A disappointing conclusion to the Chaos Wastes expansion

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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First of all, I’ve found this mode to be really enjoyable and surprisingly well done.
It’s not something I needed, but I can see myself playing this for a time - although I’m not sure for how long.
I also loved the bits of story dialogues in it - although few and far between, but as usual, I’m pretty sure we’ll get additions overtime.
But, there’s a major disappointment, and that’s the conclusion: or rather, there’s a definite lack of one. After all the hype and hopes and self doubt (Is Saltzpyre falling into heresy? Are we playing into the Chaos Gods’ hands? Are we running out of ale?) we do another - longer, tougher - last stand, and then what?
We have no bloody idea. I was pretty psyched to find out - during the exploration of the Citadel, Kerillian commented “this will end badly, mark my words” skyrocketing my expectation for a great ending. But there’s no story there, just a challenge like the 3 ones before that :frowning:
I’m really let down by this, to the point where the last arena was the worst part of the expansion for me, so I have to ask. Is there more to come?
And why not now?
When I asked a similar question for the weaves, the dev answer was “it’s a work in progress, you haven’t finished putting the fractured winds back together” which I can see it’s a valid answer for a neverending mode. But the Citadel should have been the end of it, presumably, and even if all our efforts were for naught, we should have had our heroes comment upon it.

So, for the vermintide story junkies, when can we expect a conclusion, or an answer (or just an idea about what happened there?)

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Yea, that was something which passed my mind too. This whole “Contacting the gods in enemy land” seems somehow fishy. Maybe Tzeentch is truly tricking us in freeing something vile.

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Unless we are actually trying to contact the ancient Chaos God of Law:

Alluminas is the master of light, an everlasting and unchanging source of pure light, which is said to render unmoving and changeless anything it illuminates.

Or

Arianka was defeated and imprisoned by an unnamed Chaos God in the distant past. It is said she lies in a crystal coffin somewhere in the Old World. The location is unknown, but the most recent rumour has placed it within the city of Praag.

Both are in a Stasis/Eternal Slumber and have been defeated by the CG and stopped (Sadly it isn’t canon anymore)

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As my only source of Lore is whatever i can find in the wikis, I assume that you are better informed in general. Why are the non-canon? It seems they have been rarely mentioned outside of the original first edition and some bits in the fourth edition. But I couldn’t find a source which outright said they are not thing in Warhammer Fantasy. They just aren’t utilized by not contradicting any later Lore.

I ask because this gives room for a very interesting theory, namely that indeed one or even all of the Gods of Law are prisoned within the Citadel of Eternity. What we know is that something (with a very harsh voice) is testing us and wants us to prove our worth in the Arenas.

Regarding this, we can go through some quotes and informations which would play into such a scenario:

Quote Audio
B: Never did find out what created these Chaos Wastes.
K: The gods warred, and their loss became ours.
V: A likely story… some folk will believe anything.

Source: Character Conversations - Vermintide 2 Wiki (fandom.com)

One theory is that the Wastes came from a war of gods and lore establishes that at least some of the Gods of Law (Arianka: Arianka | Warhammer Wiki | Fandom) lost to Chaos Gods in the past. So maybe the north was the battlefield of the Gods of Chaos and Law.

Next up is the whole stuff with Victor. As a small pre-word, the philosophy of the Gods of Law is rather extrems so that it doesn’t sit well with most people in the Old World ( Gods of Law | Warhammer Wiki | Fandom). The german Lexikanum entry outright says that their victory would be as fatal as the victory of Chaos.

So Victor says in the CW trailer that all his life he heard whispers … a place were righteous gods … But who is it whispering to him? Is it Arianka the imprisoned? Maybe. Or it is Solkan ( Solkan | Warhammer Wiki | Fandom) the god of Law and Light which is worshipped by many Witch Hunters.
So why is Solkan (?) sending us on the different expeditions? Maybe to free Arianka ( Arianka | Warhammer Wiki | Fandom)which is trapped in a supposed Crystal Coffin. And supposedly:

“It is also said that she can be freed from her coffin only by means of some crystal keys, whose location has never been found; it is not even known how many keys there are and whether they are hidden together or separately.”

So maybe the keys are not some crystal keys but Sacred Scrolls which we have to find in the different arenas. But yea, this part is generally a stretch because the existing lore would have to be taken metaphorically because keys = scrolls and coffin = citadel. Also rumour says she lies within the city of Praag.

Last bit of information is another dialogue from Saltzpyre. As mentioned earlier a victory of the Gods of Law could be equally fatal. Some might even say it would be just another form of evil. So to the dialogue:

V: These dreams. This black future of which you speak.
K: Aye, what of it?
V: Are they real, or another of your… amusements?
K: Would I lie about something like that?
V: That is the very question I wish answered.
K: I don’t know. Sometimes dreams are dreams. Sometimes they’re not. Why does it matter?
V: Because I have seen something all too similar. I was trapped in a battle between two evils, and I… glimpsed something.
K: Well, what kind of something?
V: That is the question. Is it not? Perhaps it was nothing at all.
Source: Character Conversations - Vermintide 2 Wiki (fandom.com)

So maybe by freeing one of the Gods of Law Saltzpyre will become trapped in a battle of the Gods of Chaos and Law where a victory of both sides would be problematic for the world. It would at least with the general mood that something very fishy is going on with these expeditions (what could possibly go wrong?)

This could be stretched even further by saying that the only reason Holseher survived was because he was a Champion of the Gods of Law with the mission to create a map towards their prison.

Well, it is a kinda unlikely long-shot considering the boon implication that we are indeed supported by all kinds of gods up there. It would also kinda go against the current estimation that some of the next premium careers are related to the result of the expeditions (at least directly, still an indirect influence may be possible). Also, the freeing of a God averse to Chaos would have enough impact that it couldn’t be ignored any longer in the grand scheme of the Endtimes. But I think it is a fun theory.

