What looks like a Fyerslayer, fights like a Fyerslayer and drinks like a Fyerslayer? Not Gotrek Gurnison, apparently.
With Verminslayer on the shelves, let’s remind ourselves of some of the adventures everyone’s favourite foul-mannered, porcine slab of a duardin dwarf has gotten up to so far.
Gotrek first burst into the Mortal Realms with the audio drama Realmslayer by David Guymer. This and the follow-up, Blood of the Old World, are a series of hour long mini-stories that see Gotrek exploring the Mortal Realms (the setting for Age of Sigmar), having been trapped in the Realm of Chaos since before the destruction of the Old World (the setting for… The Old World).
The story gives those of us who are new to the character of Gotrek, having not read the original Fantasy Battles era stories, a quick introduction to the Slayer. He’s a cantankerous, brash know-it-all with poor hygiene and a penchant for violence, but also with a strong moral code of his own. At the heart of Gotrek is a fascinating paradox: He is a massive failure, because he can’t help but succeed in everything he does.
As a Slayer, Gotrek has taken a vow to die a worthy death, so that he might atone for some past sin. All he can think of is clearing his name by dying in some sort of blaze of glory, so throws himself into the heart of any and every battle he can get himself mixed up with, the slimmer the chances of success, the better. The problem is, Gotrek is very good at killing and not very good at dying, as hard as he might try. Not even centuries of battling his way through the countless horrors of the Realm of Chaos could find him the doom he wanted.
As a double slap in the face, Gotrek now finds out that not only has he lived longer than he ever should have, but he has also outlived near enough everyone he’s ever known. He has even outlived his home world. It’s understandable, then, that he’s in a perpetually bad mood.
The funny thing is, everyone who ever remembered what he did to disgrace his name in the first place is now gone. Gotrek could quite easily make for himself a new life in a new world, but he made an oath, and he’s going to keep it. Interestingly, the actual crime that Gotrek committed, that first disgraced his name, is never spoken of throughout the whole series so far, despite, supposedly, being Gotrek’s whole motivation for what he does. The guilt and disgrace has become the point, not the making amends!
Gotrek books are a great way of getting into Age of Sigmar novels. For a start, Gotrek is exploring the Realms for himself, being introduced to the main players, so you get to follow him around and learn about the setting, but it’s also a great introduction to the character and to the general tone of Age of Sigmar as a whole; gritty, violent, ridiculous, funny, but also dealing in interesting themes from strange perspectives. You can do far worse than reading the Gotrek books if you want to make a start on getting to know AOS lore.
At the start of Realmslayer, we find Gotrek in a Fyerslayer prison during a Skaven assault, in which the ratmen steal an important ur-gold rune. Gotrek picks up a Fyerslayer greataxe and an unwanted Fyerslayer devotee, who believes he is some sort of reincarnation of Grimnir (a god whom Gotrek particularly dislikes,) and heads off to retrieve the rune.
He also picks up a particularly nasty competitor, a Khainite assassin named Maleneth. She is a member of the Order of Azyr and has been tasked with retrieving the rune. She is as cold and vicious as you expect from a devotee of the murder god. This is particularly evidenced by the fact she carries the blood of her former mistress, whom she herself killed, around her neck. Her mistress’ soul, which is trapped inside the vial of blood, speaks to her throughout her journey with all the encouragement and positivity you can imagine coming from an embittered old murder witch strapped around the neck of the person who killed her.
Maleneth spends most of the course of Realmslayer trying to outwit Gotrek and get to the rune first. That is, until Gotrek is forced to hammer the rune into his own body (but is still no Fyerslayer!) Maleneth is then forced to accompany the odious dwarf wherever he goes waiting for him to die so that she can snatch the rune from his corpse. And If Maleneth has to be the one to help him die, then so be it.
Realmslayer is a simple story, wonderfully written and engaging at every step. I’m not a big listener of audio dramas, by which I mean, this is the first one I’ve ever listened to, but I had a perfect sense of what was going on. Guymer put the world into words perfectly, and then the actors and audio engineers brought his words to life equally well. This has now been converted into novel form, if that’s more your thing, but I would definitely recommend the audio form too. Plus, you can get some hobbying done while you’re listening.
