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[pisskop]

Heard that Age of Sigmar is pretty decent now lore-wise. Any highlights?

I'm still only familiar with the broad strokes of the lore for it, but I quite like what they've done with the Flesheater Courts*, which are the rebranding of the crypt ghouls and Strigoi vampires. Nagash turning on the other gods because he feels Sigmar broke their deal and also being a megalomaniac fits well. The variety of chaos warbands is pretty interesting.

*It's hard not to love a faction that inspires stuff like this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's a grotesque man eating monster pretending it's a knight by riding a kids horsie toy made from a pike and a real horse head. It's amazing.

And Slaanesh was the problem?

[Kot]

I'm still only familiar with the broad strokes of the lore for it, but I quite like what they've done with the Flesheater Courts*, which are the rebranding of the crypt ghouls and Strigoi vampires. Nagash turning on the other gods because he feels Sigmar broke their deal and also being a megalomaniac fits well. The variety of chaos warbands is pretty interesting.

*It's hard not to love a faction that inspires stuff like this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's a grotesque man eating monster pretending it's a knight by riding a kids horsie toy made from a pike and a real horse head. It's amazing.

I'm pretty sure something like this was a thing in old WHFB, but I don't recall exactly what/why because I know way less of WHFB than I do of WH40k.

[Craftsdwarf boi]

Isn't this thread for WH40K discussion?

[pisskop]

No.  Its a thread for discussions about beheaded ponies who get used as toys

Im pretty sure it is, at least.

[Andres]

Isn't this thread for WH40K discussion?

Also for Fantasy and Age of Sigmar, because threads for those two properties don't exist and discussion is too small to bother making threads for them anyway. This thread itself doesn't get that much attention so it's certainly got the room.

[LordBaal]

Guess radio controled has the final word as OP. And Toady.

[Grim Portent]

I'm pretty sure something like this was a thing in old WHFB, but I don't recall exactly what/why because I know way less of WHFB than I do of WH40k.

The Ghoul Kings of the Old World were quite different from the Flesheater Courts.

Spoiler: Ghoul Kings (click to show/hide)

The Ghoul Kings were vampires descended from the bloodline of Ushoran, who ruled a city state called Strigos in the badlands after the fall of Lahmia and the scattering of the vampires. He ruled his people well and was rather loved by them because he protected them from various monsters and orcs. Eventually he invited his former ruler the vampire Queen Neferata to stay in Strigos, not knowing she resented him and blamed him for some of the events leading to the destruction of her own kingdom. Neferata used her agents to rally the orcs of the mountains into a huge WAAAGH against the city and Ushoran perished while trying to hold back the massive horde of orcs.

His people, mortal and vampire alike, were scattered to the north, most eventually winding up in the lands of the Empire. The mortals became the Strigany, basically WHFs gypsies and were heavily persecuted by the Empire. The vampires were faced with the various vampires that had already taken root in the Empire, who like Neferata hated the bloodline of Ushoran for what happened in Lahmia.

The Ghoul Kings were forced into hiding, living on the fringes of mortal settlements, sleeping in caves or under the hollows of trees or unsanctified tombs, drinking the blood of recently buried corpses to try and stay under the radar of the other vampire bloodlines. Gradually this caused them to devolve into the monstrous forms they wound up with, their hair fell out, their limbs grew long and gangling, their claws lengthened and teeth became twisted and gnarled. They turned feral as the dark magic of the vampire curse was debased by their lifestyle and desperation.

The ghouls that would flock to them, for ghouls are drawn to powerful undead and necromancers, were descended from humans who had succumbed to cannibalism in times of famine and been warped by the dark energies drawn to them by such practices, devolving them into the wretched but unnaturally durable ghouls over a few generations. The Ghoul Kings would hold court with them in the tombs, a macabre shadow of the halls of Strigos.

Crypt Horrors, the giant mutant ghouls, were made by letting a ghoul drink vampire blood and were used by the Ghoul Kings to help break into sanctified graveyards. Normal ghouls were too cowardly to defile the shrines of Morr that kept true undead out of burial sites, but horrors would smash them apart in fury and allow their king to enter the graveyard.

Spoiler: Flesheater Courts (click to show/hide)

The Flesheater Courts were founded by the Carrion King, implied to be Ushoran restored from the World that Was, a vampire in service of Nagash in the realm of death. For reasons lost to time he fell from Nagash's favour and was turned into a bestial wretch and cursed to wander the wilds of Shyish. His wandering and bloodlust led him to destroy several cities of the realm leading to Nagash locking him in a magical cage.

