Aetheric purples and blues shimmered across the skies, washing Tetar-Muntaq in otherworldly light. It had been too long since the skink had been back in High Azyr. Their time in the Prime Dominion had not been a great hardship, yet it was comforting to be back among the stars. Too long among the dull, plodding warmbloods had left them feeling dangerously coalesced. Soon they would rejoin their kindred in the cleansing light. First, however, they would need to see the Master.
The long corridors of the great temple ship echoed with the soft slapping sounds of Tetar-Muntaq’s footfalls, the tiny sounds carrying across the vast empty stillness. The grand audience hall they crossed could hold ten thousand saurus warriors in full battle panoply. They remembered when it had. The skink’s memory was long, and they had served the Master here for longer than any others. Ages spent in preparation. Then, Bykaal, and everything had changed. So much, so quickly.
Tetar-Muntaq reached the darkened threshold and hesitated for a moment. Once they stepped through the doors, into the presence of the Master, it would be over. A thousand years of planning had led to this moment. One step further, and they would be entering into the unknown.
The heavy doors swung inwards. Tetar-Muntaq saw the figure within, the broad face and moon-shrouded eyes.
The voice came directly into their mind.
“It is time.”
What Came Before
Mogrek Longblade
The Age of Myth
Mogrek is an immensely powerful orruk warlord born to the dying days of the Age of Myth. Legends claim he sprung fully-formed from the fang of Gorkamorka, the greenskin God of Destruction, when that great brute chipped his tooth on what would become Kragnos’ shield Tuskbreaker. Mogrek fought across the realms alongside Sigmar and Gorkamorka during their Great Hunts, clearing the realms of the primordial beasts that roamed them and paving the way for the God-King’s new order, yet what came next was not the golden age of prosperity the pantheon intended.
Mogrek's fate has been shaped by a powerful oath sworn in the cataclysmic days that marked the dawning of the Age of Chaos. When Sigmar retreated behind the gates of Azyr and sealed the heavens shut behind him, Mogrek cursed him for a coward and swore before all the gods of order, chaos and the primal powers that lurked beyond, that he would breach the God-King’s and drag Sigmar back into the fight. He blamed Sigmar's retreat for the disappearance of Gorkamorka, believing that the Heldenhammer’s battle-spirit had been broken and only rousing his warrior nature would bring him back. Mogrek knew many old ways through the realms, relics and secrets from the Great Hunt, yet he would need a source of power to breach the barriers that had sealed them, and he set off across the realm to find one. It was that search that would doom him.
Mogrek was approached by a strange figure, garbed in concealing robes and swathed in elusive sorcery. He spoke of the Sage of Iron, a lost apprentice of the duardin smith-god Grungni, and a weapon forged from the raging fury of Aqshy. The stranger promised it held the power Mogrek sought. The orruk was suspicious, but the stranger had no smell of Chaos upon him, and Mogrek was sure of his own strength, so he agreed to travel to Ulgu and retrieve the weapon. Hordes of daemons still roamed the lands unchecked, so Mogrek gathered about him a great army of stone, breathing the Waaagh! into them. And so they marched across the lands, the orruk and the stranger at the head of a procession of Idols of Gork. When at last they reached the hidden island of Frorholm, Mogrek demanded the weapon. The Sage, however, saw only a monster before him, and had laid a trap for the warlord. Turning his blade on the bound Everwinter at the heart of his forge, he shattered it, killing himself and trapping the orruk, the weapon and the island in an impenetrable barrier of ice.
The Fated Blade
There Mogrek remained for an Age and more, trapped beneath miles of ice on a hidden island in the Realm of Shadows, unable to move and unable to die. There he might have remained for an Age further, had dreams of a fated blade not come into the sleeping minds of mortals. Heroes, opportunists and treasure seekers all travelled across the Sea of Shadows, drawn by their visions and their convictions, and found the hidden island. Driven by need and greed in equal measure, they delved ever deeper, peeling back the storm and ice, until at last they reached the Iron Sage’s forge and awoke the beating heart within. Mogrek was free once more.
