Well, I talked abit about Kaleb Daark and his never-ending quest (due to copyright and related issues) but.. Lets take a look at what we were told and what we know about his god, Malal, and Arianka, the reason for Daark’s quest.
Malal
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition lists Malal under it’s second on Religion and Belief with a brief bit:
Malal comes when called by Daark. Art by Brett Ewins with J. McCarthy
Malal is a renegade Chaos God, who has turned against the others and is dedicated to their destruction. His followers, sometimes called Doomed Ones, seek out and destroy the followers of other Chaos Gods wherever they may be found.
This isn’t much more then we learn in the Comic. When Daark first appeared to the Praag army, he was stated to be a Doomed one, follower of Malal, the Renegade Chaos God and that all Chaos is his enemy. yep.. just the same. When Daark calls on Malal to explain if he should go on a quest to save a Goddess, and why, Malal simply replies:
Why should I want you to go on this fool’s quest? Why should such as we seek to resurrect that slut Arianka and save these snivelling mortals an their poxy praag? The answer to that, my dear foul Kaleb, my perfect killer, is my Business
Later, we learn that after Kalab’s villlage and everyone there was wiped out by Chaos Warriors, Malal saw the feelings in his heart and twisted Kalab into becoming his Champion. But that is really it in the Comic.
In the pages for Daark to use in WFRP and WFB we get a bit more however.
There is a name whispered quietly and with fear even by the most depraved, the most evil, the least sane of the worshippers of Chaos. That name is Malal, the Renegade God of Chaos. Any many who dare look within the unholy black pages of the Great Book of Despair, that foul tome held sacred by worshippers of Chaos, would find the following words.
… and he that went before now came last, and that which was white and black and all direction was thrown against itself. Grown mightily indignant at the words of the Gods, Mala did turn his heart against them and fleet into the chambers of space – And no man looked to Malal then, save those that serve which they hate, who smile upon their misfortune, and who bear no love save for the damned. At such times as a warrior’s heart turns to Malal, all Gods of Chaos grow fearful, and the laughter of the Outcast God fills the tomb of space …”
In eons past Malal was cast out from the bosom of Chaos by the other gods, or else abandoned them of his own volition, no one is sure which. In any case Malal’s relationship to the other Gods of Chaos is a strange one. All Gods of Chaos pursue purposes that are wholly their own, yet only Malal occupies a position so resolutely parasitic upon his own unfathomable creed. To be a follower of Malal is to be a chaotic warrior bent upon shedding the blood of other chaotic creatures. As such, Malal is both feared and hated by the other gods. Mala’s worshippers, too, are loathed by other chaotics; they are outcasts beloeved by neither the friends nor enemies of Chaos, dependent upon the least whim of their patron deity. Few men worship such a god; fewer still live long in his service. The bonds that tie master and servant ever drain upon the soul of the warrior, and it is a rare man that can loosen those bonds once forged.
Really, this still doesn’t quite give us too much. When talking about Daark, we get to know that his armour is black with Malal’s Motif, which is a skull, half black, half white. He also was given the living weapon Dreadaxe by Malal, and his mutant warsteed (who as I said with my Kaleb bit, is named ‘Beast‘). Well, we say given.. They were a Gift from Malal. Specially with Chaos Gods, gifts doesn’t mean he created them. They might have been stolen or found or anything and given as a gift. We later learn about another gift to another follower of Malal in just a bit.
While Malal is against all Chaos, he appears to have a MAJOR thing against Khorne.. maybe. The comic only features Khorne Chaos Warriors as the enemy (at the same, Skaven were aligned to Khorne… that didn’t last long). the 4 Chaos Warriors (Jaek and Helwud, Hogan Headhacker, and Zinbar Sicklesword) were all Khorne aligned and it was Khorne that had Praag underseige.
White Dwarf #83 had the mini-game ‘The Crude, The Mad and the Rusty‘ which was also kinda a scenario for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. It featured Skrag the Slaughterer, another Doomed one, and an Ogre this time. When he made his pact with Malal, Malal led him to a Chaos Dwarf hold where he forced them to make him a great suit of plate armour, then massacred the lot, using their blood to consecrate the armour to Malal. However, Spikes Harvey-Wotan survived and swore an oath to his master, Khorne, to take out Skrag. So again, we have a Malal-Khorne conflict.
