a tribe or people that’s never seen or heard or such technology before. 

I don’t think any of this comes across in the games or army composition but I think the lore and some of the BL stories touch on it in interesting ways.

The beginning of one of the Broken Reams books, where Alarielle and her children join their voices in chorus as the tide of Beastmen washes over them, and the whole forest — the realm — hears them and stirs gave me such goosebumps…

Edited September 18, 2021 by The Brotherhood of Necros

[Higolx]

Yeah, I never really saw the Chaos Gods as lovecraftian horror tbh. One could make a case for Tzeentch but even then I dont think its a strong one. 

I think the Gloomspite Gitz's Bad Moon is much closer to a lovecraftian eldritch god/horror than chaos. They way its described in the battletome (It has a leering visage whose eyes are vast as oceans while fangs are the size of mountain ranges, and whose twisted features shift impossibly with every waxing and waning. It takes on various appearances. Sometimes it is little more than a sliver of sickly yellow light and at others it swells into a bloated monstrosity that swallows up the sky.), the effects it has on non greenskins (When it fills the skies it blocks out light as well as hope and rational thought to drive non-Greenskins mad who mutter nonsense rhymes or even babble weird dead languages. Looncap fungi erupt from their bodies with painful and often fatal results.). It all sounds much closer to a lovecraftian eldritch being, at least for me.

[sandlemad]

I'd second/third the idea the chaos gods aren't really all that Lovecraftian. Big eldritch entities, yes, and GW have occasionally written them in ways that pull from Cthulhu et al. but they're not alien or unknowable in that chilly cosmic way. They're born out the drives/psychology/subconscious of mortals reflected in the warp/realm of chaos, making them something closer to actively malicious nightmares made real. They're quite un-alien and in a sense are intimately knowable because they're born out of us.

They're also rigidly taxonomied because, y'know, gotta make those distinct factions.

For something closer to cold, alien, entities in the vein of Lovecraft's old ones, I think you're better off looking to older portrayals of 40k C'tan. Maybe tyranids or the old ones/slaan if you're picking up some of Lovecraft's other stuff.

[Snorri Nelriksson]

44 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I'd say Chaos is closer to Clive Barker than Lovecraftian. Chaos has shades of the latter, but it isn't really all that mysterious or 'unknown' to us as readers. Slaanesh is straight up Hellraiser. 

Slaanesh is more than hellraiser though(while obviously some references were taken i suppose), for example the whole strife for perfection.
TBH one of the problem is that in the latest times gw abandoned the rawest realm of chaos identities and perhaps even described too much of the warp (without considering the trip that some mortals made in the realm of chaos and then turning back) but warp was always something that would be by definition "unspeakable", with the probability of loosing the mind in an instant(unless Gellar field or divine help).
Morghur makes me hopeful because he makes me think of the outer gods of Lovecraft again(in some way).
The liber chaotica are a direct reference to the whole Necronomicon idea also.
But obviously every person has a "personal idea" about what lovecraftian  means i suppose so i can't say my opinion is right nor wrong.
As @sandlemadsaid one of the problem is the taxonomy made to flesh out the faction(C'tan also varies between being a phyical scifi phenomenon to elder creature without a body that enslaved a whole species so also the way you describe something makes you think different ofc).
 

Edited September 18, 2021 by Snorri Nelriksson

[Maogrim]

Khorne is definitely not Lovecraftian in an 'unfathomable cosmic horrors' sense. He's just blood, anger, axes, blood, anger, bat wings, skulls, blood, anger and heavy metal.

Tzeentch is closer, but his most prominent demons, the lords of change, have a pretty clear-cut and unambigious form for something so closely connected to shapeless and mysterious mutations.

Slaanesh feels close to Barker's Hellraiser, but the Drukhari Haemonculi are even closer, if you ask me. 

[MarkK]

1 hour ago, sandlemad said:

Honestly I feel like you can get about 80% of the way there with the right paintscheme. The 'Eavy Metal studio idoneth have a rather bright and vibrant tropical feel to them which doesn't exactly match that approach though. Something darker and older feeling would help.

I would agree with this, the idoneth would have appealed more to me in a darker colour scheme, dark blues and greens, more north Atlantic than Caribbean if that makes sense. The background is definitely one of the darkest of all the factions.

[Higolx]

3 minutes ago, MarkK said:

I would agree with this, the idoneth would have appealed more to me in a darker colour scheme, dark blues and greens, more north Atlantic than Caribbean if that makes sense. The background is definitely one of the darkest of all the factions.

