Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Why there isn't that much of a fan base for the Warhammer Fantasy lore? I mean, its better written then 40k, with better characters, better stories and such. Matt Ward was even booted off the writing team for his screw up of the daemon lore(as I was told).

I mean, I guess 40k is more unique in terms of sci fi, but in my personal opinion, I think Warhammer Fantasy does distinguish itself from many other modern fantasy franchises such as the Elder Scrolls Series(which actually looked A LOT like Warhammer Fantasy during its early days), Warcraft and other series in its less Medieval/more Renaissance setting; in addition, the resemblance to real world places/conflicts/people is pretty cool(being a supposedly low fantasy setting, much like Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones). I just love the fact that much of the soldiers and knights in Warhammer Fantasy resemble actual soldiers of the 1500's.
Example: An Empire Greatsword vs A German Landskhenct



Of course, GW and Bioware had to screw up that appeal by making magic and all the crap as common as the bolter the lasgun in 40k and made everyone look like some generic anime character.

But the fluff is still there and really, I find it much more fascinating then 40k lore, which reads like a 12 year old writing a LOTR and Star Wars cross over often times.

The Bretonnians are full stop medieval knights and peasants, not a single trace of 1500's equipement there, at best, you've got some transitional armors from the 1300's.

They're also the least fantasy looking army imo, bar the silly helmet decorations.

Slap a giant dragon head on top of that helmet, and you got yourself a perfect Bret knight (which is great!)

I love my Goblin lore. It's really goblin-ish. The story about the goblin killing a fecking DRAGON (!!!) and then dying when being dubbed...awesome.

My personal favourite has always been the Skaven saving the world from Nagash.

The problem with fantasy is there was no great "Horus Heresy"

The lores for fantasy are mainly written for each army seperatly and they are great. But they lack the depth of the Horus heresy that makes the 40k universe an interesting place. If you get what i mean.

I think the fact that Warhammer Fantasy novels and RPG books are selling well for years is an indication, that at least some people appreciate the lore.

cerbrus2 wrote:
The problem with fantasy is there was no great "Horus Heresy"

The lores for fantasy are mainly written for each army seperatly and they are great. But they lack the depth of the Horus heresy that makes the 40k universe an interesting place. If you get what i mean.

Actually there was. The giant gates collapsed on the poles creating Beastmen, Skaven and the winds of magic.

The lores of Fantasy are far more indepth than 40k only in the past few years has anything about the HH been revealed.

The problem with Fantasy is that it is a fixed universe. There's no room to invent anything. All the space has been taken up.

You could write a fanfiction but anyone who reads it will just poke holes in it all over the place. It's not like 40k where you can just say "time travel, homebrew chapter or warp accident".

The Dwarves live HERE and the High Elves live THERE! There are no if ands or buts about it.

Bah, the background of the Warhammer world IS the background of 40k. The world Warhammer takes place on is just a planet in the 40k Galaxy. Yes, really. The Old Ones who left the Lizardmen and fled through their gate are the same old ones that created the Eldar, and Orks (And probably the Tyranids, after they fled out of the galaxy, sending the Tyranids back in to finish off the Necrons). A couple of short stories prove it, including my one of my favorite short stories ever about an Empire town being saved from marauding Beastmen by deep-striking Blood Angel Terminators.










Ok, that's been mostly dropped from the lore, but it was true once!

Lostchaplain wrote:
Bah, the background of the Warhammer world IS the background of 40k. The world Warhammer takes place on is just a planet in the 40k Galaxy. Yes, really. The Old Ones who left the Lizardmen and fled through their gate are the same old ones that created the Eldar, and Orks (And probably the Tyranids, after they fled out of the galaxy, sending the Tyranids back in to finish off the Necrons). A couple of short stories prove it, including my one of my favorite short stories ever about an Empire town being saved from marauding Beastmen by deep-striking Blood Angel Terminators.










Ok, that's been mostly dropped from the lore, but it was true once!

