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I just thought this might have come up with Horrus Heresy and them trying to explain WHY everything in 40K is the way it is.

Its a very obvious question. Why did creatures that look like stuff dreamed up by JRR Tolkien and other 20th century nerds turn out to be real?

To me the easy answer would be that historical folk lore was the result of pre psychic premonition abilities present in early human civilization.

I.E. Tolkien, the greatest Phsker of the 20th century.

That's not really how you read science-fiction. You don't assume, as a precondition, that all irl fiction we have read existed as-is in the future you're reading about.

And if you were meant to assume that, there's a much bigger question that you haven't asked -- WHY was everything in the 40K setting forecast with exactitude by a wargame published in ancient pre-Albyon?

Are you looking for the in-universe explanation for why Eldar and Orks exist or the real world 20th century explanation for why the game includes those races? The latter is easily explained. Tolkien inspired all the classic fantasy settings including D&D and Warhammer. And that's all it was back then, just Warhammer. It was a little boxed set with 3 little poorly printed booklets. A few years they took the whole thing and catapulted it into space and the far future. They ported over all the classic fantasy stuff, elves, orks, halflings (ratlings), ogres (ogryns), dwarves, and men. Later they tacked on some SF staples like the xenomorphs from Alien and murderous robots from Terminator. It was all very tongue in cheek back then, not super serious like it is now.

If you're after the former, the background material has explained those races in some depth. The Eldar were created by the old ones during their war against the C'tan, the War in Heaven. Orks were also made by the Old Ones towards the end of that war.

To expand on the origins of 40K…

It started off as White Dwarf articles adding sci-fi stuff to Warhammer Fantasy Battle. And when it expanded to Rogue Trader, only a relative few 40K models were available.

This is particularly notable in some of the earlier army lists, which included in-universe reasons and options for troops armed with Spears, Halberds, Bows and Crossbows. Basically an excuse for folk to add some sci-fi models to WHFB armies and get started under Rogue Trader.

And….that’s it. Eldar, Orks, Squats, Ogryns, Beastmen, Ratlings etc all exist in 40K, because at its roots, 40K is an expansion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

And of course, WHFB started out as a rule set, not a background/mythos. Something intentionally super generic, so folk with disparate collections of models from different lines could mash them into armies and have battles against one another.

GW. It’s been a helluva ride!

Orks don't look like Tolkienesque orcs.

Orcs typically are big and green nowadays because of of the way Orks look in 40K.

Have to say I'm a big fan of how the Orruks of AoS look. It's a look that harkens back to some early WFB artwork. Which is closer to tolkien's Orcs also I suppose.

Anyways, The Old Ones are responsible for creating both races. If you think about it, they might even exist today, but we are uncountable light years away from such places

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And….that’s it. Eldar, Orks, Squats, Ogryns, Beastmen, Ratlings etc all exist in 40K, because at its roots, 40K is an expansion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

I often wonder about those that use the term sigmarine. Not sure if they know that space marines are just Chaos Warriors in spaceee!!! So, Stormcast Eternals are 'ground space not-Chaos Warriors'. More simply a Sigmar reflection of Chaos Warriors, which is basically what they are. Even without 40k, it's kinda surprising that GW took so long to create an 'order' version of the Chaos Warrior/Knight. Well, beyond Bretonians I guess. Which really aren't the samething.

tauist wrote:Have to say I'm a big fan of how the Orruks of AoS look. It's a look that harkens back to some early WFB artwork. Which is closer to tolkien's Orcs also I suppose.

I'm not sure that's true. I am not a Tolkien scholar. And I believe there are a few breeds of orcs mentioned in his writings, but my understanding is that most orcs are typically smaller than humans. Which is why Sam and Frodo could sneak among them. It seems to me modern fantasy has pulled a Dr. Jekyll /Mr. Hyde thing, where people think the latter was bigger and stronger than the former, when the original source is the opposite.

Edit: You may have meant Kruleboyz which is much closer to Tolkien. I was thinking of Iron Jaws which are clearly different.

 Altruizine wrote:
That's not really how you read science-fiction. You don't assume, as a precondition, that all irl fiction we have read existed as-is in the future you're reading about.

