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The "logic" of the AoS setting?


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@Yodhrin as far as I can tell, the setting is vague for 2 reasons.

1: GW has simply not gotten round to establishing everything yet, they are slowly revealing the Mortal Realms as the narrative gets there. We have maps and cities of certain parts of the realms that have been part of the narrative (eg: Fire and Life), but very little to none on other realms.

2: To give you freedom in how you "slot in". You can choose how involved you want to be with the "main story", according to your taste or what your story requires. We all have the range form established and described cities to drop characters into; through making entire kingdoms of our own in far flung reaches of any realm we like. In keeping with the "make it your own" approach GW seems to be trying, which I like (despite too much at the release of AoS).

I'm not sure where I read it, but IIRC the realms fade into the Warp. So think of the Mortal Realms as large pockets of reality, each heavily influenced (or themed) by the wind of magic that was used to form it.

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This is a super exciting thread that really have my creative juices going. A really good question, that I myself have struggled with, with loads of really well written answers.

I feel that I have gotten a clearer picture of how it's all connected but most of all, how I should be approaching AoS in my mind. It's more work to create your own little place and tie it to the world since you actually have to create most of it from scratch but that is also the strength. To have a framework to create your own part of the world without having to invent the backbone with rules and factions.

Lots of love to all that have really given their time to answer the question!

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18 minutes ago, xking said:

The city of hammerhal is the size of a continent and is between two dimensions. and is still growing.

 

I don't agree with shinros that the map of Ghyran is the size of the old world, I think that the surface space of that map is far FAR larger.

 

Oh yeah I forgot that detail good point in retrospect it should be much more larger. Ghyran is larger than the warhammer world. (the old world is one part of the warhammer world)

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A little primer, I have been playing Warhammer for around 20 years now. I was a huge fan of fantasy and gave AOS' setting an honest shot when AOS first came out and I have been absolutely hooked ever since.

The best part for me about AOS as a narrative gamer and huge lore-head, is that I can create a story around an area and perhaps an immense city or a large port and the surrounding area, and it's practically canon merely due to the scope of the realms and the places beyond. Whereas if in WHF scope was incredibly limited and space was so finite that some things didn't make sense or bordered on being too fantastical. 

To me that is just so freaking cool. You can use what we have available at current with the races to serve as building blocks or create your own races. Treat it like 40k but instead of the galaxy+planets, think of it more like 8 different planes and the spaces between them.  Almost all of the races released so far have footholds in every Realm. Even Fyreslayers that you would only think established in Aqshy have Lodges all over the 8 realms (and even some between!). 

Just give it an honest chance.


 

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The Mortal Realms are 8 different planes of reality, with different areas within each obeying wildly different physical laws, or no laws at all - like the Realm of Chaos in 40K the entire setting is a metaphysical puzzle box that defies easy categorisation, explanation or structure.

Unlike 40K and WHFB, which are grounded in the reality of history, the AoS setting is directly inspired by epic mythology, so the same kind of internal logic simply doesn't exist. For some of us, this is part of its appeal. If you're going to dump on AoS for not having its internal logic all worked out then you may as well dump on the Norse sagas, the Hindu Vedas and the Welsh Mabinogion while you're at it. In terms of lore and setting, these are what you should be judging AoS against, not 40K.

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First off I have to say - this thread is fantastic and thanks to everyone who's contributed!

Now, my 2 cents (okay, maybe a few more):

My response at the release of Age of Sigmar was pretty similiar. The nebulous vaguely defined realms and total lack of locations were confusing and gave me nothing to connect to. The early storylines - which all seemed to boil down to "Stormcasts go to this totally new and super important place, fight epic battle, now let's forget all about this place and go off and do it all over again" (I'm simplifying a bit here xD) - did nothing to make me connect to the setting.

It all felt... meaningless. Place names were being dropped left, right and center and never mentioned again. Nowhere felt strategically important, or like it related to anywhere is in any important fashion. There were no maps! (I love maps! I need maps, by Sigmar!)

Having said that, I've definitely come around to it, so I'll try to explain how.

