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While the merits of AoS vrs 8th edition rules continues to keep us busy in the forums, I thought I might start a thread to think purely about the fluff of the Old World, and invite folks to talk about what their favorite parts of it are. To start off, I thought I'd just mention two of my favorite parts of the Old World - the architecture of the Empire.

The look of the cities of the Empire always felt very distinct to me, compared to other fantasy worlds. While based in Germanic tudor style, the look of Empire buildings always contained this wonderful sense of ill-repair, as if it had been patched up and rebuilt time and again over centuries. Chimney's would hang precariously from chains that strained to keep them falling away from the building, and watch tower models came with wooden beams to shore up their sagging walls.

The most extreme example, I feel, is the Skullvane Manse kit, where a stone watch tower is essentially dangling from a tiny outcropping of rock, shored up with an implausibly few number of timbers. While I think Skullvane took the idea a bit too far, I feel this type of design really communicated to the viewer what they needed to know about the Empire in the Old World. Instantly, we understand that it the Empire is very old, and has stood the test of time, but now it strains and struggles against the trials that time have put upon it, and is constantly under threat of a sudden and inevitable collapse.

I can't think of another game where so much is communicated just through how the buildings look... But how about you? Was their a particular piece of fluff, unit, or historical event in The Old World that especially inspired you, or that you remember fondly?

The great size and amazing architecture of the Dwarf Karaks. Awesome and inspiring in size.
Now where are they? Do they even still live in mountains?
I suppose in time we will find out, but for me that was definitely one of my favourite parts and a really key factor of Dwarf character and background

I don't really think there is a small list of things I could mention.

I too loved the entirety of the Empire region. All the fluff surrounding the Albion campaign was awesome, too. Definitely all the evocative artwork in the Mordheim published material.

One of these days I really want to be involved in an RPG set in the Great Forest region. It just seems ripe with all sorts of things that could happen to a group of adventurers.

OOH and in a GW book about building terrain there was a house made out of a ship! IT WAS SO fething COOL!

Felix and Gotrek...

AoS making me want to relive the Old World fluff has me re-reading that whole series right now.

I don't know much of past editions' fluff but have enough old WDs to keep me busy for awhile. One thing I like is the diversity of factions such as The Empire and High Elves.
Each region within has it's own unique history and culture.

I loved the background so much ever since it first came out - and still use and enjoy it now.

Loved alot of the novels and how they brought the unique feel of the world to life - from Dracenfels to Master of Dragons, Neferata to Wild Kingdoms.

You can be cheering on a Dwarf Lord, sympathising with a berift Elf Dragon Princess, enjoying the unlife of a Vampire, introgued by the adventures of a teenage girl with her pet sabretusk and they all fit together in the same world.

Skaven - such a great unique creation and wonderfully without any reedeeming features - no Skaven is ever going to become "good"

The Short Story: The Barbed Wire Cat by Robery Earl - how a rather unique girl survives being enslaved by Skaven

The best part about the Old World was the rich history. Reading about Nagash, learning about how he came to power and was defeated and rose again. Him versus the Skaven. That was a great story! I especially liked the end part when the Skaven take over the fortress and everything is hunky dory... Then guess who comes knocking on the front door? If it were a movie scene it would have been like in Serenity when River Tam fights the Reapers. The door closes. When the door opens, everyone is dead.

That one sticks out in my mind as a great story. I also liked how there were great chunks of the world where no one knew anything about them like Cathay and Araby. You only knew a tidbit or two about those places, Cathay was supposed to be orient inspired, but was largely unknown. Then someone would come along in WD with a fully converted Cathayan army, complete with mythical flying horses and djinn and Chinese rockets and...

... Ah well. More and more I just think of recent events as comic book spin offs and its easier to handle. Did anyone watch Joey?

I remember when I was younger, reading a piece of fluff which was an Imperial Scholar's quote regarding the Skaven, saying they - without a doubt - do not exist and are just a figment of the imagination.

I thought that was really cool!

