Overview of the Old World

[Pancho]

Agreed. I think the HQ novels add much to the lore and consider them full canon.

Are these available somewhere by chance? I'm guessing maybe not because … who'd bother for novels for a game that was quite old at the time people started scanning such things … but I tried to price them and … I could buy TWO game systems for the price of one novel.

Not available at my local library, and I tend to work better with eBooks anyway.

Here you go amigo. Enjoy!

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4051

[Pancho]

The Wizard in the Fellowship of Four is a human wizard, for sure. There’s a humorous exchange between him and the Elf where this is made clear, with a big deal made about how the two races, Elf and human, find each other difficult to understand. Also, elves and dwarves have a belief that “humans are very hard to kill”.

I don’t think it’s made 100% explicit that the wizards in the Screaming Spectre are humans, but it’s still obvious that they are. Truillon is not off the coast of Ulthuan. Read the first chapter of the Fellowship of Four.

[Pancho]

We’ve been here before trying to make the HQ novels full canon, but trust me it doesn’t work. We had an extensive discussion on the geography shown in the map in the novels, and it appears that Dave Morris was just using the HQ brand as a vehicle for his own creative world building. It bears only partial resemblance to Norsca and the other lands bordering Kislev. The Abyss, which is a key location for example where most of the Screaming Spectre takes place, doesn’t exist in the area shown on the corresponding Warhammer maps.
Which means that if we want to tie HQ in with the Old World, we can’t also consider the novels to be full canon. There is some overlap, but too many discrepancies. It’s a case of trying to have it both ways.


To be honest it’s not even a case of the novels not being compatible with Warhammer, they are not even compatible with the official releases such as the Frozen Horror. The maps in the novel should show the mountain ranges and passes described in those quests, and they don’t.

I love the novels more than anyone, don’t get me wrong. I’d be happier than most if they were more consistent with the other lore, but they are not.

[Kurgan]

Had a crazy thought... what if we look back at that ROTWL EU map again. What if the "Part of Norsca" thing is not to scale with the other map? What if we view the maps in the novels as a "zoom in" on that part? Maps aren't always 100% accurate. Instead of just imagining the maps laid one above the other, imagine the ROTWL map being HUGE and the novel map being a detailed zoom in on that largely symbolic Norsca bit? South of the novel map is Kislev and the Empire. The Sea of Claws is in the right place then (see those little dips in the Norsca part of the ROTWL map?). It's not perfect... the Norsca part looks to be totally covered in mountains while the mountains are spread out in the novel map. The tiny islands are invisible due to the scale on the big ROTWL map. If there are some name discrepancies, what about the fact that in real life there are nations known by one name by natives and another by foreigners? If the geography is about right why do the names have to match exactly to call it out of continuity?

Somebody blow that one out of the water, it's late, but it's all I've got at the moment. But maybe it would work to get the novels to fit. As far as the Frozen Horror stuff I'd have to look at it again later after I've slept...

PS: If you're patient you can find the novels for about $40-45 each and if you can find a serviceable game system for under $120 these days, show me where you shop! (even the basic edition of the remake will be that much including shipping to the US). Cool they've been scanned, but I'm old school wanting to flip through the physical pages myself, even if it is an overpriced curiosity.

[Pancho]

I’ll give you a much better example why the novel maps & story aren’t compatible and can’t be considered full canon. Bear with me, but it will prove beyond doubt that Morris was simply using a few place names from Heroquest and Warhammer that he liked the sound of, and inserting them wherever he liked in a world that he otherwise created in his own head just for the purposes of his books.

According to the first novel, the Fellowship of Four;
- The Wizard Hero Fortunato starts the story in his Wizard school in the island of Truillon, which is a short distance from the main shoreline and reached via a causeway that can be raised by magical means.
- Truillon is in the land of Sapinette, on the “eastern continent”.
- the coastal road leading to Truillon is being battered by storms off the Sea of Claws.
- He is trying to get from Truillon to reach his master who is in the forest of Athelorn.
- His options are to travel due west for 100 leagues across the Bay of Tristesse to get to Athelorn, or go north through Black fire pass then march west around the Bay of Tristesse then get down to Athelorn via a shorter raft journey.
- When he gets to Athelorn, he travels north on foot with his new companions to get to the Worlds Edge Mountains.

