History TabletopGame / Warhammer

** Bretonnian Knights live by an all-encompassing code of chivalry that disdains all missile weapons as cowardly and ignoble. None of them would ever dream of using a crossbow, handgun or even a hand-drawn bow. What prevents this from being HonorBeforeReason is a) they have no problem allowing their peasant retainers to bring longbows and trebuchets to provide fire support, and b) the magic of the Lady of the Lake makes them ImmuneToBullets. And of course, [[SarcasmMode the fact that the Bretonnian nobility want to keep point-and-kill boomsticks out of the hands of their oppressed peasant underlings has absolutely, positively nothing to do with it]]. The basic code of conduct for Bretonnian Knights in ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' includes a ban on gunpowder weapons; in fact, none of the knightly careers give you proficiency in them.
*** ''Not'' the case however with the Bretonnian Navy, as the ExactWords of the Bretonnian code of chivalry prevents the use of guns ''on Bretonnian soil''; on the open seas, they toss cannonballs around like the Empire can (and are in fact the most powerful navy around thanks to the rows on rows of cannon).

* {{Foil}}: In a way, the two human kingdoms are a continuing proxy for the Asur and the Dawi. The Empire met the Dwarfs early on in their history and eagerly took up their technological innovations, [[FirearmsAreRevolutionary chiefly gunpowder]]. Their neighbours Bretonnia frequently trade with Ulthuan and styles its culture on the old Asur colonies, [[spoiler:and is still being manipulated by the perfidious elves of Athel Loren to be used as a buffer state]], and consequently [[FirearmsAreCowardly they hold technology and firearms in disdain]]. An Empire nobleman might scoff at a Bretonnian and ask "Why don't you use guns?" and the Bretonnian will counter by pointing across the sea and saying "They do not use them and neither do we, the Lady shields us from them." [[ImmuneToBullets And she does.]]

** The Bretonnian cult of the Lady uses a lot of KnightInShiningArmor imagery and is based on the Arthurian mythos and drinking from a light-filled grail, but the Cult is in service to maintaining Bretonnia's brutal feudal society: Peasants cannot join it or be blessed by the Lady by default.

** Bretonnian wizards are also overwhelmingly women, though in this case it's because -save for a few scions of wealthy families sent to the Empire's colleges of magic- magically adept children are usually taken from their homes by servants of the Lady of the Lake; the girls sometimes return years later as powerful spellcasters... but no boy has ever returned.

* OurMagesAreDifferent: Magic in ''Warhammer'' comes from the Winds of Magic, drifts of PureEnergy, that blow throughout the world. The Lizardmen Slann and all three subraces of Elves are the most adept at it, being able to use Magic in its purest form -- the Slann and High Elves use the Lore of High Magic, while the Dark Elves use the Lore of Dark Magic, and the Wood Elves use both. However, these lores are generally too much for most races to handle. The Empire therefore fields Battle Wizards who break the Winds of Magic down into their composite lores -- the Lores of [[TheBeastmaster Beasts]], [[DarkIsNotEvil Death]], [[PlayingWithFire Fire]], [[StarPower Heavens]], [[GreenThumb Life]], [[LightEmUp Light]], [[ExtraOreDinary Metal]] and [[CastingAShadow Shadows]] -- and specialise in the use of one. They were taught how to do this by some charitable-feeling High Elves. Bretonnian mages -- Damsels and Prophetesses of the Cult of the Lady -- follow suit with a much more limited pool. The lores used by {{Necromancer}} types -- the Lores of Vampires and Undeath -- are culled from the Lore of Dark Magic, [[PredecessorVillain Nagash]] having tortured the knowledge out of some Dark Elves he came across and wrote several books on the subject which are still in high demand today despite being illegal. The Tomb Kings use their own necromantic arts -- the Lore of Nehekhara -- to maintain their armies on the battlefield. The Orcs & Goblins and Ogre Kingdoms also use their own lores based on their religious beliefs -- the Lore of da Big/Little WAAAGH! and the Lore of the Great Maw, respectively. Each Chaos God has a Lore of Magic associated with him too apart from Khorne, who DoesNotLikeMagic; they are, unsurprisingly, the Lores of Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh, and only Daemons or mortal Chaos worshippers can channel them.