Partly it's due to GW shifting its output to building a setting, rather than focusing entirely on the battles. More than that however it was a shift in focus on my part. Others have already discussed the mythological style of the realms in depth, and it was thinking about the realms in these terms that really made something click for me. Suddenly I didn't need to worry about how my guys in Ghyran related to the war in Ghur, or the trade routes from Azyrheim. Most of them wouldn't have even seen another realm, let alone understand how they existed. To them Ghyran alone would be the world - and by various magical means they might reach what were to them, other worlds.

Suddenly the exact mechanics of the setting didn't matter so much. The nature of the realms wasn't important because they were such magical and mythological places. I didn't fully understand it, but neither would my armies. The mystery about them became a strength rather than a weakness.

With this in mind I was able to start thinking about how my guys did fit into the setting. I love worldbuilding and to me this is the biggest strength of Age of Sigmar - you can create just about anything, really. Compared to WFB it's a bit more daunting - you can't simply pick a location for your army and immediately get a sense of which factions are important allies, where attacks will probably come from, and so on. You have to come up with that on your own. The tradeoff of course is that the possibilities are almost endless compared to WFB - which to me is a good thing, but might not be to everyone's tastes, of course.

Age of Sigmar really leaves the setting open for you to define your own details, but even then I think they can still flow  organically. For me, the Sylvaneth were my gateway into the setting so I started thinking about the connection between them and my Avelorn High Elves, who were also close to Alarielle. This gave me the idea to place my army in a kingdom in Ghyran where Sylvaneth and Aelves ruled, coexisting in a manner unusual for the Sylvaneth.

This was just an isolated pocket of my own in the vast and empty realms, bu from this their place in the wider setting started to become clear. How would other Sylvaneth clans look upon this close bond with outsiders? They'd tolerate it, since it would need Alarielle's blessing to exist at all. But the genocidal outcasts (who hate everyone who isn't Sylvaneth) would practically consider my army traitors. As far as the mundane details of my kingdom went, I decided it would be bounded to the west by a mountain range. This meant that in the Age of Chaos, the enemy would probably have come from the east -  so I decided that the lands east of my army would be held by Nurgle-worshipping tribes.

The sort of details I loved about WFB's setting were still there, I just had to find them for myself...

(Whew! This post's long. If you've made it this far, go get yourself a cookie xD)

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My glib answer for this is that it's 'Power Metal Album Covers: The Setting'. Come up with cool stuff and whatever it is, it'll fit into one of the realms.

I will admit I'd *like* to have things a bit more nailed down purely so I've got something to springboard from, but in terms of actual structure I see it something like this:

Eight interlocking functionally infinite planes, each influenced by/formed from one of the Winds of Magic. There are also Realmgates connecting them, which are basically shortcut portals. Each realm has all the stuff you expect to find in terms of flora and fauna, just influenced by the characteristics of the realm. Because of the Realmgates, pretty much any army can be anywhere as well.

There's also some stuff to do with where Sigmar hangs out, but that's less relevant for the narrative of your games in my opinion.

Dragonlover

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I caught this thread a little late and so didnt read all the responses to sorry if someone has already covered this.

Firstly the threads intial post reflects my thoughts exactly.

However.

When it comes down to it AOS is still new and the corners of the map are still being filled in.

With WHFB the setting has always been the same. in my mind they started right from the middle giving us a grainy undefined picture of the whole setting. showed us a map, defined its boundaries and then developed the detail over time (Character backstory, historical events and timelines, cities, politics etc) and for a while this worked beautifully and created a setting which was richer with information and detail than any ive known (Hence why i loved the novels)

I loved growing up with a setting where you would hear about an event from one source and eventually read the whole story from another. I would love reading about gotrek and then hear the same battle (And a reference to a one eyed slayer) mentioned somewhere completely different. It all felt connected and it all felt like it "mattered"

As mention 40k does the same but with far my space to fill. In my oppinion to much space. It great to be able to wage solar system wide wars without it conflicting with the fluff but all the epic achievements really dont seem to amount to anything in the 40k universe.(Which is why im happy the have advanced the setting)

 

AOS in comparrision seemes to be going for the middle ground. Its complicated to put into a post the thought process but here we go.

