General AOS lore thread.

[shinros]

27 minutes ago, Denneysman said:

Also with the new fluff half the dark elves ( in GA book ) dont act like DE anymore. Assassins work for anyone. Dark riders act as recon and scouts. Drakespawn and Dragon riders are just a different knightly order now. None of these are portrayed as evil anymore. More extreme the their HE counterparts yes but no evil. Only khain sisterhood and darkling covens seem like the old DE. 

We haven't seen the shadowkin who are most likely the closest to Malerion and the mistweaver and shard are most likely servants of Malerion and they are not nice people. The mistweaver in the story also says she can use her powers to make the group tear out their eyeballs and carve off their skin with their weapons, if she wanted to. 

In the end a mistweaver and shard murder their group mates in another group. Just like how the spirit like sylvaneth don't act in the same like the wanderer's even though they worship the same goddess. 

Oh and fyreslayers are up. 

[Shoe]

1: This thread is freaking amazing, thank you for doing the work! 

2: I played WHFB back in the mid 90's and took a break until 2015. There's a HUGE swath of information in that time to consume and it's all disjointed. I would love it if someone were to construct a timeline for me that goes from WHFB 3rd edition or so to AOS. Is this too tall of an order?

Also, a friend explained this to me but I still don't quite get it: Where was Archaon standing when he destroyed the old world? After the old world was destroyed, the forces of order flourished in the age of myth? Or was that before WHFB? I'm so confused. I really just want to know the highlights. 

[shinros]

16 minutes ago, Shoe said:

1: This thread is freaking amazing, thank you for doing the work! 

2: I played WHFB back in the mid 90's and took a break until 2015. There's a HUGE swath of information in that time to consume and it's all disjointed. I would love it if someone were to construct a timeline for me that goes from WHFB 3rd edition or so to AOS. Is this too tall of an order?

Also, a friend explained this to me but I still don't quite get it: Where was Archaon standing when he destroyed the old world? After the old world was destroyed, the forces of order flourished in the age of myth? Or was that before WHFB? I'm so confused. I really just want to know the highlights. 

http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

The Dawn of Creation(When the warhammer gods/old ones came to the warhammer world created life after their old world was trashed by chaos) >>> The Fall(Old ones get wrecked races start popping up) > First Great War Against Chaos (Aenarion being awesome) > The Age of Recovery(As per the title and nagash messing up the tomb kings) > The Age of Strife (Sigmar founding the empire etc fighting nagash we all know how it is) > The Age of Recompense (The setting of whfb before end times, karl franz being crowned, mannfred resurrected, elves and dark elves stabbing each other) > The End Times (Do I need to explain this?) > Age of Myth (When sigmar with his godbeast friend found sigmar on the core of the old world and showed him the mortal realms. Sigmar did not make them he found them. All the incarnates became gods due to being one with the wind of magic they absorbed they found some of the souls of the people of the warhammer world and had them reincarnated to populate. They made a pantheon things were good!) > Age of chaos( Archaon came back again and smashed face again, chaos resurfaced and tzeentch caused the capture of slaanesh and the great horned rat became a full chaos god) > Age of Sigmar (Where we are now)

Archaon was floating in the void in the age of myth he fell into the void with sigmar during the end times I am going to make a post on Archaon since I have the everchosen battletome. 

[Ollie Grimwood]

I think that the confusion over the Dark Aelves being an Order faction may come from thinking that the Grand Alliances represent moral stand points. They don't they are idiological ones, it's entirely possible to want to create a ordered civilisation built with systems and rules and to be a throughly evil and self serving at the same time.

Evil and good are also totally subjective and dependent on an individuals perspective at the time.  

[shinros]

8 minutes ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

I think that the confusion over the Dark Aelves being an Order faction may come from thinking that the Grand Alliances represent moral stand points. They don't they are idiological ones, it's entirely possible to want to create a ordered civilisation built with systems and rules and to be a throughly evil and self serving at the same time.

Evil and good are also totally subjective and dependent on an individuals perspective at the time.  

Yup, what I have seen of the two Aelves in the sliver tower novel it's obvious both are shadowkin they are not nice people at all. Even the mistweaver who is with the group in the novel the way she talked it seemed if they were useless she would of killed them ages ago. In a second group shard and a mistweaver kill their group mates. 

[CoffeeGrunt]

To be fair, one could interpret the concept of Order as anything from idealistic freedom utopia to oppressive autocracy.

