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Seperatist faction. There's always been a constant plot thread about Daughters that doubt or outright disbelieve Morathi. She just normally has them killed before they get any traction going.

Daughters of Khaine are part of Order and allies of Sigmar. In fact they are probably second only to the Lizardmen or Stormcast in their national desire to destroy Chaos. They are a warrior cult built around Khaine/Morathi and hell bent on fighting Chaos.

The thing is they are not trustworthy allies, esp Morathi. They will stab their own allies in the back to gain advantage.
I suspect they get away with this because

1) They are very good at fighting chaos so you can't just abandon them

2) On the Global scale they are small. They have tiny holdings in the Shadow Realm and that is their main bastion of power. Many subfactions in Cities of Sigmar likely outnumber them.

The narrative in AoS often looks at the Gods not the people (humans); so wars that see cities swap hands and so forth can be super devastating to the mortals in that area; but at the grand god scale might be less major diplomatic incidents.


So there will be, within the DoK; factions who are very keen allies of the Cities of Sigmar and of the Stormcast. Just as there will be those who are die hard Morathi believers above all else and so on and so forth.


The Seperatist faction within DoK still believe in fighting Chaos, they just don't think Morathi is a god. As noted they are normally killed off. This character appears t obe one who was ignored and considered a non-threat for ages until she found that circlet and then suddenly she soared in influence and power. Likely beyond what Morathi and her agents can easily kill off. Esp if she's also still useful to Morathi.

Even when Morathi took over that city? To the best of my knowledge, she stopped there and still supports the fight against Chaos.

Indeed, now she’s achieved true Godhood? One could argue her mortal concerns will fall away, and she may become an overall more reliable ally as there’s not really anywhere else for her to go at the moment ambitions wise.

Yes I’ve no doubt she’ll want to become The Next Sigmar, the God of the Gods. But for now there are far more pressing threats to that ambition than her sometime allies.

Belief is still a thing and whilst she's attained Godhood that only means that she's not longer got to "trick" the Iron Heart out of belief power. Power wise it means she's stronger and she's gained some separation from her snake-half which now seems to be more akin to an avatar of her will.

However she's still only got a very small population of DoK believers and whilst they are present in many Cities of Sigmar; she's not a major god compared to the others.

So even with 1 City behind her now she's still going to be a super unreliable ally just as likely to stab you in the back for her own reckless advance. Which I think is one big difference with her. All the gods are willing to backstab/one up their counterparts for their own gain and advance. Morathi is just insanely reckless when she does it and each time she does its making that prison around Slannesh that big weaker.

That’s fair

I really should brush up on my AoS lore. I was an early adopter and enjoyer, but have fallen well out of sync in the past couple of years.

To be fair its easily done. I find the most annoying thing is that GW has still not given the setting a proper dating and time system.

I think there's still a few characters like Gotrek who have stories that on one side cover a few months/years and yet on the other are covering major events that span hundreds of years.

Callis & Toll may be our best indicator. They met at the tail end of first edition and are still active (though aged) in third. We can infer that the necroquake timeline, the events of second edition, is a few decades at most.

We also know the Age of Chaos was a matter of multiple centuries (I recall a lore drop at some point that put it at 400 years though they have since gone to referencing it as an undefined number of centuries that is a decent benchmark IMO), and that there was at least a century (or the better part of one) between the Realmgate wars and the Necroquake.

Complicating things is that Chaos can readily screw with time and large swathes of the Realms have been sitting under Chaos control for some time. *Further* complicating things is the potential cannon of time flowing differently in different Realms, something mentioned in the Realmslayer audio but I haven't encountered since.

Yeah I think the Chaos Age has been 5-400 years a few times. I think in-world some people won't recall the specific duration since a lot of records were lost and for many even 100years is long enough for it to be a "constant" state in their lives and their parents.

The Flow of Time being different in different worlds has reared its head a few times, however I've always figured that there has to be a way to counter that since the amount of interconnected trade and such between Realms would require some kind of management.

It also strikes me that its one of those bits of lore that's a little like some of the early Realmgate books in that they had a lot of totally nuts stuff going on that seems to have toned back a bit since then.

That said I still highlight it as a major failing of the setting in allowing people to get into the stories and characters.