AOS has started as a new thing at a time where people were missing all the old detail(WHFB was new and the first and therefore could start at a slow pace) in comparrision we all demanded that GW fill the void as quickly as possible. Therefore GW has had to give us vast quantities of detail but at the same time not cage themselves into a rushed setting.

Linked to this is the buisness point of view. AOS is selling well atm by getting people on the hype train about what new form the races will take. If they released to much info about them we would all be waiting for our chosen faction rather than buying models.

So GW seems to have been biding their time giving us just enough detail but without commiting to anything to definitive so that they can use this time to learn from the community and steer AOS in the right direction (If there inital plan wasent quite on point). Perhaps their intial ideas for the realms were to large? well at this stage they could still quite easily give us some set maps. Or perhaps the community wont like that so they can make the realms 5 times the size?

I could go on for alot longer but ill try to finish this up.

I think people belive that because its a high fantasy setting that nithing can be pinned down with "logic" however getting GW to commit to a city or event and making it matter (Hammerhal for instance) shouldnt be difficult. If they want a city floating on a discworld like turtle thats fine. But as long as that turtle actually shows up again in the rest of the fluff.

I think once all the "expected" races appear and the realms are all "aknowleged" we will start to see GW drawing that loose boarder round their creation just like WHFB. i dont imagine it will be anywhere near as small allowing for the creation of new events and places.(and lets not forget that they could quite easily advance the story with something from outside the realms aka a new realm with a new threat??)

but ultimately even a sandbox needs to be contained within borders.

 

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10 hours ago, Lord Veshnakar said:


To me that is just so freaking cool. You can use what we have available at current with the races to serve as building blocks or create your own races. Treat it like 40k but instead of the galaxy+planets, think of it more like 8 different planes and the spaces between them.  Almost all of the races released so far have footholds in every Realm. Even Fyreslayers that you would only think established in Aqshy have Lodges all over the 8 realms (and even some between!). 
 

 

8 hours ago, Davariel said:

First off I have to say - this thread is fantastic and thanks to everyone who's contributed!

Now, my 2 cents (okay, maybe a few more):

My response at the release of Age of Sigmar was pretty similiar. The nebulous vaguely defined realms and total lack of locations were confusing and gave me nothing to connect to. The early storylines - which all seemed to boil down to "Stormcasts go to this totally new and super important place, fight epic battle, now let's forget all about this place and go off and do it all over again" (I'm simplifying a bit here xD) - did nothing to make me connect to the setting.

It all felt... meaningless. Place names were being dropped left, right and center and never mentioned again. Nowhere felt strategically important, or like it related to anywhere is in any important fashion. There were no maps! (I love maps! I need maps, by Sigmar!)

Having said that, I've definitely come around to it, so I'll try to explain how.

Partly it's due to GW shifting its output to building a setting, rather than focusing entirely on the battles. More than that however it was a shift in focus on my part. Others have already discussed the mythological style of the realms in depth, and it was thinking about the realms in these terms that really made something click for me. Suddenly I didn't need to worry about how my guys in Ghyran related to the war in Ghur, or the trade routes from Azyrheim. Most of them wouldn't have even seen another realm, let alone understand how they existed. To them Ghyran alone would be the world - and by various magical means they might reach what were to them, other worlds.

Suddenly the exact mechanics of the setting didn't matter so much. The nature of the realms wasn't important because they were such magical and mythological places. I didn't fully understand it, but neither would my armies. The mystery about them became a strength rather than a weakness.

With this in mind I was able to start thinking about how my guys did fit into the setting. I love worldbuilding and to me this is the biggest strength of Age of Sigmar - you can create just about anything, really. Compared to WFB it's a bit more daunting - you can't simply pick a location for your army and immediately get a sense of which factions are important allies, where attacks will probably come from, and so on. You have to come up with that on your own. The tradeoff of course is that the possibilities are almost endless compared to WFB - which to me is a good thing, but might not be to everyone's tastes, of course.

