Tabletop Game / Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound

(aka: Soulbound)

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During the Age of Myth, just as the deities Sigmar, Alarielle, Tyrion, Teclis, Grungni, Malerion, Nagash and Gorkamorka worked together to shape the Mortal Realms into a place where life could flourish, they sponsored parties of adventurers to act on their behalf as champions, imbuing them with divine might so they could battle the forces of Chaos. Though the Order of the Soulbound fell to the wayside as the Pantheon of Order was sundered and the Mortal Realms descended into the Age of Chaos, Sigmar never forgot its creation. Now, in the turbulent era of the Age of Death, in the wake of the Necroquake unleashed by Nagash, the Soulbound have been revived; cells of divinely-sponsored champions whose very souls have been interlinked, imbuing them with the power to take on the worst that the Realms can throw of them. But Nagash and Gorkamorka have taken note of what Sigmar has done, and they too have created their own Soulbound to champion their causes instead.

Players take the role of a Binding, a collection of individuals who have undergone the divine ritual of becoming Soulbound, which transforms them into a spiritually linked collection of immortals. Though they forfeit the comfort of the afterlife, their spiritual bond grants them a pool of divine might that can empower them to do great things in times of need, and also shields them from many of the spiritual maladies of the Realms.

Compared to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Soulbound has a much more optimistic, High Fantasy feeling. Soulbound are invariably exceptional individuals and great champions in their own right; when their collective powers are brought to bear, they can achieve monumental feats. Despite this, the odds are still stacked against them, and the world is dark and hostile.

This game includes examples of:

• An Adventurer Is You: The game's "Archetype" class system easily enables this trope, and with the strict restrictions of factions being loosened from base Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, you can see Khainite Witch Aelves fighting alongside Kharadron Endrineers and Stormcast Knights.
• Breath Weapon: It should come as no surprise that there are more than a few examples of weaponized breath throughout the Realms.
  • Draconith, being children of Dracothion and some of the most dragon-like creatures around, can breathe either fire or lightning.
  • Firebelly Ogors, due to their practice of eating the most flammable and volatile substances they can find, have turned their breath lethal and fiery.
  • Magmadroths are giant, salamander-like creatures native to Aqshy that live in volcanoes and can spew lava-hot bile from their mouths.
• Cessation of Existence: Nobody actually knows what happens to the spirits of individual Soulbound when they die, not even Nagash, and the dominant theory is that their blended spirit simply fades from existence. Of course, since the afterlife is known to be real and under the undisputed control of Nagash, many Soulbound consider that possibility a step-up. Renegade Undead members of a Binding actually considered the fact that dying will truly leave them beyond Nagash's reach to be a bonus.
  • Another theory, one notably held by the duardin god Grungni, is that the souls will "knit themselves back together" in time and rejoin the world. Like the above, there's no evidence to confirm or deny this - despite whatever Nagash may say - but it's as valid as any other belief.
• Dark Is Not Evil: It's not especially good either, but Order Soulbound can easily be joined by creatures from the other Grand Alliances (except Chaos).
  • It's difficult for Death creatures, what with Nagash being who he is and the undeads' various hangups (vampire bloodthirst, ghoul madness, etc.), but it's far from impossible, and being part of a Binding does make it easier. For many undead, any chance to escape Nagash is worth taking.
  • It's far more simple for a Destruction creature to join an Order party. Usually, they either join out of respect for martial skill or they feel some spiritual calling. As long as their given ample opportunities for violence, mayhem, and food, they don't much care who they're running with.
• Dem Bones: Comes in two varieties.
  • Wights are long-dead mortals raised in undeath by powerful death magic. They form the Deathrattle Kingdoms, the non-vampire half of the Soulblight Gravelords.
  • The Ossiarch Bonereapers are not so much animate skeletons as they are constructs formed of reshaped bones and given life with amalgamated souls.