And Sigmar was a missing primarch. It was pretty silly though and it's all been retconned now. In truth 80s whfb and 40k were alot more similar but were very much in their infancy in terms of background so its only natural that GW separate them to make them more relevant.

If you really want to you can pretend that Sigmars daddy lied to him and he wasn't born but was found in a pod and that the warhammer world is in the eye of terror then that's all good.

I agree with the previous posters though that the nature of the ww does leave everything quite set in terms of who what where and when. I am glad that they have started writing the time of legends books to flesh out events of the past. Even if the war of the beard, though awesome, lacks the mystery and epic nature of the Heresy

I liked when WHFB chaos champions could get boltguns when rolling on the random chaos gift table. Yeah, boltguns in fantasy!

Dunno.

While I like fantasy in general, I find it works far worse for a "static" "nothing-really-ever-changes" setting of a Wargame. Not just WFB, but also Warmachine, etc.. .

Warhammer 40K is "large enough" to have some epic stuff without unsettling the broader framework. In WFB, the truly epic "LOTR-style" events are all in the past. The game itself feels too much like an eternal shuffling over ... something ... that has no meaningful impact.

I'd like to see them advance Lizardmen fluff yet further when their book comes out soon.

The last book ended with Mazdamundi declaring that the Lizardmen would go forth into the Old World and restore order by putting all the races back where they should be and getting rid of the ones that shouldn't exist at all.

It would be good if at the beginning of the book, the Lizardmen had arrived to do just that. It wouldn't upset the fluff, but would reinforce the idea that Lizardmen battles were now taking place across the Warhammer globe and not just in Lustria.

PresidentOfAsia wrote:
Why there isn't that much of a fan base for the Warhammer Fantasy lore? I mean, its better written then 40k, with better characters, better stories and such. Matt Ward was even booted off the writing team for his screw up of the daemon lore(as I was told).

While I personally agree with that; it's just an opinion. Some people will prefer 40K for any number and combinations of reasons. So, there's that reason why 40K may be better represented than Fantasy.

I mean, I guess 40k is more unique in terms of sci fi, but in my personal opinion, I think Warhammer Fantasy does distinguish itself from many other modern fantasy franchises such as the Elder Scrolls Series(which actually looked A LOT like Warhammer Fantasy during its early days), Warcraft and other series in its less Medieval/more Renaissance setting; in addition, the resemblance to real world places/conflicts/people is pretty cool(being a supposedly low fantasy setting, much like Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones). I just love the fact that much of the soldiers and knights in Warhammer Fantasy resemble actual soldiers of the 1500's.
Example: An Empire Greatsword vs A German Landskhenct

40K is extremely unique as far as sci-fi goes. When's the last time the protagonist in a major sci-fi story were fanatical, fascistic super-soldiers based off the Teutonic Knights who have committed themselves to an eternal crusade against aliens and religious heretics? It's a little refreshing to see a speculative science-fiction story where the hero isn't idealistic and a champion of whatever moral virtues we hold up today and is not judged right or wrong for that; rather leaving that to the player.

In many ways, 40k and Fantasy have similar themes and elements. The moral relativism, the grit, the blood and guts, etc, etc. Warhammer has the added bonus of taking elements of history (the Warriors of Chaos are Vikings, the Empire is word-for-word the Holy Roman Empire, etc), but then 40K does too. The Imperium evokes elements of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the Soviet Union (Commissars, primarily) and Pagan Rome. The various Imperial Guard regiments evoke different periods of military history; with the Kriegers reminding people of WW1 trench warfare. Or the Valhallans evoking the Red Army. The Cadians are a nod to Canada's extensive contributions militarily in WW2. Even more older parts of military history are given a nod by the guardsmen, the Attilan Rough Riders are pretty much the Mongolian army of Genghis Khan but with guns and grenades on their spears.

Hell, the Space Marines also do it. A bit more subtly than the Guard, they take general inspiration from medieval cultures rather than specific periods of history... The BT are like Teutonic Knights, the Space Wolves are Viking Age Scandinavians, Ultramarines are a bit Roman, the list can go on.

