Fluff Problems

[Gecktron]

23 minutes ago, erasercrumbs said:

Yes, yes, but knowing that their eternal aspect is meaningless to Sigmar, why would anyone follow him? In the Old World you had a complex theology with Morr tending to and guiding the dead to a place of rest, but in AOS, there is no reason to follow Sigmar when Nagash actually interacts with the only eternal aspect of you. It's surprising that no one else has been bothered by this inconsistency.

The Afterlife in the mortal realms is shaped by the believes of the different people. 

A Sigmar worshipper will end in his version of heaven/hell after he dies. Even though Nagash has absorbed the other gods of death this is still how Shyish works as his rule is far from absolut. 

 

[HorticulusTGA]

40 minutes ago, erasercrumbs said:

Yes, yes, but knowing that their eternal aspect is meaningless to Sigmar, why would anyone follow him? In the Old World you had a complex theology with Morr tending to and guiding the dead to a place of rest, but in AOS, there is no reason to follow Sigmar when Nagash actually interacts with the only eternal aspect of you. It's surprising that no one else has been bothered by this inconsistency.

I don't see any difference of principle with Morr and Nagash's roles theologically speaking (the WFB underworlds was just more "in the warp" than Shyish which is also accessible - and settled - by the livings). 

Anyway their eternal aspect  isn't meaningless to Sigmar ; to be "part" of your god is maybe better than a mere ressource for the god of Death (talking about the only "interactions" you may have with him  ).

And you worship a god because he embodies authority, because he is your protector against Chaos, because you support his values of order and civilization, etc. 

Nagash does that too, but in a less appealing way than Sigmar IMO. 

[shinros]

6 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

I don't see any difference of principle with Morr and Nagash's roles theologically speaking (the WFB underworlds was just more "in the warp" than Shyish which is also accessible - and settled - by the livings). 

Anyway their eternal aspect  isn't meaningless to Sigmar ; to be "part" of your god is maybe better than a mere ressource for the god of Death (talking about the only "interactions" you may have with him  ).

And you worship a god because he embodies authority, because he is your protector against Chaos, because you support his values of order and civilization, etc. 

Nagash does that too, but in a less appealing way than Sigmar IMO. 

Pretty much and spear of shadows does allude to that an aspect of Nagash would put you in your appropriate underworld. 

[Beliman]

Imho, one of the best parts of Age of Sigmar is gods living between mortals. Something like DarkSouls. You can see them, you can touch them, put your faith on them (or just hate them), but in the end, they can be killed.  

No one is safe, not even gods. 

[offroadfury]

So it took them 100 years to build a city the size of a continent on two planes of being? I know I'm missing something but the timeline makes no sense to me

Im on the side of loving the WF world. I loved the constraints it applied which allowed the creativity flow. I think some people just need a bit of humbling with the lore. To me what made the world great was everyday heroes could emerge and dfend everyday settings. Like Gotrek and Felix fighting goblins and trolls to save one tomb in the book Trollslayer, or Malice Darkblade arguing with a deamon wandering around in the cold.  Or the book Riders of the Dead which just showed two men slowly being pulled against each other during the Storm of Chaos. These small moments built a living world, more than a fully fleshed out color map of a continent sized city ever could.

I want to  give AoS a give, but its going to take more than "Badass Stormcast kill everything for the good of everyone!" Its been 3ish years, lets get a Felix like character going to explore the wonderful world they've created.

I do love what they do with souls though, looking forward to seeing how they move that forward.

Also it seems that the only true humans we have are the barbarian tribes.

[Skabnoze]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

Imho, one of the best parts of Age of Sigmar is gods living between mortals. Something like DarkSouls. You can see them, you can touch them, put your faith on them (or just hate them), but in the end, they can be killed.  

No one is safe, not even gods. 

Better hope that Kratos does not decide to buy a condo in the Mortal Realms...

