Latest / The Bad Moon's Orbit / Episode 11: Tzeentch, The God of Change

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Episode 11: Tzeentch, The God of Change · The Bad Moon's Orbit

0:37
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of The Bad
0:40
Moon's Orbit. I am Dalton Montgomery, your
0:42
Warhammer aficionado. And I'm very smart and I don't
0:45
have a clever quip today. Or do you?
0:48
That's right, we're talking about the one and only.
0:51
Maybe Zinch. Maybe.
0:54
Who's to say? Say goodness me.
0:59
If that intro didn't key you off viewers, Zinch is the God of
1:03
lies, the God of treachery, the God of deception.
1:06
Most of all, Zinch is the God of change.
1:10
For what is a lie? What is deception?
1:13
What is ambition or hope? But aspects of change?
1:18
But before we get too much into talking about change, let's talk
1:21
a little bit about some loved game mechanics.
1:26
Yeah, we. Kind of come up with a cute name
1:27
for. This we do a.
1:30
Gaming Corner Game box. We'll figure it out.
1:33
We'll put the storm off. I do have one mild, well mild to
1:39
major spoiler for Hades too. Is that OK Dalton?
1:43
Yeah, since the listeners can skip you can't.
1:48
And I say mild to major cuz I feel like it really depends on
1:52
individual interpretation of what you would personally do
1:55
your listener define as a game spoiler.
1:57
It is not plot, but it is mechanic and specifically a boss
2:03
mechanic. Now I will he'll admit I haven't
2:07
played Hades too. I'm waiting for him to come out
2:08
so I can just play it on my Switch or whatever Switch to is.
2:13
But my brother has played it. I got to sit and watch him do
2:15
it. I did a whole bonus episode on
2:16
my other podcast where we got to talk about Hades too and how
2:19
we're excited about it. But I became aware of the this
2:25
is the sport you fight Kronos. Kronos is like the big bad of
2:28
the game, right? And so you eventually get to
2:33
Kronos, you go through all the the levels of the, the planes
2:36
where you're going through, you get to Kronos, you fight Kronos.
2:38
This is my highlight. This is a mechanic of the game.
2:41
You cannot pause the game in. This game.
2:43
Like that's that and I haven't played that, but I just know
2:45
about it and that's so cool. And do I wish I didn't know that
2:49
a little bit because I know definitely I'm someone who like
2:51
will pause a game if I'm in a boss fight to be like, why?
2:54
Don't bother me. I'm in the middle of it.
2:55
Actually. Usually I won't pause it because
2:57
I'll throw off my group. I'll just like try to walk away
2:58
from the distraction, but that is so cool.
3:03
The meta of acknowledging the thing that you, the player are
3:07
in acting with and how that would fall there.
3:10
You can pause at any other time of the game like that.
3:12
That is not a thing anywhere else in the game, just when
3:16
you're fighting Kronos, the Titan of Time.
3:20
The the tagline every time you die in Hades too, is time cannot
3:25
be stopped. And so when you are in the room,
3:28
yeah, yeah, yeah. So just.
3:33
That's cool. And just the creativity of
3:38
developers and like storytellers in general to identify this.
3:42
The game could have not and you wouldn't have even noticed.
3:44
Yeah, like you wouldn't even noticed that you're.
3:46
Oh, we shouldn't be able to pause because he's like, you
3:48
wouldn't have. It's just a given.
3:49
And so just when they reach out, and are like but the medium.
3:54
Yes, I love when a game does something like that.
3:57
This is an extracurricular because it's not a game
3:59
mechanic, but I'm going to mention that Athenas design from
4:03
Hades 2 is not Athena Aphrodites design.
4:06
From Hades 2. Is one of my favorite designs
4:09
for her period. It's.
4:12
So good, it's so good. She.
4:14
Looks she's got the like the cup, like the shin guard.
4:18
Yeah, but she's still Aphrodite. I've heard Aries match now.
4:22
I was going to say she's wearing this.
4:25
This is the thing I noticed when we first saw those designs is
4:27
that she her weapons look like they were made by Hephaestus.
4:30
They matches aesthetic for the rest of the game.
4:32
Because he is her husband. That is her obligation is the
4:36
weapon she is wearing. But she has chosen to put on war
4:39
paint evocative of Aries. That is the two facets of what
4:43
it means to like, have love for a person.
4:46
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
4:48
That's so fascinating. Love that.
4:49
And then and then it's not. But chaos is designed.
4:53
Oh my. God, my God.
4:56
Like I'm obsessed. I came upon it by accident.
4:59
So good. We were ranking the original
5:01
Hades 2 character design and I pulled up chaoses because I was
5:04
like looking at him to reference.
5:05
I pulled up chaoses and the wiki showed me the and I didn't know
5:09
because I don't want to know, but I do want to know and I was
5:11
like, what? And we just had like we promised
5:13
no spoilers in that episode. I had a spoiler warning for four
5:16
minutes of us just like what is this character?
5:18
What is their purpose? How do they have they mentioned
5:21
Zagarius? What's going on?
5:22
And so good and perfect. It's exactly what chaos should
5:29
be. Yeah, yeah, but also the first
5:31
game is exactly what? Chaos should be like it's.
5:33
Incredible. They're so different, and yet
5:36
both. And you're like, yeah, it's
5:37
chaos. Yep.
5:40
So not so I knew where Haiti's too much, yeah.
5:44
We're Hammer Slash. Fantastic.
5:46
Yeah, we're Hammer Slash Hades fan cast.
5:49
Doesn't. What is your?
5:52
I tried to see if I could just come up with they on the same
5:56
level of spark of inspiration and it's just not yet.
5:58
I'll figure. It out, we'll get one.
6:00
If you have recommendations, viewers, let us know in the
6:02
comments. Here in episode 11.
6:04
Yeah, yeah, I'm actually going to.
6:07
I'm going to take a rare venture into the mechanics of the game.
6:11
We are talking about Warhammer because we're talking about
6:13
Zinch and I think 1 of Zinch's game mechanics in the game.
6:17
Warhammer is extremely cool and it fits Zinch's thing extremely
6:23
well whilst also being a really interesting game mechanic.
6:26
Where hammers a game of dice. If you don't know, you roll to
6:29
see if your little guys hit with their weapons, you see if they
6:32
successfully guard against an attack, you roll dice to see if
6:34
they cast spells right. The whole game is governed by D6
6:38
dice rolls. If you are playing Zinch, then
6:41
at the start of the game before anything else happens, you roll
6:44
9 dice which is Zinch's holy number, and then you set them to
6:49
the side and at any point during the game.
6:51
This is just a special tool that will help us.
6:53
Later, yeah. At any point at during the game,
6:55
instead of rolling for something, you can just swap
6:58
those dice in. That's very.
7:02
Cool, the Changer of ways, the Master of Fate.
7:05
Zinch's Zinch is the only army in the game that just gets to
7:09
cheat and I love that. Terrible.
7:14
But to to corns? Oh yes.
7:17
Corns if if we're talking like in game game of case real quick.
7:20
I do want to mention because corn also has a very fun one.
7:23
Corn has the blood tithe in game, which is anytime a unit
7:27
just like a collection of miniatures is destroyed, you get
7:31
a blood tithe point. Your opponents or your own Corn
7:35
cares not from once the blood flows, blood for the blood God,
7:40
skulls for the skull throne. But yeah game mechanics 2 lore.
7:46
Let's talk a little bit about zinch.
7:48
So we talked previously about corns appearance.
7:52
It kind of came up in the middle of our discussion, yeah.
7:55
None of the Chaos gods have a strictly fixed appearance.
7:57
That's not what it is to be cast.
7:59
But. They don't have a physical
8:00
tangible. Form.
8:00
Yeah, exactly. Nergl is the closest.
8:02
Nergl is the physical embodiment or is the like metaphysical
8:06
embodiment of stagnation. And also Nergl's demons
8:10
canonically look like Nergl, which would be hard to do if you
8:13
don't have something of a fixed appearance.
8:15
Yeah, but if Corn only has like a consistent evocative, like,
8:20
like Corn is always portrayed as very big.
8:22
He's almost always portrayed as heavily armored.
8:24
He's sitting atop the Skull Throne.
8:26
Yes, Vast is absolutely Corn's thing.
8:29
Zinch doesn't even get that. Zinch is change.
8:34
Zinch is the concept of something not being what it just
8:37
was. And so if anything, Zinch defies
8:42
being able to be classified in every consistent way.
8:47
Zinch's holy number is 9:00 because it is three sets of
8:51
threes. It's fractal down to its
8:54
smallest components and if you triple or if you go one like
9:01
factor up, you hit 81. And 80.
9:04
One is 9. Yes, yes.
9:07
Damn Zinch. OK, man, I see you.
9:09
Tricks within, tricks within, mysteries within change is
9:16
again, it's zinch's big thing. Zinch of the Chaos gods is the
9:20
most fond of mutation. Like again, we talked about like
9:23
sometimes cornet berserkers will undergo mutation if they're
9:26
particularly close to it, but corn isn't super into that
9:28
because mutation's ultimately like a thing of magic.
9:31
It's a thing of change. It is not your own power.
