Adeptus Ridiculous - THE EMPIRE: SUMMON THE ELECTOR COUNTS | Warhammer Fantasy Lore

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Empire, formally known as the Empire of Man, and named the "Land of the Hammer and the Wolf" by the Norscans, is an electoral monarchy composed of semiautonomous feudal states called "Electoral Provinces" or "Grand Provinces." The Empire is the largest, most populous, most powerful and most important of the nations of Men in the Old World.The Empire was forged by the warrior-king and ascended deity Sigmar from the primitive tribes of Human barbarians who inhabited what became the lands of the Empire more than 2500 years ago. Although not as skilled in craftsmanship or engineering as the Dwarfs or in magic as the High Elves, the people of the Empire are not beholden by the limits of tradition to the same extent as the Elder Races and continue to progress culturally, technologically and magically.Support the show

Welcome everybody to another episode of The Realm of Ridiculous, where D.K. takes up the mantle and teaches me all about Warhammer fantasy involving lizards, elves, rats, and trees. Before we get to started on that, go ahead. And if you like the podcast, check out patreon.com slash Deptis Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord server, bloopers, HD posters. Each month, it's great stuff. all the lovely things down in the description.

As well, check out Orcinate.com where we get all of our wonderful merchandise, including dice, hoodies, shirts, all the posters of the year currently. Grab them while the year is still there. It's already August. Wow. I hate that. Wow. Yeah, it is.

We blinked and it's gone. Check it all out. 2024 is over halfway over. That is. Uh, whoosh. Well over halfway over. That's, uh, yeah. So you're ready for some fantasy stuff today, Bricky?

You're clapping. You're ready? I, I think I'm pretty, I think I'm pretty ready. So, so I asked you before the episode started, I was like, for the most part, you know, I was like, hey, the lizard thing was like kind of the, it's like almost like the necrods of the star of the whole fantasy world. It is. It was basically the start of the universe. Sure. Yep.

And we talked about the Skaven and yeah. Crazy stuff, crazy stuff. And I was like, damn, long episode. And you're like, this one might be longer. And I was like, learn to condense your notes, young man. One day, one day, maybe. But you want, you want a quote? I will take a quote.

Ah, I believe in you. Unlike you, I believe that you'll get these. All right, okay. Here's the quote. I, together, I can. Cannot do this alone. I need my sword brothers with me. Swear with me, my friends.

Swear that everything we do from this day forth will be in the service of this vision of a united blank. Sword brothers. Are we doing humans? Yeah, you know, I'll give you that. We are doing humans. We are doing the empire. of man. Oh, it's called the Empire of Man? The Empire of Man. Specifically, I figured we'll do

like the creation of the Empire of Man, how it got united, and we'll talk about some of the really cool emperors that led it because, you know, that's, that sounds like a good idea. Okay, so, so, oh, right, I'm sorry, is Britonia fantasy or is that Sigmar? So, Britonia is fantasy. And we We will definitely talk about Britonia, because I may have mentioned in the last episode, unknowingly, when we were like, oh, what are the humans doing? And I was like, oh, they're, you know, the Empire of Man is Britonia. Oh, boy, that was wrong. Well, I mean, they are an empire of, but we'll, we'll talk about it.

We'll talk about it. But I got to say, like, and we're probably going to start off like every episode of Realm of Ridiculous this way, but realize that we have not yet covered end times or age of sigmar. So primarily we are going to be doing old worldview of empire of man. We will get to end times and age of sigma. We're going to get there. So this is going to be sort of a cursory glance at the Empire of Man in fantasy because the Empire of Man is so far reaching that we would need several months straight

to cover everything in it. And as I is saying in our Discord, yes, we are not doing the proper transition of the story of lizard men to elves, to dwarfs, to something else, to humans. We will cover all that stuff, but we figured we'd throw the Empire of Man fans a little bit of a bone,

because, you know, there's some cool stuff in here, and there's some popular memes and characters, and it's just like, you know what, let's do this now. Right. Let's do this now. Okay. I mean, you know, humanity is a large faction of most of these things because humanity is what we are and people normally like to put humans for that. But, okay.

So, wait, Britonia and stuff is a variant, but this is the empire of man, which I am assuming is going to be a very similar offshoot to the Imperium of Man. and I'm assuming it is probably some kind of like big brother totalitarian regime where the regular human has a horrible life. I'm sure we'll get there, but... I mean, it depends. Because there have been a lot... We'll talk about there have been a lot... There are a lot of different emperors. And it varies on how good life is under said emperor, depending on how good said emperor is.

but we'll start at the beginning. So origins of humankind in fantasy are a little mysterious. Like, we kind of sort of know that the old one ceded all of the lesser races, but that's kind of like a general thing, and there's no real record of any of that happening. At the earliest time, which I think are records that are like 2,500 years old, and there are some dusty old tomes kept by the dwarves, humankind is kind of like divided into these wandering, warring, tribal bands.

There's no real sense of unity. They're always kind of fighting, infighting, and they're always at each other's throats, and they're constantly at danger from the green skins, which there are a lot of green skins that are looking to just terrorize, eat, and destroy humans and dwarfs alike. Okay, so this is, so far, this is just sounding very, like, or the ringsee, like the humans are constantly dealing with the orcs kind of thing and the classic, okay. Classic, classic, yep, classic duck.

And this is kind of how the humans come to their little spot in Warhammer fantasy. They flee over these mountains called the World's Edge Mountains. And they kind of pick up shop with the dwarfs in basically like central old world fantasy. And as time goes on, they kind of, they settle into this little spot. They start talking with the dwarfs. They start learning crafting, they start learning a little metallurgy, and, you know, the dwarves are kind of taken a little bit of a shine of the humans, but for the most part, humanity is still divided, and they are no match for the greenskins. So now we get to talk about someone you may have heard about. His name is Sigmar Heldenhammer.

And not an episode on Sigmar. You know, this is an empire. This is an Empire of Man episode, so a lot of his upbringing, we are going to kind of gloss over before anybody gets mad. Wait, wait, hold on. I didn't even, wait, oh my God. The Sigma with the Warhammer. Okay. The Sigmar held in hammer. This is how much I don't know about fantasy and stuff.

I did not know Sigmar was a person. Oh, really? You just kind of thought it was like, like age of Sigmar is just like, oh yeah, maybe Sigmar is like, like a deity or he's just like a knowable thing like the chaos like an environment like a continent or something like like this age or like a like a term for something I no I did not know Cigmar was a guy um though I'm not gonna lie he I like his vibe he's extremely I mean he has the warhammer but I also like that he isn't particularly um uh holy he he looks very yeah Yeah, he's very Conan.

He's very dirty. He definitely, well, yep, at this point, this is essentially what humanity is. They're essentially just warring tribal barbarians, right? So he, yep, he has that vibe for sure. I'm too used to the extremely, like, golden god variant that it's kind of cool. I don't know, like even him in his photos, he doesn't look like a comic book character that has like giant roared out muscles. The dude just looks like a fit, like warrior.

And it's kind of cool. It shows restraint, which is a rarity in the game's workshop world. Well, this is old G-dub, too. So. I guess that, well, the old G-dub, it's fine. It's fine. Anyway, okay, so this is Mr. Mar with his hammer war. Yeah, this is, this is Sigmar-Heldonhammer.

And on the day of his birth, a twin-tailed comet soars across the sky to sort of signal that this child is blow. by the gods. It also helps that Sigmar is the son of a very well-known warrior king by the name of Bjorn Unbrugin. And so naturally, Sigmar grows up to be an absolutely cracked warrior. Like the first time he makes a name for himself is that at the ripe old age of 15, Sigmar's leading this attack on the greenskins, because obviously, like I said, orcs, huge problem.

