I suppose I just disagree with the idea that things unfolded illogically or implausibly. But I see where people are coming from. Still, I suspect that if Lord Kroak and the Seraphon had done all of this, nobody would bat an eyelash. But Teclis is right up there with him, isn't he?
The 1st gen slann (kroaks generation) taught teclis' ancestors how to bend the winds of magic. So yeah no one would bat an eye to kroak doing that. Kind of the best defense against people crying for kroak to be "nerfed" since by reason and practice. Kroak definitely has magic figured out the best. Especially since he's been dead for eons
Too add to this discussion about an overrated character. Just because you're a God doesn't mean you're the best at what you do. Unless youre nagash. He kinda ate all the death gods so he's kinda the only one left
That would be tricky... Kroak is far older than Sigmar, Teclis, and pretty much any beings other than the Chaos Gods themselves. And at least in the old Fantasy lore, he was cannonically the most powerful being in the setting (again, other than the Chaos Gods themselves). Heck, even most of the regular Slann were many times stronger than the mightiest Elf mage, and could do things like shift continents and move entire mountain ranges like it was nothing. But it's harder to say now since those same Elves are now literal gods and are each basically in charge of an entire world. I'm sure that Teclis is a powerhouse in his own right (GW certainly thinks so too), but I get the feeling that he gets a bit too much of his power from Celennar. In fact, as I said previously, the whole "elemental spirit-gods making the Lumineth their chosen people" thing is part of why the faction is being viewed as Mary-Sue-ish right now. However, the fact that all the different gods in AoS are mostly ascended mortals from the previous world is actually an interesting choice for the lore. It makes me wonder if GW actually decided to give the Seraphon some actual significance in the lore again if they wouldn't say that Lord Kroak was now even more powerful than he was in the previous world and has achieved a sort of godhood himself. Of course, they probably won't do this. We've been around since the beginning of AoS, and even before, being the only faction that escaped the Old World's destruction and made it into AoS pretty much intact. But even in the Old World the Lizardmen never really had any major part in the story. And GW realizing that they could single-handedly prevent the End Times from happening is why they had to literally use the "rocks fall, everyone dies" plot armor level of storytelling to nerf the Slann and prevent the Lizardmen from kicking Archaon's butt into orbit. And for almost seven years now since AoS was released, the Seraphon haven't had a single major appearance in the lore at all. I would personally prefer something more interesting than just an over-the-top "Seraphon kick everyone's asses" style of story that the Lumineth are getting. But something where they make a major impact and establish themselves as a real power in the Realms once again would be nice All in all though, this type of conversation makes me realize how much I dislike the general style of storytelling in AoS in general. Everything important is done by the gods. Whether that be Sigmar, Nagash, Morathi, Teclis, or any of the many other ascended Elves, it's still disappointing that there's little room for actual mortal heroes in the story. Yes, we have named characters like the Mortarchs or Gordrakk doing things here and there, but it's hard to get interested in say, Gordrakk trying to take on the Lumineth when you know that that big mountain cow spirit could probably stomp him, let alone Teclis himself. The factions that have their gods leading them get to do pretty much everything, while everyone else gets to sit in the background going about their insignificant daily lives, for the most part. It's fine for the gaming aspect, because (for some reason) you can "kill" the gods' models, but you can't write a story where a faction without a god leading them does anything close to what the Lumineth just did
If Seraphon did it, it would’ve just been a standard dues ex machina that’s characterized a lot of their appearances in the fiction so far Really I think it’s difficult to judge the events so far given all we’re working off is a guy’s summary, which has a lot of speculation in it and has been off in the details in the past. I do think it’s a bizarre way to end the Soul Wars narratively and a lot of the decisions made going forward from this BR to the next couple are going to be knee jerk reactions to people’s surface level criticism of different aos stuff (nagash being jobbed because people wanted Death to not just be about him for some reason, the new centaur guy so Destruction isn’t just about gorkamorka, Belakor is probably going to do something obnoxious with stormcast that addresses the bad criticism about how their reforging works etc) but hopefully they’ll do it in ways that’re at least satisfying to read about.
