The clammy hand of Death has the Mortal Realms by the throat, with two new macabre battletomes on the horizon. The rigid, mirthless legions of the Ossiarch Bonereapers and the fatally charming Soulblight Gravelords are on the march, each bringing a new hero – like the Vyrkos monster hunter Ivya Volga, known to her family as the Outcast.
Immortality leaves you with a lot of free time. Since receiving the blood kiss, Ivya Volga has spent centuries hunting the fiercest predators of the Mortal Realms – a prescient pastime to have honed ahead of the Era of the Beast. In the course of her hunts, her loyal bats – the closest thing this lone wanderer has to friends – have drunk the blood of many arcane creatures, granting them the uncanny ability to perceive ley lines of geomantic power.
After calling out Radukar’s colossal failure at Ulfenkarn during a rare visit to her clan’s conclave, Ivya offered a solution. She would use her bats to spy out nexuses of power upon which the dynasty could lay the foundations of a new, even greater city of death. Now the armies of the Vyrkos jockey to establish their new capital, with Ivya marching at their head.
Despite this lofty mission, Ivya cares little for political affairs – or basic tact, for that matter. Her interest lies solely in slaughtering whatever behemoths nest atop the nexus points claimed by her bloodline… though she won’t hesitate to carve up any unfortunate Dawnbringer outpost that happened to get there first.
Her exploits have earned Ivya the title of Behemoth’s Bane – so it’s fitting that she can dominate the most abominable creatures in the Mortal Realms. While fighting MONSTERS, Ivya reduces the Attacks characteristic of their melee weapons to 1, and even outdoes them in objective-grabbing prowess.
No matter where Ivya’s hunts take her, she is always attended by her Shrieking Swarm. These blood-infused bats protect their mistress by surging around her in a storm of wings and fangs, causing opponents to subtract 1 from hit rolls. When Ivya is wounded, they throw themselves at her foe in a frenzied flurry of fangs, increasing their attack profile from 2D6 to 12.
The vampiric aristocrats of the Soulblight Gravelords have plenty more up their blood-stained sleeves than just a new hero – there’s a rich feast of new rules packed into their battletome, which you can pre-order on Saturday. Check back later this week for your first look at some of the new powers available to the Soulblight dynasties.