But he's leading this attack specifically on a black orc war boss, as Vargraze Edstomper. And what Sigmar doesn't know is that Vargas and his boys have taken a very important prisoner, that prisoner being the high king of the dwarves, Kurgan Ironbeard. And so Sigmar gets into this fight with a head stomper, and from what I've read, it's pretty clear, Sigmar, way better, way stronger fighter in this exchange. But every time Sigmar tries to get in a killing blow, he's like, God damn, meant my stupid bronze sword

can't get through his fucking armor. Like Head Stomper's putting up a fight, but Sigmar clearly better, but he just doesn't have the right weapon to just get that killing blow. And so Kyrgyn Ironbeard is watching this fight and he's like, oh,

God, this makes me so mad that I got captured by this fucking green skin asshole. So he literally rips his chains, freeze himself, and he goes over to the loot that was stolen from the dwarves and he grabs this big hammer called Gal Maraz, the splitter of skulls, and throws it to Sigmar.

And according to the wiki, when he throws the hammer to Sigmar, he yells like every dwarven curse weren't in the book at Head Stomper. He is just flinging obscenities at him. Okay, so he's like the Scottish guy in Samurai Jack. Yes, exactly. You actually get that reference? Well, I'm a 90s kid. I've seen Samurai Jack, yeah.

Wow, holy crap, yeah, yeah, you know, all right, good, good. So, so wait, so he, wait, this hammer, this is, I'm assuming this is the titular Warhammer. Mm-hmm, Galmaras. It's just kind of like, just like a random hammer laying around the orc encampment. Well, so it, it was, um, it was stolen from the dwarves. It was part of the loot that the old stole from the dwarfs when they captured, uh, the high king. Sure, sure, okay.

And with Galmaraz in hand, six. Sigma finally, he's like, oh yeah, now I've got a weapon. He brings Headstomper to his knees and uses the hammer for what it was meant to do, and he crushes Headstomper's skull into wet paste and broken bones. And Sigmar, after rescuing the dwarfs in Ironbeer, he tries to give back the hammer. Kind of like, hey, thanks for letting me bother this. Appreciate it. and in an unheard of move for a dwarf,

Ironbeard is like, no, you keep it. This is yours now. I love how that's an unheard of move for a dwarf. Because it is true. It is unheard of. A dwarf gifting a gift, no way. Let alone to a human. And it's also said that apparently Galmaraz is one of those kind of weird fantasy weapons

where it has like a will of its own and only the chosen may wield it. So in the eyes of Ironbeard, Galmaraz had basically always belonged to Sigmar. He was just waiting for Sigma to find it. And afterwards, obviously, Sigmar and Ironbeard kind of, they kind of dapp it up because it's like, hey, thanks for rescuing me. No problem. And now the dwarves are basically forever united in friendship and ally under Sigmar's banner. And from then on, Sigma's big goal is like, okay, I'm going to unite all of them.

humankind under a single banner, create an empire of man that can withstand this ever-growing threat of goblins, orcs, and whatever chaos nonsense happens to be going on that day. And so he starts to unite the once-waring factions of man under his banner to make his dream of a united human empire come true. And as he's doing this, we talked a little bit about Britonia, right? earlier and oh, where's Britonia? What's Brutonia doing? And I was like, oh, you know, Britonia, they're totally the empire of man. Brutonia. I mean, kind of. Aren't they just like the French?

Basically, yes, more or less. So while Sigma is trying to like unite everyone, Brutonia had kind of already undergone their own little unification empire-forming projects. So they were like, Sigma wants us to join. Yeah, no. F off, we're good. We don't need to do this again. And maybe, like, the best description I've heard is, like, they're kind of bordering each other, and they're not really rivals. They're not really friends either. They're very, like, sundari towards each other, right?

Like, they are constantly fighting each other. They do constantly get into wars with each other, but they also, like, help each other a lot, and they're actually, like, allies a bunch of times. so they have a very weird relationship. Like sometimes they hate each other, sometimes they don't. It's, they're very weird. It's a violent relationship.

Yeah, it is a violent love-hate relationship. This is him and the dwarf guy, right? Oh, no, him in Britonia. Oh, Bertonia, sorry, sorry. Yeah, that's okay. Wait, wait, I'm sorry, Britonia, the nation, or is Britonia a person? Brutonia is a nation.

It's like a nation that's bored. It's France, right? Well, right, but like you said, him in Betonia and I was like, like, oh, because this is, this is the Sigmar. This is the Sigma.

This is the Sigma. This is the Empire of Man. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wasn't sure if there was actually like another kind of vibe. If it was like, this is Mr. Britt, which wouldn't quite make sense. Actually, that's a,

that's a triple play. Like, British company Games Workshop creates Mr. Britt, who is the leader of Britonia, speaks French. Oh, wow. That would be the triple threat, yeah.

That would be such a funny in between. Yeah. Okay. So, okay, so, okay, so yeah, a bunch of different medieval nations all different. Gotcha. Gotcha. Sometimes they fight. Sometimes they're cool.

It's, it's, they're weird. And so they're, they're shaky little relationship is going on, but they're on relatively good terms. But there's this other problematic faction called the tutogens who are just like, you know what? civilized nation? No. We want to be barbaric tribesmen like we were. We want to ransack pillage and just destroy whatever we want. Screw you, Sigma. We're going to stay like savages. And so Sigmar makes a example out of them. And he goes to their leader, Arter, and he pretty much just kills the shit out of him in front of his honor guard. Um, there's a little. little bit of a duel, but Sigma pretty much

bodies him, and then the Tudagin's like, oh, yeah, you're the man, dog. We're super loyal to you. Hell yeah, brother. What? Okay, so they've got, like, okay,

so their vibe is a little interesting. It's, it's a little, like, it's a little, like, Native American-y, a little Vikingy. They're kind of like berserker, um,

barbarian tribes people. So the barbarian tribes people, that Sigmar goes, kills their leader, and then they're like, I guess we'll follow you now. Yeah, well, they killed the best of them. Oh, damn. That's not very barbarian tribesmen. Well, that's just how it is, you know? All right, all right.

But there would be one more super important battle that would really just unite everyone. It's this battle called Battle at Blackfire Pass. Every depiction I've seen of Blackfire Pass makes it look like this sort of volcanic-looking area. Lots of black mountains with like these spikes coming out everywhere. Lava's kind of seeping down the sides. Dwarves are in control of this area, but there is a staggering number of green skins showing up near the past. Like just way more orcs and goblins than there should have been, kind of becoming, a little bit of a problem.

And since dwarves and humans are pals now, Sigmar calls upon his armies of man that he had united, and he's like, let's go aid the dwarves, and let's stick it to those green skin hordes. After everything they've done to us, oh, let's show those green skins, who's the boss now.

And there is like this one fighting force that Sigmar uses. These guys are like a key in like the early stage of the battle because they're berserkers and Sigmar's just like, yeah, I know you guys don't really take directions well, so just go. Just go

to town. Yeah, just go. Just go, just rush forward right into the greenskin horde and just do your thing, and they do. And boy, they kill a lot of green skins. But because they're just so, like,

ravenous for battle, they end up getting completely surrounded and pretty much like 90% of them get killed. Their king barely survived because one of Sigmar's allies, her name is Queen Freya, protects him. In her town of, I think it's Asaborn, she was just like, she's the queen and she was like, man, my husband is fucking useless and was just like, she strangled him to death and was like, now I'm the leader. Hooray. Okay, a slay queen, I guess, whatever. Literally. Literally. Literally.

And to get Freya on his side, Sigmar had to not only give her a bunch of lavish gifts, but she demanded that Sigmar spend the night with her. And after a... Bro, just say they had sex. Like what are we? Like a Hallmark movie? Maybe. Maybe? No.

Maybe. This is like barbarian times, man. Not everyone is as uncouth as you, Bricky. I have plenty of cooth But yeah That one night of sex Apparently goes real well Because Queen Freya More than happy to join Sigmar

More than happy to Brecht the king Of the Thurnogens I mean look at the dude Like I don't blame her It looks like Godfrey from Eldon Ring I yeah he does doesn't he But despite that good start The Tides are turning in favor

Of the green skins Things not looking super good For human and dwarf kind In fact, Sigmar almost gets killed, but there's a king named Marbad. That's like a super close family friend of Sigmar. And Marbad takes this killing blow for Sigmar. He dies to save young Sigmar. And this is basically like, Sigmar just goes like Super Sayan after this.

