Should have specified better. Canon ones as in, source books. I could've sworn i saw a figure of 10-20 feet on regular giant size, with bonegrinders being at least twice that size. So yeah fair enough, actual bonegrinder will start at 40 feet, not end.
I always chalk that up to dwarfs always comparing things to the past and how better everything was back then, since most of the time it was. Still, Empire and individuals in it can surprise them and get their respect, Magnus, Freddy, Ortrud, etc.
AN: Inspired by recent Ogre Kingdoms trailer for Total Warhammer and modeled after nice song. Used Google Translate for French words so forgive me if totally butchered.
Esmeraldian Cooking Song
Inside the various Great Kitchens across Ostland, and especially within the Grand Kitchen within Wulfenburg, the actual kitchens themselves were always a hive of activity as humans, halflings and ogres were all rushing about cooking, mixing, pouring, roasting, baking, cutting, chopping, grating, stirring, seasoning, boiling, and much more under the direction of the various chefs before it was sent out to be served by the servers, all in the name of Esmeralda and to fill the bellies of all who sit by her hearth. If one had ever had the luck to see the inside of one of the Engineering and Gunnery School's various workshops they could easily compare it to the controlled chaos of the countless engineers, but instead of tools and metal it was kitchenware and food.
It was a place of creation and art of a different sort than most would think, and beyond just the food served there.
In fact, if one was ever close enough to the doors to the kitchen they would say that over the dine of shouting orders, clicking pots and pans, cooking fires and other sounds normal to hear in a busy kitchen they would hear... singing? Yes, singing, with the previous sounds of the kitchen even providing a background tempo of some kind.
And if one would be inside the kitchen or next to the doors to it as they opened up to let servers in and out... they would hear this.
'Les rêves des camarades c'est comme une bonne bière
Ils donnent de la joie et même du chagrin
Affaibli par la faim, je suis malheureux
Cuisiner de toutes les manières possibles
Parce que rien dans la vie n'est gratuit'
It was a song sung in bastardized Bretonnian, rumored to be spread by one who moved to Ostland years ago and became one of the many chefs within a Great Kitchen and spread from there, in the mostly guttural tones ogres, male and female, making the whole kitchen seem to rumble with only the human and halfling staff lightening it up under their loud voices.
Yet despite all the reasons why this song should have sounded terrible, especially coming from the voices of those who barely understood the language, there was a sort of raw beauty to it coming from such powerful creatures since it spoke of something very important to them.
'L'espoir est un plat qui se mange trop vite
J'ai l'habitude de manger tout seul
I homme seul est triste à nourrir
Pour nous, Esmerlda, nous permet de réussir
Parce que rien dans la vie n'est gratuit'
It spoke of being more than their cousins to the east, of being more than mindless eating machines beholden to an uncaring and dark god, of ignoring the whispers said god put in their minds and instead accepting the teachings of much brighter beings who taught self-control and joys beyond just eating, though those were important too. And of course spreading that joy to others through feeding them finely cooked food by a warm hearth in a home next to friends and family.
'On ne répétera jamais les mêmes erreurs, ce n'est pas pour moi
Laisse-moi te sentir avec émerveillement, et dîner avec toi
Nous vous traiterons avec nous à la fin
La fête va enfin commencer'
Where the ogres who worshipped the Maw would feast and sing of death and destruction in the name of food and the eater of all, those who followed Esmeralda believed in defending their home and cooking for the happiness of not just themselves but others as well. For does food not taste better when eating it alongside those you were close to?
'Et enlève le chagrin, enlève la douleur
Je mets la table, demain est un nouveau jour
Je suis heureux de l'idée de ce nouveau destin
Une vie passée dans la servitude, et enfin je suis libre
La fête est en route'
Of course, one should never stand too close to Urgdug Greatbellow if he was caught up in the song or else you might become deaf.
'Une vie passée dans la servitude, et enfin je suis libre
La fête est en route'
Should have specified better. Canon ones as in, source books. I could've sworn i saw a figure of 10-20 feet on regular giant size, with bonegrinders being at least twice that size. So yeah fair enough, actual bonegrinder will start at 40 feet, not end.
