Baseline WAR Continuity

Core Premise

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is the primary story branch of this vault. It is treated as an alternate branch of late Warhammer Fantasy Battles continuity, not as a setting detached from WHFB.

Presumptive Inheritance

The WAR branch inherits pre-divergence WHFB history, geography, peoples, religions, institutions, magic, and major personalities unless one of the following applies:

• WAR directly contradicts the inherited material.
• WAR requires a different chronology or political condition for its own campaign.
• The vault records a deliberate harmonization patch.

Absence from WAR is not itself a contradiction. An inherited fact remains available unless it becomes incompatible with the WAR branch.

New material published on or after July 11, 2015 requires explicit case-by-case approval, regardless of publication line. Reprints or restatements do not invalidate older lore. Storm of Chaos remains excluded and the End Times remain accepted within the harmonization framework. See Canon and Status.

The Age of Reckoning

The central military structure is WAR’s paired conflict:

• The Empire and Dwarfs face the northern Chaos invasion and Greenskin assault.
• High Elves confront the Dark Elf invasion of Ulthuan.
• These wars become one interlocked Age of Reckoning, with Order and Destruction functioning as practical wartime coalitions rather than culturally uniform states.

The game-world presentation, repeatable battles, player populations, and mechanical abstractions are not automatically literal history. Scenario, quest, dungeon, and campaign events must be assessed individually before being locked into chronology.

Character Baseline

The current principal cast includes one character for each of WAR’s 24 playable careers. This describes the initial distribution, not a fixed roster or a limit on future characters. Cultural and professional identities remain the foundation of characterization; individual biographies and relationships develop within them.

The current Dwarf assignments are Yurric as Slayer and former Hammerer, Aibhinger as Ironbreaker, Varell as Runepriest, and Orenne as Engineer. Yurric’s oath follows the death of his Thane in an ambush arranged by a rival Dwarf noble. He swears it in Aibhinger’s presence before solemnizing it at Karak Kadrin.

Varell and Orenne already reside in reclaimed Ekrund when the renewed offensive begins. Varell returned for ancestral recovery, while Orenne joined for professional reconstruction. Aibhinger arrives among Karak Azul’s reinforcements with Yurric, his longstanding close friend. All four are established practitioners; gameplay levels do not establish professional inexperience, a permanent four-person party, or a shared obligation to complete every quest.

The Empire characters’ approved names, origins, families, and religious histories are recorded in their articles, alongside the Chaos characters’ campaign relationships. Those decisions supersede the earlier name-and-archetype-only baseline. Fields still awaiting decisions remain open rather than being filled by analogy to another continuity.

Temporal frame

WAR occurs in the late Karl Franz and contemporary Warhammer Fantasy era, not centuries after the classic setting. Gotrek and Felix are contemporary figures in WAR. Their magical longevity is not an explanation for placing WAR in a distant future. Pre-divergence Gotrek & Felix adventures are presumed to have occurred unless a specific contradiction is found.

Core named forces

• Empire invasion: Tchar’zanek unites the Raven Host; the Empire’s playable war effort is associated with the Order of the Griffon.
• Dwarf and Greenskin war: Grumlok and Gazbag lead the Bloody Sun Boyz; the Dwarf playable force is associated with the Oathbearers.
• Ulthuan invasion: Malekith exploits the Empire’s crisis; the High Elf force is associated with the Shining Guard and the Dark Elf force with House Uthorin.

Narrative and MMO campaign

The racial PvE campaigns are concrete narrative events where possible. RvR also represents actual warfare: keeps can change hands, territories are contested, and armies can advance toward capitals. Its endless repetition is an MMO abstraction. Altdorf and the Inevitable City are not repeatedly conquered and reset as sequential history. Major city assaults may occur, but repeated assault cycles are not all separate historical events. Repeated player victories over faction rulers do not by themselves establish canonical deaths or captures.

For the Chaos racial campaign, the four named Chaos characters do not begin as a fixed adventuring party. Rehlos and Carsybe cooperate opportunistically while Mourgrim and Craeven initially advance separately. The four first meaningfully converge during the Raven Host Proving and later become the memorable core of a larger Raven Host field command.

For the Empire racial campaign, Cairden is already serving in Grimmenhagen when the immediate crisis begins. Jarcey and Drasol arrive from Altdorf as institutional reinforcements for the Order of the Griffon, while Redyn reaches the same conflict through an independent investigation. Their cooperation develops from overlapping responsibilities rather than from a pre-existing adventuring party.

The vault should record narrative war events separately from repeatable campaign mechanics. The final outcome is unknown; no official permanent victory is established.

For the Dark Elf campaign, Caldyris commands a newly assembled elite squad of approximately twelve aboard the Nemesis. Lynara, Praedys, and Saerina are its principal named specialists. This is a single squad, not a thirty-to-sixty-person company or multi-squad command. Institutional affiliations remain intact within Caldyris’s operational leadership. Nearly 170 years of Black Guard service, approximately a century of Convent practice, and twenty-something years of initiated Disciple service are professional durations, not total ages. Saerina’s recent full initiation follows real supervised combat experience. All four are adults.