But the fluff is still there and really, I find it much more fascinating then 40k lore, which reads like a 12 year old writing a LOTR and Star Wars cross over often times.

This is a bit harsh. There are a lot of good pieces of Warhammer background if you know where to look. Just as there are really bad pieces of Warhammer Fantasy background, like the Defenders of Ulthuan trilogy. No disrespect to Graham McNeill, but come on, the Slaaneshi Chaos Lord gets his mutations removed because the Everqueen says she loves him? You can do so much better than that. And you have done so much better than that.

Once again, I like Fantasy more too. And I wish it would get more attention from GW also, but there are points in 40K which are great as well.

I'd love to read about Fantasy's background and lot of race specific tidbits. Lexicanum is a great website for lore study...if you only like 40k. I wish a contingent of people would help get the Fantasy side updated.

I dunno, I like both games, but I prefer the fantasy lore. Something about a Dwarf and a Human with plenty of drinking, one liners, and violence that really just does it for me.

 rapterz wrote:
I'd love to read about Fantasy's background and lot of race specific tidbits. Lexicanum is a great website for lore study...if you only like 40k. I wish a contingent of people would help get the Fantasy side updated.

I doubt they wouldn't turn you away if you volunteered

Korm wrote:

PresidentOfAsia wrote:
Why there isn't that much of a fan base for the Warhammer Fantasy lore? I mean, its better written then 40k, with better characters, better stories and such. Matt Ward was even booted off the writing team for his screw up of the daemon lore(as I was told).

While I personally agree with that; it's just an opinion. Some people will prefer 40K for any number and combinations of reasons. So, there's that reason why 40K may be better represented than Fantasy.

I mean, I guess 40k is more unique in terms of sci fi, but in my personal opinion, I think Warhammer Fantasy does distinguish itself from many other modern fantasy franchises such as the Elder Scrolls Series(which actually looked A LOT like Warhammer Fantasy during its early days), Warcraft and other series in its less Medieval/more Renaissance setting; in addition, the resemblance to real world places/conflicts/people is pretty cool(being a supposedly low fantasy setting, much like Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones). I just love the fact that much of the soldiers and knights in Warhammer Fantasy resemble actual soldiers of the 1500's.
Example: An Empire Greatsword vs A German Landskhenct

40K is extremely unique as far as sci-fi goes. When's the last time the protagonist in a major sci-fi story were fanatical, fascistic super-soldiers based off the Teutonic Knights who have committed themselves to an eternal crusade against aliens and religious heretics? It's a little refreshing to see a speculative science-fiction story where the hero isn't idealistic and a champion of whatever moral virtues we hold up today and is not judged right or wrong for that; rather leaving that to the player.

In many ways, 40k and Fantasy have similar themes and elements. The moral relativism, the grit, the blood and guts, etc, etc. Warhammer has the added bonus of taking elements of history (the Warriors of Chaos are Vikings, the Empire is word-for-word the Holy Roman Empire, etc), but then 40K does too. The Imperium evokes elements of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the Soviet Union (Commissars, primarily) and Pagan Rome. The various Imperial Guard regiments evoke different periods of military history; with the Kriegers reminding people of WW1 trench warfare. Or the Valhallans evoking the Red Army. The Cadians are a nod to Canada's extensive contributions militarily in WW2. Even more older parts of military history are given a nod by the guardsmen, the Attilan Rough Riders are pretty much the Mongolian army of Genghis Khan but with guns and grenades on their spears.

Hell, the Space Marines also do it. A bit more subtly than the Guard, they take general inspiration from medieval cultures rather than specific periods of history... The BT are like Teutonic Knights, the Space Wolves are Viking Age Scandinavians, Ultramarines are a bit Roman, the list can go on.

But the fluff is still there and really, I find it much more fascinating then 40k lore, which reads like a 12 year old writing a LOTR and Star Wars cross over often times.

