Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Fantasy Fireside where myself and Colin will
be discussing various elements of Warhammer Fantasy. We do have a reason why we particularly
chose this subject in particular. In the last episode, our first episode, we did a quick
recce of the entire world and we talked about the various factions and places in the world,
but we forgot to mention the vampire counts and we had several comments saying, excuse
me, where is the stuff about the vampire counts? So as an apology for that, we've decided that
our second episode will be about the vampire counts as a sort of, you know, as a way to
say sorry and hopefully this will be a fun discussion because I know you and Hal in particular,
Colin, have spoken occasionally about the vampire counts and I've all been like, oh,
you seem to be quite into it. So hopefully it'll be a worthwhile subject.
Yeah, hopefully. And like you said, you summed it up well, I need to cross this out of our
fans book of grudges, this immense sin. I'm assuming what just happened was I was just,
I'm so used to just breezing through them in total war that I didn't even think about
them. It's like, oh, it's just another Imperial province. Don't need to worry about it.
District Bud is fine. They're basically humans. Like, no, no, no, we can't have that law crime.
Yeah, pretty much. They're just pale people. Oh, but here we're gonna, we're gonna fix
that. Now to preface, yes, to preface for everyone, apparently a hard word for me to
say, it's mostly going to be about kind of the history of how the vampire counts in Sylvania
came to be and Sylvania itself, because there's a lot of different vampires in Warhammer.
Andy, do you know anything about the game Vampire the Masquerade or any of that?
I know a little bit. Yeah, I've seen, I've seen snarky reviews by YouTubers who say it's
really good and also a bit silly. So that's my, the extent of my knowledge.
Yeah, it's, I've done a little bit of reading into the tabletop game itself, but honestly,
my true knowledge is not far beyond that either. But the vampires in Warhammer, I'm not going
to get into the matter of who ripped off who, because I don't know. But it's very similar
kind of deal. There's different bloodlines, they all do different sorts of things. And
if we were going to cover all of them, this video would probably triple in length and
be even more droning on than it is already going to be.
Well, without droning on too much. So do you know all the main factions that we could mention
other than Sylvania, just so we can give like a very, like a teaser biscuit of like here,
this is the various ones, but we're talking about Sylvania in particular, just so we don't
leave people in the lurch with curiosity about what the other ones are, if they want to research
on their own.
Sure. So we have the bloodlines of them are, and the first one is going to be the one we're
going to be talking about most, the Von Karsteins. They're very much the Warhammerified traditional,
you know, Dracula, they want to suck your blood. They even all talk in the old ye olde
English.
They live in Castlevania.
Oh yeah. Thou Darist is something if you play Total War, Manfred will very frequently say
to you interacting with them. They talk like that. There's the blood dragons who are just
knights who use their vampirism to become the ultimate warrior.
And they have nothing to do with Far Cry 3 DLC.
They do not. There are no robot T-rex's which is definitely unfortunate because God that
DLC was great.
It's so good. All the neon.
Oh man, now I want to go play blood dragons so I know what I'm doing after we're done
here.
I wonder if I have to do that. The next is the Lamiens who are very stealthy. The Von
Karsteins, most of the other vampires are quite overt about it. They're big fans of
raising massive armies of the undead and trying to burn the empire down. Lamiens are much
more stealthy. They're mostly women. They have spies across the world, at least where
they can conceivably fit in. I don't believe there are any scaven vampires. Maybe one or
two, but none that are notable if such a thing is out there. But the Lamiens are generally
yeah they're a lot more stealthy. They're the seductive kind of nature of vampires.
Although when you said Lommy it just reminds me of a game of Thrones with the hound going
what the F's are Lommy? That's a Lommy. He made me a baked direwolf bread. It's great.
They're not like that at all.
They might bake bread. It's probably going to have poison in it, but you know it counts.
There's the necrarchs who are vampire wizards and there's the stragoi who are vampire hulks
basically.
Incredible hulks, not Hulk Hogan's.
No, not Hulk Hogan's. Incredible hulks. They are horrible, monstrous. Most of them are
barely intelligent. They can gain intelligence eventually if they're either around long enough
or eat the right thing. It absorbs its blood and it makes them smarter. But for the most
part barely intelligent mad beasts are astrogoi. And I'm sure at some point we'll talk about
the rest of them on this channel, but today is Sylvania and Von Karstein focused. And
with that being said, it's time to go back in time several thousand years before Sylvania
was a thing.
Because the vampires all go back to someone who by this point you might have a bit of
familiarity with, Nagash.
Oh really?
Yeah, he uh, essentially what happened was Neferada, first vampire, found his notes and
she created vampirism based on what she was studying from what he had come up with. So
you can blame him for all the wrong in the world that the vampires are going to cause
because he really is just the worst ever.
Before we get into it too much, like are vampires kind of a neutral faction or a bad faction
or a good faction? Like what's their kind of alignment?
They're definitely bad. The closest to good are probably the Lamians again and that's
not because they're necessarily good. It's because...
They're selfishly doing what they want and it's kind of helpful. Is that the kind of
thing?
They're just stealthy about it. Like imagine vampire Illuminati and that's kind of what
the Lamians are like. The rest of them are much more overt. I've just raised 10,000 zombies
from this graveyard. I'm going to come take you over now.
Okay.
I'll talk, that being said, a little bit more about vampirism later on. What it does to
a person because it'll be relevant later on. But mostly they're definitely evil. Like usually
when chaos is the main threat, it's the vampires doing something.
Okay.
So Neferada, vampirism is a thing now. One of the vampires she then created was either
her husband or was just some noble who created the lie that he was her husband because it
makes himself look more legit. And this guy, either way, he wasn't service. He was helping
the early vampires on for a while. And then he saw things were going to go real bad. So
he dipped. He got out of Nehekara, the ancient land of the Tomb Kings where Negash is from
and where all the fun times were going on as he was just about, Negash was about to
kill everyone in there. He saw the writing on the wall and dipped. He went to Cathay
apparently for a little while.
Cathay, ooh, the elusive Cathay.
Going back to Warhammer China for a bit. And he helped advise them on how to handle the
chaos marauders that tried to invade that place every five minutes. And then they found
it he was a vampire and it was time for him to get out of Dodge. So he did. And after
an indeterminate amount of time, he flees to the Old World and changes his name to Vlad
Von Karstein. The progenitor of, you probably guessed it, the Von Karstein bloodline. So
change scene, let's go forward a few thousand years. 1797 and the Imperial Calendar. There's
a nobleman of the Empire province of Sylvania named Otto and he is about to die.
Oh, that's not good.
Well, he's kind of a jerk.
Oh, so yeah, okay, that's fine.
Sylvania nobles are generally not great at doing anything but being corrupt and useless.
