Adeptus Ridiculous - Grand Cathay Deep Dive | Warhammer Fantasy Lore

Episode Date: November 30, 2025

Check out our sponsor  - https://tabletopstronghold.com/Ridiculoushttps://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousWith the release of Warhammer: The Old World and new lore books, we finally know the truth about what lies behind the Great Bastion. It turns out, the "Dragon Emperor" isn't just a fancy title. In this episode, we are heading East to uncover the history of the Celestial Dragon Xen Yang, his moon-born mate Quai Yin, and their children who walk among humans. ​We’re diving deep into the tragedy of the Spirit Dragon, why Cathay claims to have invented gunpowder before the Dwarfs (don't tell the Dawi), and the time Miao Ying brought a literal "Killdozer" fleet to the Old World to save the Empire from Chaos.Support the show

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Realm of Ridiculous, where we talk about Warhammer, but it's like old and stuff. Before we get started on that, you can go in if one, two, if who dare. Holy shit. Easy for you to say. I'm sorry, I had a bit. My brain's not goddamn working. Welcome everybody to that episode of the Realm of Ridiculous, where we talk about Warhammer, but it's like old and stuff. Before we get started, if you enjoy the podcast, head over to patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous where you can get access to the bloopers, which may have just happened.

Posters as well as Discord access and all kinds of other great stuff. Speaking of, we have a poster available right now, shy, do provide it is. Oh, it's a old dragon lady. Yeah, it's a dragon empress because everybody knows what today's episode is on. So, yeah, it's been, it's been cathay for the last, like, month and a half. Yep. And that is an appropriate poster with the dragon in the back, with her in the front. Hell yeah.

It's a good one. It's good. It's tasteful. It's, uh, point. It's pertinent, especially. Uh, and all that other good stuff. So you can check it out in the, uh, merch store down in the link of the description. Uh, but also, real quick, this episode of Devs figures is sponsored by the table

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really great way to store your armies, carry your armies around, travel with your armies. The MAG case 2.0 is excellent. And the competitive terrain set is really, really good to just get stuff rolling and get it done quick. They are very sturdy. They have lots of awesome magnets with, like, I mean, I mean a ton of magnets.

It's got a bunch of steel trays, not to mention, it kind of also doubles as a display case, which is super cool. Adjustable tray heights for different miniature sizes. And so it is really great stuff. They also are having their giant Black Friday mega sale, which is currently going on. So check out the description or go to tabletop stronghold.com slash ridiculous. Give it a look seat. Man, I can't imagine how many people are just like, damn, I really do need a carrying case because those minis get fragile.

They got some of them pointed edges on them and trying to just, oh, I'm just going to wrap it in bubble wrap. It's got to be a nightmare. I mean, no one wraps it in bubble wrap unless you're like shipping it. But the carrying a lot of things, especially in the little, spiky, pointy little bits especially, yeah, it can be a bit much. Yeah. But I will.

But I will say all that aside, D.K., I've heard that Warhammer history, you know, is pretty crazy sometimes. Just a little kooky zaney sometimes, sure, sure. I've heard that real life Chinese history is far stranger. Well, a little bit, yeah. So as everybody knows, we're talking about Grand Cathay today. And it is going to be a bit of a ride. So strap yourselves in. pack a lunch if you need to.

Also, big shout out to Possum because those two new lore books dropped, which I think is like some of the only like, I mean, there are like some lines here and there in lore now, but this is like the first real like big chunk of it. And so Possum put together quite a script. Been over it a few times. I've looked up some other stuff too.

I don't know how many of your, like, If you have like specific in-depth questions, I don't know how many of them I'm going to be able to answer, but I'll do my best. So Bricky, are you ready to learn about Grand Cathay? I mean, genuinely, I think that out of all of the miniatures I've seen for fantasy outside of like the Tomb Kings, Grand Cathay is pretty up there for the stuff that I think is really, really sick.

It looks awesome as hell. And also they were really neat to play in Total War when they were around. And so, yeah, I'm very curious because the new stuff is very neat. So, yes, yes. That's right. They got the new, the new sentinels came out, right? The big walking statues, which we'll talk about a little bit. Terracotta soldiers or whatever they are.

Yes, yes. Oh, man, they're so cool. Jesus. Anyway, so despite being mentioned as far back as 1984, wow, Grand Cathay has been a relative mystery in the setting of Warhammer fantasy. See. Throwaway lines here and there were more or less all we knew about them until, as we said, the release of Total War Warhammer 3. And we saw sort of like, you know, the full power, the might, the units, the story of Cathay. And now that we have them in sort of like the old world tabletop game, we finally got some like in-depth, expansive lore for Grand Cathay. So we're going to take our first steps into the Far East and learn what lies behind the Great Bastion. So the, yeah, the Great Bastion, which is more or less your Great Wall of China.

I was about saying, like, definitely not Great Wall of China. No, totally. Legally distinct, completely different. So, the Celestial Empire of Grand Cathay is the oldest nation in the world. and maybe one of the most populous. To outsiders, they hear Cothaians call their leaders dragons. Oh, those are our dragons. And they think that's something like a title.

Like, oh, that's your dragon emperor. That's your dragon lord. That's just something you call like the head of Grand Cthay. But Cothaians, they know. They know the truth. The lands of Grand Cthay are ruled by actual. living, breathing, dragons. And these dragons have been here since even before the old ones.

And we've already seen the power of what Kethay can do in the ogres episode and the sort of nonsense their astromancers can get up to. But that power is courtesy of ancient and arcane magic taught by the celestial dragon himself. So they're not dragons first. They're people first, dragons second? Oh, no, they're dragons first, people second. They start out as dragons, and they can take human form, yeah. Okay, so they are dragons taught by the celestial dragon that can then be turned,

that can then change into humans. Yeah, more or less. The celestial dragon is like the head haunting. show, the leader. He is that is what Grand Cathay revolves around and there are other dragons that sure learn from the celestial dragon

go into human form and sort of rule over Grand Cathay. Okay, and then of course, these are the Chinese dragons, so no wings and stuff. Yeah, your typical sort of more serpentine looking dragons. Yeah. Not like sort of your D&D red dragon.

All right. And everything from this episode is pretty much taken from those two new lore books exclusively. And any notable sort of rewrites compared to long-established lore, Possum is going to mention explicitly. And of course, this episode, folks, is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not the all-encompassing everything episode on Grand Cathay, because we could have like an entire episode by itself on just the units that they put out, the trade routes that they run,

and all that sort of other good stuff on Grand Cathay. But this is already going to be kind of a doozy of an episode. So just bear that in mind. And let's learn about dragons. All right. I like dragons. They're cool. They're sweet.

They're neat. Who doesn't like dragons? It's a very good thing to, like. Exquisitely put, good sir. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's, listen, it's, it's in the morning and we're learning about dragons, all right? That's true. That's fair. That's fair. So as far as their ancient history goes, little is known of the earliest histories of the dragons of the east. But one thing is certain. Before the time of the old ones, the celestial dragon had been the undisputed ruler of these

lands of Grand Cathay. Even before the old ones had arrived and started terraforming everything and started doing their shenanigans, the celestial dragon was here, was ruling these lands. And after defeating sort of other weaker dragons of the east, the celestial dragon was sort of like the top of the food chain, the apex predator, the one and only celestial dragon. And when the old ones arrived, and they started doing their sort of terraforming, you know, they started kind of warming up the planet a little, getting some of that frost off of it. A lot of the surviving dragons chose to attack the old ones. They tried to get them to make things the way they were.

They didn't like the old ones. They didn't like change. Some dragons decided, nah, I'm just going to hide. Some decided to go into hibernation, sleep it off, let's. the old ones do whatever they wanted. But the celestial dragon, they decided that instead of trying to attack or anything like that, instead,

the celestial dragon would learn. The celestial dragon took the name. Also, I guess I should mention, there's a lot of Chinese names to be had here. And I am not fluent in Chinese. Not Chinese, yeah. Nope. And I am not familiar with all the complexities.

of the sounds. So if I say something like Kwan Chi and you're like, no, D-K, no, no, that's not even close. I'm sorry, I'm American. Isn't Kwan Chi the dude from Mortal Kombat?

Well, I guess there kind of is, right? Is he the one that's like kind of dead? Oh my God, it is. Yeah, it is Quanchi from World Comic. He's the bald dude that does that have like the Yeah. The necromancy. Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, so Kwan Chi. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, I don't think that name is in here, but just as a heads up, if you hear me butchering the pronunciation of your culture, I am sorry. But I'm doing the best I can't. Anyway, so Celestial Dragon decides, hey, I'm going to learn. I'm going to do my due diligence. So Celestial Dragon decides to take the name Zhen Yang.

and studied and decided, you know, I almost studied the flow of the winds of magic, so that, you know, I can focus on harmony and unity with the old ones, as well as anyone that might come after the old ones. So the celestial dragon studied. Zhen Yang studies. He watches the slow fall of the ancient beasts of the world. He watches the rise of younger races like the dwarves and the elves, and eventually man.