I feel like that figure is a bit off, though? I mean, just looking at the art (not the models, the artwork) it seems actually quite varied. On some, yeah, if you line up the person next to them and stack 'em, they're about 4 average soldier's tall if the soldier's head is at their knee, but then in other artwork you've got people way smaller than them, like, a single soldier is halfway to less than halfway as tall as the shin. Then there's the art of a Slavegiant which, while distance is a bit harder to be sure of, it sorta looks like even the ogres are below the knees.
Obviously there's some variability, with Bonegrinders being either their eldest or just blessed with the size or whatever, but even with regular giants they're probably quite different in size with an 'average' adult being a minimum of 20 feet, I'd say. But even then, it's hard to say. Giant lifespans are indeterminable, they might not die of old age, just get bigger and eventually a bit slower and sedentary and even then they just go to sleep. Possibly. But no one's tracked a giant from birth in all of the Empire's scholastic history, so who knows, yeah?
I think he means if it is it nuanced, with genuinely heroic Knights who treat the Peasants reasonably well alongside of douchebags who only care about how much taxes they can squeeze out of their subjects...or is the entirety of Bretonnia a replica of the Opression Scene from Monthy Python but without the funny and with the Grimdark scaled up to eleven, like GW portrayed the country later?
There's a tonal shift 180 turn in how Bretonnia was portrayed between some editions (I can't recall which) Im no expert but from what I gather it was a switch from a pseudo-Arthurian Legend made real with only some bits of dark comedy and depression to a comically oppressive place where a peasant can get killed for even looking at a knight's horse and they give 9/10ths of their food to their lord and live in absolute squalor.
Voikirium did a post about it IIRC but I can't remember where it was.
Me and a friend of mine actually joke that Brettonian peasants were equal to an at least level 20 dnd chars due to the output they would need to stay alive if the 9/10's thing was accurate.
Me and a friend of mine actually joke that Brettonian peasants were equal to an at least level 20 dnd chars due to the output they would need to stay alive if the 9/10's thing was accurate.
The best interpretation of it is a manorial economy, that is to say, the peasants give 9/10 of their stuff to the lord and the lord immediately "Generously" gives a grain dole to all the peasants, basically the Lord keeps it and gives it out when his peasants need the food
I feel like that figure is a bit off, though? I mean, just looking at the art (not the models, the artwork) it seems actually quite varied. On some, yeah, if you line up the person next to them and stack 'em, they're about 4 average soldier's tall if the soldier's head is at their knee, but then in other artwork you've got people way smaller than them, like, a single soldier is halfway to less than halfway as tall as the shin. Then there's the art of a Slavegiant which, while distance is a bit harder to be sure of, it sorta looks like even the ogres are below the knees.
There's a tonal shift 180 turn in how Bretonnia was portrayed between some editions (I can't recall which) Im no expert but from what I gather it was a switch from a pseudo-Arthurian Legend made real with only some bits of dark comedy and depression to a comically oppressive place where a peasant can get killed for even looking at a knight's horse and they give 9/10ths of their food to their lord and live in absolute squalor.
Voikirium did a post about it IIRC but I can't remember where it was.
-In the beginning, Bretonnia was grimdark Ancien Regime France, fighting like a knockoff Empire and all.
-In fifth edition, they swerved full Arthurian, a fully noble kingdom serving the Lady and all that.
-In sixth edition, they darkened them up into the blackened, dark pit we know and loathe today. I have my suspicions for why (Cough Empire Grodgnards getting assblasted that somewhere wasn't covered in mud and filth and etc like the Empire much as they are doing for Cathay or as the Imperium fanboys did to the Tau Cough) but as I was, you know, six at the time I don't have that much information exactly on why it happened, only vast depths of anger that it did. This continued until they got unceremoniously wiped out in the End Times "because nobody has an idea what to do with them" and still have not returned, which is at least 75% of why I can't and won't get into Age of Sigmar.
