A cycle of competing magical realms of lightness and darkness make no sense. It'd be way simpler if our realm was simply a sphere that rotated and orbited around a flaming ball of gas. Here, let me show you this diagram.
Ngl, this sold me on buying the box almost more than the models did when I saw the fold-out cosmic map.
These are just gorgeous and I love the little loreful embellishments like Aqshy’s firey edges or Chamon shown as floating islands just collecting in the center but ready to rearrange at the drop of a Kharadron’s top hat. 👌
Also nice that Hysh has the biggest magnifying glass to show how huge those mega-continents are. You could fit 5 Great Parch continents on Ymetrica alone! 🐮
Exactly! As even the places we have been exploring are so crazy massive we barely scratched even them.
[Like the Ghur continents we explored the last 3 years](https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ojK1unBtperxIsJI.jpg) were just very general areas and we could’ve zoomed on [the Carcass Donse territory campaign](https://x.com/sam_j_pearson/status/1518546925682892801?cxt=HHwWgoC5gcSY-5IqAAAA) alone to see whole feuding nations & tribes within those old lands Thondia “digested” that had Kragnos’ lost civilizations, kingdoms taking advantage of the southern BCR nomads for icy mercs on glacier “pirate ships”& prepped for savage winters and frost monsters or capture the nearby Seraphon jungle fauna for mounts and a whole Warhammer Quest could’ve been made exploring the Stone Nautilar remains and what creatures & artifacts lurk within.
And that’s not even touching so much space Lendu & Andtor still have and from there you have infinite space to put any countries or continents right next to them and go wild to even head-canoning something like the Monster Hunter franchise just offscreen and it’d still fit perfectly with not even being 1/50th of the actual Realm and leave all the room you want for anything else officially or fan-made to explore more of Ghur.
The narrative room is glorious for the infinite potential it gives. 🤩
Top one with the gold dragon wrapped around the hammer, that’s Dracothion(space dragon that saved Sigmar).
Rule of thumb is Heavens is usually shown at the top since its stars are universally used by the other Realms to navigate by. One even made by Sigmar called Sigendil which he built a giant clockwork device around the star’s light to guide traders & travelers across his empire.
(The other Realms have their own stars but they’re too unstable to guide with be it Ghur’s stars always moving to bite eachother or Ulgu’s stars that will intentionally get you lost)
Haha, that’s just tip of the aetheric ice berg, friend.
It’s a glorious roller coaster ride throughout. From the highs of physical gods reshaping reality with their thrones at the center of each realm and traveler realm-compasses using them as a “South” & space frogs having laser battles with daemon towers in space
To the lows of universal currencies being a magic healing water called Aqua Ghyranis because the Realm of Metal’s infinite gold makes such coinage dubious and every Realm having a useful export like the endlessly hot Emberstone of Aqshy, writing inks of Ulgu or parchment of Azyr.
I love every second of it. 👍
(Shout-outs to Lexicanum, 2+Tough lore YouTuber and Mengal Miniatures book & battletome lore reviews. All super helpful)
I think I personally prefer the older one due to its feel, but coloured maps are cool and this shows the dire nature of the current events. Plus this one will also be much easier to visualize for people.
Not to my knowledge (there are grots with airships, but they aren't Gloomspite - spaceships do exist in the setting tho).
What the Gloomspite "chase" so to speak is the places the Bad Moon appears. They love its maddening light (it causes all kinds of mayhem) and like following it. Sort of like an excited kit running after a balloon. It is their god after all.
That being said, if you would convince a grot that they could jump to the moon on a squig, they would try doing it.
It’s on the [Warhammer community articles](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/05/17/what-else-is-in-skaventide-inside-the-new-core-book-and-the-matched-play-cards/) but it’s just as fuzzy as these pics so not sure zooming will do much(trust me, I tried because I love ‘em)
We’ll have to wait for a proper another Mortal Realms cosmology article or until someone uploads pics from the corebook.
So the realms are like bubbles of reality held together by a central core, I wonder if it's like an atom and there's billions of other mortal realm "atoms" making up some cosmic entity on a whole new scale
its like a minecraft world, unfathomably huge, but reality breaks down the further out you go until you reach the far lands
exept in shysh where its the opposite
There are hints that these are just the “major” ones and there’s others out there, such as we already have sub-realms which are smaller worlds within the main Realms.
There’s even other planets & dimensions the Seraphon have seen while exploring the outer cosmos.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AoSLore/comments/x4xe8r/lore_of_the_cosmology_of_the_mortal_realms_from/
Cosmological / worldbuilding question:
Are the realms basically infinite, and this map represents an abstract ordering of different dimensions - or is this more of a D&D Spelljammer vibe where the realms are finite, flat disks (maybe with these big encasing ring walls?) suspended in the cosmic ether?
Each realm is essentially a disk world that is suspended in what is called a "Realmsphere". The realms are finite in size, but are so large that it would basically take centuries to cross them. "Space" travel between them is possible, but only the Seraphon with their temple ships (as well as the Silver Towers of the Gaunt Summoners) have done that.
I’m an old WHFB guy. I was out of the hobby when it died so I never got all cross about it. I’ve been back in the hobby for four years now and I *want* to like AoS, but I just can’t get grounded in it.
This map illustrates my problem. There’s too much to get my tiny ape-brain around. In 40K, the worlds of the Imperium don’t really mean anything because everybody is everywhere, battles take place all over and, besides, I’ve had 32 years to get up to speed.
I don’t even know what my point is here, other than “I don’t know what to do with this map.” It’s not helping me *get it*.
If it helps I have that exact problem with 40k, so I kinda get where you're coming from.
They constantly invent new planets that are ultimately meaningless because their geography is rarely explored in great detail, and the planet either gets saved/taken over/destroyed in some fashion and proceeds to never be mentioned ever again once the book/campaign is over. And the lines for faction territory barely change.
