Baron Klatz

Deleted.

There's quite the difference between tribes growing up around a magic and a race having it breathed into them by a God-beast that's later the magic their spawning uses. That's the parts we know so far anyway about the Starborne. That they wax and wane with the stars themselves shows a deeper connection to the realm of heaven. Yes. I was agreeing with you. They need the Slaan so they can be stable there and eventually mix. I don't see why that's beyond the ability of a Slann & a realmgate. They just hold the teleportation in another spot. We've seen naturally occurring gateways appear in stuff like tarpits when the Ironjawz attacked Nagash's city from the realm of beasts. That seems pretty easy to explain. Cords of glittering energy is what Azyr magic the spawning pools draw on to form them with the reality bit just a fancy wording. And they're not long lost in the new lore because they've been active in the realms for centuries now with the Age of Hope instead of when they missed out in the Age of Myth. Yes but that still all adds up to how the Slann are needed to reform the teleported Seraphon still. It's just gone from the vague memory stuff to show that "given shape" is the forms the Slann make for their Azyr bodies to inhabit. The fading thing could still happen to Seraphon not properly mixed with the realm energies, it'd be like a localized version of a mortal going to a realm edge. That's why the Starborne roaming Ghur are around because their Slann is merely unconscious instead of dead as Coalescing takes quite a bit of time. "The Coalesced slowly become more and more physical the longer they stay within the Realms, until eventually they are normal flesh and blood." He's also able to make astro-projections of himself which goes towards the memory stuff. That'd be impressive from a article back in 2018. Hear hear! They've really added many interesting layers to the lore over the years. Very stable continuity too when the biggest debates are over space lizards and some tombs where-as the rest is surprisingly solid for being stories over near infinite realms that progressed nearly 400 years.

@Oceanic_Eyes Close, Order of the Furrow uses Demigryphs. Josh clarified a bit more here: " What makes The Knights of the Furrow. The Order of the Green. The Order of the Last Flower. The Knights Ghyrlion different from each other? "The Knights of the Furrow are demigryph riders - one actually features in The Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows. I imagine the Order of the Green are an order devoted to tending a grove of soul pods, and the Order of the Last Flower are devoted to taking vengeance in the name of a fallen kingdom. The Knights Ghyrlion are a crusading order, devoted to spreading the glories of the Lady of Leaves to other realms." So I say stop looking to the past and embrace the glorious potentials of the people of the realms.

The part that confused you in the first place as it kept the old lore and you mentioned at the start of this post: There's still something eldritch about the Starborne with that physicality and how the community site kept emphasizing this bit "Known as the Starborne, these creatures wield strange and celestial powers " on how they're suffused with Azyr energies. It's a vagueness they're playing with that i'm really looking forward to being answered in the future whether it be a novel, the Soulbound rpg or a new Seraphon tome and models to it justice. Yeah that one's on me. That's the very meaning of coalescing. Likely the case. Minor writer errors have happened like with Black Rift. The fact that they're larger than skeletons and have metal melded into their bones. If one fell apart you'd probably be able to fashion it into a suit handily. I guess large macabre mannequins works too for what the Skaven would've seen. Nah, Archaon just made him come back a bit stronger. The Nadir put him on a higher level with how much it empowered the realm of death. The Flesh-Eaters new tome goes into it a bit how he was able to access underworlds he never could before. so both in power and numbers Nagash hit the jackpot with his scheme. The funny part is the memory thing is more on the fans than the lore. Guy here back in 2018 pointed out that Seraphon always came down from the sky. He basically saw through that and predicted the new/cleared up lore of the Slann beaming them down into forms that can be on another realm's surface.