I disagree. I appreciate the open time frame, personally it's allowed me to write and slot events into periods which may otherwise have been locked out. It's a freedom that can be utilised very well if properly handled.

I love how we're still pretending that it's the books that were off the wall, not the stupid whispergames played by people online with lore they hadn't read.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:I disagree. I appreciate the open time frame, personally it's allowed me to write and slot events into periods which may otherwise have been locked out. It's a freedom that can be utilised very well if properly handled.

Eh I prefer tighter timeframes and structure. For me its part of the foundation of a world setting that then allows creation of stories to work. When you know how events in different settings with different characters and realms and such all relate together in time then you can start to write stories about travel and exploration and link different characters together in meaningful ways with some understanding of what major events they will or won't have experienced and so forth.

Kanluwen wrote:I love how we're still pretending that it's the books that were off the wall, not the stupid whispergames played by people online with lore they hadn't read.

There is a bit of both going on, but the lore still has lakes of quicksilver and storms of rust and such Oh and wildlife with mechanical pistons instead of muscle (yes I know I pick on the metal realm, but mostly because its one of the easier ones - Ghur also has oddities like whole areas where the land just reshapes itself in minutes from plains to mountains - how the feth to you farm/build/settle/live/travel when you have insane changes like that! )

If you're talking about that Chamon "wildlife", it's important to remember that it wasn't natural life. It was literally created.

 Overread wrote:

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:I disagree. I appreciate the open time frame, personally it's allowed me to write and slot events into periods which may otherwise have been locked out. It's a freedom that can be utilised very well if properly handled.

Eh I prefer tighter timeframes and structure. For me its part of the foundation of a world setting that then allows creation of stories to work. When you know how events in different settings with different characters and realms and such all relate together in time then you can start to write stories about travel and exploration and link different characters together in meaningful ways with some understanding of what major events they will or won't have experienced and so forth.

Kanluwen wrote:I love how we're still pretending that it's the books that were off the wall, not the stupid whispergames played by people online with lore they hadn't read.

There is a bit of both going on, but the lore still has lakes of quicksilver and storms of rust and such Oh and wildlife with mechanical pistons instead of muscle (yes I know I pick on the metal realm, but mostly because its one of the easier ones - Ghur also has oddities like whole areas where the land just reshapes itself in minutes from plains to mountains - how the feth to you farm/build/settle/live/travel when you have insane changes like that! )

Same way you do it on a planet like Fenris, where entire continents up and disappear and then reform at random. Writer fiat and accepting people have adapted to survive situations like that.

 Overread wrote:

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:I disagree. I appreciate the open time frame, personally it's allowed me to write and slot events into periods which may otherwise have been locked out. It's a freedom that can be utilised very well if properly handled.

Eh I prefer tighter timeframes and structure. For me its part of the foundation of a world setting that then allows creation of stories to work. When you know how events in different settings with different characters and realms and such all relate together in time then you can start to write stories about travel and exploration and link different characters together in meaningful ways with some understanding of what major events they will or won't have experienced and so forth.

998-999m41

 Overread wrote:

There is a bit of both going on, but the lore still has lakes of quicksilver and storms of rust and such Oh and wildlife with mechanical pistons instead of muscle (yes I know I pick on the metal realm, but mostly because its one of the easier ones)

Pff, that's just Atechnogenesis. If it eventually leads to an army of dudes riding robot horses, it'll all be worth it.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 Overread wrote:

There is a bit of both going on, but the lore still has lakes of quicksilver and storms of rust and such Oh and wildlife with mechanical pistons instead of muscle (yes I know I pick on the metal realm, but mostly because its one of the easier ones)

Pff, that's just Atechnogenesis. If it eventually leads to an army of dudes riding robot horses, it'll all be worth it.

See this is what I'd love to see from AoS - more representation of its lore in the game. Heck I'd also love more artwork too! GW is hell bent on art of models and model photos, but I really would love to see them produce landscape images and scenery images and so forth for their books and media distribution directly. I know the RPG has some, but I'd love to see GW central do this kind of stuff.

 Overread wrote:
See this is what I'd love to see from AoS - more representation of its lore in the game. Heck I'd also love more artwork too! GW is hell bent on art of models and model photos, but I really would love to see them produce landscape images and scenery images and so forth for their books and media distribution directly. I know the RPG has some, but I'd love to see GW central do this kind of stuff.

