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How do?

Do you see what I did with the title?

Anyways. I intend for this to serve as a sort of crash course in the background, a myth busting guide for newcomers, and those who haven’t yet explore the background in much depth (many aspects of the Hobby after all!). Because there’s a fair amount of misinformation out there, no?

So here’s a couple of common ones straight off the bat.

1. Stormcast are Flesh and Blood. Whilst they’ve been enhanced and infused with a fraction of Sigmar’s divinity, there is a body under the armour. They’re not spirits or automatons. If you cut them, they will bleed. Then probably smash your face in for your temerity.

2. Stormcast aren’t always reforged. Yes, the vast majority of them find their way back to the soulforges of Azyr - but this can be prevented. Magic, Magic Weapons etc can all prevent that. It’s fairly rare, but still all too possible. It also seems many such souls can be later released - this is evidenced in some of the novels (can’t remember exactly which one/s)

3. Stormcast are both Male and Female. Sigmar is an equal opportunities deity! It’s not just the odd one or two the current model range might suggest.

4. Stormcast can rise in the ranks over their service. This is clearly evidenced in the short story The Unending Storm.

5. Slaanesh. Is. Not. Dead. It’s been gimp-napped by the Aelven Gods and Morathi. And seems to be trapped somewhere in between the Realms. Where exactly I’m not sure - but this may be hinted at/explored further in the Daughters of Khaine Battletome, which I’m yet to pick up.

Right, over to you. And feel free to ask questions. Whilst my knowledge isn’t encyclopedic, I have read all the novels (all of them), and all but Daughters of Khaine in terms of Battletomes, so I should have the info on hand, somewhere!

Are the Realms endless? One of the major reasons I cannot connect with AoS is because it feels like nothing matters. The realms seem endless and locations seem one-dimensional (and usually with fairly silly names...) and unimportant.

Has this been rectified? Do the locations feel more 'lived in' rather than just the ''setting locations'' that my early explorations into AoS suggested to me.

In the dok it says the shadow realm has 13 provinces? territories? I think they're called the Dominions so something along those lines

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Are the Realms endless? One of the major reasons I cannot connect with AoS is because it feels like nothing matters. The realms seem endless and locations seem one-dimensional (and usually with fairly silly names...) and unimportant.

Has this been rectified? Do the locations feel more 'lived in' rather than just the ''setting locations'' that my early explorations into AoS suggested to me.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Are the Realms endless? One of the major reasons I cannot connect with AoS is because it feels like nothing matters. The realms seem endless and locations seem one-dimensional (and usually with fairly silly names...) and unimportant.

Has this been rectified? Do the locations feel more 'lived in' rather than just the ''setting locations'' that my early explorations into AoS suggested to me.

Yes, years ago.

Now a big pet peeve of mine:

-Sigmar didn't create the mortal realms.

-Sigmar didn't create greenskins nor undead and Nagash.

-Sigmar didn't create back Chaos.

-Malekith didn't fuse with his fething dragon

Thanks Ghaz, that was interesting. So the realms are effectively infinite, but also contain some finite places near the middle of the realm that is fleshed out to actually mean something (Living City, Shadespire).

@ Lord Kragan, doesn't seem that way to me. Last audiobook I heard about AoS, something about the champions of Archaeon being called to see him, it really felt like nothing mattered. An entire 'kingdom' went down in flames due to Tzeetch champions plot, with no survivors bar his now soul-bound bodyguards. It sounds cool in an overblown sort of way, but that city didn't matter at all. A Nurgle champion had his own pocket dimension that would only connect with a realm gate every few hundred years, a whole pocket dimension, he's been working for hundreds of years. It gets destroyed, and he just steps into the Realm of Life and starts again. His realm didn't matter.

And as quoted from the video above ''they aren't infinite, but they may as well be''. Don't you think that level of high fantasy and lack of boundries makes every ''this city is sacked by this tribe of Orcs'' or ''Stormcasts zapp in and save this town from Chaos'' feel a bit worthless?

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:


''they aren't infinite, but they may as well be''.