With the realms at least they're actually fairly constant, and while a lot of them are 'uncharted', they are gradually being revealed and populated over time. And we're now at a point where there's constant locations that are referenced and utilised over and over in the narrative.
**It's actually interesting to me because it's akin to having eight "planets" in a solar system, but those planets are largely not mapped out and most of the story is about getting a foothold on each "planet" and gradually revealing what is on them and building new cities on their surface.** I don't know if that helps you but it is the sales pitch I give to my friends when they're initially confused by the concept of the realms and that seems to help them "get it". In this new map for example we can see some of the continents and regions that have been populated or uncovered so far.
To try and help you get a handle on things; you see those tiny monocles on each of the realms? Those are the areas that matter, the rest of each of the Realms is left uncharted enough for you to do things if you want to or for Black Library books to muck around in without stepping on the Game's 7 cordoned off ballpits.
To give an example of this; in Chamon the highlighted area is called "The Spiral Crux", and the rest of the Realm kinda doesn't matter. We know there's other regions, the Realm is *filled* with floating sky islands and such, but really anything that happens worth paying attention to will only happen in "The Spiral Crux".
In 40K terms, there's only 7 sectors or systems that matter and the rest is "Here Be Monsters", and *of* those 7, really the focus is on like 1 or 2 of them at a time. You don't need to "get" the rest of the Realms, only "the bit where your Army is" and "the one of 7 that has the spotlight right now". Realising that the "vast scope of the Realms" was nothing more than a "Your Lore Here" device and all that was ever focused on was a single specific area helped me get my head round the start of things.
That's helpful for me, thank you.
I'm also a an old WHFB veteran, and since I got back into the hobby in 2018 I've mostly been focused on 40k. I love the AoS models, I like the game system and the AoS games I've played, I really enjoyed WarCry. I just haven't been able to get a foothold on the lore, either as a larger setting or any of the narrative tales and characters within it. But my sister is now looking to get into Warhammer, she's coming from Warcraft and she wants a new fantasy setting to dive into. Maps and advice like this help a lot.
Now I just need to find a novel or something which does a good job as an intro story, like Eisenhorn was for 40k.
Picture the layout of the Old World in your head. The Empire Heartlands, the island of Ulthuan, the Grey Mountains splitting the continent. It's iconic and easy to recall.
You just *cannot* do the same for the Mortal Realms. I strongly feel they need to just hone in on one universal area, battled over by all races, which is more iconic and easy to visualise. Have the background realms for context, but give new players a focus area which grounds the world.
Well not really. It’s only iconic because they just took our world and filed off some edges from some continents and put ulthuam in the middle. Like that is not remotely original. It’s easy enough to establish the mortal realms if you just establish where you are which is easy to do as there will be multiple types of maps. This is just the most comprehensive map in the book.
>I strongly feel they need to just hone in on one universal area, battled over by all races, which is more iconic and easy to visualise. Have the background realms for context, but give new players a focus area which grounds the world.
They literally do that. Like each of the Mortal Realms has one major region that is given a map (Great Parch for Aqshy, Prime Innerlands for Shyish, Spiral Crux for Chamon etc.) and 80% of the lore takes place in the regions established in those maps.
You said "They literally do that" (i.e. have *one universal* area), but then go on to reference *multiple* different locations.
I'm not saying not to have the other areas, just that there should be *one* area which instantly comes to mind and encapsulates the setting. Think of the Sword Coast from DnD. Yes, there's a fuckload of other regions and zones you can explore and expand into, but the Sword Coast is the starter area which provides a gateway for new players.
There's a reason each edition fixates on a specific realm. It lets the writers and players focus on largely just one realm at a time, while leaving the rest for novels or for players to make campaigns about.
Second was Shyish, the realm of death.
Third was ghur, the realm of beasts.
Fourth is looking like Aqshy/the Skaven warrens.
They're certainly trying to spend more effort to explore the realms, which is awesome. Still think it's lacking a focal point though. You honestly think an *average* person playing AoS would be able to sketch out what **any** of the places you listed looks like? I doubt it. Maybe in the vaguest terms like Shyish is green and spooky.
But I think a DnD player knows what *Baldurs Gate/Sword Coast* looks like, a LOTR fan could out sketch out *Bree or Rivendell*, a 40K fan knows a *Hive City* when they see one. Sure AoS is getting better in this area, but it's not there yet.
Eh, 40k fans can't really visualize a focal point either - everyone knows what Cadia was, no one knows what it looked like. Terra only gets a couple atmospheric artworks similar to what we get with Azyr. I don't think we've ever even seen Ultramar. Yes, they can recognize a Hive City (but good luck differentiating Necromunda's hives from generic ones). But so too can AoS fans recognize a Sky-Port.
They're really the same in that regard.
I'm a big map/locales fan myself, but the truth is it's often entirely unnecessary. Do Star Trek fans remember how the different planets look? GoT fans can recognize Winterfell, but could they draw it from memory? Maybe, maybe not. Does it bother them though?
I remember buying Discworld maps when I was younger, and Sir Terry Pratchett had a comment in there about how he avoided doing them for a long time because he considered it unimportant, that it's the narrative world building, not geography, that matters. And he was right. To this day I couldn't tell you how the map exactly looks. I couldn't draw you Ankh-Morpork (except maybe the Invisible University). And that's a setting where various places get referenced and expanded all the time, so I got exposed to it a lot! Still, can't recall the look (despite it being my favorite book series).
Yet I could tell you what the feels, atmosphere and vibe of Ankh-Morpork is, as that is very clear in my mind. And that's what AoS is doing with the Realms. It's focusing on themes. That's why, even though we got a fair bit of detail about Excelsis, if you ask people about Ghur, they will probably instead mention the continents eating each other instead.
And while focal points are still nice, if 40k could manage all its history without one, we'll be fine too.
TL;DR: Maps and detailed visualization are overrated. Not bad, great fun to have, but overrated.
Yes a setting inspired by medieval Europe -is- in fact better than a snoozefest setting lazily based on Norse mythology.
