Some nooby warhammer questions.

[The bearded one]

Given the angsting in the Sigmar books about Sigmar storing the Crown under Altdorf, and the devastation caused by Nagash's armies (and how Sigmar himself barely defeated him), I wouldn't be surprised if Sigmar took the Crown with him on his final journey - with him gone I can see him thinking that it's safer for the Empire if it's lost somewhere far to the North, rather than sitting under the capital city, waiting for Nagash to return.

lost far to the north? I thought Sigmar wandered off towards Karaz-A-Karak, nearly southeast. Did the time of legends serie change it?

[Arnizipal]

lost far to the north? I thought Sigmar wandered off towards Karaz-A-Karak, nearly southeast. Did the time of legends serie change it?

He didn't arrive there, so who knows what happened to him?*










*outside of the people who played the Warhammer Roleplay first edition adventure Empire in Flames

[Lord Zarkov]

lost far to the north? I thought Sigmar wandered off towards Karaz-A-Karak, nearly southeast. Did the time of legends serie change it?

ToL didn't even get as afar as Morkar's invasion* so no change from there, but when the crown next resurfaced it was in the Troll Country so if he was hiding it he presumably took a detour - plus, as Arnizipal pointed out, he never arrived at Karaz-A-Karak.


* This was in fact the thing that's annoyed me most about that ToL series - no major events happen in book 2, and then the story's left unfinished in book 3 - IMO book 2 should have had Sigmar vs Nagash, and then book 3 should have been Sigmar vs Morkar, with an epilogue detailing Sigmar's decision to leave.
Hopefully there's going to be a second trilogy to tidy up all the loose ends (how Azazel becomes a daemon prince, how Morkar becomes the uniter, how Sigmar beats him, Sigmar's last journey, etc), but I'm not convinced there's three books of plot.

[Ultimate Life Form]

*outside of the people who played the Warhammer Roleplay first edition adventure Empire in Flames

Okay now, that sparked my interest (besides being completely off topic).


What happened?

[Arnizipal]

Basically, at the ripe age of 80 Sigmar took his hammer and went east, towards Karaz-a-karak.
After a brief one-night-stand with a minor noble lady (which resulted in a child afterwards - and a continueing of Sigmar's line) he encountered a greater daemon in the mountains.
He fought the creature to a standstill and it started to retreat to the Aethyr through a minor Chaos portal in a cave.
Sigmar persued the creature through the portal, but left his hammer to keep the gate open so he could return later (which he never did).

The end.

[The bearded one]

I recall hearing that once. It's not that bad an ending at all, fairly mysterious as to what happened to him, but could be in keeping with warhammer's nature of brutal death and irony, that one of the most fabled characters from the background, a warriorgod, goes through a portal and some daemons kill him. The great case of trolol, your resistance is futile. Noone is immune to the curse of brutal, meaningless death. That's the beauty of warhammer isn't it? Even epic characters may receive a cannonball to the face, or a noble general might be picked up by a giant and put in his trousers.

better than what draigo does in the warp, anyway.

[Fear Ghoul]

Basically, at the ripe age of 80 Sigmar took his hammer and went east, towards Karaz-a-karak.
After a brief one-night-stand with a minor noble lady (which resulted in a child afterwards - and a continueing of Sigmar's line) he encountered a greater daemon in the mountains.
He fought the creature to a standstill and it started to retreat to the Aethyr through a minor Chaos portal in a cave.
Sigmar persued the creature through the portal, but left his hammer to keep the gate open so he could return later (which he never did).

The end.

This sounds silly. Why does Ghal-Maraz keep the portal open (its not like a Chaos portal is anything like a real gate) and how does the Empire retrieve the hammer later?

[Urgat]

I recall hearing that once. It's not that bad an ending at all, fairly mysterious as to what happened to him, but could be in keeping with warhammer's nature of brutal death and irony, that one of the most fabled characters from the background, a warriorgod, goes through a portal and some daemons kill him.

Really? I think it's more a matter of "now you know how he actually became a real god", able to grant benedictions and stuff.

[The bearded one]

Really? I think it's more a matter of "now you know how he actually became a real god", able to grant benedictions and stuff.

That's one of 2 possibilities, but I prefer not to think in the draigo'istic fashion of "this character is super awesomzzz, he kills everybodies with hammer and iz a god!"

Warhammer is supposed to be exceptionally brutal, to the point where the meaningless deaths become hilarious, like that elven lord that gets incinerated by the goblin's magic ring

[BigbyWolf]

but left his hammer to keep the gate open so he could return later (which he never did).

Probably because some kind soul moved the hammer.

[Urgat]

That's one of 2 possibilities, but I prefer not to think in the draigo'istic fashion of "this character is super awesomzzz, he kills everybodies with hammer and iz a god!"

Warhammer is supposed to be exceptionally brutal, to the point where the meaningless deaths become hilarious, like that elven lord that gets incinerated by the goblin's magic ring

I agree with you, but, in this case, well, he IS a god

Probably because some kind soul moved the hammer.

Considering I wouldn't know a chaos portal if it beat me in the face, I suppose that if I were a Warhammer denizen, and I saw a kickass warhammer dazzling in a rainbow of pretty lights, I'd pick it up too, and wouldn't get that the pretty lights only stay because the weapon's blocking them

[Ultimate Life Form]

Considering I wouldn't know a chaos portal if it beat me in the face, I suppose that if I were a Warhammer denizen, and I saw a kickass warhammer dazzling in a rainbow of pretty lights, I'd pick it up too, and wouldn't get that the pretty lights only stay because the weapon's blocking them

Rule of thumb: In the Warhammer world if something gives off pretty rainbow lights, chances are, it will kill you instantly! Do not touch!




