From Battletome: Blades of Khorne (2025)

'Why do you not crush these humans?' Dorvakhai hissed. 'A single charge would put them to rout.'
Sulbrecht stared at the vampire. The balefires in the Wight King's eye sockets flickered dispassionately.
'Soon, they shall send forth their reserve,' he rasped. 'They will commit everything they have, with all the futile hope of the living. Only then shall we ride.'
He turned to watch the slaughter play out in the valley below. Corpses littered Tor Ghullen by the thousand. To the north-west he could already see the glimmer of steel - Sigmarite columns rushing to reinforce their comrades. As predicted.
'Attack now,' came the vampire's voice again. 'I demand it!'
Sulbrecht remained impassive, his hollow gaze fixed on the battlelines.
The vampire's eyes blazed red with outrage at being ignored.
'You will obey!' Dorvakhai cried, riding her fleshless steed right up to the Wight King.
'I command—'
Sulbrecht's axe swept out in a gleaming arc and sliced the vampire's head from her shoulders. Her juddering corpse rode on for a few steps before slipping from her steed and splashing in the muddy ground.
'You command nothing,' Sulbrecht said.

From the Soulblight Gravelords 4th Edition Battletome

On the orders of his master Abraxia, who has brushed with the abhorrent curse before, Xornac the Cruel leads a host from the fortress of Blackpyre to hunt the ghouls spilling across Ghyran. Months later, the Varanguard returns, nailed to his saddle, hands severed, blood streaming from his eyes and mouth. As he babbles about falling victim to an ambush by corpse-eating hunters and suffering the foul 'hospitality' of some ghoulish falconer, his acolytes extract a vial of kingsblood crudely sewn into his guts. On it is a note addressed to Abraxia herself: 'A place still waits for thee'

Nice to see a nod to Abraxia in the battletome, and love the continued idea that Abraxia may not be as fully free of the Flesh-eaters as she had hoped.

Listening to Ushoran now and he refers to Sigmar briefly in the prelude between chapter 7 and 8.

I want to say I have only listened to The Hollow King and Ushoran so I have a brief understanding of Soulblights and Mortarchs and how the Mortarchs are all under Nagash but I don’t know much about AoS. What are all the Mortarchs individual relations with Sigmar or their Interactions with him?

“How, he wondered, could a ruler such as the “prince pretender” at Castle Rimerock, be allowed to exist by a God King such as Sigmar?..

How could that “strutting betrayer” claim benevolence when he allowed such petty monsters such as the Lord Kosomirs of the Mortal Realms to rule in his name?”

How is he a Betrayer to Ushoran or the Mortarchs? He seems to have a distant respect for Sigmar, just doesn’t like corrupt humans.

These warmbloods were Sigmar’s children. They represented Sigmar’s last hold on this part of the Ulguroth Spiral – it would anger the God-King to so thoroughly wipe out his attempt to tame it. They had survived against all odds, only to be cut down now. Xetakti knew what happened when Azyrite strongholds fell. Vile things flooded in to fill the vacuum. Conflicted – another emotion Xetakti knew it should not be able to feel – it considered letting them live.

Excerpt from the short story "All is Foretold" by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson, may he be empowered to write many more Seraphon stories.

I don't got anything big or interesting to add to this. I just wanted to share this bit from an excellent short story showing off a Seraphon's view on their Sigmarite allies. We don't get a lot of showings of how the Lizards think and what their thoughts on non-Seraphon are, so this is nice.

Also it's interesting that the Skink's worry with their orders isn't due to their interpretation of the Great Plan. But because it, preferred pronoun the Skink uses throughout, knows what might become of the region if the last bastion of Order in that part of the Spital was wiped out, and because it might piss off Sigmar.

Sigmar's vision stretched beyond merely retaking his old territories and reigniting the ancient feuds that had occupied his mind for so long. His ambitions was to reorder the foundations of the realms themselves, anchoring the disparate worlds together through physical and arcane means. It might take him thousands of years, but the God-King envisioned a great transformation: all eight realmspheres united as a single celestial body, the balance of magic restored and transformed into an arcane barrier that would keep the Dark Gods at bay for evermore. Only Sigmar's most trusted allies were privy to the true scale of his design. Fewer still believed such a thing could be accomplished. But the God-King had achieved the impossible many times before.

The scope of this war would be beyond anything he or indeed any deity had ever attempted. It would fall to the Stormcasts to enact the Mandate of Azyr: the divine will of the heavens.

SCE Battletome 2024, Pg. 12 of The Mandate of Azzyr section

So Sigmar has a mandate of the heavens, at this point they really should just name the upper echelons of his government the Celestial Bureaucracy given how much of his government is based on it. But anyway.

The Mandate of Azyr. Sigmar's harebrained scheme to encase the disparate discs, planetoids, moons, floating islands, and other elements that make up the Realms into a singular, massive Realmsphere that will keep Chaos out forever.

That's... quite the ambition. Like what more is there to say? As plans go it is theoretically possible, and outside Dracothion and likely some Slann, there aren't many characters presented as knowing more about the metaphysics of the Cosmos Arcane than Sigmar, he learned how to create Realmgates and master the Star Bridges, open the way to Shyish, and more.

So it's hard to say how improbable this, admittedly fairly crazy, plan is.

Wanted to post this little excerpt because i find it oddly cute and because i think it’s a good window into a more mundane part of skaven life.

Context: Warlock Cralk and his assistant Vermitch are piloting a doomwheel into battle against the seraphon. Throughout the battle Vermitch has been praying and singing hymns to the Great horned rat, but Cralk notices as Vermitch begins to sing something kore familiar to him.

Behind him, he heard Vermitch singing. Not a psalm, or a holy song. Vermitch was singing a rat-song, a drinking song, the song the acolytes and serfs sang when someone got hold of skavenbrew or some weaker alternative. It was not a song calling for divine intervention. It was a song of the skaven, a simple rhythm of squeaks. Cralk had not sung it since he was an acolyte himself, so many years before. Every verse was a tale of victory, and every chorus was the same refrain repeated over and over.

Strongest, fastest, best, yes-yes!

Cralk’s wheel barrelled forward and he remembered singing that song in the tunnels of Spit Hollow. He had sung that song when he had celebrated being given his acolyte robes, when the masters had noticed how smart and fast he was.

I personally find learning about the more mundane civilian aspects of life in the realms to very interesting, especially in the more bizarre and less human factions, because in a setting largely focused on war and conflict these little moments of normality stand out and help me to relate more to the characters in the setting. I don’t know what it’s like having to face a horde of muscle bound green monsters or giant ancient reptiles, but i do know what its like to celebrate a promotion or to go out drinking with friends. Though perhaps the skaven wouldn’t use a term as strong as “friends”.

Instinct carried her away from the open street and into the tangle of alleys and stairways that bordered it. She heard distant cannon fire and knew that she had made the right decision landing here. The inner defences of Barak-Thryng were without peer – they would hold. But Azrilazi would not. Either the grots would take it or they wouldn’t, but the strafing fire of the hun-ghrumtok would leave it in ruins regardless. The Code was clear. Azrilazi was an outer district, open to outsiders, which in the strictest interpretation would open it to Four Point Five: Aid allies unless doing so would prove pointless. That being established, Nine Point Seven would come into effect: Excessive firepower is permissible.

