The new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar is nearly here, and it’s beginning with a bang. The Skaven have blasted a significant chunk out of Aqshy with the Vermindoom, the Great Horned Rat has risen to join the pantheon of the Chaos Gods, and ratmen are spilling into the Mortal Realms by the billion.
But how did we get here? The road has been a long and winding one, and the shift in power presaged by the Dawnbringers series. Over the course of six books, the narrative followed the Twin-Tailed Crusade as it made its first footfalls out of Hammerhal. Both halves wound their way through Aqshy and Ghyran, battling through trials and monstrosities like Trugg the Troggoth King and Ushoran the Summerking, alongside myriad other events that threatened ruin.
Doom of Embergard
The Twin-Tailed Crusade’s mission had been to found new strongpoints for Sigmar, but we knew from the start that one of these cities was fated to fail. In the end, it was Embergard that fell – built on the ruins of a once-mighty city on the slopes of Ashenmont, it seemed a safe haven. But the grand Skaven plan to shunt their vile sub-dimension of Blight City into the Mortal Realms put an end to the dream.
The Vermindoom explosively transformed a full third of the Great Parch into the Gnaw, a hellscape of warpstone pollution punctured by rotting spires of wood and brass. Though Embergard was far from the disaster’s epicentre, the waves of Chaos energy washing over the mountains of the Adamantine Chain overwhelmed the new city, its protective guardian idols overflowing with arcane power moments before shattering. Few survived the burning air or quaking ground, leaving only ragged refugees and broken fanatics of the Great Wheel to trudge west for safety. Only the mad and the truly brave remain behind to defend its remains. The Stormcast Eternals have been mobilised en masse to hold back the incoming Skaven assault, but the endless war for the realms has claimed a high cost. Some of those joining the fight now embody that sacrifice – the fearsome and soul-stricken Ruination chambers.
This cataclysm could not have happened without the unwitting help of the Darkoath Tribes of Aqshy. Beseeched by a daemonic patron to corrupt the land and thus drive out the Sigmarite invaders, they were misled by the scheming Skreech Verminking. His plan was not to poison the realm for all but the strong – he sought instead to break it entirely.
The Skaven had even convinced Archaon the Everchosen to find common cause, for the ascension of the Great Horned Rat promised to bring instability to the pantheon, and casting the Great Game into disarray was an outcome welcomed by the Three-Eyed King. Faced with the destruction of the eastern plains that so many Darkoath tribes called home, Gunnar Brand could only swear an oath of total vengeance.
What of Ghyran?
Embergard was not the only city to fall during the events of the Dawnbringers series. In Ghyran, the new city of Verdigris rebuilt from the precipice of disaster, rescued from a Varanguard attack by Belthanos and his Kurnothi followers. Instead, it was the Phoenicium that would pay the ultimate price – sacked by Abraxia and her Swords of Chaos. Driven by the madness of the Kingsblood Curse, the Everchosen’s lieutenant slew the embodiment of the Ur-Phoenix’s sacred flame, and consumed its living host, so that the arcane fire could burn out the delusion threatening to overwhelm her..
From the ash-caked ruins of the godbeast’s temple, the Spear of the Everchosen now raises Blackpyre, a Chaos stronghold from which she plans to conquer the Everspring Swathe. The flame of the Ur-Phoenix has been snuffed out… save for a single ember, rescued by Ellania and Ellathor.
Ghyran’s troubles don’t end there. Ever since Kragnos ushered in the Era of the Beast and reduced much of the Ghurish capital Excelsis to rubble, the living battering ram had been at the forefront of numerous Waaagh!s across the Mortal Realms. Aided by their ancient ally Lord Kroak, the brothers Krondys and Karazai have attempted to recapture the God of Earthquakes many times. They only recently succeeded with the help of Alarielle the Everqueen, the resultant Council of Life trapping Kragnos in Ghyran and pitting him in a timeless battle against legions of Seraphon – a fitting prison for an avatar of Destruction, though not one that may hold for long.
Their timing couldn’t be better, however – signs that a few of the lost Drogrukh may have survived the war against the Draconith were discovered in Ghyran, but quickly scrubbed from existence by the warty claw of Gobsprakk, who has been twisting prophecy to use Kragnos to his own ends. Who knows what would happen if the God of Earthquakes were ever to discover this treachery, much less reunite with his lost people?
Now, the Hour of Ruin is upon us, the Skaven swarm in ever-increasing numbers, and Sigmar has unleashed the scarred veterans of the Ruination chambers in order to tip the balance back toward Order. Whether they can succeed, and what further terrors still lurk in the darkness, planning to extinguish all hope for good, remains to be seen.