LOREBEARDS: Let's talk about Fishmen! w/ Loremaster of Sotek & Andy Law

[@espio33]

Just started the video, but "Why did I even put the other two options, I should have known better" is funny. Let's be honest, fishmen are your series mascot at this point lol.

[@LAWhammer]

Hahaha! It was certainly not the intended outcome there!

[@Omnicide101]

​@LAWhammer considering Sotek's favourite character I vote we name the inevitable fishman mascot character Tehenhaufin

[@LAWhammer]

@@Omnicide101OMG!

[@SwopetheDope]

We shall dive down through black abysses...and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

[@hangebza6625]

As a person who grew up next to the north sea and who has a great appreiation for maritime life and sea related cultures (and who collects Sea Elves in AoS) I say yes bring me fishmen!

[@LAWhammer]

I am also that person! Barring the Sea Elves...

[@fumarc4501]

I like the idea that the Fishmen are to the Dark Elves like Skaven are to the Empire of Man. Lol

[@hangebza6625]

​@@LAWhammerAwesome! The ocean truly connects people.

[@ASpaceOstrich]

Andy, how on earth were you able to talk while simultaneously coming up with that awesome volcanic vents magic thing? Is your brain multithreaded?

[@LAWhammer]

Yes.

[@RhetoricaRhamnusia]

The description of the battle of Chupayotl is on page 69 of the 7th edition Dark Elf Army Book. It is discussed around 22:00 to 33:00... and there are some clear distortions in the podcast about it that verge on confabulation. - The seven sorceresses are merely "hired from the Dark Convent" - it's possible Lokhir had to make obeisance to Morathi to hire her very best handmaidens, but they could just have easily been apprentices who came somewhat more cheaply. Considering that they were just casting a (very large) water-breathing ritual and are not mentioned as participating in the fighting, there's no reason to assert they were particularly powerful. - The spell they cast is indeed just water-breathing (or, rather, the ability to "breath underwater" (sic)). In regards to the air bubble mentioned at 25:55, maybe the Loremaster was thinking of the raid in Elfslayer? A group of druchii sorceresses in search of the Harp of Ruin create a hole in the ocean so they can pillage the vaults of a sunken elven city; it's a giant column of air that goes all the way to the seafloor. - At 28:05 Andy says, "the local inhabitants who had moved into it, as it says multiple times, these were not natural, indigenous folk that had just sunk down with it, and they happened to be lizardmen down there." What the text actually says is: "In the submerged ruins of the city, the Dark Elves battled with aquatic beasts. Gigantic squids and immense manta rays assailed [Lokhir's forces], and they fought amongst the jagged ruins against the disconcerting aquatic descendants of the ancient rulers of the jungle." A parsimonious interpretation of this text is that the Lizardmen who sank with Chupayotl adapted to an aquatic environment, perhaps with the aid of some hastily-crafted spells that have had inelegant results. There is no mention whatsoever of local inhabitants moving in, only aquatic fauna recruited by the city's inhabitants. We can't even be certain that they *look* like fishmen. At 32:01 Andy asserts the text says they were "descended from the people of Lustria," and speculates on who those might be; I have no idea where this quotation is supposed to be from. Certainly there is no basis for speculating that "ancient rulers of the jungle" refers to anyone but the Old Ones. The anecdote mentions them twice, or, rather, their secrets, calling the sunken city the "watery grave of the Old Ones' secrets" and saying Lokhir brought back "ancient stone plaques containing the secrets of the Old Ones" but there is no insinuation of any other heritage for the inhabitants of Chupayotl. The description of the Helm of the Kraken does say that it "pre-dates the civilisation of the elves," however, which is perhaps the most tantalizingly pro-Fishmen thing on the whole page. I'm on Team Glub (#PatentDeniedDueToFishmanPriorArt) all the way, but it doesn't really help their case if our first major source discussed in detail doesn't make most of the key claims being advanced. Is there another description of the battle somewhere else?

