Warhammer History: The Gods and Daemons of Law
In Warhammer’s earliest days, it was intended that the forces of Law and Chaos should co-exist, opposing each other in a never-ending war.
As Michael Moorcock had already discovered, though, the gods of Chaos are a lot more interesting than their lawful counterparts. The only trace of the gods of Law are a couple of miniatures and a few mentions in early Citadel publications and the first edition WFRP rulebook. For the last 30 years or more, the gods of the Old World have been the main opposition to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos.
To my knowledge, only three gods of Law were ever created for Warhammer, and all are described in the first edition WFRP rulebook.
Alluminas was the first, created by Rick Priestley in his draft of the WFRP rules that was waiting for me at the Games Workshop Design Studio in 1986. It (for gender pronouns seem unfitting) took the form of a cold and unchanging light, exemplifying a very static kind of order that is demonstrated by the fact that anyone struck by the light is paralyzed.
Arianka first appeared in the Third Citadel Compendium in 1985. Popular writers John Wagner and Alan Grant were hired to create a Warhammer-themed comic, and the result was the short-lived The Quest of Kaleb Daark. It was not clear what Arianka stood for, but she took the form of a beautiful young woman lying in a glass coffin in the city of Praag, awaiting the lost crystal keys that can free her. Like Kaleb Daark and his Chaotic patron Malal, Wagner and Grant retained rights to the character of Arianka, and all three were quietly dropped from Warhammer canon as Games Workshop set about establishing total ownership of their intellectual properties. Her brief mention in the first edition WFRP rulebook was her only appearance in the lore.
Solkan was my creation. As I worked on the “Religion and Belief” chapter of WFRP 1, I decided that the existing gods of law were too abstract – too “waffy,” to use the Studio slang term – to be of very much use in the game. Shamelessly stealing the name and image of Robert E. Howard’s Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane, I created a patron for witch hunters and all others who sought to take the fight to Chaos. As Warhammer lore developed over the next few years, though, Sigmar took over the role of witch-hunter god, and Solkan was effectively made redundant. I had some plans to introduce a secretive cult of Solkan in the White Dwarf Marienburg series, whose members were even more fanatical and frightening than the witch hunters of Sigmar, but that never came to pass.
By the time I left Games Workshop in October 1990, all three of these deities were effectively stricken from canon. I have never heard of any other gods of Law being mentioned in Games Workshop publications since then, but there are several fan-written interpretations online.
So why am I posting about the gods of Law after all this time? Am I going to create a whole lot of new, unofficial deities for a game that already has plenty? No. I was prompted to write this post by a couple of requests to cover these two miniatures – “Demons of Law” (the “Daemon” spelling had not yet been adopted) released in the C34 Demons and Elementals range in 1985.
To be honest, I’ve never been fond of these miniatures. They are nothing more or less than Christian angels from Medieval European religious art, and come from a time before even the three failed gods of Law had been thought of. They certainly have nothing to do with the Warhammer mythos as it developed.
With that said, here are some stats for WFRP 4. It’s hard to come up with a patron deity for these two from the Old World pantheon, though they might be least out of place in the service of the Lady of the Lake, the goddess of Bretonnia. But that’s just a thought.
As always, what follows is completely unofficial and should be regarded as a fan work. No challenge is intended to copyrights or trademarks held by Games Workshop, Cubicle 7, or anyone else.
| M | WS | BS | S | T | I | Ag | Dex | Int | WP | Fel | W |
| 5 | 95 | 90 | 120 | 100 | 100 | 110 | 50 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 42 |
Traits: Blessed (God of Law), Distracting (Beauty), Divine 7+ (see below), Flight 100, Hatred (Chaos), Immunity to Psychology, Invoke (Gods of Law), Magic Resistance 4, Miracles (Gods of Law), Night Vision, Terror 2, Weapon +12, Zone of Law (see below)
New Traits
Divine (Target)
The creature’s essence is divine power, which sustains it completely. It does not require food, water, air, rest, or anything else that a living creature might need.
All its attacks are Magical. Roll 1d10 after any blow is received: if the creature rolls the Target number or higher, the blow is ignored even if it is a critical. Should the creature be reduced to 0 Wounds, its essence returns to the realm of Law immediately, removing it from play.
Aura of Law
The creature is wreathed in an aura of life and fertility which extends in a radius of 12 yards. No creature with the Corrupted Trait may enter this zone, and any creature with the Mutation Trait must make a Hard (-20) Willpower Test each round while within the zone, gaining one Fatigued Condition for each failure.
In addition, all spells and magical effects powered by Dhar or Shyish suffer a -30 penalty within the zone.
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Graeme Davis 
Solkan did pop up from time to time as a God of Tyranny which was worshipped amonst the most extreme sects of witch hunters. The 8th edition army book and the 2nd edition Tome of Salvation both mention him.
My current WFRP campaign has the characters trying to find the 8 crystal keys to release Arianka and avert the impending storm of chaos! It is one I have wanted to run since the Kaleb Daark comic strips in the compendiums!
Dear Graham,
Awesome! If you ever want to publish something about your campaign please let me know.