Yeah, see, this is why I struggle to wrap my head around things - how can it be both an entirely mystical set of planar realms so far detached from each other by space and time that you can do anything you want because nothing really interacts that much...and also have extremely similar versions of all the official factions in all the realms? If Fyreslayers can get around enough between the Realms to establish lodges that are functionally and aesthetically extremely similar, and Overlords can sail the ether to establish trade posts in all the worlds, then they can't be that gigantic or detached from each other, and so there has to be some logic to their interactions.

 

I appreciate everyone trying to help, but based on Jamie the Jasper getting all defensive I feel like I must still not be explaining myself properly.

 

I get that it's loosely defined, mystical, mythological and all that jazz. But there have to be some rules, some understandable sense of scale, surely. I'll try a different tack - I like the Discworld novels, they're great, and they have a mental, silly setting. The titular Discworld is a literal disc, resting on the back of four gigantic elephants, in turn standing on the back of a great cosmic turtle, flying through space according to the turtle's whims while a sun orbits the whole bizarre assemblage. By any rational measure it makes no sense, but I can accept it regardless because the individual components are understandable and how they relate to each other is explained. 

That's what I'm missing from AoS. We have landscapes, we have aether, we have "the Firmament", Mallus and Sigmaron etc etc, all of the parts are there I can see them well enough, but what is their structure, how does one relate to the other, how do they work - which is the turtle, which the elephants, which the disc? Are the landmasses worlds, or flat slabs floating in space, or in aether, do they have an edge or are they infinite dimensional planes, do they all share a sun or do they all have their own, can all the landmasses see each other or is that just Sigmar's palace and Azyr, and so on. I mean, I get the whole mythological angle, but even mythology got mapped out - what I need for AoS in order to grasp it is a sense of scale for the Realms themselves and a sense of where they exist relative to each other, even something as vague as the Yggdrasil map or as feverish as Dante's circles of Hell, just something.

To put it in sciencey terms- you guys keep showing me really cool chemical reactions and biological processes, and I agree many of them are really cool, but it's the physics I need to know to put everything in context, even if it's a crude pre-modern-science kind of physics - I need to see the rules of this reality, so I can work within them.

Now if there genuinely, really are no rules, and AoS is supposed to be everything all at once, OK, that just probably means it isn't for me afterall, but I do want to make sure.

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The reasoning for the world being destroyed is that WHFB played kind of like a historical because the space to squeeze in your own fluff was sort of narrow, and things were so mapped that it might be tough to make up a thing on the fly that didn't step on the toes of something else. It's not a good or bad thing just different.

 

AoS is drained to make locations, people, and things generic to where you could throw anything at the world and have it stick. If you can't find a realm for your battle or army lore to be set in, you can just make up an realm. This realm can be inhabited by any other faction as you see fit and can be connected to any other realm. 

 

The latter forces story's to be written about specific parts of factions. It allows for really interesting them to happen and for factions to realisticly be neat obliterated, but still have a realistic chance of escaping into some random realm last minute. It also allows you as the player to say that any one given story to effect you. The one big problem with this story telling story is it's hard for writers to get across that any one story matters. 

 

Happy narrative forging!!

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17 hours ago, Yodhrin said:

I appreciate everyone trying to help, but based on Jamie the Jasper getting all defensive I feel like I must still not be explaining myself properly.

 

You're right, I was a little defensive and I apologise. But you did start this thread by saying that you've been ******** on AoS for the last two years, which A) is not a very polite way to introduce yourself on an AoS community website, and B) doesn't do much to endear yourself to those of us who spent the first year of AoS tiresomely defending the game to smug, vindictive people who were willing it to fail. Anyway, enough said on that I think.

