Fluff for many races is superficial?

[shotguncoffee]

After having delved into the Empire's background with the provinces and the old world, it seems to many that many of the other races of WHFB have superficial background. For example, the Orcs and Goblins are just stupid steppe dwellers. The Dark Elves are murderous sadists, and all of Naggaroth is just frozen plains with variants of Dark Elves running around murdering each other with little politics, factions or variations on that theme.

So my question is: Is the fluff for other races indeed superficial, compared to the Empire? If no, where can I find more in-depth fluff for other races?

[The bearded one]

The dwarf armybook has fairly indepth fluff on their society, politics and economy.

[BigbyWolf]

After having delved into the Empire's background with the provinces and the old world, it seems to many that many of the other races of WHFB have superficial background. For example, the Orcs and Goblins are just stupid steppe dwellers. The Dark Elves are murderous sadists, and all of Naggaroth is just frozen plains with variants of Dark Elves running around murdering each other with little politics, factions or variations on that theme.

So my question is: Is the fluff for other races indeed superficial, compared to the Empire? If no, where can I find more in-depth fluff for other races?

Normally, I'd say in their own armybook. I don't find that the OnG book classifies them as stupid. In fact over the years they've been responsible for some quite cunning plans. Skarsnik in particular is so devious he's practically Skavenesque.

[Athelassan]

The Empire's background is fulller and, perhaps, deeper than that for the other factions because it's the central setting for the background. Its our viewpoint faction and entry point into the world. Most of the novels are set there; the roleplaying game was/is set there. More effort has probably gone into developing the Empire than the rest of the world put together (although sometimes I wish they'd continue this development programme; recently it's seemed to be getting increasingly recycled). Much of it hasn't changed since the late 80s whereas some factions were only devised relatively recently or has changed substantially since its beginning.

Although none of the other factions have had the attention of the Empire, some have had more than others. Chaos has had a lot - check out Liber Chaotica; the old Realm of Chaos books, and Tome of Corruption. The Undead - especially the vampires and Nagash, have a reasonable amount of material, although it's becoming inreasingly contradictory: the 4th ed Undead army book; Liber Necris; Night's Dark Masters; the Tomb Kings army book; the Rise of Nagash novel trilogy. And the Skaven have had a bit too - see The Loathsome Ratmen...; Children of the Horned Rat; various novels. Other factions have had less time, although most have received a bit of attention.

I suspect that these factions - along with the Empire - have received most attention because they're those that are easiest to develop along original lines, and their viewpoints are sufficiently similar to humans that they make easy PoV characters. I suspect it's easier to portray Skaven convincingly than Elves. I imagine that developing the Dwarfs or Elves in a really original* direction would be difficult, and, in any case, these factions are supposed to remain relatively alien to "our" point of view in the Empire. Not to mention that to develop anything to the same extent as the Empire would be very difficult at this stage.

I don't think the Dark Elves are quite as straightforward as the impression you've got of them, though; Naggaroth is crammed with politics and personal, petty feuds, shifting alliances and so on (as is Ulthuan, for that matter), but it's quite difficult to portray that on the macrocosmic scale taken by the army books. Although I don't fully agree with its portrayal of Dark Elf society, the Darkblade novel series sheds an interesting light on it, as do the relevant short stories in the Invasion! anthology.

*Or what passes for it in GW's case, which is a melange of pastiches of other sources.

[sulla]

GW fluff alternates between deep and shallow, often between editions. DE, for example, had much better fluff in the 6th edition, but either side of that, they are basically sadistic ******.

[ftayl5]

Some races just aren't that deep. There's very little to nothing about politics and provinces in the Orcs and Goblins army because their politics consist of 'my axe is bigger so I win' and their borders are as big as they can fight to make them. Ogres are similar, they are a shallow race. They eat, fight, eat, trade, eat, do mercenary work and eat... there's no politics or tales of valour or in-depth evaluation of their society because there's nothing there to evaluate.
Same with Beastmen, Warriors of Chaos, Daemons, Lizardmen to an extent and both the Undead armies, where the only intelligent beings in the 'civilisation' are the ones already firmly in power.

And for those races that perhaps do have societies worth evaluating and writing in depth work about, Athelassan makes a good explanation.
Some of the old roleplaying books I've got have really good stuff on Wood Elf and Bretonnian life, economics, politics and such though.

Otherwise there are probably very few people of the warhammer fan-base that would actually be interested in such topics, so why would GW, a company chiefly interested in making money, write such a thing?

[Kaptajn_Congoboy]

Some of the old roleplaying books I've got have really good stuff on Wood Elf and Bretonnian life, economics, politics and such though.

They do, although the RPG always worked best in 1st edition, with a humanocentric (and Empire-centric) focus where Dwarves and Halflings were industrious immigrants to the Empire and Elves were secluded in their Marienburg trading ghetto and/or hiding in the woods, shooting anyone approaching within a mile of their borders, and the real threat was the enemy within rather than the ravening hordes without (Look here for me writing big TL;DR posts about it: http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum...8625#msg668625). With 2nd ed, they harmonized the background more with the miniatures games, and the setting suffered for it. These days, unfortunately, even 2nd ed books are sliding into obscurity as reliable sources about anything since the WHF background is constantly...evolving.

[woodster17]

Have to agree with a lot of what's been said here. Background is only superficial as it hasn't been explored in depth. Army books are of course a great place to start when it comes to sourcing fluff. I'd also advocate WHFRP and BL novels. The races that are pinpointed are being superficial are only so because it's difficult to write novels/fluff from a character-centric point of views. There are only so many deep thoughts an Orc can have. As much as GW would like to leave stuff to our imagination, I guess for some races there isn't the enthusiasm to write about it.

For example, Dark Elves only really get covered in a few BL novels, Malus Darkblade series as a standalone. The problem is with Naggaroth, it's kind of out of the way. So unless you go the infighting route or the seafaring reaver route it's kind of hard to get them involved with other races. The Empire on the other hand... centre of everything, which is why most BL novels concern the Empire in some regard.