The Religions and Deities of the Tallowlands

Introduction

The Tallowlands is very poorly connected to the other realms and is often overlooked having limited value or resources by by the main alliance forces be they benevolent or evil.

As a result or perhaps for other reasons, a pantheon of gods, religions and deities have sprung up bearing little resemblance to their original patrons but in many cases either transparently or with more obscure connections.

Some exceptions remain. Sigmar and Alarielle (some aelves have long memories) are recognised and worshipped but on the whole many connections are tenuous. Although that may be the case this does produce some oddities, like some cults which cannot quite be given a label of order or chaos because they seems to act in different ways in different circumstances given their connection to a deity they believe does not fully parcel itself into one alliance or another.

The below is a list of deities with some sort of worship in the Tallowlands. There are sometimes many cults and groups and temples which follow a single one of these some of which bicker or fight even with each other. There are too many to list here.

Examples include the Watcher of the Ninefold Pact which pay homage to or believe they control Jethelech and the Celestial Pact which claim to worship Fyrek

Currently Known Deities

Sigmar - the God King

Artha – god of the high places.

Dairayon – god of wind and storms.

Vishkene – god of magic.

Mortaine – god of the dead. The Crypt Haunter. Some see Mortaine as a facet or connected in some way to Nagash.

Khând – a god from across the ocean.

Rorralarach – god of rage and war. Is there a connection to Khorne here?

Myrakos – beast-god of the wilderness. There are Orruk tribes who claim to worship Myrakos, some people think their tribe has a speech impediment.

Tidh – the Swift Hunter. God of the plains.

Hain’Amur – the Great Defender. Steward of Heaven’s Keep. The Armoured God. The Stormcasts of Heavens Keep do not see anything wrong with this homage, do they worship two gods or believe him to be a facet of Sigmar?

Jethelech – god of trickery and scheming. Definitely no connection to Tzeentch here. Shut up I said definitely not.  The number of letters in the name is a coincidence.

Arengee – god of luck and master of games, cursed and blessed in equal measure. Causer of lighter and less corrupt mischief than Jethelech

Ystara – god of mariners and fishermen.

Mithrest – god of merchants and traders.

Fyrek – the Astral Voyager. Benefactor of astronomers.

Caer-Nadhg – god of the woods. The Oaken Man. A summer god.

Alarielle – as above but for eleves and half elves. Facets of the same god.

Lystan – god of justice and fairness.

Shala - god of fertility and harvest

Shalu - twin god of Shala, god of decay, disease and rebirth. Some speculate a connection to Nurgle.

Naethe – the Shroud of Night and least trusted of the moons of the Tallowlans. God of veiled intentions. Sometimes called Mother night.

Ilù – god of the sun. Brother of Lisù. Some Lizardmen tribes venerate. Sometimes called Morning Lord.

Lisù – god of the one of the Tallowlands briughter moons. Sister of Ilù.

Gnos - god of secrets, including secret pleasures but also according to some hidden altruism.

Map Making -The Tallowlands

Map Making -The Tallowlands

I will get straight to the point.

The PCRC wanted to make a cool map of the Tallowlands.  As none of us are professional digital artists we went looking for a map tool and we think we found a good one:

https://inkarnate.com/

They have a big presence on social media where lots of really nice looking maps get shown off

There are a fair number of decent training videos and reviews on Inkarnate.  Here is one if you are just getting started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww2TtTrvuLk

The official tutorials are here:

https://inkarnate.com/updates/

I found it easy to use although we have a long way to go before we produce anything really nice looking.

In the meantime I will continue using it for Tallowlands work and I am sure it will get more interesting over time as we expand the content of our area of the realms.

