Grdaat
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Posts posted by Grdaat
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6 minutes ago, Beliman said:
I wasn't talking about people on this forum or using real-world physics to explain anything btw.
It's just an example of people asking really strange questions to random AoS players just to find a hole in the Lore. It always ends with "look, that's what I was talking about, Fantasy is a lot better than AoS!!" or something like that.
I'm pretty sure that everyone in this forum knows at least one dude that do the same.
Btw, I was answering OP that if he/she want to know how the game goes, take care of that people.
It's still a false equivalency though, asking questions like "how do ogors free themselves after they've been frozen and haven't eaten for a while?" Isn't the same as asking "what's the perfect refractory angle of realmstone?"
One of those is a key component to how a faction works, the other is just random nonsense that has nothing to do with anything.
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10 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:
So. This is an examply why I did not state I liked the whole community.
Equating the price of models, a bit of lore to stores and well, everything is a classic false equivalence fallacy.
Sorry but I'm going to have to side with NinthMusketeer on this one, using real world examples as reference points is not a false equivalence fallacy. While I think their point was off base and ultimately wrong, it would've been harder for the to get the point across without using real world references, same goes for my argument against them where I also used real world references.
If you want to see what an actual false equivalence looks like, Beliman offered a pretty good example right under your post:
4 minutes ago, Beliman said:I want to add to this post that one of the worst things about AoS is the continue need of justification.
2 minutes ago, Beliman said:I get that some people need to now the refraction rate of Aqshy crystal because it makes impossible to play a game without knowing that, but this type of questions should be asked directly to Phil Kelly.
I accidentally took part of that out and can't combine them together again on mobile for some reason.
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3 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:
I was talking to him specifically. You seemed to understand it well enough for a sarcastic response!
Gotcha, I won't ask for them then.
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9 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:
No big deal if you don't understand my argument, but that does not make it fallacious.
Which part do you think people didn't understand? I'm genuinely curious.
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14 minutes ago, xking said:
What? are you here just to complain? It's a city in the middle of a marsh, with a realmgate at the center of it and a fortified highway leading out other parts of the realm of life. It obviously has ways of getting food.
I'm saying that because the post came off like one of those Rick and Morty "you need a high IQ to understand it" kind of posts. Saying you cannot really appreciate the setting without reading supplemental material comes off to me as elitist.
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8 minutes ago, xking said:
"Dark harvest" showed that the city of graywater has many farming settlements. They drain the swamps to make farmland, just so you know former swamps and marshlands make great farmlands due to the high quality and fertile soil. This combined with them being in the realm of life means they can grow a significant portion of their own food. This is not including other food and they can get from trade through their grand highway and their realmgate.
(I believe you can also make fisheries in a swamp land)
If you don't read novels and short stories or books at all, you can't really appreciate the setting and you won't have as deep of an understanding of things. Even reading the soulbound RPG book would help, lots of stuff in there.
You really shouldn't need to read supplemental material to get that kind of info, plenty of settings managed that sort of world building just fine without relying on other books, and their own supplements would introduce new elements.
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7 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:
Well Alarielle is, in a way.
"Currently it is a city that never sleeps, its industry unhalting. To this day Alarielle is still trying to retake the city's grounds via raining fast-growing plants that require fast removal."
If they have a vegan diet they're set.
How would she retake it by giving them food? That makes no sense.
7 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:I love that too about him. He's the (un)living incarnation of "victors write the history books".
With how smugly he thought himself as still undefeated despite being killed by Archaon leaves no doubt in my mind that if he conquered the Eight-points he'd make sure the ink would smear on that bit of trivia.
I thought he called himself undefeated because his current body was undefeated, so any loss never counted so long as he swapped bodies.
At least according to Phil Kelly that's how it worked.
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7 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:
I have seen the argument raised many times of 'why should I care about this city/nation/whatever when the realms are so big?' And I raise two points. The first is reality. Why care about your local game store going out of business when it is only one speck of the larger hobby?
Because I know my store in relation to other stores, if it goes out of business I know there isn't another like it within my city so I'm more invested. I don't know this to be the case clfor anything in AoS, and since cities and nations get destroyed so often, it makes them all seem disposable and easily replaced. There's no reason to be invested in them if that's the case, it would be like learning one of 40 Starbucks on your street went out of business.
7 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:Why care about the price of GW miniatures when it is only a tiny piece of your budget?
Going to disagree there, GW's mini's are not cheap.
7 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:It all ties to a larger, very open ended question of "why does anything matter?"
Exactly, if nothing matters then how can you get invested?
7 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:The second point I raise is 40k. A single planet in the galaxy means even less than a single city in AoS, yet this issue is one that rarely raised for 40k as a setting. Because when people enjoy the setting, they find a reason to care.
Except 40k has very critical planets we know to be unique, that isn't the case for AoS because it's intentionally poorly defined to give its writers as much freedom as possible.
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51 minutes ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:
Snip.
I think you've misunderstood me, my point was and has always been that they've been retconned from one thing into another. Whether or not that's a good thing, or whether or not this is better is a different discussion entirely. I've been sticking to pointing out the retcon rather than if it's good or bad because people wanted to argue there wasn't a retcon.
45 minutes ago, LuminethMage said:Even if this was a retcon, who cares?
A bunch of people apparently, since pointing out that this is was a retcon kicked off a discussion that's making up a lot of the thread.