• Draconic Humanoid: Draconith are an odd case of this. They look like a typical example of classic Western dragons (four legs, wings, breathing fire). However, they are fully capable of standing on two legs, and their forelimbs terminate in functional hands complete with opposable thumbs, meaning they can wear armor and wield weapons just like any humanoid species. Complicating this matter is that, as their wings count as another set of limbs, they are technically hexapods.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The Cogfort, the Cities of Sigmar's ultimate war machine, first featured as a playable vehicle in Soulbound's Steam and Steel book back in 2021, five years before it would appear with a miniature and rules in Age of Sigmar proper. Though Cogforts were mentioned in lore even earlier than that, that was the first time when it was given art and could be interacted with. That said, Soulbound's Cogfort design is notably different from its final 2026 look, being more similar to the giant version of the Steam Tank from the original Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and having long spider legs.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • The Death, Destruction and Chaos Bindings essentially exist as the Evil Counterpart to the Order Bindings of the corebook.
  • Ossiarch Bonereapers are a dark mirror of the Stormcast Eternals; both are Artificial Humanoids created by and directly loyal to a patron god who cannot actually be a spiritually linked part of a Binding, but instead merely find common cause with a binding.
• Fire-Forged Friendship: Not all Soulbound will like each other, certainly not when they first start out, but over time, a Binding can become surprisingly loyal to each other, even overcoming the natural divide fostered by being different races.
• Full-Boar Action: Gruntas, massive, foul-tempered, predatory boar monsters native to Ghur. Orruks love them as they're one of the only creatures in all the Mortal Realms as savage and bloodthirsty as they are, leading to many orruks using them as mounts.
• Genetic Memory: The Sylvaneth pass down their memories to their offspring, which is why becoming a Soulbound is regarded as such Serious Business by them; a Sylvaneth who becomes Soulbound can no longer pass on their specific memories, resulting in a true, final death for an individual from a species that instead views life and death as merely an endless cycle.
• Good Is Not Nice: Even in the Order races alone, the potential members of a binding range from Humans (generally heroic, but not guaranteed to be), to Sylvaneth and Seraphon (generally benevolent, but with alien sensibilities), to Kharadron and Fyreslayers (hailing from cultures that regard pragmatism as a virtue and mercenary as a respectable profession), to Witch Aelves (religious fanatics who regard murder as a holy sacrament) and Idoneth Deepkin (soul-eating xenophobes).
• Harping on About Harpies: Khinerai, a subrace of the Daughters of Khaine who have large, leathery wings and long, skinny tails, are a playable race offered in the "Era of the Beast" sourcebook. Though technically aelves, they've been so thoroughly changed after their souls were eaten by Slaanesh, saved from Slaanesh by Morathi's shadow magic, and mixed with Morathi's blood that they've become their own distinct race.
• Heroic Willpower: An integral characteristic of any Nighthaunt that has managed to become part of a mixed-faction Binding without being assigned to one by Nagash. Doing so requires the ghost to wrestle against the mental stagnation universal to undead, break free of its imposed desire to hate and revile the living, then escape the prison-like realm of Shyish to seek out a God of Order and beg them to make the Nighthaunt a Soulbound. It's noted that the gods typically accept such a plea on the spot, because any Nighthaunt who can pull that off is exactly the kind of Determinator that the gods want in a Binding.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: Whilst becoming a Soulbound guarantees immortality (of the "no longer age" variety), it comes at the cost of incurable sterility. This makes becoming Soulbound an extremely big deal to both Fyreslayers, whose patriarchal culture exhorts men to father as many sons as possible, and to the Sylvaneth, whose reproduction is somewhere between Reincarnation and Resurrective Immortality thanks to their Genetic Memory. It's such a big deal that the Gods of Order agree that only Alarielle has the right to ask a Sylvaneth to become Soulbound.
• Insanity Immunity: One of the subtler perks of becoming Soulbound is that it provides immunity to many spiritual maladies native to the Mortal Realms, including the insane paranoia caused by aether-gold, the bloodthirsty avarice provoked by ur-gold, and the eternal phantom pain that afflicts the Idoneth. Even ghouls, infamously afflicted with delusions of nobility and heroism despite their nature as undead monstrosities, find their perpetual madness somewhat lessened. This is a double-edged sword, however, as while they regain their senses, they now must deal with the reality of actually being a ghoul.
