u/Low_Neighborhood_598

https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Jade_Obelisk for those who are unfamiliar with the group.

It has probably become evident that I like exploring the religious aspects of factions and when it comes to Warcry I particularly like it when GW takes a less obvious path when it comes to presenting the faiths. Jade Obelisks from Warcry is an example of doing that for Tzeentch where instead of doing the traditional fire and fleshy mutation the focus is instead on stone and petrification.

While not as overt as his fire theme Tzeentch has long been connected to solid materials in particular crystal with his labyrinth. Stone however is far less commonly tied to him either being just a building material or something his magic is warping into something else. Stone is usually more tied to anti magic or magically resistant things like dwarfs and stone trolls in fantasy. Unlike those examples Jade Obelisks are instead being empowered by stone and it gives them the superhuman toughness and strength found among Chaos followers but also serves as their curse.

Blessings of Tzeentch being a curse in disguise is nothing new nor is turning into stone being related to a curse. Chaos dwarfs and Hellsmiths are a good example of GW using similar ideas. But what makes the Jade Obelisk's case so interesting to me is how the concept ties to Tzeentch and his themes. He is the Chaos God most commonly associated with mutations and many of his followers openly showing off their mutations as seen with the models. But the Jade obelisks cover themselves up almost head to toe with only their arms being seen with only the fanatical priestesses showing an amount of skin similar to what the Kairic Acolytes do. Their rituals are also about managing the weaknesses brought by their stone strength and stopping it from going too far compared to the usual Tzeentchian ethos of trying to increase the number of mutations and considering them holy.

All in all the reason I like these chaps is because they have a very different style and relation to Tzeentch compared to what I usually see. Also I just like the masonry angle.

What do people like about them? What other interesting cults from AoS that play around with the usual expressions of the faithful of Chaos that people find interesting?

As the main scientific/steampunk faction of Order in terms of tt presence though Ironweld fans will argue that point with good reason I would like to see a bit more variety in regards to the science shown. For example do we have any lore about biologists guilds in the faction who perform any tasks you would expect biologists to do in a society defined by profit? Are there duardin working on effective crop yields or making better crops to sell? Are there doctor unions running around? That kind of thing where we see more of the wide variety of fields being covered is something I would like to see more off.

What would other people like to see explored in regards to the lore of the faction? More focus on the common duardin? Fishing? Or would you like to see more mechanical marvels?

Due to the age and nature of the Mortarchs it is not surprising that many of them have had cults that worship them as either divine entities or as saints of Nagash. Olynder the Avenger, Katakros the Lawbringer, Arkhan the Oracle, and Neferata the Wise are just some of the epitaphs given to them by their faithful. This does not cover alternate names and titles they have depending on region and whatever religion they supplanted or assimilated.

Neferata and Mannfred have the most cults dedicated to them for they have zero compunction of using religion to further their aims and feed their egos. Though even Mannfred when creating a cult is careful to ensure that Nagash is prominent enough to satisfy the Great Necromancers ego though if a cult springs up naturally that puts Mannfred on top well they are probably too small for a Mortarch to bother with right?

Arkhan does have his own cults tied to him but when he and his agents encounter them they try to change the doctrine so that Nagash is the true object of worship while Arkhan is just a prominent figure in the tales told by the faithful.

Ushoran had cults during the Age of Myth but those waned in prominence during his captivity if not being outright destroyed by Nagash and his followers. There has been a resurgence of them in recent time among mortals though they tend to become mordants under the Delusion often or do not know much about the true nature of the being they worship.

Olynder and Katakros as the most recent Mortarchs have the least amount of cults currently dedicated to them specifically. Mainly in lands that their forces occupy and as ofshoots of cults that worship the Mortarchs as a whole.

What do people think of the idea? How would you do a cult dedicated to a Mortarch?

I think it fair to say that fire is the most common of the classical elements to show up as some sort of weapon in fiction. It is simple, visually interesting, and has a lot of cultural and historical significance as a weapon. With fantasy settings that fire gets all sorts of extra features added to it which brings us to bale fire. Bale fire in AoS burns not only flesh and inorganic matter very well but also burns the souls so that even death does not grant respite from the pain. The Nighthaunt have a unit dedicated to the spreading of Bale fire in the form of the Pyreghiests.

Pyregheists are the collective of ghosts punished by Nagash for the crime of trying to protect their charges souls and dead bodies from the various horrors the Mortal Realm has to offer that target the dead and souls such as Necromancy and its master. They are also made up of corpse thieves who dare take the dead flesh from Nagash's house.

Taking advantage of Warcry's ability to have multiple takes on the same idea in a singular unit we get to see several types of corpse preservers and thieves and how each individual is punished.

Deacons of Flame were once head priests of various mortuary cults who just wanted to ensure that those under their care have a peaceful afterlife. In death they are forced to burn the souls they once tried to guard and bind them into cages to be imprisoned forever or to be spent like fuel to power attacks.

Balefire Guard were the guards of the various crypts but now must guard the pyres and the deacons. I really like their armoured looks because it reminds me of the Cult of Morr knights from Fantasy and their heavy armour.