** Brettonia actively enforces this, as women aren't allowed personal rights of any kind by law. Exceptions are the Damsels of the Cult of the Lady which are allowed more autonomy and are exempt from Brettonia's laws, they are expected to serve within the State Religion for life. Since women aren't allowed to ride horses, they cannot take questing vows and thus usually can't become Grail Knights. However there have been instances where the Lady of the Lake has blessed women herself and thus became Grail Knights. One notable example is Repanse de Lyonesse, who was but a peasant but became nobility the second she received the Lady's Blessing.

* GiantSpider: Orcs and goblins use these as steeds. The trope reaches its awesome apex with the [[PunnyName Arachnarok]] Spider, which is the biggest model in the game.

** High Elf heavy cavalry (Silver Helms and Dragon Princes). Lightning quick and can deliver tremendous blows -- almost as efficient as the Bretonnian knights. Not as durable, though, but have better initiative in combat. Most war machines can also cause outright havoc, especially among enemy monsters, but will crumble if anyone even looks at them in close combat.

* GodCouple: Morr and Verena. Asuryan and Lileath, Kurnous and Isha. Ptra and Meru. [[ExoticExtendedMarriage Grungni and Grimnir and Valaya.]]
* GodOfDarkness: The minor chaos god Obscuras has powers mainly based on shadows. He can even grant his followers [[InnateNightVison the ability to see in the dark.]]

** After their first Emperor ascended to godhood, leaving no heir, it was decided that the Empire of Man would elect their Emperors from then on. While this was nominally to choose the most capable among them to lead, this is not always the case. Since theChurch of Sigmar (which holds a total of three votes) always votes for the Reikland elector, Reikland automatically has four votes (sometimes five, since the Moot always votes for the son of the previous Emperor). Meanwhile, the Ar-Ulric (head of the cult of Ulric) always votes for the Middenland one, so the Middenland elector automatically has two; unsurprisingly, the two cults don't usually get along. Bribery and politicking are far from uncommon during an election, and the occasional military enticement isn't unheard of either.

* RatedMForManly: Here the elves are manly, the humans are beyond manly, the dwarfs and orcs are manly up to eleven and the Warriors of Chaos make them all look like little girls.

''Warhammer'' is the generic name of a number of tabletop {{Wargam|ing}}es and {{Tabletop RPG}}s marketed by UK firm Creator/GamesWorkshop. "Warhammer" was a tabletop battle game that began in 1983 and was previously known as ''Warhammer Fantasy Battle'' (WHFB), its last official edition (8th edition) was published in 2010. It was officially discontinued and replaced with the ''[[TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar Warhammer: Age of Sigmar]]'' game universe by Creator/GamesWorkshop in July 2015, and all official GW support for Warhammer Fantasy Battle was discontinued... until 2019, [[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/11/15/old-world-new-warhammer/ when it was announced that the Old World would return with new rules akin to the Horus Heresy spinoff for 40K]].

* AncestralWeapon: Several examples, too many to list here. The biggest one, Ghal Maraz, is actually a DoubleSubversion -- the people wielding it now are not related to the person who wielded it originally, as Sigmar intentionally left behind no children in order to ensure that the Empire would not be in the grip of a single dynasty[[note]]Some of the novel lore suggests that he did have children, but they were never publicly acknowledged as such, and Sigmar himself didn't learn about their patrimony until they were grown men[[/note]], but would rather belong equally to all those who lived within it. In essence, Ghal Maraz belongs to the Empire itself, and all the men of the Empire are Sigmar's heirs.

