- Location
- Washington
Nagarythe is called The Shadowlands but as dhar tainted wastelands go it is notably lacking in undead, ulthuan really does need to Get With The Program
-
Going forward, links to content from Twitter (now X) will no longer be embedded. Pre-existing links should not be affected.
It Belongs to a Museum
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy
I knew all that. My point was that: Can you really claim he was ever retconned? For example, 8th Edition Armybook for Lizardmen, mentions that there existed some primordial species that were shaped by Old Ones into Humans, Dwarf, Elves and the like.
Warhammer Battle-Lizardmen Armybook 8th Edition, page 7.
No publication, as far as I know, ever claimed that Old Ones were perfect in their shaping of the world, always the opposite what with the Great Catastrophe, and over the years there was plenty of mentions of some primordial creatures and beings dating from the ages before the coming of the Frogs, still existing and living in one corner of the world or another. Is Drachenfels still tormenting the world, while the rest of his species was either killed or slowly transformed into Humans, because of his sheer might, cleverness and malice any more contradictory than Dragon-Ogres surviving by making pact with Chaos or Dragon Emperor of Cathay remembering the good old days before Frogs pissed in the pool?
Also in later publications, there are ''Necromancers'' pre-dating Nagash, after he was established as a character and creator of Necromancy.
My stance on this incosistency, was always the idea that ''Necromancy'' as in, Dark Magic/Dhar heavily using Shyish or otherwise being used by Magician with desire to manipulate life-energy, spiritual essence of themselves and other beings and the like, was always a thing. It was crude but it did exist, there always existed beings, from Human tribesmen before even Nekheharan first cities were founded, to perhaps some Troll hags or Beastmen shamans, who wanted to live longer or simply bring harm upon others by twisting and tainting their life-force. It always existed but Nagash was the only one able, by mixing the traditions and rituals of Mortuary Cult and Druchii teaching and insight into Dhar, to formalize something truly ingenious, horrific and ultimately what would be spread and recognized as ''actual Necromancy'' with even figures that pre-dated Nagash and were using something similar to Nagash Necromancy, recognizing the potential of Nagash teachings and insight and taking notes from the ''First Necromancer''. Such figures like Drachenfels.
There were others before Nagash, but Nagash did it the best, or at least the loudest, definitely good enough that even those others had taken notice and at least nodded in respect.
Last edited:
daedalus725
Kell of Kells, godking of Planet X
- Location
- Daedalus crater, The moon
Oh neat that means my head canon of Elfs being evolved from lemurs can be applied to Warhammer
Sure, there are always different ways that the different inconsistencies in the settings can be reconciled. As you've demonstrated, you can construct it all around keeping Drachenfels a major part of canon. I didn't consider that a priority when I was going through that process to construct the version of the setting that I'd be using for my quests. The simple reason for that is that I don't respect his 1980s, Third Edition, moustache-twirling, has an army of Daemons and Undead and Greenskins, invented necromancy spontaneously just because, apparently invented the entire tech tree up to the medieval era to build an entire castle out of neanderthal labour, when the Warp Gates collapsed he jumped into the Realm of Chaos to give all the Chaos Gods wedgies and steal their lunch money, he habitually dunks on Khaine too just because he can, could have conquered the entire world whenever he wanted to but he didn't because he didn't feel like it I guess, straight-up Saturday morning cartoon villain Mary Sue ass.
(To be clear, I don't have beef with anyone that does like him, or intend to belittle them for doing so. I know there's a lot of people who have a lot of nostalgia towards the early lore, and if I was going to pick a fight with them collectively, it'd be over the Turmoil of 2512 stuff long before it would be over Drachenfels. I'm just laying out my preferences in a way that I think most clearly communicates my feelings on the matter.)
I think the only role for him in any take on Warhammer that isn't built around handwaving away all of the extremely manifest flaws in how he was originally written is to be a sideshow, a minor crisis in between the actual events that make the history books, a spooky fate for an overly bold mercenary, a bonus mission for Vermintide. I think apart from that, there is nothing you can do with him that wouldn't be better if you did it with Nagash instead.
But to circle back to the original argument: yes, you can make all the little tweaks to canon that would make Drachenfels palatable. De-emphasize this, don't mention that, recontextualize the other thing. That's what they did for all the later canon references to him you mentioned. But those are retcons. At that point, he is retconned.
Adrian XXIV
Average User, from Poland
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Eventually, Nagash is called "creator of Necromancy", because he is most famous user of this particular type of Dark Magic
In the same way that people sometimes claim that "X work plagiatized Y work", due to Y being more famous than X. Like, you look into publication dates of both X & Y, and find out that X was published decade earlier than Y
In the same way that people sometimes claim that "X work plagiatized Y work", due to Y being more famous than X. Like, you look into publication dates of both X & Y, and find out that X was published decade earlier than Y
Last edited:
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
On the topic of ship designs, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the Heldenhammer. It is the personal Flagship of the Grand Theogonist and it has some truly wacky stuff.
See that hammer at the front? That has steam engines attached to it to allow it to be used to smash enemy ships. Also the freaking temple on the back. I have no idea what magical nonsense goes into making this thing not sink.
