Slánn – The Lore
First off, this is the third complete and total rewrite of this. Things just keep getting all over the place and how I wanted to present this kept changing. Let’s hope it’s Three times (a lady).
For First – Second Editions:
The Slánn (mostly written as Slann. This is interesting cause I would have pronounced it ‘S-lan’ but with that accent, it should surely be more ‘Slaine’… though the spelling with the acute a is.. not used alot at all) were a race of semi-aquatic creatures who inhabited the continent of Southen Lustria. They used to have a huge Empire, where they built huge ziggurats, Stone tombs and Mighty Highways. However, since the arrival of the Northmen, and especially the Elves, there empire was reduced to smaller outposts, with only tropical rain forests holding what is left of the scatter tribes of the more primitive Slánn.
While the Northmen/Norse men (depending on which version of the rules) reduced the numbers, The elves were the main ones. While the Slánn are an exceedingly ancient race, the Elves are much older and when the Sea Elf Explorers arrived, at the peak of the Slánn Empire’s power, they brought with them strange magic and diseases which reduced the empire greatly.
Since then, others, including the Dwarfs, have come to Lustria and wage battle with the Slánn and there human Slaves.
That information was presented as fact for some time more then ‘it is recounted by’ so the unreliable narrator side doesn’t came into for some time, until the warhammer world began to take a more wild twist and things changed alot for the Slánn. They also physically started to change greatly, from being a race of mixed colour, to a mostly green race. They also appeared to lose some of their more fish/merman appearance to head towards a more toad like look, with parts of jungle frog creeping in, but I’ll talk more about the look at the end.
The Slánn then gained the use of magic. They appeared to discover that cave species of Lizardmen and used them as there slaves after wiping out most of them. The smarter ‘lesser Lizardmen’ became dumber as the standard foot solider, the dumb but powerful Troglodytes kept that role, and the dumbest of Lizardmen, barely intelligent at all, teh Cold Ones, now became rides of the Slánn. The Human slaves were now lobotomised and turned into eunochs, nearly discovered Pygmies would ally with them but the Lore became the biggest change.
I would also point out that the reference to them making huge ziggurats. I think that was MEANT to be a connection to the original game scenario from the first version of Warhammer where this ancient and unknown ziggurat was found banned deep in the forest. It does tie in pretty well.
Slann (all trace of the accent removed) were now an ancient and highly intelligent race from a far off world. They spread throughout the galaxy, discovering many things and harnesing the unseen powers of the multiverse. They even created the spatial gateways to allow fast travel between worlds, the Warp-gates. However, in these connected to warp-space, a dimension whose substance comprised of matter and energy in an unformed state. This was the dimension now known as Chaos. Traveling though this chaos, the Slann evolved a standard form of hydro-static control to reshape worlds to be very similar looking places. On many of these worlds, they discovered life and began a series of genetic experiments. On other worlds, they found life-forms which were dangerous or displeasing, so they were wiped out or changed to make them more useful. The Slann became the creators of many of the Galaxy’s habitable worlds and seeded them with the ancestors of men and humanoid creatures.
However, the Galactic empire of the Slann didn’t last. While they knew of the problem of Chaos for a long time, they believed they could overcome it, but in the end, they could not. By openning up the warp-gates, powerful malignant intelligences of Chaos were let loose into the Galaxy. While the Slann could use these entities using magic, magic itself was a form of Chaos and thus lead to more chaos. Over the years, the Slann galactic empire was ruined, with warp-gates falling into disuse and the Slann settlers degenerated to barbarism with only a vestige of their once mighty powers.
Three Thousand years before the collpase of the galactic empire, they arrived upon the Warhammer World. Animal and plant life has already evolved but the coming cold from it’s decaying orbit threatened to end all life within a short span of time. The Slann openned two polar warp-gates and using the world’s own magnetic fields, was able to stabilise the world’s orbit closer to it’s sun, and then set to work with assessing and culling the life-forms of the planet, and introducing new life-forms.
The first of the Slann’s races they seeded over the next two thousand years was the Elves. The Elves learn much from there mentors and quickly attained a high level of civilisation. It is unknown if the Slann always intended to create a multitude of intelligent races, or were dissatisfied with the Elves, and thus created their next race, the Dwarfs. In this two thousand years, the Dwarfs were set to build primitive holds amongst the Worlds Edge Mountains while the human ancestors were little more then animals left in the jungles and savannah of the equatorial belts.