And he's no exception. He's just the one in charge of the province. So he's a bit more
notable for that. He has a daughter named Isabella and his brother, the nobleman's brother,
wants to marry his daughter. So, you know, we've got some good old classic Habsburg politicking
going on here in order to become the new ruler of Sylvania. His, you know, Isabella's father
Otto, the guy in his deathbed, obviously did not want this because if nothing else, he
wasn't a fan of the family tree that's a Christmas wreath. So he tried to marry her off, Isabella,
to anyone. Problem was the only guy he thought was worthy of it killed himself to avoid the
marriage and no one else wanted anything to do with it.
What did he do that for? That's pretty drastic.
He didn't want to be in a forced marriage. So clearly there was only one way out.
Oh, okay.
Kind of sad.
Kind of sad. A little sad. Fear not because one dark and stormy night Vlad appears and
offers his hand at marriage. Otto is pretty desperate at this point and agrees and then
he dies.
Oh.
Vlad celebrates this marriage by listening to Isabella's request and rips her uncle's
heart out of his chest and then tosses him off Castle Drakenhof's battlements. The, like
you were saying, Castle Hotel Transylvania. This is the main big old vampire castle.
So it's like the idea that he just like falls off the ramparts and then someone below is
like, what was that about? And then it just takes a while for everything to click into
like he didn't, I guess there was no repercussion for him chucking a guy over the ramparts.
Not particularly. There were some nobles who did, you know, object to this random guy showing
up. Why is he married? Why does he get to be in charge now?
He's been here his day and he's already like murdered someone.
Yeah. That being said, anyone who disagreed either was won over by Vlad's charisma because
as I'll talk about, he's actually a pretty cool guy for a vampire or they were just unpersoned.
They just disappeared and were probably eaten at that. So yeah, Vlad's now in charge.
And married to Isabella. And funny enough, Warhammer does not have much in the way of
love stories. Understandably, it's a tabletop war game. But Vlad and Isabella actually came
to love each other, which I just find really cute. Initially, he just wanted, you know,
to marry her for powers. Like, well, it's time to start climbing back up the social
ladder. My homeland is currently nothing but mummies. I think I'll chill out here for a
bit. Bit of a mummies boy. But yeah, they did actually come to generally love each other.
And when she found out he was a vampire, she begged him to turn her into one as well because
she wanted to be with him forever. And he refused at first because he did not want her
to have to go through that to become an undead like him. And then she was dying of illness
and he was like, oh shit, I can't live without her because they'd fallen so deeply in love.
And he made her a vampire. Here's a question. Would you, if you ever found a vampire and
they were like, I can turn you into a vampire, would you take up the offer or would you refuse?
Is it like, are we, is it a Warhammer vampire? I'm thinking like what we do in the shadows,
vampires, where it's a bit of a lark and you get to live forever. You can only drink blood
or you'll throw up. But like you get to have a good time. You know, there's just some things
that you can't go out in daylight and yeah, it's a, it's a bit of, you know, you don't
like werewolves. I gotta be honest. I'd probably flip a coin because I, I don't know. I quite
like going out with friends and doing stuff, but you know, as long as I make sure to do
it at night. Yeah. But I don't know. Maybe if it was a Warhammer vampire, it'd be more
inclined because the vampire weaknesses in Warhammer are one of the gotchigan Felix books.
One of them was actually talking about it. Like this person was asking a vampire who
had recently been turned and I'm not going to name any names to avoid spoilers. Okay.
She was like, so what, what, what about all these weaknesses? How did this work? What's,
what's going on? And he's like, well, you know, for some vampires you, you even look
at the sun, you explode. Other of them, it's just mildly inconvenient. Uh, some of them
can't go past rushing water. Others freely can. Water? They can't go past water. That
seems really tame. That's a thing. Rushing vampires can't cross flowing water. Uh, but
at least in Warhammer, some of them can cause the vampiric, the vampiric curses seem to
just randomly work or not work on certain vampires. Uh, like some of them, if they even,
like if they, if you flash a symbol of Sigmar at them, they just melt. Other of them will
just laugh at you and kill you. So wait, so Sig, is this uniquely a Sigmar thing or any
divine being? It's like they can smite the vampires cause like Sigmar, he's got that,
that Norse mythology influence on my, so he, he melts vampires. I thought there'd be like,
there'd be like a more pious. Any, any divine being can be pretty good against them. Uh,
but Nagash fought Sigmar and lost and he was not impressed with the vampire's help. So
one of his additional curses he gave to them, which, oh, that's another aside, a lot of
their weaknesses and curses they have, yeah, Nagash gave it to them for, because he was
annoyed with them. Uh, and weakness to Sigmar's power specifically was one of the ones he
gave them. So that wasn't even Sigmar's doing, that was Nagash doing it on his behalf. It
was, yeah, Nagash basically gifting them a weakness to Sigmar because he is just the
biggest dickhead in Warhammer. Sigmar was on his cloud with Warhammer like, don't blame
me, I didn't do anything and Nagash is just there like, on his throne of skulls or whatever
it is. I know people say Avadon can be like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, but Nagash
is just straight up his. Yeah. That's why I love him, because he's just an irritable
piece of shit. Yeah. His big hat. Oh, I love him. Let's, uh, to get back to the counts,
we now have, uh, Vlad and Isabella, the power couple. Now I said I'd talk a little bit about
what vampirism does to someone. So it is important to note that in this setting, at least it
doesn't add anything or change like your personality. What it does is it exemplifies what's already
there. So if you're a, you know, you're an honorable knight, uh, riding the combat, you're
going to turn into the biggest like war mongering, just crusader, uh, who will refuse to fight
anyone if they do not fit the exact criteria for honorable combat. Like it exemplifies what's
already there. So it's kind of like the Captain America effect where it's like he was picked
because he was really good boy. Yeah. He became a really good boy, like best boy. Yeah. And
theoretically if some, you know, some like, you know, decently charitable person became
a vampire, they would turn into like the ultimate mother, Teresa. Okay. It's just that the people
who become vampires are generally people seeking, you know, power hungry assholes or are turned
into vampires by other vampires because they think they'd be good for their schemes. Yeah.
It's a very gatekeeping community. Like we're only going to adopt really nasty people. Yeah.
So there are a couple of stories about, uh, decent vampires. One of them, if you remember
that Imperial vampire lady with the ridiculously long name from the Empire quiz, that was,
there's her, uh, once again in the Godric and Felix books, there's a vampire character
who's actually pretty chill, uh, and naturally, uh, slept with Felix because Felix is just
puts out like no one's business. Oh dear. It doesn't just turn you into a jerk, but
it's just usually the people who are vampires are jerks to begin with. Yeah. Comes to the
territory. Yeah. And I bring all this up because Vlad as, you know, originally a fairly noble
and the Hacker and ruler, uh, you know, even though he took up a Dracula accent at some
point was, you know, a decent guy and Sylvania, meanwhile, has just always been one of the
last places you want to live in the Empire. Uh, it's dark magic has always been abundant
there. Uh, warpstone meteors crashing into the place. It doesn't help because hell rock
is not what you want raining down, but in Sylvania it does. So before we go any further,
so you say Sylvania is in the Empire. Yes, it is officially, it was an independent province
and I'll get to it's modern times later. It is at least on paper and Imperial province.
