Question about the Warhammer Fantasy universe

This is kind of a difficult question to explain but hear me out: In the WFB setting, how aware is the average person living in the Empire about the fantastical aspects of the setting, i.e. chaos, magic, giant monsters, orks, etc. I know the skaven are dismissed as a myth, but what about the other stuff? I mean how often would you encounter this sort of stuff, and how much is it regarded as just myth and legend by the average person?

Are the majority of armed conflicts just between normal human beings, and the battles between human armies and fantasy armies are just aberrations?

I guess the analogy I would have is Berzerk, where, from the main characters perspective, the really crazy magical elements are really on the periphery of the setting, and are only revealed fairly late in the narrative arc.

The average Empire citizen has a plethora of knowledge depending on where they live.

Let's say someone lives in Altdorf, they probably know that Beastmen and Chaos are a thing, but they've probably never seen the full dark side of it.

The people who live on the wilderness areas have probably seen Beastmen and other chaos mutations. Other people may dismiss these things as myth.

Greenskins are known threat, their skulls and other body parts have been taken as trophies, and they sometimes raid cities.

Magic is also Known but rarely seen.

Elves and Dwarfs may be a bit more common place in the big cities then anywhere else. But everyone knows they exist.

Depends on the city.

Altdorf has the College of Mages, which sometimes explodes from magical experiments. The Imperial Zoo has a Dragon amongst other things.

Nuln had a giant who would turn a massive cannon.

Many villages have survived beastmen attacks.

Trolls and Ogres can appear far from their homelands.

>probably

It always shocks me on how little WHFbfags know about their lore. There is no probably. Every Imperial dude knows that the beastmen are real and not myth. What a fucking ignorant thing to say to imply that Beastmen are myth to anyone in the empire.

Every city, town, and village in the Empire must be garrisoned against Beastman attacks that can happen at any time. To not follow what little roads are there in the Empire is to court a grisly dead by the hands of Beastmen.

The Empire is in a state of on and of siege and war with a nation that exists within its own borders.

grisly death*

There are villages in Bretonnia that don't know Bretonnia exists.
There's no point in being absolutist about it.

Most of the things you described would be layman's knowledge. Chaos is often blamed for mutations (and a reason for persecuting mutants), and is very well associated with crazy super human warriors of the North.

Magic is understood to exist. There's an academy of magic in the Empire, and wizards do wander around doing things on occasion. An average person may have seen a wizard performing parlor tricks at one point, but they've definatley heard of a wizard using major magic during a battle.

Humans regularly fight Orcs/Beastmen and other monstrous creatures. They're kinda roaming all over the forests/mountains/badlands. Skirmishes are frequent, and major invasions happen every so often. The Empire's history is littered with battling fantastical enemies.

>>I guess the analogy I would have is Berzerk, where, from the main characters perspective, the really crazy magical elements are really on the periphery of the setting, and are only revealed fairly late in the narrative arc.
It's absolutely more common, and widely accepted. Berserk has a thing about even low level monsters being a bit of a mind shattering abnormality, where as in the Empire everybody already knows these things exist.

It's not strictly about knowing, but also accepting. Characters have been shown to deny the existence of Chaos as a major threat constantly throughout the lore, usually to their own detriment. Skaven are usually portrayed as a 'talking rats? pfft" joke.

Just having a zoo of magical creatures doesn't mean they'll accept any magical creature as real. Those animals are just inside their normal range now.

To give you an example, we have Rhinos. These are a thing. Four legged animals with a horn (even if it is made of hair). Yet if I told you I saw a unicorn, you'd call me crazy. It's a matter of perspective.

In the same day an Altdorf sewerjack could probably get knee deep in the muck killing skaven, go to the zoo in the afternoon to look at wyverns and chimerae and still say that the guy who's yelling about an organised race of mutants in the forests of the Empire plotting the downfall of man is a crazy fuck.

>That pic
Why not just burn all the forests?
Seems like a pretty obvious solution to the beastmen problem.

The forest doesn't want to burn.
It might work for the larger settlements, but if a small to medium size settlement begins burning the forest? If they are lucky, it only attracts a small number of beastmen instead of a band of orcs, terrible monsters or a warherd.

Because it's a crazy fantasy forest and the trees dwarf most buildings in the world and are infested with Chaos corruption.

>Burn down your entire country

Sounds like a great idea user.

