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Dogs of War

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"Yes my son, Tilea is where you must go!' my father said, 'For from the city of Miragliano, the famous freebooter El Cadavo sets sail this very week upon a voyage to the west, to win new kingdoms and explore lands no man visited before. Flee Fleugweiner, my boy, before the Knights of the White Wolf discover what you have done this day and bring shame upon us all!"
—Memoirs of a Lustrian Adventurer, a personal account by Fleugweiner Sonderblitz

A barely-official line of mercenaries from all over the setting and every faction and race. The Dogs of War had dedicated army books in 5th and 6th Edition, but were left out of subsequent editions due to balance issues. However, they have showed up on occasion in side material and fiction.

The Dogs of War are primarily centred in the fractious principalities, city-states and micronations of Estalia, Tilea, and the Border Princes, whose endless petty wars keep the mercenaries steadily employed. In particular, a significant portion of Dog of War regiments and characters are Tilean. Besides this, however, the Dogs of War include representatives from almost every faction in the setting, from elves and dwarves to lizardmen, ogres and hobgoblins and even the odd Chaos marauder.

Achievements in Ignorance: Daddallo was inspired to create the wingsuits used by the Birdmen of Catrazza when he discovered a set of documents and schematics on the subject written by Leonardo da Miragliano. These later turned out to be forgeries, but Daddallo built working wings anyway.
Army of Thieves and Whores: What the Dogs of War amount to, being warriors of fortune from almost any race that can point a weapon at the enemy after a few tries. Many are former soldiers that, for one reason or another, entered the mercenary life, but just as many are outlaws fleeing from the authorities, disgraced nobles, opportunistic killers, and barbarians for hire.
Bears Are Bad News: Beorg Bearstruck, a Norse werebear who leads a band of mercenaries known as the Bearmen of Urslo, is a savage barbarian who revels in battle, massacre and shedding blood for the Chaos Gods. The Bearmen's turn to the mercenary life has at least allowed the southern nations to direct their savagery at their enemies, as opposed to then just attacking whoever they chanced across.
Beat Them at Their Own Game: After his tribe was nearly wiped out by chaos dwarf missile fire, the orc warlord Ruglud Bonechewer decided that, if that was how his enemies were going to play it, he was just going to have to be better at it than them. This led to the founding of Ruglud's Armoured Orcs, one of the few orcish warbands specializing in crossbow fire.
Bow and Sword in Accord: Pirazzo's Lost Legion specialize in use of both the pike and the crossbow, and each member of the company is proficient in both. In tabletop terms, the Lost Legion can choose at the beginning of each battle whether to deploy with crossbows and act as long-ranged fighters or with pikes and act as melee spearmen.
Citadel City: The Tilean city of Verezzo is built on the only high ground in an area of flat land and surrounded by a system of very strong walls and bastions. The Verezzans are very reluctant to expand the borders of their city, as this would mean weakening the strength of the fortifications by extending piecemeal into the plains, and as a result the city is filled with very narrow streets and very tall houses, some of which have become so high that they've become additional towers and have been incorporated into the defenses.
City of Canals: The Tilean city of Miragliano is crossed by a network of canals, seven large ones and many more narrow ones, that the natives use as roads, and which are often filled with a procession of boats and elegant barges.
City-State: The Estalian and Tilean cities are fiercely independent and self-ruling — Tileans, in particular, identify very strongly with their hometowns above everything else and perceive even takeover by their nearest neighbors as foreign conquest — while the Border Princes consist entirely of isolated villages and colonies looking after themselves.
Death Seeker: Richard Kreugar is trapped in a state of undeath that he despises, and his crusading is motivated chiefly by a hope that someday he'll find a foe that can put him down for good.
Demoted to Extra: The Dogs of War ceased to be an official playable faction after 6th Edition but continued to appear in the background material form time to time.
Dragon Rider: Asarnil the Dragonlord, a high elven mercenary who fights on the back of the great dragon Deathfang.
The Exile: Asarnil the Dragonlord was once a prince of Caledor and a commander of some renown, until he disobeyed the Phoenix King's summons to the Finuval Plains in order to lead his forces against a secondary attack on Caledor, saving his land but leaving a critical weakness in the high elven army. When he refused to humble himself for his actions, Finubar stripped him of his land and titles and banished him from Ulthuan.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Estalia and Tilea are based on City-States of Spain and Italy, respectively. Beyond that, a number of the city-states bear strong parallels to specific Italian cities.
- Luccini, a highly militarized city said to have been founded by a pair of twins raised by a wild beast and known for its frescos, marble colonnades and soldiers who wear helmets with stiff horsehair crests, is particularly reminiscent of Ancient Rome.
- Miragliano, a city of many canals and ornate bridges that was built within a marshy region, has visual parallels to Venice. Additionally, it's a relatively young city that wasn't built on an ancient Elven colony, much like how Venice is the only major Italian city that didn't originate as a Roman settlement.
Flying Dutchman: The Cursed Company. Their "commander", Richard Kreugar, was cursed to never be able to die by a Necromancer he betrayed. He's doomed to wander the land until the end of days, and seeks out battle in the hope that one day he'll find some foe powerful enough to make death stick. He's the only sentient member of the company; all of his slain enemies rise again to follow him, making up the rest of the band's manpower.
Genuine Human Hide: Mengil Manhide's Manflayers are a band of bloodthirsty dark elves infamous for their habit of flaying their enemies and wearing their tattered skins like capes.
Horse of a Different Color: Tichi-Huichi's Raiders are a regiment of Skinks riding Horned Ones, essentially scaly Jurassic Park-style raptors.
Improbable Aiming Skills: The Tileans are already notable for their skill with the crossbow, but the Marksmen of Miragliano are truly something special. Being able to put a bolt through the center of a coin from 300 paces is considered the bare minimum of skill needed to get into the regiment to begin with, and constant training afterwards results in some of the most ludicrously accurate long-range marksmen in the Old World.
Mad Libs Catchphrase: The battle cry of Ruglud's Armored Orcs runs "Gobbos fer dinner! Gobbos fer tea! Gobbos when u want 'em! Gobbos fer me!", but the Orcs will substitute other races' names (for example, "umies", "stunties" or "ratsies") to match their current foe.
Mercenary Units: In 5th and 6th Edition, in addition to being fielded as an army in their own right, Dogs of War could be included as Rare choices in other armies, except Bretonnia, who refuse to hire mercenaries as a matter of pride.
Multinational Team: While most Regiments and characters are Tilean, the Dogs of War include a wide assortment of troops and rogues from across the nations of the world. A mercenary army can potentially include Imperial exile knights, Arabyan cavalry, Norse marauders, Amazon warriors, Dwarf pirates, Dark Elf mercenaries, a High Elf dragonrider, Lizardmen raptor riders, Orc crossbowmen, Hobgoblin wolf riders, and similarly coloroful sorts.
Multiple-Choice Past: The origins of Voland, the leader of a notorious mercenary company, are the subject of wild theorizing, due in large part to him keeping a tight lid on the subject. The more sedate speculations assume him to be a disgraced noble from the Empire, some believe him to be the Emperor's bastard son, and the wilder theories include one where he's the child of the Fay Enchantress of Bretonnia and a one-pig named Eric.
Non-Human Undead: Richard Kreugar's curse causes all foes he slays to rise and join him in undeath, and his unit's official model includes figures recognizable as having once been dwarfs, orcs, and lizardmen.
Not-So-Safe Harbor: The Pirate Principality of Sartosa, an island city that was extensively fought over and held by multiple warring factions, including mainland Tileans, Dark Elves, Norscans and Arabyans, until it was taken over by a mercenary army that eventually collapsed, leaving the city in chaos. The Sartosan mercenaries eventually took to piracy as a more lucrative alternative to their old career, and the modern city is a rambling, decaying mess ruled by a feuding patchwork of gangs and criminal rings, overseen only by a Pirate Prince whose only role is to harshly settle the worst disputes over loot, and the greatest nest of pirates in the Old World.
Only in It for the Money: Mercenaries have a tendency to rout if the Paymaster character is killed.
Our Werebeasts Are Different: Beorg Bearstruck is a Norse raider who was blessed by the Dark Gods with therianthropy, being made bearstruck and gaining the ability to turn into a raging bear in the thick of battle. His followers exhibit this to a lesser degree — they can grow a variety of ursine traits and body parts, but Beorg is the only one to turn into a full bear.
Out of Focus: They used to be a main army, with an armybook of their own, but were relegated to the background lore due to concerns over their ability to fill out any other faction's intentional roster holes.
Partial Transformation: Beorg Bearstruck's warband is made up of partial werebears — in the heat of battle the develop traits such as claws, ursine muzzles and thick fur, but only Beorg himself was blessed with the ability to transform into a full bear.
Private Military Contractors: In the storyline, these mostly hail from Tilea, an analogue of Renaissance Italy and the Condottieri.
Psycho for Hire: Menghil's Manflayers, a regiment of savage dark elves who delight in bloody murder, and Beorg's Bearmen, a pack of murderous savages seeking little beyond slaughter and mayhem.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: These mercenaries include all sorts of quirky individuals from all around the Warhammer world, like a regiment of flying people dressed like birds led by an eccentric inventor, dwarf pirates, Big Eater ogres and Vikings that can turn into werebears.
Sibling Team: The twins Cachtorr and Bologs, a.k.a. the Giants of Albion, are the strongest of their kind from that mist-shrouded isle and spent many years defending their homeland from any who would despoil its isolation. After travelling to Old World as part of a peace deal with a Tilean mercenary general, the brothers, and the Druid Hengus who travelled with them, now fight for anyone they believe will get them closer to returning to their home.
The Siege: The great fortress of Monte Castello, which guards the land connection between Tilea and the Border Princes, has come under siege from orcish hordes countless times. The most famous lasted over a year and a saw a horde of thousands of orcs besiege a dwindling garrison whittled down to less than five hundred soldiers, its commander dead and all connection to the outside world lost. The soldiers came very close to giving in to despair until the commander's daughter, having donned her father's armor to lead the men into battle, implored them to hold fast against the horde, if only to avoid having the Greenskins deface the famous fresco in the mess hall. This managed to rally the remaining defenders, who held fast for another three months until an allied army arrived to break the siege.
The Squad: The Regiments of Renown are a cross between a unique unit and a special character, representing the most famous individual mercenary bands of the Warhammer world.
Those Magnificent Flying Machines: The Birdmen of Catrazza fly with da Vinci-esque, pedal-powered, wood-and-canvas winged harnesses. Their motto is outright "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines".
Underestimating Badassery: The background information indicates that many opponents think that the young troopers of Ricco's Republican Guard are more interested in looking good and parading through the streets than in fighting. When they get into battle, however, the Republican Guard prove that they are an elite and highly skilled unit of pikemen who, in game terms, have a higher Weapon Skill characteristic than regular basic infantry.
No, no they didn't look dangerous, more like a bunch of rich kids out to show off in their new armour. Very flashy they were, all gems and silk. We'll have a bit of fun, we thought. Easy pickings. we thought. Well anyone can make a mistake. Poor old Captain Malvino, last mistake he ever made...
—Overheard in the Pig and Whistle, Marienburg
Weapon Specialization: The signature weapon of many Tilean mercenary companies is the pike, a type of spear that is two to three times as long as the spears wielded by other armies. In battle pikes allowed a regiment to fight with twice the number of ranks that a normal spear allows, which itself is double the number that other, shorter weapons are able to fight with. In some editions of the game, the pike also gave a mercenary regiment bonuses when defending against cavalry.
Winged Humanoid: The Birdmen of Catrazza. Though not literal bird men, they invoke the image by wearing bird masks while gliding over the battlefield on canvas wings.

Al Muktar

Werner Glook was a Marienburg nobleman with a passion for adventure and foreign languages. Captured by a tribe of fierce Arabyan desert bandits, his resilience in the face of torture (and the subtle manipulations of the Arabyan child-thief Ibn) convinced his tormentors that he was actually a legendary prophesied figure, the Al Muktar, and they spared his life, begging him not to curse them. Werner took command of the band and became the leader of one of the fiercest cavalry units known amongst the Dogs of War.