Right. So it's in that kind of Germanic from our map reference. It's in that kind of space
in the kind of, yeah, if, uh, if you'd like to based off the real world, because the Warhammer
fantasy map is like a screwed up version of earth. Yeah. Uh, go to Germany and then go
to Romania and that's roughly where Sylvania is located. Well, that kind of checks out.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. It's, it's just Transylvania, but they took the
Transylvania. Oh, not a, not the cleverest naming for this one. Uh, but I mean it fits
because that's where the vampires are around. So, yeah, exactly. Oh, but, uh, yeah, it's
beyond even like all of the evil stuff. It's always been there. It's towards the edge of
the vampire or pardon me, towards the edge of the empire for you start getting mountains
where the dwarfs are. Uh, it's always been somewhat underpopulated and everyone there
is both incredibly superstitious and uneducated. So it's just not seen as a worthwhile province
even when it was independent and somewhat under imperial control. Also granted, I don't
know, it's kind of hard to blame them for the superstition when you bury grandma and
there's a pretty good odds she's going to come back and try to eat you. Could not say,
you know, I wouldn't be superstitious in those circumstances too. Kind of a feeding ground,
so to speak, of superstition. Yeah. Uh, but you know, for the rest of the empire who don't
have to put up with that, they're like, you know, they're just a bunch of stupid dumb
people. Yeah, yeah. Obstitious idiots. Ha ha ha. Look at my gun go boom. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, but under Vlad and Isabella's rule, it actually got a little bit better. Uh, it helps
that the, no, uh, again, Vlad was actually a somewhat decent ruler. Uh, he had a little
bit of an anger problem and that if you made him angry, he was going to paint the wall
with your blood. Oh. Uh, but Isabella would calm him down. Uh, she was the only person
who could in fact. And when he wasn't having these fits of rage, it was, things got better.
Not by much, because again, it's ruled by a vampire and filled with dark magic, but
better enough that the rest of the Imperial nobles and officials didn't really look into
how the different leaders of Sylvania looked pretty much identical over 200 years, a couple
hundred years because of the same people. Um, uh, you know, they would change their
name so he wasn't always. He just occasionally wear a wig. I, yeah. I was slightly like,
I can just imagine one cast I'm putting on a big bushy mustache, like attack on one.
Yeah. Yes. I'm completely different person now. My name is Bobby. I come from the Empire.
Do not ever go with me. Bobby. Yeah. He'd wear a wig and change his name to Vlad. I
cut down trees. It's fine. Don't worry. It's fine. I'm not a vampire. I'm just a silly
guy. Yeah. And you know, the taxes and everything also arrived on time, so no one bothered to
do anything about it or looking at the matter at all. Meanwhile, Vlad and Isabella got to
turning many of the nobles into vampires, which also funnily enough helped things become
better because as vampires, they had to serve Vlad and Isabella who were at least as far
as vampires go, somewhat decent people. So they kind of beholden with the vampirism,
are they like chains to them? Yeah. Uh, they're in the, you're kind of bound to the person
who creates you a vampire or makes you one in Warhammer. Okay. Uh, it's kinda, sometimes
it's a little flip floppy and how strong this compulsion is. Sometimes it's kind of like
a little mental link where your master's like, Hey, you should do this. And then usually
cause your master's a hundred times stronger than you, you do it. Sometimes it's more of
an outright compulsion. Like you physically feel the need to do what they want. Yeah.
He's like, I've invented a new form of cryptocurrency. You're like, ah, sounds amazing. I can't wait
to hear what it's called. Okay. Yes. Vlad von Karstein. I will invest in your shit coin.
Exactly. Yeah. Vlad coin for the win. So yeah. And they even started their own little weird
quote unquote family of vampires, uh, with Conrad von Karstein, who is absolutely insane
and Manfred von comes or all right. Manfred von Karstein. Uh, also noun as you can also,
uh, I'd like to give them some nicknames. As you probably know, I was about to get to,
uh, we have Manlet von Karstein, Manlet von Komsdain. I was going to say that was the
one that you slipped into briefly. I was like, Oh, he doesn't sound like a nice person at
this rate. Okay. Uh, bald, Fred von bald Stein, the balding and the guy who single single
handedly caused the world to end. I'm not a fan of Manfred. So the bold people are bad
trope carries over very strongly into Warhammer fantasy then. Yeah. It, uh, it is a trope
quite prevalent in games workshop writings apparently. Uh, but you know, they're not,
I mean, you know, they're all evil, at least Conrad and Manfred are, but you know, for
now they're in charge of Sylvania. Things are going decently. And then some lady found
out who they were because she remembers stories of her grandma saying, uh, when I was little,
I remember when the, the nice nobleman lady came, you know, came to power and the, the
nobleman lady, when her grandma was a kid, it looked an awful lot like Isabella. And
then she did some research. She found out Vlad's real name was Vlad, same guy from a
couple hundred years ago. And the secret was out. Oh no. Even the dumbest Sylvania and
peasant knows what's going on now. Oh no. Uh, the empire was, would have done something
about it, except it was also around this time. Vlad quite dislike decided, or he decided
he quite liked the idea of being the emperor himself. Oh, okay. Uh, so it's time for the
vampire wars to start. Now in warhammer, most vampires, one, even the weakest quote unquote
vampire can rip a man in half with minimal effort. Yeah. Two, they're all wizards. Uh,
they're all good at vampire blood magic and dark magic and all that stuff. Okay. So Vlad's
army was walking into a graveyard. A lot of those in Sylvania, raising all of the corpses
and he just marched out. And the funny thing about, uh, wars is they make a lot of corpses.
So whenever the empire fought Vlad, he just resurrect all the corpses from both sides.
And then his army got bigger and this kind of just snowballed across the empire. So George
R. R. Martin ripped off the vampire accounts for the game of throne series. Uh, I'll say,
I'll say yes. Cause I have not seen anything past like season six of episode one of game
of thrones. Yeah. Uh, but I'll say yes. Uh, cause I like warhammer more than game of thrones.
Uh, so that's going on and sometimes they'd kill Vlad. Uh, it didn't work well. Cause
one, you can resurrect vampires in this setting. Uh, most for most of the time, you know, you
gotta do some specific steps and stuff to do it. I was going to say it must be a ball.
Like if you're trying to like, it's not just like, oh, we just press a button. Like there
must be some skill involved. Yeah. I've liked to be too overpowered. Yeah. For most people,
it's not just press a button. Uh, but for Vlad, he had a magic ring that whenever he
died, it just brought him back to life. Okay. That's pretty cool. Nagash gave it to him
and was also going to use it to control him. Except Vlad being a pretty decent wizard broke
the compulsion curse or whatever it was that Nagash would have used. Okay. So he just has
life hacks now. He just has infinite Mario one up mushrooms. He's like, cheers Skelly
dude. I'll have that. You idiot. Thanks for that. See you later Bozo. Bye. So every time
they tried, uh, Vlad just would go no and come back. And he got to the Imperial capital
of Altdorf when a thief managed to steal his ring, uh, with some help from Manfred because
Manfred is a treacherous little weasel. Uh huh. I've never met anyone called Manfred.