See that hammer at the front? That has steam engines attached to it to allow it to be used to smash enemy ships. Also the freaking temple on the back. I have no idea what magical nonsense goes into making this thing not sink.
Drachenfels worked quite well in the time he comes from, when canon was both less settled and sillier (he's cartoonishly evil, even Chaos isn't evil for evils sake like him). Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau is a canon character to 40k.
But Warhammer as a setting has settled and grown into a setting in its own right, and Drachenfels doesn't fit there anymore because he breaks rules that weren't rules when he was written (and also because the one that made him didn't really know that much about the setting). You can jiggle him in there, but it means so many changes that he's essentially a new character.
daedalus725
Kell of Kells, godking of Planet X
- Location
- Daedalus crater, The moon
The most I know about drakenfels is relating to Genevieve Dieudonné, who I only know about because I Iike Kim Newman's stuff i have read
Last edited:
I think my favorite part of this ship is it has a crows nest, but the tower at the back is even taller making it a better lookout. It either has crows nests just because it's designers thought a ship should, or because the tower is purely decorative/religious.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Probably the same magic that allows the Hellhammers to not sink. The temple and the weaponized trip hammer probably don't weigh all that much more than the gun that ship is built around, plus all the man-sized cannonballs.On the topic of ship designs, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the Heldenhammer. It is the personal Flagship of the Grand Theogonist and it has some truly wacky stuff.
See that hammer at the front? That has steam engines attached to it to allow it to be used to smash enemy ships. Also the freaking temple on the back. I have no idea what magical nonsense goes into making this thing not sink.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
I would not be surprised if someone high up in the church designed it and then the engineers had to figure out how to make it work.
- Location
- New Zealand
I think one of the wackiest parts is that the sails apparently work despite a large building sat right behind them.
- Location
- Finland
What most jumps out to me is not the hammer at the front, or the temple at the back.On the topic of ship designs, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the Heldenhammer. It is the personal Flagship of the Grand Theogonist and it has some truly wacky stuff.
See that hammer at the front? That has steam engines attached to it to allow it to be used to smash enemy ships. Also the freaking temple on the back. I have no idea what magical nonsense goes into making this thing not sink.
It's the cannons.
The canons are perfectly fine for a normal warship.
But given the temple at the back, using the windows to try figure out the scale of it (it is HUGE), well, the cannons look massive.
Like, the cannonballs would be meter, possibly two , wide.
It looks like someone took a drawing of a temple, scaled it down, and slapped it on drawing of a ship.
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
Or the opposite. Someone forgot the engineers in a dockyard and they came up with that in the meantime. The powers that be gave it to the church to make it their problem.
Adrian XXIV
Average User, from Poland
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's like WHF version of Imperator Titans having Catedrals on their shoulders
To be clear I respect trying to demystify and get rid of the great man narrative in history, but Warhammer isn't our history. There's an actual thematic point to Nagash being the first necromancer, which is that it's evil, but a distinct kind of evil from demonology and other forms of dark magic that gets lost if you go 'of yeah there was this guy before the gates, also some trolls, hell maybe a goblin or two'. The solipsistic megalomania that Nagash embodied works because he literally hollowed out the sacred traditions of his cult and replaced them with soul rending evils of an elder people.
Last edited:
"Here is the design for the ship you need to build"
"This.. this is just a normal ship's blueprints with a temple and giant hammer doodled on"
"Exactly, we expect it finished in 3 month"
- Location
- New Zealand
Disappointingly, they might just be arrow slits instead of full sized windows. But we can still hope.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
It should be noted that the ship is mentioned to be notably larger than your typical ship. The official stats are about 180 great cannons, a few mortar batteries, sniper nests and ten times the usual number of crew. Also noted to be able to hold an entire battalion of soldiers.
Still hilarious that in cannon it was stolen by a pirate using Nippon Ninjas.
Last edited:
It's not just the weight, it's the fact a whole cathedral is all on the back of the ship, which unless the keel is ridiculously big has to seriously fuck up with the ship's balance. Buildings that big, even wooden buildings, weigh a lot, and judging from the size of the church it alone should have a comparable weight to the whole front half of the ship even counting the hammers.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
So what you are saying is that it sails by the grace of god?It's not just the weight, it's the fact a whole cathedral is all on the back of the ship, which unless the keel is ridiculously big has to seriously fuck up with the ship's balance. Buildings that big, even wooden buildings, weigh a lot, and judging from the size of the church it alone should have a comparable weight to the whole front half of the ship even counting the hammers.
Adrian XXIV
Average User, from Poland
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Atlernatively, that Hammer on front of the ship was made from Osmium
Well, it apparently does sail, so divine intervention is pretty much the only explanation. Which I guess is easier to get when you have a whole church in your ship complete with giant statues and oh by the Gods why the fuck are there GIANT STATUES on a warship aaah
Last edited:
It's sails by the grace of giant, pile of wood below it that balances everything but isn't shown because having ship with beer belly is embarrassing.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
Should be noted that the thing that swings the giant hammer at the front is a statue of Sigmar.
It should be mentioned that this ship is usually docked at Altdorf, meaning it can sail up the River Reik. So if that is true....how deep is that river?