#skarsnik

[kinrypu]

[mahleb]

Skarsnik from Warhammer Fantasy Battles as a template for a meme with Boromir))

[tarastaubs1979blog]

[tommyekerchal1973blog]

[onitaszafran1975blog]

[cyberspacesymphonyblog]

[sallllltywater]

I feel like i have seen this somewhere but i cannot find it

[the-arthropod-queen]

Shams there’s so much transmisany in the goblin community

Comparing curly haired trans women to Weird Al when Sigourney Weaver is RIGHT THERE should constitute a hate crime

[world-of-warhammer]

Alright. Onward we go to the themes and elements I enjoy about Greenskins, what I feel could be done better, headcanons, and such.

Perfect faction in all settings 0 notes....

Only joking.

Honestly, the hardest part about writing this particular series of posts on what I like and dislike or how I'd prefer things be written is difficult for me.

On the one hand, the Orks live for violence tropes and Orcs aren't super bright tropes wear on me. Anyone and everyone in real life has a unique set of experiences and skills. Seeing any fictional species of sapient reduced to something as simple as "All Orcs do X" oftentimes grates on me a little because of that.

I feel Skarsnik is a good example of how they can (within their setting and the rules they have established as GW) write or make an interesting and smart Greenskin work. The thing that bugs me, is that they need to write these *specifically* as *the* exception.

Now I'm not saying to make every Goblin, Orc or Ork an engineer or physicist; I'm just frustrated that there's very little that lends itself to a diverse set of experiences that matches the tapestry of real life.

Similarly, the retcon to Warhammer Fantasy to make Greenskins fungi as they are in 40k was neat and a cool nod to the uniqueness they have created in their Orks. I do however wish this meant they matched fungi a bit closer and could have more fungible accessories, buildings, weapons, etc.

It'd also be nice to have girl Orc/ks and Goblins. Let us have a diverse array of fungi based reproduction. Some fungi reproduce asexually and some don't; so the line about them all being male-coded as a result of "kultur" makes some sense, but for there to be no other distinction or cultural variance is frustrating. (I'll spare everyone my rant on this for now, but we will touch on elements of this again with Ogres, Skaven, and Lizardmen)

As far as thematic elements I enjoy, the brutal metal in their equipment, the basic love of violence, the lack of understanding (or even trying to understand) how or why other people's do things differently, the latent psychic phenomenon (or belief magic in fantasy), and the Waaaagh are elements I enjoy greatly. Orcs getting larger as a result and preparatory measure for rebellion, the infighting, and the might-makes-right are interesting to explore and would make for neat things to do in and around the Greenskins.

I feel like looking at Orcs from just about any other longstanding fantasy setting informs a lot about what I'd like to see from them in Warhammer overall. Warcraft, LotR, and wherever else you find brutal fighty Ork and Gobbo peoples. I just also want more variety and for them to be less of a monolithic culture.

[spatheandspadix]

I love how Skarsnik's just always frustrated with the other gobboes because they don't follow instructions, big Professor Life vibes

[azerothtravel]

Secret Origin

I'm just an old time Warcraft nerd who's too dumb to quit. My first WC game was Warcraft II, when I was in high school. I gravitated toward the Horde because they were funnier. I liked the game, but wasn't too good at it. Jump ahead to the release of Warcraft III, it's a whole other thing. I read all the lore in the huge manual. I was completely taken with the concept of orcs as once noble, tragic victims trying to make their way in the world and atone for their crimes. A friend of mine had me read some of the novels. I was suddenly way, way into the setting. Plus, I knew a lot of people who played WC3. I enjoyed the Orgrimmar campaign in Frozen Throne with no idea it was more or less a test run for WoW.

But I didn't like MMOs. I wasn't sure about WoW. Then I got into the beta. I hauled my whole-ass desktop over to the house of the same friend who loaned me those books, and we were up til 4am downloading the client and then getting started. Gormorash the orc warrior was born that night (And so was Skarsnik the troll hunter, but he lost interest after BC). I was immediately sold. Running around Azeroth at ground level, full of detail from the RTS games, was a ton of fun. Gormorash went on many strange adventures in beta, like a hilariously inept "raid" on Westfall where half our group died before we got there and none of us were even level 60.

Then Gormorash was rebooted on Argent Dawn US when the game launched, a member of <Flaming Skull Clan> with several other friends of mine.

