What time in lore does the immortal empires start?

[RedHaze1911]

Is there like an in lore period when the first turn of your IE campaign starts? Or is it just a random mish mash because certain characters exist that in lore shouldnt exist at the same time?

[MrSoul]

For all intents and purposes these games are random mish mash and do not represent any specific point in the actual “canon” timeline nor are they technically canon in any regard.

For intent of what barebones plot there is within the games themselves tho, this, I guess, takes place before other 2 games so IE is a prequel…even tho daemons are loose…which the vortex should specifically prevent so logically should be the third one…and the plot of RoC should have been about the vortex failing but yaaaa, mish mash lol

[Garatgh Deloi]

It is admittedly a bit of a bit of a mish mash.

But they have stated that the story campaigns take place somewhere around Karl Franz's reign (game 3 actually being the first one, game 1 and 2 taking place after). The combined map campaigns are likely somewhere in the same time frame.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-warhammer-iii-faq/

as with Total War: WARHAMMER and Total War: WARHAMMER II, Total War: WARHAMMER III is set around the reign of Karl Franz.

That said i would see the Total Warwarhammer universe as a parallel universe to canon lore if i were you. It doesn't necessarily sync up completely.

[Zeek]

Time doesn't really exist in Total War Warhammer.

The best thing we can do judging from some of the main characters being up and about (Franz, Archaon, etc) is that it's somewhere right before The End Times.

But yeah it's very fluid.

[Fear2288]

WH lore is honestly kind of a mess.

It’s like Star Wars before Disney took over and said “everything but the feature films and the two Clone Wars shows is non-canon”.

Across the various forms of media in WH there’s stuff that’s considered canon, non-canon, half-canon, sometimes-canon, and on more than one occasion over the years GW has ret-conned things, made non-canon stuff canon (and vice-versa), and simply “deleted” things.

I guess it’s best to think of the WHTW series as a kind of alternate universe of the WHFB world around the time of the End Times. Many of the LLs, characters, and events in WHTW exist during that time in the lore albeit with a handful of anachronisms.

It’s also best to think of the three narrative campaigns and IE as being separate.

The narrative campaigns follow a storyline of the Everchosen launching an invasion of the Old World that ultimately fails but meanwhile in the West the Vortex is weakening and eventually weakens enough that Belakor is able to manifest and initiate his scheme involving Ursun while also allowing the daemons of Chaos to fully invade the world.

IE sort of scrambles that around then and I guess we’re supposed to assume that the Vortex has weakened to the point where Chaos can manifest pretty freely in the world, but the Everchosen hasn’t launched his invasion yet (or he and his top commanders survived the initial failure and are rallying for a second attempt), and Belakor either never makes his attempt at godhood via Ursun or he did, failed, but survived and retreated to the north to hatch some new scheme.

Regardless, neither follow the lore of the End Times very closely but I guess you could say it’s an alt-End Times.

[Orachin]

@Fear2288 just a quick remark. If i remember correctly CA said that its wh3-wh2-wh1 campaigns in chronological order (you can even confirm this by the changes in the looks of advisor). So its basically Realms of Chaos, followed by Vortex which is followed by Chaos invasion.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Of Iron and Gold:

It starts at the beginning of The End Times when Karl Franz gets elected which is 2502 IC. The world ends in 2526 IC but the whole point of the campaign is to change history. The Warhammer Fantasy year has 400 days and 8 day weeks.

The end times timeframe is specified and it takes place during the time period 2519-2528. Karl Franz'z coronation takes place ~17 years before the end times begin (as you mentioned, 2502).

Also to quote the devs:

Originally posted by Warhammer 3 FAQ:

IS TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER III GOING TO BE SET DURING THE END TIMES AND FEATURE STUFF FROM AGE OF SIGMAR?
No, as with Total War: WARHAMMER and Total War: WARHAMMER II, Total War: WARHAMMER III is set around the reign of Karl Franz.

[SBA77]

Originally posted by Orachin:

@Fear2288 just a quick remark. If i remember correctly CA said that its wh3-wh2-wh1 campaigns in chronological order (you can even confirm this by the changes in the looks of advisor). So its basically Realms of Chaos, followed by Vortex which is followed by Chaos invasion.

