Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
Warhammer vs "Realworld"; who is who?
Topic Started: 5th January 2008 - 05:51 PM (1,259 Views)
Morgoth
Member Avatar
The Ancient Evil

A very interesting topic found on www.ulthuan.net
http://www.ulthuan.net/viewtopic.php?t=23509 <-- link not working anymore

Basicly:
What races or historical armies inspired GW making the races of Warhammer?

A short cut and paste from the last list in the topic (I recommend reading the whole topic as it has a lot of elaborating various views):

Empire: Holy Roman Empire (from what became Germany)
Bretonnians: Medieval France.
Orcs: Scottish tribes
Goblins: Tolkien
Dwarves: Basically...Tolkien
High Elves: Again, Tolkien
Dark Elves: Evil greeks, offshoots of the High Elves.
Wood Elves: The Celts/Gauls
Chaos: Mongols and Huns
Beasts of Chaos: The various germanic tribes that inhabit the forests during the Roman Empire
Tomb Kings: Egyptians
Lizardmen: The Aztecs and Maya
Ogres: Tartars, mongols
Chaos Dwarfs: Persian/assyrian
Kislev: Russians
Vampire Counts: The balkanic mythical counts, and various stories of undead creatures.

and finally
Skaven: Turks and diseasecarriers
examples
Jezzail: Long muskets used by turks and arabs
Eshin : The Hashshashin cult
Pestiles: Plague

another bid on Skaven:
Quote:
 
I think Skaven are based on Xerxes army: lots of slaves, some elite units, which are also massed, throw a lil' gunpowder into the mix, and you have a skaven army where no one is too important to live, except for the leader himself.


MUTATED: This is ment as info and to start a discussion. Not as a holy truth.
Greetings from MorgothPosted Image Mostly Clan Eshin, occasionally Clan Husk.
Proud keeper of the Poking Stick of Doom, known to many a RPG-player Posted Image
Quote:
 
SingTheScreams:   "....we ain't no chaos-worshipping freaks. We be ratmen, and we do as we please......"

----- Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Niz'tizi'ihack
Member Avatar
Mad Harbringer of Mutation
I've always thought of Skaven as WWII Russians, Maybe it's just that you can fire Gatling guns into your own men.

Did any of you see Flintlock.. It was Napoleonic armies with Fantasy races. So the French were like Elves, the British Orcs, the Scottish were Dwarfs, I think the Italians were Lizardmen... .Can't remember for the life of me who the Ratmen represented.
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Chieftain Cazgar
Member Avatar
Prophet of Plastic
we had a similar topic a while back, i can't remember what we got as all the races where.

but we reckoned that skaven were based off of old china/japan (ninjas, guns/explosions and lots and lots of people) or nazi germany (rattlers are like machine guns, reference to master race, gas weapons)

there were a lot of other arguments for them both, but i didn't make them and so can't remember too well. i'd imagine someone who can use the search function to good effect should be able to dig it up though
Posted Image

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Skaven Lord Vinshqueek
Member Avatar
Bunny ear says flop

Cazgar, do you mean this topic by any chance?

Greetz
In the Horned One we trust, all others we monitor.

Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image

Skaven track record [W/D/L] @ 17th of August, 2014: BB 34/19/55; MH 9/2/6; WHF 17/8/30
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Vermitt Stain
Member Avatar
Brain: There's only one ride that interests me - the incredible thrill ride of taking over the world! Pinky: Mmm, I think there's a height requirement for that ride.
i reckon skaven are a cross between japan and nazi germany.
149707 people died on my birthday ...... it wasnt me

Posted Image
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Morgoth
Member Avatar
The Ancient Evil

Thanx for the link, Vinz. I remember the topic now.
Damn Alzheimer ........ <_<
Greetings from MorgothPosted Image Mostly Clan Eshin, occasionally Clan Husk.
Proud keeper of the Poking Stick of Doom, known to many a RPG-player Posted Image
Quote:
 
SingTheScreams:   "....we ain't no chaos-worshipping freaks. We be ratmen, and we do as we please......"

----- Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
chieftainskritchskritch
Member Avatar
The Freshmaker

In support of the turkish argument, I remember reading that, historically, the turkish armies were feared for their brand of "tunnel warfare". That is, dig tunnels under enemy entrenchments, plant explosives and blow them up from below. They also used tunnels to dig into and infiltrate enemy strongholds.