Grombrindal: Ancestor's Burden "Maker's Promise" novella, Chapter One

What an interesting word to enshrine into law: Pointless. Not when it becomes unprofitable, impossible, improbable, dangerous, costly, a danger to one's self. When it becomes pointless, that is when one should stop aiding allies.

But when does something become pointless? It's a fascinating thing to see in the Kharadron Code especially due to how malicious or self-serving the wording of the Code can often be interpreted. But here? You are to aid allies until it is pointless and you should do so with all the firepower you have!

In "Maker's Promise" that screams especially true as Duardin of all lineages, Human allies, Stormcast protectors, and even an Aelf and even aghoulthrow everything on the line, make every sacrifice they can muster, to save Barak-Thryng from its fated demise.

But Four Point Five is a law that makes sense in the context of Kharadron as a whole. In "Dawnbringers: Reign of the Brute" a crew chooses to die in a last stand alongside Gardus Steel Soul, in "Godsbane" an assemblage of captains need ultimately only a meager push to be on board with risking their lives, resources, and profit for Settler's Gain, even the Trade Commodore and crew stick around the entirety of the Cursed City game's expansion packs where profit becomes improbable.

Of course Kharadron are often greedy, have contradictory laws, often extoll the cruel and vicious. Yet ever present is Four Point Five. Enshrined in the very cultural guidelines of the Kharadron is the idea that allies, friends, should be aided until its pointless. So at the end of the day it all comes down to how one defines what counts as pointless. It's up to you to make that line.

Yet throughout the novella. Tempted and battered as the heroes, defenders, and civilians were. There aren't many people who find their line. Through it all, no cost was so high as to make aiding allies pointless. Here and there a reminder, was needed, a nudge from a certain White-Bearded Ancestor convinced a fyrd here or a clan there. But just a nudge.

The book isn't out yet, but conveniently on GW's online webstore it shows the page that lists all the KO subfactions. I had to do a little fiddling with the website to find a higher quality version of the image so I could actually read the text but here it is.

>BARAK-URBAZ, THE FALLEN CITY

>The fall of Barak-Urbaz has been nothing short of a tragedy. Hundreds of duardin are though to have perished when the sky-port was blasted from the sky in an eruption of emerald flames, and many more found themselves displaced.

>Before the Vermindoom struck, Barak-Urbaz had already been somewhat scattered. Once famed as the Market City, the biggest sit of commerce throughout the sky ports, Barak-Urbaz's knowledge of the Kharadron Code was so thorough and ironclad that its Codewrights were hired out throughout dozens of other ports and ships. Unfortunately, at that critical time, the Urbaz sky fleets were similarly dispersed. It was only thanks to the efforts of Admiral Doggrun Khrung that the disaster did not become a terminal catastrophe. Barak Urbaz is now the name ascribed to a mega-fleet of carriers and bulk haulers organised by Khrung to carry the sky-port's survivors in the hope that one day they can rebuild what they have lost. Even now, the city's innovative and irrepressible magnates call in favours and plot ways to see thein beloved homeport rise from the ashes more powerful than before.

We haven't gotten the full picture, but it also seems the fall of Urbaz has caused some destabilizing effects on the Kharadron Code. From the same page:

>Barak-Thryng's voice has become louder at the table of the Geldraad as of late. Their detractors claim they show a certain gruff satisfaction at watching what they have long considered extraneous and overzealous amendments to the Code be shorn away under the demands of the hour. They consider the destabilisation caused by Barak-Urbaz's fall to have vindicated their worldview entirely. Barak-Thryng is currently driving efforts to restore the Code's efficacy and has even proposed rolling it back to a more stable edition.

>Barak-Mhornar has been quick to capitalise on the twin blows of the Vermindoom and the destabilisation of the Kharadron Code. Salvagers are setting off from the sky-port to all corners of the Mortal Realms in order to search through the ruins left behind by these disasters, claiming any treasure that lies within. They show little contrition when it comes to profiting from the downfall of their kin.

One thing that I personally really like about the Cities of Sigmar as a faction is seeing the interactions between the different cultures and species of Order, especially when they're forced to live with and fight alongside one another.

The 3e CoS Battletome is a bit lacking on that front, but this one box-out really stuck with me. It's a tiny moment, insignificant in the grand scheme of the Mortal Realms, but it's a great snapshot of the hardship and unity that makes this faction unique.

Brodgorn Brinimenhaft marched stony faced through the Glymmsforge streets to the gate alongside his kinsmen, just as his father had, and his aunt, come to that. Not his first time fighting for the manling city, either. He'd been part of the exodus host before this one, and had to go all the way back at the end of it, supervising the return of those same metaliths they were loading up for tomorrow's excursion.

They had built this city, the duardin of Lyria. Hewn the stone and laid the foundations. Shaped the pillars and raised the statues. Just as they had the settlements, out in the wilds, where the city's aegis gave way to gheist-haunted moors and skeletal woods. They had carried their Sigmarite allies time and time again, sometimes literally, when the wounded could walk no more. No matter that Brodgorn's knees were aflame with old pain. No matter that dozens of his friends had died and his soul felt heavy as lead. 

‘We love you!’

A small girl emerged from the alley, soot smudged and bare-footed. Beaming, she leant forward and put a wreath of tatty sunroses around Brodgorn's neck. At her side, a pack of urchins did the same to the grumbling, white-bearded warriors to the fore. ‘We see you, friends of Sigmar!’

'Oh you do, do you?" said Brodgorn, his temper rising. 

‘Yes! We know you fight for us. You make our houses too, And we love you for it!’ 

‘If ye say so,’ said Brodgorn. He shrugged her off, and walked on. Still... somehow things seemed a little brighter.

While every Free City has internal conflict due to the culture gaps between its citizens, I think the friction between Azyrites and Aqshyians is especially interesting. We've already seen a bit of it when Tahlia Vedra essentially performed a military coup, killing several corrupt Azyrites and changing the iconography of Hammerhal Aqsha, but Soulbound provides a much more mundane example of this that I wanted to share here.

Aqshians often dare each other to prove their might or bravery, and even-tempered Aspirians are not immune to the siren-song of glory. From haunted houses, to unstable ruins, Brightspear is full of risky ways for youngbloods to show their courage... or die a pointless death, to the exasperation of their Azyrite neighbours.

No story better demonstrates this culture clash than the tale of Freeguild Pistolier Rivera Sunchilde and the Leaning Tower of Woe. As Hysh set on Darkening Sigmarsday, she drunkenly ascended the crumbling spire unaided, before slipping on the way down and suffering life-changing injuries. To the Azyrites, Sunchilde's recklessness is a cautionary tale, or a cruel joke about Aqshian stupidity. But to the Aqshians, Sunchilde is a living legend, the first soul to ever reach the peak of the Leaning Tower and survive to tell the tale. The Ironweld Arsenal fashioned her a cogseat to celebrate her enterprising spirit, and it is a regular sight at every tavern in Brightspear, with Sunchilde invariably drinking for free. Lest any consider her disability a sign of weakness, the raucous Sunchilde still keeps a pistol in her holster, and her fall has not impeded her lightning draw or preternatural aim.