[@305bj]

So the fishmen are murlocks? Yet another fantastic episode from the two loreheads around!

[@LAWhammer]

Thanks!

[@RedCascadian]

Some things to consider when worldbuilding fishmen is that most of the ocean is, from the perspective of sealife, a desert, lacking in nutrients. Fishman civilization might be widely separated city states linked by undersea tunnels connecting various bodies of water. And you might have dark, horrible things in those passages. This could be a big influence on conflict between Fishman cities, where two rivals that seem to have a direct link to each other to move armies through have to take more circuitous routes because the obvious paths have become the hunting grounds of something darker and more sinister.

[@Playaplaya18]

Regarding fishfolk diversity, I can just imagine the “civil wars” under the ocean (though they might not look at it like a civil war) between varying species. Lantern fishfolk vs the swordfishfolk.

[@LAWhammer]

It would be supercool, huh?

[@hangebza6625]

A guy on the total war forums had two pitches for two different sea factions. One were abyssal, cuthullu esque crustacean-mollusks hybrids which came from a world before the Old Ones. The other were classical merfolk like mermen and telchnids (seal-human hybrids and expert smiths from greek myth who created Poseidons trident). They lived in costal waters. The author of this fanfic said the oceans are big enough to house multiple factions. And that, together with the vampire coast, one could have an interesting three way ocean war between undead, cuthullu-esque terrors and atlantean merpeople. Sidenote: the merpeople also had an actual civil war, as they worshipped the galleons graveyard as a god of death. When Noctilus set up shop there, one half was like "the graveyard accepted him. He is our new demi-god/prophet". And the other was like "This being parasites on our god and needs to be removed!"

[@fumarc4501]

Crab People

[@parkerdixon-word6295]

I actually would love the idea that, building off of Sotek wanting the Fishmen as a pre-Old Ones primordial faction, and Andy's point that they absolutely *should* have gotten their teeth kicked in by Chaos during the Cataclysm, that the huge diversity in Fishmen isn't natural- basically *none* of them have entirely resisted some form of chaos mutation. And while they are not a chaos faction, their biology is noticeably chaotic, bearing the terrible scars of Chaos' influence upon the world, adding further to their grudge against The Old Ones and their children. And maybe you get either a category of lords who are "The Pure", those among them who are not mutated, or even only a single named character, the last of the fishmen who represents what they used to look like.

[@KnightofRome01]

As a fan of Lovecraft, i have been waiting for this.

[@LAWhammer]

I hope you enjoy it!

[@fumarc4501]

What is dead may never die.

[@lachlanbold8319]

I have this wierd image of crab men in Cathay. And I don’t know why there specifically.

[@cheesecake6572]

I'm very curious about what the sea might look like directly below Ulthuan and how it changed with the creation of the Great Vortex. How did it's formation impact the fishmen? Is there something special on the seafloor below the isle of the dead? Incidentally, since Ulthuan is a floating continent, is the Inner Sea floating within it (like water in a washing up bowl that's itself floating in a sink) or is it simply part of the Great Ocean? In the former case there would be two seafloors below Ulthuan, which would presumably be very different to one another, and in the latter it ought to be possible for Fishmen to attack the Inner Kingdoms by coming straight up from below.

[@Manlikepegasus]

It’s all very Dagon/Cthulhu love craft inspired. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fishmen were the equivalent to tyranids. At least in terms of their unknown origins/hive mind/alien/eldritch horror themes. Ancient slumbering old gods whom potentially came from somewhere beyond(space, another realm, etc.). Maybe they are just natural to the world, but I can also see them being connected to the old ones/space/aliens. Missed opportunity to bit flesh them out and give them a full army/faction. That being said, it’s also kind of cool that they are sort of unknown. Makes it scarier and more mysterious. Sort of like with the skaven. Although still cool, the skaven sort of lose a lot of their “umph” when you get to know them more. The unknown rat man race hiding in the dark underneath the world is a cool concept. The mystery behind their origins still holds that sort of feel, but I sort of wish the entirety of the skaven had that feel still. So although I want fishmen, I also kind of like them being mysterious. Would be cool though to know more about what exists in the waters of the Warhammer world. Chasm spawn, VC stuff, sea trolls, krakens, maybe sea elves, mermaids, fishmen, old gods, etc. lots of stuff there and a lot more to explore if they ever wanted to do that.

