Warhammer women!

I literally just learned about her, and I needed to make a post.

Leanora Navrre

All of the lore about her fits a single paragraph, basically a footnote in a list of powerful necromancers in warhammer fantasy. But I still love her despite the lack of information.

Because of that, there is no official art of her, so I used an image of a necromancer drawn by Mark Pancham.

Leanora was born in Estalia, basically the Warhammer fantasy equivalent of Spain. (remember, the warhammer fantasy world map is basically our real life world, but with a few alterations) In her lifetime, she became one of the most powerful and feared necromancers in the world. And she was one of the few people capable of creating an abomination known as a necrofex colossus.

A necrofex colossus is a massive creation of dozens, or hundreds of rotting corpses, bound together with dark magic to function as a single large, rotting, horrific new entity that serves its creator. The total warhammer games depict necrofex colossus as giant walking pirate ships, held together with zombie corpses so they can walk on land.

But they don't have to be walking pirate ships. You can make anything into a necrofex colossus provided you have enough dead bodies and large objects. You don't even need the large objects, you can just animate a pile of corpses.

Obviously, creating these things is one of the most horrible acts a necromancer can do. For this and other crimes against her own people, Leanora was outcast from Estalia. But that wasn't enough for the nobles of the lands she ravaged for her necromantic goals. She was hunted down viciously.

In retaliation, Leanora bound HERSELF into a necrofex colossus, combining her own living flesh into an amalgam of death and carnage.

My mutuals can have Heinrix. I have my own Inquisitor to swoon over.

The lyrecat is a pet of the Aeldari Empire! Mentioned in the first chapter of Jain Zar. It seems the Drukhari have saber-toothed cats, so it may be lyrecats! The Eldar are such cat people, hehe >3

I've done a few warhammer women posts lately, and they've mostly focused on chaos worshipers and violent pirates. So let's change course and talk about someone who is loyal to the Empire of Man. Or at least... she finds it useful and has no need to betray it. Much.

Oh, and she's TOTALLY not undead. Ignore the fact she's retained her youthful appearance for three generations. (I may also be obsessed with this fanart by heilian) And has been witnessed dying on the battlefield, only to return intact and youthful to her black tower near a holy site dedicated to the god of death.

Elspeth von Draken. Otherwise known as the "Graveyard Rose"

Elspeth is not a necromancer. That should be made very clear. She is an amethyst wizard, a practitioner of the lore of death. Just like in 40k, wizards are people born with a deep connection to the warp. But in this world, magic and its associations with chaos have been deeply studied, and it has been classified and turned into an effective set of weapons. Different wizards have different specializations, and the amethyst order are all wizards who specialize in death magic. The kind of spells that drain the life from enemies, or commune with spirits to give loved ones closure. Necromancy is an anathema to amethyst wiazards, as it destroys the boundaries between life and death, and forces the dead to do another person's bidding.

We of the Amethyst College do not fear death — we seek to understand it and all its implications. Yes, we can speak with the dead, but we don’t want to dominate them. Rather, we want to know what they know, or destroy them if they’re hostile. We are implacable foes of necromancers, because they corrupt what we love

Elspeth is famously not political. Where other wizards of her station are often politically ambitious and seek to improve their own fortunes by allying with other nobles or forcing their rivals into submission, she does none of that. Elspeth instead spends most of her time in her tower, studying death in all its forms.

Oh, and she rides a carmine dragon. A powerful and magical creature that is deeply connected to the lore of death.

Elspeth is so saturated with death magic, and may not even be fully part of the mortal world anymore, that she can change herself into an insubstantial spectre. Likewise, the scythe she always carries is more a creation of shadow than it is an object made of steel.

Would anyone be interested in Warhammer Fantasy lore posts like I do my occasional 40k lore posts?

One of my favorite things about the Old World is that its map is pretty much our real actual Earth. But if it was made by all of those old maps from hundreds of years ago. And also it has a donut-shaped mini continent in the atlantic ocean. The high elves live there.

The dark elves live in Canada.

South America is called Lustria, and is home to the Lizardmen. Except for Brazil. That's the Vampire Coast, where undead zombie vampire pirates live.

Albion is a small, dreary, rain-soaked island. So it's not different from England at all.