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It’s less than they were taken out and more than the Order side of Chaos went the same way Malal did, they aren’t important/used in many setting apart from WFRPG 1 and 4 (TT had a named Character that was a follower of a Law God, and there are mention in one of the ET book but it didn’t amount to anything).

At the time it was presumed that “Ice Magic” which is similar to the Lore of Athel Loren (Wind created from ancient Lay line but instead of being made of tree it would crystal/ice that generate a matrices with Praag (Where the best Ice Wizard reside)

I’ll try to fish out a old version of the WFRPG E1 to see what they say about them

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The ending was very anticlimactic and disappointing.

All we got was a single line from whoever touches the altar, then fade to the score/reward screen, no cutscene or debriefing, just the same old, same old.
Like, I know this DLC was free, but Fatshark, you need to learn to go all the way through, not end it right before the climax.

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This note in the latest patch:

Chaos Wastes - Sorcerors will no longer spawn in Khorne arena events

makes me think that what we really accomplished in the Citadel of Eternity is having entertained the Dark Brothers. It’s not like it wasn’t suggested in the lore already:

This ancient ruin appears only in a handful of texts fervently suppressed by Saltzpyre’s fellow witch hunters. As stories have it, the Citadel of Eternity is a stronghold deep in the Chaos Wastes, where mortals can seek favour of their gods.
Naturally the Templars of Sigmar have long been dubious of such claims. Or rather, have clung to a narrow view of them. The Chaos Wastes are already thick with outcasts, barbarians and heretics who seek the blessings of the gods – specifically the Dark Gods of Chaos: Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh. But with days growing ever more dire, Saltzpyre took a leap of faith, cleaving to the possibility that haler gods too could be courted, should the petitioner prove his worth.

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More importantly, how will Victor repay Kruber for his letter to the WHG? :smiley:

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That letter and the answer to it are interesting anyway. Like:

  • Why has Kruber (or Bardin) written it in the first place?
  • What was it about?
  • When it was about Saltzpyre’s plans to travel to the Chaos Wastes then why did the WHG only say that he will follow Saltzpyre’s career with interest instead of hunting him down instantly?

There are a lot of assumptions. But if the WHG really knows about the expedition but doesn’t act out against it then it would speak for something being in the Wastes not related to the Chaos Gods. The WHG leaves this options open which would circle me back once again to the Gods of Law of which one is imprisoned (Arianka) and the other is prayed to by several Witch Hunters (Solkan). It would also fit with:

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Let’s just say, he’ll no longer get his sword of office :stuck_out_tongue:

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Everything need to know about the “gods of law”.

The interloper looked up through the open trapdoor entrance. Something like a momentary storm passed through the chamber above, the influence of the sudden tempest felt on Necrodomo’s apocalyptic pamphlets, which were blown from the table. The screams were brief. With the interloper still staring through the dungeon opening, it began to rain blood. The Republican Guard gaolers were now nothing but a cruel drizzle drifting, dripping and dribbling from the trapdoor entrance. The interloper allowed the downpour to blotch his robes to a gory crimson. As his ghastly gaze returned to the grand inquisitori, the trapdoor slammed shut and thundered with heavy chains securing the dungeon entrance.
The robed thing moved across the chamber with the dread purpose of something unreal. As it passed them the servants of Solkan dropped from stools and improvised furniture to dance a spasmodic jig from their belt-nooses and the rings set in the dungeon ceiling. The interloper drifted through the forest of hanging priests.
‘Sit,’ it commanded.
The grand inquisitori wailed as his knees gave way, causing him to fall back into his interrogator’s throne.
The interloper moved towards the throne like an ancient evil. It pulled back its hood, revealing the full, unspeakable horror of its daemonic visage to the chamber. The robes fell like a fearful whisper from its barbed unflesh. It grew with each flagstone-pulverising step of its taloned feet, twisted bones blooming with muscle that ruptured into existence about them, lending the beast a glorious brawn and sinew. It dragged a serpentine tail, shot through with spikes, behind its infernal form, while both the daemon-crown of horns warping their way out of its head and the thumb-claws erupting from the dreadful magnificence of its wings, scraped the dungeon ceiling.
Like a nightmare, it lowered its sight-curdling skull and moved up behind the interrogator’s throne. Necrodomo, still clamped between the bar and crown-cap of the torture device, had no eyes with which to behold the beast. The grand inquisitori found, with his heart in the grasp of terror, cold, dark and despair, that he could not move. As the daemon brought its unseen face forward, both the venerable priest and the prognosticator found their cheeks bathed in the radiance of infernal royalty. A princely power of hellish birthright; a creature of unimaginable darkness; horror incarnate.
The grand inquisitori felt the thing touch him. At once all that had remained pure and noble in the man shrivelled within his soul. Darkness blossomed within the priest. Every ill-deed committed in the service of selfish weakness and temptation grew through his being like a rampant can*er. His eyes turned to inky twilight as his face became a cadaverous mask of ghoulish anticipation. The daemon clasped the grand inquisitori’s head in its claws.
‘You search for darkness in wretched madmen,’ the daemon prince whispered to the venerable priest – every word falling on the afflicted ancient with the force of a furnace, ‘when you should have been searching for it within your own ranks. No matter… You are mine now and have no need for this vessel of flesh. Before I take your soul, there is something you should know, priest. A gift for the journey you are about to take.’ The daemon leant in closer. ‘Your. God. Is. A. Lie.’ With that, the daemon prince crushed the grand inquisitori’s skull between its claws with effortless ease.

Archaon: Everchosen. Written by Rob Sanders