Clan Myeri on film

I've updated my Fimir army page with new photos of the units. Here's a sample, the rest can be found here

Clan Myeri on film

The geography, regions and peoples of south west Albion (by Francis Kiri)

Imperial maps of west Albion tend to be labelled ‘marsh’, ‘bog’, ‘fen’. So few explorers land upon these forsaken shores, and fewer still remain having done so, that any detailed cartography of the area is unavailable and uncalled for. The inhabitants of these regions have little use for maps and instruments too rudimentary to attempt any but the most basic cartographical survey. From travels and conversations with local tribes we have attempted to piece together a rough outline of the territorial regions and key geographical features. Circles on the map represent human settlements, standing stones indicate places of interest and dolmen denote rumoured Fimir settlements. No one was willing to vouch for the exact location of any Fimir site and we deemed our expedition team too small and ill-equipped to try and discover a Fimm city for ourselves.

 Note: For ease of reading, this chart is oriented east (top) to west (bottom).

The coastline of south west Albion seems to be divided into two regions, Pernwold and Cairnwold. Wold, as far as I have been able to discern, simply means ‘region’. There are numerous ports (porthi) scattered along the coast and these seem to be relatively busy with trade to the northern parts of the Old World. Principle among the ports is that of Porthsmyth, situated at the mouth of the Ayefen river.

Further inland the landscape becomes bleaker, given over principally to moorland and marsh. This expanse is divided into three and it would appear that each region is the territory of a particular Fimir tribe. Human inhabitants rarely venture eastwards, and if they are forced to do so they skirt south through Bairnmot or north through the Boerdarlende. The largest of the moors is Darthemor (Mor means ‘clan’ in the Albion tongue, while ‘Darthe’ denotes the colour ochre. Possibly the Fimir of this region are ochre-hued, possibly the name originates from the bracken which colours the landscape a sandy brown). Darthemor contains several hill groups, from two of which spring the rivers Framm and Ayefen. These meet at a large body of water known as Drakkenmere. The hills are rumoured to be full of caves and the hillsides covered in standing stones of mysterious and unknown significance. Special mention should be made of the site known as Maelfean, ‘Hill of the source’. A few years back, we are told, a small craft aiming for Porthsmyth became hopelessly lost in thick mist and ended up in the Drakkenmere. Here their boat hit a submerged rock and sank. Travelling still in the wrong direction they worked their way eastwards up the Ayefern until it narrowed to a tiny stream. Nestled in the hills they observed from a distance the settlement of Maelfean. They describe a fortress of black stone and set upon the top of the highest crest. A great stone wall ringed the top of the hill, with a gate in the centre from which a track wound down the hill, following the course of the stream. There were cave mouths in the sides of the hills and to the east was what appeared to be a quarry site, presumably the source of the rock for the fort. At the base of the hill and around the quarry site were roundhouses and longhouses such as human clans might build and the travellers were tempted to approach and seek shelter for the night at the settlement. However, as they drew closer, and the night drew in, they could see the figures emerging from the huts. They describe the creatures they saw as ‘taller than a man, with barbed tails and a single eye’. The travellers managed to camp for the night undiscovered and made their way back along the Ayefen the following day, hewing a tree from woods around Drakkenmere and making an impromptu raft to carry them downstream, out of Darthemor. This is a significant discovery regarding the Fimir. Not only do we have one site where eyewitnesses attest to the existence of a Fimir stronghold, but we also see a unique occurrence in the existence of huts. Previously it has been thought that the Fimir live entirely within rock structures which front cave networks, but this has been based on examination of supposed habitations which have been deserted. It would seem the Fimir have either observed and made use of human design for their huts or that both humans and Fimir in this region were originally in closer communication.

The other two regions of marshland are Exenmor and Bodemeargh, both fed by the river Exe. Beyond these marshes lie Al Pernwaith and Rengolt, both sparsely inhabited by human tribes, principally the Damnonii at Al Dernholt and the Balgae in Verwutt. Of all the tribes we encountered, the Atrebodil were undoubtedly the strangest and most disturbing, as mentioned elsewhere, and I feel it is worth mentioning that their settlements are entirely within the region of Bairnmot, focussed around the settlement of Carmille and close to the standing stones at Bithkau. A fact, I feel, which is not unrelated to their bizarre behaviour. I venture this information so that any travellers to Albion may give these people a wide berth.

The geography, regions and peoples of south west Albion (by Francis Kiri)

The book of Fimm

Faeologist Francis Kiri, whose Faerie-hunting exploits are renowned throughout the Steampunk community and whose dried Faerie specimens are in high demand, has been busy travelling the Old World and Albion for information regarding the mythical Fimir...