9:36
Zinch loves that even relatively normal, like low ranking Zinchi
9:42
and chaos worshippers will mutate vastly horns and hooves
9:47
and wings and feathers as into the very strong bird association
9:53
and turning into we're going to save that turning into other
9:58
stuff is a big part of siege. But we're going to say that to
10:00
when we're talking about kind of the the masses of siege.
10:04
Let's talk in the same way they talked about corns entrance into
10:10
the realm. Let's talk a little bit about
10:12
how the inch got here. So.
10:14
Can I share something? Yeah.
10:15
It has nothing to do with anything you've said.
10:17
You're fine. But it's a thing that my brain
10:20
has been doing that I do need to get out of my head.
10:21
Yeah. Any multiple of 9, the
10:25
respective numbers add up to 9, so 2 * 9.
10:30
Yeah, I didn't even think that seen.
10:31
In that ads and 5 * 9 is 45 and that and 7 * 9 is 63 and that
10:38
adds up to 9. I didn't even think of that, no.
10:41
And it's nothing. But I was like, hey, do you
10:43
want? And I was like, oh, and then the
10:45
step down does that and then step.
10:46
And that's where my brain has actually been for the last 45
10:49
seconds, is slowly stepping down.
10:53
Change your voice so. Now I'm in.
10:56
Now I'm full focus. Every multiple of nine, at least
11:01
from the core add up to nine, yes.
11:04
Oh, and 10 because nine and. 09 and 0, yeah.
11:07
Yeah. And then it stops.
11:09
Yeah, it breaks at 11. Kind of, because 9 + 9 is 18.
11:18
And then it jumps in back and forth.
11:20
No, we have to get out. We have to stop put.
11:23
It in a box and throw it. I know that Jumanji box of the
11:26
river. Oh God, I'm going to ruin your
11:27
life because 12 is 108. Zinch is real.
11:35
I'm on the path to glory. I serve Zinch.
11:37
We we've stumbled upon a truth of the universe, and that's a
11:41
beautiful thing, isn't it? Yeah, what do we do with it,
11:45
Dalton? We let it go.
11:49
We let it change. Understanding of the.
11:51
Universe, you let it go. Or we become physicists.
11:54
I don't know. But zinch.
11:58
So actually, before we talk about how zinch gets into the
12:01
world a little bit, let's let's talk a little bit more what it
12:03
means to be the God of change. If corn's most famous motto is
12:08
you. Multiply it by 100, it's 900.
12:10
And it's nine. You're not wrong.
12:11
I'm. Done.
12:13
I'm done. I'm done.
12:13
I'm done. If corn has, corn cures that
12:17
from once the blood flows, then zinch has Zinch cares not what a
12:21
thing is, nor what it becomes, only that it changes.
12:24
Just that process of metamorphosis.
12:26
Yes, something becoming something else.
12:29
Zinch's anathema is stagnation. How does zinch?
12:33
Feel about caterpillars really into the the chrysalis process.
12:36
Generally likes them, yeah. Yeah, as much as he likes
12:39
anything else. Zinch's all the Cascots have
12:42
like, more direct rivals. None of them like each other.
12:45
They're not friends. Yeah, but Zinch and Nergal
12:47
specifically don't get along because change in stagnation.
12:50
Yeah. That is literally conceptually
12:52
opposites. Yeah.
12:53
And the same way that corn and Slanish don't get along because
12:57
corn is outcome, corn cares not from whence the blood flows.
13:00
Whereas Slanish's experience, Slanish's access and it is joy
13:04
and pleasure, etcetera, Zinch is.
13:08
The journey and corn is the destination.
13:10
Yeah, and those things are in conflict with each other because
13:13
Corn just wants the destination and Slanesh never wants to reach
13:17
the destination. We'll talk more about Slanesh's
13:21
psychology and the Slanesh episode because it is
13:24
fascinating. Slanesh is So the thing I said
13:26
last episode about Corn baseline being often derided as being
13:31
kind of boring innately. Slanish is the opposite of that.
13:34
I think Slanish tends to be more interesting than the people who
13:37
end up in the circles of Slanish.
13:41
But again, we'll talk about that in the Slanish episode.
13:43
Zinch's domain also includes magic.
13:47
Magic in its very nature is change.
13:51
Zinch is often worshipped as a God of magic, and that's
13:55
interesting to me because the other chaos gods will often have
13:58
priests, but Zinc basically all exclusively has Wizards.
14:01
This makes sense. Yeah, doing sorcery is a service
14:04
which makes it complicated when you have like Sigmar aligned
14:09
Wizards. Yeah, I was going to say.
14:11
Magic is inherently dangerous, and Warhammer and some of that
14:15
is Zinch's influence. Any wizard casting a spell
14:18
always suffers the risk that it might like, mutate them or
14:21
blowback on them in a way that's lethal, or worse, lethal.
14:25
Or worse. Being a Chaos Spawn ain't nice,
14:30
but we see again that the dominant emotion of zinch in the
14:36
same way that rages for corn is ambition.
14:40
It is an aspect of change. It is wanting things to no
14:43
longer be how they are, and that means climbing the ranks.
14:47
And that can be either the ambition of someone who is
14:50
already well off just striving for more, or it can be the
14:53
ambition of someone who has nothing wanting anything.
14:58
And those are again the two forks that Chaos approaches
15:00
people from. Chaos is.
15:02
Flexible. Yeah, chaos is flexible.
15:04
It's corrupting. That is its main function in the
15:08
world. I'm going to up the
15:09
pretentiousness levels of our podcast just like real quick.
15:12
Let's go and mention David Foster Wallace, who is a was a
15:18
world renowned philosopher and author.
15:20
Oh damn. Was.
15:21
Really. Yeah, unfortunately.
15:24
I mean, he's only a little bit older than we are.
15:27
Yeah, he wrote Infinite Jest, an impossibly long book that I will
15:30
never read, but I mostly know him from his address to Kenyon
15:33
College. Yearly rewatch for me.
15:36
Genuinely. I'm going to get like really
15:38
weirdly sincere on our funny Haha Warhammer podcast.
15:41
Listen to David Foster Wallace's address to Canyon College.
15:45
It will help you reshape how you think about the world because
15:50
it's all about taking yourself outside of your personal
15:54
experiences and viewing the world through other people's
15:57
eyes and how that is hard. It is not just a sea change
16:02
where now you can do it and you are a good person.
16:04
It is an effort you have to make every day and that's
16:07
fascinating. But anyways, I think about that
16:09
in relation to Zinch, because he has a line near the end of that
16:12
about making a conscious effort to choose what you are living
16:17
your life for. And he has the line if you live
16:21
for money, you will always feel poor.
16:23
If you live for beauty, you will always be ugly.
16:26
And if you live for personal strength, then it will never be
16:29
enough. And that's kind of where Zinch
16:34
gets you, right? It's that ambition.
16:37
It is that need for more. That constant novelty of change
16:42
is where Zinch gets into you. So let's talk about specifically
16:47
how Zinch got. Into the how Zinch Zinch got in.
16:51
Yes. So if corn immersion actually
16:53
would passion and aggression, zinch gets in in shaman, the
16:59
realm of metal. OK, Yeah, interesting.
17:02
Yeah, we talked before. That metal is very valuable.
17:04
I was going to say as it was, yeah, Shaman is a very mercurial
17:08
realm. Metal is characterized in
17:10
Warhammer for that applicability.
17:12
You can make a sword out of iron and then melt it down and make
17:15
tools and is not lesser in each of those aspects.
17:18
It is still, it's the same iron, but it is very vast and
17:23
malleable. I used fast again, but you know.
17:25
Yeah, yeah. And so shaman is very ever
17:27
shifting, ever changing as a realm itself.
17:30
It's the one with all the floating islands you have to
17:31
kind of navigate through portals or dwarves develop airships on
17:35
shaman that they used to travel and whatnot.
17:37
That's the Caradron legions. They invent capitalism.
17:42
Yeah. So it is, it is a realm primed
17:46
for siege, right. It is already like a change
17:49
suffused realm. We're also going to see these
17:53
first two emerging realms that don't necessarily have a God
17:56
like watching over them right? Grim Near was the God bound to
18:00
actually. He died fighting Vocatrix.
18:03
Grunny was the God bound to Shimon.
18:06
He is with Sigmar, still paying off his debt.
18:09
Yeah, right. So there's no one home.
18:11
Yes, and so it makes sense that the ancient corn.
18:14
Got in first, yes. Like when I was like, where is
18:17
Sigmar? He's not here.
18:18
That's right. Different.
18:19
Place that's not going to be the case going forward.
18:22
A slash is already in the realms.
18:24
Slanish has changed between OLGU and Hish.
18:28
Fucking techless anyway. Come on, guy.
18:33
I bet Techless is miffed when it's like, oh, if people worship
18:36
Zinch is like a God of magic, I bet Techless just like, you
18:38
know, that's got to miff him a little bit.
18:40
Oh he's so mad because Zinch is wild and chaotic magic and
18:44
techless is the. Study of magic.
18:46
Yes, wizard in the tower techless is.
18:48
I did my PhD in arcane runes where zinch is just like Zinch
18:52
is the magical equivalent of lighting a bottle of gasoline on
18:56
fire and throwing it at a beehive like and that is magic.
