Because you wouldn’t know it by the look of our keep. Thousands of skulls and wailing spirits. If nobody told me I’d think our keep is a temple to Khorne. Most of the characters we play would find our keep to be blasphemous and would refuse to go there. What were the devs thinking?
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You mean the rampant skull fetish that the Empire has? That’s just the accessory standard. Skulls are all the rage, all year, every year. If you think your humble abode needs a bit more pizzazz, just slap a few skulls here and there and it’s good to go.
Saltzpyre nuts fat loads to this kind of stuff, Kruber is used to it, Sienna and Bardin have probably learned to deal with it, and Kerillian most likely whines about it every single day. None of them would find it “blasphemous” as much as they’d just find it mildly uncomfortable.
This is certainly not an error on the devs’ part. Quite the opposite, they just followed the lore.
And for the record, there are now inherently “good” or “bad” guys in Warhammer. Sure, there are those that are objectively more immoral and depraved than others, but at the end of the day, every faction is flawed to a certain extent.
I mean, looking past the weird skull thing for a moment, the Empire is basically 11 different countries united only because of the fact that if they don’t, they die, and even then, they still find opportunity to fight amongst themselves from time to time.
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There also was an event themed after Khorne, “Blood for the Blood God”, that added even more skulls. That’s just a “for-fun” thing that is across many Warhammer games, apparently, facilitated by Games Workshop themselves.
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Being good is a subjective thing when the goal of every side is to wipe out any other side that isnt a direct ally.
Empire likes nothing more than using cannons to blow any enemy to the high heavens , Lizards want feed their T-rex’s with anything that their priest figure thinks isnt even slightly not in line with their divine plan.
That usually means everyone else.
Dwarves have a giant book of grudges that usually end with “kill the bugger in the most terrible way presently possible, no exceptions” …and every individual in a offending nation counts as a target.
Elves? Forests need fertilizer, lots and lots of fertilizer, and what better than the inferior other races?
They breed like weeds anyway.
So with all this in mind…good, is indeed very subjective.
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“Good” lol…
You’re aware that Witch Hunters will burn every single citizen in a village on the stake just to make sure they got the 1 witch. It’s better to have hundreds of innocents die then let one guilty escape.
Waywatchers will stalk and kill anyone who passes through their forest, just cause.
Sienna gets wet every time she smells burning flesh
And Bardin is a filthy dwari, I could go on for ages about these disgusting creatures.
Markus is the only normal one, but still a mayfly
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In the lore none of the races are just “pure good” all of them have shades of grey. Witch hunters like smoker described are good example.
Even factions like high elfs which consider themselves to be the “defenders of the world” pretty much can kill humans and other races for pretty much sport or for pretty peeves.
Kruber is normal in the sense that he is a pragmatist guy in a world stuck in perpetual war…his dialogues at some points hint at having gotten multiple superior officers killed because he found them incompetent.
That and i just recalled that all the heroes have either committed arson or raided villages/supply caravans/depots using fire.
Kerillian said something about killing off a bunch of imperial soldiers…who were guarding what i think was a bridge of theirs called hoggers bridge …which i think is supposed to be somewhere inside the empire rather than elven land.
And lets not forget Sienna getting caught by saltzpyre in the first place because she was roasting some noble x)
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You have to understand that elves, especially wood elves do not see humans as equals. They see them more as animals or vermin. Killing humans to them would be like killing a rat in your house.
And yea, hoggers bridge or w/e it’s called it located in Nuln, the Jewel of the Empire. A very rich province of the Empire and I think the main competitor to the Emperors province, Altdorf which is where this game takes place. They create nearly all the gunpowder and weapons for the empire.
Yea, I found that interesting. But being a soldier myself in the past, there are officers that should never be given command lol. But him hinting at actually killing them, or letting them be killed is kinda dark.
Didn’t she actually kill a bunch of children? Burn them alive in a windmill?
And yea, again, witch hunters are pretty damn evil. You can just read the wiki about them. Here’s a good quote by a Witch Hunter Superior, “I will burn every inhabitant of the Empire if I have to!”. Like I said, they see no problem with murdering hundreds, thousands of innocents as long as they stamp out one case of “heresy”. They are even trained to befriend and get information out of people which they can they use to kill them with.
Not sure if its that far, they certainly think the local humans are no smarter than a heap of rotten potatoes but they do help the Empire when Chaos is a problem, beastmen too.
Pretty sure even the most stuck up bunch, the high elves, helped magnus the pious too which saw the battle mage tradition started.
Now in general as far as i know the wood Elves are isolationist to the extreme, they basically seem to think everyone is stupid, but they do control Brettonia as a puppet state and Brettonia is basically working on a “help empires against everything unholy”.
This i think shows their actual attitude more than anything, they are worried about Chaos but they just dont want to leave the forests themselves.
Well…what can a man do when his leader is a fat noble who is in it for money and fame but there is a very real bunch of necromancers and Chaos hordes on the enemy side? The high class piggy wont last an hour so someone has to take charge x)
I just checked it and saw a post stating that she killed a powerful noble´s son who had some hella rotten sexual preferences that hadnt gotten sorted because the bugger went after street kids and orphans.
Reason Viktor arrested her? Unlawful practice of magic outside the college+the mill&textile factory that were part of the collateral damage.