And that quote maaaay benefit from the context as it's not mainly about size (which, yes, it's a factor) but mainly because you CANNOT reach it and make it alive, thus making them an unreachable (for most, a few outliers lik Sanasar back in the Age of Myth, could reach it)

It’s hard to describe the Realms as both finite, and infinite.

A given Realm very much has boundaries. They don’t go on forever in terms of space.

Buf, at the far edge of each Realm, new lands are constantly forming.

I guess the ‘correct’ answer would be they have infinite potential - but finite borders?

You could also go with the edges are forming into new lands but the new replaces the old. Like having an island sink then a new one form in the same place but instant.

Going along the same path as pm713 there is room for the fluff for land to continually be destroyed as well, so it could be that there is no net growth. Along similar lines, we don't know if growth would continue infinitely which would also make the potential area finite.

Regardless, I can't think of many wars that have been over areas of land--they are almost exclusively fought over specific places or a feature/resource unique to a certain area. Realmgates in particular are a big deal. This means the battles & wars have a much bigger impact than the relatively small landmasses being fought over would suggest.

Kind of a general question, but how much would, say, the average person of various factions actually know about the nature of the realms? like, what would a human soldier, or craftsman in one of the cities know? Are their civilians in other factions, like the fyreslayers or the overlords? if so, how wide might their knowledge be?

Think about Earth and the variation in education/knowledge levels between countries, plus the variation between different economic levels. It's like that only the distribution is weighted much more heavily towards the bottom end of poor & uneducated. I remember in City of Secrets the main character, who was reasonably 'middle-class' was looking at a mural of the Gates of Azyr events and thought it was done so well he could almost believe those events really occurred. That tells me the level of skew/underinformation is just as prevalent as it is IRL.

As for civilians of other 'civilized' factions; yes, tons of them. They just don't get mentioned a lot because it's a wargame so the fluff is naturally focused on the warriors.

For all intents and purposes the eight realms may as well be planets occupying space in different points in one star system, multiple star systems, or the same points separated by time or parallel universe mumbo-jumbo. They could be flat, they could be round, and for all intents and purposes their boundaries are limitless because no faction really has the means of traversing the entire bredth of the entire planet or, in some cases lacks any real need to do so.

I presume then, that beyond the 'boundaries' of the moral realms there is more mortal realm to explore, still more ruins from Sigmar's first glorious era before Chaos returned, and amongst and beyond that, tribes of people, gods of different stripes, and whatever other fantastical stuff they can imagine going forward.

This allows GW to expand the setting as they need to, allowing them to revisit realms we've seen already but by way of different gates they can refine or redefine the maps as they see fit. And while this does make fighting over every realm a seemingly endless task, it also means the setting can survive a campaign where the bad guys win once in a while. If you set your game in an area the size of europe and Chaos manages to seize Italy, the story then revolves around driving Chaos out of Italy. You set your game in an area the size of the solar system, and Chaos manages to seize Italy, they may well be en route to conquer all of europe, but you have other things to worry about. You can then revisit Italy over the course of media, books, and eventually a new campaign later. The prizes remain the same, but the expansion of scale lets them be lasting victories.

 amazingturtles wrote:
Kind of a general question, but how much would, say, the average person of various factions actually know about the nature of the realms? like, what would a human soldier, or craftsman in one of the cities know? Are their civilians in other factions, like the fyreslayers or the overlords? if so, how wide might their knowledge be?

I wonder about this too. I gather from the material I've read so far that a lot of these factions are actively using the gates to traverse between the realms, there's an example of a city that has buildings around two connected gates in different realms even. I can't think of any factions that have motivation to lie to their members about the realmgates and their function, though again, I imagine a sufficiently isolated group would eventually lose their working knowledge of it.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
For all intents and purposes the eight realms may as well be planets occupying space in different points in one star system, multiple star systems, or the same points separated by time or parallel universe mumbo-jumbo. They could be flat, they could be round, and for all intents and purposes their boundaries are limitless because no faction really has the means of traversing the entire bredth of the entire planet or, in some cases lacks any real need to do so.