Nah I was making a joke about it. They're not true daemons but certainly not flesh and blood mortals either. Until Coalescing anyway. I put them into a lesser daemon area. We need to see more of their interactions as Starborne. Bits on them having a harder to interacting with other realms and the community stuff mentioning ethereal properties or even creatures really puts to light the "strange magical abilities" the starborne possess. "While Starborne can interact with the tangible world, their deep connection to Azyr prevents them from achieving true physicality." It makes sense as it's two winds of magic being forced together. They need time for one magic to replace the other in their bodies. Eh, to me it sounds like he finally figured out he bit off more than he could chew but it probably was a writer's error. It'll be clarified come next tome. Skeletons yes which would've moved. What looked like bone armor they probably prodded wouldn't have mattered. It's a pointless discussion until the next Skaven tome. That'll have an actual focus on this and whether their gnawholes missed the tombs thanks to magic wards pushing their reality-drilling attempts away towards the corporeal cities or if they did find a few and are why some Ossiarch forces seek out replacement bones to fix their gnawed on exoskeletons. He planned far enough ahead to have the bone forts fitted with a large supply of his replacement bodies so he would've similarly planned far ahead for the tables to turn, get killed by Archaon and be besieged and thus leaving sizable elite forces and supplies in the fort to withstand Archaon. It's the reason he built them in the first place, he knew he'd never be able to conquer everything before Archaon got back so he decided from the start to make a foothold for Death. Nagash wasn't in ascension then with several more of the underworlds opened up to him plus every soul in the realms drawn to his Nadir. Death is waaay more powerful now in the Time of Tribulation than it was in the Age of Chaos. Oh, I meant I was looking through the Lexicanum. Though even going by your posts I don't see it as a retcon like you're saying. They just blended the lores together so the first tome was like being told by an Azyrite on what he thought was happening and the current tome is clarifying the Azyr forms, their magi-tech ships and how they interact with other realms. Edit: ah, like your edit here: "As I pointed out in my reply above, the book explicitly dismisses the idea that the Seraphon troops are created by the Slann when it talks about Astrolith Bearers. " They didn't have to specifically create them. Just a twist on the words "formed from memory" is enough to still make it true but obscured. Where-in the past the formed part made us think created now we see the trick that they formed their Azyrian forms to be able to interact with the other realms as they went from magical to physical in the teleportation. It'll be very interesting to see what direction they'll go with the third tome and a overhaul on the lines. By then they can actually go full out on the Azyr beings concept with models reflecting it.

And non-daemons don't explode into starlight. They're light versions of daemons. It's pretty clear it's a similar case to Stormcast and their lightning charged blood. The Spawning pools form them through Azyr magic and Slann just reform the Seraphon's magical bodies once they get beamed down as their Azyr nature is rejected by the other realms which justifies the conjuration. So prideful enough to try and slay a god while also understanding he logically couldn't. Sounds about right for a undefeated general whose died twice. Because they're pretty clueless when it comes to Shyish. That's why one of the gnawholes dug straight into the sea of death and flooded Skavenblight with millions of undead. And after the Necroquake any of their works would've been undone in the realm of death as the lands shifted. Katakros was still able to order their commander and NightHaunt to attack the armored chaos highways so they had reserves. Bone forts + a gateway straight to the endless legions of death straight from Shyish for reinforcements. There's no steamrolling that. We'll probably get the siege for it in the next campaign tome. No I literally quoted it and how Seraphon are reformed by the Slann when they beam down.

Oh that's really cool. (Also wise edit to nip that controversy in the bud) I've been teasing Narrative scenarios based on this and stuff like the Ogor scenarios that let you hire a third army on the field. Something like treasure or resource build-up by going second or just being slower so you can win a wealth victory for say Kharadron or spend the aether-gold to boost their engines & weapons if a victory by battle is insight. Similarly I was thinking of adding on to the realmscape cards stuff like getting overheated in Aqshy so your movement and Hits are halved if you choose a double turn.

Yes, that's why even with both Sigmar and Archaon defeating him he says he's undefeated. Battles don't count to him. He knew he could win the war against Sigmar but would lose that fight as that very war is still ongoing and will keep going until either one's complete destruction. No, you're simplifying it. "Seraphon are fundamentally creatures of flesh and blood but with celestial magic glimmering in their vein. Many Seraphon known as ‘Starborne’ exist on a slightly different wavelength to the other realms thus the Slann must bind the essence of the Starborne into reptilian form and and when slain they discorporate into blasts of pure starlight. Thus Starmasters can ‘conjure’ warriors directly from their temple-ships with but a gesture. While Starborne can interact with the tangible world, their deep connection to Azyr prevents them from achieving true physicality." They are beamed down but their Azyrian forms are still created by the Slann as they're beings of celestial magic. They're still star daemons. The Starborne are made of Azyr magic thanks to Dracothion reviving them with his breath as he did to God-king Sigmar. Not stupid but literally everything in the Realm of Death keeps moving. Mountains of skulls chatter, fields are well tilled because the dead beneath keeping digging, etc. Skaven seeing some non-moving bone suits isn't gonna register when everything else boney would attack them on sight in that realm. Only if it gets in the way of previous lore. If there's lore saying all lands beneath Shyish are empty with nary a tunnel or catacomb then it's a retcon. Otherwise that's just an expansion. Archaon's forces were near collapse and had to be mustered. They'd be in no shape to charge the bone forts which are literally made of the chaos legions the Ossiarchs kept slaughtering and building them from along with the numerous other undead factions like the NightHaunt protecting them. The whole build-up to this campaign was Warcry because Archaon is trying to rally the weakened chaos forces from across the realms. Archaon saved the Eight-points but they're still the under dogs here. Archaon needs time which is the big focus here. Chaos is on the back foot for once and the other factions have a chance. Nah, the final battle saved the Eight-points for Chaos but costed them Slaanesh's freedom. There's massive implications here for future plot hooks, stories and campaigns. Exactly! Thank you. I was busy digging on the Lexicanums for those exact points.

