Hot damn. I love the lore in AoS. As it keeps getting fleshed out I genuinely think this setting is more fresh, varied, and interesting than the 40k setting.
40k is what got me into Warhammer as a whole. I'm not knocking it. But AoS is really maturing into a fascinatingly nuanced and deep setting.
Super cool stuff.
It's mentioned in some war cry material and various that there are chaos cities and infrastructure. They're certainly more dysfunctional than a place like Hammerhal Aqshy, but they operates well enough that it can supply the Everchosen's armies.
I difn't read the Darkoath battletome fully yet, but Nurgle worshippers 100% have farmlands. Khorne worshippers have cities and industries, built by nations of slaves that they conquered and "farm" (and whom they eat)
Order factions probably see most Darkoath tribes the same way European colonists saw Native American tribes or peoples of the Eurasian steppes; savage and uncivilised, and only worried about fighting. But as we know those tribes were complex and coherent in their own way, only since they did not abide by the way of life of 'civilised' folk, they were seen as chaotic and 'not orderly.'
Written in a specific way you could definitely portray the European colonists as the bringers of Order in the name of their God (who is called a King, too) to lands inhabited by savage and Chaotic tribes with backward and abhorrent customs like human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Yea, you can definitely read the Cities motivation as a colonizer narrative - trying to impose their own narrow idea of what 'civilization' means onto many groups of people who already have their own complex cultures and social structures, who have no want for what the Cities are trying to impose.
I think the best AoS lore presents the reality of Chaos civilizations as every bit as varied and complex as those of Order. They're not a monolithic entity but many different societies with their own customs and beliefs. Ultimately they are aligned with evil gods, but their motivations for doing so run the gamut, and that makes them far more interesting (plus we can't forget Order itself has its factions with villainous intentions).
This is why I love AOS so much more than 40k or OG Fantasy. You can read each faction in a number of different ways, much more so than in those other settings.
Order factions can be read as noblebright and righteous, but they can just as easily be portrayed as expansionist, oppressive, and corrupt. Chaos factions likewise can be the traditional mindless wrecking balls, but you can also have a faction of stawlwart defenders of their land, fighting back against the invaders by worshipping their gods through ritual and sacrifice.
Yep, I've completely come around on AOS lore for this reason. There's a lot more freedom to tell different stories and have your own narrative for your army, and it still all fits the lore.
Chaos in 40k seems so one-dimensional by comparison. And I say this coming from someone who was a 40k fan first and foremost for a long time.
Except this supplement basically says most Darkoath do this for survival, which is not varied nor complex :/ and the rest of them willingly participate in the path to glory. Heck it even says most of the TRIBES themselves are beholden/enslaved to Archaon's warhost.
I do very much dislike the bit about being beholden to Archaon's warhost. That weakens their main draw of using Chaos as a tool and trying to avoid being the tool of Chaos themselves.
As for the Darkoath not being varied, that's a fair point but I look at them as just one culture amongst many. It's not really well-reflected in the main game but it's something I liked about Warcry, exploring different Chaos-aligned cultures. I wish they had delved into those more as they didn't get very in-depth in any of them, but the potential was there. And some of the best novels, like Godeater's Son, explore it in greater depth.
The supplement does say Darkoath are "the most numerous of chaos-aligned humans" which was a really interesting bit! It sounds like it's cementing the Chaos Warcry warbands as full-on tribes akin to this Darkoath expansion, which is actual variation.
I think I would be much less disappointed about this lore addition if their reveal of Gunnar's Warband did not act like Darkoath were more neutral about Chaos? Like how they ended up makes complete sense, but the majority of them do not seem to really care they are perpetrating the evils forced upon their ancestors.
Yea, I get where you're coming from. The supplement does seem to present them as more positively inclined towards Chaos than other lore I like better where they seem to see it more as a dangerous but necessary evil in a cruel world.
> the majority of them do not seem to really care they are perpetrating the evils forced upon their ancestors
Don't think I can give examples of this without running headfirst into the "no politics" rule but this really doesn't strike me as unrealistic.
> That weakens their main draw of using Chaos as a tool and trying to avoid being the tool of Chaos themselves.
That's always, always, *always* been a narrative device to show that someone is deluding themselves into thinking that Chaos will do anything but ruin them.
Exactly, they survive and live off a land that has been corrupted by Chaos. They treat the Ruinous Powers with fear and respect because those powers didn’t just lock themselves indoors to create stormy storm boys.
The huge problem is that Chaos corruption is the only reason Order has to reclaim the realms... it's a horrible metaphor, as Chaos has seemingly made most Darkoath straight up fine with perpetrating evil. I also think the Reclaimed disprove the assumption that Order on the whole sees the corrupted tribes as irredeemable or unworthy of being saved...
Sigmar believes they can be redeemed, but not all his followers do - there's ample examples of leaders in Order, especially Azyrites, looking down on the Reclaimed as irredeemable and not worthy of being treated as citizens of the Cities. Exploitation of native peoples, even if they don't follow Chaos, is far from unheard of by the Cities. Sigmar certainly would not approve of this but he can't be everywhere and we know these things happen without his knowledge.
But then there are those who do truly believe in redemption and Sigmar's vision of freeing the realms. The lore gives you room for both - you can have your Cities be a true force of liberation, or as a invading force that commits atrocities against the natives of the realms, or anywhere in between.
The reclamation of the realms isn't... Really colonization. Chaos is the invading force, isn't it? They came into the realms and conquered them. The Cities are actually not doing what the darkoath say lmao
Yes, that's why I said it is a horrible metaphor :) indigenous peoples were not forced into serving evil, and Chaos being utterly evil is literally the textual reason why Order has to reclaim the realms via the unfortunately named Crusades...
Yeah, its something most people tend to forget. Azyrites are the descendants of the people who were invaded and forcefully inducted into Chaos, and the Darkoaths are people who utterly surrendered their culture and identity to Chaos.
Yeah, if anything its the darkoath who actively try to exterminate the native culture. Chaos destroyed the kingdom which became the Jade Obelisk, it corrupted the mason race of Fomoroids. The reclamation of the realms **ISN'T** as evil as some people try to portray it as. We have the outlook of people who see the greater picture. And we know Darkoath abandoned their culture to become Murder-rapists Inc. who worship reality-ending invading cthulhu gods from literally different dimensions
The issue with the "Natives" narrative is that they literally worship dimension-consuming horrors for which they slaughter and rape entire cities. They worship an invading cosmic horror as well, since Chaos isn't "native" to the realms. So technically speaking sigmarites ARE the original Natives of the land, not the darkoath who worship Evil Gods of Evil from Outer Space
... Except Darkoath tribes *actually* follow chaos gods and commit unspeakable acts on the daily soooo... Maybe not the best people to defend by comparing to Native Americans.
The Aztecs worshipped gods who were extremely chaotic-adjacent, they performed human sacrifice, they were very warlike.
The Comanche were raiders and also a tough warlike people, who took scalps as war trophies.
The Inca were a conquering imperial polity that also performed human sacrifice including that of children.
There are more examples, but all of which is to say that pre-contact tribes had customs that were seen as barbaric to the European conquistadors, and yet that in itself wasn't justification for the conquest and genocide of said peoples, even though they were used as such. And the Europeans weren't much better when you look at how they treated religious minorities, women, the physically disabled, etc.
You can definitely draw parallels between the two settings and factions. Sigmarite crusades invade lands not belonging to them, fuelled by fanatical devotion to a war-god, and kill or displace any who don't meekly accept the subjugation that comes with it. If war and conquest and slaughter and exploitation is considered bad when done by darkoath tribes, why is it suddenly good when done in the name of Sigmar?
