The Age of Sigmar lore and novels thread 2

[stratigo]

On 11/27/2020 at 12:20 PM, Overread said:

See I find it hard to imagine them like this because any army requires a large civilian population to function. Someone has to get food, make weapons, clothes, organise rotas, take the taxes, farm the herds, trade, maintain the roads, heck build the roads. Granted the fact that the DoK have not built as big an empire thus far as many others, would suggest that such things are not as important to them as they are to say, Sigmar; however at the same time they still require a civilian population. 

Heck the Temples only focus on women and the odd warlock; the male population has to do something in their time to be productive. Plus don't forget when a witch aelf gets with child she's not going to be running around on the Battlefield the "whole" time. She's going to have to take time off to raise the child. 

 

DoK fails to function as a well rounded faction if there's nothing but the temples. If they've no actual cities or settlements; no life outside of being a Witch Aelf, then they start to founder and falter. Now thus far we've really no clear idea how the civilian side might function - the second story in Covens suggests that its akin to the "Drow" of DnD - lots of slaves, whipped males and such - all living a tortured or at least hard life. However its only one point of reference and the story makes it clear that not even Coven is "the same". I'd also expect that there are temples that are more "leaches" off the civilian section and look down or ignore it so most of their conversation and world view is going to be focused on their temples. 

 

reminds me of existing textual sources know of the spartans. A bunch of envious upper class athenians pissy about even the limited democracy of athens fantasizing about being spartans describing a horrible society that is a bunch of slavers and their slaves with a largely unearned reputation for military excellence.

 

 

I think the main issue with DoK is that Ulgu is off limits, and that's where all the temples are. We won't really find out what's going on there until GW gets around to releasing Malerion and his faction and then we'll probably get the floodgates to open like we have the lumineth and Hysh

 

 

 

[sandlemad]

I think a more religiously tinged Sparta isn't a bad comparison, where you have a dominant military caste that we look at as completely representative of the whole 'culture' but which obviously doesn't account for the larger (and relatively battered into submission) slave and poor free class which actually does most of the society-running that we think of when we're musing over fantasy worldbuilding. AoS being a war game means we get overwhelming focus on the DoK as DoK, even above and beyond how the Ulgurite DoK society might present itself. There probably are Ulgurite princes or mayors or other figures with hereditary links going back before Morathi's rise who have essentially zero power and are only wheeled out to affirm their undying loyalty to the High Oracle and then have to get back to worriedly managing logistics to support their temple-city.

It's still a state. The Templars/Crusaders pop culture comparison MaatithoftheBrand mentions also works, particularly if you think of e.g. the Knights of Malta. You have a religious warrior order that ran a state. There was certainly more to Malta than just the pan-European non-hereditary warrior class at its top, there were parallel power structures and important people among the native Maltese who had their own lives as well as supporting the order through farming/etc, but it wasn't how the state was thought about or presented itself to the rest of the world. Now take that and twist it so the religious warrior order on top has even less interest in stuff unrelated to bloodshed and so the rest of the society has vastly less say and is a lot more brutalised.

I like it because it's a sort of state form that you don't see all that much in fantasy (there's smaller scale examples like GoT's Night Watch and such) compared to the usual feudal kingdom affairs. A newly expansionist empire, originally based around a cult that rose to power in Ulgu that grew to dominate society, with chapterhouses temples in the various free cities, and which is now openly expanding to include cities and domains which haven't been ground down for centuries and so need a different approach, namely: control through a network of sorceresses, new religious revelations, promises of plunder, and maybe an appeal to a limited sort of... pan-elfism. Or at least an appeal to a limited kind of elf superiority and maybe solidarity.

[Overread]

I think my only worry is that the DoK do go further with bloodletting as well. It's one thing to beat your slaves, its another to regularly sacrifice them (which comes in at least one of the stories). I just worry that the writers will get like the Drow writers and end up making them treat their lower classes so horribly that it becomes hard to envision not only the population of underlings hanging around and not rebelling; but also just having enough of them to keep the population going in the first place.

It also raises the difficult question of breeding since its shown that the DoK do tend to stick to their own, but at the same time they've this really strange situation where their whole society is built around the idea of strength and power and the superiority of the strong over the weak. Yet their males are right at the bottom end of the scale for pretty much their entire race. How do you keep your witch aelves breeding more witch aelves if the strongest, best and most prized males are all from other factions. Granted any aelf and aelf union will produce an aelf and in the end DoK witch aelves are simply regular aelves. However there's nothing to suggest so far, that the DoK purposefully find other males to breed with. 

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

I think my only worry is that the DoK do go further with bloodletting as well. It's one thing to beat your slaves, its another to regularly sacrifice them (which comes in at least one of the stories). I just worry that the writers will get like the Drow writers and end up making them treat their lower classes so horribly that it becomes hard to envision not only the population of underlings hanging around and not rebelling; but also just having enough of them to keep the population going in the first place.