18:59
That is a valid, but it's just it's instinctual.
19:02
It's not concerned with the origination and the outcome, but
19:08
the process which is zinch cares not what it is or what it
19:12
becomes, only that it changes. Yes.
19:15
So Shaman is is primed for Zinch's encroachment.
19:18
And Zinch, more so than any of the other gods, sows the seeds
19:22
before. Like eventually emerging.
19:24
Zinch is getting into the minds of people, whispering promises
19:28
of power, threading worshippers and cultists and even demons
19:34
into the realm before a proper breach, before there is anything
19:38
approaching the Blood Feast Shaman is already overrun with
19:41
zengi and worship, because that's just how the dude rolls.
19:44
He is, as we talked about, just the pettiest.
19:47
Like shitster. He loves that.
19:52
And so eventually just spreading his influence in that kind of
19:58
reserved way isn't enough. He sees what his brother's doing
20:01
over and actually, and he can't be one upped.
20:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he connives a plan to really
20:10
fuck up Shaman, if we're being real.
20:13
So in Shaman there is a God beast called the Load Griffin.
20:18
Load Griffin, Yeah. Very good.
20:20
That is LODE. It's like magnetic.
20:24
Yeah, yes, exactly. It is a massive Griffin.
20:29
Just utterly huge. It is literally magnetic.
20:33
So it draws metal to itself. Okay, yeah, you live in a place
20:37
of metal. Yeah.
20:39
And so, I mean, it does just have a cloud of like metal that
20:42
follows it everywhere. Yeah, it may.
20:43
Be like covered in like metal shavings like dust.
20:46
It's like a pig pin like from Peanuts pig pin.
20:49
Yeah, and they're they're like, as it like flies.
20:52
There's like shards of metal just kind of like coming off of
20:54
it. And it's it's described
20:57
beautifully. There is no fucking art of the
20:59
load Griffin. I'm so mad on this assignment.
21:04
Right. I'm so mad.
21:06
I would love art of the load Griffin, but it lives on Shiman.
21:09
It was there long before, like anything, like most of the God
21:12
beasts were. But as Shimon grows increasingly
21:16
industrial, as people expand and move out and claim more parts of
21:20
it, it gets kind of pushed out of its normal territory and it
21:23
starts to become a problem. Like a lot of like in real life.
21:27
Like big animals become a problem because humans push into
21:31
their spaces. The load Griffin being a giant
21:35
magnetic creature starts to really fuck with those airships,
21:39
yeah. That would probably navigation.
21:43
Yeah, navigation are just flying too close and pulling them out
21:46
of the sky. Yeah, center of shaman.
21:52
So generally speaking, realms are more stable than their
21:56
center and then they get weirder the further you go out, right.
21:59
Like actually it's just like a normal place near its center,
22:02
but as you go out to the edges of actually it's a vast oceans
22:06
of lava and like endless firestorms and all sorts of
22:11
crazy stuff. Hish is literally just utterly
22:15
blinding light out of the far edges, which is fun.
22:20
Which is fun. Such Dalton.
22:24
And shaman is just like roiling oceans of metal when you get out
22:28
near the edges. So that's fun, yeah.
22:31
But near the center of Shaman, it's got a kind of unique
22:34
property. Near the center of Shaman there
22:37
is an area called the Spiral crux.
22:39
OK, that's cool. Yeah, and it contains this kind
22:42
of miracle substance. Not like the life water.
22:47
Though a little bit like the life water it is, each of the
22:50
realms has what is, yeah, what is called the Realm stone.
22:54
Almost none of them are stones. Which is still extremely funny
22:57
because again, yeah, Garans is Aqua garanis, which is water.
23:03
Yeah. Shayisha's is grave sand, which
23:07
is also not a stone You. Don't argue, I don't care.
23:14
Sand in your hand is not rock. Right.
23:17
To be fair, Hisches is a they're quartz, and quartz is a rock.
23:20
Yeah, and quartz is a rock. Well, we count quartz fine
23:23
though, and the most Hissian thing ever either chords is not
23:27
naturally occurring. You have to strain it from the
23:29
atmosphere. So it's literally a puzzle to
23:32
acquire. Yeah, contracts.
23:37
But near near the center of the spiral crux is which is Shimon's
23:41
realm stone. It is the perfect alchemical
23:43
substance. You can use it as the base for
23:46
literally any creation. I'm going to picture Mercury.
23:49
Yeah, lead to gold. Easy.
23:51
The easiest thing in the world with Shimonite, you can make an
23:55
alloy with it of everything. If you make steel with Shimano,
23:57
it is flexible and strong and basically invulnerable.
24:02
It's crazy and it's obviously extremely valuable.
24:06
And it can basically only be found at the spiral Crux.
24:09
So the spiral crux is a little bit unstable just because
24:13
Shiman's whole thing is being unstable.
24:15
It's that shifting. So the Dwartan, the dwarves of
24:19
Shiman, have built these structures around the spiral
24:24
crux to stabilize it. They want to more efficiently
24:27
mine Shimani and that's OK. Man that.
24:32
Seems counterintuitive too. Yeah, this whole thing, but.
24:35
It it speaks a little bit to that, like maybe you're imposing
24:40
a little bit of stagnation on the world and that's going to
24:43
come back to bite you in the end.
24:44
It's just, yeah, that's supposed to be in movement and flux.
24:48
So you're just not letting it? Yeah.
24:50
So pushed from its normal lands, the load Griffin looks for new
24:57
places to call home. And not finding anywhere that's
25:01
like free from the influences of these people who have started
25:05
to, like, colonize and put up cities and stuff on Shaman, it
25:09
instead just goes to a place of power.
25:13
And the load Griffin ends up, like nesting at the spiral crux,
25:17
which throws it into pretty bad disarray.
25:20
Like, Shamanid is magnetic. It's the perfect metal.
25:25
And so having all that immensely powerful alloyed, like
25:29
alchemical metal in contact with the load Griffin is bad news.
25:33
And also all the structures that they built up and there's like
25:35
cities around the spiral crux and all of that is just getting
25:38
thrown into complete disarray by the presence of the load
25:41
Griffin. So the Duarten go OK, that's a
25:46
problem time to solve that problem.
25:48
And they I. Wonder how they solve that
25:49
problem. They launch a lot of airships to
25:52
kill the shit out of that Griffin.
25:56
Interesting. Yeah.
25:57
Who could have foreseen this? Every Duarten clan on shaman
26:02
pools their resources and sets a bounty for the Griffin.
26:06
OK cuz that's this is the people who invented capitalism.
26:09
That's how you solve a problem. You throw money at it, yes.
26:13
Not the same way you throw skulls.
26:17
Cash for the cash thrown. They they attempt mundane means,
26:27
they get those airships, they bombard it, they shoot it with
26:30
all their guns. None of that works.
26:32
It's a God to. Kill these things, yes.
26:34
Yeah. Historically, yeah, that's what
26:36
we've seen. None of that works, No SO.
26:39
Giant magnetic Griffin. Yeah, so they did.
26:43
You even notice. Yeah, it got mad and broke
26:46
stuff. And so they're like, that's a
26:48
bad, yeah, that's a bad plan. So someone comes to the Dwartan,
26:53
a wizard comes to the door and says, hey, we yeah, obviously
26:58
your mundane methods aren't messing with this Griffin.
27:00
I don't know if, like, we'd be able to, like, inflict physical
27:03
harm on this God beast through our own means.
27:06
I can offer you something else. We're going to harness the
27:09
innate power of shaman, and we're not going to, like, shoot
27:13
this Griffin. We are going to transmute it
27:16
into a different substance. Interesting.
27:18
And kill it that way actually. Great plan.
27:22
Don't agree with this as a method for dealing with the
27:24
Griffin that has done nothing except really exist in this
27:27
space. But in terms of solving problem,
27:29
great plan, yeah. This wizard's like, Yep, we'll
27:32
even turn it into, like, gold. And then you can just, like,
27:34
mine it and the door. And they're, like, awesome, Get
27:37
rid of our problem. And also money.
27:39
Yeah. Isn't this?
27:40
How Cersei dealt with Scala and Cersei?
27:43
Didn't you turn her to? Stone.
27:46
Yeah. Transmutation it can solve
27:48
problems. Listen also transmutation.
27:52
It can create new problems that can only be solved through more
27:56
transmutation. Transmutation it can create.
28:01
Transmutation problems. Yeah, yeah, the Ehlrich brothers
28:05
send their regards. We couldn't go a whole
28:09
transmutation episode without talking about Fullmetal
28:11
Alchemist. Still just.
28:12
Like came out of nowhere and smelled new.
28:16
Face. So this wizard, it's.
28:17
Like it got high fived by a metal hand, Yeah.
28:20
Go on, this wizard gets the dwarven clans to assemble the 8
28:24
greatest Wizards that they can from across shaman. 8 is Korn's
28:28
number, but also confusingly, it is the number of magic.
28:31
There are 8 realms. There are eight winds of magic.
28:35
Magic left to its own devices, splits into eight parts.
28:37
So 8 is just a powerful magic number.
28:39
That makes sense, but is the wizard that came also there?
28:42
Yes. So is 9.
