if that's what you want, here goes. grab some popcorn and something to drink because this is gonna be a long one.
ok. "warmahordes" is a smashed together catch all term for the games of "warmachine" and "hordes". they are basically the same game but with a few minor differences that makes crossplay far more one.
the lore takes place on a planet called caen, specially on a continent called immoren, with "warmachine" taking place on western immoren and and "hordes" on the eastern half.
the lore starts with your standard creation mythos. at the center of it are 3 gods, or as i call them, "primes": menoth, the creator of man and the lawgiver. the devourer wurm, the god of the savage side of nature. and dhunia, the mother goddess. now there is debate amongst people about which god came first and in what order. menites, of course, believe that menoth came first and is the best of all the gods. while others because that menoth was created by dhunia because she was tired of being raped by the wurm. the results of those violations created many other races outside of humanity: trolls, gobbers, orguns, arrows, gatormen, etc. but whichever it is, these 3 are agreed upon to be the first gods to appear on caen.
when menoth and the wurm saw each other, they immediately started throwing down, creating the valleys and mountains of the planet. eventually their battle ascend beyond the physical world and into the spiritual mirror of caen caen called urcaen. before or during the battle with the wurm, mankind appeared from menoth's shadow and he kind of just ignored them for the first few centuries.
during this early time, we saw more gods pop up here and there. among them was the divine court, the 9 gods of the elves. they lived in a section of urcaen called the veld. think rivendale but a lot nicer. another group that would pop up is the 13 stonefathers, the progenators of the dwarf race. the dwarves would found the oldest kingdom in western immoren, rhul.
then you have the dragon toruk. his origin is shrouded in mystery as there is no real story on how he came to be. he simply just.......was. toruk was the only dragon in the world but desired some kids to work for him. dragons in warmahordes have these things calls athancs, a type of heartstone that is the core of a dragon's being. a dragon's body can be destroyed many times over but as long as the athanc still remained, a dragon can regrow their body endlessly. so toruk took his own athanc and split into pieces and each piece grew into a dragon. but there was a problem: all the dragons were just like their dad, in that they believed themselves to be greater than all other beings on caen, including each other. so toruk did what any parent would and tried to eat his kids. there was a epic battle between toruk and his kids, with most of them being eaten by him. the others hid away in secret. among them was the most cunning of the brood named everblight. he will be important later.
so some years passed and menoth began noticing that human souls began showing up in urcaen and that he could draw strength from them. so he thought "if i can get these humans to worship me, i can grow strong enough to merc that damn wurm". so he made himself known to them and thus began the menite religion. menoth gave several gifts to his followers to help them survive in the wilderness of pre-historic immoren, thus creating the first cities.
meanwhile, the divine court created elves, who were stronger, faster, smarter and more long lived than humans. unlike the humans, elves were very close to their gods, who actively added them in creating their society. they advanced to such a degree that they became the first true empire on immoren: the empire of loss. the gods wanted to be closer to their creations so they began a massive building project: a bridge built from both sides of the veil that separated the physical world and the spiritual one. this bridge of worlds was a grand project that lasted for hundreds of years. when it was completely, the divine court walked through and appeared before their people and everything was awesome for the elves.
until it blew up a few seconds later.
the bridge exploded with such power that it utterly wiped out the empire of lyoss and fucked up the land something fierce. it created a desert that split the continent into 2 halves and created the storm lands, which was a land where it stormed day and night. millions of elves were killed in the blast but some were protected by the court themselves. the gods led what was left of their people east to found one last great city, ios. but they began to notice that their powers were fading and left them to find a way back to the veld.
humans were still busy doing human things but that all changed when a pair of twins were born, morrow and thamar. the twins were menites but found the teachings and practices of the church to be too strict and corrupt, so they broke away and found different paths to enlightenment. morrow preached being kind, just, and fair to those around you. thamar taught that you should do whatever you want to get what you want, regardless of what you have to do. in time, both became so powerful that they took over the great city of caspia but thamar was too extreme in her views, forcing her brother to kick her out. years later, she returned at the head of a army to take down her brother who was now the leader of the city. the siblings met in battle, both having become powerful spiritual forces of nature. during the battle, morrow saw what he had become and the damage the battle was doing and thus allow his sister to kill him. in that moment, morrow ascended to godhood. thamar, taking this example, allowed his followers to merc her and thus she too ascended to godhood. both twins would be the center of their own regions: the church of morrow and thamarites.
just as mankind was about to move into a renaissance period, trouble came. from across the sea came the orgoth, a terrifying race of conquerors who landed and started busting head. they took down city-state after city-state, mostly due to many of them believing that the orgoth would stop at just their rivals. by the end of their invasion, most of western immoren was under their control. they did try to invade rhul once but the dwarves kicked their asses wholesale. and they knew the iosan elves were really advanced so they didn't even try to fight them. the entire orgoth period is divided into 3 eras: the first 200 years of the initial invasion, 600 years of the occupation and 200 years for the rebellion.
there were many attempts at rebellion over the years but none really got off the ground. but two major events would lead to the end of their occupation. first was the gift of magic. humans began to be born with the power to use magic, with some believing it to be another gift from menoth. the orgoth feared the what this could mean for their rule so they had literal witch hunts for them. the second was the creation of mechika, the fusion of science and magic. from this fusion came the first steam jacks, giant steam powered robots who could follow commands of a powerful spell caster. using these tools, the humans of western immorren were able to push the orgoth out but not before they took or burned all their records. to this day, no one knows where the orgoth came from of if they are even still around.
the 10 leaders of the rebellion signed the corvis treaty, which set new lines for new kingdoms across western immoren. out of that treaty came 4 kingdoms: cygnar to the south, khador to the north and in between the two were ord and llael. these 4 kingdoms would become known as the iron kingdoms.
TBC.