Because You Were Nice to Me: Ibn the "blind" beggar boy saved Werner's life out of gratitude for Werner's kindness.
Boarding School of Horrors: The Marienburg boarding school were Werner spent his childhood was a living nightmare that left him so numb to pain and hardship that even the notoriously brutal Arabyan desert bandits were impressed by his fortitude.
Expy: He's a pastiche of Lawrence of Arabia.
Made of Iron: As a child, Werner once spent three days hanging from the flue of the chimney for the headmaster's study and never made a sound, not even when the headmaster lit the fire. As an adult, when Arabyan desert bandits staked him out in the sun for three days with no water and constantly beat him, Werner never complained, but instead kept cursing the ancestry of his tormentors in fluent Arabyan.

Borgio the Besieger

Borgio, the Prince of Miragliano, was one of the greatest condottieri to ever live and the most powerful man in Tilea. He was nicknamed "the Besieger" for his unmatched grasp of siege warfare, which was matched only by his ability to survive seemingly all attempts to kill him.

Carry a Big Stick: He wielded the Mace of Might, a massive mace that was created from a cannonball that hit the Merchant Prince in the chest yet failed to kill him. Borgio can use this mace to strike a massively powerful hit against his target that is perfect for shattering the gates of enemy fortresses.
Cultured Badass: In addition to being a genius tactician and a nearly unkillable warrior, he wrote poetry and cooked his own meals.
Made of Iron: He was renowned for his ability to withstand pain and injury and being able to fight on despite the most grievous wounds. To represent this, Borgio has the Difficult to Slay special rule that give him a 50% chance of ignoring the loss of his final wound.
The Magnificent: He's known as Borgio the Besieger in honor of his matchless skill in taking fortified positions.
Posthumous Character: He's been dead for some time by the setting's present, having finally met his end when he was assassinated by his wife.
Rasputinian Death: He was legendary for his ability to survive these, having lived through a long list of creative assassinations and battlefield maulings, including catching a cannonball with his chest. His eventual demise to a poisoned toasting fork in his bath was rather anticlimactic, in hindsight.
Shrouded in Myth: He was a legend in his own time, and his reputation has only grown since. Besides well-documented deeds and victories, he's rumored to have wrestled lions, to have escaped captivity in Sartosa by having jumped from his prison cell into the sea and swimming back to Tilea and to have defeated a horde of orcs by splitting them into three parts — although whether he split the horde or the actual orcs is a matter of some debate.

Leonardo da Miragliano

Leonardo began his career as a simple apprentice architect in the city of Miragliano, but his considerable talent saw him rise to be the most celebrated inventor and engineer in the Old World.

Anti-Magic: He wielded the Prism of Power, a special crystal of his making that allows its user to catch and dissipate the winds of magic and thus prevent enemy casters from fueling their spells.
Gadgeteer Genius: He was a tremendously gifted engineer and invented several complex mechanisms, most notably the steam tanks and several war machines that humanity's technology is simply too primitive to build. To this day, his brilliant design for the compact boilers that make the steam tanks possible has never been deciphered or replicated.
Magic Versus Science: His characterization as a genius scientist comes with a general rejection of magic and supernatural powers. His inventions were all created entirely through application of physical principles, without recuse to any mystic element, and he even created a crystal especially designed to catch the Winds of Magic and scatter them into uselessness.
No Historical Figures Were Harmed: His name and mechanical and architectural genius, especially his many plans for fantastical war machines that were never made, indicate that he's based on Leonardo da Vinci.
Posthumous Character: He lived and died about five centuries before the game's time.
Silver Has Mystic Powers: He created the Compass of Meteoric Silver, whose arrow is made from silver taken from a meteorite and always points to the highest concentration of magic in a battlefield.
World's Smartest Man: He was an absolute genius, and quite possibly the most mechanically talented human to ever live. He created countless architectural and mechanical wonders, including the Empire's steam tanks and a plethora of precipitously leaning towers across Tilea. He was able to apply his genius to any sort of problem, and could thus provide extremely valuable tactical advice as well.

Long Drong and the Slayer Pirates

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"From Grimnir's Halls I'll shoot at ye, ye bastard!"

Born in Barak Varr, Long Drong (so named because of his unusual height) made a living for himself as a merchant, and built up a reputation as a slow, careful and reliable transporter of fine goods. This ended when a storm drove his ship, The Barrel of Ale, onto Sartosa's cliffs, leaving the crew helpless as their cargo of high-quality alcohol washed into the sea. Distraught and ashamed, Drong and his crew took the Slayer Oath and promptly stormed the nastiest fortress that they could find. Unfortunately for them, they survived and only managed to kill off all the pirates there, but in the process they gained a good pirate ship (renamed The Fair Fregar after a famously beautiful dwarf maiden), a strong home base, and quite a lot of gold. Rebranding themselves as Slayer pirates, Long Drong and his crew became mercenaries specialized in high-risk missions such as pay chest theft and retrieval, but Drong's particular passion remains hunting large and dangerous sea monsters. Over his career, he has slain many mighty foes and helped many slayers find their dooms, but Long Drong's worthy death has so far continued to elude him.

An Arm and a Leg: Long Drong's high-risk trade has been taking its toll on him, and he has lost a leg and arm to different sea monsters, and an eye to a bet. The cost that this is taking on his physical abilities is part of his increasingly morose humor.
Battle Trophy: Drong keeps trophies from some of the more impressive beasts that he's slain, such as a flag made from Merwyrm hide.
Death Seeker: Long Drong and his slayer pirates, much like other slayers, are motivated chiefly by a desire to perish in glorious battle against a mighty foe. Consequently, they have no problem volunteering for suicidal missions that will put prices on their heads or hunting down extremely large and dangerous monsters. In recent years, the aging Drong has become increasingly morose as he begins to feel that he is running out of time before old age and his rapidly dropping number of limbs cost him the chance to find a worthy death.
Gargle Blaster: Long Drong's slayer pirates brew a kind of rum mixed with gunpowder and iron filings, whose bottles are marked with a skull and crossbones "as a warning". They've drunk so much of the stuff that they cannot get drunk from anything else, but drinking it still reacts alarmingly with their digestive processes and causes them to develop flatulence so potent that no other troops will stay anywhere near them.
Hook Hand: Drong lost his left hand to a Lurkerfish and replaced it with a large hook, which he has develop the habit of rubbing when in thought.
Long John Shout-Out: His name is derived from Treasure Island's Long John.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Long Drong's Slayer Pirates are an entire regiment of Dwarfs from a berserk cult of Death Seekers who have taken up piracy for the chance to earn as much gold as possible before their glorious deaths.
Noodle Incident: His entry in the Sea of Claws RPG sourcebook mentions that Drong lost an eye to a bet, but doesn't elaborate on what this was about beyond noting that it's a "long story".
Pirate: Long Drong's Slayer Pirates embrace all accoutrements of stereotypical golden age piracy, complete with the bandannas, hook hands, peg legs, eyepatches, flintlock pistols (notably for Slayers, as they normally eschew all ranged weaponry), rum, sea shanties, and a skull and crossbones flag.
Pirate Parrot: Long Drong keeps a parrot that sits on his shoulder and repeats "bits o' gold, bits o' gold!" He named it Bitsy due to this habit.
Seadog Peg Leg: Drong wears a peg leg as a result of having lost the original limb to a sea drake.

Lucrezzia Belladonna

Lucrezzia Belladonna, the de facto ruler of Pavona, is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She is also a very dangerous one, as she is both a sorceress and skilled poisoner, and has gone through an impressive number of husbands over her life, all of whom turned up dead after some major military or political misstep. Nevertheless, the lady Lucrezzia has always maintained some level plausible deniability in these incidents, and there's never a shortage of men willing to court danger for a taste of power.

Black Widow: Lucrezzia is something of a serial widow, having gone through seven husbands over her life. All of her previous spouses have met untimely demises, usually from poisoning and after doing something very stupid or losing an important battle, leaving few doubts among the Tilean public that Lucrezzia had more than a hand in disposing of them.
Kiss of Death: The 5th edition Dogs of War armybook describes an incident where she delivered an indirect version of this during a tourney in Bretonnia. A Tilean contestant claimed that Lucrezzia was the most beautiful woman in the land; a Bretonnian knight claimed this title for the Fay Enchantress. When the Tilean asked for Lucrezzia's favor, she kissed his lance. The Tilean was unhorsed and only scratched the Bretonnian, but the latter fell over dead anyway, with the implication that Lucrezzia had applied the poison to her lips.
Master Poisoner: She is extremely skilled at the art of brewing and delivering poison, and not coincidentally all of her husbands have perished from various kinds of toxicity-related incidents. In-game, she has a number of special rules and items involving poisons, such as poisoned weapons and the Phial of Poison that can be used on enemy characters before a battle.
Meaningful Name: "Bella donna" is Italian for "beautiful woman". It is also the Italian name for deadly nightshade, a toxic plant whose berries have historically been used for making both feminine cosmetics and poisons.
No Historical Figures Were Harmed: She's heavily based on Lucrezia Borgia, a Renaissance noblewoman reputed to have made liberal use of poison to dispose of her political enemies.
World's Most Beautiful Woman: She is reputed to be the most beautiful woman in Tilea, if not in the entire Old World. Her Stunning Beauty rule represents this by allowing allied units routing in her vicinity to rally automatically, out of shame of having their cowardice seen by such a beautiful lady.

Lumpin Croop and His Fighting Cocks

The only known halfling mercenary, Lumpin Croop was the illegitimate son of a blacksmith's drunkard daughter and an itinerant carrot salesman. He grew up in a family that loathed him, and subsequently fled them at the first opportunity to become a pickpocket, con-artist and poacher who made a nuisance of himself all over the Moot. When this led to him being caught by a band of vengeful gameskeepers in the Old Pig & Bucket tavern in the village of Beggar's End, Lumpin attempted to avoid a righteous beating by spinning a fanciful yarn of the potential excitement, fame, and fortune that could be had by becoming mercenaries. To his delight — and subsequent dismay — it worked so well that the halflings who had been about ready to lynch him immediately became convinced that the mercenary life was their dream — and they wanted Lumpin Croop to become their leader! Now, Lumpin wanted nothing to do with a dangerous life of combat, but since the alternative would have been to get a beating, he had to roll with it. Dubbing themselves "the Fighting Cocks", Lumpin's followers have become famous mercenaries and absolutely love it. They are convinced that Lumpin is a brilliant tactician, and would follow him to the ends of the earth. Unfortunately for Lumpin, they're too good at tracking for him to escape them, and so he's forced to continue the charade.

Becoming the Mask: Despite wanting nothing more than to escape the Fighting Cocks at first, it's mentioned in Lumpin's flavor text that, despite himself, he is starting to reciprocate their loyalty and even believe in their dream himself.
The Charmer: Lumpin talked a band of angry halfling gameskeepers who had been planning on beating him senseless into becoming glory-chasing mercenaries who are absolutely convinced he's their destined leader. That's some silver tongue!
Fake Ultimate Hero: A variant. Lumpin Croop is a cowardly thief who wants nothing to do with the mercenary lifestyle, but his followers are firmly convinced he's a great captain, a heroic leader, and an all-around badass.
Mondegreen Gag: The team's battle cry of "Hurray, Hurray! The Moot, the Moot!" actually stems from a battle where they were on the losing side, so a panicking Lumpin yelled for them to retreat — specifically, he shouted "Run away! Run away! To the Moot! To the Moot!" But in the chaos of the battle, the Fighting Cocks misheard him and, emboldened by what they believed to be a patriotic battle cry, took it up and made an unexpected heroic charge into enemy ranks, which turned the tide and achieved victory for their employers.
Opportunistic Bastard: Lumpin Croop manages to flourish in a violent lifestyle that he absolutely despises by being incredibly adept at spotting opportunities and exploiting them, especially when it comes to his borderline genius at spouting convincing lies and falsehoods.
Scarily Competent Tracker: As halfling gameskeepers, the Fighting Cocks can track just about anything... which has only been honed by Lumpin's many, many failed attempts to escape them.
Underestimating Badassery: Most people tend to have a hard time believing that Lumpin Croop's Fighting Cocks, a band of rotund halflings in jaunty clothes, can possibly be all that dangerous. The Fighting Cocks are, in fact, that dangerous, being expert trackers, skilled fighters and nearly fearless, and have won their fair share of battles against foes that underestimated them.
Undying Loyalty: The Fighting Cocks are absolutely devoted to Lumpin Croop, and totally convinced that he's both a heroic captain and a tactical genius, to the point they make excuses for any of his nonheroic actions — his frequent escape attempts, for example, are seen as training exercises for their stealth and tracking abilities.

