• The forum software have been upgraded to the latest version.

    If you notice anything that looks off, or does not work, please let us know.

    For more information, click here.

Discussion Warhammer Wild West as an alternative setting? Brainstorming

I wrote a several short articles for Westhammer.

RIEKSPIEL

Riekspiel is the original language of the Empire of Man and the Old World that Was during the World that Was].Riekspiel is official language in New Kislev, the unofficial language in United States of Hammerica, and is also spoken in East Landlockia and West Landlockia, though with very distinct accents.

Many, but far from all people in the West, make it a point to Learn Riekspiel. By an astonishing coincidence, Riekspiel sounds very similar to American English with old western slang.

ESTALIAN

Estlian is official language of the humans of Estalia and the various Estalian colonies south of the United States of Hammerica.Because the Wild West is where Estalian culture meets, New Kislevite culture, many humans and non-humans alike learn the language.

By an astonishing coincidence, Estalian sounds very similar to real world Spanish with a bit of old Western slang mixed in.


BRETTONIAN

Brettonian is the native language of Brettonia, and Brettonian colonies such as Cebeque.

Relatively few non-Brettonians in the Wild West learn Brettonians and most Brettonians that make it West. Though technically, not in the west, Cebeque is a valid narrative setting in Westhammer. Cebeque is still west of the Old World.

By an astonishing coincidence, Brettonian spoken in the Westhammer is near identical to real world Québécois French with a bit of Wild West slang thrown in.


KHAZALID

Khazalid is the native language of dwarves. Both in the West and the Old World, most dwarves learn one or more human languages, but they still teach their own tongue to their children first and foremost.

Khazalid is not exactly a secret language per se but very few non-dwarves bother to learn it and dwarves are not especially eager to teach other races their languages without sufficient incentive.

Khazalid is vaguely similar to real world Old Norse.

SAURIAN

Saurian is the language of the Rangos, more or less unchanged from the language of the ancient Lizardmen in the World that Was.

Saurian is vaguely inspired by real world Mesoamerican languages but with a bestial twist. It is somewhat difficult for humans to pronounce correct.

Very few non-Rangos bother to learn Saurian. Very few Rangos are willing to teach Milk drinkers their language. Nevertheless a few swear words and insults have cropped into the vernacular of mammals in the West.

TILEAN

Tilean is the language spoken by old Tilea and new Tilea.

Tilea never managed to establish any significant colonies in the New World, but many Tilean immigrants have chosen to immigrate to the New Kislevite and Estalian colonies of the New World.

In the West, most ethnic Tileans speak Riekspiel. Unless you are a fan of spaghetti Westerns, in which case everyone speaks Tilean instead of Riekspiel.

Tilean spoken in the West is near identical to real world Italian with a bit of Western slang mixed in.


I'm sure we stick a few more languages in. At the moment I don't see a large reason to give greenskins or skaven their own language just for the sake of simplicity it's easier to say that these groups assimilated human tongues. That is my opinion at least.


PS: Did you notice I named my allegory for Quebec, "Cebeque", hold your applause, don't let my creativity shock you too much.
 
I wrote an article about Westhammer culchans. This is the most lengthy and in depth article I wrote about anything on Westhammer yet.

To be best enjoyed, you should read it with the Western font under @Paul1748 's beautiful illustration via this link.

I am going to submit it for the Worldember species promotional contest which is going to be judged on December 31st so I can make some revisions if you guys have constructive criticism.

Also, Paul, if you have any suggestions for me to change a description of culchans so my words and your pictures are better in sync, I am happy to add or remove from words I wrote about culchans.


I am not scientifically or mathematically inclined. I don't know a culchan would realistically weigh but I figure domesticated culchans would be a fair bit heavier than wild culchans because wild culchans are bred for speed and domesticated culchans are bred for carrying loads.
 
Last edited:
Since I am in the middle of World Anvil binge writing I thought I would use the old High Saurian thread and this thread on nonverbal LM communication and the Lustriapedia vocab section to adapt much of our Saurian language information to Westhammer.

I will probably add more later. Much of this article is my original creation, much of this is the work of others. I credited my source material in this article. I will probably add more later.