We're just saying, I'm glad that name is not around anymore because it was a bit of a weird
name. It doesn't just, it just sounds evil. Doesn't it? It makes me think of Manlet, which
makes me think of like inferiority complex, which makes me think, Oh, bad person. Manlet
von Kumpstein. Exactly. He's, he's got the name for a reason. He's the worst. Uh, so
as Vlad gets to Altdorf, no longer has his magic ring. He dies in the battle as someone
tackles him onto a wooden stake. Both of them die, but good God is, was that man a absolute
mad unit, just mad lad. Uh, and the thing about vampires or undead in warhammer is they're
all animated by magic. Now this is okay when the leaders around, you know, like the vampire,
the powerful wizard, because on top of them being, you know, animating a massive army
of the undead, they're also super powerful. So you have an untiring undead army to just
keep getting thrown and rebuilt and resurrected at you. Okay. The problem with that is when
you kill the guy in charge, the army starts falling apart because they're all held up
by magic. And if you kill the guy, giving them the magic, controlling them with it.
Yeah. Yeah. They kind of, they kind of run out of magic. Right. So Vlad dies, uh, and
the siege begins to end as the army begins to crumble of the undead. Uh, Isabella was
also there. Isabella Juliet's herself, uh, cause she doesn't want to live without Vlad.
Uh, kind of pretty sad, uh, love story mostly ends there. Right. But on the bright side,
uh, vampires are gone. Uh, and then, and then Madford decides he'd quite like to try doing
it. So, you know, a little while goes by, Manford starts ransacking the empire. Uh,
doesn't work again. Manford gets pushed back to this place called the hell fun and is murdered
though they never find his corpse. They, uh, they killed them, but they can't find where
the corpse went. So three, uh, three guesses as to how well they really murdered him in
the end. And that pretty much brings up to what Sylvania is nowadays. Uh, it's just filled
with, it's just filled with vampires and the undead and necromancers, not a great place
to live. Uh, it's filled with all those vampires, the von Karstein's maid. So they're of that
bloodline and every now and then they just like to stir the pot and try and take over
the empire and just whatever.
No, even, even in their like weakened state, are they still the most prominent vampire
faction or are they kind of fallen from grace so much that they're not as powerful as the
other ones?
As far as at least the empire is concerned, yes, because the Lamian are again, they're
the vampire Illuminati. So they all do things from the shadows. Yeah. And a lot, and a lot
of the other ones aren't really predisposed towards the things the von Karstein's try
to do. Right. Like the Strigoi are for the most part, mindless beasts. Uh, so, you know,
a Strigoi showing up in your town is a big problem, but it's not the same kind of problem
as some. It's manageable. Yeah. It's, it's a, if you throw enough nights at that, it's
going to go away. It's not an undead genius wizard marching across your, your empire.
Yeah.
And the blood knights really just care about combat. Uh, if they drink the blood of a dragon,
it cures their thirst for blood. So blood of a dragon. That's pretty hard. Yeah. Uh,
not many of them do it. Dark souls flashbacks right now. Just like a vampire going up with
like a sword. Like, I'm just going to hack into shins for half an hour. It'll be fine.
Yeah. And so not many of them do it. And even then, because again, what I said about vampire
vampirism, amplifying your traits, they, uh, they're warriors. They concern themselves
with combat as like just for combat sake, more so than to conquer a lot of the time.
Yeah. So they seek out tough opponents and stuff. So they're in a way almost not worth
trying to deal with for the empire because a lot of the time, well, strong combats, the
vampires are going to fight chaos for a while. And that's just two birds with one stone as
far as they care. Hmm. Fair enough. And the necrarchs, necrarchs are their wizards. So
they sit in their tower for a while, do evil experiments. It's the, the von karstens are
still the most prominent, even after all this, uh, never again, quite as successful, but
they're still the, at least as far as the empire is concerned and they're the top vampire
dogs. Hey, uh, but yeah, they do, uh, they do lose prominence for a while in the lore
because they keep getting put down. So modern Sylvania, now that we're up to here, uh, again,
it sucks to live in. Uh, it's technically not its own province anymore. It's a part
of the empire province of sterland, but no one wants to touch the damn place because
ever since, you know, Vlad and all the vampires did their shenanigans, uh, it's just filled
with so many vampires and necromancers and undead, even when they're that, even when
they're not actively stirring the pot, it's just not worth it. I mean, to be honest, if
you were a worker bee in the empire, you probably smells, you don't want to be like, I'm going
to build a, like a house and it smells of rotten meat. Every day that sounds horrible.
I, well, yeah, I'm dead. Yuck. No, thanks. Plus every horror trope you can imagine is
in full effect there. Like there's ghosts, uh, werewolves are actually not too frequent
because they're not too much werewolf and warhammer lore. And believe it or not, I think
some of the werewolves, once again, I turned to Godric and Felix are actually followers
of one of the Imperial gods. So they kind of keep it on the down low that they're werewolves.
Uh, so I take it back. Almost every horror trope is in effect there, but you know, there's
banshees, there's ghosts, there's the undead, there's spooky swamps with monsters in them.
And do the undead all kind of like clump together as friends? Like, oh, you're a zombie, you're
a banshee, I'm a vampire. We get along or we just, we just tolerate each other.
Usually the vampires are the top dogs because they control, they have the magic. So they
bind everything to their will. Uh, zombies don't have any zombies aren't actually really
like personalities. They're just meat puppets controlled by magic. So whoever is controlling
them is the one the zombies are friends with. So there's no zombies without someone commanding
them. They didn't just exist on their own for the most part. They can, but if they do,
that's like, it's a random lone zombie. Uh, okay. Just shoot in the head with an arrow
and the problem will go away. Okay. Uh, but then you have Sylvania being such a focal
point of dark magic that necromancers and everything love it and vampires and everything
love it and ghosts and banshees and everything awful. That's not an orc or chaos related,
just loves it. So very few Hamlets like towns there, even the most populous ones do not
number more than a few thousand at most. It's just not worth it as far as the empire is
concerned. Uh, it's only officially under an imperial control because it's a little
bit easier that way for them to send witch hunters and the like to deal with the latest
vampire trying to pull something. So yeah, it's, it's just, it's a massive eyesore for
the empire really. It's like how Croydon is to London. Like, Oh, it's crap. Oh, that's
dangerous. It's rubbish. I'll take your word for it. That city's fitting. It's, it's like
Detroit. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like Croydon's like our version of Detroit, at least in London.
