Daughters of Khaine

Grand Alliance Order Daughters of Khaine

Much bloodier and less NSFW than it appears.

Lore Tactics General Tactics

"She could never take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The weak and flaccid parity would make her nearly puke. She wants an eye for a tooth, and a life for an eye."

– Helen Zahavi - Dirty Weekend

"Let's show the gutless pigs how the warriors of Pah-Dishah can fight! By Tarim, we'll give the devils scarlet wine to drink this dawn..."

– Red Sonja

The Daughters of Khaine are a nation of aelves (though closer to a collection of scattered religious communes than a nation) led by Morathi who combine the Khainite religion with shadow magic.

They are an army, with a few exceptions, of armed aelven women and monstergirls in bikinis. As they worship Khaine, to them the clash of arms is the height of their religion, holy rites practiced and perfected with all the high-level skill and grace of aelf-kind. As blades flash, they shed their visage of cold and distant beauty, how they tend to be when not in battle, their ecstatic faces lighting up with each fresh kill. In contrast to even other aelves, especially the Idoneth Deepkin, many Daughters of Khaine have lived far beyond the average aelf lifespan, which is already longer than that of other races (except the males - see below).

History

Age of Myth

Being a theocracy founded by Morathi and given her character, Morathi is behind or involved in every pivotal moment of the Daughters of Khaine in history. After leaving the Great Alliance because Nagash outed her true monstrous form, Morathi sought to establish her own dwellings in Ulgu. Her son Malerion cruelly rejected her suggestion of splitting the rule of the thirteen Dominions, for he claimed of all Ulgu as his own. Morathi persisted until, as either a joke or a plot to get rid of her, Malerion granted his mother a small parcel of land in the middle of the Umbral Veil. This was the darkest and most impenetrable region in all Ulgu, so dangerous that only Malerion himself had ever returned from those cloying mists with their sanity intact. Morathi went there and exceeded her son's expectations. She bent the shadows into a protective shroud around her new land and led settlers there.

Her only followers were the aelven witch-cults that had maintained their worship of Khaine. While Morathi knew Khaine was dead, since the blood rituals no longer rejuvenated her, she supported the religion to get people to help her. To ensure their loyalty, Morathi built a temple to Khaine, naming it Hagg Nar, and over time a city grew up around it. Morathi taught them the secrets of navigating the murky currents. Hagg Nar began as a pitiful kingdom, and Morathi brooded over her mean existence.

As she sought power, she soon found a hint of Khaine's power in her dreams while scrying. Though Khaine was dead, she knew the elven gods were cyclial and could be reborn given enough power. Morathi began a secret quest that was long and difficult, but eventually brought her to the literal heart of Khaine himself. The heart was intact and throbbing with resurgent power, but it was guarded by Kharbytr, the godbeast father of Kharibdysses. Morathi suspected Kharbytr would be resistant to sorcery, and was despearte to claim the heart before anyone else could, so she used seduction instead (yes, really), but angered Kharbytr when she tried to grab the heart. The fight between them was an epic clash that lasted thirteen days and ended when Morathi constricted Kharbytr in her coils. The godbeast dealt her a lethal blow before losing consciousness, but Morathi survived by drawing energies from Khaine's heart to sustain herself.

Heading back to Hagg Nar with her prize, Morathi declared herself Khaine's High Oracle, claiming that she spoke for the god of murder and that she was his voice in this world. With that she solidified her hold over the Khainites and reshaped the society into the Daughters of Khaine. The Daughters of Khaine would often be sent out to hunt for fragments of their missing deity on Morathi's orders (unbeknownst to them, these were snipe hunts for the most part).

She continued this way for a time until Malerion arrived. He said that he and the other aelf gods had had, at last, found the lost aelf-souls from the world-that-was, and they needed her shadow magic and knowledge of Slaanesh in their grand plan. For the first and only time, Morathi spoke of the unspeakable horrors inside Slaanesh and how she'd escaped. Using this knowledge and themselves as bait, the four lured Slaanesh into a trap and started extracting elven souls from the deity.