Here's the lovely front cover, frontspiece and a page detailing the supposed hierarchy and caste system of the Fimir race. Work is ongoing on the full publication.

He has also unearthed a 'time spiral', supposedly depicting the history of the Fimir from the arrival of the Old Ones to the present day:

A sneak preview of Francis' introduction:

Throughout the Empire and Brettonia tales are told of sinister creatures which inhabit the fens, marshes and bogs of the Old World. To many these are fairy stories, told to frighten children and scare travellers gathered around a fire on a misty night, yet the wisest know that every fairy story has a root in fact, and some are truer than most would believe. So it is with the Fimir, one-eyed, sallow-skinned creatures which haunt remote swampland and prey on lost travellers, occasionally appearing suddenly to raid border villages and hamlets and disappearing as swiftly as they came. Long decades have passed since the last official record of a Fimir incursion yet wanderers in the fenland regions still discover deserted and ruined settlements which they attribute to these creatures. Still the Fimir are blamed for lost children, rustled livestock and ambushed supply wagons in certain areas of the Empire. In the forests and glades of Albion the villagers speak of the Fuathim, the ‘hateful ones’, who are the guardians of the waterways and must be appeased for safe passage through the wetlands.

Little is known for certain of the nature of the Fimir. Some scholars maintain they were once a race of humans, some of whom made an unholy pact with daemon princes and even the chaos gods themselves during the second chaos incursions. Others speculate they entered the world through the collapsed warp gates and are truly pure daemon. Still others say the Fimir were one of the early projects of the Old Ones, a primitive race of lizardmen, accidentally bred with a single eye and inherent female sterility and so rejected and cast aside by their creators. Those who say the Fimir were once human or were the pitiful result of genetic experimentation may be inclined to view their predicament with a degree of pity, whilst those who dwell on their daemonic heritage are far less sympathetic. Whatever speculation exists, a few facts are known about the Fimir. Firstly, their society seems to be based on a caste system, with members of each caste recognisable by physical traits. Secondly, Fimir female are sterile and so, in order to continue their species, they are forced to capture females of other species to propagate with. Their victims seem to be almost exclusively human, although a very few cases of elven abduction have been known. Quite possibly there have been more, but the elves prefer to keep such things unknown. Thirdly, Fimir are carnivorous. Their diet may consist mainly of animals which get trapped in the bogs and raided livestock from fenland settlements, but almost certainly human captives have met the same grisly fate and the Fimir may even turn cannibal if pressed by extreme need. Fourthly, when encountered in the open, Fimir are invariably swathed in clouds of mist. This is because sunlight is particularly uncomfortable for the Fimir and so they have developed an enchantment to generate a mystical cloud around themselves which diffuses the glare.

More myths which surround the Fimir include the tale that there is only one ‘fay city’ in which all Fimir in existence dwell, and their numbers are few. This city is built of black granite and does not exist entirely within the known world, being able to shift location to suit the needs of the Fimir. It is also said that the Fimir worship a chaos deity known as Balor, a one-eyed entity of enormous size and power. The legend is that it would take a dozen Fimir to lift Balor’s eyelid, and his gaze means instant death to all he looks upon.

Part of the reason that so little is known about the Fimir is that going unnoticed and operating covertly and mysteriously are vital to their survival. The race has dwindled close to extinction due to breeding problems and in-fighting between nobles. Should the Fimir attract enough attention to warrant a thorough search for, and attack upon, their settlements then they would almost certainly be annihilated. It is in their interests, therefore, to retain a mythical status and continue to exist as traveller’s nightmares and bogeymen. In order to reduce resistance when they raid the Fimir often sound their sorrowful uilleann pipes and their raucous carnyxes from the depths of the mist. At the sound of these instruments the wary inhabitants lock their doors and do not emerge until the sun is at its peak and the mists have fully cleared. There are, in fact, many, scattered settlements of Fimir across the Old World, though these are built principally of dark stone (although the exact material is usually chosen more for local availability than aesthetics) heaped in rough, low semblances of human castles. Beneath these fortresses, or ‘Sylphs’, the tunnels of the Fimir can run for miles, branching out into habitations and mines. In earlier days of their existence there was indeed only one great Fimir city, located somewhere in southern Albion.  They refer to this legendary city as Khulaine and many an adventurous Flaithmor has set off on a life quest to find it. None have returned to tell others of its location. The numbers of Fimir have been steadily decreasing over the centuries as more humans move from rural hamlets into the key cities of the Empire and most have now withdrawn to their homeland of Albion where isolated tribes are more plentiful and the threat of attack is lower.