To be fair there are many villages in Bretonnia that don't know other villages exist

Brettonian serfs are just fucking retarded

Who gives a shit about what the forest wants?
Just dig a trench around the patch you want to burn, put pikemen and other soldiers on the other side of that trench, light the forest in fire, and kill anything trying to get out of it.

Even bigger reason to burn it all down then.

According to that picture, the forests aren't part of the empire, due to them being infested with terrible shit. So it wouldn't be burning down your country, it would be burning down enemy insurgents hiding in already unusable parts of your country.
So nothing of value would be lost.

A great resource is the warhammer roleplay seond edition bestiary, it has quotes for each type of monster/rae ranging from what peasants say, what scholars say and in certain cases what the creatures themselves think.

Most empire people are informed enough but very superstitious.

Also the quotes from an eshin 'scholar' are comedy gold and are essentially what poison and delivery system to use to reliably kill each one from ogres(''mix everything you've got with ground glass in the food, there's always food'') to dark elves(''it's hard to poison a poisoner, I suggest black lotus for the iron''), odd;y enough he has guides for everything except wraiths where the entry just says ''avoid''.

There is an army which is mostly really fucking pissed off trees and their elf allies. Trees will actually fucking murder you.

Although some of the poison methods for undead are warpstone, which is not exactly feasible for humans.

Yeah, but aren't those trees located in bretonnia, not within the Empire?

Athel Loren is spreading to all forests. It is actually impossible to know what forests isn't infested with evil asshole treemen.

>treemen
>evil

Seems like you need some love from mother nature.

Indeed but to be fair it's a clan eshin 'scholar' he don't give a fuck.

The Empire has a border, it's sided by the likes of Bretonnia, Kislev, the Worlds Edge Mountains and to the south, Tilea and the Border Princes. Just because the Empires law doesn't extend into the forests it doesn't mean everything around every city, town and village should be set on fire. Because that's a horrible horrible idea.

The Old World bestiary for WHFRP2e has a section for each creature detaliing the common views of them, so that answers your question for the most part.

Was there ever an uprising against the tyrany of Malekith in Naggaroth?

It happens all the time Geheimnisnacht mod for CK2, but do proper lore friendly dark elves unquestiobaly accept his rule? One woudl think that such vile race would soon break their empire into waring city states.

no

but he's got mommy's assassins and a pretty strong reputation backing up his own capabilities so he's unquestionably the best tyrant in naggaroth.
other tyrants play being tyrannical amon3 themselves and the lower elves.

That's what they do when a competent leader able to unify the states arises, they burned, felled, salted and drowned forests to make relatively safe space.

Without fail he'd die/be assasinated, states would fall to infighting and raid one another's cities when the armed forces were out cutting back the forest and in return beatmen would raid the raiders.

It's actually pretty surprising that a race as arrogant and backstabby as the Dark Elves aren't constantly cycling through rulers.
Shit, just look at the Ottomans where they literally had to keep their successors in a gilded cage to stop them plotting to overthrow the current ruler, and those were humans.
It's a tribute to Malekith's competence that he didn't die choking on his own blood within the first few centuries.

To sum it up, from a average citizen point of view

Beastmen: are a constant threat, fuel of infinite tales and horror stories. All to common, everyone knows them and about them

Orcs and Goblins: same as beastmen, everyone knows about orcs, and goblins, even if a citizen of wissenland has never seen one. Many armies ight them regularly

Giants are known but not suchj a common sight. They know of their existence nonetheless

Magic is known and feared, mages usually attract the hate and distrust of many. The most ignorant farmers (i.e all of them) tend to see magic and bad omens everywhere

Vampires, zombies and such are an all too real threat to the Empire, and everyone knows thm. This is why graveyards in the Old world have walls and iron gates, so that the undead don't crawl out at night.

Trolls, manticores, griffins and such are known and usually infest wild areas, so teh traveller knows he must be ever vigilant. Big game hunters and particularly fool adventurers sometimes seek out these creature to steal eggs and such.

>Why not just burn all the forests?

More impirtantly why are the forrests still around. Brittish isles, southern, western and central europe were bare in middle ages/early modern era because all that land was used for agriculture to sustain the population. Considering the The Empire is based on HRE, it should be densely populated land of fields, not scarcely populated land of dark forrests.

Indeed, it's very "Dung Ages Monty Pythonesque" when it's not being really grim.