I also wrote a short article on giant heads. Maybe I'll cover jackalopes next, but mostly included them as a joke with a running gag that orcs and goblins are very threatened by them for no discernable reason.
 
Last edited:
Here is an article on Brettonians in Westhammer.

Here is an article on Cathayans in Westhammer.

I am going back to write for Scarterra for a while. I don't want Westhammer to just be the Scalenex Show, other people are welcome to make suggestions or even become co-authors on the Westhammer wiki.
 
Last edited:
I was going to draft an article for the Order of the Silver Hammer, then I realized there might be more than one major religious order in Westhammer.

Of course there might be tangent cults of Myrmidia, the Lady of the Lake, Gork and Mork, or the original Chaos gods floating around too.

I'm pretty sure Warden was the one that posted this meme in the Random Thread a while ago.

88h9s2iwttu11.jpg


So given that centuries ago, what would an allegorical Protestant Reformation look like in the Church of Sigmar. What would the allegorical Protestants and Catholics disagree on?

I don't know if this is a direct parallel but I know Ireland was first viewed as backwards for being one of the last European lands to covert to Catholicism. Then after the Protestant Reformation, they were one of the last nations to stay Catholic.

It might be the case that the nations that converted to Sigmar worship later than the original Empire might end up being more orthodox than the lands of the original Empire.
 
Finally got a chance to contribute to Westhammer again, with a lore article covering Albionites and Company Rules for Plains Beastmen (lore for which hasn't yet been fully written), which follows my original proposed rules except that the Razorgor has been renamed as the Ursogor (bear-like equivalents that are similarly as brutal), Bisogors (a buffalo variant of the Bovigor, a cross between Gors and Minotaurs that has existed in lore and is present as a unit choice in my upcoming 8th Edition Beastman book) and Canigors (Beastmen that resemble wolves and coyotes).
 
Scalenex said:
I thought we were going with Apisi for that one...

Not everything has to have gore in it.

5y6ldk.jpg
Click to expand...

In the case of Beastmen, 'Gor' means 'Beastman' in the Beast Tongue, so yes, 'Gor' has to feature in their unit names, even in Westhammer.

And as an unrelated question, how's this for a Wendigo model for Westhammer wargaming?
723014007_MA_Wendigo01.jpg


I recall you had the idea of a 'Cult of the Wendigo' themed company at some point... the above model would make an excellent monster model for it.
 
Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl said:
In the case of Beastmen, 'Gor' means 'Beastman' in the Beast Tongue, so yes, 'Gor' has to feature in their unit names, even in Westhammer.
Click to expand...

That said, I really really like Apisi based on the great stories of Tlacnatl the Observor.

Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl said:
And as an unrelated question, how's this for a Wendigo model for Westhammer wargaming?
723014007_MA_Wendigo01.jpg


I recall you had the idea of a 'Cult of the Wendigo' themed company at some point... the above model would make an excellent monster model for it.
Click to expand...

There is no wrong way to do a wendigo. The only common denominators are that wendigo have hearts of ice and wendigo eat people. Different tribes and different storytellers have different descriptions and Western storytellers and movie makers have made their own interpretations.

I am fond of the Wendigo and I have read many different takes on the Wendigo. They range in size from small as children to larger than ogres. Some have antlers, some don't (though to my knowledge, Hollywood is the first group to add antlers). Some have owl like traits, some don't. Some are stealthy and some are obvious.

I like stealthy grey furred wendigo with owl like talons and glowing red eyes between six and seven feet tall and emaciated grey sasquatches, but when it comes to collecting models, I think weirder models like this one are more marketable.

As for the cult of the Wendigo. Some Wendigo stories have Wendigo pose as ordinary families and they lure guests in, so they can eat them.

Here is a story of really subtle Wendigo

I figure a cult minis team would be some normal looking humans with subtly creepy features and maybe they have this no so subtle wendigo as an enforcer.


You know more about the game side of things than I. Would the game system rules allow for a whole team to find one ueber monster or would that work very well?
 
Last edited:
I recently discovered a Youtube channel called the Arizona Ghostriders. They are a bunch of men and a few women who take Western reenactment very seriously.

A big thing they do is compare Myth vs. Reality on the old West.

