The physical (or not so physical) layout of Commorragh.

Ive read the codex and I have to admit that the section describing Commorragh is really confusing. Is it a large city with inner, mid and outer 'regions' ? Is it a collection of little realms, like nation-states all glued together in the webway, traversable through portals and such? Can you just walk/fly from Archon A 's palace to Archon B's palace or are they much more separate than a 'regular' city we imagine today on earth?

I seem to get the impression that its a defined place, but that perhaps the areas controlled by each Archon are much more separated, little worlds of their own inside the bigger picture of Commorragh.

Anyone have a view on it?

They're all seperate, located all over the Webway, but linked with portals so that they're all part of the one "city". You can indeed 'walk' from one palace to another, but it would involve walking through at least one portal, if not more.

Basically, think of an Escher drawing, but even more complex. Walking through a doorway takes you across the galaxy, and you're now upside down, relative to where you were before, even though you can look back through the portal, and everything there is the right way up, and you can reach through and touch people on the other side.

An easier way to think of it is that Commorragh is the name of the grouping of all Dark Eldar sites within the Webway. Trying to think of it like normal geography is doomed to failure.

Aroshamash wrote:

Basically, think of an Escher drawing, but even more complex.

I was actually going to say that reading it reminded me a little of the end of the Labyrinth movie At the same time it also reminds me a bit of the film 'The Warriors'.

I wonder if there is some 'common' ground where the denizens of 'Commorragh' mingle or where all the underhand scheming, allying and double crossing takes place. Maybe the arenas? I sure am looking forward to the up and coming novel to get an idea of a writer's interpretation of Commorragh.

Ythillan wrote:

Aroshamash wrote:

Basically, think of an Escher drawing, but even more complex.

I was actually going to say that reading it reminded me a little of the end of the Labyrinth movie

You read my mind exactly.

Quote :

I wonder if there is some 'common' ground where the denizens of 'Commorragh' mingle or where all the underhand scheming, allying and double crossing takes place. Maybe the arenas? I sure am looking forward to the up and coming novel to get an idea of a writer's interpretation of Commorragh.

I don't imagine there'd be that much travel between regions, to be honest. Well, not in High Commorragh, at least. Low Commorragh is like a warren of interconnecting slums and ghettos, it seems, while High Commorragh is too feudal, not to mention paranoid, in my opinion to have Kabalites freely wandering into the territory of the neighbouring Archon.

The 'dex tends to describe it as akin to a mega-hive city, and also as connected realms. I think that there are certain swathes all in the same area (certain the core realm of the original Commoragh probably still feels like a self contained city) but I also agree with the Escher description as well. The Dark City is many things.

On the topic of sub-realms, my understanding of them is something akin to the city in the movie Dark City - a completely bordered off plane of reality, most likely shaped and sized by the haemonculi, growing the required buildings as they see fit. All these sub-realms could only be connected via portals and the like, naturally. So, the old core of Commoragh could be such giant, vast realm, with the many sub-realms in Webway added to it as time goes on.

The portals are not necessary to be the usual shimmering gate. The entrances into and between realms could be seamless as well, so that one walking between realms and not noticing it would only see that he crossed the street.

So, if Commorragh has many, many sub-realms that do not neccessarily exist close to each other, in a physical sense, across the galaxy, surely that leaves the Dark Eldar a little vulnerable? Sounds like one could presume there are a lot of 'gates' in a lot of varied places.

It does, and if I recall correctly, the issue or something in the vein of it was described in Andy Chambers short story about the servant of haemonculus and an assassin sent after him. In the story, it was called Disjunction and again, if my spotty memory doesn't fail me, it had to do with sub-realms colliding.

I suppose define vulnerable?

How many direct access to Commoragh gates to realspace are there - what type of tools/techniques does it take to open those gates? What type of defenses are in the realspace and Commoragh side of the gates? How large are the gates - how many men/vehicles could come through at one time? It's been shown that gates can be fused open and fused shut, do they have techniques to do this? Finally, fluff invasion opinions aside, you're still assaulting into the middle of literally billions of well armed madmen in their Escher-like city of eternal dusky twilight and night...good luck with that.

So I don't see it working out too well for invasion, unless someone wanted to walk in some sort of Exterminatus warhead or something - but small incursions are probably likely to happen, and perhaps even be invited/initiated by the Dark Eldar themselves.

Thor665 wrote:

I suppose define vulnerable?

Would it not be a major concern if Slaanesh managed to access Commorragh? More doors equals more chances to be eaten, or some cataclysmic daemonic invasion to occur.

The properties of the Webway seem to hinder Slaanesh's effect - as her drain occurs in both the Warp and Realspace, it's not her presence which drains, but an effect obviously impacted by the Webway (though I do recall specific fluff showing that daemons themselves can enter the Webway).

Her presence in Commoragh would indeed be very bad - same for any of the 4 Chaos powers mainifesting anywhere - it would be a bad situation for that place. But the energies required for that appearance appear to be currently beyond the scope (or, perhaps, desire) of the Ruinous Powers to undertake. So I feel the question is a bit like asking me 'what would ou do if a T-Rex showed up and tried to eat you' well...damn, i don't have a plan and I'm pretty sure I'd be up the special creek sans paddle if that happened - but it's extremely unlikely to happen so is it really worth worrying about?

Thor665 wrote:

The properties of the Webway seem to hinder Slaanesh's effect - as her drain occurs in both the Warp and Realspace, it's not her presence which drains, but an effect obviously impacted by the Webway (though I do recall specific fluff showing that daemons themselves can enter the Webway).

There have been several that I can recall. Most that come to mind though are webway's that have been damaged or unstable (like the Emporer's webway after he got mind-spiked by Magnus) Normally you need a large amount of warp juice to just manifest in the webway. Luckily DE seem to be able to either A: Repair any small holes, or B: Have been really lucky.

It should also be noted that kymera are warp beasts, so I wonder how they keep them manifested??? Maybe DE have the tech to capture a manifested daemon??? It would be an interesting thing.

It's basically a city the size of the Solar-system. So wast that it defies definition. Man's hive cities is only a collection of muddy huts compared to Commorragh.