And when you think of loud, brash, over-the-top, bearded men, who is the first person you’re going to think of to play Gotrek in the audio drama? Brian Blessed’s performance is great. It’s not all just shouting and swearing either, Gotrek is a character with a vulnerable side, and Blessed brings this to life really well. In fact, in the next novel, Ghoulslayer by Darius Hinks I could still hear Brian Blessed’s voice loud and clear every time Gotrek opened his mouth.
Being unable to find his doom during the events of Realmslayer, in Ghoulslayer, Gotrek decides to go looking for a punch up with Nagash, god of undeath. This takes him into Shyish, the realm of death, where an ancient civilization, which has used arcane means to remain hidden from Nagash for centuries, has finally been exposed by the great necromancer’s Necroquake. This opens them up to attack from the deluded but deadly Flesh Eater Courts, who bring the nation to the very brink of destruction before Gotrek shows up to save the day.
I love the direction Hinks takes the characters. Gotrek is a man with a purpose – to die a glorious death – but he can’t really fulfill that purpose so has to come up with another one instead. He decides his reason for living will be to punch a god. It’s the stupidest motivation for a character you can imagine, but that’s the whole point. Gotrek is lost, so he runs off on any fool’s errand he can justify to himself. However, in the process of doing this he does a great amount of good, saving whole civilizations and conquering evil.
There are also some great battle scenes, as well as spectacular (under)world-building and a cast of interesting characters (as you’d expect from Hinks.) The kingdom being attacked by the Flesh Eaters is a really interesting civilization, conceptually speaking, based around their ancestors, whose spirits they are protecting from Nagash. Whilst they’re not a faction in the AOS game, they have enough depth to them in the novel that they almost feel as if they should be.
The portrayal of the Flesh Eater Courts was really well done as well, creepy, funny and terrifying in equal measures. We meet King Galan, the noble king and commander in chief of the Hounds of Dinan, a fictitious chivalrous kingdom (entirely of the Flesh Eater Court’s invention) who are currently in the process of putting down a rebellion of barbarians who have, so far, rejected every offer of peace from the gracious king.
We also meet a new companion of Gotrek’s, Trachos, a Stormcast Eternal who has been through one too many reforgings and is gradually losing his already tenuous grip on his mental faculties. However, one thing Trachos does see clearly is Gotrek’s inherent worth and value to the Mortal Realms. Whereas Maleneth regards Gotrek as an obstacle to her obtaining the rune, and she would rather see him dead and the rune in the hands of the Order of Azyr, Trachos believes Gotrek himself will have an important role to play in the salvation of the realms.
Gotrek’s relationship with Maleneth also develops really nicely in Ghoulslayer. Indeed, I think it becomes the foundation of the next three books. The two utterly hate each other, and Malenth still waits for her opportunity to kill Gotrek and take the rune, yet the two begin to develop a respect for each other, and Maleneth even begins to realise, with Trachos’ help, that there maybe there is something special about the stinking dwarf after all.
Having failed to give Nagash a hiding, going into the next book in the series, Gotrek decides his new fixation will be to remove the master rune lodged in his chest. He can feel Grimnir trying to commandeer his body every time he uses it, and he refuses to be the patsy of any god, so he wants it out. This becomes the catalyst for the events of Gitslayer, when we see Gotrek, Maleneth and Trachos travel to Chamon to seek out help from the Kharadron Overlords. If anyone can help Gotrek remove the rune it would be the greatest metallurgists in the realms.
Maleneth isn’t happy, believing that the greedy sky-duardin would only seek to take the rune once they had removed it, and frustrate her mission to return it to Azyr, so she does everything she can to thwart the mission. This drives the tensions between her and Gotrek to fever pitch. It makes for some great reading.
At the same time as Gotrek and Maleneth’s relationship is becoming even more toxic, an ambitious grot by the name of Scragfang decides to kidnap Maleneth in an effort to lure Gotrek to his layer, so that he and his Gobbapalooza buddies can kill him and take the rune. Little do they know that Gotrek has since discovered Maleneth’s efforts to sabotage his attempts to remove the rune and could not hate her more. Indeed, they are in the process of trying to kill one another when the grots turn up to kidnap her.
