Editing Warhammer: Age of Sigmar (section)

= Setting =

The universe of the Age of Sigmar mainly consists of eight Mortal Realms condensed from the [[Warhammer Magic|Winds of Magic]]: they are the Realms of Light, Heavens, Metal, Life, Beasts, Fire, Shadow, and Death, and each one takes its appearance and properties from its magical aspect. For example, the Realm of Aqshy (fire) has raging volcanoes, lava pits, arid and harsh regions, and the people born there tend to be aggressive and determined; meanwhile, the Realm of Hysh (light) is a bright and geometrical dimension where symbolism can be perceived in everything, and the people tend towards scholarship and introspection.

Cosmologically speaking, the Realms are contained within massive Realmspheres, each of which having a core that has solidified into continental landmasses and oceans as well as other easily recognisible geographic features. The borders, on the other hand, are made of nearly pure magical stuff, which becomes inimical to normal life the farther away you get from the centre. If this reminds you of how the Elemental Planes are described in D&D, then good, you're paying attention—although the effects can be a bit more aggressive and/or insidious than just drowning you in a lake of fire. Case in point, Ghyran, the Realm of Life, is bordered by infinite jungles where animals may mutate into flora (think the movie Annihilation). Also, while a planar configuration is considered common, not all Realms are flat masses. For instance, Chamon (the Realm of Metal) is seen as a set of various sub-realms of arbitrary size and shape, hanging in space, and connected to each other randomly via portals and magical paths.

These eight realities are interconnected through Realmgates, dimensional portals of different appearances that are suggestive of the Realm they are in. For example, a Realmgate of Shysh, the Realm of Death, may be seen as a great skeletal structure made of bones and festooned with cadaveric gargoyles and skulls. The Realmgates are essential to the setting as they are the fastest way to travel between the Realms, making them important economic and military assets. Many cities have been built around them, becoming centers of civilization. Some of these portals may even be inside oceans, in the form of vortices through which undersea farers can travel. There is much speculation about what or whom created the Realmgates: perhaps they are the remains of the Webway used by the Old Ones from the World-that-was, perhaps they are inherent to the cosmic laws of the Mortal Realms, or perhaps they were made by <s>long forgotten wizards</s> God-King Sigmar and his divine dragon buddy at the start of the new universe. There are also magical ways to travel through the realms, such as the reality rifting Gnawholes made by the skaven or lightning strikes unleashed from the ring-city of Sigmarabulum, but by far the Realmgates are the most secure and efficient way to travel across the realms and thus the target of conflict between rival interests.

The Realmspheres float in the Aetheric Void, a dimension of unaligned magic inimical to life, and are given illumination by Hysh, which in turn alternates an orbit with Ulgu, the realm of shadow, allowing for day and night to exist. Between them there is the twilight subrealm of Uhl-Gysh, where Slaanesh is imprisoned. Azyr stands above the other realms, bringing a starry sky and celestial phenomena, while Shysh is below the other Realms, receiving the dead in its countless underworlds. There are also other sub-realms with their own sets of rules and inhabitants.

With the return of the Dark Gods, whole sections of the Realms and their Realmgates (aside from Azyr) have been corrupted and twisted by the alternate dimension known as the Realm of Chaos. This domain is aligned to the will and whim of the five Gods of Chaos, representing [[Khorne|Rage]], [[Tzeentch|Ambition]], [[Nurgle|Despair]], [[Slaanesh|Ecstacy]], and [[Horned Rat|Ruin]]. Wherever Chaos-aligned forces take hold, the region starts mutating in the likeness of their patron God: for example, where Nurglite forces thrive, the lands become fecundate with mutated and bloated life, pestilence, and plagues, until the area is eventually subsumed into the Garden of Nurgle (again, think [[Planescape]], and the way locations in the Outer Planes could physically shift location or even plane depending on their current vibe).

So, all in all, the new setting can be summed up as a strange fusion of Stargate fan fiction, nordic myths, and your classical D&D cosmology. And of course a lot of Moorcock thrown in. But this is a Games-Workshop setting. It was a given. While this brave new universe is still not as well developed as the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, at a meta level it is more flexible both for campaign settings and Black Library novels, a bit in the vein of the galaxy of Warhammer 40,000.

== After the End Times ==
[[File:Age Start.jpeg|thumb|400px|left|Fucking Chaos bullshit drawing a last-turn victory out of their asses...]]


''These were [[The End Times]]. The world is no more, torn apart by treachery and Chaos. And yet... endings beget beginnings.''

''Listen carefully. Can you hear it? [[Tzeentch|The cruel laughter]] of dark gods? It dances on the winds between worlds, striving to be heard, for the ruinous powers bore easily, and [[Slaanesh|they seek tirelessly]] for new realities to conquer. Where there is life, Chaos will find it, and [[Nurgle|misery]] and [[Khorne|bloodshed]] will soon follow.''

''The world is gone, but all may not be lost.''

''[[Lizardmen|The descendants of the Old Ones left before the Chaos moon destroyed their homelands, that much is certain.]] [[Azyr|But where did they go?]]''

''[[Skaven|And if they escaped, did anyone else?]]''

''[[Nagash|Can what is dead ever truly die?]]''

''[[Sigmar|Who remains lost in the void?]]''

''To what does he cling?''

''And when a world dies…''

''[[Dracothion|…what happens next?]]''

Before we start, we must clarify that some of the following narrative is subject to in-universe legends and meta-discrepancies, along with surviving rumours before the official material was released. What follows is a synthesis updated to the Second Edition of the setting, which also takes information from Black Library novels and previous official sources. Perhaps in time we may have a tome telling about the Genesis of Age of Sigmar so that we can better understand what happened, but until then, here is (in broad strokes) the narrative we currently have available.

After falling along with [[Archaon]] through the planet-ending Warp Vortex in the ruins of Middenheim, Sigmar (still wielding Ghal-Maraz and separated from his nemesis) was thrown into the Abyss and eventually got a grip onto the surviving metallic core of the Warhammer world. Together, man-god and celestial body were hurled beyond the time and space which no longer existed due the destruction of the Oak of the Ages and the victory of Chaos.

