The Bare Bones
Welcome to the Animosity Weekender ! This is a 10-day, single turn unofficial global narrative event for Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Warcry, and Soulbound. To participate, players will submit up to three Reports through a provided Google Form supporting one of two opposed non-player characters we call Figureheads .
These Reports consist of playing games, building and painting models, writing short stories, and even things like drawing illustrations or recording audio dramas. Players allocate all of their submitted Reports to one of five Narrative Paths (imagine a combination between “choose your own adventure” and a tug of war). Each Figurehead must win 3 or more of the 5 Narrative Paths to claim victory.
The Story So Far
This event takes place immediately after 2023’s Animosity V - The Fated Blade . Having been imprisoned in the frozen heart of a shackled Everwinter since the Age of Chaos, the orruk “colossa-boss” Mogrek Longblade walks the Mortal Realms once more. His body the size of a Bloodthirster, Mogrek’s terrible Waaagh! energy has animated an army of Rogue Idols , great stone gargants roughly hewn in the image of orruks.
Long ago, Mogrek boasted that he would breach the gates of Azyr where even the Chaos Gods had failed. Single-minded in his pursuit, with an army of rogue idols in one fist and an Everwinter in the other, Mogrek has led his horde upriver... directly toward Hysh’s Iscarneth Ceraphate , a breakaway aelf fiefdom which did not embrace the teachings of Teclis’s Reinvention.
Tasked with the Ceraphate’s defense, Iscarneth commander Atressa Redhand has mustered an army of volunteers to delay Mogrek’s horde before they reach her homeland... and perhaps even protect the Ashfall Delta until the storm has passed.
What, Where, When?
Da Warpath begins Friday, January 5th
- Discord registration for Coalitions
- Discord access to Coalition Channels
Player Turn begins Friday, January 12th
In person events...
- AOS Grand Narrative at the Las Vegas Open
- January 19th thru January 21st (Fri-Sun)
Player Turn ends Monday, January 22nd
GM Turn will run through January 30th
- Unfolding Narrative will drop January 31st
Join our community! https://Discord.gg/AnimosityCampaigns
+++
The Ur-River
The Ur-River has been said to be the most ancient of all watercourses in the Mortal Realms. Like an ouroboros, it is believed to have no headwaters and no outlet, instead crashing endlessly from one realm to the next, its course constantly shifting as it perpetually grinds a new path through the Realms.
The Ashfall Delta
The Ur-River departs Aqshy through the Ashfall Delta, where it leaves the foothills around Ignoth's Furnace. The wide flatlands of the surrounding Brûlant Plains allow the river to slow and spread out to form the delta, just before it leaves the Realm of Fire and falls into Ulgu as the Fiammascura Gate.
Aqshy, Realm of Fire
As the Ur-River flows from Hysh to Ulgu it briefly touches Aqshy, far to the south of the Vitriol Sea. It tumbles from the Catarhactes Realmgate in Hysh, a vast waterfall that appears in the sky, seemingly out of nowhere. Miles above the mountain range sometimes called Ignoth's Furnace, the waters of the Ur-River crash into a broken landscape of constant volcanic activity. Flames and smoke spew forth from the rocky ground at random and, as the waters of the river rush down the mountainside they become heated, great clouds of steam and mist cloak its banks.
When the Great Volcano of Ignoth's Furnace roared forth it’s fire into the sky it was said to have burned so hot with the fire of Aqshy that it tore a new way between the realms and spewed forth into the Haixiah of Hysh... but what poured back down into the ash column of Aqshian fire was more than just the light of Hysh, but a mighty torrent of the Ur-River.
Fire and water raged until at last, in the final cough of steam, the river quenched the fires of Ignoth's Furnace, and where once a great caldara was, now formed a steaming lake that soon flowed down the sides as lava once did.
Water followed the ancient courses and soon found purchase in one great eruption, its ash and pumice easily carved unlike the basalt around it. Thus from the plinth of Ignoth's Furnace does the Ur-River leave the peaks and with the ash and loose fall of that ancient plinian eruption does it flow down to the Vitriol Sea over the Brûlant Plains.
In time the Ashfall Delta took its current shape: as great bastions of hardened basalt were left standing amidst the ashy and silty meandering delta, anything less hardy was eroded away in the inevitable march of time and flow of water.
