OK, now this is a topic that might not appeal to everyone, but I am very interested in the metaphysics of fantasy worlds. I blame Torg, back in the early 1990s, for igniting this interest, but that's long in the past now (though find the right mailing list and the debates still rage!)

Anyway, the metaphysics of warhammer world are something of a mixed bag. In two areas, they are relatively clear. Magic definitely exists, we know (roughly) what powers it, where it comes from and how different types of magic user manipulate it. We also have some understanding of the relationship between Magic and the other area where the metaphysics are reasonable clear: Chaos. We know Chaos is something that comes from another dimension or realm, we know that the Chaos Gods are real and have something akin to physical form, even if we don't know if they are corporeal in the sense of being able to manifest directly in Warhammer World. We know from their daemon servants that they are entities, not metaphysical concepts, albeit cosmically powerful entities that would make all but the most powerful denizens of superhero universes shrink in fear.

But Gods, now the Gods I'm not clear on. We do know that Invocations are real. It is possible for the faithful to bring about miraculous effects, and the effects that they can invoke are strictly limited according to the God (or Gods?) that they have primarily focused their faith upon. However, it would appear that the difficulty of an invocation isn't based on how powerful an individual god is or how strong its following, but has some relative objectivity about it (and ignore for a moment the fact that this is because of game balance - game balance may be the fundamental design motivation, but the reason should be found within the metaphysics). We also know that gods can go in and out of favour, but this doesn't seem to affect the ability of the faithful to call down miracles in their name. And we also know that it is possible for a mortal to become a God (Sigmar, the dwarven gods, and possibly Myrmidia).

However, what we don't know is something more fundamental - are the gods real? Real, in the same sense as the chaos gods, in that they have a separate objective existence regardless of the belief of their followers, with their own personal and unique motivations. I have a feeling that they may not be. There is a clear hint in the WFRP3 core set (maybe in the Tome of Blessings?) that invocations may simply be a different way of accessing the winds of magic - this doesn't mean that a diety isn't involved of course, because the power path may be "Invoker -> Diety -> Magic -> Diety -> Invoker". There is also talk of gods being subsumed within other gods, so that where once Rhylla was one of the eldest, fundamental dieties, now she is considered an aspect of Taal. This implies that the gods may not, therefore, be distinct entities. And finally, there seem to be some strong contrasts between the chaos dieties and the gods of faith - the Gods do not directly bestow blessings in the form of positive mutations or marks; the Gods do not seem to have armies of angels / valkyries / whatever to fight against the daemon hordes; and the Gods appear to act through the churches of their formal religions, not by identifying susceptible individuals and empowering them to spread the word of the true faith.

It seems to me that much of the evidence seems to point to a belief-based model of godhood - if enough people believe (or a single person believes strongly enough), they can invoke miracles based on that belief - that Faith. The next question is, assuming this is the case, does that Faith make the belief come true (enough people believe that Sigmar ascended to godhead, so he did) or is there in fact no middle man at all, none of the gods exist, and they are just handy labels for the known faiths against which the pious invoke miracles.

Personally, I hate this model. It's great the way Terry Pratchett uses it, as an ironic device, but within a "serious" fantasy world it has a scientific-rationalist feel about it that doesn't feel like it belongs alongside the forces of chaos and magic. I think a fantasy world is more interesting if the gods are real - the Graeco-Roman model of the interefering, all-too-human dieties who do genuinely need to be appeased, because they have fears, desires and motivations themselves and you better keep them sweet or one day they might just turn spiteful.

I'll end now. From what I've seen and read, the metaphysics aren't conclusive on this point. And there's always the argument that "God is Real" and "God is Real because people believe" is indistinguisable in the time span of pretty much any roleplaying campaign. But these things interest me: Warhammer World is just one of many possible cosms in the Torgian infiniverse, and I want to know what sort of cosm it is!

I think you are very much free to make the truth of your table what you wish. This is one of the spots GDW and hence FFG as licence holder tends to tread lightly. This preserves a certain uncertainty that can be fun. That the gods of men and elves are ultimately Warp phenomenon similar to the Chaos Gods is pretty clear but what sort of phenomenon they are is open insofar as I know.