Eventually, after an aeon impossible to measure (possibly because time had literally lost all meaning), both entities, now perpetually connected at a metaphysical level, entered the Mortal Realms—newborn planes of existence aligned and condensed from the Winds of Magic due [[Bullshit|the laws of the Cosmos]]. It was in the skies of Azyr that Sigmar and the core were finally caught by [[Dracothion]], the Star Drake, one of the Zodiacal Beasts and a creature of creation and order. Feeling a similarly aligned spirit, Dracothion helped Sigmar recover and befriended him.

Legends also tell some beings not aligned with Chaos managed to escape the end of the World: the Lizardmen travelled in their voidships across the Abyss for atemporal aeons, slowly dying until only the Slann remained. These survivors were eventually found by Dracothion, who guided them to High Azyr, the outer space of the mortal realms, where the Slann used their star-born magic to remember into existence the race of lizardmen, à la [[Doctor_Who|Amy Pond and the Doctor]]. The denizens of long lost Lustria, now beings of celestial energy renamed Seraphon, set upon themselves the task of vanquishing Chaos from the Cosmos once and for all.

Black Library sources also suggests that some dwarf clans managed to literally dig a path into the newborn universe, allowing their societies to survive the End Times and arrive in the Mortal Realms. Considering that the Skaven can do this, it's not far-fetched to assume Dwarf runecrafting may create tools capable of cutting through space and time, although why they wouldn't use this more often could be the source of many interesting debates. It's also arguable that some powerful mages may have been capable of similar interdimensional feats.

At this point it should also be noted that—given the cyclical nature of the setting (the so called Cycle of the Stars perhaps?), the highly increased powers of the non-Chaos deities, and the fact that one of the Mortal Realms is a functional afterlife plane—individuals can reincarnate, come back from the dead, or otherwise be reborn into new iterations, allowing at a meta-level to bring back not just Lizardmen and Chaos aligned creatures, but also other mortal beings. In other words, [[Your Dudes]], and other old characters of all stripes ([[The Green Knight|humans]], [[Skarsnik|orruks]], [[Thorgrim Grudgebearer|duardin]], [[Lileath|aelves]], [[Kroq-Gar|lizardmen]], [[Khazrak The One-Eye|chaos]], [[Queek Head-Taker|skaven]], [[Luthor Harkon|vampires]], etc), can come back from oblivion, perhaps slightly changed but ultimately the same at heart. Even [[Bretonnia]] and the [[Tomb Kings]], whose rules for AoS are available for free at Games Workshop, can be brought back. In fact, due the almost infinite vastness and magic of the Mortal Realms, you are basically allowed to create or justify almost whatever you wish, with its appropriate set of rules, something the writers of the rulebooks take advantage of in the fluff section: for example, in the Godbeasts supplement, the existence of the Crimson Monarchy allows for fluffy Tomb Kings armies, and bringing Bretonnian themed armies is easy too, since there have been descriptions of feudal kingdoms with knights in some of the available background.

Black Library writers have come to help too, with the Soul Wars novel basically bringing Balthasar Gelt reborn as a Stormcast Mage and Gotrek Gurnisson entering the Mortal Realms in search for Felix Jaeger, along with various other suggestive hints and references, like a passing mention to [[Settra_the_Imperishable|Lord Celestant Setrus of the Imperishables]].

== [[Age of Myth|The Age of Myth]] ==

Sigmar, guided by Dracothion, travelled across the realms using the Realmgates, interdimensional portals akin to those once built by the Old Ones. There, he found tribes of men and other species, rising from their primordial savage state and already embattled by many horrors such as beastmen, whose origins on the new realms would become a matter of much speculation by the scholars of the setting—maybe they too were hurled through space and time like Sigmar? Or maybe Chaos was already gnawing at the new reality?

Sigmar also found the Incarnates, gods from the World-That-Was who were bound to the Winds of Magic that formed the Mortal Realms, as well as other divinities and beings of great power. He set himself to freeing them and making them join his new Pantheon to fullfill his grand vision, for Sigmar had decided to bring the peace, order, and prosperity he once wished for the now long-vanquished Empire to the entirety of the Mortal Realms.

Guiding many of his followers to the place of his coming to Azyr, Sigmar built Azyrheim, the Eternal City, which would eventually eclipse Altdorf and Khemri in size, dynamism, and prosperity. In time, many other cities, kingdoms, and enclaves would be built too, guided and protected by the Pantheon. This period of time is ill-defined both in terms of length and historical detail—again, to allow you to fill it in with [[Your_Dudes|whatever you]] [[Magical_Realm|like]].

Let us talk a bit more about these gods:

Grimnir and Grungni were found chained to a mountain in the Realm of Fire, and refused to give any explanation for how they got there (so you know it must have been embarrassing). After freeing them, they both pledged themselves to his service. Grungni, who is now a crippled smith god (gotta love that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus GW creativity]), taught the various mortals metalworking and brought their general technological level back to the point where it had been prior to AoS. He then gathered the Dwarfs, now called Duardin, to himself and forged a new mountain Hold called the Iron Karak for them to dwell in. Grimnir, on the other hand, wanted his debt repaid immediately, so Sigmar requested he fight Vulcatrix, the Mother of Salamanders (with Salamanders themselves apparently being the origin of ALL FIRE, EVERYWHERE) [[lulz|for some reason]]. Both of them were destroyed in the conflict, shattering into thousands of pieces that rained over the Realm of Fire (while Grimnir's beard was on fire). The fragments of Vulcatrix created the volcanoes that dot the Realm of Fire (which apparently for some reason didn't have any prior and needed an explanation to exist), while the fragments of Grimnir- '''*THIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN CENSORED BY ORDER OF SIGMAR, ON BEHALF OF THE DUARDIN: LONG LIVE SIGMAR, LONG LIVE GRUNGNI, HONOR TO GRIMNIR*'''

Sigmar also found [[Tyrion]] and [[Teclis]]. Tyrion is a god proper, the Lord of Light, and is the one who actually holds domain over the Lore of Light. He is [[wat|blind]], and can only see through Teclis's eyes.

[[Malekith]] woke up as the god of the Lore of Shadow and now calling himself Malerion, completely alone. He searched for other beings and eventually found his mother [[Morathi]], who has "changed" and has the companionship of Daemons made of pure shadow. Eventually they too joined Sigmar (no word on if they're taking back up the old family practices). The two—along with the Twins—would eventually join forces for a great task.