28:43
Yep, I did it. Yep, Yep, this wizard assembles
28:48
8 other Wizards. And then, you know, he just kind
28:51
of. Joins him, yeah.
28:52
Here I'm also a wizard. I can help with this.
28:55
Yeah. I can be a nine wizard in this
28:57
huge magical ritual. Yeah.
29:00
Surprisingly no one. They assemble in the shape of a
29:03
nine pointed star around the Griffin's nest in the spiral
29:07
crux and. There's nine of them.
29:09
I think they're just a circle. Yeah.
29:12
I mean, there's so many points. It's too many points.
29:15
Your Kinect the dot is just a circle 90 pointed star for sure.
29:22
Once you get past 7, the points on the star really become more.
29:27
You're not wrong. It's not going.
29:30
No, you're good. And they do it.
29:34
Yeah. They cast this massive
29:36
transmutation spell that turns the load Griffin to pure gold.
29:41
This is so sad, right? I'm so that Griffin didn't do
29:44
anything to you, Lively. Just living in his own home.
29:46
Right, you could have just moved.
29:47
You could have. You could have.
29:48
Moved the. Griffin tried to move.
29:52
Yeah. And now you're not.
29:55
Going to ever let it move again. I'm sad.
29:57
In this in the same way that the red feast of violence so
30:03
profound that the fabric of the realm couldn't take it anymore.
30:06
Yep, an act of change so horrifically intense in the
30:12
center of the realm of change, right above there.
30:16
Like. Power.
30:17
Yep. Yep.
30:19
Is way more than enough to split the fabric of the realm and
30:23
allow zinchi and demons similarly.
30:26
I can't imagine the Wizards. And doors were super jazzed.
30:28
No, most of them. Died instantly because I can
30:31
imagine the. The the warrior tribe of the The
30:34
Call, they were already in it, and now there are demons and
30:37
let's just fucking go. Pretty much.
30:39
Yeah, the. Wizards and the dwarves are not
30:44
in it. And now there are the a lot of
30:48
the A. Lot of the Wizards who are part
30:49
of the ritual just instantly die.
30:52
That blowback from casting a big spell is too much for them to
30:55
take, especially when 1 member of that 9 isn't carrying their
30:58
weight. This is just there.
31:00
Yeah, actually just here it's like everyone's praying and
31:04
you're just like mouthing the words.
31:07
Oh, he, he was taking. Part in the ritual, he was just
31:10
not diverting it from being wholly a ritual to transmute
31:13
this Griffin to also fucking with the structure of the realm
31:17
and tearing it open. OK, because this intentional
31:19
yes, this 9th wizard reveals himself not to be a mortal
31:23
Wizard of the realm, but being but being an immensely powerful
31:28
demon of Zinch. What is?
31:31
His name? I don't.
31:31
Know, but he's a Gaunt Summoner, which is a type of Zinchian
31:35
demon. Yeah, yeah, he's very Gaunt
31:38
summoners are very Guillermo del Toro esque, which I love for
31:44
them. Yeah, actually I have one in the
31:47
Dear Listeners. Yeah, I have a box of my own
31:49
painted miniatures for visual reference.
31:52
Visual aid for this episode. Dalton's beautiful painted
31:55
minis. If you want to grab the box,
31:57
we're. Just going to be if you look for
31:59
the man who is stabbing a book, he's got like 3 arms and a
32:02
monolith head. That's our Kant.
32:04
Some and her friends. I see it, yeah.
32:08
Yeah, very, very Del Toro. Yeah, that is a spooky pale man,
32:12
right? He is stabbing a book.
32:15
Yeah. But I looked at this angle.
32:17
I couldn't see the arm with the knife.
32:19
I just saw the blue coming out of the book and when I.
32:22
Turned it I. Saw.
32:23
Oh, because there's a knife. He's getting it.
32:26
Secrets most. People will just read the book
32:31
and get the secrets textbook. OK, I guess torture is also an
32:35
option where diplomacy fails, so gone summoners.
32:38
Gone summoners are demons. They're immensely powerful
32:42
spellcasters, even for demons. This is a little bit shaky
32:46
because Chaos and also because I feel like we've seen more than
32:49
this many, but technically they're supposed to only be nine
32:53
of them, like in existence. But again, I feel like we've
32:57
seen more than that. But maybe it's just the same
32:59
ones and they're like projecting themselves across space-time.
33:02
Who knows? Gaunt summoners live outside of
33:07
even the realm of Chaos. They're extra dimensional even
33:11
by the standards of Chaos, and they are the Lords of the Silver
33:17
Towers, which are just these massive structures outside of
33:23
realm space basically. They're not in the Mortal
33:26
Realms, they're not in the Realm of Chaos.
33:28
They are exclusively like manned and staffed by the Gaunt
33:31
Summoners. And as their name implies, Gaunt
33:34
Summoners have a preternatural mastery over portal magic.
33:40
So they will both bring stuff into the Silver tower to then
33:44
later dispense it. That's why this Gaunt Summoner
33:47
is here during this ritual, because he tears open the rift
33:50
to the realm of chaos and then just deposits his own personal
33:53
collection of demons from the Silver tower into the realm.
33:56
Yep, and a particularly incensed Gaunt Summoner can also just
34:00
take a person and and you're in the Silver tower forever.
34:03
Now who has a bummer right? This guy.
34:07
Has 9 feathers and nine eyes. He does.
34:09
That's very good. The right, the details, right.
34:12
I love. A Gaunt Summoner.
34:14
But Gaunt summoners are not the only thing that spills out of
34:17
this portal. I'm sure the the prototypical
34:23
When someone says Demon of Zinch, the thing they're almost
34:26
certainly thinking of are horrors.
34:29
If you see that little pink guy there and the blue guy next to
34:32
him and the little orange and yellow guys next to them, you
34:35
should go to these boys. These very round.
34:42
But not in a nice way. Just like mean mean starfish.
34:47
Just a. Just a.
34:48
Mess of shapes and limbs and suction cups for some reason
34:53
suction cups is a theme. Yeah, that is, I mean that's.
34:57
Super cool as a design and super upsetting depressive.
35:01
They're like if Calcifer sucked. Yeah, that's a great.
35:04
Discretion, yeah. They're like if bad, they're
35:07
like bad Calcifer. Horrors are masses of limbs and
35:14
mouth and they just gibber and laugh.
35:18
They don't seemingly have like very strong will at all.
35:21
They just kind of exist to cause chaos.
35:23
And ain't that zinch? Horrors most defining trait is
35:27
their ability to split. So that is not three different
35:30
types of horrors. That is a horror a different
35:32
types in its different places in its lifespan.
35:36
Yeah, the rhyme is horrors are pink, Horrors are blue and we're
35:41
once there was one, now there's two.
35:45
That's. The worst Doctor Seuss book you
35:48
could buy your your sister-in-law for her baby
35:51
shower. Pink Horror.
35:53
Blue Horror 1 Horror 2 Horror Pink Horrors are their their
36:00
largest ones. That's the one you're holding
36:02
right now. They are capable.
36:04
They're borderline intelligent. A good dynamic movement.
36:07
Yeah. Yeah, he's got a little.
36:13
Horror or pink horrors are capable enough that they can
36:16
even ascend to become like Wizards themselves.
36:18
They can like be intelligent, which is not normally a traitor.
36:22
He does. If you kill a pink horror, they
36:26
split into two blue horse. Blue horrors are a little bit.
36:31
More just like crazy. Yeah, he's this.
36:34
This. Guy is a lot more like like he
36:37
looks like a little version of the pink guy, but less.
36:40
Intentional, yeah. He's.
36:42
He's just kind of there, scraps of the.
36:44
Pink guy and tried to like make an which is like if they cut him
36:47
in half. Literally he's made of the
36:48
scraps of the pink guy 100%. And then like I said, blue
36:52
horrors are basically animal like, they just kind of go and
36:55
burn stuff and then because he's got fire in his hand.
36:58
Yeah, cool. And on his foot, he's running.
37:00
Yeah, those are. I love the horoscopes.
37:03
They're just like beautifully modeled and they doing really
37:05
cool stuff with like propping their feet up on flames and
37:07
stuff like that. And then if you kill a blue
37:10
horror, it splits into two brimstone horrors.
37:12
That's the smallest form of horrors, and they're just fire.
37:15
Yeah, they're just a little fire.
37:16
They're just mean. Awful, awful.
37:18
Fire. Yeah, like I said, they barely.
37:20
Exist. They just kind of are.
37:23
And only once the Brimstone Horrors are dead does the
37:26
horrors like Soul return to the Realm of Chaos to be reformed
37:30
into a pink horror again. Right?
37:32
Because they just. Get to restart.
37:34
Yeah, magnets at the bottom of. These yeah, fun fact for all you
37:39
people who don't play Warhammer at home and also Darien, my
37:43
transport solution for, and I say mine is very common to most
37:47
people who play Warhammer when transporting minis.
37:50
I just have a case that has like metal shelves.
37:54
So then it magnetizes to the shelves, which is especially
37:57
nice for like bigger frailer models.
38:02
Like we're going to talk about a demon here in a minute, who I
38:05
love, who I have a model of who did not make the journey.
38:10
Too dangerous? Does not travel well in tote.
