Cardinal directions in the Mortal Realms

[Overread]

Also lets not forget one of the early ideas of the realms was that they were each near infinite in scope - always expanding with new landmasses forming and collapsing on the violent edges of the realms. One of the early Realm Wars novels even details the journey one person took to the mythical "edge of the realm" to see the vast land masses born of fire and lava. 

Ergo a setting where there is infinite possibilities. That said I would expect at some point the realms might well "cool" and settle (or some mage sucks the power out of them) and the core regions are certainly mapped out - even if the boarders vary and shift. 

[CommissarRotke]

@xking@JPjr@Overread thanks for the explanations! I keep finding out just how little lore I've actually dug into, and TBH the high fantasy setting is holding my interest much more than fantasy earth Old World. Even with needing more time to solidify the Mortal Realms lore, it just feels better having these absolutely fantastical places that allow players more creative freedom. I cannot flipping WAIT for the AOS TTRPG now!!!

[Greyshadow]

The celestial charts in the core book, the revolution of Hysh and Ulgu and the visibility of Sigendil in all realms imply to me that the realms are discs floating in the same physical dimension like galaxies in our universe. If you built a telescope in Ghur you might be able to observe the underside of the Azyr disc for example.

Strangely, gravity seems to work like electromagnetic field lines in our universe with a downward polarity on the surface where people live. I like to imagine that if you stood on the underside of the disc you would be thrown into the void rather than stick to the surface. Otherwise, their would be cities on both sides of the disc that we would know about.

East and West (roughly) align with the rise and fall of the sun in our world. Maybe the plane and direction of rotation of Hysh and Ulgu give East and West and North and South are derived from that?

[zilberfrid]

37 minutes ago, xking said:

As for Sigmar's supposed plan to merge the mortal realms together. the theory is that it would create a new  transcended realm called the Realm of Qhaysh, that would rival the realm of Chaos/warp.  

Stormcast are basically Order Daemons (shaped like Chaos Chosen, at least their shoulders), and Sigmar's plans do not differ that much from Chaos' plans.

[Overread]

10 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Stormcast are basically Order Daemons (shaped like Chaos Chosen, at least their shoulders), and Sigmar's plans do not differ that much from Chaos' plans.

Not really.

First up Stormcast are closer to Chaos Warriors in so much as they are uplifted and blessed by a godly power. In the case of chaos warriors they gain boons from the dark gods, whilst Stormcast gain boons from Sigmar. One key difference though is that Chaos often corrupts people without their realisation, whilst Sigmar makes his offer bold and obvious to those he chooses to save to become stormcast.

Second up chaos demons are more formed from the eather of chaos itself and from the parts of the realm that they come from. Thus Khorne Demons are not just made in Khornes image, they are parts of that greater demonic power. They might battle each other and argue, but they are all one and the same and they are always magically part of Chaos. 

Sigmar also doesn't plan to destroy the realms and the world; simply to see them cleaned of the taint of Chaos and protected so that the peoples might thrive and advance unmolested by teh dark powers. Sure he's got some self interest in there too, but nothing like how the Chaos Gods are geared up. The Chaos gods even draw power from humanity - from the emotional turmoil generated within the Chaos Realm

[amysrevenge]

29 minutes ago, Overread said:

One key difference though is that Chaos often corrupts people without their realisation, whilst Sigmar makes his offer bold and obvious to those he chooses to save to become stormcast.

And there definitely isn't anything unspoken or fishy going on with all those Stormcast deaths and rebirths f-ing up their memories and personalities, nope nothing like that.

Edited August 14, 2019 by amysrevenge

[Cèsar de Quart]

Honestly, if the Realms were globes, many problems would be solved just like that. The concept of "the furthest from the center, the wilder the magic" is cool, but it creates more problems than opportunities for good narrative. If you want the "saturated magic places are weird", then just have geomantic networks where intersections of the Winds have wild consequences.

 

On 8/12/2019 at 11:57 PM, 18121812 said:

This is some of the stuff that's really keeping me from truly enjoying AoS and the Realms. It just doesn't feel like an actual, functional universe inhabited by people to me.

My thoughts exactly.

5 hours ago, michu said:

IIRC there are constellations that are visible in every realm so that would be a starting point for establishing cardinal directions.

That would be good to know. Azyr is supposed to be "the Heavens" for all the Realms, rather than a sepparate sphere, so we've got that covered.

4 hours ago, xking said:

You all are over thinking this.

Sigendil, the High Star of Azyr and the brightest of all stars,  It never moves from it's place in the sky like other stars do and can be seen from every realm. 

examples of it's importance are (from  the  short story Pantheon )

1) "Sailors use it to chart safe courses across stormy seas",       2)"Mothers tell their children it is the holy light of Sigmar that protects them in their sleep"

So I guess they use  Sigendil to define the cardinal directions. North , East , South , West

 

It's not overthinking, it's just that the setting is underthought and not very consistent for now. Sigendil might be their North Star, and that's fine, but it still makes little sense physically speaking.

3 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

I was pretty excited to read this thread by the title alone but this bit is ungodly intriguing...where is the source for these so I can read them?