And in time, Zhen Yang, the celestial dragon, would seek a mate. And he would find one in the form of the moon dragon. Literally a dragon that was born of the moon, or as the old world people called it mansleb. She would also take the form of a dragon so she could descend to the old world

and live besides Zhen Yang and teach him the ways of shape-shifting. So up until this point. Do they get the power from the moon? Or is that just the name? I think that is just this specific dragon that was born.

So the script says born of the moon. I looked a little into the wiki and I guess there were also some legends that was like maybe she was actually born on the moon and there was a race of people living on the moon and she might actually be like the last descendant of people from the moon. I only asked because my first thought was like I wonder if anything particularly bad happened when the rats nuked to the moon.

Ah, well that's more slip, which is the warp stone moon. So this is just the OG. Oh, it's a totally different moon. Yes, this is like the actual moon. My bad. Okay. I've read there were multiple moons. Got it.

Okay. Yeah, we got two moons. after the poles exploded, more Sleb came to be, and that's just a big hunk of warpstone flying around with the regular moon. So you got more Sleb and Mansle. Okay, well, don't I feel silly.

But okay, so she's teaching, she's teaching the Sleshiel Dragon how to shape shift? Yes, she is teaching him the ways of shapeshifting. She would take on the name of Kwayin. and both her and Zhen Yang and this is where the whole like, I don't speak Chinese,

I'm so sorry for butchering your language comes from because these names, I hope I'm not butchering them too much. But anyway, Moon Dragon takes the name Kwai Yin and both her and Zhen Yang would take on human forms so that they could walk freely among the tribes that were now thriving in Grand Qathe.

Quayin's undisputed grace was sort of like this natural balance to Zen Yang's fiery strength, you know, with their, and with their energies combined, they sort of began to guide the people of this land. And pretty common with Grand Cathay, you do, it's yin and yang, right? Quai Yin, Zhen Yang, you have the beauty and the grace, you have the fiery strength. It is. I mean, yeah, Yin Yang is, is, yeah, not much needed for that one. Yeah, they are, they balance each other out. Yeah. They would master the arts of masonry, alchemy, and metallurgy. The celestial dragon would then work to sort of unite all of these

tribes that are in Grand Cathay. And celestial dragon actually pretty humble, uh, because everybody wants to bestow upon the celestial dragon like some sort of title. You know, they want to call him emperor or praise him and he's like no no no no no I don't need that this is just the right thing to do this is just you know the celestial dragon being the celestial dragon he preferred to spread enlightenment and progress instead of just sort of like wallowing and waffling in the praise of others he wanted to do work he didn't just want to sit back relax and be showered with adulation The two dragons would welcome nine children, and they would teach all of their children the arts of shapeshifting

and sort of about the winds of magic and sort of making sure that they had their sort of primal draconic fury under wraps, so it would never take them over, and they could also do the shapeshifting, and they could walk among the common man, and they could do everything that their parents did. And in no time at all, these children would grow and aid their parents in the betterment of the people of Grand Cathay, teaching them more about the arts, civilization, exploration, all that good civilization building stuff. I mean, learning how to make a world and the people in it is just pretty helpful.

Yeah, it's pretty helpful. It's pretty helpful to mom and dad, too, because they don't have to do all the work. I'm also, I'm not sure if you said this, but like, the dragons that went to fight the old ones lost, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah. But like, I didn't win. I really didn't win, but I wasn't sure if there was like an in-between of some sorts. I mean, there is nothing here specifically saying that they lost, but I don't hear much about any of the other dragons

besides the celestial dragon, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say, yeah, the old ones probably fucked them up. Yeah, okay. Yeah. But, despite all the joy in the family of dragons and the prosperity

of Grand Cathay, not all was well, because this is Warhammer after all. Zen Yang would see visions in his dreams of horrors and the temptation of demons and all of this just really not fun stuff. And all of this would sort of beckon and sort of call him

to the great polar gates of the old ones. And as we all know, we've mentioned this in just about every fantasy episode because it's pertinent in every fantasy episode. The disaster that occurred at the polar gates, the explosion that just let chaos run free, just absolutely horrific. And a wave of just sort of uncontrolled magic hits the celestial dragon like a tidal wave.

But celestial dragon, Zen Yang, he bent this power of this unbridled magic to his will and he is able to sort of still this crazy storm of chaotic energy that is overwhelming Grand Cathay. And he manages to banish sort of like the initial waves of demons that were sort of just overflowing from the poles that have just exploded and are now just giant demon war portals. But the potential weight of this atrocity

was something that the celestial dragon cannot handle on his own. Like, sure, can he turn the tide against waves of demons? Of course. can't do everything on his own. There needs to be a united effort, or Grand Cathay is just doomed. Oh, yeah, I mean, especially against all the crap going on around them. Yeah, it's tough. And though efforts had been made to unify the lands, it wasn't completely unified yet.

So the celestial dragon is like, well, we got to. speed this up. We got to speed up the unification of everybody around Grand Cathay. So, Celestial Dragon would send most of his children to sort of the far corners of the realm to make it go just a little bit quicker. His hopes would be that, like, you know, I taught my kids well. They know what they got to do. They can earn loyalty and respect. And they're not going to be tyrants. They're not going to subjugate. They are going to earn it through. loyalty and respect. So this is where he sends his children.

He sends the storm dragon, Miao Ying, to the north to live among the warriors of Nan Gao. The fire dragon, Li Da, would travel to the south to unify the jungles of Cheyenne and the mountains of heaven, which just great name. The iron dragon, Xiaoming, would go to the west to unite the alchemists of Shangyang, and the sea dragon Yin Yan would head to the east to lead the sailors of Fu Chow to conquer the Jade Sea.

Oh, and the jade dragon Yuan Bo would be entrusted to Centrochethay in his palace in Weijin. Okay, so like, I'm waiting for the twist or something, because for the most part, the celestial dragon is seeming like kind of a chill guy. Yeah, so far, the Celestial Dragon is just a really kind of chill, really good leader of Kethe. Like him and the Moon Dragon are just really quite poggers, as the kids say. They do say that, yeah. Wait, so the Dragon Lady miniature that we got is the Storm Dragon, yeah? Yes, there is a Miao Ying Storm Dragon mini.

I believe I saw there's one of her in human and dragon form, right? And it's so sad. Yeah, yeah, you can get both together with it. Wait, so, wait, so having like, me as a meow yang is what you said the name was? Yeah, the storm dragon is Meow Ying. Oh, Ying. So actually, I'm going to think of it. Her being a model sounds like a pretty goddamn big deal.

Because she's like one of the original, like, kids of the celestial dragon, right? Yeah, she's a pretty big deal. She is one of the OG kids of the Celestial Dragon. And I don't remember if she's considered the strongest or not. We will talk about her a little more later, but I know I'm pretty sure you can play as her in Total War Warhammer 3, maybe. It's in a while, so I don't quite remember myself. But she is, she is pretty great. So, oh, go ahead.

Also, Shai says, Meow Ying is not the Empress of Cathay, and we know that. So if you do see the poster that we did and you see Dragon Empress, that's the legally distinct reasons. Ah, not the, like, that's not the correct person type deal. Got you. Got you.

But, okay, that actually is, I did not realize how big of a deal she was, because all things considered. Oh, yeah, Meowying, big deal, big deal. But with all of the Celestial Dragon's children, sort of doing this, the unification pretty swift. And the Celestial Dragon would actually entrust the command of his armies to his most beloved child, Shiami. And Shiami had fought in a ton of battles against chaos side by side with her father, the

celestial dragon. and she was just the perfect fit to serve as the herald of Cathay's might. But though Shiyama was a ferocious and a courageous warrior and just the perfect herald for Cathay's might, she had one really big weakness. Shiyama had a lot of pride, a ton of pride. and it was her pride that would make her ignore these warnings that she got from her father because her father was like, look, you're great, you're really strong, you're my favorite kid.

But chaos, you can't brute force it. You can't just brute force chaos into the ground, into the dirt, strong as you are. It's a long campaign. It takes more than just a strong arm. Okay. Unfortunately, Chiama, oh, yeah, go ahead. Oh, no, no, I was going to say what you were going to say, which is like, well, Shama is like, no, I'd win. Yeah, she decides, you know what?

I'm going to march to the north. I'm going to march into their home turf. You know, my dad did warn me, but hey, I have pride in myself. I know how strong I am. I know how good I am. Dad, the celestial dragon, he picked me. I'm that person. Yeah, dad, dad, dad, the celestial dragon.

there within the old ones, maybe knows better. Yeah, but Shiyama is dead set on defeating the ruinous powers on their own home turf. And, you know, she would, not only was she super strong, she was amazing with sorcery, too. And the legions that she commanded would, man, they are, they are taking it to chaos. It is almost effort. It is like a hot knife through butter. But Shiyama wasn't really prepared for all of the sort of chaos manipulations and trickery of the ruinous powers. Because Shiyama, she's like, oh my God, I am tearing through chaos.