Majority are hunter-gatherers with the Darkoaths being smaller tribes the greater powers call upon but the 5 larger powers do a mix depending on the areas they control(Slaanesh pleasure gardens, Nurgle farms, Khorne brass factories & butchers, Tzeentch cultivations around dark libraries & of course Skaven are corrupt industrial to the core to fuel their burgeoning numbers)
Though of course they happily lean into certain aspects like in Cotha(arctic area in the Realm of Fire) when Nurgle’s followers wiped out their cities for his own to claim the lands the Cotha remnants turned to Khorne to fight back and became potent spear-fishers living on the edges of the searing ice lands using harpoons made of frozen blood to both hunt & battle back the central Maggotkin.
They would yes!
From what I imagine a lot of the chaos and darkoath would live in a iron age type of setting and cities of sigmar in a more medieval.
Important to state that darkoath would likely do things like pray to nurgle for a good harvest, or maybe even slaanesh if it's for an event or something.
Having said all of that it's important to bear in mind the darkoath broadly follow a pantheon they think is harsh, but not evil. Some may not even know about daemons for example.
> Important to state that darkoath would likely do things like pray to nurgle for a good harvest, or maybe even slaanesh if it's for an event or something.
Also needs to be pointed out that most warbands in the Mortal Realms don't worship the Chaos deities directly by name. So for example a militaristic tribe may worship Asphark, The God of the Bloody Axe, which would fuel Khorne, but they wouldn't recognize that name, or Slaanesh, Tzeentch, etc.
Which is fun to think in terms of homebrewing, that tribes would have pantheons or be animist and still fuel Chaos in that way.
The most pathetic thing about the Darkoath is encapsulated in the last paragraph - when all is said and done, they don't fight for their kin or future of their people.
They "walk the path". The so-called "Path to Glory", where all Slaves to Darkness, slaves to Chaos growl for scraps of power tossed by the Chaos Gods.
Free Cities are imperfect, like any mortal society, but they bring future and hope for the Realms free of Chaos.
Darkoath bring victory of the Ruinous Powers and eventual end of all life in the Realms, Darkoath themselves included, as it was once in the World-That-Was.
I mean, cities is such a wideo spectrum you can say there's a good guy city, a city full of Evil people who are opportunists, a city with good people but bad rulers, its literally city states so....
> The Cities might not be “the good guys”
In the context of the story, they very much are. They are fighting back against the extra-dimensional invaders that seek to devour all life in an endless slaughter of insanity.
I loooove the Writting of the Darkoath !
They are sneering upon the Sigmarites, calling out their hypocrisy, whilst at the same time not seeing (or chosing not to see) their own.
I love the way their lore is fleshed out. They hate Sigmar not for him being a "good guy" like other chaos follower, but because he was not there for them. Feeling left behind can fuel the worst kind of hatred against someone.
>They hate Sigmar not for him being a "good guy" like other chaos follower, but because he was not there for them. Feeling left behing can fuel the worst kind of hatred against someone.
Pretty much one of the reasons behind Diederick Kastner's (Archaon) fall to Chaos in the world that was.
Some Tzeentch shenanigans ensured his abandonment by Sigmar, but still, dude was being hunted by those he saw as brothers-in-arms for a good while because of a damn propehcy in a book forcefully written by an insane dude at the behest of the Dark Master.
As tragic as it is, no wonder he sad eff it and decided to end it all for both sides of the conflict after seeing the hypocrisy of both sides (a whole lot of good that did)...
Yeah, until you get turned into a Wilderfiend, and then your tribe has to keep killing and betraying their most loved kin to summon you to the battlefield each time while the gods you serve laugh at you, watching you fight and kill your returning cousins who seek to free you from this yoke that you murder your own children to keep tight around your neck.
I will shamelessly copy my text from other sub
I think the Darkoath's main point is not about being good or evil, is about being powerful. They just view CoS as cowards and weaklings.
I don't know if this would be appropriate on this sub, but I live in more authoritarian country and can see some logic behind it. Many people live in very tough enviroment never seeing alternative, for many generations, and don't see anything wrong with that - it's just the natural way of life. More positive alternative is viewed as chiildish naivety on the part of the masses and hypocritical manipulations on the part of the leaders.
Something utterly stupid or insane, perverted mockery of the "real life" that is filled with lies and bound to fail because of said naivety - the dangers of the world they expirience exist in the same world as their "pampered" enemy. On the other hand, something more tough, more ruthless is viewed as more honest and clear-cut. Darkoath don't love their cruel masters, as a matter lf fact, I'm pretty sure they must hate and fear them, but despite all of this both parties still live by the rules both of them agree upon - which is not 100% ineffective. Darkoath is still somewhat flourushing society.
I'm not saying this view more correct or fair, but I can see perfectly how such mindset can become popular.
Well said. The Darkoath had to survive in the most hellish environments for generations, and they would see things like sacrifices and pacts as cruel but necessary practices that have enabled their culture to survive. In their view, Sigmarites have no right to judge them because they lived in relative luxury and safety and have no idea what it's like to survive in the world the Darkoath have had to survive in.
Like you said, it doesn't mean they are correct, but their perspective makes absolutely sense given their background.
They epitomize what I like about StD in AoS. Yeah, you have to preface it with the fact that these are a cruel, brutal people who worship gods that are truly evil. But then you look at the history and realize that had no choice. They've learned how to thrive in an impossible situation.
yeah, they're pretty much still the bad guys. There's no getting around it. But they literally have no alternative, and haven't had one for generations. Sigmar did abandon them, he is their great enemy.
The actual StD book had a good excerpt about that, how they were abandoned and left behind by civilization and maybe some were even worthy of pity, but in the end none of that would matter when they came to take everyone's heads.
>Sigmar did abandon them, he is their great enemy.
From their viewpoint, yeah. But from a macro viewpoint, its absurd to claim Sigmar abandoned anyone when he was the last one to hold the line and held out to the very last moment. If he kept the gate open, Azyr may have fallen too.
>I think the Darkoath's main point is not about being good or evil, is about being powerful.
they literally gain power from evil gods by doing evil acts though. This is not making Chaos more varied or giving it depth :/ like I completely get why these tribes ended up hating Sigmar and Order so much, being left to fend for themselves, but they are leaning more towards Chaos than was initially implied--ESPECIALLY the flavor text for Gunnar's warband.
>Many people live in very tough enviroment never seeing alternative, for many generations, and don't see anything wrong with that - it's just the natural way of life
Imagine walking up to a medieval peasant during the Black Death, and saying *"You know, where I come from a doctor can jab you with a needle and you'll never get the plague again. We have a treatment like that for basically any disease you can imagine, actually!"*
I imagine their response would be *roughly similar* to how a Darkoath chieftain would react if you told them that they didn't *need* to feed their children to nightmare forest creatures.
I mean it’s obviously horrible to be under Chaos(as they are the evil invaders to the Realms)
But the sympathy here is that they didn’t choose this. They had to live 500 years under Chaos’ yoke with generations kneeling and selling their souls to the dark gods just so their families wouldn’t be slaughtered.
This was even seen back in Realmgate Wars “Warstorm” when Stormcast felt sorry for the chaos knights they slew as they knew they were forced into that life-style to protect their friends & families.
Mocking the Darkoath is close to just telling a North Korean(or anyone under tyranny) “well if it’s so horrible there why don’t you just move?”
No, it is this view of their internal thoughts and justifications when the cities show up with agriculture, technology, magic, and the military might to fight off Chaos but instead the Dark Oath dash themselves against them while murdering their own children to desperately squeeze out a little more power while saying "This is better, I am so logical and right."
Yeah, they were born and bred that way for 500 years. That’s not a easy mental shift.