38:13
Has many magnets on his base. But yeah, horrors are kind of
38:19
the prototypical zinch demon. They're what people think of
38:22
when they think of zinch demon. I'm going to say Ford zinch
38:24
demon. You're going.
38:26
To get some horrors, yes. So.
38:27
Many. I'm going to say something
38:29
potentially controversial and say I don't think they're the
38:31
demon who's most evocative of zinch.
38:34
I think that joy goes to flamers.
38:37
Happy pride month. Another unfortunate consequence
38:42
of the 80's. The unpainted one in the box
38:44
there is a flamer. Oh yeah.
38:46
This is a change boy. Look at he is.
38:49
He is the you. He is scraps of parts and
38:52
literal change in coins you found in the cushions of the
38:54
couch. Yep, look at him.
38:57
Oh, he's awful. Let let's review the things.
38:59
We know about Zinch, Zinch Love's change, Zinch Love's
39:02
secrets, Zinch loves knowledge and deception and trickery.
39:08
Flamer is a barely sentient burning bed sheet whose fire
39:15
mutates anything it touches, who will scream that embarrassing
39:19
thing you did in 3rd grade at you while it flies directly at
39:23
your face. And listen, it's real.
39:25
Bad because he's got like 9 mouths scream.
39:28
At 1-2. 34567 Elsa, come off to me 8-9 I'm gonna, I'm gonna
39:36
argue. There's nine mouths on this
39:37
board. Yeah, flamers are, I mean,
39:41
they're exactly what they say on the tin.
39:43
They fly, they set things on fire.
39:47
They fire that comes from a flamer is called change fire.
39:50
It doesn't just burn you, it mutates anything that it hits.
39:53
Yep, just horrifying to behold. And again, as as alluded to,
39:58
they have they catch snippets of Zinch's like knowledge of.
40:05
Past and present and they will just scream like anything that
40:09
come that passes through them into the void.
40:12
So you will you will be like imagine yourself just like in a
40:18
city like watchtower person and you got your little musket rifle
40:22
in case like orcs get too close and need to be warned off.
40:27
And a portal opens in the sky and flaming bed sheet with 9
40:33
mouths comes out and says hey, remember that time that you said
40:37
me too to the waiter after they told you to enjoy your meal and
40:41
then they set you on fire and you on fire and you wake up like
40:47
half fish because that that's the essential flamer experience.
40:55
She says there is a variant I didn't put in the box because we
40:58
already had one flamer. There's a variant called an
41:00
exalted flamer zinch who are just like 4 times as big.
41:04
That is the difference. They're just bigger.
41:10
Yep, this one. I am going to ask that you grab
41:14
the like visual reference on your phone 'cause the last major
41:20
demon of zinch there, there's screamers, but I don't feel the
41:24
need to go into detail about them.
41:25
They're manta rays. They're a consequence of the
41:28
80s. They're just manta rays.
41:33
But the last major demon of Zinch are called Lords of
41:35
change. There's each is greater demons
41:40
and they're the they're the huge birds.
41:41
They're just big old. Birds.
41:44
Yeah, yeah, I stand. By it you can do.
41:46
Whatever he wants. Lords of Change, of the greater
41:50
demons of Zinch, they're the most pure embodiment of his
41:52
will, in the same way that bloodthirsters are.
41:56
Mindless rage and violence, but also incredible tacticians.
41:59
Because that's what it means to be Corn.
42:02
Lords of Change are, barring a couple of extreme exceptions,
42:07
like a literal gods, the most potent spellcasters in
42:11
existence. Which, yeah, little bird.
42:17
Staff, yeah, we haven't. Talked about him yet, but he's
42:19
going to be great. I love him terribly.
42:22
You're fine. I think you just want to scroll
42:24
to the next one who is a specific Lord of change.
42:26
But I think I forgot to just put a generic Lord of change in the
42:29
visual reference when you hit the bird with two heads.
42:33
Yeah. Yeah, that's.
42:34
What a Lord of change. Looks like but with one head.
42:37
Most Lord of Change have one head, but.
42:40
This guy's special, so he gets. Two he does.
42:42
He gets 2. Technically a Lord of change can
42:44
look like anything. Most you still look like birds
42:47
just because zinch likes birds. Yep Yep, but they does zinch
42:51
like birds. I don't know.
42:53
Interesting. I think egg.
42:56
No, I yeah, I. Just genuinely don't know.
42:58
I think it might be like an egg association.
43:01
I think it's mostly just a consequence of the 80s.
43:03
That's going to become our catch phrase because I was like
43:06
because earlier I mentioned. Like I was trying to think of an
43:07
animal like what does best change?
43:09
And that's why I mentioned the butterfly, right, the chrysalis.
43:14
But bird is not creature I inherently associate with
43:18
representing or being. I would even do like snake
43:23
because shedding the skin, they don't really change, but that's
43:25
at least a difference, right? But yeah, just was like, we need
43:29
a cool aesthetic. It's a consequence of the 80s.
43:31
There's a lot of. Stuff I'm going to talk about
43:33
like the the cast gods, divine numbers real quick because
43:36
there's another one where it's like back, not nine of them.
43:40
No. Back when Warhammer was just
43:44
this silly thing like 3 dudes were making in a basement and
43:48
coming up with silly lore for the Chaos, God's holy numbers
43:52
were mostly jokes. Corn's holy number is 8 because
43:56
it rhymes with hate. Zinch's is 9 because of the
44:00
fractal thing we talked about, because he's the tricky 1, so
44:02
that one like held into the modern day.
44:04
Slunesh's holy number is 6 because it sounds like sex.
44:09
Fair. Yeah, yeah.
44:10
Yeah, Nergl's holy. Number is 7 and I don't know
44:13
why. I think the joke is that 7 is
44:15
supposed to be lucky and NERGL is the horrifying disease.
44:17
God I don't hate that. Yeah.
44:21
That's fine. The reasons are are not internal
44:24
to the lore, but external to the creation of it.
44:26
Yeah, but then we. Did get later like internal lore
44:29
justifications and we see that a lot with stuff from Warhammer.
44:32
I do like that too. I also like it when you got to
44:34
go. Back and make OK How do I
44:35
justify this thing? That was a joke, yeah.
44:37
Now Corn's number is 8 because that is 4 matched opponents.
44:43
That's a perfect bracket. Zinches stayed the same as
44:46
because the fractals. Yeah, 6.
44:49
I can never remember the reasoning behind 6, but it's
44:53
it's something to do with oh, it's the smallest number because
44:57
Slanesh is the youngest and is the smallest number with the
45:00
most number of like components. 6 has like 2:00 and 3:00 and
45:08
1:00 and 6:00 in it and nothing else comes close to that.
45:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the smallest, like non
45:13
prime. However that works, that's a
45:17
math person's going to get at me and that's fine.
45:20
And then Nergal's A7 now because those are there are 7 things we
45:24
used to determine if something is alive.
45:26
Yeah, which I think. Is fun.
45:28
I like that, yeah. But birds?
45:31
Birds are just like about the seven.
45:33
Things later remind me. I want to know the seven things,
45:35
but I'm gonna wait for the Nergal episode.
45:37
I'm probably going to have to look them up.
45:38
Then, but actually I'll put in the notes because now I'll
45:40
remember because we talked about it.
45:42
But birds are a consequence of that seems associated.
45:45
Each of them just got an animal seems associated with birds.
45:47
Corn as dogs, Slanesh as goats and Nergal as frogs and flies.
45:52
Flies at least makes sense. But yeah, frogs a little bit.
45:55
But the frogs are just gross or perceived as gross.
45:59
Yeah, yeah. Listen.
46:00
Frog with the fly. Very gross.
46:02
Yeah. Or good snack.
46:04
There you go. Or a little guy having a good.
46:08
Snack. Yeah, Yeah.
46:10
OK last thing on the Lords of change, just to like emphasize
46:12
how magically powerful they are. This isn't going to mean
46:14
anything to anyone who knows or doesn't know like Warhammer
46:17
rules, but in game terms, when a wizard in Warhammer cast a
46:21
spell, you roll 2 dice and you're looking for a target
46:23
number. The average roll on two dice is
46:27
A7, so you have about a 50% chance to get A7 or above on two
46:30
dice. Because of how their rules work,
46:34
a Lord of Change has a 90% chance to get at least a seven
46:37
on two dice. When you roll a spell casting
46:41
roll for a Lord of Change, after the roll like finishes first you
46:46
add 1 to the roll and then you take the lowest dice and you
46:50
change it to the value of the highest.
46:54
Yeah, yeah. OK.
46:56
Totally. Yeah, large change.
46:57
Of crazy? Absolutely.
47:00
Incredibly. Good spellcasters can't fight
47:02
for shit, but that's largely demons.
47:06
I'm going to talk about mortals. I feel like Zinch of all the
47:10
cast gods has the least like mortals he really like truly
47:14
likes. When we were talking about corn
47:15
he had a lot of like mortal kind of named champions.
47:19
Zinch basically doesn't have Eddie.
47:21
I think it's just the nature of change.
47:23
Like Zinch doesn't really get favorites.
47:26
He doesn't get attached to humans in their short lived
47:28
lives. Yeah, because Korn literally has
47:32
like a demon Prince running with him.
47:35
But you have to like immortal enough to to do that.