Picked out this excerpt from an excellent short story because I feel that it highlights how alien the seraphon are in both their communication and their thinking and how alien humanity is to them.

Context: Irixi, a skink priest of lowly standing, is tasked by sek’atta, the slann starmaster of his temple ship,with recording the layout of the stars from atop a tower in ghyran. A minor complication being that this tower is within a human outpost.

There were a lot of humans staring at him.

He stared back. They were all drawn up as if they wanted to fight him, and there were certainly rather more of them than that would have required. Lots of shiny armour and proudly presented shields in red and green. The devices of hammer and vine on badge and banner. All very martial. He stole a look behind him to make sure there wasn’t some similarly ferocious display of orruks or Nighthaunt or something, and he had just arrived in a particularly inconvenient spot. There was not. There was only the deep, snarled forest of Ghyran.

The pause stretching out right now seemed unpropitious, so he bowed and twisted his tail, raised his staff, planted it in the ground, let different flushes suffuse his skin. All the universally understood signs of respect and diplomatic entreaty, none of which seemed to register in human eyes. And indeed, he recalled that human eyes weren’t actually very good and didn’t see colours properly. Their language revolved mostly around making sounds, rather than combining multiple modes of communication in the rich modes of the seraphon.

‘Good greetings to you all,’ he tried, fighting to shape the complex, awkward sounds with his tongue and throat. ‘The name of Irixi has been given to this lowly servant of the Slann. Pray do not permit me to interfere with your endeavours.’ He was aware that he was still trying to impart much of his meaning through body-movement and tail shape, which would be lost on them, but a lifetime’s habit was hard to break.

There was a stir amongst the closest humans. He had absolutely no way of reading meaning in their rubbery, gurning faces. They might be about to run away or hack him to pieces, or that might just be how humans normally looked at rest. Then one of them strode forwards, and he felt immediately reassured. The most finely dressed of them, insofar as colour and ornament were concerned, the broadest and most rotund of them. Not being borne in a litter or on a floating throne, but nonetheless the closest of all these humans to his ideal image of a leader. A poor shadow of Sek’atta’s magnificence, obviously, but plainly a human aspiring to such a role.

He spoke, and Irixi concentrated ferociously. He was greeting him in the name of ‘Sigmar’, and for a moment he wondered whether that was him, or another of the knot of evident officials behind him, but then recalled that was their name for the galvanic celestial principal they considered their god. The speaker’s name was… complicated, and he wasn’t sure he’d picked it out of his flood of florid words properly. He would be Grand Human for now. Then he was showing him a variety of other humans. Irixi gave them similar labels for now. War-veteran Human, Mage-seer Human, Sniffing Human. And then, introduced last either for reasons of precedence or lack of it, a human with hair all round his face and a nose that looked like a parrot’s beak, and very narrow, suspicious eyes. This one, he grasped, was some sort of hunter, which at least he understood.

‘Temerai Gost,’ he introduced himself, and perhaps he – with a hunter’s keen eye – had seen that the blizzard of human words had somewhat swept Irixi away, because he spoke clearly and slowly for him.

The large, magnificent leader was speaking again, asking if Irixi’s retinue would be joining them. Surely, he was suggesting, there were supposed to be more seraphon? Irixi was taken aback by the idea.

‘I am here to make an astronomical observation of the skies of Ghyran,’ he explained. ‘This takes only a single pair of eyes. Why would more be required?’

War-veteran Human rumbled something about there being danger.

‘The wisdom of Sek’atta did not decree that I would require such,’ he said, suddenly worried that he had misinterpreted his own instructions. Perhaps some sort of battle between the seraphon and humans was necessary at this point, so that a later element of the great plan could come to pass? A mage-priest’s instructions were, of a necessity, cryptic. He would have to hope not.

Inspiration struck. ‘Evidently you are intended to be my safeguard, while I accomplish my purpose.’ And, when it was clear they hadn’t understood what that purpose was, he explained again about the stars, and the observation, and pointed his staff-end at the hilltop and the… ruin.

He had been given to understand there would be a properly built structure appropriate for a Starseer to make exacting sightings from. There had once been such, but time had reduced it to a mound of rubble, overgrown by creeper and grass. It still had just enough residual power to keep the green fist of Ghyran from closing over the hill entirely, but within another revolution of the realms, that too would fail. He was here just in time for the single last moment his duty could be accomplished.

Irixi sighed. It was a long way from tending plants aboard the temple-ship. He, the least of Acamatl’s students, was truly being tested. Which meant, of course, that he was capable of the task, or he would not have been chosen. Or it meant he was intended to fail. And either would further the plan. He should be more sanguine about the matter, but it was hard, faced with all these weird-faced human creatures, and the ruin, and the darkness of the trees. Mage-seer Human was asking him if he was going to make his observations now, which suggested that humans had very little connection to the Astromatrix and the cosmos as a whole. ‘The proper time has not arisen,’ Irixi explained. ‘Not this night, but the next night, when the light of Hysh withdraws from the sky, then the realms must be observed, and a proper record taken, from that very point. Until then, no good can be accomplished.’ It was hatchling-level cosmology, but Mage-seer Human nodded very sagely at it.

Sniffing Human sniffed. Their leader, the largest and most resplendent of them, made gestures towards their walls. He was, Irixi understood, offering him what hospitality they had. He did not feel optimistic about its qualities. A dearth of soothing pools, gardens of contemplation or appropriate sacred geometry seemed certain. Nonetheless, when it led him past those gleaming ranks of warriors, he pattered after his host.

A lot of people like maps. They can add an anchor, provide a key that serves as a glossary of important geographic archetypes, show what regions look like, and you all know why you like maps, or at least since we are only human understand that the brain tells you you do even if articulating why they help is hard. But when it comes to Age of Sigmar there is a certain caveat:

Ulgu, the Realm of Shadow, confounds cartographers.

"Soulbound: Champions of Order" Chapter Three: Archetypes

Whether it's the Realm of Shadows

This collection of maps have been meticulously curated to chart a specific part of one of the Mortal Realms. They are the culmination of years of study; of gathering first-, second-, and even third-hand information; and of great personal endangerment to the cartographer. They are as accurate as a map can be in the Mortal Realms, where the cartographer must contend with things such as the ever-changing lands of Chamon, and the predatory landscape of Ghur which constantly shifts and devours itself.

"Soulbound: Champions of Order" Chapter Six: Equipment

Beasts or Metal, or any of the other five or the subrealms dotting within and without. Whether it be ever-growing cities, like Hammerhal per the 3E Corebook, or the skies whose metaliths, habitats, and skylanes shift with every disaster per the Kharadron Battletomes:

The maps show the regions’ coastlines, landsmasses, and most major landmarks and cities, but are only as accurate as the cartographer could make them.

"Soulbound: Champions of Order" Chapter Six: Equipment

And mapping Ghyran was a chancy business, because so much of it was forest and so much of that forest didn’t necessarily stay where you’d left it. The map was a confusion of arrows and currents showing where the cartographer had attempted to encapsulate the dynamic landscape of the living realm. That and an enormous profusion of different sigils that Rosforth was sure meant hazards of various kinds.