Mydas the Mean

The most notorious of Tilea's paymasters, Mydas the Mean is notoriously protective of the pay chests he is hired to guard. He's so protective of them, in fact, that he's usually rather reluctant to let even the pay chest's rightful owners or the mercenaries the chest is intended to pay get their mitts on the gold, and a number of chests under his guard have vanished mysteriously after the end of a battle.

Charm Person: Unusually, Mydas does this unintentionally. The map where he keeps the locations his chests marked is also inscribed with Lizardman glyphs intended to make others more pliable to its owner's words. In Mydas' case, this means that the army he's working with will believe whatever he tells them before battle. Mydas has absolutely no idea that this is so, and attributes his streak of success at motivating and duping mercenaries to his natural charisma.
Greed: He's incredibly greedy and protective of treasure, and entirely unwilling to part with any gold he's given hold of, even when that gold isn't even his.
Meaningful Name: He's named after the mythical King Midas, whose greed led him to ask for the ability to turn everything he touched to gold.
Multiple-Choice Past: Mydas' origins are shrouded in myth, and while there are some guesses nobody actually knows where he comes from.
Treasure Map: He keeps a map marked with the locations of every pay chest he's ever squirreled away from its rightful owners.

Lorenzo Lupo

The Prince of Luccini, Lorenzo Lupo is a descendant of the city's mythical founders and extremely dedicated to his city's history and legacy.

Ancestral Weapon: He wields the Sword of Lucan, a blade believed to have belonged to his legendary ancestor.
Alliterative Name: Lorenzo Lupo.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He insists on waring armor of a kind that hasn't been used for centuries and on fighting on foot in the fashion of the ancient Luccinians. His opponents within and without the city would very gladly mock him for this, if he wasn't so damnably good at fighting in this manner and if he didn't beat them so often.
Cultured Badass: Besides being a skilled combatant and respected political and military leader, he's a passionate antiquarian and has curated an extensive collection of artwork, statuary and civic relics.
Famous Ancestor: He's descended from Lucan and Luccina, his city's legendary founders. He's extremely proud of this fact.
Frontline General: He fights on foot and leads his armies from the front alongside his troops, a practice that has earned him the respect and admiration of his soldiers.
Ring of Power: He owns the Ring of Luccina, said to have belong to his ancestress, who is rumored to have been a sorceress herself. The ring is set with a cameo bearing Luccina's face, and can sing out a battle cry exhorting fleeing soldiers to uphold the city's ancient honor. In-game, this allows him to instantly rally all units within a certain range when the artifact is activated.

Kislev

"You look down on us and think we are little better than barbarians, but you should be glad we are, for without us here, the northern tribes would be dining on the flesh of your children in your burning homes. But for the courage that flows in our veins would your lands be theirs. Look down on us? You should get on your knees and thank us every day!"
—Vitalia Kovash, Kislevite Winged Lancer

A small kingdom of proud mounted warriors that lies to the northeast of the Empire, ruled by the powerful sorceress Tzarina Katarin. Kislev is the last frontier before the Chaos Wastes, molding its people into hardy defenders of the southern lands. Recently, during the Storm of Chaos, Kislev was overrun by a massive invasion from the Chaos Wastes, but still hangs on to civilization by the skin of its teeth.

Kislev finally became set to receive a major expansion by being promoted to a fully-fledged playable faction in Total War: Warhammer III.

An Ice Person: Kiselvite ice witches channel their homeland's magic in the form of a unique arcane lore focusing on bitter chill and killing ice.
Born in the Saddle: The Ungols and the Gospodars both have long traditions of horsemanship, and originate from two different groups of steppe nomads that eventually settled into agricultural life. Although they're not quite as formidable as the Gospodars' Kurgan cousins, they still produce formidable horse archers (in the Ungols' case) and heavy knights (in the Gospodars').
Elemental Personalities: The Ice Witches of Kislev are typically characterized as being cold, unapproachable and controlling.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
- Kislev in general is based on the Tsardom of Russia, the Kievan Rus' and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, especially the former two, combining Russian architectural states, naming conventions (often as wholesale usage of Russian words) and Tzars and Tzarinas with a great variety of spirits and supernatural creatures from Slavic Mythology as well as hag witches heavily inspired by Baba Yaga. The name as well as that of its chief city are derived from the Jewish calendar.
- The indigenous Ungol people, a nomadic group famed for their horse archers, are vaguely like the Huns. In the present day they, and especially the former mercenaries of the Kossar tribe, fill the same role as the old Cossack hosts. They're also inspired by the Kazar Tatars, a nomadic steppe group from Russia that served as the first line of defense against the invading Golden Horde from Mongolia, as well as the Bashkir Turks.
Fantasy Counterpart Religion: The Kislevite religion is like a fusion between Slavic paganism and Orthodox Christianity with its pantheon being derived from the former and its centralized structure under the Great Orthodoxy based on the latter.
God of Light: Dazh is the Kislevite god of fire, the sun, and hospitality, and is quite popular in Kislev due to the importance of the light and heat he brings in the cold and harsh climate of the country. He is said to have given fire to the first humans by gifting them with flames taken from the sun, and is said to ride across the world each day before returning home each night — Dazhite religion requires worshippers to greet him at sunrise and wish him well at sunset. While all periods of daylight are sacred to him, his holiest day is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.
God of Thunder: The Kislevite god of thunder and lightning is Tor, a heavily muscled warrior god who is said to split the sky with his axe to release thunderbolts. Temples to Tor are built high in the Worlds Edge Mountains but his followers will sing his praises wherever there is a storm. His faith has only one stricture — never stand beneath a tree during a thunderstorm.
Grim Up North: The frigid, harsh and barren land of Kislev is this to the other nations of men, although compared to Norsca and the Chaos Wastes it's downright pleasant. Except in Erengrad and Praag, where the Norse constantly launch devastating attacks to sacrifice the Kislevites to the Chaos Gods. The Kislevites bear these tribulations with remarkable grit.
Had to Be Sharp: Kislev borders Norsca and the Chaos Wastes, so they're always under attack by the forces of Chaos. As a result, they're made up of hard-fighting, heavy drinkin', boorish guys in furs, made tough and resilient by the constant hardships they go through.
Hordes from the East: Kislev is at the receiving end of these fairly frequently, as the main mountain passes that allow passage to Kurgan hordes aiming to pillage the Old World open into its northern areas, but the Gospodars originated as one of these as well. The ancient Gospodars were one of the ancient nomadic warrior-tribes that roamed the great eastern steppes and close kin to the ancient Kurgan until Chaos began to spread over their lands. The majority of the tribes either gave themselves over to Chaos or resisted it and were killed by those that didn't, but the Khan-Queen of the Gospodars received a vision of a distant land also under Chaos' attack, whose spirit offered it as a new homeland if they saved it. The Gospodars consequently moved west in a great horde, which streamed into Kislev, overwhelmed the native Ungols and established a new kingdom.
Horse Archer: The Ungol tribes that live in the far north of Kislev are famous for their fierce, if undisciplined, horse archers. These savage warriors serve as highly mobile auxiliaries in the armies of Kislev, running rings around their opponents while they unleash a storm of arrows. In-game, Kislevite Horse Archers were one of the few Kislev units to receive models and rules across multiple editions, usually as mercenary allies for Empire armies.
Magic Is Feminine: Enforced in-universe. Kislevites believe that only women can wield magic without being corrupted and that magic-using men will inevitably fall to Chaos. Thus, only women are permitted to learn and practice magic within the country, and men with magical aptitude are forced to leave Kislev or be pacified, a ritual that essentially involves cutting off a portion of their soul. This causes Kislev to have occasionally strained relations with the Empire since its larger neighbor does not share this belief and makes use of both male and female wizards.
Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Kislev is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Russia, and its Hat is that they're the toughest uncorrupted humans in the setting.
Our Witches Are Different: The Ice Witches of Kislev are an all-female order who practice a unique form of ice magic.
Out of Focus: Kislev has never been a "full" faction, but in former editions some of their troops and characters were available for use in an Empire army and later GW published an army list for them, allowing them to supplement other factions. As of the most recent edition they are no longer officially legal and their models have vanished from the GW stores.
Russian Bear: Kislev, being based on medieval Russia, the Kievan Rus' and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, is heavily associated with bears and bear imagery. Its patron deity is Ursun, the god of bears and strength, and in addition to that it often train bears as Attack Animals to unleash on its enemies during battle, makes heavy use of bear iconography in its flags and symbols, and its late ruler Czar Boris rode a bear into battle.
Trademark Favorite Food: Kvas, a type of very strong alcohol, serves as Kislev's national drink of sorts — they drink it almost exclusively, and use it for multiple occasions and recipes.

Tzar Boris Bokha

Coming to the throne in a time when Kislev was still weakened and fractured in the wake of great Chaos incursions, Tzar Boris reunited the weakened nation, rekindled its spirit and forged it into a great bulwark against the terrors of the North.

Fire-Forged Friends: When he first met Urskin, his bear mount, in the forest, they fought each other ferociously. They kept at it until Urskin was set on by a pack of wolves, at which point Boris fell on the attackers and started killing them until he collapsed from exhaustion. Urskin kept watch over him afterwards, killing the wolves that came close, and they remained inseparable ever afterwards.
Horse of a Different Color: He famously rode Urskin, a huge bear that he tamed himself.
Real Men Love Jesus: He was a devout worshipper of Ursun, and greatly promoted his faith throughout Kislev.

Tzarina Katarin Bokha

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/katarin_bokha.png

Tzar Boris' daughter, Tzarina Katarin is the current ruler of Kiselv and the greatest ice witch of her generation, and is said to be a reincarnation of Kislev's first ever ruler.

Ancestral Weapon: Her sword, Fearfrost, has been passed down among Kislevite queens since the time of the nation's founding.
An Ice Person: She's the greatest living practitioner of Kislevite ice magic, enough so to have grown a new wing to her royal palace entirely out of ice.
The Dreaded: Her ice magic is so powerful that only the biggest Chaos invasions dare to go through Kislev to attack the Empire. The Norscans are scared shitless of her.
Good is Not Nice: She's devoted to protecting her nation and holding back Chaos, but is nonetheless a ruthless autocrat who's not above purging troublemakers from the populace if she thinks their crackpot demands for representation and rights might interfere with the Kislevite war effort.
Named Weapons: Her sword is named Fearfrost, after the deadly cold of its touch and its ensuing fearsome reputation.
Red Baron: She's typically referred to as the Ice Queen, or more fully the Ice Queen of Kislev.
Reincarnation: She's rumored to be the Khan-Queen Miska, Kislev's first ruler and a legendary ice witch herself, born again.

Marienburg

The city-state of Marienburg began life as an Imperial coastal settlement that in time grew into the Empire's primary port. Its wealthy merchants eventually came to chafe under Imperial rule, and secured the city's independence by means of an extremely large payment of gold to the corrupt and incompetent Emperor Dieter IV. Future Emperors sorely regretted this decision, but despite numerous attempts to recapture it Marienburg has managed to maintain its independence in the centuries since. In the modern day, Marieburg is primarily a mercantile power, safeguarding its interests through mercenaries and economic influence and carefully playing Bretonnia and the Empire against each other in order to avoid being absorbed by its larger and powerful neighbors, both of which would dearly like to secure control of the Old World's greatest and wealthiest port.

