Estimating the size of the Mortal Realms

Age of Sigmars Mortal Realms, a bunch of spheres or whatever hanging in the void, connected by Realmgates and a bunch of other magics.

But how BIG are they? Games Workshop has been a bit cagy, but, perhaps unwisely, they have left enough information behind for me to take a veeeery rough stab at an estimate.

THE SURFACE AND LAND AREA OF THE EARTH

As a start we can use the size and available land area of our own planet as a basis;

Surface area of earth = 196.9 million mi

Estimated land area of this is roughly 30%, so = 57,268,900

ESTIMATED SURFACE AREA FOR ONE MORTAL REALM

Its been stated that human can walk from the centre to the edge in "a lifetime".

So, assume a walking pace of 20 miles per day.  (will likely go up in youth and down in age, this may be optimistic but at least its simple). That's 7,300 miles per year.

Lets say 70 years of walking as an optimistic average.

So that's a radius of 511,000 miles

If I jam this into an internet calculator that does equations for me I get = 8.2×10 11

Is that 8.2 billion square miles?

In raw numbers I think its =   82,033,581,529

If we assume, like earth, its 70% water we get = 24,610,074,458.7 square miles for one mortal realm.

Divide that by the earths land area = 57,268,900

We get 429.7284295437838

So best guess land area of each mortal realm is 420 TIMES the land surface of the earth?

ALL MORTAL REALMS COMPARED TO THE EARTH

To get the total available surface area of all mortal realms, x the raw number by eight = 656,268,652,232

But assume, like earth, that only 30% is 'land'

So estimated total land area for all the Mortal Realms is = 196,880,595,669.6 square miles.

I don't even know how to comprehend a number this big... But if we divide 196,880,595,669.6 by 57,268,900 we get=

3,437.82743635027

Shorten that to 3,437

So the mortal realms land surface in TOTAL are about three and a half thousand TIMES larger than the land surface of the earth.

ESTIMATED POPULATION OF THE MORTAL REALMS

Due to the influence of magic and cross-realm agriculture, plus likely massive depopulation in the Age of Chaos, plus are we counting Skaven? Goblins? Plus we know the core parts of each realm are more liveable for mortals in most cases.....

But as a nice round number we can say that before Fritz Haber, about 1800 our earth had about 1 billion people.

So X that by 3,437 = 3,437 billion mortals

About 491 TIMES more people than there are on earth at this moment.

AN ESTIMATE OF THE LAND AREA OF ONE CONTINENT OF HYISH

GW has been quite clever and, for most realms, not shown the full extent of the realm in any map. This means if they need more land area in the future they can just zoon out.

However with Hyish, the realm of light, they seem to have shown the whole thing in one go..

Eight large equal continents and a bit in the middle. Say the middle bit is roughly half the size of the major continents. Dividing the total by 17 might give rough size of Xintil

82,033,581,529 / 17 = 4,825,504,795.823529

Shorten that to 4,825,504,796 square miles

Hyish is clearly less hydrous than earth, but by how much, general impressions can be deceptive so I will say 50% water.

That gives me 2,412,752,397.911765 square miles

Earths land area is 57,268,900 square miles

Divide one by the other and we get 42.13023819056704

So, Xintil, the smallest central continent of Hyish in the realm of light, and the most liveable, is roughly 42 times larger than the entire land surface of the earth?

That's pretty intense.

Its so much insanely bigger than earth, even this zoomed in section of Xintil has probably several times more landmass than earth;

So lets throw up a best-guess spread of the earths area against this map;

So, even one of those very zoomed in areas, , say this little fragment of coasts and sea based around the Elidor range;

A dot on the map

Could be a giant combination empire/culture equivalent to some of the largest Empires our world has ever seen - bigger really. You could tell entire sagas set entirely within this square, based around travel and novelty, and never run out of new and very different cultures and places to visit.

SOME FUN QUESTIONS

What about rain? On earth very big continents often have deserts near the middle. Can rain clouds even make it that far over gigantic landmasses? Maybe the rain is coming from another dimension or something.

Travel - there would be a massive class difference between people, or magical beings who travel long distances, by flight, magic, or otherwise, or realmgates, because for most people even if they travel as much as someone travelling between every part of the British or Spanish empires at their greatest extent, they still haven't gone very far in relation to the size of the realm.