• Lizard Folk: The Seraphon, which are divided between smaller, smarter Skinks and larger, more brutish Sauruses. In the World-That-Was, they were essentially Flesh Golems in the shape of lizardfolk. In the Mortal Realms, Seraphon are divided into two "breeds"; the Starborne are made of living celestial energy and emphasize the artificial nature of their origins, whilst the Coalesced have somehow transcended (or descended) to become creatures of flesh and blood, which makes them more aggressive and less intelligent.
• Loads and Loads of Races: Compared to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Soulbound offers a much wider variety of playable races, including Humans, Aelves, Khinerai, Melusai, Duardin, Sylvaneth, Stormcast Eternals, Skinks, Sauruses, Draconith, Hobgrots, Ogors, Orruks, Grots, Troggoths, Vampires, Nighthaunts, Ossiarch Bonereapers, Wights, Ghouls, Skaven, Gor-kin and Ogroids. And that's before you get into the distinct cultural splits that run so deep as to be borderline genetic subraces, such as the distinction between Fyreslayers and Kharadron Overlords, or Daughters of Khaine and Idoneth Deepkin.
  • Note that a Binding can contain any of these races in any combination (except for the last three, which are Chaos-exclusive). For a Warhammer game, that's practically unheard of.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Draconith are a race of sapient, civilized dragons who used to have a mighty civilization in Ghur, before it was annihilated by Kragnos. Modern draconith only survive because eggs were rescued by the Seraphon and raised aboard their temple-ships deep in the void, but with the Age of the Beast, they have returned to rejoin the mortal realms. They are highly intelligent, and very curious about the world, having only had second-hand knowledge from the very alien perspectives of the Seraphon. They occupy an odd place between dragon and Draconic Humanoid; they possess a fundamentally dragon body-structure, and can let humanoids ride on their back, but they're also capable of walking upright on their hind legs and wielding weaponry. Most adventuring draconith actually prefer to wear armor, wield weapons, and adorn themselves with icons of Sigmar, to offset the immediate terror that most humanoids have at sight of them due to the abundance of vaguely dragon-shaped flying beasts in the Mortal Realms.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted, surprisingly enough. Other than some physical similarities, there's hardly anything remotely comparable between the Dispossessed Duardin, the Fyreslayer Duardin, and the Duardin of the Kharadron Overlords.
• Our Elves Are Different: The Aelves are largely divided into the Daughters of Khaine, the Idoneth Deepkin, and the Lumineth Realm-Lords. Taken to the extreme with the Sylvaneth, who were wood elves in the World-That-Was, but are now closer to Plant People, being a fusion of elf spirit and living wood.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The Nighthaunt are the twisted, bitter, spiteful spirits of the dead. Once rarely occurring natural phenomena, Nagash now sees to their creation personally, and he has made them infinitely worse. In death, healers are made to harm, betrayers are tormented by those they betrayed, and the betrayed are made slaves of their betrayers, and that is only the beginning of Nagash's cruelty. Mechanically, they're intangible, they have a fly speed, and they take half damage from non-magical attacks, but they can't wear armor and have a penalty to Might tests.
• Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Ghouls in the Mortal Realms are completely and utterly insane. The curse that changes a mortal into a ghoul strips them of their senses, filling their minds with delusions of heroism and nobility so that they see themselves and their twisted kindred as aristocracy and mortal kind as monsters and villains, the bodies of their victims seen as decadent delicacies. So potent is this madness that it can actually spread to others like a virulent disease.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Grots are much like your typical description of goblins: short, green, clever, and mean, and they tend to live in caves, spending their days eating mushrooms and thinking of new ways to cause trouble. However, it should be noted that their most numerous and powerful clan, the "Gloomspite Gitz," is culturally divided between the Moonclan Grots, who worship the evil living satellite, the "Bad Moon," and the Spiderfang Grots, who worship the "Great Spider God."