Defensiveness aside, the point I was making in my previous post was genuinely meant. I think you're looking for a set of rules that aren't there, because the lore and setting isn't built on the same storytelling foundation as the settings you're either used to or prefer. I don't know if you've read The Silmarillion (it's a tough read, I haven't managed to finish it myself), but it provides a good point of comparison. Whereas The Lord of the Rings is based very clearly on the history and familiar physics of real-world iron age Europe, and written in a style that opens the door to a reality that we can fully relate to despite its fantastical elements, The Silmarillion is very different. It's set in the same world, but in a distant, mythological age. The writing style has an aloof, dreamlike quality while the physical processes, insofar as they're described at all, are vague, unknowable, and share more in common with mythical and religious texts than they do with the history of our world and the physics of our universe.

The descriptions of The Undying Lands, for example are fantastical almost to the point of absurdity. They are described vaguely as almost existing somewhere between Earth and Heaven - not in a literal physical sense but in a metaphysical sense. The reader has to interpret that in whichever way is most satisfying to them - there are no straight answers, but no-one would accuse Tolkien of being a bad writer or creating a half-baked world. Now, I'm not saying that the GW writers are on par with Tolkien by any means, but the principle is the same.

AoS invites you to put your own interpretation on the metaphysical concepts that it throws into the mix. 

 

17 hours ago, Yodhrin said:

I mean, I get the whole mythological angle, but even mythology got mapped out - what I need for AoS in order to grasp it is a sense of scale for the Realms themselves and a sense of where they exist relative to each other, even something as vague as the Yggdrasil map or as feverish as Dante's circles of Hell, just something.

 

I'm not sure that all mythologies have the same kind of visual representation that Norse mythology has - I'm familiar with the representation of Yggdrasil and the various realms that you're talking about though. I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that even that was created by relatively recent scholars rather than being a 'map' that existed during the time when Norse mythology was an active belief system. If so then you could imagine it as a kind of 'fan project' - an attempt to apply some kind of spatial logic to a set of abstract, mythological ideas in a way that the original 'authors' didn't intend or didn't see the need for. If someone were to study all the AoS lore thus far they could probably do something similar, but it would be an abstract representation of an abstract set of concepts and dimensions - not a map that you can follow home. In fact this would be the case even if GW were to create an official 'map' of the Mortal Realms and everything around them. It would be a fascinating thing to see for sure though.

So really, it's hard to say if AoS is for you. It's kind of seeming like maybe it isn't, but then you might be missing out on an opportunity to approach a setting in a whole new way and find whole new kinds of satisfaction you don't get anywhere else. It might take some adjustment, but it's possible.

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22 hours ago, Yodhrin said:

 

Yeah, see, this is why I struggle to wrap my head around things - how can it be both an entirely mystical set of planar realms so far detached from each other by space and time that you can do anything you want because nothing really interacts that much...and also have extremely similar versions of all the official factions in all the realms? If Fyreslayers can get around enough between the Realms to establish lodges that are functionally and aesthetically extremely similar, and Overlords can sail the ether to establish trade posts in all the worlds, then they can't be that gigantic or detached from each other, and so there has to be some logic to their interactions.

For the same reason you see Cadians in every imperial planet in 40k or the Talabheim colours state troops in every part of the Empire of the Old World, even in Nordland or Averland. The official range of miniatures and paint schemes can only cover so much. But the freedom is still there to use as a player. 
Maybe Fyreslayers in the Realm of Beast are actually become Iceslayers, riding Ice-dragons and using ice runes to power themselves with the Ur-Gold, etc, etc...  for putting an example of "Official factions" in different realms and enviroments. 

 

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7 minutes ago, Galas said:

For the same reason you see Cadians in every imperial planet in 40k or the Reikland colours state troops in every part of the Empire of the Old World, even in Nordland or Averland. The official range of miniatures and paint schemes can only cover so much. But the freedom is steel there to use as a player. 
Maybe Fyreslayers in the Realm of Beast are actually become Iceslayers, riding Ice-dragons and using ice runes to power themselves with the Ur-Gold, etc, etc...  for putting an example of "Official factions" in different realms and enviroments. 

 

Not to derail the topic, but that actually sounds like a really cool thematic for Fyreslayers. Well thought! 