The Shattered Dominion
Mogrek rampaged across the island, rousing his slumbering Idols to him as he went. From there, his path of destruction carried him up the course of the Ur-River, the primordial stream that winds its way between all realms. Icy storms presaged his passing, for the Everwinter had become his herald, and the many tributaries of the river choked and froze. With every mile tread, Mogrek’s horde grew as orruks, grots, ogors and many more flocked to the tidal pull of the Waaagh! Yet Mogrek’s course never veered, heading ever upriver, until he reached an aelven kingdom on the edge of Hysh known as the Prime Dominion.
A bastion of pre-Spirefall aelven culture, the Prime Dominion had existed in secret on the outer edges of the realm for centuries due in no small part to the strange celestial body that hung in orbit around its floating islands. Known as Noctis, this sphere of Nullstone stabilized the wild magics of the realm’s perimeter and shielded them from outside eyes. Though the Iscarneth - the people of the Prime Dominion - fought valiantly and well, they could not hold off Mogrek’s horde, and soon found themselves preparing for a siege of their last great city. Yet to the surprise of friend and foe alike, Mogrek instead turned his attention to Noctis itself, and using the power of the Longblade, he shattered its Nullstone shell to reveal a highly unstable realmgate. The portal rippled and snapped with erratic power like a candle flame in a gale, and where it struck it tore skin down to the bone, yet it would not deter him. Mogrek stepped into the coruscating energy, and as the coronal ejection of magics blasted across the Prime Dominion, he was gone.
The Son of Gork
A Demi-God from a lost age of wonders, Mogrek is a force of destruction given flesh. He towers over most mortals, standing near in height to a kraken-eater gargant, though built with the bull-like proportions of his Ironjaw kin. He wields the Longblade in one hand, the penultimate masterwork of the last of Grungni's apprentices after the coming of Chaos. The blade was forged in a realm tear to the screaming heart of Aqshy, and its elemental fires rage within the enchanted steel. In his other hand, Mogrek holds the bound fury of the Everwinter, the pure deathless cold of the void between realms. Once used to imprison him, Mogrek has bent that storm to his will, and an ice age follows in his wake. Mogrek’s greatest asset, however, is the Waaagh! While every greenskin can feel its primal power, Waaagh! energy pours forth from Mogrek like a primal spring, unfettered and wild. His presence is like a hurricane, and while he may stand calm at its center, all around him is shaped to his presence. That, more than anything else, may give credence to the myth of his ancestry.
The Vale of Singing Stars
In the highlands of Azyr, far from the gilded halls of Sigmar's power, lies a secluded mountain valley. Remote and cut off from the rest of the realm by the towering mountain range known as the Suneater’s Spine, the rolling hills were an alpine paradise of snow-capped peaks, crystal clear lakes, and wildflower meadows. So they might have remained, untouched by the concerns of gods or mortals, had it not been for the coming of the God-King Sigmar.
In the earliest days of the Age of Myth, before Sigmar ever ventured out to tame the other realms, his first challenge was to purge Azyr of the beasts and wild things that called it home. The greatest and most powerful of these foes were the Thunderscorn, immortal dragon-ogres that had claimed the mountainous heavens for themselves. Their wars were long and bloody, and took the Heldenhammer across the length and breadth of Azyr. Upon the slopes of the Suneater’s Spine, he fought a particularly gruelling battle, and when at last he struck down the great Shaggoth chieftain Khalida he paused to rest in the peaceful Vale beyond. Long he lingered, concern etching his brow. As strong as the Dragon Ogres were, they could be defeated, destroyed or driven off. Yet the God-King foresaw a foe who could not face any of those fates, and so he began to form a plan.