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Are they ever! The core of Ogor society is hunger and consumption, and they'll do anything to satisfy their endless appetites. While the majority of Ogors belong to "Gutbuster" Mawtribes, a sizable number of them form the "Beastclaw Raiders," nomads cursed to be eternally pursued by an endless, magical blizzard dubbed the "Everwinter."
• Our Orcs Are Different: The Orruks are divided into three major races: the Ironjawz, Bonesplitterz, and Kruleboyz. Ironjawz are fairly standard brutish warriors, valuing strength and toughness above all else whilst revering Gork (god of brutality) as their patron. Bonesplitterz are deeply spiritual orruks whose faith and self-confidence are so strong they can repel weapons through the sheer power of belief; they review Gorkamorka, the conjoined form of Gork and Mork. Finally, the Kruleboyz are sadistic but cunning and manipulative orruks who inhabit swamps and marshlands, and who have turned to Mork (god of cunning) as their patron god.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Known as the Soulblight, the Vampires of Shyish form the upper echelons and nobility of Nagash's undead empire. Coming in a variety of bloodlines, they all share an innate magical talent and connection to the Amethyst Wind of Death, and an unrelenting drive to conquer and subjugate those they see as being beneath them, whether it be the lesser undead of their legions, the living 'cattle' they feed off of, or even each other.
• Our Wights Are Different: Wight-Kings and Queens are long-dead rulers who have risen from their tombs and now lead vast hordes of skeletal warriors and lord over their petty Deathrattle Kingdoms. Unlike many of their mindless subjects, these undead tyrants retain large aspects of their personalities and are creatures of ancient pride and blazing hatred for the living.
• Plant Person: The Sylvaneth. As a species, they can look like anything from vaguely aelvish folk with some wooden bits to actual Treants. They can communicate with each other over long distances via telepathic song, their reproductive cycle is complex and strange, and they have some very alien views of the world.
• Proud Merchant Race: Among the races of The Grand Alliance of Destruction, the Hobgrots stand out as an oddity. Bigger than Grots yet smaller than Orruks, they live on the outskirts of Destruction "society," going between different groups and races far more than any other Destruction race. As a consequence, they've learned a great deal more about trade and diplomacy, and how to turn most encounters into opportunities. In other words, they've learned how to scam the Hell out of people.
• Rat Men: The skaven, as per usual, are now even more dangerous since the Great Horned Rat has ascended to true Chaos godhood. These diseased, paranoid-delusional, psychopathic vermin people are one of the basic enemy factions, and in Champions of Chaos, also playable.
• Resurrective Immortality: The Stormcast Eternals have a flawed version of this. They can never truly die due to their bond with Sigmar and his Anvil of Apotheosis, but every time they suffer a "Reforging," they lose a bit of themselves - memories, aspects of their personalities, and even basic human essentials like empathy. Being Reforged too many times reduces a Stormcast to a cold, unfeeling automaton fulfilling its orders to the letter.
• Seeker Archetype: Surprisingly, an Ogor Soulbound can be this; they have a lot of conflicting legends about where the Everwinter came from and which god (or gods) cursed them with it, and some tribes (particularly the Winterbite) will send hunters into Order society to try and find out; after all, a member of a Binding that serves Sigmar can simply walk up to him and ask whether he really caused the Everwinter or not, and if he knows who did.
• Snake People: Melusai, a subrace of the Daughters of Khaine who have the lower bodies of giant serpents, are a playable race offered in the "Era of the Beast" sourcebook. Also, contain elements of Medusa and Gorgeous Gorgon as they are beautiful aelf women from the waist up and have a nasty tendency to rip out people's hearts and petrify their bodies.
• Square Race, Round Class: In general, races tend to have very limited Archetypes (the class equivalent for Soulbound), which usually represent distinct roles within a specific subculture. For this reason, most Archetypes tie into the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar armies — there are duardin Archetypes associated with the Kharadon Overlords and the Fyreslayers, but no "generic duardin" Archetypes, for example. Taken to the extreme with the Seraphon, who currently have a grand total of two Archetypes; one for skinks and one for sauruses.