[@goatforcemcgoat8233]

If we get an AoS Fishmen race, it would definitely be my first Destruction army. Was hoping that the 3rd edition was going to launch with Fimir before Kruelboyz were revealed.

[@gavinmillar]

Something that could potentially be interesting to explore is that many fish in real life will actually change sex from male to female at some point in their life based on various factors. They would also almost certainly hate the chaos dwarfs for all the pollution they cause. Fish can also evolve incredibly quickly, sometimes significantly changing their forms in just a couple decades, which could imply a particular susceptibility to the mutating influence of chaos. Fish like electric eels that can discharge fatal amounts of electricity could be another avenue to explore, as well as the ones with incredibly potent venom like stonefish. There are fish whose eggs can dry out and last for years before finally hatching when they get wet, which could be a way that they could survive and end up in some unexpected places.

[@anthonymichael1259]

Hammond is the fifth chaos god

[@Lindwurm_Nx]

Praise be the mighty Fishgorythm! Thanks for the in depth (wink) on those mysterious Gillboys

[@SpliffingBrit]

I would say nurgle is the chaos god with the best navy because ships are great vectors for disease, people are isolated in groups for long periods allowing for incubation and they travel allowing for more spread

[@rknowling]

Now I want to write a Kremlo/ Gelt crossover fanfiction, with the goal of making it as comedic as possible...

[@roderickhamilton9891]

Yay! You did the song!

[@LAWhammer]

I did. :D

[@fumarc4501]

Fishmen! FISHMEN! DEEP ONES!!!!!

[@emmahagens]

i really love the discussions here. sea creatures are so cool so the idea of that their perception of deamons would be different and what their religion could be is such a creative inspiration, as one can do so many cool things with it.

[@rknowling]

Fighting Fantasy "Demons of the Deep" reference? Hell yeah! ❤ (showing my age? haha)

[@LAWhammer]

I couldn't help myself. :D

[@danbrayshaw6870]

Andy, how many of the "lawful" races employ slaves and how are they treated? Does the highelves ever have peasants revolts? In the books and lore a highborn elf seems to have hundreds of servant, but are they happy with their lot in life or do they try to better their station in life? Thank you to the both of you for literallly hours of fun and entertainment.

[@nickgreetham4810]

We know fishmen have a plaice in Sotek's sole.

[@LAWhammer]

OMG. This isn't the plaice for that sort of joke!

[@davidmckhazad]

Bassless stupidity but it cod not be avoided.

[@joshuabryant974]

I have to say, I'm mildly disappointed that Sotek didn't mention that our barge got jumped by Fishmen that one time. Artur's arm was still knackered (gee, that narrows it down...) and I couldn't attack for crap, but I stood on the bridge and rolled super hot for the Sail checks. Poor Johann got his ear ripped off by a Menfish spear, though. Great episode, I love the deep dives from the two of you!

[@vrinnmetagen]

I like to imagine that a similar struggle is happening in the ocean as is on land. Not that there's like a fishman parallel to each faction but that there's at least like fish men chaos forces fighting fish man order forces

[@hoodedwizard4695]

The Horrible Needle Teethed Black Eyed Chasm Dwellers, Vs The Devine Descendants of Mannan.

[@biofoot7874]

Fishmen part 2!!! Let's go!

[@Razielts1]

1:39:26 Honestly i really like this theory, cuz it would make the races of destruction increase in number. ( i like to use the aos alignments regardless of setting cuz they make sense ) Cuz right now we got order with 8 races, chaos with 9, undeath with technically 4 counting nagash, and destruction with 3. ( Greenskins, ogres and dark elves ) So adding fishmen and the naga to destruction makes sense, and brings a more evil side to the alignment let's say.