[[Everqueen|Alarielle]] awoke alone, although she still had magical seeds from the old setting. She planted them everywhere and created Fey beings as well as new treefolk, and although she did join Sigmar eventually, she nonetheless shunned others in favor of her pod people, the Sylvaneth.

[[Gorkamorka]], the merged [[Gork]] and [[Mork]] (or is it Mork and Gork?), was found by Sigmar trapped in a sapient amber named Drakatoa that had claimed the Realm of Beasts for itself. The two ended up having [[Leman Russ|an arm wrestling match]]. Eventually, Gorkamorka settled down and became Sigmar's hunter, slaying all sort of monsters and hostile creatures across the Mortal Realms.

[[Nagash]] survived as he had pretty much become the god of Death at that point. Sigmar [[Derp|reluctantly]] revived him because he needed help in the underworld [[Bullshit|or something]], and also knew he could provide a tireless and unending workforce to raise cities and towns for the mortal tribes to live in and learn civilization. So of course Nagash immediately went about eating all the other death gods of Shysh (which begs the question why Sigmar didn't just go with one of them instead of this sociopathic, backstabbing asshole who he apparently already had a bad feeling about) and getting all egotistical, as he does. Nagash also resurrected some of his mortarchs, even Mannfred, feeling safe in the knowledge that as the God of Death he can impose his will on any Undead (and thus proving that, for all his ego, he's just as stupid as Sigmar). Recent lore alternatively offers that he was the first one to be freed by Sigmar in a time when the Realms were still forming from the raw stuff of the Winds of Magic, and that together they fought eldritch horrors which would have given even the Chaos Gods pause, with their victories making the cosmos safe enough for the mortal races to prosper. This would actually explain why both of them called each other "betrayer" and became so [[Butthurt|bitter]] after the disaster of Allpoints, but not why Sigmar chose to free Nagash instead of getting help from any of the other death gods, especially since Nagash began planning to betray Sigmar immediately (something anybody with two functioning brain cells would've predicted).

Eventually, Sigmar established the seat of his Pantheon in Azyr's Mount Celestian, close to Azyrheim, although the gods also had their own residences in the other Mortal Realms. Initially, all went well: [[Nagash]] formed a proper afterlife that didn't include any Chaos soul-eating, and had Undead do the bulk of the construction efforts. Grungni continued teaching mortals about technology and smithing, and [[Gorkamorka]] continued his task of killing off dangerous wild creatures, which kept the greenskin god entertained. Hence the Mortal Realms prospered, ultimately coming to surpass the kingdoms of the World Before. The sourcebook expands further upon the civilizations of the Mortal Realms, their rivalries, their commerce and industry, and their artistic and cultural development, with concepts such as progress, tolerance, and peace being promoted by the God-King.

This Utopia would not last. The Chaos Gods attacked, seeding corruption among the inhabitants of the Mortal Realms and convincing [[That Guy|them]] to open the metaphysical gates to begin the invasion in exchange for power and immortality. Soon great invasions and turncoat armies ravaged the Mortal Realms, putting to the sword entire civilizations. But the new pantheon was strong, as were their servants, and Chaos was driven back.

For a time the Pantheon held the forces of Chaos at bay, but then the cracks began to show, and the Chaos Gods brought Archaon (now with the title of Exalted Grand Marshal of the Apocalypse, which... [[The End Times|fair]]) to do their will, worsening the situation as he forced the disparate forces of Chaos to work together while the Pantheon started to disintegrate.

Gorkamorka, entirely SICK of Sigmar's sissy "civilization building", broke from the pantheon by forming a one-god [[WAAAGH]] through all eight Realms and the Warp, then embarked on a return trip the same way until Sigmar broke him back into Gork and Mork (or Mork and Gork?), at which point they settled into the Realm of Beasts to fight each other for eternity.

Alarielle abandoned the defense of the Realms in favor of only fighting within her own Realm, the Realm of Life, to defend it from Nurgle using guerrilla warfare and ambush tactics, a decision [[Derp|which cost her and her realm dearly]].

The efforts of Order were further weakened when Tyrion and Malerion left to find [[Slaanesh]]. While most of the Chaos Gods, including the now ascendant Great Horned Rat, were already playing the Great Game, Slaanesh was too glutted with Aelf souls, becoming vulnerable to the machinations of other divinities. He/she/it tried to hide so as to better digest all their many victims, something which turn out to be a terrible mistake, as the Aelven deities succeeded in a great ritual which captured the Dark Prince and forced him/her/it to regurgitate the devoured souls of the Aelf race.

== The Age of Chaos ==
Finally, at the battle for the Allpoints, a location containing a Realmgate to each Realm, [[Nagash]] predictably backstabbed Sigmar and the rest of Order due to the (unspecified and probably negligible, since [[That Guy|this is what Nagash does]]) manipulation of Tzeentch and Archaon, as well as his own inevitable resentment that <s>Sigmar</s> literally anyone was in charge instead of him, then fucked off in a mad dash back to the Realm of Death. Sigmar chased after Nagash in anger before realizing [[Derp|"OH FUCK, THE BATTLE!"]], and returned to see that Chaos had laid siege to each Realm.

Sigmar, disgusted, called on Tyrion and Malerion to take a moment from kicking Slaanesh in the tummeh and help him and the mortals forge a magical barrier preventing Chaos from entering Azyr (or the all-seeing Tzeentch from seeing past it), then shut the gates to the Realm and began preparations to defend against the incoming siege (which makes you wonder why the hell he didn't think to do the same to EVERY realm before Chaos showed up). Nagash returned to the Realm of Death thinking he'd won, only to find the fucking [[Skaven]] had blown up his Black Pyramid. AGAIN. Then [[Archaon]] appeared and blew Nagash the fuck up, although Nagash's soul survived (he controls the afterlife now, where the hell else would he go? Detroit?) and immediately began reforming his body (so Nagash was reset back to pre-End Times, although he can actually appear on the battlefield now if he wants to).

After Azyr closed it’s gates, Chaos laid waste to the 7 remaining Mortal Realms and ruined all the civilizations built up during the Age of Myth, [[Age of Strife|leaving only hidden strongholds and fugitive enclaves]]. Sigmar gave up fighting them and retreated to Azyrheim to build his army of Stormcast Eternals.