* {{Atlantis}}: In this verse, it's called Ulthuan. The continent in the middle of the Atlantic is the home of the High Elves, who as a race are the most powerful wizards in the world, and it's built on a complex weave of magic that keeps the local Winds of Chaos under control. [[spoiler: And yes, in the End Times, it sinks.]]

** Many, or at least some Vampires in the ''Warhammer'' world aren't evil at all. However, they tend not to be at the head of an army, and so don't play a prominent role outside of the novels. There is even a set of stories featuring a female vampire named Geneviève Dieudonné who is practically a FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire... admittedly, the stories featuring her were created during the earlier editions of the setting and she is a "transcontinental cousin" of the same character from the other Creator/KimNewman series, ''Literature/AnnoDracula'' and ''[[Literature/DiogenesClub The Diogenes Club]]''. In the later ''Von Carstein'' trilogy, the concept is revived with the Grand Master of the Order of the White Wolf, who is bitten by Vlad von Carstein yet manages to resist the temptations of vampirism. [[spoiler: He ends up as the eternal guardian of Vlad's immortality-granting ring.]] It seems to be that, whilst being turned into a vampire does not alter one's perspective, the horrific hunger and starvation an unsated vampire experience eventually corrupts most vampires.

* DecadeDissonance: The Kingdom of Bretonnia, a FantasyCounterpartCulture to Arthurian England and Medieval France, rife with knights and peasant longbow men and run by a feudal system. It sits right next door to the Empire of Man, which has Renaissance era level technology going into the early Industrial Period level with elements of SteamPunk thrown in for good measure as well, including ''steam powered tanks!'' Bretonnia manages to resist being forcibly assimilated into the Empire, most likely due to the mountain range that makes travel between the two difficult, and the magic granted by a local god, the "Lady of the Lake" making their elite upper class ImmuneToBullets. [[spoiler: However, it's a little more complicated than that, with the local baby-eating wood elves being the most favorable candidate to be both granting them this power, and keeping the nation in its MedievalStasis, simply to shield themselves from the outside world...]]

* DontGoInTheWoods: The forests of the Old World cover vast amounts of land, including most of the Empire. Virtually everything that lives in them is very, very bad. The outermost kilometre or two of any given forest is ''relatively'' safe, and people often hunt in them. However, venturing further in is stupid in the extreme. Athel Loren, the home of the Wood Elves, is a GeniusLoci that may simply steer you out of it, or let the Wood Elves or tree spirits kill you. The Great Forests of the empire are home to Forest Goblins and Beastmen. Anyone brave -- or stupid -- enough to reach the deepest reaches of it will find themselves facing creatures like the [[https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Preytons Preyton]], the [[https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Jabberslythe Jabberslythe]], and the [[https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Arachnarok_Spider Arachnarok Spider]].

** A rare example of a heroic Cthulhu being taunted appeared in the Storm of Chaos campaign, where Teclis turned up and OneHitKill-ed the ''entire daemonic army''. The Imperial Grand Theogonist then called him a DirtyCoward [[InsaneTrollLogic for using magic]], so Teclis demostrated why one CantArgueWithElves by pissing off and letting the Empire fight on alone[[note]]He knew they would win, but decided to let them do all the dying to teach them a lesson in manners.[[/note]]
** A more literal example happened during The End Times between Settra and the newly-revived demigod Nagash. [[spoiler: Having just crumped Settra's army and royal guard, Nagash offered the King of Khemri the position of Mortarch, one of his ten generals, among the undead legions. Settra spat in Nagash's face, resulting in the former's disintergration. Knowing that Settra could not be killed, Nagash left him as a head in the sand, positioned just so that he can see his kingdom. Nagash then promptly went godzilla on the whole of Khemri, reducing it to ruin in a matter of hours. Settra was left in the sand, none of his former allies even daring to go near his head for fear of Nagash's wrath.]]

* TheEmperor: The Emperor is an elected official (though elected by the nobility, and not the populace), the current one a guy named Karl Franz (who is also the reigning prince of one of the constituents of the Empire). He's what you could call an [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent Emperor Action]].[[spoiler: Although it's possible he had the incarnation of his own god killed to preserve his position and maintain order. But then, nobody's perfect.]]

