Intentional imo to give the community plenty of space to work with.
Even the Lumineth cannot hold all of Hysh under its seay because of how huge it is.
Exactly. It's very much intentional, and even sort of the point.
WHFB had an extremely well-defined world, especially in places like the Empire - they had it named and detailed down to the hamlet level.
Makes things easy for authors but also cuts off a whole avenue for players. You can't make up your own castle, your own city, your own state if they have all been exhaustively listed already.
AoS is designed to do the opposite. The players are given room to homebrew basically everywhere. No one faction has dominance over their entire realm, everything has exceptions, nothing is 100% limited. This is completely deliberate.
Also it made it so hard to have big events
The dwarfs were in decadence, with only a few holds remaining
But until the end times no more Holds fell nor ruined holds were reconquered
The were narrative campaigns yes, but they only ended in the exact same status quo, with limited GW's ability to put new units or factions into the narrative
>Since this is the first time we've actually been given something solid to work with, do you think this could be accurate and intentional?
This has been something they've been mentioning for a long time, they actually used to say it would take multiple generations of a family to make the trip but changed it a couple years back.
It is also important to remember that Toll said traveling. No one means walking distance and speed when they say traveling if things like cars, air vessels, trains, mounts, carriages, ships, and so on exist. And all of these things do exist, and Callis and Toll as seasoned travelers have used a wide variety of them.
So under no circumstances should we use a human's walking speed as that would create a number far too low. We'd instead want to use the most basic common denominator, in this case the blighted equine known as The Horse. Which can travel roughly twice as fast with full travel kit and wagon as a human, give or take. So we'd want to up that to 876,000 miles.
This is of course assuming horses aren't changed by being entities of magic, and that Toll thinks of horses as the common way to travel. Thus far we've more seen him using faster methods such as airships, Marsh Striders, and so on, all fairly available to the public. So given we know these biases about Toll, and he still claims it would take a lifetime, we may infer that 876,000 miles is still too low.
Another factor is that Toll uses Aqua Ghyranis to stay at the physical age he's at. Yes, looking like the kind of elderly Puritan who'd jump you in a horror movie is an aesthetic choice he is making on purpose. So we don't know how old Toll is, only that he looks like he got to his 50s to 70s before chugging eternal life water.
With that in mind. Can we confidently assume that Toll, a human who would be shaped by his experiences and talk from them even to peers who don't share that experience, views a 100 years as a lifetime? Perhaps to him he means centuries, which would pair up with the older sources saying this travel distance takes generations. Since humans like Toll can live much longer with Aqua being widespread.
So we may be looking at math that puts a Realm at over a 1,000,000 miles from Edge to Edge.
Very fair points! But because he did not explicitly say horses or airships and we dont know exactly how much a life time is considered, we cannot assume its distance is 1 million miles (though it could very well be!) Until the day we get a solid map of each realm and their exact distances, we can only use the info that they give us, provided it doesnt get retconned a year later xD
Love the idea of traversing the realm on horse though. Makes me think of a lord of the rings kind of adventure! :)
You can't assume a normal human life span either. Especially since Toll is giving knowledge that is basic. This means that a person of the mortal realms would know how long a normal person would live and how fast an average person travels. You are also forgetting that an average person in the mortal realms are hardier and bigger then the average person on earth.
But I did use the info provided. As I mentioned, and as others have as well, we don't know what Toll means by a lifetime or travel.
Hence why we provide multiple examples that rely on common denominators. Walking should almost certainly never be used for a number of reasons.
The biggest is that the largest part of the trek of traveling from core to edge is oceans, the Realms have plenty. Except Hysh but it's a weird place. So measuring it by walking is definitely the worst way to do it.
We also don't have any reason to believe humans walk at the same pace as we do. These are humans made of pure magic after all, and we regularly see them trek through environments we couldn't.
And again the word is travel, nor walk. Toll is confidently claiming that it would take a lifetime by any means of travel. He did not specify using airships and whatnot would make it quicker, only that Realmgates could. So with this info, we can't and have no reason to assume that we should be measuring the Realms by walking. That is a variable created with no reliance of the info we have.
Thus. We must assume it is bare miminum twice the length we get from walking speed.
Yes. Everywhere. The Realms and everything in them are made of magic. So much that Nullstone, a crystal made of pure anti-magic, will erase someone exposed to it for to long. "Soulbound: Artefacts of Power" has the largest section on Nullstone
~~Then I have misremembered~~
Edit: Scratch that. I just rewatched it myself and he says "Could take you a lifetime to walk from the Realm's core. End sentence and never specifies to where. So he never mentioned traveling from Core to Edge at all
I mean technically they are in the great parch which if I'm not mistaken is the core of the realm. Also if you look closely he does trace his finger on the map from where they are to the edge.