It's just like, yeah, don't go there as rough. It sucks. That's what Sylvania is. Uh, and
that, uh, and because of all the vampire wars, it's also spread vampire cultists across the
empire. So in Sylvania is the hotbed of them all because they know that's where the biggest
concentration of them is. So it's, it's like a lot of the time, I don't want to say it's
a war zone. It's like there's a shadow war going on where let's say you're a Sylvania
and peasant in the course of a week, you'll see like five different groups of witch hunters
and their soldiers Mark batch, March back and forth across the town. And then a vampire
will march across and then another witch hunter will come and kill them. And then so a necromancer
kills the witch hunter. It's just really unpleasant to live in Glasgow. Okay. And that's ignoring
the fact it looks like it's straight out of an RL Stein book. Yeah. What are those books
called? Oh no. The goose bumps. Thank you. Yeah. I remember the theme song perfectly,
but not the name. The thing is whenever I think of that theme song, I think of that
weird Shrek animation version and it's stuck in my brain whenever I see it. Oh well. Man,
I got in a while without remembering that. At least I'm not remembering the right thing.
So thanks for that coming back. Mm hmm. You're welcome. Yeah. And every now and then a vampire
will go, I think, I think it's time to recreate what Manfred and Vlad did a while ago and
try and start crap. And it's actually happened so many times that that Hellfen place where
they quote unquote killed Manfred, they stopped numbering the battles that take place there
because they think it just encourages the vampire to try again. So I'm not very creative
like, cause I can imagine they could do a lot if they actually applied like, okay, maybe
we should try something different. Like go somewhere else where they might be able to
apply themselves a bit better. Surely there's better targets than the empire.
There has been, there was one, I bet you can guess again, oh, what example is Colin about
to bring up? What book series is he reading on? Uh, Godric and Felix. I was going to say,
is it Godric and Felix? It is Godric and Felix. They get around guys. Uh, where there was
a Lami and vampire, I believe, who was starting crap at the edge of where the tomb kings,
the mummies live. Okay. In one of the jungles. So they do get around. It's just, uh, even
Warhammer fantasy, it is still very, you know, the main human nation centric, uh, not quite
as focused on the empire of man as it is on the Imperium and 40 K, but they do still have
the focus. So it's just a matter of this is where all the authors are writing. Uh, I feel
like they, they, they're missing a trick with Norsca cause it's probably like, there's probably
so many bodies under the snow that it's too cold to get to. You could be like, raise all
them up. I'm cold blooded. I don't mind the cold and you could probably do something there,
but like, Oh, it's not as appealing as the empire. I guess they can do that. It's just
the farther North you go, the stronger the presence, the chaos gods have, and they don't
like the competition. Undead, undead magic and Warhammer fantasy and age of sigma is
actually pretty good at countering chaos because the way it works is it basically, it flips
the laws or flips the middle finger at the laws of both the reality and chaos as much
as chaos has laws. Uh, because you know, chaos is ever changing and wacky and all that zine
stuff and mortal beings generally are not sustained by magic. I just, I just like the
idea of like maybe undead bear cavalry and the other side, that would be cool. A vampire
riding an undead bear to fight chaos. That'd be cool. Yeah, that would be pretty awesome.
Uh, the blood dragons do every now and then go and fight them. It's just the problem of,
uh, bloodthirsty warriors who only care about combat. Khorne is a big fan of what the blood
dragons come knocking. A lot of the times if they don't outright join Khorne, uh, it's
a big old battle where no one wins. I like the idea that Khorne has a tattoo that just
says blood on his abs and he's like, I love blood. Look, raises his shirt like, see? It's
my favorite word. Guys, come on, come on. Join me. It'll be a great time. We love blood here.
He's like, three guesses where I've tattooed the word skull. You get a bonus. Where I put
that one. First two don't count if you get them wrong. Now, uh, before we move on to
the inevitable part of any Warhammer fantasy lore discussion, uh, any, any questions, anything
you feel might be a bit missing? I could clarify a bit. Um, so I'm just saying, uh, cause,
cause this is, this is particularly about the Von Karstein and Sylvania faction. Um,
I'm just thinking like it's, it must've been very devastating that bit where you were saying
about when Vlad died. Um, the only thing I'm thinking is like, how did someone get close
enough to impale him on a massive spike? Like that, that seems like a really like it goes.
I was like some rando cowarizian just went, oh, just tackled him. And he was like, I'm
in very close proximity to a stake. It just seems a bit, you know, were they already losing
the battle quite catastrophically or was it lucky or is there any, is there any information
about that? It was basically after the, uh, after he got his ring stolen, uh, by a man
named Felix man. Funny enough, I guess if your name is Felix and you're hammer fantasy,
you just predisposed towards BS. Yeah. Uh, after he stole Vlad's ring, he was furious.
And as the siege of the Imperial capital of Altdorf was going on, he was just like, all
right, that's it. We're throwing down. I'm getting my ring back. Let's go. Yeah. So the
guy who did it, he was, it was basically like an all or nothing thing. Um, plus like he
wasn't winning the fight. Like it was a, is it Wilhelm? He wasn't winning the flight against
Vlad. He was getting his ass handed to him. He just saw that if I don't, if we don't save
the day now, like right now we're screwed. So in a hail Mary, he tackled, he tackled,
he tackled Vlad off the battlements onto the spikes. I'm guessing in the empire, in the
empire's history, he's revered as a hero then. If he's done that big of a deal. Yeah. They're,
they're, they're fans of Wilhelm. Uh, they even, uh, buried Vlad under his body just
to really make sure he's not getting in. Oh, and then there's like, oh, and his, his, his
missus was just like, ah, we just buried her somewhere. We don't care. Like we just want
him to sit on top of his grave. So he'd just be like, Nina, Nina, Nina, Nina, look at my
bottom in all of death. You need to sit and look at the man who killed you. Yeah. Yeah.
That's pretty wretched. I love it. I love it though. Just even let the plaque outside.
Just like here is buried Wilhelm, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And some other dude,
they just don't even mention his name. Excuse me. Some jerk, some jerk that he killed. Yeah.
Uh, they, I think they also, uh, stuffed garlic in Vlad's mouth, buried it on sacred ground
and tied it up with silver wire. They were not taking any chances. You would have thought
like just inter him in a silver coffin. That would do the job, wouldn't it? Uh, I couldn't
find anything specifically on his coffin. Well, it's a warhammer setting. There's golden
statues every five feet. I'm sure they would, they're sure they would have gone the extra
mile. I was just saying maybe, maybe the empire of penny pinches. I'm not sure. Well, I know
Marcus Trubber and vermitide complaints about taxes a lot, but complaining about taxes is
hardly something unique to warhammer. Yeah. Especially when you mentioned the, the Gottrick
and Felix one where it's like the window tax. I'm like, I know about that from real history.
Yeah. Uh, so, you know, they have, they have their taxes and penny pinching ways, but I
didn't find anything on what the coffin was made out of, but I can't imagine they skimped
on it. Yeah. You just, you could just literally fill it with clothes of garlic and then make
it out of silver and that would do the job. Surely. Uh, pretty much what they did, except
a vampire, uh, strong armed, a grave digger into digging up Vlad's grave and it was empty.
Oh, so he might be around somewhere or he's been taken. His body has been taken somewhere.