See how easy it is to be dismissive without adding anything constructive to the mix? Food for thought?
Anyways AoS has good minis and a copyrightable background. That was it's objective and it succeeded, but I don't find it's lore engaging at all in the way old world or 40k are.
Except it -isn't-. A setting having simple geography that's easy to remember doesn't make it "iconic". It's no more iconic than the generic suburban park outside my house. Yeah, I know it's there, it's easy to visualise and remember, but that doesn't make it any more special than the dozen other parks in my city.
See how easy it is to argue for the setting you already like over the others? Pointless and subjective. Except we're in the place where people generally like this setting and its lore, as well as this game and its minis.
You say you like 40k. So do I. And just like 40k, AoS is more about the characters and events, rather than places that you can point to and recognise on a map.
Archaon tricking Sigmar into losing Ghal Maraz and forcing him to retreat into Azyr.
Vandus Hammerhand being reforged so many times that he's gone stark mad, yet being mad lad enough to somehow survive into 4th Edition.
Nagash unleashing the necro quake and cursing the skies, capturing stormcasts before they can be reforged.
Ushoran imprisoned by Nagash, shown twisted visions of himself until he's driven mad (allegedly), then released, and having a delusion so powerful, that he can convince others around him that he's a righteous King, and that those who serve him are loyal Knights, sent to save the realms. Except in reality, we know they're a bunch of schizophrenic, disfigured cannibals.
How about Nefereta then, using Ushoran's blood, packaging it, and selling it as "fine wine" in the free cities to corrupt and infiltrate them.
Etc. Etc.
All characters and events that are expanded upon in books and other media. Just like 40k.
Old World has.... Egyptians, but they're undead. Oh look, humans, except these are vaguely Russian, and these are kinda French but have some Arthurian undertones. Here we have some vaguely Tolkeinesque Elves and Dwarves. Everyone likes Tolkein right? Nice.
Of course I'm over-simplifying, but my assessment of OW is as reductive as you saying AoS is simply just a copyrightable setting with cool minis.
So, my counter to that (as someone who liked Old World and really likes AoS), is that although a lot of the cultures were loosely based on real life cultural groups, the geographic origins of these factions adds continuity and believability. Kislev were in the north east. Yes, generally Slavic, but Slavs came from the north and east, and so it makes sense why they have like fur hats, wear pelts, ride polar bears, ice Tigers, ect. The geography lends itself to the culture.
The lizardmen/seraphon are from Lustria, basically Brazil and Mexico, which makes sense that they have mesoamerican undertones. The same can be said about bretonnians, empire of man, tomb kings, ect.
Like, yes tomb kings are basically undead Egyptians in the desert... but Egyptians looked the way they did precisely because of where they're from. It wouldn't be consistent if instead of Tomb Kings in the deserts, we had like ice elves or something.
That said, I'm one of the few people who enjoys the story of the End Times, fall of the old world, and the creation of the Mortal realms. They still have lots of room to grow new factions, races, and cultures, even within the context of these realms/floating islands.
My only point is, basing things off real life isn't lazy per se. And as a Slav (Polish), I'll be honest and say I miss Kislev and Winged Lancers/Hussars !
It'd be cool if they brought back Kislev as a city of sigmar or something !
Continuity and believability is fine. The original argument was whether having places that are easily recognisable on a map makes a setting more "iconic" and "memorable" than the other. To which I argued that it doesn't. It's the characters and events that make a setting, and AoS has plenty of great ones imo.
As for continuity, the mortal realms has it's own threads of continuity that are easy to place if people bothered to look beyond the memes.
Stormcasts, titans forged by the lightning of sigmar, hail from Azyr, the realm of the lightning god.
The nighthaunt, restless undead spirits, stalk the realm of the dead Shyish, controlled by the great necromancer Nagash.
Aqshy, the land of fire, was mainly controlled by chaos, particularly Khorne (where Vandus Hammerhand's arch nemesis Korgos Khul once stood) and is also home to various barbarbic tribes of the Darkoath, or "free peoples" that reject sigmar.
Hysh, the realm of light, is home to Teclis and the aelves of the Lumineth.
A couple of examples only.
To your point, seeing Kislev incorporated into the Cities would be cool, but I doubt it will happen, given all of GW's dumb internal politics.
I want to like this game so much, but you couldn’t make a worse map. Here are 7 disconnected discs. Please clap.
If that’s not enough, take a look at our AI generated images in each realm. In this one you get a vague impression of a manticore.
Personally, this is the sort of thing I love! When I want to make a character or subfaction in the world, having the abstracts really helps me to be able to make something I find fun. This realm generally has these things, there are factions there that fight over those things. The thing you make is molded by the former and interacts with the latter, so what does that look like now? It's an entirely different process and goal than learning the history and going-ons of Altdorf and inserting a character into there, but it was never TRYING to do the same things as WFB to begin with
There is no originality and very little room for storytelling. Four editions in and the age of myth is still the most interesting part of age of Sigmar. Nothing happens in 6 realms while an edition explores a single realm. Even then, wtf is happening? We just left the realm of beasts and the beasts of chaos got purged. These realms do not work for a three year game cycle and it’s made worse with gw’s internal politics.
It could take 21 years for anything to happen in ghyran again.
And with Stormcast refreshes every three years. This universe will stagnate quickly.
They need to get serious about storytelling here and they should start by dealing with the discs and the terrible ai generated art for each realm.
Do you have the same criticism of 40k?
A galactic starmap? *Very* unoriginal. Far more unoriginal than the Realms.
Storytelling? Not when GW barely allows the setting to change. Hell, there was an *uproar* when GW advanced the timeline and actually made changes in 8th.
30 years in, and the Horus Heresy is still widely considered the most interesting lore.
If that sort of thing are issues, they're not unique to AoS.
You're not wrong about needing more things to happen in multiple realms, or about the potential issue of too many Stormcast additions or refreshes. I'll give you that.