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6 hours ago, Yodhrin said:

To put it in sciencey terms- you guys keep showing me really cool chemical reactions and biological processes, and I agree many of them are really cool, but it's the physics I need to know to put everything in context, even if it's a crude pre-modern-science kind of physics - I need to see the rules of this reality, so I can work within them.

Now if there genuinely, really are no rules, and AoS is supposed to be everything all at once, OK, that just probably means it isn't for me afterall, but I do want to make sure.

I suspect you won't get the answer you are craving for. You've got multiple magical realms of reality which have all the rules ever to make the setting or the story cool. Everything is linked together with Realmgates, where some gates are the size of a plate and others are the size of a mountain and these gates can be anything from being in a room and closing your eyes or an actual gate you walk through.

So if you aren't happy with the idea of that but need some structure you might struggle. Everything is vague as they are still setting the setting and also making it easy for everybody to do what they want to do with the background. The key thing is that Warhammer Fantasy had it's core setting for a very long time and it pilfered bits from our history and other fantasy backgrounds. This is why it was easier for people to relate to it. 

Personally I love the setting as it makes it easier for people to get into it by allowing them to be creative. If you really need help, try contacting Josh Reynolds who has written loads for GW about Age of Sigmar and is open to questions : https://joshuamreynolds.wordpress.com/ask-me-a-question/

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Well  the game is open to interpretation which is kinda the beauty of it. As far as I have been concerned the Realms seem to me like dimensions. Infinitely vast, but for the most part unexplored. The only thing that connects the realms which is reliable are the realm gates which is why cities and communities are built within or around these gates. This is where the realms are grounded as it doesn't matter how big something is if so much of it is not worth inhabiting. 

With the age of chaos many tribes had to flee from cities and had to scratch out a living in the unexplored areas of the realms. The Overloads are a example of this as these Dwarfs saw ****** going south and went up instead. There could be tons of factions and peoples unseen hiding within hidden pockets of the realms. However the one thing everyone wants is control of the realm gates. Realm gates mean trade and security, as armies from other realms can reinforce much more rapidly. If you need grounding or constants in AoS look to the cities and the realm gates around them. Hell the biggest prize in the Realms is the Allpoints, a magical inbetween realm which can link to all the realms from one single way point. Chaos has held onto the Allpoints for centuries and you can bet moving forward that the coming campaigns are going to focus on this aspect. 

TL DR: If you want to understand the Realms look to their gates. 

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So to comically summarize what folks are saying: "It's magic; I ain't gotta explain nothing!"

I think that watching the recent Doctor Strange movie might help visualize and explain it.  Different dimensions, planes, realms, and universes that can all be accessed and connected in various ways, and they don't all have to be the exact same.

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1 hour ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

So to comically summarize what folks are saying: "It's magic; I ain't gotta explain nothing!"

I think that watching the recent Doctor Strange movie might help visualize and explain it.  Different dimensions, planes, realms, and universes that can all be accessed and connected in various ways, and they don't all have to be the exact same.

That seems to be pretty much the gist it seems - it's not that the rules aren't laid out, it's that there intentionally are no rules, and aye, that isn't for me, since if I'm going to go to the bother of basically doing all of the worldbuilding, I might as well take that one small extra step and start completely from scratch.

I appreciate folks taking the time to work through this, even if the result is a bit disappointing - I'd really been hoping for an excuse to get one of those Kharadron Frigates :/

 

Sidenote 1 - Doctor Strange and, by the same token, actual RL mythologies work because they are defined in relation to our own reality, which has comprehensible rules. It's akin to the relationship between the Warhammer World and the Chaos Wastes/Realm of Chaos - the latter were defined and described by how they were like or unlike the "reality" of WHF, just as real mythologies(and Strange's dimensions) are defined and described by how they are like or unlike our own reality; absent that point of comparison, trying to parse those "otherspaces" in ways a human understands becomes extremely difficult. 

Sidenote 2 - Jamie, it was intended as a joke at my own expense, actually.

