Warhammer Lore: the Unofficial 'Where to Start' Thread

[morskittar]

UPDATED; NOW A REAL GUIDE!

[morskittar]

Book Guide, continued...

Black Library: Novels
Gotrek and Felix: the Slayer series is one of the most entertaining series' produced by Black Library. Originally started in the early days of Warhammer, Bill King (now succeeded by Nathan Long) has been writing Gotrek and Felix stories for at least a decade and a half now. Part Die Hard, part Rush Hour, and a lot of Warhammer, the Slayer series is basically a buddy/action movie in the Warhammer world. While by no means fine literature, the writing is solid, the action fun, and overall stories and characters just as engaging as they need to be. This series is currently available as two Omnibus volumes, followed by Giantslayer and Orcslayer.

The Vampire Genevieve is a next great step, if you can find it. A collection containing four novels by "Jack Yeovil" (a pen name for Kim Newman); Drachenfels, Genevieve Undead, Beasts in Velvet, and Silver Nails, these are among the older Warhammer novels still (or recently) in print. Some of the best writing you'll find in the series, Drachenfels and Beasts in Velvet, especially, are quite entertaining.

Dan Abnett's Warhammer novels are also solid, including The Daemon's Curse, Bloodstorm, Reaper of Souls, Warpsword, and Lord of Ruin; and Fell Cargo. The Daemon's Curse is the first of the Malus Darkblade series (co-penned by Mike Lee) and features "bad guys" almost completely. Darkblade himself is an anti-hero at best, his cruel casualty just subdued enough to remain barely sympathetic and believable. This is a very unforgiving series; don't read it if you don't like seeing cruelty, hate, and malice glorified. Fell Cargo is a bit of a goofier romp with a strong historical foundation for the nautical components. Despite the down-to-earth characters, ships, and combat... it's still about pirates fighting zombies. Can't go wrong there.

Lastly, Death's Messenger, Death's City, and Death's Legacy are a great introduction to Warhammer. The series begins as a coming-of-age story, but shifts gears into proper Warhammer territory pretty quickly. A nice tour of the Empire and core concepts of Warhammer as a whole, from a WFRP "bottom-up" perspective. Also, it's one of the most nastily brutal series I've ever read. The characters are somewhat sympathetic and their lives suck.

Black Library: Background Books
Liber Chaotica. The best of the best. Even though it's nominally focused on Chaos, this book actually covers, via artwork, layout, poems, and text, key ideas in the Warhammer world. Magic, psychology, geography, history... it's a detailed look at all the things that make the Warhammer world different from the real world, or other fantasy realms. Although it's a bit dense, especially if you're just introduced to Warhammer, it's really one of the finest quality products GW/BL has ever released. Just be careful... by the end you'll be reading backwards-written and backwards text in a mirror to decipher hidden messages in the previous text. Literally.

Liber Necris, Vile Ratmen, The Life of Sigmar, and The Witch Hunter's Handbook are all focused on specific subjects, but perfect for delving into the Undead, Skaven, or Empire (respectively) further.

An "in character" historical book, Empire at War, is available as well. Dry, but interesting enough if you're into military textbooks.

Game Supplements
Here's where you find the detail stuff. Fifteen Warhammer Armies books, two WFB campaign books, and a dozen WFRP roleplaying supplements. These are mostly self-explanatory, so I'll give a quick reference list:

Warhammer Armies:

Beasts of Chaos
Beasts of Chaos are the “other” Chaos army: grubby, dirty beastmen, minotaurs, centaurs, and other gribblies. Y’now that creepy medieval picture of a satyr-daemon-thing on a woman’s chest? That’s these guys.

Bretonnia
Pre-revolution French, King Arthur’s knights, and the oppressed peasants from Monty Python and the Holy Grail squished into an army full of heavy cavalry charges, uppity nobles, and oppressed peasants.

Dark Elves
Rightful inheritors of the Phoenix Throne of Ulthuan. Drugs, pointy ears, slaves, and the least fruity elves since medieval myth, these guys are the nastier, more brutal version of Moorcock's Melniboneans.

Dogs of War
Everything else. Tilean (read: 15th century Italian) pikemen, giants, ogres, and suicidal dwarf pirates (seriously), Dogs of War is a catch-all for various mercenaries that can be played on their own, or as additions to other forces.