The grots are dealt with even more amazingly by Hinks than the ghouls in the preceding book, capturing the humour and horror inherent within the Moonclans’ mythos so well. It’s very much reminiscent of Andy Clark’s Goomspite.
One of the problems with Gotrek stories is a similar one to Stormcast stories: There is simply no possibility of him dying; he’s just too strong to fail. However, by this point in the series you start getting invested in Gotrek’s companions, who are certainly not beyond getting killed off, so I really found myself getting involved in what was going on, more so than in the previous books.
The third Hinks book in the Gotrek series is Soulslayer, also by Hinks, and a real climax in the series so far. Gotrek decides he no longer wants to punch a god, or get rid of the rune, or find some long-lost-axe, or some other bullshit mission, but rather he determines he wants to kick his fellow dwarfs into shape and actually try to help in the mortal realms. In particular, he has heard rumours of a Fyerslayer lodge that once protected a series of villages along the coast, but has now retreated to its magmahold, neglecting the land to the ravishes of Chaos and Destruction.
Gotrek and Maleneth show up at the coast to seek out, and sort out, these cowardly Fyerslayers, and are met with a strange sight; a village that has been sacked by a mysterious enemy, leaving the ‘survivors’ as soulless wrecks. The two head up the nearby volcano to search out the reclusive Fyerslayers, and there they discover a broken and demoralized lodge.
Periodical mystical storms that kill their kin (or leave them in the same, soulless state as the villiagers earlier) and wreck their fort, have made the Fyerslayers nervous about stepping outside their front doors. As of yet, no one knows that at the heart of every one of these storms is an Idonth Deepkin incursion, using magic to wipe the Fyerslayer’s memory of the attacks afterwards.
It turns out that this is all a part of an Idoneth plot to draw out Gotrek. They believe Gotrek’s soul to be a superior prize in their never-ending quest to obtain souls, to replace the ones their young are born without. So, by attacking the Fyerslayers, and traumatizing them into becoming secluded in their fortress, they hope to lure Gotrek into coming along to kick the Fyerslayers into shape, at which point they’ll nab him.
As far as nonsensical, convoluted villain plans go, this one is pretty dumb. Even the goblin in the last story had a better plan than this. Gotrek has no link to the Fyerslayer lodge and has, so far, shown little interest in helping Fyerslayers out, so it seems a little far-fetched as a plan. However, this is a crazy good novel, so I’m proposing we turn a blind eye. If you’re willing to let the Emperor off the hook for leaking the actual plans to the second Death Star’s deflector shields to the Rebels, or if you’re willing to forgive Gruber in Die Hard for having no realistic escape plan, then I think we can agree we’ll let Hinks off the hook for this terrible Idoneth plot.
This book gives us a good insight into Idoneth society, an aristocratic and deeply unequal one. The eyeless, soulless thralls serve the will of those blessed with souls at birth. In this particular enclave, something of a civil war is brewing over how Gotrek’s soul is to be used, when captured.
One faction wants to add it to the general pool, to give the thralls a powerful, but temporary, boost. The other faction wants to use it to put an end to the Idoneth curse altogether, to end the need for Idoneth to steal souls for survival, to end the inequalities in Idoneth society and to raise them from the depths and back into Teclis’ good favours.
Funnily enough, it’s the first one, the one who wants to maintain the status quo and keep the thralls enslaved, that we’re supposed to be rooting for. They’re the ones Gotrek ultimately teams up with.  Not the ones who want to put an end to slavery and soul piracy.
Ethics always get murky around the Idoneth Deepkin, and that’s why I love their lore so much. Is it okay to murder someone and steal their soul if it’s between you and them? What if it’s between you and hundreds of them? If Teclis did you the dirty of creating you without a soul, are you justified in raiding innocent towns and villages for replacements? I want an Idoneth novel to make me stop and think ‘hang on, why am I rooting for these assholes?’ and that’s exactly what Soulslayer makes me do.