For her role, Morathi was allowed to take souls for herself to shape into elves, who went into swelling the numbers of the Daughters of Khaine. However, some of them had been altered by their time with Slaanesh. There were those with serpentine mutations akin to Morathi, these became the Melusae. Others had bat-like wings and long tails, these became the Khinerai. Around this time Morathi reintroduced the Cauldrons of Blood and created the Mathcoir, the master cauldron, in Hagg Nar. Secretly, she made it as a repository of power only she could access. To start this, Morathi cursed every male born to the Daughters of Khaine to have part of their soul siphoned away and stored in the Mathcoir.

Unbeknownst to her erstwhile allies, Morathi had added her own deceptive magics to the undertaking, so that the soul division was skewed slightly out of the agreed proportions, with extra spirits siphoned to Hagg Nar. This subterfuge was subtle, but slowly, inevitably, altered the eldritch balance that kept the Dark Prince perfectly imprisoned between Hysh and Ulgu.

Age of Chaos

As Chaos invaded the Mortal Realms, the Daughters of Khaine marched out from Hagg Nar to ambush them, using shadowshifting magics to reach Realmgates to travel anywhere the forces of Order needed them. Although Morathi and her followers weren't liked, beggars could not be choosers and they were one of the few allies the Sigmarites had during this time. To keep the more mutated members of her coven secret, the spellcasters and priestesses of the Khainites used shadow glamors to make them look like ordinary elves (how this worked when the Khinerai were flying is anybody's guess).

The Daughters of Khaine were bold and fearless in battle - willing to cross blades with any enemy, no matter how numerous or monstrous. Despite heroics by Khainite forces at many battles, the forces of Order were on the backfoot, the final retreat happening after Nagash betrayed Sigmar at the Battle of Burning Skies.

As the Chaos invasions set about their task of destroying and enslaving entire civilisations, the Shadowlands of Ulgu suffered the least after Azyr. Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch all devoted the greater portion of their forces to different realms, the minions that were sent into Ulgu boasted none of the most fearful greater daemon commanders and Malerion himself sent Archaon packing with his tail between his legs. This gave the Daughters of Khaine plenty of time to prey on the Chaos forces that made it to their realm; reavers of Khorne, magic-seeking conclaves of Tzeentch or followers of Slaanesh tracking calls from their god that only they could sense. They reaped a large harvest of Chaos minions, leaving mass graves from all the sacrifices (this would come back to haunt them - pun intended - in the Soul Wars, see below).

But Morathi's trickery with the soul extraction came back to bite her. Taking too many souls caused Slaanesh's prison to drift towards Ulgu and weaken it. This enabled Slaanesh's most faithful servants catch the scent of their missing god/dess. More and more Slaaneshi armies penetrated the Shadowlands searching for their lost god. So began what the aelves of Ulgu named the Cathtrar Dhule - the War of Shadows.

For the major battles of the War of Shadows, Morathi led the Daughters of Khaine from the front. She cast down the Keeper of Secrets Glittus and his Legion of Excess, and the whip-handed Krulla Sha'vhr and her Flayerhost. Battle was not her only recourse, however, for against the unbeatable six warhosts of the betentacled Bovaxx the Despoiler, Morathi's coven of Medusae summoned a gaiste-maze - a shadow labyrinth that still covers part of the Umbral Veil, a dark cloud in which those hordes presumably still wander.

Yet the Daughters of Khaine did not win every battle. As larger and more-powerful armies invaded, Morathi called the first of the Caillich Covens - the gathering of forces from all the sects. This was required to defeat Luxcious, a Keeper of Secrets so powerful that many Slaaneshi considered her a replacement for the missing Dark Prince. The daemon was defeated, but not until after the exalted fiend destroyed the Temple of Druchxar.

