actually from Jarvis’s fluff, he is not an Ophidian. he is a person of unspecified nationality that obtained a Ophidian book of necromancy, because he was obsessed with learning about Ophidia. which heavily implies he is not Ophidian in origin.
which is part of why so much of the fan wishlisting regarding them is so weird, because they apply jarvis’s aesthetics (arabian nights visual style) to a nationality that jarvis doesn’t even belong too, and which in the existing fluff for (in the undead army) has much more of a Transylvanian feel.
Blockquote …and which in the existing fluff for (in the undead army) has much more of a Transylvanian feel.
Waitwaitwaitwait - WAIT
Are Ophidians not snake people, ala Ophidians in all other universes I’m aware of? Ala ophidia - a group of reptiles which comprises the snakes?
Or more seriously, see Confrontation & Mierce offerings 
Ophidia is the region in the bottom right corner of the map.
location wise it is in an Egypt analog location, the fluff says it is an ancient and mysterious kingdom, where necromancy is given status equal to the other fields of magic, and as a result they use the dead to do many of the labor type tasks that elsewhere would be done by slaves or hired workers, like building their monumental buildings. and they summon armies of the dead to fight their wars. the Undead fluff is all about how the necromancers and alchemists of Ophidia created the various types of undead while pursuing the study of necromancy, or in the case of things like vampires, eternal life. undead which are constantly being depicted using a feel in keeping with Dracula and Frankenstein type visuals, both in art and minatures. this gets a little weird given the origins given in the uncharted empires book
going to the uncharted empires book, the egypt comparison for Ophidia is strengthened in the description of it being a green river delta, but the Empire of Dust, which is explicitly egyptian/arabian themed, originated in the deserts to the south of Ophidia, and the people that became the Empire of Dust, the Ahmunites, learned necromancy and then went full on embalmed undead immortal kings with undead servants as the their fertile kingdom dried up into desert, gradually creating an entire nation of walking skeletons and mummies. the kingdom of Ophidia came into being when some of the last mortal Ahmunites traveled north to the river delta to escape both the desert and the chaos that was the Ahmunite empire. the Empire of Dust came into being when the Ophidians cast a powerful necromantic curse on the last Ahmunites, destroying them and leaving just the undead.
so on one hand the fluff makes them a descendant of a faction that was very egyptian coded. on the other, the fluff in the undead section is all about how Ophidia basically is the undead faction, and they depict that faction with a very non-egyptian feel.
so… yeah. the fluff is contradictory in this matter. it is possble that the undead factions visuals are meant to reflect use of ophidian necromancy in a non-ophidian context (probably the result of them being expy’s of the WHFB Vampire Counts army, which were using magic invented in khemri to create undead in other parts of the world) but that is not made explicit from the fluff, which is all about Ophidia.
i suspect that if Ophidia does get more details in 3rd edition, it won’t be as a new army list, but as Fluff regarding the undead faction that clarifies the contradictory situation outlined above.
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Well, thanks for the lore break down, did not know much about it.
Going from this, if the Ahmunites/EoD are ‘Egyptian’, and the Ophidians are to some degree successors of them, then making them more Greek or even Persian could be cool. I am quite interested what they do with them in the lore
i just hope they clear up the issue i pointed out. honestly i think setting things up with the “mantic model” undead representing undead armies from other parts of Pannithor, and fluffing Ophidia with a different cultural feel as a challenge to modellers (or perhaps just an excuse to use Empire of Dust models without using the EoD army list) would be a good idea. leaves Ophidia as the “root of evil” as far as necromancy goes, but lets you stick necromancers and undead all over the place as the story needs.
(i also hope that they actually do something with Mhorgoth other than just vaguely suggest he’s some big threat looming over the world… seriously, you set him up as a major villain and then never use him for anything? bad enough he’s bascally just a human with a tragic backstory and a lot of magical knowledge, rather than some deity level bad guy (you know, like Tolkien’s Morgoth, most powerful of the Ainur, an evil that could literally reshape the world)
i could see an arabian themed army, from whatever place Jarvis is from, as an interesting additional nation. would need to be very carefully created to ensure it isn’t just Kingdom of Men rehashed. either with a distinctive play style like Basilea, Varangur, and Northern Alliance, or some unique additions like Rhordia’s halflings. (actually, a snakemen-human pairing might be interesting. you don;t see snakemen often in fantasy wargaming.)
I don’t actually mind that Mhorgoth is a normal human, yet still a major threat. It allows for storytelling where every campaign or story doesn’t need a Wicked escaping from the Abyss every time something Bad (capital B) needs to kick the Good factions in line. Having a regular human be able to reach such fearsome power is more interesting in my opinion, not less. That does require Mantic to actually write more on him and have him do something, however, on that I agree with you 100%
its more that the core rulebook played him up like he was this Melkor or eat least Sauron level evil over lord threatening to plunge the world into a great darkness, etc. but he’s barely a Saruman level threat in the way he’s been used so far.
You mean Mhorgoth is played up like…Morgoth?
it would help i think if he had named lieutenants, even if just names in the fluff rather than named hero units. Vampires and Liche Kings that serve him and go off to do his bidding in various schemes. Mortals as well really, you could honestly set him up as having drawn a lot of power hungry beings and people to his banner, letting him be the kind of serious threat he’s played up as. instead of just being a very powerful necromancer with a very large horde of undead going around killing people, he’d be the master mind of schemes to create undead armies all around Pannithor, sending vampires, liches, and necromancers out to raise armies in secret or to disrupt the major nations in order to give his main forces time to build up. if he has non-undead followers (even if they aren’t entirely loyal), he could use them to sow discord and create conflicts, so that there are lots of dead to raise for his armies.
that would be a lot more interesting, drive a lot of potential plot hooks going forward (for KoW, Vanguard, and the RPG), and would fit his top billing better.
so really, set him up as a Sauron type character, building up an army in secret to unleash on the world, while pulling strings to weaken those powers able to stop him.
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Is that official villain measurement? 
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I’m really excited about new fluff coming in 3rd, nonetheless I like it, that quite a few things a very vague atm. It let’s you be creative about your army/warband/DS-Heroes.
If Ophidians are snake-dude necromages commanding Undead legions, sign me up. I will buy that in a heartbeat.
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