It’s a great story (my favourite of the three novels by far) but complete nonsense from a canonical/geographical point of view. The Sea of Claws, WE Mountains, Black Fire Pass and forest of Athelorn are all in completely the wrong place. Tristesse Bay itself is an impossibility and doesn’t exist. Sapinette or Truillon aren’t ever mentioned in Warhammer, and neither are other much more important regions shown on the novel maps.
Like I said, he was just piggybacking off of Heroquest to write his own stories. Nothing wrong with that really, but we can’t then claim that the Heroquest and the Warhammer World are the same thing whilst at the same time claim that the novels are 100% canon. We can’t hold both positions at the the same time and be logically consistent.

[Cael Darkhollow]

I’ll give you a much better example why the novel maps & story aren’t compatible and can’t be considered full canon. Bear with me, but it will prove beyond doubt that Morris was simply using a few place names from Heroquest and Warhammer that he liked the sound of, and inserting them wherever he liked in a world that he otherwise created in his own head just for the purposes of his books.

According to the first novel, the Fellowship of Four;
- The Wizard Hero Fortunato starts the story in his Wizard school in the island of Truillon, which is a short distance from the main shoreline and reached via a causeway that can be raised by magical means.
- Truillon is in the land of Sapinette, on the “eastern continent”.
- the coastal road leading to Truillon is being battered by storms off the Sea of Claws.
- He is trying to get from Truillon to reach his master who is in the forest of Athelorn.
- His options are to travel due west for 100 leagues across the Bay of Tristesse to get to Athelorn, or go north through Black fire pass then march west around the Bay of Tristesse then get down to Athelorn via a shorter raft journey.
- When he gets to Athelorn, he travels north on foot with his new companions to get to the Worlds Edge Mountains.

It’s a great story (my favourite of the three novels by far) but complete nonsense from a canonical/geographical point of view. The Sea of Claws, WE Mountains, Black Fire Pass and forest of Athelorn are all in completely the wrong place. Tristesse Bay itself is an impossibility and doesn’t exist. Sapinette or Truillon aren’t ever mentioned in Warhammer, and neither are other much more important regions shown on the novel maps.
Like I said, he was just piggybacking off of Heroquest to write his own stories. Nothing wrong with that really, but we can’t then claim that the Heroquest and the Warhammer World are the same thing whilst at the same time claim that the novels are 100% canon. We can’t hold both positions at the the same time and be logically consistent.

When I stated I believe the books were canon 100% I was referring to the Quest board maps, monsters listed, and even the Norsca map loosely based on the Warhammer world. I stillI believe that.

I had forgotten about any geographical discrepancies contained in the various short stories.
Perhaps our fledgling wizard is a cartography idiot, and should have been paying more attention in class to his Mentor. Most people can't tell their cardinal compass directions or read a map correctly in this day and age. hahaha.

The realm of Chaos and Chaos wastes shifted significantly south during the Chaos incursion, perhaps the Abyss beyond the World's Edge Mountains reflects this residual distorted landscape, or perhaps the ignorance of old worlders on what lies beyond? Here be dragons...

It looks as though the author was handed a handful of place names and descriptions but no real map to work with before he wrote the short stories.

I haven't read the novels for 4 years, perhaps its time again to take a read through.

[Pancho]

I’ll give you a much better example why the novel maps & story aren’t compatible and can’t be considered full canon. Bear with me, but it will prove beyond doubt that Morris was simply using a few place names from Heroquest and Warhammer that he liked the sound of, and inserting them wherever he liked in a world that he otherwise created in his own head just for the purposes of his books.