What exactly have we, the Seraphon, contributed to AoS in terms of Lore? Very little aside from showing the prowess of the Khorne Bloodbound in AoS 1.0. Or being Gotrek's Punching bag in one of his books. I cannot, for the life of me, recall a single, big, important lore event that we have been involved in and contributed in a way that would place us as more than a footnote of the story. I could see it now. Kroak had decided enough was enough, these Elven Pups had fucked enough up and the rotten bag of necromantic waste was due a reminder of the other powers in the realms. It would have been a wonderful moment. They could have even made it so that Teclis was still the driving force, but Kroak arrived to help in the nick of time, as we are want to do. Enigmatically so. As it stand, sure, Nagash is going to take some time and reform, scheme more, while the various underlings of his squabble for power. Cool. As for Teclis and the Lumineth, I want to see them get taken down a few pegs after this riding high lore point. Not to the point of being no longer lore relevant, but to show they can definitely still have sand kicked into their eyes. Morathi would actually be a good character to drive that home, along with Volturnos. (As an aside, allowing LRL and Idoneth to ally makes no sense with the history the Idoneth have with their daddy Teclis)
Speaking of Kragnos, I had assumed he was a Beast of Chaos, but someone showed me this picture and now I wonder if he's the "Backlash of Life" Allarielle was concerned about. He definitely looks more Kurnothi than like, say, a Centigor.
our cannon appearances are as follows the aforementioned gotreks mortal sidekicks kicking our teeth in offscreen(gotrek didn't even help) 2 instances of us coming out of left field to help SCE in their darkest hour, but it must be noted we don't actually do anything worth mentioning except show up. 3 instances of retcon as we are no longer memories and as such the mentions in ogres IDK and old tzeench no longer apply as it is specifically to do with our intangible nature 1 solid short story where a skink starpriest pushes a button(yup thats all that happens) and a honest to goodness great one where a slann wins a magic arm wrestling match with nurgle himself. we are the bad guys in that one as it's from a nurgle cultist perspective but still this one is probably our most substantial appearance
not a whole lot to it barley a paragraph but you can find it here https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/quick-reads/beneath-the-black-thumb-ebook.html
Interesting and I'll have to read that. The Realmgates Wars series was going on during the early Dark Days of AoS 1.0 when the lore was... interestingly approached and received.
It'd be nice to get a destruction factions focused on destroying civilization rather than everything. Like that 'Backlash of Life' you mentioned. I could see some really cool ideas coming from that.
we take what we can get. despite there being almost 200 books and short stories for AoS the times we show up or are even mentioned can be counted on your finger's
In fairness, the seraphon are basicly only ever used as a deus ex machinae so yeah, would be in character if that had happenend. Anyways aside from that: The good: Nagash is pushed back Grand Death Allegiance shatters into smaller subfactions The bad: The LRL achieving this completly solo, while no other faction so far managed to achieve much of significance against death. Or even against subfactions of death. Nagash getting defeated the first time he actually does something himself instead of sending a mortarch Tyrion apparently dealing with a "bigger" threat, cuz of course he is. Nagash being too stupid to bring a large enough force to just curbstomp the LRL despite him easily taking oneveryone else up till now. He invaded the all-points and established permanent footholds there for crying out loud, yet the LRL are too much? This isn't even the first time he invades Hysh. He's been trying to establish a foothold there for ages now. This'd imply it's more difficult to invade Hysh than it is to invade the allpoints, which is rather ridiculous. The mortachs continuing to try and undermine Nagash in name only because its been repeatedly established in the various short stories that they can't actually do anything of significance. Nagash's rule over Undeath has been very much absolute. Teclis handwaving away the necroquake, while it took Nagash millenia to create (not to mention the consequences for endless spells & nighthaunt) The meh: Teclis duelling Nagash and winning. How to improve it: Have the LRL fight in an alliance instead of achieving this all solo, and have this be more than Teclis occasionally having a chat with another god. For example; Teclis teams up with Manfredd. It gives Manfred sufficient backup to actually undermine and attempt to ussurp Nagash without immeadiatly being turned into dust, and it gives Teclis the chance he needs to force Nagash into a favourable engagement without having to rely on Nagash being a complete buffoon. Seriously, how is this not a major