He is enraged and he goes on an absolute green skin kill streak. So much so. Like he is just killing so many or. that the war boss leading this, his name is Urgluck Bloodfang, was just like, oh, that's a proper scrapping, oh, I want a piece. Because Sigmar, again, is basically an orc-k-k-k-killing tornado. The only way his human allies could figure out where he was is because they had to follow the sound of orcs screaming and dying.

Okay, a very important question. I may have already asked this, but I have to ask it again. Okay. Um, does, do the orcs have the British accent in this? I have to believe they do. I do not want to live. Yes, let's go. I was going to say, I don't want to live in a world where they don't.

Okay? So I refuse to not do their voice that way. Anyway, so, uh, ergluck bloodfang fights atop this giant withron, wevern, with this absolutely massive axe. Look at a picture of that. And he's like swooping through the air trying to scrap with Sigmar. But as he swoops in, Sigma with his

hammer, just like, boom! And he like bops the Wiverin. Wiverin goes down and he gets into this just super intense duel with blood fang. And in the end, after a brutal struggle, Sigmar once again lets his hammer, Galmaraz,

do what it does best, and just crush his blood fang skull with it and finally ends the conflict. Okay, so, so Sigmaar is literally just like, I'm going to kill every goddamn orc I see and he's really good at it. Yep, yep, yep, especially after he saw his, his family friend Marbad die, he was just like, okay, okay, it's on. And he just kills like every orc ever in front of him anyway, yeah.

But yeah, with Blood Fang dead. and Sigmar having cleared a significant path through their forces, Greenskins have no choice but to flee in terror, leaving the kingdom of man finally united, and basically more or less safe from the oncoming Greenskin threats. But even though all of mankind is now united, and everyone's like, you know what, we all agree that Sigma needs to be our leader, right? Like, we all, we all saw what he.

did he united us and then he just tore through the orcs you know he should lead us and sigmar was like you know there's there's a lot of land and a lot of people i i don't think i could rule this all by myself so he pulls a holy roman empire and is like all right we have 12 tribes of man that i united and each of each of each of these tribes you're basically going to be your own sovereign nations You're going to govern yourselves under these common laws and regulations that I'm going to put into place. Is this where we get all of the various factions, or is this unrelated specifically for the Empire of Man? Oh yeah, this is like, these are all, so the Empire of Man is basically, well, it is the Holy Roman Empire, right? Where it's like, is it all Rome?

Of course it is, but they're like different city states under that. So there are like different factions within the Empire of Man, there are different city states, and these city states have their own little elected officials and stuff like that. You're telling me that these people thought of the Holy Roman Empire? Yes, Pricky. This is this is this, yep. Men. So the head of each tribe would become counts of the empire, and each would get like this super cool sword called Rune.

made by a dwarven blacksmith. And this special sword was like, this was the item that you showed to be like, yep, my house is royal, I am a count, and that's what counts. I didn't even try and do that one.

And don't worry, well, listen, I know chat is probably going crazy right now because... The hell is this? I think that's Rune Fang. What's wrong with the people? Oh,

you know, they're just peasants. This is actually the... they're just peasants? Probably. It's just their peasants that are oh, they're zombies, whatever. I was about to say, the dude has an arrow in his hand, like, or his arm. What do you mean?

Zombies, peasants, they're the same thing, really, right? This is how we see people. We've been in California for too long decay. COVID really changed me, you know. But listen, to the people watching

this live, look, I know I said counts of the empire. I know everybody's losing their mind with the meme. Don't worry. We'll get there. Is this the summon the elector counts thing? Oh, do you know someone the elector counts? I only know that because of, um, it's been repeated it 40 million times, but I also know it because of, um, Balthazar Gelt. Oh, you know Gelt too? Well, so I, I very often use his, um, the meme dub of him being like, like the Vietnam War.

Welcome to Estalia. Yes. I, I know of that. I don't know anything. else about gelt besides that. We'll talk a little bit about him later. We'll talk about gelt eventually. I'm sure. I'm sure he's going to be one of those people that's going to get his own self-contained

episode, even though we're going to talk about him today. Also, D.K., I don't, I don't mean to rib you right now, but like, I have to be honest, the whole, I know chats do it going crazy on this kind of thing. Because they are. Some in the electric counts? But it's such a, like, me having an opinion online in 2024. Now, I know not everyone agrees with me on this opinion, and, like, I could have been my fault at the end of the day. However, I'm cushioning the blow, all right.

I just think that maybe it's something that it didn't really work for me, okay? And, like, that's fine. No, it's not as I've worked for me. Like, you can respect to your opinion. You're going to ruin the podcast, Ricky. No one can have it. You can't just be like, it was mid. Well, no, no, I was just getting there because I'm sure everybody's excited to hear it, you know?

It's all cushioning the blow. All. discussion is pushing the blow these days. All right. All right. You're going to ruin the damn fantasy podcast this way. But... Be more powerful. There is one of the larger issues that we kind of have to talk about during Sigmar's reign before we get into like all the memes and stuff like that. There's this really important thing that I feel like I would be remiss if we didn't talk about. And it actually does surround Nagash. And this is not a Nagash episode. I'm not getting into the history of Nagash because that's a whole different can of worms. And this is just a blip in his story.

But during Sigmar's reign as like the emperor, he's got his counts and everything and they're trying to make everything great because, you know, there are some problems. There's like literally a champion of corn roaming around. His name's Kormack Blood Axe. He's causing problems. There are scavin roaming around. There are still some scattered green skin tribes that are still causing trouble. But

in the middle mountains of their little central old world, Sigmar specifically finds this undead necromancer named Morath. And he's like, well, this is bad. And he kills him. And Morath has this very

special crown of sorcery. And like the light from this thing, Sigma's like, ooh, this is like rejuvenating me a little bit. So he's like, all right, new crown. Yai. And as you can imagine, not probably a great idea to wear an undead necromancer's crown. Because Stop grabbing that stuff, please. Right. Leave it on the ground, dude. Leave the trash on the ground. It does start to try to kind of corrupt Sigmar. It makes him a little more brutal, a little less forgiving.

He starts kind of turning on his friends a little bit. But then he, like, sees visions of, like, his late wife. He sees visions of his father. And he's like, oh, this isn't me. And he rips the crown off of his head. And he's like, oh, this thing is terrible, actually. And he just seals this thing away. Seals it in a vault.

Again, super TLDR, but, again, not in the Gash episode. Anyway, later on, Nagash is visited by this weird, like, pale stranger that straight up says to him, like, if you don't give up the crown of sorcery and serve Nagash, we are going to flood the empire with the dead and destroy everything, which is kind of already happening because there's this place in the south called Menagos that is completely destroyed and everyone killed there becomes part of an undead army. I'm assuming this has something to do with the possible zombie horde I see up there. Yeah. But again, Sigmars like, no, you can't have this crown. Nagash can't have this crown. I'm not serving him.

Get out of here. He sends him fleeing for his life. Doesn't even kill him. And again, speeding this along because, you know, Nagash is going to get his own stuff, guaranteed. There he goes, Cushing the Blow again. Yeah, whatever. You're going to kill this podcast, man.

So essentially... Wait, the cat, he actually just kind of spanks Nogash on the bottom and just, like, has it sends him on his way. Oh, so this, the guy he sends off isn't Nogash. It's just like a messenger of Nogash. Ah, okay, okay. I was like, no wonder Nogash seems so angry. Well, so essentially what they find out is that Nogash is currently incomplete. And he needs the crown of sorcery to complete himself because he put a part of his soul, a part of his power. into that crown. And so any strategy Nagash may have had, any plans he may have had, he would abandon them like that if it meant getting the crown because then he could restore himself

back to full power. And so Sigmar's like, all right, all right, you know what I'm going to do then? I am going to bait Nagash by wearing the crown of sorcery. He is going to come right to me. and once he comes right to me, I am going to kill the hell out of him. And so he does. He puts on the crown, and if anybody else wore this crown, it is total corruption.