According to the first novel, the Fellowship of Four;
- The Wizard Hero Fortunato starts the story in his Wizard school in the island of Truillon, which is a short distance from the main shoreline and reached via a causeway that can be raised by magical means.
- Truillon is in the land of Sapinette, on the “eastern continent”.
- the coastal road leading to Truillon is being battered by storms off the Sea of Claws.
- He is trying to get from Truillon to reach his master who is in the forest of Athelorn.
- His options are to travel due west for 100 leagues across the Bay of Tristesse to get to Athelorn, or go north through Black fire pass then march west around the Bay of Tristesse then get down to Athelorn via a shorter raft journey.
- When he gets to Athelorn, he travels north on foot with his new companions to get to the Worlds Edge Mountains.

It’s a great story (my favourite of the three novels by far) but complete nonsense from a canonical/geographical point of view. The Sea of Claws, WE Mountains, Black Fire Pass and forest of Athelorn are all in completely the wrong place. Tristesse Bay itself is an impossibility and doesn’t exist. Sapinette or Truillon aren’t ever mentioned in Warhammer, and neither are other much more important regions shown on the novel maps.
Like I said, he was just piggybacking off of Heroquest to write his own stories. Nothing wrong with that really, but we can’t then claim that the Heroquest and the Warhammer World are the same thing whilst at the same time claim that the novels are 100% canon. We can’t hold both positions at the the same time and be logically consistent.

When I stated I believe the books were canon 100% I was referring to the Quest board maps, monsters listed, and even the Norsca map loosely based on the Warhammer world. I stillI believe that.

I had forgotten about any geographical discrepancies contained in the various short stories.
Perhaps our fledgling wizard is a cartography idiot, and should have been paying more attention in class to his Mentor. Most people can't tell their cardinal compass directions in this day and age. hahaha.

The realm of Chaos and Chaos wastes shifted significantly south during the Chaos incursion, perhaps the Abyss betong the World's Edge Mountains reflects this residual distorted landscape, or perhaps the ignorance of old worlders on what lies beyond? Here be dragons...

It looks as though the author was handed a handful of place names and descriptions but no real map to work with before he wrote the short stories.

I haven't read the novels for 4 years, perhaps its time again to take a read through.

I had the same thought (hope) that maybe the Wizard Fortunato was a cartography dunce. The intro describes how he is a wayward student who spends his study time gambling. He’s a foppish character who makes many mistakes throughout the story, but nevertheless elevates himself to true brilliance on a number of occasions (dealing with Cacogast the troll for example).
However, the problem is not that the Wizard makes errors with the world map, it’s that the Heroes actually do go in the directions stated above; to get from Truillon to the forest of Athelorn Fortunato takes a magical flight due west using Lunescules (some sort of fairy-like creature anyway) to carry him. He gives them the order to fly there, and they do actually move across the sea (a sea that doesn’t exist in the Warhammer world). The fairies also refer to Athel Loren as a ‘continent’, yet another discrepancy. Of course, he forgets to tell the lunescules to land him safely in the forest, and they drop him from a great height and he escapes death only by a miracle .
Fortunato then meets up with the Elf, who also confirms that the Wizard has just arrived from the “eastern continent” via a sea. They then meet the Barbarian and finally the Dwarf. It’s not possible that none of them know where the Worlds Edge Mountains are, for example (especially the Dwarf!).

It’s a shame really. I really like those books, to the point where I have written a long quest pack based on all the events in all 3 novels, including the solo quests and the play-your-own-adventures;

viewtopic.php?f=149&t=5045


I think the novels are best enjoyed when considered semi-canon; very loosely based on Heroquest but having some grounding in the world that we love. Maybe an alternate world or something.

[iKarith]

Are these available somewhere by chance? I'm guessing maybe not because … who'd bother for novels for a game that was quite old at the time people started scanning such things … but I tried to price them and … I could buy TWO game systems for the price of one novel.