It's literally both at the same time as it was for Archaon because Katakros is that prideful as an undead general who knows he can't truly die. He even counts losing the battle against Archaon in Wrath of the Everchosen as winning because he revived in a new body to continue the war and states his record of being undefeated is still unblemished. He only counts winning the wars, not the battles since the battles are endless to and for him. Because it is. The tome talked about the Seraphon having to stay in stasis during the Age of Chaos which implied that some armies were conjurations by the Slaan to make up for the warriors still asleep. That's a handwave to allow both types of Starborne as GW knew players loved the memory star daemon concept as much as others would like a more magical "physical" star daemons change so that pleases both parties while also keeping the first tome as written by an outsider saying the Seraphon are mysteries only the celestial Stormcast would know. So players can justify still having memory Seraphon or say their memories have been replaced with waking Starborne. It's a well done growth of a base concept that keeps just enough in the dark for fans to draw their own conclusions. So? To them that'd just be a tomb full of empty bone suits. That's not a retcon but at best an oversight, of which is easily accounted for by either showing the Skaven that did find them just weren't interest in catacombs full of empty bone suits or just kept their finds secret to try and use at a later date for a power grab. Heck, with the Penulbrum engines being such a big part in those areas to seal the evils away they probably got their memories wiped by them. Because the campaign is still ongoing. They're supposed to be cliff-hangers for the players to use. Like with Grand Marshal Archaon it shifts to Katakros to show him commanding the Lady of Grief to put more pressure on Archaon so right there it's a "To be continued" for the players and writers to go off of for the on-going narrative. These aren't retcons but player friendly Narrative handwaves to build on.

Now that's not true. I've been heavily invested in the lore since it started with the Realmgate Wars and there's only been a handful of retcons. Usually to a minor writers error like with the Black Rift placement or the Glottkin origins being updated to make them realm natives. Otherwise the lore has been very well done with changes referenced and shown as evolutions like with the Seraphon going from starborne daemons (which even in the first tome made a mention of their evolving nature) to having Coalesced natives thanks to the life energies of the realms changing their magical Azyr body structure which was even hinted in the 2017 White Dwarf as them "going native" with feral ones gaining blood. It's been very consistent from what I've seen.

Cubicle7 posted a really cool blog on insights to their creative processes and ideas. https://www.cubicle7games.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-soulbound-crafting-adventures/ ".... Tick Tock, Tick Tock! Nothing adds to a sense of urgency and agency to an adventure like a ticking clock. There are only three days until the horde of Bloodreavers reaches the isolated outpost. The ritual to open the Skaven gnawhole and flood the city with ratmen will be complete in six hours. The Ossiarch Bonereapers will return in one month to claim their grizzly tithe. The civilian’s only means of escape from the servants of Chaos is across a massive plain which floods every wet season, and rain clouds are brewing. If the Aspirian artefact isn’t returned in one week, the entire Floating City of Bataar will fall from the sky… The Mortal Realms are living, breathing worlds which continue on with or without the actions of the Binding. Use this to your advantage to generate near-infinite drama and meaningful choices. Offer players meaningful choices to effect this timeline, like risky shortcuts to save time or expensive detours to rally aid. ..." https://www.cubicle7games.com/artist-rune-flynn-talks-art-and-inspiration/ "... The Trade Pioneer in Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound (shown above) is a good example of my design philosophy. There are so many little objects and details on him, and each one of them has its own little lore tab in my head. How he got them, why he keeps them, and, of course, his Mustori has a name (Ink) and his own origin story. A notable example being that the Trade Pioneer has not one, but four methods of telling time and/or identifying his direction on his person. The vials of Aqua Gyranis are posted on his shoulder for easy reach. Not just because of their value as currency, but because of their capacity to heal others. I have synesthesia, so music informs a lot of my colour choices. I often trawl through music when I’m working on a new concept, or need help deciding what colours to run with. The Trade Pioneer (and a few others) even have their own unofficial playlists. ..."