City of Canals: As it is based on Amsterdam, a city with a similar base plan, Marienburg is crossed by a network of navigable canals branching off from its bay and the river Reik and which serve as an important method of travel within the city.
Conspicuous Consumption: Affluential Marienburgers make a great effort to show off their wealth and income through expensive clothes and accoutrements, and even Marienburger armed forces make a point of wearing the most sumptuous and showy uniforms and armor they can afford to show off to foes and allies alike.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Marienburg, a tiny coastal state that derives its wealth from maritime trade, is centered around a City of Canals, and lies in a very precarious position between a larger German-based neighbor it has strong cultural ties to and a French-based kingdom, has strong parallels to the Netherlands during the age of exploration. Even the names of its locals and natives tend to be various forms of pseudo-Dutch to match the Empire's pseudo-German.
Land of One City: While Marienburg nominally controls an area of land around the Reik's estuary, this is primarily uninhabited marsh and wasteland — almost every citizen of the tiny nation lives within its sprawling capital, which is the primary thing that comes to people's minds when Marienburg is discussed.
Merchant City: Marienburg's wealth and independence both stem from its position on the mouth of the primary river leading inland into the northern Old World, which gives it a controlling position for trade moving between inland nations, such as the Empire, the Dwarfs and Kislev, and ones along the rest of the Old World's coasts, such as Bretonnia and the Southern Realms — anyone who doesn't wish to make an overland trip across monster-infested forests and mountain ranges must go through Marienburg. It's also one of the very few ports where Elves will trade. This makes Marienburg fantastically wealthy, and has led to it being ruled by a number of powerful merchant families.

Albion

Albion is amongst the most mysterious and least-understood realms of the Warhammer world. Lying to the west of Norsca and north of Bretonnia, this realm was one of the first places to be populated by humans during the age of the Old Ones. When Chaos first washed over the world, the druids of Albion independently came up with a plan similar to the elves of Ulthuan; with the aid of the native giants, they constructed circles of enchanted menhirs, "Ogham Stones", that pulled in the raw magic washing the world and harmlessly dispersed it into the earth. This vital act greatly reduced the raw magical energies present in the world, making it harder for daemons to manifest. But it also had a price to pay; it corrupted Albion's weather, reducing it to a grey and dismal realm of foggy swamps and sub-temperate rainforests. For countless centuries, Albion remained unknown from the world around it, concealed beneath protective veils of mists, guardian giants, and treacherously rocky shorelines. It was only visited during the events of the Dark Shadows campaign in 2001 for Warhammer 6th edition; the locale hasn't been visited since.

Anti-Magic: The Staffs of Light carried by Truthsayers allow them to channel protective arcane energies that they can use to disrupt the abilities of enemy spellcasters, granting them a bonus to their attempts to dispel enemy spells.
Barbarian Tribe: The Albion natives have the dubious distinction of being one of the most primitive societies on the Warhammer world, outside of the Savage Orcs.
Circle of Standing Stones: The Ogham Stones, which are found all over the island and are even a unique terrain feature for battles set there.
Druid: The only Albion characters to ever make it into official game units are the Truthsayers, the descendants of the ancient Albion druidic orders who erected the Ogham Stones. During the events of the Dark Shadows campaign, the Truthsayers sought out allies from the "good" forces of the Warhammer world to try and avert the plans of the Dark Master — the ur-Daemon Prince Be'lakor. A subsect of the Truthsayers are the Oracles; female druids with the gift of prophecy.
Evil Counterpart: Dark Emissaries, which are corrupted druids who have sold their souls to the Dark Master, and seek to manipulate other races into ravaging Albion as part of a plan to free him. They too were given stats for use as mercenary heroes in the tabletop game.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Albion natives are based on pre-Roman Celtic British tribes, and consist of woad-painted near-naked tribesfolk and cave-dwellers with at best crude Iron Age equipment.
Gray Rain of Depression: Part of what characterizes Albion as a miserable, cursed and depressing place is that it rains nearly constantly. The campaign book for Dark Shadows even includes a d7 weather table whose results are "hailstorm", "driving rain and gales", "light drizzle and fog", "light drizzle", "showers", "torrential rain" and "thunderstorm". In case you haven't gotten it yet, Albion is very, very wet.
Grim Up North: Albion is actually on the same northern latitude as Norsca. However, it's characterized less by being cold, and more by being miserably wet and misty, with its landscape taken up by rain-soaked forests full of monsters, treacherous swamps, and barren heaths.
Healing Factor: The Spiral of Oblivion that each Dark Emissary wears absorbs Life Energy from the surrounding area to heal the evil sorcerer's wounds, granting them the Regenerate ability.
Lost World: Albion has been cut off from the outside world for centuries, and culturally stagnated all the while. Even its druids are pale shadows of the glorious magic-users their ancestors were.
Muck Monster: Fenbeasts; horrible golem-like monsters made of mud, decaying vegetation, bones and other swamp detritus, all animated by a dimly-aware human spirit summoned and bound by a Truthsayer or a Dark Emissary.
Ominous Fog: Invoked; for centuries, Albion was cut off from the outside world by a thick veil of magically sustained mist.
Our Giants Are Bigger: Albion is home to one of the largest populations of giants in the world... unfortunately, they too have succumbed to inbreeding and degredation after centuries in isolation.
Swamps Are Evil: Albion was twisted into a realm of swamps, fens and wetlands as a side-effect of the dark magical energies being poured into it by the Ogham Stones.
Wild Magic: A side-effect of the Ogham Stones, which siphon vast quantities of magic into the land itself, is that magic can behave very unpredictably indeed.

Araby

A loose coalition of desert settlers located in a great peninsula west of Nehekhara, they are in theory governed by a Great Sultan of All Araby, but in practice they are collections of independent cities with their own rulers, laws and traditions and nomadic tribes that wander the Great Desert.

"Arabian Nights" Days: The country is heavily based on the traditional historic and fictional versions of the Middle East, featuring deserts, flying carpets, oases, genies, sultans, sorcerers, harem girls, scimitar-wielding warriors and desert nomads.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of the Islamic Middle East, of which they're less a counterpart and more the real deal with the serial numbers filed off and more magic. They are a desert people based in a peninsula and are said to practice a strictly monotheistic faith manifested by a series of prophets. They are also similar to historical caliphates where their supreme leader — the caliph/great sultan — is said to have complete and total authority over them, but actually wields very little power.
Our Genies Are Different: Arabyan wizards are known for trapping genies — powerful, desert-dwelling elemental spirits — inside of jars or bottles and using them as familiars in combat.
Proud Merchant Race: Commerce and trade are really important to them, with their main focus being to monopolize the trade routes for the lucrative jade and spice lands of the Far East and sell them later to the Empire.
Royal Harem: It's said that Arabyan sheikhs, emirs and sultans are served by their own harems of voluptuous beauties from across the entire world.
The Savage South: The Arabyan are one of the southernmost people in the Old World and their interactions with other humans has never been friendly. In fact, they were very much this trope when they invaded the nation of Estalia under the influence of the Skaven.
Shout-Out: They feature an Abdul Alhzred Expy with Abdul ben Raschild, a mad Arabyan prince that visited the Land of the Dead and penned a blasphemous work known as the Book of the Dead (i.e. the Necronomicon).
Sorcerous Overlord: The Sultan Jaffar was a powerful wizard that managed to unite all the Arabyan city-states and nomadic tribes into a single entity, possibly for the first time in their history.
Unwitting Pawn: They were once tricked by the Skaven into invading Estalia and triggering a war with Bretonnia and the Empire to serve the Skaven's own ends.
War Elephants: The Arabyans tame their local elephants to use as Beasts of Battle.

Cathay

Cathay, also known as Grand Cathay, the Empire of the Celestial Dragon, the Kingdom of the Dragon, and the Celestial Empire, is a great power in the distant east of the world and quite possibly the mightiest human nation in existence. However, its distance from the Old Word and the immense perils lurking between them — the World's Edge Mountains, Dark Lands, Mountains of Mourn, and Chaos Wastes all lie in the path of any would-be explorer — mean that interaction between the two realms of mankind is scarce, and Cathay has consequently always remained on the fringes of Warhammer lore.

Cathay eventually received a signficant expansion with when it became a fully-fledged playable faction in Total War: Warhammer III, whose material whose later incorporated in Wahammer: The Old World. Cathay is an immensely ancient nation, having been founded in the wake of the original coming of Chaos by the Dragon Emperor, a being who had predated the coming of the Old Ones and who decided to unify the scattered eastern tribes of humanity into a nation that could hold off the tides of Chaos. He and his mate, the Moon Empress, had nine children, who administer and direct the various corners of their empire and who in turn begat their own progeny with their subjects, creating long dynasties of dragon-blooded humans.

Ascended Extra: They've never been more than a few footnotes, let alone a playable faction... until Total War: Warhammer III.
Asian Lion Dogs: Temple dogs of living stone are noted to be among the strange things found in Cathay.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of classical China. Besides using its archaic European name, Cathay is associated with numerous creatures from Chinese myth and is the largest and most powerful human nation on the planet, but has little to no interaction with the Old World beyond trade through the Silk Road.
Fatal Fireworks: The Throne of Chaos describes a Cathayan army as using enchanted fireworks against an invading Chaos army.
The Great Wall: The Grand Bastion, a direct homage to the Great Wall of China, is built on the borders to the northern steppes and keeps both the Hung, the Kurgan, and the hobgoblin hordes of Hobgobla-Khan out of the Cathayan hearthlands.
Kirin: Unicorn-like creatures native to Cathay, who gallop through the skies and trail lightning and thunder as they go, and who are sometimes used as mounts by Cathayan heroes.
Our Dragons Are Different: Cathay is strongly associated with dragons — besides being itself called the Kingdom of the Dragon, it's said to be home to strange serpentine dragons, the Celestial Emperor of Cathay is rumored to be a dragon in human guise, and its Shugengan wizards are described as "dragon-blooded". Total War: Warhammer III (which marks the first time that Cathay has been given any focus, and Word of God is that its content will be backported into the tabletop when The Old World launches) confirms this to be the case.
Shrouded in Myth: Cathay is fairly famous but poorly known in the Old World, where it's known as a distant land of myths said to be ruled by dragons and full of magic and mystical beasts.
Wutai: A Chinese-themed variant on this trope. Cathay is a fantastical version of China, complete with the traditional medieval name, a Great Wall, a Dragon Emperor, enchanted fireworks, serpentine dragons, animated temple dogs, and so on.

Nippon

A vast, far-off island located east of Cathay in the Far Sea. It is an empire where a warrior class known as the Samurai have a firm grip over the peasantry and the reclusive, semi-divine Emperor. Despite being very distant from the rest of the world, the Nipponese have made contact with the Elves, Clan Eshin of the Skaven Under-Empire, and the city-state of Marienburg, over the years. Nippon is also a rising, sea-faring power and a rival to the Cathay.

Crystal Dragon Jesus: Like the Cathayans, the Nipponese follow the Orange Simica religion which is the Warhammer universe equivalent of Buddhism. Vim-to, a martial sect of Orange Simica, heavily resembles Zen Buddhism.
Demoted to Extra: They're actually one of the oldest factions, debuting in the first edition as the "Men of the Orient." They predate the Empire, to put that in perspective. However, they were eventually pushed to the side as the setting became more solidified from 4th edition onward.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of feudal Japan. In addition to samurai and ninjas, Nippon has a figurehead emperor and plenty of warrior monks. Additionally, Nipponese samurai have a habit of performing a suicide attack against their enemies known as kamikaze, much like Japanese pilots during World War II. Even the country's name is a direct English transliteration of Japan's endonym.
God-Emperor: Sort of. The Emperor otherwise known as the Divine Sun is a semi-divine ruler, making him a demigod of sorts.
Ninja: Samurai Lords have ninjas as retinue units.
Puppet King: Technically, the Emperor is the ruler of Nippon but he's more or less a figurehead for the people. The real power lies with the Samurai Lords.
Samurai: Nippon is ruled by Samurai Lords.
Warrior Monk: The Nipponese have entire orders of warrior monks that follow various denominations of the Orange Simica, particularly the Vim-toists.
Wutai: Nippon is a fantasy version of feudal Japan with samurai, ninjas, warrior monks, and Emperors.