This is a bit harsh. There are a lot of good pieces of Warhammer background if you know where to look. Just as there are really bad pieces of Warhammer Fantasy background, like the Defenders of Ulthuan trilogy. No disrespect to Graham McNeill, but come on, the Slaaneshi Chaos Lord gets his mutations removed because the Everqueen says she loves him? You can do so much better than that. And you have done so much better than that.

Once again, I like Fantasy more too. And I wish it would get more attention from GW also, but there are points in 40K which are great as well.

40k does have a lot more room to expand, only problem is that GW does not expand on it unless writing about more space marine victories counts as expanding.

While there are a lot of good 40k lore, some of the lore is just beyond ridiculous such as Chenkov losing 100 million men in a battle. I know its supposed to be over the top but there's a fine line between grimdark and stupid; to get an idea of ridiculous 100 million is, imagine losing 50 Death Stars at once(the 1st Death Star had a crew of 2 million).

I really like the Forge World stuff(being an Elysian player myself); to FW, 2000 dead is considered a "heavy" loss(to my surprise).

Biggest offender in lore in both 40k and Fantasy imo are the writers and artists of the Fantasy Flight Game stuff. The writers don't know anything about lore and treat it as if it was Star Wars and keep making up stuff that do not fit. The artists all think lasguns are oversized flintlocks.

 Zweischneid wrote:

Warhammer 40K is "large enough" to have some epic stuff without unsettling the broader framework. In WFB, the truly epic "LOTR-style" events are all in the past. The game itself feels too much like an eternal shuffling over ... something ... that has no meaningful impact.

Yeah, I think this is a fair comment. For example, take my dear Dark Elves. In their fluff we have an awesome, massive Elven Civil War lots of murders, betrayals, skirmishes, assassinations, battles all with great characters and great intrigue and twists in the "plot". After that, all the Dark Elves do is go raid stuff, slaughter some people, capture some slaves, invade ulthuan, maybe mess with the magic of the world a bit and then repeat.

 DeffDred wrote:
The problem with Fantasy is that it is a fixed universe. There's no room to invent anything. All the space has been taken up.

You could write a fanfiction but anyone who reads it will just poke holes in it all over the place. It's not like 40k where you can just say "time travel, homebrew chapter or warp accident".

The Dwarves live HERE and the High Elves live THERE! There are no if ands or buts about it.

There's still leeway with creating your own stuff, it just gets hard when you want to make up fluff for an army from somewhere it just shouldn't be. Like you said, you can't make an Empire army and say it's from Ulthuan, or a Lizardmen army and say they're from the Northern Wastes. You could say, however, it's a Lizardman or Empire army campaigning in the Northern Wastes or Ulthuan.

And to be fair, you have the same restrictions in 40k. You can't say 'my awesome loyal Imperial Guard regiment was founded on the plains of Skalathrax' since Skalathrax is a daemon world. You can't say 'my Hive Fleet is actually native to the Milky Way' because Tyranids aren't native to the Milky Way. There's plenty of restrictions on 40k custom fluff, it just has more wiggle room due to being based in barely defined a galaxy instead of a well defined planet.

You can still, say, make your own little Vampire Coven, nestled in the foothills of some unmarked Empire town. Your friend, wanting to link the armies for for some thematic games, makes an Empire army based in that same unmarked Empire town. Another friend, seeing a campaign opportunity, makes a Skaven clan that lives in the sewers of that unmarked Empire town. Nothing says you can't do this, and you three friends have essentially created a new Empire town with its own standing army and two nearby threats.

On topic, I really like the Fantasy lore. I think it actually benefits from not having a 'Horus Heresy' of its own. The biggest downfall of Chaos Space Marines in 40k is it is primarily focused on being Evil Space Marines, rather than their own faction. The biggest strength of Warriors of Chaos is that they are their own faction. Every faction fits the fluff, and has been refined over the years, with fewer complete retcons on the scale of the Necrons or even what Tyranids went through over the years.