And if you were meant to assume that, there's a much bigger question that you haven't asked -- WHY was everything in the 40K setting forecast with exactitude by a wargame published in ancient pre-Albyon?

My point though is that the elves and orks thing kind of culturally transcends one particular fiction writer. I used Tolkien because of his prominence. But even without Tolkien, humans have always had folk tales of elvish and orkish type things.

What would the first humans to have first contact thought... "Wait a minute, we traveled thousands of light years, we finally found advanced aliens and...they look elves?"

It's why elves call humans "Monkein" (Monkey when you sound it out). The Eldar visited earth in its primordial past before humans ascended from primates, and may be our elves of Avalon and such who may have been "Eldar on vacation".

Orks, no clue.

once the Warhammer World was a planet within the Eye of Terror, Orks being a Fungus and the Slann were actually Old-Ones and not fat toads

there is a reason why 40k is called Fantasy in Space, because it is just fantasy in space

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Orcs typically are big and green nowadays because of of the way Orks look in 40K.

Not really, Orks look the way they look because of Warcraft, which originally was a game based on Warhammer Fantasy

40k has less to do with it but just continued to have SciFi Orks in a style people are already used to from Warcraft

The real world explanation has been covered.

In-universe, well there doesn't NEED to be because Tolkein doesn't necessarily exist in this universe. But if you want one, you can just say that those are names that humans have given them. Orks may not actually call themselves orks, they call themselves Greenskins. Humans call them orks because they happen to resemble creatures that existed in human fiction and myth.


If we in the real world encountered brutish ugly bipedal aliens with fanged maws I would not be surprised if people started calling them orcs/orks. If we encountered a race of graceful lithe aliens with fair elven features, we would probably call them Elves. Obviously they'd have their own words for themselves, but they'd probably have a word to refer to us that we wouldn't necessarily use/want to use either.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, call it a duck even if its technically a goose.

oops, sorry, meant Kruleboyz indeed!

 kodos wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Orcs typically are big and green nowadays because of of the way Orks look in 40K.

Not really, Orks look the way they look because of Warcraft, which originally was a game based on Warhammer Fantasy

Other way round. Kimd of chicken/egg really.

Orcs are green because gw made 'em that way. They made them that way to sell green paint. :p. Back then, in thr pre-conputer era (80s and 90s) gw/warhammer and dnd was often the gateway to nerddom. Computer games were nothing like the cultural mainstay they are now. Gw's green orcs became the standard years before Blizzard and world of warcraft waas a thing.
I have no doubt gw have been inspired in turn by WoCs orcs which have kind of become the current 'standard', but WoCs orcs were also originally inspired in the first place by gw's.

 Arschbombe wrote:
Are you looking for the in-universe explanation for why Eldar and Orks exist or the real world 20th century explanation for why the game includes those races? The latter is easily explained. Tolkien inspired all the classic fantasy settings including D&D and Warhammer. And that's all it was back then, just Warhammer. It was a little boxed set with 3 little poorly printed booklets. A few years they took the whole thing and catapulted it into space and the far future. They ported over all the classic fantasy stuff, elves, orks, halflings (ratlings), ogres (ogryns), dwarves, and men. Later they tacked on some SF staples like the xenomorphs from Alien and murderous robots from Terminator. It was all very tongue in cheek back then, not super serious like it is now.

Yes this is it basically, and then as a follow-on what MDG said.

I'm not sure overthinking it in terms of trying to link our own fantasy and creative histories into some 'other' 40k universe (as though it is real) will get you that far, other than giving you a headache, I will be honest!

Because evolution? I know modern fandom has leaned heavily into the idea that "everything needs an explanation" (Star Wars has become possibly the worst exemplar of this phenomenon, though Game of Thrones isn't far behind), but thats not really how fiction works. There is no in-universe reason why aeldari look like elves and orks look like orcs or whatever, thats just what they are.

 Altruizine wrote:
That's not really how you read science-fiction. You don't assume, as a precondition, that all irl fiction we have read existed as-is in the future you're reading about.

