Narrative: Understanding how the Mortal Realms Work in Age of Sigmar

Welcome to a Narrative post! Usually on these kinds of posts I'd talk about my own custom lore for the game, but I've noticed in a lot of online discussions that there's a lot of confusion when it comes to the Mortal Realms in Age of Sigmar and how they work. Of course there's excellent online resources for those who'd like something more in depth, but I've brought something new to the table: quickly drawn sketches comparing our Solar System to the Mortal Realms! 

Now before we get started, I have some official sources for you, both from Phil Kelly, the head lore guy for Age of Sigmar: 

Exploring the Mortal Realms

A Traveler's Guide to the Mortal Realms

Both are excellent videos that give a little bit more color to this universe we enjoy, but even still I see some confusion, so I'd like to bring things back to something we can all understand: the Solar System. A disclaimer as well: not every single realm works in the exact same way, this serves more as a simple generalization for you to be able to visual how the realms look. 

We know that the Solar System is comprised of the Sun, 8 planets (sorry Pluto), and various other heavenly bodies, like the asteroid belt, various moons and dwarf planets like Ceres. All these bodies hang in what we call space, but for our purpose lets call that space the Aetheric Void. From here on out those are interchangeable. So we have 8 planets, separate worlds but all existing in the same universe, orbiting about a central point, the Sun, all floating in the Aetheric Void which is suffused with cosmic radiation or what we can call magic. You can travel from planet to planet, but that takes a lot of time and energy, using pretty advanced technology that our Medieval ancestors didn't have access too. You can also see other planets, but the distance is so great they look like tiny specks in the sky. 

Now I want you to take those heavenly spheres and squash them so that they're flat. Congratulations you are now a Flat Earther. The previous rules apply though, they all still exist in the same region, floating in the Aetheric Void which is suffused in magic. But now you're starting to have something that looks like the Mortal Realms we know and love. Mercury, as close to the sun as it is, would be a flat, fiery plane, which sounds like Aqshy. Jupiter would be gaseous, but if you could walk on it, you would occasionally have rain made of diamonds, and Saturn still has its great rings, which makes some of the things happening in Age of Sigmar not seem so crazy. These flat planes are still enclosed in what are called, Realmspheres, similar to how the Milky Way galaxy is a flat spiral but still has a sphere around it filled with rogue stars and gases. 

So instead of planets, lets call them realms now. Now you have 8 realms orbiting about the Sun, plus some other minor dwarf planets and such, which let's call sub-realms. 

From here on, we have to ignore some laws of physics, not that we weren't doing so already. Take all of your planets/realms, and have them orbit the sun all at the same distance, but equally spaced. Almost like a wheel, a wheel of magic. Add some inhabitants to each realm, whose cultures and temperaments would all be vastly different, and boom, there you have it, that's the mortal realms. 

Take each planet/realm, of which there are conveniently 8, and give them new names, let's say Aqshy, Shyish, Ghur, Azyr, Chamon, Ghyran, Hysh and Ulgu. Oh and while we're at it, lets replace that pesky sun with something called the All Points, more on that in a bit. You may ask how does day and night work now? Well what if we took two of those realms and made them orbit each other, like a twin pair of suns, except one is light and the other dark. That's what Hysh and Ulgu do; when Hysh is in front, you have day. When Ulgu is in front you have night.

The only issue we have now is that travel between each realm is incredibly difficult.  

Oh look Realmgates! Portals between each realm! Now you can hop from planet to planet without having to spend a lot of time and effort traveling through all of that nasty in between stuff. Such an ability would be incredibly valuable, so much so that some might even fight a war over it. What about those All Points you mentioned earlier? Well, the importance of that location is that it contains Realmgates to all of the other realms, making it a highway to everywhere. Seems like a very important place, so important that perhaps the person who destroyed the previous world might want to make his summer home there. How all these Realmgates came to be here? No one knows yet, that hasn't quite been revealed in the lore. 

As a final piece to the puzzle, I will tell you how realms work and how anybody could live on them. The closer you are to the center, the more normal things are (except in Shyish, where that's backwards, thanks Nagash). This is essentially where you'll find the Old World style of Warhammer, so if that's the type of game you want to have, just set it in the center of the realm. However, the further towards the edge that you travel, the more wild magic gets, and this is where you get the crazier parts of the Age of Sigmar universe. Lastly, those sub-realms I mentioned early can still interact with the other realms. Aqshy has a moon called Orb Infernia, and Hysh/Ulgu have the Hidden Gloaming. 

To summarize: So we have 8 planets, or realms, separate worlds but all existing in the same universe, orbiting about a central point, the All Points, all together floating in the Aetheric Void which is suffused with magic. You can travel from planet to planet, but that takes a lot of time and energy, using pretty advanced technology, or you can use Realmgates to instantly cover those distances. Little sub-realms exist as well, which are similar to our moons and dwarf planets. You can also see other realms, but the distance is so great they look like small just like Jupiter is huge but looks like a tiny star in the sky. The closer you are to the center of a realm the more normal it is, and the farther you get the more magical. 

Well I hope that helped to clear up any confusion, if it didn't, take it up with Games Workshop and their confusing setting. 

-The Space Dinosaur