White Dwarf did a little with that series of articles covering the realms, but that was mainly a chance to show off alternate colour schemes to show which realm your dudes came from. Nice thought, but low effort.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 Overread wrote:

There is a bit of both going on, but the lore still has lakes of quicksilver and storms of rust and such Oh and wildlife with mechanical pistons instead of muscle (yes I know I pick on the metal realm, but mostly because its one of the easier ones)

Pff, that's just Atechnogenesis. If it eventually leads to an army of dudes riding robot horses, it'll all be worth it.

What if the dudes ARE the robot horses?!

 Overread wrote:

There is a bit of both going on, but the lore still has lakes of quicksilver and storms of rust and such Oh and wildlife with mechanical pistons instead of muscle (yes I know I pick on the metal realm, but mostly because its one of the easier ones - Ghur also has oddities like whole areas where the land just reshapes itself in minutes from plains to mountains - how the feth to you farm/build/settle/live/travel when you have insane changes like that! )

I always vaguely assumed that was the point of the Sigmar bastion cities (and the elfs and lizards have elaborate ward structures and technological shenanigans). They stabilize the local region so farming and normal life can happen.
Fringe communities are linked into the base 'network' and extend the effect outwards, and the Realms push back.

In essence, Sigmar is trying to enforce mundanity on the realms, which chaos is trying to feth things up even more. The individual Realms as sources of magic are (passively/innately) fighting both while converting everything they can to their own nature.

I like that interpretation - but I don't think thats actually the case, officially

It would at least make some sense in the setting. Honestly I think the issue with AoS is that there's no overall "master" of the setting creating it. It's really a cobbled together case of "this seems cool" from writers and creators - each one creating basically small self contained pockets of lore and info and development; but without that sense of thinking beyond the story they write in the moment.

So you get really wild and crazy things going on; but no one is pausing to go "so wait how DO they farm" or "so just how do they trade" or even "so just what does the average person live like?"

So as soon as you start asking those questions things get a bit iffy. Like how it can be said that realms are the most variable in certain areas and less so in others; but that only means that those living in calm areas might have it easier and those in more wild areas still have no argument for how they survive or why they'd even move there.


I suspect in the fullness of time we might get these answers, but I'd wager they'd come with some ret-cons or some "and then Nagash did a thing and something stopped happening and things settled down"

Well, I think a lot of that is stuff that traditionally gets fleshed out of RPG tie-ins rather in the core game itself.

But I do agree that there seems to be a lack of an overarching vision or master plan or whatever to the setting. A big problem with the lore as it stands is that theres an overwhelming lack of connective tissue which links together all the locales, factions, and ongoing narrative developments into a cohesive whole. I'm not sure that events occuring in Ghur really have any bearing on or relation to events occurring in Ghyran or Aqshy, for example, whereas in WHFB even though Naggaroth, Lustria, and the Border Princes were on three different continents I could understand how the events occurring on them fit together. Likewise, Cadia, Vigilus, Baal, etc. are all different planets, but I get how they all relate to the broader political and military situation of the Imperium.

I can't say the same for Hammerhal, Misthavn, or Hallowheart. Hell, I can't even really tell you which realms these cities are in or where they fit geographically within their respective realms. If you can't relate to a setting in terms of time or place, then its not a very good setting - and I say that as someone who actually really like Age of Sigmar as a greater whole and would like to see it further developed.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, I think a lot of that is stuff that traditionally gets fleshed out of RPG tie-ins rather in the core game itself.

But I do agree that there seems to be a lack of an overarching vision or master plan or whatever to the setting. A big problem with the lore as it stands is that theres an overwhelming lack of connective tissue which links together all the locales, factions, and ongoing narrative developments into a cohesive whole. I'm not sure that events occuring in Ghur really have any bearing on or relation to events occurring in Ghyran or Aqshy, for example, whereas in WHFB even though Naggaroth, Lustria, and the Border Princes were on three different continents I could understand how the events occurring on them fit together. Likewise, Cadia, Vigilus, Baal, etc. are all different planets, but I get how they all relate to the broader political and military situation of the Imperium.