But that's the story of the games and not actual Warhammer lore. The games are telling original stories and are not part of the lore at all.

Originally posted by RedHaze1911:

Is there like an in lore period when the first turn of your IE campaign starts? Or is it just a random mish mash because certain characters exist that in lore shouldnt exist at the same time?

The games are supposed to be set when Karl Franz becomes emperor, but then you have characters like Rapanse and Grom who have been dead for 100s years showing up. It's supposed to be set at this time, but they are also throwing in characters that they know are popular regardless of temporal limitations.

[KoboldUtopian]

Originally posted by Fear2288:

The narrative campaigns follow a storyline of the Everchosen launching an invasion of the Old World that ultimately fails but meanwhile in the West the Vortex is weakening and eventually weakens enough that Belakor is able to manifest and initiate his scheme involving Ursun while also allowing the daemons of Chaos to fully invade the world.

I thought it was established that the games run in reverse chronological order (as evidenced by the advisor getting old and going blind). Belakor's attempt to kill Ursun destabilizes the vortex enough for the Skaven scheme, which then triggers Archaon's rise to power and the End Times.

[Fear2288]

You’re right that the epilogue of the RoC campaign does more or less reveal these events as having happened prior to the campaigns of WH1 and 2.

But

It makes no sense, regardless, and it actually kinda mirrors GW’s own pervasive use of retconning, and picking and choosing what’s canon/non-canon in their lore at random times.

In the lore, the Vortex acts as a massive siphon that drains and dissipates most of the magic pouring out of the corrupted polar gates.

The Chaos gods and their daemons need magical energy in order to manifest and remain in the mortal world for any length of time and the level of magic determines how powerful/strong those gods and daemons are in the mortal world.

Presumably, this should mean that as long as the Vortex is doing it’s thing - daemons cannot manifest en masse and those that do are only capable of remaining in the mortal world for a relatively short period of time and without their full power/potential they would otherwise have back in the Realms of Chaos.

To me, that seems to establish that as long as the Vortex is active you actually CANT have the likes of Belakor, Daniel, N’Kari, Kugath, Skarrbrand, etc running around the mortal world with legions of daemons…ya know, since that was the whole purpose of the Vortex: to prevent that from being possible.

So if WH3 takes place BEFORE WH2 where the Vortex first weakens and then ultimately breaks…how are there hordes upon hordes of daemons running amok in WH3?

Better yet, if WH1 takes place AFTER the Vortex is more or less broken then why is the only daemon around the bird man? With the Vortex ruined, that should mean that Chaos has free reign in the mortal world with NO LIMITATIONS WHATSOEVER.

So yeah, the RoC campaign’s epilogue does reveal that these events happened before WH2 and 1, but it makes 0 sense.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Fear2288:

...

As a general rule yes, deamons have issues walking the mortal planes. But there is a lot of exceptions in the lore (magical rituals, deus ex machinas and similar stuff).

Most of the known greater deamons have walked the mortal planes on several occasions (while the vortex being active) and they are often also followed by deamonic armies. They admittedly often have a timer going (if the "good guys" hold them of long enough they are often sent back to the realms of chaos since they run out of magic) but its not always the case, CA also did keep the "turn" timeframe vague for a reason in game (Is a turn a hour? A day? A week? A month? A year?).

And the vortex isn't consistent when it comes to how much magic it sucks up, its effect can fluctuate quite a bit.

CA has simply not specified why we have deamonic armies walking the mortal planes in immortal empires atm (one can assume that the whole Ursun debacle allow it in the realms of chaos campaign), but all it really takes is the vortex being weakened because "reasons" and some cultist in the know doing some sort of ritual to kick it all of. Heck the whole thing is likely some sort of Tzeentch ploy (just because).

[RedHaze1911]

Originally posted by Fear2288:

You’re right that the epilogue of the RoC campaign does more or less reveal these events as having happened prior to the campaigns of WH1 and 2.

