The Realmgate Wars. Soul Wars and Broken Realms. The Era of the Beast and the Dawnbringer Crusades. The past 10 years of Warhammer Age of Sigmar have been packed with action: heroism, betrayal, and dastardly schemes.
We finished our recap of the previous edition with the ramifications of the Vermindoom reverberating across the realms. Today, we enter the grim period known as the Hour of Ruin.
The Hour of Ruin
The Skaven skewered reality via the Vermindoom to invade the Great Parch, their pocket dimension of Blight City bursting into Aqshy in a wave of untold destruction. A continent was annihilated as warpstone fires raged, the earth ruptured and warp lightning tore the sky apart. Now known as the Gnaw, this area teems with ratmen and warpstone corruption. From the spired city of Hexeneste at its centre, Vizzik Skour rules his Great-Grand Gnawhorde, a frenzied congregation of zealots who are willing to die for their master – stoked into a frenzy by his vile orations.
Skaven scheming never ends, and the Prophet of the Horned Rat is undertaking the construction of Warpshatter Bells across his domain in order to whip his followers into new heights of mania.
With the Gnaw so twisted and polluted, only the most resilient of warriors can take the fight to the Skaven, such as the Stormcast Eternals of the Ruination chambers. These bitter veterans have been Reforged too often, losing a little more of their humanity each time. With memories and personality fading, this curse nevertheless provides one unusual benefit – the power of Azyr that suffuses them causes enemy sorceries to fail against them while the corrupting influence of Chaos is unable to find purchase.
The first great clashes between Stormcast Eternals and Skaven take place on the island of Hel Crown and in the city of Hel’s Claw. The Hallowed Knights win a costly victory, destroying one of the Bells, though the Skaven completely overrun Hel Crown.
They now send seemingly endless swarms to attack the mountain strongholds of the Adamantine Chain, a natural barrier between Skaven territory and the rest of Aqshy. Fighting has been fiercest on Burningbridge, a spit of land under the protection of Bastian Carthalos and Iridan the Witness, who together lead the Ruination chambers.
Disasters and portents
As for the rest of the realms… the Kharadron sky-port of Barak Urbaz has been sent tumbling out of the sky by the Vermindoom, crashing into the Ayadah in the Realm of Metal. This has created a power vacuum in the Kharadron Empire, as Barak Urbaz was home to many of its greatest and thus most fastidious Codewrights. Now, lesser Codewrights, opportunistic admirals, and ambitious magnates attempt to force amendments through the Kharadron code, each with their own selfish aspirations.
The Vermindoom has even caused the impossible to happen: Mannfred von Carstein and Neferata have openly entered into a truce in order to deal with the mounting Skaven threat. The Mortarchs continue to wage war against one other in secret, but appearances of unity can sometimes be enough.
Droggz da Sunchompa and his freewheeling Gitmobs had built a den in the north of the Great Parch, though their complicated relationship with the Glareface Frazzlegit and a yin for even more sunmetal has prompted an invasion of Ymetrica in Hysh through an ancient realmgate.
The Oracle of the Abyss has meanwhile set the Idoneth Deepkin on a new path, pushing them to use the Cythai souls stored in their Chorrileum reefs to take control of the raging oceans and raise Incarnates of the Deep. There are whispers that the intent stems beyond defence of their kind, and may even be an attempt to conjure a god of their own.
In Ghyran, Ushoran leads the War of Red Errantry to tear a bloody path across fertile lands, spreading the taint of his cannibal kingdom far and wide. A pesky vagabond known as High Falconer Felgryn appears to be causing a minor problem, raiding the Summerking’s larders and giving the serfs a hero to root for – though the rogue is just as happy to serve alongside the Mortarch of Delusion as he is to pilfer his stocks.
The Goretide, once mere days away from reaching the heights of its former barbaric glory, has collapsed into an (un)civil war with the ascendence and disappearance of Korghos Khul. Still, Khorne cares not, and all that.
Further fragments
Archaon’s movements remain a mystery, even as his most powerful lieutenant solidifies her conquest of Blackpyre and extends her influence across Ghyran. On the Everchosen’s home turf, Gordrakk continues his rampage across the Eightpoints. His target appears to be the Meteoric Gate, the Arcway to Azyr, sealed by Sigmar himself in the Age of Chaos. What he plans to do when he gets there is anyone’s guess, but there will likely be a percussive element to the proceedings.
The Hallowed Knights aren’t taking all of the glory in the fight against the Skaven threat, as the Astral Templars have been using their beast-slaying expertise in raids on the Gnaw that specifically target the foul strongholds of the Clans Moulder.
In Shyish, the Ossiarch of the Petrifex Elite have been testing the outer defences of Lethis, though these regimented assaults are masking their true goal of harvesting titanic bones from the bottom of Lake Lethis. After something of a holiday – in orruk terms, at least – in Shyish, the Ironsunz have returned to Ghur, turfing out vampires who had taken roost in Fort Dakkbad. They now seek to expand their dominion of Ghur while Gordrakk is preoccupied with his rampage through the Eightpoints.
Most pressingly, the Helsmiths of Hashut are on the march at last. These obsessive tyrants have twisted the duardin predisposition for perfection and high craft into an arrogant belief that they can control even the most volatile energies of the Realm of Chaos. Their sights are set firmly on Grimnir’s Firehold, their legions lit by flickering daemonfire as they march on their kin.
What the future holds is anyone’s guess. Dozens of factions are in play, and there is fear that a new Age of Chaos is dawning with the rise of the Skaven and the movement of the Helsmiths of Hashut. We’ll be taking a peek into the future with a final article next week, about what may be coming for the Mortal Realms.
