Designing a new faction doesn’t just mean new miniatures and new lore – there’s a whole lot of other design and concepting work that goes on in the background.
Each Warhammer faction has a whole design language: their own symbols, iconography, and heraldry. What would the Dwarfs be without their runes, or the High Elves without their shield bosses? Much of this language is long established in the Old World, but Grand Cathay was a blank slate. So, in the third part of our wide-ranging round table with the Old World team, our focus turns to symbolism.
Holly: Alongside Mark and Owen, I was one of the first people assigned to work on Grand Cathay. I was solidly focused on it – and the iconography in particular – for nearly two years, which is practically unheard of.
The main thing we knew that we wanted to express in our design approach is that Grand Cathay is an eternal empire. We started looking at longevity motifs from Chinese folklore, and interpreting them into a more Warhammer style.
For instance, we used the yinyang motif to articulate the key Cathayan concept of Harmony, which is both a battlefield mechanic and one of the guiding principles of the entire society. Unlike the real-world yinyang, however, theirs is made up of twin-tailed comets, which keys it into the entire Warhammer setting. This becomes their interpretation of a global phenomenon – it means something different in Cathay, just as it does to the Lizardmen, for instance. What’s more, the symbols are reminiscent of the flaming pearl, which is another ancient Chinese motif, closely linked to the folklore of female dragons.
We looked at a lot of books on classical and historical design elements – including a number in Chinese which offered a depth of information that’s just not available in English. This allowed us to familiarise ourselves with classic Chinese design concepts and look at everything from brocading to the depiction of dragons.
Grand Cathay uses a lot of octagons because they’re important in Chinese culture in terms of protection – eight is an especially lucky number to the Chinese. Their regional and regimental icons are all mounted in octagons, for example. This motif allowed us to reinterpret the eight winds of magic and their symbols in the same way.
We used elements of the bagua from the I Ching, which is a kind of spiritual compass taken from Daoist thought. This inspired the Wu Xing Compass, which is ultimately how the Cathayans understand the magic that suffuses their world.
Owen: I’m very proud of the Wu Xing Compass, which is a great magical device situated within the Celestial Court in Wei-Jin that resonates with the Elemental Winds. As a concept, it takes the Winds of Magic, which are intrinsic to the Old World setting and puts it through the lens of a very different culture. We’ve given the Winds names unique to Grand Cathay – different to the High Elven terms we are all more familiar with – and we’ve associated each one with the Dragons. But even though they’re different, if you know the Old World you’ll know what they mean – which is no mean feat.
JTY: The Winds of Magic appeared in the era between the third and fourth editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, which is when I believe the setting truly began its journey towards what it is today. It’s so important to the setting that we had to get it right.
Holly: We wanted to make a conscious acknowledgement of the spiritual and the temporal realms. The people of Grand Cathay are much more aware of magic and its use in their everyday lives, which is reflected in the protective devices they wear. While their science and technology are thriving, they also have an Immortal Dragon Emperor and live among floating cities!
JTY: The Emperor and Empress are some of the most powerful sorcerers in the world – more powerful than the surviving Slann. Magic flows through Grand Cathay. Mountains float there – the world wasn't originally like that, it’s the result of the shattering of the Geomantic Web.
Owen: It was a deliberate consideration when we started: how do we make this realm human but different, so it’s not just the Empire in the East, with guns and cannons. They're more understanding and accepting of the spiritual world, and respectful of their Emperor.
Holly: We wanted to give each city its own symbol, with another for each Dragon’s domain. These are visible in the Total War games, of course, but they’re also reflected in the miniatures – which have patterns indicative of their home cities. This is where the concept for mountain armour first came in, as it was originally used as the symbol of Nan-Gau, which is the Storm Dragon’s capital and a place of great industry and artifice. When we realised that this icon was also the shape of a link in this semi-mythical style of Chinese armour, we realised we had something quite special.
Luke: We came up with the same idea separately, through our own research when concepting miniatures. I was investigating how to make the armour on the Sentinels stand out, so it was a happy accident when Holly and I hit on the same concept.