It also raises the difficult question of breeding since its shown that the DoK do tend to stick to their own, but at the same time they've this really strange situation where their whole society is built around the idea of strength and power and the superiority of the strong over the weak. Yet their males are right at the bottom end of the scale for pretty much their entire race. How do you keep your witch aelves breeding more witch aelves if the strongest, best and most prized males are all from other factions. Granted any aelf and aelf union will produce an aelf and in the end DoK witch aelves are simply regular aelves. However there's nothing to suggest so far, that the DoK purposefully find other males to breed with. 

I mean, again, sparta. The actual historic reality of their annual declaration of war against the helots is under question by scholars of the period, but it is something the primary sources do say about sparta, where young spartan men regularly go out and slaughter helots. I really can't stress how awful the primary sources about sparta make sparta look as a society. A bunch of lazy aristocrats who sometimes fight lording over a vast and truly brutally oppressed slave society. Like, about as bad or worse than antebellum south.  Antebellum south also provides illustrative evidence about how slave societies can work of course. Even in places where the slaves vastly outnumbered the slavers, revolts were rare, and never successful. A culture of constant brutality and violence applied arbitrarily and randomly does a lot to disorient people and prevent their ability to organize.

 

The problem with drow is less how ****** they are to their slaves and how ****** they are to, like, literally everyone. Family, other aristocrats, other states. Southern planters could be prickly and prideful and shoot each other over minor provocations, but they were also famously hospitable to guests who maintained the right manners. It's hard to run a society that literally religiously exalts being treacherous to everyone and everything.

[Overread]

2 minutes ago, stratigo said:

The problem with drow is less how ****** they are to their slaves and how ****** they are to, like, literally everyone. Family, other aristocrats, other states. Southern planters could be prickly and prideful and shoot each other over minor provocations, but they were also famously hospitable to guests who maintained the right manners. It's hard to run a society that literally religiously exalts being treacherous to everyone and everything.

Very true, the early books on the Drow with Drizzit do make me pause several times and just wonder how they ever managed to build any kind of society when every single individual is backstabbing everyone else. At least for humans historically whenever you get a society like that or approaching that it tends to be at the end of a golden age of prosperity and it only sustains itself so long as excess from the prosperous age persists; with things quickly falling apart into unrest and collapse.

 

DoK do have that element too. Morathi certainly pits powerful queens against each other and the stories suggest that lower level witches also compete very strongly with each other. I just wonder if its themes and ideas that are presented in the battletome as part of the lore; being taken as being the totality of the society. Ergo that the authors are sticking very religiously to the battletome snippets of lore and extrapolating them out only within those boundaries rather than thinking a little wider and broadening them. Ergo the line between a racial trait being the only trait and being one of many traits. 

[stratigo]

15 minutes ago, Overread said:

Very true, the early books on the Drow with Drizzit do make me pause several times and just wonder how they ever managed to build any kind of society when every single individual is backstabbing everyone else. At least for humans historically whenever you get a society like that or approaching that it tends to be at the end of a golden age of prosperity and it only sustains itself so long as excess from the prosperous age persists; with things quickly falling apart into unrest and collapse.

 

DoK do have that element too. Morathi certainly pits powerful queens against each other and the stories suggest that lower level witches also compete very strongly with each other. I just wonder if its themes and ideas that are presented in the battletome as part of the lore; being taken as being the totality of the society. Ergo that the authors are sticking very religiously to the battletome snippets of lore and extrapolating them out only within those boundaries rather than thinking a little wider and broadening them. Ergo the line between a racial trait being the only trait and being one of many traits. 

It's something of a continuation of the fantasy dark elf tropes too, where a society that utterly treacherous doesn't really work, you need some form of social bonds beyond "the guy in charge is scary" for the ruling class to function. I know a lot of folks who sort of revised dark elf society into something more functional, but still awful. A highly militarized fascist state constantly undergoing war preparations, or launching military expeditions under Malekith. It created a more cohesive society, but one that remains pretty damn evil.

 

We simply don't know enough about how people in Ulgu live to even try and extrapolate a greater DoK society or how their temple cities function. The descriptions are so bare because GW hasn't fleshed out Ulgu yet.

[NinthMusketeer]

Drow are like Skaven but they maintain a structured society through the magic of being elves, who must be inherently better at everything.

As for finding the strongest males; you have a brutally suppressed body of male slaves. The ones who rise to the top of that are going to be pretty dam good breeding stock given what they made of an awful situation. I also cannot understate how effective a motivation that is for males; a carrot to go with the stick.

[Overread]

4 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Drow are like Skaven but they maintain a structured society through the magic of being elves, who must be inherently better at everything.

As for finding the strongest males; you have a brutally suppressed body of male slaves. The ones who rise to the top of that are going to be pretty dam good breeding stock given what they made of an awful situation. I also cannot understate how effective a motivation that is for males; a carrot to go with the stick.

True but at present some of the DoK would be like dating a preying mantis - you get your reward and second later you're an offering to Khaine

 

 

Which would be a worse fate than dating a vampire! 