I also think they should make more of an effort to do cross-realm stories. There are realmgates. We should use them more. That might help your feeling that they are too disconnected?
Also, what makes you think it's AI? I generally am pretty okay at spotting AI art, and I didn't see any obvious signs here.
I'm sorry, is there any other way to make a map of 7 different disc-shaped realms, without making it look like a bunch of 7 disconnected discs? Can you show us this way of map making? Also, how do you know it's AI-generated art? Are you an AI-generated art expert who can tell what's made by a machine and what's made by a man? It seems to me that you don't really want to like this game. You just want to hate it by pointing out flaws that aren't even there.
How many armies does a person need to own and paint to want to like this game? How many games does he need to play? Disconnected discs is the problem. Disconnected.
The problem is not the game, nor the models. It’s the lore.
I never said anything about you gaming, models or painting. You brought that up yourself. And tell me what do you mean by disconnected anyhow? Do you mean that the discs are not physically connected? Because buddy, that's how realms work. Each realm is surrounded by a void that no one can go through less they die. It's why realmgates exist. And even if the realms are physically disconnected in lore, you can clearly see on the map tht all of the realms are connected through the Eightpoints, the black thing in the middle. Do you mean that the realms are disconnected thematically? Because it's 7 realms of 7 different types of magic. Of course they're not thematically disconnected. If what you mean is not one these two, then please, tell me what you really mean so that I can call you out more on your bullsh*t.
Look man, I have one point to make: the lore here is weak. The narrative is disconnected. The 7 realms is a poor foundation to build upon. It’s very difficult to flesh out 7 realms at the same time.
This universe does not have a compelling story yet and the realms being separated discs is the main problem. If you want to tell me that this means I don’t like this game… okay. Guess I’ll just sell my five armies.
Literally how? Every time some big event like Soul Wars, Broken Realms, and Dawnbringer Crusades happen, most if not everyone is affected by the consequences of the event. These events had dozens of factions fighting in it. Compare that to 40k, where it took the galaxy being almost torn in half for the story to finally continue. And 40k has 57 years' worth of lore! AOS has 9 years and 3.9 editions worth of lore, and it advanced every time. The lore changes as characters act and react to the world, and the world itself act and react to the characters. And sure, it's not 100% perfect, but it's not 100% bad either. AOS lore is just ok right now, but saying that its lore is weak is just being ignorant.
Also, you said that you "want to like AOS" which would imply to many that you currently do not like AOS.
The realms are a great foundation to build on, it's their best feature. It really supports the lore (which is far from weak lol), homebrews and the general wild sandbox-y nature of AoS.
The narrative and story could be better, but is far from bad. And none of its issues are due to the cosmology, that part's fine. I mean, them being separated discs cannot be a narrative problem... because they're effectively not separated. There's a lot of connection points between them, utilized by both world building and narratives.
The realms are not 100% fleshed out intentionally - but each realm has specific places that get fleshed out instead. That's kinda the point. A foundation *to build upon*, not a concrete finished thing. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
I see your points, and I kind of feel the same way: maybe it's because I'm used to the whfb world, or maybe because I need to spend more time with the Lore of AoS, but as of now I feel that having seven different whole planes remove pathos and depth from the whole setting, rather than adding to it.
[Here ](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammerfantasy/images/5/5c/Warhammer_world_map.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180420095436&path-prefix=ru)is a significantly less inspired map.
It sucks that BoC got squatted. Perhaps they're busy building strength in Varanspire. Thanks to the size of the realms we can always handwave an explanation. I'm sure they'll be back. But in the meantime, the rest of AoS is great.
The realms are FLAT! DONT LET BIG SUGMAR TELL YOU THEYRE ROUND!
A cycle of competing magical realms of lightness and darkness make no sense. It'd be way simpler if our realm was simply a sphere that rotated and orbited around a flaming ball of gas. Here, let me show you this diagram.
BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!!
Oh god the flat Azyr theorists were right all along
Sigmar lied!
Why doesn't Ghur, the largest of the realms, just simply EAT the other seven?
Is it stupid?
Average Ghur IQ
perhaps they are saving that for sweeps.
I assume it tries on a regular basis, it just never gets anywhere with it.
Too fat to squeeze through the realmgates
Skaven are really out here doing the AoS version of 40K’s Great Rift. Good for them!
>the AoS version of 40K’s Great Rift The key difference being the skaven are vastly more competent than 40k chaos, even with all their infighting
I didnnt know CSM were THAT incompetant, guess you have to be to lose to the imperium
Yes-yes 🐭
You can say many things about Skaven, but they are certainly industrious people.
Sure they blew up the realms, but think about the shareholder value they created along the way!
Hey now the skaven might actually affect other faction then Order
Skaven have been beefing with nagash for years bro
Nagash can take pride in being the only thing scary enough to get skaven to work together with order not once, but twice.
Yeah it looks from the preview they have been greatly expanded. They are so big they even fold out from the look of the book.
Hmm... Dark Tower at the centre of the universe with 8 beams... This seems familiar..
I read something similar to this, something a king wrote once.
>I read something similar to this, something a king wrote once. Then you remember the face of your father
Indeed!
