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Seeing a good tweet about the two new faces of storm cast beeing a woman and a black man warmed my SJW heart.

But it also got me thinking about the movie Dogma (1999) and trans arguments. (For clarity I am 100% agreeing with mainstream pro trans arguments.) Further, what gender and sexes do Stormcasts have?

Are there any offisial statements on this? From what I could gather they are idealiased versions of themselves. (Very pro trans of Sigmar. And probably incorporates the posabilaty of gender fluid between reforgins.) And that they have families and even lovers. So they seem to have functional sexes as well.

But can they get children? And do the children inherit some special powers as the Stormcast gets re-forged they get weard side effects?




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Update: Also, where did she gets her wings? Is it part of the armour? Or a mutation?

Removed

Having black or women characters isn't a culture war any more so than having white male characters is. Grow up.

I love the models, some incredibly powerful looking sculpts, and I think that Stormcast are a much more interesting faction because of their "idealised selves" as OP put it. Genuinely impressive stuff. In terms of "what genders/ethnicities" can Stormcast have, I think the answer is "any" - we've seen no explicit rejection of any identity groups, and from what I understand from the AoS RPG, Stormcast aren't even limited to just male/female gender binaries, which I am very appreciative of.

As for children, I am clueless, but it's an interesting avenue!

A Stormcast doesn't necessarily remember who they were in their past life or even the day before they were reforged after losing a fight. Their entire personality and identity could be rewritten when they hit the Anvil of Apotheosis. We have examples of men, women, and even non-binary Stormcast.
As for actual reproduction, I'm leaning onto probably not mostly due to the fact a Stormcast is a functionally immortal warrior whose only purpose is to secure Sigmar's domain. Like it could happen but the chances are very slim.
However, there was an example of a Stormcast being the reforged soul of a woman who through "destiny" made her way back to where she lived in her mortal life to protect her daughter during the invasion of Glymsforge during the Soul Wars.

It is very possible, and not even uncommon, for SCE to have living descendants because they had children while they were mortal. But having children AS stormcast I seriously doubt would be possible. GW is pretty consistent that transcending mortality (regardless of the means) also prevents one from subsequently having children. There is a strong symbolic element to that; part of mortal life is being replaced by one's descendants, part of immortal life is having no descendants to be replaced by.

As for transgender individuals, the forging process seems to be based quite heavily if not entirely on the individual's soul. SCE are also forged from people who were already dead, so we know that lacking a body is no barrier. Based on that I would say that a transgender individual forged into SCE would have a body matching their identity.

Iiiiinteresting. Not knowing much about Stormcast - Does the concept of being 'reborn as an idealized self' apply to species as well as gender and ethnicity? Could Stormcast conceivably idealize themselves as elves, or furries, or even, like, machines, and be reborn as such?

I believe a soul is tied to one's race. A Human or Duardin soul would be fine for Slaanesh but it craves Aelf souls for example. Ergo a Human who was reforged would still look like their original race but with X or Y new thing that represents them best or at least as well as they can remember. It was something that was left super vague in 1st Edition, so people were making Ork-cast Eternals and such but now it's pretty much clear cut that certain Gods have claims/protection on certain souls (except they are all thieves because all souls belong to Nagash).

Stormcast aren't reborn through belief or desire, they are reborn through Sigmar grasping their soul as it leaves their mortal body. Thrusting it into a huge storage chamber full of other confused souls; then grasping one at random and mythically beating it into a new forged body.

A Stormcast's body is idealised in Sigmar's view of the idealised humanoid warrior body.



As for reproduction, far as I believe we are aware, they are unable to reproduce. Indeed reproduction for creatures made by gods is a fickle and difficult thing it seems.

Stormcast, far as I recall, cannot reproduce. They can love and lust and have emotoins, though much is beaten down under a powerful layer of duty, honour and a burning hatred and desire to fight chaos (which is why the more they are reforged the more zealous they typically become as more of their humanity is stripped away)

Lumineth appear to be a fully functional people.

