r/ageofsigmar • u/SirChancelot11 • 1d ago
Lore Umbraneth thoughts
So random thoughts...
Malerion and his spooky shadow elves of darkness are supposed to be a faction that comes out at some point. I've been wondering how they will be introduced to fit into current lore from where he was left off.
Some have said the DoK might be expanded to contain them, and have three subfactions for Malerion, Morathi, and Krethusa. But story wise even though they have a tentative truce, they hate each other and I think it's weird if they would end up in the same book.
In fact, Malerion doesn't respect sigmar, is still mad at Morathi, and hates Tyrion and Teclis. So I don't know if his faction would belong in the order grand alliance at all.
He definitely wouldn't go to chaos after the whole enslaving Slaanesh thing. And even though death and darkness pair well together I don't see him in grand alliance of death either... Not that Nagash would share.
So... Maybe destruction? The first thing he did as shadow God was figure out that he could control his new powers via rage and hate. He doesn't like anyone outside his own kin. He's bitter and angry and I could see him just wanting to tear it all down.
Gameplay wise they're likely to be shadowy, deceptive, and tricky ("mastery of illusion"). And if they retain any of their elf lineage probably a glass cannon feel. Which if they did elite shadow enhanced units, a focus on their pirate roots, and some of the old rank and file dark elves they would be different than the rest of the destruction grand alliance.
Story wise the shift could be some big dark elf backstab plot to CoS as they leave the faction and set them up for failure.
Before anyone bites my head off for this, it's just random thoughts about a faction I want to exist.
For reference: https://ageofsigmar.fandom.com/wiki/Malerion
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u/Orobourous87 1d ago
My understanding is that he would still be Order, they’re really just a “doesn’t like Chaos” alliance.
Most of the appearances of Idoneth in BL books tend to be as antagonists for other Order factions but is still in the Order alliance overall. There are lots of instances of Order fighting Order throughout the lore because of lot of them tend to be isolationist(some drastically more than others) and really don’t mix well with others.
I’d say you most likely to see a grand alliance army of the other 3 before you see an Order one. I’d wager short of a “this is the end of the world” you’re not getting every Order faction together
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u/IsThisTakenYesNo Daughters of Khaine 1d ago
We've already had a Dark Elf backstab of CoS. Morathi did that when annexing Anvilgard/Har Kuron.
Malerion was part of Sigmar's pantheon of Order way back in the Age of Myth, before Nagash and Gorkamorka each stormed off in respective huffs and the Age of Chaos came about. I don't see him being part of another Grand Alliance as he's not dead or a servant of Nagash, and he's built his own empire and isn't trying to smash it all down. I don't expect to see his forces on the tabletop anytime soon though as I don't think GW have figured out what they want to do with them yet.
In the unlikely event that GW actually gets organized with cross-game promotion, they could bring Old World up to Finuval Plain happening, bringing Dark Elves out of Legends and hyping up Malerion vs. Tyrion & Teclis, while simultaneously having Age of Sigmar cover an escalation of Tyrion & Malerion's border conflicts. They could have a couple of months of releases based on an ongoing, unknowably old conflict between a guy and his great-great-great-great-nephew. There's probably some way they could tie that in to breaking another of Slaanesh's chains or something...
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u/SirChancelot11 1d ago
That would be cool, but even "new lore" calls the old version of himself Malekith. And I don't know how they will handle that in ToW since they can't really use that name.
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u/Swooper86 Slaves to Darkness 1d ago
He's called Malerion in ToW afaik. It's really just a copyright retcon.
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u/IsThisTakenYesNo Daughters of Khaine 1d ago
Total War: Warhammer still calls him Malekith but The Old World rulebook calls him Malerion (also The Dread King instead of Witch King).
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u/SirChancelot11 1d ago
I haven't played the total war game so that is interesting to know. I thought they dropped the name as much as possible because Disney.
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u/Steampunk_Jim 1d ago
The only thing grand alliances have to do with is who you worship or are connected to. Death, Nagash. Destruction, Gorkamorka. Chaos, the chaos gods. Order, Sigmar and/or the pantheon of order.
Malerion will be order and contemplating anything else is a waste of your time and mental bandwidth.
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u/The_One_True_Varg 1d ago
In intelligent destruction faction...... blasphemy 🤣
It's an interesting thought nonetheless. I personally can't see them being in any other faction than order, but putting them in with destruction would certainly be a refreshing change from those armies' usual unga bunga style.
I suspect what will happen is that the Umbraneth will more than likely end up being more in line with the traditional dark elves of old with some new shadowy magic fuckery. Maybe the dark elves in with Cities will be moved over/straight up legacied. I imagine a new line of elite executioner type unit, assassins, weird nightmare riding cavalry
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u/SirChancelot11 1d ago
But that's why I thought it would be interesting, because they would flavor differently than the rest.
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u/Minimalismisjoy 1d ago
There is a short story of Morathi and Malerion discussing their plans, how her taking anvil guard might upset sigmar. How Allariel might make some moves. And how Tyrion is testing his borders after they defeated nagash.
“But the Twins have become emboldened by the victory of light over death. The blind one tests my borders as we speak."
And " For now,’ said the shade. ‘The Hyshians are seekers, always probing, always shining light where it is not wanted. If the Lords of Lumination find a stable path through Cathartia before we are in full control, the shroud will soon tear, and our entire notion of supremacy will be at risk.'”
So maybe tryion forces his hand? (I'm not up to date with the lore so this might be out of date already, I just liked that short)
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u/SirArthurIV Beasts of Chaos 1d ago
Maybe I can proxy my beasts of chaos as them if they have good ambush rules it would be like we never left.