Well if you ever decide to dive in then give "Sea Taketh" a read. It has Destruction merchants (orruks, ogors, spider grots)working alongside Order in a Kharadron run port in the realm of death which could give you some fun narrative ideas and Orruk inspirations. Best of luck getting more Narrative players as well. Try looking at local Facebook groups, I find that's a great way to scry out the garagehammer goers that just want to world-build in the Mortal Realms.

Yeah, I was gonna add that to my post but thought meh. Originally they were made by the Perry Brothers before they left GW so there's that hanging over their head too of not technically being a GW creation.

They basically have remade them with Lumineth Realm-lords, literal shining knights on horses that have chalice instead of grails, tall helmed super warriors in-tune with the lands and a priestess that resembles a damsel. This makes a lot of sense with the Lady being Lileath of the Asur in disguise whose Grail was basically turning humans into aelves with some added-on divine potentcy(in "Honor or Duty" even Helborg noted the Grail knight he fought was aelvish in nature). So until we get the Ghyran Freeguild knight orders with nature knights in magic wooden armor riding demigryphs and ghyrlions (plant creature lions which one Order is built around) who worship Alarielle this is the closest we'll get. Plus we already have Stormcasts and Deepkin taking up the roles of magic knights on exotic beasts with one side being holy questors and the other being water-focused flying cavalry so they wouldn't bring anything new to the table.

The Realm of Beasts itself. Animalistic planets, mountains and seas that eat eachother & lesser prey and big honorable mention the the Gnashing Jaws themselves as the prime predator of armies. Otherwise Magmadroth with it's scorching blood, the graceful Leviadon, the majestic Wardroth Beetle which can turn into a swarm of fireflies and then the glorious Stardrake making the stars themselves rain on the foe.

Yeah, that's always a fun thing to see pointed out on reddit when someone quips "at least they didn't turn 40k into Age of God-Emperor", they totally did(rules, progressive plot & copyright names all) they just didn't mess with the title. So now AoS' explosive success brought it's sci-fi brother back up top. Also two things I forgot to put were that AoS has more appealing qualities to me because it's frequently updated to keep a good balance where even the "broken" new stuff doesn't dominate tourneys but instead we see a healthy mix of all factions from Fyreslayers to Beasts of Chaos high on the lists. And second is the great lore balance where they both keep putting out the up-to-12 battle of the gods stuff where even right now we get a realm of vast continents floating on seas of solar energy ruled by glowing magic stone aelves that commune with the realm and it's titanic spirits, their by-product eldritch chasms with crying faces & have magi-tech clone armies while also expanding the grounded stuff as we see their city lives of dealing with foreign mortals, one of the more mundane uses of the aetherquartz to work late at night and even how the spent stones can be pawned off. And it's all done within the endless scope of the expanding realms so not matter how fleshed out they make it there's limitless room in every realm for both GW and fans to keep creating new stuff without clutter be it new races, maps or even deities like the God-beasts. It's just fantastic all-round.

I asked your question on the TTS discord and here's the response I got so far. "karkadrak is there with a 3d model even, just not in the slaves box, i found it randomly on one of the scenario tables i loaded in ^-^ no idea about sphiranx tho, but i believe they are both on 90mm oval bases 90x52mm to be exact" If they post anymore info i'll get back to you with it.

I started in 7th edition and pretty much got hooked on the World-that-was as i saw all these super grim over-the-top fantasy things like armies of daemons battling humans, knights burning bodies until it was night for a week straight with some super knights that could slay titans single-handed sand evil vikings with armor fused to their skin who slaughtered so many that they made rivers of blood so I grabbed every novel and armybook I could up to the End Times (including those side ones that went with the Age of Reckoning MMO). However it was with 8th I saw two huge problems that deflated my interest in that world. One was the massive games, even smallish ones took hours so they were basically yearly affairs that I noticed the tiny fanbase could be barely mustered to finish. Then there was the hour to midnight setting that made Status Quo a God as literally every story had to set things back to normal and every novel was a self-contained void since the setting could never move forward. So when Age of Sigmar arrived that not only gave me a banquet of the over-the-top elements I fell in love with, beautiful artwork of these fantasical realms and armies of the gods, but also a setting that actually kept moving forward and novels free of that void as numerous characters could run into eachother as gods, demi-gods and mortals all kept pushing these nobledark cosmic plots through the ages to control the wondrous realms with their endless potential. Throw in that the game itself is super easy to get into with free rules, efficient warscrolls and tons of layers to add on for nuance or side game skirmishes & warband battles and I never looked back since. Out with the old and in with the new. Long live the Mortal Realms and their glorious future ahead!