[@ethanhunstiger4868]

I like the idea of god leviathans. They would be like kracenrock the black, living things of flesh an blood of such immense size and power that they are basically gods. A kraken, serpent, whale, crab, even a massive coral reef that is essentially a living city. The blessings of such beings could even alter the physical form of their followers, giving you different types/casts of fish men.

[@philipbowles5397]

You mention a Warhammer trope about races that people think don't exist but are really everywhere, but I can't bring any to mind. After all, everyone knows that Skaven really don't exist.

[@PandemicalShade]

Important question: Do Warhammer mermaids or sirens exist and if so, how horrifying or voluptuous are they? 🧜‍♀️ (Didn‘t find that part in the stream…)

[@LAWhammer]

We mentioned them in the stream. The short answer is, yes, they do exist. And I'm sure some are equal partrs volumptuous and horrifying.

[@rknowling]

Marius Leitdorf stopping the Great Unicorn Invasion? my brain immediately thought "those were the muscular unicorns?"

[@parkerdixon-word6295]

I'm feeling creative, so I just wanna talk about magic for a theoretical fishman list, based on the podcast: Lores of Life, Beasts, and Shadows are kindof a given, considering how other books talk about the oceans, and the specific themes of the Lore of Shadows fit the mysterious abyssal nature of the Fishmen. Lore of Beasts fits their inevitable big aquatic monsters, and they'll probably have stronk infantry for Life. The Lores of Fire and Metal seem like big nos, they're just a thematic mismatch, so none of that for the Fishmen. Heavens could go in the same boat, but with its modern associations with the Earth and Stone, I could see an argument, or maybe a single named character who uses it. Lore of Death could easily be added, but lots of people get it, I'm not terribly invested one way or the other. I suppose it would be fun if we got a specialized Fishman priest akin to the Ogre Firebelly who wield the Lore of Death in worship of the Maelstrom of Skulls or something, but that's not a requirement. I will, however, push hard that the Lore of Light is a great thematic fit for the Fishmen because of the theme of bioluminescence, and the idea that Light itself has a lot of meaning to them in the Abyssal depths, possibly that they would even have an interesting *God* of Light worth exploring. Then they should obviously have a very water-themed unique lore of magic, possibly tied to whatever ocean gods they have, or the Total War Lore of the Depths or whatever. But Life, Beasts, Shadows and Light is an interesting combination of lores- it's most of the same options Bretonnia has, IIRC.

[@GoldenKaos]

Interesting tidbit: since it never got into his published work, Andy is technically correct to say that Orks with a K is only used in Warhammer 40K, but Grandaddy Tolkien himself switched over to "Ork" rather than "Orc" in his later drafts and writings on Middle-earth. I think Christopher kept the original C spelling in the Silmarillion onwards just for the sake of consistency with the already published material, but there's AN argument to be made there that "ork" is just as Tolkienesque as "orc", but it's only 40K that have picked it up / stumbled upon it. And to a great degree, it is theirs now.

[@wombataldebaran9686]

And then there are the german translations. Where all orcs are written with a K.

[@RealCodreX]

Letf side Sotek is curesed!

[@rocketroux5838]

I'm sorry if I missed it but I am not too sure I understand why Andy says that the Lustria fishmen and the "Dark Elves" fishmen are differents. Could they not be the same Empire ? Or at least the same race but like different settlements/factions. I am not sure why he says they are a distinct group.