** Ever since his ascension [[spoiler: Nagash fits the bill to a tee. He devoured Usirian, the original God of the Afterlife, to become a god and has razed his birth country of Khemri to the ground in retaliation for Settra's refusal. Unlike the Chaos Gods, who could be considered misunderstood on a good day, Nagash has proven that he has nary a shred of morality or goodness in his undead bones since his mortal days (even before he became undead).]]

** [[spoiler: Averted to hell by Nagash, which is very bad news for everyone involved as he wants to not only usurp the Chaos Gods, but also to turn the entire world into an undead paradise, with him effectively being the divine dictator. If it wasn't for Teclis's gambit, it likely would have happened. The books are not called "The End Times" for nothing.]]

** A lot of the followers of Chaos started out like this. The most notable one is an Imperial Scholar who read about the coming of Archaon, a Chaos Champion that would rumor to fell the world, and decided to embark on a quest to stop his coming. [[spoiler: One-insanity-inducing revelation later, he renounced his name and rechristened himself Archaon the Everchosen, Grand Marshal of Chaos]].

* UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny: The climax of the Storm of Chaos campaign involved the Empire and their Bretonnian, Kislevite and High Elf allies standing against Chaos, Orcs, Skaven and Undead, all of which were also fighting each other. [[spoiler: Incidentally, the Orc leader beat the Chaos leader in single combat and the Undead waited until everyone else was worn down, raised the dead of both armies to destroy the chaos horde, then went home. The Empire and allies comprehensively got their asses kicked and couldn't claim any success greater than "survived".]]

* FrogMen: The toad-like Slaan.

%%* LizardFolk: The Lizardmen, obviously, except for the Slann (they're toads).

** They do have ''some'' vague hints as to what this plan was. It involves returning all of the elves to Ulthuan (even though the elves' culture has been irrevocably shattered and engaged in CivilWar for millennia), returning all the dwarfs to the mountains, returning all the humans to the Old World, and exterminating basically every other race. Every facet of this plan is practically impossible, [[{{Determinator}} but try telling them that]].

** Mousillon, a province of Bretonnia that embodies SwampsAreEvil. The human inhabitants are all inbred criminals or grave robbers, the main industries are frog and snail catching, half the houses are abandoned and all are rotted, a type of weed grows that mimics a path and falls through into the water, the previous lord was violently insane and probably not human, giant frogs roam the streets at night, zombies are rampant... It makes sense that Bretonnia has mostly given up on the place, establishing a series of forts to make sure nothingcomes out.

* {{Conlang}}: Lots of languages in the ''Warhammer'' universe have their own distinct alphabets and scripts especially Reikspiel, Kislevarin, and Khalizd.

** Even by ''Warhammer'' standards, Sylvania is described as an absolutely horrid place to find yourself. The woods and fens are haunted by bloodthirsty monsters and spectres, while vampires lord over (and prey on) a helpless populace who constantly live in fear for their lives. Going outside at night in winter is a death sentence, while doing so in summer is only slightly safer. Sylvania has a Bretonnian brother named Mousillon, combining all the nastiness of Sylvania with near-endless swamps, giant man-eating frogs [[TheDungAges and the Bretonnian class system]]. In ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'', the "Mousillon Peasant" career is the only one that needs no explanation on how the hero became an adventurer; if you were born in that awful place and had a chance to escape, you grasped it with both hands and ran for the endzone. Anybody would choose ''any'' chance to leave.

* DeathSeeker: Dwarf Slayers, who have suffered some extreme dishonour and now only wish to die gloriously.

** Mousillon, a province of Bretonnia that embodies SwampsAreEvil. The human inhabitants are all inbred criminals or grave robbers, the main industries are frog and snail catching, half the houses are abandoned and all are rotted, a type of weed grows that mimics a path and falls through into the water, the previous lord was violently insane and probably not human, giant frogs roam the streets at night, zombies are rampant... It makes sense that Bretonnia has mostly given up on the place.