The Forgotten Citadel
In those empty mountains, Sigmar began the construction of a keep set deep within the heartstone of the Vale. Acting in secret, he concealed its purpose and location from all in his pantheon save for the smith Grungni, whose help he would need in securing the fastness. Together they toiled for twelve days and twelve nights, carving stone and working magics into the bedrock. On the thirteenth day, Sigmar told Grungni to stand by the door while he ventured down into the keep alone. The smith was instructed to seal the door if he heard any sound rise from the darkness, and not reopen it until dawn of the next day. Grungni did as he was told, and at the first sound from below, he slammed shut the keep's great seal. Arcane wards, runic bindings and mechanical locks whirled into place, and Grungni waited, passing the time by scrawling plans in charcoal on the living stone. When at last the dawn came, he opened the door again, and a haggard looking Sigmar staggered into the morning light. He was pale and weathered, his skin sallow and his hair lank, though Grungni could already see his divine form beginning to mend itself. The God-King would not speak of what happened, so together they sealed the entranceway once more.
While Sigmar's keep was sealed, construction in the Vale had only begun. The God-King sought out a clan of gargants, expert stonemasons and builders who had once raised the towering castles of the Sky-Titans, and made them an offer - a promised home in Azyr if they would build for him a grand citadel atop the sealed keep. The mason-gargants agreed and set to work, never knowing what lay buried beneath their feet. Skilled and strong, and dutiful in their labour, the citadel began to rise. In time, Sigmar’s attention would turn to other matters, so he left a Prefect to relay his orders and guide the construction in his absence. A small realmgate was raised to bring in supplies to what now appeared to all the realms to be just another remote border citadel in the Heldenhammer's empire. Labourers from the Azyr joined the gargants, never knowing what lay beneath. Deals were struck with enterprising entrepreneurs to provide arcane resources, rare materials and small luxuries for the workers without catching Azyrheim’s eye. Grungni too would be called away, but plans still continued to arrive for ever more layers to the citadel. The masons built what they were told and did not ask questions, and the citadel grew larger and more secure by the year.
Then, without any word or reason, the instructions simply stopped arriving.
Refuge
Though they did not know it at the time, isolated in their remote fastness far on the realm’s outer edge, Chaos had arrived in the mortal realms. Sigmar and Grungni’s attentions were drawn elsewhere, and one lonely fortress in the safety of the highlands drew little notice from Azyrheim. Without any clear direction, the gargants continued to do what they did best, and built. As the years passed, the citadel grew ever mightier, yet ever stranger. In some places, the gargants tried to replicate the works of the lower levels, yet despite their skill they could only produce an uncanny facsimile of the designs of the Smith God. Other sections were built to their own cavernous, naturalistic preferences, or to the alien design principles of races that had not survived the ending of the Age of Myth. Yet still, year by year, the citadel rose.
The first news the people of the Vale received from the outer realms was when refugees began pouring through the realmgate, unplanned and unexpected. They brought with them dire news - Sigmar had been defeated in open battle, and was pulling the peoples of the realms back to the safety of Azyr. The Prefect did what he could to accommodate the influx, but the tide was unending. Fleeing through erratic realmgates and unsecured magics, they soon outnumbered the small workforce and the mason gargants many times over. Food was scarce and the mountains were cold, and as sickness spread the Prefect himself fell ill. Those that arrived did so with little more than the clothes on their backs, yet they stood together side by side pulling any stragglers through the gate, fearful that at any moment it would be the daemonic hordes that emerged. Those that could hoisted hammers, building staves, even gargant-sized nails shoulder to shoulder, ready to sell their lives for this final refuge. Yet it was not daemonic fire that rose to meet them. A bolt of lightning shot forth from Sigmar's palace above Azyrheim, so tall and bright that it could be seen by everyone in the realm. They felt its power wash over them, then heard the shuttering crack as the realmgate was sealed in a shell of Nullstone. The Walls of Azyr had been slammed shut, and they were sealed within.