So much so that these chaos demon hordes are like literally fleeing from me in terror. This is great. I'm doing amazing. Until suddenly, it was almost like a haze cleared from her eyes slowly but surely. And as she was looking at these terrified chaos minions that were fleeing from her, suddenly they stopped looking like chaos minions. And they started to look a little familiar. And little by little, Shiyama realized chaos had completely warped and tainted her vision.

She was not She was not cutting through demons Like a hot knife through butter She was actually Annihaling line Upon line Of her own loyal soldiers Nice

Chaos Chaos duby Do a little trickery here and there Do a Make you a little spooked Yep And her armor Is stained

completely in Cathayian blood. And the overwhelming shame and horror she faced at this realization, oh man, she ran as fast as she could out of there and back to Cathay, back to the realm of her father. But chaos very rarely stops after one silly little trick like that. unbeknownst to Shiyama, chaos had all, chaos had not only twisted her vision, they had also managed to twist her outward appearance. While Shiama saw herself as she'd always been, when she got back to Kethe, all the people would see is a horrific champion of chaos itself. And the fleeing armies that were with her looked like demons.

Ah, so, so I'm assuming her, her, uh, home base was like, holy hell. What is this? What the hell is that coming towards? Just kill it now. So Shiyama and her armies arrive at Nangao, fleeing for their lives. And all the storm dragon Miao Ying sees is just like, oh my God. Like you said, it's like, it's a chaos war ban. What the hell is?

this and naturally mea ying was like well just this we got to destroy it because that's trouble and jen yang would sense this calamity sort of coming from the north he could feel it and he's like oh god i got to stop this because shiamma and miao ying are about to collide and he takes on his dragon form and he burst through the heavens. He is trying to just hoof it to Nangau fast as he can, stop this horrible tragedy from happening. But he is too late. As he descends to the battlefield outside Nangau,

he would see Miao Ying, the storm dragon, dealing the final blow to Shiyama. And as Miao Ying deals that final blow, the trick of chaos, fades away and reveals that this person that Miao Ying had just dealt the final blow to was, in fact, Shiyama. Zhen Yang would cradle Shiyama and she would use her final breath to her father to sort of like beg for forgiveness. I should have listened to you, Dad, I was too headstrong. And through his powerful magic, now, Zhen Yang could not fully restore her and revoke.

her to what she was, but he could at least bind the spirit of Shiamah to Grand Cathay itself. And her new charge was to protect the ancestors

for as long as the realm endured and she would rule the underworld in the name of her father and she would sort of be reborn as the spirit dragon of the underworld. Okay, so Uh, huh.

Once again, the Sleshill dragons taking things pretty okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as okay as you can be when you cradle your favorite child. Well, he's certainly struggling, sure, but like, you know. He's doing about as well as you can in the situation given, yeah. Correct. Yeah.

I mean, also the fact that the, um, I'm sorry, unfortunately, a lot of the names blur and it gets a little difficult to remember. I had a problem too I'm not good with distinguishing them but the dragon who tricked by chaos being the underworld

Shiyama kind of per Shiamma being the underworld kind of spirit is actually kind of cool that's pretty neat yeah so you know

it wasn't a complete loss what happened to Mia Ying still the storm dragon you know well yeah but like still storm dragging it Dad was chill with it. Dad was like, all right?

I would assume that the celestial, there's nothing here that says any differently, but I have to believe that Celestial Dragon was like, look, this all sucks real bad. And in your position, what else were you supposed to do? Like, you saw chaos, you saw this huge chaos horde coming at you. You didn't know it was like your sister.

What are you going to do, right? Like, as far as, as I know he does not hold like a grudge against her. He does not blame her or anything like that. And she, I don't think she is like, she doesn't have any like overwhelming sense of like guilt. I mean, I'm sure it sucks for her, but yeah. Well, but. Oh, well. At least you got a cool mini. It's true. She got a dope-ass mini. But rumors would begin to spread in in Grand Cathay that Shiama had been manipulated by the powers of chaos. Little rumors are spreading that, oh, you know, that that chaos

or that was actually Shiamah. I kind of saw what happened. I saw that big chaos thing finally turn into Shiama. And so the celestial dragon, after sort of hearing all these rumors, would turn to his wife for aid. And through grief and just the sheer prowess of her magic, the moon dragon, Kwayin, would actually obscure the memories of all the people that saw the demise of Shiyama.

She would almost erase those memories of treachery and the sort of tainting of Shiyama and instead would turn those memories into a desire to spread the legend of the great spirit dragon that is waiting in the afterlife for you. and Shiyama would forever be regarded as the spirit dragon. And basically, nobody in Grand Cathay would ever remember when she walked among them in physical form. They wouldn't remember that she ever tried to take the fight to chaos. They would just be like, oh, man, I don't remember Shiyama, but boy, I love that spirit dragon. Praise be to the spirit dragon.

Love, love, love that spirit dragon. Oh, that's true. Miao Ying wouldn't even remember that that even happened because her memory gets erased. And instead, Miao Ying's probably just like, boy, I love me, that's spirit dragon. Love, love, love, love, love. Yeah. That's nice and tragic all at the same time. Well, it kind of sucks, but, you know, I get it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Though this fixed the mounting fear of chaos in the empire, this did not mend the heart. of the celestial dragon. He had spent centuries resisting the evil that existed beyond the veil of reality and did everything in his power to protect his family, protect Kethe, protect his people. But deep down, he knew that somehow it would be futile, that chaos is just growing stronger. Year in, year out, and if they could do that to Shiamah, man, eventually, they're going to be. able to figure out a way to get strong enough to do who knows what to him and his people.

And so he sets plans in motion to slay the beasts of chaos that ruled the demonic legion. Similar plans began to sort of unfold across the old world. The mages of Ulthwan are preparing their great ritual to sort of close the big portals. In Lustria, the old ones few remaining servants would begin preparations to banish the legions from the world, and the celestial dragon would lead the armies of Grand Cathay northwards into the storms of chaos. Though the advance was slow, it was working, and soon enough, the realms of chaos itself would lay before Zhen Yang and his armies. Towering demon lords would crack the sky and challenge them. the dragons, and this challenge would be met with draconic ferocity. The celestial dragon and this

children would rise to the skies and meet this threat head on, revealing their draconic forms to the demons of chaos. And one by one, even the most powerful servants of the ruinous powers are torn asunder by the fury of these dragons, banishing their essence back to the warp from which they came and probably securing a pretty satisfying dub considering everything that just happened to Shiyama. Yeah, I'm assuming this was particularly therapeutic after everything.

That was going on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I'm sure the celestial dragon, it was slow because he was taking his time. He was like, man, I just saw what happened to my favorite kid. I'm not going to let the same thing happen to me. I'm not going to get swept up in it. I'm not going to let pride and vengeance cloud me. We're going to do this the right way.

So, the draconic fury combined with their mastery of the winds of magic was just overwhelming to the demons. And they started committing more and more and more of their legions to the battle. And the heroism of the Cthayan dragons in the face of the horrors of converged chaos. And also you still have, you know, Ulthuan heroes and, you know, lizard men and all these other heroes across the globe separately, also fighting chaos, the storms of magic that had raged for more than a thousand years would come and the age of chaos would finally end, ushering in a new age.

So all of the old world came together, dragons, elves, lizardmen, the whole nine, and they would finally banish chaos. Ah, and then everyone would live happily ever after And everything would be great Oh, if only If only, but I mean Banish chaos, you say, banish Banish chaos

Obviously chaos never completely dies in Warhammer Because where's the fun in that? Of course, of course And as we know from previous episodes Even when the The Portals on the Pulse close chaos can still get through when the moon is right

there's still a very shaky veil between the realm of chaos and the old world and they still slip through all the goddamn time you still have chaos champions rolling around you still have all sorts of nonsense

so while the big threat was taken care of it's not like all threats are gone right no no of course not especially not with chaos considering what they feast off of so speak.

Yeah. And in this new age, Zhen Yang was now able to focus more on his magic studies and his ability to teach others more freely now

that the enemies of the world had withdrawn from the borders of Grand Cathay. And so the celestial dragon's mastery of the winds of magic was known as Feng Shi. And he was able

to sort of divide the elements, the winds of magic, into two groups, Yin and Yang. Wow. Amazing. I'm shocked. I'm shocked. I know.

It's crazy, right? Why would he do that? But in order to continue the studies, he established the celestial court in the city of Wei Jin, which was a place where scholars could, through very, very intense study, become mages and astromancers. Zen Yang's ability to contemplate the world and study in peace

was obviously in large part due to his children because he had sent them out and they served as like the governance of their respective provinces that we talked about earlier. They were like this big uniting factor in Grand Cathay

and so they could really do a brunt of the work while the celestial dragon was You know, I'm going to study. I'm going to really figure out the winds of magic. I'm really going to figure out how this works. And due to the firm hold that they had on everything and this relative piece that they had,

they were able to advance quite rapidly. And through their advanced magical studies, they were able to build these great stone sentinels that would defend the realm from attackers, standing like gigantic statues, they silently watch over the lands until their services are required, which are the sort of terracotta center.