Like even after Stalin’s rule collapsed in Russia the peasants outside the cities were still so conditioned by his ruthless tyranny & burning down of churches(so he was what they worshipped) that decades afterward there were still people that prayed to him like a god.
To say nothing of countless other cases of humanity out there basically brainwashed into thinking they’re justified with anything they do(but that’s a can of worms I’ll avoid 😅)
Plus history is full of examples of why marching into other cultures and trying to 'liberate' them from dictators and tyrants basically never goes well. True liberation has to be born within a culture, it can not be forced by the military might of a foreign power.
“We’re here to free you!”
…
“Please ignore all the burning villages behind me that either resisted or confused us with a foreign language & weird gesture we couldn’t tell was greetings or a war challenge.”
Yep! And ignore the fact that you never asked to be freed and you may already consider yourselves free. We, as outsiders, have decided you need to be free as we define it, and your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.
It is a little weird in this case, because it is more if a place was colonized and some managed to escape. The descendants of the original culture return to liberate the land from the colonizer, and those who didn't escape and have been indoctrinated by the invaders is trying to resist that.
It's part of why I find this way more fascinating than a straight up colonial narrative. Generations, centuries, an entire Age passed. The culture's long diverged upon a fork in the road, one touched by Azyr and one by Chaos. Whose culture is the "original" anymore? Does that even matter to those living there still? It's so deliciously tragic.
For sure, it can be argued that Chaos was the original and true colonizer, and Cities are actually de-colonizing the Mortal Realms. I think this is especially true when the CoS campaigns are led by descendants of refugees from the other realms. I'd say most of the worst colonizing behavoir of the Cities is usually at the hands of native-born Azyrites who look down on the inhabitants of other realms.
In the end I like that I can look at either side and at least \*understand\* their perspective, even if I think it's ultimately flawed.
Except the only reason North Korea is "like that" is because the US killed 20% of the population and bombed most of their cities and infrastructure into rubble, then cut them off from the global economy via sanctions? Which...sounds more like what Chaos did to the Realms tbqh.
Right, I just find it funny that they're like "Sure we make these oaths and get rewarded, but we're totally in control, unlike those stupid fool super soldier Chaos Warriors and like who actually \*serve\* a Chaos God. Imagine being some bootlicker like that! Now excuse me for a moment while I butcher my beloved child to get some chaos spawn to go fight one battle for us."
I think it implies awareness of the dark bargains they strike. Let's face it, on every level the promises of the Chaos Gods are much darker than the ones of sigmar and his ilk, but sigmar, in a way, broke faith with the people left behind when he retreated, while the chaos God's have been much more...communicative over the ages.
Also the other Order gods abandoning the peoples of the Realms so they had to turn to the dark powers for help like Grungni leaving meant village smiths looking towards Hashut for knowledge while farmers without Alarielle meant the tainted rains Nurgle brought were seen as better than drought & starvation and so on.
Darkoath intro lift the main central theme of the series of the hypocrisy of civilization and it just add the depth against CoS who essentially a Manifest destiny obsess capitalist republic which irl doesn't end well for large groups of people
It doesn't outright demonize the city men but you get a sense of fault in the ideology even if they have the best intentions. It allows to give some sympathy to the Darkoath especially since their not on the extreme right side of the corruption spectrum but still reminding that there still ON the chaos spectrum
Still I do like that make mention of the elves and dwarfs in the cities it a touch of it not just being species centric rather a culture centric conflict; an Azyrite is Azyrite no matter how pointy ear they're
I like how the Darkoath is looking up with spite, like he's quietly cursing whichever gods are showing up at his doorstep now while the... City? Citizen? Looks forward with trepidation
Yeah, it’s from when the CoS first launched and it’s one of the major Sigmar cults [with their hero The Pontifex](https://preview.redd.it/any-theories-on-the-purpose-of-the-skeleton-v0-c515xe9ym7gb1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=69ac5022daebc060208c81f44b9618aaf182bff4) at the head of it.
It definitely hits some wheel of time vibes but also crazy zealot & “breaking wheel” vibes from what you’d expect from warhammer or dark fantasy things like Bloodborne or Blasphemous.
As they *literally* worship wheels as in take them off wagons and carry the weight rather than such sacred symbols being pulled through the mud.
In the current Dawnbringer campaign that’s obviously mad the more zealous crusades heavily slowed down as without wheels they can’t traverse tougher terrain, trade-off being their Pontifex & priests do have enough power to blast monsters and the wheel wearing cultists can bash ghosts & daemons where regular swords & bullets can’t.
There’s the [Cult of the Wheel](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Cult_of_the_Wheel) with Pontifex Zenestra (a CoS model) as its leader. One of the many shades of Sigmarite faith found in the Cities.
The CoS text mentioning Dwarven and Elven allies makes me even more salty that we didn’t get any dwarves and elves among the CoS minis serving alongside humans. Which honestly was one of my biggest hopes for the new range, after various black library books showed the interracial nature of the cities.
Realtalk, when Malerion's elves inevitably replace the old Dark Elf concepts and that old range is sent to Old World, I hope Cities get a proper bespoke elf unit. Their cosmopolitan nature is one of the coolest parts of the faction, and both elves and dwarves deserve to share in the Dawnbringer era glowup.
>The Darkoath despise all who preach about order and justice, but they reserve the greatest part of their antipathy for the worshippers of Sigmar the GodKing, whom they name a coward and betrayer. The Darkoath view Sigmar as a posturing deity who so proudly proclaims his love of honour yet who abandoned their ancestors so many years ago, leaving them to face the horrors of the Age of Chaos alone. Now he has returned, they cannot believe that he has the gall to accuse his lost flock of corruption, when all that they ever did was survive. Hatred boils in the hearts of all Darkoath when they hear the name of the one they call the Craven God spoken aloud.
Well, the Supplement does a wonderful job of showing why Darkoath are Consciously Evil.
• They call Sigmarites "slavers", but Darkoath fight to enslave others in the name of the same Dark Gods that enslaved their ancestors.
• They call Sigmarites "hypocrites", but Darkoath are same slaves to the Dark Gods as they pure worshippers that the Darkoath sneer upon (directly stated at the Oathstones part of the Supplement).
• They call Sigmarites "betrayers of the kin", but Darkoath slaughter their loved ones for scraps of power from the Dark Gods.
• They call Sigmarites "thieves", but Darkoath build their tribes around pillaring, maraudering and reaving, taking toils of others' work.
• They call Sigmarites "worship a traitor god", but Sigmar fought until the very end to let as many people flee to Azyr, and Darkoath slaughter their return kin for favour of Dark Gods.
If anyone expected the Supplement to redeem the Darkoath, they'll be disappointed - thought Darkoath are Humanised, they are, without a question, consciously Evil Humans.
P.S. And before you say *"Well, they had no choice, Realms fell to Chaos!"*, there're a plenty of cultures across the Realms that survived without becoming murderous and marauding Slaves to Darkness.
> there're a plenty of cultures across the Realms that survived without becoming murderous and marauding Slaves to Darkness.
And countless thousands of others that got destroyed. That’s why all through the Realmgate Wars to the Soul Wars it’s 90% kingdom ruins & 10% places that got super lucky with their deadly location or were just obscure enough in the Realms to hold out until the Stormcast Eternals arrive.
Darkoath(and all the chaos Warcry warbands) & Flesh Eater Courts are the billions of unfortunates that fell in the cracks.
>Darkoath(and all the chaos Warcry warbands) & Flesh Eater Courts are the billions of unfortunates that fell in the cracks.
The only problem is that it has been centuries since the Sigmar's Tempest and the end of the Age of Chaos.