And if you were meant to assume that, there's a much bigger question that you haven't asked -- WHY was everything in the 40K setting forecast with exactitude by a wargame published in ancient pre-Albyon?

This.

 Dekskull wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:
That's not really how you read science-fiction. You don't assume, as a precondition, that all irl fiction we have read existed as-is in the future you're reading about.

And if you were meant to assume that, there's a much bigger question that you haven't asked -- WHY was everything in the 40K setting forecast with exactitude by a wargame published in ancient pre-Albyon?

My point though is that the elves and orks thing kind of culturally transcends one particular fiction writer. I used Tolkien because of his prominence. But even without Tolkien, humans have always had folk tales of elvish and orkish type things.

What would the first humans to have first contact thought... "Wait a minute, we traveled thousands of light years, we finally found advanced aliens and...they look elves?"

We didn't have to travel thousands of light years, though. They came to us and said "Live long and prosper."

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Orks don't look like Tolkienesque orcs

Yeah, for all the hyperbole about everything being a LotR ripoff the only real commonality between Warhammer and LotR orks is the name and general theme of barbarism.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Orcs typically are big and green nowadays because of of the way Orks look in 40K.

Not really, Orks look the way they look because of Warcraft, which originally was a game based on Warhammer Fantasy

40k has less to do with it but just continued to have SciFi Orks in a style people are already used to from Warcraft

No, it is not that simple and never was.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 Dekskull wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:
That's not really how you read science-fiction. You don't assume, as a precondition, that all irl fiction we have read existed as-is in the future you're reading about.

And if you were meant to assume that, there's a much bigger question that you haven't asked -- WHY was everything in the 40K setting forecast with exactitude by a wargame published in ancient pre-Albyon?

My point though is that the elves and orks thing kind of culturally transcends one particular fiction writer. I used Tolkien because of his prominence. But even without Tolkien, humans have always had folk tales of elvish and orkish type things.

What would the first humans to have first contact thought... "Wait a minute, we traveled thousands of light years, we finally found advanced aliens and...they look elves?"

We didn't have to travel thousands of light years, though. They came to us and said "Live long and prosper."

Ohh my god...
warhammer 40k is the future of the mirror universe.....

Well youngling. It wasnt always like that.
There was a third trope and it wore a massive beard.
Inuniverse explaination.
Humies were generic, Now why the generic didnt diversify into, Wez the tuff ones, were the speedy ones, and were a bit of both, but look at our beards. Instead of the other way around. idk.
I can only imagine that there was this ork and elf and they kissed, and made a squat.
Or the elf made a mess on some spores.
The squats wernt happy about that, which is why they hates them both.
Then a dwarf, ork and elf kissed and made Roboute Guilliman the 1st.
Then RG1 kissed a Squat, then humies were born.
I could write for GW i swear.

 kodos wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Orcs typically are big and green nowadays because of of the way Orks look in 40K.

Not really, Orks look the way they look because of Warcraft, which originally was a game based on Warhammer Fantasy

40k has less to do with it but just continued to have SciFi Orks in a style people are already used to from Warcraft

Warcraft came out in 1994, 40K 2E in 1993...

This is maybe a case of each affecting the other over time, but orks(orcs) being green was a thing before Warcraft. Though they were a bit less muscular back then, I think both mediums have influenced the other to produce the muscle/scale creep over time into what we have today (again in both places).

But yes, 40K was originally just Fantasy-in-space, and honestly still mostly is; they just took those original fantasy things and made them 'space-y'; much of the lore was then fitted in around that after the fact. It's evolved into its own thing since then, but not enough that the similarities don't show.

the point was that Warcraft is/was much more popular than 40k, so that people are used to green Orks because most of them have first seen them in Warcraft and later WoW and not because they read the background of 40k (as early artwork was mostly black/white)

Or because Warhammer Fantasy 4th edition with green orcs was released in 1992. And Hero Quest (by Milton Bradley and GW) with Green Orcs in 1989. And all the box art GW had for the Orcs. Most people in the 80's and early 90's did not have computers.