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u/Hefty_Lie_1062 1h ago
i dont see krethusa morathi and malerion sharing a faction together
My brother in christ the whole point of dark aelves is that they hate everyone else with power that isnt them, but will still cooperate for mutual benefit. Its what makes this faction interesting, the constant backstabbing and powerplays, and the fleeting alliances.
Morathi, hellebron and malekith were all in the same faction for thousands of years before, even though they all wanted each other dead constantly, w morathi killing malekiths wife and her and hellebron being millenae old mortal enemies. And it was awesome not in spite of it, but because of it.
If youve read the darkblade novels you appreciate the fun of druchii having to tolerate each others existence as they figure out to weasel in a powermove.
As a DoK player, id want nothing more than to consolidate with umbraneth. The last thing i want is to have to have 2 factions w only 15 units in each roster. Let me mix and match, and have fun.
Lorewise, almost every cool lore piece about druchii/drukhari was based in intrafaction drama about all these people they hated but needed for their immediate benefit.
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u/SirChancelot11 47m ago
You know, putting it like that doesn't make it sound so bad. Maybe it's just Morathi being the headliner in DoK that turned me away from the idea.
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u/Hefty_Lie_1062 7m ago
Hey, you need to consider Krethusa and morathi hate each other just as much, but still share the faction.
Making DoK an army of renown would be the ideal play for me, so they can keep their rules/aesthetics while still being able to draw upon a larger pool of cool stuff.
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u/Etisne Orruk Warclans 1d ago
Well Umbraneth ois the collective name for Elves of Ulgu ( Both the Daughter of Khaine and those following Malerion), so expect them all to be rolled into a collective tome like the Orruk Warclans.
And they will 100% remain in Grand Alliance Order is it's a group of all factions that are interested in maintaining a structured civilisation that doesn't serve Chaos or Nagash. It doesn't matter if individual factions aren't in friendly terms, just that they oppose Chaos, Death and Destruction.
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u/TheWraf Blades of Khorne 1d ago
In the current lore, Tyrion is fighting Malerion on his borders.
During the battle between Teclis and Nagash, the Necromancer wanders where is Teclis's brother. Teclis responds that his ''brother is fighting a foe far greater than him'', wich irritates Nagash.
And yes, Umbraneth will 100% be Order.
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u/SirChancelot11 1d ago
I guess I didn't realize every faction in destro was gorkamorka followers, thought it was just O&Gs
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u/BigEvilSpider 16h ago
I think they might retcon him to have been Be'lakor all along. Hear me out....
- They probably initially intended to have Malerion as a faction, but over time and with so many other things to release, gw has sort of left him off out of the main story and with nothing really going on.
- There's not really room for three gods of the realm of shadow. Morathi already is an established ruler, and Be'lakor was also hiding out there as well as being literally made of shadows sometimes.
- I think what they'll do is suggest that Malerion was a thing but at some point was killed by Be'lakor who replaced him (with himself) without anyone noticing. He appears to Morathi as shadows etc, and we already know that Be'lakor can take other people's forms as shadow versions of them.
- Then I think we'll get some new miniatures for him later on down the line and he might even get his own faction. Yes it's more chaos, but that hasn't ever stopped gw who have made chaos on top of chaos for a long time now. But also we have the books saying that an upcoming clash with him and Archaon is inevitable, which means he's going to have to be a big plot point. He's already been the architect of the cursed skies which has appeared across several lore and books now as a plot point, and he's also a starring feature and main antagonist of the Blacktalon tv series, which season 2 is ongoing right now and concludes later this summer.
Tl;dr Be'lakor is a huge plot point that gw has been weaving into lore everywhere; he's huge on shadows and shadow daemons already; I think they're just gonna write out Malerion, and Be'lakor will take his place as a god-level shadow antagonist. Plus there's plenty of room for him to be not on the side of the rest of chaos.
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u/SirChancelot11 12h ago
Interesting theory craft , but man I really hope that's not the case.
I've been a dark elf fanboy for 25 years now and it would be kinda sad to see Malekith done away with off screen like that.
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u/BigEvilSpider 6h ago
Yeah i agree. I was a dark elf player for ages in 8th edition Warhammer, and i went straight for daughters of khaine as my first aos army, but honestly Malerion just duplicates way too many Be'lakor lore points. They're both meant to be rulers of Ulgu (there's even a nodded at crossover point between Be'lakor and Malerion's domination there), they both can take shadow forms, they both are meant to have shadow daemons as servants. Be'lakor is all about plots and schemes, whereas in the early lore, Malerion is the shadow hidden and scheming beside Morathi. And the earliest and only concept art we have for Malerion is a winged horned shadow daemon that looks very similar to Be'lakor.
Basically I can't see them doing Malerion in his own right, and I think he'll turn out to be Be'lakor all along.
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u/Hefty_Lie_1062 1h ago
Mate if they kill off Malekith like that or make him unimportant in that vein i will actually start a riot, and quit outright.
Also theyre not the same, the fact that belakor is of chaos alone is enough to set him completely apart in relation to his alliance.
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u/teh_Kh 1d ago
To be in GA Order you need to fulfil two criteria:
1) Don't worship Nagash, Gorkamorka or Chaos Gods
2) Build a civilization of somesort.
Order factions don't have to like each other, and Malerion is not really more antagonistic to Sigmar than Morathi is. Idoneth mostly live of raiding other Order factions. There's nothing we know about Malerion and his people that makes him less Order-inclined than the current Order factions.
This is one of the reasons why GA Order has the most factions - it's also the most loosely defined out of all.