Ind

A great peninsula located in the eastern lands of the world, Ind is home to numerous kingdoms and religions, hence the nickname "Land of a Thousand Gods". It also lies near the Silver Road, a trade route that connects the Old World to Ind and the distant eastern lands of Cathay and Nippon.

Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of India, as it has important connections to the Middle East and Europe through the spice trade. Ind's nickname of "the Land of a Thousand Gods" is a reference to the expansive pantheon characteristic of Hinduism. Even its name is "India", minus two letters.
Mystical India: Ind's portrayal is largely a collection of classical Indian archetypes, including expansive polytheism performed in ornate temples, a general sense of tropical exoticness, and tiger-headed beastmen.

Amazons

Amazons battling Norse raiders.

An ancient civilization of warrior women from Lustria. They are the only sapient civilization to exist in the New World besides the Lizardmen. The Amazons appear in early Warhammer material and have since largely gone out of focus, but still see mention every now and again.

Action Girl: Every Amazon is a woman and they are trained in the art of warfare.
The Ageless: According to their mythology, the original Amazons were immortal, and were made only female specifically because they did not need to produce offspring to make up for losses to old age. The Lizardmen's 5th Edition codex, which describes the Amazons as a band of renegade Norse warrior-women, describes them as using a mysterious tropical drug that gives them eternal life and youth.
Amazonian Beauty: It's in their name after all. Many Amazons are beautiful to look at.
Barbarian Tribe: The Amazons are a tribal, hostile and warlike people, organized in warrior sisterhoods and often at odds with other cultures.
Dying Race: Little outside information is known with confidence about the Amazons, but stories available to Old World scholars suggest that they have been slowly dying out due to being unable to restore losses to their ranks. Their numbers have swelled again in recent times, which is believed to be due to their inducting groups of outsider women into their culture to make up for this.
Fantastic Naming Convention: Amazons use deed-names derived from notable acts of valor, and usually taken after jungle animals. For instance, Anakonda's Amazons include Anakonda herself, named after her slaying and skinning of a huge jungle serpent; Humming Bird, who created the band's war banner from the feathers of sacred Lizardman birds; and Pirrana, who slew, skinned and gutted a huge carnivorous fish.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Obviously, they are one for the Amazons of Greco-Roman mythology.
Fantasy Pantheon: While not specified as the other cultures, the Amazons have their own distinct gods, separate from the ones worshipped by the Lizardmen.
Horse of a Different Color: Amazon warriors ride on Culchans, giant flightless birds reminsecent of terror birds.
Multiple-Choice Past: There are two conflicting accounts of the Amazons' origins, both of which have issues:
- One version claims that they were favored servants of the Old Ones, created to be their undying servants and left behind to guard the sacred places when Chaos came and the Old Ones vanished. This version conflicts with the Lizardmen's claims to the same status, which are backed by their eldest members having personal memories of this origin.
- The other has them as a cadre of Norse warrior women who left Skeggi behind over an ideological conflict with the Norse men, who wanted them to Stay in the Kitchen, and settled the Amaxon river, where they took to using jungle drugs to extend their lifespans and armed themselves with stolen Lizardman artifacts. This fails to account for there being encounters with the Amazons recorded long before Skeggi existed. One possible solution claims that the Skeggi women were not the original Amazons, but were instead inducted into the preexisting Amazon culture to bolster its fading numbers.
One-Gender Race: As far as anyone else knows, there is simply no such thing as a male Amazon. This causes them some difficulties, since they cannot reproduce on their own; as a result, they rely on life-extending potions and on iducting outsiders into their ranks to make up for losses.

Pygmies

A tribe of short, dark-skinned people, the Pygmies inhabit the tropical jungles of Lustria alongside the Lizardmen and the Amazons

Ambiguously Human: In-universe, some Old Worlder scholars don't see the Pygmies as human. Instead, they consider them to be Halfings or Lesser Men.
Darkest Africa: Their culture and physical appearance certainly invoke this trope.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: They're named after the real-life Pygmy peoples of Africa (Such as the Twa and Mbuti among others) but its downplayed as they don't take anything from their real life culture, instead being cobbled together from a lot of sub-saharan African stereotypes.

Deities

For the elven deities, see Warhammer: Elves.

Old World Gods

The humans of the Old World worship a large number of deities in addition to the official cults of Sigmar and the Lady of the Lake. These are beings of far lesser power and direct influence than the four great Gods of Chaos, but still act on the mortal world in subtler and less direct ways.

The human gods are nominally divided into two pantheons, the northern gods worshipped in the Empire, Bretonnia and parts of Kislev and the southern ones worshipped in Estalia, Tilea and the Border Princes, but their faiths have crossed over between these two areas on numerous occasions and are especially mingled in culturally mixed areas such as the Border Prince Confederacy.

Ethnic God: The Imperial gods began as the patron deities of the Empire's founding tribes, each of which generally only worshipped one of them — Ulric for the Teutognens, Taal for the Taleutens, Morr for the Ostagoths, and so on. While most are now revered throughout it, Ulric's worship remains highly characteristic of and almost entirely limited to the Middenlanders.
Expy: Several deities are directly inspired by, or at the least highly reminiscent of, real-life gods. Myrmidia, through her focus on war and tactics and strong association with the southern nations, is very similar to Athena; Manann is clearly derived from Manannán mac Lir, sometimes shortened to Manann, the Irish god of the sea; Morr is similar to Hades, being a somewhat aloof but fair and benevolent Lord of the Dead who is never the less feared as much as worshiped by mortals.
Fantasy Pantheon: They make up a fairly loose pantheon of archetypal pagan gods, with each human nation venerating the ones most relevant to its interests and tribulations. They are broadly divided into two groups — the southern gods and northern gods — which are usually characterized as extended families, but considerable crossover between them exists.
God Couple: The southern pantheon has Morr and Verena, the gods of death and knowledge and parents of Myrmidia and Shallya. The northern has Taal and Rhya, the gods of the hunt and agriculture. Taal and Rhya's cults, in particular, are very closely linked.
God's Hands Are Tied: Their influence in mortal matters is generally very limited when compared to the Chaos Gods' incessant meddling. Besides having less power in general with which to affect the mortal world, they also need to direct most of their might and attention to safeguarding their own realms in the Warp against Chaos' incursions.
Stock Gods: The human deities fall into most of the archetypal roles characterizing informal pagan religions: Verena serves as the goddess of knowledge, Morr as the lord of the dead, Manann as the tempestuous Lord of the Ocean, Taal as the god of the hunt, Rhya as the goddess of agriculture, Ranald as the trickster and god of thieves, Ulric and Myrmidia as the gods of war and Shallya as the goddess of healing.

Handrich

A god of wealth, trade, and profit. Handrich is a popular deity among the merchants of Marienburg and the Tilean city-states, although in the Empire is cult is limited among the main trade cities. He views material profit as the highest calling in life, and expects his followers to never let a day go by without gaining something.

Deity of Human Origin: According to Marieburger tradition, Handrich was originally a mortal merchant who founded Marieburg and became such a successful, wealthy, and influential buisnessman that his mastery of wealth impressed the gods enough that they let him into their ranks.
God of Wealth: Handrich is the god of merchants and wealth, and teaches that the accumulation of material goods, money, and influence is the mark of a worthy life. His priests are often leading traders, temples are managed by the local Traders' Guild and the holy days are the major trading days. His cult is strongest in Marienburg and Tilea, both area where merchantry is a major part of the economy and mercenary trades are well-established. Whether Handrich is an aspect of Ranald, god of thieves, gamblers and conmen, or a separate deity is a matter of in-universe contention; popular opinion views them as such, with the only real distinction being that Handrich will expect you to shake his hand and thank him for fleecing you, but Handrich's followers view Ranald as a despicable conman and robber.

Manann

"Manann would rather be cursed with the most horrible of words rather than not be spoken of at all."

—Gunter Sheidhaal, stevedore of Marienburg

The god of the sea and its creatures. Manann — also known as Manaan, Manalt, Manas, Mathann, Manhavok and other names among his various cults and aspects — is a fickle and mercurial deity who brings bountiful catches with one hand and storms with another. He is a child of Taal and Rhya, but largely rules his own domain; he has a prodigious gaggle of offspring of his own, among whom are counted the Old World's river gods, the various spirits and merfolk of the sea, and a great assortment of sea monsters, although above all he favors his son Triton, who most resembles his father.

Composite Character: His name is derived from Manannán mac Lir, sometimes shortened to Manann, the Irish god of the sea, but he's otherwise chiefly based on Poseidon in personality and appearence.
Lord of the Ocean: Manann is the setting's principal god of the oceans, and his cult is widespread across the coasts of the Old World. He is said to be an incredibly fickle and temperamental deity, prone to giving his followers (who are all Superstitious Sailors by default) strange and often conflicting strictures related to sea travel. Anointed priests of Manann gain several divine powers related to the sea and sea travel, such as the ability to breathe underwater, influence the speed of a ship, or attack by Making a Splash.
Prongs of Poseidon: He is usually depicted as wielding a trident.
Rite of Passage: The final rite of initiation for priests of Manann is to be lashed to a pier or the front of a ship at the onsent of a massive storm, and then be left to endure that and then a full day of sun or chill wind afterwards. If they survive, and if the experience doesn't put them off from worship of the god, they become full priests.
Super Not-Drowning Skills: One of Manann's miracles in Warhammer Fantasy Roeplay allows his worshippers to breathe underwater for a limited time.

Morr

"Father rests with Morr now. And we clubbed together enough to pay the Priests to make sure the bastard stays there."

—Ludmilla von Thieldorf, Reikland noble

The grim, dour, and dispassionate lord of the dead. Morr takes the spirits of deceased humans into his keeping, and guards them against the depredations of daemons and the undead. He is also associated with dreamns and prophecy, and at times will send warnings and omens to the minds of sleeping mortals. He is married to Verena, and father to Myrmidia and Shallya.

Creepy Crows: Ravens are sacred to Morr, and the graveyards, temples, and vestments of his priesthood often make use of prominent crow and raven motifs.
Dark Is Not Evil: Morr is the god of death, and takes the appearance of a dark, shrouded reaper wielding a scythe and is known for his grim and foreboding personality. However, he and his cult (including its militant wings) are the primary force guarding the Old World against The Undead, as well as running funeral homes. There's no one better to have watching your back than a Templar of Morr if you're going up against necromancers or vampires, even if he's more than a little gloomy and misanthropic.
Don't Fear the Reaper: Morr is a dark, dour and gloomy god associated with life's bleakest truth, but he's a fundamentally benevolent figure who chiefly wants to make sure that the souls of the dead end up where they belong and relentlessly opposes the undead.
Expy: Morr is similar to Hades, being a somewhat aloof but fair and benevolent Lord of the Dead who is never the less feared as much as worshiped by mortals.
Flower Motifs: Morr is strongly associated with black roses, which are typically grown in the graveyards and sacred sites of his priesthood.
God of the Dead: Morr, the god of the dead, is pictured as a dour, cloaked and hooded figure who rules over the realm of the dead and keeps the souls of the departed safe from the depredations of Chaos and necromancers. His priests are similarly grim figures, and mostly oversee funerary rites and tend to graveyards. Morr despises undeath, and his church includes a number of knightly orders dedicated to hunting necromancers and the walking dead.
The Grim Reaper: Morr draws heavily from this motif; besides being the god of death, he's typically depicted wearing a black, hooded cloak and wielding a scythe.