Story limitations for normal humans - its near impossible for relatively normal people to have stories where they range a long way between realm landmarks without the , whole story being the Odyssey or something. Yes there are realmgates, but they are point to point, even travelling across that red square by airship would be like circling the world probably multiple times.

On the other side there is so much room for strange forgotten or lost things, really an impossible-to-fill amount.

The awareness of near-infinity in AoS cultures really makes it a very different world to ours. There is always more.. no real limit so far as an ordinary life is concerned.

Dreaming of Beastmen

I still go to sleep some nights day-dreaming of Beastmen, Beastmen and what they could be...

 Blanche

AESTHETIC, ENVIRONMENT & CULTURE

Beastmen and Flowers;

This could be a whole thing. They probably don't have much interest in "treasure" but attaining a flower that only grows in a super-difficult area and gifting it to a high status war leader or shaman as payment or tribute would be cool. There are not enough beastmen garlanded in roses and lilies. There is no reason for Beastmen not to like flowers.


Beastmen and Realmstone;

Being bestrewn with lumps of raw realmstone would be good. It's raw magic, and therefore the stuff of chaos, so they should have a natural affinity for it in its raw unworked state and also, having a contempt for people and cultures who work realmstone and *use* it, because as the stuff of primal transformation, it should be respected and honoured, not utilised as a tool. The ritual destruction of such things and pilgrimages to return them to their natural place would be interesting behaviour.


Beastman standards and Trophies

They should have way more stuff from cities they have destroyed, like the skulls of kings with the crowns nailed on, a pyre or brazier fuelled by burning books, the skeletons of formal magicians used as fetishes. HEAD SHRINKING - its been a while since we have seen that!

Beastmen and the Penumbra of the Realms;

This is chaos-land, but not Chaos chaos. Reality decays into strange abstractions, impossible to survive, but this seems like a natural place for Beastmen to hang out - in the Ballardian apocalypse - those who went compulsively towards the perimeter inimical and were changed by it. Turning into a Beastman is a very Ballardian thing to happen; "Oxton glanced at the neighbours dog, he could smell its pregnancy.
"Odd horns old chap," blathered Winstabley as he fumbled with the keys to the Jaguar, its sky-bright surface pulsing incandescence under the lamps of passing traffic,

 "fashion is it?"

"Mm yes," murmured Oxton, "the wife you know. Trends." He would piss in Winstableys face and rape the car.



More Religiosity;

The fact that the Beastmen have and actual value system, other than just "wreck stuff", should be move visibly present in their armies. They should have fanatical priests, dervishes, sacred items or holy mutants they take along with them . Or maybe their sacred objects are the sacred things of other cultures, just defiled, like the book of Sigmar pissed on. Interesting in that idols of the chaos gods, nagash AND Gork and Mork would also be there - it would be pretty cool if you had a beastman standard bearer carrying an idol of defiled icons with Sigmar and chaos and everyones symbols all piled in together - the ultimate "fuck all of you"


Ballgowns;

Beastmen wearing the rags of fine ballgowns should be a thing, the very high-status wear of a destroyed city, defiled, altered and adopted as both a gesture of contempt and an adoption of power. A little like Native American adoption of fragments of western dress but in a strange or misaligned way - wearing them as totems. But yeah, a beastman wearing the shitstained rags of a debutatnes ballgown with the debutantes head tied around his neck by her long fine hair like a medallion, a judges wig, a magicians beard skinned from their face and worn.

Weapons;

these should be more obviously the weapons of other races or groups taken and altered - having poles and hafts made up of parts that clearly come from different cultures and realms - much more of a bricolage.


THEIR OWN SYMBOL!

Even Skaven have one but Beastmen have to trudge along using the same octed that has already been colonised by the shitty godworshippers, they should have their own cool thing, like a version of the octed but primal and simpler, maybe an inward-turning spiral, or a stick-man with an inward-turning spiral for a face.

Adrian Smith?

UNITS

Honoured Spawn;

Funky new spawn models, hung with incense and silks, set with silver chains and braziers hanging from the tentacles, strewn with petals, carried forth on palanquins.

