Slaaneshi Speculation!

By The Strolling Bones, in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Now that Omens of War is more than just an Omen I thought it would be interesting to start a speculative thread concerning the Slaanesh Module that will probably be announced during the Summer / early Fall.

I have two main hypotheses concerning this scandalous and seductive Boxed Set.

Firstly I thought that this would be a great chance for the designers to introduce the Halflings due to that peckish races' overindulgent tendency. Also it would be a really good opportunity to flesh out the Dark Elves.

Secondly I figured it would also be great if the box had an indulgence theme, thus adding more to all the current standing "things". So more Careers, more wounds, more Disease (sexual and food related), more mutation, more insanity, more conditions.... just More More More really. Obviously all of these extra bits should have a Slaaneshi feel to them.

I'm amply excited to get some information about this, the 4th in the Ruinous Power supplements.

What do you guys think we'll see / what do you want to see from this expansion?

Here are my speculations:

  • Rogues, commoners and nobles focus
  • debauchery and "sin" is the slaanesh bit
  • return of the bawd, but I doubt it
  • Yes, coverage of 1/2 lings
  • I think there would be advanced information on corruption mainly
  • a new scenario

jh


Well I'm very ignorant of Warhammer fluff so I'm practically unqualified to speculate. But what I'd like to see is some expansion of the social mechanics, in the way that Omens expanded combat. So I get that Slaanesh is all about indulgence so it seems like a decent fit for mental struggles, including lying, persuasion, seduction, etc.


Would this be too far off of the Slaanesh theme?


I would like to see the halflings again, but I just don't see them in anything other than an expansion on the Empire. Hopefully we don't have to buy each province as its own expansion but...we'll see. Additionally Halflings are resistant to the effects of chaos so it really doesn't thematically fit to have them stuffed into a box dedicated to the lord of pleasure. I could see the Dark Elves expanded on in more detail with more witch magic and other fun giggity like that, but that's really GM territory and can be handled with a dozen new actions and a few monster/npc cards.

Drugs man...drugs are the new "rule" we'll get from Slaanesh. Drugs have existed since the early editions and were yet another great way to ruin a character's life. Plus it fits with what we've seen in the other 3 chaos supplements. Khorne - Severe Wounds; Tzeench - Mutations/etc; Nurgle - Disease. Each one brings in new ways to really screw over a happy and Sigmar fearing peasant with aspirations of heroism.

I hope that we see an expansion on social options like black market dealing, prostitution, and all sorts of unsavory/savory things. I want new careers for nobility, demogogues and scoundrels.

Good gritty rules for torture

Bring on the Daemonettes and other sexy beasts like Slaangors

Venereal Disease would be fitting and cool but I wouldn't be surprised if they merely mentioned it in passing and didn't really go "all in" (pun intended).

When you think Slaanesh you think sex, over indulgence, pelasure, and pain.

Assuming FFG continues the paired aspect of the ruinous powers releases the pair will be the polar opposite, not necessarily the compliment. This leads me to believe that the Dark Elves, which are VERY Slaanesh oriented, are less likely than other choices. Especially since Dark Elves were featured heavily in the Witch's Song.

I think we will likely see one of two things:

  1. Halflings, because of the reasons Bones mentioned above. However if Halflings are in, then i'd espect to see a large amount of theif type skills, traits, careers and adventures, and i'm not so sure that is the proper pairing for Slaanesh. Many aspects of Halfings work, but some dont.
  2. Political and Social focus. Maybe we will see struggles for power, oratory classes, and flushing out that aspect fo the system. We've hit magic, we hit faith, we are hitting martial, the remaining two are social and thievery. Slaanesh has a large bit in political struggles and ambition of power.

Sorry for the unfocused train of thought, but lets try to focus on what really matters, will de Deamonettes have tops on?

Gitzman

You know, regarding Halflings, i see one major problem moving forward. Dont all the career cards indicate what races can use them? Halflings sure arent on that list. Will the introduction of Halflings require ANOTHER special set of rules to remember? I sure hope we dont have to look things up special for halflings when we have all the other content right in front of us.

Gitz

Gitzman said:

sorry for the unfocused train of thought, but lets try to focus on what really matters, will de Deamonettes have tops on?

I think they get to choose either tops or bottoms. Either way...daemon bewbs...