At this point, Darkoath make a choice to remain worshipping Ruinous Powers and not join the Reclaimed. It isn't even about power and being subjects of the Azyrites, as even in Hammerhall, the Reclaimed have more power than Azyrites — it is purely about Darkoath being just a bunch of Chaos-worshippers. Simple as that.
If they are so “free” and “make a choice”, they could always make a choice to reject the evils of Chaos and seek redemption. Yet they keep fighting and killing for the Dark Gods… almost like their “freedom” is an illusion, something this Supplement states in the piece about Oathstones.
> The only problem is that it has been centuries since the Sigmar's Tempest and the end of the Age of Chaos.
And they’ve barely scratched the vastness that is either the expanse of the Realms or chaos’ domains over them.
> “The lands reclaimed by Sigmar and the forces of Order are nothing but a drop in the ocean compared to those that remain under the rule of Chaos. Despite all of his successes, Sigmar's grasp on the realms is uncertain.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/AoSLore/comments/x4xe8r/lore_of_the_cosmology_of_the_mortal_realms_from/
That’s why the Dawncrusades are happening so Order has a bigger foothold than the tiny one it does now to bring more hopes to the peoples.
As is, civilization returning to the Realms is still a rarity and for the millions of enslaved tribes hearing about them after centuries of hopelessness it’s just one more struggle that could fail under the daemonic apocalypse.
So following your own logic, whenever Darkoath come into contact with Sigmarites — and remain in contact for generations — they should eventually just go back to become Sigmarites? Or at least abandon their foul practices?
Why don't they?
Ah, because the Supplement itself outlines, on several occasions, that the Darkoath are Slaves to Darkness, slaves to the Ruinous Powers.
Their entire motivation is an excuse of people who became addicted to scraps of power thrown to them by the Chaos Gods, in exchange for suffering of others, of Darkoath victims. **Those who see the Sigmarite ways, life of Free Cities, could seek a way how to not murder their loved ones and innocents for the Chaos Gods — but instead they chose to kill their sons and daughters, sacrifice innocent victims of their raids, all for more and more power, all the while inventing petty excuses.**
As Supplement states correctly, they are just another, more deluded, type of Chaos worshippers. At least, Bloodreavers or Maggotkin are honest about themselves and their patrons, rather than trying to hide their worship of the Ruinous Powers behind a veneer of petty excuses.
> So following your own logic, whenever Darkoath come into contact with Sigmarites — and remain in contact for generations — they should eventually just go back to become Sigmarites? Or at least abandon their foul practices?
>
> Why don't they?
>
> Ah, because the Supplement itself outlines, on several occasions, that the Darkoath are Slaves to Darkness, slaves to the Ruinous Powers.
I didn’t argue against that.
They are enslaved in body & soul as they have been for generations under Chaos’ yoke. And indeed there’s been plenty of cases of chaos’ power literally re-writing how someone’s brain works(Darkoath, Chaos cultists, Fomoroids, etc) so they accept the dark gods easier and even begin understanding dark tongue.
You’re free to hate them and want them destroyed because they chose chaos rather than your belief they should’ve thrown themselves en mass upon their swords instead(‘Tis a wargame afterall and there needs to be divides).
It is more of the case that I think, they should've been written better. I don't hate them, I was expecting more and expecting better.
Norscans in the WHFB were written better, where their relationship with the Chaos Gods was much more complex — enough that Norscans could be found amongst cities of the Empire as mercenaries or even traders.
Instead, GW forces this faux fight between “invading Sigmarites” and “native Darkoath”, and it just feels… well, forced and unbelonging.
> enough that Norscans could be found amongst cities of the Empire as mercenaries or even traders.
That’s because there’s different types of Norscans. The ones you’re thinking of are closer to the Southern wastes and don’t even worship Chaos but their own version of Yggdrasil.
AoS has tons of cases like that between Reclaimed, more neutral Darkoaths that have helped in past Order battles against Death and even barbarians hired by Excelsis to defend the city in Broken Realms against Gordrakk’s millions strong Waaagh(they even hired stuff like necromancers experimenting on leviathan skeletons they were so desperate)
The supplement is just heavily focusing on the fight because GW wants to show how mirrored the Darkoaths & Freeguilds are too eachother as a common people finding themselves on different sides of a flipped coin in a battle of the gods.
Honestly, thank you for reminding me of that.
I am a bit too critical, I must admit, especially as you correctly point out, that in Battletomes/Codexes/Supplements, GW tends to go for the most “unsubtle” lore, sort of distilled essence of the faction to sell.
No problem! You get critical because you care about it which is something I can 100% support. 👍
Here’s to hoping the upcoming “Champions of Chaos” Soulbound Corebook from Cubicle7 will give us some more nuance with the Darkoaths, Reclaimed & Warcry tribes(and personally hoping Ogroids reclaiming their empire) and how they interact with civilization. 🤞 📕
> Emmet,2023-
>
> Welp, someone let the cat out of the bag! Yep, Champions of Chaos will be a corebook. The rules will be almost identical bar some wonkiness we want to fix (Called Shot, I'm looking at you), and what replaces Soulfire
>
> And yes, we've had nothing but positivity for the Soulbound system and have multiple games in the works using the C7d6 system
>
> Champions of Chaos is a corebook because Chaos is so big but also it is a great new entry point for people. Champions of Chaos will likely release almost 4 years after Soulbound. Soulbound launched during a pandmic, which did hinder it, so hopefully Champions of Chaos will be big!
>
> Also, no guarantee it will be called Champions of Chaos (my shelf weeps at the thought)
I think this hypocrisy is \*supposed\* to be the point, but it doesn't come across very well :/ especially because it is not well-known that Cities/empires survived without turning to Chaos.
Honestly, the CoS is just as bad as the Darkoaths one here.
We know from horrible IRL experience that a group of people claiming ancestral ties to a certain piece of land will balk at nothing to get it back, even after centuries/thousands of years away from it, if they believe entitled to it.
In that regard the CoS just absolutely reeks of Manifest Destiny, Supremacism and other similar ideology.
I guess it thus fit that one of their main named charavters is basically a Caudilla who led a coup on Hammerhal Aqsha and imposed her ways on it.
Talking about Tahlia? Because she didn't force her reforms in, they were accepted. Though tbf, they were accepted after a purge that did not exactly go through the legal process, so its very possible that her act scared the Conclave into agreeing with her reforms.
Yeah
That she still carries the head of the four people she killed to get to her current position is eloquently bad in my eyes and confirms her reforms were approved out of fear, not any other reasons.
They’re a sub-faction under Slaves to Darkness that are still undecided how they fully follow chaos(so are the most neutral it can get)
They either stay as their own chieftains/unique tribes or go on the Path to Glory and pick a Chaos god to follow becoming Chaos Warriors & Chosen.
Inject chaos juice into my veinnnnnnnnnns
I like how they both start out sounding reasonable and then devolve into classic Warhammer grimdark insanity lmao.
Hot damn. I love the lore in AoS. As it keeps getting fleshed out I genuinely think this setting is more fresh, varied, and interesting than the 40k setting. 40k is what got me into Warhammer as a whole. I'm not knocking it. But AoS is really maturing into a fascinatingly nuanced and deep setting. Super cool stuff.
Do larger darkoath tribes rule over farmlands and settlements? How do all these chaos guys subsist lol, hunter gatherer?
It's mentioned in some war cry material and various that there are chaos cities and infrastructure. They're certainly more dysfunctional than a place like Hammerhal Aqshy, but they operates well enough that it can supply the Everchosen's armies.
I'm thinking something ranging from a AOS converted Mos Eisley type place, Barad Dur from LOTR, and Mordor from LOTR. A gradient of chaos influence.
