Fimir
Encyclopedia
Graeme Davis (game designer)
Graeme Davis is a writer and editor. He has worked extensively in the gaming industry and was one of the original designers of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay....
and Jes Goodwin at the end of the 1980s for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP)
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a role-playing game set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Over the years, it has been through a number of phases and different publishers, most of which were related in some way to Games Workshop...
and the 3rd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB)
Warhammer Fantasy Battle
Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles is a tabletop wargame created by Games Workshop. It is the origin of the Warhammer Fantasy setting....
.
Fictional ecology
Inspired by the FomoriansFomorians
In Irish mythology, the Fomoire are a semi-divine race said to have inhabited Ireland in ancient times. They may have once been believed to be the beings who preceded the gods, similar to the Greek Titans. It has been suggested that they represent the gods of chaos and wild nature, as opposed to...
of Celtic myth, they are depicted as humanoid, cyclopean
Cyclops
A cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...
creatures with barbed tails and beak-like snouts, with skins that varied from a dark green to a muddy brown colour. They are described as being part Daemon
Daemon (Warhammer)
In the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 fictional universes, the Daemons are malevolent spirits born out of the destructive power called Chaos...
.
The Fimir inhabit the wetlands of the Warhammer world, typically within crudely constructed fortifications resembling nothing more than a pile of rocks. From these locations, the Fimir raid the homes of humans, taking captives for daemonic sacrifices. The Fimir loathe sunlight, and are followed by wreaths of mist to shield them from it, and their homes are always shrouded by it.
Fimir society is divided into a caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
system, consisting of Meargh, the Dirach, the warriors, and the Shearl. The Meargh - also known as witch-hags - are the leaders of Fimir colonies, as well as the only females. A Meargh would typically also be a very powerful user of magic. The Dirach - described as "daemon-friends" - are a caste of wizards specialising in the worshipping of Daemons. The warrior caste - consisting of Fimm (warriors), Fianna Fimm (elite warriors), and the various nobles - take the brunt of raiding and fighting. The Shearls - the slaves of a Fimir settlement - exist only to work and die. The ruling Meargh hold the clans together. In the event of a Meargh's death, the Fimir of her stronghold separate, either working as mercenaries for other evil creatures or seeking out another clan to join. However the Meargh is sterile
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
and therefore unable to breed. So as to replenish their numbers the Fimir kidnap young fertile human women to use as breeding stock.
Inclusion history
The Fimir were created at the behest of Games WorkshopGames Workshop
Games Workshop Group plc is a British game production and retailing company. Games Workshop has published the tabletop wargames Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000...
's then-owner, Bryan Ansell
Bryan Ansell
Bryan Ansell is a British role-playing and war game designer. He founded Asgard Miniatures before creating Citadel Miniatures in the late 1970s...
who wanted a race "to be as distinctive of Warhammer as the Broo are of Runequest" . However, the Fimir did not prove popular, and disappeared with the 4th edition of WFB, although this did give them time to make a guest-starring appearance in Milton Bradley's
Milton Bradley Company
The Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States, and in 1987, it purchased Selchow and Righter,...
HeroQuest
HeroQuest (board game)
HeroQuest, sometimes also written as Hero Quest, is an adventure board game that was created by Milton Bradley in conjunction with the British company Games Workshop and set in the latter's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe, as shown by a map of the Warhammer 'Old World' being printed on the...
. Very few (official) sources on Fimir exist and include the WFRP Bestiary, an article in White Dwarf No. 102, the third edition of WFB (Bestiary and Warhammer Armies
Warhammer Armies
Warhammer Armies was a supplement published by Games Workshop in 1988 for the 3rd Edition of their Warhammer Fantasy Battle table top game....
) and some references in supplements.
There are two Fimir miniatures
Miniature figure
A miniature figure is a small-scale representation of a historical or mythological entity used in miniature wargames, role-playing games, and dioramas. Miniature figures are commonly made of metal, plastic, or paper...
at the "correct scale" i.e. a size between 1.8m and 2.1m (in-game scale): Fimir (actually Fimm Warriors) from HeroQuest and some limited edition Fimm Warrior miniatures sold separately. One can also find Fimir by Nick Bibby the size of ogres, although these obviously do not integrate well with the "correctly" scaled models. Original concept sketches of the miniatures made by Jes Goodwin represented human-sized creatures and the published characteristics of the Fimir reflected this fact. However, when Nick Bibby started to sculpt the Fimir miniatures, he made them ogre-sized, leading to them being disproportionately weak for the size of their figurine in WFB. It was officially decided that this was the fault of the authors. Ultimately, WFRP was published with Fimir, but the race disappeared from the next edition of WFB.
Another theory as to the disappearance of the Fimir is due to the change in focus of GW's marketing. As 3rd edition drew to a close the focus became less on the older gamer and more towards the mid-to-late teens demographic, and as such it may have been thought that a race which reproduced via rape was not appropriate for the new target markets.
The last official appearance of the Fimir was in the WFRP sourcebook Marienburg: Sold Down the River, published in 1999. Since WFRP 2nd edition, the background has been brought into line with WFB and races such as Zoat
Zoat
The Zoats are a race of centaur-like lizard creatures that appear in Games Workshops Warhammer Fantasy. Zoats were also present in the earliest editions of Warhammer's companion Warhammer 40,000 science-fiction setting, but have since been written out of the background.Zoats are large, strange,...
s, Gnomes and Fimir have been quietly dropped. Games Workshop described such races as being in "interminable hiatus". In response, several fan-written creations have been published, including a "Fimir special" issue 25 of the WFRP fanzine Warpstone
Warpstone (magazine)
Warpstone is an independent magazine that covers the topic of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Launched in 1996 by John Foody and John Keane, it features reviews of official products, interviews, comment pieces, and fan-written material. Some Warpstone articles have been collected into the book...
.
There appears to be another reference to the Fimir in UK White Dwarf 310. Where in the article on the Gnoblar Horde, a new army list, there is a background piece on boglars, a sub-species of gnoblar that live in marshes. It says that "A large tribe in the Marshes of Madness have been rumored to be in alliance with strange, cyclopean creatures." While not being specific, this is almost certainly a reference to the fimir.
The Fimir were mentioned in the time of Legends novel 'Empire', where creatures matching their description were encountered living in the marshes.
Fimir are referenced by name in the "Marshland" entry of the terrain rules section of the 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles rulebook.
The July 2011 "Storm of Magic" supplement has, at last, reintroduced Fimir into the Warhammer tabletop game, in the form of a Dirach wizard called a Balefiend, which can be used as a bound monster by any Warhammer army. The character is now a full-fledged monstrous infantry (i.e. ogre-sized) model, rather than regular infantry.