Best,
Radek
I always found Arianka intriguing in a “is it a good thing perhaps that she’s asleep” kind of way. Very cool to learn the origin of Solkan’s name.
I really enjoyed the history behind the Law gods.
Arianka was referenced (although not by name) with regards to Praag in the WFRP 2e Realm of the Ice Queen.
Solkan I believe was mentioned once or twice in Liber Chaotica.
Interestingly, Alluminas is name-dropped in the voice acting for Warhammer: Total War. The Light Wizards occasionally call on him when casting spells.
Dear Teucer,
could you post pointers to which place of “Liber Chaotica” is mentioned about Solkan? Thanks for your remark.
Best,
Radek
At the beginning of Liber Chaotica: Tzeentch there’s a page on ‘The Thousand Faces of Chaos’. The first paragraph in the right hand column mentions ‘Solkan’s Palace’.
He might be mentioned elsewhere, but Liber Chaotica is a massive book and almost impossible to search through given the cursive margin notes.
There are also some off-hand references to Solkanite inquisitors and monks in the Matthias Thulmann novels, Witch Hunter and Witch Finder. I’d give some page numbers but unfortunately I only have access to the ebooks.
It is nice you spent time writing this.
Thank you.
I would not be so “unfair” with the two minis, though.
They are clearly Christian medieval angels, but I don’t see why they could not fit in the WH Mythos.
If Demons and creatures of Chaos are essentially humanoid with limbs twisted and replaced with animal parts, then it makes sense Law creatures are beautiful “perfected” humans with added wings.
And furthermore in Moorcock Von Bek serie, Lucifer (a fallen angel) is a Law god.
Other sparce references to Law gods exist in official material.
The Demons of Law are briefly mentioned in the WFRP Pull-out from WD82 October 1986;
“[…] Through the dimensional rifts at the poles came creatures of light and beauty. Were they opponents of the fiends, or just one more form of Chaos? Whatever they were, they fought the demons, singleminded in their purpose.
Uncountable battles raged across the world as the Chaos forms fought amongst themselves an against other beings. As the forces of Law and Chaos battled, the Chasos stuff around the poles ebbed and flowed like some insane tide. […]”
BTW: the author of the short tale is not credited, maybe you can shed some light.
Solkan was later mentioned by Brian Craig in the short “The Way of the Witchfinder” from “Wolf Riders”, by Kim Newman in “Genevieve Undead” and in Advanced Heroquest “The Quest for the Shattered Amulet”. The letters even provided additional lore information; solkanites were said to be vegetarian and the god (depicted as a silver armored and scythe wielding) is associated with the ancient Reman Empire.
The gods of law have had a longer afterlife in the novels and short stories set in the Old World. Brian Craig (Stableford’s) work largely dates from the late 80s and early 90s of course, but he also had an oblique reference to Arianka in Zaragoz. More recent (within the last ten years or so) BL stories had Solkan, however: Clint Werner had Solkanites in Remas in the Bruner books and A Massacre in Marienburg also featured him.
Gone but not forgotten.
I appreciate the difficulty in finding something useful to do with the gods of Law, but I really like the implication in 1E that they’re not much more popular – and probably no more human-friendly – than the gods of Chaos. It also fits with the 1E setup where the mainstream religions – including the cult of Sigmar – didn’t actually seem to be all that concerned with Chaos. I always thought that was a much more interesting dynamic than the later version with the cult of Sigmar in particular entirely predicated on fighting Chaos.
Simply love this article. I became a big big fan of Arianka the 1st time I read about her. In my homemade campaign, being the sister of Shallya I gave her the power to cure Phobias and Mutations. One of my key players used to play Rudolf Blutcher, Witch Hunter devoted to Sigmar. After a plot sending him to trial, he was obliged to enter a Templar Order I named the Order of True Redemption, a secret order seeking the keys of Arianka’s tomb across the Old World. It was sooooo epic!
The Aura of Law trait you propose first made me think about the Sensei powers from Realms of Chaos – The Lost and the Damned: I would probably extend it with the power to bring back altered bodies (and minds?) in order: I would then give it the ability to cure Corruption. After all, we do not meet such entities everyday! 🙂
Cheers and thanks for the dreams you have been bringing to our home all along the last decades Graeme!!
Coincidentally, Gideon just posted about Kaleb Daark in his history of WFRP: https://awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/16/the-wfrp-story-xxxiv-kaleb-daark/
Dear Graeme,
thank you for writing something about the pantheon of the gods of law. Thank you for sharing that Rick Priestley was the creator of Alluminas. Thank you for the anecdote where the name “Solkan” came from, as well. I had no idea about any of these things.
You wrote: “had some plans to introduce a secretive cult of Solkan in the “White Dwarf” “Marienburg” series, whose members were even more fanatical and frightening than the witch hunters of Sigmar, but that never came to pass.” Could you please share with us why it never happened?
Aside from these 2 law demons/angels miniatures, I am looking forward to your text on demons of good and neutral gods – essentially all non-Chaos pantheons. This entry is a good appetizer.
Best,
Radek