Addiction....

Slaanish set should be all about addiction...doesn't matter to what--drugs, lust, gluttony....but I am guessing the core mechanic will be addiction.

Gitzman said:

You know, regarding Halflings, i see one major problem moving forward. Dont all the career cards indicate what races can use them? Halflings sure arent on that list. Will the introduction of Halflings require ANOTHER special set of rules to remember? I sure hope we dont have to look things up special for halflings when we have all the other content right in front of us.

Gitz

Gitzman said:

You know, regarding Halflings, i see one major problem moving forward. Dont all the career cards indicate what races can use them? Halflings sure arent on that list. Will the introduction of Halflings require ANOTHER special set of rules to remember? I sure hope we dont have to look things up special for halflings when we have all the other content right in front of us.

Gitz

I think they could fix this by just having the Halflings be able to play every role a human can and then having a couple Halfling only careers. Once again this is only speculation though.

Callidon I also think drugs would be awesome to see in the expansion. I have lots of Coral imbibing players so adding the temptation of drugs to the mix would be a great great way to ensnare their characters into a life of addiction and poverty ;).

I think there will be a social or nobility focus.

As far as new cards, I would like to see something like Addictions/Compulsions. Either a card in itself, or a special type of insanity. They could be things that are inflicted, or something standard for all players, like personality traits. They would be things that you have compulsions to either do or partake in. Either a bonus to said actions or a penalty when it's ignored. I think that would fit very well into the theme for Slaanesh.

The Strolling Bones said:

I think they could fix this by just having the Halflings be able to play every role a human can and then having a couple Halfling only careers. Once again this is only speculation though.

Callidon I also think drugs would be awesome to see in the expansion. I have lots of Coral imbibing players so adding the temptation of drugs to the mix would be a great great way to ensnare their characters into a life of addiction and poverty ;).

Yeah it would be easy enough to just shoe-horn halflings in as humans for career limitations with the caveat that they can't be wazzards or priests (how racist are the gods btw)...I still think you're a crazed looney for stuffing halflings into a chaos supplement...but I like loonies. How great would it be for the little muck dwellers to get their own supplement though? (the big Pie/Festival/Doorman/Circus supplement for example).

Drugs offer a great way to inject internal party conflict beyond the usual "hey yer an elf and I'm a dwarf we must kungfu fight!"

I once had a player whose character would regularly steal money and valuable items from the party in order to get his next fix. He even sold out the others to a chaos cult functionary in order to score a "year's supply" Of course he then attempted to right his wrong and died in the process...Skarp the Perpetrator...all thanks to drugs!

Well, Slaanesh embodies indulgence in all things (not just naughty bits: painting, cooking, singing, and the like apply as well), as well as the desire for bettering oneself, and ultimately striving for perfection in ones chosen indulgence.

Drugs would definitely be interesting, and the fact that they were present in prior editions cements the potential of us seeing them in the Slaanesh package.

Halflings definitely fit the Slaaneshii theme with their culinary indulgence, and they were strongly promised prior to release. I'd say it's a good bet.

As for careers, we may have careers that fit into the arts, such as painters, cooks, singers, or a prostitute career (which I think would be nicely thematic). Add in a few nobles for good measure. Of course, this then conflicts with the potential of releasing halflings, and halfling-related careers. maybe we'll get five of each? We DO already have some careers in which the racial restriction is "Any Race", so they aren't entirely shoehorned.

I also don't see any issue with the set including diseases related to such inlulgence, particularly STD's. Diseases from drug use and unprotected sex seems filling. At the very least, I would expect to see the Slaanesh package carrying elements introduced in prior god-cycle expansions, as prior god-cycle expansions did themselves (Nurgle having mutations introduced in the Tzeentch package, etc). As such, I would expect the diseases to be thematic.

One thing I would really like to see, above all else... is to have Poisons reworked. I dislike that, as they are now, they only cause fatigue - and as such as remarkably non-lethal and easy to recover from for what they represent. So, poison cards similar to Disease cards would be welcome. Different brands of poison!

Of course... Poison AND Drugs may be hoping for too much. If it came down to only one, I suppose drugs would be the more thematic choice.

Oh, and of course, Daemonettes ;D

Aside from Drug rules...I want to see better rules on Poison and potion making/use. Really.