But Sigmar built different, completely built different. And he is of this ritualistic mind where he is removing all of his worldly desires, and he becomes completely just selfless, and he resists the crown's attempts to, like, ooh, I'll give you everything you ever want. I'll give you power, I'll give you this, I'll give you that, and he just resists it.

I gotta be, I gotta be honest, Sigmar seems like a kind of a cool guy. Sigma, very cool guy. He is the guy. He's that guy, pal. He is that guy. And his plan works. He meets Nagash in, in combat, and he comes face to face with Nagash. He's a little intimidated, but he's like, all right, Nagash, here we go. And Nagash kind of fucks him up, actually. Like, Nagash is hit. him with some real strong magic and he's like, oh, oh, I may have overstepped. And Nagash has Sigmar on his knees. He's about to kill Sigmar, but Nagash gets distracted because I guess like there are some barbarians that are just like kind of u-h-hying around them. And in that moment

of distraction, Sigmar is like, ooh, I have a great idea, rips the crown off his head and he just kind of chucks the crown. And Nagash is like, my precious! And he tries to like, get it because that's all he cares about. It's all he cares about. And he leaves himself wide open to get his chest absolutely being caved in by a big old swing from Galmaraz, thus sending the Grash screaming back to whatever hell he came from. So, I'm just, sorry, I'm picturing the idea of him like arriving and then just like dropping the crowd and be, being like, and just freaking out.

And then because of that, he just gets walloped in the chest by the hammer. Yeah. Well, he doesn't freak out. He's like, oh, finally, I can get it. Yes, yes. And he just kind of goes like all wide-eyed. Oh, he basically, um,

yeah, he basically was it. Uh, um, he got tunnel vision. Yes, exactly. He got tunnel vision for the crown. And that was the whole plan that they wanted. They wanted him to have tunnel vision. for the crown come right to their doorstep and yep oh yeah it's it's literally the moment in lord of the rings when sarin reaches his arm out

for the ring that gets cut off the hand and then he gets yeah you're right i didn't even think about that shy mord right yeah oh but that's right you haven't seen lord of the rings right i i it's fine it's i i hey i i get it you don't like fantasy too much why would you watch no no no no no i don't dislike fantasy it's just i i watch the first lord of the ring and didn't like it, and then I fell asleep during the second one. But this is often a hot take, and my sister watched her each one, and she was like, I think we need to give this another chance, because I really liked it. And I'm like, okay, I'll rewatch it someday.

Okay, okay. I'll get there. I also really like them, but that, you know, again. But so, again, Sigmar's reign is like an arduous, but overall prosperous 50-year rain, because stuff like the Nagash thing happened. He had to deal with corn berserkers. He had to deal with a bloodthirster. But overall, it was pretty prosperous.

And after 50 years, Sigmar's like, nice. My work here is done. Humanity is good. You guys keep that train rolling because me, I'm out. And Sigmar straight up just dips to the east and leaves. I think he said something along the lines of like, ooh, I need to like return my hammer to its owner or he had a destiny to meet in the east

or some cryptic shit like that. I believe that what Shai has posted seems to be the thing. Yeah, you want to read it. I, the empire needs heirs and you are all my heirs. Everyone who lives in this land is my heir. Everyone who fights and bleeds to protect the empire, they will all be Sigmar's heirs. Emperor Sigmar Heldenhammer Horace Heresy Warhammer 40,000.

You truly have defeated me. Truly, truly. But yeah, he just dips. And while he says stuff like that, which is great, he didn't actually leave behind an heir. He left no line of succession or who should take his place when he left. So the counts are just kind of running around like a bunch of chimed. chickens with their heads cut off, everybody kind of wants to be the next emperor, and everybody's

kind of like, no, I should be, no, I should be. And so, before a full-blown civil war happens, they're all just like, okay, okay, look, let's let's let cooler heads prevail, let's all handle this civilized. Each of us, one by one, we're going to explain why we should be the next emperor, why we're the best choice, and then we'll vote. Whoever gets the most votes, ha, they're the emperor. And, shockingly, this goes exactly as planned, and it goes very smoothly. They all tell why they should be the next emperor. They all have a vote.

And, you know, the counts decide to rename themselves the elector counts. Because any time you need to vote on the next emperor or a new emperor, summon the elector counts. Or if you want to just vote on anything that's important to the empire as a whole, because we are the Holy Roman Empire now, then of course you again need to summon the elector counts, which is again, oh, go ahead,

go ahead. So you're just summoning like, like the government? Basically, you are summoning the heads of state. That, why is it sounds so badass? It's just like,

it's just like Congress is in session. It's not, it's a, 99% of memes in fantasy come from the Total War War Warhammer series, because that's like your big thing. Do they say it as part of like, it's like one of like the voice lines they constantly utilize and it is just like,

summon the elector counts. I think in the game you actually summon the elector counts. It is literally a mechanic of the game, yeah. Okay, so it's, okay. So it reminds me of like Mortal Kombat 10 or something where Raiden, Raiden is from the other one, Raiden is like, I must consult with the elder gods. And he does that, like, he says it like,

four times and it's not really anything funny but he just does it a lot so. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, okay, fair point. And it should be noted that after he left, after Sigma leaves, the cult of Sigmar is formed when one of his followers claimed he had a vision

that I saw Sigma standing among the gods as equals. Our old god, Ulrich, God of war, wolves in winter, put a crown on his head and their equals. And he forms the Sigmarite cult, which had absolutely no trouble becoming the most popular religion among the empire

until it had so many followers that it is now just straight up the official religion of the empire. And the creed of the Sigmarite cult pretty much what you'd expect. Always help the dwarves. Always put unity of the empire first. Obviously be loyal to the empire. fuck over chaos any chance you get and maybe maybe don't mess with weird magic you know maybe

maybe don't mess around with weird magic that you don't understand and I feel like it's not too much of a stretch to say that they're kind of close to like a fantasy inquisition because they uh they do have a very specific witch hunting order and everything so you know religious zealots you know okay so they're very much like hey don't touch all these bad things because they're bad yeah You know, be good for humans. All right. Now, so instead of going into this from like a historical event-by-event thing,

we now basically have sort of the TLDR on how the empire of man was formed and united. Sigma has left. And now we need regular men to lead the empire. So we're going to talk about some of the people that led it. Because some of the emperors were incredible. And some of the other ones, well, some of them were so bad that their deaths are still celebrated as a national holiday because of how incompetent they were. That's really funny. And also, like, it's just a fun thing to do.

It's like, we're going to make a holiday about your death. And it's like, hey, guys, what's up? It's shit-fuck bastard day. Woo! Woo-hoo! Drink, drink, drink. It also should be noted before we move on that every emperor has a very first of version of Galmaraz.

According to the wiki, there's some debate as if to Sigmar actually, like, did he leave the original on the throne? Did he take it with him? Or is the galmaraz that everyone wields just a replica made by the dwarfs? Unimportant. Every emperor has a version of Galmaraz. Now, the first, like, 13 or so emperors are fine. I'm sure some of them, little corrupt, but there's a little.

None of them have like any funny stories to them Until you come up to the reign of a guy named Ludwig the second Or as he is known through history This man is Ludwig the fat Wait really? Yeah Like as the name is yeah Wait wait hold on is it

Oh you're gonna tell me right now but is it because he's obese or is it because Oh my God You saw yeah There's the picture you tell me why his name is Ludwig the Fat. Dude, it's like realistic warrior. As you can imagine,

Ludwig the Fat was a gluttonous bastard and really not much of an emperor. He was very bribeable and he would regularly give like elector positions to people that spoiled him with enough gifts in food.

Like the cult of Sigmar knew how bribeable he was and they started to like super bribe him with lavish gifts, they would whine and dine him with the craziest feast you've ever seen. Like the head of the cult of Sigmar, which is a position known as the Grand Theogynist, would sit beside Ludwig and whine him, and he would whine and dine himself right along with him. And according to the short blurb the wiki has in him, the bribe actually worked. It worked perfectly.