We have built the map up from this:

into this:

The Emperor's Lost Mines - Introduction

The Emperor's Lost Mines - Introduction

Many centuries ago, when the age of Chaos was ended by Sigmar's intervention, the races of the Tallowlands, many of them simple ordinary folk, rose and took arms against the forces of Chaos.  They joined with Sigmar's Stormcast Eternals to retake their lands in the name of order*

They needed to start equipping armies and anyone willing to fight..  In the southern realms of the Tallowlands, they found what they needed.  Rare ore from the hills and mountains and the purest coals and fuels for which to make a Forge - the forge of spells.  It was from here that the finest weapons and armour would be made, both magical and non-magical to equip the forces of Order as they pushed back against the forces of chaos at the start of the Age of Sigmar.  

One of Lucifer216's beautifully painted Stormcast Eternals

It was a time of unity, a time of peace — but it could not last.  Soon the Sinian Empire formed in the North and the races of men, dawi and aelves faded back into their fiefs and squabbles.  They had pushed chaos almost fully out of the Tallowlands and they wanted to enjoy the peace.

The Mine though, and the Forge of Spells, was not forgotten.  The area became first an outpost of the Sinian Empire and later a vassal Fief ruled from Krag-maw Castle, all the while supplying now a small but still significant number of magical weapons to the heroes and generals of the Sinian Empire.  Some of these would be locked in vaults but many of these were put to active use in defending the Sinian Empire from threats both internal and external.

Eventually, complacency set in.  The mine itself was overcome.  There are conflicting reports.  Some say it was a local Necromancer, yet other a beastman raiding party. Perhaps they both raided it.  The result was inescapable.  The mine was looted and its glory and even its very location were lost.  The Sinian Empire was too busy with internal problems to try and recover its remote outpost and its location was lost to time.

*Although behind closed doors this was a simple desire to be freed of slavery and tithe brought by the complacent and ancient forces of Chaos.

What's all this then? Overview of the Tallowlands project

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The PCRC – that's the Plastic Crack Rehab Clinic – are a group of eight hobbyists. Over the years we've played a variety of games; from boardgames to roleplaying, and tabletop wargaming's been a fairly constant presence since the group's inception.

You can see our little corner of the Warhammer 40,000 universe on the PCRC's website, managed by the inimitable Stuntwedge. While we've all got our toes dipped into the grim darkness of the far future, the fantasy side of things has been a bit more patchy. Most of us have played Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warmachine in some form or another at various times, but we've never had quite the same focus on it.

Nevertheless, the nine of us have a surprising amount of models, background and related material that's never had a chance to shine, so this blog has been set up with the aim of providing a central location for it to be shared and displayed – and developed. We hope you'll join us as we use this space to explore the Tallowlands through modelling, painting, writing and gaming.You'll see works-in-progress, finished displays and some battle reports.

Dawi scyldbearers, from apologist's Throng of Nog

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What are the Tallowlands?

As mentioned above, enthusiasm for Warhammer has waxed and waned amongst the gang over the years, with some PCRC members being keen players of older editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, games like Fantasy Flight Games' Chaos in the Old World, or simply enjoying the fiction. The destruction of the Old World and the nebulous, delayed coming of the Age of Sigmar saw a us create the Tallowlands as a stable spot for our gaming. 

Our tastes run from high to low fantasy, so we wanted a little corner of our own, a little like our 40k Antona Australis Sector. It's intentionally a big fuzzy as to whether it's part of the Old World, the Mortal Realms, in order to allow us maximum freedom.

The Tallowlands are thus a sort of half-way house setting, which owes a lot to the traditional Warhammer Old World while embracing the freedom and personal creativity that the Age of Sigmar setting offers. Thus you can expect some familiarity alongside the sheer surprise that we believe a fantasy setting should offer. 

We hope, therefore, that whether you favour the roleplay-led fantastical and uncharted early editions of Warhammer; the tightly-mapped, ordered and pseudo-historical middle editions, or the latest expansive potential of the Mortal Realms, you'll find something that gets your imagination spinning.

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Welcome then, traveller, to the Tallowlands. Be on your guard...