However this is after the failure of the Indoneth who can reproduce, but often have withered souls that lack some critical element and requires them to harvest souls from the living to try and stay alive in some form.

Morathi's creations in her Melusai and Khinerai we've no idea on if they can or cannot reproduce. We only know that they are formed within the great cauldron by Morathi. They appear to be the only ones being actively made; the others appear to more races that were made and then allowed to continue to live on their own.

And we don't as yet know anything of Malarion's work.

A Stormcast's body is idealised in Sigmar's view of the idealised humanoid warrior body.

Yet they retain their features and most of personality (including memories) upon 1st reforging. It'd stand to reason their shape is at least partially based on what their soul is, so it'd stand to reason that a woman's soul would be reforged into a woman's body, regardless of how the soul started, etc. They're all made of lightning after all, very pliable material.

 CEO Kasen wrote:
Iiiiinteresting. Not knowing much about Stormcast - Does the concept of being 'reborn as an idealized self' apply to species as well as gender and ethnicity? Could Stormcast conceivably idealize themselves as elves, or furries, or even, like, machines, and be reborn as such?

They are still human, and are getting 'heroic' versions of their human selves. IF there were a case of a human who believed themselves to have the soul of an aelf, duardin, beast, or whatever I doubt Sigmar would pick them to become SCE in the first place. In the setting we have now there is no reason to believe such a person even could exist; human body = human soul.

Transgender individuals, on the other hand, we can assume to exist because they do in IRL human populations and there is no fluff saying AoS humans are is nothing stating they are different than IRL ones in that aspect. It goes without saying that a transgender individual has a mis-match of their soul's gender and that of their body, when said body is blasted apart and remade it would presumably result in the SCE then having a body matching their soul.


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 Overread wrote:
Stormcast aren't reborn through belief or desire, they are reborn through Sigmar grasping their soul as it leaves their mortal body. Thrusting it into a huge storage chamber full of other confused souls; then grasping one at random and mythically beating it into a new forged body.

A Stormcast's body is idealized in Sigmar's view of the idealized humanoid warrior body.

With all due respect, that isn't an accurate summary of the process on multiple levels.

Hmm my reference is mostly the start of Soul Wars

Can I just thank all involved that we are 4 days into the thread and it has not exploded in anyway.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

@overread - i really like your summary of the reforging process...lol!

it really feels like their sense of duty and urge to spread sigmars help overrides any normal desire that a normal person may have like physical relationships.

on a side note... do you think something like trans carries over into a fantasy setting?

i would think a man is a man and a woman a woman... they are just super versions of themselves arent they?

That's not how being trans works. If in their mortal life a Stormcast had a male body but knew in their soul they were a woman then at their reforging they would look female and be a woman. Sometimes a Stormcast doesn't remember anything about their past life and the body they have isn't familiar so they identify as something similar to what we know as non-binary.
The difficulty is applying our terms for gender onto a universe where a soul is a thing that objectively exists. We don't have an idea of that since the concept of a soul has never been proven in our reality.

I mean, you could always have a stormcast identify as NB while knowing who they were, it's not like non-binary is a state of confusion.

This is all well and good but what if a stormcast is human but identifies as dwarf or elf? These are also things we might consider in a fantasy setting where alternate humanoid species exist and where souls are a tangible proven thing

Because a soul is tied to species, Aelf and Duardin souls are specifically different from Human ones.
It would be like coming back as a Chimp or Gorilla, both are similar to humans but are distinctly not humans.

 Overread wrote:
This is all well and good but what if a stormcast is human but identifies as dwarf or elf? These are also things we might consider in a fantasy setting where alternate humanoid species exist and where souls are a tangible proven thing

Then the soul would not be reforged into a stormcast. Soul Wars novel and SCE tome made it quite clear if the soul resist too much, it will just end up destroyed during the process. It'd stand to reason (assuming such a thing was possible in the first place- unlike the real world where we know trans people exist, we don't know if otherkin do exist in Mortal Realms but let's assume so) that a soul whose desired shape would be too far from stormcast default wouldn't pass the "test". That being said, I believe Soul Wars novel (or maybe one of the SteelSoul ones, ngl the stormcast novels tend to blur together for me) does introduce a stormcast hero who is very heavily implied to be non-human.