Age of Sigmar

Luxcious may well have continued her scouring search of Ulgu had Sigmar not begun his war to reclaim the Mortal Realms, drawing off many Chaos forces. The Cathtrar Dhule paused, before once more erupting anew in the bitterly fought War of the Shadowpaths.

The Daughters of Khaine win more allies during this time, for despite their brutality in battle (and occasional team-killing among their allies) they're just that good at kicking Chaos. The Stormcast, Idoneth and Sylvaneth to name a few ally with the Daughters of Khaine.

During this time, some elves start to worship Morathi alongside Khaine, which causes dissent (an uncommon case of a heresy charge in a warhammer setting that fits the actual definition). Ironically, those who disapprove get quickly silenced by Morathi or the Medusae as heretics (usually by a knife in the vitals or getting turned into living crystal by a Melusai).

Soul Wars

Prior to the Soul Wars there are increasing build-ups of death magic. Whenever there is a large gathering of Scathborn, the spirits of the dead rise up and attack them. Also, remember those mass graves full of sacrificed Chaos worshippers? Now they're fodder for armies of vengeful skeleton warriors and/or ghosts who attack the Khainites. When Nagash sent vamires and necromancers into Ulgu as a diversion tactic, they were all too happy to exploit these mass graves for armies.

The Daughters of Khaine were also called on by the forces of Order in other realms to help fight off the increasing undead attacks. Morathi herself extolled the Daughters of Khaine to greater zeal, for she remembers the taste of Nagash's pimp hand and is eager to avenge the slight.

Broken Realms

The Daughters of Khaine worked with Scourge privateers to get information about the Idoneth Deepkin the same way as their kin in the World-That-Was; lots of torture and mind-invading magic. From this they learn the location of a valued Deepkin artifact, the Ocarian Lantern; made by - and stolen from - Teclis, it acted as a lure for souls. Morathi sent sixty of her best soldiers to get it from its heavily guarded underwater temple; two survived, one now an Idoneth prisoner and the other returned to Morathi with the lantern.

She fused with Khaine's heart and became the goddess Morathi-Khaine. Thus Khaine as he was is gone forever, and Morathi - now Morathi-Khaine - is their goddess instead of just their High Oracle (albeit now split into two bodies, Morathi-Khaine and the Shadow Queen after her hubby's soul took exception to Morathi's plan while in Slaanesh).

Morathi's first action was to broker an alliance with the Idoneth Deepkin, offering Volturnos the souls of his fellow Cythai elves to sweeten the deal. She then ended her alliance with Sigmar by launching a coup that brought Anvilgard under her rule and renaming it Har Kuron. The Daughters of Khaine/Morathi-Khaine now fight with a newfound zeal as they launched a crusade jihad holy war to expand Morathi's empire. When Sigmar found out, he sent a Stormcast army to re-take Har Kuron, the fighting raging until the Celestant-Prime arrived and offered to parley with Morathi. The two disappear for a night, and when they returned an agreement had been reached. Morathi was be allowed to keep the city, and what she promised in return is unknown. Morathi's also slowly re-writing the Daughters' scriptures and records of history to put herself at the center of everything.

Religion

"Charge, Daughters of Khaine! For my...uh, I mean, for Khaine's glory!"

Unlike some other factions within Age of Sigmar, but very much like others, the Daughters of Khaine are a theocracy. There are many sects of Daughters of Khaine, each worshiping a different aspect of the aelf god of battle and bloodshed. Although the rites and rituals might differ, all the Khainites follow a strict hierarchy in their organisation. They worship Khaine and Morathi is his High Oracle, the one who discerns his will and their overall leader. Though they know about the other gods of Order, they pay no homage to them. Beneath Morathi are the High Priestesses, which include the Slaughter Queens, Hag Queens and Bloodwrack Medusae. They are the keepers of each shrine’s most sacred artefacts, and commanders of the Sisterhood of Blood. The degree of authority held by each of these figures, along with their specific title, varies between the sects, but a single word from Morathi can alter the influence of any other ranking.

