Total War: Warhammer Story Concerns

In recent interviews with the development team, I have seen discussion of the factions/leaders that will be present in the game. One thing I noted was that they refer to Karl Franz as "always being the emperor" and that no one dies of old age. Time goes on, but Grimgor and Karl Franz are eternal. I understand that this has been the case in the actual tabletop, but the fluff of Warhammer is that time does in fact advance, and there are great parts of Imperial history in which there have been other, important emperors and wars between emperors. The development team seems to be saying that time doesn't advance, there are no family trees, and there is never another emperor. And that just seems kinda garbage...

Anyone else have thoughts?