** The continent of Naggaroth, homeland of the Dark Elves, is primarily a frigid wasteland with sparse nautral resources, a host of monstrous wildlife and is the home of one of the most hostile civilizations on the planet. That's not even mentioning the Underworld Sea, a vast maze of waterlogged tunnels beneath Naggaroth. It's lightless, easy to get lost in, hard to travel through and infested with monsters.

* DemonicInvaders: Chaos entered the Old World through portals at the north and south poles, pouring into the Old World

** Bretonnian Knights live by an all-encompassing code of chivalry that disdains all missile weapons as cowardly and ignoble. None of them would ever dream of using a crossbow, handgun or even a hand-drawn bow. What prevents this from being HonorBeforeReason is a) they have no problem allowing their peasant retainers to bring longbows and trebuchets to provide fire support, and b) the magic of the Lady of the Lake makes them ImmuneToBullets. And of course, [[SarcasmMode the fact that the Bretonnian nobility want to keep point-and-kill boomsticks out of the hands of their oppressed peasant underlings has absolutely, positively nothing to do with it]]. The basic code of conduct for Bretonnian Knights in ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' includes a ban on gunpowder weapons; in fact, none of the knightly careers give you proficiency in them. ''Not'' the case however with the Bretonnian Navy, as the ExactWords of the Bretonnian code of chivalry prevents the use of guns ''on Bretonnian soil''; on the open seas, they toss cannonballs around like the Empire can.

* DraconicHumanoid: The Dragon Ogres are an inversion of the usual fusion, since they're an ogre torso on a dragon's lower body, and are among the most powerful and ancient of all creatures.

** Gorthor, the infamous Beastman shaman whose very name means "Cruel" in Bray-Tongue. While most Beastmen wear GenuineHumanHide as a matter of course, Gorthor would openly wear the skins of his fellow shamans, and most Beastmen would not even dare to ''touch'' a shaman.
** Nagash the Undying. The guy who invented necromancy. He once tried to conquer the entire world and turn every living thing into his undead servants, and he was so terrifying that for the only instance in their entire history, the entire Skaven race [[EnemyMine united in trying to stop him]].

* DroitDuSeigneur: Implied to exist in various forms, but there is one heartwarming subversion. Duke Laurent of Artois requires all brides in his domain to spend their wedding night in his bedchamber along with their husbands, while the Duke sleeps outside the door, so they can have the duchy's biggest and most comfortable bed in complete privacy for their wedding night.

* TheDungAges: If you're poor, this is your lifestyle. Averted in earlier editions of Bretonnia: peasants who proved themselves had the chance of being upgraded to nobility. Now they just get a fat hog and some jewels (which likely won't last long anyhow). It's still possible for a Bretonnian peasant to be knighted for acts of great nobility, such as saving a DamselInDistress. Not that it happens often -- just three times so far since the founding of Bretonnia over 1500 years ago. Bretonnian laws of nobility define a noble as anyone whose ancestors on both sides are nobles for the last two generations. Anyone else is a peasant. A peasant may be knighted, but his line will die out immediately since his children will, by definition, be peasants. The only exception is if a peasant somehow becomes a Grail Knight, since Grail Knights are instantly considered royalty and can make up laws as they please and thus declare their children nobility.

* BladeOnAStick: Halberds, spears, and other polearms are fairly common; just like they were in the RealLife Middle Ages Europe.

* ThenLetMeBeEvil: Unfortunately often the case with mutants or even just poor saps who happen to be [[{{Gonk}} hoarking ugly]], and this is a major part of what makes the Old World so [[CrapsackWorld crapsack]]. Being born with [[RedRightHand cloven hooves or a gangly hand]] probably doesn't make you a bad person by default, but when your neighbours in the "civilized" world keep driving you away with TorchesAndPitchforks, what other option do you have besides seeking out the local Chaos cult or Beastmen tribe?