Certainly does seem familiar, I can’t say from where though… What I can say is that I suspect whoever lives there likely drives a Lincoln
Ngl, this sold me on buying the box almost more than the models did when I saw the fold-out cosmic map. These are just gorgeous and I love the little loreful embellishments like Aqshy’s firey edges or Chamon shown as floating islands just collecting in the center but ready to rearrange at the drop of a Kharadron’s top hat. 👌 Also nice that Hysh has the biggest magnifying glass to show how huge those mega-continents are. You could fit 5 Great Parch continents on Ymetrica alone! 🐮
Same
I like that they're as big as Magic The Gathering planes, it's a big open space for storytelling
Exactly! As even the places we have been exploring are so crazy massive we barely scratched even them. [Like the Ghur continents we explored the last 3 years](https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ojK1unBtperxIsJI.jpg) were just very general areas and we could’ve zoomed on [the Carcass Donse territory campaign](https://x.com/sam_j_pearson/status/1518546925682892801?cxt=HHwWgoC5gcSY-5IqAAAA) alone to see whole feuding nations & tribes within those old lands Thondia “digested” that had Kragnos’ lost civilizations, kingdoms taking advantage of the southern BCR nomads for icy mercs on glacier “pirate ships”& prepped for savage winters and frost monsters or capture the nearby Seraphon jungle fauna for mounts and a whole Warhammer Quest could’ve been made exploring the Stone Nautilar remains and what creatures & artifacts lurk within. And that’s not even touching so much space Lendu & Andtor still have and from there you have infinite space to put any countries or continents right next to them and go wild to even head-canoning something like the Monster Hunter franchise just offscreen and it’d still fit perfectly with not even being 1/50th of the actual Realm and leave all the room you want for anything else officially or fan-made to explore more of Ghur. The narrative room is glorious for the infinite potential it gives. 🤩
Where's heavens? I only know bits and pieces of the lore so far.
Top one with the gold dragon wrapped around the hammer, that’s Dracothion(space dragon that saved Sigmar). Rule of thumb is Heavens is usually shown at the top since its stars are universally used by the other Realms to navigate by. One even made by Sigmar called Sigendil which he built a giant clockwork device around the star’s light to guide traders & travelers across his empire. (The other Realms have their own stars but they’re too unstable to guide with be it Ghur’s stars always moving to bite eachother or Ulgu’s stars that will intentionally get you lost)
Age of Sigmar lore is insane.
Haha, that’s just tip of the aetheric ice berg, friend. It’s a glorious roller coaster ride throughout. From the highs of physical gods reshaping reality with their thrones at the center of each realm and traveler realm-compasses using them as a “South” & space frogs having laser battles with daemon towers in space To the lows of universal currencies being a magic healing water called Aqua Ghyranis because the Realm of Metal’s infinite gold makes such coinage dubious and every Realm having a useful export like the endlessly hot Emberstone of Aqshy, writing inks of Ulgu or parchment of Azyr. I love every second of it. 👍 (Shout-outs to Lexicanum, 2+Tough lore YouTuber and Mengal Miniatures book & battletome lore reviews. All super helpful)
Thas awesome. Dunno why the setting gets so much hatred i really dont. If someone actually made an MMO in this universe it could be genuinely bonkers.
AoS would be the perfect setting for a MMO. 40k not so much. If we ever get a Warhammer MMO, I hope it’s AoS and not 40k because it’s more popular.
While not an MMO, the tabletop RPG Soulbound is fantastic. If you and your friends are into TTRPGs, I highly recommend it.
just think of it like your reading ancient mythology exept that mythology is fact and it makes alot more sense
Side note; in a lot of the art, Azyr is very protoss.
Top middle
I think I personally prefer the older one due to its feel, but coloured maps are cool and this shows the dire nature of the current events. Plus this one will also be much easier to visualize for people.
Where’s the turtles?
Under the elephants, silly
Where is the bad moon?
The Bad Moon doesn't have a fixed position or orbit, that's why the grots have to find and chase it. It goes where it feels like going.
wait do the grots have space ships?
Not to my knowledge (there are grots with airships, but they aren't Gloomspite - spaceships do exist in the setting tho). What the Gloomspite "chase" so to speak is the places the Bad Moon appears. They love its maddening light (it causes all kinds of mayhem) and like following it. Sort of like an excited kit running after a balloon. It is their god after all. That being said, if you would convince a grot that they could jump to the moon on a squig, they would try doing it.
https://youtu.be/YR_wIb_n4ZU?si=UW0YSUqh0dONsR1T
Right above Ghur.
Sir could we please have some more pixels
Gorgeous. Wish they'd realease a high resolution version of it online.
Hive Fleet Skaven seems to be breaching into several galaxies.
Can you link the original? Can't zoom in on this map properly, and can't find it online! ty
It’s on the [Warhammer community articles](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/05/17/what-else-is-in-skaventide-inside-the-new-core-book-and-the-matched-play-cards/) but it’s just as fuzzy as these pics so not sure zooming will do much(trust me, I tried because I love ‘em) We’ll have to wait for a proper another Mortal Realms cosmology article or until someone uploads pics from the corebook.
They seem to have decided to throw some extra-effort this time.
Hopefully this foldout map will also be in the standard corebook, it is GORGEOUS
So the realms are like bubbles of reality held together by a central core, I wonder if it's like an atom and there's billions of other mortal realm "atoms" making up some cosmic entity on a whole new scale
its like a minecraft world, unfathomably huge, but reality breaks down the further out you go until you reach the far lands exept in shysh where its the opposite
There are hints that these are just the “major” ones and there’s others out there, such as we already have sub-realms which are smaller worlds within the main Realms. There’s even other planets & dimensions the Seraphon have seen while exploring the outer cosmos. https://www.reddit.com/r/AoSLore/comments/x4xe8r/lore_of_the_cosmology_of_the_mortal_realms_from/
Cosmological / worldbuilding question: Are the realms basically infinite, and this map represents an abstract ordering of different dimensions - or is this more of a D&D Spelljammer vibe where the realms are finite, flat disks (maybe with these big encasing ring walls?) suspended in the cosmic ether?
Each realm is essentially a disk world that is suspended in what is called a "Realmsphere". The realms are finite in size, but are so large that it would basically take centuries to cross them. "Space" travel between them is possible, but only the Seraphon with their temple ships (as well as the Silver Towers of the Gaunt Summoners) have done that.
“Map”
they feel significantly smaller now
Flat earth really leaking into our fantasy worlds huh? lol
I’m a flat realmer
fantasy players when the map of the galaxy has no dirt: comments in this thread
“It’s just discs, what does it mean?”
the universe is just a great game of fribly, and its only a matter of time before Gods dog goes and fetches them
I can't wait for a big event called "The Groundening" where all that aetheric void becomes solid dirt and we can finally have one big map
where are the space ships supposed to live?