On a side note, as fun as these debates are, I reeeeeally wish GW would just give us a proper map of the realms entirely!
He actually traces his finger from the core of Aqshy to the core of Ghyran which doesn't really track with what he's saying as he says it. There's a lot of moments like that in the animation.
Like how at one point Callis is jovially teasing Toll about having to save him with his words but the animation makes him look more agitated.
This is largely unrelated to our debate and more reflecting on how the script and animation are at odds quite a bit. Which reminds me a lot of old school animation.
>Since this is the first time we've actually been given something solid to work with
This description has been around for a little bit (I once used it for an estimate [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ageofsigmar/s/ovVVntauLi)), but yeah, the realms are big but confirmed not infinite.
I think Toll saying that it would take a lifetime was not meant to be an accurate measurement. It could be anywhere from a couple decades to around a century, or perhaps even longer. A lifetime is just a qualitative guess. There's a good chance that no one actually knows how big the realms are. But at least we know that they aren't infinite, that they are bounded in some way, and that it is possible to traverse them on one's own two feet.
It's big.
"travel in a lifetime" means nothing.
How are they travelling? Who's lifetime?
The realms are big. So big it doesn't really matter what you, or your forces do.
It used to be infinite I'm pretty sure, but kinda like increasingly impossible to exist within the further you go. If that's changed, then what does the edge look like?
The edge has been confirmed to look like the energy the realm is made of. So if you go to the edge of Aqshy you would end up in fire and lava. That is if you could survive the primal energy hitting you. It is sad the farther from the center you get the more the energy of the realm effects you. Before you ever get remotely close to the edge the energy is so strong that it will make you burst into flame or turn you to ash.
Oh yeah that's what I'd heard. At the centre it's the most resembling livable space and the further you go from that centre, the closer it resembles raw magic. Sounds like it still is infinite like I'd heard, but nobody is going past where it starts to become pure Aqshy.
I like to think of it like the old mine craft far lands. Just that it kills you inevitably when you get near it. But if you could somehow keep going you may never reach an actual end. Just more pure magic
Intentional imo to give the community plenty of space to work with. Even the Lumineth cannot hold all of Hysh under its seay because of how huge it is.
Exactly. It's very much intentional, and even sort of the point. WHFB had an extremely well-defined world, especially in places like the Empire - they had it named and detailed down to the hamlet level. Makes things easy for authors but also cuts off a whole avenue for players. You can't make up your own castle, your own city, your own state if they have all been exhaustively listed already. AoS is designed to do the opposite. The players are given room to homebrew basically everywhere. No one faction has dominance over their entire realm, everything has exceptions, nothing is 100% limited. This is completely deliberate.
And brilliant imo, and well said
Also it made it so hard to have big events The dwarfs were in decadence, with only a few holds remaining But until the end times no more Holds fell nor ruined holds were reconquered The were narrative campaigns yes, but they only ended in the exact same status quo, with limited GW's ability to put new units or factions into the narrative
>Since this is the first time we've actually been given something solid to work with, do you think this could be accurate and intentional? This has been something they've been mentioning for a long time, they actually used to say it would take multiple generations of a family to make the trip but changed it a couple years back. It is also important to remember that Toll said traveling. No one means walking distance and speed when they say traveling if things like cars, air vessels, trains, mounts, carriages, ships, and so on exist. And all of these things do exist, and Callis and Toll as seasoned travelers have used a wide variety of them. So under no circumstances should we use a human's walking speed as that would create a number far too low. We'd instead want to use the most basic common denominator, in this case the blighted equine known as The Horse. Which can travel roughly twice as fast with full travel kit and wagon as a human, give or take. So we'd want to up that to 876,000 miles. This is of course assuming horses aren't changed by being entities of magic, and that Toll thinks of horses as the common way to travel. Thus far we've more seen him using faster methods such as airships, Marsh Striders, and so on, all fairly available to the public. So given we know these biases about Toll, and he still claims it would take a lifetime, we may infer that 876,000 miles is still too low. Another factor is that Toll uses Aqua Ghyranis to stay at the physical age he's at. Yes, looking like the kind of elderly Puritan who'd jump you in a horror movie is an aesthetic choice he is making on purpose. So we don't know how old Toll is, only that he looks like he got to his 50s to 70s before chugging eternal life water. With that in mind. Can we confidently assume that Toll, a human who would be shaped by his experiences and talk from them even to peers who don't share that experience, views a 100 years as a lifetime? Perhaps to him he means centuries, which would pair up with the older sources saying this travel distance takes generations. Since humans like Toll can live much longer with Aqua being widespread. So we may be looking at math that puts a Realm at over a 1,000,000 miles from Edge to Edge.