Not to mention, while Fantasy lacks a pivotal 'Horus Heresy', it has plenty of other pivotal movment driven by various races. The Old Ones and the Warp gates collapsing, the war between High Elves and the Dark Elves, humans with Sigmar against the greenskins, the clashes between the living and dead in Nehekara, and more that I'm forgetting. Fantasys lore is strengthened by the fact that there is no one faction that hogs the majority of the lore.

I think 40K is better universe. The good guys are pretty bad, which takes care of the main issue in most universes where good guys are dull and unconflicted. Darth Vader is way more interesting than Luke, at least until you find all about Luke, and then he only becomes interesting because of his connection to dad. The over-the-topness of 40K is because it seems to really appeal to younger audiences. Yeah, it's extremely silly. Just like it's silly that anyone has a sword or gives a damn about swords when you can nuke planets from space and have super space tanks. I don't care if you're 9 feet tall and really buff. Meet physics, tough guy.

My issue with Fantasy is 99% of it seems to be about CHAOS. And Daemons just aren't that interesting antagonists because they aren't human-ish. Like in the movie Alien/Aliens, they are scary, but they don't have much motivation. Gods are gods. Even the Chaos gods are only sorta interested in taking over the world and if they did, so what, they're still gods. And WoC are the main instigators and they are two dimensional as well. Blood for the blood god. I mean you eventually run out of blood. What's your long term strategy there, Blood God, put yourself out of business?

They could do a lot more with the other races. But like 40K, they feel that everything has to be UNIVERSE SHATTERING to be entertaining.

As of this writing we have a civil war going on in Syria. It's a small little country. Its effects aren't felt much outside the region. But you can be damn sure to the millions of people there that is the only thing that matters on earth.

I mean you can read or watch Game of Thrones and just the politics of one city is interesting.

DukeRustfield wrote:
My issue with Fantasy is 99% of it seems to be about CHAOS. And Daemons just aren't that interesting antagonists because they aren't human-ish. Like in the movie Alien/Aliens, they are scary, but they don't have much motivation. Gods are gods. Even the Chaos gods are only sorta interested in taking over the world and if they did, so what, they're still gods. And WoC are the main instigators and they are two dimensional as well. Blood for the blood god. I mean you eventually run out of blood. What's your long term strategy there, Blood God, put yourself out of business?

They could do a lot more with the other races.

I think you have the settings mixed around.

I'm not seeing how 99% of Fantasy lore is about Chaos. While some races were created by the collapse of the Warp gates or just other magic related events (like Beastment origins), Chaos barely rates a mention outside of being the origin of the winds of magic. A lot of army books barely even mention Chaos at all other than fighting their forces, and even then, they're not the main antagonists for most of the races. Every race in Fantasy has its own pivotal lore origins and events, often disregarding Chaos entirely, with no main antagonist or protagonist in the setting at all. Just looking at Vampire Counts - they've had well developed wars in the fluff with High Elves and Dwarves, Brettonia, the Empire, Skaven and, obviously, Nehekara. Their only tie to Chaos is that they were created with Dark Magic, which is actually a tie to the Warp than Chaos itself, yet most of them have very strong connections with Chaos.

Contrast to 40k, where the prime antagonist of the entire setting is Chaos itself, the prime protagonist of the entire setting has entire subfactions focused on combating Chaos, psykers themselves are gateways to the material world for Chaos beings, the one pivotal part of the 40k lore is about Chaos nearly dominating the galaxy, most of the key set peices are about Chaos making further incursions (Abbadon alone has led 13, one of which spawned its own game, another spawned its own worldwide campaign), and Chaos is pretty much set up to be the front runner in who destroys the Imperium. 40k is basically Imperium vs Chaos, and the rest of the armies are sideshows. The Dark Eldar avoid psychics entirely, yet their sole enemy is a Chaos god.

The fan base of the lore is a subset of the fanbase for the game, which is a much smaller audience by far than 40k. The fantasy lore is also very generic whereas the 40k lore is much more unique. Both universes suffer from some very bad writing of course

 -Loki- wrote:

I think you have the settings mixed around.