The part of the Warhammer world that gets the most attention is the "western europe" part of the world. Where France and the Holy Roman Empire kinda exist. Bretonnia is literally medieval france with its own Joan of Arc character. And the entire fake french culture is probably constructed by elves to manipulate humans into doing stupid crusades to attack elven enemies.

The Empire is the closest thing to 40k's Imperium in terms of being the "main" faction people focus on, and they share some aesthetic similarities. But the Empire is very German, and they're not a purely fantasy kingdom like everyone else. The Empire is actually on the verge of the industrial revolution. And they fight against monsters and demonic armies with guns, artillery and actual tanks.

Kislev is Imperial Russia from the 18th century.

Grand Cathay is my beloved historical/mythical ancient China rolled into a single faction. Although the Empire shares the most aesthetic similarities with 40k's Imperium, Cathay gets to have more story parallels. In the fact that they have a celestial dragon emperor (an actual dragon) and his many children. Unlike how the 40k Emperor and his primarch completely fucked everything up because of their numerous daddy issues, the celestial dragons actually have half a brain.

The "africa" continent has many human civilizations that are extremely old. Araby is like Cathay in that it's a mix of every historical and mythological northern african culture, and they're stupidly rich.

@harrenhalyuri

It's a new Warhammer women post!

Today I give you a 2-for-1 special, and I mean that quite literally.

Naestra & Arahan, the sisters of twilight.

If you remember from my Taldeer post, elven twins, be it 40k or fantasy, are extremely rare. And often said to be an omen, or a herald of something terrible.

The twins have never been seen apart from one another. Not from their earliest sightings to their final days in the Old World. And notice I said their "earliest sightings", not their birth or childhood. Because no one knows exactly where they came from. Some say that the sisters are in fact the soul of a lost elven woman, split in half by divine forces so she might better serve the weave. Others say they are the manifestations of the elven goddess Isha, who exist solely to defend the forests of the wood elves. Or they could be the daughters of Ariel. Creations of magic that are as much living weapons as they are living elves.

Their divine connection goes deeper than that. As all of their weapons, from their enchanted blades to their impossible bows, are made by Daith. The blind artisan, who is whispered to be a mortal incarnation of Vaul, the elven god of creation and smithing. Daith proudly cares for the twins, and dotes on them like a proud uncle, creating every weapon they ask of him with a smile. A strange thing for a seemingly mortal elf to do with women he supposedly has no other connection to.

Although they are always together, the twins could not be more different in their personalities. Naestra has the outlook of starlight and hope, always seeking a better way. Arahan is wild and passionate, seeking violent solutions to all her people's problems. In keeping with the divine connection above, all weapons they touch become infused with their opposite natures. Naestra's weapons are poised against creatures of chaos and anarchy. Arahan's weapons destroy beings with noble souls.

As long as they are together, Naestra and Arahan cannot die. Literally. Arahan has cut her way out of monster's belly after being swallowed whole. And she has destroyed a vampire lord seconds after she was decapitated by him.

Interestingly, in the times that Arahan has "died", even momentarily, Naestra has shown a remarkable change in personality. For only a short time, the calm and bright elf becomes something different entirely, as if seeking nothing but vengeance for the half of a soul that momentarily was lost to her.

As wood elves, the sisters are also aided by woodland creatures. But not small cute animals. They are often carried into battle by Gwindalor, the great eagle. Who is large enough to carry them both on his back.

When battles become more desperate the the situation calls for more bloodshed, the sisters can also rely on the help of Ceithin-Har. An ancient forest dragon who revels in the slaughter of the woodland's enemies. He is as bloodthirsty as he is old.

Did you know that the entire Warhammer franchise is named after an actual in-universe war hammer?

The Hammer of Harry.

I'm serious.

One of the first named characters in Games Workshop lore, even before warhammer fantasy was a cohesive franchise, was Harald Hammerstorm. A champion of chaos who sowed blood and death wherever he walked. He is the bane of the undead, and smites them with all the fury of the chaos gods.

Harry has been part of GW lore, and the namesake of the franchise, since the early 1980s. He's still canon to this day, with only minor changes to his look and backstory to fit recent developments.

Some people think the "main" hammer of the franchise is the weapon once wielded by Sigmar, the legendary Ghal Maraz. Even the logo of the warhammer franchise is a stylized version of Ghal Maraz.

But the actual warhammer that gave the franchise its name is Harry's Hammer.

"But who'd have thought the one taking all my treasures would prove dearest of them all?"