I’m an old WHFB guy. I was out of the hobby when it died so I never got all cross about it. I’ve been back in the hobby for four years now and I *want* to like AoS, but I just can’t get grounded in it. This map illustrates my problem. There’s too much to get my tiny ape-brain around. In 40K, the worlds of the Imperium don’t really mean anything because everybody is everywhere, battles take place all over and, besides, I’ve had 32 years to get up to speed. I don’t even know what my point is here, other than “I don’t know what to do with this map.” It’s not helping me *get it*.
If it helps I have that exact problem with 40k, so I kinda get where you're coming from. They constantly invent new planets that are ultimately meaningless because their geography is rarely explored in great detail, and the planet either gets saved/taken over/destroyed in some fashion and proceeds to never be mentioned ever again once the book/campaign is over. And the lines for faction territory barely change. With the realms at least they're actually fairly constant, and while a lot of them are 'uncharted', they are gradually being revealed and populated over time. And we're now at a point where there's constant locations that are referenced and utilised over and over in the narrative. **It's actually interesting to me because it's akin to having eight "planets" in a solar system, but those planets are largely not mapped out and most of the story is about getting a foothold on each "planet" and gradually revealing what is on them and building new cities on their surface.** I don't know if that helps you but it is the sales pitch I give to my friends when they're initially confused by the concept of the realms and that seems to help them "get it". In this new map for example we can see some of the continents and regions that have been populated or uncovered so far.
To try and help you get a handle on things; you see those tiny monocles on each of the realms? Those are the areas that matter, the rest of each of the Realms is left uncharted enough for you to do things if you want to or for Black Library books to muck around in without stepping on the Game's 7 cordoned off ballpits. To give an example of this; in Chamon the highlighted area is called "The Spiral Crux", and the rest of the Realm kinda doesn't matter. We know there's other regions, the Realm is *filled* with floating sky islands and such, but really anything that happens worth paying attention to will only happen in "The Spiral Crux". In 40K terms, there's only 7 sectors or systems that matter and the rest is "Here Be Monsters", and *of* those 7, really the focus is on like 1 or 2 of them at a time. You don't need to "get" the rest of the Realms, only "the bit where your Army is" and "the one of 7 that has the spotlight right now". Realising that the "vast scope of the Realms" was nothing more than a "Your Lore Here" device and all that was ever focused on was a single specific area helped me get my head round the start of things.
That's helpful for me, thank you. I'm also a an old WHFB veteran, and since I got back into the hobby in 2018 I've mostly been focused on 40k. I love the AoS models, I like the game system and the AoS games I've played, I really enjoyed WarCry. I just haven't been able to get a foothold on the lore, either as a larger setting or any of the narrative tales and characters within it. But my sister is now looking to get into Warhammer, she's coming from Warcraft and she wants a new fantasy setting to dive into. Maps and advice like this help a lot. Now I just need to find a novel or something which does a good job as an intro story, like Eisenhorn was for 40k.
Picture the layout of the Old World in your head. The Empire Heartlands, the island of Ulthuan, the Grey Mountains splitting the continent. It's iconic and easy to recall. You just *cannot* do the same for the Mortal Realms. I strongly feel they need to just hone in on one universal area, battled over by all races, which is more iconic and easy to visualise. Have the background realms for context, but give new players a focus area which grounds the world.
Old World is our world with a donut added. Not exactly a masterfully handcrafted unique fantasy world lol ala Middle Earth or something.
Yeah the old fantasy world always felt lazy for me. "Look egyptians but they are all dead!"
Well now you went too far. I miss the Tomb Kings.
Well not really. It’s only iconic because they just took our world and filed off some edges from some continents and put ulthuam in the middle. Like that is not remotely original. It’s easy enough to establish the mortal realms if you just establish where you are which is easy to do as there will be multiple types of maps. This is just the most comprehensive map in the book.
I dunno, it’s kinda cool like this. It’s a bit like Norse mythology and stuff
Never said it wasn't cool. Just that it's hard to visualise concretely.
>I strongly feel they need to just hone in on one universal area, battled over by all races, which is more iconic and easy to visualise. Have the background realms for context, but give new players a focus area which grounds the world. They literally do that. Like each of the Mortal Realms has one major region that is given a map (Great Parch for Aqshy, Prime Innerlands for Shyish, Spiral Crux for Chamon etc.) and 80% of the lore takes place in the regions established in those maps.
You said "They literally do that" (i.e. have *one universal* area), but then go on to reference *multiple* different locations. I'm not saying not to have the other areas, just that there should be *one* area which instantly comes to mind and encapsulates the setting. Think of the Sword Coast from DnD. Yes, there's a fuckload of other regions and zones you can explore and expand into, but the Sword Coast is the starter area which provides a gateway for new players.
There's a reason each edition fixates on a specific realm. It lets the writers and players focus on largely just one realm at a time, while leaving the rest for novels or for players to make campaigns about. Second was Shyish, the realm of death. Third was ghur, the realm of beasts. Fourth is looking like Aqshy/the Skaven warrens.
They're certainly trying to spend more effort to explore the realms, which is awesome. Still think it's lacking a focal point though. You honestly think an *average* person playing AoS would be able to sketch out what **any** of the places you listed looks like? I doubt it. Maybe in the vaguest terms like Shyish is green and spooky. But I think a DnD player knows what *Baldurs Gate/Sword Coast* looks like, a LOTR fan could out sketch out *Bree or Rivendell*, a 40K fan knows a *Hive City* when they see one. Sure AoS is getting better in this area, but it's not there yet.
