A new feature-length novel from Adrian Tchaikovsky – author of the excellent Day of Ascension – joins a dutiful Skink Starpriest on an adventure to find the lost wreck of an ancient Seraphon temple-ship. We caught up with Adrian to pick his brain about the book, and what it was like moving from the Genestealer Cults of Warhammer 40,000 to the Seraphon of Warhammer Age of Sigmar.
Warhammer Community: What is it about the Seraphon that draws you to them as protagonists for your first full-length Warhammer Age of Sigmar novel?
Adrian: Lizardmen have always been my thing – from tabletop RPGs back in the 80s, through classic characters from movies and TV, and finally to the Seraphon. I always loved the reptile aesthetic, and their current incarnation in Warhammer Age of Sigmar is a particularly good take on them.
Beyond that, though, is their whole deal and relationship with time and destiny. While grots and humans and Skaven hurry about their brief lives, the slann are working through the segments of a plan as big as the entire cosmos, and here are their servants, the Seraphon – able only to see the individual, often incomprehensible, details of that grand plan, taking it on faith that it all makes sense. And we know a great deal has been ruined by Chaos machinations, so who even knows if the slann have a grip on it anymore. It’s simultaneously so different from the regular perspective on the Mortal Realms, and enormously conducive to story and tragedy.
WarCom: We first met Irixi, the protagonist of Starseer’s Ruin, in your short story ‘Written in Stars’. How have they changed since their encounter with Sigmar’s faithful in that story, and do you feel it has any impact on their upcoming adventure?
Adrian: ‘Written in Stars’ actually post-dates Starseer’s Ruin, so it let me explore an earlier Irixi having its first contact with humanity. The weirdly comical mismatch between what it saw as important, and the priorities of the human witch hunter, are a reflection in miniature of the clash between humans and Seraphon in the novel. They’re technically on the same ‘side’, in a Grand Alliance sense, but Sigmar and the slann have very different ideas about how to win the war.
WarCom: Your first Black Library novel, Day of Ascension, also features a devoted collective working towards a great, unknowable (to them) plan. Despite their many, many differences, did you find any common ground when writing about the Genestealer Cults and the Seraphon?
Adrian: There is a weird similarity between the Seraphon and the adherents of the Cults, but honestly it’s also shared by the Astra Militarum. It comes down to “You are being told to do inexplicable, nonsensical, suicidal or terrible things, by an authority so far above you that you cannot question it, and you can only have faith that the wider plan warrants the sacrifices those orders demand of you.” The same applies to the Cult trying to bring about their angelic visitation, the Seraphon following the edicts of the slann, or Imperium forces enacting the will of the God-Emperor.
Maybe that means, of all the Age of Sigmar factions, it’s the Seraphon and not the Stormcast Eternals who are closest to the themes of Warhammer 40,000!
WarCom: Without any spoilers, was there a part of the novel that you particularly enjoyed writing?
Adrian: I find the most fascinating points of Warhammer lore are where factions are clashing in interesting ways – not necessarily just on the battlefield, but what weird interactions happen when characters of different species and outlooks are thrust together. Hence in On the Shoulders of Giants the human/ogor partnership was fascinating to explore, and in Starseer’s Ruin we have several different instances of humans, Stormcast, and Seraphon exploring the boundaries of their worldviews to find those tiny pieces of common ground.
I appreciate that the ‘war’ is always a large part of ‘Warhammer’, but sometimes it’s nice to think through those rare meetings that don’t rapidly escalate into combat. What is a human in the eyes of a Skink Starseer? What is a Saurus Warrior to a Stormcast Eternal?
WarCom: If you could ride any of the Seraphon’s giant saurian mounts, which would it be?
Adrian: I think a Carnosaur would be a bit of a handful, and hard to park. I think I’m won over by the Aggradons, which are enormously stylish – big enough to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, but you could still fit one in your garage.
Join Irixi on their quest when Starseer’s Ruin goes up for pre-order soon in hardback, eBook, and MP3 audiobook editions.