By middle 2005, almost literally everyone I knew played WoW. My oldest friends, friends from college, friends from the internet, relatives. Basically 2 friends and my parents were the only people not playing. Friends of mine who didn't know each other met and bonded through WoW. It was a glorious time.

By the end of 2006, I'd been through 2 guild collapses and one server move, as they opened up free transfers to Eitrigg and my friends all took it. I wasn't sure I'd keep playing. The novelty had worn off for most of my friends. I wasn't that into raiding, and doing Arathi Basin over and over was only so interesting (Gormorash just lived in Hammerfall for like a year). I was maybe gonna quit. And then, in early 2007, my brother found 2 Collector's Editions of BC just sitting on a shelf in a store, and asked if I wanted one. I had the vanilla CE, but I'd missed BC when they were released, and didn't buy BC at all. He bought them and shipped me one, and we leveled 60-70 together. It was a lot of fun.

Along the way, I started a new guild with some online friends, and Gormorash is still in it. He's never missed an expansion. Most people have fallen off the wagon. Our guild typically only has 3 active members at any given time these days, but that's fine with me. Sometimes a couple people come back for major content. It was lore that got me into all this, and that remains my primary motivator for playing. My endgame is more PvP and leveling alts than raiding, but the game has literally never supported those 2 things better than right now (2023), so that's pretty good. I still have a good time. And that's why I have hundreds of screenshots to choose from stretching from the 2004 open beta to just a few days ago to post on this blog. With the sad exception of most of 2006, lost in a hard drive failure, I have a comprehensive collection of every screenshot I ever took, and that's what this blog is all about.

I've made a few other Gormorashes on other servers, but rarely leveled them very far. Someone out there made a Gormorash that isn't me, a fact that shocked me when I found out. Who stole my name? Was it you? I have characters of every race on both factions, but still tend to prefer Horde. If you see me, say hello!

Gormorash is an orc warrior who came of age in the camps. With his brother, Rugurrash, he's led a guild of adventures for many years, with trusty allies Snarfner, Vallkillmore and Canon rounding out the core group. His hair's started to gray after saving the world 8 or 9 times, traveling through space and time and the realms of death, but he's still out there, still exploring, still getting into trouble and mostly getting back out of it. He's an alchemist and herbalist in his spare time, and has a completely unmanageable collection of pets. He is really, really tired of being forced to fight his own Warchief, and really hopes the gods don't lean on that already very tired trope again in the future.

[dabigmek]

So deze wildboyz rocked up at da kamp taday. No gunz, no stikkbomz but sum proper choppaz, so we let dem in. Mebee dey iz from sum alternateev dimenshun or summink, probly wiv weird names like Ruglud or Skarsnik, but Orkz iz Orcz I guess.

[nightbringer24]

And here's Skarsnik.

Bit lower on the totem pole than he normally is though.

[feyd-rautha-apologist]

Weak energy: "It's okay that the wizards are doing chattel slavery actually because the house elves like it. There is no need to dissect this further and it was what I had in mind from the start"

Strong energy: "Yeah we didn't write an ending for Skarsnik because we forgot he existed"

Folks act like "maybe the author isn't the final authority about what their work means" is some wanky post-modern nonsense and not a simple recognition that a lot of authors are perfectly prepared to bullshit about their own work. Like, leaving big-name popular media aside, I have personally encountered authors being actively disingenuous about their own work for all of the following reasons:

A true answer wouldn't fit the image they've cultivated.

They've decided they like the explanation the readers/viewers have come up with better than what they actually had in mind.

Something that was originally intended as a standalone work ended up growing into a franchise or series, and now they're pretending that was the plan all along for some reason.

They don't want to admit that the bit you're asking about is genuinely just a plot hole.

The real answer gets into some shit they don't care to discuss, so they've prepared a cover story to explain away the parts they don't want to talk about.

Their politics have changed since they wrote it, but they don't want to acknowledge that, so they're constantly trying to re-interpret everything they've ever written to be perfectly consistent with whatever their positions are this week.

They wrote it decades ago and they honestly don't remember what they were thinking at the time, so they're just making shit up; sometimes they also don't remember what shit they made up the last time, so the answer is different every time they're asked.

The work in question is at least partly autobiographical and they can't tell the truth without confessing to a crime in the process.

Most of the good bits are plagiarised and they don't really understand it themselves.

They're lying to you on purpose, for evil reasons.

[kinrypu]

The birth of a runt