Flamewraiths were attendants whose job it was to stoke the fires to burn the bodies and likely depending on the cult other funeral rites like lowering the casket into the earth or preparing alters for sky burials. Now they are just berserk pyromaniacs with none of the gravitas and care they showed in life.

Torchwraiths are body snatchers who when caught got impaled on a stake and set on fire which is a horrible way to go and seems a bit overkill to be honest. Now they cannot stop burning which unless they were once Scions of the Flame probably is an unpleasant experience.

What I genuinely like about these guys is both their exploration of how Nagash perverts the act of cremations which is a burial style with a lot of significance to people into something mindlessly destructive and how various stations related to the practice are individually punished rather than a collective one. I think it provides a great example for people who want to homebrew their own Nighthaunt tied to various disciplines. How would a mage guild or ship crew be punished as an example.

What are peoples thoughts on the warband, homebrew that was inspired by them, or interesting examples of bale fire being used such as with the Crematorians of the Ossiarch?

Monster hunters are common in fiction with a variety of forms. Sometimes they are independent agents, sometimes organisation, and sometimes they are monsters themselves. I like the Monsta-Killaz take on the subject because they take advantage of how warcry does units to showcase layers to the job. Usually in a setting like Warhammer monster hunters are either singular individuals or units of people armed with very similar weapons but with the MK they showcase a variety of duties and specialisations from your typical grunts and champion hunters to more specialised groups. The Bawla Boy are there to use noise to either scare their prey, attracting it or just causing a distraction which considering how common that was in irl hunts is surprisingly rare to see in Warhammer so it is appreciated.

Klutcha Grotz are just fun because egg snatching is something that makes sense for what the Monsta-Killaz do and is something that can easily lead to a bunch of stories. Howlaz personally are just a good showcase of the wildlife you would expect to see in the Gnarlwood but doesn't show up enough because of the skirmish warband focus but they are a thematic hunting animal at least.

Last thing that I like about them is how the Beast-Breakerz operate and look like as a tribe on their own without falling into the redundancy stuff like Stormcast chambers can fall into. With these guys you can have stories just focused on that one tribe and it feel like a complete tribe which is great.

What are peoples thoughts on the warband and the Beast breakerz in general?

I like Warcry lore because it allows for more granular focus on certain topics within the setting while still being open ended enough for someone to do their own spin on the subject. And since I like both Stormcast and rpgs the Soulsworn Questors are naturally something I enjoy. To give a brief rundown Sigmar recognising that many of his Stormcast are the wandering hero type created teh specific rank of Knight Questor to perform tasks that a larger military unit is unsuited or unavailable to do. Exploring crypts, performing secret rites and all the stuff you would expect an rpg character to do. When there is a task that needs multiple questors that is when Soulsworn warbands are formed to do the tasks needed.

What I specifically like about the set up is that it is simple enough to understand but it also allows for small snapshots into how each branch of the Stormcast functions and interacts with each other. There is even built in character drama with how the duelist is written and that the Relictor secrets that they rarely share. The writers even made sure that Questor Prime had both a built in character arc to explore that ties them into the wider faction.

Overall while I would naturally want more explored I do think that the writers did a good job at creating a Stormcast warband that felt like rpg heroes.

What is the communities opinion? What do you like about them or want to see explored further?

I am curious to here what minor headcanons the community has. Not ones that radically redefine the relations characters and locations have with the setting just ones that cover minor pieces of lore and setting that you find interesting.

For me I believe that the Gladiatorium Primes who are tasked with training their fellow Stormcast in the various military disciplines number far more than the seven we see. Instead I think there is one representing every line warrior and knight we have seen thus far with the exception of the warriors of the Ruination chamber. I also believe that like the Celestant Prime they change their armour colour to reflect the Stormhost their current batch of trainies hail from instead of just being Hammers of Sigmar.

Stormvaults are an interesting concept that I do genuinely like. For those not in the know these structures are extremely secret and heavily warded/booby trapped that contain items, spells, and even entities that Sigmar for whatever reason decided were too dangerous to be left lying around. Using modified Enlightenment engines that were supposed to give knowledge to people named Penumbral Engines that took removed knowledge of the location of the vaults and made them hard to find in general.

That is the base concept and an interesting one at that. It is one of those plot devices that has a lot of the needed explanations baked in for a story you want to tell. Who built them, why has nobody heard of them, how did the items inside get there, and so forth. The fact it was one of the biggest protagonists in the setting that made them rather than a villain is a nice change of pace from the usual evil sorcerer megadungeon that I am used to and because each is unique and holds specific items there is a lot you can do with them in a story to make them your own.

Now granted there are issues with the concept such as it feeling samey if every other story uses it and a writer needs to make sure an item lives up to the importance a Stormvault implies.

What are other peoples thoughts on them?

I love knights in fiction and how they are used is often one of the things that draws my attention to factions I might overlook like humans. This can be warriors in shining armour, dark terrors with the illusion of nobility, guardians of the wild, and so forth. One of my ideas for homebrew was a religious knightly order based on how GW did the LotR's Easterlings and I was wondering how other people handled the subject.

