Ghyran

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Ghyran is the Realm of Life, obviously named after the Wind of Life, one of the eight Winds of Magic of Warhammer Fantasy, which revolved around a mixture of healing magic and manipulation of earth, water and plants. This realm is ostensibly ruled over by Alarielle the Everqueen, however, Grandpappy Nurgle has his eye on the realm and its queen so he's been squatting his forces there and messing things up for quite some time. This is starting to change, however, with the Stormcast rolling through to help beat the ever loving crap out of anything even remotely diseased looking. Sometimes with extreme prejudice.

History

Age of Myth

Alarielle the Everqueen spent this period spreading Soul Pods around the realm like a divine female version of Johnny Appleseed, which would later spawn the Sylvaneth. She also sang the Song of Life for so damn long that it indoctrinated the Sylvaneth to her ways, and it still echoes around the place in the Age of Sigmar. At one point she cut off one of her hands, gave herself a new one, and the severed limb grew into a Sylvaneth called the Lady of Vines, who was like a daughter to Alarielle and embodied the happy parts of her personality.

At one point undead started popping up in a part of Ghyran where everything went through a cycle of life, death and rebirth and attacking everybody else nearly. Alarielle parleyed with Nagash, letting him have that part as his sovereign territory on the condition that he keep the undead contained to that realm. Nagash agreed to the terms (likely with fingers crossed behind his back).

Age of Chaos

This is when Nurgle invaded Ghyran, and the War of Life began, continuing for centuries and into the Age of Sigmar. The Sylvaneth were attacked by the forces of Nurgle and all of their warriors took up arms. The non-combatants either learned to fight or died horribly. During this time the Alarielle-worshiping aelves inhabiting Ghyran pussied out and fled, abandoning the realm and its people to the forces of Chaos. Enraged, Alarielle declared them exiles and the Sylvaneth have a burning hatred of these aelves, who in time came to be known as the Wanderers. Then it turned out Alarielle had intended to sacrifice all of the wood aelves because apparently only her tree babies deserve to live and the wood aelves should feel thankful to be their meatshields.

Many other mortals that lived in the realm decided it would be better to live under Nurgle than to die from whatever he inflicted, and turned on the Everqueen. Sylvaneth from the other realms rushed in to fight in the war until there were no more reinforcements to be had. At her lowest point, Alarielle even brought back Drycha to help take the fight to Chaos, even though Drycha was a genocidal loose cannon, and even that wasn't enough. Eventually, so many places were destroyed, infested, or corrupted that Alarielle was forced back into the Aethylwyrd, where she presumably pouted about how terribly things had gone. Nurgle couldn't touch her there, so she was content to brood over how shitty a monarch she'd been for the foreseeable future.

Age of Sigmar

When Sigmar started to get the band back together, he sent the Hallowed Knights, led by Lord-Castellant Grymn, to go recruit the Everqueen because Sigmar is apparently a lazy dick. However, in doing so, they inaadvertently led a bunch of Nurgle's forces right to her, blowing her hiding spot. At first she was super pissed at the Stormcast, then realised how much of a puss-bitch she'd been the whole time and decided she could still fight. She also then promptly realised how long she'd left things and became so depressed she basically died, turning into a Soul Pod.

The Hallowed Knights and Alarielle's favored daughter, the Lady of Vines, took her and ran as far from Nurgle as they could manage. Turns out, that wasn't very far, as Torglug the Despised One was waiting for them at Blackstone Summit and ready to finish the job. He killed the Lady of Vines and nearly grabbed Alarielle's Soul Pod before the Stormcast pushed him back. It literally took the Celestant-Prime swooping to the beat Torglug's head in with his lantern (so hard, in fact, that it changed his alignment) to put an end to things, and even then so many people/tree things had died. It was here that Alarielle's Soul Pod was finally planted and allowed to sprout. And thus Alarielle was reborn, with a cooler outfit and a giant ride-on beetle. All her past wussiness was gone and her cry of rage echoed across the realms with a promise that she was going to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and she's all out of bubblegum. She even regrew the Lady of Vines. Awesome.

And then it turns out Sigmar hid some corrupted Black Seeds that grows into Black Oaks which'll ruin Ghyran in stormvaults across the realm without telling Alarielle, which - naturally - the followers of Nurgle have found and are cultivating all over Ghyran.

Malign Portents

Alarielle figures that Nagash is planning something big. Refusing to back down like she did against Chaos, Alarielle spurs the Sylvaneth onto the offensive against the forces of death, even sending Drycha and an army to Shyish. Unfortunately, she also learned that Sigmar hid some dark magic plants in her realm, called Black Seeds, after Nurglites discovered them and started cultivating them.

Broken Realms

Alarielle starts chatting with Teclis about Nagash's Necroquake and what to do about it and the god-lich behind it. When Teclis has his showdown with Nagash, Alarielle gives him some supernatural support that helps him beat Nagash and send him back to Shyish, tail-bone hanging between his legs.

This is promptly followed by Alarielle enacting a life-based version of the Necroquake called the Rite of Spring Rite of Life. Despite fierce opposition from the forces of Chaos, it's successful, the Oak of Ages (Past) is resurrected and regrows Athel Loren 2.0. Alarielle's own power swells and the forces of Life are finally on the offensive. There was a catch though, as the Rite of Life unintentionally broke the prison of the Destruction-aligned earthquake god, Kragnos and resurrected the living continent of Thondia. Two steps forward, one step back.

