Blood Bowl! The Origins And Lore Of Warhammer Fantasy's Most Brutal Ball Game!

God ratings and salutations friends and welcome back to more well actually not what I'm a fantasy your lore as the world of blood bowl is a separate timeline to Warhammer fantasy taking place in a universe where all conflicts are settled on the blood Bowl pitch rather than by Force of Arms in fact the densians of the bloodborne Universe would find it excessively crude for Nations to settle their differences with masked armies they would find it particularly poor form to engage in such barbaric behavior when you've got the perfect alternative the literally god-given game but his blood Bowl for your scene Once Upon a Time even the inhabitants of the BB was were simple Savages brainless nincompoops in fact that also settled their disagreements by smacking one another heavily over the head with a variety of blunt and occasionally sharpened objects until after a particularly ferocious battle between the dwarves and the Orcs in the world's Edge mountains the violence of the conflict opened up a secret passage into the mountain both sides intrigued by this sudden Revelation decided to follow it to the very first Blood Bowl Arena now of course neither side at the time had the foggiest clue what the hell this was but clearly it was something rather special it was a sign from the ancestor gods or gork and Mork depending upon which point of view you're currently taking and the area contained a wide variety of interesting artifacts it contained runic symbols like numbers for example or particular and weird looking sets of armor that certainly had protective capabilities absolutely but also came with things like mouth guards hmm and weirdly oversized shoulder pads even a weird little cup shaped device that one of the dwarves theorized was supposed to be placed in one's pants New York's had no idea why the dwarves would do this but the dwarves seemed quite determined that it was a fine and worthy idea to be adopted as widely and quickly as possible and of course this was but one of countless Curiosities discovered by the two previously warring factions as all animosity had seemingly been completely forgotten in the face of mystery mounting upon mystery as the two sides grew completely engrossed in unraveling the secrets of this place unfortunately since your feet seemed far beyond the mental capabilities of your average green skin whose brain matter is on average measured in picograms and even for the dwarves whose gray matter was a little bit more abundant they were so hide Bound by ancient tradition as to constantly simply try to enforce their own norms and ideals upon what they were seeing surely this was some sort of artifact of the ancestor Gods right except of course it wasn't and itself evidently was not so as well the two sides having come to the realization that neither could solve this mystery on their own came together and formed an unusual Alliance to venture forth into the world to find a scholar of significant repute to adequately illuminate the matter The Great quest of the Unholy Alliance took many decades many centuries perhaps even as the two looked high and they looked low in search for a mind brilliant enough to fully fathom the Wonders they had stumbled upon or it took me a minute if you're listening to the orc version of the story where they discovered a random dwarf sitting drunk in a hole somewhere as dwarves are want to do of course empowered by the wisdom of alcoholic beverage the dwarf then informed the two sides of what they had happened upon was a simple rule book you see orb sacred text again depending upon your interpretation here dedicated to the God nothing now of course this was not an entity that either side had ever heard of before it was not gork and Mork nor was it an aspect of the two and it was not an ancestor God either even though the pitch had been discovered on what the dwarves loudly and vociferously still claimed as their territory instead nuffle was some odd distant entity not a chaos God not an ancestral God not a god of the green skins either he was perhaps a being that superseded them all or you simply existed on a completely different plane entirely or maybe he was just a fanciful figment of the drunk dwarves imagination the latter interpretation is particularly strongly championed by those few heretical non-believers who think that worshiping Knuckles praying to him and offering him obesity does not actually change their odds of rolling well in a game of bloodborne or excuse me tackling well of course or avoiding the eagle-eyed Gaze of the average Empire as you step on the face of a downed enemy player now all of us decent good honest people who understand that luck is a real physical entity and can be both Quantified and predicted understand of course that these incompetent dirt dwelling backwards Pig related Savages have no understanding of the finer art of the universe they are incapable of grasping the full Cosmic wholesomeness of knowing for a fact that one model has a great chance of rolling six than another because you gave it a name because he touched his little nose before every single game and because you rub his little fluff this is why one of my jeziles has a perfect track record of sniping enemy heavy Cavalry and even commanders whereas his Brethren cursed as they are with terminal short-sightedness and a religious refusal to use any form of optimological AIDS like Scopes or glasses will always fire their weapons at complete fandom in haphazard directions and the only case in which they actually hit something is when an accidental Ricochet strikes several nearby objects to finally bury itself in the head of a reich'sgard's captain and this is