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Yodhrin, to me it seems a shame that after starting this thread, spending days interacting with it, and even desiring some of the toys that represent these worlds that so invite creative freedom, that you end up with such a binary choice. Either you are a very clever troll or you are trapped by the false choices of your perceived desires. Kudos to everyone else for indulging him. I got a lot from your input.

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@Yodhrin

Hello Yodhrin 

-of Yodhrins forge? 

I actually agree with you on this, when I came back into warhammer this winter, it was definitely because of the simpler rules, as I had less time as well as a nine year old son in tow, so the simplified rules were a boon for our entrance into the game.

BUT the background story didn't do anything for me, with different multiverses (or realms) and stormcasts falling down from heaven.

I think the universe lacks some limiting factors, both in locale but also in fauna, flora and inhabitants. Also, I miss a bigger human presence (or just societies, be they goblin, undead or whatever) in the mortal realms, considering stormcasts aren't really human any more (anyway they have no big personalities to speak of from army books and uniform look, which is a general trend of AOS). I think the human factor in the old world was a great grounding factor and standard with which you could compare and enjoy the other more extreme figures of the universe through. I miss the towns, the locales the societies, better fluff for how the world is experienced by the meek, not the superheroes. This far, it seems only WarhammerQuest Hammerhal had some minor old school stories about the towns and societies of the new world.  I want FLUFF BEFORE MODELS! I tend to gravitate towards story telling games, and I have had a hard time doing this in AOS -even though I greatly enjoy it as a system!- but there is less meat to choose from IMO.

I play Death, now death are more fun with a bigger human society that they are menacing, as an opposing force and growing dark menace always lurking in the shadows.. I KNOW that there are passing mentions of a human population of Shyish, and I really really can't understand why this is not explored more in depth in the fluff?  I would personally like that part to be explored BEFORE the big'uns to have something to compare them with and understand the gravity of their huge presences in the world... But the thing is, it seems there are only fighters and big presences in the world this far, if you go with army books and such, which is a bit of a shame to me. Thank god for aos28 etc! 

Also the fact that the different realm gods can just recreate shades of old heroes from the the old world as they see fit (as Nagash seems to do with Mannfred, Neferata etc) doesn't quite do it for me... That''ll lead to inflation in value! Also, where's the individuality in that?

That said, I really like the game. It's just the official fluff is very much lacking in my opinion. But no reason you can't personally explore the stories you'd like to explore...

I've decided that a lot of the old world societies were ported into the new world, and I since GW's maps of the new world are so incomplete, I feel free to make up whatever I want.  Anyway, I am considering delving into Mordheim at the moment, as this seems to have a lot of what I'm missing a bit, and maybe try to mix it a bit with the upcoming skirmish mode coming from GW if its not too 'clean'. Stories!

Thanks for the inspiration on your blog.

T

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Has anyone compared it to Planescape yet? Because to me, it seems like the Realms are very much like the planes of Planescape. Functionally infinite spaces, accessible through what are essentially wormholes (gates), each very heavily themed (in AoS, after the winds of magic, in Planescape, on a much wider scale). If you played Planescape: Torment back in the day, that would give you an idea of how a story set in such an unfathomably vast setting can be both interesting and meaningful.

