Discussion Returning to AoS, confused about Seraphon

[beebudbutamundi]

I am confused about what the Seraphon are. I know the Slann are the same as in the old world, literally, the same exact guys. For the Lizardmen though I am confused, some sources describe them as being memories willed into being by the Slann, others say they are flesh and (cold) blood and that the appearing and disappearing by starlight is more of a flowery description of them being teleported to and away from the battlefield ala a Star Trek like transporter.

I had a cool idea for painting an army back when AoS first dropped, but it was predicated on my understanding of the Saurus/Skinks at the time, which was that they were memories willed into being. The idea was that the Slann felt guilty for leaving almost all of his servants/friends to die in the world that was, so whenever he summons them they are ghostly looking. So the painting idea is paint everyone who isn't a Slann using a ghost technique and fully paint the Slann. But based on what I'm reading now, that isn't how they work after all.

Can someone help explain to me what is up with Seraphon?

 

[Sudsinabucket]

There's a new Battletome coming out soon that should answer all these questions but here is my (limited) understanding:

In the beginning most or all of Seraphon were memories created by the Slann, they would appear and then reappear as you said. Over time they stopped disappearing after battles and began to stay in the realm, and over time as the magic faded they became more and more real until finally they were exactly that: Real.

With the Black Library short story it is my understanding that some Slann are still in meditation which has forced some Seers to activate the spawning pools on some of the Temple ships, meaning there are now proper Lizardmen again (still called Seraphon of course)

I believe with the new book coming that we will see that the memory created troops will "die out" because now that the spawning pools are active the Slann dont need to summon whole entities (this isnt to say they still couldnt, but I feel from a lore perspective it will be less commonplace and saved for dire moments in battle). We also see in the short story that the one Temple Ship that it follows is creating the Saurus at a faster pace than normal which we are told will make them more aggressive being "Born from Pain/Anger" (cant remember the exact wording)

Someone else can explain better and correct where I'm wrong, but in a nutshell thats where I feel we are lorewise

 

[Aginor]

There were hints that some Seraphon have been real all along, and just teleported in from Azyr or so, think of Protoss in StarCraft.
Others were conjured from memory. And those seem to be able to become real (although it isn't quite clear how and when that happens).

But as @Sudsinabucket said: there is going to be a new Battletome soon, so we expect a major lore drop on Seraphon in the near future.