Fimir society is rigidly structured in a caste system. A creature’s caste is usually apparent from birth and infants are brought up into one of five society groups.

The lowest caste is the Shearl. These are the smallest of the Fimir, little more than human sized, and typically have shorter maws and longer foreheads than their cousins. Shearl have short, blunt-ended tails. The Shearl are the servant caste of Fimir society, performing the menial, everyday tasks such as cooking, making clothing and armour and fetching and carrying for their masters.

More muscled than the Shearl, with tails that are often clubbed, are the Fimm. The largest proportion of Fimir society are the Fimm and warriors are drawn from their ranks. Fimm warriors are led by Finmor and are organised into the service of a specific noble, or Flaithmor. Possibly all a Flaithmor’s retinue may have been fathered by the noble, or they may have elected to join him after he beat a rival in combat or by subterfuge. Flaithmor have horned or spiked tails. It is possible, if unlikely, for a Fimm warrior to rise to a position of Flaithmor, at which point the warrior’s clubbed tail begins to sprout horns as part of a hormonal process similar to the colour change on a silverback gorilla. The elite of the Fimm may be picked by a Dirach or the Meargh to join the Fianna Fimm, or personal guard. Fianna are led by a Flaith, effectively ranking the same as a Flaithmor but without his own retinue. Some Fimm are ordained into the service of a deity, Balor or a variation of is common, but different Fimir clans have their own allegiances to chaos deities. All Fimir have something of the daemonic in them which grants them an inherent affinity with the stuff of magic but these Fimm are blessed, or cursed, with accentuated powers and are known as Druí. Druí form a group aside from their kin and do not pledge themselves to the service of a Flaithmor, at least openly, but may accompany a Fimir warband if the goal is in the interest of their chaotic lord.

Mistmor are the largest of the Fimir, being about the same size as a troll when upright (although the Mistmor naturally slouch). They are incredibly strong and unquestioningly obedient to their masters. Although the Fimir caste system’s emphasis on prowess places the Mistmor as a higher caste than the Fimm, in reality they are subservient to Flaithmor. Mistmor are rare and highly prized.

The fourth tier of the caste system is the Dirach. These large Fimir are horned and have smooth tails. They are regarded with fear by even the most powerful Fimm and are known as ‘Daemon Fiends’ by Old World villagers. The Dirach are mighty wizards. Each settlement may have a few Dirach, they tend to keep themselves apart from the politics of the Fimir, preferring to focus on the more important issue of the survival of the Fimir race. The Dirach are most frequently the individuals directing Fimir raids to acquire captives for breeding or sacrifice, without their firm grip on the clan the Fimm would probably doom themselves to extinction.

The final and highest tier is that of Meargh. Each clan is led by a single Meargh (Or hag queen), the only female Fimir in the settlement. Female Fimir children are extremely rare, and those that are born are usually killed to prevent a rival to the Meargh’s supremacy from rising. If a Meargh is growing elderly she may tolerate a single female child to be raised as a successor. If a Meargh dies without a successor the clan will split, with Flaithmor taking their own retinues to join other clans or go it alone. Fimir without a Meargh, even Dirach, do not survive long. When a Meargh’s successor comes of age she may choose to pledge allegiance to her ‘mother’, in which case she remains in an advisory role until the death of the Meargh, or she may take a detachment from the settlement to form an offshoot clan elsewhere.

Fimir in the north have developed good trading links with Hobgoblins, who value the ‘bog iron’ they mine. This is, in reality, tin, not iron. Fimir have a strong aversion to anything iron and prefer to wield weapons and wear accessories and armour made of flint, gold, silver or bronze which is procured for them by the Hobgoblins.

The book of Fimm

The history of the Fimm

Fimir history is notoriously vague. The warpstone WHFRP fan mag had an article suggesting an origin, but since I wanted the freedom to develop my own ideas I decided not to read a copy and to work from scratch, with a nod to other theories.

Fortunately Fimm Mc Cool was on hand to supply a potted history of the Fimir:

"Millennia ago, before humans, before even elves and dwarves, this world was very different. Much of it was covered with shifting quagmire and swamp, inhabited by reptilian animals and crude life forms. Into this rich source of life came the Great Old Ones. They had fled their world, which was being consumed by the ravages of chaos, unleashed by the Old Ones’ experiments in warp-gate technology, and were seeking a new home. Little did they realise how soon the cycle would repeat itself.

