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I don't know a lot of the lore about the 'End Times' regarding Warhammer Fantasy -> Age of Sigmar but the lore-part which is interesting me the most are the 'regular' humans.
So in old terms, Empire.

What happened to the Empire and what are they doing now?

What happened to the provincial aspects of Empire? (Like Reiksland, Middenheim etc.)
If the Free People were to join up and fight, would they be dressed in their old land colors/armor/clothing?

Are the Free People still in this war at front? or are they more like militias just defending where they are ATM?

Any information regarding Free People would be great.

Also are there any novels about them in the AoS setting?

City of secrets novel gives a lot of information on the free guild since largely it's centered on them, the reason why some of them have old iconography or colours is because sigmar told the people of the heroes of the empire and their sacrifices and they are to be put as examples of what men and women should be like. Some might actually be descended from some of the people of the old world since to repopulate the realms the gods reincarnated the souls of people not devoured by the chaos gods when the whfb world was destroyed.

I do recommend the city of secrets novel it would answer all your questions really. The free guild, devoted of sigmar and stormcasts are largely on the warfront and looking at the city of secrets novel most military runs are normally made by free guild regiments.

Everyones dead Dave . The world blew up (dont think there were too many Empire folk left alive when it happend so they probably didnt care too much ) Sigmar found the mortal realms but so did chaos , so begins a 10k year war in wich Chaos mostly win , Sigmar closes up his own personal realm, at the release of AoS (more or less) Sigmar starts fighting back reclaiming lots of places .

As for what have the free people been doing? mostly dieing and being eaten id imagine :p or hiding in Sigmars realm of course, then again the realms being so big and all, there could well be groups , towns ,even entire empires tucked away in some remote place doing whatever you care to imagine .

Probably best take Shinros advice and read that book though if its the fluff side of things your most interested in

I was honestly a little upset reading the Grand Alliance book where it explicitly states the freeguild armies - as powerful in practice as they have ever been - are like the fourth wave of attack, tasked with holding down the fort after the big fights and missions have already been won:

1. Stormcast
2. Dwarves, High Elf wizard factions, Artillery
3. Devoted
4. Phoenix Guard
5. Freeguild garrisons

Still, this is a perfect time to create new special heroes for a new game, right? There may still be hope.

Mraj__Undefined wrote:
I was honestly a little upset reading the Grand Alliance book where it explicitly states the freeguild armies - as powerful in practice as they have ever been - are like the fourth wave of attack, tasked with holding down the fort after the big fights and missions have already been won:

1. Stormcast
2. Dwarves, High Elf wizard factions, Artillery
3. Devoted
4. Phoenix Guard
5. Freeguild garrisons

Still, this is a perfect time to create new special heroes for a new game, right? There may still be hope.

Things have moved ahead since the grand alliance tome free guild plays a huge part in the military campaigns going by city of secrets. Do remember the grand alliance tome is like 50-80 years ago since city of secrets.

Hey, you forgot the Azyrheim Lancehost. That was a force of human and Aelf knights that destroyed many chaos forces on their own before Sigmar had his Extremis knights join them.

It's also to note that soldiers in Azyrheim and guarding the new cities wear Old World uniforms and have many of the heraldry and colors from those times as they've been passed down through legend. (So Myrmidia became known as the Sanguine lady of flames over the centuries, for example)

There are some "Reclaimed" cities and kingdoms that survived the age of chaos but they haven't been shown in detail yet.

I actually hope they leave some openness with the survivors of the age of chaos. leave space where we can tell our own stories, and fit out armies in there

 amazingturtles wrote:
I actually hope they leave some openness with the survivors of the age of chaos. leave space where we can tell our own stories, and fit out armies in there

I think that was the entire point of them nuking the Old World and making the infinite sized realms . Theres thousands of different towns, cities, clans, tribes, etc that can be your own and still use the rules for the army you picked. Much like how in 40k you can just make up a planet. In the old world it was so mapped out and detailed there was no room to make your own personally created empire army because they all had set backgrounds and heraldry.

[Edit] Ninja'd by Generalchaos.

Haha, the dreaded drawback of filling out the blank edges of the map.

Reminds me of how upset wood elf players were about their last armybook detailing their forest and taking away the empty places to put in their noble houses.

I think we'll be okay though. Even if they were to fill out the maps and details of the realms there's enough wiggle space in the fluff bits of floating cities, vanishing kingdoms and even living fortresses to put why your people survived and where they've been.

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 amazingturtles wrote:
I actually hope they leave some openness with the survivors of the age of chaos. leave space where we can tell our own stories, and fit out armies in there

I think that was the entire point of them nuking the Old World and making the infinite sized realms . Theres thousands of different towns, cities, clans, tribes, etc that can be your own and still use the rules for the army you picked. Much like how in 40k you can just make up a planet. In the old world it was so mapped out and detailed there was no room to make your own personally created empire army because they all had set backgrounds and heraldry.

That's exactly why they went with such a setting in the pantheon short story they explain how the realms expand in detail which gives GW room to expand or add new places or even plays to add their own stuff to the setting. Essentially each realm has a "realms end" which is equivalent to a gateway to the realm of chaos just like the north of the whfb world.

Gah, can't chaos ever take a vacation?!

I also like the hints of new worlds beyond the Mortal Realm (Gargant fluff and All-gates) that add even more to the massive setting.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Gah, can't chaos ever take a vacation?!

I also like the hints of new worlds beyond the Mortal Realm (Gargant fluff and All-gates) that add even more to the massive setting.

Well the Archaon battle tome and end times out right confirms there are other worlds or realms so you never know what GW may decide to do next still it would take a long time before they decide to do something like that considering we have 8 realms/worlds to map out and explore.

Oh most definitely, I was just pointing out that I liked the hints for them.

I wouldn't expect anything about them until far, far, into the future when we're done with our age of discovery and reconquest and fully into empires and exploration.

Interesting replies!
This is just making me want to learn more about them!

Can anyone link me to a page regarding fluff on Free People?

All i can seem to find is the tactics and like 3 lines of information and that's it :(

Baron Klatz wrote:
Gah, can't chaos ever take a vacation?!

I also like the hints of new worlds beyond the Mortal Realm (Gargant fluff and All-gates) that add even more to the massive setting.

Now i'm imagining a realm perpetually drunk giants

and i think that i am in love.

Afterall all the BS the sky titans had to put up with in the Old World(and even in defending the Steppe Khanate in AoS) I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they did all day on their secret world.

Overdose wrote:
Interesting replies!
This is just making me want to learn more about them!

Can anyone link me to a page regarding fluff on Free People?

All i can seem to find is the tactics and like 3 lines of information and that's it :(

I had the grand alliance pics on Shinros' lore thread awhile ago but I took them down to avoid the thread getting in trouble.

Give me a while and I'll P.M them to you. (I need to eat my lunch right now)((also photobucket is horrid right now so that's an extra hour at least. ))

Baron Klatz wrote:

I had the grand alliance pics on Shinros' lore thread awhile ago but I took them down to avoid the thread getting in trouble.

Give me a while and I'll P.M them to you. (I need to eat my lunch right now)((also photobucket is horrid right now so that's an extra hour at least. ))

That would be awesome! I can wait all day Thanks

P.m sent!

Hope that helps you out!