There were a lot of things that I really liked about the lore of the old world... I just wish we had gotten to see more than just the snapshot picture we got of it. I loved the lore of the Dark Elves, the idea that Malekith was wronged and that he's fighting to reclaim his birthright but in the process ends up practically selling his soul, there's something addictively tragic about that. I loved the idea of the High elves and their regimented warrior society. Of all the races, the high elves were the ones that I pictured as having the over the top story line and emotions to make a badass anime from. The tragic nature of their history was also a fun time to indulge one's melancholic nature upon.

Finally there is Bretonnia, and its vast pile of untapped potential within the fluff! Of course we already had the human kingdom center stage show stealer in the Empire (too many moustaches there for me...) so Bretonnia went largely ignored, and this was such a shame because there was so much that could have been done with this secondary kingdom. The relationships between peasant and noble put them on par with some of the more evil civilizations, yet they fought for a just cause, and having their goddess really be a fraud! They just didn't go anywhere with any of it, just set it down and left it like a blob of unwanted clay... Anyways...

Heh. I remember when my Dwarfs of Khoran'Khor'Dador held off the greatest siege the Greenskins ever had. Legions of orcs and goblins attacked our great mountain kingdom, all to be beaten back by Khlaf'Mangar, First-Blooded of the Lha'Raskan Dwarfs.

We had the mightiest empire in Dwarf history. None others rivaled it. We intimidated the Empire into backing off our territory thrice. We held off the entirety of the Chaos attack during the End Times. We never surrendered. We never quit. We never gave up. We never budged an inch. We fought our bravest and our best and destroyed all who dared challenge us.

Long live the Khoran'Khor'Dador Dwarfs, Mightiest of the Old World!

The one thing I loved above all else were the maps of the Old World. I loved its geography and place names.

I have the huge sepia one from WD300 (I think) framed hanging in my hobby room.

Hi everyone, great posts!

I definitely agree that we only scraped the surface of potential stories in the Old World, and its also why I don't think we've seen the end of it, and why I still intend to use the Old World setting with AoS rules.

I noticed one thing I forgot to add - I said two things, but only mentioned the buildings of the Empire. The second thing I meant to mention was the glorious Steam Tank of the empire.

These days we have loads of great "Steampunk" settings, but they tend to focus on the Victorian era. The Warhammer Steam Tank was a much rarer beast, being based on renaissance styling and Leonardo Divinci style wooden super-tech, as if a Sherman tank were made by hand by one of the greatest artist of the age.

I especially like it, because it makes sense that extreme circumstances would breed the faster creation of concepts like a tank. Over the course of WWII all sides saw rapid technological advancement in terms of armored warfare, such that an early war tank can barely annoy a late war tank. In the Old World, the Empire is faced with everything from hostile axe wielding green gorilla men to literal demons from other realms of existence. With that kind of threat level, it makes sense that designs or concepts that wouldn't be needed in our reality would be developed centuries early, in an effort to find some advantage over the foe.

My only complaint was the fluff decision for there to be only 8, as it prevented players from dreaming up and naming their own designs. If I had my way, just after I resurrected the Old World I'd explain that the Empire had devised ways of making Steam Tanks, they just weren't as good as the original 8. That way, you can call the existing kit the "mass produced" variant, and have "special character" versions in campaign books for those ultra-rare and seldom seen original designs.

On a different note:

 Madmatt wrote:
The great size and amazing architecture of the Dwarf Karaks. Awesome and inspiring in size.
Now where are they? Do they even still live in mountains?
I suppose in time we will find out, but for me that was definitely one of my favourite parts and a really key factor of Dwarf character and background

As I understand it, they do, with the Dwarfs of AoS being "Steamhead Daurdin" who hail from the realm of metal. What I don't get yet is why they're "steamheads" and not just Daurdin, and why they would need to mine the mountains at all, as the few depictions of the realm of metal yet shown make it appear as if precious metals are running in great molten rivers that radiate down anti-gravity islands.