What I particularly love about this story is where Gotrek’s at in terms of his latest fixation. He’s not wanting to fight a god, or talk to a long-dead friend, or find an axe that might not exist anymore. His mission is now much more grounded in reality. He wants to help his kin and make a tangible difference in the realms. Despite being something of an immovable object, we see that Gotrek has actually had quite a character arc since the start of the series. He’s more grounded and realistic, coming to terms with his new life situation and not living so much in the past.
In Soulslayer we see Gotrek at his most vulnerable and relatable – maybe even likable? He might still go on about the Old World and, of course, the Fyerslayers aren’t as good at being dwarfs as the dwarfs he once knew, but we see Gotrek now learning to embrace his new reality, which he had always had a struggle doing in previous books. He even makes a few friends along the way, among the Fyerslayers.
But it is also in this book that we see the climax of the love-hate relationship with Maleneth. Hinks handles it magnificently. Maleneth comes to believe that Gotrek is worth more than his rune, just as Trachos said, and that he has a purpose to play in the realms, even if he is still the most disgusting and loathsome person she has ever met. Judging by Gotrek’s change of tact, from chasing nonsensical quests to actually trying to make a difference in the Realms, it would seem her newfound view of Gotrek’s worth has rubbed off on Gotrek als.
On a few occasions there is description of Maleneth taking her place, during a battle, to fight at Gotrek’s weaker side.  It’s a great image. There’s no tenderness in their relationship, but they’re good together, especially when there’s violence involved. But the relationship isn’t forced. Things are still volatile and toxic. At any given moment you can just as easily imagine Maleneth walking away from Gotrek as sticking a knife in his back, or sacrificing herself to save him. It’s just so well-written and compelling. This is also the point when we see Maleneth and Gotrek part company, and it’s a poignant and moving moment.
Blightslayer, the fifth book in the series, however, has none of that. I really like Richard Strachan as a writer. Blood of the Everchosen is a masterpiece that amply showcases his considerable writing chops, but I really struggled to get behind Blightslayer – and I’m normally a total sucker for anything Nurgle.
Maybe if Gotrek was entirely episodic, with no real throughline between novels, then it might have worked as a stand-alone story (although, there are internal problems with the book.) However, as a new entry following Hink’s magnificent trilogy of characterful Gotrek books, it just falls flat and fails to build on any of the work gone before.
One big problem is the loss of Maleneth. I’m not just being reactionary at losing a character I liked. Maleneth’s arc was perfect and the Gotrek-Maleneth story couldn’t have carried on in the same way and remained as engaging as it was. But their relationship had been the mainstay of the series so far, and it was so well handled that it needed to be replaced with something equally meaningful. Instead, we got Amara.
Amara is a Sigmarite warrior priest who, following the annihilation of her Dawnbringer Crusade, has turned her back on Sigmar. She descends into a self-destructive spiral, going from village to village denouncing the gods and getting her ass kicked by the offended pious in the process. As an ex-priest myself, I’m a real sucker for stories about priests renouncing their faith, and initially I was really intrigued by Amara.
However, what could be an interesting character exploration ultimately goes nowhere. There are so many depths to be plumbed in a character like Amara, but “she’s sad and mad with Sigmar because he didn’t answer her prayers” doesn’t really do it.
Another massive, missed opportunity is that Amara is a pacifist, having renounced her hammer along with her faith. Again, there are so many interesting dimensions here. For a start, the fact that violence and faith are so intertwined in the Warhammer universe (and maybe even in the real world) that you can’t renounce one without the other. But, also, how does one actually go about being a pacifist in a universe defined by perpetual war, especially when you’re hanging out with such an avid violence-seeker as Gotrek?
One doesn’t. By the end of the book, Amara is happily beating up Blightlords and praying to Sigmar as if she’d never fallen away, and there isn’t a lot of development in between to show us her journey back to faith. I wasn’t convinced by her renouncement of Sigmar and violence in the first place, and I was even less convinced by her renouncement of her renouncement. I just felt she was an extremely underdeveloped character, and her motivations for doing things were ‘the plot needs me to do this.’
