Warhammer Fantasy (setting)
Warhammer Fantasy is a fictional fantasy universe created by Games Workshop and used in many of its games, including the table top wargame Warhammer, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay pen-and-paper role-playing game, and a number of video games: the MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the strategy games Total War: Warhammer, Total War: Warhammer II and Total War: Warhammer III and the two first-person shooter games in the Warhammer Vermintide series, Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide and Warhammer: Vermintide 2, among many others.
Warhammer is notable for its “dark and gritty” background world, which references a range of historical cultures such as the Holy Roman Empire, Mesoamerica, ancient Egypt, and medieval France, and is populated with a variety of races such as humans, high elves, dark elves, wood elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, lizardmen, and other creatures familiar to many fantasy/role-playing settings.
The development of the setting began with the release of a game simply called “Warhammer” in 1983. The setting is followed by a soft reboot known as Warhammer Age of Sigmar, created in 2015.
Background
The Warhammer world drew inspiration from Tolkien’s Middle-earth, but also from Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, as well as real-world history, particularly European history. What is recognisable as the Warhammer World began with the expansion material to the first edition of the game Warhammer, but was formulated as a distinct setting with a world map in the second edition.The Warhammer World borrowed considerably from historical events and other fantasy fiction settings. The Old World is recognisably Europe approximating to various historical periods including the Renaissance—the Empire being set over what was the Holy Roman Empire—medieval France, Roman Italy and Celtic Britain. Many events are lifted and modified directly from history, including the Black Plague and the Moorish invasion of Spain, and others from original fantasy sources. Like Middle-earth, Warhammer's Dwarfs are declining in population, the Elves have mostly departed for homelands in the West, and a Great Necromancer is reborn after the defeats in his Southern stronghold.
Races and nations
The world of Warhammer Fantasy has some of the largest distribution of races and cultures in pop fantasy.Mankind
One of the world's most prominent, and often one of the most susceptible to the corrupting influence of Chaos. Most of the featured human nations are based in the Old World : The Empire, Bretonnia, and Kislev. Further east of them is another powerful human civilisation known as Grand Cathay. There is also Nippon, Ind and Araby.Old Ones
Many factions, such as the Elves, the Lizardmen, the Ogres and the Halflings, have been created by the Old Ones: star-travelling gods responsible for the creation of most of the setting's sentient races. These Old Ones were brought low by the daemonic forces inadvertently unleashed by the collapse of their Warp Gates, leaving their creations to fend for themselves. This backstory also provides an easy explanation for the presence of a variety of familiar fantasy races. Ogres and Halflings, for example, are closely related. Both are resistant to the mutating effects of Chaos energies, but have opposite physical templates.Elves
The Elves were the first civilised race to walk the Warhammer world. Brought into creation by the Old Ones, the Elves showed a natural talent for magic and superlative martial skills. The once thriving civilisation of the Elves was torn asunder many thousands of years ago by a bitter civil war, resulting in the sundering of the race into three distinct kindreds: the cruel, twisted, slave-trading Dark Elves, the proud, noble and magical High Elves who continue the ancient traditions from before the sundering, and a third group as the rustic, sylvan and mysterious Wood Elves. The High Elves inhabit the magical island of Ulthuan, while the Dark Elves inhabit the continent of Naggaroth, a desolate icy wilderness and the Wood Elves live in the forests of Athel Loren in the Old World.Chaos
Many races have fallen to, or been corrupted by Chaos. The barbaric Warriors of Chaos invade the civilised nations from the far northern Chaos Wastes. Beastmen, the human-animal hybrid products of Chaos, are found in the dark forests of the entire Warhammer world.The Chaos forces are the personified flaws of sapient beings; the inner daemons of living things come back through a magic medium as literal daemons to torment and kill. The ultimate victory of these forces is often hinted at, highlighting a strong assumption that sentient beings are fundamentally flawed and will eventually bring about their own destruction via the forces of Chaos. The possibility of the victory of Chaos is a major theme in the End Times campaign.
Dwarfs
Dwarfs are an ancient, gritty, and determined race integral in the founding of the Empire. A large amount of the Empire's industry and mechanisms were provided by the Dwarfs. Dwarfs are the greatest craftsmen in the Warhammer World, a skill largely matched by the Chaos Dwarfs who split from their brothers after being corrupted by Chaos.Their language is called Khazalid, written using a runic-like script called Klinkarhun.