And, not to dump on AoS, because we got lots of folks ready and willing to do that, but that's part of why I find myself drawn to the Old World fluff, even as a gamer brought to fantasy mostly due to the AoS release. You see, in the Old World, we knew where the Karaks were, and roughly how many. You could make up your own, but there were famous ones and fallen ones, so for decades we heard of the three way fight for Karak Eight Peaks and the like. But, for the Dwarves of the realm of metal, we know their realm is huge, and so high-magic that maps of it look like flying islands drifting in outerspace. So, when karak Eight Peaks fell in the End Times book, I was like "Holy cow, so that's how they one ended!" But, if a dwarf realm in AoS falls, I don't really know if its a big deal. I mean, how many are there? Billions? Thousands? A dozen? What's life like there? If dwarves are doing fine there, then how do we explain that Chaos took everything over ages ago? If Chaos did take over everything ages ago, how do we explain that they aren't all Chaos dwarves? How do they avoid tunneling too deep, and falling out of the bottom of their floating island?

So many questions, and my fear is when we get there, we'll learn more about what color the fire is on their blazing rune hammers, than what dwarven civilization is like out in the realms.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gromgor wrote:
Finally there is Bretonnia, and its vast pile of untapped potential within the fluff! Of course we already had the human kingdom center stage show stealer in the Empire (too many moustaches there for me...) so Bretonnia went largely ignored, and this was such a shame because there was so much that could have been done with this secondary kingdom. The relationships between peasant and noble put them on par with some of the more evil civilizations, yet they fought for a just cause, and having their goddess really be a fraud! They just didn't go anywhere with any of it, just set it down and left it like a blob of unwanted clay... Anyways...

I meant to comment here to, because I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt Bretonnia was an A-class setting and concept that somehow was nearly forgotten by GW in recent years.

I can't help but think that Bretonnia could be its own fantasy setting, playing the central human protagonists. They just had the ill-fortune to be sitting next to another central human protagonist kingdom, one which the game designers chose to expand upon to the exclusion of the other. Here's hoping somewhere in the realms is a Bretonnia-alike where the grail and lady and such can live on, without the Empire crowding them out.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I have the huge sepia one from WD300 (I think) framed hanging in my hobby room.

Yea Ive got that somewhere. Also got a semi fancy parchment one they gave out for preordering 6th edition. Id say that might even be worth a few bucks but not like any of this stuff is really collectible.

Matter of fact there were alot of cool posters that came outta old white dwarfs that I wish i had kept :(

I love the old background for Beastmen, lurking in the forests braying to their ancient gods and conducting unspeakable rites from sheer instinct.

The 6th edition Beastmen book was just a wonderful bit of writing.

I also loved the allusions to symbiosis with the isolated settlements of Bretonia and the Empire - the mutated offspring of the villagers being dumped in the forest and the odd villager being carried off by the Beasts, the way the Beastmen represented the festering corruption inside the Empire itself. Great stuff!

I hope they do something with AOS.

The sigmarite fluff is sort of boring to me. Too over the top. Feels like just seeing the tip of Mount Olympus. You're Paladins, whoopdido. They have less culture currently than Gnoblars.

I agree w/ the general sentiment here - I miss the Old World.

I really wanted to give AoS fluff a chance. I don't think it's bad per se, but just uninspired. And while I'm still interested in the fluff and to see how it progresses, I'm not sure it justifies me spending $80/mo on campaign books to keep up w/ it, considering I won't be playing AoS (not that I'm an AoS detractor, I'm actually a supporter. It's just the various local groups won't be playing, so...).

AoS fluff just seems like 40k w/o guns to me - There is Only War. You have your Imperium of Man equivalent (Order, Stormcast Eternals being the stars like Space Marines), pretty much just traversing the universe (Mortal Realms) and trying to stave off the major threats of Chaos and other "alien races" (or in AoS's case, Destro and Death).

It's very black and white. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't a fun as the Old World's grimdark high fantasy setting w/ adventures to Athel Loren, various Karaks, impromptu alliances out of necessity, funny paranoid Skaven, the Lady of the Lake, stories of war or battle from trades gone wrong, family-political intrigue, fun and interesting characters, etc. That's the stuff I'll miss most - the depth and variety of stories and characters that can be told in the Old World. The Mortal Realms just seems like sad, depressing war war war...