The ancient heart of Ignoth's Furnace still burns, deep under where the Catarhactes falls from Hysh, heating the Ur-River in its passing to this day. The unwary find out the hard way that it scalds anything it touches, unless it was born to such heat, though it cools to merely painful levels at the delta. It is only when the Ur-River touches the cold currents flowing from the Fiammascura realmgate that it becomes bearable.
Cool and Hot are the names of the tides at the boundary, as it ebbs and flows back from the sea - often in a swirling morass of strange weather as more than just heat and cold mix but also as fire and shadow twist in the waters of the Ur-River. The delta cannot be frozen from without; it must be frozen from within. The flow of the Ur-River’s heated water would push all but the most dogged ice to sea and melt any that managed to remain.
Out of the sixty or more islands in the Ashfall Delta only five were inhabited during the Age of Myth: Fuegorn Drift, Infurnata, Heartpyre Nar, Flarecrux Spit and Brimnstorn . However, these early settlements were destroyed during the ravages of the Age of Chaos.
Fuegorn Drift
The smallest of the Ashfall Delta islands, on the western side. Surprisingly this island was largely untouched by the Age of Chaos, the razor sharp cliffs and smoldering mountains hide a beautiful secret paradise at its heart.
- Ravenspite Pass - a lush fertile valley flourishing in the rich volcanic soil.
- Leadtusk Tor - smoke and ash billow from the peak of this, the tallest of the mountains on the islands. One of the hundreds of volcanos that give the delta its name.
Infurnata
The site of fierce battles which saw the use of terrible weapons and and self-destructive sorcery.
- The Gleaming Tower - a ruined aelven spire. Fiery geomantic runes mark the weathered stone landscape around it.
- The Voidwell - a lightless, bottomless pit. Cold winds whistle out of the abyssal chasm while it seems to stretch endlessly downward.
- Wildpyre Watch - a ruined watchtower, overlooking the straits between Infurnata and Fuegorn Drift, built into the steep and jagged cliffs.
- The Blackiron Cage - a Stormvault, known in legend as the prison of a powerful daemon.
Heartpyre Nar (LVO exclusive location)
In the centre of the five largest islands, Heartpyre Nar is the only part of the delta with Order settlements that are currently inhabited and even prospering.
- The Troggwood - a mushroom-forest Dankhold.
- Glowerhold - a sinister angular stronghold in a volcanic wasteland.
- Breakspear - a massive castle built around a shard of The Spear of Mallus.
- Harkdeep - a duardin brewery built into the cliffs below a waterfall.
- Stonethorn Wold - a wanderers enclave of tree-top houses.
- Runefall - a new-built Dawnbringer strongpoint on a nexus of geomantic power.
- Wyrmwater - a mysteriously abandoned Dawnbringer settlement.
- Southmarches - a Stormvault with a badly failing Penumbral Engine.
- Northmarches - a Stormvault with a missing Penumbral Engine.
- Scorchbrass - a dreadhold bastion of the dark gods.
- The Foreteller’s - ancient structures of crumbling stone and twisted metal.
- Turnglass - a mist-veiled labyrinth of ruined stone structures, overgrown with ivy and moss.
Flarecrux Spit
Jutting out of the sea like a massive obsidian tooth, surrounded by scorching waters and steep cliffs that make it appear impenetrable. At the northern tip of the island, a towering volcano casts an eerie red glow across the landscape.
- Hollowsoul - a lake so still and clear that it appears to be made of solid crystal.
- Slurrywater - a blighted river that flows from the mountain, the sulphurous waters smell extremely unpleasant.
- Scalderbright - the ruins of a settlement around a lighthouse.
- The Ebonthorn Hoard - a shattered Stormvault, crackling with residual energy.
- The Gate of Vekhos - a minor realmgate to another part of Aqshy.
Brimnstorn
The eastern island has the only deep-water harbour of the delta, which was once a busy trading port. It was the point of entry for the invasion during the Age of Chaos.
- The Tarkhummar Locus - A sprawling necropolis. A maze of winding stairways with tall stone archways looming overhead, dark catacombs, partially collapsed tunnels, and musty mausoleums.
- Sulphurwald - A yellow-leaved forest, peppered with crumbling stone ruins. Fog-wreathed and strangely quiet.