I can't say the same for Hammerhal, Misthavn, or Hallowheart. Hell, I can't even really tell you which realms these cities are in or where they fit geographically within their respective realms. If you can't relate to a setting in terms of time or place, then its not a very good setting - and I say that as someone who actually really like Age of Sigmar as a greater whole and would like to see it further developed.

Agreed and this is why GW need more dates and maps. Part of the issue is that AoS as a setting was basically made to be a "do whatever the freaking heck you want" kind of setting. In a way they kind of tried to make it like a Minecraft system - an engine that could create infinite worlds and stories for anyone. Heck it needs a dating system beyond "which ages does your story happen in" and "if its the Age of Sigmar, is it before or after the Necroquake". Because that's basically it for dates. Which makes it really hard to envision what's going on.

On some fronts the Necroquake is only a hundred or so years after the AoS begins; in other stories the Cities of Sigmar have had multiple generations and even generations of Elves who don't recall the Chaos Era which means it has to be many hundreds of years. Yet other times it seems like the armies of Stormcast are only just getting going when the Necroquake hits.

This lack of a backbone to the setting clearly affects the writers.


The problem is when you try to pull it all together things get confusing and complicated and messy. Eg you've a whole realm full of metals. So in theory so long as you've one active trading partner there; every faction should be able to have EVERY bit of armour, metal and machinery you could imagine. Then there's another realm where the Dead are collected. In theory Nagash's legions should be so bonkers vast that he just outright wins with perhaps only Chaos able to stand against him. It's not like Death in the Old World where you had a portion of the undead running around their local Vampire or a fallen nation that wasn't breeding any more (Tomb Kings). Nagash has armies built from the constant supply of the dead in the realms. He loses a handful to Sigmar, but by and large Nagash should basically have an infinite army by now.
Meanwhile in Ghur you've got creatures so vast that whole cities are built upon their backs; God Beasts that are impossibly powerful and strong which on their own could crush Cities of Sigmar in a heartbeat without thinking of it.


As much as I utterly love the creativity of the setting, the setting as a whole feels hollow. I don't think it helps that they focus on the Narrative on the Gods and it certainly doesn't help that they lose Josh Reynolds as a writer as he felt like the only one who was trying to build a greater lore/setting from the system.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Seperatist faction. There's always been a constant plot thread about Daughters that doubt or outright disbelieve Morathi. She just normally has them killed before they get any traction going.

Godsbane even features ones that actually attempted to kill Morathi.

But I just bought the other 40k Inquisition Witch Hunter set!

Man, all those poses except for lantern guy are very passive.

The two pistols guy looks okay. The rest are pretty meh imo

Stormcast, Griffhound and Lantern guy are all carrying keys on them. Which I think almost outright confirms these are another bunch of potential "was going to be in Cursed City" models.

 Overread wrote:
Stormcast, Griffhound and Lantern guy are all carrying keys on them. Which I think almost outright confirms these are another bunch of potential "was going to be in Cursed City" models.

Or that they are based in hanmerhall ashqa

Ashqhy has had a long association with keys, first shown in the symbol for the wind of fire in WHFB and then the motifs of the college of fire in Altdorf.

Also, crazy cat lady is using a skeleton key as a hair pin.

And I just noticed that two pistols is wearing a belt with a key hole in the head of the skull.




And suddenly I wonder if the plot here isn't similar to Robin Hood Men in Tights - one key is the key to the greatest treasure in all the lands?

 Overread wrote:
It would at least make some sense in the setting. Honestly I think the issue with AoS is that there's no overall "master" of the setting creating it. It's really a cobbled together case of "this seems cool" from writers and creators - each one creating basically small self contained pockets of lore and info and development; but without that sense of thinking beyond the story they write in the moment.

So you get really wild and crazy things going on; but no one is pausing to go "so wait how DO they farm" or "so just how do they trade" or even "so just what does the average person live like?"

So as soon as you start asking those questions things get a bit iffy. Like how it can be said that realms are the most variable in certain areas and less so in others; but that only means that those living in calm areas might have it easier and those in more wild areas still have no argument for how they survive or why they'd even move there.


I suspect in the fullness of time we might get these answers, but I'd wager they'd come with some ret-cons or some "and then Nagash did a thing and something stopped happening and things settled down"

Well we know realms aren't all same. Realm of fire isnt all firestorm. Water, farmable land etc are there.

Wd had nice article about that.