47:39
You'll notice immortal enough to even do that.
47:40
And Zinch is like Nah zinch. Has demon Princess, but a lot of
47:45
them are like accidental or just like get forgotten by zinch
47:49
later on. Zinch is zinch has ADHD it's
47:54
fine it's fine. He's the God of change.
47:57
We can make that joke. He does still have like a lot of
48:00
mortals are drawn to zinch. The promise of ambition is much
48:03
more like tantalizing to a mortal than it is to a demon,
48:06
because what's a demon got to strive for?
48:08
Demon's there you've. Done it.
48:10
You are the thing. Yeah, if you look at that
48:13
Birdman on a disc, I'm really excited.
48:15
About the Birdman on it, he's very good.
48:19
That that is a zang. Zang.
48:23
Yeah. I love them terribly.
48:26
So gores are. It is.
48:29
We're not quite sure if they were like in the realms before
48:33
cash showed up or if they started showing up after that.
48:37
Gores are a thing that was present in the Old World.
48:41
They're associated with chaos. They're animalistic humanoids.
48:45
Most are kind of goatee, but again they'll take on aspects of
48:51
specific chaos gods if they are closer associated to them.
48:55
So a zangor is what you call a gore who has grown close enough
48:59
to zench to be blessed with bird like aspects?
49:03
Yeah Zangors can happen from gores, like joining in with
49:07
zinch. Zinch can also mutate humans
49:11
into being zengors, which happens a lot.
49:15
Zinch's innate love of mutation and the one you're holding there
49:18
is specifically a Zangor Shaman that is a Zangor who is
49:22
particularly gifted at magic and has earned enough of Zinch's
49:25
favor to be gifted a demonic mount.
49:27
Is that the guy? I think he's on.
49:29
Yeah, that is a. Disc of zinch and it is a life.
49:35
It is those manta rays I talked about before.
49:39
Screamers when a person has achieved enough to be like seen
49:46
in the eyes of zinch and worthy of a reward, zinch will take a
49:50
manta ray and morph them into a disc and then just give it to
49:56
the to the person. Yeah yeah.
50:00
Particularly impressive like zinching Wizards can also quote
50:03
UN quote tame screamers themselves.
50:06
That happens a lot amongst anglers actually.
50:09
I wish I'd almost brought a comparison model, but that is
50:12
more kind of animalistic and like, spiky than discs tend to
50:15
come out because Zangor is making it with his own magic.
50:19
Cool. Yeah.
50:20
Yeah, his little. Staff at the top has a thing
50:22
that's very similar to the yeah. I like.
50:26
His feathers that are coming out the back of the helmet, they
50:29
look very much like cool anime hair, right?
50:32
And I just, I'm into it. You can just picture him
50:34
ruffling. As he likes on his disc.
50:36
Yeah, there are a ton of zangors on Shimon now.
50:42
Oh yeah. Well.
50:45
Zangors aren't demons, I should note that.
50:47
Zangors immortal. Yeah.
50:50
I can't believe I didn't finish talking about the spiral crux.
50:54
Hole opens in the sky. Spiral crux just twists.
50:59
Imagine the entire realm if you just like stuck a blender thing
51:02
in it and just turn it on for like half a second.
51:06
Yeah, just. Yeah, just.
51:10
Everything gets twisted. The spiral Crux becomes
51:13
completely inhospitable to anything that is not a demon or
51:17
a Zangor. Zangor is already being fused
51:22
with Zinchi, and like change magic, they can resist the
51:24
mutagenic effects of the spiral Crux.
51:27
Anything that's not a Zangor that tries to walk into the
51:29
spiral Crux turns into a gas spawn your body.
51:33
And that's the good ending. Otherwise it just gets turned
51:35
into nothing. Yeah.
51:40
So Xangors exclusively live in the spiral Crux now, and there
51:44
are a ton of them. Basically anyone who was in the
51:47
spiral Crux when that happened Xangorified.
51:50
Wow. Yeah.
51:51
Bad. Very bad.
51:54
But yeah, Xangors make up a ton of Zinch's mortal forces because
51:59
they're bird games. Yeah, yeah, I like them.
52:03
Right, I like. Xangor's a lot.
52:05
Human followers of Zinch will often end up being what are
52:10
called Carrick Acolytes. That's actually the guy with the
52:13
shield. You're good.
52:18
Carrick Acolytes are skilled in martial combat and sorcery.
52:22
Yeah, he's got a little beak. Yeah, it's like a moon.
52:27
Beak zinch is kind of a moon association, no relation, but
52:34
yeah, they they inhabit the bird imagery and in terms of like
52:37
Warhammer game mechanics, it is shredded right.
52:40
They use magic to like shred themselves.
52:44
So. They're not, actually.
52:45
Like naturally that long. Yeah.
52:48
A lot of Carrick acolytes are like old wizen scholars who take
52:52
Zinch's change magic and just like adonisify themselves.
52:56
Yeah, that's exactly I. Believe an old Wizen scholar
52:59
would do that, given the ability, Yeah.
53:02
He would just, yeah. And so sometimes that's that
53:07
ambition too, right? Because that is a type of magic
53:09
that is outside the reach of a lot of people.
53:11
So you know, you're an old wizened scholar who is getting
53:16
up in the years and you get the offer to be a hunk.
53:22
Yeah. So a lot of character that a lot
53:26
of character just genuinely warriors who have learned to
53:30
like do sorcery in gameplay terms.
53:32
Carrick Acolytes are one of the few just like group units in
53:36
Warhammer that can cast spells. That's cool.
53:38
Yeah, they can usually only cast one spell, but still just one.
53:45
At a time 1 together or they know what single spell they.
53:49
Collectively, they come in a group of 10 when you're playing
53:52
the game, and all ten of them together can cast one spell that
53:55
they already know they can't, like, pick a different spell to
53:57
cast. So they're not like, super good
53:59
at it, but they're better than every other.
54:02
Yeah, and that specific. Thing you're the best at it,
54:05
Absolutely. If not, some carrots will rise
54:10
through the ranks to be more impressive warriors and such.
54:16
Sometimes a Zinch worshipper will come out from the other
54:20
direction where they were already a very powerful Marshall
54:24
combatant. And then rather than spend any
54:28
time like learning sorcery or getting good at magic, they just
54:32
tell Zinch like, hey, plant a demon on me and he can do magic.
54:38
And that's our buddy the cursling there.
54:40
Is that right here? Yep.
54:43
Is that what a little dude? Yep, the little dude is called a
54:46
trechtling. It is a type of demon that can
54:49
only, right? It's a type of demon.
54:52
That can only exist being bound to a mortal body.
54:57
And so yeah, exactly why I said a Chaos warrior.
55:00
Yeah, a Chaos warrior who's like, I like being a Chaos
55:03
warrior and swinging my sword around and wearing this Chaos
55:06
plate mail. But I would love if I could also
55:08
shoot fire from, well not my hand, but also be able to.
55:14
On command, shoot fire. Yeah, but from this?
55:16
Guy's hand Yeah, we'll take on a treachling to themselves, right.
55:22
It's a good sword. Treachlings are uniquely skilled
55:27
in the unmaking of magic, so yeah, usually unmaking is the.
55:33
Thing that magic is not allowed to do right?
55:37
So enemy Wizards who cast spells a treachling can just like, tear
55:40
them from the fabric, make the spells cease to be, and then
55:45
take that magic that they tore down and make it into something
55:48
new and throw it back at you Very.
55:51
Cool, right? Nothing is.
55:53
Symmetrical. No.
55:54
None. Of none.
55:57
Of this is allowed to be symmetrical.
56:00
The Changeling has a kind of interesting meta history where
56:04
originally the Changeling was a title for a specific guy from
56:08
the old world or not Changeling. Excuse me, Cursling.
56:13
He's a cursling village. The cursling was a cast work in
56:17
the old world that that thing happens to.
56:20
And then Zinch liked it so much that now he just does it in the
56:24
mortal realms now. Yes, even though village is dead
56:26
and gone. I don't have a bullet point for
56:29
him, but I put him in the box because I like him.
56:31
Big Blue. There is an Ogroid.
56:36
Confusingly, Ogroids are not gores, they they're not the from
56:41
the like species of beast people that otherwise inhabit the
56:45
realms. Ogroids were originally like
56:51
aligned with Gorka Marka. They were originally in the like
56:54
Orc goblin camp, but they weren't as into destruction as
57:00
the other groups. They found themselves getting
57:02
into conflict with orcs and goblins too much and so in order
57:07
to basically save themselves to preserve their own kind of like
57:12
culture. Because they were going to get.
57:16
Wiped out, yes. Yep, they sided with chaos.
57:19
They just kind of collectively as a species were like, Nope, we
57:22
will take this dark power so that we don't get overrun and we
57:25
can preserve like they had like universities and stuff.
57:28
Like they're creating their own thriving culture, like within
57:31
the bounds of destruction. And eventually they gave it to
57:35
chaos in order to preserve it. And like, I dig that.
57:38
Yeah, that's that's a very. Interesting.
57:39
Like qualm, like a conundrum to have.
57:42
Like everything's going to get destroyed because the place
57:44
we're at and the God we are currently aligned with does not
57:46
care for it, right? I like the.