[Kramer]

58 minutes ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

To be fair, one could interpret the concept of Order as anything from idealistic freedom utopia to oppressive autocracy.

True! 

 

17 hours ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

I think that the confusion over the Dark Aelves being an Order faction may come from thinking that the Grand Alliances represent moral stand points. They don't they are idiological ones, it's entirely possible to want to create a ordered civilisation built with systems and rules and to be a throughly evil and self serving at the same time.

 

I think it comes from the description of some of the units over the past editions. Corsairs were described as travelling the world enslaving and destroying costal villages. Looking for nothing more than death and destruction. Witch Elves worshiped Khaine (hinted at being Khorne ((although I always suspected he was part of slaanesh)). 

So from that perspective: Destruction for the corsairs of Chaos for the Witch Elves seems logical as their determining characteristic is not them building a new civilization and trying to maintain it but rather destruction or blood for the blood god Khaine. 

But than again with the reset from old lore everything is possible narrative wise and until GW releases fluff that states one thing or the other both are possible. 

[shinros]

Yeah I am reading this. Only two pages in and it's about 18 pages long OMG IT'S SO GOOD for a short story. Background information.

Spoilers

TECLIS BOYS IN ALL HIS GODHOOD

 

A Warhammer Age of Sigmar short story

In the age before Chaos, during a time of myth, the pantheon of gods ruled at Sigmar’s hand. As dark times return to the Mortal Realms, Sigmar beseeches the goddess Alarielle to heed a tale of those better years, one he hopes will restore not only her faith but the faith of all noble creatures.

READ IT BECAUSE
Sigmar's quest to reunite his old pantheon of gods has been one of the underlying themes of the Age of Sigmar so far, but we haven't seen much of the time when they did stand together. Well, here's your chance.

 

THE STORY
In the age before Chaos, during a time of myth, the pantheon of gods ruled at Sigmar’s hand. As dark times return to the Mortal Realms, Sigmar beseeches the goddess Alarielle to heed a tale of those better years, one he hopes will restore not only her faith but the faith of all noble creatures. Heed then the saga of the mage Bayla who seeks the Realms' End, a mythic place believed to hold a great secret. Beseeching the aid of wise Teclis and dread Nagash, Bayla's desire for knowledge and the fulfilment of his quest blinds him to the danger in his midst, one that could imperil his very soul.

Written by Guy Haley

[shinros]

Soo.... I just finished it and it was a pretty big lore drop you know how people think the realms are infinite? or near infinite? Well.... 

 

 

The realms do indeed END but the end leads to the realm of chaos just like how the north lead to the realms of chaos in the world that was/warhammer world. You also see how land is added to the 8 realms as well at the END. Give's GW room to add things to the map whenever they want.

Also a wild gaunt summoner appears in the short story as well. Still it seems it's not a safe place to hang around since daemons can EASILY appear there since it's seems to be so close to the realms of chaos. 

God dam also Grungi is in the book as well. Arkhan get's a cameo, nagash, Teclis and you see where the pantheon hanged out. 

This short story makes me think that Alarielle is going to reach out to the wanderers and possibly we may see the normal humans for sigmar. I recommend this short story ebook it's got quite a bit of lore for a short story. The story is about how sigmar or Alarielle have been ignoring mortals since the war has been going on. 

They look back on an awesome human doing awesome things but then realizing something important, something that the gods themselves missed. 

As I said I give this short story my thumbs up!

[shinros]

Right here is my full view of the short story and I feel this is the first short story going into the hmm "little" people and exploring the cosmos of AOS somewhat. 

 

Teclis make's an appearance it seems he is pretty much the "good" god of knowledge and magic. 

A Human wizard that mastered 5 out of the 8 pure schools of magic wanted knowledge on the end of the realms. Teclis met with him because he knew his search for knowledge was honest and few among his species ever got that far. Plus mastering 5 schools of magic as a human bloody hell. 