I will get to him in the end times. Although that being said, now that I'm actually just
remembering it, uh, uh, got trick and Felix short story. What a surprise. Someone tries
to like a cabal of necromancers who have been trying to resurrect Vlad for a while does
it right. Got trick and Felix interrupted. And funnily enough, Manfred von Karstein also
interrupts it because he does not want Vladdy daddy back because then he wouldn't be in
charge anymore. Yeah. And the minds him. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so it half succeeds and Vlad comes
back, but he's like this bestial mindless beast. Oh, so it's actually cool. Got trick
and Manfred both team up and beat the shit out of the monster. And then Manfred runs
away cause he doesn't want to fight got trick because it's got trick. Yeah. You're going
to get in trouble. Anything. Kratos of the, of the universe. Anything in melee range with
got trick is swiftly going to be on existed. Yeah. Uh, but anything else, uh, to let me
put off the end times or, uh, I mean, the, the only, I mean, before the end times, I'm
assuming that since they've been, since the silver aliens have been diminished, they haven't
done much since then. I'm again, I'm guessing they're like, they're like one of those factions
where they're just kind of, they're being a nuisance here and there, but they're not
actually, they're not like a main player or am I wrong in that? They, they kind of go
through periods. It's like those vampire wars and then things die down as the vampires gather
their strength and get their wits back after the empire and the dwarves put them down.
Uh, cause the doors, a lot of the time they hate the most of the undead. They think it's
unnatural, which to be fair, very right vampires are the worst. Uh, so they, the, after they
get put down, they kind of gather their strength. Um, and then in warhammer fantasy battles
for a while, it was a gearing up to where, you know, every, all the evil factions were
on the march. So, you know, our Kayon was getting ready for the great invasion of chaos.
Grimgore was gathering the orcs, uh, you know, Malekith was getting ready to take back Ulthuan
and the vampires, uh, Manfred was getting ready to do something real spicy. Okay. And sure
enough, now we get to the end times. Uh, Manfred does something real spicy and resurrects Nagash.
Oh, he resurrects Nagash. Uh, yeah. Him and Nagash's right-hand man, Arkan, uh, they kidnap
the basically the Pope of the empire. Uh, so Nagash can use his body to possess and
resurrect himself with as well as the daughter of the ever queen of the high elves who, what
they planned was because ever queens basically have a bit of the, they're like a composite
soul. So the soul of the previous ever queen goes to the next and then that goes into the
next and when they die and on and on. And there's also a bit of the Elven God Isha's
power in them. So they figure, Oh, let's just take the daughter and then we get all that
sweet elf soul power. Uh, and Nagash is even stronger. Right. Uh, doesn't work because
the previous ever queen is still alive. Uh, and so this daughter, Aliahthra is really
just a, it just, it's like when you want to move, like you want to move a decoration from
one part of your house to the other, like you want to put something on a different shelf,
but you haven't moved it yet. Uh, she's basically, Aliahthra is basically an empty shelf going
to get a bunch of soul juice. She doesn't have the soul juice yet because the current
ever queen, Elariel is still alive. Uh, I'm just surprised anyone would want to revive
Nagash considering how much of a dick he is. I'm like, why are they like, Oh, he's gone.
You see, Arkin generally thinks Nagash is the only, like one of the only ways to survive
chaos, which is why he does it. Manfred thinks I'm going to backstab him and take all of
Nagash's power. And then Nagash comes back and eats the God of the dead in the Warhammer
world. And then Manfred realizes, Oh man, I done, I got what I asked for. Didn't I?
Whoops. Yeah. Uh, so Nagash is back. Uh, Volkmar the Grim, the Pope's name, he's dead. He's
gone. Uh, as for Aliahthra though, uh, funny thing about her, like I said, no Elven super,
you know, God souls in her yet. Uh, but she's the son of this elf called Tyrion. And that
is important because, uh, he has this funny thing called the curse of Cain in his bloodline.
Oh, that Elven dude that gets, that gets ganked by the ultramarines. Cool. We were in the
other setting. Cain is actually a war God in this setting. He's actually good. He is.
He gave Slaanesh a permanent scar that never healed. He's actually competent in Warhammer
fantasy. Does he look the same? He does. Uh, not quite the same actually. I'll, uh, I'll
send a picture of him. Uh, well, uh, he, it's mostly the same. Cause in the 40k he's got
like the sword and he's got the, the, the volcanic flesh thing going on. I'm like, that could
be quite interchangeable I would have thought. He, yeah, it's, you can tell it's like, yeah,
it's still Cain. Uh, but he's a lot like he's spikier and his sword is a lot slimmer and
more curved. Yeah. Yeah. You can still, you know, look and go, yeah, that's clearly Cain,
but his helmet, like there's not the, his helmet's a bit different looking swords, different
lot more spikes. Still angry looking. Still very angry looking. He hasn't had any coffee
for a week and he hasn't slept. He's like, I'm angry. Yeah. And, uh, because, you know,
Aliafra, the elf they were sacrificing to bring back Nagash and power boost him, uh,
has, is a descendant of the bloodline that Cain has cursed. Uh, Nagash just gets the
curse, just inherits that instead of all of the elven god of life's power. Okay. Uh, but
he's still stronger than anyone on the planet at this point. So Sylvania goes from being
just kind of a shithole, uh, to Nagash's new home because Nagash goes back to Nahakara,
blows it up, uh, takes his big old magical black pyramid made out of warpstone, uh, hovers
it over to Sylvania, uh, across several continents. He just floats it over. It can fly apparently.
Is, is that a, um, is that a parallel to a blackstone fortress or is that just like,
it's also a pyramid-y looking thing? Uh, I don't think it's, it's not really a parallel
to a blackstone fortress cause those are, you know, they're like the mysterious Eldar
artifact thingy. Yeah. I was just thinking it's pyramidic. It's, it's like jet black.
Maybe it's similar. Maybe this, like Nagash's pyramid was kind of an inspiration, but like
those are weapon kind of things. This is just his big pyramid that he made, one to help
him with magic and two to piss off the tomb kings by building a bigger pyramid than the
best tomb king. Mine's bigger than yours. Pretty much. Sounds like something Nagash
would do to be honest. Yeah. So he floats. His hat's so big. He's just like, my hat's
bigger than yours. It's massive. And every time they're like, I've made mine slightly
bigger. And he's like, right, fine. My two feet. I've added two feet. I'm going to make
it much bigger. Yeah, exactly. So that happens. Uh, everyone, like the chaos gods are not
a fan of that because the gas has just shown, well, he just ate a God were gods and his
goals are pretty anathema to theirs. Like he wants to replace chaos with just in a gash.