57:50
The smoke beef burning magic things coming out of the eyes
57:54
like from the skull on the top of the staff.
57:56
I love the skull staff it's very cool.
57:58
They're also. Huge and terrifying and brutal.
58:02
They're scale. Yes.
58:05
Yes, yeah, this dude is. Much bigger than the human.
58:07
I'm going to put him right here. Yeah.
58:09
He doesn't even come up to this man's shoulder.
58:11
Ogroids are massive. I like again we're dipping into
58:14
gameplay more in this one but it's because I play zinch so I
58:17
just have more insights about it.
58:19
I like ogroids in play because most zinch like heroes you don't
58:23
want anywhere near the front line because they are the
58:26
squishiest little boys imaginable.
58:28
But an ogroid will absolutely decimate anyone he comes into
58:31
contact with and then also cast a spell at you.
58:34
Yeah that's great. That's the.
58:37
Kind of balance you look for, right?
58:38
You look for that. Kind of like.
58:40
Duality. Yeah, Love.
58:42
That boy. All right, let's talk about
58:45
named characters a little bit. Our our famous faces.
58:49
Well, Famous Faces is a good name.
58:51
For that I do like that. And the the most famous of faces
58:56
you scroll back one. Yes, the guy I liked.
58:59
Early, yeah. So This is why I got that name
59:03
mixed up. Of all the demons of Zinch,
59:06
potentially the most mysterious and also the one with the
59:10
longest leash, so to speak, is the Changeling.
59:15
Yeah, OK, The Changeling is a specific demon.
59:19
No one knows what he is under the hood because he can kind of
59:25
be whatever. I hope so with a name like.
59:27
Changeling, I was going to say the.
59:28
Changelings ultimate power is that he can mimic anybody,
59:32
doesn't have to have seen them before, doesn't have to know
59:34
them, can just become. He can wear anyone's face.
59:39
That's OK, that's cool right? He is the ultimate schemer of
59:44
the realms, so dedicated to the art of trickery that sometimes
59:49
he doesn't even do what Zinch wants him to do.
59:52
I would I would argue most of the time he doesn't do what
59:55
Zinch wants him to do. This would be.
59:58
More fun for me and I will do this.
1:00:00
How does Zinch feel about it? Is he into?
1:00:02
It because. Life is that it's like it's
1:00:04
still on his vibe. I got to respect the hustle.
1:00:07
Zinch would like him. To be more loyal to for him to
1:00:10
take orders better but he can't ultimately complain about.
1:00:13
Just like an unhinged agent of chaos.
1:00:16
Unhinged. Disaster.
1:00:18
Yes. The changeling is like if the
1:00:21
Joker could look like anyone. Yep just terrifying.
1:00:27
And could also like teleport and navigate there almost chaos.
1:00:30
Yeah, if the Joker was. Clayface and Satana, yes.
1:00:35
Can mimic any person perfectly will oftentimes do it for years
1:00:39
to see his schemes come to fruition.
1:00:42
The The Changeling is not a I'm a pull a prank real quick.
1:00:45
The Changeling is I've spent the last 30 years orchestrating the
1:00:48
absolute perfect The Changeling runs a long.
1:00:51
Con Yes, it's a. Slow burn.
1:00:53
Yep, and when his long cons come together, they are disastrous
1:00:56
and terrifying and wonderful to behold.
1:00:59
Love it when a plan comes. Together.
1:01:00
Yep. He is a spellcaster as any
1:01:05
basically any like notable demon is, but not his main strength.
1:01:09
He's actually kind of a bad caster for like as ancient
1:01:12
demon. Most of his skill.
1:01:15
Set is in the deception. It is wearing someone's face
1:01:18
convincingly for potentially years to pull off a trick or a
1:01:21
scheme that is as far as like completely like filling the
1:01:27
roles of a general of an army in order to like orchestrate the
1:01:30
conditions for them to go to war with the neighboring country.
1:01:33
So that one specific person makes it to a battlefield.
1:01:36
So that you can get them to stray too close to a Ley line
1:01:39
that happens to be in that part of the world.
1:01:42
So that that Ley line can absorb absorb some part of their power
1:01:47
that then make something on the other end of the world happen.
1:01:50
Like that is the Changelings game.
1:01:51
He loves the long. Complicated and convoluted about
1:01:56
it? Yes, absolutely.
1:01:58
He loves for the convolution. No demons are like truly loyal.
1:02:04
It's not what being a demon is. Most are loyal just by being
1:02:07
extensions of their God. Right.
1:02:09
Like a horror isn't going to scheme against Zinch because it
1:02:11
doesn't know what. Life is.
1:02:15
Yeah, yeah, but the Changeling will actively scheme again.
1:02:18
Siege. There is no better prank than
1:02:19
one that you successfully pull on Siege.
1:02:24
And the Changeling has pulled successfully pulled pranks on
1:02:27
Siege before. Just for the love of the game.
1:02:30
Siege also has a position in each of the cascades has a place
1:02:34
in the realm of Chaos that is their own.
1:02:36
The Brass Citadel for corn. The realm of mirrors, I want to
1:02:42
say for zinch. Just infinitely refracting and
1:02:45
also disorienting you. The circles of pleasure for
1:02:50
Slanesh and Nergl's garden. Nergl's garden.
1:02:58
Yeah, where he brews. All the new plagues, Nergl's
1:03:02
aspect is growth. It's growth and stagnation
1:03:06
cycles. Interesting.
1:03:07
OK, OK, the world sprouts and blooms.
1:03:09
And dies and sprouts again. OK.
1:03:13
Interesting, right? All right, Nergl.
1:03:15
Is a nature God excited to get to do it?
1:03:20
Yeah. I'm excited about.
1:03:21
Nergl. Nergl's great, but yeah, the
1:03:25
Changeling has basically no allegiance, but he serves each
1:03:28
in by just being an agent of chaos and we love him for that.
1:03:31
He hasn't done he kind of has done a bunch in AOS, but it's
1:03:35
never clear because the changeling will also take credit
1:03:37
first things that happened and we can't tell if he's you could
1:03:41
take. Credit for that because it
1:03:43
benefits me for you to think it was me.
1:03:45
Yep. He supposedly helped orchestrate
1:03:50
like this big reclamation effort in the realms he which he then
1:03:55
joined and LED a huge chunk of it into an ambush with zangors.
1:03:59
And just like, yeah, no, we love the changeling, but the last
1:04:05
character I want to talk about for Zinch and I've saved him for
1:04:07
last because I love the boy. You scroll to the next image.
1:04:11
He is our big 2 headed Birdman. The two headed.
1:04:16
Birdman, the two headed. Birdman the Fate Weaver Kairos
1:04:23
right, causing mass. Chaos in this library?
1:04:27
Yes, he's got a book on the end of.
1:04:29
His. Staff he does.
1:04:31
I can't the staff of tomorrow. What a good name.
1:04:34
Yeah, right, the staff. Of tomorrow, yeah.
1:04:38
Kairos Fate Weaver is canonically the only person in
1:04:42
Warhammer who can see the future.
1:04:46
But he I think you've. Talked about this because.
1:04:49
He's got 2 heads. Yeah, you can see.
1:04:51
What's happening right now? Correct SO.
1:04:54
Kairos, Fate Weaver is the only it this gives a little bit
1:04:56
squeamish because there's like a couple of like objects that can
1:04:59
kind of see the future. We talked in the the Myth to
1:05:03
Chaos episode, the Eye of Shirin, which is a like Xinchin
1:05:07
artifact, can kind of see the future, but that's like an
1:05:10
artifact and you have to like tap into it and it kind of
1:05:13
messes with your brain a little bit.
1:05:14
Kairos just has a nice skill. Yeah, Yeah.
1:05:17
He, in fact, can't stop seeing the future.
1:05:22
How far in the future? Depends.
1:05:25
And also it's complicated because the future isn't one
1:05:28
thing, it is all potential possibilities.
1:05:31
Yeah, Kairos can see the future and you can see the past.
1:05:36
So Kairos right head sees all potential futures.
1:05:41
Also the heads don't share knowledge, which is the best
1:05:44
part. Kairos right head sees all
1:05:46
potential futures simultaneously.
1:05:48
Kairos left head has a perfect knowledge of the entire past and
1:05:52
they don't share this. Information correct.
1:05:54
They have to. Tell each other like in a real
1:05:57
time. A conversation between Kairos is
1:05:59
the most insane shit you can ever witness.
1:06:02
Because right head is trying to tell left head something that it
1:06:05
is seeing in the future, in the present, that left head can't
1:06:11
know about until it has become the past.
1:06:16
And right head is seeing whatever left head responds with
1:06:19
beforehand because he's looking at the future.
1:06:25
Can't do until it's in the past. Yes.
1:06:27
Wow, OK. Very mind mill, very tiny,
1:06:30
winey. So Kairos.
1:06:34
Kairos was not born with this power.
1:06:36
He did not learn it. Kairos is a mutation on a normal
1:06:40
word of change. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:06:42
These are just one ahead, yes, so at the center.
1:06:45
Of Zinch's domain, there is a It's near the center of the
1:06:49
Realm of Chaos as a whole. There's something called the
1:06:52
Well of Eternity. Good name, right?
