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 Duskweaver wrote:
I guess my point is that a functional Chaos-based state would probably present itself to both its own citizens and everyone else as a civilized, ordered sort of place, and the actual Chaos stuff (rampant selfishness, individualist power-seeking, human sacrifice, etc.) would all go on behind a screen of skilled propaganda and manipulation.

I mean, isn't that just the Empire?

From Dominion of Bone

The dead ruled no longer. Mausolea had changed from a city of shadows and silence to a cauldron of flame. Its mortal population had grown under the reign of the Lord of Skulldagger Bastion. Khorne craved blood. To feed that insatiable hunger required an army and an industry unlike any that Mausolea or any of the lands and cities of Angaria had ever seen. Tombs had been opened, vaults had been ransacked, graves had been turned into primitive forges. Molten iron ran down the gutters of the streets. Graunos commanded, and an army grew, and from the maws of the industry that created the army came the flames that rose and spread their light on the mountainside

Graunos’ empire was a cauldron of violence, murder and rage. It was also one that could sustain itself. The daemon prince had created a power base that was stable enough to grow much larger, drawing more and more of Shyish into the bloody embrace of the Skull God. Part of what made Graunos so dangerous was that he understood that armies that supplied themselves solely through plunder would eventually run out of fuel. Graunos saw the savagery in competition, the viciousness in trade, and turned those impulses into another kind of tribute to the Blood God. From the predation of the market came the means to greater and faster conquest.

Hah, free market capitalism as a Chaos invention, seems close enough to the truth.

Would also work in 40k where such a thing would be considered heresy, as the Administratum rules the commerce with 5 year (or more likely 50 year) plans, corruption and tithes, Soviet style.

Nah; as has been said before, the Imperium proper is purely feudal. The Administratum are the castle servants, the governors and high lords the aristocracy, and the planets the villages and hamlets around the castles being taxed within an inch of their lives.
No-one in the castles gives a damn where and how the peasants pay their taxes, as long as they get paid.

The only oddity is that any given planet could theoretically have literally any political system in place as long as it was one that somehow generated enough materiel to pay the administratum. Even if most governors take the “as above, so below” approach and run their worlds as techno-feudalistic monarchies as well.

His Master's Voice wrote:I mean, isn't that just the Empire?

Not really. Unless you rewrote the Empire so that the Church of Sigmar was actually a Chaos cult, but only the priests and the Imperial aristocracy knew that. And the persecution and burning of 'witches' was actually just a cover for human sacrifice (the 'witches' really being people who found out the truth about the Church and refused to worship Chaos). Even 1st edition WHFRP didn't treat the Empire quite that cynically.

Oguhmek wrote:Hah, free market capitalism as a Chaos invention, seems close enough to the truth.

I did mention anarcho-capitalism...

Oooh, this weekend they're going to reveal the beast-legged guy, the wolf guy, and the priestess/sorceress girl on the livestream. GET HYPED!

Yeah exciting to see those, and anything else they’ll show us!

 Duskweaver wrote:

Not really.

I'm aware of the technical difference. My point is that, while it might fulfil the general definition of a 'Chaos society', the execution would be so close to a 'non-Chaos society corrupted by Chaos' that it wouldn't actually add anything meaningfully unique to the setting.

Yeah, any Chaos society would at some point in its past be a non-Chaos society which was corrupted. The only 'pure' Chaos societies would be daemons.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
the execution would be so close to a 'non-Chaos society corrupted by Chaos' that it wouldn't actually add anything meaningfully unique to the setting.

Then you have entirely failed to understand anything I have said in this thread.
Then I have entirely failed to get my point across.

 Duskweaver wrote:

Then you have entirely failed to understand anything I have said in this thread.

You can disagree with me without trying to question my reading comprehension skills.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

You can disagree with me without trying to question my reading comprehension skills.

I'm sorry; that did sound like I was blaming you for not getting it, which wasn't really my intention. Misunderstandings are the fault of the writer, not the reader. But I genuinely don't know how you can not see the difference between:

a society deliberately set up to empower the Chaos gods, based on a Chaotic philosophy, including deliberate manipulation of the populace;

and a society where Chaos-worship is strictly forbidden, but sometimes occurs anyway because there are illegal cults.

Like, Nochseed and Altdorf aren't the same at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Yeah, any Chaos society would at some point in its past be a non-Chaos society which was corrupted.