Yeah, yeah, hell yeah. Mm-hmm. And in the skies, the large fleets of sky lanterns allowed them to cover long distances in a short amount of time, assuring that they had pretty great control over the land and the skies.

And sky lanterns are like, um, imagine like those sort of Oh no, I know what they are. Oh, you know them. Yeah, the little paper orange lanterns that you kind of release. Yes.

But for them, it's like a hot air balloon almost. Yeah, I was going to say, imagine an Asian paper lantern, but on the scale of a hot air balloon. Yeah. And you essentially have the sky lantern. And those minis look so great. I love the aesthetic of using a paper lantern

as like an attack air balloon. That's really dope. It's a really fun way to mix that up. Yeah. But the seas served as a different form of expansion for Grand Cathay. Exploration and trade. Merchants and adventures traverse the great oceans with the blessings of the dragons. Contact was made with many races of the world.

Treaties were made. Wealth is gained. Alliances are forged. You know, everything is going pretty well. Despite the major defeat of chaos, Grand Cathay is still facing a lot of wars, though. Even though they've got treaties, they've got trade routes, they've got the ocean routes, they've got the land routes, they've got the sky routes, you know, they've still got chaos, they've still got marauders, they've still got all sorts of wars to fight,

including maybe some of their former... friends. Um, so it's, it's because of all of these wars and ravages and chaos, it's still roaming around that in, I was, I was love timelines in old, old world, because this takes place in minus 1800 I see, which is essentially 1800 years before Sigma becomes the first emperor of, um, the empire. Oh, geez, okay. Yeah, minus 1800, I see.

The celestial dragon would command the construction of a massive wall along the northern border that would stand as a towering warning against those who wish to see Grand Cathay fall. The Great Bastion would expand over many hundreds of miles and endures as a testament to Zhen Yang's strength. but it might also be a physical form of his strength too, as it is said that a measure of his own magic is actually embedded in the very stones that were used to build it. Another really great creation on the heels of the Great Bastion's completion

is the Wu Xing compass, which was crafted and placed in the center of the celestial palace. With the study of this device, astro-mancers can determine which winds of men are ascending or in a waning state, and it allows them to actually direct the winds of magic to where they can strengthen things in a defensive manner, which is just so disgustingly broken as a defensive tool that you can just be like, oh yeah, over there, they really need this maxed out wind of magic?

Here you go. It's crazy. another means of defense was the creation of various war machines, a lot of steam engine related stuff, but they needed some form of like alchemical power to function them. And Possum specifically says, comment section, do not be mad about the following tidbit that we are about to tell you. This is what it says in the new books,

don't shoot the messenger. Oh boy, I love this. All right, shoot someone else. If you need to shoot someone, I mean, you know, we need to be applications. But in these books, it says Grand Cathay was able to discover the secrets of black powder even before the dwarves of the world's edge mountain. And though the dwarves would never admit it, the black powder made in Grand Cathay is truly the finest in the world.

I see. Yeah. Is this because, are they doing this because China in like Discover Black Powder? Originally? Seems that way. Yeah. It's funny because Possum told me that and I was like, oh man, for some reason I'm just like, brother. I could see, I could see some dwarf players getting mighty upset that like, what do you mean Grand Cathay discovered it?

What do you mean Grand Cathay has better black powder than us? Our whole faction is based on crazy. What the hell, man? I mean, I guess, I don't know. Like, Grand Cathay discovering black powder is like whatever because they're doing, they're tying it to, you know, IRA. World history. Yeah.

But like, I guess you could have, you could have just given the dwarves the strongest black powder. Like, Cathay discovered it, but the dwarves are the dwarves and they made it the best. That, I feel like that would have probably been the better way to do it. Cathay discovered it. The dwarves refined it. and made it way better. Yeah. Because I mean,

the dwarf's whole thing is lots of that gunpowder and stuff. Yeah. So. Uh, uh, oh,

yeah, that's what it says in the books. Comment section, just as a little, you know, Possum was like, please make sure you mention that. Yeah,

I love, I love China. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Ooh. And of course, the only way

that a strong defense really works is if the land that you're defending is, worth defending in the first place. And the Celestial Dragon has worked on a culture of respect and loyalty

pretty much unheard of in most other places in this world. As we've learned so far, and as you've said so far, the Celestial Dragon is a pretty chill guy. The Celestial dragon believes that it's the purpose

of a ruler to be the one who teaches, the one who guides, and he has taught his children to rule with this mindset over all others. Unlike the dragons of the old world, he doesn't remain hidden or slumbering for ages on end. Ever since accepting his title as the celestial dragon, he remains ever present, and he doesn't want to squander the goodwill of those who look up to him.

So, you know, Celestial Dragon, just like, I'm just going to be a good leader, and I'm going to teach my kids to be a good leader and we're not going to be tyrants. Where does this go wrong? This has to go wrong. But like, at some point, I'm trying to figure out when this is going wrong. Also, I'm, oh, I'm curious by this. Shai says, I like this continuous relative normalcy of warmer fantasy shocks, Bricky, who got used to, everyone is a dick thing in 40K.

I remember in an empire episode, he was like, wow, this Sigmar is kind of a good guy. that's wild compared to the 40K. So I think, I am shocked that there are like just genuinely fine people because Warhammer likes to copy their own homework all the goddamn time. So I kind of just assume that everyone is, is going to be a prick like in 40K. But, um, I mean, yeah, I guess, I don't, okay. So, because also here's the thing, though, is that like, even though the celestial dragon person is apparently quite kind.

a good leader and really cool. Mm-hmm. I don't trust this, D.K. Like, like, I, I'm not saying he's going to become a huge dick. I'm going to, I'm saying that, like, he's just, like, going to die tragically or something is going to happen like that, because that seems to happen to a lot of decent people in this world. Well, I mean, I guess we're just going to have to find out, aren't we?

Because I wouldn't, I wouldn't do something like, spoil that for you when we still have a little ways to go, right? I just always expect everyone to be a huge asshole, so this is surprising. So funny. But yeah, like the celestial dragon just really, really, and just all the dragons in general, all of his children, also just really good leaders. And the people in Grand Cathay serve the dragons not because they fear them, which, you know, if a dragon tried to rule over me, I would probably listen out of fear.

They listen to them out of wonder. and because generally speaking, they do have the best interests of the people at heart. Possum says, like, oh, you're telling me a big old dragon wants to teach me how to be happy and how to do card tricks because he just wants to. Well, sign me up. Grand Cathay is built on harmony, be it the people who stay at home or those at the front lines. The soldiers are trained to move in harmony with all the units around them. So they sort of act as almost the natural extension of the will of their general.

They're all, they all got the same goal, the same mindset. They're all on the same damn page. I think they had some kind of thing like that in the tabletop. Sorry, not tabletop. Sorry, the total war. They either have like yin and yang or like a harmony meter or something like that. I don't quite remember. But it's like it was one of their major gameplay elements.

Yes, I remember vaguely looking at the Total War Warhammer three page for them and seeing like yin and yang, big deal, harmony, big deal, trade routes, huge deal, so yeah. We do like the trade routes. Oh, yeah, who doesn't. Now we're going to go into the worldview of Zhenyang, and by extension, Grand Cathay itself. As we said before, he watched the emergence of many of these young. races around the world. And, you know, naturally, Zen Yang is going to have some thoughts about the younger races outside of Grand Cathay that are rising up.

And this is due to the fact that he does kind of think of himself as the protector of the Eastern Hemisphere, you know, so he kind of lets others below him take custodianship of the rest of the world. He's got the East covered. Everybody else can kind of, the rest of the world can kind of like figure out their own stuff. And the rest of the world naturally has some thoughts about dragons in general. And Possum has provided me with a quote that is a good summary of what he watched and how he felt about all of the sort of different races that were sprouting up.

With great disgust, he looked on as the. elves of Ulthwan cowed the draconic children of his once mighty rivals to their service beasts of burden. Impotently, he watched as the dwarves of the world's edge mountain slaughtered slumbering drakes of immense age in their layers that they might plunder their treasures. Yet the humans of the West intrigued him as much as those of the East, and he observed with great interest as they took their first faltering steps upon the path to civilization, emulating

of their own volition the same great efforts made by his own subjects. So he's not a huge fan of what the elves and the dwarves are doing because more or less they're slaughtering and enslaving dragons. Yeah, I mean, that kind of

sucks. That's not particularly cool. Yeah, it's not particularly puggers. Oh, you're right, I should make Bricky read quotes. You're right. I'm sorry. I agree quotes. But also, like, dang, who would have, who would, finally, finally. We got some, we got some assholes in here. I was feeling worried. But they're not the dragons that are assholes. It's people being assholes to dragons, which I'm surprised it did take us this long to get to that. I mean, we had the chaos already. That doesn't really count. So that's true. That's true. And we talked about them before, but it's time to bring the boys back to the West. ogres were roaming and began to grow a number year after year until, as we talked about in the episode,

they got just a little too close to the borders of Grand Cathay. And while it started cordial, things got a little sloppy when Grand Cathay was like, what do you mean our farmers are going missing? What do you mean it looks like the ogres are eating people? What do you mean? What do you mean there's a lot more? ogres, and Zhen Yang was deeply concerned. More so with the Sky Titans,

as the Sky Titans had been an entity that were around since also before the old ones, and Zhen Yang was kind of worried that the ogres were going to do some bad stuff to these ancient Sky Titans. And so if you remember in the Ogre episode, the Sky Titans, when they were, attacked by the ogres, they were literally shooting fortress cannons at them, right? Yes, I do remember this. If I'm not mistaken,

as it says here in the script, the celestial dragon shared with the sky titans the secrets of black powder so that they could protect themselves better. So they specifically got those cannons and that tech from the celestial dragon. Also, are the ogres like a a major consistent enemy of Cathay?