* GoldToothOfWealth: Greasus Goldtooth, Overtyrant of the Ogre Kingdoms and the wealthiest Ogre alive, is know for his bullion teeth. His tribe, the Goldtooth Tribe, also tend to replace their teeth with precious metals as a means of showing off their wealth, even going to far as to incorporate the practice into their religious observances. Ogre tribes each possess a special religious monolith, called a Mawtooth, which is carried to great ogre tribal meetings. The teeth are set up in a great ring, representing the mouth of the Ogre deity, the Great Maw. The Goldtooth tribe has a solid gold Mawtooth as a display of their opulence, and use as their tribal emblem a ring of sharp teeth with a single golden fang, making the god displays this trope as well.

* EthnicGod: With the exception of the the Chaos gods, which are worshipped by human and elf Chaos cultists, as well as the Norscans, Kurgans, Hung and Beastmen, most deities are specific to certain races and nations:

* PrehistoricAnimalAnalogue: The Lizardman army includes a number of pseudo-dinosaurian monsters to occupy the niche of other factions' fantasy beasts. These include the TRexpy Carnosaurs, Cold Ones (scaly, spiky dromeosaur lookalikes), Bastiladons (based on ankylosaurs with greatly exaggerated armor), Stegadons (pseudo-ceratopsians with armored skin, spiked mace tails, and omnivorous diets), Tetradons and Ripperdactyls (two variants of PteroSoarer), and Troglodons (albino, cave-dwelling, eyeless poison-spitting predators visually based on spinosaurs).

** Exaggerated with the Skaven, who are arguably even more advanced than the Dwarfs and have "fantasy" versions of [[{{Pun}} ratling guns]], sniper rifles, laser cannons, chemical warfare and at least three working [[FantasticNuke nuclear weapons]]... The reason the Skaven haven't conquered the world yet (besides their [[RightHandVersusLeftHand constant factitious bickering]] of course) is that the vast majority of Skaven soldiers go into battle with little more than torches and rusty blades, with rags for protection. The high-tech {{Steampunk}} gear comprises less than a fraction of a percent of their forces, and the rarity of their deployment is explained by these advanced weapons being [[ReliablyUnreliableGuns just as likely to kill their own operators as the enemy]] due to the Skaven's notorious [[NoOSHACompliance lack of quality control]]. Meanwhile the Lizardmen, the last remaining bio-robotic servants of incredibly advanced AncientAstronauts who vanished millennia ago, maintain a typical army of naked Saurus warriors wielding stone or bone-based, fang-lined ''macuahuitl'' swords and Skink skirmishers using javelins and blowpipes, supported by a core of powerful Slann sorcerers and incredibly powerful space age energy weapons and devices carried on the backs of dinosaurs (since Lizardmen have no idea what the wheel is - yes, really).

* SchizoTech: The Empire's mostly in the 16th century with pike and shot formations (backed by muzzle-loading cannons) making up the bulk of their forces, complemented by the occasional bit of more advanced but unreliable steampunk, and backed up formations that were obsolete even in the 16th century like their crossbow and spear regiments. The Dwarfs are mostly clad in mail and armed with axes and crossbows but also have gyrocopters, submarines, and ironclad ships. The Skavens' armies are overwhelmingly composed of fodder in rags with rusty blades but thanks to {{Magitek}} they also have jezails, ratling guns, giant hamster wheels that shoot lightning, or really huge death rays, portable nuclear reactors, and what seems to be three different types of nukes. Meanwhile, the High Elves still use chariots and bolt-throwers, while the orcs have just enough know-wotz to slap together a "rock lobber," except for Snotlings, whose steam-powered Pump Wagon is remarkably good engineering from a species that might, with training, eventually rise to be considered dumb as posts. Though elves focus more on magic than technology and a well-trained elf archer tends to be as useful as any fellow with a musket. The Lizardmen, by contrast, rely on Stone Age weaponry like cudgels and javelins, though this is supplemented by a healthy dose of Old One magic and giant dinosaurs. In fact, atop the giant dinosaurs is often where the Old One magic is casted from. Then you have the Bretonnians, which is almost literally just [[MedievalStasis High Medieval]] France with the slightest dash of magic thrown in.