On the Shoulders of Gaints, Chapter Three

So maps are great and useful. But when exploring the Mortal Realms, my fellow Realmwalkers, do take care to remember that in both lore and meta. The maps are inaccurate, unreliable, outdated. Useful to be sure, never let this info stop you having fun and using them as grounding. But always keep in mind that the maps we have are purposefully meant not to be telling the full story or be the be all, end all to accurate depiction of scale, size, distance, or even all geography in a mapped region.

Context: Oh boy this interlude alone could fill like fifty excerpt posts but... Ushoran has just arrived at his old winter's palace after it was raised and raided by sigmarite barbarians. He found his old friend dead and mutilated along with his twenty thousand subjects. There he found only 17 survivors, one of which is a lowly huntsman's son who's the only one of said seventeen to not have lost limbs in the siege of Wintersmaw. Now, Ushoran needs to fix things.

‘Harken to me,’ Ushoran said, inviting them to surround him. ‘Hear now what I swear to you by the wraith moons and my own sanctified blood! This wanton slaughter – this decimation of a peaceful folk – will not stand. Let Sigmar send whole armies of his unnatural soldiers against me – I will tear them apart, declaiming the names of all who were slain here as I do. Men or Stormcast, aelves or duardin, none who took part in this atrocity shall escape my wrath.’ He looked to Redtalon. ‘Do you know the land hereabouts, boy?’ ‘I know it well, sire,’ Redtalon said, bowing low. ‘I can deliver you to the very doorstep of the fiend responsible for our suffering.’ ‘Kneel,’ Ushoran commanded. Those bearing witness whispered and murmured amongst themselves. Ushoran loomed above the boy. One enormous hand descended, hovering over Redtalon’s head as if in blessing. ‘Henceforth,’ he said solemnly, ‘you shall be my second, my right hand, my closest companion. I bestow this responsibility because you have already proven your worth – and in the hard days ahead, I shall have need of one who is clever and determined, such as yourself.’ Redtalon’s voice cracked when he spoke. ‘You honour me, my king.’ ‘You shall be my eyes and ears, my guide and my guard, my shield and my sharpened sword. Arise, Sir Redtalon, Knight of Wintersmaw, and take your place at my side.’ Redtalon rose. Only when he had raised his face and the gheist moon shone upon it did Ushoran see that the youth now wept crimson tears of his own. Ushoran looked to the others. So pitiful, he thought. So lost. ‘Your lord,’ Ushoran said, voice hoarse with grief, ‘Lord Grizzlerend, was my comrade… my friend. I was present when he first proclaimed his love for his lady wife, Leechlain. I bestowed gifts upon them when their first child and heir, young master Dreadric, was born. My good subjects, I have lost as much today as you have. My heart – like each and every one of your hearts – is cloven, shattered. I have travelled far to come here, touring domains that I long ago left in the care of my closest companions, all so I could, at last, return to this place – my winter palace, my favoured home. To return here and find this place that was so dear to me in such a state as this… why, it stokes fires of fury within me even as it flays my soul.’ The survivors hung upon his every word. ‘First,’ Ushoran said, ‘we shall find safe harbour in the hills, away from this place and the unquiet dead now haunting it. We shall tend your wounds, see you fed, and slake your considerable thirsts. And then, when you are safe and provisioned, I shall see to the business of avenging you – avenging all who fell here.’ ‘Say the word, my lord,’ Redtalon interjected, ‘and I shall fight at your side.’ ‘In time,’ Ushoran said, looking down upon the young champion. ‘But for now, this is my fight – my responsibility alone.’ The survivors sobbed. They embraced one another. They raised their hands in exaltation and praise. Ushoran studied their broken faces, their pleading eyes. I was sired for this reason, he thought. I was chosen to rule, to lead. My strength exists to ennoble them, to inspire them, and if I shrank from the challenge now, in the hour of their direst need, what sort of king – what sort of man – would I be?

I don't think I have to explain why I love this excerpt (and it's entire CHAPTER) so much. I love Flesh-Eaters as ironic. It's why I prefer them to the Strigoi. I want them to genuinely be good, brave people trapped in the confines of their own mind and the atrocities the Realms enacted upon them. I want them wise and kind and desperate and Ushoran should be all of those things most of all. We have Manfred and Neferata as the psychotic Progenitors, we have Katakros with his cold ambition for war, we have Olynder with her selfish pursuit of power, and Arkhan the toadey for a power he does not desire. Ushoran should be their utter antithesis. The shining light for what could have been. Should have been had fate not been guided by a cruel monster God. Does he wreak carnage and blood? Yes. Does he also comfort the wounded and literally sob when he finds his friend dead? Also yes! That they're both true is what makes flesh eaters, and Ushoran, so amazing

Today's Stormposting is courtesy of u/k3lk3l who noticed this tidbit about the Celestant-Prime. I'd encouraged them to make the post but they asked me to, so here we go.

The Celestant-Prime is a nameless hero from a world long lost, an ancient warrior who rarely speaks, save to pronounce stern judgement on the God-King's enemes. None save Grungni and the God-King know the Celestant-Prime's true identity.

Pg. 47, section Celestant-Prime, of the 4E SCE Battletome

Yes. That is correct, I completely missed a detail that was one turn page away from the Vandus info I grabbed for yesterday's post. My only defense is that I don't like the CP because of his lack of a personality... which in a twist of irony is his most fascinating feature.

But purposefully suppressing your personality, isn't the same as lacking an identity. The CP has one but it is a myster- probably Karl Franz.

From previous books we know that the mortal who became CP was a king and had wielded Ghal Maraz. Ghal was made in the World-That-Was and wielded by a scant few, and after the End Times it hitched a ride on Sigmar's cosmic coma-journey to... either somewhere else or swirling around the Void constantly until the Realms formed and Dracothion got curious enough to steal a pretty comet.

Couple that with confirming that the CP is from a world long lost, and we end up with a scant handful of candidates at most. But hey. Just for fun. Are there any other figures in WHFB it could be? Who else wielded the Shatterer? Mind you, an emperor isn't really different from a king, so with the wording we have any Empire Emperor who wielded the hammer could potentially be a candidate, even if its probably Karl.

From Queen of The Rose Throne by Gary Kloster, chapter 7, pg. 87-88:

Zombies were usually mindless, hungry vessels waiting for orders, but these were savage things, eager to hurl themselves at anything they could reach. I fought their hunger, making them turn to face their charging brethren, but it wasn't easy. This was where the slickness of their souls began to fight me, a slickness unlike the icy feel of most mortals. This felt more like a rancid grease: slippery but also cloying, contaminating; something that tried to cling to me as much as it tried to make my grip fall away.

Hold them. Or you will have just made your fight worse, not better.

As if I didn't know that, but I didn't have time to snarl back at her. I was wrapping the dead gors in more threads of death magic, forcing their vicious hunger to serve me, and I could feel it working, feel them turning. But buried somewhere in the corruption that clotted their very being, something vast moved. Something that brushed my mind through my grip on the gors' tearing, battered souls, and for a moment I felt its regard - a huge and awful thing, crushing in its furious attention - and one word ran through me, through mind and body and soul.