What came in the days that followed was the hard work of building anew. Shelters were built around the forges and work camps of the gargants, refugees and labourers working together against the elements. The old Prefect died, and his daughter assumed the role, her days filled with the monumental task of providing for the needs of so many. The gargants did what they had always done, and built. Some still continued the work of the citadel, but many turned their hands instead to the needs of the refugees. Barracks, then smithies, workshops, and homes were all raised on the foundations of the citadel itself. The early years were lean, but the Vale provided plenty in hardy grains and vegetables, grazing lands for livestock, and salt from the mountains. Work camps became shelters, then towns. Years became decades, and the towns expanded, fusing where they met. The Prefect of the Vale became a hereditary position, passed down through the generations. Contact was made with the other cities of Azyr, but the only method of travel was through gruelling and dangerous mountain trails, and so the Vale grew largely in isolation for centuries. In time, it became a great city of its own, built upon a fortress few remembered - save for a name, which the city had taken for itself.
Eklysium
So the city of Eklysium passed through the Age of Chaos and into the present, isolated from the realms at large. It is a bustling city, its many districts teeming with commerce and industry. At its heart, the workman’s ethos still survives, valuing hard work and skill. Trade Guilds and Unions dominate much of the political life, beneath the overarching rule of the Prefects of the Vale. The ancient gargant clans still remain, having never been discharged of their duty to build, and often hold highly respected positions among the Guilds. The cosmopolitan makeup of Eklysium reflects its origins - humans and duardin, aelves and halflings, even ogors and goroans can be found walking the streets. Anyone is welcome, so long as they’re willing to work with everyone else, while dissent and disruption are punished with a heavy hand. The necessities of life are plentiful, yet luxuries from outside the Vale are rare.
For the people of Eklysium, the citadel buried beneath their city is simply a seldom thought of fact of life. Officially, construction on it was stopped over one hundred and fifty years ago, with the sealing of a fortress gate that still towers over the city centre. Rebellious youths for generations have found hidden entrances in cellars or catacombs, daring each other to descend into the darkness, but never for very long. Occasionally, a young gargant will feel the ancestral pull of obligation, and sneak down to repair a wall or build a new antechamber. Beyond that, life goes on on the surface. Few living now have any real sense of its design. None truly know its scope or the purpose for its existence.
While the city of Eklysium is secure, it is not entirely peaceful. Deep seams of division and animosity run through its streets. The workers Unions that control so much of daily life chafe under the authoritarian control of the Prefects. They question the need for an absolute, hereditary position, and the strict laws made in a time of hardship and scarcity that no longer exists. Yet even among their numbers, calls for reform are not uniform, for the Church of Sigmar and the devout recall that the Prefect was appointed by Sigmar’s own hand to rule, and questioning that authority is tantamount to questioning the God-King’s will. For some, the necessities of life no longer seem sufficient. They want more for themselves, their labour and their children than what they grew up with, to see that their hard work has some reward beyond itself. They want to know the luxuries that exist in other parts of the realms without being judged for them. The pressures of the city have forced people to ascend higher into the mountains as well, to graze their animals and gather resources. Dark tales are told of the mountains’ peaks, of monsters that dwell there from when Azyr was young, and each year more people disappear in those snow-capped reaches. All these pressures have built slowly yet surely, impossible to see in the moment, but impossible to deny once felt. Beneath them, the city of Eklysium hung like a snowbank, waiting for only the right snowflake to become an avalanche.
Azyr Asunder
Eklysium’s long isolation was shattered with the arrival of the orruk warlord known as Mogrek Longblade. He appeared in a storm of sound and fury, as the long-dormant realmgate at the Vale’s far end was ripped to life once more. A magical explosion accompanied it, flattening nearby buildings and city walls and sending white-hot shards of Nullstone scything through the streets. The portal that formed was violent and erratic, lashing arcs of magical energy that scorched the ground and carved through flesh, yet Mogrek walked through it regardless. Eyes half mad with pain and fury, he laid waste to the city before him, carving a path towards the city centre. The civil authorities tried to stop him, but they were peacekeepers, unprepared to deal with a threat of this magnitude. For four days, his rampage continued. Fire and destruction lay in his wake, and before him was the sealed entrance to the citadel. With a great kick, Mogrek shattered the gate, and disappeared down into the darkness below.