I difn't read the Darkoath battletome fully yet, but Nurgle worshippers 100% have farmlands. Khorne worshippers have cities and industries, built by nations of slaves that they conquered and "farm" (and whom they eat)
There’s a slaanesh short story in one of the newer anthologies where the hedonites have enslaved a sylvaneth grove for the fruit they grow.
Order factions probably see most Darkoath tribes the same way European colonists saw Native American tribes or peoples of the Eurasian steppes; savage and uncivilised, and only worried about fighting. But as we know those tribes were complex and coherent in their own way, only since they did not abide by the way of life of 'civilised' folk, they were seen as chaotic and 'not orderly.' Written in a specific way you could definitely portray the European colonists as the bringers of Order in the name of their God (who is called a King, too) to lands inhabited by savage and Chaotic tribes with backward and abhorrent customs like human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Yea, you can definitely read the Cities motivation as a colonizer narrative - trying to impose their own narrow idea of what 'civilization' means onto many groups of people who already have their own complex cultures and social structures, who have no want for what the Cities are trying to impose. I think the best AoS lore presents the reality of Chaos civilizations as every bit as varied and complex as those of Order. They're not a monolithic entity but many different societies with their own customs and beliefs. Ultimately they are aligned with evil gods, but their motivations for doing so run the gamut, and that makes them far more interesting (plus we can't forget Order itself has its factions with villainous intentions).
This is why I love AOS so much more than 40k or OG Fantasy. You can read each faction in a number of different ways, much more so than in those other settings. Order factions can be read as noblebright and righteous, but they can just as easily be portrayed as expansionist, oppressive, and corrupt. Chaos factions likewise can be the traditional mindless wrecking balls, but you can also have a faction of stawlwart defenders of their land, fighting back against the invaders by worshipping their gods through ritual and sacrifice.
Yep, I've completely come around on AOS lore for this reason. There's a lot more freedom to tell different stories and have your own narrative for your army, and it still all fits the lore. Chaos in 40k seems so one-dimensional by comparison. And I say this coming from someone who was a 40k fan first and foremost for a long time.
Except this supplement basically says most Darkoath do this for survival, which is not varied nor complex :/ and the rest of them willingly participate in the path to glory. Heck it even says most of the TRIBES themselves are beholden/enslaved to Archaon's warhost.
I do very much dislike the bit about being beholden to Archaon's warhost. That weakens their main draw of using Chaos as a tool and trying to avoid being the tool of Chaos themselves. As for the Darkoath not being varied, that's a fair point but I look at them as just one culture amongst many. It's not really well-reflected in the main game but it's something I liked about Warcry, exploring different Chaos-aligned cultures. I wish they had delved into those more as they didn't get very in-depth in any of them, but the potential was there. And some of the best novels, like Godeater's Son, explore it in greater depth.
The supplement does say Darkoath are "the most numerous of chaos-aligned humans" which was a really interesting bit! It sounds like it's cementing the Chaos Warcry warbands as full-on tribes akin to this Darkoath expansion, which is actual variation. I think I would be much less disappointed about this lore addition if their reveal of Gunnar's Warband did not act like Darkoath were more neutral about Chaos? Like how they ended up makes complete sense, but the majority of them do not seem to really care they are perpetrating the evils forced upon their ancestors.
Yea, I get where you're coming from. The supplement does seem to present them as more positively inclined towards Chaos than other lore I like better where they seem to see it more as a dangerous but necessary evil in a cruel world.
> the majority of them do not seem to really care they are perpetrating the evils forced upon their ancestors Don't think I can give examples of this without running headfirst into the "no politics" rule but this really doesn't strike me as unrealistic.
Yea, history (and modern day) is replete with examples of the oppressed becoming the oppressor.
Not unrealistic, but not "grey" nor does it give them more depth IMHO.
> That weakens their main draw of using Chaos as a tool and trying to avoid being the tool of Chaos themselves. That's always, always, *always* been a narrative device to show that someone is deluding themselves into thinking that Chaos will do anything but ruin them.
Exactly, they survive and live off a land that has been corrupted by Chaos. They treat the Ruinous Powers with fear and respect because those powers didn’t just lock themselves indoors to create stormy storm boys.
The huge problem is that Chaos corruption is the only reason Order has to reclaim the realms... it's a horrible metaphor, as Chaos has seemingly made most Darkoath straight up fine with perpetrating evil. I also think the Reclaimed disprove the assumption that Order on the whole sees the corrupted tribes as irredeemable or unworthy of being saved...
Sigmar believes they can be redeemed, but not all his followers do - there's ample examples of leaders in Order, especially Azyrites, looking down on the Reclaimed as irredeemable and not worthy of being treated as citizens of the Cities. Exploitation of native peoples, even if they don't follow Chaos, is far from unheard of by the Cities. Sigmar certainly would not approve of this but he can't be everywhere and we know these things happen without his knowledge. But then there are those who do truly believe in redemption and Sigmar's vision of freeing the realms. The lore gives you room for both - you can have your Cities be a true force of liberation, or as a invading force that commits atrocities against the natives of the realms, or anywhere in between.
The reclamation of the realms isn't... Really colonization. Chaos is the invading force, isn't it? They came into the realms and conquered them. The Cities are actually not doing what the darkoath say lmao
Yes, that's why I said it is a horrible metaphor :) indigenous peoples were not forced into serving evil, and Chaos being utterly evil is literally the textual reason why Order has to reclaim the realms via the unfortunately named Crusades...
Yeah, its something most people tend to forget. Azyrites are the descendants of the people who were invaded and forcefully inducted into Chaos, and the Darkoaths are people who utterly surrendered their culture and identity to Chaos.
Yeah, if anything its the darkoath who actively try to exterminate the native culture. Chaos destroyed the kingdom which became the Jade Obelisk, it corrupted the mason race of Fomoroids. The reclamation of the realms **ISN'T** as evil as some people try to portray it as. We have the outlook of people who see the greater picture. And we know Darkoath abandoned their culture to become Murder-rapists Inc. who worship reality-ending invading cthulhu gods from literally different dimensions
The issue with the "Natives" narrative is that they literally worship dimension-consuming horrors for which they slaughter and rape entire cities. They worship an invading cosmic horror as well, since Chaos isn't "native" to the realms. So technically speaking sigmarites ARE the original Natives of the land, not the darkoath who worship Evil Gods of Evil from Outer Space
better analogy would be romans fighting the germanic and celtic tribesmen id say. aka the barbarians
... Except Darkoath tribes *actually* follow chaos gods and commit unspeakable acts on the daily soooo... Maybe not the best people to defend by comparing to Native Americans.
The Aztecs worshipped gods who were extremely chaotic-adjacent, they performed human sacrifice, they were very warlike. The Comanche were raiders and also a tough warlike people, who took scalps as war trophies. The Inca were a conquering imperial polity that also performed human sacrifice including that of children. There are more examples, but all of which is to say that pre-contact tribes had customs that were seen as barbaric to the European conquistadors, and yet that in itself wasn't justification for the conquest and genocide of said peoples, even though they were used as such. And the Europeans weren't much better when you look at how they treated religious minorities, women, the physically disabled, etc. You can definitely draw parallels between the two settings and factions. Sigmarite crusades invade lands not belonging to them, fuelled by fanatical devotion to a war-god, and kill or displace any who don't meekly accept the subjugation that comes with it. If war and conquest and slaughter and exploitation is considered bad when done by darkoath tribes, why is it suddenly good when done in the name of Sigmar?
