There are no bad guys in Warcrow. Well, all right - there are bad guys, nasty pieces of work you wouldn't want to meet. But there's no intrinsic, elemental force of evil: individuals and nations may pursue their goals at other peoples' expense, but evil for evil's sake is very rare. There's no "baddy" faction. Which might come as a surprise if you're looking at the newest models for the Scions of Yaldabaoth, who are so "bad guy" coded it's untrue. We talked to game developer and narrative designer Laura Royo - better known as Hoopoe to members of the Warcrow community - to find out why.
Here's the lore. When the star Warcrow passes close to the planet Lindwurm, the forces of magic spill forth in great floods in a time of opportunity and turmoil. In the distant past, elven civilization was riven by a civil war between those who feared these surges of magical energy and those who sought to embrace them. The Scions of Yaldabaoth are the losers of that war, the so-called 'dark minded' elves who emulate and serve an ancient creator-being known as Yaldabaoth the Architect of Flesh. They believe there is no limit to magical expression, a belief that has seen them persecuted to this day.
On the surface, that might sound similar to the Chaos renegades in Warhammer 40k. When you look at the scions and see their rampant body modifications, you'd be forgiven for thinking that they're possessed, mutated, or just downright icky. Certainly, that's how the other people of Lindwurm perceive them.
But Lindwurm isn't a grimdark world - it's a blend of high fantasy and humanist realism. It is dangerous to mess with high levels of magic, the same way it's dangerous to mess with high voltage electricity, but it's not intrinsically evil. The Scions' philosophy has changed them, but it hasn't corrupted them.
The Scions look the way they do partly because they don't give a rat's arse what other people think of them - they're contemplating higher realities and transcendental self-expression, and radical body modification is just one more tapestry to play with.
But as Hoopoe explains, there's also a pragmatism to their body modifications: "They've been killed, they've been hunted, they've been murdered mercilessly through 1000s of years - so they have to make themselves strong, and you achieve that by using body modifications, by giving yourself more hearts, stronger limbs, sharper senses".
And you only need to look at their excellent tailoring to understand that they are neither bestial, nor entirely detached from corporeal reality. Hoopoe hints that there's "A whole section, a whole society" within the Scions responsible for their fabulous couture. That suggests the possibility of a radically body-modded elven Edna Mode character at some point in the future, an idea we find most excellent.
The Scions are organised into Families, groups of the dispossessed who provide mutual aid and advance the cause of the Architect. The Scions' history of persecution has made them exceptionally supportive of other outsiders, and they continually welcome the pariahs of other civilizations into their midst.
It's not a perfect society. It's governed by the Progenitors, a rank that only elves can attain, since it requires a level of attunement with raw magic that no other species can achieve. But the Scions don't treat other races as disposable (which can't be said for all elves) - and while human Scions can't truly transcend the limits of the flesh, they often emulate their 'parents' in their clothing and equipment.
"Of course, there's cruel people", Hoopoe says, "One of the characters in the Scions is the absolute portrayal of a psychopath, he's cruel, he's mean, he enjoys bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed because, of course, you have that everywhere".
In contrast, Uruk - the protagonist of the recent Song of the Dormant battle box set - has big dad energy. "He's a very loving parent, and you know, if you touch one of his children, you're going to die", Hoopoe says, "But that's basically it".
And all the factions of Warcrow are complicated like this - internally consistent, and as capable of good and evil as any real world society. Feudom has all the highs and lows of religious faith and knightly orders, and "They really believe themselves to be the chosen people, and that's dangerous, very dangerous". That self-certainty has led to events like pogroms against the elves who once lived within the borders of Feudom.
Which isn't to paint the elves solely as oppressed victims. The Sÿenann are classic elven fair folk who steal human babies and slit the throat of anyone who intrudes on the Great Forest. And just because a faction is racially diverse, doesn't mean it's unproblematic: the Hegemony of Embersig is multi-species, industrialised, and expansionist, taking its idea of "civilization" to the rest of the world at the end of a gun barrel.
If you want to get into Warcrow and you're interested in the Scions of Yaldabaoth or Feudom, the right place to start is definitely the Warcrow Song of the Dormant battle box, which has two starter forces and a mini narrative campaign. That campaign is a good example of how Warcrow gives high fantasy heroes realistic motivations: both factions have different, perfectly comprehensible objectives, with very different ideological foundations.
There are lots of Scions and Feudom minis releasing in November and December too if you want to expand on either force - whether that's with some cynical, borderline mercenary Feudom Foot Knights, or the radically body-modified Yaldabaoth Officers.