To narrow the geographical scope, you could consider that most societies in the Realms would more than likely be concentrated around the realmgates, since those are the point of entry for most everyone encountering a new realm. 99,999% of the Realms are likely to be uninhabited. This would also explain how societies from different realms seem to interact so frequently. So, to create your own story, setting it in a city in close proximity to a realmgate would give you a geographical focal point as well as allowing you to create interesting interactions between the realms and the power dynamics going on around the control of said gate. You could also add interesting wrinkles to it. What if this particular realmgate was meant to lead to several different realms, but was now malfunctioning? Now, it cycles between these realms at regular intervals, let's say every few years, creating very specific windows of time where interactions can take place. This would heavily affect the culture, economy and social structure of the city. At the appointed time when the realmgate closes the door to one realm and opens to another, let's say the inhabitants call it "the Shift", tons of people would flock to the gate to trade, meet new and old friends, or simply to get a glimpse of another realm. There would probably be celebrations tied to the Shift, preparations months or years in advance, etc. What if one day, the Shift occured, but on the other side was not the society you had traded with for generations, but an invading force wanting to claim the power of the Shift-gate? What if another time, the Shift opened up to a completely new realm (for example, let's assume the city is built in a land in perpetual winter, and suddenly the Shift-gate opens up to a volcanic landscape in Aqshy, melting huge portions of the city) or what if the Shift simply didn't occur at the appointed time? There would be panic, riots, doomsday prophecies, etc. Just writing this I'm imagining it in my mind and the ideas come flowing. You could populate this city with any number of races, and tie their culture, religion, appearance etc to their realm of origin. Some of them might want to destroy the gate, others worship it, some think it will one day open to the realm of Azyr and grant them salvation. Maybe the "indigenous" population (ie the people who did not come through the gate but were there from the beginning) have been marginalized and shunned by realm migrants who have all but taken over the city? This is just one example of a setting you could create within AoS that, I think, would still have the features you are looking for. The possibilities are endless!

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5 minutes ago, Nevvermore said:

Has anyone compared it to Planescape yet? Because to me, it seems like the Realms are very much like the planes of Planescape. Functionally infinite spaces, accessible through what are essentially wormholes (gates), each very heavily themed (in AoS, after the winds of magic, in Planescape, on a much wider scale). If you played Planescape: Torment back in the day, that would give you an idea of how a story set in such an unfathomably vast setting can be both interesting and meaningful.

To narrow the geographical scope, you could consider that most societies in the Realms would more than likely be concentrated around the realmgates, since those are the point of entry for most everyone encountering a new realm. 99,999% of the Realms are likely to be uninhabited. This would also explain how societies from different realms seem to interact so frequently. So, to create your own story, setting it in a city in close proximity to a realmgate would give you a geographical focal point as well as allowing you to create interesting interactions between the realms and the power dynamics going on around the control of said gate. You could also add interesting wrinkles to it. What if this particular realmgate was meant to lead to several different realms, but was now malfunctioning? Now, it cycles between these realms at regular intervals, let's say every few years, creating very specific windows of time where interactions can take place. This would heavily affect the culture, economy and social structure of the city. At the appointed time when the realmgate closes the door to one realm and opens to another, let's say the inhabitants call it "the Shift", tons of people would flock to the gate to trade, meet new and old friends, or simply to get a glimpse of another realm. There would probably be celebrations tied to the Shift, preparations months or years in advance, etc. What if one day, the Shift occured, but on the other side was not the society you had traded with for generations, but an invading force wanting to claim the power of the Shift-gate? What if another time, the Shift opened up to a completely new realm, or what if the Shift simply didn't occur at the appointed time? There would be panic, riots, doomsday prophecies, etc. Just writing this I'm imagining it in my mind and the ideas come flowing. You could populate this city with any number of races, and tie their culture, religion, appearance etc to their realm of origin. Some of them might want to destroy the gate, others worship it, some think it will one day open to the realm of Azyr and grant them salvation. This is just one example of a setting you could create within AoS that, I think, would still have the features you are looking for. The possibilities are endless!

Good thought actually. Loads of good stories there. Think I'll use it!

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Having flipped through the Kharadron Overlords book and found references to "floating continents" I got a strong Minecraft vibe from the world.  Large expanses of land with potential for crazy terrain.  Do those continents drift, or are they static?  Do they support weight on them, or do they sink down if you put too much on them?  So many possibilities for awesomeness!

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4 minutes ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

Having flipped through the Kharadron Overlords book and found references to "floating continents" I got a strong Minecraft vibe from the world.  Large expanses of land with potential for crazy terrain.  Do those continents drift, or are they static?  Do they support weight on them, or do they sink down if you put too much on them?  So many possibilities for awesomeness!

Especially when you mix it with images like this from one of the previous campaign books. 

842497_800.jpg.c9d141f0797f5cd265949a532226a1bb.jpg

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