Myrmidia

"You just don’t understand. She isn’t like the other Gods. She understands us. She walked as one of us! She experienced pain for us. She died for us. She isn’t like your uncaring Gods. She’s Myrmidia!"

—Iulius Innocenti Giovanelli, Tilean merchant

Raven-haired Myrmidia is the goddess of strategy, warfare, and civilized crafts. She is the chief deity of the Southern Realms, but is followed in the Empire by a handful of knightly orders. She is the daughter of Morr, the god of death, and Verena, the goddess of knowledge, and is sister to Shallya, the lady of mercy.

Animal Motifs: Myrmidia holds the eagle as her sacred animal. Eagle symbology is common in the gear and temples of her followers, and her high priests are referred to as "Eagles".
Composite Character: Through her focus on war and tactics and strong association with the southern nations, themselves counterparts to the post-Roman Mediterranean, she is very similar to Athena. Through her mythology as a deity who incarnated as a mortal to lead and guide to her people before being killed by a traitor and returning to her divine status, alongside a Tower of Babel equivalent in one version of Tylos' fall, she also has definite parallels to Jesus.
Deity of Human Origin: A major part of her origin myth has her incarnating in human form to lead and unify her people, before being killed by a traitor and returning to her original divine form. Some Imperial scholars believe that she was not born as a divine entity at all and began wholly as a human, but Sigmarites don't like this angle much because it undermines Sigmar's uniqueness.
Ethnic God: She is very strongly associated with Tilea and Estalia, to whom she's a patron deity similar to the role of Sigmar in the Empire. Imperials will aslo worship her as a deity of strategic warfare, but to the southern nations she takes a more important role as a deity of craft, knowledge, and the arts of civilization, and serves as a broader protector of their culture.
War God: Myrmidia is the chief war deity of the Southern Realms, and is particularly focused on strategy and cunning.

Ranald

The god of trickery, chance, banditry, and theft.

Deity of Human Origin: There is a myth according to which Ranald was once a mortal bandit who wooed and tricked Shallya into granting him immortality and godhood. There is some disagreement in-universe regarding whether this was the greatest trick that he ever pulled, or whether that was convincing humanity that he was ever one of them.
Devious Daggers: Ranald's favored weapons are the dagger and stiletto, which are valued for both the ease of their concealment and the finesse required for their use. Armour and longer or heavier weapons are seen as the crutches of artless lackwits and oafs.
A true devotee of Ranald uses the dagger and stiletto; only amateurs and the slow-witted need armour and long sword.
Trickster God: Ranald the Trickster is the Empire's god of thieves, luck and those who live by their wits. Most of his legends involve him making fools out of the other gods, typically by tricking them into doing something stupid or by stealing something important.

Rhya

A goddess of summer, agriculture, growth, and birth, Rhya is worshipped widely through the Empire's rural lands. In Bretonnia, her cult was formally displaced by that of the Lady of the Lake, but peasants continue to pay her reverence. She is considered the wife of Taal, the lord of the forests, and to have parented Manann with him. The Elves who visit the Empire largely consider her to be a Human intepretation of Isha, their own mother goddess.

Divine Parentage: According to some myths, the Menogoth tribe descended from the children of Rhya and a mortal man.
Earth Mother: Rhya is the goddess of the harvest, growth, summer, and, to a lesser degree, hunting. She is depicted as a tall, motherly woman, usually pregnant and wearing a crown of barley and wheat. Her worship is strongest in rural lands and the Empire's southern agricultural provinces, and she is prayed to for good harvests and safe births.
Fertile Feet: According to popular myth, life came to the barren world as Rhya first walked through it, causing grasses, flowers and fruit to grow around her feet and animals to climb from the soil as she passed.

Shallya

"Don't cross the Shallyans. Sure, she won't hurt you; she's the Bleeding Heart. But you don't want her parents mad at you."

—Addelise Burgenkampf, outlaw chief

Shallya, the Lady of Mercy, is the goddess of healing, mercy, and childbirth, and a well-loved goddess whose faith is present in every corner of the Old World. Her followers are tasked with tending to the needy, providing medicine, and opposing the minions of the Fly Lord, and are forbidden from wielding weapons. She is the daughter of Morr and Verena, and sister to Myrmidia.

Actual Pacifist: The central stricture of the Shallyan faith is that her followers may not kill, which her priesthood takes extremely seriously.
Doves Mean Peace: Shallya, the most benevolent and merciful of the Old World's gods, has the white dove as her sacred animal.
God of Good: Shallya is the goddess of healing and mercy, and requires pacifism for her priestesses who serve as healers and nurses kind of like the Red Cross, especially when they mostly work in keeping Nurgle's diseases at bay or even cure them miraculously.
Hammer of the Holy: Her followers are forbidden to kill and use no arms or armour other than a simple staff. That said, they can still be combat-trained, and that simple staff allows them to bash foes unconscious without inflicting wounds.
Healer God: Shallya, the compassionate White Dove of Mercy, is a beloved goddess of healing. While she and her followers are mostly relegated to the lore, as their focus on healing and pacifism doesn't carry over well to the battlefield, when they do have rules (such as in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) Shallya grants a broad range of healing spells to her cultists, along with one potent offensive spell that only affects followers of Nurgle.
White Is Pure: White robes are the standard uniform of the Cult of Shallya, an almost universally beloved order of pacifistic healer priests. There's a practical reason beyond connoting purity — working in hospitals, Shallyans need vestments that can be regularly bleached and boiled.

Stromfels

The god of predators and calamity on the sea, Stromfels is an ancient god whose worship is proscribed in most Human lands but remains popular among wreckers and pirates. His cult has an ancient feud with Manann's; Manannites view Stromfels as a twisted mockery of their god, while Stromfels' faithful view him as the true form of the sea god, while Mannanism is merely a pale and diluted imitation.

Even Evil Has Standards: Stromfels is a vicious god who exalts in violence and teaches that the strong shall prey on the weak, but he also views himself as part of the natural order and teaches his followers to excercise self-interested restraint — after all, a predator that hunts its prey to extinction will soon starve. As a result, Stromfels' cult is firmly opposed to Chaos, which perverts and destroys the natural cycles that predators rule. Note that Stromfelians tolerate mutants and often accept them among their ranks; it's worshippers of the Dark Gods that they view as enemies.
Human Sacrifice: Stromfels is traditionally honored by throwing live captives into the sea or leaving them to die of expsoure. Priests of Manann usually have their tongues cut out in the bargain.
Illegal Religion: Worship of Stromfels is strictly outlawed in the Empire and Marienburg, and usually punished by death. This is due to a long-running enmity between Stromfels' and Manann's cults, the predatory and piratical practices of Stromfels' adherents, and a strict stipulation by the Elves, who despise the cult, in their trade agreements with the Old Worlder nations.
Lord of the Ocean: Stromfels is the malevolent god of ocean predators and other dangers of the sea. Worship of Stromfels is illegal within the Empire and the Wasteland, since those who do worship him are often pirates who prey upon merchant ships. Naturally, he is only openly venerated in Sartosa, a Not-So-Safe Harbor ruled by pirates.
Might Makes Right: Stromfels' credo is simple and direct. The ability to impose your will on the world self-evidently gives you the right to do so, and the powerful among men and monsters can and should do as they please with their weakers and lessers.

Taal

The horned god of the forests, the hunt, and the wild beasts. Taal is traditionally worshipped by gamekeepers, huntsmen, and Amber wizards, and is often considered to be the patron deity of Talabecland. He is married to Rhya, goddess of life and the harvest, and alongside her fathered Manann.

Ethnic God: Before the unification of the Empire, he was the patron god of the Taleutens. In the modern day, he remains the most popular deity of their Talabeclander descendants.
Forest Ranger: Taal's worshippers are tasked with guarding the cycles of nature and life against unnatural influences, which typically means the influence of Chaos but often extends to the encroachment of civilization.

Ulric

The god of wolves, war, and winter. Ulric was Sigmar's patron deity when the latter was still a mortal warrior, and remains a popular and influential god in the present. He's the patron and chief deity of Middeland, and his high priest, the Ar-Ulric, is the only non-Sigmarite religious figure to cast a vote when the Emperor is elected.

Ethnic God: Ulric was the patron deity of the Teutogen tribe, and continues to be the primary deity of their Middelander descendants.
Hammer of the Holy: Ulric is generally associated with hammers. In particular, the Knights of the White Wolf, a templar cavalry order sworn to him, and the Teutogen Guard, the elite bodyguards of Ulric's high priest, are both traditionally equipped with two-handed warhammers.
Noble Wolves: Wolves, especially white wolves, are considered sacred to Ulric, as they are seen to embody the ferocity, pack-loyalty, and tenacity that he values.
War God: Ulric is the Empire's primary war god, and is generally associated with barbarian warriors and might of arms.

Verena

The goddess of knowledge, wisdom, and judgement. Verena is the spouse of dark Morr, who judges the dead as she judges the living, and is mother to Myrmidia and Verena.

Blind Justice: In her role as goddess of law, judgement, and justice, Verena is commonly depicted with a blindfold, sword, and set of scales.
God of Knowledge: Verena is the goddess of learning, knowledge, and justice. Her faith holds that the search for Truth through the collection, study, and judgement of facts and opinions is the highest calling of humanity, and is very popular among scholars and wizards.

Gods of Law

Less known and present than the Chaos gods, to the point that basically everyone in-universe forgets them. Out of three (it seems they were more in the past; at least Obscuras has joined Chaos), only one of them is considerably active, as another is trapped and another one doesn't do a lot because of his dislike of change.

God of Order: The counterparts to the Gods of Chaos; each represents a different fact of the concept of Law:
- Solkan the Avenger, the god of justice, punishes criminals, hunts down creatures of chaos and acts as a counterpart to Khorne, the Chaos God of war and slaughter.
- Arianka represents the disciplining nature of law.
- Alluminas, the god of light, promotes stasis and opposes change and flux.
Order Is Not Good: The Gods of Law are just as bad as the Chaos Gods and arguably even more inhuman, but are less dangerous because of their relative lack of influence. If the Gods of Law held any sway they would eliminate all progress, effectively creating a stillborn world.

Alluminas

The god of light and stasis, Alluminas hates change and wishes for a world of stasis. However, this also means that he rarely does much himself, making him a minor influence in the world.

Crystal Dragon Jesus: Worship of Alluminas resembles Buddhism in some ways, in part as he is more popular in the Eas, and he has angel-like daemons and a holy book.
God of Light: Alluminas is a deity of light in itself, alongside purity and stasis.
Light Is Not Good: Alluminas is opposed to change, even if for the better, and may grant his followers the ability of casting a light that makes anything it touches unchanging and unmoving. Cue And I Must Scream.
Our Angels Are Different: Alluminas' daemons are angel-like and named after the angel classes in Christian theology.

Arianka

A goddess of unclear purviews, Arianka was long ago sealed away by Tzeentch inside a crystal coffin.

Sealed Good in a Can: Arianka being more or less sane than her fellow gods of order is unknown, but she is trapped anyway.

Solkan

A shrine of Solkan bearing a statue of the god.

Solkan the Avenger is the last god of Law to remain active in the world. He champions a fierce and harsh kind of justice, exhorting his followers to punish wrongdoing, evil, and Chaos by any means at their disposal. His worship is far-scattered and thin, but old and deeply rooted; records of his cult go back to the ancient Menogoth deity Söll and prehistoric cave paintings in Bretonnia of a fierce solar god with a flaming sword. In the modern day, his worship is most often found in Tilea, usually as a patron of justice and revenge, and among especially fanatic Witch Hunters who have come to see the Empire's gods as unacceptably weak.