of course an incontrovertible fact something that can be demonstrated again and again with Clockwork position and yet the ass breathing born wrong mud sexualists of the anti-lock Community refused to see simple reason um oh well that does not waste any more time on the lost and forgotten Souls of miserable mental cripples that in fact our species rank like so much mold on French toast and instead move on with the topic at hand namely that nuffle is indeed real nuffle is a force of nature nuffle gives a Knuffle taketh away Knuffle has a perfectly balanced checkbook that grants you what you deserve and viciously punishes you as he pleases this is reality for knuffles is a fair God he is not a sadist as many have accused him of being nor does he play favorites he simply is and the sooner you can Embrace this fact and understand that it is a part of a much greater plan incomprehensible to Mere mortal Minds the sooner you will become truly happy and not a rage fueled potato in a fursuit like my friend all dog who disavowed disassociated and dismissed the beautiful game after my tomb King's Undead skeleton roll day six to throw a pass to my mummy who are all the sex to catch the ball and then roll the two sixes in a row to dodge through half of his team and score the 2-1 touchdown on the last turn of the game perfectly balanced this whole thing should be let us move away from the theological discussion around knuffles and simply accept that knuffles ears and knuffles is demonstrably far more powerful than any other deity in the Warhammer in the blood Bowl universe caught myself the last second there as of course nuffle's blessing is the only one that matters corn has no influence on the blood Bowl pitch neither does nurgle Sigma the old ones or any other of the countless made up fantasy fairy tales of the various civilizations that is only nuffle but as mentioned the drunken dwarf then went on to explain that this was some sort of a game not a video game tragically but a game to be played in real life with other people between two teams of 11 players eleven incidentally is knuffles's sacred number it is the only thing that we know for certain about knuffles or at least so again the drunken dwarf has told us he also went on to explain the purpose of the ball and the pitch and something called rules now this is a very complex concept right here that certain races and factions within the blood Bowl Universe grasped relatively quickly and have over the course of Millennia attempted to explain to those who still struggle quite a bit with the concept and in general it has been agreed upon that whilst the rules do exist provably so they are more General guidelines to be adhered to or not dependent upon the team's particular temperament and personalized interpretation now much to the Chagrin of many of the teams who choose a more liberal interpretation of the generalistic guidelines in the rule book The the umpires the sacred referees of blood Bowl matches have taken a far more conservative view of the rules and tend to attempt attempt being a key word here to apply them in practice rather rigorously of course umpires as well need to make a living and so there are several ways to incentivize them too to adopt a far more Live and Let Live attitude but in principle at least blood Bowl does have rules and in principles those rules are intended to be followed for at least most of the time fortuitously there was one rule that was pretty easy to understand for everybody involved and that was that he would take the piece of pig leather with spikes in it henceforth referred to as the ball and bring it to the opposition's end zone or over there and other over there as the Orcs called it this was unquestionably extraordinarily fascinating but surely both sides would simply return to killing one another at any moment now as deep dwarves and queen skins had been in close proximity for several minutes at this point and yet despite finding many many shining things and pieces of Interest neither side had attempted to cut short the lifespan of the other most unusual perhaps it was due to the interference of nuffle himself making sure that his favored game would be well received or perhaps it was a case of communal derangement and dementia whatever the case the two armies decided to settle their differences with a game of blood Bowl instead very Progressive of them in my opinion and it turned out to be a roaring success in fact they had several games and neither side even really cared who won or who lost all they cared about was going out into the world and spreading the glory of the perfect game and anyone who's actually played blood Bowl will see that as solid evidence of the derangement theory or divine intervention either one works as the results would be exactly the same as the crazed ravening Madness of the mountain descended down into the fertile Plains Beyond everyone they spoke to was filled with Incredible passionate enthusiasm for this ridiculous and frankly in many cases straight up suicidal ball game oddly so GW wished as the actual tabletop game met with limited success at best but in Universe everybody loved it and wanted more and more of it until there was the need for a major organization to run house and well organize the countless ball games now being played across the Warhammer World which saw the birth of the Naf the nuffle amorical Football Association this Association was also tasked with deciphering the rest of the rules as our drunken dwarf who had now appointed himself the sacred commissioner had not figured out quite everything there were still many subtleties that evaded his sharp gaze he also took up the name of one of the shekel prophets found within the text Rose Elm the