The Slann are among the most powerful beings across the Mortal Realms – ancient creatures of almost immeasurable magical puissance, scions of the Old Ones who so changed the World-that-Was in aeons past, paragons of Order, and indefatigable enemies of the ever-present threat of Chaos.
There have been five generations of the revered Slann Mage-priests, the first of which were the most gifted in all matters arcane. That generation met its end many thousands of years previously in the slow, grinding war that would eventually be lost against Chaos and result in the end of the Warhammer world.
But one of this generation survived this disaster, in a sense, his magical powers scarcely dimmed by something so quotidian as the demise of physical form. This was Lord Kroak, a mighty being who was millennia old even before the Mortal Realms coagulated in the void between the stars and the Age of Myth could begin.
More powerful than the living Slann, even those of the second generation such as Lord Mazdamundi, he was venerated by the Lizardmen of the World-that-Was. His mummified form would be carried to wherever the battle against the Ruinous Powers was most desperate, smiting their minions over and again with heavy comets pulled from the sky.
But when the End Times dawned and it all got a bit too hot, Kroak joined the rest of the Lizardmen on the last Temple Ships out of Lustria, retiring to the stars.
The Seraphon – as they came to be known – did not rest idle. After the realms coalesced around Mallus, the remaining Slann (now promoted to the rank of Starmaster) took an active role in guardianship of the nascent lands. For a while all was well, but Archaon returned and the forces of Order were beaten back to the realm of Azyr where they bided their time until they could retake the Mortal Realms.
Naturally, a Slann of Kroak’s mythical status required a ride to match, and he returned to the fray on an exquisite engine of stone, jade, and artifice, attended by Skink Priests of auspicious birth. His mortal remains now zip around the Mortal Realms, zapping all with the temerity to stand in the way of the Great Plan. Latterly he’s been joined by other Slann Starmasters, amphibians of a more living persuasion who have pretty impressive floating magic chairs of their own.
The Mage-priests have been around for a good while, but there are even older Slann from the very early days of Warhammer. These guys were around in the 1980s. They were slender and bipedal, but they retained the mesoamerican stylings and dubiously punning naming conventions. They didn’t stick around for long – and their Space Slann counterparts in Warhammer 40,000 were even briefer, lasting no longer than a single edition of the game.
While they’re only tangentially related to the Slann Mage-priests and Starmasters who came after them, they’re also a cool and mysterious wrinkle in the long and winding history of Warhammer.