For example, is the "Sigmar" being prayed to now effectively an AI-version-of-Sigmar as recalled by the faithful or is this 'Sigmar boosted by the faithful" or a combination "Sigmar boosted but constrained to interact via the shell of what the believers believe" (the non-Warhammer novels Crown of Shadows is part of are an example of that sort of situation) or is this not even an "independent thinking entity, even an AI" just an elaborate vague energy like the WAAGHH! energy greenskins generate? Your call, doesn't change mechanics of rules and not relevant to beliefs of most people.

One would have to be a high elf philosopher to be pondering it much "in character".

valvorik said:

Oh absolutely. No game relevance at all. I guess I'm just a seeker of fundamental fictional truths!

In my campaigns, the gods are not real. Their "casters" are simply people who manipulate the winds of magic in ways that are excessively ritualized and hence less likely to set off the effects of chaos. Everything else that occurs is a variation of the winds of magic, pure happenstance, and superstition.

I always preferred situations where there weren't gods sitting in comfy chairs in some multiplanar perfect realm.

jh

Emirikol said:

I think this is my thing as well. Only in opposite. I guess I'm not a fan of settings where the forces of evil are real, but the forces of good aren't.

phild said:

I haven't dwelled on this too much, as my players, even when they play priests, aren't terribly inquisitive about such things, but I'm inclined to treat them as real. (Reading a throw-away line in the adventure in Hero's Call makes me think that's official, no less.) But I don't picture them sitting around in some perfect realm… I imagine they're hip deep in the muck holding the line against Chaos. Why else do you think they only have so much attention to spare the mortals, even though they're gods?

Actually looking at the Warhamer pantheon it kind of reads like an unimaginably high leveled adventuring party… a few fighters, a healer, a wizard, a couple druids and a rogue and that guy who wants to play a pirate captain even though the rest of the campaign is land-based and the GMPC/Mary Sue of Sigmar who's so badass he was mortal and ascended and is now emperor of everything. So that's what I figure they're up to on a dairly basis.

(Of course, finding the tavern they met in would be truly epic!)

RARodger said:

OK. I don't like doing this, it feels cheap, tacky and inadequate. But…. LOL

I have to chime in here as this is a subject that has interested me for some time and I have read just about every scrap of published fluff on it.

Before I continue: GW leaves things in their settings purposefully vague in order for each person to be able to make Warhammer their own. If they said, for example: "The gods are real." or "The gods are not real" then there would be a part of their fan base that would like this and a part that would not like it and possibly find another setting to be fans of.
However, if they have a character in their setting say "The gods are real." and have another character in another book say "The gods are not real" the fans can choose to believe whatever character they feel is right.
That said I have read a LOT of Warhammer fluff and there are some concepts that keep popping up over and over again and seem to fit very well into the lore of the setting. I have decided this is close to the truth and that people who disagree are either wilfully blind or have not read enough Warhammer lore.

The gods are both real and not. This is how it works (I am taking this right from my head without any books, so sorry if I get some facts wrong):

The Old Ones tore a hole into "The Aethyr" at the poles of the planet. The Aethyr is another realm/dimension which is affected by psychic stimuli, basically emotions. The stuff of The Aethyr leaks out of the poles and warps reality. This is called Chaos, Magic, Aethyr or Warp.

The Aethyr/Chaos flows out from this dimension at the poles, diminishing in strength the farther you get from the poles. Up by the poles themselves the stream of Chaos is so strong that reality basically ends and you cross over into The Aethyr.

In the Aethyr, everything is shaped by the effects of minds in the physical world. If people are angry in the physical world, there is more "angry energy" in the Aethyr. This anger is drawn to other spots of anger until it is just one massive vortex of angry energy. This is the chaos god Khorne.
However, the Aethyr is also affected by ideas and dreams. If enough people believe in something similar, those beliefs converge into a single being representing that belief. This is the gods as we know them.

Take Sigmar for example: He did not exist as a god until long after he left the Empire and the cult of Sigmar gained traction. Then people started believing in Sigmar as a god and Sigmar The God was created in the Aethyr.

