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What about Khaine?

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:59 am
by Phox532
From what I have read and can tell Khaine is either dead or deep in a closet somewhere. So I was thinking Aevles in Age of Sigmar and how if simply doesn't make sense for them to ever really follow Sigmar. The lore of Sigmar is that he was a human that became a God, so it doesn't make sense that Aelves would ever really relate to him. So there is a void there, and while we are all eager to talk about Slaanash, I think all Aelf factons should turn to Khaine. I think that he is the only one with enoung power to unite the Aelves and it could lead the Aevles to be and interesting counter to Sigmar in the War of the Relams ad Khaine has his own plans. I also think it could bring in Slaanesh

First I think that Daughters of Khaine proves that he still there. There are still followers of Khaine that survived the End Times. Now at the end of End Times, Khaine's powere is weeker than ever, but over the last say 5,000 years, no one knows how long the Age of Chaos is; they have been able to carve out strongholds. Once this Stronghold are set up, then begin to look to Khaine again lead by the Cult of Khaine. These Deathhags and witches start helping Khiane to regain his power in secret from Sigmar. It also allows for contempt to breed against the God King, because while Khiane watched his followers die to Chaos in the End Times, Sigmar hid behind walls.

Now after all this time Khaine is ready to strike, but he needs a Champion so Widowmaker is found or forged and The Avatar of Khaine is able to walk the mortal realms. He begins to until all the Aelves left against Chaos and Sigmar choosing to make deeper allies with Death as they are only ones who have the same long term vison. Now I also said that Slaanash should be part of this and s/he is. I think Khaine move on Sigmar to free Slaanash to serve as his God-Queen (or as a General if s/he is male, but I hope Slaanash is female). This is move to further strengthen the Aevles and create a Realm where their past Empire can be restored. But then the question remains once freed can Slaanash be controlled.

What I like about this idea is that gives two new world players to whole pantheon, Khaine and Slaanash. It also adds conflict in the Order alliance that right now is not there. Every other Alliance has conflict inside but Order. It is just expected that because Sigmar is "good" we all should follow him, but with another Order God and Slaanash posing a Goddess of Love, it could create unity in the Aevles and have it make sense that while sometime they might fight on the same side of Sigmar, they would never see him or StormCast Eternals as equals.

It would also give the Realms a different point of view that give the Stromcast. Because of how long they live the Aelves could offer a play by play of the changes during the Age of Chaos. This is interesting because we having seen any Aelves yet and could be able to feel this idea of being jaded, still in Order, but jaded because they were not allowed to take shelter behind Sigmar's walls. This creates a vengeful race that spent everyday in the Age of Chaos honing its skills of war and that wants to lash out to everyone who they feel have betrayed him..ie. the rest of Order.

What do yo all think?

Re: What about Khaine?

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 7:29 am
by Shadowspite
Phox532 wrote:From what I have read and can tell Khaine is either dead or deep in a closet somewhere.

That phrase... does not mean what you think it means. :P

My headcanon is that Khaine was not destroyed during the End Times, but shattered. Now, as it is also part of my headcanon that there's a single timeline going 40K->WHFB->AoS, that means his final thoughts before it happened were probably "Oh no, not again!" ;)

My own Khainite cultists believe their god lives on as shards embedded in certain powerful enchanted weapons (and other items) and in the souls of those who have been touched by the god in previous kalpas. They have found one shard within the Khaine statue that stands watch over their own Cauldron of Blood, and have recently recovered an ancient sword they believe to be a shard of the Widowmaker - this will be my Cauldron Death Hag's sword. They now want to hunt down Malerion and Tyrion, both of whom they believe to contain shards of Khaine's essence within their souls, as both were living embodiments of Khaine in the World That Was (Malerion/Malekith might just have been faking it, but they don't know that).

Khaine talks to my Death Hag, and his voice is much louder now she wields a fragment of his own weapon. Or maybe she's just mad as a sack of cats? She was found as a child living among humans on a remote island in Ulgu, and claimed to be the reincarnated soul of a witch elf slain in the sack of Clar Karond by Valkia's forces. But the human tribe that had adopted her seemed to already worship a god that seemed a lot like Khaine anyway, cauldrons and naked priestesses and all. My Fleetmaster still doesn't know what to make of it, but he pretends to believe for the moment. He has his own reasons for wanting to find Malerion, anyway.

So I was thinking Aevles in Age of Sigmar and how if simply doesn't make sense for them to ever really follow Sigmar. The lore of Sigmar is that he was a human that became a God, so it doesn't make sense that Aelves would ever really relate to him.

Well, that was in a previous kalpa. Go back far enough and every god except the Chaos Gods was a mortal. AoS aelves have Alarielle, Malerion, Tyrion, Teclis and Morathi as gods of elf origin. But all those recognise Sigmar as the head of their pantheon, at least nominally. Aelves don't need to relate to Sigmar directly to follow him if their own gods already do so.

I think all Aelf factons should turn to Khaine. I think that he is the only one with enoung power to unite the Aelves

I can't see followers of Tyrion, Teclis and Alarielle being willing to turn to Khaine. And Malerion does not like sharing power. I actually think all the existing aelven gods would be more likely to unite against Khaine if it looked like he was really going to return to his full power.

but over the last say 5,000 years, no one knows how long the Age of Chaos is;

IIRC, the Age of Chaos has only been a few centuries. But the Age of Myth before that lasted for millennia. And not even Sigmar knows how long the gap was between the destruction of the World That Was and the birth of the Realms. In any case, there's all kinds of timey-wimey shenanigans to complicate matters, resulting in there being people alive now in the Age of Sigmar to whom the End Times were only a few years ago in their personal timeline.