[NinthMusketeer]

Would it really be so bad to end that way after a life of brutal slavery? Besides it's only fair that both partners get to plunge a weapon into the other.

Edited December 8, 2020 by NinthMusketeer

[stratigo]

9 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Would it really be so bad to end that way after a life of brutal slavery? Besides it's only fair that both partners get to plunge a weapon into the other.

 

I know this is all jokey.

 

But, like, we're talking about rape right here. The DoK going out and raping vast proportions of their male slaves for babies. Which is pretty grim. Especially considering that rape and sexual violence is the reality of real life slave societies, one of the darkest aspects people shy away from is just how much rape was going on in the south, and in other societies with a large proportion of slaves.

[NinthMusketeer]

Uh, no. We were talking about breeding rights being offered as a reward. No one was taking it in that direction.

[stratigo]

7 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Uh, no. We were talking about breeding rights being offered as a reward. No one was taking it in that direction.

That is not how slave societies have ever worked. No slave regime has existed without sexual violence, the spartans literally had an entire social class consisting of the children of spartans and helots, and how much choice does a slave have to refuse sex with their owners?  It's something people tend to shy away from, as rape and sexual violence is more disturbing than most other kinds of violence, but it's the reality of slavery.

 

I dunno if this is a kink thing or a jokey thing or just a lack of context, but in the reality of a vast slave system, how much do you think male slaves will eagerly be jumping at the chance to have sex with the people who abuse and exploit them really? If this is really where you think the DoK maintain their population, it would only be accomplished by systematic rape. I doubt GW will weigh in in any case. Sex isn't really something they comment a lot on, and, really, I wouldn't want them to. GW is not equipped for a frank look at slaving societies, best keep it vague to avoid draining a lot of the horror that such societies inevitably create. 

[Lord of the Isle]

I’m with stratigo here - I think a validish point of comparison would be the grotesque GoT scene where Ramsay Snow pretty much forces a terrified and confused Theon to get excited by prostitutes as a prelude to castrating him.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Lord of the Isle

[xking]

I think that's enough of that,  Move on people.

[fleante]

Listening through my first AoS audiobook now, Court of the Blind King. It’s a great read so far, I’m about halfway in I think. They really make the Idoneth (or more specifically, the Akhelians) seem like just the worst sort of people, but still provide some nuance in how much their society differs from enclave to enclave. Highly recommend it!

[Carnelian]

I agree that the Tithe of Bone short story was really interesting

Made me appreciate how individual and charismatic the spirits inside the OBR amalgams can be

[xking]

https://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/direchasm-ebook.html

[Bayul]

Can anyone convince me to continue Dark Harvest? I'm in chapter 14, so pretty much in the middle of the (audio)book. Nothing interesting happened yet and I am losing interest. The last scenes were

Spoiler

Blackwood meeting three mysterious dogs and him speaking with Kurnoth. He spend the night in an inn where he and his sidekick found some kind of puppet in their room.

Is this story written in a Blair Witch Project manner? Because I can't listen to 12 more chapters in which a broody protagonist is hardly finding any clues.

[NinthMusketeer]

The middle of the book is a bit stale, but it comes together at the end.

[Candlelight]

On 1/6/2021 at 4:04 AM, Bayul said:

Can anyone convince me to continue Dark Harvest? I'm in chapter 14, so pretty much in the middle of the (audio)book. Nothing interesting happened yet and I am losing interest. The last scenes were

  Reveal hidden contents

Blackwood meeting three mysterious dogs and him speaking with Kurnoth. He spend the night in an inn where he and his sidekick found some kind of puppet in their room.

Is this story written in a Blair Witch Project manner? Because I can't listen to 12 more chapters in which a broody protagonist is hardly finding any clues.

Not much really happens for like 80-90% of the book and then it abruptly, quite predictably, ends. I love Reynolds WH stuff but this one is one of his weaker ones.

[xking]

On 1/5/2021 at 9:04 PM, Bayul said:

Can anyone convince me to continue Dark Harvest? I'm in chapter 14, so pretty much in the middle of the (audio)book. Nothing interesting happened yet and I am losing interest. The last scenes were

  Reveal hidden contents

Blackwood meeting three mysterious dogs and him speaking with Kurnoth. He spend the night in an inn where he and his sidekick found some kind of puppet in their room.

Is this story written in a Blair Witch Project manner? Because I can't listen to 12 more chapters in which a broody protagonist is hardly finding any clues.

"Is this story written in a Blair Witch Project manner?"   I think it is.  I guess it was more of a mundane story.(not counting the end) 

[NinthMusketeer]

For a long time it feels like he is finding stuff that means nothing, just floundering around in some dismal backwater with unspecific omens of doom hanging over him.

Then it gets to the climax portion of the book.

[xking]

where is this art from?

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, xking said:

where is this art from?

 

this Warhammer Community article? https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/25/everchosen-the-slayer-of-kings-revealed/

[xking]

On 1/29/2021 at 10:05 AM, Marcvs said:

this Warhammer Community article? https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/25/everchosen-the-slayer-of-kings-revealed/

Thanks