[Beliman]

23 minutes ago, offroadfury said:

So it took them 100 years to build a city the size of a continent on two planes of being? I know I'm missing something but the timeline makes no sense to me

Im on the side of loving the WF world. I loved the constraints it applied which allowed the creativity flow. I think some people just need a bit of humbling with the lore. To me what made the world great was everyday heroes could emerge and dfend everyday settings. Like Gotrek and Felix fighting goblins and trolls to save one tomb in the book Trollslayer, or Malice Darkblade arguing with a deamon wandering around in the cold.  Or the book Riders of the Dead which just showed two men slowly being pulled against each other during the Storm of Chaos. These small moments built a living world, more than a fully fleshed out color map of a continent sized city ever could.

I want to  give AoS a give, but its going to take more than "Badass Stormcast kill everything for the good of everyone!" Its been 3ish years, lets get a Felix like character going to explore the wonderful world they've created.

I do love what they do with souls though, looking forward to seeing how they move that forward.

Also it seems that the only true humans we have are the barbarian tribes.

Spear of Shadows or City of Secrets are some of the books that are trying to go in another direction from the previous ones (the SCE vs Khorne that you just pointed). I need to read Overlords of the iron Dragon (being a KO,  this should be my first read, shame on me). From what we know, there is alot to come, so don't expect to see all caracters, development and the same progression of WHFB in the first five years. Btw, imho I see an awesome job from GW, because in three years we are starting to see some characters that can fill the gap; and after the RP book and AoS 2.0, we are going to have some more physical views of AoS.

[HorticulusTGA]

34 minutes ago, offroadfury said:

So it took them 100 years to build a city the size of a continent on two planes of being? I know I'm missing something but the timeline makes no sense to me

Im on the side of loving the WF world. I loved the constraints it applied which allowed the creativity flow. I think some people just need a bit of humbling with the lore. To me what made the world great was everyday heroes could emerge and dfend everyday settings. Like Gotrek and Felix fighting goblins and trolls to save one tomb in the book Trollslayer, or Malice Darkblade arguing with a deamon wandering around in the cold.  Or the book Riders of the Dead which just showed two men slowly being pulled against each other during the Storm of Chaos. These small moments built a living world, more than a fully fleshed out color map of a continent sized city ever could.

I want to  give AoS a give, but its going to take more than "Badass Stormcast kill everything for the good of everyone!" Its been 3ish years, lets get a Felix like character going to explore the wonderful world they've created.

I do love what they do with souls though, looking forward to seeing how they move that forward.

Also it seems that the only true humans we have are the barbarian tribes.

 

Just like @Beliman did, I'll try to help : 

Timeline : 

 - The Age of Myth lasted more than 12'000 years. Probably at least 20'000 years.

- The Age of Chaos lasted 500 years, but the last centuries of the Age of Myth was already full of wars and Chaos invasions.

- We now are 100 years into the Age of Sigmar. The Realmgates Wars (the first part of this age) lasted like 40-50 years, so Hammerhal (and the other Free cities of Order) took the forces of Order like 60-50 to build. They had the workforce and machines of mankind, engineering skills of the duardin, and the magic of the aelves to do that.

Common inhabitants of the Mortal Realms : 

Hammerhal is not literally the size of a contient.  It's entirely inhabited by "common" humans, aelfs and duardins. The interesting part for you may be the focus on one area, in details, here the district of Cinderfall, and its inhabitants.

 

The barbarian tribes lives outside the Free cities of Order (either the uncorrupted tribes, called the Reclaimed by the settlers of Azyr, or the corrupted tribes, composed of savage Darkoath marauders and other Chaos forces).

Sources on stories involving common humans living in cities :

The Realmgate Wars BL books were indeed focused on the Stormcast Eternals - it was this army that formed the spear tip of the armies of Azyr to take back the other 7 Mortal Realms. It ended in summer 2016.

Since then, we had a lot of stories about the common inhabitants of the Mortal Realms. I highly recommend you read or just Google the summary of those novels (and the short stories coming algonside them) :

1. City of Secrets (Black Library)

2. Eight Lamentations : Spear of Shadows (BL)

3. Hammerhal and Other stories (BL)

4. Shadow Over Hammerhal (Warhammer Quest game)

5. Season of War : Seeds of Hope (summer 2016 Global campaign booklet) and Season of War : Firestorm (Campaign boxed game).