These videos:

 

[amysrevenge]

9 minutes ago, xking said:

We already know, A flaw in the reforging process is causing fragments of their souls to be lost to the aether.  I suspect this is why Sigmar wants shadeglass, as it can contain the entirety of a soul to the anvil of apotheosis. preventing any fragments from being lost.

You and I know.  And some Sacrosanct dudes know.  Does Joe Liberator, fifth from the back in his platoon, know why his brain don't work so good no more?  Did he know going in that this would happen?

 

I'm not saying Sigmar == Khorne, I'm just saying that the difference between a Chaos Warrior and a Liberator is not as big as was presented.

Edited August 14, 2019 by amysrevenge
Typo

[Cèsar de Quart]

5 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

You and I know.  And some Sacrosanct dudes know.  Does Joe Liberator, fifth from the back in his platoon, know why his brain don't work so good no more?  Did he know going in that this would happen?

I'm not saying Sigmar == Khorne, I'm just saying tht the difference between a Chaos Warrior and a Liberator is not as big as was presented.

I agree, and that's why I prefer to stick with my unremarkable little people, the normal humans who are the opposite of a Chaos warrior. Thematically, it feels adequate, and it is also relatable.

The Stormcasts are too much like Chaos Warriors of Order, like revenant Marines with increasing levels of amnesia or detachment. I liked the whole thing in which the ones who had died the most times were basically automatons. I like that they have to recreate identities for themselves. There is a finality in that, an interesting cost to dying, worse than death sometimes. 

But if SIgmar finds a way around this... well, the world of AoS will be less interesting.

[Nacnudllah]

Probably Latitude is measured by some arcane means of detecting Realmstone, which we know is concentrated at the edges of the realms (except in Shyish).  Longitude would be measured using astrolabes and time, just like it is here in Midgard.

[Whitefang]

7 hours ago, xking said:

As for Sigmar's supposed plan to merge the mortal realms together. the theory is that it would create a new  transcended realm called the Realm of Qhaysh, that would rival the realm of Chaos/warp.  

Good Old World that is I guess?

[Whitefang]

9 hours ago, JPjr said:

pretty sure that's actually something that's been hinted at a few times, there's definitely a little bit of fluff in one of the books with a couple of Stormcast talking about realm gates and something along the lines of the more Sigmar can control the tighter the realms can become knitted together with some ultimate goal of uniting them all.

as for why they're not globes now, I think of them as more like dimensions than planets, each with their own weird crazy topographies, sub realms, pocket dimensions and the like, some fixed, some mutable and coalescing into new forms.

the way I've always thought about it is (and this is hugely simplified but I think juts about holds up) the old WHF world was a 'human' world with magic in it, whereas AoS is a magic world with humans in it.

It’s Lorrus

He believes that ‘realms’ is just a certain phase of the grand cycle of the world, one day they will be fused together and become a globe again, just like the old world was broken into different realms.

[Overread]

Note that a tighter knitting together might be Sigmar simply referring to the peoples of those lands. That the more realmgates he has the more he can unify the peoples. I think his worry is that with the size of each realm and the nature of realmgates and the differences between each realm and its peoples means that there's an insanely high chance of factions fragmenting. Heck look at the Earth where a simple few hundred miles difference can make the difference between friends and enemies even within the same species, where minor differences such as skin colour can be the basis for justification for wars over variations in resources. 

 

Now consider the realm of metal - a realm where gold, metal ores and such are as common as mud and dust in other realms. One could easily see one faction of Free Cities deciding that their nation in the Realm of Beasts could really do with a lot of that resources and if they can't easily trade for it (or don't want to) then why trade - why not take a war through the realmgate and invade and steal those copious resources. 

 

Right now Sigmar has his Stormcast and also the fact that Chaos is a united enemy and is being beaten back on all fronts. Basically most of the nations are still finding their own feet; they are still unsettled and even though several stories now show that a few generations have passed; there's still the scars on the land and the settlements. But there's rife potential that the further the front lines move away, the more there is room for infighting and even the potential for the Free Cities to fragment and collapse; not to mention for lines to fall between the various major factions. Daughters of Khaine, Idoneth - heck the Idoneth already make war on the Free Cities and its peoples for the harvesting of souls. Imagine if they got the idea of instead of raiding they could invade and take over a kingdom and breed people to supply a steady stream of souls to harvest! 

 

 

It's clear that Sigmar hopes that with more realmgates and more free travel within the Realms he can keep mixing peoples and races up so that they retain enough linkages that all out war within Order isn't a practicality that arises in any big way. His worry is likely that it reaches a point like the Old World where the united front falls apart just as Chaos weakens to the fringes; leaving kingdoms and peoples fighting for their own gain as they've never seen a chaos warrior or felt the taint of chaos. Where personal short term interests override and thus leaves an ideal gap for chaos to seep back in and also for the frontier against them to grow in power like the old Chaos Wastes. Sigmar has his Stormcast to hold the line; but in generations they might well have started to falter and show cracks - plus things like the Arena might show their true purpose (we still don't know what that is)

[Brother_Captain]

58 minutes ago, Overread said:

Imagine if they got the idea of instead of raiding they could invade and take over a kingdom and breed people to supply a steady stream of souls to harvest! 