Interesting potted history of green skins on Eurogamer. Seems vaguely researched at least, so make of it what you will in terms of hearsay and hyperbole

https://www.eurogamer.net/its-not-easy-being-green-a-brief-history-of-orcs-in-video-games

The 'ancient aliens' theory surrounding the Eldar and Orks is pretty fascinating. Tyranids also visited the Milky Way, but I think that was millions of years before human evolution.

Also, some variant of Kruleboyz needs to be ported into 40k. The models and lore are just too cool.

 Dekskull wrote:
I just thought this might have come up with Horrus Heresy and them trying to explain WHY everything in 40K is the way it is.

Its a very obvious question. Why did creatures that look like stuff dreamed up by JRR Tolkien and other 20th century nerds turn out to be real?

To me the easy answer would be that historical folk lore was the result of pre psychic premonition abilities present in early human civilization.

I.E. Tolkien, the greatest Phsker of the 20th century.

Do you mean the lore? If so, the Old Ones(space lizardmen toad) did, they were in a war with the Necrontir(pre the Necron process), who were the 'gun' held by the star dragons(full form of the Necron shards); The Old ones created the Eldar and Orks to battle, and later mankind..

Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:


I often wonder about those that use the term sigmarine. Not sure if they know that space marines are just Chaos Warriors in spaceee!!! So, Stormcast Eternals are 'ground space not-Chaos Warriors'. More simply a Sigmar reflection of Chaos Warriors, which is basically what they are. Even without 40k, it's kinda surprising that GW took so long to create an 'order' version of the Chaos Warrior/Knight. Well, beyond Bretonians I guess. Which really aren't the samething.

The original Chaos Warriors were very close in armour aesthetics to generic knights that were produced by Citadel, among others. They were distinctive elements for sure, but it wasn't until after Rogue trader was released that the chaos range for WFB really started to diverge significantly from non Chaos.

When you take a look at the fluff as presented in the RT rulebook, the description for the Imperium of Man is very close to, in fact almost a carbon copy of, the Universe of Dune. There are elements of Starship troopers and judge dredd thrown in as well. Its very clear when you view the initial (quite short) description of the Legiones astartes that they are a cross between the Sardaukar and the Mobile infantry. They are Loyal to the Emperor, and answerable only to the administratum, who themselves answer to the emperor, their recruitment is very harsh, only half of Sardaukar survive their training, and less than 10% of MI complete theirs. While not established initially that recruitment for marines has quite such an attrition rate, later additions build on the fact that very few marine recruits survive their induction, let alone their conversion. They are also amazingly well equipped as compared to the regular Imperial Army, and can deploy as and when needed since they have their own fleet elements.

responding to the OP, When it comes to the other fantasy tropes that got ported over, Initially It seems that they just added 'space' to the races, Space elves, Space dwarves, Space Orks and so forth. they are very much direct ports from WFB, which are heavily based upon LOTR. The exceptions in RT seem to be, the Slaan, and the Tyranids, which are both quite distinct if not exactly fleshed out to any degree. The same could be said for all the races. There is a framework for the universe, but it's more of a loose setting, and has nowhere near the detail 40k does now. which is hardly surprising since RT is one book and the fluff section is quite a small part of it.

Since then the space elves, and space orks have gained very distinct back grounds. Space Orks from RT are almost nothing like current 40k Orks for example.

I would think that the reason GW decided to go the particular route they did rather than follow settings such as Traveller with anthropomorphic Cats, Dogs, Ants and horses, has something to do with the fact they got their break distributing D&D in the UK. White dwarf at the time RT was released (1987) was more of a generic RPG magazine with articles about D&D, Runescape, Call of the Cthulu, and Judge Dredd providing the majority of the articles, with less emphasis on WHFR, Blood bowl, WFB and so forth, so the majority of readers would be much more familiar with classic fantasy races than anything more science fiction related. Rogue trader was also a skirmish style game, and despite the obvious success it has enjoyed, in 1987, there was no guarantee it would go anywhere. It is in addition to all that, Miniatures agnostic. GW promoted its own ranges, sure, but you could use anything you might have to hand. If you play any science fiction or fantasy game, you can port those miniatures straight into Rogue Trader, with minimal fuss.