Jes Goodwin’s Sculpt of Skrag. Painted example from White Dwarf #79
We in fact, met Skrag a bit earlier, in White Dwarf #79. What did we learn there? well.. it was an advert for him and Hrothyogg, two ogre hero figures from the new C23 range. Other then the in-game stats, we learn:
From an early age, Skrag was recognise to be exceedingly bloodthirsty even for an ogre. Driven from his clan after stealing a rare starmetal axe and using it to kill several priests, he wandered the fringes of the Chaos wastes for some years. It was there that the renegade Chaos god Malal come to him and offered him a pact. As his armour is the other ‘Gift’ from Malal I was referring to. Malal led him to the Chaos Dwarfs, got Skrag to get them to make the armour, and then it was consecrate to him. I would say the Armour was a Gift to Skrag from Malal, despite the lack of Malal’s colours or symbol (I guess it was too much for the Ogre to force the Khorne Chaos Dwarfs to put on Malal’s sign).
There is a tiny bit more but basically, it’s just a brief bit which is expanded in the Scenario-mini-game with him killing the Chaos Dwarfs and the one chasing after him. We get to know that Skrag axe is made of starmetal (which is already stated), isn’t magical but behaves as if it was inscribed with an everlasting rune of cutting and smashing.
Malal’s name appears on generic cards for the card game ‘Chaos Warriors’ but that has very little to do or tell us about Malal or anything else as the card art isn’t unique or anything. It does show some Chaos Beastmen though for what it’s worth.
Khorne, Nurgle and Malal as seen in WFRP 1st Edition. Art by I don’t know who. [Answers in the comments]
Tony Ackland did state a bit about Malal’s inclusion when they were making the Realms of Chaos books, and some artwork was found which is believed to show 4 of his Dæmons but it was never 100% confirmed and all stuff was dropped. He did mention it was hard to do stuff to come up with the dæmons cause soo little of Malal was set up. Tony Ackland gave the Dæmons a more insect like features despite Malal having no known contact or physical features which would go more towards Insects.
We do have one tiny extra bit we can comment on. years later, Hogshead publishing had the license for doing Warhammer Roleplay and in 1995 released ‘The Dying of the Light‘ for first edition. There we met Heinrich Bors, Sorcerer of Malal.
Heinrich Bors, Art from The Dying of the Light, drawn by one of the following: Pete Knifton, Russ Nicholson, or Tony Ackland. [Answers in the comments.. again]
He was once a noble sorcerer who was trained in Altdorf. However, he got a bit upset with the slow pace of his learning that he left to find new teachers who would teach him the secrets faster, however, he found Tzeentch, Chaos God of Magic. At first, he was a willing servant until he started to mutate to go with the God of Change’s whims, first with a tainted arm, and then with an extra set of eyes. He then fled the city to run away from it but then found out his mistake. He tried to repent but Law wouldn’t have him, so he turned to Malal. As a sacrifice to Malal, he chopped off his infected arm and Malal stopped any future Mutations, accepting him as a Doomed One. however, He didn’t quite like this and still wants to repent and save his own life. While he has become a hunter of Chaos, as all Doomed ones are, he doesn’t want to die and despite serving Malal for ten years, has yet to succumb to the draining effects that even Kalab Daark had, like the pale hair and flesh. He does have a Malal Only spell ‘Cleaning Fire of Malal’ which is partially strong against Chaos creatures.
On the Realms of Chaos 80s Blog, he mentions that Malal was the embodiment of Chaos’ indiscriminate and anarchic tendency toward destruction, even against itself and his power is mostly parasite in that his power grew stronger only when the power of the other Chaos Gods did. His sacred number was 11.
Now, being an interesting Chaos God, there has been alot of interest in Malal and a number of Homage sculpts inspired by the dæmons over the years and often this lets people go wild with there ideas on what should be there but there is also another major player in this saga who even less is known about….
There was also kinda a try to do a god that is basically Malal for 40K called ‘Malice‘ but that is out of the scope of this post as they try pretty hard to say 40K and Fantasy universes are completely different universes with no crossover.. despite some earlier stuff kinda having cross-overs.. even if that was mostly via the warp (and at one point, a scenario in WD which started in Fantasy and moved to 40K).
Arianka
Like he said, the Goddess Arianka, Art by Brett Ewins with J. McCarthy
Arianka is a God of Law. Warhammer fantasy roleplay tells us:
In the distant past, Arianka was defeated and imprisoned by an unnamed Chaos God, and it is said that she lied in a crystal coffin hidden somewhere in the Old World. Many places have claimed to have found her coffin over the centuries, the most recent, according to rumour, being Pragg. It is also said that she can be freed from her coffin only by means of some crystal keys, whose location has never been found; it is not even known how many keys there are, and whether they are hidden together or separately. Now, this is a bit off from the comic, cause that says there are 3 Crystal keys but I’ll get to that in a bit.