- Emberport - As the only deep-water harbour in the delta, Emberport was once a bustling trading hub but it was the first place in the delta that was attacked during the Age of Chaos. The harbour waters are littered with the submerged wrecks of burned ships. The winding rubble-strewn streets are cluttered with debris. Many of the buildings were burned down but a few pockets remain that may be habitable. A small number of expeditions here have made their first camps in the old harbourside area.
- Hexstone - A ruined Age of Myth settlement, the shattered buildings seem to brood with a resentful, malevolent energy.
Mogrek’s March
Released from his frozen prison upon the isle of Frorholm and master of the very Everwinter which held him, Mogrek Longblade has marched his army of Rogue Idols up the river itself like a great road. Many grots, orruks, ogors and even gargants witnessed his return, and it was not long before the banners of their kind flocked to Mogrek’s side. The stomp of the Idol’s tread upon ice accompanied by the mad drumming of frenzied warchanters have given Mogrek’s ad hoc army a fell harbinger... rolling thunder .
Mogrek is both brutal and cunning; he’s realized his Everwinter cannot claim the Delta, and without it frozen, his Rogue Idols are vulnerable. He will be forced to rely upon the “ Longblades ” at his side to dislodge the Delta’s defenders. He must reach a point above the Delta to see the river cooled enough to freeze the glacier and allow his horde to pass unhindered.
It would be nothing less than madness to stand against him... wouldn’t it?
Atressa’s Gambit
“Mogrek is coming.” This simple statement realized the worst fears of Atressa Redhand , Warden of Iscarion and commander of the Iscarneth Ceraphate’s standing army. Many years earlier, she and her fellow Satraps had fought a bitter war of succession to become the next Ceraph. Atressa had lost, yet remained the Iscarneth’s greatest warrior. Many who once opposed the new Ceraph, Dariel the Resplendent , found positions of power in his new government, and none higher than Atressa.
However, she understood better than anyone that her role was a responsibility, not a privilege. Her life had been spent fighting for her people’s survival, and having endured the threat of devastation from within, Atressa now faces the threat of devastation from without.
In secret counsel with Dariel and the other defeated Satraps Caradryas and Iden , a plan was set in motion. Using the blackpowder innovations of Caradryas’ people and lost technology from the Age of Myth hidden within Iden’s vaults, they devised the Dawnhammer Bombards , ponderous guns of aelf design capable of killing a Rogue Idol with a single shot.
Construction of the bombards would take precious time, however. Dariel bid Atressa make their people ready for war, with the hope they might repel Mogrek until the guns’ completion. Deliberate action was ever Dariel’s way, and Atressa feared it would not be enough to save their people.
Leaving the Iscarneth’s standing army and citizen militia behind, Atressa bid only volunteers to join her. Disregarding Dariel’s frustrated demands, she departed downriver, mustering her army en-route and bidding her “ Redhands” join her in the Ashfall Delta. She does not expect to stop Mogrek, yet still intends to claim only victory.
Mogrek Longblade
To hear Mogrek tell it, he sprung from the tooth Gorkamorka once chipped on Kragnos’ own shield Tuskbreaker . Although none truly know his origins, the “colossa-boss” is best described as primordial. He stands the height of a gargant, with the fury of a raging Megaboss, the appetite of a Tyrant, and the sharp mind of a Loonboss.
Mogrek does not claim to be the hand of Gork or the mouth of Mork. He is not the “boss trampla” or even a boss of any kind. Mogrek is the WAAAGH! made manifest, whose warclan are idols animated by his rage alone.
Long ago, after Sigmar fled before Archaon in cowardice, Mogrek boasted that he would break the Gates of Azyr. To complete his task, he was promised a weapon crafted by one of Grungni’s most gifted pupils. So afraid was the Ironsage of Mogrek possessing his masterwork that he chose his own death rather than surrender the Longblade and released the Everwinter contained within his forge, locking Mogrek in ice for centuries.
With the Longblade in his right hand and an Everwinter in his left, Mogrek Longblade spells nothing less than doom to anything that stands between him and the Realm of Heavens.
Atressa Redhand
Atressa has held a blade since before she could walk. In the years before the Spirefall , she learned swordcraft not from meditative old masters, but by walking the Ten Paradises and challenging those claiming great skill to duels of honour. When the Spirefall finally came, slaying other aelves was hardly a novelty to Atressa.