Tunnel warfare.....skaven often use tunnels to launch raids.....gutter runner tunnellers.....

Anyone else drawing a link?
You kids these days have it so easy, what with your Plague Furnaces and your Hellpit Abominations and your Bonebreaker Warlords. Back in MY day, all we had was Slaves and Clanrats!...and auto-hit Ratling Guns...and skirmishing Jezzails...and 2D6 Warp Lightning...and Lead From The Back...wait, what was my arguement again?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
RE.Lee
Member Avatar
Rat Field Surgeon
The High Elves are actually very different from Tolkien's race. There is a massive inflence of Byzantine culture in their background - city of Lothern-Constantinople, White Lions-Varangian Guards, Greek fire, the scholars etc. There is a lot of the British Empire, Japan and Atlantis motifs as well.

As for Skaven, I see them as a representation of the entire East culture (which to people of the middle ages was more or less mixed up) - an misterious world with a massive population of inhabitants who didn't look like most Europeans. The eastern peoples possesed impresive technological achievements, often superior knowledge and unusual battle tactics.

At the same time, nearly every epidemic disease was carried to Europe from that direction (with the rat-carried Plague being the most worthwhile example) and the eastern people themselves invaded in waves for long centuries. Although they were rarely the same tribe or country (Persians, Arabs, Turks), they are always described as very cruel and would strike fear into the hearts of common folk even years after a sudden attack. In time such an invasion (or epidemic) would become legend or myth - and, once the eye-witnesses were dead, few could tell if they ever took place. Quite similar to what we see in the Skaven background. The best thing is that they represent so many things - the Turkish armies threatening the Empire with their superior black powder weapons, a horde of plague pilgrims spreading the Black Death across the land, Persian warlords leading massed slaves against the world - so many ways not to make it another SAD army...

All in all, I really like the way GW draw inspiration from history and now that I've figured out a way how to bind my HE (Byzantine Empire) and Skaven (Turks in this case) in a suitably epic conflict - I'm even more excited about the game :D
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Glod-Unbaraki
Member Avatar
Low King of PIODT
Tolkien is the worst answer to any of those, he just amalgamated many old myths and stories (mostly from Nordic Mythology) into his books.

Empire: Roman/War of the Roses
Bretonnians: Medieval France (and England)
Orcs: Celtic tribes
Goblins: as above, although also based on many ancient myths etc.
Dwarves: Nordic/Victorian england/Celtic
High Elves: Tolkien (ish)
Dark Elves: no real army, jsut an obvious offshoot from high/wood elves (ie, the evil version)
Wood Elves: mythology of tree spirits/druidism/etc.
Chaos: all kinds of things, but genearally the classic "evil" army
Beasts of Chaos: celtic/germanic tribes
Tomb Kings: Egyptians (agreed)
Lizardmen: The Aztecs and Maya (agreed)
Ogres: possibly china/persia? but not Mongols as a distinct lack of cavelry
Chaos Dwarfs: as with DE, only in relation to Dwarves.
Kislev: Russians
Vampire Counts: The balkanic mythical counts, and various stories of undead creatures. (agreed)


-Glod
How do they rise up?

Glod has nothing. :ph43r:
Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image
something I'm actually proud of
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Quicktail
Warlord-Assassin
I like the idea of high elves representing byzantines, the location is very off, but otherwise it makes some kind of sense :)

I wouldn't say dark elves are just the evil version of high/wood elves though, more like the evil greek idea, but I could consider nazi germany regarding those too. Reasoning behind it is pretty much, while lacking the obvious machine gun :P, they look down upon their enemies and view themselves as some kind of Master Race, just like the skaven does, and, albeit a bit far-fetched, the slaves forced to work outside and around the six cities could be compared to the Nazi Concentration camps, not the death camps, the working camps.

Wood elves would be celts or some sort in my eyes, and the beasts would be the germanic tribes.
I disagree with Glod-Unbaraki that OK couldn't be mongols due to a lack of cavalry, they are ogres instead. China/Persia wouldn't fit very well though, in my opinion.
Quicktail, luckiest rat ever to live!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Snik-Dead
Member Avatar
Angry Bear-Man.
Niz'tizi'ihack
Jan 5 2008, 03:03 PM
I've always thought of Skaven as WWII Russians, Maybe it's just that you can fire Gatling guns into your own men.

