Once upon a time, the God-King established a network of magical catacombs across the Mortal Realms. Edifices from a lost golden age, they possess a secret purpose – to seal away powerful and dangerous relics, weapons and even individuals which could not be disposed of by other means. Of course, this means that they also double up as treasure troves for anyone insane enough to go looking for them.
That’s not to say that the God-King didn’t do his due diligence; he certainly tried his best to hide such potentially perilous ruins. The Enlightenment Engines were a gift from the aelven god Teclis to seal the alliance between Azyr and Hysh, magical devices that elevated the intellect – but Sigmar, working with the duardin craftsman-god (and his old mate) Grungni, meddled with their mechanisms to reverse their function.
The resulting Penumbral Engines were able to obfuscate and cloud the minds of those nearby, concealing the entrances to the Stormvaults. This worked until the many magical calamities of the Age of Sigmar (especially the Necroquake of resident necromancer-in-chief Nagash) sent the cosmos shuddering and caused plenty of Penumbral Engines to misfire, revealing the wonders and horrors they concealed. Suffice to say that Teclis was not best pleased to find out what Sigmar had done to his contraptions…
They worked for a while, but many Stormvaults have since been looted. The orruk warlord Gordrakk famously raided the Ghurish vault of Thunderstone Reach and made off with a titanic godbeast skull, which he later used as a battering ram in the Siege of Excelsis. In Shyish, the ghostly Lady Olynder attacked the Sigmarite capital of Lethis and managed to open the Midnight Tomb at its heart, unleashing not only an array of morbidly malign Endless Spells but also the dreaded Mortarch Katakros.
The Cloister of Ashes, secreted beneath the streets of Hammerhal Aqsha, has been known to rumble ominously; only Bastian Carthalos has ventured into its heart and returned, and the Lord-Commander is not telling what he saw. In the Hour of Ruin the apocalyptic devastation unleashed by the Skaven means that more Stormvaults are being unearthed than ever, and they are always bitterly contested. After all – what could go wrong?
You can create your own Stormvault complex – whether still sealed or sadly sundered – with the latest Warhammer Age of Sigmar Made to Order offering. Six fantastic sets of modular Stormvault terrain are available until early Monday morning – enough to make an entire board to battle over. Choose from the Shattered Temple, Sigmarite Dais, Hallowed Stormthrone, Enduring Stormvault, Penumbral Stormvault, and a Penumbral Engine.
But be quick about it – the mystifying energies of the Penumbral Engines will obscure the Stormvaults by 8am BST on Monday 28th July.