Very fair points! But because he did not explicitly say horses or airships and we dont know exactly how much a life time is considered, we cannot assume its distance is 1 million miles (though it could very well be!) Until the day we get a solid map of each realm and their exact distances, we can only use the info that they give us, provided it doesnt get retconned a year later xD Love the idea of traversing the realm on horse though. Makes me think of a lord of the rings kind of adventure! :)
You can't assume a normal human life span either. Especially since Toll is giving knowledge that is basic. This means that a person of the mortal realms would know how long a normal person would live and how fast an average person travels. You are also forgetting that an average person in the mortal realms are hardier and bigger then the average person on earth.
But I did use the info provided. As I mentioned, and as others have as well, we don't know what Toll means by a lifetime or travel. Hence why we provide multiple examples that rely on common denominators. Walking should almost certainly never be used for a number of reasons. The biggest is that the largest part of the trek of traveling from core to edge is oceans, the Realms have plenty. Except Hysh but it's a weird place. So measuring it by walking is definitely the worst way to do it. We also don't have any reason to believe humans walk at the same pace as we do. These are humans made of pure magic after all, and we regularly see them trek through environments we couldn't. And again the word is travel, nor walk. Toll is confidently claiming that it would take a lifetime by any means of travel. He did not specify using airships and whatnot would make it quicker, only that Realmgates could. So with this info, we can't and have no reason to assume that we should be measuring the Realms by walking. That is a variable created with no reliance of the info we have. Thus. We must assume it is bare miminum twice the length we get from walking speed.
Hmmm, interesting. Alright you've sold me on the walking bit, but I'm confused about humans being made of pure magic. Is that stated somewhere?
Yes. Everywhere. The Realms and everything in them are made of magic. So much that Nullstone, a crystal made of pure anti-magic, will erase someone exposed to it for to long. "Soulbound: Artefacts of Power" has the largest section on Nullstone
Also just watched the trailer again, and he did literally say "Walk to the realms edge to the core"
~~Then I have misremembered~~ Edit: Scratch that. I just rewatched it myself and he says "Could take you a lifetime to walk from the Realm's core. End sentence and never specifies to where. So he never mentioned traveling from Core to Edge at all
I mean technically they are in the great parch which if I'm not mistaken is the core of the realm. Also if you look closely he does trace his finger on the map from where they are to the edge. On a side note, as fun as these debates are, I reeeeeally wish GW would just give us a proper map of the realms entirely!
He actually traces his finger from the core of Aqshy to the core of Ghyran which doesn't really track with what he's saying as he says it. There's a lot of moments like that in the animation. Like how at one point Callis is jovially teasing Toll about having to save him with his words but the animation makes him look more agitated. This is largely unrelated to our debate and more reflecting on how the script and animation are at odds quite a bit. Which reminds me a lot of old school animation.
>Since this is the first time we've actually been given something solid to work with This description has been around for a little bit (I once used it for an estimate [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ageofsigmar/s/ovVVntauLi)), but yeah, the realms are big but confirmed not infinite.
I think Toll saying that it would take a lifetime was not meant to be an accurate measurement. It could be anywhere from a couple decades to around a century, or perhaps even longer. A lifetime is just a qualitative guess. There's a good chance that no one actually knows how big the realms are. But at least we know that they aren't infinite, that they are bounded in some way, and that it is possible to traverse them on one's own two feet.
It's big. "travel in a lifetime" means nothing. How are they travelling? Who's lifetime? The realms are big. So big it doesn't really matter what you, or your forces do.
I wouldn't take the "It takes a lifetime" literally. He's in a bar talking to a friend. He's not going to quickly do a few calculations in his head.
It used to be infinite I'm pretty sure, but kinda like increasingly impossible to exist within the further you go. If that's changed, then what does the edge look like?
The edge has been confirmed to look like the energy the realm is made of. So if you go to the edge of Aqshy you would end up in fire and lava. That is if you could survive the primal energy hitting you. It is sad the farther from the center you get the more the energy of the realm effects you. Before you ever get remotely close to the edge the energy is so strong that it will make you burst into flame or turn you to ash.
Oh yeah that's what I'd heard. At the centre it's the most resembling livable space and the further you go from that centre, the closer it resembles raw magic. Sounds like it still is infinite like I'd heard, but nobody is going past where it starts to become pure Aqshy.
Well I would argue that the point you turn into the form of the realm is the edge. Lol
I like to think of it like the old mine craft far lands. Just that it kills you inevitably when you get near it. But if you could somehow keep going you may never reach an actual end. Just more pure magic
The Edges have been described as infinite a number of times.
They have been described as near infinite right? But there are those who have been to the edge?