sacred commissioner would dedicate the remainder of his long Dwarven life to fully understanding the rules of blood Bowl even though in many cases certain adjustments and addition to the rule sets were found both from irthen the sacred texts of course but also they were added to the texts due to clear and peasant necessity in the rules of the game itself though much of this happened after the uh the destruction of the Naf you see whilst it was for a while a ludicrously successful organization this would also turn out to be its downfall for after having many many incredibly successful Seasons it had become an enormous corrupt organization with huge headquarters buildings constructed nearby the original pitch discovered in the mountains about a dragon's horde worth of wealth tends to attract unscrupulous individuals like Nick three horns old Nick's exact likeness and personal visit halves long since been lost to history which is very fortunate for him considering he is many many legal challenges but he used to be as mentioned the grand sacred commissioner of the Naf he had a long and proud history of controversies associated with his name long before the moment where he truly took a step into these three books for example by the introduction of the Astro Granite pitch Astro Granite is well grass if you let Nick three horns explain it anyways many people will however argue that grass does not tend to be gray and hard as rocks and sharp as all hell and somehow be able to pierce armor from Simply falling upon it but Nick would then point out that well what is grass really after all the rule book says that blood bowls should be played on a grass pitch because it is somehow sacred to nuffle but again they didn't Define grants and so surely Astro Granite is just as good a substitute especially considering that for many of the less fortunate races of the world such as the cave and of course grass is actually a rather difficult organic matter to obtain in the kind of quantities required to coat a proper pitch you know hundreds of meters underground and so really we should view the introduction of Astro Granite as a tremendous step forward in terms of diversity and inclusion it really opened up the sport to a whole new and wider audience granted the introduction of factions like the skaven also saw the cheating statistics shoot through the roof but such is the cost of progress sometimes there is going to be a pebble or two in the road or a murder or a warp laced knife in your back such things are simply part and parcel of living in the modern day blood Bowl world and of course you should not believe the scariest not necessarily false but certainly misleading disinformation of rumors suggesting that Nick threehorns is the owner of the company producing Astro granite now he is but you shouldn't believe the evidence of your dirty filthy Lying Eyes so easily especially when the rumors are concerning such a fine stand-up individual as Nick three haunts he has the personal endorsement of the greatest blood ball player of all times Morgan thorg the mighty ogre the only individual ever to have been introduced to the blood Bowl Hall of Fame while still an active participant in the game as previously it was a requirement the player must have survived excuse me must have retired from active sportsmanship before being introduced to this greatest of honors but of course Morgan thorg is not your average Sportsman by any stretch of the imagination he is a living legend and surely if exposed the same convincing arguments as Nick three horns none would ever question his right to take up a place in the Hall of Fame as Morgan thorg himself is very fond of telling the story of how he finally made the persuasive argument and how he only required three carrots a pencil sharpener and a small desk lamp to fully convince the sacred commissioner of the validity of his argumentations but whilst being a supreme sacred Uber commander of the Naf must sound like a dream job where you get to be surrounded by the biggest stars and blood bowl and be exposed to their tremendous charm Charisma and personal threat levels it can become rather tiring and so after a long and celebrated career only slightly marred by allegations of corruption and rampant malpractice and abuse of his position Nick's three horns began to plan his retirement something that he kept a well-guarded secret from all of his peers due to certain elements of his retirement plan being perceived as controversial or non-traditional by certain other prudish members or his staff during the 2489 blood Bowl finale Nick freehorn finally closed the deal and left the Naf forever alongside with the League's entire Treasury and the majority of the cheerleading squad of the dark side Cowboys at the current time Nick is enjoying his retirement lifestyle in an undisclosed location but presumably somewhere very far away without any expeditionary treaties now whilst one has to say well played to Mr Nick here it must also be said that his sudden and unannounced departure from the Naf did leave the organization a little worse for where as demonstrated by the fact that it no longer exists as uh whilst nuffle may be a fair and unbiased God the debtors are not and they stripped the Naf for anything and everything of value that wasn't literally cemented to the mountains surrounding its headquarters the abolishment of the only organizational entity with any kind of oversight into blood Bowl led to a bit of a a dark period for the sport where the teams well they didn't really know what other teams were around they didn't know what other teams to play against they didn't know what they could possibly win by doing so or what reason they even had to play the games and they