6. Malign Portents campaign book, and all the short stories available for free here : https://malignportents.com/stories/ 

About the other more or less "common" people of the Mortal Realms, the Sylvaneth, Kharadron Overlord, Daughters Of Khaine and Idoneth Deepkin Battletomes have great fluff too. The book Overlord of the Iron Dragon deals with the day to day lives of duardin sailors. The book The tainted heart, out this summer, will deal with the work of two Witch hunters, and also their relationship (they are in love).

You must remember that things like Mallus Darkblade or Gotrek (who is coming back to the Realms in search of Felix) were NOT there tree years after Warhammer fantasy's creation. It took decades to establish the world.

About the common folk theme you like, I can only encourage you to check this : https://malignportents.com/# 

---

You may also want to read a bit about the new edition of AOS coming in June here : https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/05/12/your-intro-to-the-mortal-realms-may-12gw-homepage-post-4/ There will be interesting  maps and artworks. The new Core Book will have like 200 pages of background.

Also another timeline here : https://malignportents.com/timeline/

And a wider explanations of the nature of the Realms here : https://malignportents.com/realms

[chord]

I would rather read about the stormcast defeating chaos, then the common heroes.

Until we see another series like the realmgate wars I'll just buy non-gw books. 

[SuperHappyTime]

1 hour ago, offroadfury said:

So it took them 100 years to build a city the size of a continent on two planes of being? I know I'm missing something but the timeline makes no sense to me

Im on the side of loving the WF world. I loved the constraints it applied which allowed the creativity flow. I think some people just need a bit of humbling with the lore. To me what made the world great was everyday heroes could emerge and dfend everyday settings. Like Gotrek and Felix fighting goblins and trolls to save one tomb in the book Trollslayer, or Malice Darkblade arguing with a deamon wandering around in the cold.  Or the book Riders of the Dead which just showed two men slowly being pulled against each other during the Storm of Chaos. These small moments built a living world, more than a fully fleshed out color map of a continent sized city ever could.

I want to  give AoS a give, but its going to take more than "Badass Stormcast kill everything for the good of everyone!" Its been 3ish years, lets get a Felix like character going to explore the wonderful world they've created.

I do love what they do with souls though, looking forward to seeing how they move that forward.

Also it seems that the only true humans we have are the barbarian tribes.

I’ve had my problems with those kinds of questions too.

The Age of Chaos begun when Sigmar barred the doors. At that time whatever humans, Elves, and Dwarfs were locked inside with him. Fast forward those populations 500 years, and consider that Azyr was rid of all Chaos Influence (and thus mostly settled), it’s probably an overpopulated area ready to explode. Give that population a new area, and they’re going to spread out everywhere. Real Life Example: USA’s Manifest Destiny.

The bit they need to do is tell us it’s there. It doesn’t need to be fleshed out. Think WoW during the initial launch, large regions with small areas where certain bad guys all hang out. Tell us there’s large regions first (They did, the Realms), tell us there are small areas (They’ve started to), then flesh it out (Paragraph or Two to start)

[offroadfury]

Thanks friends!

I guess the way i under stood the time of Chaos was that it destroyed everything and only Sigmar in his realm were untouched. He created the SC and drove them out. But there are cities and holds that survived for 500 years? Like the big city?

[Gecktron]

2 hours ago, offroadfury said:

I want to  give AoS a give, but its going to take more than "Badass Stormcast kill everything for the good of everyone!" Its been 3ish years, lets get a Felix like character going to explore the wonderful world they've created.

My friend, let me tell you of Ser Roggen of the knightly order of the Furrow and bravest human in service of our Lady Alarielle.

… what I wanted to say is: read basically anything written by Josh Reynolds. He created some great characters for Age of Sigmar already and they will appear in different stories all the time. Ser Roggen appears in "Spear of Shadows", together with Adhema and other heroes. Definitely worth a read. 

[HorticulusTGA]

1 hour ago, offroadfury said:

Thanks friends!

I guess the way i under stood the time of Chaos was that it destroyed everything and only Sigmar in his realm were untouched. He created the SC and drove them out. But there are cities and holds that survived for 500 years? Like the big city?

