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So, I'm not well versed in AoS lore, but can someone tell me exactly what Stormcast Eternals actually are? (i.e. are they humans with superhuman traits?)

Sigmar takes a soul of a brave warrior which is close to, or freshly dead (usually after some sort of heroic feat), works it over the avil of apotheosis, imbuing the soul with part of his immortal power. Then using arcane magics, he and a few dwarf minor gods give the souls body again.
They are demi-gods in every meaning of the word- faster, stronger, requiring almost no food or drink, but you can still kill them. Once they die, their souls are sent back to sigmar's realm, where they wait to be reforged again. That's a...traumatic experience which "beats out" more and more mortality out of their souls, leaving them with memory gaps, changed personalities, and sometimes physical traits (like bleeding light through gaps in armor).

On that, it is mentioned that some tribes and cities aren't happy about Sigmar snatching away their greatest heroes during a time when Chaos was running roughshod all over the mortal realms - even if all of the heroes were just about to die.

There are also other god(s) that aren't too happy about him taking souls for himself that would ordinarily have been destined for their realms.

AoS's lore revolves heavily around souls. They are persistent and very real to the living people of the realms. To many gods they are malleable tools of worship and war. Nagash turns souls into Nighthaunt. Sigmar turns souls into Stormcast eternals (and in doing so gives them new life), Chaos corrupts souls, ect.

Imagine the Stormcast as an entire 'race' of Paladins, and you won't go wrong. Some of the Orders go darker than others, but most of them are grand comic-book style heroes, though the grimdark angle is that with every reforging they get more cold and distant as they lose tough with their original humanity.

The part that isn't touched upon lately is that in the original version of the game, it was described that several non-human races were also inducted into the Stormcast.

Was it really actually committed to paper? Only mentions I can recall were from background writers, and even then it seemed fairly noncommittal.

Admittedly, it is weird that we at least haven't seen Aelves amongst the Orders. The Vanguard Chambers would have been perfect for introducing Wanderers who fell during the war against Nurgle, for example.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Was it really actually committed to paper? Only mentions I can recall were from background writers, and even then it seemed fairly noncommittal.

Admittedly, it is weird that we at least haven't seen Aelves amongst the Orders. The Vanguard Chambers would have been perfect for introducing Wanderers who fell during the war against Nurgle, for example.

I've never been sure for certain, especially as I am a casual follower of AoS, rather than a hardcore fan. I decided to at least add one or two Aelves in my Stormcast force, using Eldar heads instead of helmets, so there is just a hint to the outside observer. (More visible in comparison because all my other models have helmet-less bulky human Space Marine heads.)

They're Ground Marines.

Except more human and less one-note than everyone's favorite flesh robots.

Cronch wrote:
Sigmar takes a soul of a brave warrior which is close to, or freshly dead (usually after some sort of heroic feat), works it over the avil of apotheosis, imbuing the soul with part of his immortal power. Then using arcane magics, he and a few dwarf minor gods give the souls body again.
They are demi-gods in every meaning of the word- faster, stronger, requiring almost no food or drink, but you can still kill them. Once they die, their souls are sent back to sigmar's realm, where they wait to be reforged again. That's a...traumatic experience which "beats out" more and more mortality out of their souls, leaving them with memory gaps, changed personalities, and sometimes physical traits (like bleeding light through gaps in armor).

This is why I strongly dislike bareheaded Stormcasts. Going around with hair to te wind, or well-groomed mustache it just seems not fitting to me. So I convert all mine.
https://gabbigames.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/shadespire-steelhearts-champions/

Stormcast are heroes who believe in Sigmar who die whilst battling or dealing with the machinations of Chaos. This means that not only do warriors enter the halls, but medics, priests and others who are faithful to Sigmar and who battle Chaos in their own way.

Basically Sigmar is looking for those who have a belief in him and who have a pure hatred of chaos and thus a reason to want to battle it forever. It's also clear that he's managed to steal souls well after death if they are powerful enough. This is evident by the fact that at the end of the Old World he fell along with the rest; however several Stormcast have names and character traits that suggest (its very rarely if never actually revealed) that they are heroes from the Old World that was.


In the Mortal Realms itself he whips the souls away before they enter the Realm of the Dead. Nagash, who considers all the dead to be HIS (even though he has yet to conquer all of the Realm of Death) detests this and considers it a theft, which is why he's broken from the Pantheon and is striking out on his own against Sigmar, even though both still have to fight Chaos.



Stormcast have their soul reforged into a new body. However this reforging process damages their memories of their past. Some Stormcast recall much if not all their past, many recall bits, some recall nothing at all. They are basically super soldiers. They do have to eat and rest, but its apparent that they need very little of both to actually function. In the Realmwars books they are shown to march for days and still have stamina to fight several battles right after marching - with almost no downtime.

They were forged specifically to retake the Realms after the Age of Chaos began - when Sigmar closed the Realmgates and the Realms entered 500 years of the Age of Chaos.



When Stormcast die a bolt from the sky strikes down at them, which is Sigmar's power reaching out to steal that soul back. It also typically takes the body and armour of the Stormcast. Stormcast are living flesh, however they very rarely remove their armour. That said there are ways that this can be interrupted. Powerful magics can block the effect or even steal the souls energy away before Sigmar can rescue them. Furthermore its clear that if a Stormcast loses bits of their armour in battle (ergo its not with the body and soul) then they are left on the battlefield (as evident by there being a good few helms flying around on various model kits - like the new Ogor Tyrant and one of the Daughters of Khaine Khinerai).

Being stolen away to be reforged basically means the same forging process. Only now its not just the souls original memories that get further damaged, but also their Stormcast memories. Again we see a huge pattern of results - some appear hardly affected, others lose everything all over again. Then there are those in the middle getting ever more fragmented and confusing memories.


It's also clear that each time they are reforged they appear to lose more of their former humanity and gain more of Sigmars burning hate of Chaos. They become, as noted above "even more Paladin".


This can result in Stormast starting to become quite broody, confused and also fevered warriors against chaos. Indeed they've already conducted one "purge" of the Realms where they slew many people who were infected with a disease to try and prevent chaos infection from it. Even though the peoples disliked that greatly! So whilst they are a solid barrier and advancing legion against Chaos, they are not fully trusted by their allies and those they come to save. There's also potential for them to go a bit insane or morbid. There's one of the Inferno short stories where a Stormcast is even shown to almost have been abandoned by Sigmar and their fellow Stormcast (though by the nature of the story its more likely that the individual has abandoned them and given up).

Can you give me the fluff reference for the "purge" conducted by the Stormcasts that were reforged too many times? I've heard it on fluff boards a few times but I don't know where that is found.

The only mentions of it will be in a short story in Malign Portents online page, plus of course the purge of Excelsis. Both carried out by the Knights Excelsior, GW's last ditch attempt to make stormcast more like 40k trash.