It always felt that they were missing some (a lot) of nuln oil on those miniatures. Some of the Idoneth stuff is as bright as Lumineth minis. I think if they changed the light blue wash they use for those minis and instead added a darker wash to them it would make the minis a lot better

[Nos]

47 minutes ago, The Brotherhood of Necros said:

Personally, I feel there’s a huge scope for Lovecraftian influences across the Mortal Realms. The metaphysical realm edges, the sheer scale of the realms, and the infinitesimal people — so tiny and insignificant compared to the ancient horrors and unspeakable things that sleep and wake and dream through the Ages — all help to build that sense of the unknown which I associate with Lovecraftian world-building.

Sentient mountains, inside which stir the desiccated remnants of an ancient hive, scuttling horrors glimpsed but never seen.

The incalculable minds of reptilian star-gods, patient, alien and cold. 

Even Kharadron airships, descending from the clouds in a nimbus of steam and rain and wheezing metal, must seem terrifying and wondrous in equal measure to a tribe or people that’s never seen or heard or such technology before. 

I don’t think any of this comes across in the games or army composition but I think the lore and some of the BL stories touch on it in interesting ways.

The beginning of one of the Broken Reams books, where Alarielle and her children join their voices in chorus as the tide of Beastmen washes over them, and the whole forest — the realm — hears them and stirs gave me such goosebumps…

Dark Harvest the novel is Shadows over Innsmouth but Kurnoth instead of Cthulu

[Slaktor]

41 minutes ago, Higolx said:

Yeah, I never really saw the Chaos Gods as lovecraftian horror tbh. One could make a case for Tzeentch but even then I dont think its a strong one. 

I think the Gloomspite Gitz's Bad Moon is much closer to a lovecraftian eldritch god/horror than chaos. They way its described in the battletome (It has a leering visage whose eyes are vast as oceans while fangs are the size of mountain ranges, and whose twisted features shift impossibly with every waxing and waning. It takes on various appearances. Sometimes it is little more than a sliver of sickly yellow light and at others it swells into a bloated monstrosity that swallows up the sky.), the effects it has on non greenskins (When it fills the skies it blocks out light as well as hope and rational thought to drive non-Greenskins mad who mutter nonsense rhymes or even babble weird dead languages. Looncap fungi erupt from their bodies with painful and often fatal results.). It all sounds much closer to a lovecraftian eldritch being, at least for me.

I concur. The novel Gloomspite by Andy Clarke is at times a truly unsettling tale and the gitz and their moon are both horrible and alien in equal measure. The fungus popping up not just on whatever surface the moonlight shines on but also on people’s skin is a creepy effect of that celestial body to say the least. 

[Slaktor]

Just now, Nos said:

Dark Harvest the novel is Shadows over Innsmouth but Kurnoth instead of Cthulu

Also true. Great book by the way. 

[Nos]

6 minutes ago, Slaktor said:

Also true. Great book by the way. 

Yep, works for exactly the reasons you state

 

[Twisted Firaun]

1 hour ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I'd say Chaos is closer to Clive Barker than Lovecraftian. Chaos has shades of the latter, but it isn't really all that mysterious or 'unknown' to us as readers. Slaanesh is straight up Hellraiser. 

 

50 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

I'd second/third the idea the chaos gods aren't really all that Lovecraftian. Big eldritch entities, yes, and GW have occasionally written them in ways that pull from Cthulhu et al. but they're not alien or unknowable in that chilly cosmic way. They're born out the drives/psychology/subconscious of mortals reflected in the warp/realm of chaos, making them something closer to actively malicious nightmares made real. They're quite un-alien and in a sense are intimately knowable because they're born out of us.

They're also rigidly taxonomied because, y'know, gotta make those distinct factions.

For something closer to cold, alien, entities in the vein of Lovecraft's old ones, I think you're better off looking to older portrayals of 40k C'tan. Maybe tyranids or the old ones/slaan if you're picking up some of Lovecraft's other stuff.

Honestly GW seems like it tried and failed to rip off Lovecraft when it comes to the chaos gods sometimes. It doesn’t help that for the most part the depictions and art of the 4 all make them seem somewhat humanoid. Josh Reynolds really made the Chaos Gods seem like primordial beings of madness by using astronomical terms to describe them. My favorite example is his description of Slaanesh in the second Fabius Bile book: a being whose smile is made up of galaxies and tears in the fabric of the universe. Doesn’t that sound horrifying?