Of all the warriors of the temples, the Scáthborn – the Melusai and Khinerai – are closest to Morathi herself, yet they often remain hidden from those outside the cult. The Medusae are made from Aelves converted by Morathi herself; though this is seen as an immense honor Morathi binds them with the most binding of magical oaths, but none among the Khainites would dare question her in this. This is partially due to their forms resulting from daemonic taint which would cause negative sentiment among their allies and the fact that Morathi uses them as something of a secret police. The most public-facing Khainites are the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter. Their most important shrines are the Cauldrons of Blood, gifts from Khaine himself (at least, what Morathi’s claims each time she gifts one of the great iron cauldrons to the temple of a newly founded Khainite sect). The covenites see it as a sign of their god’s favour that the cauldrons never seem to overflow, no matter how much blood is poured within them following a battle – all assume Khaine himself takes the surplus as an offering.

War covens are the most important organisations to the Daughters of Khaine, their structure laid out by Morathi herself. It is through violence that the Khainites expand their territories, defend their temples and worship their god. Weapons practice and mock duels take up the majority of their daily lives, yet these are not mere military drills, but religious ceremonies, treated with all the gravitas that others might use when reading their most holy of tomes or offering prayers to their god. From their temples in various realms, the Daughters of Khaine scour the Mortal Realms for blood sacrifices. At Morathi's edict, they also search for the shards of their god, scattered across the Realms. They do this for the glory of Khaine and to see him reborn.

But they are nearly all of them deceived.

Morathi claims to speak for Khaine, and she does wield his unbreakable iron heart, but none know that Morathi’s power is a lie and that Khaine is dead. While their devotions to Khaine could one day lead to his rebirth, Morathi is deliberately preventing that. The reason for this is that she is siphoning the power - either by co-opting it before it reaches the heart or pulling it from Khaine's heart - to reach godhood herself. The prayers that her daughters scream and the ritual offerings they make only serve to enhance her own power, not Khaine’s. Outside Morathi herself, only a handful of the "altered" members of the Daughters of Khaine are aware of this deception, and they, willingly or otherwise, are bound by the most binding of oaths and magic to serve Morathi and keep this secret. Also, the blood surplus poured into the Cauldron's doesn't go to Khaine. It flows back to Hagg Nar through Morathi’s magics, to the Mother of all Cauldrons, the Máthcoir, from which The High Oracle absorbs and repurposes the blood’s energies for her own nefarious gain.

Society

Their society is brutal, especially given that it's leader is Morathi and they worship Khaine. They serve Khaine with fanatical devotion, which is especially problematic considering that Khaine is the god of murder. While the Daughters of Khaine crave bloodshed and murder, they serve alongside the forces of Order – albeit tenuously. Given their tendency towards collateral damage (and rumors of kidnapping innocents and gruesome rituals), they are less respected allies and more tolerated because they're useful. Their views on the other major groups are varied. As builders of cities and civilizations, the Daughters of Khaine are at odds with the forces of Destruction. While it is said that they have an aversion to the Death faction because of a dislike for anything death-related since they nearly went extinct, it's more likely that this due to Morathi's personal grudge against Nagash for striking her and outing her true from to the rest of the pantheon. Despite their distaste for the other two, the one faction they truly hate is Chaos; they could give the Stormcast Eternals a run for their money in hating Chaos, and prosecute their crusades with particular violence against the servants of Slaanesh.

If you're wondering why Morathi is mentioned so often that's deliberate; Morathi keeps as much of a stranglehold on Khainite society as she can. It would be out-of-character for her to do anything less (she kind of a control freak). All Khainites are either warriors that serve in their religious order, or they are leathanam (see below). Temples are found only in some realms; confirmed realms are Ulgu, Azyr and Ghyran. When they are not fighting, the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter usually participate in ritualized gladiator matches or shady pit fights. They also partake of a form of bladed dancing for the entertainment of others. Despite being a theocratic society, the Daughters of Khaine don't proselytize or win converts; the adherents are themselves the result of a breeding program, choosing their partners in line with the aims and desires of their leaders.