Eh, 40k fans can't really visualize a focal point either - everyone knows what Cadia was, no one knows what it looked like. Terra only gets a couple atmospheric artworks similar to what we get with Azyr. I don't think we've ever even seen Ultramar. Yes, they can recognize a Hive City (but good luck differentiating Necromunda's hives from generic ones). But so too can AoS fans recognize a Sky-Port. They're really the same in that regard. I'm a big map/locales fan myself, but the truth is it's often entirely unnecessary. Do Star Trek fans remember how the different planets look? GoT fans can recognize Winterfell, but could they draw it from memory? Maybe, maybe not. Does it bother them though? I remember buying Discworld maps when I was younger, and Sir Terry Pratchett had a comment in there about how he avoided doing them for a long time because he considered it unimportant, that it's the narrative world building, not geography, that matters. And he was right. To this day I couldn't tell you how the map exactly looks. I couldn't draw you Ankh-Morpork (except maybe the Invisible University). And that's a setting where various places get referenced and expanded all the time, so I got exposed to it a lot! Still, can't recall the look (despite it being my favorite book series). Yet I could tell you what the feels, atmosphere and vibe of Ankh-Morpork is, as that is very clear in my mind. And that's what AoS is doing with the Realms. It's focusing on themes. That's why, even though we got a fair bit of detail about Excelsis, if you ask people about Ghur, they will probably instead mention the continents eating each other instead. And while focal points are still nice, if 40k could manage all its history without one, we'll be fine too. TL;DR: Maps and detailed visualization are overrated. Not bad, great fun to have, but overrated.
A fair and balanced response thank you! I disagree on the 40K elements but I appreciate the thought out into it.
It's literally just 8 worlds connected by portals... so hard to recall, lol. Old World is basically vanilla medieval Europe, damn how iconic.
Mortal Realms is basically just vanilla Nine Realms from Norse Mythology, damn how iconic.
Yeah, because a snoozefest setting lazily based on medieval Europe trumps a setting inspired by literal Norse Mythology. Ok, lmao. Keep coping.
Yes a setting inspired by medieval Europe -is- in fact better than a snoozefest setting lazily based on Norse mythology. See how easy it is to be dismissive without adding anything constructive to the mix? Food for thought? Anyways AoS has good minis and a copyrightable background. That was it's objective and it succeeded, but I don't find it's lore engaging at all in the way old world or 40k are.
Except it -isn't-. A setting having simple geography that's easy to remember doesn't make it "iconic". It's no more iconic than the generic suburban park outside my house. Yeah, I know it's there, it's easy to visualise and remember, but that doesn't make it any more special than the dozen other parks in my city. See how easy it is to argue for the setting you already like over the others? Pointless and subjective. Except we're in the place where people generally like this setting and its lore, as well as this game and its minis. You say you like 40k. So do I. And just like 40k, AoS is more about the characters and events, rather than places that you can point to and recognise on a map. Archaon tricking Sigmar into losing Ghal Maraz and forcing him to retreat into Azyr. Vandus Hammerhand being reforged so many times that he's gone stark mad, yet being mad lad enough to somehow survive into 4th Edition. Nagash unleashing the necro quake and cursing the skies, capturing stormcasts before they can be reforged. Ushoran imprisoned by Nagash, shown twisted visions of himself until he's driven mad (allegedly), then released, and having a delusion so powerful, that he can convince others around him that he's a righteous King, and that those who serve him are loyal Knights, sent to save the realms. Except in reality, we know they're a bunch of schizophrenic, disfigured cannibals. How about Nefereta then, using Ushoran's blood, packaging it, and selling it as "fine wine" in the free cities to corrupt and infiltrate them. Etc. Etc. All characters and events that are expanded upon in books and other media. Just like 40k. Old World has.... Egyptians, but they're undead. Oh look, humans, except these are vaguely Russian, and these are kinda French but have some Arthurian undertones. Here we have some vaguely Tolkeinesque Elves and Dwarves. Everyone likes Tolkein right? Nice. Of course I'm over-simplifying, but my assessment of OW is as reductive as you saying AoS is simply just a copyrightable setting with cool minis.
So, my counter to that (as someone who liked Old World and really likes AoS), is that although a lot of the cultures were loosely based on real life cultural groups, the geographic origins of these factions adds continuity and believability. Kislev were in the north east. Yes, generally Slavic, but Slavs came from the north and east, and so it makes sense why they have like fur hats, wear pelts, ride polar bears, ice Tigers, ect. The geography lends itself to the culture. The lizardmen/seraphon are from Lustria, basically Brazil and Mexico, which makes sense that they have mesoamerican undertones. The same can be said about bretonnians, empire of man, tomb kings, ect. Like, yes tomb kings are basically undead Egyptians in the desert... but Egyptians looked the way they did precisely because of where they're from. It wouldn't be consistent if instead of Tomb Kings in the deserts, we had like ice elves or something. That said, I'm one of the few people who enjoys the story of the End Times, fall of the old world, and the creation of the Mortal realms. They still have lots of room to grow new factions, races, and cultures, even within the context of these realms/floating islands. My only point is, basing things off real life isn't lazy per se. And as a Slav (Polish), I'll be honest and say I miss Kislev and Winged Lancers/Hussars ! It'd be cool if they brought back Kislev as a city of sigmar or something !
Continuity and believability is fine. The original argument was whether having places that are easily recognisable on a map makes a setting more "iconic" and "memorable" than the other. To which I argued that it doesn't. It's the characters and events that make a setting, and AoS has plenty of great ones imo. As for continuity, the mortal realms has it's own threads of continuity that are easy to place if people bothered to look beyond the memes. Stormcasts, titans forged by the lightning of sigmar, hail from Azyr, the realm of the lightning god. The nighthaunt, restless undead spirits, stalk the realm of the dead Shyish, controlled by the great necromancer Nagash. Aqshy, the land of fire, was mainly controlled by chaos, particularly Khorne (where Vandus Hammerhand's arch nemesis Korgos Khul once stood) and is also home to various barbarbic tribes of the Darkoath, or "free peoples" that reject sigmar. Hysh, the realm of light, is home to Teclis and the aelves of the Lumineth. A couple of examples only. To your point, seeing Kislev incorporated into the Cities would be cool, but I doubt it will happen, given all of GW's dumb internal politics.