I presume then, that beyond the 'boundaries' of the moral realms there is more mortal realm to explore, still more ruins from Sigmar's first glorious era before Chaos returned, and amongst and beyond that, tribes of people, gods of different stripes, and whatever other fantastical stuff they can imagine going forward.

This allows GW to expand the setting as they need to, allowing them to revisit realms we've seen already but by way of different gates they can refine or redefine the maps as they see fit. And while this does make fighting over every realm a seemingly endless task, it also means the setting can survive a campaign where the bad guys win once in a while. If you set your game in an area the size of europe and Chaos manages to seize Italy, the story then revolves around driving Chaos out of Italy. You set your game in an area the size of the solar system, and Chaos manages to seize Italy, they may well be en route to conquer all of europe, but you have other things to worry about. You can then revisit Italy over the course of media, books, and eventually a new campaign later. The prizes remain the same, but the expansion of scale lets them be lasting victories.

 amazingturtles wrote:
Kind of a general question, but how much would, say, the average person of various factions actually know about the nature of the realms? like, what would a human soldier, or craftsman in one of the cities know? Are their civilians in other factions, like the fyreslayers or the overlords? if so, how wide might their knowledge be?

I wonder about this too. I gather from the material I've read so far that a lot of these factions are actively using the gates to traverse between the realms, there's an example of a city that has buildings around two connected gates in different realms even. I can't think of any factions that have motivation to lie to their members about the realmgates and their function, though again, I imagine a sufficiently isolated group would eventually lose their working knowledge of it.

I like this post, these are my exact thoughts of why GW changed fantasy to this type of setting. On your question Ninth answered it pretty well IMO.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Think about Earth and the variation in education/knowledge levels between countries, plus the variation between different economic levels. It's like that only the distribution is weighted much more heavily towards the bottom end of poor & uneducated. I remember in City of Secrets the main character, who was reasonably 'middle-class' was looking at a mural of the Gates of Azyr events and thought it was done so well he could almost believe those events really occurred. That tells me the level of skew/underinformation is just as prevalent as it is IRL.

As for civilians of other 'civilized' factions; yes, tons of them. They just don't get mentioned a lot because it's a wargame so the fluff is naturally focused on the warriors.

Thanks! that's useful. i haven't read any of the novels, or much of the fluff outside of the battletomes, and those tend so much to the "epic/attempted mythic" style of writing it's hard to get a handle on this sort of thing.

and yeah, i know why civilian life isn't written about too much in the setting. i'm still curious about it, though.

Slaanesh has been caught between the Shadow and Light realm. It appears that the soul current was in equilibrium, until Morathi got greedy and siphoned more than was her share. The extra drain upset the balance of the trap and pulled it closer to the realm of Shadow, allowing Slaanesh to call for his followers.

It's not that Morathi 'got greedy', she actually skewed the balance subtly from the start. And as some consequence there's something undetectable drawing Slaanesh's followers to the Realm of Shadows, but whether that's a weird interdimensional 'proximity' to Slaanesh or the quantity of aelven souls or some kind of stink that's coming off those souls because of a lasting corruption by Slaanesh we aren't too sure yet.

I don't know if this is true or not. Not all Stormcast Eternals are human. Some are Aelves correct? I can't remember if some were Orruks or Skaven or what not but when reforged put into a human form.

Is this true or not?

They've specifically called out Aelves and Duardin as being Stormcast. Not sure about the rest. Thus far, we've only seen human Stormcast models, though hopefull we'll see some Dorfcast seigesmiths at some point.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
It's not that Morathi 'got greedy', she actually skewed the balance subtly from the start. And as some consequence there's something undetectable drawing Slaanesh's followers to the Realm of Shadows, but whether that's a weird interdimensional 'proximity' to Slaanesh or the quantity of aelven souls or some kind of stink that's coming off those souls because of a lasting corruption by Slaanesh we aren't too sure yet.