[Twisted Firaun]

Roughly 2 hours until the big reveal(s) tonight. What do people expect on the Warcry and Necromunda side of things? I’m not putting 40K because it’s all but confirmed to be Black Templars.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Loyal Son of Khemri

[Nos]

1 hour ago, Higolx said:

Yeah, I never really saw the Chaos Gods as lovecraftian horror tbh. One could make a case for Tzeentch but even then I dont think its a strong one. 

I think the Gloomspite Gitz's Bad Moon is much closer to a lovecraftian eldritch god/horror than chaos. They way its described in the battletome (It has a leering visage whose eyes are vast as oceans while fangs are the size of mountain ranges, and whose twisted features shift impossibly with every waxing and waning. It takes on various appearances. Sometimes it is little more than a sliver of sickly yellow light and at others it swells into a bloated monstrosity that swallows up the sky.), the effects it has on non greenskins (When it fills the skies it blocks out light as well as hope and rational thought to drive non-Greenskins mad who mutter nonsense rhymes or even babble weird dead languages. Looncap fungi erupt from their bodies with painful and often fatal results.). It all sounds much closer to a lovecraftian eldritch being, at least for me.

I have always found the imagery of the Bad Moon profoundly unsettling. 

I don't know if it's still a thing but when I was a kid there was a concept of the "Man in the Moon". For some reason that was always a malign idea to me. I felt like whatever this entity was, that if I looked at it, it would be watching me. 

One of my first ever Warhammer purchases was the multi part Night Goblins who came with a Bad Moon Banner, the same grinning, mad crescent face. I rember thinking my parents would tell me off when they found out I'd bought it (they didn't) because it felt adult and Bad. Something about sharp noses  has always seemed off to me, you get it with witches too. There's something of the mad clown aesthetic too it I think. I noticed when I was painting a troggoth the other day that they're basically bloated clown faces:

I love the Gitz range for that reason. It absolutely nails that folkloric charisma but with with a really quite sinister and frightening undercurrent, the same way a Gryms tale goes from charming to just relentlessly nasty at the drop of a dime.  

There was a lot of very overt, unpleasant and pretty juvenile emphasis on how terrible it would be to be a captive of the Dark Elves or Slaanesh within their respective lore, but Night Goblins/Gitz have always been the ones who gave me nightmares. 

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by Nos

[Higolx]

14 minutes ago, Loyal Son of Khemri said:

 

Honestly GW seems like it tried and failed to rip off Lovecraft when it comes to the chaos gods sometimes. It doesn’t help that for the most part the depictions and art of the 4 all make them seem somewhat humanoid. Josh Reynolds really made the Chaos Gods seem like primordial beings of madness by using astronomical terms to describe them. My favorite example is his description of Slaanesh in the second Fabius Bile book: a being whose smile is made up of galaxies and tears in the fabric of the universe. Doesn’t that sound horrifying?

Im not really sure if they failed it or just choose not to keep doing that. Maybe it's easier to sell things when you can comprehend your main villains and they have a more humanoid form instead of being either an incomprehensive eldritch entity or  a formless abstarct concept.

Theres also the fact that the chaos gods are, at least on 40k, mostly made by the thoughts of humans (or is the case of slaanesh, the eldar) so it makes sense they're more humanoid.

[Higolx]

16 minutes ago, Loyal Son of Khemri said:

Roughly 2 hours until the big reveal(s) tonight. What do people expect on the Warcry and Necromunda side of things? I’m not putting 40K because it’s all but confirmed to be Black Templars.

Not really sure about necromunda since I dont play it. Probably some units for a gang that hasnt received ones for a while.

As for Warcry, I hope we get some more unique warbands. I think thats mostly it

[Nos]

10 minutes ago, Loyal Son of Khemri said:

 

Honestly GW seems like it tried and failed to rip off Lovecraft when it comes to the chaos gods sometimes. It doesn’t help that for the most part the depictions and art of the 4 all make them seem somewhat humanoid. Josh Reynolds really made the Chaos Gods seem like primordial beings of madness by using astronomical terms to describe them. My favorite example is his description of Slaanesh in the second Fabius Bile book: a being whose smile is made up of galaxies and tears in the fabric of the universe. Doesn’t that sound horrifying?