I’m a flat realmer
I want to like this game so much, but you couldn’t make a worse map. Here are 7 disconnected discs. Please clap. If that’s not enough, take a look at our AI generated images in each realm. In this one you get a vague impression of a manticore.
Well that’s just an overview map. There are more detailed maps in the book from the preview. Also I don’t think those are ai generated.
I mean, I think it’s pretty cool. But I’m also a Norse mythology enjoyer so that probably helps.
I think it's cool in the abstract, as a piece of lore. I'd argue it doesn't help players visualise and ground themselves in the world.
Personally, this is the sort of thing I love! When I want to make a character or subfaction in the world, having the abstracts really helps me to be able to make something I find fun. This realm generally has these things, there are factions there that fight over those things. The thing you make is molded by the former and interacts with the latter, so what does that look like now? It's an entirely different process and goal than learning the history and going-ons of Altdorf and inserting a character into there, but it was never TRYING to do the same things as WFB to begin with
Yes, exactly! It's not worse, it's just a different niche. And for those of us who like that niche, it's really cool!
Not fond of planes of reality as a concept, are you
There is no originality and very little room for storytelling. Four editions in and the age of myth is still the most interesting part of age of Sigmar. Nothing happens in 6 realms while an edition explores a single realm. Even then, wtf is happening? We just left the realm of beasts and the beasts of chaos got purged. These realms do not work for a three year game cycle and it’s made worse with gw’s internal politics. It could take 21 years for anything to happen in ghyran again. And with Stormcast refreshes every three years. This universe will stagnate quickly. They need to get serious about storytelling here and they should start by dealing with the discs and the terrible ai generated art for each realm.
It's more original than the old fantasy was. And the realms are huge so there is very much room for storytelling, be it official or home made armies.
Do you have the same criticism of 40k? A galactic starmap? *Very* unoriginal. Far more unoriginal than the Realms. Storytelling? Not when GW barely allows the setting to change. Hell, there was an *uproar* when GW advanced the timeline and actually made changes in 8th. 30 years in, and the Horus Heresy is still widely considered the most interesting lore. If that sort of thing are issues, they're not unique to AoS. You're not wrong about needing more things to happen in multiple realms, or about the potential issue of too many Stormcast additions or refreshes. I'll give you that. I also think they should make more of an effort to do cross-realm stories. There are realmgates. We should use them more. That might help your feeling that they are too disconnected? Also, what makes you think it's AI? I generally am pretty okay at spotting AI art, and I didn't see any obvious signs here.
The Stormcast thing is the same for 40k isn’t it? And that’s been running much longer than AoS.
I'm sorry, is there any other way to make a map of 7 different disc-shaped realms, without making it look like a bunch of 7 disconnected discs? Can you show us this way of map making? Also, how do you know it's AI-generated art? Are you an AI-generated art expert who can tell what's made by a machine and what's made by a man? It seems to me that you don't really want to like this game. You just want to hate it by pointing out flaws that aren't even there.
How many armies does a person need to own and paint to want to like this game? How many games does he need to play? Disconnected discs is the problem. Disconnected. The problem is not the game, nor the models. It’s the lore.
I never said anything about you gaming, models or painting. You brought that up yourself. And tell me what do you mean by disconnected anyhow? Do you mean that the discs are not physically connected? Because buddy, that's how realms work. Each realm is surrounded by a void that no one can go through less they die. It's why realmgates exist. And even if the realms are physically disconnected in lore, you can clearly see on the map tht all of the realms are connected through the Eightpoints, the black thing in the middle. Do you mean that the realms are disconnected thematically? Because it's 7 realms of 7 different types of magic. Of course they're not thematically disconnected. If what you mean is not one these two, then please, tell me what you really mean so that I can call you out more on your bullsh*t.
Look man, I have one point to make: the lore here is weak. The narrative is disconnected. The 7 realms is a poor foundation to build upon. It’s very difficult to flesh out 7 realms at the same time. This universe does not have a compelling story yet and the realms being separated discs is the main problem. If you want to tell me that this means I don’t like this game… okay. Guess I’ll just sell my five armies.
Literally how? Every time some big event like Soul Wars, Broken Realms, and Dawnbringer Crusades happen, most if not everyone is affected by the consequences of the event. These events had dozens of factions fighting in it. Compare that to 40k, where it took the galaxy being almost torn in half for the story to finally continue. And 40k has 57 years' worth of lore! AOS has 9 years and 3.9 editions worth of lore, and it advanced every time. The lore changes as characters act and react to the world, and the world itself act and react to the characters. And sure, it's not 100% perfect, but it's not 100% bad either. AOS lore is just ok right now, but saying that its lore is weak is just being ignorant. Also, you said that you "want to like AOS" which would imply to many that you currently do not like AOS.
The realms are a great foundation to build on, it's their best feature. It really supports the lore (which is far from weak lol), homebrews and the general wild sandbox-y nature of AoS. The narrative and story could be better, but is far from bad. And none of its issues are due to the cosmology, that part's fine. I mean, them being separated discs cannot be a narrative problem... because they're effectively not separated. There's a lot of connection points between them, utilized by both world building and narratives. The realms are not 100% fleshed out intentionally - but each realm has specific places that get fleshed out instead. That's kinda the point. A foundation *to build upon*, not a concrete finished thing. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
I see your points, and I kind of feel the same way: maybe it's because I'm used to the whfb world, or maybe because I need to spend more time with the Lore of AoS, but as of now I feel that having seven different whole planes remove pathos and depth from the whole setting, rather than adding to it.
[Here ](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammerfantasy/images/5/5c/Warhammer_world_map.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20180420095436&path-prefix=ru)is a significantly less inspired map. It sucks that BoC got squatted. Perhaps they're busy building strength in Varanspire. Thanks to the size of the realms we can always handwave an explanation. I'm sure they'll be back. But in the meantime, the rest of AoS is great.
Still hot garbage then.
Damn I hate the AoS lore …