I don't think so. I'm... If they are, it's not mentioned much in this one. And from what I remember of our episode on the Ogres, it feels more like Grand Cathay just kind of really mess their shit up, and the ogres just kind of had to become a nomadic tribe because of it. And even if they did try to stand up to Kethe, Kthay would absolutely push their shit in. Yeah, shy, uh, shy was beat me to the punch there.

Um, because I, the ogres were very heavily Mongolian inspired and, uh, considering, considering the Mongolian and, uh, Chinese, uh, you know, best buddies and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, because of that, I was kind of like, oh, you know, I'm wondering if that's like a very common type of thing or if it's maybe just, you know, just like a little here and there. But also, yeah, the ogres seem more interested in like eating people and hanging out. Tournaments, yeah.

But this was futile. Giving their defenses to the Skytisans was futile. And, you know, they were like, something's got to be done about these ogres. So he turns to his astramancers and Possum says they unleash the worst. level of Catamari Damasi onto the ogres. And of course, the big meteor just comes down and and that sort of becomes their great maud deity. Whether it's actually a deity or the ogres are just stupid

and think that this big, you know, the scarletop pits. Yeah, whether they think this scarlet-looking pit is actually a deity or not. Who knows? It works for the ogres. So, you know. But naturally, like I said, this only scares the this only scares the ogres a little bit

and then they really go and screw up the titans, the sky titans and well, celestial dragon's plans don't quite work out very well with the ogres. But one of the more prolific and fruitful encounters Grand Cathay would have

in this, would be with the flourishing realm of Nehakara. The first encounter with them would be in Lamia, after representatives arrived by boat. The Nehakarans are very suspicious of outsiders because they had been, up until this point, they had been kind of tormented by invaders beyond their borders to the north.

But after a little bit of talking and getting to know the Cathians, they're like, hey, these guys are just like really, they're civilized, they're sophisticated, they're respectful, they're intelligent. You know what? we're going to welcome their representatives with open arms. And, you know, the Nehakarans gave them a grand tour of their temple cities. Yeah, yeah. No, nothing ever about it happened is Nehikara.

Yeah, yeah. No, this is, yeah, historically, nothing, it's all just roses and embalming. Anyway, what? since they were both almost immediately on the same page. Trade began between these two nations almost immediately, and they start sharing magical secrets, technologies, rare spices, and all of this trade would bring them really, really close together. But even though their relationship was pretty good,

it was pretty rock solid at this point, the Cathayans still kind of found the Nehikhar. Little on the odd side. Um, they found it weird that they were just kind of like exceptionally, just wildly superstitious. And the Cthians were like being governed by a pantheon of gods? It's kind of weird because we're just ruled by really cool dragons. And y'all are just like praying to gods that you can't really see. It's kind of weird.

And since the Nehacharan's were so superstitious, uh, They thought that the stories of the celestial dragons were just like, oh, that's so cool. You guys have actual dragons? Like, we have a pantheon. And, like, you guys have dragons? That's so cool. And the Nehakarans are, like, immediately on board with this idea. They love the idea of being ruled over by dragons.

And so the mortuary cult of Nehakara devotes a lot of its learning to being like, you know what, let's try and figure out the celestial dragon's powers, because we're really into this stuff. And these are secrets that Jen Yang's representatives never really elaborated on. They never really told them about. But, you know, despite all this, despite the fact that your death cult is trying to learn the secrets

of your almighty celestial dragon god, their alliance still strong. And there would be many times where the forces of Nehikara would march side by side with the army, armies of Grand Cathay to fight back the forces of chaos and just in general secure their trade routes because they just Nehachar and Gran Cathay, oh man, they just love trading. We love our trade routes. We just, oh man, just great. Yeah, what if that Cetra guy causes any issues? He who shall not deal. He's, you know, just just a possibility considering that like, how, how, are we still in like pre?

Conan the Barbarian. Yeah, we are still big time pre-Sigma. I'm not even sure the humans have crossed the world's edge mountains yet. I'm not even sure they're tribing it up yet, honestly. Because we're literally the next thing is like when Nagash usurp the throne of Nass. So we're still in like, early Nagash era. Yeah. We're going a bit.

Mm-hmm. But when Nagash, you know, Nagash usurp the throne in Nehakara, darkness would fall over the lands. Nagash's focus was, as we've spoken on before, it was only on his power, his rulership, his own brutality. And the celestial dragon was not a fan. The celestial dragon, Zhen Yang, was already growing really suspicious of the mortuary cult, because as we said, mortuary cult is trying to figure out his magic, his power,

existence, everything about him, that's a little suss. And seeing the rise of Nagash, he was like, you know what? I think it's a good time for us to just leave this place. Nehikara, I'm not really feeling it anymore. And so he swiftly withdraws the representatives from Nehikara and pulled back his other forces from sort of the nearby outpost. And as they withdraw, the war raging in Nehakara would expand outward, slowly. So the celestial dragon would focus more on the defense of the borders

and work to make sure that his realm would be self-sufficient. As it seemed, outward trust was not as easy to come by as they thought it would because they watched the fall of Nehikara. That was sort of like the last straw. It was sort of when Nehikara fell, they were like, yeah, we should probably build the Great Bastion because who knows, what the hell's going to come for us because look at what happened to Nehikara. Holy shit. Build the wall, keep them out. The destruction of this relationship would make the Celestial

dragon a little sad because, you know, they were fans of Nehikara. Before Nagas showed up, trade was prosperous. They loved each other. They loved doing their thing. But he just watching the rise and rapid fall of a nation because of one person alone, because of just Nagash is a little depressing to see. And the sort of raw, vile power of Nagash actually, it shook Zhen Yang to the core. Because Zhen Yang, up until this point, he had been slaying some really foul beasts,

like awful lords of chaos, terrible demons, he was fighting, he was killing them, he thought he had seen it all. But the idea of fighting someone like Nagash, after seeing what Nagash had done to Nehakara, it actually kind of scared him. The fear of... Nagash is kind of the guy, you know?

He kind of is. Such is the power of Nagash that he will even make. the celestial dragon tremble with fear. That's crazy. I mean, I don't know. I've seen the gash, and I remember the episode on the gash, and not only is the guy powerful, but he is petty. Oh, well, he's a hecarin, right? That's in his blood.

He's a tomb king. You got to be petty, right? But it is this fear that was instilled in him after watching Nehakara fall that made him go deeper and deeper into his studies and almost fully retreat into the halls of the celestial palace to do so. Interactions with other races were a bit more at arm's length overall, but obviously you kind of have to interact. interact with people because, you know, you got to trade, you got to explore.

It's, it's deeply rooted in the people of Grand Cathay to do that. So he's not super fond of like trade interactions anymore because Nagash really put the fear of God in him, but, you know, they're still doing it. Better than he is like, all right, I'm not really going to work with this dude anymore as opposed to being like, we got to kill him. Yeah. He learned that day that like, yo, not everything is not as happy fun as it seems.

And sometimes all it takes is one bad apple to absolutely obliterate the bunch. I'm like a bad orchard, but yeah. Yeah, that's bad roots. Due to the nature of Yin Yin, the Sea Dragon's domain and sort of the relentless drive of Grand Cathay to explore, direct contact with the old,

Elves of Ulthwan has happened multiple times. Considering the elves made his old relatives into, as Possum puts it, essentially dogs, kind of like goofy looking at Pluto when you think about it, because I'm sure you've seen some old world minis where elves are literally riding in on dragons. Yes, yes. So, yeah, not super stoked about that. the celestial dragon found the elves to be distasteful and arrogant and he would eventually make an agreement with the rulers of Elthwan

that he wouldn't expand beyond his Grand Cathay borders into elvish territories as long as the elves could oversee the West because Celestial Dragons, he's a good guy, he's like, look, I've got the East covered. Grand Cathay, we have the East covered. Elves? oversees the West. Okay? Good, good. Everybody's covered. We're fine. I don't expand into your territory.