I sometimes think that there just isn't any other way they could possibly be so doughty as Men at Arms and stuff otherwise, because they really do kind of suck at fighting. Being reasonably well equipped for such an unskilled unit and more stubborn than you would expect are really all they have going for them.

Because the forests are full of monsters that kill and eat large chunks of the human population on a fairly regular basis.

How many people in the old world know about Lizardmen? What are the High/Dark Elves opinion on them?

How come The Empire looks like europe and not like western subsaharan Africa (where it's not monsters but tse tse fly, but the end result is the same)

Almost none. Lizardmen are almost completely located in Lustria and have very few interaction withe the old world.
Maybe some Mareienburgh explorer and norscan raiders have some knowledge of them.

If they heard about the Lizardmen, they would probably figure they were Beastmen.

There are a good number in the Southlands, but that's almost as far away.

And considering it's through the lands of the dead, it's might as well be farther away.

I love the Eshin quote for the snotling, it's basically "Don't bother with poison, it'll die from the needle you'd use to deliver it."

I think you are vastly underestimating how hard it is to set fire to a living forest.
These aren't dried-up practically-firewood stick tree forests. Hell, these aren't even the denser, wetter forests found in northern and wetter parts of the world, like Europe.
These are motherfucking primeval forests, with trees as thick as houses, where the sun never touches the ground.
With no large-scale availability of petrol or chemicals and considering the Empire is a pre-indrustrialization society, it'd be really fucking hard to make a meaningful dent. And that's not even considering that a lot of people live off these forests and they are probably owned by a lot of nobles that don't want you to go and destroy their wood and game. Remember, the Empire is not the Imperium. There the Emperor's word isn't absolute law that nobody will think to overturn, he is a human ruler, a head of state.

Actually, I'm not really sure what the lore on Treemen is. I know that Dryads are all fleshhating cunts and that there's that one burned Treeman that would like to exterminate all fleshy creatures, but I have no idea where the others stand.

>I think you are vastly underestimating how hard it is to set fire to a living forest.
>These aren't dried-up practically-firewood stick tree forests. Hell, these aren't even the denser, wetter forests found in northern and wetter parts of the world, like Europe.
>These are motherfucking primeval forests, with trees as thick as houses, where the sun never touches the ground.
>With no large-scale availability of petrol or chemicals and considering the Empire is a pre-indrustrialization society, it'd be really fucking hard to make a meaningful dent. And that's not even considering that a lot of people live off these forests and they are probably owned by a lot of nobles that don't want you to go and destroy their wood and game.
>Remember, the Empire is not the Imperium. There the Emperor's word isn't absolute law that nobody will think to overturn, he is a human ruler, a head of state.

There's a reason I didn't just say "tossed a match and walked away without looking twice".

They are at war with the woods, even the "normal" woods spread when not watches, and that doesn't take into account the parts that are Tained with fell magic, where the trees crawl and seek blood and corpses.
They maintain a constant vigil with axe and fire just too keep it from growing too fast.

That's why they only manage to make progress when they can rely on their neighbour states not to rake their asses.

As for the nobles, they do have "tame" forests, though it's mainly a luxury Bretonnians engage in.
Wood is not a scare commodity, as for hunting game, in the deep forest people are the game.

>I have no idea where the others stand.
In the forest.

>Wood is not a scare commodity, as for hunting game, in the deep forest people are the game.
Nobles are often selfish cunts, though, so they'd let you pay through the nose for the privilege of cleaning up their forests. You'd also probably need to get the elector counts on board.

It'd make for a great story and advancement in the world, though. Thirty, fifty years forward, the Storm of Chaos was repelled, the Imperium is slowly recovering, maybe KF is succeeded by a young and motivated Emperor who pretty much declares War on the Forests. Pay some Ogres, get the Dwarfs in on it, Would also easily make for an interesting summer campaign.

The College of fire encourage their students to do community work.

Having an amber and bright wizard along would probably be a good idea.

>humans win

BORING

>AoS

Even worse

It's got to be pretty demoralizing being a normal human in this setting. Think about it for a second: As a human, you would, in a normal world, be near the top of food chain, and because of science and technology, you effectively are the top of the food chain. However, in WFB, plate armor, guns, steampunk tanks and cold steel AT MOST just gives you a fighting chance against all the things trying to kill you, attacked by crazy, awful things that simply shouldn't exist in the real world. You're basically an ant on a planet full of super-anteaters. Granted, in reality, we have to contend with "monsters" like great white sharks and tigers, but at least we are safe in the knowledge that they won't team up to lay siege to our cities.