Running out of things to kill, Khorne then attacked the ENTIRE REST OF CHAOS, allowing the inhabitants of the realms a bit of a breather. Also, the Great Horned Rat is now a Chaos God. The other three Chaos Gods thought very little of him, although Skavenblight was allowed to become a section of the Realm of Chaos (due to the mistakes of the Skaven, however, it half sunk back into the material plane which in turn gives [[Skaven]] the ability to appear in any of the Realms at will). Even Archaon, President of the Chaos Fan Club, believes the Skaven to be unworthy of respect, and he spits in the face of the Great Horned Rat directly. Although, considering the fact that being [[Luke|wretched, downtrodden, and despised]] is arguably now their schtick on a metaphysical level, he may perversely think that it’s [[heresy]] to do anything else.

== The Age of Sigmar ==
[[File:Age Of Slugmang Banner.png|750px|thumb|right|[[Ultramarines|Goldmongers]] VS [[World Eaters|Ragemonsters.]] [[Star Wars|It's like poetry, it rhymes.]]]]

The player-driven story of the game starts 5 centuries after the beginning of the Age of <s>Strife</s>Chaos, when the very weave of reality is starting to collapse due the triumph of the Chaos Gods. It is during these years that Sigmar began spiriting away warriors doomed to heroic last stands against Chaos from all across the Mortal Realms, reforging these brave souls at the massive floating city of Sigmarabulum into his [[Stormcast Eternals]]. They are to be the [[Space Marines|super-soldiers]] needed to save the Mortal Realms—they are immortal, incorruptible, capable of matching the servants of Chaos thanks to the divine power of the God-King, <s>and they shall know no fear</s>.

Finally, the [[Great Crusade|Storm of Sigmar]] is unleashed upon the Mortal Realms. It's a wave of multiple, simultaneous, and devastating defensive teleportations of Stormcast Eternals into enemy territory, their initial objective being to retake the sealed Realmgates, thus allowing Azyr to deploy more and more of their centuries-nurtured forces through these portals without taxing the energies of the God-King. In a very “victory or death” move, it’s also the only way any of the Stormcast can get home alive. It also has the side benefit of establishing beach heads where the aforementioned refugee survivors can find sanctuary, and eventually become enclaves of renewed civilization. However, Sigmar is secretly wracked with doubt, since the Stormcast project still has flaws, like the delicate reforging process that seems to hollow the subject out a little more each time they die and respawn. Unfortunately, the forces of Order have been running out of time, and the attack cannot be delayed anymore lest the Mortal Realms collapse utterly into the Realm of Chaos.

In the first battles of the post-release story, Sigmarines battled Chaos in four locations:
* Hammers of Sigmar VS Khorne's Goretide (starter box factions) in the <strike>Hellfire</strike> Brimstone Peninsula of the Realm of Fire: Jacos, a Lord-Celestant of the Stormhost, is killed by the leader of the Goretide Khul while another Lord-Celestant named Vandus called down lightning in a suicide attack to destroy Khorne's Realmgate to the mortal Realms. Relictor Ionus then blew up Khul's skull pyramid, preventing him from ascending to Daemonhood. Jacos was lost in the Warp, Vandus was Reforged. The first Age of Sigmar novella ''The Gates of Azyr'' covers the first part of the campaign.
* Celestial Vindicators VS Tzeentch in Chamon: CV's intially attack to reclaim Ghal Maraz, and discover Tzeentch was going to absorb the Realm of Metal into his own and the ritual was interrupted 99 days early. Tzeentch's forces hold them off and capture many CV souls to prevent Reforging, forcing the Stormcasts to regroup. This event leads then to the Silver Road to find the bulk of the Duardin race, although Tzeentch's forces also discover it. The Sigmarines seemed doomed until the inevitable Tzeentchian backstabbing conga and layers of plans and pawns finally come into play, made worse when the [[Lord of Change|Changelords]] and [[Kairos Fateweaver]] got involved. During the thousand-man villain monologue cacophony the Sigmarines were able to reach Ghal Maraz, and when one of them touched it Sigmar was able to bomf his army and sacred weapon back home before unleashing a Thundernuke on the fortress. Meanwhile, the Lions of Sigmar were sent to find the Metal Duardin but found something "far darker" (theorized to mean Chaos <strike>Dwarfs</strike> Duardin). Sigmar then decided that since he had his favorite toy back, it was time to get directly involved in the war again.
* Hallowed Knights and Astral Templars plus Sylvaneth vs Nurgle and Great Horned Rat plus Beastmen: A Lord-Celestant collapsed Nurgle's Realmgate from within, and is trapped in his Garden now. After the Order forces mop-up the Chaos, Alarielle's crazy treefolk befriend the Sigmarines and they begin to reclaim the Realm of Life. But not after a Great Unclean One pollutes the last pristine lake in all of Gyrhan. The war ends with the Sigmarines barely scraping a victory due entirely to the Celestant-Prime arriving and defeating the leader of the Nurglites, Torglug The Despised, at the cost of the lives of Alarielle and her daughter, the Lady of Vines. The Sigmarines plant a seed containing Alarielle's soul in the ground where many of them died in hopes she'd be reborn <strike>Human</strike> as a warrior queen of rapetrees rather than a totes cray-cray queen of gardening.

With the resolution of the above plots, the following wars were established:
* The Anvils Of Heldenhammer Stormhost are sent to make a truce with Nagash, but discover Neferata defending her kingdom of <strike>New Lahmia</strike> Nulahmia against Slaaneshi invaders and rush to her aid.
* Archaon, sick of being on the sidelines, heads to Mount Kronus in the Realm of Fire to kill Vandus and the Hammers of Sigmar. He slaughters the fuck out of them, no holds barred.

After that, the forces of Chaos went on to capture the massive entities known of Godbeasts, which are beasties capable of small scale exterminatus on their own, with Dracothion itself merely being the strongest of their number. The forces of the Hallowed Knights and Knights Excelsior fought in the Great Green Torc to stop the World Titan Behemat, father of giants.

== Malign Portents ==
Now, it seems that Nagash has been very busy behind the scenes and is making a power play that could massively expand the influence of Death. The other factions are trying to stop it, and so far it's not going well for them. Each Grand Alliance get themselves a new champion of sorts: Death gets a ghost one-handing a bastard sword, Order gets a Sigmarine who's job it is to rebuild the stuff that the rest of his Brotherhood just ruined, Destruction gets a really, ''really'' fucking high Grot and Chaos gets an axe wielding marauder queen sporting an awesome rack. As in, her helmet has two gigantic sets of horns. What'd you think I meant?