Ah, to clarify, I wasn't entirely sure what aspect of Bretonnia they were referring to as a hellhole. Because regardless of edition, Mousillon, for instance, is a pretty garbage place due to it's whole...situation. But yes, between the editions Bretonnia did shift from majorly Arthurian legend to the sheer ridiculous level of the final editions, as well as materials like Knights of the Grail and so on.
As to Bretonnia itself, hmm, I prefer to imagine it as not-so monoculture in terms of how things are. There are good lords, and there are bad lords. There are good places to live, and bad places to live. There is a place for the Faceless in their society as well, though surely many of the nobility would disagree. Roland would have been one of them, before he left Bretonnia and his experiences around the globe.
In the current Bretonnia, there are places of shining clean white marble and stone, grand fantastical castles, and fine cheerful villages. But so too are there castles that were built more for their magnificence as an expression of wealth than for defense, and villages of worried and fearful folk who wish that their grain doles were a bit larger than they are. The lands of Bretonnia are quite short on the road front, in certain provinces, though those that have happened to gain cities with trade, such as Bordeleaux, have some here and there, though there is most certainly a road that runs through Montford along the pilgrimage route for the pilgrims of Shallya. This also affects sumptuary laws, but again, not in a blanket sort of way, at least for this version of Mallus. Basically, depending on what Dukedom you're in, certain things are allowed, and certain things aren't. Things like worshipping Chaos are, you know, universally bad, and while there's generally a sort of 'worshipping The Lady of the Lake' is meant solely for the nobility, most nobles are willing to allow the peasants to murmur prayers to her on occasion. Though they are just as often beseeching Shallya, Rhya, and Taal, in their day to day.
So, basically, I would say that depending on where you are (physically, culturally, class-wise) in Bretonnia, it might be great, it might suck. Same as in the Empire, or Tilea, and so on. If I had to be more specific, it would be a mixture of 6th and 5th Edition, as well as Knights of the Grail. The full environment/situation from 'Barony of the Damned' aka the Mousillon sourcebook has yet to fully develop, as we are a few centuries before they reached that point.
This continued until they got unceremoniously wiped out in the End Times "because nobody has an idea what to do with them" and still have not returned, which is at least 75% of why I can't and won't get into Age of Sigmar.
I do admit in Age of Sigmar the only relic of Bretonnia seems to be an ancient Codex that doesn't have the updates needed to do great in the competitive Environment of Age of Sigmar.
So, basically, I would say that depending on where you are (physically, culturally, class-wise) in Bretonnia, it might be great, it might suck. Same as in the Empire, or Tilea, and so on.
Well of course not. One's a bloodsucking consumption of men and lives towards a false ideal, and the other is the Flesh Eater Courts (I kid I kid. The Bretonnians have things like The Lady and Saving the world from Demon Princes that no one else can hope to defeat on a moral, spiritual and physical level.)
The thing that really fucks me about it is, like, for the Bretonnia fans (who should absolutely be the big priority in deciding the fluff for a faction) even if you want to do, like a Mordred type deal with your knight, it's a lot easier and makes more sense for a faction of people mostly interested in playing Paladins to be dominantly, you know, Paladins, since it's easier to be the one evil dude in a sea of good than vice-versa?
The thing that really fucks me about it is, like, for the Bretonnia fans (who should absolutely be the big priority in deciding the fluff for a faction) even if you want to do, like a Mordred type deal with your knight, it's a lot easier and makes more sense for a faction of people mostly interested in playing Paladins to be dominantly, you know, Paladins, since it's easier to be the one evil dude in a sea of good than vice-versa?
The best interpretation of it is a manorial economy, that is to say, the peasants give 9/10 of their stuff to the lord and the lord immediately "Generously" gives a grain dole to all the peasants, basically the Lord keeps it and gives it out when his peasants need the food
(I kid I kid. The Bretonnians have things like The Lady and Saving the world from Demon Princes that no one else can hope to defeat on a moral, spiritual and physical level.)