YOU.

Then it was gone, and there was just the gors before me, the dead I had hooked with the fangs of my spirit and the living that were shaking the ground with their hooves as they poured forwards, ready to rend and kill.

What was that? Mother gasped.

Anyone have any idea on what that something was? That has to be good ol' Morghur right?

Dear friends and strangers, Realmwalkers all, in my continued quest to show there is a cornucopia of human characters in Age of Sigmar to feast one's eyes upon. I present to you the climax of "On the Shoulders of Giants" starring Rosforth, a crusty old Fusil-Major with no legs, and Slobda, a Ogor Warhulk who very blatantly hits on her major on page.

I highly recommend reading this novella rather than the butchery that will be my attempt to praise it. But for those of you who can't or have read it so know I am being purposefully morbid with my humor. Let's dig in.

There had been a dozen of them. Himself and the surgeon, plus ten human soldiers in various states of disarray and injury, hiding out in a cellar as the servants of Ruin scoured the buildings above. Twelve humans, and Slobda. She’d not been a full war-hulk then, no crow’s nest on her back. Just a Maneater who’d signed on with a Sigmarite force and probably not expected to get the mauling they’d all just received. Now she was hiding out in this cellar with this ragbag of her former allies and precious little in the way of food. For days, as the Chaos host looted the ruins above. The mood, in the darkness, listening to Slobda’s belly gurgle and complain. The ogor’s great bulk, taking up half the available space. All of them, within her arm’s reach. Understanding that they’d escaped one enemy just to place themselves within the hands of another. Save for Grippe, none of them was uninjured. Half of them hadn’t even made it down with a weapon to hand. The ogor’s appetite was growing moment to moment, like a whole extra monstrous creature slowly expanding into the cellar’s cramped confines. They could see the glint of her little eyes in the dark as she looked hungrily over at them. And Rosforth had seen she hadn’t wanted to. That she respected her contract, understood that eating her employers was poor form for a Maneater. Poor form, but not unprecedented. Ogors had to eat. And, yes, every living thing did, but ogors had to eat. It was what drove them to travel the realms, because if they stayed in one place they stripped it bare. And there she was, and there they all were, waiting for the thin bonds of civilised conduct to snap. Rosforth had seen how it would have to be. The gift he was in a position to give, to buy just enough time for the enemy above to lose interest and move on. Talking Healer Grippe into playing their part had been the tricky bit. But there was going to be a double amputation in his immediate future, so why not put it to some use? It had been sheer pragmatism, at the time. A man with few options and assets making the best of them. An unthinkable act to one brought up on Sigmar’s writ. But to an ogor it was something else. The look on her face when she’d understood. When Grippe had finished sawing and she’d seen Rosforth’s gift to her…

There was absolute silence amongst the ogors as Slobda finished telling the story. Not telling it exactly as Rosforth would, admittedly. A somewhat different emphasis, on what part of the story was important. Not many people ever heard a friend describe avidly, eagerly, just how their flesh tasted. What a delicacy they had apparently been.

‘Cor,’ said one of the listeners eventually, and Rosforth saw long strings of saliva running down his chin. ‘’E give you ’is own legs?’

On the Shoulders Of Giants, Chapter Nine

Sacrifice! That is what I absolutely adore about the Cities of Sigmar. Million million million voices from innumerable races, cultures, and creeds who struggle to make living with each other work. Willing to commit sacrifices for one another.

In this retelling of the moment that sparked Rosforth and Slobda's lifelong partnership, Slobda struggles not to eat her friends. Manages for days. That's not mean feat for a species effected by a magical hunger and can fall to a number of curses affiliated with not gorging themselves.

Rosforth sacrificed his legs to save Slobda and his fellow Freeguilders. Fascinatingly, before this moment throughout the novella we saw Rosforth believes that Slobda is a monster playing at civility. A friend to be sure but one who isn't truly part of his world. Yet despite thinking this he willingly sacrificed his legs to save her from herself.

The different mindsets of the two species and how they are fundamentally somewhat alien comes up a lot in the book. But this sacrifice, though the emphasis is different to both, means the world to both humans like us and Ogors like Slobda. So much so it sets up Slobda swaying an entire tribe of Gutbusters giving city life a chance. Because Rosforth is wrong. Because while in his insecurity he believes Slobda and he are two different, how Ogors view life incompatible to Sigmarite life. To Slobda it was:

‘Best days o’ my life.’

It's an absolute treat of a Cities of Sigmar story that reinforces the themes of the faction.

Oh and for those curious. Yes, War Surgeon Grippe is consistently presented as non-binary and Rosforth is shown to be respectful about that. In fact the story kicks off with Slobda and Rosforth's Marshal being a bigot against other species, other ethnicities, old people, the disabled, and basically everything. Then gets his regiment decimated because the people he considered chaff were his veterans and specialists.

A real lovely and unsubtle novella that's worth the read.

I was kind of expecting something like this to be written. Although I'm not happy about what happened to my favourite psychotic goats, this is at least better than removing them without any in-universe explanation, does leave them open to returning in case GW ever feels like it.

For the cloven-hoofed killers of the deep wilds, the Era of the Beast had been one of plenty, an age of joyous carnage that rivalled the old times before the coming of the hated God-King. Far and wide, the greatfrays roamed, woe befalling all in their path. Blood saturated the lands, and everywhere rose the blunt and ugly shapes of herdstones, corpses piled before them by the score. It seemed the hunt would never end. Yet the history of the beastmen has ever been defined by the cycle of triumph and calamity. With the disappearance of the Earthquake God Kragnos, the momentum that had defined the Era of the Beast sputtered to a halt. Without that primal aura of rage around them, the greatfrays began to splinter. Old tensions resurfaced. Rival Beastlords sought to settle scores or prove themselves the mightier in tooth and claw, while packs of Gors and Ungors split away from the larger hosts to indulge in raiding of their own. The malformed predators that accompanied the gor-kin ranged ever farther in search of fresh meat. All the while, the enemies of the greatfrays regathered their strength.

Soon, the armies of Sigmar and his allies struck out to avenge the horrors so recently visited upon them, even as the primal cohesion of the beastherds was further weakened from within. The Dark Gods sought more chattel for their wars of annihilation, and in the teeming beastmen, they saw grist for their mill. Warbands of each great power travelled across the ravaged territories newly claimed by the Beastlords, converting gor-kin to their cause through torture, temptation or indoctrination. More and more beastmen scorned the path of true anarchy and chose the way of the Slaangors, Pestigors or Tzaangors – newly devoted servants of a single patron god, twisted and moulded entirely in that entity’s vile image.