[@weslooos]

well that explains why nothing that lives on or above land seems to scare Lokhir

[@monthlyscoopltd]

"Banshees at Sea" sounds like B-movie horror fun

[@joemiller361]

Hear me out. Fishman god of death as a Kraken. Regenerates its tentacles, huge and terrifying to the point where it fights the oceans biggest denizens: whales, and are said to live in the depths. When fishmen die, the Kraken 'takes' them, aka the maelstrom sucks em in. They're part animal, so they'd have at least some sort of respect for the cycle of life, predators and prey. So you could see a priestly cast, maybe tentacle based fishmen or ones that just wear octopi for hats etc, ones blessed by their god of death. They wield Ulgu and Shyish to darken waters to hide their approach and to take life from their victims, figuratively eating their victims just as the Kraken eats their dead in turn.

[@philipbowles5397]

You briefly field a question on 'bug people' - is there enough for a video on that? I was struck when reading Orcslayer how similar the Chaos-mutated 'bug man' in that appeared to the Silent People of Age of Sigmar, down to the way the ruins of its civilisation were described when it sent visions to Felix.

[@steamsage]

15:30 👀 lawhammer campaign info?

[@stilloading5652]

Is triton the last Sky titan or what?

[@78infowarrior]

Law, you got a new subscriber

[@danielecatania9631]

The syrens from Homer's Odissey are more similar to harpies in their appearance. The one most known (made popular by the famous cartoon, half fish, half man) stems from the representation given in Andersen's takes. I don't know if he in turn drew inspiration from something else

[@josephusthefishperson7938]

Late to viewing the stream but glad to get some representation in fantasy.

[@NisGaarde]

Another great one! 🤩👌

[@therasslintheatre2960]

1:34:21 next time you have conspiracy time, bring in Valrak and his foil hat

[@albertdrevdal4233]

He just thinks they should be, we know so little that it's impossible to tell, but fishmen having a global empire (as opposed to just being a global species/concept) would be kinda wierd, but the truth of it is yet to be written.

[@philipbowles5397]

Haven't listened yet so this may have been raised, but the current Idoneth lore indicates that Mathlann hid his followers under the sea in or just before the End Times. So there is at least a brief window in which Idoneth-like sea elves could have been present in the Warhammer World, although as they wouldn't have had the flawed souls of the AoS versions they wouldn't have the same sorts of magic or the Namarti. Idoneth sea creature riders are however all Akhelians so those could be used thematically, though I imagine they'd be more akin to High Elves in motivation and possibly aesthetic than the Drukhari stylings and soul-raiding behaviour of the Idoneth.

[@stephenlucas8836]

I personally would design the Fish Men Army book roster for the Dogs of War but underwater with multiple army supplements in one book, like the aos Orrok book. We can cram so many different aquatic units and also represent the breadth of different Fishmen factions and how they fight. We get religious Crab-people, Flying fish Mermaid Pirates, volcanic vent smith union, Gallon Graveyard Cultists, and sea cucumber knights. Also like the idea of having Cthulhu/Dagon worshiper race in Warhammer, but are anti-chaos and warp-F*ry.

[@nagashtheundyingking4404]

I mean the most obvious inspiration would be Lovecraft with gods sleeping on the ocean floor already being a thing i wonder how many fishmen have innhabitet the ruins of the high elf cities that fell into the ocean. would prefere to have a bunch of interesting fish civilisation rather then just the one type of fishman but having a lovecraftian fishman faction that has tons of mutations either happy about it or hate it but living with it like a lot of lovecraft books feature.

[@roderickhamilton9891]

Kremlo vs Gelt, Battle of the Berks

[@zodrickzheioh7318]

fishmen use pistol shrimp as ranged weapons XD makes up for the fact that they wouldn't have a reason to develop bows as they bows wouldn't work under the water

[@philipbowles5397]

Could the fishmen simply be Lizardmen who took to the sea, much as Idoneth were elves who did? The notion of two races of 'ancient aliens' in Lustria - one reptiles on land and one fish-like creatures that behave like Lovecraft's Deep Ones - seems a pretty clear copy-paste from Dr Who, in which the Sea Devils were an aquatic offshoot of the Silurians.

[@CrimsonLord224]

This just makes me desperate for them to be established as a faction.

