At least besides those in Taals Horn (Sienna, Kerillin, Oleysha and Catrinne).
With the release of the new Drachenfels map, it has hit me particularly hard that, apparently, there are no women in the Vermintide world. We see towns, villages, castles and dungeons, we see countless corpses in all states of mutiliation and decay, we even encounter a few folks who are still alive… but all of them appear to be (middle-aged) men. For a populated world this feels really… odd.
Don´t get me wrong, this isnt about some forced case of representation, but simply world believability. It´s perfectly reasonable that the Skaven, Rotbloods and Beastmen dont have females among them. Also that all of soldier corpses we find are that of men. It´s based in the world logic. But what happened to the civilian population that apparently, the male half of them is strewn around the world pretty much everywhere, while the female half vanished into thin air, without any trace?
Seeing more than just the same guy´s corpse copy & pasted 1000 times would go a long way of making the gruesomeness of the situation more believable, I think. So, where are all the Empire´s women? Unless there is some lore reason that I´m missing?
Well, during warfare women are used otherwise by enemies. Men are either cheap slave labour or are directly killed because they pose a threat. The women on the other hand are used to Keep the “morals” of the attacking force high. This explains at least a part of the missing corpse because it would be hard to assume that all women are suitable for the task at hand unless Chaos is not too picky. However, we should then maybe see some in Warcamp? Maybe even at the end of Against the Grain.
Another reason may be that due to the low fighting power part of the women and children (because we don’t see child corpses either) have evacuated partially already.
Other than that, it has probably non-lore reasons to do.
There are plenty of women in the Warhammer fantasy lore but i think there are a couple of reasons why we dont see that many in the game. It might be simply because it is easier to copy-paste the same character over and over meaning they dont need to create at least 6 new dead humans or it is because they might not want to get in trouble for showing dead women since lately i do think this would spark a lot of controversy.There are a ton of corpses on the new map and seeing dead peasants in cages, some tied to walls by chains and some on torture tables does nothing to move me in the slightest since i am used to games like this and it feels normal and i also think most people are like this. Now if u show a female body some players might take it the wrong way like they did in other games but this might not be the reason why they were not added.
If we are talking about lor all the soldiers will 100% be men due to the setting, you dont really see women fighters in the empire, at least not any foot soldiers. Women would have most likely been either evacuated if they had time while the men stay behind or captured and well if that happens…lets just say in the lore chaos cultists do worse things to women then men so they cant show that. Most women of the empire are either mages, spies or supporting characters, meanwhile in bretonnia you will see a lot more women knights and fighters. As for the enemies, no women beastmen, no women chaos fighters (since we are fighting nurgle and you tend to see more women in service of slaanesh), and no women skaven(since they are called breeders and you get the point), no women dwarfs that would fight for lohner. The only factions that have a lot of female fighters are the elves (wood elves and high elves for the “good” side and dark elves for the “bad” side)
Gathering PC-points so they can introduce Kerry as a Sister of Singing Doom, a Sister of Slaughter or a Bride of Khaine? …
Irony aside, which women are these “plenty women”? There are many many more men (I think).
To be fair, Malekith and the Druchii seem more like spoiled brats than evil (daddy didn’t want me to be king so now I’m going to be very very angry at all his old friends once he is dead), and the end times kinda proves it.
Woah - Malekith is a proud elf and a damn fine leader, he’s just also wearing a the Circlet of Iron which is causing a few mental instability issues.
Daddy told him to go on a crusade and give up his birthright and he just said, “Well, that sucks that you guys don’t like me enough for this job but okay; Bel Shanaar is a great and honorable leader. Give me a second while I go on a crusade for you.” And then he did.
Malekith’s Druchii are crazy, but most of Malekith’s problems were that he was sent far and wide to destroy all evil in the world and, in turn, got corrupted by it.
I’m on your side there, mostly (I mean, why did he step into the fire? This was before the crown, mind you!), just commented on the fact that @MrDestro argued Druchii were evil…
And if Druchii are considered evil, I’d say thats a very limited and narrow view of evil.
Well darn, you are right, I re-checked some wikis on the subject matter. I was thinking of the horned helmet thingy his mommy gave him in conjunction with the armor after he stepped into the fire. But the circlet was before that.