31 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:Vagaries again:
"So the voyage continued – until Dracothion arrived. The breath of the celestial Great Drake restored the temple-ships. What happened next is shrouded in mystery, but it seems that this was where the Seraphon were truly born."
Since his breath is what brought Sigmar back to life it's a good implication more happened there to the Seraphon in their chambers. That breath likely altered the ships, stasis and pools all at once to use Azyr.
A hell of an assumption. I could just as easily assume that they absorbed the energies of Azyr by living there, much like how they take in the energies of other realms and that Dracothion played no part in that. You cannot claim Dracothion changed them when you're guessing that's what happened.
QuoteIs there any part saying the that directly though?
Hold up, I don't think you intended this but you just asked me to prove a negative. Writing that is like me asking you to prove you don't know something. You're looking for a passage that says "the Seraphon do not fade away when they're no longer in the presence of a Slann" when there's no reason anyone would write that, since no Battletome directly responds to earlier Battletomes.
When I say they removed that, it's because they outright removed any mention of it. The closest we get is a mention on page 4 that if the Seraphon stay in one place for too long, the celestial energy within them fades away. No this does not mean they fade away, apparently it's part of them becoming Coalesced.
QuoteI don't have the tome but from all my discussions about it the Slann has been vital to the Starborne outside the Azyr.
Is there a part I missed where one did die and the Seraphon continued on before becoming Coalesced?
No, but page 4 outright states that if they stay around they turn into Coalesced automatically.
QuoteThat or it's fancy talk for taking some out of stasis. Which might have very well put the Seraphon out of reality and time with how fast and loose the realm of heaven treats the flow of time.
That's still reality as far as Azyr is concerned though, and how does that count as "long-lost"?
QuoteUnawares to the rest of Order by secretly planning their civilizations centuries ahead which might as well be lost if they're hiding.
You'd have a point if that bit wasn't told from the Seraphon's perspective.
QuoteI call them Azyr bodies because the Slann are still necessary to reform their celestial essence forms into new physical forms for that realm.
While Slann do call down their warriors, there are several other realmgates that are not used for combat and do not require a Slann, and one that is (the Ark of Sotek) which does not require a Slann to activate it.
QuoteUnfeeling
"Starborne are the children of Azyr, filled with the light of the stars and fighting to enact the cosmic plan of their creators."
"Many Seraphon still persist in this fashion. Charged with the energies of Azyr, these ‘Starborne’ exist on a slightly different wavelength to the other realms; their weapons crackle with celestial fury, and when slain they discorporate into blasts of pure starlight. Using the translocation portals found within their arcane vessels, these beings strike precisely and without mercy. It is the slann that bind the essence of the Starborne into reptilian form"
This is exactly what I was talking about when I said the book doesn't know what it was doing. I directly reference passages like this when I point out how part of the book pretends the Seraphon aren't flesh and blood, and the other part states they are. It makes the book seem very inconsistent when it talks about how Saurus Guard are replaced (how their born, how they get their gear, what happens after), but then says stuff like this. Basically it doesn't mesh, and I have the feeling this was worked on by multiple writers with a lack of communication.
EDIT: missed the part where you said you wanted to stop, fair enough, I won't force it.
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14 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:
There's quite the difference between tribes growing up around a magic and a race having it breathed into them by a God-beast that's later the magic their spawning uses.
Except that didn't happen, Dracothion powered their ships back up, he did not fundamentally change them.
QuoteThat's the parts we know so far anyway about the Starborne.
Yes. I was agreeing with you. They need the Slaan so they can be stable there and eventually mix.
Not anymore, the parts about them fading away without a Slann are gone.
QuoteI don't see why that's beyond the ability of a Slann & a realmgate. They just hold the teleportation in another spot.
We've seen naturally occurring gateways appear in stuff like tarpits when the Ironjawz attacked Nagash's city from the realm of beasts.
Except that's not how it's written. They formed out light from the water, not starlight in that instance.
QuoteThat seems pretty easy to explain.
Cords of glittering energy is what Azyr magic the spawning pools draw on to form them with the reality bit just a fancy wording.
You're assuming a new meaning by ignoring what was originally written. You cannot return to reality if you never leave it.
QuoteAnd they're not long lost in the new lore because they've been active in the realms for centuries now with the Age of Hope instead of when they missed out in the Age of Myth.
They were never "long-lost" in the new lore because they were always around, according to the new Battletome.
QuoteYes but that still all adds up to how the Slann are needed to reform the teleported Seraphon still.
It's just gone from the vague memory stuff to show that "given shape" is the forms the Slann make for their Azyr bodies to inhabit.
The fading thing could still happen to Seraphon not properly mixed with the realm energies, it'd be like a localized version of a mortal going to a realm edge. That's why the Starborne roaming Ghur are around because their Slann is merely unconscious instead of dead.
Hang on... have you read the Battletome? They don't have different "Azyr bodies", their bodies are the same now, and they no longer fade away without the presence of a Slann, Starborne or not.
QuoteThat'd be impressive from a article back in 2018.
They're the ones arguing they weren't really Daemons, but physical creatures, and they ignored that issue. I'm not expecting them to know that they'd lose the keyword, I'm pointing out that they didn't mention they had the keyword at the time and that they pretended it didn't matter.
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3 minutes ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:
Alright, to address this quotation
"From cords of glittering celestial energy they summon forth the Seraphon, a long-lost race returned to reality by the power of the Starmasters."