For those beastmen who saw their kind as a pure incarnation of Chaos, unalloyed and untainted by subservience, this was a threat that could only be met with savagery. Infighting rocked the greatfrays as godworshipping gor-kin were hunted down, butchered and skinned. In return, the Dark Gods sent in more of their own warriors to widen the rift, escalating the violence to horrifying new levels that drew more recruits to their cause. It soon became clear why the Ruinous Powers had been so dead-set upon making pawns of the beastmen, as the Skaven unleashed the Vermindoom upon the eastern fringe of Aqshy’s Great Parch with meteoric force, precipitating the realms-wide cataclysm known as the Hour of Ruin. The Dark Gods had played their own role in bringing about this nightmare, the brainchild of their newest member, the Great Horned Rat. Now came a chance to expand their already vast hosts and ensure the subjugation of the weakened powers of Order. So did the greatfrays find themselves under attack from within and without as the realms around them were split asunder. Yet such was their power and the sheer weight of their numbers that, even then, the Beasts of Chaos fought back viciously, with all the fury of an apex predator protecting its kill. Powerful Beastlords and Bray-Shamans swore that if they were to fall, they would perish with their teeth buried in the throat of their oppressor. These alphabeasts slew their foes by the hundreds, turning the lands blood-red as they defied the armies now arrayed against them. But they were not invincible. One by one, they perished, leaving their greatfrays to fight on alone.

Leaderless herds now manifested the same survival instincts that had governed the Beasts of Chaos since time immemorial. As if they were one single organism, they began to bleed away into the forests, deserts and other inhospitable corners of the Mortal Realms. In the moment, the enemies of the greatfrays claimed a glorious victory. The truth behind that claim soon came into question. Crusading armies that pursued these retreating packs of gor-kin paid for their foolishness when they were encircled, ambushed and torn apart piecemeal. It is too easy, then, to claim definitively that the Beasts of Chaos are defeated. It is true that many of the most ferocious warlords of the bestial hordes were slain, and the cloven-hoofed ones were driven from those territories they had occupied. Yet trying to eliminate them all was to prove as impossible a task as counting every speck of sand in the realms.

Wherever the land is soured by corruption, there the Beasts of Chaos still lurk, licking their wounds and waiting for their prey to expose its throat.

There's also even a bit about Morghur, who was seemingly set up to be a major new villain. I wish we actually got this battle as a story because it sounds cool and it would be more dignified than just off-screening him.

FATE OF THE SHADOWGAVE

In the depths of the cursed glade known as Witherdwell, there was once a bubbling mire of rank flesh and protean matter, a cesspit of corruption that the beastmen believed to be the essence of Morghur, the Great Devolver. This entity was as a god to them, a being from another time so redolent with unnatural magic that it could never truly be slain. One day, the Bray-Shamans of Morghur preached, their grotesque master would return and reduce the realms and everything in them into a single pit of primordial ooze.

Sensing the malignant power stirring in Witherdwell, a combined force of Sylvaneth and Lumineth Realm-lords sought to wipe it from the map. While the greatfrays were scattered, indulging their basest instincts in the Hour of Ruin, the aelf-kin and their allies struck. The Battle of Witherdwell was a horrific one, and no aelven warrior or forest spirit that experienced the horror of battling across the mutating mires of that cursed place will ever heal the damage wrought upon their bodies and minds. Yet through Lumineth magic and the cleansing spells of Alarielle’s chosen Branchwraiths, the Morghur-pool was scoured from existence and its Bray-Shaman wardens slain. Only one escaped – the infamous and cruelly cunning greypelt known as Ghorraghan Khai. Limping away into the depths of the deep forest, Khai clutched a fistful of gelid matter that hissed and bubbled between his claws: a last scraping from the Great Devolver’s putrid mass, still throbbing with untold power. The realms had not yet glimpsed the last of Morghur – or his worshippers.

The skaven's souls were something else.

They glowed, but not like fire. They were molten glass, liquid in their brightness, and they mixed together, browns and bronzes and dull ugly greens, colours like old bruises. Their soul light flowed through them, around them, bunching and spreading, rushing back and forth. It was as though the skaven shared one massive soul between them, but every one of them wanted it all. Every skaven was fighting for more, constantly drawing in light and colour from those around them and having it stolen back, a never-ending battle to grasp the essence they all shared and hoard it in themselves. The skaven in some ways were all one, but it was a one at war with itself; predatory, hungry, consuming. And the Clawlord that stood on the litter was the hungriest of all, his essence a vast mass far larger than his body, a barbed tangle of thorns limned in that toxic green fire that ripped at the souls of the skaven surrounding him and pulled their pieces into himself.

• Excerpt from Skaventide, when Lord-Veritant Morgen uses her soul-sight on the skaven. I thought this was a cool lore tidbit that was worth sharing.

They called her name – not an organised chant but a salvo of ragged shouts, voices rough from smoke and strong drink. The attention pained her, but it would be callous not to acknowledge their sacrifice. Although they bore neither sword nor lance, the workers of Hammerhal were no less than their Steelhelm brethren. Their battlefield was the forge, the smokestack, the assembly fire, their lives offered up day by grinding day.

Lioness of the Parch, Chapter Five

If the Perspicarium had been but another monument to the Hammers of Sigmar, it would have been easy to ignore. But the blue-and-gold-bannered keep was more than a mere shrine. It was a mailed fist, a living testament to the steel faith of those warriors who stood in Sigmar’s shadow, ready to offer their lives – again and again – so that the people of Aqshy could claw back what had been stolen from them. Tahlia might not agree with Magister Aventis’ high-handed rhetoric, but it would be petulant not to acknowledge the role he and his Stormcast brethren played in protecting Hammerhal and its people. So she waited respectfully as the lower gate was raised and the heavy steel cage lowered so that Tahlia and her mount might be winched up to the first of many gatehouses.

Lioness of the Parch, Chapter Five

My favorite character in Age of Sigmar is undeniably Gardus Steel Soul, who will likely remain so unless he is thoroughly butchered for poor shock value. But even then, I'm a lifelong superhero fan... a key rule is that they always become paragons again.

But Tahlia Vedra is far from a paragon, far from a superhero, and hardly the kind of character I typically like. Vedra is more than a bit of a warhawk, more than a bit crazy, and let's be frank her introductory novel has her beat Chaos corruption not by any positive quality of her personality, friendship, or love... it's because she is too pissed at the world to be corrupted.

Which while incredibly hilarious. Would typically not lend itself to the kind of character I like. But then there are the excerpts above. As you all likely know, Vedra cares about the soldiers under her command and pushed for reforms to get them better treatment. She rails against the oppression of the worst type of Azyrite for the Reclaimed as a whole, because as an orphan she has no culture of her own besides her lineage as a Parcher, an Aqshian.

But in moments like this we see that respect extends to all the working class, whose metaphorical battlefields, to her, are just as important as those she fights. Her respect extends towards the Stormcast Eternals who time and time again sacrifice themselves for others.

We also see in the novel, despite how crazy she is, that her militant mindset and attitude isn't about war for war's sake. Her main motivation in the novel is securing a new trade road as well as the cities along it. It is a plan that in the long term, rather than the short term, would benefit a lot of people.

Vedra is just absolutely terrible at expressing her ideas and points, best seen in the 3E Cities of Sigmar Battletome which shows off her infamous Eve of Four Killings. Where she is nothing but correct claiming that the four corrupt Grand Conclavers, three of whom guilty of mass slaughter of civilians, were rich enough they could drag out court cases, if not wiggle out of punishment. But her method of bringing them to justice via a very public murder in Hammerhal's most important government building, in front of every other Conclaver, was not a great plan. Especially as she had convinced her adoptive sister Katrik le Guillon and ally Zane Delorius to help, both Conclavers.