Rob: No-one’s sure how real mountain armour actually was! It is associated with legendary Chinese heroes, and it has this very distinctive three-pointed linking structure. There are definitely depictions of it in folklore, as well as on numerous statutes, but there are no surviving examples of an actual suit of armour. Every modern attempt to reproduce it has found it to be really impractical, if not actively dangerous – all the little points seem to direct enemy swords right into it! All the written references involve mythical figures, so it’s associated in China with characters of legend.
Mark: It’s their version of fantasy armour – so we had to include it on our own heroes.
Luke: Mountain armour was useful for that reason, and also because we wanted a style of armour that wasn’t chainmail, which usually appears on evil forces, or scalemail, which belongs to the High Elves. We knew we had to do something different, so Cathay ended up with a new style of layered plate. It’s reminiscent of Tang Dynasty armour – but that’s far from the whole picture.
Holly: We were trying to observe and build without adding our own biases. Even when making the main symbols, we had to ensure that they didn’t look like Western reproductions of Chinese design, particularly those from other IPs.
Rob: If we’re going to show a Warhammer culture that can be connected to the real world, we’re going to make sure those people can see themselves in it. Grand Cathay needs to appeal to our customers – it needs to look cool, but it also needs to be recognisably cool to our fans in China.
Mark: The most difficult thing is to make something that they haven’t already got. You can’t just make a copy of Journey to the West, as there are already 20 different variants of it. Warhammer is very appealing to Chinese players because it’s so different – so we can’t just be copying what they already have.
JTY: Hence why we’re still telling stories about the Old World. All the characters fit into our storyline – we’re not going to deviate from that just to retell our versions of Chinese myths.
Rob: We stayed away from calligraphy, even when it came to the sculpting process. There are so many languages in China, and we felt we would be doing a disservice if we didn’t represent them all. Holly has done such a great job of designing so many different icons that carry so much meaning. Nan-Gau also means defence, for instance. They’re more like logographic sigils than words, which we can then use as a shorthand.
Holly: Look to the transfer sheets for meaning. For the Sky Lantern, the symbols tell you everything you need to know about each vessel. You can show battlefield role, city of origin, and crew members just using the icons. You can also show which Dragon your Sky Lantern serves.
Rob: The symbol of the House of Cog and Crane tells you there are crane gunners on board, while House of Smoke and Powder lets you know there are bombs.
JTY: These are different groups of artificers, which are guilds of master craftsmen in their own fields, the largest of which are based in Nan-Gau under the direction of the Storm Dragon.
Rob: There are four transfer sheets in total, one each for the Jade Warriors and the Gate Masters – which are full of martial iconography and ranking information, with banners for the latter – and one for the Sky Lanterns.
They’re all great, but the one we’ll sell separately later in the year has more colours and effects that aren’t possible on the smaller sheets. This one is an expansion pack to the main range – it broadens what you can offer.
Holly: It’s just real fancy. You get all the Dragon symbols, as well as that of the Dragon Emperor. Most decals use single flat colours, but this sheet includes a full three-metallic combination! It’s the first time I’ve ever tried it and I’m delighted with the results!
Luke: It was really exciting to be able to work on a new type of Dragon for Warhammer. In her Dragon form, Miao Ying is still sinewy and serpentine, but she (and her family) occupies a new stylistic register.
They have a body shape that is stylistically similar to Chinese dragons, but not exactly the same. There are certain classical elements that we took a little liberty with: they don’t have birds’ feet, for instance, while the whiskers and antlers are changed – but these Dragons do all have horns.
Chinese dragons tend to be short-snouted, almost puglike, but ours have a long, crocodilian snout. Each one of their faces has had careful thought put into the bridge of the nose and the brow. Again, it’s about knowing the rules to break them – we understood it before we changed it.
We spent a lot of time on gem shapes – the Dragon children all have their own signature colours and gems, and there’s a lot of significance to each choice. From a western perspective, black connotes death or darkness, but it implies water in China, while white traditionally implies death, but also purity. This awareness completely changed where we went with the Dragons. I got to make so many drawings of dragons, and I loved every minute.
Thanks guys! Check back in tomorrow for a long and exhaustive chat with the sculptors.
Please note that the recent Sunday Preview article erroneously claimed that the Grand Cathay Battalion would only be available while stocks last. This is incorrect, and it will actually be available on an ongoing basis.