I think Khaine move on Sigmar to free Slaanash to serve as his God-Queen

I think there's just too much bad blood between Khaine and Slaanesh. They've been bitter enemies for longer than Sigmar has even existed (potentially since before the birth of the Warhammer World, even). Plus, Slaanesh is probably the most arrogant god in the entire cosmology and would never consent to be anybody's consort.

(or as a General if s/he is male, but I hope Slaanash is female).

Slaanesh is both (in contrast to the other Chaos Gods, who are neither). But that's probably irrelevant between gods. The real problem would be that both Khaine and Slaanesh are dominant, not submissive, personalities. Neither would ever willingly serve under the other.

It also adds conflict in the Order alliance that right now is not there. Every other Alliance has conflict inside but Order.

There is already conflict within the Order grand alliance. The Sylvaneth don't give a fig about Sigmar. Tyrion and Teclis largely ignore him. And Malerion and Morathi actively despise him. The Order GA is way less unified than the Death GA, who do ultimately all follow the will of Nagash (it helps that most of them don't actually have free will at all).

This is interesting because we having seen any Aelves yet and could be able to feel this idea of being jaded, still in Order, but jaded because they were not allowed to take shelter behind Sigmar's walls. This creates a vengeful race that spent everyday in the Age of Chaos honing its skills of war and that wants to lash out to everyone who they feel have betrayed him..ie. the rest of Order.

It sounds like you're talking about the Shadowkin here, the aelves of Ulgu who follow Malerion and Morathi. But they don't need Khaine to give them something to unite behind. The aelves who follow Khaine all (as far as we know) have spent the Age of Chaos living in Azyrheim.

I think a more interesting tidbit is that the witch-hunters of the Order of Azyr apparently tolerate the Daughters of Khaine, blood rituals and all. And then there are the Assassins, who are not just tolerated, but with whom the witch-hunters actively cooperate. So Sigmar clearly sees Khaine as an ally, not a threat.

Re: What about Khaine?

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 8:40 am
by Phox532
@Shadowsprite where do find these lore details. I have been looking everywhere for it cans I can't seem to find anything. I chuck more of that to only being able to use Bing in china and not google.

Re: What about Khaine?

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:00 am
by Shadowspite
Which bits specifically? Most of it is in Grand Alliance: Order and the core AoS book.

Re: What about Khaine?

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:09 am
by Phox532
Shadowspite wrote:Which bits specifically? Most of it is in Grand Alliance: Order and the core AoS book.


Awe, then I'd like to take this thread down as I was making my suggestion under the impression that there was no real lore for Aelfs. I'm heading back to the States for a three days I may have to stop at a GW Shop and buy the core AoS book and the Grand Alliance book.

Re: What about Khaine?

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 2:12 pm
by Calisson
My unerstanding is that in each cycle, saliant heroes become gods (very similar to Ases and Vanes gods of the Vikings).
Next cycle, former gods are fogotten, new ones emerge etc. In AoS cycle, Malarion and Morathi are the gods of DE - assuming DE means still anything anymore.
Only exception is Chaos gods.

-=-=-
Here is the proof of my theory: :lol: The END OF THE END TIMES Short Story Competition!
Makiwara wrote:I like the idea of Caraoc becoming the new god of the oceans. If corsairs make it in to 9th I'm going to have to have some of the Shrike's Guard worship him in tribute to Calisson.

Re: What about Khaine?

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 8:51 am
by Barking Agatha
All of the current aelven factions including the Daughters of Khaine live in Azyr, where Sigmar is not just the leader of the pantheon of gods, but also the ruler of the place. It's not really a question of 'believing' in him or not, when he's right there! It also happens to be the home of factions made up of pre-AoS miniatures, and I suspect a sort of semi-retirement home. The new aelf factions will be followers of Tyrion and/or Malerion and will not fall into the old High/Dark/Wood divide. I'm guessing they will be more like Mistweaver Shaih and the Tenebrael Shard from Warhammer Quest, and eventually displace our old elves (as the Fyreslayers are already displacing the old dwarfs).

The Daughters of Khaine don't actually worship him, but the memory of him, which probably means that he is gone for good. We can continue to play them as a faction, but they won't be involved in any stories. We won't see any new releases for D's of K, or Darkling Covens, or Order Serpentis, or whatever. They might be integrated into the new factions, if only because you wouldn't get rid of a perfectly good witch elf / sisters of slaughter kit (for example) if it fits aesthetically and thematically into the new faction (as the old dryad model has been integrated into the new Sylvaneth). Or they might not!

Right now, for example, there is no game benefit to making an all-Daughters of Khaine army. They get no Allegiance bonuses or artifacts. You're better off defining them as an Order army. Will there ever be a Battletome: Daughters of Khaine? Doubtful! Personally I just like them, and I'll make the most of them for the time being, but I wouldn't mind a faction of sinister aelves shrouded in shadows and mists, if the Mistweaver and Shard are any indication.

Anyway, it seems clear that the old gods are gone, and the new gods tend to be physically present among their followers instead of being distant abstract entities. The exceptions are Sigmar (maybe because it would have to be possible for him to lose a fight, and that would be awkward?), and the Chaos Gods (but they have Archaon, technically not a god, but as good as).

Re: What about Khaine?

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 1:32 pm
by Shadowspite
Barking Agatha wrote:The Daughters of Khaine don't actually worship him, but the memory of him, which probably means that he is gone for good.

The fluff in Grand Alliance: Order states that they hear their god's voice calling for more slaughter. I mean, sure, they might just be delusional, but the implication is that Khaine still exists in some manner. There is also the way Death Hag prayers are described: something is listening to the prayers and deciding whether to grant them or to punish the Death Hag as 'unworthy'.

I don't really expect GW to do anything with Khaine in AoS, though.