During the Age of Chaos, when Sigmar and Nagash found themselves fighting a war with one another, Sigmar sent an expedition to Shyish and unwittingly they released the Carrion King, who fled and eventually found a group of mordants, the ghouls of AoS, and being thoroughly and infectiously insane he saw them as people in need of his rulership and protection. He gave some his blood and turned them into the nobles and knights of his new court and unleashed his new bloodline upon the realms.

The mordants of the courts were normal humans who succumbed to cannibalism much like their WHF predecessors, but unlike them they remain mostly human and go insane instead, trying to cope with the mental stress of eating people to survive. The Ghoul Kings themselves are all barking mad, seeing themselves as shining kings and noble lords who fight against the forces of barbarism and evil, and when they find a group of mordants they offer them a great feast to celebrate the occasion of them having a true king to lead them, eating from this feast turns the humans fully into wretched ghouls and infecting them with their new lord's insanity.

As far as mortal and vampire alike are concerned they're a noble court, from king down to the lowliest of servants. The knights are those who have drunk wine from the master's table (in reality a cup of his blood or other foul alchemical concotion) and the others are devoted servants hunting animals (people) and preparing them into fine feasts for their liege and his loyal knights. For the most part their delusions make them see other people as various monsters to destroy in righteous war, but sometimes they come to the aid of the civilised races, seeing themselves as reinforcements to the forces of order against the hordes of chaos and greenskins.

tl;dr the Strigoi were gross bestial vampires with a tragic past and a tragic existence, the flesheater courts are deranged lunatics who see themselves as various noble courts and cultures, and the fanbase noticed a lot of similarities between their early descriptions and the Bretonnians, leading to lots of fun conversions.

EDIT: Oh, and there's more factions of Flesheaters than there were of Strigoi. Each realm is an excuse to make them unique, the only fixed fluff for them and the realms is that most of the ones from Shyish worship Nagash and most of the ones from other realms hate Nagash. There's room for all kings of neat conversions.

[Kot]

Well, yes, I couldn't find it by just scraping the surface of Google, which is why I am uncertain, and why I didn't just equate Ghoul Kings with Flesheater Courts like you seem to imply I did. Either way, I'm pretty sure I heard the "believes they're noble/normal/whatever but actually a flesh eating monster" line in relation to Old World, though maybe it was just someone from community scrapping the few not-horrible parts from Age of Sigmar and putting them into WHFB, or something.

[Radio Controlled]

Guess radio controled has the final word as OP. And Toady.

I personally don't mind the occasional detour into WHFB as long as it doesn't make up a sizable portion of the thread, in which case a new thread would probably be more appropriate.

[Grim Portent]

Well, yes, I couldn't find it by just scraping the surface of Google, which is why I am uncertain, and why I didn't just equate Ghoul Kings with Flesheater Courts like you seem to imply I did. Either way, I'm pretty sure I heard the "believes they're noble/normal/whatever but actually a flesh eating monster" line in relation to Old World, though maybe it was just someone from community scrapping the few not-horrible parts from Age of Sigmar and putting them into WHFB, or something.

Not seen any of the believes they're normal stuff in any of the WHFB stuff I've read. My old vampire codex doesn't mention anything at least, Strigoi are described in it as knowing full well how messed up they are and hating other vampires for it and ghouls are borderline non-sapient.

EDIT: I have um... acquired a flesh eater courts battletome to read up on them in more detail. Most of the specifics are unimportant to be honest, just more details on their madness, but I rather like a blurb on how they view the Stormcast.

To them the Stormcast look like monstrous undead creatures, stitched back together when killed and animated by unnatural powers. They're not wrong strictly speaking, but it's a fun example of their warped perception of reality.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'm putting together a very horrory Dark Heresy adventure. It's set on the Feudal World home planet of one of the PCs; they're called to investigate the fortress of the PC's order of local witch hunters, which has gone dark. The black ships were delayed and their dungeons are overcrowded with increasingly agitated untrained psykers, so there's much cause for concern...

