Found this interview when discussing
AOS fluff on the grand alliance community forums. It's pretty interesting to say the least.
Whole interview is here took some of the main bits. I bookmarked the website it's pretty good.
http://www.mengelminiatures.com/2016/09/interview-cl-werner-on-aos.html
Tyler: You have contributed several stories to Age of Sigmar so far, the latest being Lord of Undeath. Which of these was your favorite to write, or which did you connect with the most?
Werner: Of the Age of Sigmar stories which have emerged from my pen (or keyboard) I would pick Lord of Undeath as the most engaging. It allowed me a broader range of characters to explore and, of course, the opportunity to play with my second favourite character in the setting: Nagash.
Tyler: In Lord of Undeath we get to see all of the Mortarchs and how they interact with both each other, and with Nagash himself. Can you tell us a bit about writing these often complex and duplicitous relationships?
Werner: When writing undead of the intelligent nature (as opposed to simplistic things like ghouls and zombies) you run into the very formidable aspect of their characters. These are beings of vast, almost inconceivable, experience. They have so much to draw upon, so much they have learned and endured already that they are far superior to even the most learned mortal. The flaw in the undead, however, is that they are very slow to adapt. Creatures like Mannfred and Neferata will keep slipping back into familiar patterns, resorting to old methodologies and practices.
At the same time, they are very cunning and utterly ruthless strategists. Their ploys aren't simply devised to bring immediate reward but may be aspects of a greater design that will play out down through centuries. The Mortarchs especially are engaged for a long game. My take on the Mortarchs was that Arkhan is completely devoted to Nagash, almost to a degree where he exists almost as a facet of his master. Mannfred, by contrast, is continually scheming to set himself beyond his master's reach. Neferata is somewhere between these two extremes – while she might share Mannfred's ambition she isn't going to expose herself to Nagash's wrath.
Tyler: Neferata gets the most page time in the story as far as the death characters go. She has always been one of the most interesting death characters to me, perhaps because she seems the most human in a way. How was it writing such a vile person who can also be very relatable at times?
Werner: In Lord of Undeath Queen Neferata is the readers' first contact with the hierarchy of Shyish and therefore assumes a greater presence throughout the story. She is, at her core, an inhuman monster clinging to pretensions of nobility. She revels in the trappings of royalty and the prestige of being sovereign of her kingdom. Yet this vision is twisted by her undead nature, leaving her with a macabre perception of what it means to rule.
She lacks empathy or compassion for anything, all of her servants and subjects are important to her only as possessions, things to make use of as she sees fit. If she has a redeeming, or at least relatable quality, it is her thirst for independence. Whether it is the conquest of Chaos or the dominance of Nagash, she ultimately wants to be free. Towards that end she will make use of anyone and anything – ruthlessly and even murderously. While her objective might be laudable, her methodology is nothing shy of horrific.
Tyler: Nagash is obviously a very important person in both
AoS and Warhammer Fantasy before it. Was it a bit intimidating writing such a momentous character, especially with several scene from his point of view?
Werner: Nagash is a very daunting character to write, yet at the same time the Great Necromancer is one of the most enticing. I've wanted to do something with Nagash for a very long time, so getting my hands on him in Lord of Undeath was exciting. Doing so presented its own problems.
Nagash is far beyond even his Mortarchs so far as his mind is concerned. All the issues of writing the undead are compounded when writing a being that is the God of Death. Nagash is like a calculating chess master, planning every move several steps ahead of his opponent, foreseeing every possible variation and making contingencies to address them. Everything and everyone, be they mortals or gods, is simply a pawn in the grand schemes that Nagash has devised.
Tyler: You managed to make all of the Stormcast Eternal characters feel unique and believable, which is sometimes difficult to achieve with them. What challenges do you find when writing about Stormcasts?
Werner: Stormcast Eternals are quite different to write. Many of the passions and drives that motivate mortal man have been burned away in their reforging. What is left is a pure and complete devotion of Sigmar, an all-consuming sense of loyalty and duty. The Stormcasts share Sigmar's purpose and the only real fear they have is to fail in their obligations to the God-king.
While no Stormcast doubts Sigmar or the purity of their purpose, they may differ in their perspectives on how to achieve that shared goal. It is in that difference of perception that I think the personalities of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer are allowed to become distinct and peer out from being their sigmarite masks.
Writer's opinion on the setting.
Tyler: What was your first reaction when you heard about the conclusion of the End Times and the dawn of the Age of Sigmar?
Werner: I think my reaction at learning of the End Times was one of concern, a worry about what would follow after the richness of Warhammer's Old World. With Age of Sigmar I think there is a setting that promises almost unlimited scope for exploration and development.
Grand vistas of magic and wonder that would have been appropriate only to the Chaos Wastes of Warhammer (if even then) are much more credible and approachable in Age of Sigmar. That lays an incredible degree of freedom for a writer to explore if their imagination is equal to the task.
Tyler: Do you find any major differences in how you have to approach writing an
AoS story over a Warhammer Fantasy one?
Werner: The biggest difference between writing for Warhammer and writing for Age of Sigmar has proven to be that of scope. What I mean is that Warhammer was very much a ground-level fantasy setting. I'd write from a more focused and limited perspective. In the Old World, the fight for a single city was a thing of incredible moment. Age of Sigmar is much grander in scope. Here it isn't a question of cities, but of entire realms of existence.
Armies of incalculable size strive to conquer landscapes as vast as all the Empire. The stakes are much greater, the conflicts of a gargantuan scale. As a result the personalities of those engaged in this war have to be that much more epic. These aren't knights focused on defending a single village, but reforged immortals fighting to preserve reality itself!
I personally hold a similar opinion as Werner.
whfb was stuck in a stagnate cycle
IMO no matter how much I liked it no matter how much I loved the setting.
40K had the advantage of being vast and stuff can be easily added to it and expanded. One of the underlying issues is stuff like the dark elves could never get anywhere with the high elves due to the simple fact it would invalidate them. Same with the vampire counts and the empire. Plus new places could not really be discovered or added
IMO.
I personally like that the undead went back to the good old days so to speak.