And Ludwig gives the cult of Sigmar an elector seat. so that now, more or less, the church has a vote on who gets to be the next emperor and just sort of like important matters in the empire as a whole. And the head of the cult of Sigmar would apparently have the biggest karma death ever because literally the next day after that happened, he would end up suffocating and dying in his bed because of how fat and bloated his neck. had become from spoiling Ludwig so much. That's so funny. He suffocated on the fat rolls on his throat. Pizza the hut. Pizza the hut.

That's right. Yes. Or he ate himself to death. To death. And he was delicious. Wow, they just didn't, they just didn't care. They were like, here's Emperor Fat Fuck. He died by being a fat fuck, the end.

Which is, which, yeah, that is historically accurate. Yeah. I feel, you know, I don't want to like body shame anyone at all, but like it's just, it's just kind of funny. Because when you said his name was Ludwig the fat, I thought you meant like fat on power, fat on. I mean, he was all that too. He was fat on so he was both, which was like, oh, okay. So it's kind of like a double up thing in a sense. Yeah, yeah. All right. And you, you might think, damn, that must have been the worst emperor ever. No, because the next emperor was literally Ludwig's son, Boris. And Boris's nickname, you ask? Boris the big? No, he is Boris the incompetent. Oh, okay. Was he also fat, or?

No. So the way I see it is the elector counts probably thought that the son of Ludwig was probably also super easy to manipulate, kind of like his father was. Like, oh, if his dad is that easy, his son will probably be the same way. We can bribe him. He'll give us elector counts, whatever we want. Oh, man, let's vote him in. And they were pretty much right.

Like, he would basically give you whatever you wanted for the right price. Unfortunately, though, for the elector counts, greedy-ass Boris at one point was like, you know what? Man, I sure could use more money. I love money. So I'm putting a new tax on every peasant. And this would lead him to another super unpopular decision. And he removed tax exemption from enlisted soldiers, which was technically like a class of

peasantry. Like there's a class of enlisted soldier that's still a peasant. And he's like, you don't get tax exemption anymore. Nope, you have to pay taxes. And with this new tax in place, a lot of the elector-cats. they couldn't afford to keep their soldiers anymore. They couldn't afford to keep a big chunk of their soldiers, so they just had to, like, let them go.

Okay, so, like, I'm not, okay, so I'm not going to say that I know what's coming, but the man decided to tax his military. Yeah. Well, his peasantry, the lower rungs of the military, yeah. Right. So, like, okay, is, Are we on the pathway to a coup?

Um, yes. We are sort of. So these soldiers would march on the Capitol. You know, they're demanding like, hey, come on, you got to feed us and you got to pay us right. Like, you can't be doing this stuff to us, you know? And this would lead to a lovely event known as the Bread Massacre. the bread massacre was basically Boris being super pissed that the soldiers would have the stones to disagree with him.

Like, how dare you? I am the emperor. And so he had these soldiers ambushed and killed while they were petitioning to, you know, kind of get bread and pay. And so, yeah, he had his little army ambush and kill them or imprison them. and if he learned that some of them escaped or when he did, he was like, no, I want all of them. Shut down the hospitals. I don't even want them to be able to get medical aid so you can hunt those dogs down.

Who, who, what military is this? Is this like private, like the non-taxed like higher-up group? Yeah, this is like the non-tax sort of higher-law military that he's like, yeah, you know what, assassinate them. But hey, guess what? It gets worse. Because also, during Boris's reign, the Black Plague breaks out. And instead of trying to help the populace in any way, shape, or form to get over the Black Plague, Boris secludes himself.

He secludes himself and his most beautiful subjects far away from the plague in a far away palace. And there, they would just kind of party. while they waited until the plague either died down or, I guess, everybody died. What he didn't know, however, was that the black plague was a product of the Skaven from Clan Pestilins. And a bunch of Clan Pestilans rats had infiltrated his cute little palace with their plague censures, and they were infecting everybody in the palace, including Boris the incompetent. Boris would be infected And as he lay there

Wrapped with disease and rot and dying and suffering One of the Skaven leaders would stand over him And just very calmly explain to him How the Skaven were now rummaging Over every city in the empire Spreading this sickness and death And ha ha ha your empire will fall

I'll okay Shai do we know Who is the political person in the real world that was based off of this because between the black plague and everything, this sounds like it's just ripped straight out of old history.

It kind of does, doesn't it? This definitely seems like a corrupt leader at some point. Yeah. Because she posted Charles the fat. I didn't know there was a real Charles the fat. So I was like, okay, well, clearly

there's this. Actually, Charles the Fat increasingly see... It's Charles the Fat. I didn't know there was a thing. It's Charles the Fat. I don't know. Anyway. But while she figures that out,

Boris's death is the one I talked about earlier that is still celebrated to this day. And I read that on this holiday, most people the day before would go through a fast to show respect for the soldiers that were killed in the Bread Massacre before whining and dining and making sure to drink wine from a skull that is supposed to represent Boris's head. So, not a great emperor.

No, no, not great, though, a Skaven W. Oh, yeah, it is another Skaven dub. Yeah, mm-hmm. So the empire is in kind of rough shape right now because the emperor, corrupt as he was, is dead. and again, didn't leave an air or anything, and the empire is really struggling with the whole scavin black plague incursion thing. But there's this guy. His name is Mandred von Zelt,

Prince of a place called Middnheim, who was actually, believe it or not, a good and decent person. Regularly disagreed with everything he saw Boris do, tried to help plague victims, tried to help people in the bread massacre, upstanding gent. And he and his father were really good at killing Skaven. And in this time of Black Death,

oh, business was abomin. Mandred's father would die because he was chasing down the Skaven. A little too hard. So Mandred becomes the new leader of Mindenheim. He becomes Graf, Mandred von Zelt. And he becomes an elector count from his father. he gets the ruin thing, he gets the whole nine yards. And with all of this shit going down, no emperor, the elector counts, they're kind of

running around with their heads cut off again, chickens with their head cuts off, no rational decisions being made, the plague is running wild, nobody knows what to do, everybody's just, it is just mass hysteria. And Mandrid is kind of the only one that's like, oh yeah, let me just, let me go on a scavin killing parade. and Mandred and his armies from Middnhem do go on an absolute legendary Skaven killing campaign. Like they pretty much single-handedly just wipe out the Klan pestilence invasion with how many they end up killing. Even like I guess there's an important Skaven warlord that Mandra decapitates and they take the Skaven skull.

They fashion it into a helmet for him and they dub it the helm of the Skaven's skull. Slayer because Mandred, after all this Skaven killing, is known as Mandred, the Skaven Slayer. I mean, he's taken after Sigmar a little bit. He's just choosing rats instead of orcs. Yeah, pretty much. And naturally, after literally driving the Skaven from the lands of Mandrid and helping get rid of the Black Plague, Mandrid was named Emperor by the Elector Counts pretty unanimously. And even though Mandred's reign was long and prosperous, prosperous, he would sadly be assassinated in the dead of night by a clan Eshan assassin who was still super pissed that the Skaven invasion was halted by Mandred. That's some real good Skaven pettiness right there.

Yeah, it sure is. It should be noted also that like remember how we talked in the Skaven episode about how the empire, doesn't really subscribe to the fact that the Skaven even exist, and they're just, oh, it's fake. Trust me, they're not real. Unfortunately, Mandred's legacy is a casualty of that trend, because when they start being like, oh, don't worry, Skaven, they don't exist. All of Mandred's deeds kind of get dumbed down and watered down, and he kind of becomes like, oh, look at me, I'm a street sweeper that kills rats in children's fairy tales and stuff like that.