This could easily be read as
"From cords of glittering celestial energy" - to watch them appear is to see shafts of starlight fall from the Heavens
"They summon forth the Seraphon" - you can summon your bannermen or vassals, it does not have to mean they are being pulled wholesale from swirling magic
"A long-lost race returned to reality by the power of the Starmasters" -the spawning pools ran dry without the magic of the world-that-was to sustain them, until the Slann were able to infuse their temple-ships with the magic of Azyr and begin their births anew.
Explain how the living Seraphon are a long-lost race when they were just in stasis, and explain why they used to fade away when a Slann wasn't around, even though their realmgates need a Slann to operate them.
3 minutes ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:Yes, it is conceivable that my hypothetical Seraphon army could lose a war of attrition because the temple-ship cannot draw enough power to spawn new warriors quickly, but that does not stop them being warriors suffused with Azyrite magic, glowing like the ancient murals, and marching in lockstep like extensions of the Slann will - it is still possible to play up those themes without needing them to all have the word "Daemon" written across their foreheads, if that is the flavour you want and enjoy in your Seraphon.
Then they're not Daemons, which is the point.
3 minutes ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:I am saying it is possible to square the 2.0 fluff with the original lore, the same way the rough and ready fluff of, say 2e 40k can be squared with the modern stuff. Some bits take a bit more work, but its often possible.
And it's often not. In this case there's too many times where the lore is contradictory unless you assume what's written doesn't mean what it says, but then that's still you changing the original meaning.
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18 minutes ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:
Alright, fair enough - I see now why I missed these. So these references to translocation portals - the page 13 quotation explicitly describes them as Realmgates, which is probably why in my mind I am not getting a sci-fi or traditionally "mortal" vibe from them - these are portals that possibly predate Sigmar's Pantheon in the Age of Myth, and effectively act as dimensional rifts. Fundamentally, I still personally think that you could see this as similar to the rifts used by Chaos Daemons if you wanted to focus on the arcane and otherworldly nature of the Seraphon if you wanted to.
Anyone can use realmgates, they're very different to Chaos Rifts in that regard.
QuoteThe level of glib in my superficial description of the similarities between the nature of Chaos Daemons and Seraphon was indeed perhaps unhelpful. However, hopefully you can see that there are at least a few more similarities between Seraphon and manifestations of the Ruinous Powers than those two and Vampires, who are transformed mortals whether than wholesale created creatures, and the fact that the ones who can be moved magically by ghost boats or cursed castles are the exceptions rather than the rule, as they are for Daemons and the Coalesced.
Except the new book explicitly states that Seraphon are transported mortals, creatures of flesh and blood who move from one location to another. They live, they die, and the Seraphon need to wait for new ones to be born.
QuoteI think a lot of this comes from the fact that Seraphon originally had the DAEMON Keyword if I remember correctly, and their first Battletome described them being summoned down from Azyr by the Slann. I think giving them that Keyword was part of the very different design philosophy of early Age of Sigmar, where it could easily be shorthand for the fact that they were magical beings and that abilities that banished arcane creatures - most commonly daemons - would also have the effect of disrupting the magic of the Seraphon. A lot of people since then have used the idea of Seraphon being Order Daemons to describe in part this phenomenon - the Seraphon being creatures of magic that were bound tightly by their nature, as dictated by their creators, and who were summoned to the Realms. A lot like Daemons.
The first Battletome also showed how Seraphon who didn't have a Slann in proximity to them would fade away and disappear, so they used to work almost exactly like Daemons.
QuoteThe 2.0 Battletome, in this light, is less a retcon and more both a clarification and a development.
Hold up, because you don't get to go from "created and remembered into being from magic by the Slann" to "they were always flesh and blood" without retconning it.
QuoteWe now get a clearer idea about the nature of the Starborne and how their starlight-infused existence works - the clarification - and the Coalesced, who in the centuries since the start of the setting had become something new.
That's not a clearer idea, it's a straight up rewrite.
QuoteThey are not literally Order Daemons - they do not manifest from specific aspects or whims of the Slann as they pull them from the Realm of Order - but they are certainly not mortal either.
Except this is exactly how the Grand Alliance book and old Seraphon Battletome stated the worked.
QuoteCertainly not wholly living beings as most in the Realms would understand it - they might be flesh and blood, but that is not all they are.
So perhaps people using the shorthand "Seraphon are Daemons" is unhelpful.
Again, that's exactly how they used to be, which is why people used it.
QuoteBut the themes and ideas of that are still there and people still can choose to lean into them. If tomorrow I wanted to, I could go out and start a Seraphon army that was painted up as beings shining with Azyrite magic and starlight, use the rules for the Starborne, and play up the summoning mechanics and the utterly cold, ordered nature of the army and their devotion to the Slann and their wishes and Great Plan*. They would not be daemons, but that daemonic/angelic "otherness" would be entirely in keeping with the lore.
Except you'd still have them being teleported from a starship rather than created, and so you could conceivably run out of troops or be unable to win a war of attrition against something like Daemons or Undead.