The years since her defeat have challenged Atressa to finally embrace life beyond violence. Her people are the Iscarneth, an enclave of aelves who did not embrace Teclis’s Reinvention and never became Lumineth Realm-lords. Atressa, like all Iscarneth, must navigate her flaws as best she is able, without the guidance of fickle gods.
It is an independence she fiercely defends. Although she has often struggled to relate with her fellow Iscarneth, she has embraced them all as her people. Under Dariel’s leadership and her protection, the Ceraphate has prospered among broken realms.
Atressa believes the Dawnhammer Bombards will deprive Mogrek of his greatest advantage, but she will not sit meekly by and wait for the Longblade’s attack. She means to ride in force against Mogrek, his Rogue Idols, and whatever else awaits her in the Ashfall Delta.
How to Participate
There are two ways to take part in the Animosity Weekender:
- If you are a global player, simply join our Discord community, scroll down until you find the #weekender-registration channel, and ask to fight for Mogrek or Atressa. This will give you access to private discussion channels to better collaborate with your fellow players!
- If you are a Las Vegas Open player, you may choose to join our Discord community, but are not required to do so. If you do, there is a private channel just for our LVO attendees!
When the Weekender begins, Team Animosity will publish a Google Form to our Discord by which players will submit Reports . (If you are an LVO player, Team A will Report your games for you.)
When you submit a Report, you will be asked for your Discord username, your player character and army’s name, the Figurehead you’re supporting, and the Narrative Path you wish to allocate your Report toward (details on Reports can be found opposite). You may also include a short narrative.
Winning the Campaign
Each Narrative Path will represent one of the five major islands in the Ashfall Delta. To claim victory, your Figurehead must win 3 or more Narrative Paths (details on the Narrative Paths can be found below).
Think of your Reports as if they were a communal blind auction. Each team has a collective bid they place on a Narrative Path in order to win it, with each Player chipping in what they can by way of their Reports. Like with a real auction, you cannot control where others place their contribution, only your own.
Submitting Reports
Each player must choose one Narrative Path to allocate their Reports toward, and may submit up to a total of 3 reports to that Path. These 3 reports may be any number or combination of Report types. (This is unique to the Weekender.)
Report Types
- Game Reports can be any game of Age of Sigmar, Warcry, Soulbound, or Warhammer Underworlds that is played to its logical conclusion. Just play, and tell us you played. (Playing a game of Total War does not count, but using cinematic screenshots from a Total War game to tell a story are a common type of “Other” Report.)
- Narrative Reports can be any Short story of 500 to 1000 words (one to two pages of writing) telling the tale of your army and character and the glorious or nefarious deeds they enact to win the Narrative Path. We prefer players to use Google Docs and we remind you to set access to “anyone with the link can view”.
- Hobby Reports are any building, painting, conversions, terrain or WIP that relates to your character, army, or the Narrative Path you're submitting the Report toward. 1 hour of work is expected as the minimum standard. Any company’s models or 3D prints are welcome.
- Other Reports are a catch all for any number of other artistic and creative endeavours that can be related to the campaign. Digital or traditional illustrations, arts and crafts, audio/visual projects, photography, cosplay, etc. are all welcome.
AI “art” such as Midjourney IS NOT WELCOME. Reports utilizing AI will be discarded and will not count toward the Narrative Path to which they were allocated.
Narrative Paths
Narrative Path 1 - Fuegorn Drift
This flank of the Delta is arguably the most vulnerable, with what little land there is choked by treacherous jungle. However, it should not be disregarded that the Drift still boasts the tallest peak in all the Delta.
Narrative Path 2 - Infernata
Already reduced to a hellscape by conflicts all but forgotten, Infernata promises to become a crucible for the worst meatgrinder this war has to offer.
Narrative Path 3 - Heartpyre Nar
(LVO Exclusive!) The largest and most central of the islands, it stands as the keystone to the Delta.
Narrative Path 4 - Flarecrux Spit
More defensible than even its siblings to either side, the Spit will provide nigh unassailable high ground to whichever side can drive the other off first.
Narrative Path 5 - Brimnstorn
Vulnerable and vital, Emberport is a crucial rallying point for Atressa’s allies. Her defenders will be hard to dislodge, but a defeat here would be crippling.