Nascent Turnskins "Half-Hooves"

Normies who reached adulthood, or puberty before they began to mutate into beastmen or otherwise, so like a half-mutated rabble, kind of like the Beastmen version of Imperial Fanatics - having been directly rejected by civilization they will be hyper invested in tearing it the fuck down - but many of them still wearing the rags of clothes and tools from their former lives. Used by the Beastmen as chaff but if they survive and keep winning they can become Beastman _spies_, covering over their mutations with a beggars rags or acolytes robes, infiltrating the despised cities, reporting back and working out how to destroy them. Someone with the memory and experience of civilisation but who has turned against it. Then maybe they can even get leadership positions.


Man-Chariots;

Beastman chariots drawn by lines of enslaved humans (GW too COWARDLY to give us this!)



Turnskin General;

A named character. Like a half-beastman wierdo who is just *that good* at winning battles that they run their own brayheard, maybe he only grew one twisted horn so the other one is beaten out of gold taken from his enemies crowns & is strapped to his head, or their swords. The mutational space between a human and a beast is sculpturally interesting, in some ways much more horrific than a simple goat-man.


Super-Mutation Primarch-Level Beastman;

(I guess they already have this with the "Gorfather", though so far he exists only in lore I think). Something like this must happen occasionally, a freak where all the mutations worked out just right and you got an awful kind of winged animal angel - a nice big hyper-charismatic model for GW to make bank off, could go back to Medieval Devil Imagery.


Weird little abortive goat foetus shaman guys;

Being carried around by a bigger dude obviously,


Ivar-The-Boneless Spawn General

Someone who got chaos-spawned but kept their mind and individuality, this makes them sacred to the Beastmen as a raw example of Chaos untainted by any particular pseudo-god. They are fucked up and random like a Chaos Spawn but have all the accoutrements of Lordship, like beastman chicks to fan their hideous cancerous bulk and they are holding a wine goblet in one pseudopod and holding up either a telescope or a monocle to their giant insane egg-yolk eye.


Anti-Priests

Hardcore Sam-Harris Daoist immortal/Purtitan Beastmen. Like the Beastman versions of Sigmarines, in character at least, so juiced up on unbelief and sacred ritual that they can resist and undo the work of gods. The more powerful and singular your model is the greater the effect they have.


Humanoid Riding Beasts;

Like huge naked mutated asymmetric men, all a bit different and skew-wiff - hair and beards dragging in the murk, being ridden by wierdly attractive multi-breasted female beastmen YEAH I WENT THERE YOU KNEW WHAT I WAS YOU KNEW


JUST A WHOLE NEW RANGE OF CHAOS SPAWN

and I want them modular too! Spawn Legions - some real super-random Hironimus Bosh apocalypse legions shit, look like they are literally made of crazed human sins combined with teratomas plus a circus freakshow. 

My Beastman/Dryad slash fic should be CANON!

I can't get this out of my head..


So;  Games Workshops Age of Sigmar Wargame has its little army men split into four factions.

Order - normies. Humans, elves, dryads, dwarves, magic aztek lizard dudes etc.

Chaos - evil dudes. The four main gods plus the generally-evil Slaves to Darkness and the Skaven. And Beasts of chaos which is "Beast-Men and Friends"

Death - Death. Skellies, super-skellies, Vampires, ghoooooosts etc.

Destruction - Orcs, Giants, Goblins.

SO WHO IS DESTORYING YOUR CITY AND WHY?

Teclis - to burn a giant anti-chaos sigil into it. Sorry, kind of a zoning screwup there.

Nagash - not really destroying it, just killing everone in it, the city should be fine.

Main Chaos Dudes - they might destroy your city a bit but they are largely interested in perverting the souls inside it, and they quite like cities overall, so long as they are full of chaos stuff. They just smash a lot because they are snorting those souls!

Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Giants - SMASH SMASH SMASH HE HE HEEE

Skaven - no idea. Presumably they will eat or enslave everyone inside and make what use of the ruins they can.

Arielle the Tree Queen - now she isn't really meant to smash your city and replace it with TREEEEEES without at least writing a strongly-worded letter to Sigmar first but she does have, or to be more precise, she has no direct coNfirmed control over, Tree ISIS which is essentially this bitch, 

Drychia Hamadreth, who will absolutely smash your city and replace it with TREEEEEEES.