Amara’s relationship with Gotrek is equally unconvincing for me. There is nothing like the delicious tension you find between Gotrek and Maleneth, which was built and earned over the course of numerous adventures.  Amara and Gotrek, however, become BFFs almost instantly. By the middle of the book, it seems as if they have known each other for years. It feels totally forced and rushed. The strength of emotion they feel for each other by the end of the book just doesn’t ring true.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Blightslayer, though, is Gotrek himself. None of the character development that has taken place so far is evident. For a start, he’s back to the bullshit, meaningless missions. He wants to find a special axe, which he has no clues as to its whereabouts or even reason to believe it even exists anymore. Considering in the last book he had taken upon himself a more realistic and useful purpose, this is a massive step backwards for the character.
In some ways, this would make sense. Maybe without Maleneth present to ground him in the reality of the Mortal Realms he is drifting once again, living in the past, but there is nothing in the text to suggest that this is actually what’s happening. In fact, other than feeling a bit sad, there is nothing to suggest Maleneth’s departure has had any impact on him whatsoever.
Now that I’ve got my gripe out of the way I can honestly say that everything else in the book is great. The writing itself is wonderful, and the setting into which the characters find themselves is perfect. In fact, the setting itself is possibly one of my favourite of the whole series. The villains are also wonderful, again, probably my favourite so far.
Kranzinnport is a coastal city in Ghyran, and a very important one in terms of trade. One day a stinking island rises out of the sea just off the coast. It isn’t long until pestilence and disease starts spreading on the mainland, closely followed by daily raids from Blightking pirates who kidnap scores of civilians at a time, taking them back with them to the island.
Rot flies guard the entrance to the city, and beasts of Nurgle slop around in the sewars, waiting to make (and break) new friends out of anyone stupid enough to venture underground. It’s all part of the schemes of Bilgeous Pox, a Rotbringer Sorcerer intent on using the civilians of Kranzinnport to build a massive filth pit to summon the Grandson, a particularly massive and powerful Great Unclean One.
It’s great to see the servants of Nurgle coming to life in all their fetid glory. Maggotkin is my main army, and having painted and played them for a few years, I am not in any way disappointed in how Strachan brings them to life on the page. They are characterful and haunting, and exactly what I want to see. He’s a master at writing Chaos characters, and now, thanks to this book, I need to start a second Nurgle army of blight pirates.
Despite my earlier grumbles around how the book fits into the series, this is still a really good read, and I wouldn’t shy away from reading it at all. It’s entertaining, the villains are great and the world is amazingly brought to life.
I’ll be interested to see where the story goes from here. I’ve got high hopes for Verminslayer, now that David Guymer is back in the driving seat. So we’ll see what happens there!
Conclusion
Gotrek is the out-of-touch Boomer of the Mortal Realms. The world around him has moved on and he doesn’t understand the changes, so concludes they must be for the worse. He’s, basically, your Grandad; pining after the days where you could leave your doors unlocked, play in the streets and smack your kids, when boys were boys and girls were in the kitchen, and when homophobia, sexism and Polio were everywhere. Gotrek is blissfully ignorant in his delusions of the ‘good old days’.
He’s also that guy at your local games club who keeps on banging on about how much better Fantasy Battles was than Age of Sigmar, and no matter what you say won’t hear a word to the contrary, and fair play to Black Library for giving those people a bit of a gentle roasting.
Change is scary. Gotrek may have faced down half the realm of chaos, and he may be the first to dive headlong into any enemy army he comes across, but he does it because he’s frightened. He’s the most scared character in all the Mortal Realms. He’s scared of irrelevance, of not knowing what’s going on, of ignominy and anonymity.
I’ve heard the criticism that Gotrek is just a shouty, pig-headed brute, and as a result his books are unreadable. But, whilst that summation of the character isn’t wrong, a subtler reading of him reveals a fascinating perspective on human nature, aging and the search for meaning and purpose.
If you like great fight scenes, read these books. If you like interesting character explorations, read these books. If you like the irreverent, horrific and humorous tone of Age of Sigmar, read these books. Just go and read these books.
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