plotpoint? Don't have the LRL invade shyish. We already did that with all grand allegiances combined and that went increadibly badly. Especially don't do it with something as ridiculous as floating mountain ranges. If you're going to claim it's a raid then actually make it a fast hit & run force. Not something with tectonic speed... Have Nagash not be a complete morron. Give him some credit after being the big bad evil for 2-3 years in your story. Yes he's arrogant, but he's also patient enough to work on a plan for 6000+ years. Don't just announce Tyrion is fighting a bigger threat somewhere off-screen. Just show that tyrion fought him/is fighting him whenever that threat is actually revealed. Also, don't call it a bigger threat; it completely undercuts the stakes of this story. I really hope calling it a "bigger" threat is just the guy making the summary screwing up. Don't handwave away the necroquake... The whole point was that this magic was completly out of control, beyond the powers of anyone. Just say it's slightly less bad now because the magic slowly ebbs away. So regular people no longer need to fear Nighthaunt randomly showing up in their village. Anyway, the conclusions are fine-ish, it's the execution that's just rather terrible. And it wouldn't exactly be difficult to have avoided most problems. All that's ultimatly needed is just to not have the LRL do everything completly solo. Have Teclis make a deal with Manfred, have Allarielle show up in the nick of time to flank Nagash's forces. Have the Seraphon or SCE drop from the sky and open up a path to Nagash for Teclis through the undead ranks. Have Bel'akor invade shyish just as Nagash sallies out to go to Hysh forcing him to split his troops. Have a random waagh charge in just as the LRL and undead forces meet throwing everything into dissarray. Just do something that actually puts Nagash at a significant disadvantage and explains why he loses, instead of having the aelves effortlessly do what no-one else could come even remotly close to simply because they're awesome and Nagash apparently forgot he's supposed to be smart.
Nagash’s control over death and his mortarchs isn’t really absolute, there’s like a tiny bit of back and forth in the way some stuff is worded but it’s well established they scheme and plot and do whatever they want, they just don’t have the power to disobey him if he wants them to do something. This book even features that, with mannfred directly sabotaging Nagash’s plan to spread the Nadir to ensure it doesn’t happen, then engaging in a back and forth with Neferata that makes her fail too (though she also makes him fail, he goaded her into it because he wanted to ensure his failure).
I wonder if it was Adam Troke who wrote all this, he was certainly the biggest High Elf fanboy back in the Fantasy days, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s him that’s also turning the Lumineth into Stormcast 2.0. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they appear in the Third Edition boxes game now... Tomb Kings, Bretonnia and Chaos Dwarfs are proof that GW can certainly eradicate factions they dislike, but I certainly wouldn’t classify Nighthaunt as one of those. They have loads of models, they appear in the 2nd Edition boxed games, GW still push out the occasional model for them and they rated quite highly in the recent popularity rankings. There are many other factions that are at much greater risk of execution than Nighthaunt. Only something extremely serious would make GW kick Nighthaunt. I have already dispelled the myth of Kragnos being related to the Kurnothi, the centaur in the trailer is considerably more primal and has a lot of different features to the Kurnothi centaur.
There's a short story where Manfred was thinking about how badly he wanted to backstab Nagash and then Nagash reads manfreds mind using his magic and pokes fun of how completly incapable manfred is of actually opposing Nagash in any meaningfull way. He allows manfred his little games with Neferata and such so long as it doesn't interfere with his larger plans. Manfred can scheme and plot all he wants, but never achieves anything Nagash doesn't let him. And Nagash enjoys rubbing that into his face. There's also several other short stories where Manfred bemoans how impotent he is to oppose Nagash If Manfred & co are supposed to actually be able to oppose Nagash in a meaningfull way then they've done a terrible job of representing that in the short stories they've released. As so far it's been pretty absolute with no-one, not even other death-gods, being able to do anything to oppose him in a meaningfull way as far as his dominion over death goes. The closest thing we've had is a line mentioning one vampire who may or may not still be alive who's mere name angers Nagash so much he'l turn you to dust for mentioning him. Aside from that no-one seems to have had the ability to challenge Nagash. O yeah, I doubt they'd remove the Nighthaunt. But canonically speaking ending the necroquake should remove them as a faction. So they kinda wrote themselves into a corner here.