I'm not seeing how 99% of Fantasy lore is about Chaos. While some races were created by the collapse of the Warp gates or just other magic related events (like Beastment origins), Chaos barely rates a mention outside of being the origin of the winds of magic.

You haven't been reading much then. But let's count:

-Magic itself comes from DoC. Any magic. From any race.
-HE main arch enemies aren't DE, it's DoC. DE are just dudes. They drew the sword cuz of DoC. They made the super spell thing cuz of DoC. They've been continually invaded and almost destroyed by DoC. They got casters and items and lore that is specifically anti-DoC (and damn good at it).
-Lizardmen are as anti-DoC as you can get. Everything about them is stopping Chaos. Slann don't touch the ground because of DoC (and they're fat and lazy).
-WoC = mortal DoC. They are obviously all about Chaos 100%.
-Beastmen = furry WoC.
-Empire = PERPETUALLY invaded by WoC. It's like "oh, it's 5 o'clock, time for another incursion." They're such morbid bastards cuz of it.
-Skaven=Horned Rat is a Nurgle Daemon (I think...it has a pretty interesting picture in the DoC book), in any case Vermin Lords are Daemons.
-DoC = DoC
-Chaos Dwarfs = mutated Dwarfs. CD are pretty Chaosy, as the name implies.

Guys who don't massively feature in Chaos/Daemons:

-Ogres (except for the ones in WoC)
-O&G, almost totally clean
-Dwarfs, cept CD. But the Plaguefather has Hatred Dwarfs because of some old fights. But not a major thread.
-WE?
-DE I don't know well, but they've tried to destroy the gates that keep out DoC
-TK, almost totally clean
-Bret?

So about half the armies in the game are either completely tied by BEING chaos or have massive and continuing story lines regarding chaos/daemons. HE can totally hate DE and think they're ZOMG stinky dark elves, but there's a huge difference between someone being a big meanie and being an immortal, supernatural creature whose only goal is to turn the entire planet into the realm of chaos.

-Chaos Dwarfs = mutated Dwarfs. CD are pretty Chaosy, as the name implies.

They don't worship Chaos, though. They worship Hashut; whom they count as separate and superior to the other Chaos Gods.

They end up working with Norse and Kurgan tribes often, though, but that's only because they supply armour and weapons which the Northmen want and the Northmen give them slaves and other things that they can't get for themselves.

DukeRustfield wrote:
I think 40K is better universe. The good guys are pretty bad, which takes care of the main issue in most universes where good guys are dull and unconflicted. Darth Vader is way more interesting than Luke, at least until you find all about Luke, and then he only becomes interesting because of his connection to dad. The over-the-topness of 40K is because it seems to really appeal to younger audiences. Yeah, it's extremely silly. Just like it's silly that anyone has a sword or gives a damn about swords when you can nuke planets from space and have super space tanks. I don't care if you're 9 feet tall and really buff. Meet physics, tough guy.

My issue with Fantasy is 99% of it seems to be about CHAOS. And Daemons just aren't that interesting antagonists because they aren't human-ish. Like in the movie Alien/Aliens, they are scary, but they don't have much motivation. Gods are gods. Even the Chaos gods are only sorta interested in taking over the world and if they did, so what, they're still gods. And WoC are the main instigators and they are two dimensional as well. Blood for the blood god. I mean you eventually run out of blood. What's your long term strategy there, Blood God, put yourself out of business?

They could do a lot more with the other races. But like 40K, they feel that everything has to be UNIVERSE SHATTERING to be entertaining.

As of this writing we have a civil war going on in Syria. It's a small little country. Its effects aren't felt much outside the region. But you can be damn sure to the millions of people there that is the only thing that matters on earth.

I mean you can read or watch Game of Thrones and just the politics of one city is interesting.