QuoteAnd I would actually argue that this type of discussion proves just how far the lore has come. Look at 40k; there are infinite debates and theories and stances fans can take on what side Alpharius was really working for and when, the nature of the Ynnead and his goals, the purpose of the Dark and Cursed Foundings, etc. In Fantasy, there were similar debates and hooks and disagreements to be had (until the End Times gave us a lot of concrete answers, things like Nagash's slow return, the fates of Sigmar and Alith Anar, etc...). And now, in Age of Sigmar, we are beginning to get not only hooks like "What is Malaerion's plan with his eyes in Azyr, what is the Duradin army gathering in Chamon building towards, etc", but also debates to be had - "To exactly what extent can the Seraphon be considered mortal, can the Fyreslayers ever hope to succeed in resurrecting their god given how they use ur-gold, etc"?
And that seems like amazing growth from where we started five years ago.I find it hard to look at as progress, to me it's more of a second draft considering how much they had to rewrite or add in.
EDIT: Also see my post above for how the Seraphon further differed from their current state.
Quote*You know, apart from my abysmal painting skills... but like, in theory
Can't delete this bit on mobile for some reason, weird.
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Just now, Baron Klatz said:
The part that confused you in the first place as it kept the old lore and you mentioned at the start of this post:
The part that said they were flesh and blood? Because that's new.
Just now, Baron Klatz said:There's still something eldritch about the Starborne with that physicality and how the community site kept emphasizing this bit "Known as the Starborne, these creatures wield strange and celestial powers " on how they're suffused with Azyr energies.
Suffused with those energies is not the same as being made of those energies. The Drakfoot for example are suffused with Aqshy, but they're still flesh and blood Bonesplitters.
Just now, Baron Klatz said:It's a vagueness they're playing with that i'm really looking forward to being answered in the future whether it be a novel, the Soulbound rpg or a new Seraphon tome and models to it justice.
It's not a vagueness, they spell it out in the battletomes that they are physically born and use technology to teleport.
Just now, Baron Klatz said:Yeah that one's on me. That's the very meaning of coalescing.
In other words, they're not rejected by the realms.
Just now, Baron Klatz said:The fact that they're larger than skeletons and have metal melded into their bones. If one fell apart you'd probably be able to fashion it into a suit handily.
How? They're not hollow, they're the same size as a person and are thick through and through. What kind of suit of armour is a solid block you can't wear?
Just now, Baron Klatz said:I guess large macabre mannequins works too for what the Skaven would've seen.
Except they've fought the Morghast before and so they know what these things share a resemblance to.
Just now, Baron Klatz said:Nah, Archaon just made him come back a bit stronger. The Nadir put him on a higher level with how much it empowered the realm of death.
Supposedly anyway. It altered the realm and created the Nighthaunt although I've yet to really see Nagash do something he couldn't do before.
Just now, Baron Klatz said:The Flesh-Eaters new tome goes into it a bit how he was able to access underworlds he never could before.
That's more a result of the Necroquake than a jump in his own power, not to mention any boost he gets from the Nadir is temporary which is why he keeps going back there.
Just now, Baron Klatz said:so both in power and numbers Nagash hit the jackpot with his scheme.
Not really, if his plan didn't get messed up he'd be way more powerful, he just got lucky that the outcome fell in his favour.
Just now, Baron Klatz said:The funny part is the memory thing is more on the fans than the lore. Guy here back in 2018 pointed out that Seraphon always came down from the sky.
He basically saw through that and predicted the new/cleared up lore of the Slann beaming them down into forms that can be on another realm's surface.
That's all well and good, right up until you remember bits like the Slann hiding their Seraphon inside stuff like puddles because they stored the essence of them there and manifested them out of the puddles, not the sky, when it was time to attack.
It also doesn't explain this passage from Grand Alliance: Order
"From cords of glittering celestial energy they summon forth the Seraphon, a long-lost race returned to reality by the power of the Starmasters."
In the new lore they're not a long-lost race, and they don't return to reality because they never left it. On the same page they're described to be "forged from celestial energy" which is no longer the case. The Redditor also doesn't explain why they used to have the Daemon keyword even though they're no longer Daemons.
You can also find passages in the original Seraphon Battletome where a Slann was slain and the Warriors they created literally fade away after time has passed.
Finally, I'm going to quote the old Battletome directly here when it talks about where the Seraphon come from: "all that is known for sure is that they do not appear without the presence of the Slann. From the gestalt memory of these ancient seers are the Seraphon given shape."
So in short, the fans are not to be blamed for thinking the Slann remember the Seraphon into being, the old Battletome outright states this is what happened, and shows that they could not exist without the presence of a Slann. They also still had the Daemon keyword in this Battletome.
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40 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:
"While Starborne can interact with the tangible world, their deep connection to Azyr prevents them from achieving true physicality."
This is what I was getting at when I said the book never says what "true physicality" is. What do you think they cannot do before becoming Coalesced that they can do after? Also where in that paragraph does it say they're rejected? In the same page it says their magic mixes with the realm their in, which is the opposite of rejecting them.
QuoteIt makes sense as it's two winds of magic being forced together. They need time for one magic to replace the other in their bodies.
It doesn't say they get replaced, it says they mix.
QuoteEh, to me it sounds like he finally figured out he bit off more than he could chew but it probably was a writer's error. It'll be ckarified come next tome.
That would make sense if these bits weren't separated by an entire chapter's worth of pages. To me it seems like it was written by different writers who forgot to make sure they were writing the same thing.
QuoteSkeletons yes which would've moved. What looked like bone armor they probably prodded wouldn't have mattered.