The Old Ones had enormous minds, they were great wizards and cunning artificers and they set about shaping the world to their whim and forming intelligent life to instruct as servants. Their first experiments with the reptilian beasts were unpromising, but then they had a breakthrough combining reptilian and amphibian forms and created bipedal, tough, intelligent creatures, sallow of skin and with a single eye and prehensile digits. The Old Ones taught them craft and instructed them in the ways of nature and initially it seemed this servant race was a success. As the centuries passed and their drones grew in wisdom (they were long-lived, some passing a thousand years in age) they noticed a change. Their creatures were becoming more independent, longing for freedom and beginning to form their own ideas, opinions and theories about their masters. The Old Ones realised that nurturing a race into knowing submissive servitude was heading for disaster and so the spawning process stopped. No more were created. The Old Ones had bred the race to be unable to reproduce naturally, ensuring that every creature produced was male, and so when they stopped the programme the doom of the species was sealed... or so they thought. The attention of the Old Ones turned to further experiments, eventually raising the lizardmen in a similar fashion, and then the elves and dwarves as privileged children, keeping them servile by love, not enforced obedience. Their original creations they cast adrift to wander until death in the forming wilderness of the world.

There was one of the Old Ones whose name was Balor. He was accounted among the most powerful of the race and was appointed as sentinel of the northern warp-gate and tasked to watch there day and night without rest, as such he was prevented from taking part in the creative shaping that engaged the rest of the Old Ones. Balor had a single eye in the front of his face, which he turned towards the warp. This eye never closed, never blinking or in sleep, and its direct gaze was death to any enemy he looked upon. In the back of his head he had another eye, so that he was still aware of the goings-on in the world he guarded. As the first-born of the Old Ones wandered northward Balor took pity on them. One-eyed himself, at least to their world, and denied the creative pleasure of offspring he saw in them an echo of himself and adopted them as his children, appointing them earthly guardians and servants of the northern gate. He named them ‘Formorii’, or ‘orphans’ and would accept no other servants sent by the Old Ones.

The Formorii loved Balor and served him without reticence as the years wore on, but their population was ageing and with no replacements the extinction of their species seemed imminent, and it was here that Balor erred. Maybe exposure to the stuff of the warp had twisted his judgement. Maybe the denial of a chance to create had made him over bold, maybe his love for the Formorii overcame his moral standing. Whatever the cause, Balor held captive members of a detachment of elves, primitive forms, not elves as we know them, which had been sent on an errand by the other Old Ones. And Balor instructed a handful of hand-picked Formorii how to interbreed with the elves. When the other Old Ones heard what their kinsman had done they were outraged and sent out a great army to destroy the Formorii, but Balor turned his body and gazed upon them with his dreadful eye and they were destroyed, and the north of the world burned to a charred wasteland. The moment of Balor’s turning was instantaneous, but it was enough for an entity of chaos, which had been lurking in the warp beyond, to creep into the world. No doubt Balor intended the creation of a new generation of Formorii to be an occasional event, or even one of a kind in order to produce females for the rest of the race, but this chaotic force latched onto their consciousnesses and awoke in them a terrible lust. Today, some may call this entity Slaanesh.

Seeing his children changed, Balor watched them ever more intently. Whenever a group would go abroad to try and find captives of other species for their own twisted breeding experiments he would turn his deadly eye upon them, and yet the urges that had been awakened in a race so long forced to undergo celibacy were strong. Balor’s intent gaze rendered the entire race very sensitive to light and so they began to shun daylight, preferring to move abroad by night, though even this did not deter Balor’s stare. As his attention focussed more on his errant children the forces of chaos mustered behind the warp-gates. And without the full attention of their guardian and the maintenance work of the Formorii, the gates fell. Chaos entered the world.