I don't think that is necessarily the case. I can easily imagine a worshipper of Tzeentch setting up an entirely new society based on Chaos principles in which the ruling clique use mass deception to hide the true nature of the society from most of its members, maybe starting with a tribe of primitive hunter-gatherers and then gradually 'guiding' them over centuries to create his 'perfect' civilization...

And we're back to 'Alternative Character Interpretation: The Emperor', aren't we?

No offence taken.

I understand the difference. I simply think that, from a narrative relevance standpoint, the difference doesn't warrant its own existence.

It's the They Live situation. The film isn't really about American society ran by lizard people, because that society doesn't differ in any narratively meaningful way from American society ran by people people. Sure, you go 'huh, that's crazy!', but from there, it's mostly a story about a hobo with a shotgun, because the shocking reveal can't carry a 90 minute viewing experience.

Likewise, you can realise that Nochseed is ran by a Chaos cult, and... then what? People still pay taxes, children are born, the mundane human existence continues, except now instead of exporting democracy, we're bombing people for oil. Metaphorically speaking.

I just don't see what narrative opportunities open up in Nochseed that weren't present in the Empire, when Empire already had that conspiracy layer of possible cult activity at every level of society.

Now, if you lean into the crazy, self destructive nature of Chaos, then sure, I can imagine a couple interesting things that could be done. Dunno if this is the best place for worldbuilding spitballing.

Seems to me the silhouette of Wolf might be a) a composite of two models, his beast form and human form or b) that lupine left arm indicates either he’s mid transformation or he has a bestial aspect in general.

Well maybe instead of thinking "chaos god" but instead what it would look like if it was a singular chaos god? Maybe nation is split in territory between groups that solely focus on worship of single chaos god or whole nation is?

Khorne & Slaanesh are probably easiest to think of.

Khorne wants blood and skulls (and vice versa) so human sacrifice would be on the table. Maybe just some slaves in altar, gladiator duels that can only end in death and maybe capturing and murdering a strong and famous enemy could be a status symbol. Bonus if it was an wizard.

Slaanesh is bit trickier but as god of Excess (and maybe STD) it maybe simply being over the top to the extreme. Buildings trying to reach higher with ridiculous amount of statues, streets full of carts carried by slaves or beasts so that owners don't need to touch the ground. Or maybe they walk on ground that is covered in gold.

But Tzeentch and Nurgle are probably bit more bit trickier in this concept.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Yeah, any Chaos society would at some point in its past be a non-Chaos society which was corrupted. The only 'pure' Chaos societies would be daemons.

Not necessarily true. The later edition versions of Norsca suggest that they're just every-day chaos worshipers, and they've always been like that. Some of them wander off and try to become Chosen, others stay home and offer sacrifices to the Big Four in between hunting and fishing. Sometimes one village raids another, but whatever. That happens without chaos.

Dread Master wrote:
Seems to me the silhouette of Wolf might be a) a composite of two models, his beast form and human form or b) that lupine left arm indicates either he’s mid transformation or he has a bestial aspect in general.

I thought this, too, but then the lupine 'arm' might be just part of the pelt, like on the newish Ragnar mini? Mid transformation would be interesting, tho. https://www.games-workshop.com/de-DE/Ragnar-Blackmane-2020

 Duskweaver wrote:

This is how real-world fascist regimes tend to be

It's any authoritarian regime, really. A couple of well-known examples from fascism's sibling communism would be Mao's anti-sparrow campaign (part of a broader campaign against "pests" that happened to include sparrows; they found out the hard way that sparrows are *not* pests...), and the Cultural Revolution.

Hah, free market capitalism as a Chaos invention, seems close enough to the truth.

Seems more like a Tzeentchian thing, though. Graunos might want to take a closer look at his advisors...

Khorne wants blood and skulls (and vice versa) so human sacrifice would be on the table. Maybe just some slaves in altar, gladiator duels that can only end in death and maybe capturing and murdering a strong and famous enemy could be a status symbol.

Sounds like the Aztecs...

There have been plenty of other cultures that practiced human sacrifice, of course. But what I know about the Aztecs suggests that they were far more aggressive about it than pretty much everyone else that we know of.

Slaanesh is bit trickier but as god of Excess (and maybe STD) it maybe simply being over the top to the extreme. Buildings trying to reach higher with ridiculous amount of statues, streets full of carts carried by slaves or beasts so that owners don't need to touch the ground. Or maybe they walk on ground that is covered in gold.

While ground paved in gold is so over the top as to be completely impractical (for one thing, where are you going to find that much gold?), there are plenty of examples of real-world decadent cultures that could fill in as examples of the rest of what you listed.