Arch-Enemy: Solkan is especially opposed to Khorne due to their shared role as war deities, and is often depicted in art as battling against huge hordes of Khornate daemons.
Anti-Magical Faction: Solkanites deeply distrust magic, prophecy and their practitioners, as these ultimately draw their power from Chaos, and see them as inherently corrupting the world and strengthening the footholds of the enemy.
Crystal Dragon Jesus: Solkan's cult is akin to militant religious groups, with his temples and shrines being akin to Hellenic ones. As part of this, the Southern Realms remain the main stronghold of his worship.
God of Light: Solkan is a solar deity as his core, and embodies the harsh, cleansing light of the burning sun. He is often depicted wearing a sunburst-shaped crown or with a radiant sun behind his head, and as wielding a flaming sword.
Knight Templar: Solkan believes that any and all methods are acceptable for defying Chaos, so long as they work, and his followers seek to suppress any emotion beyond fury and contempt in their crusade to destroy all that they consider evil. His morality is rigid and inflexible, and appeals to those who view the world in terms of moral absolutes.
"You think the Order of Sigmar are fanatics? Wait until you meet a Solkanite — they can glean corruption from any innocent word or action."
—Antal Buchen, Talabecland Road Warden
Flaming Sword: Solkan's most common weapon in religious art is a blazing sword.
Light Is Not Good: Solkan is both the god of the Sun and Revenge. He and his followers are notable for their Knight Templar ways.
Pay Evil unto Evil: Solkan's followers are encouraged to use any means, no matter how harsh and brutal, to punish and oppose the minions of Chaos.
Revenge: Solkan is strongly associated with revenge and retribution as part of his broader focus on justice, and this serves as a common part of his public appeal. In Tilea, he is viewed as the patron of the vendetta, a dueling tradition with very strict rules, and invoked when people feel that they have been cheated or wronged. In the Empire, his northern incarnation, Söll, is popular among surviving Sollander families who want vengeance on the Orcs for destroying their province.
Stern Sun Worshippers: Solkan is a solar deity who champions a vision of absolute, unyielding, unforgiving justice, desiring for all wrongdoers to be punished in full measure and with little interest in mercy or compassion. His followers despise magic as a form of Chaos corruption, and view flirting, music, and dance as detestable frivolities.
War God: Solkan is a militant deity, presiding over holy wars and the fierce, unyielding struggle against evil and chaos. As a result, he is particularly opposed to Khorne.

Other Groups

While not actually factions as such, a variety of species are important parts of the setting and often appear as monsters, mounts or allies in several armies.

Dragons

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sun_dragon.jpg

A dragon is an army unto itself.

—Caledorian proverb

Dragons are the oldest sentient beings native to the Warhammer world, predating even the arrival of the Old Ones, but these days most of them are busy hibernating and only the younger, less powerful ones are around to fight. They appear as monstrous mounts in several armies.

Breath Weapon: Depends on the type of dragon, but it's usually fire or poison gas. More unusual examples include the breath weapons of carmine dragons, which breathe the essence of Shyish and cause their victims to age and wither into nothingness; toad dragons, who breathe corrosive gas that melts flesh and metal into slurry; frost dragons, who breathe freezing wind that imposes a slowness penalty on their targets; storm dragons, who spit balls of lightning; and shard dragons, which breathe out a fog that induces terrifying visions when breathed in.
Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: In Storm of Magic, it's mentioned that the various kinds of dragons can be told apart by the color of their scales — fire dragons are red, black dragons are, well, black, frost dragons are icy white, forest dragons are green, and storm dragons are blue. This also ties into the magical affinities of their respective Emperor forms — doomfire dragons always wield the Lore of Fire, nightmare dragons the Lore of Death, ice dragons the Lore of Light, venom dragons the Lore of Life, and great storm dragons the Lore of Heavens.
Defeat Equals Explosion: When a warpfire dragon dies, it explodes in a burst of destructive magical energy.
Elemental Dragon: The Storm of Magic supplement describes a number of dragon varieties, each associated with a specific lore of elemental magic, which their eldest members can wield like wizards, and distinguishable by scale color. Red dragons are tied to the Lore of Fire, black dragons to the Lore of Death, white-scaled frost dragons to the Lore of Light, green-scaled forest dragons to the Lore of Life, and blue-scaled storm dragons to the Lore of Heavens.
Elemental Personalities: As described in the Storm of Magic supplement, fire dragons are impatient, hot-tempered and prone to violent rages, frost dragons are patient and slow to anger, and storm dragons are excitable, flighty and whimsical.
Elite Mook: Storm of Magic presents emperor dragons as this. They are the oldest, largest and most powerful paragons of each kind of dragon described in the book, and can wield magic like wizards.
Food Chain of Evil: Magma dragons are know to prefer other types of monsters, such as chimeras and manticores, as prey. They're more than happy to eat humanoids, too, but these are rarely big enough to be worth the bother.
Lazy Dragon: For a variety of poorly understood reasons, most dragons in the world are deep into torpor — most spend the majority of their time hibernating deep in their lairs, stirring only rarely, and the elders of their kind are too deep into their sleep to ever wake again. The dragons of Ulthuan can only be woken by weeks of praying and chanting ancient Caledorian songs; their kin in Athel Loren can only be stirred by the will of the forest itself or the efforts of especially determined Glade Lords — and even then they're prone to trying to go right back to sleep if woken from an especially interesting dream.
Multiple Head Case: Chaos dragons have two heads, each of which possesses a different breath weapon — one head breathes fire, the other corrosive gas.
Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Warpfire dragons are terrifying, monstrous behemoths that are deeply feared and carefully avoided by most other beings. Some scholars, however, theorize that they ones known are actually the juveniles and runts of their species, primarily because few to no specimens have been encountered that seem to match the full-grown, "emperor" stages of the dragon life cycle. Warpfire dragons are thus believed to be native to the Southern Chaos Wastes, a nightmare land ruled by daemons, twisted monsters, and presumably the actually fully-grown warpfire dragons, which forces the weaker members of the species to migrate north to lands home to weaker beings.
Our Dragons Are Different: They're all big, winged and scaly, but apart from that:
- "Common" or Fire Dragons: What most people think of when they say "dragon"; rare, solitary and ill-tempered creatures found in the mountains of the Old World, often nesting in the ruins of dwarf halls. The Imperial Dragon is a specimen that lives in the Imperial Zoo in Altdorf, and only Karl Franz is badass enough to dominate its iron will.
- Sun, Moon and Star Dragons: Breathe fire and are used by the High Elves. They are all the same species with Sun Dragons being the youngest and most common and Star Dragons the oldest and strongest. Immensely proud creatures, they tend to see the dragons found elsewhere in the world in much the same way the Elves see Men.
- Black Dragons: Corrupted versions of the High Elf dragons used by the evil Dark Elves. They breathe noxious gas.
- Sea Dragons: Further corrupted by Dark Elven magic and too large to fly or support their weight on land, Sea Dragons spend their lives in the oceans and pull Dark Elf ships.
- Forest Dragons: Dragons who sought refuge in the depths of Athel Loren and over time became more like extensions of the forest than individual creatures. They are used by the Wood Elves and breathe a poisonous green vapour.
- Frost Dragons^note are said to be the midwinter chill given physical form and breath a frosty mist of ice that can chill its prey to the marrow.
- Storm Dragons ^noteknown as Blue Dragons in early editions spend most of their lives high above the surface of the world. Highly whimsical, Storm Dragons love to play within the largest storm-clouds they can find, unleashing the electrical energy that builds up on their scales in a ball of powerful lightning.
- Emperor dragons are the eldest and greatest of dragonkind who, in some editions, can using magic like a wizard, although they always use the lore associated with their species — fire for fire dragons, life for forest dragons, etc.
- Zombie Dragons: Undead dragons. Equipped with "pestilential breath" and under the thrall of the Vampire Counts.
- Chaos Dragons: Hideously mutated, two-headed abominations popular amongst the Warriors of Chaos.
- Carmine Dragons: Born when the Shyish, the Wind of Death, saturates a dragon's lair and seeps into the eggs held within, Carmine Dragons are sinister and clever beings, and lair in sites marked by death such as battlefields and the ruins of fallen cities. They are seen as omens of doom and rarely consent to take on a rider; when they do, this is invariably someone with considerable mastery over Shyish. The most notable such rider is Elspeth von Draken, the leader of the Empire's Amethyst Order.
- Toad Dragons: Hideous, squat, wingless beasts only found in the Cold Mires of the Chaos Wastes, with long, sticky tongues and a noxious breath capable of liquifying flesh and steel.
- Shard Dragons: Serpentine, wingless creatures found deep beneath the earth and covered in jagged, knifelike scales, Shard Dragons are a persistent bane to any Dwarf, Goblin or Skaven settlement or mine they stumble across.
- Magma Dragons: Hulking, volcano-dwelling, obsidian-scaled beasts that breathe sulfurous flames and specialize in hunting other large monsters.
- Merwyrms: Absolutely enormous seagoing dragons with no wings and serpentine bodies, sometimes called by the High Elves as allies.
- Warpfire Dragons: Monstrous creatures which feed upon warpstone, and are so saturated with its energies that they radiate an aura of warpfire that distorts the flow of magic and withers living things.
Rapid Aging: A carmine dragon's Breath Weapon is infused with the Wind of Death, and causes its targets to age to death and their equipment to rust into nothingness as if millennia had passed in the span of seconds.
Sea Serpents:
- Sea Dragons are the degenerate descendants of dragons, no longer able to fly or move outside of water but still among the biggest of the Dark Elves' war beasts, some even used to pull ships.
- Merwyrms are another breed of serpentine and wingless dragons that live in the oceans, but unlike sea dragons have legs and can move on land.
The Spiny: Shard dragons are covered in jagged, razor-edged scales that slice into anyone who tries to engage them in melee. This is represented in-game through their Razor Scales special rule, which deals an automatic attack against a shard dragon's opponent when the dragon successfully blocks an attack in close combat.
Stronger with Age: Dragons do not go into decrepitude like other creatures do, and instead steadily, if very slowly, become stronger, fiercer and larger as they age. The dragons of the High Elves are divided into increasingly rare and powerful categories to show their increasing age — going from relatively young and impetuous sun dragons through the larger and more mature moon dragons and into the immensely powerful star dragons — while Storm of Magic describes how the oldest dragons alive, known as emperor dragons, eclipse all others in size and might and develop the ability to directly channel the winds of magic and cast spells like wizards.
Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Dragon blood is so filling that any vampire that manages to drink a dragon dry will never feel their thirst again. Naturally, the fact that this requires them to kill a dragon rather complicates things, and only two vampires in history, the legendary warrior Abhorash and the necromancer Zacharias, ever managed this feat.
Underground Monkey: The merwyrms, in addition to the basic variant with blue-green scales and venomous attacks, possess a couple of environmentally themed variants with different color schemes and special abilities — white-scaled pagowyrms native to arctic seas and possessing auras of bone-chilling cold and black sciowyrms native to abyssal depths and enshrouded by auras of crushing darkness — that are otherwise identical to the base creature.
Walking Wasteland: Warpfire dragons are so saturated with the energies of the warpstone — a highly unstable rock created when raw magic takes solid form — they feed upon that they constantly radiate an aura of eldritch fire that distorts magic and withers any living thing in their vicinity.

Fimir

Cyclopean reptilian beings and worshippers of Chaos, the Fimir once ruled much of the world in the name of their dark gods. In time, however, the eye of the ruinous powers was drawn to the more vibrant and amusing race of men, and the Fimir saw themselves losing both the favor of their gods and most of their lands to these newcomers. The ones left in the world are a shadow of their former power, lurking deep within fog-shrouded swamps and hating the younger races.