Here you go amigo. Enjoy!

http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4051

MUCH thanks! I have saved them to my ever-growing HQ folder and will probably start reading the first one tonight. I'll also investigate whether someone can OCR them. I could only throw an open-source Linux OCR package at it right now, and I don't know how good that'll be. As they are, I will submit them to archive.org …

PS: If you're patient you can find the novels for about $40-45 each and if you can find a serviceable game system for under $120 these days, show me where you shop! (even the basic edition of the remake will be that much including shipping to the US). Cool they've been scanned, but I'm old school wanting to flip through the physical pages myself, even if it is an overpriced curiosity.

I searched for the novels and everywhere I found them, they were ten times that price. And I got my Game System for about that all told a decade ago, but no way I'd expect it to be so today. But again, eBooks are FAR better for me than printed ones anyway, so again I really appreciate the links. I'd like to read them just to know what people are talking about—but I don't explicitly need to "collect" them.

Had a crazy thought... what if we look back at that ROTWL EU map again. What if the "Part of Norsca" thing is not to scale with the other map? What if we view the maps in the novels as a "zoom in" on that part? Maps aren't always 100% accurate. […]

I'm not really deep into Warhammer lore, which is one reason I've had little to contribute to the thread. Since HQ has long since abandoned by GW and Hasbro doesn't have access to that universe anymore, I'm perfectly okay with the continuity in HQ being a little fuzzy. If places in the novels simply don't exist on other maps or have slightly (or even completely) different names in different places, I'm also okay with that.

If important details contradict, well, that is a problem. If they just don't quite agree … news travels strangely and by word of mouth, people are different in different places, and names and perspectives differ. That stuff adds charm. And if it doesn't fit into Warhammer, well, like I said, HeroQuest is in a world like the one of Warhammer, but perhaps … only just like it.

Pancho's problems with the geography break things for Warhammer. I'm not 100% certain if they do for HeroQuest in a world like Warhammer, but they might as well. If they don't, then all is well. If they do … there's an inconsistency and the novels cannot be strictly canon even to HQ itself.

I think the novels are best enjoyed when considered semi-canon; very loosely based on Heroquest but having some grounding in the world that we love. Maybe an alternate world or something.

I generally regard HeroQuest this way as a whole from Warhammer, if only because it frees us up a bit to set things in Milton Bradley's world based upon Games Workshop's or in Hasbro's going forward (but I'm still gonna laugh at "orc bard"), and generally go where we want with.

I mean there's nothing wrong with having things be non-canon, but at least some of the Warhammer canon may have been retconned here and there. That starts getting difficult to deal with.

[Kurgan]

Okay, so its as I thought... the MAPS can be made to fit, but the geography within the short story prose is nonsensical in terms of the Warhammer (3rd/4th edition that was out at the time) world. Interesting.

I understand what you mean about the Ebooks. If its a vision issue, I completely understand. Its nice there's another way you can experience it. See there's another thing they could do... just like the Star Wars (original) RPG was re-released, Hasbro (or whomever, maybe a rights issue) could re-release the three HQ novels as ebooks. Next best thing until then...

[iKarith]

I understand what you mean about the Ebooks. If its a vision issue, I completely understand. Its nice there's another way you can experience it. See there's another thing they could do... just like the Star Wars (original) RPG was re-released, Hasbro (or whomever, maybe a rights issue) could re-release the three HQ novels as ebooks. Next best thing until then...

In my case the books are a vision issue, yeah. The thing is, because the books are set in the Warhammer universe sort of I guess kinda maybe not canonly, they probably can't re-publish them even as eBooks. And you can't edit them to fit the new canon either, at least not easily, due to moral rights issues outside the US. And I'm not sure who published them either—they probably own the rights to the actual text. Reprinting those books now is probably even more complex than reprinting the game.

Intellectual property can be a real mess when you start having multiple stakeholders who were only in limited partnerships with each other. I'm just glad they're available for people to read. I'll see if I can help make them available in a better format.

If I do much more tinkering I'll have to change my hero…