There was a tavern in Warhammer called 'Slann in Space'

And the tavern sign has a little picture of a rocket on it. It's science-fantasy time!

As part of the research into the creation of Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader, I’ve been going back, wa-a-ay back into the history of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Which has been fun. So when I saw this image in Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd Edition’s Battle Bestiary (pg.9) which launched in 1984, it caught my eye:

(Image: A street from the Warhammer world, Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd Edition’s Battle Bestiary)

(Image: Close up of the tavern sign from a street from the Warhammer world, Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd Edition’s Battle Bestiary)

This is fun as it posits that 1) the Warhammer fantasy setting is just one planet in a vast cosmos. 2) There are space ships that have travelled to this fantasy world. 3) There is a degree of common knowledge about these facts.

Now context is important. This science fantasy idea was not new at this point, need it was a well explored idea within both fiction and games - for example the Dragonriders of Pern books, which debuted in 1967 or the D&D adventure ‘Expedition to the Barrier Peaks’ from 1980. Plus there was a bestselling “factual” (ahem) book ‘Chariots of the Gods?’ from 1968 that was swirling around popular culture back then that postulated the ‘ancient aliens’ idea; this was the concept that humanity was helped/created by advanced people/aliens who lived here back in earlier times.

To what degree these influenced the creators here, I don’t know, but the ‘ancient aliens’ was clearly in the DNA of warhammer as a year before, The First Citadel Compendium from October 1983 had an article on ‘Science Fantasy’;

"Yes indeed, Science Fiction and Futuristic elements in general make a suburb cross-over into any Fantasy Campaign. These can be worked very easily into the usual Fantasy contexts - an old technical civilisation could have left behind advanced artifacts, weapons, transports, gadgetary of strange and unknown kinds. Such artefacts can become nitally important to your adventurers, not quite understanding how they work - but being perfectly prepared to take advantage of the fact that they do!" (The First Citadel Compendium, pg.34)

This idea would be explored in other spaces, such as ‘The Star Boat’ in the anthology Ignorant Armies and is still found in the lore in the form of the Seraphon from Age of Sigmar (which I liked the lore of so much I purchased the faction book to read, even though I don’t play!)

(Image: Lord Korak, ancient Slann Relic Priest, from GW’s store)

Jumping back, it is of note that the Citadel Compendium and Citadel Journal were early outlets that helped shame the nascent Warhammer world. This may be because, from its inception to the late 1980s, GW’s main magazine, White Dwarf, was more focused on RPGs. So when Citadel wanted to explore an idea, they would turn to the Citadel Compendium and Citadel Journal to do so.

They really went for it in the Second Citadel Compendium (from 1984) when Richard Haliwell, the co-designer of Warhammer Fantasy battle wrote a scenario entitled ‘Rigg’s Shrine’ where neadler and laser-welding Amazonians guard a temple complex dedicated to the Goddess known as ‘Rigg’. Its a lot of fun!

(Image: Cover of the Second Citadel Compendium, from author’s own collection)

Thanks for reading & are you going to visit the Slann in Space for a pint of Space Mead?

Note! There is more about this project here. You can comment here or find me on BlueSky.

Also note! This book project is a personal one and not affiliated with any company that, in my day job, I work with or partner with.