Man....that's really dark.

Edited August 15, 2019 by Brother_Captain

[Cèsar de Quart]

10 hours ago, xking said:

I hope SIgmar finds a way to fix it, I don't find the memory loss to be  interesting at all. I hate it, 

I prefer the "they have human minds, but are becoming more supernatural" and how they deal with that aspect.    

You're looking at it the wrong way. The first iteration of a Stormcast retains the memories and identity of who they were before. Then, when they start dying (if they do, remember that they don't need to die all the time) they start losing a part (A PART) of their identity. I don't know how many reforgings it takes to become a Sigmar zombie, maybe 7, maybe 10, maybe 9, the sacred Norse number, but it's probably a long long time, and it takes a lot of recklessness from Sigmar's part.

"Our warriors never truly die" is an alien concept to us, difficult to relate to. The dispassionate way they approach something we think of as epic. The detachment from life's delights (after all, if you never die, why wouldn't you become a hedonist like the Eldar or the Dark and High Elves, each in their own way?)... Chaos warriors are given gifts and become superhuman, and that defines our antagonists (and even they have to pay a price). So, thematically, there should be an opposite to them representing our side.

Again, kill the reforging and I'm fine, we've got fantasy Marines (which is ok). But with the reforging on, there has to be a way to make "death" a big deal, and memory loss is a good way to deal with it.

You may not like that your warriors lose part of their memories and sense of self when they die, but hey man, my guys die when they die.

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Cèsar de Quart

[Overread]

Remember Reforging appears to vary person to person. Some lose a lot very quickly, others appear to be more robust and retain more of their self. Of course how much they retain of themselves to start with varies a lot and can also vary depending on if they meet up with old friends/locations from before which can spark memories and confusion. 

So a Stormcast is basically great if he or she is fighting in a battle against Chaos; however all the peacetimes and outside of battle periods are where they are a risk of those chinks in their mind starting to cause problems for them. Even worse once they've had more and more reforgings. Esp since Sigmar's main focus is beating Chaos and installing order and that seems to be what the reforged fall back on more and more. 

 

Losing not just memory but their humanity and empathy as well, as they steadily become more and more like drones. In that way they become like Chaos Warriors only slaved to defeating chaos and installing structure and order on the world as Sigmar can see it (though even Stormcast might take it to extremes even Sigmar wouldn't). 

[Cèsar de Quart]

14 hours ago, xking said:

The realms are dimensions on to themselves with their own Suns and moons. (confirmed by the gloomspite battletome, was that there are multiple celestial bodies,stars, suns,moons etc in the realms).

Realm of light and the realm of Shadows, do not literally represent a sun and moon. But metaphysically effect the Suns and Stars of the realms.   

Really? So Phil Kelly's explanation has been retconned? 

[michu]

I remember when, after that video, David Guymer asked what does it mean for his idea of Ghur's sun (it rise and goes down whenever it wants, it's wild). @JReynolds replied that maybe it works that way - the cycle of Hysh and Ulgu affects the cycle of day and night in other realms but more like "suns of that realms pass on the light of Hysh but they're independent celestial bodies" and that allows Ghur's sun to act like that.

[Greyshadow]

This came out this morning in The Tithe Part 2. You can see the light of Hysh about to be eclipsed by Ulgu.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Greyshadow

[Cèsar de Quart]

On 8/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Greyshadow said:

This came out this morning in The Tithe Part 2. You can see the light of Hysh about to be eclipsed by Ulgu.

I'd like to think that, but someone said somewhere that it was the Purple Sun of Shyish eclipsing whatever sun there is. And that sure looks like the Purple Sun.

[Realmhead]

Sorry for the necromancy, but I was just reading the lates White Dwarf,  and found something relevant.

Apparently  compasses point toward the realms edge, with 'south' being the realm center.

[Overread]

It's also interesting to note that the "compasses" are focusing on magical energy and that the centre of many realms is the least magically charged whilst the edges are the most. 

Essentially this means that your average compass is working to detect extreme levels of magical energy. 

 

Orientation is likely tricky and you'd possible have to use stars in order to work out where you are in the realms since they are round. A person dropped in the middle of nowhere with a compass could find their way in or out but not easily use a map to work out their position unless they knew roughly where they were.

[EccentricCircle]

3 hours ago, Overread said:

It's also interesting to note that the "compasses" are focusing on magical energy and that the centre of many realms is the least magically charged whilst the edges are the most. 

Essentially this means that your average compass is working to detect extreme levels of magical energy. 

 

Orientation is likely tricky and you'd possible have to use stars in order to work out where you are in the realms since they are round. A person dropped in the middle of nowhere with a compass could find their way in or out but not easily use a map to work out their position unless they knew roughly where they were.

And with realmgates being the best ways to travel, coming through a portal with little idea where it's actually taking you is a much bigger danger than in most settings too. This sort of getting lost would be a major hazard!

[Cèsar de Quart]

Compasses pointing to realm's edge makes sense. Stars would give you the rest of the orientation data you need. Or the Sun. Except in Ghur.