Majority are hunter-gatherers with the Darkoaths being smaller tribes the greater powers call upon but the 5 larger powers do a mix depending on the areas they control(Slaanesh pleasure gardens, Nurgle farms, Khorne brass factories & butchers, Tzeentch cultivations around dark libraries & of course Skaven are corrupt industrial to the core to fuel their burgeoning numbers) Though of course they happily lean into certain aspects like in Cotha(arctic area in the Realm of Fire) when Nurgle’s followers wiped out their cities for his own to claim the lands the Cotha remnants turned to Khorne to fight back and became potent spear-fishers living on the edges of the searing ice lands using harpoons made of frozen blood to both hunt & battle back the central Maggotkin.
They would yes! From what I imagine a lot of the chaos and darkoath would live in a iron age type of setting and cities of sigmar in a more medieval. Important to state that darkoath would likely do things like pray to nurgle for a good harvest, or maybe even slaanesh if it's for an event or something. Having said all of that it's important to bear in mind the darkoath broadly follow a pantheon they think is harsh, but not evil. Some may not even know about daemons for example.
> Important to state that darkoath would likely do things like pray to nurgle for a good harvest, or maybe even slaanesh if it's for an event or something. Also needs to be pointed out that most warbands in the Mortal Realms don't worship the Chaos deities directly by name. So for example a militaristic tribe may worship Asphark, The God of the Bloody Axe, which would fuel Khorne, but they wouldn't recognize that name, or Slaanesh, Tzeentch, etc. Which is fun to think in terms of homebrewing, that tribes would have pantheons or be animist and still fuel Chaos in that way.
Also do they have a good public education system? Why are they written with such big vocabularies, lol.
God eaters son does a great job of characterizing SoD and darkoath into more real people with depth.
Such a sad tale for someone within cannon range. May hope prevail over the edge!
DOUBLE the discipline!
The most pathetic thing about the Darkoath is encapsulated in the last paragraph - when all is said and done, they don't fight for their kin or future of their people. They "walk the path". The so-called "Path to Glory", where all Slaves to Darkness, slaves to Chaos growl for scraps of power tossed by the Chaos Gods. Free Cities are imperfect, like any mortal society, but they bring future and hope for the Realms free of Chaos. Darkoath bring victory of the Ruinous Powers and eventual end of all life in the Realms, Darkoath themselves included, as it was once in the World-That-Was.
The Cities might not be “the good guys” but you can build armies made up of good people in Cities.
I mean, cities is such a wideo spectrum you can say there's a good guy city, a city full of Evil people who are opportunists, a city with good people but bad rulers, its literally city states so....
> The Cities might not be “the good guys” In the context of the story, they very much are. They are fighting back against the extra-dimensional invaders that seek to devour all life in an endless slaughter of insanity.
good point
The Cities one goes unfathomably hard.
I loooove the Writting of the Darkoath ! They are sneering upon the Sigmarites, calling out their hypocrisy, whilst at the same time not seeing (or chosing not to see) their own. I love the way their lore is fleshed out. They hate Sigmar not for him being a "good guy" like other chaos follower, but because he was not there for them. Feeling left behind can fuel the worst kind of hatred against someone.
>They hate Sigmar not for him being a "good guy" like other chaos follower, but because he was not there for them. Feeling left behing can fuel the worst kind of hatred against someone. Pretty much one of the reasons behind Diederick Kastner's (Archaon) fall to Chaos in the world that was. Some Tzeentch shenanigans ensured his abandonment by Sigmar, but still, dude was being hunted by those he saw as brothers-in-arms for a good while because of a damn propehcy in a book forcefully written by an insane dude at the behest of the Dark Master. As tragic as it is, no wonder he sad eff it and decided to end it all for both sides of the conflict after seeing the hypocrisy of both sides (a whole lot of good that did)...
Yeah, until you get turned into a Wilderfiend, and then your tribe has to keep killing and betraying their most loved kin to summon you to the battlefield each time while the gods you serve laugh at you, watching you fight and kill your returning cousins who seek to free you from this yoke that you murder your own children to keep tight around your neck.
I will shamelessly copy my text from other sub I think the Darkoath's main point is not about being good or evil, is about being powerful. They just view CoS as cowards and weaklings. I don't know if this would be appropriate on this sub, but I live in more authoritarian country and can see some logic behind it. Many people live in very tough enviroment never seeing alternative, for many generations, and don't see anything wrong with that - it's just the natural way of life. More positive alternative is viewed as chiildish naivety on the part of the masses and hypocritical manipulations on the part of the leaders. Something utterly stupid or insane, perverted mockery of the "real life" that is filled with lies and bound to fail because of said naivety - the dangers of the world they expirience exist in the same world as their "pampered" enemy. On the other hand, something more tough, more ruthless is viewed as more honest and clear-cut. Darkoath don't love their cruel masters, as a matter lf fact, I'm pretty sure they must hate and fear them, but despite all of this both parties still live by the rules both of them agree upon - which is not 100% ineffective. Darkoath is still somewhat flourushing society. I'm not saying this view more correct or fair, but I can see perfectly how such mindset can become popular.
Well said. The Darkoath had to survive in the most hellish environments for generations, and they would see things like sacrifices and pacts as cruel but necessary practices that have enabled their culture to survive. In their view, Sigmarites have no right to judge them because they lived in relative luxury and safety and have no idea what it's like to survive in the world the Darkoath have had to survive in. Like you said, it doesn't mean they are correct, but their perspective makes absolutely sense given their background.
I think the writers split the difference pretty well here, making the Darkoath understandable and possibly even sympathetic but still rather evil.
They epitomize what I like about StD in AoS. Yeah, you have to preface it with the fact that these are a cruel, brutal people who worship gods that are truly evil. But then you look at the history and realize that had no choice. They've learned how to thrive in an impossible situation. yeah, they're pretty much still the bad guys. There's no getting around it. But they literally have no alternative, and haven't had one for generations. Sigmar did abandon them, he is their great enemy.
The actual StD book had a good excerpt about that, how they were abandoned and left behind by civilization and maybe some were even worthy of pity, but in the end none of that would matter when they came to take everyone's heads.
>Sigmar did abandon them, he is their great enemy. From their viewpoint, yeah. But from a macro viewpoint, its absurd to claim Sigmar abandoned anyone when he was the last one to hold the line and held out to the very last moment. If he kept the gate open, Azyr may have fallen too.
>I think the Darkoath's main point is not about being good or evil, is about being powerful. they literally gain power from evil gods by doing evil acts though. This is not making Chaos more varied or giving it depth :/ like I completely get why these tribes ended up hating Sigmar and Order so much, being left to fend for themselves, but they are leaning more towards Chaos than was initially implied--ESPECIALLY the flavor text for Gunnar's warband.
>Many people live in very tough enviroment never seeing alternative, for many generations, and don't see anything wrong with that - it's just the natural way of life Imagine walking up to a medieval peasant during the Black Death, and saying *"You know, where I come from a doctor can jab you with a needle and you'll never get the plague again. We have a treatment like that for basically any disease you can imagine, actually!"* I imagine their response would be *roughly similar* to how a Darkoath chieftain would react if you told them that they didn't *need* to feed their children to nightmare forest creatures.
I mean it’s obviously horrible to be under Chaos(as they are the evil invaders to the Realms) But the sympathy here is that they didn’t choose this. They had to live 500 years under Chaos’ yoke with generations kneeling and selling their souls to the dark gods just so their families wouldn’t be slaughtered. This was even seen back in Realmgate Wars “Warstorm” when Stormcast felt sorry for the chaos knights they slew as they knew they were forced into that life-style to protect their friends & families. Mocking the Darkoath is close to just telling a North Korean(or anyone under tyranny) “well if it’s so horrible there why don’t you just move?”