Then, then the Three Thousand years has past, the Spread of Chaos took hold. The Warp-gates no-longer worked and Raw Chaos started to appear, sucking into the material universe, causing violent rips in the space fabric. This not only warped the world, creating the Chaos Wastes but the drawn primal intelligences of Chaos were hurled into a world of formed matter where as before I known only a chaotic state. solidified warp-material was thrown into the upper atmosphere and spread around the world, this was known as Warpstone and the Black Warpstone dust.
A third effect was the Chaotic consciousness started to leak into the material world and formed into powerful, godlike beings. These became the Chaos Gods, and the lesser beings were the demons. The Warpdust in the air, however, had another effect of warping many of the creatures of the world into supernatural forms, the undead and elementals.
The Slann had chosen Lustria as their principal base on the Warhammer world, with the steaming jungles and coast swamps being unpleasant for humans, but ideal for the ancient Slann. However, since the discovery of Lustria by human explorers, raids of norse settlers started to burn and murder as many Slann as possible, leading them to fear their new neighbours. This Old world ‘disease’ took a heavy toll, reducing what was left of the Slann Empire into ruin, with only the reminds of ancient scientific ruins and their unusual blend of demonism and technology from the once strong Magicians and demonists.
However, The Slann have found some possibly allies in the pygmies of the jungle and the wily Amazons.
Wow.. that’s a HUGE change. where to start? well.. Slann are now from Space. They use magic, they are basically the creators of the Warhammer World. The Elves which were said before to be WAY older then the Slann, are now NOT older but in fact a race that owe the Slann there whole civilisation. The Elves and the Norse didn’t lead to the major decline, in fact the Elves appear to have been removed from this situation all together, and it was in fact the Humans to blame. Diseases now became ‘Disease’ as in not any real illness but a way to refer to the violent slaughter of the race by the Humans of the old world.
Slann now have Magic, and not only that but Magic is directly linked to Chaos and in fact, Slann being fully behind Chaos entering the Warhammer world. Also, with the heavy focus on the Slann before the Warhammer World, do appear to be setting up how 40K and Fantasy are in the same ‘universe’. Later on, this is not only NOT the case, but they go on and on at lengths how that is NOT the case and how dare you say it is despite the odd cross-over campaign and 40k weapons in Fantasy.
It should also be pointed out about the early versions of Chaos. Originally, Chaos when it was introduced was that. Chaos. It was a formless void without defined beings, but random parts of consciousness which when they started to leak into the material world, and there divided and formed into the Chaos Gods, the Daemons etc. Later on, Chaos Gods existed as formless beings in their own right, then then finally physical beings.
While not listed there, we also have the merging with the Lizardmen. In the armies book, it starts how the Ancestors of the Slann waged war against and destroyed the ancient civilisation of the Lizardmen. Today, some live still but in reclusive underground lairs, however, a small number have been subjugated by the Slann Emperor and used to fight in their armies. They also (as stated a bit earlier) gain the other lizardmen types of the Troglodytes and cold ones.
Again, as stated above, I feel the design of the Slann also appears to change. If you look at the early figures and the art work, including the large image by John Blanche, they still have some Fish look, moving to lizard like, kinda a bit like a Gecko, where as the Miniature shots in 3ed more start to take on a Jungle Frog look.
But.. there story gets.. .. more complex? more changed? weird? well… Slann disappeared completely from Fourth edition but returned, in a form, for fifth..
Thousands of years ago, a race only remembered in Elven history as ‘The Old Ones’ came from Space to the Warhammer World. These old ones came via inter-dimensional gateways in large silver ships. They secretly guided the evolution of the Elves and the Dwarfs for unknown reasons. They created large but hidden cities in the regions far way from the inhabited era’s in the western continent now known as Lustria. However, for some reason the race was almost completely wiped out and the collapse of their gateway created a whole in space to a world full of Demons, thus became the time of Chaos.
While the Old ones were now gone, some of their races stayed. The most intelligent of races which the Old ones brough from beyond the stars to work as their slaves and servants were the Slann. They were the organisers, architects and techno-mages who build the cities for their masters. The Slann even were behind moving the world closer to the Sun and tear apart from continents. The Slann were second in intelligence only to the Old Ones themselves.