Dwarfs
Like every other dwafs ever, except more obsessed with gold, drunker, and a lot more sullen. If Gimli were a Warhammer dwaf, he would’ve spent three weeks checking a giant gold-lined book, found the time one of Aragorn’s ancestors scuffed his new boot, then cut the man’s head off as payment. Then gotten drunk...er.

The Empire
The point-of-view for most of the Warhammer World (and setting for WFRP), the Empire is an especially mad take on the 16th century, pre-Protestant Holy Roman Empire. Empire armies have it all, from state-licensed battle wizards to experimental steam and gunpowder cannons. Also, codpieces, tights, and jaunty caps. The Empire is the most stylish fantasy realm ever, and they won't hesitate to cut a few heads off or have some old-fashioned witch-burnings.

High Elves
Yeah, they’re somewhat like Tolkien’s elves. Except how they’re a bit less “fade into the West” and a bitmore “exert control over everything like some facist hyper-Roman/British empire grasping at the last vestiges of divine right”. So they’re more like Tolkien’s elves, with balls.

Hordes of Chaos
Willing servants of Chaos, most of this army is super elite, close combat units. If the Dark Side wasn’t a bunch of whiny es and old guys… it’d still be half as apocalyptically badass as Chaos. Except they still always lose… until next time they march to destroy the world for sure. Again.

Lizardmen
Biological automatons created by the Old Ones to do stuff planned a long time ago. The lizardmen are a smelly and stupid. Die-die lizard-things.

Ogre Kingdoms
Ogres are as fat as your mom. And way more badass, ‘cause they can eat rocks, horses, and have really big swords and hammers. That’s pretty much it.

Greenskins
WAAAGH!!!

Skaven
The skaven don’t exist. If they did, however, they’d rule the stupid manthings in short order and be the primary protagonists of Warhammer, destined by the will of their god to rule the above-dwellers for all eternity.

Tomb Kings
Undead that don’t suck. The Tomb Kings are the by-product of the Great Necromancer, Nagash's, ambitions (who happens to be one of the coolest characters in Warhammer). They're basically ancient Egypt that was raised from the dead and left to their own devices and free will. And by ancient Egypt, I mean all of it.

Vampire Counts
Almost as whiny and "dark" as every other setting's vampires, they're offshoots of Nagash' experiments in immortality and binding the soul to Chaos-built flesh.

Wood Elves
Before Tolkien and Christmas came along, elves were vengeful, nasty, spirits of the forest. These guys skip Tolkien and get back to that. They’re not nice, they keep human children as drugged-up slaves, and they’re allied with possibly Chaotic (or just insane) trees. Also, the Bretonnians are their unknowing pawns.

Warhammer Campaigns:

Lustria
Storm of Chaos (no real bearing on WAR, which is an alternate timeline)

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (grouped by background usefulness, in descending order):

Realms of Sorcery (tons of magic background, quite like Liber Chaotica)
Old World Bestiary

Tome of Corruption (Chaos sourcebook, with Norse sourcebook/gazeteer)
Tome of Salvation (Priests and gods sourcebook)
Sigmar's Heirs (Empire sourcebook and gazetteer)
Knights of the Grail (Bretonnia sourcebook and gazetteer)
Children of the Horned Rat (Skaven/Under-empire sourcebook)
Renegade Crowns (Border Princes sourcebook and gazetteer)

Ashes of Middenheim (adventure and Middenheim guide)
Spires of Altdorf (adventure and Altdorf guide)
Forges of Nuln (adventure and Nuln guide)
Terror in Talabheim (adventure and Talabheim guide)
Barony of the Damned (adventure and Mousillon guide)
Karak Azgal (adventure and ruined dwarf city guide)

WFRP Companion (a collection, mostly game rules)
Old World Armory
Plundered Vaults (adventures)

And because I like to show off years of misspent youth, what does all this look like? This and this.

That sums up my overview for now. This list is by no means exhaustive, so for specific questions on unlisted books, or just general background questions, please post here!

[MachiavelliDisciple]

That's a very good list, kudos to you sir. I shall definately have to invest time and money into the 'Liber Chaotica'.

[Cremok the feared]

Very informative, well done

[Irakaz]

Originally Posted by MachiavelliDisciple

That's a very good list, kudos to you sir. I shall definately have to invest time and money into the 'Liber Chaotica'.