The Age of Chaos chapter in DOK confirms its Morathi's extra portion that cuases the Slaaneshi followers to seek it out (p10-11)

this suberfuge was subtle, but slowly, inevitably altered the eldritch balance that kept the Dark Prince perfectly suspended between Hysh and Ulgu.......as the entrapped god tilted more closely to Ulgu, Slaanesh's most faithful servants began to catch a familair and much longed for scent

 EnTyme wrote:
They've specifically called out Aelves and Duardin as being Stormcast. Not sure about the rest. Thus far, we've only seen human Stormcast models, though hopefull we'll see some Dorfcast seigesmiths at some point.

I too would like at least some fluff on how this works. Does the forging give them the same proportions as a human Stormcast, or are Duardin shorter & stockier while Aelves are more slim, etc? Info on what races get reforged would also be good, though I get the sense that only Humans, Duardin, and Aelves have been mentioned because they are the only ones who do. Regardless I'd be willing to bet a considerable amount that Skaven do not under any circumstances, since their racial characteristics are anathema to what Stormcast are and afaik there are no exceptions to those racial characteristics. Further their souls are already 'owned' by the Great Horned Rat anyways. In some ways it's better to think of Skaven as the Horned Rat's counterpart to lesser daemons of other gods; Bloodletters, Plaguebearers, Heralds, etc. They are exclusively bound to their patron and have no existence outside of that.

I've tried to make a Stormcast in my little skirmish force be an Aelf, by using an Eldar head. I'm not sure it's very obvious without pointing it out, though I personally feel it makes him look a bit skinnier and rogue-ish than a "human" stormcast. I'm having a hard time figuring out a head that seems "Dwarven (Duardish?)" without being as corny as using a Fyreslayer or WHFB head, unless maybe I use a bearded Space Wolf head and add a couple Duardin knick-knacks/runes hanging from his belt as keepsakes of his old life.

Aelf:



Human:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
They've specifically called out Aelves and Duardin as being Stormcast. Not sure about the rest. Thus far, we've only seen human Stormcast models, though hopefull we'll see some Dorfcast seigesmiths at some point.

I too would like at least some fluff on how this works. Does the forging give them the same proportions as a human Stormcast, or are Duardin shorter & stockier while Aelves are more slim, etc? Info on what races get reforged would also be good, though I get the sense that only Humans, Duardin, and Aelves have been mentioned because they are the only ones who do. Regardless I'd be willing to bet a considerable amount that Skaven do not under any circumstances, since their racial characteristics are anathema to what Stormcast are and afaik there are no exceptions to those racial characteristics. Further their souls are already 'owned' by the Great Horned Rat anyways. In some ways it's better to think of Skaven as the Horned Rat's counterpart to lesser daemons of other gods; Bloodletters, Plaguebearers, Heralds, etc. They are exclusively bound to their patron and have no existence outside of that.

If I remember right, originally all Stormcast just wore the same armor, which was an effigy of Sigmar. That same bulky armor could contain a man or woman, human or aelf. With Blacktalon and Brightshield being most definitely more feminine in form, this seems to have changed.

Yeah they have evolved. But the timeline has also evolved since day zero. We're about one hundred years past the first skirmishes in Aqshy that opened up the new setting.

Evolved into book armour lol

 EnTyme wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
They've specifically called out Aelves and Duardin as being Stormcast. Not sure about the rest. Thus far, we've only seen human Stormcast models, though hopefull we'll see some Dorfcast seigesmiths at some point.

I too would like at least some fluff on how this works. Does the forging give them the same proportions as a human Stormcast, or are Duardin shorter & stockier while Aelves are more slim, etc? Info on what races get reforged would also be good, though I get the sense that only Humans, Duardin, and Aelves have been mentioned because they are the only ones who do. Regardless I'd be willing to bet a considerable amount that Skaven do not under any circumstances, since their racial characteristics are anathema to what Stormcast are and afaik there are no exceptions to those racial characteristics. Further their souls are already 'owned' by the Great Horned Rat anyways. In some ways it's better to think of Skaven as the Horned Rat's counterpart to lesser daemons of other gods; Bloodletters, Plaguebearers, Heralds, etc. They are exclusively bound to their patron and have no existence outside of that.

