Origin of the Species: Fimir

There's a one-eyed yellow idol 
To the north of Kathmandu; 
There's a little marble cross below the town; 
And a brokenhearted woman
Tends the grave of 'Mad' Carew, 
While the yellow god for ever gazes down.

Milton Hayes 1911(Kenneth Williams 1978)

Alan Lee | Formorian Balor One-Eye | Castles | 1984

Tony Ackland | Fimir | 1987 (?)

Steve Whitehead | Forge World Fimir | 2011

"Graeme Davis had been tasked with creating a new race. So between us we came up with the Fimir He working on the text and me on the visuals. The starting point was a book cover that Graeme found featuring a Fomorian as depicted by Alan Lee. I mutated the image and Graeme shortened the name and changed the vowels. Not the most original thing either of us did."

Tony Ackland, interviewed by Orlygg (2013)

The 3 fingers, odd bovine lizard face with pointed snout, the stooped shambling gait and prominent sharp teeth remain the stable genetic inheritance. Strangely Alan Lees image, Balor of the Evil Eye (not the exact image mentioned by Graeme - but another Formorian by Alan Lee) from his 1984 book  Castles appears maimed rather than cycloptic, like some rain soaked Odinic mutant goat. Always liked the Fimm, with their mist-shrouded nefarious activities, obviously based on the Fomorians of Celtic Myth, and all the better for it.

"I showed Jes an illo of a Fomorian on the cover of a paperback book of Irish folktales, and we went from there. It all started when Bryan Ansell decided that WFRP should introduce a new race to the WH world - "to be as distinctive of Warhammer as the Broo are of Runequest" were his exact words if memory serves ... So as I say, Jes and I came up with the concept for Fimir, Jes did the designs and I did the culture and game stats - and in the end, both Zoats and Fimir ended up in WFRP, and nobody much cares for either race. The popularisation of Fimir wasn't helped by a communications foul-up when Nick Bibby took over making the miniatures from Jes - Nick made them all Ogre-sized, compared to Jes' and my idea that they should be Orc sized. So we had big, expensive miniatures with low game stats, and nobody bought them. Sigh."

Graeme Davis, usenet post 1998

There are some discrepancies between Tony and Graemes accounts, mostly down to the involvement of Jes at the concept stage. Graemes statement is over a decade after the event and Tonys a quarter of a century, so perhaps it is to be expected that the exact details are hazy. That both speak of a book cover as original inspiration is interesting, especially as I cannot find a book cover with the Alan Lee image on it (not to say it doesn't exist, which it does, as eventually I found it, on the back cover of a book of Celtic Fairy tales see here ). So perhaps the true origins of Fimir will remain somewhat foggy, shrouded in the mists of time.

See part two: Fimirian musings on Henson & Froud