Vedra is after all a populist, and this is a common move by such generals to then seize the government. Vedra can hardly fault Master Patriarch Mench and the rest for not believing Vedra would then be glad to slink back off to leading whatever army they assigned her to while otherwise being akin to a cat in her habit of wondering the streets of Hammerhal Aqsha going from one barracks to a tavern to another barracks to the refugee districts looking for food, entertainment, and things to fight.

Which is what Vedra prefers doing by the way, despite being a general. Which is of course partially because she is an insane person. But mostly it is because excerpts like the above are true. She has genuinely love, respect, and admiration for her city and all the people in it.

This is why Vedra is my second favorite character in the setting. In a world full of superheroes and dark lords, Vedra is a much more mundane sort of hero with ample flaws and baggage. But at her core, she is undeniably a heroic person who strives to make a better world than the one she was born into. For the soldiers she commands, the every day folk she is sworn to defend, and even the demigod superheroes who gave her the chance to fight for her world.

For a long time, despite being repeatedly stated to be a Chaos God, the Horned Rat was not ascribed an emotion that formed him like Nurgle being Despair or Slaanesh being Desire. He was often referred to as a god of Ruin or Entropy, but those aren't exactly emotions. But now the Skaven book has finally delved into what exactly coalesced in the Realm of Chaos to make up the Horned Rat.

The Great Horned Rat is the incarnation of disaster and collapse. His goal is an overthrown cosmos where rodents rule over ruins, without thought of heerd for what would follow this despoiling. He is also a deity of Chaos formed from mortal emtion - specifically desperation, as befits this most vile of gods.

The Horned Rat draws strength from the peasant who devours their family rather than starve, the preacher made a lord through prophesying an oncoming disaster, the child who toopples their sibling's works out of a need for attention. He is what mortals become in their most despicable moments: self-serving vermin. It is hardly surprising, then, that he is so bound to the fortunes of his Skaven brood, who revel in such deviousness.

The black hunger suffered by all Skaven is an echo of the Horned Rat's own need to consume. Combined with the ratmen's explosive fecundity, the enviroment in their warren-cities is therefore one of constant scarcity. Skaven must claw for scraps of prestige, tearing down all others. Only the most powerful have enough meagre security to potentially reflect on their society's sickness - but so too have they been twisted by it, their master forever whispering both glory and threat in their minds.

This description reminds me of an old fan theory that the Horned Rat was essentially a combination of Tzeentch and Nurgle, either as a literal entity created by the overlaps of their spheres or a misinterpretation by the Skaven (the "true" Horned Rat being Skaven and the heretical sect of Clan Pestilens being decieved into worshipping Nurgle). The emotion of desperation ascribed to the Horned Rat I feel like can be easily described as the combination of Nurgle's despair and Tzeentch's hope; being stuck in a bad spot, but instead of giving in like Nurgle's chosen doing anything possible to weasel out of it instead.

Bonus: a small description of human worshippers of the Great Horned Rat, which I feel goes to better demonstrate his sphere in practical terms.

'As the apocalypse comes to consume us, some men do not resist. Driven from their minds by selfish fear, they bow before the darkness in search of succor. Before bell-strewn altars or rotting wicker idols, these apostates don cloaks of filthy vermin-pelt, offering tribute of burnt crops and befouled carcasses to a being they know as "Good King Gnaw" - a crowned and benevolent lord surrounded by an endless banquet. Their fate is to become food for the Skaven. But through their self-serving abasement, they nonetheless empower the Great Horned Rat, letting him reach into their dreams and flesh and twist both to his pernicious liking.

So here, there, and everywhere a handful of you have been asking about Kharadron submersibles as of late. Which makes it very interesting that this story came out now of all times:

One of the Tralhafn’s endrineers appeared wearing an elaborate suit of armour that covered him in overlapping plates and left his face visible behind a transparent visor. Runes glowed on every surface, while thick tubes and cables were attached to its collar. Albarak gasped as he stepped over the edge into the water and sank from sight.

‘Surely he will drown!’ he said.

A passing endrineer chuckled. "Nay Odri goes to investigate the damage done to the the Tralhafn's underside. He wears varanaut armour — a modified aether-suit, something that we have been developing. Air is pumped to him through that line, and the plates and joints are rune-warded to protect him from the pressure and cold"

From Pg. 109 of the July 2025 Issue of White Dwarf

So this delightful third entry into the saga of Albarak, the best Ghurish Duardin adventurer wielding a knife made in a forge of primordial ice, introduces the hero to the wider world and the interests of the Kharadron.

In this case a holding of the Kharadron Admirals' Council of Excelsis, the fact the embassy port in Excelsis is large enough to now have a council with that named comprised of an Admiral and representatives from several Kharadron guilds is also a big advancement, called the Tralhafn. (Note: Not spelled that way but my keyboard refuses to make the a with two dots.)

The Tralfafn is an aerial platform of hexagonal shape meant to hover over the Crawling Sea and support an exploratory submersible. In short, a research platform and submarine. For those curious they are researching an undersea living crevasse that eats ore veins and once it closes to move on, it leaves behind different minerals than those it ate. So the Kharadron are researching those.

Also I guess another big reveal. Final nail in the coffin of the idea the living continents, landmasses, and other such things in Ghur eating each other is a metaphor, it is very much happening and happens on a small scale too. So watch out for that canyon, it might getcha.

And of course the final bit is the Varanaut Aether-suit. Experimental according to the excerpt and elsewhere yet here it is regardless. A full on, working diving aether-rig to explore the deep sea.

That is right my Sea Duardin craving friends. The Kharadron have submarines and diving suits, with hovering sea bases to support, supply, and maintain them. So every bit for deep sea adventures is right here!

You know I don't much like the human followers of Chaos, and personally feel a lot of the novels that are meant to add nuance to them fail in myriad ways. Commonly by making them very much guilty of the daemon summoning, cannibalism, thieving, brutalism, totalitarianism, and crimes they are accused of. Especially the Darkoath.

Why this as a preamble in a series of posts celebrating human characters? Cause when a follower of Chaos does it well, it's a lot of fun. Also be warned I am going to outright spoil the biggest reveal in the first paragraph after the excerpt.

The Breakers responded quickly, well used to assaulting such meagre fortifications. Black iron ladders slammed against ramparts of fortified obsidian, spiked grappling arms crashing down among the defenders. No. Not defenders. Invaders. Gar reminded himself it was they who had come to the lands of his people, they who had ravaged and slaughtered. His tribe had dwelt in the Caustic Peaks longer than memory, their war songs stretching back years uncounted. The heretics sought to erase all that they were, to drown the Parch in a sea of blood and broken bodies, driven by the whims of their cruel and petty gods. Lord Ebonpyre might pity the invaders.

Gar hated them.