 Gert wrote:
Because a soul is tied to species, Aelf and Duardin souls are specifically different from Human ones.

This is pretty much confirmed both by Stormcast and Idoneth fluff. It's mentioned offhand in Idoneth stories that the species of a soul placed into a Namartii will affect their personality, ie. a Namartii that receives an Orruk soul will tend to be more aggressive than one with a human soul.

Considering 'love is the death of duty' you would hope Sigmar would program his creations (as much as possible) to avoid it.

 StygianBeach wrote:
Considering 'love is the death of duty' you would hope Sigmar would program his creations (as much as possible) to avoid it.

Tell that to the spartans. The most homo erotic army that used love as a big (pun not untended) motivator.

That quote seems very little thought out, although I see the idea behind the phrase. I would think when you are a reincarnating warrior you are highly motivated to protect your familay even harder.

spartans were thrash tho. you're thinking of the much more interesting sacred band of thebes

 Niiai wrote:

That quote seems very little thought out, although I see the idea behind the phrase. I would think when you are a reincarnating warrior you are highly motivated to protect your familay even harder.

Only if you remember your family and get sent to where they might live. The first Stormcast were ancient souls from the beginning of the Age of Chaos so many only had ties to specific cities or clans rather than people. Sigmar isn't stupid either and he knows the power of legend. The last prince of Glymsforge was resurrected as a Stormcast and led the defence of the city during the opening stage of the Soul Wars. Considering how many people died, were enslaved or fell to Chaos during the Age of Chaos, the chances of any Stormcast meeting their descendants are very slim.

 Gert wrote:

 Niiai wrote:

That quote seems very little thought out, although I see the idea behind the phrase. I would think when you are a reincarnating warrior you are highly motivated to protect your familay even harder.

Only if you remember your family and get sent to where they might live. The first Stormcast were ancient souls from the beginning of the Age of Chaos so many only had ties to specific cities or clans rather than people. Sigmar isn't stupid either and he knows the power of legend. The last prince of Glymsforge was resurrected as a Stormcast and led the defence of the city during the opening stage of the Soul Wars. Considering how many people died, were enslaved or fell to Chaos during the Age of Chaos, the chances of any Stormcast meeting their descendants are very slim.

It varies because Sigmar is still taking souls so as time passes and the Order population of humans increases, the more newer stormcast will come from those ranks. As a result there is more chance of a stormcast having connections to people and places that are still around.

There is a greater chance but again their memories have to survive the Reforging, which still get worse with each successive attempt.

 Overread wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 Niiai wrote:

That quote seems very little thought out, although I see the idea behind the phrase. I would think when you are a reincarnating warrior you are highly motivated to protect your familay even harder.

Only if you remember your family and get sent to where they might live. The first Stormcast were ancient souls from the beginning of the Age of Chaos so many only had ties to specific cities or clans rather than people. Sigmar isn't stupid either and he knows the power of legend. The last prince of Glymsforge was resurrected as a Stormcast and led the defence of the city during the opening stage of the Soul Wars. Considering how many people died, were enslaved or fell to Chaos during the Age of Chaos, the chances of any Stormcast meeting their descendants are very slim.

It varies because Sigmar is still taking souls so as time passes and the Order population of humans increases, the more newer stormcast will come from those ranks. As a result there is more chance of a stormcast having connections to people and places that are still around.

One of the audio dramas has a SCE helping out her father & sister so it definitely does happen. Thing is, eventually those mortals will die and the Stormcast won't.


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 usernamesareannoying wrote:
on a side note... do you think something like trans carries over into a fantasy setting?

It is an inherent (if uncommon) trait to the human race so any setting that has humans would by extension have transgender humans unless they were specifically written out.