This is telling us even LESS about her then we known about Malal. Where other entries on gods atleast say what they are a god OF, hers just says about her defeat and imprisonment. We can guess that while she was defeated, she couldn’t be killed, which is why she was imprisoned in such a way, but little more. Well.. I say that.. It does appear she might have been killed, but can come back. Maybe it’s one of these God things where you can never truly kill them. That she was imprisoned by an unnamed Chaos God is interesting. Malal knew where she was. Would that information be known to the Gods after she was found, and thus why Khorne was attacking Praag at that time (though pretty much a long time after she was found), or would it be known only be the one who imprisoned her? This could hint at either Malal or Khorne being the unnamed God. If it was Malal, we also know why she was only imprisoned. She would be needed for something later and he wanted to keep her safe. Though a bit more on that later.
In the comic, the wizard Walpurgis says that his grandfather was the one who found her crystal coffin in Praag and he tells parts of a Prophecy:
And in Praag’s darkest hour, the Goddess Arianka shall rise from the dead, and she shall smite the hordes of chaos and drive them from this land forever.
There shall come a Champion – a man of Chaos, yet not of chaos, dark his deeds but darker his doom! and he shall seek out the crystal keys and wrest them from the clutch of evil.
So, not just her location being in Praag, but we know she has some kinda connection there. And she is probably pretty damn powerful. If you believe the Prophecy of course… Malal’s comments about ‘That slut Arianka’ appear to show he doesn’t hold her in much regard. Arianka is even more of a mystery then Malal is. We know from that RP bit though, that her legend is known in more places then just Praag as many have claimed to having found her Coffin. You normally don’t have people claiming such a thing unless its someone of some importance. Gods of Law are very much based on Moorcock’s take on such things, as they came into being at the same time as the Chaos Gods, and they are dedicated to their own ideals of permanence and stability. Not too many people worship them and if they came into power, all change and development in the world would cease. This is why most mortals have more neutral deities, or even just Good ones.
If we go by the idea of Malal being a parasite who gains power from the other Chaos Gods, so as they grow, so does he, yet his nature wants to destroy all chaos, would Arianka be an instrument for Destroying Chaos, or somehow allowing them to gain more power, and so powering up Malal?
If you wish to play Good or Evil with some of these, Gods of Law are probably as equally evil as Chaos Gods. However, one major difference in Warhammer is while they gave alot of info and work for Chaos Gods, so you have various forces, less was ever done for Gods of Law. Some neutral ones have small forces in the way of a troop type for the Empire or Bretonnia, or the Elves follow various Good Gods, I don’t remember any such works for the Gods of Law.
Now, I’ll just go back on to the Keys. At first, we are just told there are Crystal Keys. we don’t know what they are like, since there doesn’t appear to be a lock or anything, but they are probably highly magical in nature. In the third, and final chapter released, the Wizard clearly says ‘There are three Keys – Three Crystal Ikons that will open Arianka’s Tomb. They were passed into the clutch of chaos a century ago by one who shall er.. remain nameless”. That person turned out to be the great grandfather of the wizard. The current wizard Walpurgis was able to create an amulet which would guide Kaleb in the direction of a key and grow brighter the closer it gets to one. It points towards Norsca, well into the Northern Chaos Wastes. Ikons is, of course, an old germanic term for ‘Icons’ so we can probably picture that the crystal keys don’t look like a ‘normal’ key.
Now… I think it’s interesting that it was Walpurgis’ great grandfather that lost the Crystal Keys, yet it was only proved Arianka existed when his grandfather found her. Maybe why his great grandfather though the keys were worthless?
Its a bit out of my scope but Cubicle Seven have the rights for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the 4th Edition had a book ‘Archives of the Empire. Vol III’ in about 2022. In it it says about a Goddess called Astasis.
Astasis – Also known as Arianka, a deity that represents purity of form. During the War with the Ruinous Powers, Arianka was imprisoned by Tzeentch. Rumours of her earthly location live on in the folklore of the eastern Old World. It is said that a set of crystal keys can free her from her coffin.
Legally? this is… erm.. a bit of a no-no. She was created for the comic by the comics’ creators so.. yeah.. this is the second reference which has ‘slid’ through. I doubt it’ll be worth any hassle doing a legal route but yeah.. Anyway.. this says it was, in fact, Tzeentch that trapped her. Interestingly during an event called the war with the Ruinous Powers.. which I guess is a name for Chaos Gods. There is also the bit that she represents purity in form. Well, this would make her a rival of Tzeentch who is all about random change mostly for the sake of change. They do also say that ALL Law Gods represent a different form of purity which is a bit.. odd. I can kinda see what they mean but purity isn’t really the same as order and stagnation of keeping everything the same, but I can see what they are getting at.