You're welcome !

Indeed, there are many places that survived during the 500 years of the Age of Chaos. 

Everything in Azyr was relatively safe, but the great city of Azyrheim (where all the refugees ended up) was the stage of a civil war after the Gates of Azyr were closed : Archaon infected some of the refugees with plague, and Chaos sorcerers and daemons had infested the city. You can read about this in the rulebook Grand Alliance : Order, and in Battletome : Everchosen.

Many human kingdoms, those small enough to hide, or with magic to protect them, survived during the Age of Chaos. The Idoneth, Daughters of Khaine and Kharadron hid into the sea, the realm of shadows or the sky. Many Fyreslayers mountain fortresses survived under siege by Chaos barbarians and Skaven during 500 years, and even some very big cities like Nulahmia in Shyish (capital of the vampire Neferata) resisted through warfare and magical illusion during the wars of the Age of Chaos.

And as you said, the Realmgate Wars indeed saw the Stormcast destroys many Chaos forces, but they didn't drove them out of the Realms ; Chaos is still the mightiest force of the Mortal Realms ; it's just that they are divided now. If Archaon reunites them they'll be stronger than Nagash's and Sigmar's armies.

Still, the forces of Order were able to take some small parts of the land, de-corrupt it with wizards and priests, and build new cities upon this retaken ground. 

[KillagoreFaceslasha]

3 hours ago, offroadfury said:

the size of a continent

 

" Its been 3ish years, lets get a Felix like character going to explore the wonderful world they've created.

 

Also it seems that the only true humans we have are the barbarian tribes

That was just the narrative waxing poetry, it's not literally the size of a continent.

 

And they've had guys like Felix explore the setting already. For well over a year with stories like city of secrets, auction of blood, the crew from spear of shadows, Esselt and Tallorcan. People like Prince Maesa in his never ending quest to find a way to bring back his beloved one.

And no. Even amongst the reclaimed, tribesmen are not the only source of good humans. Shu'Gohl and its denizens are the most glaring example, to name one.

[Twitch of Izalith]

I really like the approach currently where they are concentrating on short fiction and not even trying to create any particularly epic stories/new characters. I think most of the feedback they have got is that the majority of customers don't really like the "gods fighting continent sized monsters" stuff they had put out previously and while thats a bit of a shame for the people who did like that stuff - I think it will set the trend going forward.

Also the realmgate wars books just didn't sell very well as far as I know. And GW listens particularly carefully when customers use their wallets to communicate. All the most positively received fiction - city of secrets, spear of shadows, plague garden, undying king - all those titles have very little in common with the realmgate wars offerings.

Good novels are still pretty thin on the ground for AoS though. I just read Overlords of the Iron Dragon and its not a particularly good story to be honest - you get the distinct impression the author was writing to a brief rather than because he had a great idea for a character or story he wanted to share...

I'm currently reading Talon of Horus by Aaron Dempsky Bowden and if you read those 2 books back to back you realise the huge difference in quality thats possible with Black Library. I've also been re-reading a lot of warhammer fiction as they re-release the "chronicles" and its just flat out better than anything for AoS so far.

Not giving up on AoS lore and fiction though. Next on my list is the new Neferata book which I really hope is good since I bought the beautiful hardback special edition instead of the kindle versions I normally go for!

I get what people are saying about "it took decades for the WFB Lore to develop" and that is a fair statement, but its worth remembering that GW & Black Library have also developed massively since the first 3 years of Warhammer Fantasy. The company is large enough now that they should be able to produce quality and quantity right from the start. The fact that we still have to reach for City of Secrets whenever anybody complains there are no good stories in AoS is strong evidence they are not consistently delivering that - and CoS isn't even a full length novel.

[chord]

One of the most impressive AoS blogs had this to say about the narrative turn 

https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/i-have-an-issue-with-age-of-sigmar/

Interesting for somebody so into AoS narrative at one point

[offroadfury]

Quality of writing can go very far in convincing people to care about something.

The first books in the Horus Heresy series were some of the best I've ever read and despite never playing 40k I was caught hook line and sinker with those first pieces of work.