Oh yea baby. Poison, drug and intoxication crunch and fluff would be very welcome and would probably be the highlight of usable material (other than new careers).

jh

Emirikol said:

Oh yea baby. Poison, drug and intoxication crunch and fluff would be very welcome and would probably be the highlight of usable material (other than new careers).

jh

Yeah I think those are the most obvious choice, with some enhanced social "combat" rules to wrap things up nicely. I doubt we will get to see halfling in that expansion since there was no new race introduced in the other 3 chaos god expansions, why would they break the "cycle" up?

Whatever happened to freaky hermaphrodite daemonettes? When did they become all female sexy demon babes?

...I'm not surprised of course, heh. Games Workshop made space nuns wear nipple spikes and knee high boots with six inch heels after all.

Definitely agree on drugs (poisons and drugs might even share the same ruleset, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did combo). Rules for playing in the Gold Tier. Some upper class location, item cards.

What I'd like to see most is more of the non-combat utility and social cards (ok ok, social combat is fine). There are a ton new spells in Winds, a ton of new Prayers in Faith, and tons of new combat actions in Khorne. Right now the battle stack of cards is out of whack, time to boost up the socials!

Agree on boosting up the socials. Though a lot of what social gives you is how you use it to drive non combat encounters, in my experience. (Limited as it may be)

Looking through Omens of War, I'm even more convinced we are going to see some material on the nobility.

1) there is a line in Liber Carnagia that describes who is attracted to each Dark Power. They pretty much fall in line with the boxed sets (mages for Tzeench, doctors for Nurgle, etc). Nobles are said to be attracted to Slaanesh.

2) Half of the new careers have the Noble trait (the pistolier -> Knight progression). When I saw that, my first thought was them setting up other careers with that trait.

It's not definitive by any stretch, but it's more than the nothing that we currently have.

Doc, the Weasel said:

Looking through Omens of War, I'm even more convinced we are going to see some material on the nobility.

1) there is a line in Liber Carnagia that describes who is attracted to each Dark Power. They pretty much fall in line with the boxed sets (mages for Tzeench, doctors for Nurgle, etc). Nobles are said to be attracted to Slaanesh.

2) Half of the new careers have the Noble trait (the pistolier -> Knight progression). When I saw that, my first thought was them setting up other careers with that trait.

It's not definitive by any stretch, but it's more than the nothing that we currently have.

I totaly agre that with Slaanesh we will see Noble and social encounters. And that will be a really good one too becouse now this part of the game did not have to much love. There are to few good social cards so players are not willing to play such heroes. I think that this supplement will change that.

With regards to Halflings and careers, I've noticed some careers state 'Human, Dwarf, Wood Elf or High Elf' while others state 'All Races' - maybe FFG already pre-empted the Halfling career issue...

However, as others have said, I really don't see them coming in a Slaanesh box - as much as we might want their inclusion, they would really only be shoe-horned into that rather than having a natural place. I suspect we'll see an Empire box, a Bretonnia box, a Norsca box, etc which the extra races will find their way into. From a business perspective alone, this allows FFG to continue to release themed box sets that slowly trickle out.

I do hope they move away from new rules quite soon though - ideally after the Slaanesh box. After that, I'd like some geographical info, but predominantly more careers, and more adventures. Ideally some lengthy, even possibly episodic, campaigns. It gets to a point where there are too many rules in a game, I'd hate to see Warhammer go this way.

Sausageman said:

It gets to a point where there are too many rules in a game, I'd hate to see Warhammer go this way.

One thing is for certain though...Slaanesh is going to make us feel dirty and perverted. "I'm going to transition from rat catcher to brothel owner!" or "hey guys...um...that Daemonette is scary and all but...her uh...you know...how do we fight her without...rubbin' up against uh..."

Callidon said:

One thing is for certain though...Slaanesh is going to make us feel dirty and perverted. "I'm going to transition from rat catcher to brothel owner!" or "hey guys...um...that Daemonette is scary and all but...her uh...you know...how do we fight her without...rubbin' up against uh..."

Now you know you have to have a Dwarf Lecher take care of it!

The real question is... what will they call it? I can't think of a Blank of Blank that makes much sense.

Temptations of Power?