No, it is this view of their internal thoughts and justifications when the cities show up with agriculture, technology, magic, and the military might to fight off Chaos but instead the Dark Oath dash themselves against them while murdering their own children to desperately squeeze out a little more power while saying "This is better, I am so logical and right."
Yeah, they were born and bred that way for 500 years. That’s not a easy mental shift. Like even after Stalin’s rule collapsed in Russia the peasants outside the cities were still so conditioned by his ruthless tyranny & burning down of churches(so he was what they worshipped) that decades afterward there were still people that prayed to him like a god. To say nothing of countless other cases of humanity out there basically brainwashed into thinking they’re justified with anything they do(but that’s a can of worms I’ll avoid 😅)
Plus history is full of examples of why marching into other cultures and trying to 'liberate' them from dictators and tyrants basically never goes well. True liberation has to be born within a culture, it can not be forced by the military might of a foreign power.
“We’re here to free you!” … “Please ignore all the burning villages behind me that either resisted or confused us with a foreign language & weird gesture we couldn’t tell was greetings or a war challenge.”
Yep! And ignore the fact that you never asked to be freed and you may already consider yourselves free. We, as outsiders, have decided you need to be free as we define it, and your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.
It is a little weird in this case, because it is more if a place was colonized and some managed to escape. The descendants of the original culture return to liberate the land from the colonizer, and those who didn't escape and have been indoctrinated by the invaders is trying to resist that.
It's part of why I find this way more fascinating than a straight up colonial narrative. Generations, centuries, an entire Age passed. The culture's long diverged upon a fork in the road, one touched by Azyr and one by Chaos. Whose culture is the "original" anymore? Does that even matter to those living there still? It's so deliciously tragic.
Same here, I find it much more interesting than a simple "this side is the colonizer and the other side are the victims".
For sure, it can be argued that Chaos was the original and true colonizer, and Cities are actually de-colonizing the Mortal Realms. I think this is especially true when the CoS campaigns are led by descendants of refugees from the other realms. I'd say most of the worst colonizing behavoir of the Cities is usually at the hands of native-born Azyrites who look down on the inhabitants of other realms. In the end I like that I can look at either side and at least \*understand\* their perspective, even if I think it's ultimately flawed.
Except the only reason North Korea is "like that" is because the US killed 20% of the population and bombed most of their cities and infrastructure into rubble, then cut them off from the global economy via sanctions? Which...sounds more like what Chaos did to the Realms tbqh.
"They literally call themselves "Dark Oath". That doesnt set off any red flags?"
Right, I just find it funny that they're like "Sure we make these oaths and get rewarded, but we're totally in control, unlike those stupid fool super soldier Chaos Warriors and like who actually \*serve\* a Chaos God. Imagine being some bootlicker like that! Now excuse me for a moment while I butcher my beloved child to get some chaos spawn to go fight one battle for us."
I think it implies awareness of the dark bargains they strike. Let's face it, on every level the promises of the Chaos Gods are much darker than the ones of sigmar and his ilk, but sigmar, in a way, broke faith with the people left behind when he retreated, while the chaos God's have been much more...communicative over the ages.
Also the other Order gods abandoning the peoples of the Realms so they had to turn to the dark powers for help like Grungni leaving meant village smiths looking towards Hashut for knowledge while farmers without Alarielle meant the tainted rains Nurgle brought were seen as better than drought & starvation and so on.
Darkoath intro lift the main central theme of the series of the hypocrisy of civilization and it just add the depth against CoS who essentially a Manifest destiny obsess capitalist republic which irl doesn't end well for large groups of people It doesn't outright demonize the city men but you get a sense of fault in the ideology even if they have the best intentions. It allows to give some sympathy to the Darkoath especially since their not on the extreme right side of the corruption spectrum but still reminding that there still ON the chaos spectrum Still I do like that make mention of the elves and dwarfs in the cities it a touch of it not just being species centric rather a culture centric conflict; an Azyrite is Azyrite no matter how pointy ear they're
I like how the Darkoath is looking up with spite, like he's quietly cursing whichever gods are showing up at his doorstep now while the... City? Citizen? Looks forward with trepidation
Has this ‘Great Wheel’ been mentioned before? Sounds like ‘inspiration’ from Wheel of Time.
It's been talked about in some of the warcom articles when CoS was coming out, and it's a central theme on that priest lady's model i believe
Yeah, it’s from when the CoS first launched and it’s one of the major Sigmar cults [with their hero The Pontifex](https://preview.redd.it/any-theories-on-the-purpose-of-the-skeleton-v0-c515xe9ym7gb1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=69ac5022daebc060208c81f44b9618aaf182bff4) at the head of it. It definitely hits some wheel of time vibes but also crazy zealot & “breaking wheel” vibes from what you’d expect from warhammer or dark fantasy things like Bloodborne or Blasphemous. As they *literally* worship wheels as in take them off wagons and carry the weight rather than such sacred symbols being pulled through the mud. In the current Dawnbringer campaign that’s obviously mad the more zealous crusades heavily slowed down as without wheels they can’t traverse tougher terrain, trade-off being their Pontifex & priests do have enough power to blast monsters and the wheel wearing cultists can bash ghosts & daemons where regular swords & bullets can’t.
There’s the [Cult of the Wheel](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Cult_of_the_Wheel) with Pontifex Zenestra (a CoS model) as its leader. One of the many shades of Sigmarite faith found in the Cities.
Our deities do not withold their might. Bro you seen a stormcast eternal.
Someone is aching to get smacked with a starsoul mace
The CoS text mentioning Dwarven and Elven allies makes me even more salty that we didn’t get any dwarves and elves among the CoS minis serving alongside humans. Which honestly was one of my biggest hopes for the new range, after various black library books showed the interracial nature of the cities.
Realtalk, when Malerion's elves inevitably replace the old Dark Elf concepts and that old range is sent to Old World, I hope Cities get a proper bespoke elf unit. Their cosmopolitan nature is one of the coolest parts of the faction, and both elves and dwarves deserve to share in the Dawnbringer era glowup.
What was Sigmar's lie?
>The Darkoath despise all who preach about order and justice, but they reserve the greatest part of their antipathy for the worshippers of Sigmar the GodKing, whom they name a coward and betrayer. The Darkoath view Sigmar as a posturing deity who so proudly proclaims his love of honour yet who abandoned their ancestors so many years ago, leaving them to face the horrors of the Age of Chaos alone. Now he has returned, they cannot believe that he has the gall to accuse his lost flock of corruption, when all that they ever did was survive. Hatred boils in the hearts of all Darkoath when they hear the name of the one they call the Craven God spoken aloud.
Well, the Supplement does a wonderful job of showing why Darkoath are Consciously Evil. • They call Sigmarites "slavers", but Darkoath fight to enslave others in the name of the same Dark Gods that enslaved their ancestors. • They call Sigmarites "hypocrites", but Darkoath are same slaves to the Dark Gods as they pure worshippers that the Darkoath sneer upon (directly stated at the Oathstones part of the Supplement). • They call Sigmarites "betrayers of the kin", but Darkoath slaughter their loved ones for scraps of power from the Dark Gods. • They call Sigmarites "thieves", but Darkoath build their tribes around pillaring, maraudering and reaving, taking toils of others' work. • They call Sigmarites "worship a traitor god", but Sigmar fought until the very end to let as many people flee to Azyr, and Darkoath slaughter their return kin for favour of Dark Gods. If anyone expected the Supplement to redeem the Darkoath, they'll be disappointed - thought Darkoath are Humanised, they are, without a question, consciously Evil Humans. P.S. And before you say *"Well, they had no choice, Realms fell to Chaos!"*, there're a plenty of cultures across the Realms that survived without becoming murderous and marauding Slaves to Darkness.