I had completely forgotten about the circlet, it does explain a thing or two.
Yeah, he doesn’t return to Ulthuan until after his “crusade” where he meets the dwarves, befriends them, helps them spank some bad guys, and then goes north to hunt those worshippers in the Chaotic, frozen lands. He butchers the whole lot of them and finds that crown in a decrepit Chaos fortress and, from there on out, is hosed.
Aside from that, he’s pretty much the model elf-prince. BUT BACK ON TOPIC!
There’s a ton of female power-players around the Warhammer world, just not a ton in the Imperial world. Women’s role in Imperial society is purposefully sardonic and satirical: they are your classic, old-school views of maids and noble-women because the Empire is meant to be a glorification of all of humanities worst traits. So, along with that trope, Vermintide doesn’t portray almost any Imperial women.
Sounds more like WH40k to me, the Empire has a number of redeeming features relative to the other civilisations in fantasy - they don’t have a peasant class that is horribly mistreated (the average Imperial commoner is definitely better off than the average pox-ridden and abused Bretonnian peasant), they aren’t unshakable xenophobes unlike the Imperium of Man (considering the representation of halflings having an elector vote and being autonomous, not to mention the Empire has a longstanding history of friendship with the dwarves and have fought alongside Kislev and Bretonnia many times against the forces of chaos), and they have ingenuity and actually invent new things (not counting steamtanks, that’s more like WH40k with tech nobody understands anymore and can barely cobble back together when it breaks down).
I don’t think getting nommed on by a chaos worshipper who had a bad month at work and got turned into a chaos spawn for your twentieth birthday is much better than being a maid either.
The impression I get from the Empire is more people trying to make the most out of living in a terrible world. I wouldn’t want to live there either but I wouldn’t say they’re a glorification of all humanity’s worst traits. That really applies to the Imperium of Man rather than the Empire, and with the Imperium of Man it’s quite obvious the Age of Strife pushed them down that path.
As for not seeing many women in fantasy for factions like the empire, GW weren’t that good at doing female models originally, it’s possible that’s a fair part of what kept them away from it initially too.
After all, fantasy is fantasy, if GW wanted to they could do whatever really, and in 40k while there aren’t any women space marines there are plenty of women in the Imperial Guard, and serving as commissars and inquisitors, and there are the Sisters of Battle.
I mean in fantasy we already have the dark elves as far as crazy people who often go into battle only semi-clad go (looking at witch elves and doomfire warlocks).
OP seems to be talking about female commoners and not power players or soldiers however, and that is a fair point, you’d expect dead men and women in wake of a chaos attack considering things like chaos spawn, rat ogres and so on aren’t really particular about what it is they’re standing on. Personally I don’t really think it’d add much to the game to include female corpses, the male ones are enough to convey the appropriate atmosphere.
I could see the Norscans having some women soldiers, from what I understand of the lore their women are pretty hardy too considering they’re born and raised in Norsca and/or the chaos wastes, depending on tribe, like the men. The chaos gods certainly have taken a liking to a few Norscan women (like Valkia) and Felicion (the sorceress from the dark elf campaign in warhammer 2) had a Norscan woman-warlord as a lover.
Apparently in the Sigvald novel he encountered several women that were lords and then there are shieldmaidens as well. On the other hand the Kurgan were explicitly mentioned in an army book as viewing women’s sole purpose being bearing a new generation of strong warriors, and their place in the tribe’s hierarchy being based on how well their sons perform in battle.
To add to what’s already been said, another possible reason why we don’t see female villagers or corpses is because violence against women is generally considered a taboo or inappropriate in media, and video games are no exception. Even in games where violence against men is shown quite graphically, there just usually aren’t female corpses or in the case of Vermintide, abused villagers. Fatshark probably doesn’t want to be seen as a company that promotes violence against women, even in a situation where it is a reality.
… which seems pretty weird overall, regarding the current clima, the setting of the game and the sheer amount of male mutilation that goes on here. And two female playable characters that end up getting killed in all sorts of ways.
Heck, even back in Warcraft III 18 years ago, the missions where you had to slaughter villagers as the Undead had male and female peasants running around. And I thought Warcraft to be the tame rip-off.