So basically what it boils down to is this: All gods are chaos gods. However, "Chaos Gods" as people think of them is simply the shapes people have given them through their belief. In the same way, the "Good" gods of the Empire have been shaped. However, the believers of these "Good" gods believe that they protect them agains "Chaos" and so they do.

When priests cast invocations, they are simply spells filtered through their belief in a god that they believe protects them against chaos. And through their belief in being protected, they are protected. It is a self-fulfilling belief, if you will.

Edit: Continued: The four major chaos gods are the four major vortexes of the Aethyr. They are not "evil" so much as they are pure emotion. It is simply unnatural for the Aethyr to touch the physical world. The four major chaos gods are the strongest expression of the Aethyr, thereby the most unhealthy for the physical world. The other gods are like minor vortexes that overlap with the four great ones. The closer they are to one of the four, the more a like they seem. For example, Khaine might or might not be a seperate god but he is so close to Khorne that he might as well just be an elfish cults version of Khorne. Same as people in the north worship him as a dog god or a fire god.
Each god appears in many guises, but the farther you come from the basic concept of the chaos gods, the more defined and individual the god will seem.
Ulric, for example, is closer to Khorne than the other Empire gods, but he is not simply another aspect of Khorne.

Well, I've read very little WFRP stuff, but I had a feeling it was a faith-based metaphysic. Shame. It probably felt quite innovative at the time. It also doesn't explain why the baddies have daemons but the goodies don't, and why there are no chaos warriors of Sigmar.

What sort of cosmology is more up your alley? Given the other aspects of the setting, how would you have made it more "innovative" if I may ask?

Also, if you dislike the way gods, religion and hyper-reality are handled in the loosely defined fluff…make it work for you. Switch it up so that it is easier for you to inspire divine characters in your storytelling and so that you can come up with hooks and other such things on the fly. I promise not to come kick your door down and yell "Badwrongfun!" File off the serial numbers and chew off the parts you hate imo.

Between the three editions of WFRP and eight editions of WFBattle…there is plenty of room to defend almost anything you want to do to the Warhammer world. As long as there is plenty of 30's pulp horror, disease, poo on everything, bad teeth, and Player Characters that end up in the dungeons below the Temple of Sigmar in Altdorf as their final reward for 'saving' the Empire.

It seems clear to me why there are no "armies of angels" from the gods, of the gods coming down and playing an active hand in things: Humanity (and to a lesser extent the other races) is supposed to be standing on its own and be the ones deciding the fate of the future. Gods and their servants bailing out humanity in their darkest hour always takes away from this.

(This is a bit of a mirror of 40k where it is scientificly unclear what the Emperor is up to in his current state (HERESY *BLAM!*) and the demigod Primarchs are all missing/gone)

This is where a lot of the "grimdark" of Warhammer comes from, humanities struggle against horrible odds with nothing but its "guns, faith and steel" to stand against the horrors of the dark (Chaos).

Again, gods or angels coming down and heavy handedly interfering take away from this theme. That is why the WFRP3 keeps almost all "help from the gods" in the form of an extra white or yellow die or two, or maybe if you're really lucky a fortuitous meeting of the minions of that deity.

As for metaphysics, as mentioned, they have always kind of left it open for interpretation, probably for the best.

As I enjoy 40k fluff as much as Fantasy (though WFRP3 is much better game), I like the idea that they're largely parellel. Because of this I tend towards the "belief makes reality", so the worshipers faith makes the gods real.

Using the fluff from WFRP1, I think you could make a case that though what humanity calls gods are manifestations of the collective subconscious merged with the power of the Warp, there ARE actual higher order intelligences that live in the Aethyr, behind the walls of the universe as it were - and that they are not kindly to the flesh and blood creatures of this world. It is mentioned, in WFRP1, that the Old Slann (old ones) were aware and frightened at what lay behind the walls of the magic tunnels they used to travel from world to world…

Question Warhammer Scholars: why did the term Old Slann get replaced by Old Ones in later versions of the history?

stormofswords said:

DevoutBadger said:

Absolutely, no angels in Warhammer or any belief in them really. I reminded my players of this recently and they said "of course not!"