[Roark]

4 hours ago, offroadfury said:

Quality of writing can go very far in convincing people to care about something.

The first books in the Horus Heresy series were some of the best I've ever read and despite never playing 40k I was caught hook line and sinker with those first pieces of work.

That's my experience too! Never cared much about 40K or its universe until I read those first few HH books. Brilliant. 

Oh, but then I discovered Dan Abnett.... Gawd I wish he'd write some fantasy stuff. Awesome writer.

[Deepkin]

Abnett did write some fantasy. Check out Riders of the Dead and Fell Cargo. Riders of the Dead nails the Warhammer vibe so ****** hard.

[KillagoreFaceslasha]

11 hours ago, Twitch of Izalith said:

I really like the approach currently where they are concentrating on short fiction and not even trying to create any particularly epic stories/new characters. I think most of the feedback they have got is that the majority of customers don't really like the "gods fighting continent sized monsters" stuff they had put out previously and while thats a bit of a shame for the people who did like that stuff - I think it will set the trend going forward.

Also the realmgate wars books just didn't sell very well as far as I know. And GW listens particularly carefully when customers use their wallets to communicate. All the most positively received fiction - city of secrets, spear of shadows, plague garden, undying king - all those titles have very little in common with the realmgate wars offerings.

Good novels are still pretty thin on the ground for AoS though. I just read Overlords of the Iron Dragon and its not a particularly good story to be honest - you get the distinct impression the author was writing to a brief rather than because he had a great idea for a character or story he wanted to share...

I'm currently reading Talon of Horus by Aaron Dempsky Bowden and if you read those 2 books back to back you realise the huge difference in quality thats possible with Black Library. I've also been re-reading a lot of warhammer fiction as they re-release the "chronicles" and its just flat out better than anything for AoS so far.

Not giving up on AoS lore and fiction though. Next on my list is the new Neferata book which I really hope is good since I bought the beautiful hardback special edition instead of the kindle versions I normally go for!

I get what people are saying about "it took decades for the WFB Lore to develop" and that is a fair statement, but its worth remembering that GW & Black Library have also developed massively since the first 3 years of Warhammer Fantasy. The company is large enough now that they should be able to produce quality and quantity right from the start. The fact that we still have to reach for City of Secrets whenever anybody complains there are no good stories in AoS is strong evidence they are not consistently delivering that - and CoS isn't even a full length novel.

I think there's a thing to point out and it's been fairly bemoaned and it's how HARD they got micromanaged by the suits. Sure, we could get some gems out of the RGWs like Warbeast or Reynold's Mortarch of Night but it wasn't generally  up to par. I haven't finished either Hammers of Sigmar or Wardens of the Everqueen. I just can't. 

 

After the first batch, though, the novels for AoS have been getting better and better. Both city of secrets and spear of shadows are fairly good in themselves. OoID was passable if uninspired though I had a better shot with Tallorcan and Esselt's short so I remain cautiously optimistic about Werner's AoS production. IMO it isn't as much as the setting having only 3 years as the authors still figuring out the exact pulse of the setting and thus are still grasping a bit. It's getting there, though.

[Deepkin]

Werner should revive Brunner the Bounty Hunter for AoS. Best part of End Times was him shooting Archaon in the face with warpstone bullets before dying. 

[KillagoreFaceslasha]

He's in the process of reviving Thulman with the lovebirds, so time to time.

[Kirjava13]

9 hours ago, Roark said:

Oh, but then I discovered Dan Abnett.... Gawd I wish he'd write some fantasy stuff. Awesome writer.

He's not universally amazing, as much as I love the Ghosts- he did some work on Transformers comics a while back and good grief it was terrible.

[Twitch of Izalith]

10 hours ago, Roark said:

Oh, but then I discovered Dan Abnett.... Gawd I wish he'd write some fantasy stuff. Awesome writer.

He has some Warhammer Fantasy stuff. He collaborated on a few of the Malus Darkblade novels which are the only ones I have actually read but I'm pretty sure he has a couple of other Fantasy titles for Balck Library.

[AaronWilson]

I got 99 problems but the fluff aint one