Considering how brave the Russians could be without the need for being shot, I wouldn't say so.

Plus, considering the communism and everything, Skaven got nothing like them. And Russians weren't the only ones to shoot their own men...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
scrivener
Member Avatar
*toot*

No army comes from only one source of ideas. Besides creating a relatively unique yet familiar race concept, this also has the advantage of appealing to a wider range of fans with pre-existing biases, like in the way beasts of chaos caters to both the evil monster fans (e.g. like the narnian white witch army), and the germanic barbarian fans. GW, in creating a race, usually bases it off a real world reference to appeal to fans of that inclination (Brets for arthurian fans, empire for fans of humans in fantasy settings), then fleshes out the race using real world cultures to make them more realistic and easier to relate to (brets using french elements, empire using holy roman empire).

With Ogres, their imagery is based on the mongols mainly due to the fact that they live out in the geographical spot in the warhammer world which equates to real world mongolia. Army-wise they are definitely not designed with mongolians in mind, they are designed with the folklorish man-eating, big, brutish ogres in mind, and the mongol connection is merely for fleshing them out. Orcs and goblins likewise use the tolkienesque orcs and golbins, and then were fleshed out using scots, picts and britons.

Tolkien, while he adapted his stuff from existing myth, is responsible for many elements of modern fantasy, like orcs, stubborn axe-wielding dwarves, wood elves using bows, and high elves being the fair, wise protectors of the civilised world. GW in turn adapted some of these to suit their own purposes. So while the nordic dwarf image has a mythological origin, the contemporary nordic dwarf image comes more from Tolkien. Mansized light elves have a nordic origin, yep, but the image was redesigned and popularised by Tolkien, and GW in turn took it and added their greek/byzantine elements to create WH high elves.

Skaven are the hardest to identify a historical human source for, because their main source of inspiration actually comes from rats: Black Plague, Lab Rats, and regular rats swarming urban sewers. They are a race bred on the characteristics associated with rats: subterranean sewer-dwellers, disease carriers, sneaky thieves and scavengers, numerous and globally distributed, prolific and hardy survivors, cowardly, a constant pest and threat to the medieval world. In recent years, their image would have been emphasized and evolved via images of a lab-rat with an ear-shaped cartilage growing on its back, Pinky and the Brain, and other such stuff. Probably initially inspired by Fritz Leiber's book, GW then boosted the characteristics of the rat species, tossed in some unique elements like bells and warpstone, and you have skaven.

I think this is probably far truer to the origins of the skaven concept than associating it with the east. Yes, there are traces of Nazism, but probably only because the designers needed an evil totalitarian government for reference, and nazism is closer to home for the british than, say, african diamond-funded regimes. The comparisons to Japanese are most likely only incidental (excluding the Eshin), the designers are more likely to have taken the tunneller idea from rats being tunnel-dwelling animals than from the Turks, and slavery was widespread enough that trying to make a historical connection there means skaven could have just as easily been southern cotton planters. To trace a source of an idea, we have to look at what the designers were using as reference, and while they may have used certain real world elements to define certain parts of skaven culture (e.g. the concepts of global domination and slavery to create the impression of lawful evil), I believe the skaven culture as a whole was designed to reflect the personality of rats.
hannanibal
 
*Angry mob assembles*

"WHAT DO WE WANT!!??"
"A THINNISH, WATERY PAINT WITH A GREENER TINGE THAN AGRAX EARTHSHADE!!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT!?"
"QUITE SOON PLEASE AS MY LAST POT IS RUNNING OUT!"
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
belchavomitus
Member Avatar
Clanrat
I considered Skavens similar to the Americans or the "Old World Americas." Travellers bringing with them the Muskets, the Cannon (gunpowder) to the uncivilized world and the Old World European Plague. Their boats filled with the disease of their dead. The slow movement of their Empire West to cover the continent fighting along the way...Keeping the "Lost Treasures" for themselves...

Or maybe not... :unsure:
My Converted Screaming Bell of Doom
http://underempire.net/index.php?showtopic...dpost&p=2743214

Favorite Quote:
"Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open. Sir James Dewar, Scientist (1877-1925)"
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
ZetaBoards gives you all the tools to create a successful discussion community.
« Previous Topic · General Wargaming Discussion · Next Topic »
Add Reply