The city held its breath. For the moment, the monster in their midst had vanished, yet who knew when it would emerge again. Fires still burned, and those that could pulled the living and the dead from the rubble. Word soon spread that the Prefect was dead, along with his heir, and that the title would pass to his youngest, a rogue of little repute named Pelham. With the city in the balance, the young man balked, and decades of simmering resentment suddenly burst to the forefront. A workers’ revolt, organized around ‘Strong’ Junnrick, Foreman of the Boltbreakers Union, swept through the streets, demanding an end to the Prefecture and new, strong leadership. They were not the only ones to take advantage of the moment, however. Sweeping down from the mountains came the March of Thunder, a great gathering of the wild things pushed to the edges of Sigmar’s empire, ready to take back their ancestral home. Nor were they alone, as citing ancient bargains struck beyond living memory, the ghastly merchant fleet known as Wolfram Industries arrived above the burning city. The city’s battered protectors, the Valeguard, tried to restore order, but it was too late. War had arrived in Eklysium, a war for the fate of the city and the shape of its future, and the dawning spectre of what still lurks beneath.
While Mogrek’s arrival was the most catastrophic impact of the realmgate’s reopening, it is not the only one. The wild, raw magics that pour off its unstable portal have contaminated the land around it. A channel of the Ur-River has sprung from its mouth, flowing down into the city and the canals that line its streets, and from there into the citadel below. Amidst these charged and unstable magics, minor realm gates have begun to appear throughout the city. Some are small, and last only a few moments, while others are large enough for armies to pass through and stay open for days. These portals seem to tether themselves to points along the Ur-River’s banks, as though the sudden tributaries are trying to ground themselves back to its course. From these portals, outsiders have entered Azyr. Some are veterans of the many wars fought along the Ur-River’s banks, warriors of the Scarlands or survivors of the Prime Dominion. Others are scavengers, mercenaries or opportunists, suddenly let loose on a city long removed from conflict. Despite the danger they represent, these outsiders are highly sought after by the would-be rulers of the Vale, for their sudden appearance could shift the tides of fortune in the war to come.
And so the Vale stands now, poised on the brink of a war for its future.
The Burning Winter
The Ur-River is said to have no headwater and no outlet, but instead flows ever unto itself across all realms like some great serpent devouring its own tail. Momentous events along one area of the river often precede great upheavals in another. One such instance was when war in Hysh’s Prime Dominion dammed the river and sent it spilling over its banks in Ghur and Chamon, bleeding each into the other. Another was when Mogrek Longblade escaped Ulgu and rampaged through Aqshy to reach Hysh and now Azyr.
Not every consequence is so obvious, however. Little more than a footnote to the wars that followed, the battles of the Burning Winter were waged upon the frozen shores of Shyish’s Lake Bykaal, and held ramifications only one could foresee. What had started as petty squabbles of small ambitions changed when a figure emerged from the wastes. Once, the creature had been Mithridates Besh, Priest-King of the temple city of Amasya, yet no more. It had become the host of an entity from beyond the Mortal Realms and anathema to all within them. None could withstand it; not the living or the dead, the holy faithful of Sigmar or the accursed servants of the ruinous powers. Caught in the shadow of annihilation, the most sworn of enemies turned and fought shoulder to shoulder until the Slann Starmaster Za’loc-ta’s machinations forever sealed the creature away beneath the lakebed of Bykaal. Its host lost, the entity withdrew, and the Slann retreated from common knowledge once more.