Factions Residing in Ghyran

• Cities of Sigmar: There are many Free Cities established here due to the cordial relations between Sigmar and Alarielle, which also served as beachheads during Sigmar's early acts of reclamation. The most significant of these are Hammerhal-Ghyra (Half of the super-city of Hammerhal, with the other half being in Aqshy), The Living City (Symbol of the trust between both gods), and Greywater Fastness (Industrial capital, though its pollution infuriates nearby Sylvaneth to no end).
• Idoneth Deepkin: The enclave of Briomdar has set itself up in the Green Gulch after branching off from the grand enclave of Ionrach. The Green Gulch is an overgrown swamp, giving the spooky elves plenty of practice navigating its depths when not stabbing each other in all sorts of political intrigue.
• Maggotkin of Nurgle: As mentioned many times above, Granpappy Nurgle has himself a serious fascination with the realm of Life. As a god of his own perverse sort of life, he wants nothing more to corrupt the verdant life here and his forces just won't stop at anything to make him happy.
• Sylvaneth: The obvious natives, being children of the Everqueen herself.
• Root-Kings: We know very little about this faction, who have largely been mentioned in passing in various sourcebooks and novels. The Root-Kings are duardin who settled in Ghyran and proceeded to go underground, learning to compensate for the dearth of metal by learning to shape stone and wood to their needs. They're described as reclusive and secretive, being united in clans connected to sacred "Hearth-Trees" and dwelling in underground complexes called "Stone-Oak Citadels". They dye their beards green, wear ironwood tree bark armor and wield devourer plant seedpods for weapons. In battle, they like to surround foes and then crush them like serpents. They suffered terrible casualties during the Age of Chaos, particularly at the hands of the so-called "Woodsman of Nurgle", Torglug the Despised. One could argue they are the Forest Gnomes of Age of Sigmar, especially since it's unknown if the Gnomes invented for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition will ever get absorbed back into Age of Sigmar lore.
• Fimir: Live on the misty, crescent shaped isle called The Peel.
• Jotunbergs: The Frost Giant equivalent to Aqshy's Volc-Giant take on Fire Giants, the Jotunbergs are giant nature spirits made of stone and frost, living snowy mountains in humanoid form. They are functionally immortal unless killed by an outside force, as the first one to ever die perished from Nurglite plague whilst transporting Alarielle to safety.
• Wandering Mountains: Literal wandering mountains, the Vostargi lodge Fyreslayers live within them, and they were recently infested by Skaven as well, tunnel battles between ratty and dorf raging within the walking mountains' bodies.
• Mere-Gargants: A breed of gargant that lives in the swamps around Greywater Fastness.
• Bog Grots: A subspecies of Grot that lives in the polluted swamps surrounding Greywater Fastness and in the Sewers beneath the city. Also, they make use of Marsh Squigs.
• Kurnothi: The Non-Chaos Fauns and Centaurs who worship Kurnous.
• Crabspider Grots: A new take on the Troglagob, these aquatic grots make war on the Idoneth Deepkin in the Green Gulch and, if their name is anything to go by,ride crabspiders.

Trivia

• Ghyran has the most settlements of Order after Azyr, and was the place where the first major cities built after the Age of Chaos were established.
• Ghyran produces magical water called Aqua Ghyranis that's super nourishing to plants, one of their chief exports and is the favored currency of the mortal realms. You'd think this would make Ghyran super important in the lore...but since it's not Sigmarines or edgy enough, it didn't really have a lot happening following Alarielle awakening from her slumber and bringing the Sylvaneth back in First Edition until she enacted her Rite of Life.
  • Now why would this be the central currency of the mortal realms? Well, Aether-Gold holds minimal value to any race that isn't the Kharadron Overlords, the Fyreslayers jealously guard their Ur-Gold and would rather murder anyone who's seen carrying it rather than bargain for it and using realmstones are volatile to varying degrees and have certain superstitions surrounding them. Now you might ask do coin-based currencies still exist? The answer is yes but their value and exchange rate can vary widely throughout the realms (not helped by an incident when the Khardron Overlords flooded the market with precious-metal coinage from Chamon when a standardized coinage system was tried, leading to rapid inflation in some areas), so they don't have a standarized value throughout the realms. So most favored currencies tend to have some inherent value attached (Glimmerings from Excelcis, Spice-blood, Black Salt, Meteroic metal tokens of Azyr to name a few). Also helping is that Aqua Ghyranis serves as not only an emergency potion to heal injuries but also a purifying agent that can help the growth of crops, something that all the forces of order (or at least, those with living populations) rely upon for stability and is held by a steadfast ally of Sigmar.
• Like all of the Eight Realms, Ghyran is prone to bizarre and highly fantastical magical terrain and environmental effects. Mentioned in passing are "life-quakes", which can result in spontaneous, immaculately conceived pregnancies. Male pregnancies, perpetual pregnancies, interspecies pregnancies, turning into a plant and more are also implicit things you have to worry about happening to you in this realm, especially if you're stupid enough to try and get close to the Realm's Edge. In all, Ghyran is the most magical of the realms.
• The realmstone native to Ghyran is called Cyclestone, such named for its constant and cyclical change from solid jade-like ice to emerald liquid to green gas and back again. This change is of course representative of the cycle of life itself, and for that reason it is both fiercely guarded by Sylvaneth and coveted by various other races - chiefly being how it might be an ingredient to the ever-valuable Aqua Ghyranis. While it is capable of purifying corruption, it's also quite receptive to corruption in return and is also capable of setting off the various abovementioned unfortunate events.

The Nine Realms of the Age of Sigmar
		Hysh
	Ghur		Chamon
Aqshy	Realm of Chaos			Ghyran
	Shyish		Azyr
		Ulgu