Malign portents is intended to mark the "end of the age of Hope" and bring the [[grimdark]] back, as well as expand on how the Realms work and how the fuck normal human beings can live in a place that's [[Forge World|all made of metal]]. The short stories released with Malign Portents certainly cash in the grimdark people wanted—Stormcasts killing innocents, vampires coaxing humans to the side of death to save them from Nurgle’s plagues (which are lovingly detailed, with exploding maggot-filled pustules and weeping sores), humans being dragged down under the earth by skeletons to suffocate after they just managed to survive the razing of their village...

The only Chaos faction making gains are a group of Slaanesh worshipers under command of the warqueen teaming up with the mortal followers of the Chaos gods to find Slaanesh (they're headed in the right direction, but reaching Slaanesh is the problem). The Destruction champion's plan so far seems to be to just throw armies of Orruks and Grots into Shyish and hope everything works out. The Order champion is trying to figure out what is going wrong and recently halted his attempts at rebuilding to take the fight to the undead.

Nagash's plans are gaining ground and showing no signs of stopping. He has Arkhan and the Black Disciples making a series of inverted versions of the Black Pyramid. These have been drawing magical energy and acting as lodestones and power amplifiers (they float in the air and there's more than one, so no Skaven tunneling trickery will work this time). Mannfred's going around doing a series of terrorist attacks against particularly powerful enemies of Nagash in the realms. Neferata is using her cults to manipulate society and turn high-ranking people into vampires (and seems to be focused on subverting Azyr). The habits of the various other factions are poised to come back to haunt them (no pun intended): e.g., among Order, all the corpses of innocent people sacrificed by the Daughters of Khaine (who are designated Good Guys by Sigmar despite being mass murdering, hyper-violent cultists only distinguishable from Chaos worshippers by a lack of fun mutations) become skeletons in the armies of Death. One particularly grimdark story (involving the last survivors of a town suffering a zombie apocalypse with the Death champion leading the zombies) has confirmed a horrifying fact: Nagash has found a way to indefinitely contain the souls of Stormcast Eternals (previously, the only other way to contain them was to chuck them into the Realm of Chaos, but they could walk right back out if they survived long enough to find a portal). Although while Nagash can contain them if he kills them personally, if he gets distracted they just go straight back to Sigmar. Still, at this rate, the only beings that seem able to resist the clutches of undeath are Chaos Daemons and Seraphon (Sylvaneth can resist it unless their [[Spirit stone|soul pods]] are destroyed, in which case it's game over).

The whole thing culminates in something only known as the "Necroquake": after Nagash builds the Great Black Pyramid, which this time flies and is upside down, the Skaven STILL manage to ruin Nagash's master plan to raise the dead from all over the Mortal Realms, and fundamentally alter the nature of magic in the process due to the arcane backlash. Now the realm of Shyish has been fundamentally altered. Before, the various after-life areas in the realm would move towards the edge of it as they lost relevance to the mortal populations, until eventually being destroyed. Now, the flow of magic and the irrelevant after-life areas move toward the centre of the realm until they fall into a giant vortex of death magic called the Shyish Nadir, making it an inversion of all the other realms. This is a corruption of Nagash's original plan for all the souls in the cosmos to automatically go to him, and now even he can't handle the insanity at the centre of the realm indefinitely or fully access the souls or magic in the vortex. He can only access the magic in the Nadir for brief periods, otherwise even he risks being ripped apart by it (at least partly because the Nadir itself has been tainted by Chaos thanks to the Skaven, so the magic within it isn’t actually compatible with him despite it being from his own realm). While Nagash hasn't become all-powerful as he had hoped (due to the rats fucking him over ''yet again''), he's still gotten much stronger than before and now has a massive army of angry ghosts at his command.

Yeah, the [[grimdark]] is certainly back.

== Soul Wars (2nd Edition) ==

As mentioned above, Nagash's great Necroquake shook the hell out of the fabric of the already-unstable Realms, causing two major things to happen: 

First, magic got Endless, meaning that certain very powerfull spells can now keep themselves going indefinitely, drawing on the inherently magical nature of the Realms until they are forcibly dispelled. Some spells just keep going for ages and ages, ruining whatever they can find. Some even become infamous, inviting great magic-hunting dispellers to go after them for money like bounty hunters.

The other, perhaps more important part is that the dead spirits of the Realms have gotten very restless, and very, ''very'' fucking mad. Ghosts and ghasts rise from their graves to punish the living for being so damn alive, all at the behest of [[Nagash|Skeleface el Hat Grande]], who's shaped them to ironically reflect their crimes in life. They are led by a new Mortarch of Grief, Lady Olynder. [[Sigmar]] sees Nagash's play and raises him the Sacrosanct Chamber, the guards of the Anvil of Apothesis, which recreates Stormcasts after death. This however ends up putting a strain on Stormcast forces, as they are still struggling to the solve the flaw in the Reforging process, and are essentially having to delay that mission in order to deal with these new enemies. Thus begins with the Soul Wars, with all four Grand Alliances scrambling to claim the souls of the dead released by the Necroquake for their own goals.

A more recent side effect of the Necroquake has been the revealing of the Stormvaults—repositories of extremely powerful relics and godlike entities dating back from the Age of Myth. Sigmar had been unable to destroy them, so he used powerful devices he'd "borrowed" from Teclis and modified so that they would cloud the minds of others to hide them away. The Necroquake weakened that concealment, though, and now the Grand Alliances seek to find them and gain control of their contents, either to ensure they do not get loose or to use them against Sigmar. Lady Olynder managed to break one open, containing the soul of [[Katakros]] and Nagash revealed a plan he'd been sitting on for awhile in armies of devoted augmented skeletons called the [[Ossiarch Bonereapers]].

Then Nagash makes his next big move, to capture the Allpoints from Archaon with his armies of Bonereapers. While the final assault on the Varanspire is ultimately met in failure, the Forces of Death have secured a foothold in the Allpoints, fortifying the crap out of the Shyish Realmgate, and becoming an ever present thorn in the side of the Everchosen.