Beware My Stinger Tail: Fimir tails end in spiked, bony clubs that can be swung with force, enough so as to serve as perfectly viable weapons in combat.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: They appear in multiple places in early lore, but were eventually dropped from focus as a result of both low popularity on the tabletop and their... unfortunate breeding habits, afterwards only sporadically appearing in background lore. They eventually returned to the tabletop when Forge World gave them rules in their Storm of Magic and Monstrous Arcanum books, with accompanying models.
Cyclops: A Fimir has a single baleful eye in the middle of its forehead.
Dying Race: The Fimir are a dwindling, diminished people, reduced to a shrinking number of holdfasts in the hidden corners of the world.
Lizard Folk: They resemble bipedal, hunchbacked lizards with a single malevolent eye.
Gender Rarity Value: Almost all Fimir are male; females, known as mearghs, are exceptionally rare and revered, and rule their species' holds as supreme queens.
Long-Lived: Fimir are not immortal, but they do live for a very long time. Their usual lifespan is measured in centuries, and sorcerous individuals can easily exceed even this.
The Magocracy: Fimir clans are ruled by the mearghs, the rare females born to the race, who are gifted with immense sorcerous power.
Mars Needs Women: Fimir are chiefly male, and rely on human women to reproduce.
Matriarchy: Fimir clans are ruled by sorcerer-queens known as mearghs, who hold absolute power over the ranks of male warriors, lesser spellcasters, and serfs.
Mirroring Factions: They're essentially the anti-Lizardmen. Both are unfathomably ancient humanoid reptiles, whose civilizations once ruled the world but who have declined in power and numbers for ages as the warmblooded races rose, reducing them to a handful of embattled holdouts amidst the younger cultures' empires. However, while the Lizardmen are relentless enemies of Chaos and have fought its ambitions for ages, the Fimir were the first mortal followers of the Ruinous Powers and desire nothing more than to return to primacy among their hordes.
Ominous Fog: Fimir strongholds are constantly shrouded in thick mists, shielding them from both intruding eyes and the glare of the sun. They carry these mists with them when they venture in the outside world, and the sudden onset of thick fog is often the first and only sign that the Fimir march to war.
The Remnant: They were once the primary servants of Chaos and ruled much of the world, but the loss of the Dark Gods' favor and wars against human nations have caused the Fimir to dwindle to a handful of isolated holdfasts in the most benighted parts of the world.
Wizards Live Longer: Fimir are very long-lived as a rule, with a lifespan measured in centuries, but the sorcerous balefiends have about twice their species' usual lifespan and the meargh witch-queens can live for multiple thousands of years.

Giants

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warhammer_giant_9.png

"Lost and done. Our empire is no more, lost in the sands, trampled by insects. Ours is the long slow fade to quiet. Ironic for we whose voices once shook the mountains' roots. Not many left to mourn our passing now, not that you scurrying parasites would bother. Of course we turn to drink... or to the darkness in the North. Both are ways of forgetting what we've lost."

—Amorgbrandion, Giant raider

The Giants are the barbaric remnants of a once-great civilization devoured by the Ogres. Drunken, inbred and incredibly stupid, modern Giants roam the Old World fighting for whoever can help them sate their enormous appetites for booze and bloodshed, most often the Greenskins, the Beastmen and the Warriors of Chaos; enslaved Giants are also found in the armies of the Chaos Dwarfs and Ogres.

The Alcoholic: Giants are, almost to the last, hopeless drunkards in a constant state of inebriation punctuated by giant-sized hangovers, and generally fight for whoever can provide them with enough alcohol to slake their thirsts. The stated reasons for this vary between materials, but it's generally portrayed as a way of Drowning Their Sorrows from their ancient empire's collapse and their ongoing decline into extinction.
Dumb Muscle: Giants are huge and nigh unstoppable on the battlefield but are also extremely dense, barely being able to string together sentences.
Dying Race: The Giants are slowly but surely dying out. They suffered great losses during their empires' destruction, reproduce rarely, and their lifestyle of constant battle claims many of their lives even before considering the tendency for humans, ogres and other races to seek them out and kill them.
Horned Humanoid: Giants fallen under the influence of Chaos tend to grow horns. Chaos Giants usually sport a pair of relatively short and stubby ones, while the illustrations of the ones allied with the beastmen show them with towering, ibex-like horns.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: The Skytitans, the Giants' ancient ancestors, were immense, powerful beings of considerable technological and philosophical advancement. The modern Giants, following their near-extinction at the hands of the ogres, are a sad collection of (comparatively) weak and stunted beings ruined by generations of inbreeding, barely capable of stringing one thought in front of the other, and reduced to working as mercenaries for whoever will have them in order to support their addictions to alcohol.
Improvised Weapon: A giant's usual weapon is a tree uprooted to serve as a club. The Bonebreaker Giant's artwork in Storm of Magic shows it holding a trebuchet's counterweight as an improvised flail.
Our Giants Are Different: The largest humanoid species in the setting, typically resembling humans around the height of a three- or four-story house. They're drunken, violent and incredibly stupid, and can be found as mercenaries and heavy hitters in the armies of most of the barbarian factions.
- The Storm of Magic supplement describes the Bonebreaker Giant, which is almost thrice as tall as a normal giant, which itself is already taller than most houses.
- The Monstrous Arcanum includes Chaos Siege Giants, which have had armor and massive weapons grafted directly onto their bodies by the Chaos Dwarfs to turn them into living engines of war.
Primitive Clubs: Matching their lack of sophistication and aggressively direct approach to warfare, Giant weapons usually consist of a simple uprooted tree used as a colossal club, often with human-sized weapons crudely rammed into it to give it extra piercing power.
Random Effect Spell: Giants determine their attacks from one of two pools of preset actions, one for when the giant is fighting human-sized enemies and the other for when fighting other giant monsters. The attack is determined by a dice roll, based on which the giant may deal a decent attack, use a more powerful and damaging one, or just throw a tantrum and waste a turn. If the giant is fighting weaker enemies, it may settle on the "Pick Up and..." option, which initiates another dice roll to determine whether it stuffs a victim in its bag or down its pants, throws them into their allies like a missile, squashes them in its fist, or eats them.
Smash Mook: Their main role in battle is to walk over to an enemy and hit them with their club. More complex plans than that tend to require a degree of mental sophistication that Giants don't really have. Their Special Attacks consequently boil down to "swing club", "eat tiny thing", "step on tiny things", "pick up enemy and throw it", "headbutt", and "stuff down pants".

Trolls

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warhammer_troll.png

Trolls are crude and stupid creatures, but terribly strong and almost impossible to kill. They are highly adaptable beings and can be found in almost every corner of the world, lurking in forest, mountain, swamp and waste and feeding on anything they can catch. They are most remarkable for their ability to regenerate injuries, which also renders them highly prone to mutations; this has led to the existence of numerous specialized troll breeds, from foul-smelling river trolls and the mighty stone trolls of the high mountains to the horrifically twisted trolls of the northern wastes. Trolls are far too stupid to have ambitions of their own beyond eating and sleeping, but they often follow large armies in hope of finding food and battle, and are often seen among the ranks of Chaos and Greenskin hordes.

Acid Attack: Trolls can vomit their powerful stomach acids onto their foes, which in addition to being disgusting completely ignores enemy armor.
Dumb Muscle: Trolls are incredibly, proverbially stupid — a troll that can string two words together and grasp more complex plans than "find food" is a veritable genius. This is generally considered a very good thing, because they're also incredibly powerful and dangerous creatures, and their threat is mitigated chiefly by their inability to properly exploit their strengths.
Extreme Omnivore: Trolls' stomach acids are incredibly strong, and allow their owners to digest anything they can fit down their gullets. Trolls favor meat for their diet, but can readily feed on wood, rocks and metal when this isn't available.
Healing Factor: Trolls are capable of regenerating almost all injuries, including regrowing lost limbs and heads — even dismembered troll flesh will constantly attempt to regenerate on its own. Only fire subdues this power.
Kill It with Fire: Fire is the only thing that overcomes a troll's ability to regenerate its injuries, and is often invaluable in killing them.
Our Trolls Are Different: Classic fantasy trolls, for the most part — big, hulking, incredibly stupid humanoids with large ears and noses, scales, and weapons rarely more sophisticated that tree limbs wielded as clubs — only adding on a ridiculously-caustic stomach acid, capable of digesting rock, that they like to vomit on their foes/victims. Their regeneration also makes them highly susceptible to mutation, especially when paired with the influence of Chaos, and there are several distinct kinds of trolls in the Warhammer universe, besides the "common" trolls commonly found tagging along with Greenskin armies:
- Rock trolls inhabit desolate, rocky wastelands, and have taken to eating rocks for lack of anything else. They are noted to be more resistant to magic than the regular kind of troll.
- River trolls have scales and live by and in bodies of water. They are revoltingly smelly and filthy even by troll standards.
- Sea trolls, or shugon, are pale creatures with white, blind eyes, scaly skin and mouths filled with shark teeth, and live in sea caves and the depths of the ocean.
- Chaos trolls are even weirder due to living so close to the Realm of Chaos. Their regenerating powers cause them to mutate even more than other races. What makes this even worse is the existence of Throgg, the Troll King. After having his head cut off, it grew back, only this time with a mutation giving him genius intellect. Suffice to say, he was a nasty surprise to the Empire, who were used to Trolls being complete morons.
- Bile trolls are a further mutation descended from trolls who had the supremely bad idea of devouring the followers of Nurgle. The plagued flesh infected them with all manner of necrotic diseases, turning them into eternally rotting horrors whose perpetual decay is just barely offset by their regeneration.
Primitive Clubs: Trolls, lacking the intellect to craft anything more complex than that, are most often seen fighting with huge, crude clubs made from tree branches, sometimes with a stone lashed at the end.
Resistant to Magic: Stone trolls feed on rocks, and over time absorb the natural resilience of stone into themselves. Besides an armored, rocky skin, this also gives them an innate resistance to magic.
Smash Mook: Trolls are rarely smart enough to develop battle strategies more sophisticated than walking over to a foe and hitting them with a club until they stop moving, but their immense strength and regenerative powers are usually enough to make this a very effective strategy.

Zoats

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zoat.png

Ancient, reptilian centaur-like beings who live deep within ancient forests. Zoats are not strictly aligned with any main faction, but have appeared sporadically in lore through the game's history.

The Archmage: Their mastery of the Lore of Life is considered absolutely unrivalled, equaling and exceeding all but the greatest High Elf archmages or Slann.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The Zoats didn't receive tabletop rules after 2nd Edition, and were mentioned less and less in the lore until they disappeared completely by 5th Edition. Zoats weren't officially mentioned again until the 8th Edition expansion Storm of Magic, which gave them, and many other classic monsters, official rules once again.
Expy: According to the Games Workshop artist Tony Eckland, Zoats were heavily inspired by Adzel, a centauroid draconic alien from the Technic History series.
Green Thumb: They are natural masters of the Lore of Life, the magic of plant life and healing, and use it exclusively.
The Hermit: Zoats are intensely solitary beings, spending their lives in seclusion deep within ancient forests and rarely, if ever, interacting with each other or with other beings.
Our Centaurs Are Different: Zoats resemble reptilian centaurs, with the bodies of dinosaur-like beasts and the heads and torsos of reptilian humanoids.
When Trees Attack: When they need to defend themselves without revealing their presence, they use their magic to animate the trees and bushes of their forests and direct them to attack intruders.

Characters / Warhammer: Other Factions

Other Human Factions

Al Muktar

Borgio the Besieger

Leonardo da Miragliano

Long Drong and the Slayer Pirates

Lucrezzia Belladonna

Lumpin Croop and His Fighting Cocks

Mydas the Mean

Lorenzo Lupo

Tzar Boris Bokha

Tzarina Katarin Bokha

Deities

Handrich

Manann

Morr

Myrmidia

Ranald

Rhya

Shallya

Stromfels

Taal

Ulric

Verena

Alluminas

Arianka

Solkan

Other Groups

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Characters / Warhammer: Other Factions

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Other Human Factions

Al Muktar

Borgio the Besieger

Leonardo da Miragliano

Long Drong and the Slayer Pirates

Lucrezzia Belladonna

Lumpin Croop and His Fighting Cocks

Mydas the Mean

Lorenzo Lupo

Tzar Boris Bokha

Tzarina Katarin Bokha

Deities

Handrich

Manann

Morr

Myrmidia

Ranald

Rhya

Shallya

Stromfels

Taal

Ulric

Verena

Alluminas

Arianka

Solkan

Other Groups

Previous

Index

Next