No rolls for Battleshock while the Glottkin holds the field, Gore my boy
March 11, 2021 11:39 PM   Subscribe

ORSON: I have only had one real enemy in life that I know about, and that is John Houseman. Everything begins and ends with the hostility behind that ministerial benevolence. [Rolling unsuccessfully for charge on The Great Unclean One] Now I have two: John Houseman and the Great Horned Rat.
Gore Vidal and Orson Welles play Warhammer.
posted by MartinWisse (19 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh this is beautiful. I'll just have to borrow what a comment on the page said because it's put better than I ever could: "The combination of several elements I only vaguely understand, but it tickles my sense of humor so much that I feel like I understand them now on a SPIRITUAL level, if not a practical one."
posted by jklaiho at 1:16 AM on March 12, 2021 [2 favorites]


In my feckless youth, I was easily distracted by the many pointlessly changing colors and empty promise of knowledge to come from that charlatan Tzeentch, but now, aged and afflicted, aching and decaying, I know now that true wisdom comes from the suffering, that the suffering and decay is what feeds life itself, and that all real knowledge of the world is to be found in the domains of Papa Nurgle, and he is a generous lord.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:29 AM on March 12, 2021 [6 favorites]


There is a .jpeg that indicates joyous surprise when recognizing a Warhammer reference. Know now that that .jpeg is engraved upon my heart.
posted by LegallyBread at 4:15 AM on March 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


Brilliant. I know nothing of Warhammer and a fair bit about Vidal and Welles. Can Warhammer have more than two players? If so, they should do a sequel where Norman Mailer and William F Buckley join in.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:19 AM on March 12, 2021 [9 favorites]


Beautiful.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:22 AM on March 12, 2021 [1 favorite]




I knew who wrote this before seeing the link URL. Daniel Ortberg has a voice.
posted by dismas at 7:02 AM on March 12, 2021 [2 favorites]


Daniel changed his last name to Lavery recently, FYI.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 7:39 AM on March 12, 2021 [4 favorites]


Oh shit, of course he did. Daniel Lavery, of course.
posted by dismas at 8:19 AM on March 12, 2021


Nurgle is generous, capacious, nurturing, unafraid of either death or life — most men are afraid of life, Gore, you chief among them, you quake in terror at the prospect of being forced to reckon with it — and unafraid of the belly, the gut, where resolve and shit and reality are ever-brewn by flesh. Never fear the flesh, Vidal, and you’ll learn true vitality.
posted by doctornemo at 8:28 AM on March 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


Anchor the movement to something real. That’s the difference between a battle and a couple of grown men waving figurines about.
I can't help with the Warhammer lore, but for here's Vidal's account of his lunches with Welles, which I learned about from someone else on the blue recently.

There are also character sheets for Welles and Vidal.

Love the special power "Joseph Cotten is on the set"
posted by mark k at 8:33 AM on March 12, 2021 [2 favorites]


Thanks to his tweets, I have learned what a Sloppity Bilepiper is, and in fact have lain awake thinking about it.

I had thought Warhammer was for power gamers, but now I am interested in it. Almost a good thing I have no one to play it with, or I would have to buy miniatures—
posted by Countess Elena at 9:07 AM on March 12, 2021


How in all the Mortal Realms does Gore Vidal not play Hedonites of Slaanesh?

It’s now my official headcanon that Vidal has a Hedonites army as his other choice, and he plays against Buckley’s Stormcast Eternals.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:38 AM on March 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


Norman Mailer plays Beasts of Chaos (Brayherd). Big, shaggy, horny goats looking for a brawl or something to tear down and piss on while trumpeting about how badass they are, spit flying.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:33 PM on March 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


For those who don’t speak Warhammer:

Both Vidal and Welles are playing armies aligned with the powers of Chaos. There are five major Dark Gods, plus the worship of Chaos Undivided. The four major ones are:

Khorne: God of rage and murder, blood letting and skull-taking.
Tzeench: God of Change. Magic and Sorcery, mutation and arcane wisdom. Ever renewing vitality through change.
Nurgle: God of Decay. Filth and disease, pox and plague, the acceptance of the end of all things
Slaanesh: God of Excess, Prince of Pleasure. More. More. More. Sex, drugs, pain, pleasure, sensation, power, hedonism, violence, degredation, excellence, depravity, intensity, urgency... you name it, Slaanesh want’s MORE.

Welles’ army is pledged to Father Nurgle. A Great Unclean One is a greater demon of Nurgle. Greater Demons are powerful avatars of their god’s, their physical manifestation in the real world.

The Chaos Gods also have their heralds, captains and leaders among their lesser demons. Don’t let the title fool you, heralds like Poxbringers proclaim their lord’s presence with more than flags.

The mortals who follow Nurgle become diseased and bloated and rotting, but because they have surrendered to the inevitable, Nurgle makes them immune to pain and suffering at the same time. The Glottkin were a family of triplets one; now they’re mutant monstrosities, the largest carrying his two brothers on his back.

Vidal’s army is different because the Skaven are rat-men who come scurrying in endless hordes. The Skaven worship The Great Horned Rat, the 5th major Dark God, and one worshipped by no other race than his “children”.

Where most armies must traverse between the Mortal Realms via the Realmgates, the Skaven gnaw holes in reality and tunnel their way there. There are many Clans among the skaven, including one of plague monks who honor both The Horned Rat as well as Nurgle (and get that NURGLE keyword on their warscrolls for cross-army synergies).

The Grey Seers are the prophets of the Great Horned Rat, and are outside the Clan system. The spell he casts, “Vermintide”, does pretty much what it says on the label.

Lastly, the Gloomspite Gits are drugged-up goblins from down-below in the tunnels under the Mortal Realms. Yeah; ludicrous. Fun, but definitely for the deranged.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:32 PM on March 12, 2021 [7 favorites]


Next up: Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Zizek play Settlers of Catan.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 4:33 PM on March 12, 2021 [3 favorites]


I had thought Warhammer was for power gamers, but now I am interested in it. Almost a good thing I have no one to play it with, or I would have to buy miniatures—

There's a substantial subset of people who buy Warhammer miniatures purely for the assembly and painting (I'm one of them), and most players are in it for fun, though power gamers do exist. I still like to build up themed armies because I'm hanging onto the delusion I'll actually get to play again one day (maybe when the kids are older!) There are a range of boxed games - i.e. a board game with minis, such as Warhammer Quest - that can be a smaller starting point.

Games workshop minis are very high quality. There's a reason it's called 'plastic crack' by hobbyists though, and while you don't need to make as much money as Welles did, it wouldn't hurt...
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 7:44 AM on March 13, 2021 [2 favorites]


My mother was Orson Welles's secretary and assistant while he was in London in the late 50s or early 1960s. I wrote a number of Warhammer novels for Games Workshop. It is a small world, and the loose joins are everywhere.
posted by Hogshead at 8:05 AM on March 13, 2021 [8 favorites]


Metafilter: It is a small world, and the loose joins are everywhere.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 11:23 AM on March 15, 2021


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