''Warhammer'' was the generic name of a number of tabletop {{Wargam|ing}}es and {{Tabletop RPG}}s marketed by UK firm Creator/GamesWorkshop. "Warhammer" was a tabletop battle game that began in 1983 and was previously known as ''Warhammer Fantasy Battle'' (WHFB), its last official edition (8th edition) was published in 2010. It was officially discontinued and replaced with the ''[[TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar Warhammer: Age of Sigmar]]'' game universe by Creator/GamesWorkshop in July 2015, and all official GW support for Warhammer Fantasy Battle was discontinued... until 2019, [[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/11/15/old-world-new-warhammer/ when it was announced that the Old World would return with new rules akin to the Horus Heresy spinoff for 40K]].

* GaidenGame: ''[[CityOfAdventure Mordheim]]'' and ''Warmaster'' respectively. ''TabletopGame/{{Mordheim}}'' is a skirmish/street fighting game, while ''Warmaster'' is an epic battle game using mini-miniatures to represent giant armies. And ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'', which is Warhammer where all the battles are replaced by [[BloodSport extraordinarily violent]] UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball games.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: The targets of Lizardmen genocides were/are very nasty creatures (especially Chaos and Skaven) themselves, except for the dumb colonists on their coasts.

* MedievalEuropeanFantasy: Partially played straight and partially averted. ''Warhammer'''s focus faction, The Empire, was modeled off the Holy Roman Empire during the 16th/17th century prior to the Thirty Years' War, as opposed to TheMiddleAges. It's neighbor, Bretonnia, started out looking like pre-revolutionary France during the 16th-18th century, before regressing into this trope by becoming a HighMiddleAges-style feudal nation based on Medieval England and France with a dash of the [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Arthurian myth]], while its northern neighbor Kislev was modeled off Tsarist Russia, the Kievan Rus' and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the 16th century (but with more emphasis on empty steppes and Cossacks). Other factions ran the gamut of 'feudal monarchies with steam power and guns' (the Dwarfs) to 'Ancient Athens-style Enlightenment monarchy but with 11th century technology and magic' (High Elves), 'Renaissance era Italy' (Tilea), 'Early modern age Spain meets the pre-Reconquista period' (Estalia) or 'Mayincatec absolute theocracy/magocracy' (The Lizardmen). The forces of disorder similarly ran the gamut from 'Spartan-esque military dictatorship' (Dark Elves) to 'The Horde' (Chaos, Greenskins), 'daemonic Viking Age Scandinavians' (Norscans, Warriors of Chaos) or 'SocialDarwinist nightmare' (Skaven). Its RPG spin-off, ''Warhammer Fantasy Battles'', bases much of its setting on the Empire, making most adventures in that game an example of this trope but with guns present.

* FantasyCounterpartMap: The setting's unnamed planet is essentially a distorted version of medieval and early modern world maps. The Old World is a scrunched version of Europe, with the Empire where Germany would be, Bretonnia in place of France, Kislev approximating Russia, Norsca as a horizontal version of Scandinavia, Estalia, Tilea and the Vaults in place of Spain, Italy and the Alps, and the mist-shrouded island of Albion a ways off the coast. Heading east, the Dark Lands take the place of the Central Asian deserts, the Mountains of Mourn are the Himalaya stand-ins, and Cathay, Ind and Nippon don't even change their names. North of it all are steppes leading into the polar Chaos Wastes. Among the other continents, the Southlands, Naggaroth and Lustria have the approximate shapes and locations of Africa (complete with a northern desert home to a pseudo-Egyptian culture) and North and South America. The only area with no real equivalent is the floating island of Ulthuan, which instead serves as an Atlantis analogue.