== Broken Realms ==
Meanwhile, Morathi enacted the final stages of her master plan to achieve godhood. First she stole the Ocarian Lantern, an ancient artifact of Teclis, from the Idoneth Deepkin - who themselves had stolen it from Teclis first. Then she stole a shipment of Allpoints realmstone from Archaon (tricking the Daughters of Khaine into thinking the ritual was to summon Khaine so he could lead them directly), while Archaon was distracted by another Ossiarch Bonereaper assault on the Varanspire led by Katakros, who had been secretly bribed by Morathi with tonnes of bones to carry out the attack. The final part of the plan was Morathi entering the belly of Slaanesh and extracting the souls of the elven kings of the World-That-Was to consume their raw power as the final ingredient for her ascension. It almost worked until she gets to the soul of Aenarion (while not named, the souls' spark of divine power is described as a "sacred flame" stronger than the others, they're someone she "...shared a closeness with that her cruel heart had never experienced before or since" and she hesitated to attack him so clearly it's Aenarion). Aenarion literally sliced her soul in half for what she did to the others, combining with the ritual to have a dramatic effect on Slaanesh (see below).

Morathi remerged from Slaanesh's belly as a true goddess, but now with one soul in two bodies: Morathi-Khaine, the fusion of Morathi and Khaine but with Morathi's aelven form, and The Shadow Queen, the most monstrous parts of Morathi's psyche given physical form thus having her winged snake-woman form. She bargained with Volturnos, giving him the Ocarian Lantern and the souls of Volturnos' Cythai peers in exchange for an alliance. She then invaded and conquered Anvilgard through a hidden army of insurrectionists in the city and an army of Daughters, renaming it Har Kuron (though the city has Sigmar loyalists forming a resistance movement against Morathi, [[Crunch|meaning players can still use the Anvilgard rules in the game]]). Initially, the coup went off almost flawlessly, as the city's defenses were overrun from within, and Morathi gave specific instructions to capture all Stormcast within the city alive, preventing them from being sent back to Azyr upon death and informing Sigmar. The Daughters of Khaine and their Idoneth allies then went on a bloody purge of the city and all surrounding settlements along the coast, stamping out any resistance groups they came across and even murdering/sacrificing some Lumineth Realm Lords who were there acting as advisors and ambassadors. At first it seemed that Morathi would get away almost scot free, until one of the captive Stormcasts was freed by a strange shadowy figure (later revealed to be Be'lakor trying to undermine the Order Grand Alliance). Sigmar found out about the treachery and sent an army of Stormcast to retake Anvilgard. The fighting raged until the Celestant-Prime arrived with Sigmar's voice speaking through him, and negotiated with Morathi. Afterwards the Stormcast withdrew and Morathi was allowed to keep the city; what Morathi had to give in return is unknown [[/d/|though some have been making guesses over what happens when evil witch and barbarian warlord meet]].

Even worse, an unintended side effect of the ritual and Aenarion's attack was that [[What|Slaanesh gave birth to some sort of godspawn]]. The Newborn followed Morathi back to the Mortal Realms before splitting into twin demigods called Dexcessa and Synessa, who have started rallying the Hedonites to exact revenge on their father/mother's behalf. Among these forces is [[Sigvald]], whose soul was released from the prison Nagash threw him in and ascended to not-quite Daemon Prince after his mortal body was killed (and pissed on) in the End Times.

Meanwhile Teclis and Nagash make major moves, Nagash seeking to spread the Necroquake across the realms and Teclis seeking to end the Soul Wars. The end result sees Arkhan slain by the Light of Eltharion, the Necroquake ended and Nagash losing his nine books and being bound to Nagashizzar for a time, thus ending the Soul Wars. After Nagash's defeat, Teclis learns he's been marked by Nagash and receives an ominous warning from Alarielle, stating that with the power Death now being pushed back in the Realms, the energy of Life will start to grow in its place, with some unforeseeable consequences.

Malerion later showed up in Har Kuron and confronted his mother about her actions and how they’ve endangered their long-term plans by angering Sigmar. Morathi cut off one of his fingers in retaliation for his sass and told him to chill out, as she’s confident Sigmar isn’t going to do anything else, and that he should focus on his own problems like the fact Tyrion is apparently trying to make a stable path from Hysh into Ulgu so he can invade it. Malerion responded that he had it under control by seeding sleeper agents in Tyrion’s ranks to sabotage the Lumineth while other servants of his gathered artifacts from places like Shyish to serve as bargaining chips for him.

In the next book, Be'lakor took things to a whole different level by destroying the Seraphon’s future seeing devices and tricking them into killing one of Archaon’s Gaunt Summoners, further undermining the Everchosen's plans to invade Azyr. After Be'lakor discovered the explosion of the summoner’s silver tower has destroyed the realmgates connected to it and unleash a storm of chaos energy in Chamon, Be’lakor now seeks to destroy all the realmgates in existence and flood the realms with chaos demons. That said, he realizes that even by starting with the reclusive realm of Hysh he won't be able to do much by himself. So to this end, he manages to parley with [[Lady Olynder]] while she's living free of her asshole boss. He convinces/threatens her to join forces with him to assault Sigmar's forces in Chamon and to lift the curse she had placed upon him in their previous encounter, and in return he promises her the souls of the Stormcast they slay to drag back to Shyish and torture them to her heart's content. The two of them manage to overrun the defenders of the Chamon city of Vindicarum in a desperate siege and destroy all realmgates in Chamon. The few hundred scared survivors of Vindicarum are only saved by the intervention of a combined armada of the Kharadron Overlords, who decide to intervene after the Second Conference of Madralta. Be'lakor moved to destroy the Kharadron interlopers, but stopped when he sensed a strange presence amongst the sky dwarves that he hadn't felt since the World that Was; a white haired dwarf stood upon the deck of one of the ships, radiating an almost godlike energy in Be'lakor's eyes. Be'lakor, not wanting to take any unnecessary risks, called off his attack at this point and left, satisfied in knowing that the damage he did would have severe consequences. This proved particularly devastating for the local Stormcast, who realize that due to the storm of chaos now raging around them they're cut off from Azyr and their deaths are well and truly permanent. Not only that, but two entire Stormhosts, the Celestial Vindicators and the Hallowed Knights, have been severely depleted, while a third, the Sigmarite Brotherhood, was wiped out completely, with little hope of rescuing or reforging their souls.