However, the Slann were always few in number and since the fall of the old ones, they have decreased even more. While the unique mental powers of the Slann were highly used, they lack any real physical energy and were poor workers with bloated, toad-like bodies. To this end, the Old Ones found another race, the Saurus. The Saurus were the first race the old ones bred on the new Warhammer World, but were never fully satisfactory and were later replaced with the Elves.
well.. where to start.. Now the Slann aren’t from space again.. but also, kinda are.. the “Old Ones” were a unknown race which brought the Slann (but only a few as they were mental workers who would poor as physical workers) to the Warhammer world. Instead of the Slann doing the genetic experiments, first race being the Elves, it is now the Old ones which did this, and their first race were the Saurus (who are one of the new ‘lizardmen’ which make up the bulk of the species). The whole Origin of Chaos also greatly changes from being formless intelligences which took on material form when they entered the physical world, to just hanging out in a dimension until they crossed over.
Wow.. this aren’t small tweaks but such major overhauls. I might have posted about it but I felt Chaos Dwarfs were the biggest failure race which they REALLY tried to go for. You had the early Chaos Dwarfs which were mostly Khorne style Chaos warriors, but dwarf size (in fact, they made models based on full size ones but as Dwarfs), then you had the revamp as the Big hat boyes which didn’t get an army book but got a ‘White Dwarf Presents’ army book. They had a cancelled Warhammer Quest add-on and all kinds of things where the Studio appears to try to really push them but they just didn’t really take off.. well.. I think the Slann are probebly even bigger then that. The Changes from the original Slann, to the Third-edition Slann, to the Fifth-edition ‘Lizardmen, with Slann Leader’ are just such huge remakes they appear to really want to push this as a valid species, but it just didn’t appear to work out.
I start to get the feeling there is in fact a reason. And that reason is Richard Halliwell. Richard Halliwell was involved in the creation of Warhammer since the early days. The original game was Bryan Ansell (his idea), Richard Halliwell and Richard (Rick) Priestly. Lustria was a pure invention of Richard Halliwell, and that really started the Slann as a race. By 1987, he started to move away from the Fantasy line and worked on more Sci-fi stuff, with the Judge Dredd Games, and of course, Space Hulk. This kinda ties in with the decline of the Slann, with Halliwell working on Warhammer Fantasy versions 1, 2 and 3 but not 4. I also think it’s not completely unrelated that 4th also dropped the background lore from the rulebook.
Speaking of 4th.. Remember when I said that the Slann were removed completely from 4th Edition? Well.. I lied. In the Battle Magic supplement part of the Rule set, they are mentioned. Like with third, the ‘Old Slann’ were a race from that stars which had great knowledge of magic and science and populated many worlds. However, only one written record of the Old Slann exists in the ‘current’ Warhammer World, and that is the most ancient book of the High Elves, and the text is so obscure and old that not only do only a few of the most powerful High mages know of it’s existence, even less can read it. The only real difference here is the Warp-gate/Portal that transported them to the Warhammer world. It was a great black circle that still hangs in the sky. It does however go on to say that the reminding Old Slann departed for the stars or retreated into the far west, never to be seen again.
I think they were hoping to re-introduce the Slann later on but that never happened and when they did return, it was in a much changed form.
If you look at the designs, I think I have figured out what really bothered me and what they probably were meant to be. The first have a strong ‘merman’ look to some of them, but there is one with a slight more Chameleon look and one slightly toad with the large cheeks but that could just be expanding them while eating. The second design appears to drop alot of the merman side and they are lizards like a Gecko, or more amphibians like a newt. When they came back for 5th, That is just a Frog. They never really knew what to do with them, did they?
I kinda do think Gecko is a good look which makes up what they are and would work with the geography. However, at first, they are very much amphibians which would lean more towards the Newt side. Both species have alot of traits in common and the subspecies can range a bit from smooth to slightly scaly, just like some Slann art. I would say Gecko’s kinda have larger eyes then Newts, and a bit ‘bulkier’ which is what is leaning me towards them then Newts, but some can be very close. Of course, this is ignoring the fact that Slann weren’t shown with Tails and Geckos and Newts have them.