Naturally, everything's gone to shit once they get there. Essentially, one of the masters of the order got corrupted by Nurgle after deciding that their efforts were doomed and he might as well surrender to apathy. The master freed the psykers and allowed them to be possessed, after which they summoned a daemon of Nurgle into the fortress and killed almost everyone else. The fortress gets increasingly creepier and stranger as the PCs delve deeper, with the thinness of the Veil and the accumulated psychic energies causing all kinds of bizarre phenomena.

So, what kind of phenomena and dangers would be cool to work in? Keep in mind the Nurglish theme - decay, entropy, disease. The daemon is 'the worm that eats at the skin of time', essentially a Greater Daemon that's fortunately not strong enough to manifest fully yet. What I'm going with so far is:

Spoiler: Current Ideas (click to show/hide)

-I'll be playing a low heart beat sound throughout. I'll gradually increase it in volume as we get deeper in. The players will notice eventually, I'm sure.

-Early on, the signs are mostly minor. The main gates collapse into rust at the touch. The statue of the Emperor in the entrance hall looks pained and cracked. Food is spoiled, there are clouds of flies, vermin skitters in the shadows. Metal is rusted, wood mildewy, stone showing cracks and crumbling. It looks at parts like the decay of years rather than mere months.

-Mid-way in, we find bodies, evidence of a desperate battle. The rot has set in. Maggots crawl in their multitudes over decaying flesh, creeping out of nostrils and the corner of unseeing eyes, bulging under skin and moving in such numbers they make a perceptible scuttling sound. You can't walk without stepping into streams of insects and maggots. The bodies, if anyone cares to inspect, are curiously withered and bloodless. The only thing they avoid is a statue of the God-Emperor, and only just.

-Forwards, there's a scratching in the walls here. Flickers of movement in the gaps between stones. The masters of the order are largely dead in their beds, half-eaten by rats which are in turn crawling with maggots even as they still live. Icons of faith are cracked and broken. At the end of this first level, liquid begins to trickle out of a wall, growing steadily into a stream, then a flood. It's blood, naturally, and it threatens to knock over the PCs and drown them. There should be probably be nasty consequences if someone ends up ingesting said blood. Admittedly, I'm not sure if a wave of blood fits the rest of the theme, but I like the image of it.

-They have to venture down into the Pit, the dungeons where they kept their captive psykers. They have to get a key they need to advance (or something). Vermin appear to be heading towards one location, which proves to be a massive pile of rats, worms and flies that also holds a body with the key. Naturally, they have to dig into that pile to get the key. After they take it, the daemon stirs. I have a nice frenzied heartbeat clip for that moment. They have to get the hell out of dodge with a massive daemonic centipede pursuing them, trying to block their way with its seemingly endless body. It avoids light or maybe icons of faith - anyway, they have a way to keep it at bay, but it will try to get behind them and block all exits. They get free by getting back into light or to a statue of the Emperor that it can't cross, or something.

-Finally, they go into the upper level. With the daemon active, shit gets even stranger. Time itself begins to decay and fray. With every beat of the heart, rooms change - statues change from pristine into cracked, cracked into crumbling, crumbling into dust; mosaics of the order's heroic scenes have their figures turn older and withered until there is only a field of dust with the Worm twisting through it; walls and ceilings age and crumble, revealing glimpses of alien skies. The implication being that the world will be turned into a Daemon World if they fail to stop the psykers.

So, any ideas for further spooky things? Thoughts on if some of these are unworkable or run the risk of not being even remotely spooky? I'm trying to do a whole 'increasing tension, creeping horror' thing with things gradually turning worse. I thought about things like rooms that lead into themselves, lights going out and coming back on with the room totally different, faces and identities blurring together, all kinds of things. I'm not sure they fit the Nurglish theme of it, though. It might be better to stick to death, decay, entropy, and all that.

[Grim Portent]

Well you've hit most of the Nurgle notes, the only things I can see missing are the obsession with counting some of the daemons have, the bell theme and the joyful nature, but not all Nurgle things embrace all the thematic traits.


Perhaps something to do with the Garden of Nurgle thematically?

Swap out the rats and things in the Pit for stagnant water and tree roots? Wading knee deep in water while unnatural plants and fungi dig into the walls and eat away at stone and steel. Maybe even have the former inmates still be here with the roots growing out of them, creeping out of their eyes and mouths, bursting from torn throats or distended stomachs and reaching deeper inwards and upwards, with the key on a dead member of the order being consumed by foul insects that swim under the water and the daemonic centipede bursting out from the corpse to pursue them when they take the key.