They probably were referring to the faction updates for siege like NightHaunt not starving on defense and ignoring siege defense when on the attack like boiling oil. Which I'm a big fan of with AoS. Instead of wildly changing things around and forcing up-to-date purchases between the 1st ghb, the Dreadhold battletome and the Wrath of the Everchosen just to know what's going on it's done in the same style as AoS itself, very similar to the original core rules with a few extra refinements and layers added to spice things up.(thus why I like to jump back and forth between playing AoS1 & AoS2) Should be Matched Play legal still. I've seen a lot of competitive rule lawyers point out 2017-2019 White Dwarf rules and stuff like the Firestorm campaign rules as fully legal even years afterward(on which Firestorm got implemented into CoS). I think they go Open and Narrative only when certain updates happen like the new Seraphon tome redoing the Sotek's Claw stuff which was in the early White Dwarf when Seraphon first teleported from the stars onto the scene.

Oh! Many thanks for detailing all those options! The wound table's an awesome touch. So I guess to get the effect for a Sylvaneth bow on my Stormcast I should get the 18" weapon and either use mage or acolyte to get some realm of life stuff in. Maybe try to squeeze in a quiver spite as a companion if not just an accessory. Lots to plan with this.

Ohh, lantern ranged weapon and custom spells. That's awesome! Haha, as you keep saying on twitter and here twice. I respect the commitment to that desire even though i'm on the other team. I definitely like the Anvil to be it's own unique thing and give massive amounts of custom options rather than watered down to fit some echo of the dead past. Of course they'll keep using them. I know you equate this to mercs but those failed because they were Matched. By keeping this Narrative focused players will continue using and customizing heroes even after the gimmick's long gone because that's the focus. Heck with official only, it's friendly gaming. Play them in Open,Narrative, Quest, Soulbound and proxy them in Matched, Warcry and UnderWorlds. Lots of fun ahead. Speaking of which I really like this fellow's idea for a three form hero: "Ricki Smith @RLRSmith88 Jul 8: 3 forms of various incarnations. Mostly just to depict them at different points in the storyline. So “Fledgling" assassin with his living shadow "midpoint" half shadow assassin on steed made of shadow “climax" fullblend shadow atop monsterous moun The shadow duplicate might well just be a model I swap in when he casts random spell on himself. So his "mystic shield" is actually transitioning into shadow, so when I have the shadowform on the board I know he's got mystic shield on etc."

Likely with AoS 3 i'm betting. They keep bouncing ideas between AoS and 40k so one takes the plunge and upon success the other one gets it next (ex: AoS' massive success leading to 40k 8th being heavily based off our system and now we're getting 40k's good terrain rules for our realmscapes) Personally I only want physical items with the occasional quick app search for a warscroll but a big bundle like that would be appreciated by the community just as the Warscrolls Builder and Azyr Systems were. Edit: Oh yeah, definitely keep all the Warscrolls, warscroll point builder and core rules free! Those are essential for the easy access into the hobby that everyone loves about Age of Sigmar.

That's why it didn't stand a ghost of a chance in making it to Matched play. I like that Narratively though, since a lot of Anviled heroes are gonna be based on the AoS rpg you can just say Ethereal is the battlefield equivalent of being Soulbound. Plus Mortal Realms heroes would sensibly take every over-the-top magical advantage they could to survive on the eldritch realmscapes as it is with the crazy realm items. Certainly lots of Shyish magic lying around thanks to the Soul Wars to tap into for that.

Anyone else giddy to see what the extent of the weapon and mount options are? Since it's Narrative they're bound to go a bit crazy with it and there's players fantasizing about stuff like Saurus on Stonehorns but I'd be happy with putting my Stormcast hero on a Magmadroth and giving him a Sylvaneth bow to symbolize Hammerhal's combined realm cities. (Though if they do go cross Grand Alliance then I can't resist a Fyreslayer on wraith horse in his defense of the Shyish Lodges with a fire spirit or an Ironjawz merc back from the Eight-Points on a Juggernaut or Nurgle flyer he won in Gorechosen)

Definitely need to see the book before we can actually feel anything about it. I'm definitely hyped for the aether wars, large narrative hero customizations, more indepth multiplayer and streamlined realm rules for Matched. My only concern is I loved the large realmscape charts in the last books so i'm hoping they keep those for Narrative (which between this book's focus on Narrative & Open and how great Wrath of Everchosen made it's realmscape variety I think is a safe bet they just split them). Otherwise not much can be expected here besides the basics like 2019's. Until AoS 3 all they can do is updates and sensible changes that don't break the mold for this edition. And honestly I'm glad because this is a very solid game which i'm happy they're just building on. We're having fun so no need to rush out flipping the table on the rules.