If you're wondering "where are the men? They have to reproduce somehow", well... remember that leathanam class mentioned earlier? Apart from the Doomfire Warlocks, this class is made up exclusively of all the males in this faction; the men are disregard menials, worker drones who do the non-fighting stuff that keeps society going in a literal gender-based slavery system (we know what you're thinking. Something, something, feminist fantasy... and we know how certain groups would react if the genders were swapped). While the women outnumber the men, this is not the paradise some think it would be; Morathi deliberately made only a few male aelves, and then only from the weakest and most broken of souls retrieved from Slaanesh. Even male aelves a Daughter of Khaine gives birth to are literally cursed with weakness as Morathi siphons part of their souls to power the Cauldrons of Blood... and yes, Morathi instituted the rule that the males are slaves. Surprisingly, the women are not misandric or female supremacists towards outsiders except for individual cases. This makes sense when you remember that, as a society, the Daughters of Khaine respect strength above all else and a lot of the mistreatment of their own males is based on their innate weakness... but on the other hand, their males are weak because Morathi deliberately handicapped them, so female supremacy and/or misandry could still be at work. While in theory they worship Khaine, who is male, this was always superficial; when limited to his heart Khaine had no actual say over their actions, and with Morathi merging to become the goddess Morathi-Khaine he might be gone for good.

Among the men, the Doomfire Warlocks are an interesting case. They're stronger due to their mastery of shadow magic, but receive limited training, and Morathi has them branded with mind-control runes (while deceiving them into thinking they're protection against Slaanesh). They are treated far better than other leathanam and actually join the females in battle, but are still lower status purely because they're male, and are rarely seen by - or ackowledged to - non-Khainites.

They're also a rare example of a Warhammer society whose attitude towards sex is actually fleshed out (ironic, since Slaanesh is their greatest foe), all from the anthology novel Covens of Blood. Contrary to expectations, they're mostly open about it. They're free to mingle, fine with bisexuality, polyamory and homosexuality plus rank's not an issue. There are a few caveats; it can't interfere with fighting or their duties, males can neither proposition nor reject a female, and if two women want the same man/men, they bargain or duel each other. Naturally, this gives females complete choice over who fathers their children. The women can even fuck outsiders and captives if they choose, but affection towards them or having a child with them is considered shameful (the novella also all but confirms human/elf hybrids are possible in Age of Sigmar). Sex is a popular way to celebrate or spend their downtime.

The female aelves tend to dye their hair with blood and, in a throwback to Warhammer Fantasy, have rituals of rebirth keep the covenite sisters youthful in appearance and supple in body. Even among their ranks, there are some who are considered extremists; the Sisters of Slaughters' are members who graft masks of living metal to their faces with boiling blood. While the aelven members are accepted by others, the Melusae and Khinerai are not. When fighting alongside, they are concealed by a glamour so they too appear to be aelves; this could also explain some of their teamkilling tendencies among alliances with other Order factions, as they're keeping the existence of these mutated elves secret. After Morathi's apotheosis, the Melusai and Khinerai have openly appeared, and are touted as proof of Morathi's divinity.

tl;dr: They're a matriarchal elven society with penchants for violence, scheming, ruthlessness, misandry and skimpy outfits who originate from a dark realm and follow the commands of a female figure who sometimes mutates her followers to resemble her. Sound familiar? (moreso now that Morathi has successfully become a goddess).

Sects

The Daughters of Khaine are divided into Sects (previously known as Temples in past lore), in a manner similar to Stormcast Chambers or Sylvaneth Wargroves.