  • Reaches an even greater extreme with the Draconith introduced in the Era of the Beast sourcebook, with a whopping one Archetype, the Errant Draconith. Then again, you're getting to play as a dragon, so...
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Make no mistake: The Grand Aliances are, at best, alliances of convenience. If it weren't for the threat of imminent annihilation, none of these people would be together. Infighting is common, and actual friendships are a rare and precious thing. However, there are some factions that, through their actions, beliefs, or general dickishness, are considered at best an ugly necessity and at worst an inescapable burden. Even deeper, some archetypes within those factions are disliked for being especially unpleasant.
  • Grand Alliance Order is the closest thing the setting has to "good guys," but even they have their bad apples.
    • The Idoneth Deepkin, being soul-stealing, marauding sea aelves who travel with horrifying sea monsters and show open disdain for non-Idoneth, are easily the least popular of the Order factions.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: A Binding is compelled to work together, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they like each other.
• Token Evil Teammate:
  • In general, an Aelf of one sort or another will typically serve as this for a Binding of Order. Daughters of Khaine worship the God of Murder and perform Blood Magic, the Idoneth Deepkin harvest souls to extend their lives, and the Lumineth are elitist zealots whose anti-emotion convictions border on The Evils of Free Will. There are also the Darkling Covens and the Scourge Privateers, Aelf witch covens/spy rings and monster hunters/pirates respectively, who, compared to the other Aelven organizations, come across as the more moral options.
  • In a mixed-faction Binding with an Order majority, the Death or Destruction member will probably serve as this. Not necessarily, however - the ironic scenario of a Vampire or Orruk being the Token Good Teammate in a Binding full of selfish murder hobos is entirely possible.
  • Cairn Wraiths are loathed even in all-Death Bindings, because they are typically single-minded murder machines that care only about killing and their next kill. So, naturally, Nagash likes to force them on Bindings to be a dick. Not that all Cairn Wraiths are necessarily "evil" - some are hyper-focused on eliminating certain monsters they knew in life like Skaven or Daemons - they just make for very poor conversation.
  • Kruleboyz are regarded with the greatest general loathing of all the Destruction races, due to their pronounced racial tendency towards sadism and cruelty. Even other Destruction races don't like them very much as they obsess over causing pain and fear rather than actually fighting.
• Token Enemy Minority: An Order binding can include members of Death and Destruction races, with their respective splatbooks having dedicated sections for these scenarios called Unlikely Heroes. Doubles as Token Heroic Orc too, unless it's a Necromancer archetype (which, while Death-aligned, are otherwise ordinary humans).
  • Death characters generally join Order bindings to be free of Nagash - having your soul dissipate on death might be a steep price for living mortal, but for an undead, who would otherwise be tormented and raised again, it is a release if anything. There are other motivations, though - ghouls may join as a continuation of their delusions (they already see themselves as heroes, after all), while a wight might be protecting their living family. Finally, Ossiarchs, who are incapable of being Soulbound, might work with Order for pragmatic reasons, or they might be defectors who gained individuality because of their component souls reawakening.
  • Destruction characters, meanwhile, generally have simpler motivations for working with Order. An Ironjawz Orruk may join a Binding after being defeated, seeing the Soulbound as worthy warriors to follow; a Gloomspite Git may do the same to save their own hide. Ogors and Kruleboyz Orruks generally join for pragmatic reasons like food or profit, while a Bonesplitterz Orruk may be driven to the Soulbound by visions.
  • Averted with Chaos-aligned archetypes - unlike the other two expansion books, Champions of Chaos does not have an Unlikely Heroes section. The Doylist reason for this might be that Champions of Chaos has a very different ruleset compared to all the other alliance books, and is treated as a separate corebook, while the Watsonian reason is clear - Chaos is the sworn enemy of Order, and there can be no cooperation with nor (voluntary) redemption for those who worship it.
• You Dirty Rat!: The skaven's Species Bonus allows them to avoid damage once per day, not by blocking it but by redirecting it on an ally in the same zone. This alone probably tells you all about what the skaven are.