Skeletons aren't always animated even in Shyish. Also where are you getting that the Bonereapers looked like bone armour and not bone people?
QuoteIt's a pointless discussion until the next Skaven tome. That'll have an actual focus on this and whether their gnawholes missed the tombs thanks to magic wards pushing their reality-drilling attempts away towards the corporeal cities or if they did find a few and are why some Ossiarch forces seek out replacement bones to fix their gnawed on exoskeletons.
It's a pretty important bit of how they invade though. If you say something was buried under the cities they invade an immediate question is how they did not notice them.
QuoteHe planned far enough ahead to have the bone forts fitted with a large supply of his replacement bodies so he would've similarly planned far ahead for the tables to turn, get killed by Archaon and be besieged and thus leaving sizable elite forces and supplies in the fort to withstand Archaon.
I get that, my point is that at the rate Archaon went through Katakros' forces, he would not have the time needed to get a replacement body and sit in a room sending out different orders and organizing his armies in a comparative lull. Even then, there's no way any reinforcements would hold out longer than the most elite troops under the most elite commanders in his army. That's why I said it makes it look like Archaon gave up.
QuoteIt's the reason he built them in the first place, he knew he'd never be able to conquer everything before Archaon got back so he decided from the start to make a foothold for Death.
And why wouldn't Archaon tear right through it like he did the main force?
QuoteNagash wasn't in ascension then with several more of the underworlds opened up to him plus every soul in the realms drawn to his Nadir.
And as far as we know, Be'lakor wasn't with Archaon at the time either. Also correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Nagash was "in ascension" when Archaon destroyed his body, unless you mean something else by that.
QuoteDeath is waaay more powerful now in the Time of Tribulation than it was in the Age of Chaos.
And Chaos has also grown stronger, as we've seen by certain pieces like Slaanesh's speech on how it's being fed despite its captivity. Everyone's growing in power and not just Nagash's forces.
QuoteThough even going by your posts I don't see it as a retcon like you're saying. They just blended the lores together so the first tome was like being told by an Azyrite on what he thought was happening and the current tome is clarifying the Azyr forms, their magi-tech ships and how they interact with other realms.
Edit: ah, like your edit here:
"As I pointed out in my reply above, the book explicitly dismisses the idea that the Seraphon troops are created by the Slann when it talks about Astrolith Bearers. "
They didn't have to specifically create them. Just a twist on the words "formed from memory" is enough to still make it true but obscured.
Lore A) Seraphon are conjured into being from a Slann's memory.
Lore B) Seraphon are Lizardmen from the old world, held in stasis and/or born through spawning pools (just like they used to be) and transported to where the Slann need them by miniature realmgates they use to teleport.
I'm sorry, but I'm calling BS if you're going to try and say that these are the same and not a retcon. You don't blend lore together by fundamentally changing its core aspect. Take this for example: "the current tome is clarifying the Azyr forms-" They no longer have "Azyr forms" because it turns out they were always flesh and blood beings.
QuoteWhere-in the past the formed part made us think created now we see the trick that they formed their Azyrian forms to be able to interact with the other realms as they went from magical to physical in the teleportation.
Except they're stated to still have physical forms aboard their starships, not just after they're teleported down through their translocators.
QuoteIt'll be very interesting to see what direction they'll go with the third tome and a overhaul on the lines. By then they can actually go full out on the Azyr beings concept with models reflecting it.
Which part of the battletome makes you think they haven't dropped the idea of them being "Azyr beings"?
EDIT: I'm not talking about them having Azyr magic in their bodies, that much is obvious, I'm talking about them being formed on the fly, because all of that's gone. We see how far they've departed from that in the Temple Guard section.
You keep acting as if they're not fully physical regardless of where they are, so could you point to me the parts of the battletome that gave you that impression, or are you getting most of your information from Lexicanum?
Not to belittle that site, but it's not going to be the same as reading the source material yourself, which is why I'm asking specifically for references to the battletome.
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Just now, Overread said:
The lore itself recounting the hidden tombs is only a few sentences in the battletome. It's very light on details simply saying that the catacombs were carved. This strongly suggests that they were carved into rock, thus bedrock. In addition they were said to be in areas deathly to the living. So chances are the few who did stumble upon them over the centuries, died before word could get out.
That's a lot of assumptions for something we don't know about, which is why I'm asking questions. Until we know more, it's just poorly defined and assuming the answer does not help it be properly defined in the setting.
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14 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:
And non-daemons don't explode into starlight. They're light versions of daemons.
So you highlight a big difference between them and Daemons and think that's evidence that they're the same?
QuoteIt's pretty clear it's a similar case to Stormcast and their lightning charged blood. The Spawning pools form them through Azyr magic and Slann just reform the Seraphon's magical bodies once they get beamed down as their Azyr nature is rejected by the other realms which justifies the conjuration.
Where's it say their nature is rejected by other realms? The book says their nature mixes with other realms, which changes them into Coalesced, it says nothing about them being rejected.
QuoteSo prideful enough to try and slay a god while also understanding he logically couldn't.
Except the first description says he thought he could, the second description says he thought he couldn't. In the first description he only took the fight against Sigmar because he thought he could kill him, that's it. In the second description he was forced to fight him and thought he couldn't kill him. As I said, these are contradictory.
QuoteBecause they're pretty clueless when it comes to Shyish. That's why one of the gnawholes dug straight into the sea of death and flooded Skavenblight with millions of undead.