I just got myself a copy at Gamesday. I thought it was really good, but the parts about the winds of magic went over my head.

[morskittar]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you found this thread informative.

Originally Posted by Irakaz

I just got myself a copy at Gamesday. I thought it was really good, but the parts about the winds of magic went over my head.

Liber Chaotica assumes a sizable base of knowledge about the Warhammer world.

I think the Wiki article and main GW site reference the Winds, but don't explain or elaborate. Basically, the Winds of Magic are Chaotic warp energies that leak from the collapsed Slann warp-gates. There's a lot more in terms of how they manifest, and how they're utilized, but it's pretty involved.

The WFB and WFRP cover the Winds in detail, as well as most of the army books, as each army has their own methods of utilizing Aethyric power. Realms of Sorcery probably has the best write-ups, including in-character elven and human views that are pretty entertaining reads.

As a concept pretty central to Warhammer, most online sources assume the reader has a core rulebook or the like, so it's a bit difficult to find a good or complete description online.

[miber]

Nicely done, morskittar. It's clear you put alot of effort into that, and really know your stuff when it comes to Warhammer's lore.

[Cedia]

Wow, awesome thread. Sticky?

I really want a copy of that Genevieve book now. Only two for sale used for $27. *seriously considers*

[morskittar]

Thanks! I was noticing the other day how common "Where do I find lore" threads are, so I figured I'd unleash the accumulated geekitude of my years of being a Warhammer fan.

Also, my wife is out of town for three weeks, so I've found myself with some extra time.

Cedia, I've found ebay is the way to go for out of print Black Library books. It's frustrating, 'cause they tend to have VERY small print runs, but often ebay sellers will have them for well below the used copies on Amazon.

On a similar note, if there's a BL book in stores you're interested in... GRAB IT. It'll be gone all too soon.

edit: Vampire Genevieve seems to be the exception... $30-$35 buy it now at the moment. Really, the key parts are Beasts in Velvet and Drachenfels. Really good books, if a bit dated.

[whynoskaven?]

Originally Posted by morskittar

Thanks! I was noticing the other day how common "Where do I find lore" threads are, so I figured I'd unleash the accumulated geekitude of my years of being a Warhammer fan.

Also, my wife is out of town for three weeks, so I've found myself with some extra time.

Cedia, I've found ebay is the way to go for out of print Black Library books. It's frustrating, 'cause they tend to have VERY small print runs, but often ebay sellers will have them for well below the used copies on Amazon.

On a similar note, if there's a BL book in stores you're interested in... GRAB IT. It'll be gone all too soon.

edit: Vampire Genevieve seems to be the exception... $30-$35 buy it now at the moment. Really, the key parts are Beasts in Velvet and Drachenfels. Really good books, if a bit dated.

Hmms I had original prints of Drachenfels, Beasts in velvet and vampire geniveve. No idea where they are now though.

I DO have the original prints of the Konrad series sat at home, great as I remember them.

Anyone remember "Space Marine" by Ian Watson? Great book, cant seem to find any reference to its existance (but I definately had it at one point).

[morskittar]

A lot of those older books have been republished under different names or in different short story collections. Watson's Inqusitor was titled "Draco" under the last publishing. I also think his work is probably the very best I've read for 40k; pretty much definitive of the setting, in my mind. It really doesn't jive with the Abnettized Space Opera of 3rd and 4th edition, though. It's too mad, too gritty, and too darkly humorous.

[Soybe]

awesome thread, thanks man!!! I'll look into my local libraries and ebooks for such items, especially that Libre Chaotica... and the fourthcoming RTS game, that should help!! yay.

[doomy]

Great thread, mate! Will be a lot of use for me, since I am more familiar with 40k than the rest of the WH world

[silverbeard]

Impressive work. I guess there is no excuse for not beeing aquainted with the background of warhammer any longer, hehe...
Thanks for all the links.

[morskittar]

Thanks! Glad you've all found the thread useful. If we could get this stickied or keep it bumped, I'll make it a "live" document, updated with new releases and availability. A lot of the Black Library stuff is limited release, and so won't be available in a year or two.

Alternately, I could recreate the thread on my guild's forums, and it could be linked to whenever someone shows with the "Where do I start" question. I'm guessing we'll continue to see a steady influx, as well as the occasional spike as word gets out to the mass market.