• Hagg Nar: Hagg Nar lies deep in the Umbral Veil, the darkest region of the Shadowlands. The first and largest of the Daughters of Khaine temples, it was built atop the Hellelux, a geyser of shadow magic that spews shrouding mists. It is home to hundreds of warcovens that are always at each other’s throats for the attention of Morathi, who encourages this “rivalry” as a means of weeding out the weak.
• Draichi Ganeth: Draichi Ganeth, which translates as ‘the bladedkillers’, are the Khainite Aelves most commonly seen by other Order factions. Their main temple is found in the northern barrens of Fuarthorn in Ulgu, but their war pilgrimages and lesser shrines can be found across the realms. Every free city has seen or is host to a small troupe of the Draichi Ganeth, who look down upon the subterfuge and deception of their sister sects. They are known to the Freeguilds as the Executioners Cult due to their blunt and forward style of combat, as well as their penchant for decapitation.
• The Kraith: The sect known as the Kraith, also called the Crimson Cult, are true disciples of slaughter, and have earned a reputation as the least compromising of all the Daughters of Khaine. Arrogant and nomadic, they have no true temple home, instead traveling from one war to the next as they believe Khaine’s one and only temple is the blood stained battlefield.
• Khailebron: This sect has learned well the arts of concealment, stealth and obfuscation. Those who worship at the temples of Khailebron revere the assassin and the unseen killer, and strive to be masters of ambushes and sudden strikes. Where these temples are is known only to Morathi and the Khailebron themselves. Otherwise, they masquerade as wandering performers who showcase an elegant “bladed-dance” for the local populace, while their top killers secretly slit the throats of their targets (including anyone who shows too much disrespect to the dancers).
• Khelt Nar: Khelt Nar has become the fastest growing of the sects established by Morathi. It began as Ironshard, a single Khainite shrine founded by the High Oracle atop a flat-topped mountain of iron known as the Rothtor. Since then it has expanded to other Realms, including a stronghold in Ghyran, and have been tasked by the High Priestess with clearing out the rampant Bonesplitterz that plague their territories. Khelt Nar is best known for being composed of deliciously brown dark aelves.
• Zainthar Kai: This reserved sect was born in the Age of Chaos when Morathi (desperate to get a leg up on the Ruinous Powers) decided to infuse a new brood of Scáthborn with three drops of Khaine’s blood. The result is a temple of veritable demi-gods who can call upon the god of murder’s strength in haze of battle, becoming the Shadow Queen’s go-to temple for making her more despised enemies disappear. The temple is mostly led by/comprised of Scáthborn, but there are contingents of Witch Aelves who function as (disposable) work horses.

Soulbound

In Age of Sigmar Roleplay, it's established that Daughters of Khaine are selected to become Soulbound when Morathi decides that a potentially stray from the ranks of her faithful is too dangerous or too useful to just dispose of outright. Soulbound Daughters are selected from the overly ambitious, those who secretly yearned for freedom, and even those who had begun to doubt Khaine's divinity, basically serving as a way to remove potential threats to Morathi's control over the faction. Despite their origins, though, Morathi often goes out of her way to maintain a good relationship with "her" Soulbound (in fact, the Binding actually servers the magical restrains that Morathi uses to control the Daughters as a whole), because, whatever else they may be to her, they are both useful as powerful yet neutral arbiters and as ambassadors of her "good intentions" to the other powers of Order.

Normal Daughters of Khaine are unsure of how to regard their Soulbound "sisters", since they are simultaneously very dangerous, but not rivals due to being forever outside the hierarchy of the temples, apparently favored by the High Oracle but yet also deeply connected to and regularly traveling alongside "outsiders" who shouldn't be privy to the secrets of Khaine's temples. They tend to default to "respectful suspicion" when interacting with Soulbound Daughters.

The Daughters of Khaine have the fewest dedicated Archetypes in the Age of Sigmar Roleplay corebook, with only the Hag Priestess and the Witch Aelf open to them.

Gallery

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  Boobflash Bloodwrack Shrine in all its glory.

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  Dark Elves, now with 50% more Sneks.

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  A typical Khelt Nar aelf.