He wants to be the unending God of everything. Uh, so after he floats his pyramid over, uh,
Nergal demons try to invade Sylvania, uh, and the Skaven do the funny, the funny explosion
and nuke his pyramid. Uh, Nagash throws a hissy fit and kills the entire Nergal demon
army with one blow, uh, because his version of a hissy fit is a WMD. Uh, but you know,
he's lost his black pyramid that he was going to use to make himself stronger with. So he's
getting, he's kind of out of ideas. So we leave Sylvania for a bit. Uh, Nagash is by
this point he's back. So he's in charge of all of the undead remaining. So in the end
times for a while the undead are really just Nagash's foot soldiers or whatever he needs
them to be. Uh, he actually does bring back Vlad. Uh, and then says, yeah, I'll totally
resurrect Isabella one day if you, uh, you know, if you serve me and just hold that over
Vlad's head. Couldn't do one nice thing in his life. No, he couldn't. No, he couldn't.
Unfortunately Nergal demons resurrect Isabella. Oh no. So that's not great. No, she's a stinky.
Oh no. Uh, so as all this is happening, Nagash and all the undead go to the Wood Elf Forest
with the big old fancy tree of life. Right. Uh, ally with everyone living by this point.
Uh, Nagash or not Nagash, uh, Vlad actually talks to Karl Franz and it's a pretty funny
interaction because by this point, most of the other elector, elector counts that could
become the emperor are dead. Uh, so Vlad goes to, you know, Karl Franz is like, you know,
if you die, I'm a, I'm, I'm up to be the emperor. And then Karl Franz just goes, well, you need
to be alive to be the emperor dickhead. And since he's undead, he's not technically alive.
So not eligible, go back to where he came from. I smack you with my hammer.
And all that's happening, uh, Nagash and the living ally. And then it's time for the finale
of the end times. And so they all go to the, uh, they all go to, you know, big final battle.
A chaos rift is opening much like the ones on the North and Southern poles. Uh, the vampires
are, you know, fighting chaos. The side of order is fighting chaos. You know, the elves,
the dwarves, the humans, uh, one of the elves teleports all of the orcs in the world, uh,
to that point. And now they're fighting chaos, uh, because tech versus techless is a bit
of a broken mage. He is mid max to the extreme. Just like the, who's just like, oh, the orcs,
um, smash. They're cool. They're here now. Uh, to briefly get away from, from the vampires
is I'd like this, uh, Grimgor iron hide, the prophet of Gork nearly kills Archaon doesn't
succeed. Oh, does why not? That sounds cool. Uh, you know how Abaddon has dracnian? Oh
yeah. Sort of the demon in it. Archaon has his own version of it and Grimgor head butts
him so hard that his helmet with the eye in it, they can see the future breaks. Oh, uh,
and then Archaon has to shatter his sword and release the demon in it to kill Grimgor.
Right. Uh, but you know what? He still put up a good show of it. As for the vampires,
uh, they're fighting, you know, they're doing what they can. The eight and the incarnates,
uh, which the people that, uh, I briefly talked about the winds of magic and warhammer before
each, there's eight of them proper ones and each wind inhabited a person. Okay. So the
ones that are left are trying to close this chaos rift. And then Manfred walks on the
scene and he goes, yes, this is the perfect time to stab someone in the back. I, nothing
can go wrong here. So he walks up to the incarnate of metal, Balthasar Gelt, while he is closing
the ever expanding chaos rift that is threatening to destroy the world. And he goes, yeah, I
think I'm going to stab him through the back now. And he does. He stabs Balthasar Gelt
in the back. Thank you, Manfred. Very cool. Uh, you know, Gelt dies cause swords don't
belong in people's spine, uh, believe it or not. That's pretty bad for you. Not, not great.
Not great. Uh, and then Tyrion, uh, stabs Manfred in the back with a sword with that
has the power of the sun in it. So he ultra explodes, which is a bit of revenge for killing
his daughter way back when. Problem is the world is now ending. Cause one of the guys
who was keeping chaos from overtaking it just got stabbed. Uh, the Elven wizard who brought
all the orcs here tries to take Balthasar Gelt's wind of magic into himself, but he
already had to do this with someone else. Uh, so now that there's a third wind inside
of him, he explodes, rift is overtaking everything. The world is doomed. Nagash is crumbling into
nothingness. Uh, the last living vamp or at least one of the last vampires, Neferada,
who was the first one she's still around, uh, retreats to Sylvania with her, I believe
it's her cousin, uh, who was a tomb queen and you know, that's they make up cause boy
did they hate each other for a while. Uh, but no, it's the end of the world. The vampire
and the mummy make friends. And the second to last bit of the Warhammer worlds destruction
actually takes place in Sylvania as all of the remaining undead and living people still
left make a final stand against chaos as it consumes Sylvania into nothingness. That is
the end of the vampire counts in Warhammer fantasy, I'm afraid. So, so they got, they
got messed up by their own top dog and Fred and he's like, yeah, this is a good idea.
Manfred's not like thinking ahead, like maybe chaos is a problem. I shouldn't be interfering
with like, nah, it's fine. Whoops. Not even enough brain power to go. Maybe wait till
the rift just after the rift is closed and then stand. No, no, it had to be now. It had
to be now. Setting needs to add. What a dumb dumb. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, that is the vampire
counts and Sylvania, uh, Von Karstein's specifically while I'm at it. Are there any final questions?
Uh, oh, I should mention also that Manfred survives in the age of Sigmar because of course
he does. What? Why? He got blown up by a sun sword. That's not fair. I believe last I checked
the reasoning was, uh, because he is still a pretty powerful vampire wizard and the gash
can yank them around by their chain pretty easily. So hold on, but didn't you say that
the gash crumbled into bits at the end of, uh, it turns out chaos locked him in a, like
this fancy magic crypt thing and then Sigmar broke him out and then they went on a buddy
cop adventure for a while before the gash became interesting betrayed Sigmar because
these people do not learn their idol is scream. Uh, but yeah, he's Manfred as for why he survived.
It's because in part because he is pretty capable, uh, in part because, uh, Nagashi
uses his constant treacherous scheming to, you know, keep his edge sharp and in part
because he makes a funny like fall guy. So whenever anything goes wrong, the gash just
beats up Manfred like a chew toy. Would it be fair to say that Manfred is the cockroach
at the warhammer fantasy universe? At this point, I think it would be pretty fair. Uh,
I'd say that could also apply to the skaven, but I think cockroaches are easier to get
rid of than the skaven. Yeah, they're likely that the tardigrades, you know, those little
like bear micro things that just like we can ex we can survive explosions of nuclear proportions
and they're like, yeah, cool. But just more violent versions of them with teeth and claws.
Yeah, I know. Like the cat, the counts sound interesting. The vampire sound interesting.
It's just the case of like, they don't seem to have the best ideas of what to do with
their time. That's all I'm going to say. No, a lot of them. I think it'd be so useful.