Again, you mean to tell me that Skaven have never seen an inanimate skeleton suddenly start to move?
QuoteKatakros was still able to order their commander and NightHaunt to attack the armored chaos highways so they had reserves.
Again, he should not have been able to do that because Archaon's forces would've reached the newly built fortress immediately after. Even if he sent out more forces, which I'm assuming he pulled from thin air since they were nowhere to be seen before, there's no reason to believe they'd have lasted longer than Katakros' elite.
QuoteBone forts + a gateway straight to the endless legions of death straight from Shyish for reinforcements. There's no steamrolling that.
He already did it several times, why is it suddenly impossible for him to do it again?
QuoteNo I literally quoted it and how Seraphon are reformed by the Slann when they beam down.
Then can you list the page number? I already went through this in earlier posts and explained in detail why it's no longer a thing. I also highlighted several parts where the book outright states that was never a thing.
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8 minutes ago, Overread said:
If I were Nagash and hiding huge Tombs underneath allied cities I'd make the Tombs appear like bedrock. Those cities are VAST so it stands to reason that they'd like to have a nice stable bit of bedrock underthem. So if the tomb looks like bedrock and is surrounded by rock and magic shields it to make it look like Rock - then no insane or sane Skaven is going to invade through the rock itself.
A good theory, a shame I can't find any lore supporting it.
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Just now, MaatithoftheBrand said:
You keep describing them using "devices" to summon themselves into battle, but I am not finding any references to that at all flicking through the book - lots of references to them being pulled from the temple-ships by the thoughts of the Slann, or the magic of the Slann. Is there a page or specific passage I am missing that describes them using devices that you could point me towards?
Let me help you:
Page 4, under Reptilian Majesty: "Using the translocation portals found within their arcane vessels, these beings strike precisely and without mercy."
Page 12, under Temple Cities: "Even the Starborne have been known to send these gleaming golden pyramids through translocation portals, to morph areas of the material plane in line with their interpretation of the Great Plan."
Page 13, same section: "Throughout the temple-cities are translocation gateways, miniature and localised Realmgates constructed through the arcane knowledge of the slann."
Page 19, the Thunder Lizard: "The constellation’s skink priesthood has become adept at introducing minute quantities of refined Chamonite – transporting caches of the realmstone across the aetheric void through the translocation technology found within their ziggurats – to the incubation machines of their temple-cities’ hatcheries."
Page 35, under Bastilodons: "More mysterious, but no less deadly, are the Arks of Sotek. Each of these strange devices is in fact a Realmgate in miniature, connected to the deep serpent-pits that are found throughout Seraphon temples and heave with reptilian life. When an Ark is activated many of these venomous snakes will be transported to the battlefield."
I could list more examples if you need me to.
Just now, MaatithoftheBrand said:I think, fundamentally, to my mind a race of beings that are made in some magical manner (be that by the whims and forges of cruel gods, or by the arcane pools of frog wizards) and summoned to the battlefield from an extra-planar homeland (be it a fortress of crystal, or an Aztec spaceship) by a ritualist (either cultists, or the aforementioned frog wizards) are similar enough to both be considered arcane/daemonic creatures.
Then that would also apply to vampires in the setting, considering how one particular sect of them travel.
Just now, MaatithoftheBrand said:I can see why you might disagree, but I thin if people still want their Seraphon to be Order Daemons, there are more than enough similarities and lore supporting them being arcane star lizards that they can lean into that.
The problem is the book outright states this is not the case.
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1 minute ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:
Daemons also bleed - there are numerous models, novels, and Battletomes that discuss daemonic ichor, or else have bones and skulls as trophies or the basis of weapons. They fight with physical weapons, can interact with the Mortal Realms around them, and have their flesh rent by their enemies as physical beings. That does not make their presence in the Realms any less temporary or make them any less creatures of and from the Realm of Chaos first and foremost. What exactly about the Seraphon being Azyrite magic rather than Chaos Magic makes them not like Daemons? Other than the fact that they have the ability to bind not just to Azyrite magic but the magicks of the other Winds to be able to exist as more traditionally living creatures?
Daemons are not spawned from spawning pools and they don't need teleportation devices aboard starships to move from one location to the other whereas it's explicitly stated the Seraphon do. Daemons might also bleed but they're not "fundamentally flesh and blood".
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28 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:
Yes, that's why even with both Sigmar and Archaon defeating him he says he's undefeated. Battles don't count to him.
He knew he could win the war against Sigmar but would lose that fight as that very war is still ongoing and will keep going until either one's complete destruction.
No, the book is very clearly saying he thought he could kill Sigmar, and that he thought he couldn't kill Sigmar in the same battle. It says nothing about the wider conflict.
QuoteNo, you're simplifying it.
"Seraphon are fundamentally creatures of flesh and blood but with celestial magic glimmering in their vein. Many Seraphon known as ‘Starborne’ exist on a slightly different wavelength to the other realms thus the Slann must bind the essence of the Starborne into reptilian form and and when slain they discorporate into blasts of pure starlight. Thus Starmasters can ‘conjure’ warriors directly from their temple-ships with but a gesture. While Starborne can interact with the tangible world, their deep connection to Azyr prevents them from achieving true physicality."
They are beamed down but their Azyrian forms are still created by the Slann as they're beings of celestial magic.