I mean, when one loose heretic might cause a giant plague, start a cult that results in a corrupt archmage(at least one city lost), bunch of corrupt nobles or even a spawn/demon being created…there is plenty reason to have the paranoia bar maxed out, at all times.
Of course they arent good in the warhammer universe and a lot of malpractice takes place, but there is a point you ought to consider.
Even with all the bad ones, the practice is still viewed as necessary…that is how scary letting heretics run about is x)
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Wasnt that book full? At i think that´s what the kingly dwarf fellow said in the total war trailer…
Saying it was full was hyperbole, it never runs out of pages for grudges!
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Mostly agree, except for the “no good or bad” part - this isn’t 40k. For all intents and purposes, The Empire and High Elves are the “good guys”, and Chaos is most definitively the “bad guys”. With some it’s a bit more questionable though, like Dwarfs who will go to all-out war with a nation or even an entire race because of some long-forgotten (the the offender anyways) insult.
It does get a little blurred in the End Times with the main lineup of “Chaos vs everyone else”, but that doesn’t change the fact that the factions who were fighting for all things good and pure are still fighting for all things good and pure.
Well, they are only “the good guys” because they are the ones that are most similar to ourselves, us, the players, in real life.
They are still capable of actions that are… iffy, to say the least.
The stability of the Empire itself is tennous at best, with every state being willing to do whatever it takes to get their Elector Count to be the next Emperor, even sparking several civil wars over the years.
In the courts, decadent nobles live a life of luxury, while the vast majority of the populace has to make a living as peasants or soldiers.
As some have mentioned above, some individuals within the Empire, such as Witch Hunters, are willing to hang dozens of people simply because they were accused of being something that they aren’t. Others are willing to burn down entire towns.
Sure, it isn’t 40k Inquisition levels of bat-shite insanity, but it’s still pretty brutal.
The High Elves in comparison, are less flawed by a large margin, albeit still flawed to an extent. It was their arrogance (and some other factors of course) that was the cause of one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world. It is also from them that the Dark Elves originated from, whom have terrorized the world for several hundreds of years.
Chaos is only evil because it is alien to us. To some, it is an inevitable truth, that fighting against it is meaningless. To others, it is what nature intended us to be. Chaos is, in essence, the embodiment of human emotions, so accepting it is like accepting being human. Without Chaos, humans (and other races capable of feeling emotions, such as Dwarfs and Elves)… wouldn’t be humans, for without Chaos, there would be no emotions, and emotions are essentially what makes us human in the first place.
It is important to note that, whilst obviously predominately negative, the Dark Gods do possess positive traits as well. Khorne, though the god of war, is also the god of courage and honor, and there has been mentions of Khornate champions that have refused to slay unarmed civilians. Tzeentch, though the god of lies and trickery, is also the god of hope, and it is through him that the common man, even those that do not directly worship him, finds the will to persevere and long for better times to come.
Nurgle is the god of life, Slaanesh is the god of happiness, and so on and so forth.
Like I said, there are factions that are objectively worse than others (Chaos being the predominant example), but at the end of the day, all of the factions are flawed in their own right.
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Elves, humans and dwari are the forces of Order.
Norsca, chaos warriors, skaven, beastmen are the forces of Chaos.
Vampires, Dark elves and Ogres, orcs are the forces of destruction.
I hope I remember that correctly. Either way, being the forces of order does not make them good. And good is subjective anyway…
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That its exactly same for high elves too who pretty much decided to sack marienburg just because some pirates decided to dock there.
To borrow an exhibit " Aislinn’s ships were swift, and could easily have overtaken the Red Pirate and destroyed him at sea, but the Sea Lord was determined to set an example not soon forgotten by the upstart race of Man". What followed was sacking of marienburg because they were harboring the pirates. They could have very easily defeated them at sea taking minimal losses in the process instead they attacked one of the more heavily fortified port towns in the empire.
Empire on the other hand is pretty comparable to the 40k imperium. Sure they don’t have some space marines but their ruling system, which hunters and so on really closely reflect on the stuff that imperium does in 40k.
There really is no "good races "in fantasy warhammer only some aspects.
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As per the others’ comments here and my previous knowledge, Warhammer Fantasy is a world with grey and gray morality. No one’s really a good guy, and the evil ones are questionable too. Some people’s morality is lighter (mainly the random humans, represented by Markus in Vermintide, as they’re often the viewpoint characters and the easiest to sympathise with), some think they’re righteous (like the Witch Hunters) but still use horrible methods, and some are very dark indeed (like any Chaos-worshippers). Actually, I think it gets pretty close to black and gray at times, depending on how many viewpoints are emphasized (and 40k dives head first into that one).
It’s worth remembering that the world of Warhammer (no matter which version) is primarily (or at least originally) a table-top miniature strategy game world, which thrives on conflict. Everyone is at least ready to fight everyone else, and probably fighting at least a few factions at any given time. While it’s actually written relatively well, and has a deep lore, it all stems from that and thus everyone needs a reason for potential armed conflict against pretty much everyone else (even people that are namely their own).
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This all sounds fantastic! Especially the dark gods stuff, very interesting. Where would you recommend someone to start reading? I’ve always been interested in picking up a 40k book but worried I would start half way through something and it would go over my head.
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You’d have to ask someone else, I’m afraid. I’m not big on books, especially not 40k.
Most of my knowledge of the Warhammer universe is just information I’ve gotten from the wikia.
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oh ok, well thanks anyway. I’ll prob start there just to get to the interesting stuff.
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