But

It makes no sense, regardless, and it actually kinda mirrors GW’s own pervasive use of retconning, and picking and choosing what’s canon/non-canon in their lore at random times.

In the lore, the Vortex acts as a massive siphon that drains and dissipates most of the magic pouring out of the corrupted polar gates.

The Chaos gods and their daemons need magical energy in order to manifest and remain in the mortal world for any length of time and the level of magic determines how powerful/strong those gods and daemons are in the mortal world.

Presumably, this should mean that as long as the Vortex is doing it’s thing - daemons cannot manifest en masse and those that do are only capable of remaining in the mortal world for a relatively short period of time and without their full power/potential they would otherwise have back in the Realms of Chaos.

To me, that seems to establish that as long as the Vortex is active you actually CANT have the likes of Belakor, Daniel, N’Kari, Kugath, Skarrbrand, etc running around the mortal world with legions of daemons…ya know, since that was the whole purpose of the Vortex: to prevent that from being possible.

So if WH3 takes place BEFORE WH2 where the Vortex first weakens and then ultimately breaks…how are there hordes upon hordes of daemons running amok in WH3?

Better yet, if WH1 takes place AFTER the Vortex is more or less broken then why is the only daemon around the bird man? With the Vortex ruined, that should mean that Chaos has free reign in the mortal world with NO LIMITATIONS WHATSOEVER.

So yeah, the RoC campaign’s epilogue does reveal that these events happened before WH2 and 1, but it makes 0 sense.

Perhaps the weakened vortex in wh3 allows like 20 doom stacks (or whatever the army limit is for a faction) for each chaos lord and thats Tame compared to what their numbers would be if the vortex was Completely broken? Ive read that, u know... the deamons have nearly infinite numbers in the chaos realm. But in WH3 there is Some limit... even if this limit is quite massive in WH3. Could be thought of that way perhaps?

[Hypnosis]

Back when the first game came out they said the game is sort of in a time bubble. Which is good. So that way you can play as long of a campaign as you want. Turns don't mean years, or months.

[Verchial]

In the context of what Warhammer originally was - a tabletop war game with miniature orcs, elves, humans and others fighting eachother using a point system, a tape measure and dice, The “lore” is pretty secondary.

But (mostly) after it kinda caught on, a buncha different people came up with some backstory, which naturally conflicted with others and their ideas (as long as it was juuuuust different enough from Tolkien or even Gygax to keep from getting sued.)

There really is no real canon in WH. Just adopt whatever you imagine is the most fun and roll with it.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

[Fear2288]

Originally posted by Verchial:

In the context of what Warhammer originally was - a tabletop war game with miniature orcs, elves, humans and others fighting eachother using a point system, a tape measure and dice, The “lore” is pretty secondary.

But (mostly) after it kinda caught on, a buncha different people came up with some backstory, which naturally conflicted with others and their ideas (as long as it was juuuuust different enough from Tolkien or even Gygax to keep from getting sued.)

There really is no real canon in WH. Just adopt whatever you imagine is the most fun and roll with it.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Interesting you bring up the Tolkien thing.

I was just reading an article the other day that was talking about the various reasons why GW ended WHFB and created Age of Sigmar.

In addition to the fact that WHFB’s last two editions were apparently clusterbucks in regards to the rules and the game had become so convoluted and confusing that it became near-inaccessible for new players, they also apparently moved on to AoS to create a fantasy TT game and accompanying lore that was more unique and less inspired by/similar to the legacy that Tolkien’s works left on the high fantasy genre.

GW had numerous litigious run-ins with Tolkien’s estate during WHFB’s lifetime so I guess them wanting to create something new that wouldn’t be scrutinized and compared to Tolkien so heavily makes sense.

Of course, as of a year ago now the rights to everything Tolkien now belong to the Enbracer company.

Gotta wonder if that’s why within the last year, The Old World TT game kinda went from a “we’ll maybe do that, maybe not” to “we’re doing it and here’s some models and a list of all the armies that will be playable in the game”.

[Velber]

These games are more like an parallel version of events, focused mainly on storms of chaos type storyline and the advisors storyline which is not in warhammer lore and was made exclusively for the game