had no idea where their funding would come from either as most of the teams had previously been paid for from the naf's own Pockets which in turn earned money via sponsorships What followed was a virtual blood Bowl cataclysm as a fully half of all the organized teams at the time though organized is a it is a strong language for the uh the type of teams that existed during that particular era but nevertheless many of them simply just disappeared as they no longer had the ability to pay their players and their players were well well trained and armed to the teeth and just like the debtors were also willing to take what they were owed and if they had to get physical about it then frankly so much the better we should also point out that during this period it was common for certain teams to have practically Limitless player Stables with teams having potentially thousands of players as the only criteria for playing for a team was to make it onto the pitch as one of the 11 which often saw the games begin with hordes of fans sprinting full pelmel towards the pitch to be one of the 11. this uncivilized practice was eventually replaced by the crush which was a selection process where a very small door was set up next to the pitch and the first 11 to make it through the very small door would then be the official team this was then further refined in the future with actual team selections where you would have a set number of players and then you might have a set number of substitutes or although a actual limit to the number of substitutes themselves was first introduced in 2482 during a game between a halfling team known as the Greenfield grasshuggers and a norskin team by the name of the Asgard Ravens this was one of the examples of blood Bowl evolving as a sport as after 734 casualties on the halfling side the referees decided that they needed to introduce a limit as to how many substitutes a team could pull from their fans and throw onto the pitch it was initially a very unpopular decision as it severely reduced the audience engagement ratings but eventually the sensible nature of the rule change began to become apparent as matchers no longer lasted for literal hours as countless fresh Replacements were shoveled onto the field however rural refinements were of course rather pointless if nobody was playing any games it was even more pointless if no one could actually afford to continue playing the games as running a blood Bowl team is far from cheap you should see the doctor costs in the old world for example and so something had to be done as bloodball was still a tremendously popular sport and there were ample sponsors more than willing to throw actual mountains of cash at anyone capable of running a tournament beguiled by the river of gold coins promised NBC the necromancer's broadcasting Circle and orkidas joined together in an alliance to create the first open tournament the chaos cup open tournament this was a tournament with minimum organization where there was no limits to the amount of teams that could participate there were not a whole lot of rules as to how the teams were judged either but supposedly points were awarded to each team depending upon their performance in any given game and since the teams could not play any other team twice there was a sort of pseudo-natural end to a tournament although it still lasted for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and whether or not the actual winner was ever truly found considering the difficulties he hadn't in math in the Warhammer world is um is a master of considerable controversy and debate even to this day but the sponsors and the audiences loved it it was a tremendous smash success to the point that today there are actually four major open tournaments the original chaos cup of course then there is the blood Bowl championship the spike magazine Trophy and the dungeon Bowl these four major open tournaments aren't together referred to as the majors and are the biggest events of the entire year and keeps running more or less continuously so as to make sure that everyone has something to do and something to watch at all times as if the Bloodshed were ever to come to a complete halt only nothing knows what might happen then perhaps that various factions might return to more barbaric olden days ways of settling conflicts which incidentally have almost completely disappeared as the original motivation for blood Bowl the settling of military conflicts well nobody really has military conflicts anymore because everybody's just that goddamn busy watching playing and obsessing about blood Bowl it's um it's a weird fantasy universe and no mistake but hey it's certainly an interesting one as well and and the funny one too I can't lie in that old school Warhammer style that took itself just seriously enough to not be ridiculous as in to be ridiculed and yet didn't take itself so seriously as to make itself well just stupid either so hopefully all of that will have given you a bit more of an idea of what exactly blood bowl is and why this absurd ridiculous sport takes place in the one I'm a fantasy Universe oh well an alternative whatever fantasy Universe timeline we're uh we're going full MCU Multiverse on this one Bros and uh it's a deep rabbit hole until next time I've been Arch thank you all very much for listening and I hope to see you all again soon until then have a good day [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Arch

Views: 61,266

Keywords: arch, blood bowl, warhammer lore, lore, warhammer, gaming, warhammer fantasy, fantasy football, warhammer the old world, games workshop, blood bowl 3, fantasy

Id: v9GAYbovRTE

Length: 30min 30sec (1830 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 13 2023