I don’t know if it shows but I think Arianka as a god of Law is probably MORE interesting then Malal and ripe for stuff however, as the Gods of law are SOO undeveloped, there is less stuff to work with. Though this does give more space to invent.
Praag
Okay, I think I better say a small bit (Oh.. lets just see how ‘small’ this turns into) about Praag, the city which appears at the heart of the Arianka story. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has this to say:
Praag is less fortunate than Kislev, and was once completely overswept by mutating storms from the north. Amid howling gales of destruction, the servants of Chaos strode into the city, slaying women and children as the city slowly melted into a screaming travesty of its former grandeur. When the tides of Chaos receded, those fortunate enough to have escaped into the woods returned to find their homes transmuted into the foulest of nightmares. Where neat rows of houses once stood side by side, there now flowed a weird warren of molten glass, melted by some incredible heat, distorted into caverns and caves and all manner of disturbing shapes. Nor was the effect restricted to inanimate matter, for everything passed over by the Chaos hordes became jumbled and intermixed, so that it was no longer possible to distinguish between living creatures and the rough stone of houses. Thus, the survivors of Praag found their city completely corrupted, where walls were split to show rows of teeth in a gibbering mouth, an where floors moved as if composed of a writhing mass of small creatures…
In desperation, King Zoltan ordered that the city be burnt to the ground, cleansing the foulness from it so that the people might build it again. This they did, erecting a new city whose stone walls stood as solid as those of Kislev itself. But little could they imagine the true power of Chaos, for it’s creations cannot so easily be banished, and soon the terrors of the old city began to grow back, polluting the new buildings. At first the city began to whisper, then the night air was filled with pitiful cries of agony. Once more, faces appeared in teh walls, and grasping hands rose from the pavements – only by vigilant burnings and rebuilding is any sanity retained. The reputation of Praag is grim, and travellers tell sickening tales of it’s horrors. In his nearby Palace Praag, King Zoltan drills the Stalgrad Militia, and broods on how the Chaos spawn can be defeated and his people avenged.
Well, that is a pretty grim sounding place. The Kaleb Daark comic starts in what is said to be the thirteenth year of King Zoltan of Praag’s reign while Chaos forces are attacking, with a notable Khorne force involved. Where does this fit with the write up? Is the mutation of Praag AFTER Daark failed? years before? Well.. despite it being well after the fact, 4ed armies book on The Empire does talk about the Chaos Wars. Kislev is the closest of the Empire to the Northern Chaos Wastes and Praag kinda the closest of all Kislev cities. It is started that in 2302 the Great War Against Chaos began with the Chaos forces crossing the river Lynsk by Praag in the Spring of 2302. This starts the Siege of Praag. Well.. the Comic starts with Chaos crossing the river Lynsk and the Siege of Praag After two seasons (spring and summer), Praag falls and Chaos takes over. However more troops, headed by Magnus of Nuln (later Magnus the Pious) was able to push chaos back. What is stated as the ‘present’ time in the Warhammer timeline has this some time in the past, Magnus became Emperor, in 2304, with the current emperor much later, in 2502.
If we take that modern lore into account, I would say the writers did a bit of research. The description of what happened to the City of Praag does sound a little bit Tzeetch like. Not a perfect match but I can see where they are coming from with that. It should also be noted, we never see what Praag looks like in the comic, but are are shown Castle Praag which was probably either named after the City, or the city after the Castle. Alot of Castles have very dull names like that.
One thing kinda interesting is the section in WFRP on the Gods of Chaos and Gods of Law list 3 for each. They do comment more on Chaos Gods will come later, which it did. They list Khorne and Nurgle which I find interesting cause the two Realms of Chaos books feature Khorne and Slaanesh, and Tzeentch and Nurgle. It’s interesting that the first book didn’t feature the two listed as ‘first gods’ created for Warhammer but… I’m not sure what order they were made in.
For the Gods of Law, they don’t mention more information coming and the other two they feature are Alluminas, master of Light, said to be the least popular of the Gods of Law because most of the concepts involved in his worship are beyond Human comprehension, and Solkan, Master of Vengeance, the Angry God who inflicts the retribution of the Gods of Law. He is the most popular and Many of the Witch Hunters worship him, though due to the bigotry and absolutism associated with his worship, many old worlders don’t trust and fear his followers. Of course, neither of this appear to align with the whole ‘Law gods are all about purity’ that well.. unless Solkan is very much racial purity and Alluminas.. erm.. pure light? which is kinda an oxymoron…
The later 4ed Fantasy Roleplay does a tiny bit more on some Law Gods, along with Arianka’s rename, but there is even more out of the scope of this post then other bits.