It also seems that perhaps depending on their portfolio the elven/Aelven gods might have a few human followers since they were a pantheon in the age of myth. It would not surprise me to see a life wizard thinking the everqueen is bee's knees or something. So Teclis told him to go to the mountains near possibly the edge of his realm. Where he will find a door that lead's into a tunnel the door has no key and a beast that cannot be killed save by death, guard's realms end. So he went to the only people who can make such a key Grungi's folk, so of course he gets there in dwarf fashion, Grungi's temple guard told the manling to leave the iron temple disheartened he was sitting at the camp fire and met a dwarf/duardin with a REALLY long white beard and shared ale with him. (Also the journey to the mountains took 6 years) 

The human wizard told him his story and he found it interesting and the fact he let him in by the fire and shared ale with him he gave him the key to the door. The duardin/dwarf was hooded and the wizard was wondering where he got it from since he was told there was no key and the dwarf/duardin pretty much says don't worry about it and don't always trust what an aelf says and then leaves. He goes through the door and the last hurdle is a great chained wolf guarding an entrance(most likely a kin of Ulfric) of course he could not get past such a beast he then drank poison to slip into a near death like state. He went to shyish saw tons of skeletons, vampires in carriages etc and met with a necromancer with "black teeth" and said he wanted to meet with nagash. 

Wizard met with nagash and was careful around him nagash agreed to deal with the wolf because his journey interested him and he was a great mage but in return after his death he would serve him for 500 years. His spirit went back to his body and saw the wolf on the floor he went past and came to the edge and saw well random chaos stuff lightning etc all that jazz. 

He saw lands being made and latching onto the land of ghyran he then saw a three armed wizard holding a staff and he knew of his journey the "daemon" manipulated the chaotic energy and showed him his future of how much of a great wizard would be and how much knowledge he would have and know if he served his master and how he is a searcher of knowledge. The one thing that kept him from taking the plunge was the family he left behind. The journey took six+ years and using magic he looked to see what happened to his family and wife(not good) he looked at the present and saw she was rather old and his son was pretty much a man. The daemon of tzeentch told him that they did not matter but he disagreed and realized what was important and went back just before blasting the daemon with magic  of course he told the gods of his journey and what happened. 

I honestly suspect and it's noted it was through realms end and humans wanting to avoid death was how chaos first got it steps into the mortal realms and distorting the truth. 

There is also a bit where sigmar thinks back to the past when he was in the old hall where the pantheon gathered "divine" survivors from the world that was. It was pretty great with Alarielle calling sigmar "prince" and sigmar notes in the end that in actuality he did not want to become a god and he would of happily died a mortal king. 

Sigmar guesses that perhaps a higher being had other plans for him. (*cougholdonescough* still that's my theory and of course people's faith might of played the part.) 

TLDR: Also the realms end the end is pretty much the realms of chaos just like the "north" of the warhammer world. Bit's of random land are created and latch unto the mortal realms. The issue is going there deamons can easily appear and corrupt people. 

They hint that perhaps people going there was maybe how people in the mortal realms began being corrupted by chaos. It seems it's largely forbidden by the gods to go there since technically  realms end is outside of the mortal realms. Since there are doors and being's guarding the realms end.

[Shoe]

On 12/16/2016 at 4:31 PM, shinros said:

words

You are amazing. Thanks!

[Tullbeard]

This is something I posted a little while ago in another thread and is referring to people's questioning of 'Dark Elves' place in order.

"Back in the Old World, you are right that some Dark Elves did worship Slaanesh. It's important to note however that this wasn't the norm, and in fact these cults were hunted down and destroyed by the Dark Elf authorities.

Yes, occasionally Malekith dabbled in summoning Demons himself, but he only did it for necessity to try and win back Ulthuan. Malekith abhorred demons.

bear in mind, before the sundering, Malekith was the most ardent defender of the Elves. As his father before him, Aenarion, he fought Demons constantly.

Everything Malekith did was to win back the Phoenix Throne. We see in the End Times that he then uses that throne to unite the Elves against he threat of Chaos.

Malekith is definitely not a "good guy", but he's definitely an anti-Chaos guy. He's also an overly patriotic Elf, and fiercely xenophobic. He would never permanently align with Chaos (though he would use them to his advantage). He would also never permanently align with anyone, only temporarily to serve his interests.

Sigmar united gods and heroes across the Realms to stand against the un-ignorable threat of Chaos. Malekith/Malerion aligned with Sigmar because it served his, and his people's, interests.

Dark Elves are currently banded under Order, not because they are "good guys", but because they needed to do defeat Chaos. With Chaos still existing, we won't see any future Dark Elf releases leaving Order. Sure, we will probably see numerous back-stabbing and betrayals; but at the end of the day they'd rather stand beside a Man or an Elf, than a Demon; a skeleton or an Orc."

What do people think of this justification for Dark Elves place in Order?

 

[SeanMaguire1991]

Is Tullbeard's text leaking out of its post for anybody else?