No they're not, they're outright stated to come out of spawning pools and the book makes it clear that they're only beamed down by the Slann, not formed by them. I go into this a bit more in my reply right before this one.
QuoteThey're still star daemons. The Starborne are made of Azyr magic thanks to Dracothion reviving them with his breath as he did to God-king Sigmar.
Except as I just stated, they're outright stated to come from spawning pools. They don't get manifested like Daemons do.
QuoteNot stupid but literally everything in the Realm of Death keeps moving. Mountains of skulls chatter, fields are well tilled because the dead beneath keeping digging, etc.
Skaven seeing some non-moving bone suits isn't gonna register when everything else boney would attack them on sight in that realm.
Skaven never deal with traps? They've never seen an inanimate skeleton suddenly start to move? I'm sorry but that's ridiculous, not every body in Shyish is animated.
QuoteOnly if it gets in the way of previous lore. If there's lore saying all lands beneath Shyish are empty with nary a tunnel or catacomb then it's a retcon.
Otherwise that's just an expansion.
So how exactly did the Skaven never notice and never record that every single city has a tomb beneath it? How exactly have they never attacked from these tombs when they'd make for ideal entry points, seeing as how the undead within had to leave? How has nobody found these during conflict with the Skaven, seeing as how fortifying their cities from attacks below would be a major point in defending them?
QuoteArchaon's forces were near collapse and had to be mustered.
Sorry but that's just flat out wrong. His garrison was near collapse, his army was not.
QuoteThey'd be in no shape to charge the bone forts which are literally made of the chaos legions the Ossiarchs kept slaughtering and building them from along with the numerous other undead factions like the NightHaunt protecting them.
The Nighthaunt were routed by Be'lakor, and Archaon's army had already crushed the Bonereaper main force while losing comparatively little.
QuoteArchaon saved the Eight-points but they're still the under dogs here. Archaon needs time which is the big focus here. Chaos is on the back foot for once and the other factions have a chance.
Why does he need time when he crushed the main opposition and could just steamroll right on through?
QuoteExactly! Thank you.
I was busy digging on the Lexicanums for those exact points.
You can't find it there because it's no longer a thing. The intent of adding the Coalesced might have been to change the Seraphon, but in practice it doesn't because they work the same regardless of whether or not they're made on their ships, or made on the ground. The only real difference is ground Seraphon have tougher hides and leave corpses, which Starborne don't leave bodies and have weaker hides.
As I pointed out in my reply above, the book explicitly dismisses the idea that the Seraphon troops are created by the Slann when it talks about Astrolith Bearers.
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39 minutes ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:
This passage seems to suggest that the intention of adding in the Coalesced were indeed a development rather than a full retcon, and that the Seraphon "still" are quasi-daemonic beings of Order and Starlight. They are not just living creatures, and are less "beamed down" Star Trek style than they are unwritten and rewritten back closer to the Slann or to their target in the Mortal Realms. The star daemon concept is still there. The Coalesced even still get Bravery 10 and a conjuration rule as their faction ability.
And even before the latest Seraphon Battletome, we see the Coalesced acting distinct and unlike "daemons" and "living" alike - in the Pestilens stories from Black Library, we get a few PoV shots from a Scar-Leader who is summoned into being to fight the rat-men in the worm city whose name escapes me right now. But it is very other - both more reptilian and less... present... than even the daemonic Verminlord that turns up in the story, reinforcing the idea that this being is part memory, part starlight, part magic, and exists almost entirely as an extension of its Slann master and the Great Plan.The problem there is they still outright state "Seraphon are fundamentally creatures of flesh and blood" which immediately kills the concept of them being Daemons outright. Them having magic in their bodies doesn't change the fact that they are still flesh and blood, and Daemons are not. The reason they get a conjuration rule is because of how the rules themselves work (I'll get into it in just a second). They are also still stated to move through their "translocation portals" and that instead of being conjured, they are summoned from one location into another, as you post here with the Slann. Again, that's very different to them being Daemons, and the paragraphs you cite explicitly state that people who thought the Slann were creating their soldiers or summoning them into being were wrong.
The following paragraph is just a mess:
"The Starborne can interact with the tangible world, but their deep connection to Azyr prevents them from achieving true physicality. As the centuries have passed however, some Seraphon temple-fleets have descended from Azyr and established permanent settlements in the Mortal Realms. As a Seraphon lingers within a realm, their inherent Azyrite nature mixes with the magical energy that forms that realmsphere. Just as the different winds of magic grew concentrated enough over time to take on physical form as the realms themselves, the Starborne will eventually gain true permanence."
As I said before, this pretends as if the old lore was intact when it is not, and so it doesn't make sense. If the Seraphon are flesh and blood creatures, then how exactly don't they have "true physicality"? Why don't they have "true permanence"? If those terms aren't supposed to be used to refer to flesh and blood creatures, what do they refer to? Under Temple Cities (page 12) it says they can gain "physical permanence" by staying in one place, except they're already physical beings now so this doesn't make sense either. Under page 24 it talks again about how they can eventually take "physical form" even though they've now never lost their physical forms, and it says the same thing on page 31 in regards to animals like Razordons.