Uh, you know, I'll give Vlad credit. He wanted to be in charge and he almost did it, uh,
you know, evil, but I can't fault him for what he did. He seemed to have a pretty, pretty
good idea on how to do it until he lost his magical ring and fought war hammer fantasy,
Leroy Jenkins, who tackled him on to his spike. I can't blame, I can't blame Vlad. Uh, I
was going to say, um, the other thing was when you mentioned like the dwarves, I know
you got chaos dwarves. Has there ever been a vampire dwarf? Or is that just heresy? Off
the top of my head, I can't name any specifics. I believe I've read some Lord where they are
at least implied to exist in very small numbers. Uh, but dwarves do not like vampires. Uh,
they hate orcs and chaos more, but that's, that's like a matter of saying, Oh, this terminal
disease is worse than the other terminal disease. Like, yeah, you know, yeah. I, I, I, I'm glad
I don't have cancer. I just have diabetes. I don't like diabetes. Yeah. I know. I just
like the idea of like a dwarf going, I'll have this if it can help me defeat the other
factions. I hate even more. Like, I'll take this on, but like really mess people up. Uh,
usually at least the passage I read and it's been a while I'd have to go back and find
it implied that it was more result of the invasions than getting forcefully vampirized.
Not so much a dwarf was like, well, if I do this, I can really mess up the orcs. As
well as dwarfs just like, I need a sharper ax and a bigger one and I'll be fine. That's
all will be good. Uh, but yeah. Um, yeah. Uh, but uh, they're definitely the rest of the,
the rest of them. Yeah. They're, uh, they're not as big a threat. Like they're not as legendary
as a Vlad or Manfred. So they don't cause as big of a ruckus, but they do. Like I said,
uh, at the beginning, if chaos isn't the main threat, it's probably the vampires. So they
do get up to shenanigans. It's just a lot of the time they've, they need a, they need
a break to gather their wits. They catch their wind. They don't have either the North pole
or the realm of chaos to just retreat back to at any given moment. So they gotta, they
gotta lay low for a while if they're defeated. Use the zombies as fodder. Like just take
care of them for a minute while we catch our breath. It's fine. That's yeah. That's, and
that's a valid use of how to, how to do it. Tire them out, fight the super zombies and
then the superhuman knights charge you down. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, I, uh, definitely one
of the factions I wish there was a more direct equivalent of in 40 K. I love the undead factions
and fantasy. It's a bit of a shame we don't have like an equivalent with, uh, I mean,
I mean the Necrons are kind of being there undead thing in 40 K, but yeah, they're like,
they're kind of like the tomb Kings after their, you know, that rewrite way back when,
uh, you know, now they have all got wacky personalities and fight each other just like
the tomb Kings, but they're still like, you know, the robot, the robots, like they're
not true on dad. They're like trans human, you know, crazy robots, not like the proper
undead like yes, some magic dude is puppeting this guy's corpse and then doing that a million
times over. There's not, there's no quite negash equivalent to just be the worst person
ever in 40 K. Even, even the stuff in 40 K with like Nergal is more like, oh, he's,
he's like kind of, he's strangely naive and a bit silly, you know, oh, Nergal is just
like, I'm giving gifts and being a nice, but it's like, I don't know if, I don't know
if like all that pus and everything counts as a blessing. Oh, well, that's a bit of a
nasty gift. And he's like, Oh, well get my ladle, make a nice potion. Like naughty boy,
stop it. And then there isn't that, like there isn't the malevolence I find of like negash
or the vampire counts to an extent where there's just no other than Abaddon who's more of a
stilted like my dad was going to be in charge. And then he got told off and obliterated.
I'm angry now. Like there's, there's not like the equivalent of negash. Yeah, I'll do it
then fine. My dad was cringe or he shows up. He's like, I'm the big threat now. I'm going
to be the worst person in the galaxy. You all could go to hell and I'll send you there
myself. Yeah. Oh yeah. I, like I said, I do wish there was something that, oh, maybe one
future release, but for now we just have the vampire counts. Is there a, yeah. How was
a, have you, do you feel more informed on the faction that I accidentally left out completely?
I do. And they're interesting in that. I like the idea of like what you were saying about
the whole thing with like Vlad and his missus, like having like more to them than just being
the evil undead people. It's like, oh no, they have like motivations beyond that. And
that's quite interesting. And I can imagine how the dynamic is where it's like, they're
not accepted by pretty much most the people in the unit, in the setting. And yeah, I don't
really want to know anything else about Manfred. He just sounds like a pain in the ass. But
you know, the rest of them, you know. Yeah. Yeah. He's the worst. I think it's Nagash
because at least Nagash is a dickhead on design. He's just not a dutch. He's not, it's fun
when he does it. Yeah. He's like a Scooby Doo villain. And yeah, I hope this was a good
little introduction. There's, as with the same with the last fireside, there's of course
a lot more, but you know, these are the, these are the nice little introductory little bites
to Warhammer fantasy for y'all. So there's a, of course there are armies, you know, zombies,
ghosts more, all that fun stuff. But I hope this has been a good little primer to what
the vampire accounts are like. Do please let me know if I've managed to do the same thing
last time, just on smaller scale and miss some vital character. Oh, there is one more
character I want to talk about. He's not that relevant. I just find it really funny. Okay.
I don't remember his name because his name is not even the important part. He just was
like, I'm going to be the next Nagash. And at least by, you know, a while ago he did
have rules and he was a powerful wizard. He was real damn good at, you know, being a vampire
mage. And then the end times happened and came around and the gas comes back and he
offers all the vampires like, Hey, you should come serve me now. And granted it's an offer
you can refuse. So most of them don't, but this guy goes, no, I am your equal. You will
serve me. And then the gas lights his head on fire. He's no longer around. He does the
halo cosmetic thing. It's just like burning skull face. Yeah. He turned on grunt birthday
party. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Pop. Done. Yeah. There, there was a, there was that guy.
Like I said, not really that important in the grand scheme of things. I just laugh every
time. Just a fun aside. Yeah. It's like, I'm in charge. Oh, I'm on fire. Yeah. We always
like an upstart who has no credentials to do so. Why not? Oh, I didn't think this through
it. I overestimated my powers. He's like, Oh, I'm way out of my league. Hmm. But yeah,
like I said, this is Ben, the vampire counts. Uh, yeah. Make sure, make sure you, uh, I
don't know, check, uh, check out the last one for the rest of the factions that I didn't
skip over. Uh, yeah. And tune in next time. Any, uh, any teasers you want to give Andy?
Uh, I don't know about teasers, but I would say, let us know in the comments. If you want
us to, like, one of the reasons we did this video in particular is because we missed the
vampire counts in the last episode and people were saying, we want to see stuff on them.
So if you have a particular faction you want us to cover and let us know in the comments
and we'll, we'll have a look through cause we read all the comments and I guess we don't
know what we're going to do next time, but we'll have a think and, uh, you have the power
to influence our decision. So that in mind, the, uh, we like to keep the quizzes and the
mainline podcast nice and scheduled, but this is a, just like we've said, a little primer
to warhammer fantasy. So if there's any, anyone in particular, you guys got an interest in,
let us know and we'll, we'll take a look and see if I'll go through that one next time.
That like make it the, make it the else, make it the else. Thank you. Thank you for watching
everyone and have a good one. Bye guys.