The roots pierce up through the ceiling and keep going up until they burst through the fortress roof, where they twist into a bulbous stunted tree, lined with the screaming faces of the psykers that fed their growth and hanging with overripe fruit that writhe like amniotic sacks. The center of the tree pulses like a beating heart and something occasionally pushes against it from the inside, distending the bark and revealing the fleshy membrane underneath.

When attacked the tree writhes and scatters fruit from it's branches, that split open like gangrenous wombs to reveal lesser daemonic entities like nurglings which scurry to it's defence. Psychic assaults grabbing at the minds of those nearby as the malignant entities in the tree seek to corrupt or destroy any interlopers.

[pisskop]

Hot Take:  The Count from sesame street is a nurglite demon.

[Egan_BW]

They need a key to access the upstairs? Plan for them to bypass the spooky basement by vaporizing the lock~

I wouldn't be afraid to include elements that are spooky but not Nurglish. Even with a greater demon of Nurgle in charge, 100 psykers all exploding in a small area is sure to cause some general mayhem. Hell, maybe a demon of Tzeench is helping the party from behind the scenes, to get back at a rival.

[Digital Hellhound]

Well you've hit most of the Nurgle notes, the only things I can see missing are the obsession with counting some of the daemons have, the bell theme and the joyful nature, but not all Nurgle things embrace all the thematic traits.


Perhaps something to do with the Garden of Nurgle thematically?

Swap out the rats and things in the Pit for stagnant water and tree roots? Wading knee deep in water while unnatural plants and fungi dig into the walls and eat away at stone and steel. Maybe even have the former inmates still be here with the roots growing out of them, creeping out of their eyes and mouths, bursting from torn throats or distended stomachs and reaching deeper inwards and upwards, with the key on a dead member of the order being consumed by foul insects that swim under the water and the daemonic centipede bursting out from the corpse to pursue them when they take the key.

The roots pierce up through the ceiling and keep going up until they burst through the fortress roof, where they twist into a bulbous stunted tree, lined with the screaming faces of the psykers that fed their growth and hanging with overripe fruit that writhe like amniotic sacks. The center of the tree pulses like a beating heart and something occasionally pushes against it from the inside, distending the bark and revealing the fleshy membrane underneath.

When attacked the tree writhes and scatters fruit from it's branches, that split open like gangrenous wombs to reveal lesser daemonic entities like nurglings which scurry to it's defence. Psychic assaults grabbing at the minds of those nearby as the malignant entities in the tree seek to corrupt or destroy any interlopers.

Oh, this is good stuff. I was actually planning on some stuff in this vein - tree roots pushing through walls, pulsing with the heartbeat like giant veins, bleeding when you cut into them like with the flood wave of blood. I think the basement could actually be flooded in blood after that, though stagnant water is perhaps less on the nose. Having to wade through water with the Worm moving under the surface works just as well as having to wade through swarms of vermin with the Worm moving in the earth and walls. I love the idea of having the psykers form this actual awful organic whole like the tree, so I'm inclined to change my plans to suit that. The actual boss battle is going to be against the traitorous Nurgle-empowered master and Nurgle thralls (I was thinking bodies kept upright and animated by swarms of maggots within them, probably using the Nurgling profile), but he could just as well be guarding the fucked-up Nurgle tree as the gathered psykers. It serves as a good heart for the heartbeat, like you say.

They need a key to access the upstairs? Plan for them to bypass the spooky basement by vaporizing the lock~

I wouldn't be afraid to include elements that are spooky but not Nurglish. Even with a greater demon of Nurgle in charge, 100 psykers all exploding in a small area is sure to cause some general mayhem. Hell, maybe a demon of Tzeench is helping the party from behind the scenes, to get back at a rival.

Yeah - I might need to make it a psychic barrier that can be disrupted by some holy icon in the Pit, or something. Depends on the armament they're packing when they go in. If they come up with some really creative way to bypass that, though, I ain't stopping it. I'd just need some way to work that stuff in some other way. Or leave it for another adventure, but we play Dark Heresy so rarely I'd rather not.

True enough. I don't think I want to add another daemon into the mix, but there's room for non-Nurglish phenomena. I just don't want to confuse the picture too much, so they can clue into the fact that they're dealing with a manifestation of Nurgle in particular.