The Formorii fled to caves and wastelands across the north of the world, many were destroyed but those who had the awakening of Slaanesh within them were spared the destruction and survived the first incursion. When they emerged they had grown in strength and determination for the continuance of their race, striking deals with the lords of the warp for continued existence. Seeking to keep them in line the forces of chaos twisted their genetic makeup, radically decreasing the possibilities of producing female children, forcing them to continue their degenerate rampage in order to survive. They gave themselves a new name, the Fimir, or ‘adopted’, in a foul irony. They believed, for the most part, that Balor had, n fact, stepped aside to allow chaos through, bringing righteous retribution to the Old Ones who had denied them life and vindicating the behaviour of the Fimir. During this period the race mutated, producing five strains of creature which gave rise to a hierarchy based on physical and magical power. The lowest and weakest were the Shearl, quickly pressed into service as the Formorii had been of old. The most common retained the physical characteristics of the Formorii, albeit now infused with the daemonic, and were named the Fimm. The Mistmor stood taller and stronger than the Fimm, and initially retained intelligence, yet with the generations their cognitive ability dimmed and failed, a victim of warped mutation. The Dirach were the result of those Fimir who walked most closely with the daemons, possibly even interbreeding with them at times. They were as tall as Mistmor, horned and possessed of terrible magical ability. Some female Fimir were born despite the attempts of chaos to prevent them. These grew against strong oppression and soon became forged by tribulation into the most powerful of the Fimir. The Mearghs, as they became known, were even more powerful wizards than the Dirach, maybe the intervention of chaos leaked more magic into their blood than intended, and soon began to draw other Fimir in bands around them. They were proud and would not tolerate competition, nor would they accept the advances of Fimir males they considered inferior, and so over time grew sterile.

For all their allegiances with chaos and attempts to repopulate, the Fimir were decreasing in number. Elves had withdrawn from the extremities of the world (which they had only ventured into in service to the Old Ones, now disappeared) and attempts to interbreed with dwarves and even animals had proven unsuccessful. As their race waned once more one of the most powerful of the Meargh called for a united front. Her name was Annun and she had a plan. Annun’s clan lived in the far north of what is now Albion, in a fortress built of black granite and named Khulaine. Within this fortress, suspended over a great shaft at the heart of the castle, was a crystal, last remaining piece of the warp gates. Annun claimed that through this crystal, Balor spoke to her of a glorious future for his people. Balor’s act in stepping aside at the gate had earned him the high privilege of becoming one with the warp and even now his very life force was flowing through the magical essence in every Fimir. By learning to listen to his urging the Fimir would establish their race and subdue the world that had rejected them. In a little over two centuries the whole remainder of the Fimir clans had grouped around the crystal. Hostility was rife, especially among the Meargh who resented any who claimed authority over them, and a civil war threatened to break out. Annun summoned the clan leaders to a contest. Whoever could break a piece from the crystal would demonstrate they had the blessing of Balor to lead his people to triumph. Each Meargh was to take in turns to strike the stone, whoever broke a piece off would be crowned queen of the Fimir. Annun herself went first, but for days the Meargh struck without success. Then, as evening drew in on the fifth day, a hit from a Meargh named Morrigû shattered a piece from the side of the crystal. Yet the Fimir had not expected what happened next. Pure warp essence, enshrined within the stone which had powered the gates of the Old Ones, flooded the castle. The Fimir were engulfed in a wave of something not experienced before or afterward. All memory of what happened is lost, but it appears the entire race of the Fimir slept, enshrined in the castle, for five thousand years. During these years it is believed Balor spoke to each individually, setting a task for each clan and each individual to perform.

When they finally awoke, the world outside was much changed, as were the Fimir themselves. Numb, they staggered out of the castle to behold a world populated with new species. Factions divided, each claiming a different view of their situation. Some claimed this was punishment for marring the stone, new races would fulfil the role the Fimir were to have played. Others declared these new creatures were rich pickings provided by Balor. A fierce battle broke out and the Fimir drifted their separate ways away from the castle. Few survived the slaughter or the following decades in the radically changed climate. By far the largest clan to be lead away from Khulaine was headed by Morrigû herself, still clutching the piece of hewn crystal. Legend says that Morrigû was chosen to be the mother of the Fimir species, and so, probably alone of the race, she encouraged the birth of daughters who she taught and equipped to become clan leaders and form their own tribes as offshoots. Those recorded of her children are Fea, Neman, Badb and Macha. It is rumoured these clans keep strong ties and will aid each other if need arises, a rare claim for Fimir tribes.

In the Old World, the tale of the Fimir picks up again in a region known as the ‘Waterland’, where a Fimir, possibly a Dirach, calling himself Fimul courted and sired offspring with a woman named Maris. Whether this was a romantic affair as reported, or merely an idealised telling of yet another case of abduction and rape is open to debate. My source would not confirm or deny this legend, declaring it only to be a ‘possibility’.  If true it would explain resurgence in Fimir activity, one which has since declined. My source believes that the time is drawing near when all things spoken of by Balor in the ‘dreaming’ are coming to fulfilment, soon the crystal will call to the Fimir to return to Khulaine once more for the reckoning. Indeed, some may already have felt the call."

The history of the Fimm