Again, not that that's necessarily bad. It's just, I feel GW already does that in 40k...

 mikhaila wrote:
The sigmarite fluff is sort of boring to me. Too over the top. Feels like just seeing the tip of Mount Olympus. You're Paladins, whoopdido. They have less culture currently than Gnoblars.

yeah, pretty much my sentiments exactly. And what little culture they have, the characters are mostly one-noted.


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Oh, and I will say re: OP's last question, my most fond story from the Old World is easily the War of the Beard. In fact, me and my lady have been watching the Hobbit and LotR movies the past week as it's hyped up in my mind as I'm starting to play the minis game, and I've been telling her various Warhammer stories and how cool they are compared to the Tolkienverse lol. The War of the Beard and the "come beg for it" exchanges always stood out in my mind as just such an awesome story.

I also still love the line from the latest Empire book and Ludwig Schwarzhelm's entry, saying something along the lines of "it is said that the Emperor's Champion has never smiled a day in his life" (not verbatim, sorry, don't have my book!). Some general units' fluff like Slayers, Waywatchers, Chameleon Skinks, etc. Some characters like Grimgor, Skarsnik, Volkmar, The Green Knight, Alith, Taurox, Khalida, Thorgrim, etc, I just thought were so cool in a variety of ways. Just...so much life and coolness!

The problem with AOS fluff, as it stands, is GW trying to cram AGES of events into a new, cohesive history.

Slow your roll, GW. Give us a chance to breathe with this new fluff.

On a side note to to those posters above- I am indeed enjoying all the old BL novels, everything from Genevieve and Gotrek right through to the Orion Trilogy (Just started reading Orion).

Damn, Orion. But you sir are kind of a dick.

@Shadowstrife, well, he is an elf what more would you expect?

On a side note, the one thing that I didn't like about the ET is how it turns out that the entirety of the Bretonnian civilization was built on a lie, that royally ticked me off and deepened my dislike for elves as even their gods are self serving dicks...

I agree with the sentiments regarding the AoS fluff. It really hasn't had time to develop that character that they're trying to instantly instill into the game. There are no characters that add that color like Gotrek's dry personality foiled by his sarcastic sidekick of a human. Or practically any goblin character. No, everyone in AoS is all doom and gloom, nobody can be serious enough for this setting and it's very boring. The worst part is that they're not even upset about the same world that the players are! They're upset about some world that has come and gone within a few keystrokes of the product catalog that is the AoS books... Seriously, the players aren't invested in the fluff because the armies are fighting for a world that we have never known, nor do we care about it, as it isn't even a well developed world and we have no connection to it... This makes it really hard for me to buy into the AoS fluff.

Shadowstrife wrote:
The problem with AOS fluff, as it stands, is GW trying to cram AGES of events into a new, cohesive history.

Slow your roll, GW. Give us a chance to breathe with this new fluff.

I got the same impression, going over the starter fluff - they skip thousands of years of expansion and conflict, without giving us much in the way of detail. For instance, we know countless civilizations fell to Chaos during the Age of Chaos... but we know nothing about those civilizations.

It would be easy enough to skip that element, as we see the world mostly through the perspective of the Stormcast, to whom the archaic ruins of those civilizations are as mysterious as they are to us. But, Warhammer fans just went through the destruction of numerous civilizations in The End Times, meaning many people (myself included) presumed that the Stormcast would be assaulting the ruins of the Old World, almost as if the whole of the Empire had become Mordheim. Instead, you have to awkwardly skip ahead, the story going "...and then the world was destroyed, eight new ones found, settled, expanded upon, existed for millenia, and then were destroyed again, and that's where we start our story..."

I can't help but think this would be so much easier to buy into if one of the Realms of Sigmar was the physical ruins of the Old World, so you could battle it out with the Chaos forces camped in the ruins of Altdorf, with Stormcast flying the colors of the Reiksguard.

^ Totally agree.

There is too much of a disconnect between the post-medieval/ Renaissance aesthetic of the Old World we all know well, and a hodge-podge war-torn 'Realms' that AOS presents in its distant future.

The jump was too far- instead of ages upon ages, the narrative jump into another timeline should have been closer to the End Times.