And so his legacy kind of gets shit on a little bit. It's funny he gave him that voice, but I get it. Now, with Mandra dead and assassinated, there is another huge argument among the electors on who should be the next emperor. And it gets really dicey because they do decide like, oh yeah, we're going to, we voted on this guy, this grand duke, he's going to be the emperor. Unfortunately, that doesn't sit well with like a rival city of theirs. And it starts this whole new drama of like, oh, well, I think the person. you elected is just a Sigmarite pawn. And, you know, I don't even think Sigmar is a god. He was just a guy and you worshipping him, you're all filthy heretics and you're dumb. And so they, it's this place

called Talabaclond, and they basically secede from the empire. And they put their own crown and their own title of empress on this lady named Otilia. And so the empire is now split down the middle with Tabal cland and the rest of the empire. And for 800 years, it's like this time of like multiple emperors. Sometimes there's two, sometimes there's three, depending on just how awful things are going. And the empire can't really quell it and unite everyone because they're still really weak because of, you know, this cave and black plague. But now we get to talk about a Magnus that actually did nothing wrong. We are going to talk about Magnus the Pius.

The Pius? Magnus the Pious. Yep. Okay. And Magnus had the bad fortune of being born into a time where the chaos gods had actually called a truce in their jockeying for power in the great game. And they were like, you know what? Let's take over the world. You know, we take over the world, and then after we take everything over, we can go back to killing each other.

Because empire completely divided right now, they have pretty much never been more vulnerable than they are right now. So Zinch is pulling up on Nome, not the oil. This is Magnus's hometown. And demons are like everywhere. They're just chucking demons into the city street whenever they feel like. And naturally, lots of praying going on in Nolm. People are literally begging Sigmar for help for some aid in this horrible strife that they're going through. And as they are, boom, twin-tailed comet goes soaring through the sky just like it did on the day of Sigmar's birth.

And Magnus sees this comet and he's like, he's inspired because he's a devout follower, devout believer in Sigmar. He is very, very, very religiously there, you know, hence the name Magnus the Pius. Oh, that is straight out. Okay. I'm not going to say it's straight out of a 40K Inquisitor because obviously this came first. But I'm seeing where they got the ideas from. Yeah, yep. Which I guess in turn they got from like old Catholic stuff.

But you get the point. Yep. So he sees the famed twin comet, comment that Harold did say. Mark's birth and he is like, oh, oh, brother, I am supercharged with religious fervor. And he gathers the armies of Nome and he rallies them to a united front and literally they fight the demons and the mages of Zingh until they are completely driven out of Nome. And Magnus takes this monumental momentum across the empire. He is going city to city purging chaos in the name of Sigmar.

More places he defeats chaos, the more the fractioned empire slowly, slowly starts to unite together. Even the tabel, whatever, they're just like, you know what, Magnus is doing good work and we are beset by chaos. Yeah, it's time to come back. It's time to rally under Magnus. Yeah, it's time. and a little bit of a TLDR here because Magnus is battling his way through a place called Kislev and he is trying to stop this place called Prague from falling to chaos.

I know Kislev. You do? I do. It's the kind of Slavic-Eastern European bear folks. Yeah, yeah. They were, I played the Total War, Warhammer 3 opening it a bit. and the whole prologue is Kislev. Oh, okay, cool, cool.

They're on, I think Kislev is kind of on shaky terms with the Empire, too. They're mostly allies, but they're kind of shaky sometimes. But anyway, Magnus trying as hard as he can to make sure Prague doesn't fall to chaos, doesn't make it in time, and Prague turns into a nightmarish, mutated hellscape. Like, people are mutated into walls. There's just all this chaos and nonsense all over the place. Um, it's, it's not great. And the leader of chaos at the moment is this chaos lord named, uh, Asavar cool, the ever chosen of chaos.

And then, sorry. Oh, go ahead. How's it spelled? How's it spelled? How's it spelled? Is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it, is so cool. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, Asavar, oh, no, it's cull, K-U-L.

Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. Oh, I was like, Ossevar in the snowlands. I'm sorry. cool. I was thinking of it very... I wanted it to be like a grave lord Nido, like, desperately Nito thing. It's so Nito.

Oh, okay, I'm sad now. Can we bring Sigmar back? That's another episode. That's a whole other can of worms. But eventually, Magnus and the United Empire of Man would catch up with chaos, and with the help of the dwarves, they would overwhelm the forces of chaos with this big pincer attack because now the Empire of Man is basically back united. Magnus and Asavar would have this crazy duel where Magnus would finally overpower Asavar and just shink cut his head off.

And the forces of man and dwarf would rout the forces of chaos and once again save the fantasy world from a chaos. And it should go without saying that Magnus the Pius was pretty much unanimously elected as the next emperor after this feat. I read that some nobles apparently weren't huge fans of him, but Magnus was so insanely popular at this point after what he did that to voice any displeasure with Magnus, him becoming the emperor or anything he did, that was nigh heretic. So everyone is just like, yeah, Magnus is the emperor. Hooray! And the general populace, when they think of Magnus, he is the second coming of Sigma. Like, the tier list goes Sigmar, Magnus, period. And also under Magnus, the Pious, the Empire is, you know, basically rebuilt back to its glory days, fully united. Magnus founds the colleges of magic so that now, you know, we can get a better understanding.

standing of magic. You know, I know before the church said, uh, maybe don't mess around too much with magic, but he's like, you know what? Let's, let's figure this out. Let's, let's evolve as people. And so Magnus has an absolutely amazing run as emperor. He's, he's, he's, the guy. He's like Lorgar if he wasn't a shithead, exactly. Okay, okay. It's a little tough to tell, uh, tell sometimes because when you're known as something the pious, you have to you make an assumption that you're maybe not the greatest. Oh, yeah, yeah. It has sort of like that negative connotation, like that religious fervor, that religious

zealotry to it, yeah. So we've said it, I've been, we've been told a million times. Zellotry is not a real word, but I've said it so many times that I've just, I'm too used to it because at least people know what it is. Wait, zealotry isn't a word? No, I don't believe so. I believe it's zealous. You know, like, like, you've got religious zeal or you are zealous.

You do not have zealotry. Oh, I didn't know that. Is it? Wrong? What the hell? Why has everyone been yelling at me for saying zealotry? I thought it was a word. It's in a dictionary, excess zeal, fanatical devotion.

It's a real word, yeah. What the hell? I think the people. Am I being zealot? Am I being gaslit? Maybe you're being like one guide. Is it? What about zealus?

Zellotis. Zell- I don't know. Zelletry. I've used zealotry all the time. But anyway, so. Oh, Zellotis is not a word.

Zelotis is not a word. Yeah, like I said, Gaslight is not real, you dumb. It's a made-up word. You're crazy. Man, I can't even remember the words I made up. Amazing. Amazing. And finally, we have to talk about everyone's favorite

giga-chat emperor. the current emperor of man, Carl Franz. Carl Franz. Carl Franz. What a boring name compared to the rest. It's compared to like Magnus the Pius. So early on in Franz life, there was a pretty glaring sign that he was going to grow into something special. His father was Emperor Lute Pold the first.

And while Lutpold had infinite. Franz with him in like the forests they were they were ambushed by beastmen and their royal guard was slaughtered and when it seemed like all hope was lost and it looked like you know beast men were were gonna like kill them both

what elves came out of nowhere and riddled the beastmen's rotten hide with a hail of harpoons Okay so Carl Franz despite him having a boring ass name is dripped to the gills. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.

He is dripped to the absolute top and bottom. My God. Yeah. Yep. And so apparently one of the elves, when they were asked, like, why did you save them? Like, who cares if a couple of humans died? Like, yeah, it's the emperor, but like, yeah, you're elves. You don't give a shit.

One of the elves claimed that they save them because, like, they could see that Franz was too important to die. And they said some, like, they referred to young Franz as, like, in their language, they called him like young king or young emperor. And, like, they made reference to, like, to create something.

It first must be destroyed or something. And so, yeah. And later on, when Franz's father died in his sleep, young Franz, and when I say young, I mean like 32, became an elector count of Reikland. But at this point, when he's 32, he doesn't really want to become emperor.

Like, he thinks he's still way too young, way too experienced. I have no business becoming the emperor. But at the time, none of the electors could really garner, like, enough support to become emperor. So they need to have, like, they need to have another vote.

