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I was writing down some fluff for my Stormcast and I was going to write about my Lord Arcanum doing something OTT (pick up a city). But then I wasn’t really sure how to measure how powerful magic is in AoS. In my head I was thinking it was like an Aes Sedai from Wheel of Time even the rules don’t properly reflect this for balancing issues. Does that seem about right?

It depends which mage you are talking about. Your Lord Celestant, far as I can tell from reading things like the Realmwar Novels, would not be able to pick up a whole city. They could call down a lot of lightning and summon powerful storms from the skies (which in itself is a vast amount of power). But lifting something that vast is beyond them.

That gets into the realm of needing a demigod or a god on the battlefield (Nagash, etc...) in order to start pulling off spells that huge. Or one of the vast god-beasts (of which there's a few still hanging around) like one of the mega dragons.


Otherwise you'd likely need a large steam of mages to pool their powers and even then it would be risky. Plus lifting a whole city would likely shake most of the buildings to rubble unless they were both very powerful and very very very careful.

^^^^^This^^^^^^
Unless he's stood on or holding a source of insane power, just this one time. Or he can always have a magic item that let's him do whatever you want, even if it's "one use only" or can only be used very circumstantially.

Fluff can be whatever you want.

 Overread wrote:
It depends which mage you are talking about. Your Lord Celestant, far as I can tell from reading things like the Realmwar Novels, would not be able to pick up a whole city. They could call down a lot of lightning and summon powerful storms from the skies (which in itself is a vast amount of power). But lifting something that vast is beyond them.

That gets into the realm of needing a demigod or a god on the battlefield (Nagash, etc...) in order to start pulling off spells that huge. Or one of the vast god-beasts (of which there's a few still hanging around) like one of the mega dragons.


Otherwise you'd likely need a large steam of mages to pool their powers and even then it would be risky. Plus lifting a whole city would likely shake most of the buildings to rubble unless they were both very powerful and very very very careful.

Sorry, that was a typo, I meant Lord Arcanum.

Well it’s strange, for example in one of the books I read a “run of the mill” Chaos Sorcerer manages to bind a God Beast and ride it like a mount. So I wasn’t sure if that insinuates that mages can do some pretty OTT things without being on the same level as Morathi or Allarielle.

Even a lord Arcanum is still going to be limited. If they could lift whole cities they'd not need armies with them - they'd just turn the ground upside down under a legion and - well - that would be that

God Beasts are also a very underdeveloped concept. One problem with how GW has presented and built the whole Realm system is that we are still not 100% sure how everything "works". God beasts appear to run the gauntlet from being big to being mega big to being the size of a local sun. Soo there's a huge variety. Also don't forget that the powers needed to control are going to be different to those needed to move something. Controlling a lesser godbeast to be a mount is more a twisting of the mind than it is raw power forcing each moverment on the beasts muscles and body.

In AOS anything ridiculous can be written about with credibility.

I would easily see a Lord Arcanum finding a massive font of power that enabled him to raise an entire city. Maybe at the cost of him being reforged after or seriously depleted. And at the expenditure of the item that gave him such power.

But its definitely not out of the realm of possibilities.

 Overread wrote:
Even a lord Arcanum is still going to be limited. If they could lift whole cities they'd not need armies with them - they'd just turn the ground upside down under a legion and - well - that would be that

God Beasts are also a very underdeveloped concept. One problem with how GW has presented and built the whole Realm system is that we are still not 100% sure how everything "works". God beasts appear to run the gauntlet from being big to being mega big to being the size of a local sun. Soo there's a huge variety. Also don't forget that the powers needed to control are going to be different to those needed to move something. Controlling a lesser godbeast to be a mount is more a twisting of the mind than it is raw power forcing each moverment on the beasts muscles and body.

Well I was more visualising her very slowly lifting the city out of the ground. Rather than just flipping it like a pancake. Most Chaos Warriors and Daemons can’t fly so it’s a pretty neat way of saving people. We’re up here and you’re down there.

Bit of a tangent. But the Godbeast in question was a skyskark whose fin was as a mountain cutting through the clouds. He was sort of guiding it with aetheteric chaons and prodding it to go where he wanted. But yeah, Godbeasts vary hugely. For example, Morathi being able to constrict a God beast in her serpentine form....how.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Even a lord Arcanum is still going to be limited. If they could lift whole cities they'd not need armies with them - they'd just turn the ground upside down under a legion and - well - that would be that

God Beasts are also a very underdeveloped concept. One problem with how GW has presented and built the whole Realm system is that we are still not 100% sure how everything "works". God beasts appear to run the gauntlet from being big to being mega big to being the size of a local sun. Soo there's a huge variety. Also don't forget that the powers needed to control are going to be different to those needed to move something. Controlling a lesser godbeast to be a mount is more a twisting of the mind than it is raw power forcing each moverment on the beasts muscles and body.

Well I was more visualising her very slowly lifting the city out of the ground. Rather than just flipping it like a pancake. Most Chaos Warriors and Daemons can’t fly so it’s a pretty neat way of saving people. We’re up here and you’re down there.

Bit of a tangent. But the Godbeast in question was a skyskark whose fin was as a mountain cutting through the clouds. He was sort of guiding it with aetheteric chaons and prodding it to go where he wanted. But yeah, Godbeasts vary hugely. For example, Morathi being able to constrict a God beast in her serpentine form....how.

That was not a Godbeast, It was just a Megalofin. It was just a "Moby dick" like monster. There are plenty of massive titanic size monsters that are just animals.

A Godbeast is not a animal, they are a type of god. They are intelligent, they can speak, they can even change their form( Ursricht the White Bear can change his form to that of a man). Here is a rule I follow, If it is not specifically called out as divine, then it probably is not.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It depends which mage you are talking about. Your Lord Celestant, far as I can tell from reading things like the Realmwar Novels, would not be able to pick up a whole city. They could call down a lot of lightning and summon powerful storms from the skies (which in itself is a vast amount of power). But lifting something that vast is beyond them.

That gets into the realm of needing a demigod or a god on the battlefield (Nagash, etc...) in order to start pulling off spells that huge. Or one of the vast god-beasts (of which there's a few still hanging around) like one of the mega dragons.


Otherwise you'd likely need a large steam of mages to pool their powers and even then it would be risky. Plus lifting a whole city would likely shake most of the buildings to rubble unless they were both very powerful and very very very careful.

Sorry, that was a typo, I meant Lord Arcanum.

Well it’s strange, for example in one of the books I read a “run of the mill” Chaos Sorcerer manages to bind a God Beast and ride it like a mount. So I wasn’t sure if that insinuates that mages can do some pretty OTT things without being on the same level as Morathi or Allarielle.

Ah would that be Yuhdak of the Ninefold Path riding the the Great King, a gigantic megalofin that once fought Gorkamorka himself in Spear of Shadows.

http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Yuhdak_of_the_Ninefold_Path

He did not have it fully under his control - he was on it and could lightly guide it and allow its vicious nature to deal with those he wanted killed.