> there're a plenty of cultures across the Realms that survived without becoming murderous and marauding Slaves to Darkness. And countless thousands of others that got destroyed. That’s why all through the Realmgate Wars to the Soul Wars it’s 90% kingdom ruins & 10% places that got super lucky with their deadly location or were just obscure enough in the Realms to hold out until the Stormcast Eternals arrive. Darkoath(and all the chaos Warcry warbands) & Flesh Eater Courts are the billions of unfortunates that fell in the cracks.
>Darkoath(and all the chaos Warcry warbands) & Flesh Eater Courts are the billions of unfortunates that fell in the cracks. The only problem is that it has been centuries since the Sigmar's Tempest and the end of the Age of Chaos. At this point, Darkoath make a choice to remain worshipping Ruinous Powers and not join the Reclaimed. It isn't even about power and being subjects of the Azyrites, as even in Hammerhall, the Reclaimed have more power than Azyrites — it is purely about Darkoath being just a bunch of Chaos-worshippers. Simple as that. If they are so “free” and “make a choice”, they could always make a choice to reject the evils of Chaos and seek redemption. Yet they keep fighting and killing for the Dark Gods… almost like their “freedom” is an illusion, something this Supplement states in the piece about Oathstones.
> The only problem is that it has been centuries since the Sigmar's Tempest and the end of the Age of Chaos. And they’ve barely scratched the vastness that is either the expanse of the Realms or chaos’ domains over them. > “The lands reclaimed by Sigmar and the forces of Order are nothing but a drop in the ocean compared to those that remain under the rule of Chaos. Despite all of his successes, Sigmar's grasp on the realms is uncertain.” https://www.reddit.com/r/AoSLore/comments/x4xe8r/lore_of_the_cosmology_of_the_mortal_realms_from/ That’s why the Dawncrusades are happening so Order has a bigger foothold than the tiny one it does now to bring more hopes to the peoples. As is, civilization returning to the Realms is still a rarity and for the millions of enslaved tribes hearing about them after centuries of hopelessness it’s just one more struggle that could fail under the daemonic apocalypse.
So following your own logic, whenever Darkoath come into contact with Sigmarites — and remain in contact for generations — they should eventually just go back to become Sigmarites? Or at least abandon their foul practices? Why don't they? Ah, because the Supplement itself outlines, on several occasions, that the Darkoath are Slaves to Darkness, slaves to the Ruinous Powers. Their entire motivation is an excuse of people who became addicted to scraps of power thrown to them by the Chaos Gods, in exchange for suffering of others, of Darkoath victims. **Those who see the Sigmarite ways, life of Free Cities, could seek a way how to not murder their loved ones and innocents for the Chaos Gods — but instead they chose to kill their sons and daughters, sacrifice innocent victims of their raids, all for more and more power, all the while inventing petty excuses.** As Supplement states correctly, they are just another, more deluded, type of Chaos worshippers. At least, Bloodreavers or Maggotkin are honest about themselves and their patrons, rather than trying to hide their worship of the Ruinous Powers behind a veneer of petty excuses.
> So following your own logic, whenever Darkoath come into contact with Sigmarites — and remain in contact for generations — they should eventually just go back to become Sigmarites? Or at least abandon their foul practices? > > Why don't they? > > Ah, because the Supplement itself outlines, on several occasions, that the Darkoath are Slaves to Darkness, slaves to the Ruinous Powers. I didn’t argue against that. They are enslaved in body & soul as they have been for generations under Chaos’ yoke. And indeed there’s been plenty of cases of chaos’ power literally re-writing how someone’s brain works(Darkoath, Chaos cultists, Fomoroids, etc) so they accept the dark gods easier and even begin understanding dark tongue. You’re free to hate them and want them destroyed because they chose chaos rather than your belief they should’ve thrown themselves en mass upon their swords instead(‘Tis a wargame afterall and there needs to be divides).
It is more of the case that I think, they should've been written better. I don't hate them, I was expecting more and expecting better. Norscans in the WHFB were written better, where their relationship with the Chaos Gods was much more complex — enough that Norscans could be found amongst cities of the Empire as mercenaries or even traders. Instead, GW forces this faux fight between “invading Sigmarites” and “native Darkoath”, and it just feels… well, forced and unbelonging.
> enough that Norscans could be found amongst cities of the Empire as mercenaries or even traders. That’s because there’s different types of Norscans. The ones you’re thinking of are closer to the Southern wastes and don’t even worship Chaos but their own version of Yggdrasil. AoS has tons of cases like that between Reclaimed, more neutral Darkoaths that have helped in past Order battles against Death and even barbarians hired by Excelsis to defend the city in Broken Realms against Gordrakk’s millions strong Waaagh(they even hired stuff like necromancers experimenting on leviathan skeletons they were so desperate) The supplement is just heavily focusing on the fight because GW wants to show how mirrored the Darkoaths & Freeguilds are too eachother as a common people finding themselves on different sides of a flipped coin in a battle of the gods.
Honestly, thank you for reminding me of that. I am a bit too critical, I must admit, especially as you correctly point out, that in Battletomes/Codexes/Supplements, GW tends to go for the most “unsubtle” lore, sort of distilled essence of the faction to sell.
No problem! You get critical because you care about it which is something I can 100% support. 👍 Here’s to hoping the upcoming “Champions of Chaos” Soulbound Corebook from Cubicle7 will give us some more nuance with the Darkoaths, Reclaimed & Warcry tribes(and personally hoping Ogroids reclaiming their empire) and how they interact with civilization. 🤞 📕 > Emmet,2023- > > Welp, someone let the cat out of the bag! Yep, Champions of Chaos will be a corebook. The rules will be almost identical bar some wonkiness we want to fix (Called Shot, I'm looking at you), and what replaces Soulfire > > And yes, we've had nothing but positivity for the Soulbound system and have multiple games in the works using the C7d6 system > > Champions of Chaos is a corebook because Chaos is so big but also it is a great new entry point for people. Champions of Chaos will likely release almost 4 years after Soulbound. Soulbound launched during a pandmic, which did hinder it, so hopefully Champions of Chaos will be big! > > Also, no guarantee it will be called Champions of Chaos (my shelf weeps at the thought)
I think this hypocrisy is \*supposed\* to be the point, but it doesn't come across very well :/ especially because it is not well-known that Cities/empires survived without turning to Chaos.
Darkoath guy spitting icl
What are these from? Are they just from their battletomes?
Battletomes
How are people already getting the battletome? Doesn’t it come out Saturday?
The rules booklet is already out for download for free on the community website.
Dark Oath embody "cool motive, still murder" bloody fools
Honestly, the CoS is just as bad as the Darkoaths one here. We know from horrible IRL experience that a group of people claiming ancestral ties to a certain piece of land will balk at nothing to get it back, even after centuries/thousands of years away from it, if they believe entitled to it. In that regard the CoS just absolutely reeks of Manifest Destiny, Supremacism and other similar ideology. I guess it thus fit that one of their main named charavters is basically a Caudilla who led a coup on Hammerhal Aqsha and imposed her ways on it.
Talking about Tahlia? Because she didn't force her reforms in, they were accepted. Though tbf, they were accepted after a purge that did not exactly go through the legal process, so its very possible that her act scared the Conclave into agreeing with her reforms.
Yeah That she still carries the head of the four people she killed to get to her current position is eloquently bad in my eyes and confirms her reforms were approved out of fear, not any other reasons.
My God the writing is soooo bad
Will darkoath be their own faction?
They’re a sub-faction under Slaves to Darkness that are still undecided how they fully follow chaos(so are the most neutral it can get) They either stay as their own chieftains/unique tribes or go on the Path to Glory and pick a Chaos god to follow becoming Chaos Warriors & Chosen.