The Warhammer Multiverse

[Kronos]

First off, some spoilers for Marvel MCU, Agents fo Shield etc (just incase) It is of course just a bit of fun Wargame talk, so chill.

 

So with a lot of talk about the Warhammer Old World flying around the web I wondered how people would think of Warhammer becoming Multiverse where several histories could be true.

We have already had a few alternate realities from The Storm of Chaos to Tamurkhan. Now it occured to me while watching Agents of Shield, and seeing the remnants of the Earth’s Crust floating with pieces of debris in space just made me think of the destruction of the World that Was. Now the point of this Thread is not to bicker and form teams (although I can forsee a big mob shooting this idea down😂). The point of the thread is for those of you who think that multiple realities and histories can coexist in series of realities that have been greatly altered, not affecting the current timeline. Personally I love that the Old World was destroyed and that we have these extremely High Fantasy Realms where Gods walk the realms, God beasts skeletons for entire landscapes. Each Realm leaves enough space for each faction to thrive, have a plethora of stories and histories. Equally I dearly miss the History of the Warhammer World. It is extremely rich, from Lustria, the Mountains of Mourn, the battle to Blackfire Pass, the War of The Beard, the Sundering ( I could spend the rest of the day citing fascinating aspects of Warhammer.

 

Now I’m a greedy man, so Warhammer in all its shapes and Forms sits well with me, so much so I’d be happy to see it intertwined in a Multiverse. With a number of Realities existing at once, where the World that Was was destroyed, and wasn’t. Where Tamurkhan (weeps a single tear) and the other 3 sons of the Great Kurgan did take control of much of the Warhammer World, where Archaon sat as overlord pf the Empire, and one where the Gods Pitted every evrchosen against each other for the title.

 

Could you see the multiple stories and Histories of Warhammer all being part of one Multiverse with the scope of exploring other eventualities for the Old World, or other cataclysmic events within the Mortal Realms as Single standalone Campaigns. Or do you think it should just be the one linear story separated into the present events of the Mortal Realms and the History of the Old World? 

Anybody better versed in Multiverses (drums), have any ideas how a Multiverse could be applied to Warhammer? Would it just confuse the storyline too much or would it help enrich the lore and development even further? 
 

If it was explored, what would be the mechanics to get the universes to interlink if they would maybe as small skirmishes, Old Ones, Great stellar Gates, corrupted Realm Gates, The Dark Gods, Gork Shouted at reality, “a Wizard did it” ?

 

 

And a reminder, keep it chill and civil Warhammereenos.

 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Kronos

[Jator]

  I do like the idea. For me, a multiverse of sorts is pretty much implied in a setting like this, handled by different people and projects. We know Blood Bowl happens in the Old Wolrd...but is not the same Old World where you played your WFB games. TW:W and the End Times can hardly happen in the same timeline. And the Storm of Chaos never happened in Warhammer 8 edition.

  That being said, I'm not sure GW would find appealing that approach. Ditching the results of a global campaign because "now we move to a universe where none of this happened" (again: Storm of Chaos) will ****** off players. And fans may want them to divert resources to  different timelines that the ones they're interested on exploring/  find profitable (like asking for an EndTimes-free Old World).

  So  I don't think it will ever be official, as fans can pretty much do that fan-canon (not canon at all) by themselves without GW having to compromise.

 

[RuneBrush]

Think I agree with @Jator in that this would be fine within a fan-fiction sense of things, but not something I could see happening "officially".  I think the concept of multiverse is great in a sandbox environment - the proverbial "what if" scenarios, but as the basis for the background for a game system, I'm less convinced as it runs the risk of just being confusing.

If you've not looked at it before, have a look at the Dornian Heresy, which plays along the lines that Rogal Dorn fell to chaos rather than Horus.  Quite a clever concept and technically a multiverse, so shows that it is possible, but possibly not main stream.

[Fairbanks]

People Versed in Multiverse Theory: So out there is a universe where Archaon and the Chaos Gods defend the Mortal Realms from Sigmar and his villainous Pantheon.

Me: So it's just like the one we already have?

[Beastmaster]

We can still imagine that the authors themselves are only part of the bubble they’re currently describing, therefore being unable to see more than one reality at a time. 😎

[Melcavuk]

I think at a basic level all wargaming universes are funamentally a multi verse with each gaming group running their own individual reality within that. Is Nagash really fighting in Ghyran and killed by Alarielle, or is he also fighting in Chamon and beating down a fanscroll Grungi. Is Marneus really on 2000 different table tops against different foes in different campaigns and so on, the minute we as players get control of a named character we create a fractured timeline and new reality.

 

We rely on GW to give us Universe 1, the core that we then dictate how much we diverge from. I'd like it to stay that way just so we maintain a constant as a reference point to how divergent each gaming groups storyline has become.