The day that changed the Warhammer world forever:


Soldier A:
"Hey, look, I found Sigmar's Hammer lying around here!"

Soldier B:
"Oh no, the senile old fool must have dropped it again and forgot it here. We better take it back to the camp ASAP."

*picks up hammer*

Faint Voice:
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo.......!"

Soldier B:
"Hey, did you just hear something?"

Soldier A:
"Gah, probably just a Screamer of Tzeentch somewhere. C'mon, let's get going!"


*10 years later*

What, Sigmar's still not back? Guess what, he ascended to the heavens and became a god!

*meanwhile, in Tzeentch's palace*

"Okay Siggy, when you're done brushing up all the stairs in the M. C. Escher room you can dust off my spellbooks. All of them, yeah, that 200 miles bookshelf over there. And then you go to Slaanesh. He called me yesterday and says he wants his torture chamber refurbished. That's your next assignment. What, your hammer? Yeah, Slaany has a hammer for you. And a whip if you're not fast enough, so you better get down to business!"

[warboss6820]

wait but i just remembered something. Unless necromancy is an exception I thought only elves and slann could control more than one wind of magic because a man would go insane or is that just it necromancy is insanity?

[Urgat]

The only reason i've read about humans controling only one wind is because their lives are too short to master two. Now I'm annoyed because I don't remember the source so I can prove it, but I've also read that if it's just superficial knowledge, you can know all of them,one spell of this, one spell of that, but since you don't really control the winds, it's very dangerous. That's how it worked before the Colleges. The Colleges specialise in one wind because it's far more efficient and safe.

[Ultimate Life Form]

Well then, I happen to just have read the current Empire book and it states explicitly that the human mind is not big enough to contain more than one wind and should a wizard try to master two he'd go insane without fail.

[The bearded one]

GW likes their hyperboles. You can't just be really, really bad at it, but you go crazy instead. Just like that book (of Volans, IIRC?) that holds the colleges knowledge on all 8 winds, and merely reading it makes people go mad.

Why can't they just 'try and fail', instead of going insane?

[Lord Zarkov]

The way I've seen it explained (in Liber Chaotica IIRC, but also in The Enemy Within) is in terms of purity and dark magic.

If you carefully draw a single wind you can keep it pure and under control as the wind has one focus, and all the power you draw goes into the spell.

If you're an Elf or a Slaan you carefully weave the winds together and keep it under control, pouring all the winds into you effect.

If you draw mostly on one wind with bits of others then it doesn't 'burn' properly and you have leftover magical residue (avoided in High magic as the winds are in balance). This residue can then corrupt you and cause insanity, mutation, and death. When done to a large degree (such as just pulling whatever winds happen to be to hand) this is a lesser form of Dark Magic (True Dhar involves purposely smashing all the winds together).

Humans don't have the ability to control multiple winds at one, but they can use the magic of multiple winds, they just wouldn't be separating them out properly and they'll suffer from this feed back more. In fact, until Teclis taught the Empire magic their hedge wizard would all be doing this, even the ones that focussed in one area would still be accidentally drawing on multiple winds.

It's sort of like burning plastic - it can be done safely, but it has to be done under tight control, otherwise you get lots of toxic byproducts. Humans don't have the ability to get this tight control.

[Ultimate Life Form]

Well, that certainly explains why wizards were shunned for centuries - if I understand it correctly they'd necessarily all go insane eventually?

Since this leftover 'magic residue' that does not burn properly is, after all, pure magic itself, or, in other words, actual Chaos in its purest form. Just like Chaos Sorcerers, untrained Wizards would be corrupted by the Magic they wielded, only it is a much slower process as opposed to the Chaos Sorcerers who channel the raw essence of Chaos through their bodies on purpose.

[Arnizipal]

This sounds silly. Why does Ghal-Maraz keep the portal open (its not like a Chaos portal is anything like a real gate) and how does the Empire retrieve the hammer later?

Maybe the runes on it powered the magic of the gate, preventing it from diminishing and closing?

Probably because some kind soul moved the hammer.

Finding the hammer and bringing it back is the whole point of that adventure
I've never played it so I don't know the exact details...

GW likes their hyperboles. You can't just be really, really bad at it, but you go crazy instead. Just like that book (of Volans, IIRC?) that holds the colleges knowledge on all 8 winds, and merely reading it makes people go mad.

Why can't they just 'try and fail', instead of going insane?

You can try and fail, but if you keep trying you go insane/mutate.

[Lord Zarkov]

Well, that certainly explains why wizards were shunned for centuries - if I understand it correctly they'd necessarily all go insane eventually?

Since this leftover 'magic residue' that does not burn properly is, after all, pure magic itself, or, in other words, actual Chaos in its purest form. Just like Chaos Sorcerers, untrained Wizards would be corrupted by the Magic they wielded, only it is a much slower process as opposed to the Chaos Sorcerers who channel the raw essence of Chaos through their bodies on purpose.

Exactly, and not just insane, but physically weakened as well, and quite possibly mutated.

Indeed, corruption from this residue is unavoidable, and the speed of decay will depend on their exposure to it. So an untrained wizard who draws mostly from one wind will be corrupted very slowly; one who just draws from whatever's nearby much faster; and wizards like Necromancers and Chaos Sorcerers (who deliberately expose themselves to Dark Magic) faster still - although in the latter case Sorcerers will have some degree of protection from invoking the Gods while they're casting spells.