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I'm new to the game, played 40k for 20 years. But I'm loving the story so far. I just wanted to ask, has anyone else felt like the AoS storyline reminded them of the Death Gate cycle of books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman? Just the whole "world split into multiple parts", each faction living in their own area, etc.

And remember that Weis & Hickman were involved with Dungeons and Dragons and wrote lots of books for them first. And D&D had things like the Elemental Plane of Fire or the Elemental Plan of Earth or whatever.

Another major influence on the mortal realms comes from so much of the novels being given to Josh Reynolds to write. That guy is steeped in the weird fiction of the 1920s and 1930s as well as the folklore mystery genre of the 40s and 50s. Lots of classic pre-Lord of the Rings influences there.

The first thing I thought of when a friend described how the AoS setting worked was the Death Gate Cycle. I really enjoyed those books back in the day.

Somewhat different, but AoS reminds of 1970's prog-rock album covers. A sort of bizarre surreal fantasy.

That's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

I can't not see a direct line to Michael Moorcock's 'the Dragon in the Sword' with its parallel worlds, inter-dimensional trade, and the direct conflict with the forces of Chaos (eight-pointed star and all).

 Captain Joystick wrote:
I can't not see a direct line to Michael Moorcock's 'the Dragon in the Sword' with its parallel worlds, inter-dimensional trade, and the direct conflict with the forces of Chaos (eight-pointed star and all).

Moorcocks work has been a major influence on Warhammer since day one so your not wrong!

Theoretically you could say that Age of Sigmar also contains mashups of Eberron and Planescape, but I definitely see Death Gate cycle in there, too.

It reminds me of Norse cosmology.

 nintura wrote:
I'm new to the game, played 40k for 20 years. But I'm loving the story so far. I just wanted to ask, has anyone else felt like the AoS storyline reminded them of the Death Gate cycle of books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman? Just the whole "world split into multiple parts", each faction living in their own area, etc.

Hickman & Weis? Didn´t they write a lot of Dragonlance novels back in the day? A buddy of mine read this stuff religiously. But I preferred the adventures of Drizzt, Wulfgar, Cattie-brie, Bruenor and Regis. The companions of the hall. Epic times.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 nintura wrote:
I'm new to the game, played 40k for 20 years. But I'm loving the story so far. I just wanted to ask, has anyone else felt like the AoS storyline reminded them of the Death Gate cycle of books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman? Just the whole "world split into multiple parts", each faction living in their own area, etc.

Hickman & Weis? Didn´t they write a lot of Dragonlance novels back in the day? A buddy of mine read this stuff religiously. But I preferred the adventures of Drizzt, Wulfgar, Cattie-brie, Bruenor and Regis. The companions of the hall. Epic times.

They did do most of the Dragonlance books. They have a few other series under their belt as well, and one of them is rather Star Wars-ish (Star of the Guardians series, starting with The Lost King), interestingly enough. I think the worst I read was the Rose of the Prophet series, and it was pretty decent.

I do see some of the relationship between the Death Gate series and the setting for Age of Sigmar. The big differences, besides the number and structure of the Planes (of course), being that in Death Gate the world was separated in to 5 planes by a group of wizards to kill off another group of wizards, while Sigmar crafted it from the remnants of the Old World. Unlike the planes of the Death Gate, the creator is still around and doing work in Sigmar's planes. As a result, a strong and populous outside source is needed to destabilize the planes rather then them just falling apart on their own through lack of maintenance.

All and all, a good insight. The Patryns and Sartan would be incredibly over-powered in Sigmar's planes, though.