And the Beastmen, who will now also be destroying your city and will replace it with.. well Chaos but not god-specific chaos , more of a general spiritual thing. 

In Age of Sigmar the Beastmen are something like Chaos-Daoists? They believe in chaos but are generally not into any of the specific gods, (except for a few of them), they are more just.... generally chaosy?

So the burning issue that prompted this post;  even do for the Chaos factions? What is their place? Skaven have numbers plus technology, plus they have an actual God while Beastmen make a point of not having any.

BUT WAIT!!! I hear you cry..

Aren't GW constantly bringing out new boxed games and stuff with special models and don't they give rules for using them in your warhammer armies??

Like how about the 

MINDSTEALING SPHYRANX

  - thats like a beast right

no

nope

HOW ABOUT THE formaroid crusher??

no

But surely the Ogroid myrmidron?????

LOOK HOW BEASTLY HE IS THEY ALREADY HAVE SRAGON OGRES IN THE BEASTMAN ARMY!!!

COULD IT BE?????

no
.....

no it could not

AH HA! BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

BECAUSE GUESS WHO'S BACK WITH A NEW DANG MODEL!

Its Billy Belkor baybe! The Demon Prince of Chaos Undivided! And guess what, just like AoS Beastmen he ALSO gives no fucks about worshipping the Chaos Gods, in fact they hate each other! A match made in heaven right???

right????

IN fact no.

So walk the lonely beastmen, with an ancient and limited model range and seemingly no interest from GW at all apart from some endless spells. Imagine being cucked by Skaven, could it get worse?

Until, I, in my lonely and ever-vigilant genius, come forth to save thee beastmen, with the following hot and spicy concept!

GOAT/TREE SLASH FIC

Based on my reading of the Mahabharata, and vague memories of the other Indo-European core myths, my idea is this;

Drychia Hamadreth and '[NAMED BEASTMAN CHARACTER] (model yet to be designed)... 

Maybe moonclaw??

.....FALL IN LOVE!!!!

Basic concept here is the hierarchal cosmic layering effect which works as a story-enervator for the Indo-Euopean myths; two gods get angry with each other, or some sort of contest breaks out, or they have a relationship drama, and all the forces and groups aligned to each of them fall into different relationships.

This both echoes down the layers of hierarchy from gods to demigods and spirits, to divinely-awesome heroes to normal high status individuals to ordinary people to slaves and helots, and echoes across the power structures as, with this new conflict or relationship in place the balance of power shifts and everyone has to re-adjust with their own relationships, 

So you get to tell a multi-layered story with gods, heroes and normals, where the lower people live inside a context created by a higher power relationship, BUT, actions taken at the lowest level can still echo up the pyramid to affect decisions and perceptions at the highest level, and because the whole thing is about families and relationships tangible to the ordinary listener, it remains entirely comprehensible for the person receiving or hearing the legend or tale

It's also a way of getting interesting and meaningful-feeling drama out of a morally multipolar legendary setting like AoS - which is why I think the hero-tier and above beings in AoS should have more complex relationships and attitudes to each other across all factions, like surprising friendships and dislikes - it creates more structure.

Of course GW can't do that because reflecting it in the actual game would disrupt the careful IP, aesthetic a& marketing protection which the Decision-Squig has decreed.

But I can

GOAT/TREE SLASH FIC - he nibbles her leaves and she's into it, she winds roots about his horns...

its a beautiful thing.

..

And because these two major characters are now working together their armies do too. Anarchist man-hating tree city destroying tree people and daoist/universalist chaos worshipping city destroying goat people are not necessarily incompatible.

So the Beastmen and Anarchist anti-human tree people are just rolling along wrecking shit, and EVERYONE is interested in stopping them, Sigmar because - Cities, Chaos because having these technically-sort-of chaosy beastmen tear off and almost start a whole new faction is not good at all, and Arielle because they are fucking up her Rep

So now a battle is on but its also a soap-opera in which the forces of the Mortal Realms team up to destroy a "budding" (genius Patrick) romance and also to break up a happy couple.