Tzeentch would be represented by any sort of long-term unstable government situation. A republic, or even a true democracy, would both probably work just fine. The important thing is that the governmental structure would have incentives in place that make it very difficult (effectively impossible) for any one group to gain enough power to fully control the government. And if one group somehow did do that, then said group would immediately fall to squabbling amongst its own members, causing the group to fall apart.

Nurgle would require some thinking on.

 MobileSuitRandom wrote:

Dread Master wrote:
Seems to me the silhouette of Wolf might be a) a composite of two models, his beast form and human form or b) that lupine left arm indicates either he’s mid transformation or he has a bestial aspect in general.

I thought this, too, but then the lupine 'arm' might be just part of the pelt, like on the newish Ragnar mini? Mid transformation would be interesting, tho. https://www.games-workshop.com/de-DE/Ragnar-Blackmane-2020

Is it me tho, or does that lupine arm appear to be “bone in” if you know what I mean.... it doesn’t appear to be just part of a wolfskin.

Eumerin wrote:
Tzeentch would be represented by any sort of long-term unstable government situation. A republic, or even a true democracy, would both probably work just fine. The important thing is that the governmental structure would have incentives in place that make it very difficult (effectively impossible) for any one group to gain enough power to fully control the government. And if one group somehow did do that, then said group would immediately fall to squabbling amongst its own members, causing the group to fall apart.

A good example of this in literature would be the Tsurani from the Rift Wars books where while there is a stable emperor, the rest of the governmental powerbase is a constantly shifting game of factions changing allegiances in order to gain power for their faction or subgroup, with some factions only being temporary alliances of smaller factions.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
(No beak spike on the art though.)

I just wanted to pop in to say that, despite your disagreements, this thread has brought up LOTS of good ideas about how the AoS world could actually be interpreted in ways that make sense. Not that I mind the metal album cover version where it's just raining blood and there are no edible plants either, but sometimes that gets tiring.

I sense terrain in this box, and the higher price point rumor being accurate. It seems the integral terrain included as part some of the reveals, and related RE’s coupled with the fact that no previous WHQ has made use of any, points towards this being a first in the series.

Longstrider wrote:
I just wanted to pop in to say that, despite your disagreements, this thread has brought up LOTS of good ideas about how the AoS world could actually be interpreted in ways that make sense. Not that I mind the metal album cover version where it's just raining blood and there are no edible plants either, but sometimes that gets tiring.

Did this post get lost in the warp for five years?

Dread Master wrote:
I sense terrain in this box, and the higher price point rumor being accurate. It seems the integral terrain included as part some of the reveals, and related RE’s coupled with the fact that no previous WHQ has made use of any, points towards this being a first in the series.

Does it though?
I’m not seeing that necessarily likely personally..

By integral terrain in reveals, you just mean the sculpted bases?
Like Warhammer Underworlds has?

The only way I can think of that this could have a substantial amount of terrain would be if they'd really push it more towards something like Mordheim ... like the super expensive Necro box, this could then double as an 'introduction' of an AoS city-building kit a la Zone Mortalis. But why would they do this with their WHQ dungeon crawler IP, and not with WarCry?

This thread is a little depressing. All the lore related things people are asking for are already in the game. People should read the RPG books especially the city guide to Brightspear. The warcry rule book also describes a functioning chaos city. There are also plenty of examples of the different aspects of chaos society in the black library books, the order of the fly being a good example.
The battletomes by their very nature tend to focus on the armies.
As for an undead hero that is already a very well established part of the lore. Most of the order cities in Shyish were built by the dead and living and the dead exist side by side in those cities. There are even two AoS novels that prominently feature Mannfred himself fighting alongside the stormcast.

I am very much looking forward to seeing how cursed city deepens the lore of AoS.

 frankelee wrote:
I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
(No beak spike on the art though.)

That's the cat (I assume). One of the pre-undead humans on the website has a cat with him. The wizard dude with a candle

 GaroRobe wrote:

 frankelee wrote:
I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
(No beak spike on the art though.)

That's the cat (I assume). One of the pre-undead humans on the website has a cat with him. The wizard dude with a candle

Hmmm, yes that does look more like an undead cat. Part of me was thinking maybe we'd have some little enemies, which is something that stretches back to the original Warhammer Quest. The map suggests maybe we'll see bats and "carrion horrors". As well as the spectral dead and maybe a ghost band.

There's the little critters with keys that might be part of the game.