In case you still think that the Seraphon are still somehow made on the spot, let's look at their conjuration rule: " The slann leaders of the Starborne can call forth armies of Seraphon from their temple-ships in the blink of an eye." So there we go, they don't make them and apparently never have, they just beam them down. Let's also look at their Lord of Space and Time ability: " Slann temple-ships are able to transport themselves and Starborne warriors any distance in an instant." So once again it's the effect of their ships and their transporters.
Even before then though, we have this passage: "Astroliths are particularly common amongst the armies of the Starborne. The process through which a slann ‘conjures’ his warriors into existence – in reality, drawing them forth from a temple-ship"
So the book is even putting air-quotes around the idea the Slann "conjure" their soldiers.
There's also a lot of mentions throughout the book about the Seraphon spawning pools and how they're formed to begin with. This doesn't change once they settle on the ground either, the only thing that does change is whether they're on a ship or not when they crawl out of their spawning pool.
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26 minutes ago, Boar said:
Regarding mercenaries, they were from the start in narrative section, weren`t they? So never were legal for matched play IIRC?
They were legal for matched play, even though they were introduced outside that section. They even had specific mentions for how you spent your points on them (which wouldn't matter if they were narrative only).
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13 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:
It's literally both at the same as it was for Archaon because Katakros is that prideful as an undead general who knows he can't truly die. He even counts losing the battle against Archaon as winning because he revived in a new body to continue the war and states his record of being undefeated is still unblemished.
So Katakros was both ordered to fight Sigmar, and chose to fight Sigmar on his own? He both thought he could win and thought he couldn't win at the same time? This wasn't a war against Sigmar, it's two separate accounts of the same single battle and they're contradictory.
13 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:Because it is. The tome talked about the Seraphon having to stay stasis which implied that some armies were conjurations by the Slaan.
That would make sense if it implied that, which it didn't. Them being conjured was retconned out, instead they're now beamed down from their ships. In other words, they aren't implying that at all.
13 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:That's a handwave to allow both types of Starborne as GW knew players loved the memory star daemon concept as much as others would like a more magical physical change so that pleases both parties while also keeping the first tome as written by an outsider saying the Seraphon are mysteries only the celestial Stormcast would know.
It's a well done growth of a base concept that keeps just enough in the dark for fans to draw their own conclusions.
Except that the star daemon concept is gone because that's no longer a thing, and retcons aren't growth.
13 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:So? To them that'd just be a tomb full of empty bone suits.
That's not a retcon but at best an oversight, of which is easily accounted for by either showing the Skaven that did find them just weren't interest in catacombs full of empty bone suits or just kept their finds secret to try and use at a later date for a power grab. Heck, with the Penulbrum engines being such a big part in those areas to seal the evils away they probably got their memories wiped by them.
So why was it never mentioned until this point? You're telling me they did not care, despite knowing about the undead already? You're acting as if they're too stupid to recognize undead creatures when they routinely fight them, even before the current age the setting's in.
Also going "By the way, these were here the whole time" is definitely a retcon.
13 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:Because the campaign is still ongoing. They're supposed to be cliff-hangers for the players to use.
Like with Grand Marshal Archaon it shifts to Katakros to show him commanding the Lady of Grief to put more pressure on Archaon so right there it's a "To be continued" for the players and writers to go off of for the on-going narrative.
Except the book ends with Katakros's forces being destroyed (along with Plunder being banished), him losing his gear, and Archaon and his forces were still charging through. Katakros should not have had the time to reappear in his new fortress and be able to organize and fight Archaon's forces off because Archaon would've reached it immediately after and torn right through it. The only way it makes sense for that not to happen is if Archaon just gave up, same with Be'lakor.
Saying they're handwaving away Archaon's counterattack to allow for an ongoing narrative is just lazy. It means that they're ignoring the final battle of the book and what happened in it. That ending should have been a death knell for the war, but they're pretending it's not which is exactly what I was talking about earlier.
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Just now, Baron Klatz said:
Now that's not true. I've been heavily invested in the lore since it started with the Realmgate Wars and there's only been a handful of retcons. Usually to a minor writers error like with the Black Rift placement or the Glottkin origins being updated to make them realm natives.
Otherwise the lore has been very well done with changes referenced and shown as evolutions like with the Seraphon going from starborne daemons (which even in the first tome made a mention of their evolving nature) to having Coalesced natives thanks to the life energies of the realms changing their magical Azyr body structure which was even hinted in the 2017 White Dwarf as them "going native" with feral ones gaining blood.
It's been very consistent from what I've seen.
I can think of two examples right off the top of my head. The first is in the Ossiarch Bonereapers book, where it can't make up its mind on whether or not Katakros chose to fight Sigmar thinking he could win, or if he was ordered to fight him while knowing he'd lose. Both are inside the Battletome and they contradict one another.
The second is the one you mention, and it's a direct retcons. In the newer Seraphon book, GW fully retconned them from being beings created as needed by the Slann, to being kept in stasis aboard starships and beamed down as needed, even outright stating they are (and therefore always were) flesh and blood. Despite changing them back to being flesh and blood the book talks about how the Coalesced are the ones who achieved "true physicality", as if the old lore was still in effect.
Even outside that we have bits like the Bonereaper prototypes apparently going unnoticed underneath cities, despite the Skaven specializing in burrowing up underneath said cities, we have books ending on cliffhangers that should be death knells for the war in question. Wrath of the Everchosen comes to mind, where it seems to imply Archaon just gave up instead on continuing his assault.
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Sorry, it's hard to tell when you can find people unironically doing that.