In the final book Alarielle's attempt to revive the Oak of Ages via her Rite of Life, while successful in its goal, accidentally unleashes Kragnos; a powerful, ancient, Drogrukh (centaur) Destruction god sealed away in Ghur during the Age of Myth by Lord Kroak. Unaware that any time had passed since his imprisonment, Kragnos rampages across Ghur, recruiting a couple of Mega-Gargants and reveling in his newfound freedom and eager to reunite with his people - who unbeknownst to him had been wiped out while their nation of Donse was now ruins... and partially occupied by the free city of Excelsis. Upon reaching the edge of what was left of Donse, Kragnos was enraged by the loss of his people, the city built over the ruins and the arrival of a Waaagh! composed of Gordrakk and his tribe along with some Gloomspite Gitz lead by the Loonking Skragrott. The two sides fight for a bit, with Kragnos causing a landside, and it looks like it will be a fight to the death until the Bad Moon itself stops the fight and calls it a draw. Kragnos then shrugs and the Orruks decide to follow him on his quest to destroy Excelsis... something they were more than happy to do given they were already on their way to do just that with their giant battering ram made from a godbeast's skull when they ran into Kragnos. Fortunately for the Orruks Excelsis is already in a weakened state, as a prior Tzeentchian daemon incursion led to a reactionary anti-magic civil war. Which would have been bad enough on its own...but then on top of that the twin Newborn daemons of Slaanesh then went and manipulated the anti-magic movement into a pogrom against elves allowing the daemons to both feed on elf souls and to deplete Excelsis' magical defenses through elves being killed or leaving the city. This combined with them also organizing a Skaven assault to undermine the city defenses further, allows the Newborn daemons to fully manifest in Excelsis just before Kragnos and his goons arrive.

Around that time Lord Kroak arrives, but despite his best attempts to reinforce the city's defenses with magic he's unable to stop Kragnos from smashing his way through the city's Southern Wall while the defenders are distracted by Gordrakk's failed attack on the main gate with his battering ram. Kragnos' success combined with the city’s Ogor mercenaries turning on the defenders due to them secretly being agents of the Loonking, allows the Orruk army to pour into the city. The carnage is only ended when some witch hunters and their Stormcast allies manage to banish the twin demons, and Morathi unexpectedly shows up with a wholeass Black Ark worth of Daughters of Khaine to reinforce the defenders. Morathi unleashes her serpentine Shadow Queen half on Kragnos while her Elf half helps Lord Kroak create a giant portal laced with an illusion that tricks Kragnos into getting teleported to the other side of Ghur. What was this illusion? It was dragons. Apparently Kraggy's hateboner for them is so great that he will literally drop everything to have a chance to fuck them up.

Without Kragnos' support, the defenders were able to drive out the Greenskins. Upon realizing he’s been tricked, Kragnos takes out his frustrations on a local chaos fortress while a [[Kruleboyz|nearby Orruk tribe]] watches in awe. Nagash's evil skelepope spirit comes to Teclis and says he'll come back on Teclis twice as hard for ruining his soul collection. Be'lakor goes to the Garden of Slaanesh to dunk on the Newborns for getting banished by a pair of human witch hunters, only for them to say it was [[Just as Planned]]. While that’s happening, Morathi and the Celestant Prime are busy getting into a shouting match over her backstabbing Sigmar, but they're stopped by the newly arrived Grungni, who points out the good from Morathi's actions as evidenced by the mess with Kragnos, and claiming that there are bigger problems to worry about - as the Storms of Chaos unleashed by Be'lakor are spreading.

==The Era of Beasts (3rd Edition)==
All of this leads up to the launch of the newly announced 3rd edition of Age of Sigmar which moves the setting forward into the new era, the Era of the Beasts.

Fearing the potential risk of this newly freed threat, Sigmar decided to launch some Dawnbringer Crusades in retaliation with the intention of retaking and resettling lands in Ghur lost to the Age of Chaos as a giant middle finger to the forces of Destruction and Chaos. To this end Sigmar, with the aid of Grungni, refined the forging process and created some new Primaris-cast with fancy new thunderstrike armor that should allow their souls to pierce through the clouds of chaos magic upon death. These new warriors fight more closely alongside the regular mortal soldiers than the previous Stormcast, helping to keep them safe while they move the giant flying prefabricated buildings that Grungni cooked up which can do things like generate power, emit an anti-chaos/anti-undead barrier, purify the land, provide water and so on. Among these new Stormcast Eternals are specially forged heroes like Yndrasta, a mighty reforged warlord and monster slayer who's immediately been drawing glances due to essentially looking like [[Rule 63]] [[Sanguinius]]. If only she didn't have that overused Half Shaved Hairstyle...

Then there's the Draconith, a race of Dragons and Dragon-like beings nearly wiped out during the Age of Myth by Kragnos, but saved at the last minute by Dracothion and the Seraphon. Turns out the Seraphon have secretly been watching over the kids of these beasties and now that Kragnos is back the Lizardmen feel it's time to unleash them from the pocket dimension they were hidden away in. So now your Stormcast boys in the Angelos division have the options of chariots, and groups of dragon-riders! Finally rounding off the list for the forces of Order are none other than the two sons of the great god dragon Dracothion himself, who much like their dad are capable of talking to mortals so now you can roleplay as a Dragon if you want! On the one hand there's the big red fire-breathing dragon Karazai who has earned numerous scars and a bitter reputation from years of fighting in Ghur offscreen. He's the kind of dragon that likes to get personally stuck in and fight foes in hand-to-hand combat. On the other hand there's Krondys a more level-headed green dragon whose served as an advisor to Sigmar and who unlike his brother prefers to fight by casting magic from the winds of Azyr boosted with the aid of the magic Sigmarite collar he wears called Regalia Fulmentaris (though he's still capable of breathing fire and fighting in melee if need be).