You know what is great?
Even with all the horrible monsters,magic and chaos humans are on the top of the food chain.

Sure there are things that pillage villages,eat entire cities and feed on humans.
But humanity won with them all. Chaos guys are still humans and are one of the most badass creatures walking on the warhammer world,Kislevites are almost as tought but chaosless,Cathay is magical as fuck and have birdmen waifus and Empire is still the most powerful country on the planet

>Not wanting the world to struggle on against the forces of destruction for another day
>Wanting the world to just end and in the most boring way at that
>Missing the point of WHFB that hard

Many provinces of the Empire probably aren't that much worse than 16th or 17th century Europe. WHFB isn't 40k, where you either face crushing oppression or horrible death. Hell, depending on the edition, Bretonnia is an incredibly noblebright and kinda silly place.

If you're not a Bret peasant at any rate

Treemen are a lot nicer than Dryads. Typically they'll only attack humans if said humans are harming their trees, and I saw a little flavour story in one of the WHFRP books where a treeman gave shelter and directions to a bunch of empire knights that helped it out with a beastman problem.

bumpan

Abos did it.

Amber college would nope right the fuck out. They love wild places. To them, burning down the forest to get rid of beastmen would be like burning down your house to deal with your roach infestation. Congratulations fuckwit, they're gone but you've destroyed everything important in the process.

Then there are the wood elves, who would pretty much kill you for so much as LOOKING at a tree funny. They have enclaves in the Empire's forests, and could probably call on the main group in Athel Loren if you started making any progress at all.

High elves would have nothing to do with defiling nature. They might even join up with their cousins in stopping you, particularly if you're not the Emperor himself.

DE keep on raping and pillaging because they don't fucking care either way.

Ogres help if you pay them, and eat you if you don't, so business as usual there, too.

Bretonnians would be leery of helping. Relations are good, but they've got their own fay in their own sacred wood, and they might be reluctant to do such acts even in another country. Besides, if the Empire got too strong Bretonnia could be in some serious trouble.

Dwarfs would theoretically be all for it, but in practice they've always got their own shit to deal with. Don't expect a whole lot of numbers, but maybe they'd donate a few flame cannon to the cause.

Skaven would, ironically, love this shit. Less forest and more towns means more places where THEY can spread chaos, mutation, and plague.

So, overall, it'd be a long and arduous slog that would piss off half your allies with no guarantee of success and at the end of it, you'd have just traded one rot for another.

We are talking about the Empire, not retarded fantasy French inbred oppressed peasants .

Neither DE or HE have enough numbers to contest this theoretical wood burning.

And I'm pretty sure it's just getting rid of the evil chaos primordial stuff.

>Empire is still the most powerful country on the planet
no it isn't its the most powerful nation in the old world and the most powerful human nation in the setting. That isn't saying much considering the only others in the old world are Bretonia, kislev, estalia, tilea, wood elves and the shattered remnants of the dwarfs. HE, DE, Tomb kings, Lizardmen and Chaos dwarfs all have more powerful nations, and would stomp the empires shit in if they ever engaged in all out war.
Hell, the wood elves might have a chance too. it was wood elves who remained unconquerable when the empire was in its golden age of expansion and eventually lead to their decline by blowing them the fuck out in every battle they fought in. Not the Athel loren wood elves, but the lesser conclaves living in the empire forests.

Also depends on the edition. Sometimes Bretonnia is a really bright place for everyone.

>Wood Elves
Don't give a shit about any woods outside of Athel Loren and maybe the odd enclave. And the existance of those enclaves is questionable, since they are quite possibly just a part of Athel Loren that temporarily also exists in another wood. They aren't treehuggers for the sake of treehugging, they just protect their lawn.

>High Elves
They plow their fields with Magic and pretty much everything else on Ulthuan is probably jacked up on White Mage in one form or the other. They'd probably applaud any effort to exterminate the beastmen, chaos and undead influence in the Old World. They probably won't help actively, though.

>Dwarfs
Yeah, it really depends on their current situation, but if this takes place after the SoC, then there is probably a calmer period when Skaven, Goblin and Orc numbers have dropped down again. Not all Thaigs are under attack 100% of the time.

Malekith is just too hard to oust. He's one of the three greatest wizards in the setting and no slouch in terms of personal might. He wraps himself in nigh indestructible metal and spends all his time plotting and brooding.