[Zeratan]

1 hour ago, SeanMaguire1991 said:

Is Tullbeard's text leaking out of its post for anybody else?

To me.

[shinros]

1 hour ago, Zeratan said:

To me.

Yup I wondered how that happened honestly I can't wait for the new tzeentch tome I will make a post for sure.

[Tullbeard]

Haha, sorry guys, not entirely sure what happened to the formatting there. It should be fixed now - apologies!

What do people think of that justification for Dark Elves place in Order?

[shinros]

It's fine I always felt they were fine in order some people think order means "good" which it does not. Just like how Death and nagash according to Josh is not over the top evil. I think Death is more extreme of order in a sense. 

[CoffeeGrunt]

I personally think of Death as an inevitable endpoint, but then I'm a bit morbid. I like the idea of it being a patient entity that steadily grows its flock and power, because you'll never truly get rid of it.

[Ollie Grimwood]

If we think about the old Law vs Chaos dynamic, Nagash is pretty much the strictest god of Law there is being as though he wants to bring about a state of total unchanging undead permanence. 

[Zeratan]

11 hours ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

If we think about the old Law vs Chaos dynamic, Nagash is pretty much the strictest god of Law there is being as though he wants to bring about a state of total unchanging undead permanence. 

A world inhabited only by undead and people of Cryptborn's temper would certainly be free of Chaos. Afterall who is going to feed the Dark gods if everyone is in full control of their desires and emotions or even completly devoted of them.

[shinros]

2 hours ago, Zeratan said:

A world inhabited only by undead and people of Cryptborn's temper would certainly be free of Chaos. Afterall who is going to feed the Dark gods if everyone is in full control of their desires and emotions or even completly devoted of them.

Yup and going by novels/audio drama the humans are a okay with worshiping nagash. He seems quite involved in a sense compared to most gods it's makes sense considering the kind of faction grand alliance death is. Since his faithful are his property and nagash's protects his property but if you betray him there won't be no respite even in death going by nagash's 8 wives he was offered. 

[SeanMaguire1991]

8 hours ago, shinros said:

Yup and going by novels/audio drama the humans are a okay with worshiping nagash. He seems quite involved in a sense compared to most gods it's makes sense considering the kind of faction grand alliance death is. Since his faithful are his property and nagash's protects his property but if you betray him there won't be no respite even in death going by nagash's 8 wives he was offered. 

That makes me wonder what kind of Role Nagash as a god plays in daily lives of Mortals. 

Do people pray to Nagash to protect the souls of the departed? From the audio dramas we know Vampires are treated with great respect in Shyish.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I wonder if the people are treated as a farmer treats cattle or if they're afforded respect, perhaps positions of power.

[shinros]

2 hours ago, SeanMaguire1991 said:

That makes me wonder what kind of Role Nagash as a god plays in daily lives of Mortals. 

Do people pray to Nagash to protect the souls of the departed? From the audio dramas we know Vampires are treated with great respect in Shyish.

Depends in the recent lord of undeath novel it's revealed priests are caretakers of the smaller black pyramids in the realms. Josh sheds some insight into this I put this up in my first post. Going by the audiodrama nagash takes extreme offensive to those that harms people who belong to him.

Nagash likes loyal people and if you are an amazing wizard going by the short story pantheon he will like you even more. If you betray him? Well do we need to say anything? About what he does to such people?

How do the mortal's of shyish worship nagash? Would they be more than happy to become undead? Viewing it as something greater than their mortal coils? 

In different ways, in different places, I imagine. Some might yearn to be undead, others don't. Some might co-exist with the dead, in a form of ancestor worship, while others might seal their dead away, to be forever undisturbed ('render unto Nagash'). 

Think of it this way - even monotheistic religions tend to have a lot of variability in ritual, if not dogma. And Nagash probably doesn't care about *how* he's worshipped, so long as he's worshipped.

In the world that was vampires were considered the "blood of nagash". Considering Nagash is now a god are vampires viewed differently to the mortals of shyish compared to the other realms? In this case would Neferata and Mannfred appearing in a town they would be viewed as some form of holy figure? 

Pretty much, yes, depending on the place and context. In some places, vampires are possibly seen as the equivalent to messengers from god - prophets and holy men. In others, as those who have been blessed - or cursed - by a god. Immortality might not be seen as a good thing by those who worship death

[shinros]

Preparing Archaon's post for the new year one interesting note is that Archaon has worked with slaaneshi spell-sirens during his crusade around the realm of chaos perhaps something for the future?