Warhammer Fantasy is often over the top and unrealistic. I don't see why Westhammer has to be tied to realism.

In the case of speaking, I think realism is more interesting than myth. Anyway, not everyone in the old west had southern accents so we don't have to have all Westhammer characters talk the same. Westhammer characters can have almost any accent you can think of though if you want them to sound like modern Texans, that's fine too. Some old west people did talk like that, but not all of them. Whatever accent is used, colorful metaphors should be used a lot to have a hog killin' time in your stories.

Turns out "ain't" is a real word! It's a contraction for "am not" but most of the time it's used wrong. When I was in grade school, so so long ago, I was told that "ain't" is always wrong.

Usually when you see it in movies or TV it's in place of "is not." I ain't gonna pass up an opportunity to use it properly.

 
Last edited:
Scalenex said:
Turns out "ain't" is a real word! It's a contraction for "am not" but most of the time it's used wrong. When I was in grade school, so so long ago, I was told that "ain't" is always wrong.
Click to expand...
When I was in the third grade, as the insufferable child I was, my teacher tried that, so I asked why is it in the dictionary? She scoffed, then pulled out a dictionary. There it was. She said well, I learned something today, and only corrected kids when they used it wrong. She was a good teacher.
 
So I was thinking about myth versus reality.

Concealable Deringer pistols are iconic in Western movies and folklore but in real life they were not very effective.

I think they should be included somewhere. Deringers don't have much range, accuracy, or stopping power, but they weren't meant to be used in a fire fight, they were meant to get in a edge in extreme close quarters.

So maybe characters equipped with a hidden Deringer can reroll their failed to-hit roll in melee combat or otherwise get a single bonus for a single round of melee combat.

Thoughts @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl ?


Unrelated side note, I finally figured out how to set @Paul1748 's logo as the website default. I guess I shouldn't be afraid to use the help discord page.

It looks awesome against the weathered brown default colors of the generic Western settings.
 
Last edited:
Scalenex said:
So I was thinking about myth versus reality.

Concealable Deringer pistols are iconic in Western movies and folklore but in real life they were not very effective.

I think they should be included somewhere. Deringers don't have much range, accuracy, or stopping power, but they weren't meant to be used in a fire fight, they were meant to get in a edge in extreme close quarters.

So maybe characters equipped with a hidden Deringer can reroll their failed to-hit roll in melee combat or otherwise get a single bonus for a single round of melee combat.

Thoughts @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl ?
Click to expand...

I'll have a look in my IHMN rulebook and see if there is something that will fit. If not, Messrs Cartmell and Murton have created a special Spreadsheet that will allow me to devise a profile for Deringers, so we'll be covered either way. I'll post again when I've come up with something.
 
So for short story purposes, I guess it's okay to have most stories take place in a generic tiny frontier town or a stretch of wilderness, but maybe we want to flesh out a few narrative locations. Both broad locations analogous to Montana and Texas and narrow locations like towns or other landmarks that are the center of lots of major events.

So far I have mentioned in passing, Cebeque which was a colony up north where the Brettonians settled the New World.

And my analogy to San Francisco is called Fog City. though I haven't specified if that is a true name or just the common colloquial nickname. I like the idea of a place called "Hammer Gulch" but I don't know what should be in an and round said Gulch.


Cimarron, New Mexico had one famous shootout in their town. But that was enough in the real world for them to push that their historical land mark hotel is haunted. A lot of famous Western outlaws and sheriffs stopped by the hotel, but that was it. Despite Cimarron being the Spanish word for "wild."

I'm open to suggestions. And because Warhammer is a bit over the top, Westhammer locations probably need a few bits of fantasy or sci-fi weirdness to differentiate them from their real world historical counterparts.
 
Scalenex said:
But that was enough in the real world for them to push that their historical land mark hotel is haunted.
Click to expand...
I do like that in Westhammer you can have a haunted hotel, or a ghost town, and depending on the prevalence of undead, it's just a town or hotel run by banshee ans ghosts and such. "We can't stay there, it's haunted." " Don't be silly, they're lovely people. " sort of exchange is somewhat funny. Or having a "Californy" gold rush town, that's mostly dwarf prospectors. It can lead to both great adventure hooks, or comedy, or everything in between and outside of that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top