And before this vote can happen, Carl Franz is out on patrol. He's with his sort of royal guard, and they end up finding, like, this shitload of goblins and like this giant, like, arachnid beast monster. Carl jumps on this thing's back

and decapitates it, kills all of the goblins. And while Carl is, like, kind of winded and kind of stressed out from them, turns out, one of his guardsmen actually an assassin. And he's going to go in and he's going to kill Carl. But before he can, there's this emerald green knight that just kind of manifests out of nowhere saves Carl Franz.

And this emerald knight is like, hey, Franz, buddy, reason I saved you is because I need you to go to Britannia. You have to go to Britannia. You have to talk to the king. and so Franz is like, um, okay, I guess. And so Franz goes, talks to the king of Britonia. And the king of Bretonia is like, Mr. Britt, right? Yeah, Mr. Britt. I forget what his name actually is.

But so he goes and he talks to the king, and the king's like, look, I saw a vision. Our deity is called the Lady of the Lake. And in this vision, she's like, look, if you guys want to stand against chaos, you need a strong neighbor. You have to have a strong empire at your back. And in this vision, she's like, the only way, the only way you are going to have this strong empire is if Carl Franz leads it.

It has to be Carl. Nobody else is going to be able to do the job you need to. And so the king convinces Franz because he's like, look, I know you probably don't believe me, but I was told to tell you, you know, essentially, like when Franz was rescued, the elves were like, oh, yeah, you know, here's all these, like, cryptic things, you know, to when something, let me see if I can find the exact quote. It's when something must be broken and shattered before it can be remade anew. That's what they told him when they saved him.

and when the Bretonian king, like, repeated it, Franz was like, oh, oh, oh, I should, I should take this seriously. Maybe I should become the emperor, you know? Maybe, maybe I should become the emperor. So, so Franz was, in a sense, was the kind of guy that was like, ah, no, this isn't right for me. I shouldn't do this. But in reality, in a way, because he was like, this isn't right for me, it means he was definitely worth it to do it in a sense. Yep. So Franz really ups the effort to be elected, and he really wants to win over the elector counts.

And the way he does it is, well, we'll call it cunning politicking. Because from what I've heard, he never specifically lied to anyone, but the way he phrased his mission statement and his plans, he did it in a way that, like, a Apparently, the elector count all thought they were getting a leg up on their rivals, when in reality, Franz was like, he was phrasing it in such a way that, like, everybody is going to thrive. Everybody's going to get what they want. But he's kind of like painting as, ooh, you're going to really screw over your rival. Ooh, they're going to get screwed over when really he's just raising all ships. And with this strategy, naturally, Franz wins the election by a land.

landslide. Absolutely landslide. Everybody loves him. Everybody wants to wants him as emperor. And like I said, Carl, fan favorite. I figure at some point, we have to do an episode entirely on him because, there is a lot. But the basic rundown on what you need to know is that he is basically winning military campaigns left and right. There is just no beating this man. Aside from bringing Gal Maraz with him, Karl Franz also rides into battle on just this badass Griffin named

Death Claw. Okay, I've seen the eagle. So, Shai's showing me photos of the various, like, you know, versions of and everything like that. Like, I'm, I'm familiar with this a lot more where it's the giant hammer, in a sense, a version of the

titular warhammer on the big eagle. Yep, yep. I think there's some debate as to if Carl Franz actually has the OG um Galmaraz I think but anyway doesn't really matter um but yeah he's he's routing beastmen

he's routing chaos cultists from the land he's driving out chaos Vikings that are on the shores he is messing up any green skin that dares to show up like Franz is cleaning the empire up and he is keeping every possible enemy of man at bay. But the problem is

Empire's kind of on the Razor's edge right now because they are literally surrounded on all sides by enemies. And so Franz has to really keep an eye on everything because if he falls for even a second

everybody's just going to invade, empire's going to fall, so they are on the knife's edge. And real quick, We got to shout out the supreme patriarch of the imperial colleges of magic, Balthazar Gelt, who we talked about a little earlier. He's the gold guy, right? He is the gold guy. He is basically the most wicked, badass wizard in all the land.

Oh, he's a wizard. Yeah, basically he is a wizard. He is the most well-renowned, respected wizard in the land. Like we can see, he wears mad drip. He's got this dope golden mask. And when you talk about Carl Franz, you have to talk about Balthazar Gelt. Because he's basically Carl Franz's advisor on all things magic. And again, there's no way we're not going to get like a solo episode on him.

But he's also kind of a shitter. This guy's kind of a shitter. Because when he first came to like, I forget where he was. was where he was coming from, but he is known to buy passage on, like, merchant and passenger vessels, and he uses gold that he specifically transmuted with alchemy from lead. But this isn't, like, permanent alchemy. The gold reverts back to lead. He's paying with fake money often. Yeah, he is counterfeiting gold, basically. So, wait, he's a super powerful wizard and stuff.

But does that, is that, I know he, like, does he just specialize in gold? You know? There are gold wizards. That's true. Yeah. Okay. It seems like it's a common thing, but I wasn't sure if he was just like, because, so he is just a wizard at the end of the day.

Like, he has all the wizardy crap. It's just the fact that he also likes his gold stuff. Mm-hmm. Okay. And when he rides into battle, he does it on a Pegasus named Quicksilver. and he flings magic spells at enemies from his staff, the staff of Volans. And we have to talk about it. He has this really cool amulet, right?

It's called the Amulet of Seagold. And the amulet itself, not super important. I mean, it's cool. It gives a magic resistance, whatever. But what's important is that there is a campaign in Total War Warhammer 2. specifically you're playing as Balthazar Gelt and he has a specific mission where he wants to get this amulet from a place called Estalia. Ah, okay, there it is. So in his efforts to get this amulet, this is where the welcome to Estalia comes from.

Shai, I'm sure you're going to play it for everybody, right? I don't know if you need to link in and chat because Bricky's seen it. Should we wait until we do a dedicated episode on Gelt to do that for chance? Oh, maybe. Because I'm assuming you'll want to do one. Probably. Probably. Yeah, it's fine.

Okay. So in reality, the Empire of Man is kind of heralded by Frans and Gelt. They're like the two bad bitches. Yeah. Okay, okay. All right. I'll do one last shout up to call Franz's, uh, uh, uh, great theogynist, the head of the Church of Sigmar, his name is Volkmar the Grimm,

because he's kind of funny, actually. And when you look at Volkmar the Grim, I don't know if Shai has a picture of him, but he's bald, he has this really great stash, he has this armor that has a Jade Griffin on the front of it. Like he charges him to battle riding atop this thing called the War Altar of Sigmar. It's like this big red chariot that has a huge golden griffin carrying a hammer on top of it. He's kind of like, I think in the game, he's a support unit. He inspires his troops to do great deeds.

His staff called the staff of altar. If he uses it, or no, it's called the staff of commands. If he uses it on the altar of Sigmar, he can infuse his bones, his old bones with strength. and he can be young again, and oh, it's all very cool stuff. It seems very cool. And you're like, oh, man, Volkmar the Grimm? How do he get that name? What sort of crazy violence did Volkmar the Grim do to get that name?

Is he just like a grumpy man? That's it? Nope, nope. He calls himself Volkmar the Grim because he just decided to call himself Volkmar the Grim. He gave himself that moniker, because I guess he thought it sounded cool. And I guess that's just something that great theogynists do. All right. That's kind of fun.

I kind of like the idea that he was Vulkmar the Grimm because he was just a bit, he's just a bit grumpy. Because he's a grumpy old man. Yeah, he's a bit grumpy. But so this, I got to be honest, this, this group chat probably goes wild. Volkmore the Grimm, Balthazar Geltz and Carl Franz has their Facebook messenger group chat. This shit probably goes wild. Yeah, their Discord messages could probably get them canceled for sure. If WhatsApp was in Warhammer Fantasy meme.

Let's see if we got anything here. There has to be. I'm not seeing one at the moment. I may need to look a little deeper, but I feel like we could get something good with this one. Oh, sure. Also, like any good, Cult of Sigma, grand theogynist, Volkmar absolutely fucking hates chaos. and his whole drive in the world, how do I get rid of chaos?