Remember that Chaos is VERY different from the chaos of 40k. For one, its possible to worship chaos and still be on the side of "order"/"good". For instance, look at Cathay, which is 15th century China in Warhammer Fantasy; their people worship Tzeentch(not to the extreme of the marauders) but are still pretty good and maintain relations with the Empire; at the same time, the merchants of Araby are able to keep contact and diplomatic relationships with the Chaos Marauders as well. In addition, chaos mutations aren't seen as evil, for instance, the Gryphon, which is the Empire's holiest beast, is the result of a Chaos mutation.

Also, in Warhammer Fantasy, the good races are hardly "good". The Lizard men, being the opposite extreme of Chaos, practice human slavery and sacrifice, while their leaders, the Old Ones, are willing to destroy entire continents in order to execute their plans(look what happend to the dwarves). The Bretonnians, who ironically are like the Chilvaric Knights in Armor, oppress their peasants like slaves and hardly give them any freedoms. Even if a single peasant rebels, his family, whether they were invovled or not, would be punished severely as well.

Point is is that Warhammer Fantasy hardly has the black and white morality and is just about the greys as 40k is.

Also its not 99% about the daemons; supposedly being a low fantasy, much of the conflicts hardly involve chaos. Freakin Bioware thought it be cool to turn Warhammer into a wannabe Warcraft and make magic as common as lasguns

PresidentOfAsia wrote:

Remember that Chaos is VERY different from the chaos of 40k. For one, its possible to worship chaos and still be on the side of "order"/"good". For instance, look at Cathay, which is 15th century China in Warhammer Fantasy; their people worship Tzeentch(not to the extreme of the marauders) but are still pretty good and maintain relations with the Empire; at the same time, the merchants of Araby are able to keep contact and diplomatic relationships with the Chaos Marauders as well. In addition, chaos mutations aren't seen as evil, for instance, the Gryphon, which is the Empire's holiest beast, is the result of a Chaos mutation.
s

The way the Northern tribes worship Chaos is probably more nuanced and interesting than how they are seen in Cathay, which is just generic cultism. The Norse see Chaos as a positive entity, Khorne is a mighty, venerable god of war. Tzeentch is a trickster deity. Nurgle is prayed to so that they can avoid sickness and Slaanesh is fertility god. Are the gods grim and unforgiving? Yes, but the Northmen live in grim and unforgiving times. It's a mistake to think that the Warriors of Chaos are one-dimensionally evil, they're just savage men who worship the most powerful and capricious gods and who live in difficult times. Kind of like real Vikings.

And another thing, even though the Norse worship Chaos, they're not always raiding and invading the south. There's a codex short story about a Marauder entertaining a Marienburg trader, and he's represented as a normal guy who just worships weird gods.

Lore?

Fluff, please.

It's lightweight and designed to fill the blank spots in the rulebook.

"Lore" gives it a gravitas it doesn't deserve.
Pretensions of being something more than it is.

If we were discussing the eddas, then THEY would be "lore". Background story for a game world is fluff, plain and simple. No matter the game.

 chromedog wrote:
Lore?

Fluff, please.

It's lightweight and designed to fill the blank spots in the rulebook.

"Lore" gives it a gravitas it doesn't deserve.
Pretensions of being something more than it is.

If we were discussing the eddas, then THEY would be "lore". Background story for a game world is fluff, plain and simple. No matter the game.

Are you done being pretentious? No?

 chromedog wrote:
Lore?

Fluff, please.

Dunno. The definitions for "fluff" at the Urban Dictionary all tell me something rather different. I'll stick with "lore" or "background" for any and all fictional material published or sold alongside games if you don't mind.

If I wan't "fluff", I'll go browse some XXX sites.

Cathay doesn't exist. I could care less about the 23498 regions they haven't implemented. If it's not a sanctioned army, they don't care much about it.

Everyone has to be "gray" or you could never have good races fighting each other. That's just an out to allow gaming.

Hashut is a Chaos God or Daemon Lord. That is per the official Tamurkhan source. Further, the Chaos Dwarfs were mutated, came into being, because of Chaos.