Lioness of the Parch: Prologue

These are the internal thoughts of Gar the First from the Caustic Peaks, faithful lieutenant to Lord Mausolus Ebonpyre, a Chaos Lord once known to his adoptive sisters Tahlia Vedra and Katrik le Guillon as Halek Twinsteel. To Gar this war is a fight for his land, people, and way of life. To Halek this is misguided and twisted revenge due to a refusal to accept responsibility for the actions that led him to becoming a lord under Chaos.

Gar hails from the Caustic Peaks which you can see on the maps of the Great Parch, as seen in this novel and the Head of the Serpent short, the Peaks are sporadically populated by tens of thousands of Darkoath tribesfolk.

What really sells Gar is this excerpt, this moment in the prologue, where he forces himself to think of the people in the Glasspire Citadel as invaders. Regardless of what any of us might think of the morality of the Cities of Sigmar and the Slaves to Darkness, Sigmarites and Darkoath. In this brief moment, this small scene, we see Gar has to remind himself to other the people he wants to kill.

As righteous as he views his cause to be, he sees humanity in these people.

It's important to note that Gar also is not wrong. The Darkoath Tribes of the Caustic Peaks have been there a long time, the Glasspire and other Frontier-Citadels are undeniable a military invasion. Throughout the novel we see Hammerhalian forces bring war to the region multiple time.

But in "Head of the Serpent" we hear that Twinsteel isn't the first Chaos Lord to unite tribes of the Peaks into an army. It happens every few years. Gar is doing what he does to remove the invaders who have come to his lands. While his beloved lord, Ebonpyre/Twinsteel, merely sees this as a means to take revenge on a city that he feels abandoned him.

Gar and his people merely pawns in a war between a Cityman family he probably doesn't even understand he is swept up into. Capping off the tragedy that is Gar, a man who wants to help his people and even in a twisted way believes the Free Peoples of the Cities can be embraced into his way of life to save them.... Gar simply dies in the climax.

Slain by Tahlia Vedra in Chapter Twenty-Three. No redemption for the Gar and the Breakers, merely death in the endless war between Order and Chaos. But Gar was living proof that humanity undeniable shines in the core of the Darkoath.

They live, they breathe, they care, they can show kindness. Sometimes, sometimes ancestral and personal hate isn't enough, because just like any other human hate and rage and animosity has to be forced. Sometimes they have to force themselves to think of their foes as invaders, sometimes they are right and other times they are wrong. But in so doing they prove they are human. For better and for worse.

It is a question I have been asked many times by wide-eyed mortals. How does it feel, to die and be reborn over and over again? Most often they ask it in a tone of awe, sometimes tinged with jealousy. Those whose time within these realms is all too are wont to dream of eternal life.
I rarely speak the truth. It is easier, I think, to lie. My questioners do not wish To hear of agony and suffering. They would recoil to know the white-hot torment of the Anvil of Apotheosis, where one's soul is reshaped, where fleshand bone are reconstituted in a cage of crashing lightning. Even less would these mortals want to hear of the poor souls who emerge restored in body but diminished in spirit, haunted by whispers of a past they can no longer recall.
The soul-mages of the Sacrosanct call it the Storm's Eye, that point of calm at which a Stormcast soul can withstand this violent reshaping. Each death takes us a little further from it. Each Reforging burns away a little more of our humanity. Without that essence, we become more automatons than thinking beings: avatars of cold and merciless judgement whose first inclination is to eradicate those who display even a flicker of waywardness. The worst afflicted become lightning-gheists, disembodied spirits trapped in a paroxysm of righteous rage, lashing out at anything in sight.
I wonder how the Unforged would look at us, if they knew the scale of the flaw. If they knew of the Ruination chambers, where the stricken live out existence in solemn isolation. Would that rob our achievements of their glory? Would they fear what we might become? Or would they pity us? I do not know which would pain me more.
- Lord-Celestant Erastion, Hammers of Sigmar

SCE Battletome Fourth Edition, Pg. 15

It's not really righteous rage if it is impotently directed at anyone who gets near them, yeah? Then its just rage or even self-righteous rage. Even a tantrum really. I'm rambling. Greetings, Realmwalkers, it is I, the Mutt you call Sage. If you thought I was done with Stormposting... well that's just silly.

You know I am torn on this speech. On one hand it is overall lovely and mostly a gut-wrenching look into a Stormcast Eternal's thoughts on the Reforging process, how it effects them and all. Buuut it kind of encapsulates my least favorite aspects of the faction.

The Hammers of Sigmar; the constant streamlining of the Flaw to become a singular, beat to beat process; and what I feel kind of comes off as how to put it? Babification isn't the right word, we'll get to it.

So to start Hammers of Sigmar. There's too many of them and they don't have an identity. This is an issue because there are other speeches about the Flaw in this very book, mostly by other Hammers. And while knowing the Hammers are diverse of thought is cool, there's seven other Stormhosts major re-appearing Stormhosts and an absolute bare minimum of 100 more, likely waaay more because that's how many fought at the Allpoints and more have been made, and its said Sigmar alone can count them all.

So. Too many Hammer opinions. Even for the poster faction, especially for the poster faction. Cause again they lack a unified identity or theme, other than One. First Forged, Best Celestants, first to have a member elevated to Inner Circle, first this, best that, most this. They need less overexposure and more focus, and less GW murdering all their best characters.

The Flaw thing is simple. The Flaw was originally presented as compplicated, all sorts of things happened. Some Eternals even became Transfigured, something different than human but not broken like lightning-gheists. But more and more its becoming a single stream. Newcast - Broken By Reforging - Loss of Personhood - Lightning-Gheist. Which is a whole lot less interesting, especially when they put things like "Oh, Yndrasta may be inducted into Ruination" soon. Like. That's weird.

Lastly Erastion kind of doesn't respect the emotional maturity of humans, or even Stormcasts really, in this speech. This isn't unique. It's something that a lot of Stormcast stories edge towards or delve in, and often I don't think its on purpose.

It seems like the intent is to present the situation of the Eternals as so far beyond comprehension and the ability to relate to - but... But it's not. That's the point of the faction and what makes them likeable. Their situation and the horror is easy to comprehend. Sure the full scale is hard to process

But that's trauma in general. A lot of stuff acts like the humans would just collapse in terror from the lightest breeze of, "Your heroes are sad". The latest Blacktalon novel in its climax even wildly claims, spoilers I guess, that all of humanity would just give up and embrace Chaos and kill each other if they aren't able to pretend at least one god is perfect. I don't recommend that novel.

But anyway there's just this vibe of the narrative not really respecting the autonomy, intelligence, or emotional maturity of both mortal and eternal more than once, not like. Devastatingly often. But it crops up here and there, and it's just an aspect of Stormcast and Cities lore that I really don't like.

I get what they are going for in scenes when they do this. But it just feels like it tonally clashes with the rest of the setting, and often even the same books where it happens.

So this was just a lot of bitter, yeah. Well no worries! Next time, I want to talk about the Father of Blades, who as of 4E is the living animus of all swords everywhere.

Edit: Oh! Infantilize was the term I was thinking of for one character or groupp treating other characters or groups as if they were children. I guess patronize also fits. These are the things SCE does at time that riles me up. Infantilizing or patronizing either baseliners or Eternals.