And Sigmar's forces need all the help they can get for Kragnos return has also instigated the appearance of a new enemy from the swamps and bogs of Ghur in the form of a new group of Orruks "The [[Kruleboyz]]" who unlike other Orruks prefer to worship Mork over Gork and so favor sneaky underhanded tactics like poisonings and assassinations aided with far more long-range weaponry than before like crossbows so big they can shoot fucking spears as bolts and grenades supplied courtesy of the hobgrots and their Chaos Duardin masters in exchange for slaves. They also have Swampcalla Shamans who can call forth the power of the bogs and marshes and Beast-breakaz who can break all sorts of beasties for them to ride. Leading them is none other than Gobsprakk, the Mouth of Mork, a powerful Shaman blessed with immense magical power by Mork who rides around on a giant Corpse-Rippa Vulcha and who wields a staff forged from the Claw of a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch who he beat in a magical duel. Aiding him in this endeavor is the fact that thanks to a blessing from Mork, Gobsprakk is capable of speaking any language living or dead in a quite smooth baritone voice...which also happens to include the dead language that Kragnos speaks. Thus Gobsprakk serves as an interpreter to the big lummox telling him what he wants to know and also telling Kragnos' followers what he's saying, albeit with some "creative interpretation" when it suits his own goals...the sneaky git!

Another Destruction character added to the mix is the Kruleboyz Killaboss Gazog who tried to make it so an infinite Waaagh! backed up by Kragnos would happen. The plan he came up with was to brew a magic poison so toxic that when poured on a leyline in Ghur it would cause the living continent of Thondia to go into convulsions and trigger an earthquake that would destroy the last remnants of the nation of Donse, which had been the home of Kragnos people. This Gazog hoped would then send the Drogrukh-turned-god on an apocalyptic roaring rampage of revenge that would last indefinitely. Unfortunately for Gazog, his efforts were uncovered due to Yndrasta sending her old friend Lord Imperatant Tyberain Vorst and his Auric Lions (a new Thunderstrike Stormhost of the Hammers of Sigmar Stormcast Eternals) to investigate why certain villages in Ghur were suddenly going silent. This investigation (which is detailed in the war for the Amberstone Watch book) eventually led them to discover that the Orruks had been doing test runs of their poison on the nearby towns. Enraged and disgusted by this, the Stormcast track the Kruleboyz down to the Amberstone Watch a former Stormkeep which the Kruleboyz had overrun and turned into a giant brewing site due to it being position over a ley line. After a fierce battle for Amberstone Watch Gazog was driven back, but the cunning orruk was far from defeated. As the stoic and implacable Hammers of Sigmar consolidated their position at Amberstone Watch, they readied themselves to strike south towards the Morruk Hills with a vengeance while occasionally fending off attempts by the Killaboss to retake the fortress. And while that was going on, things got even more difficult for the Dawnbringer Crusades because as it turns out that wave of life magic that Alarielle released during the rite of life reacted with all the bloodshed in the wake of the siege of Excelsis, and the raw beast magic in Ghur, to wake up the living continent of Thondia and unleashed several Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur. These savage apparitions first encountered at Krondspire are a manifestation of pure amber magic, similar to the incarnates seen in the old world. This new type of unit that’s part spell, part monster, and all danger, is a rampaging vortex of living Ghurish energy that devours endless spells and decimates legions but which some ballsy borderline suicidal heroes have managed to temporarily bind to themselves and directed to attack their enemies (though if that hero gets killed the Incarnate will typically proceed to go on an indiscriminate rampage). So yeah now even the damn ground everyone’s fighting over is trying to kill them.

Meanwhile as this was going on a weakened Nagash wanting to show he was still not to be overlooked as a threat sent the Craven King to go murder some folks in Har Kuron and take their souls so as to show Morathi she couldn’t get away with denying him aelf souls and using them for her own ends. The attack was mildly successful in killing part of the city’s civilian population but was eventually repulsed before it could do too much beyond that. Also happening around this time some Skaven in Aqshy decided to launch an attack on the Fyreslayer magmahold of Ryftmar with the help of some submarines and while the Slayers ultimately managed to chase them off the subs warpstone torpedoes managed to do some major damage the the hold’s lower vaults leading to widespread flooding there. After learning of this event by chance an enterprising Idoneth Thrallmaster decided that Ryftmar would provide an excellent source of souls to be harvested. Figuring that the Fyreslayers are doomed in any case, he ordered his Isharann priests to churn the Vitriol Sea into a frothing rage, widening the breaches in the lower levels of the magmahold. The Fyreslayers were not amused by this development or the fact it meant their home was now about to be invaded by a bunch of pointy eared fish people. Ignoring the fact that water usually quenches fire, the Auric Flamekeeper grabbed his brazier axe, rallied his troops, and got ready to defend his ancestral home leading to massive scuffle between the two factions.

Also happening in Aqshy at this time, a different Skaven warlord got the bright idea to go tunneling into Ghyran to steal some Sylvaneth Soul Pods. He did this in order to frame a rival of his for the crime and then get the Sylvaneth to go chasing after him and hopefully kill him leaving the true mastermind with one less rival to deal with. As expected when Alarielle heard of this incursion she was furious and promptly ordered the Lady of Vines to go follow the Skaven back to Aqshy where after a few intense battles she eventually managed to successfully retrieve the pods.

Over in the realm of Hysh in the lands of Liatha, the Scinari Enlightener Denezia Warwidow was busy trying to thwart the Sons of Quintessence cult of Tzeentch arcanists, led by the Curseling Venestrati, from recovering some ancient and powerful magical artifacts that had been lost and which could destabilize both the realm and winds of magic in general, potentially allowing Tzeentch to reshape reality as he sees fit.

And if that wasn’t enough insanity for one age, over in Ghur we have seen the reemergence of that long though dead World-that-was demon god [[Hashut]], and in addition to him bringing the expected forces of Chaos Duardin to serve him like the Chaos Dwarfs of old he also has apparently decided to add humans to the ranks of his followers in the form of a warband called the Horns of Hashut. This group of baddies is currently dealing with a turf war in the Gnarlwood in Thondia against some Nurgle guerilla fighters called the Rotmire Creed, the forces of Be'lakor, and those of Archaon all of whom want to corrupt the woods to their own ends and also seize some Seraphon artifacts hidden there while they’re at it. Which at last brings us to the present day.

===Dawnbringers===
Warhammer Fest 2023 revealed the next brings us the next major narrative beat, the Twin-Tailed Crusade that spreads across both Aqshy and Ghyran. As part of this, there will also be books that will provide rules for every army as well as an initial set of rules for four regiments led by four unique heroes: A horse-riding reaper of Nurgle (sadly not [[Valnir the Reaper]]), a Fyreslayer with a terminal deathwish, a deranged herald of the Flesh-Eater Courts, and an overly chatty goblin boss wearing a monster's head as a hood.