I don't think Chaos was intended as a riff on Lovecraft by its original authors. More an existential reaction to the Good/Evil paradigm of the Fantasy they were otherwise in love with, in reflection of the post modern polit7cal and social entropy/melancholy of the decade in which they were writing. They were a way of making corruption and vice a central theme. The real enemy is within, etc.

Also The Chaos Gods are intensely interested in and invested in the workings of the world, like traditional deities.

Whereas the Horror of Lovecraftian beings is that they don't care. Not in contempt or intent. We simply do not register. Our lives and purpose are eclipsed by a greater reality utterly unaware of our existence. Nothing we can ever do will ever matter to the beings which are greater than us, be it 8n worship, defiance or anything in between. None of it matters  That's Lovecraftian horror. Very removed from the Chaos Gods with their champions, agents, bestowments, blessings, gifts etc.

 

[MitGas]

If anyone got WarhammerTV, go watch "Bound for greatness" on it. I'd say that at least one the Chaos Gods does have some minor Lovecraft vibes. But I'd also say that the whole Lovecraft thing is pretty much how the writer chooses to tell his story. You can make the big 4 pretty blatant or more abstract, in a cosmic horror sense - there's room for both. i do like the way tha Bad Moon gets portrayed, reminds me of Tzeentch. Anyways, lovely discussion by you guys, I'm sure some mod will soon gently remind us to talk about rumours and not how the Gods are portrayed. 

[Ratboy genius]

1 minute ago, Nos said:

I don't think Chaos was intended as a riff on Lovecraft by its original authors.

 

Absolutely was- at minimum to an extent, the enemy within (a large, highly rated, WHFRP adventure made extremely early on in its lifespan) started out as a "bloodless cthulu adventure" (blood was returned to the adventure.)

[KingBrodd]

28 minutes ago, Loyal Son of Khemri said:

Roughly 2 hours until the big reveal(s) tonight. What do people expect on the Warcry and Necromunda side of things? I’m not putting 40K because it’s all but confirmed to be Black Templars.

I'm hoping for a new Warcry Starter set with 2 new Factions that arent Chaos related unless they are Beasts or Skaven..

25 minutes ago, Nos said:

I have always found the imagery of the Bad Moon profoundly unsettling. 

I don't know if it's still a thing but when I was a kid there was a concept of the "Man in the Moon". For some reason that was always a malign idea to me. I felt like whatever this entity was, that if I looked at it, it would be watching me. 

One of my first ever Warhammer purchases was the multi part Night Goblins who came with a Bad Moon Banner, the same grinning, mad crescent face. I rember thinking my parents would tell me off when they found out I'd bought it (they didn't) because it felt adult and Bad. Something about sharp noses  has always seemed off to me, you get it with witches too. There's something of the mad clown aesthetic too it I think. I noticed when I was painting a troggoth the other day that they're basically bloated clown faces:

I love the Gitz range for that reason. It absolutely nails that folkloric charisma but with with a really quite sinister and frightening undercurrent, the same way a Gryms tale goes from charming to just relentlessly nasty at the drop of a dime.  

There was a lot of very overt, unpleasant and pretty juvenile emphasis on how terrible it would be to be a captive of the Dark Elves or Slaanesh within their respective lore, but Night Goblins/Gitz have always been the ones who gave me nightmares. 

 

Andy Clarkes Black Library novel 'Gloomspite' really made me appreciate the horror of the Gitz in a way I hadnt considered before. Even the Spiderfang riders and Arachnaroks in that book become far more terrifying than they already are, same goes for the Troggoths.

[CommissarRotke]

this might be where we can see the reveal(s)? https://www.twitch.tv/gencontv

[Nos]

7 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

I'm hoping for a new Warcry Starter set with 2 new Factions that arent Chaos related unless they are Beasts or Skaven..

Andy Clarkes Black Library novel 'Gloomspite' really made me appreciate the horror of the Gitz in a way I hadnt considered before. Even the Spiderfang riders and Arachnaroks in that book become far more terrifying than they already are, same goes for the Troggoths.

Certainly sold it to me, I went to buy it with an Audible credit just now but its not on there yet 😔

[Nos]

15 minutes ago, Ratboy genius said:

Absolutely was- at minimum to an extent, the enemy within (a large, highly rated, WHFRP adventure made extremely early on in its lifespan) started out as a "bloodless cthulu adventure" (blood was returned to the adventure.)

That was 1986. Chaos Pantheon was not explored until Realms of Chaos in 1988.