You keep your territory. Whatever. However, elves being elves, they don't really defend the West so much as they're like, oh yeah, that sure looks like some problems in the West. I'm sure they'll defend themselves, maybe, probably, whatever. I need to go comb my long,

blonde hair some more. The Celestial Dragon would have his children interact and help with those in the West more than the supposed guardians of the West. So the Celestial Dragon's children actually doing a little more to guard the West than the elves. But one key thing that would be ensured is that Kethe would have free reign to travel and explore without the intervention or objection of the elves.

So while they wouldn't expand and turn elvish to... domain into theirs, they could still trade, they could still explore, they could still learn, they could still do all that fun stuff. What do I get the feeling that Ket is going to start going, like, one by one going around to the other various races and being, like, having things be chill until someone over there in that race makes it not chill. Well, I mean, it's crazy, too, because it's like, Nehakara is just like, hey, just listen to the, well, I guess Nehagar, I didn't really have a choice because Nagash, but it's

Like when the celestial dragon shows up and it's like, hey, we just want to help. Just listen to him. He's a good leader. He just wants to help. And he's a dragon. Yeah. So far. So far.

I'm still waiting for the, uh, for the problems. Damn, Brickie's waiting for the celestial dragon to go all horace and just burn it all to the I'm waiting. I'm waiting for something. Either that or he gets like horribly murdered. I don't know. Well, we'll see. But in the West, the Iron Dragon, Zhao Ming, would encounter the dwarves of the World's Edge Mountain, along with his sister, Miao Ying, the Storm Dragon.

They would both eagerly trade technology and alchemical knowledge with the dwarfs. But the most important interaction that the dragons would have would be, of course, with the boy, Sigmar. 1500 years after the time of Woe, Grand Cathay would be struck by terrible earthquakes strong enough to rock the great bastion itself. A chaos incursion would manifest and almost completely overwhelmed the empire. During this time,

Gen Yang would learn of a new empire in the distant west helmed by a barbarian chief named Sigmar Heldenhammer Tales that is You say something of woe? Yeah, the time of woe. The time of woe.

Whoa! Also, barbarian chief, how dare you? Even though I know what they mean, but how dare you? Oh, so sorry. But tales of Sigmar unifying tribes, ally ships with the dwarfs, and the battles he'd waged against the orcs would reach Zhen Yang, and he was so curious.

He's like, whoa, Sigmar sounds like a badass, like, whoa. He senses some really important significance in this new chief, and he sends Miao Ying, the Storm Dragon, as his personal ambassador to meet him. On her way, she would stop at Ulthwan to learn more of him while sending heralds ahead of her to Marianburg to announce her coming.

coming. She opted the last bit of her journey to travel via Skylantern to make a momentous arrival that would not be ignored. Although honestly, if I was going to make a momentous arrival and I am the storm dragon, I would just fly in as a storm dragon. I wouldn't take a lantern. Yeah, I would fly in the goddamn dragon. I'd be like, look, I'm a storm dragon. Maybe she wanted to come a little bit more. Humble. Like, oh, yeah, maybe a little less frightening. Yeah. I mean, I guess that is fair because dad taught them that dad taught them well to not be tyrants, not be awful, be humble, be respectful, gain trust, gain loyalty. And I guess, you know, diving in as a terror dragon wouldn't exactly be the easiest way to do it. Like flying in with just like electricity zapping around. I come in peace.

I come in peace. Oh, my God. Kill it. Miao Ying was a bit surprised when she saw Sigmar for the first time. Because in Miao Ying's head, she was getting ready to meet some barbarian warlord that would just grunt and grue at her. But instead, she was in the court of an eloquent and intelligent king who was both graceful but properly forceful. Without hesitation, no hesitation. She offered the friendship of her father and offered wealth and knowledge in exchange for trade.

Sigmar is like, yeah, of course, absolutely I will. You're offering me all this stuff, your powerful allies, you're offering me wealth, knowledge, and look at your crazy forces. Yes, of course I will. Sign me up on the dotted line. He signs up immediately. And hey, now Sigmar. And Grand Cathay, allies.

Love it. Over time, yeah, well, I mean, right? Over time, more other nations of men would emerge and dominate the old world, and they would share strong bonds with Grand Cathay, trading goods and ideas freely. It should be noted that an explanation of all the different trade routes and such, like we said earlier, would basically be an episode unto itself. You could do a whole episode on how they like to trade, the trade routes that they use and all that,

because, you know, they love their trade. But it's for another episode. Migration between the old world and Grand Cathay would become pretty normal. And some of the larger cities in the old world like Marianburg would become home to substantial quarters for Cathayan merchants, artisians, and diplomats. This would result in the routes of the north, opening once more routes that hadn't been open since the collapse of Nehikara were now open, trading freely. Hell, even the dragons themselves would venture westwards in the company of their armies. Ever since that faithful meeting between Miao Ying and Sigmar, showing the celestial dragon's feelings on humanity most of all.

And Bricky, there's a quote here to be had. There's a quote here to be read. Yeah, isn't it literally called the Silk Road, Chai? Their big trade route is literally the Silk Road, isn't it? I think I remember something like, Ivory Road. Ivory Road. Shakes my head, SMH. Yes, this is the quote that was left for me by Possum.

So if you want to read it, go ahead. Yeah. The visits of the dragons to Western nations often herald great appeal. heaval at times when they arrive in times of crises to offer decisive support. Thus have the armies of the celestial dragon fought to defend the West many times. For though, the Zhen Yang claims to view the custodian ship of the West as a matter for the elves and the dwarves. His fondness for the human nations of the old world compels him and his children to intervene

in times of direst need. Hell yeah. He comes by when it's time. Yeah, if they really need him, he will show up. if you're in the West, he kind of expects the elves and the dwarves to defend you. And obviously, he's got some kids

in the West too. He's got, I believe it's the Iron Dragon, Xiaoming. But yeah, he's, he's kind of leaving that up to the elves and the dwarves. And we're going to talk now a little more specifically over

one major conflict that occurred. So the might of the dragons can be seen in we'll say more of a contemporary sense, particularly how the rest of the world saw the true military might of the dragons. So this is a very dumb question,

but I do want to ask it just to be certain. So obviously the dragons are the dragons. And the dragons learned shape-shifting. So their choice of shapeshifting is a human-style look. Yes. Cathay, the kingdom of Cathay, the whatever the of Cathay, they are humans, right? Like they are just, they are humanity. They are humans, yes.

Okay, it's just they're led by dragons, that shapes shift into human. The only reason I ask that is because, like, there's large amounts of human adjacent. And sometimes it's led in like a weird way. We're like, oh, yeah, they are tech. They look like humans, but they're not. quite because of like reason, right? But okay, okay, so yes.

I just, I only ask this because even though it's a stupid question, I just wanted to just be 100% certain. It's better to clarify, right? But yeah, that's like the whole reason that Jen Yang learned shape-shifting was so that he could walk among the people, lead them, and not, you know, be a terrifying dragon that just sends, yeah. And there hasn't been any dragon human cross-breeding. right? Not as far as I know.

All right. All right. I'm always checking. Hey, I don't know how Scaly's work in Old World, but it hasn't come up yet. I said she would try. So that's already a little, I'm already a little frightened. But we'll move past them. You've seen the poster. I'd give it a shot. We'll move past it. So, yeah, we are going to go over one major conflict that occurred. So what seemed to be seasonal ratings of coastal towns by Norsecans turned into something much more sinister.

A mighty champion of chaos would rise known as Friedal the Chainmaker. She would lead wolf ships across the sea of claws and begin raids on the shores of the empire. And none were prepared for her viciousness. The response in the north was too little too late. and the town of Hullum would become home to twisted effigies of the ruinous powers. The raiders would withdraw when the cold winter came, but the thaw would bring more devastation as the chainmaker would come spring after spring to expand her claim. In a few years, she'd carve herself pretty nice part of the Westerlands,

wait, wait, wait, she'd carve herself a pretty nice part of the Westerlands Northern part for herself. Refugees would pour south, forces would go north, and the chainmaker would remain unchallenged, and her spread would continue. And they would get some help. Evil would start to spread out from the Laura Lorne Forest, and hey, wouldn't you know it, the chainmaker is now causing problems for the elves. With all this, it was obvious that chaos was taking root in the Westerlands and something had to be tonned. The chain maker, the lynx had to be broken. Unfortunately, while all of this seasonal rating was happening,

while Friedal was just running a freaking muck, nobody was doing anything. Nobody was doing a damn thing. Some of the local lords were like, we kind of see what's happening, but we're also local lords, and we're just going to ignore it and pretend like it doesn't exist because, um, chaos, I didn't see that. I'd rather focus on my own wealth and well-being.

But Grand Cothay would have a front row seat to this in the north, and they knew exactly what was going on. They were used to seeing barbarians running around every year, doing whatever. They were used to seeing rogue viking. types, kind of pillaging and stuff. They were like, you know, that's normal. We should probably deal with it. But the problem was they started to witness full organized regiments of Vikings, of Norsecans,

that were being led by a fell champion of chaos. And in the old, oh, yeah, go ahead. They've already made the wall, right? Oh, yes, they have made the bastion. Right. They made the bastion, right? Okay, because I only ask because I will say, because, you know, the Great Wall China didn't work, you know.