[@bramblenk7828]

I really hope the OVN team is watching this :)

[@sandrothenecromancer6810]

Warhammer has a chaos problem, everything revolves around it be fantasy or 40k (lesser extent with nids). Maybe if GW took more chances and added more types of horrors or atleast strange creatures that would have made the setting less "chaos is unstopable", both grim dawn and darkest dungeon managed to have other forms eldricht creatures that posed a threat or were bening.

[@sinsinsinat5377]

1:06:00 sirens

[@rhivan6921]

What do you think about the Lizardmen being the uplifted Fishmen? If they were than it'd set up the Fishmen as the "uncorrupted" original and it'd be an interesting dichotomy.

[@curtisgodbey724]

@lawhammer hey Andy I love the episode so far I'm like 30 minutes in. It reminded me of something I thought you and maybe others might be interested in. I made a codex for Warhammer 40k that is a abhumans shark race inspired by the peliger or homo sapien Oceanus. It's written for 8th edition and you need open office to read it which is free, I didn't have Microsoft word at the time. Anyways I'd love to share it with you and get your opinions on it.

[@2Shadowscout]

Why does Andy hate gelt 😂

[@LAWhammer]

A better question: Why don't YOU hate Gelt? 😂

[@lyroful]

legendary lord spongebob squarepants

[@Ry_Ry_0095]

Did somebody say kremlo 👀

[@AlanStainer]

Fishsquigs?

[@jameschristophercirujano6650]

Hope Warhammer takes inspiration from other universes, like WoW, Elder Scrolls,Guild Wars, and Final Fantasy, and DnD. Then there's ones from Manga/Anime too.

[@Blitzkrieg1012]

Interesting episode, never really been a fan of the Fishmen, Ind, Cathay(pre WH3) or Khuresh etc. Id prefer the existing factions and characters get fleshed out more because there are some large holes like Karl Franz not having any real material. It was another funny and great episode though.

[@LAWhammer]

Delighted you liked it. I was a touch concerned there wouldn't be enough to talk about. I was absolutely wrong.

[@hangebza6625]

To me it is the opposite. There are so many white spots on the worlds map and "fluff only" entities like Ind and previously Cathay, which are full of potential. And I would have loved to see more of it explored, since I first looked at a world map of WFB

[@roderickhamilton9891]

​@@LAWhammer seriously? You think you two couldn't fill 3.5h on how to file your end of year taxes in Dunkelberg?

[@LAWhammer]

@@roderickhamilton9891Not unfair...

[@codyraugh6599]

I think that has more to do with the company policies and fostered atmosphere at GW than the world and writing. I mean for one GW seemed to give so little investment into Warhammer fantasy, their LotR got almost as much or technically more promotion in the final decade there, and then they had policies and a mindset of "if it's not on the tabletop then don't include it" going on right up til the end times. Franz's family and life were never going to get filled in, and with the timeline scaling back we're not going to see Franz in the Old World release. But if GW sort of continues as they have been, and bring back Old World with the tones they've been touching on in their other IP, then filling in the other factions and realms might allow them to fill in gaps for Franz's replacement Emperor...s... I heard we were in the time of the three emperor's, but we might be seeing Magnus the Pius instead.

[@abmong]

Sea people, probable menfish what worships an Octopus head deity? Sounds familiar... Just someone at GW lifting Cthulhu without going into details.

[@JZ0UK]

Definitely enjoying this George R R Martin and Games Workshop cross over pillaging the brain of everyone's favourite olde tyme New England giga-racist.

[@akumaking1]

KZbin was getting really awful near the end of the stream.

[@LAWhammer]

There appears to have been issues during the livestream for several folks - a KZbin issue only - but the VoD seems fine. At this end, at least.

[@akumaking1]

@@LAWhammer you really breezed through the questions at the end. For example, one question I posted was a two-parter, and I asked if some Fishmen could be mercenaries privateers as a parallel to the Ogres.