If I remember right, originally all Stormcast just wore the same armor, which was an effigy of Sigmar. That same bulky armor could contain a man or woman, human or aelf. With Blacktalon and Brightshield being most definitely more feminine in form, this seems to have changed.

That was always something that was extrapolated from what we had in terms of visuals rather than being mentioned in the fluff anywhere. It's a good example of how assumed fluff is very different from confirmed cannon, which is why the guide to the mortal realms fluff was such a big deal (despite people making the inaccurate claim that it contained no/little new fluff).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Right, over to you. And feel free to ask questions. Whilst my knowledge isn’t encyclopedic, I have read all the novels (all of them), and all but Daughters of Khaine in terms of Battletomes, so I should have the info on hand, somewhere!

So I'm curious. Which novels are worth reading? I'd like to read some Age of Sigmar novels, but I don't really know which are good or which are I should avoid.

I've never gotten a good understanding of how we transitioned to the Mortal Realms from the World that was.

Was all of this already established with these familiar races going about their lives?

Or did it all begin at the Shattering? If so why and how are the realms populated with the familiar races including characters we knew before?

 Red Comet wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Right, over to you. And feel free to ask questions. Whilst my knowledge isn’t encyclopedic, I have read all the novels (all of them), and all but Daughters of Khaine in terms of Battletomes, so I should have the info on hand, somewhere!

So I'm curious. Which novels are worth reading? I'd like to read some Age of Sigmar novels, but I don't really know which are good or which are I should avoid.

A lot of the short stories are particularly interesting, as they provide snapshots into Realms and lives the main narrative hasn't yet.

I'd also recommend Nagash The Undying (just come out in stores), and Spear of Shadows, part of the Eight Lamentations series. Also, City of Secrets. For me, those three represent the background really finding it's feet. I've previously likened the original Realmgate Wars series (which stayed close to the narrative books for the game) to early Discworld, and those that followed mid-era Discworld, when Sir Terry had tweaked and polished things into what we know and love.

But the short stories I greatly enjoy! This bundle is probably my favourite. For the first time in a long, long time, Black Library managed to introduce character and agency to Chaos. Not the typical 'blarg for the blarg God!' we're used to. But actual motivation as to why they embraced, turned, betrayed etc. Indeed, I'd go so far as the argue the relatively faceless and fearless nature of the Stormcast has really allowed Chaos to shine through. Most other times, the 'good guys' have been pooping it when Chaos comes knocking. But with Stormcast able to laugh in the face of fear and tweak the nose of terror, and occasionally make rude gestures when they think horror isn't looking, we get a much better understanding of the Chaos characters as a result.

And for general reading, this 'un is probably worth it. Fyreslayer one fell a little flat for me, but is overdue a re-read to be fair. Sylvaneth one is very good, and the Skaven one is a complete novel, rather than three or four novellas - and features locations we'll return to in Spear of Shadows

In short? I'd say the Realmgate Wars are probably the most disposable. It's not that they're not decent stories, it's just they're so hidebound by in-game narrative, they don't serve particularly well as windows into the Realms.

My full rundown of the books, as they were released and read, can be found here. Needs an update, which I'll get onto at some point.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarain wrote:
I've never gotten a good understanding of how we transitioned to the Mortal Realms from the World that was.

Was all of this already established with these familiar races going about their lives?

Or did it all begin at the Shattering? If so why and how are the realms populated with the familiar races including characters we knew before?

It seems the Realms became when The World That Was asploded. With Sigmar riding the core of The World That Was until the celestial Dragon who's name escapes me found him, and guided him to The Realms.

From there, he set about finding and resurrecting/digging out his fellow Gods.

As for the populace? Magic is the simple answer. He found the Realms already populated. Exactly how remains unclear to the best of my knowledge - but I think Malign Portents has slightly more info on that that I've failed to remember.

I wonder if they ever read over that stuff.

You can always make up reasons like I did.