True, true. And so I'm kind of like, I wonder how they're going to equate that in a way. Well, so far, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. problem is they're essentially trying to be world protectors. Like they want to make sure that they are like unifying everybody. And they're realizing that that's kind of tough. It's kind of tough to cover all your bases, right? But I think their bastion is doing just fine.

I also check because, well, obviously this is, these are the Vikings. So they're attacking from the water. Sure. Sure. Yeah. But I'm assuming that the bastion is coming up soon, yes? Not especially, actually. Really?

So they gave them the gigantic wall just because China has a wall. Like there's not any real extreme major reasoning for it? I mean, other than just like, man, we really got to build a way to protect our people because, wow, there sure is a lot of bad stuff out there even after we closed the, the portals from the great catastrophe. Yeah, kind of. Huh. Okay.

I guess I kind of expected them. At least so far anyway. Again, these are, these are just like the first two, like, big Lord drop books, too. So I don't know what's planned in the future, but so far the thing is kind of just holding up. Hmm.

Okay, okay. Yeah. So, oh, well, let's not talk about end times. Well, yeah, I'm sure the wall stays the entire time. Yeah, sure, sure. But usually when you see chaos champions leading organized regiments of Norsekins, it's not exactly the best time, especially when they start actively attacking border towns.

In Nanguai, Miao Ying would see this happen, both standing atop her bastion and also, of course, in her nightmare. visions of creeping corruption and stories of a more organized and bold front would also be confirmed when the j-dragon Yuan Bo would get news of political strife across Sigmar's empire. But pretty weird, they were hearing about all this stuff way up here. Weren't the elves and the dwarfs supposed to kind of be taking care of things in the West with Sigmar's empire being in the West with political strife and all. Weren't the elves and the dwarves supposed to be handling that?

Hmm. Nah. They weren't too concerned with that because they had their own stuff going on because they're the elves and they're the dwarves. Of course they weren't paying attention. And Yuanbo, the J dragon, was not surprised by this. He was just disappointed. and after much consideration, it was reluctantly decided that Grand Cathay would have to go and actually do something about the problems in the West because the elves and the dwarves were just not handling it.

So Yuanbo was like, all right, all right, that's fine. But look, if we're going in to help out, the elves and the dwarves have got to get off their ass and they've got to help us. Otherwise, we're just going to have that whole pole bullshit thing again, and it's just not going to be great. So like we, everybody needs to chip in here. And he felt like there needed to be a big statement to like all the people in the way. Big statement. And he thought that his sister Miao Ying was the best one to deliver a just defining statement. I mean, she's, okay, so she seems like she's actually like kind of a main character type thing.

She's, she, yeah, Mian is like quite everywhere. No wonder she got the mini. Oh, yeah. Storm Dragon is all over the damn. place. So he calls for Meow Ying and she takes to the sky and she rushes to Wei Jin with just

impossible speed. She's a dragon. She is just cutting through the damn clouds. Because getting a summon from the J. Dragon little unusual. Especially one where he sounds little worried because everything's

going on in the West. So she felt like she was like, I got to get there. You know, I don't know. I don't know if it's going to scare people seeing the storm dragon just bolting through the damn sky, but I got to get there. And when she arrived, she's right, Yuanbo, frantic. He's not having a great time because he's like the elves really fucked us up. They allowed chaos to settle on the shores. They told me they were going to watch out for them. They told dad, they made a promise with dad that they were going to watch the shores, and they didn't. And now chaos is here. And I'm stressing out. And so, you know,

even though there was like already quite a bit of movement happening um you know the the forces of chaos are like plowing through getting some easy access across the world and yuan bow is like freaking out but the storm dragon is here now and meao ying is like you know what let's let's let's let's let's let's send out armies of kathay you know we are honor bound to stand side by side with the armies of the emmaes. empire. They need the help. They really need the help. We're honor bound. We signed a little treaty with them. We helped them when they need it. Let's go do it. Let's help them out because everybody else just failed at protecting them. So Yuanbo suggests that Miao Ying should lead the army. As the storm dragon was known for fighting chaos along the great bastion, this is just like the perfect moment for her to

really just, as Possum says, this is a perfect aura farming opportunity. Miao Ying was not so sure, though. She was charged with the defense of the northern border at the Bastion itself. She didn't really trust anyone else to do that for her. She felt like she was the only one that could properly defend the northern borders of the Great Bastion. So Yuanbo's like, hey, look, if it'll make you feel, bit. If man, I can talk well today, it's fine. Yuan Bo is like, look, if it'll put you at ease, I will watch the northern border for you.

I, the jade goddamn dragon, will watch for you while the magistrates of Nanguau were tasked with the defense. So she's like, well, oh, go ahead. You want one bow seems like a baller. He seems like kind of a chill guy. Did you see his picture that Shai put in the chat? He is so... It rocks, yeah. Fuck, he needs a mini immediately. God, damn.

Bit of a bizarre side question. Oh, his office does look nice. A bit of a bizarre side question. So the Celestial Dragon, its existence is like one of those things where it's like, you're just kind of there, don't worry about it type thing. Yeah. What, and then celestial dragon was, banged the moon dragon. And then they had a bunch of dragon children, yes.

A bunch of dragon children. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, meowing being one of them. Yep, and you are. You probably already told me this, but please remind me, where's the moon dragon at the moment? Uh, you know, I'm not entirely sure. I would imagine the moon dragon and the celestial dragon are both in the Cathay Palace. because uh jean yang is still kind of a little more on the secluded side still doing a lot of the learning and stuff and i'm just kind of assuming that the moon dragon is there with them

so an additional so my question is this so the dragons are really strong right really strong yeah why aren't they banging more i you know i i couldn't tell you I am just going to go out on a limb here And say that Aside from the celestial dragon And the moon dragon The only other dragons that are existing right now Are all their children

And You know, even as a dragon You probably don't want to go banging your sister So No, I know But why doesn't moon dragon And celestial dragon bang more It's a great question, dude

That's a great question, dude. I'm just saying, like, if they, if they just kind of like hit it up like three more times, like they just win. If you get three more meow yangs out there, like, bam. Maybe, maybe in his old age, the celestial dragon's seed just ain't what it used to be and they just can't make, you know, they just, they're just not as strong anymore. They're just giving birth to salamanders now. The biggest disadvantage of Cathay is ED. Yes. It's so true, man. He's just, the moon dragons, like, it's a. okay, it happens to all guys, it's totally normal, don't worry about it. And he's just kind of like,

I'm going to study the winds of magic for a century now. Don't talk to me. Yeah, I mean, it could be the fact that he just like doesn't think about these things and doesn't care. No idea, but I must admit, the dragons are very strong and I'm, and there is a method to bring more. Hence my question. It's a fair question. I mean, you know, If I was the celestial dragon, it's like, oh, man, we really need more defenses. Like, man, it sure would be great if we had another Miao Ying, huh? Imagine just having the ability to just bang out another Miao Ying and just like, yeah, we'll have this one guard.

Like, that's just really good. I don't know. We just have, you know, a whole, you know, guard regiment of Miao Ying's. And it's like, oh, yeah, you win. I don't think you can bang enough for a guard regiment. But I get what you're getting at. You know, they just got to go out of like rabbits, right? But when Miao Ying gets back to Nang Gao, she ordered the immediate raising of fresh regiments of jade warriors, which is just sort of the Grand Cathay normal warrior.

Think of your usual sort of Chinese feudal Chinese armored soldier and essentially have a jade warrior so that they could be dispatched to the great bastion so that the veterans of the wall could join her to the old. world. And as the new Jade Warriors trained, the many foundries of Nangau would raise dozens of new war machines and just an incredible supply of goods for a long conflict that they were about to undergo. The bastion was going to be protected by the Jade Dragon and the Storm Dragon was ready to march and sail their way to the west. So, the forces of the Storm Dragon would travel down the winding rivers that criss-cross Grand Cathay in a much faster way

than just marching on foot. Miao Ying would travel very far ahead of her army to prepare the caravan of barges needed in Fuhung so that they could set sail for the old world. She would also use the magic taught to her

by her father to awaken the terracotta sentinoles. Let's go. the terracotta sentinoles that stood silent for centuries as they too would be joining her forces

to assure total domination. Her forces would eventually arrive in Fuhung but her army that she amassed was so fucking big it took literal days for them to board all the transport ships and actually be ready to sail just to get all the people onto the ship,

ship took days. Once they were all ready to go, they would all make for Marionburg in hopes that they would get there before the thaw of spring. And the start of the trip, it goes well. Wind is right, sun is out. You know, we're just sailing, sailing. Everything's Gucci, until they got closer to a place known as the Sea of Claws. An unnatural, an Eldridge storm would just manifest out of nowhere,

throwing lightning at the ships like spears, and rain would hit the sailors with the force of like, it felt like they were getting hit by barbed whips. This rain and wind is just thrashing them so hard. The ships they were in also didn't have much by way of cover, so all of these elements are just absolutely bad. pelting them. And they weren't dealing with it well. And Miao Ying knew that whatever chaos abomination conjured this storm must have been insanely powerful for two reasons. One, because

apparently the skies in this storm were darkened from horizon to horizon. That's a big fucking storm. Two, the conjurer was nowhere nearby. They were able to manifest this storm of the century seemingly from miles and miles and miles away.