It doesn't have to be knights to be clear just a military organisation that sits slightly apart from a cities/civilisations main military but it can be a monastic group, based on a warrior caste, or something similar.

So one thing that I would actually like to see more of in the future is exploration of music in the faction because bards are such an important part of the cultures tied to the various delusions.

What are things that are part of the faction you would like to see expanded on in future fiction?

Edit: In Fantasy there was something called the carnival of Nurgle whose gimmick is pretty self on the nose but I think would be interesting as inspiration for a group of ghouls and a minor Abhorant who goes around entertaining people with flashy acts using the Delusion to hide the actual horror being performed. Could make a fun story.

The Gorechosen are hero level characters that make up the inner circle of a Khorne lord. They can be priests, taskmasters, smiths and what have you. I genuinely think they are the most interesting part of the Khorne range because they can showcase what a Khornate can be. Khorne is often typecast as the berserker warrior when it comes to their leaders with only Tzeentch I feel being as constrained in depictions but the Gorechosen show that the leadership is far more varied and so can everything else about the deities followers. You can have the cult leaders with slaughterpriests, the industrial horror of war with the skullgrinders, the terraforming with the Realmgore, and so on and so forth. It adds a lot of layers and story potential.

What are peoples thoughts on the Gorechosen? What new types would you like to see explored such as one who is focused on the hunt or the use of alchemy in war?

I know that Tzeentch is primarily tied to sorcery almost as much as Khorne is tied to melee combat but I was wondering if we see instances of his characters being tied to what would be considered inuniverse academics such as combining science and technology, alchemy, and other fantasy science stuff.

While not a deity one would associate with the Realm of Endings the goddess Alarielle does have a following amongst the populace. Some worship her as a harvest deity, while others call upon her to protect them from the things that prowl the woods. The cult of the Ancestor Tree is one such group. They believe that by tying a person to a tree the fruits of that tree can be used to grant that individuals wisdom to their kin while also protecting that individual in the afterlife. This is called a soul tree. The cult preaches that when someone is born a fruit is taken from one of their ancestors with the seed planted and nurtured so that it may bare its own fruitful tree. This is usually done by family till the child comes old enough to do such things themselves. Wealthier families can have the cult or professionals do it but they still must perform the act on specific holy days.

When someone dies their body is interred underneath or in the tree while priests perform sacred rites to guard the body and soul from being raised into undeath. It is said that by consuming the fruit of this tree one can commune with the spirit bound to it and receive their wisdom. The fruit is also harvested to feed the people in general so that even in death a person can give to their community.

When the tree itself dies it is given over to the cult of the Withered Bark who tend to it like a Morrdite tends to a crypt and carefully collect any debris by the tree which can be burnt to access the ancestors wisdom.

Naturally there are many niche practices within the cult. Some soul trees are not trees but other long lived plants that are considered beneficial to the people. In other places the Cult of the Withered Bark has been infiltrated by Nagash cultists who use the soul trees as an unique kind of tree undead that they use to enforce their will.

Sons of Behemat I feel have a solid idea behind them but there is stuff I would like to see more of from them. The matriarchs are an obvious one but I would like to see more of the Creepers and how their society functions. Is there a hierarchy that denotes which mega gargants they are allowed to bond with and how does the mega gargant affect those who ride it?

What do people here like to see expanded in the future?

With the removal of much of the duardin and aelven range from CoS I thought it would be nice to ask people what their favourite parts of those groups were. Can be lore, characters, stories or whatever else is relevant to this subreddit. For me one of the things I liked was the Scourge Privateers as I thought they were a fun way to add a nautical element to the faction that especially now felt very in line with how CoS operates with the Freeguilds.

Recently rewatched OSP's episode on werewolves and was reminded that at one point it was believed that such beings were just the hallucinations of people given physical form. I immediately thought of our favourite cannibals and how I could incorporate that idea into a Grand Court.

I would have the court be in either Ghyran, Ghur, or Ulgu though any of the Realms could work fine as they all have animal iconography associated with them. Before the coming of the Abhorant vampires the people of the region would already have a belief system based around communing with bestial spirits in particular those touched by Godbeasts who are revered as the embodiments of the realms. The people would be in the more weird and arcane parts of the Realm they inhabit.

When the Abhorants came their delusion manifested as the belief that they were blessed by the noble spirits of the Realm that gives them slightly bestial appearances but also the power to turn into half man and half beast warforms.

Each unit in the army has their own theme/selection of beasts associated with them. Gorewardens have a noble bird of prey theme with their spirits though it doesn't have to be a bird just something that flies and is tied to nobility.

An individual can worship a variety of spirits based on their path through life and personal ethics and thus a lot of their personal symbolism often evolves. Chimeric creatures that have traits of all the relevant spirit animals is common though others prefer to have each creature be a distinct entity.

Ushoran, other Mortarchs. and Nagash are either worshipped as spirits themselves or have a specific spirit tied to them alone. Not sure yet.

But this is the gist of my idea