Lizardmen
In the jungles of the Lustria continent are the Lizardmen who were created by the Old Ones to aid in their great works. The Slann, who act as leaders and priests, now lead the Lizardmen blindly, via ancient prophecies containing almost incomprehensible instructions left by the Old Ones. They rise from spawning pools, each of the subspecies made to perform certain tasks. The Skins are craftsmen, spellcasters, or scouts. The Saurus are the warriors, and Kroxigors serve as builders as well as heavy troops. The culture and aesthetic of the Lizardmen are heavily inspired by those of the Aztec and Mayan cultures.Orcs, Goblins
Orcs, Goblins, and their kin, are relatively primitive and disorganised, but their instinctive belligerence threatens the various nations. Their violent nature commonly causes wars against not only the neighbouring peoples, but also their own kind. They are found predominantly in the forests and mountains of the Old World, as well in the jungles to the south and stretched across the steppes to the East, but their kin can be found all over the world, inhabiting almost all continents and adapting to their environments. Thus there are many sub-species of Orcs and Goblins such as Black Orcs and Night Goblins. They are described in the supplemental book Orcs and Goblins, first published in 1993. The phrase “orcs & goblins” also refers collectively to all of the races that are described in this book, which includes other “greenskins” as well. The book includes background information, illustrations, and game rules for these races. The Orcs and Goblins represent a generic Dark Ages warband army with little internal cohesion and discipline, and relying on the ferocious charge and individual fighting skills rather than organised generalship. In issue 203 of Dragon #203, Bob Bigelow liked the fact that the details were told through stories that “details animosity levels between orc and goblin and the importance of shamans.” He also noted that “The armies list is split between the different types of orcs and goblins, as well as monsters’ allies.” Bigelow concluded that the book has “excellent line drawings and action illustrations as well as practical game value well worth the price to anyone who wishes to campaign.”Skaven
Living underneath much of the known world are the Skaven, diabolical ratmen living in a subterranean dog-eat-dog Machiavellian society, called the “Under-empire.” They are divided into clans such as Clan Eshin, master assassins, or Clan Skryre, master engineers. It is believed that they are so numerous that if they worked together they would be able to destroy the surface world, however their innate predilection for cowardice and betrayal makes long term cooperation unlikely.Undead
Besides these, there are the Undead, who are a result of the black sorceries of the first necromancer, Nagash, in the long distant past. His legacy has left the Tomb Kings, who are the resurrected armies of the first human civilisation, in the hot desert lands of Nehekhara to the south of the Old World, the Vampire Counts in the Old World, the zombie pirates of Luthor Harkon's Vampire Coast found on the eastern coast of Lustria, and Nagash in his own city of undead. Prior to Games Workshop retconning the backstory, there was previously a unified Undead Army.Fiction
Outside of games, there have been novels, novellas and short stories by various authors set in the Warhammer world, the most famous of which are the novels featuring Gotrek and Felix by William King. The Gotrek and Felix series was taken over by Nathan Long, starting with Orcslayer in 2006.Warhammer Fantasy author Stephen Baxter has stated that according to Marc Gascoigne the idea of Chaos in Warhammer was inspired by The Eternal Champion and its sequels, written by Michael Moorcock, who made use of ideas from Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. The Warhammer elves were inspired by The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson as well the Middle-earth canon of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Early in his career, Kim Newman wrote Warhammer novels under the pen name Jack Yeovil. Some elements from these books later reappeared in the award-winning Anno Dracula series.
Early novels were published as “GW Books” by Boxtree Ltd, but more recently novels have been under Games Workshop's publishing arm, the Black Library. Warhammer Monthly was a comic book, published by Black Library, which ran for over 5 years and included strips set in the other areas of the Warhammer Universe. Generally running concurrently with Warhammer Monthly was Inferno! – also published by Black Library – a magazine which compiled short stories and occasional unconnected illustrations set in the fictional backgrounds of Games Workshop.
Games Workshop licensed out the rights for comic books. Boom! Studios have been working on a series of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 comics, written by Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton. The first was the Warhammer 40k strip Damnation Crusade, but this was followed by one in the fantasy universe Forge of War. When this was finished, they started a new series located in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, called Warhammer – Condemned by Fire. This series features a witch-hunter fighting the Chaos minions in the remote regions of the Empire.