And Miao Ying knew that chaos was aware of her power and they were like, look, we cannot let Miao Ying get close. We have to hit her with this storm of the century. We have to drown all of her ships or at least weaken her

army so that when she does get here, she can't do that much. But of course, this is Miao Ying. She's the goddamn storm dragon. And dragons absolutely messing up chaos is not a new thing. Drawing upon the power of the stormwind, Miao Ying unleashes a counterspell of just immense power. Brilliant blue lightning erupts from her body, As the clouds are banished, the wind is calmed, and the water is stilled.

And all the while, the elves of the sea lord's garrison were watching intently and probably scared out of their fucking minds because what they just saw. And the fleet manages to finally make its way past Reaver's point. Yeah, I imagine the elves are looking at this as being like, good God. I don't think she even turned into a dragon to do that either I think she just like starts levitating and just goes absolutely What's the what's what's what's the what's the what's the mean you should now right? Oh oh yeah you should yeah yeah lightning just all over the place Yeah. Mm hmm mm-hmm a classic Classic classic you should eat healthy now

Um But as the fleet does make its way past Reaver Point, they get sort of a firsthand view of just how bad the raids had gotten, just how much chaos had ruined this land. Because raided villages were just everywhere. They were going through basically a destroyed ship graveyard. There were Bretonian galleys, Marianburg Man of Wars, and just feel. of bodies all over the place. The Cathayan fleet naturally would bow their head in reverence as they

passed just all of these ruins and destroyed ships and just scattered ruins that used to be villages. The moment of silence that they had, however, was broken when spotters saw Marionburg ships on the horizon being chased by Norsekin

wolf ships. Miao Ying immediately ordered in and sky lanterns would take to the skies like a swarm. The wolf ships weren't really prepared for an aerial assault, and before long the sky lanterns would unload their long-barreled cane guns into the wolf ships below. As they passed over the battered ships, they would drop gunpowder bombs onto the hulls, and they would destroy any remnants that may be below deck. On the sea, the warships of the Cthayan fleet,

would unload huge cannonballs and would tear the remaining wolf ships to shreds. Even as they tried to escape, Miao Ying was like, oh no, we do not allow chaos survivors. And Miao Ying orders total and complete destruction even if they're fleeing.

I was going to say she deserves it after the last stuff that happened, but she doesn't remember that, so. Yeah, she doesn't. She's just like, wow, I'm really enthused now. and for some reason the spirit dragon is coming to mind over and over again as I slaughter these chaos fiends. Yeah. The empire ships that were just saved by firepower beyond comprehension

were all watching in just stunned awe. Because before this, the humans of the West, all they had really encountered from Grand Cathay were merchant vessels. So the... The awe that they felt, Possum describes as, imagine your only concept of construction vehicles is, you know, the talking ones in Bob the Builder. You know, they're just happy, hooray.

And then the exact next one you see after that is the goddamn killdozer. That's essentially what they were seeing. Yeah, that's fair. I would have a somewhat similar reaction myself. Yeah, just a little stunned. silence and all, but at the same time, that killdozer is on your side. So they're like, well, thank God, thank God for that. And they were whisked away alongside the literal army to continue their journey.

And as they continue, more and more war is seen, but it lessened the closer they got to Marienburg. It was really hard to ignore the volume of Cathayan ships, and the townsfolk rushed to the walls to see the splendor of the Storm Dragon's fleet as it arrived finally in the old world. And of course, as Possum says, or amassing to the fullest, the Storm Dragon's arrival cleared the clouds of war

for the first time in weeks as the sun shines down on her. Wonder turned to fear as the terracotta sentinels disembarked first, which is kind of crazy if you're in Maryland, because you are more or less watching an army of Statue of Liberties flexing in front of you. But they were only making ways so that Miao Ying could step on to the shore first. Empress Magrida stood in silence until eventually inviting her to her court. Turns out a gigantic army arriving is a pretty strong boost for morale.

You know, when the Storm Dragon shows up with the Cathayan army of Terracotta Sentinels? That tends to boost morale just a smidge. But the chainmaker was one step ahead and was launching a major attack from the wasteland of a town called Ostwald. Fortunately, the Storm Dragon wasn't wasting any time hanging out in Marienburg and arrived in time to reinforce the town and prevent the advances of the chainmaker. The forces of Kethe would battle for weeks in an attempt to further their lines, and it became clear that the chainmaker herself was nearby. Eventually, ground was made, and the fight was brought to the fortified town of Leonan. As this was the strongest point that the chainmaker had this far in the wastelands, the chainmaker rallied a gigantic force to face the storm dragon, but it was all for not.

the unstoppable artillery of Grand Cathay was just too much and the momentum of the invasion was shattered. Years of advancement. The chainmaker was working on this for years. And all of that had been undone by the wrath of the storm dragon. I repeat the phrase I said earlier about the hole, about the moon dragon and the celestial. I'm just saying,

okay? We need to get that man some Viagra. This is very, this is clearly very important. Yeah, we need more dragons in Grand Cathay. We really really need more dragons. The

chain maker would vanish to the coast to lick her wounds in Harlem, but the damage was done. Not only that, the true power of Grand Cathay was revealed to the world at the brink, be it the elves on the shore watching her soloing a storm or a citizen in Marionburg watching the movement of a terracotta sentinel.

The protectors of the east were a force of nature quite literally. Even while keeping her human form as to not scare those humans unaware, the might they showed fighting back against the forces of chaos was enough to show anyone watching that the proud merchants of Grand Cathay also had the best interest of the old world in mind. Okay. So quick heads up,

the Storm Dragon did all of that without turning into a dragon because she thought it would scare people too much. It probably would have. It probably would have. She probably would have been done like that. In the snap of a finger, she'd be done. She was like, oh, I don't want to scare all these people.

Let's just do it as a human. Yeah. Yeah. And that's all I got on Grand Cathay. Wait, wait a minute. This isn't fair. They're like kind of nice. They're actually really, really nice.

They are just really good leaders. His children are amazing. They have the entire. world's interest at heart. They defend the Eastern Hemisphere. They tried to let the elves and the dwarves defend the West. They didn't do a good

job. So they were like, fine, we'll do that too. And they're just actually kind of great. So far as we know, from these new lore books anyway, they're just yeah, they're kind of just nice. They're just nice, cool

dragons that want to help everybody and trade with everyone. Got your so right shy. People working together is how you know it's fantasy. That's how you know it's not 40K. I don't know. I just kind of assumed because like the empire, you know, like lots, all the Kislev, all of them have some kind of shit going on. So I guess I don't know. Grand Cathay is just where you want to be. Good leader. Good, good, good kids.

Yeah. Terracotta Sentinels. This is, this is bizarre to me. Bricky's like a happy ending? I guess. This isn't the Warhammer I grew up with. Why they seem so nice? Why is everybody so happy?

I don't like you. I'm suspicious of this. I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. Bricky doesn't like Grand Cathay because it's too ideal. It doesn't fit the Warhammer scene. Exactly.

No, I actually think they're really sick. They look really cool. Their minis are amazing. The background is neat. And it's like even when they're like, oh, yeah, we're going to show up to Nehakara. It's like, wow, Nagash seems awful. Let's just leave. Let's just stop doing this.

Hey, okay, I'm going to do this barbarian king named Sigmar. Oh, wait, Sigmar's chill. Yeah, let's work together. He's like, all right, hell yeah. They just make smart decisions. I was fully expecting Yao Ying to be like the next manfred, where she's just an absolute, like, psychopath. But no, I, I, yeah, the dragons seem chill, man.

Yeah, so far anyway, who knows what GW has planned in store for them in the future, though, right? Yeah, no, no, here. Hold on. I need to find a way to make this bad somehow. Games Workshop is making China too cool so they can sell to China. Ah, ah? Oh my goodness. Great. Tin foil hat on. I got to find a way. I got to find some way to make this grim dark.

This is someone said this to me like two months ago or something. Because I was talking about how I like reading like depressing media because I have a pretty decent life. and therefore I like to have the opposite. And they were like, yeah, straight white orange county white boy, with a loving family desperate to feel negative emotions. That has been you this whole episode. It gets me, it gets me every time. It's so fucking funny because I keep thinking like, where is, I can't like, I can't like this.

Where's the death? Where's the, where's the backstabbing murder? I already have enough privilege in my real life. My fiction should be the depressing stuff I don't have. Fair. Oh, my God, you're right. The empire, based on the Holy Roman Empire, is super cool. Is that a plot to sell to the Germans?

My God. We've cracked the coat.