How do I strive to get rid of chaos? And one of the ways he tries to do this is he locks himself in like these secret libraries of the empire with ancient tomes scouring for any information he can find on a way to end chaos once and for all. And after years and years and years and years and years of studying these ancient tombs, do you know he finds the most incredible prophecy ever, Bricky? I'm not being sarcastic at all.

What he finds after all of his studies is a prophecy that says this, there's going to be a battle someday between the forces of good and evil. Either chaos is going to be defeated and vanquished forever, or the empire is going to win and destroy chaos forever. His big prophecy. That's it? is just like the big prophecy is like we win or lose. Yep.

The big prophecy. That's just, that's a fortune cookie at like, Head Express. The big prophecy he found is, yeah, there's going to be a fight someday and someone's going to win.

Is it going to be you? Maybe. That's so goofy. That is so goofy. But that was like the whole reason. I feel bad because the prophecy I believe did come true. But that was like the whole reason.

I was like, I have to include Volkmar because that is just, hilarious that he spends like his whole life looking for a way to end chaos and all he finds is yeah someday there's going to be a fight maybe you win maybe you lose eh i feel like i feel like fantasy is it has a bit more of a comedic element to it i do too i feel like there's much more room for like ribbing and comedy and satire and it doesn't quite take itself as seriously as 40k does yeah it seems pretty goofy i mean i mean don't be wrong well well

40K is definitely goofy, but it plays itself very straight. This seems like it plays itself straight too, but there's just a bit more shenanigans, like with Ludwig the fat. I don't know, I don't know. Why is he the grim? I guess he felt like it. He felt like it, yeah. But that's sort of our cursory glance at the empire of man and the people who ruled it. There's, oh boy, there's so much more, and there's so many people, and there's so many people,

and there's so much more we could dive into, but we would literally be here all day long, as if we weren't already. So, cursory glance at the empire, unless I can think of something that I missed that is just so glaringly important that I forgot, I think that is a good sort of like first little primer into how the empire of man was formed,

how it's ruled, how the rulers vary from being, oh, so terribly, awful to, ooh, pretty good. Hey, well done, Carl Franz, you know. So I think that's a good introduction to the Empire of Man. And as we go on, as we begin to end times, age of Sigmar, obviously this is going to get fleshed out. But there we are, the Empire of Man for now. Yeah, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the thing that I left the most with this is that Sigmar is like a total Chad. Oh yeah, Sigma is the man. He, they revered. him as a god.

Like he, he, I mean, but it's interesting because he didn't really do a lot of godlike things. He was just like a really, really good, well, I guess he kind of did, but like. He united the empires of man. He stopped the green skin tied. He literally defeated

an undead Nagash. So, yeah. Also, very excited about learning more about Nagash too. I saw a little bit. He was just like a really strong Conan the barbarian guy, you know? Like he just, I don't know. But it's enjoyable to see him be the big one As opposed to like, you know, Biggie

Because Biggie is like, He's just a guy. He's like a Viking dude, you know? Imagine having an emperor that can move. Couldn't be me. Couldn't be me. Couldn't be me. Well, that's good.

No, it's interesting. So, um, uh, and also, I like that Carl Franz seems like a pretty cool dude. Yeah, just a really, really good.

military tactician, good head on his shoulders, cares about the people, and is pretty much the only thing keeping the empire from just being completely overrun by chaos, green skins, you know, chaos Vikings and all manner of hell. He's keeping them all at bay. It's good. It's good. I liked it. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. The trailer.

Now you can show Bricky the trailers, because they're just, they don't really. give any new information, but you know, you can kind of see the trailer with Carl Franz in it, and yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, show them the trailer. I don't know if everybody else is going to see this, too, but... Will there be some on the elector counts thing here? First or the second one? I'd do the first one, because I think the elector counts might be in the first one, a little bit, I think. Yeah, the Carl Franz of the Emperor trailer. All right, Carl Franz and the Empire. Carl Franz of the Empire.

All right, let's watch this shit. Sega. Oh, this is nine years ago. Oh, is this Total War Warhammer 2? Yeah. Ah. Or is it Total War Warhammer? Well, technically speaking, all of them are the same game.

It's just the Total War War Warhammer 2 and 3 expand the map, give you more factions. Wait. So does it still blow to live in the Empire of Man? Depends who's your emperor at the time, I think. Because, I mean, you're still in the Warhammer world, and it does still kind of suck. But if you're living under Carl Franz, probably not so bad. If you're living under Ludwig the Fat or Boris the Incompetent, probably bad. You know, I think you're right. Living under Boris the Incompetent would blow a little.

bit. All right. Franz is pretty cool. I'm not going to lie. Oh, yeah. He's an orator and an amazing military leader. Yep. I don't normally have great reactions to seeing his crusader emblem

draped around his neck, but, you know, I'm pretty all right with it. Yep. I like how his cape says, has Sigma scrawled on the back, and is very cool and fur-lined. The dew is super dripped out. Oh, yeah, super drippy. And you get to see a little of how their main forces work, but it's mostly just like medieval swords and spears and infantry. Yeah, they're very much like dedicated lining or lineups.

Yep, yep. Oh, so yeah, this is a super typical like force. You got your lines of dudes, you get your cavalry flanks, you get some steam tank artillery. Yeah, yeah, you get some mounted raiders, yeah. some some dude just cast a fucking comment into a troll or something a little magic you know a little fantasy here little fantasy there oh nope he's got Eden never never mind he's not making it he is not surviving the function he's not making his way downtown anymore ish Carl Franz of the empire it's Carl Franz

Franz sorry I don't want I don't want anybody get mad at you for saying Frans The dude seems pretty cool. He seems like just like a genuine Chad. And he is. I feel like Lord Solar Leontes and 40K may have been inspired by him a decent amount. They have a very similar helmet. Oh, that's true. Solar Leontas does have big Carl Franz energy, doesn't he?

Similar helmet, similar like a vibe rides a horse instead of a Griffin. Oh, that's fair. I hadn't thought about that. It feels a little, a little close, but. It is. That's pretty good. All right. Hell yeah, dude.

Thank you. Thank you. The amount of tabs I've had open on my browser all week long with all of the emperors and all of the empire stuff is just like, oh my God. I am so glad I can finally close them. Are you, are you, are you, did you open? Did I open? What? Did you open like all the tabs all over the weekend?

Well, I just, I, so what I do. is like I have, I always have them open on my, on a browser window, just because any time I sit down at the computer, I'm like, oh, yeah, I have an episode and I kind of just give it a cursory glance, learn a little bit more, work a little bit more on the script, and you know, just as, like, sort of a sticky note deal. All right, all right. My mom has, like 19 tabs open at all times, and I feel like Google Chrome is just like, kill me. Oh, God, especially with Google Chrome. Oh, man. How is her? computer not exploded. 19 Chrome. It's a whole thing. Anyway, we'll use, we'll use

Gelt to like repair the PC or something. Okay. Oh, yeah. Or some dwarf magic. Yeah. Do you have any, uh, do you have any, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Do you have any type of ending quote, ending, ending statement from the empire of man? Perhaps a battle cry that they normally do.

No, but there are two emperors that I was a little sad that I had to cut for time. One was named Beatrice the monumentally cruel. That was her name. Is there really? Yeah. Because she was like a super like religious zealot. And like if you didn't agree with religion, she was like, yeah, I'm going to hunt you down and kill you. Yeah, her name was Beatrice the monumentally cruel.

What was the other one? The other one was Chalmar the Tyrannical. All right, all right. Beatrice, the what cruel? The monumentally cruel. All right, all right. And I wanted to include Hjelmer because he was such a tyrant that he died because while he was sleeping, one of the soldiers was like, oh, fuck you, dude, and drove a tent spike through his eye.

I love that. One of his personal bodyguard is like, I'm so sick of this guy and just kills him. And then once everybody found. out that he did it, they literally gave him like a parade and they held him up a parade style, just like, hooray, hooray, you're our hero, hooray! That's so funny.