1:06:54
Lots of good names in. This episode, right?
1:06:57
The Well of Eternity is from whence the future flows.
1:07:03
It is literally the place in reality that time enters the
1:07:09
world from. Yes, time flows into the world
1:07:13
from the Well of Eternity, and because that is where the future
1:07:17
comes from, it is not part of the world as it currently
1:07:21
exists. It is the only thing that Zinch
1:07:24
does not know the contents of. Zinch has perfect knowledge of
1:07:29
everything in existence, but he can't see the future.
1:07:32
So. Did he push a guy in there?
1:07:35
He did. He pushed a lot of guys there.
1:07:38
Oh my God. OK.
1:07:39
In there. Zinch desperate for the only
1:07:43
piece of knowledge that he doesn't have.
1:07:45
Yeah, it would drive him. Crazy, yeah.
1:07:47
He went to the Well of Eternity and he just grabbed a Lord of
1:07:50
Change and he threw them into it.
1:07:53
He didn't know what it would do to them.
1:07:55
He didn't know if they would come back.
1:07:57
They didn't come back. Presumably they died or they
1:08:00
they just stopped to existing because you took a thing that
1:08:03
currently exists and put it into the potential of existing and
1:08:06
that's just doesn't work. Nope, he did that for an
1:08:10
indeterminate amount of time. Some people claim he threw a
1:08:13
total of 9 Lords of change in before he threw Kairos in.
1:08:16
Some people put up to like 99. It's probably a factor of 9
1:08:21
because each got to be. But either way, what?
1:08:25
Be it the 9th or the 99th or the 999th.
1:08:28
Lord of Change he threw in was Kairos.
1:08:32
It just don't. Happen to work?
1:08:34
Yep. Such as fate, instead of just
1:08:39
disappearing from existence, Kairos Kairos reemerged from the
1:08:44
Will of Eternity. Depending on some accounts,
1:08:46
Kairos reemerged from the Will of Eternity before he was thrown
1:08:48
into the Will of Eternity. Yeah, right.
1:08:53
And when he emerged, he had that mutation, his heads had split
1:08:57
into being able to see past and future.
1:08:59
One thing you might have noticed I left out of where Kairos can
1:09:03
see is that neither of Kairos's heads he can see the present.
1:09:08
Yes, yes that is represented in game by him having completely
1:09:14
dog shit combat that makes. Sense cuz he's he's blind.
1:09:19
He's blind to the. Present cannot see what's going
1:09:22
on. Right now, yeah, before it
1:09:23
happens, but it's the future. You can.
1:09:25
See all potential futures Exactly.
1:09:27
He doesn't know which one is actually.
1:09:28
Gonna happen he could see what just happened.
1:09:30
That doesn't really help him right now the the.
1:09:33
Fate of Kairos is to be able to assemble the most perfect,
1:09:37
accurate plans, have no idea if they're going well, and then see
1:09:41
exactly what went wrong afterwards.
1:09:44
It's kind of a curse to be in this position.
1:09:46
Yeah, which is hilarious. Kairos and Zinch also have kind
1:09:53
of a weird relationship. I'm sure he threw them into a.
1:09:56
Well, yeah, well, even. Beyond that, more so than maybe
1:09:59
any other like demon to chaos God relationship, Kyros and
1:10:03
Zinch are like. Sitting at the same table.
1:10:07
With a gun on it. Like Yep.
1:10:11
Because Zeke Kairos is the only person in existence who has
1:10:15
knowledge that Zinch doesn't. He can see futures that Zinch
1:10:19
can't. Which means that if we already
1:10:22
went over this with SCAR, Brandon Korn.
1:10:25
But if there was ever a circumstance where Zinch could
1:10:29
be on the wrong end of a victory, Kairos would know about
1:10:33
it before Zinch did. Yeah.
1:10:36
So Zinch has incentive to play nice with Kairos, to elevate him
1:10:42
to a position of importance, to make sure that he remains loyal,
1:10:47
even though, like, there's probably not ever going to be a
1:10:51
situation where Zinch is threatened.
1:10:53
He's a chaos God. The risk is always there.
1:10:58
So the risk is. Low, but it's never 0.
1:11:02
Yep, and as a Lord of change, Kyros is nothing if not
1:11:07
ambitious. Mm hmm mm hmm tracks.
1:11:12
And similarly, I'm sure there is always a little.
1:11:14
Bit of a desire to change the status quo, Yep.
1:11:17
And similarly, Kyros does not like necessarily dislike Zing.
1:11:23
She loves the like privilege he has of being basically Zinch's
1:11:27
top demon, but again, he knows that if that if he was ever not
1:11:34
useful enough, Zinch might just erase him from existence.
1:11:38
That's within Zinch's power to do so.
1:11:40
They are both in this kind of standoff of like who's going to
1:11:45
break 1st and try and make a move on the other.
1:11:49
Like that, That dimension is very good.
1:11:51
It's fascinating. It's not.
1:11:52
A thing we often see with the cast gods because no demon has a
1:11:56
yeah through the other reality. Yeah, yeah, the last person.
1:12:01
You try is a good contrast with scar brand because the last
1:12:03
person you try to got fucking broken on an existence level.
1:12:10
But yeah I love Kyros. Zinch will also zinch or Kairos
1:12:15
can uplift Zangor's with his knowledge of past as well.
1:12:21
He can do that one too. He's tried to give like living
1:12:24
things his knowledge of future before to just like makes their
1:12:27
brains explode because they're not good at that.
1:12:29
Yeah a non demon or even a less powerful demon just can't take
1:12:33
knowledge of all possible futures.
1:12:34
That's too much. So much you have the capacities
1:12:37
I understand to. Hold much?
1:12:38
Absolutely, Kairos. Can barely handle it, and
1:12:41
honestly, he doesn't really handle it.
1:12:42
He's a little bit crazy, yeah, but he can imbue like immortal
1:12:47
even with his perfect knowledge of past.
1:12:49
Zangor enlightened are Zangor who have been blessed by Kairos
1:12:52
with his knowledge of past, and they do the same thing that
1:12:55
screamers are that flamers do, but maliciously, where they will
1:12:59
talk shit at you. Yeah, let me just pick a.
1:13:01
Thing and do it and then just that's what they do yeah an.
1:13:05
Enlightened, like a host of enlightened will roll up on like
1:13:09
a human settlement or like the defenders and like an army.
1:13:13
And they know they have a perfect knowledge of you and
1:13:17
everything else that has happened.
1:13:19
And so you are in like an intense cert fight with this
1:13:21
huge bird person and he is reciting all of your regrets
1:13:24
about the things you didn't say to your parents before they died
1:13:27
just like verbatim back at you in your voice.
1:13:31
Like throws a person off their game right a little hard.
1:13:36
To bounce back from that right? It's mimicking your wife asking
1:13:41
for divorce. So let's throw you off your
1:13:45
sword play. Yeah, yeah, right.
1:13:49
But that's Kairos. And that ultimately is zinch.
1:13:55
The gotta change. We're going to have a lot of
1:13:57
Zinch stuff going forward, I'm sure.
1:13:59
He's your favorite? I love Zinch and.
1:14:01
Also, he's just involved in every.
1:14:03
It sounds like this is a type. Of character who in general will
1:14:06
be act? Yes, by the character's very
1:14:09
nature. Yep, always wants.
1:14:11
To change stuff. Always wants to have his finger
1:14:13
and every pie, right? And who knows how many he has,
1:14:17
because he's constantly. Yeah, right.
1:14:20
But I assume it's a factor of nine.
1:14:23
Yeah, probably. But that's zinch and from change
1:14:31
to stagnation. Next episode we are going to be
1:14:35
talking about his abundance, his corpulence, the God of plagues
1:14:42
and stagnation, Nergl. Nergl's great.
1:14:46
Nergl's a. Fan favorite.
1:14:47
I quite like Nergl as well, he's just a little bit gross.
1:14:50
He's also spoilers I guess. Nergl's also the only chaos God
1:14:55
who like, has kindness in him. Yeah, there's a pretty good
1:15:03
argument that Nergl does not like, intend to do the harm he
1:15:06
does. He's just kind of dumb.
1:15:10
He just, Oh no, him. Though, but but that, yeah, a
1:15:14
little bit. A little bit.
1:15:16
He like, he definitely crafts plagues.
1:15:18
He just who wouldn't want Nergl's gifts?
1:15:22
His his followers worship, his worshippers call him
1:15:24
grandfather. Whoa, yeah.
1:15:26
Grandfather. Nergl.
1:15:29
All right, OK, but prepare. Mentally for that.
1:15:32
Right but all. That's next episode.
1:15:35
We'll talk about Nergal emerging in the realm of life Guy Ran who
1:15:39
watch out of Laurel and then after that's Lanesh and our new
1:15:46
member, big old rat, the great horned rat after that.
1:15:50
But in the meantime, I have been Dalton Montgomery, your
1:15:54
Warhammer aficionado, and I'm Darren Smart and.
1:15:56
I'm pretty sure Warhammer is that missing tool in your
1:15:58
grandfather's shed. We can still just make out the
1:16:00
silhouettes. I did lie.
1:16:05
Thanks so much for listening. Take care buddy.