Editing Warhammer: Age of Sigmar (section)

==Death==
<center><span style='color:purple;font-size:200%'>'''"THEY DO NOT BELONG TO SIGMAR. SIGMAR THE DECEIVER. SIGMAR THE BARBARIAN. SIGMAR THE TRAITOR. WHO ALMOST COST AN UNDYING KING HIS KINGDOM."
'''</span></center>
[[File:Age Nagash.jpg|thumb|center|750px|"WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP TRYING TO WRECK MY SHIT? ALL I EVER WANTED WAS TO KILL EVERYONE AND MAKE THEM MY UNDEAD SUBJECTS"]]

The spooky side of things. Same goals as Order, but they don't play nice and their secondary goal is ruling over the survivors after Chaos is gone. In the war-torn Mortal Realms, the unquiet dead are plentiful indeed. Some have the power to bind the slain to their will, from the most bestial corpse to the most kingly of specters. Their revenant armies walk abroad in every realm, grave-cold blades hacking into warm flesh whenever their masters seek dominion over the living. They all originate from the realm of Shyish, formed from the Afterlives of this setting and the wind of death.

Shyish is considered the best-defended realm after Azyr because;
* Being the Afterlife for this setting means any mortal who dies and don't get taken by Sigmar or Chaos go here since Shyish now is "every Netherworld that ever was, or will be" where the Winds of Magic themselves die. This gives them one of, if not the, most numerous army, with the dead of seven realms plus their own.
* Undead don't need rest or nourishment.
* They can pop up anywhere at anytime with necromancy.
* Every enemy of theirs that dies is at least one more soldier for Shyish.
* Bonus points for being spooky.

[[Nagash|Three guesses who rules this faction]].

No undead, and very few otherwise, can rival Nagash, the Great Necromancer – even Sigmar himself has cause to fear his name. Nagash came back with the Wind of Death, took control of the Afterlifes in the new setting and formed the realm of Shyish. He allows living mortals to remain in his realm, but they must worship him (probably to provide blood for the vampires to feed off too). This departure from his "...turn the entire world into a kingdom of death, where no action would be taken except when he willed it" plan suggested he may have learned something from all his experiences. However, Nagash talks alot about the long game; he still wants his "kingdom of undeath with Naggy himself as the top god", he just altered his plans to "make the dead into an army to kill all mortals and daemons and the Chaos Gods, then make Sigmar and the other gods bend the knee to me." Nagash also brought back some of his Mortarchs; Arkhan (obviously) and Neferata and maybe Krell. However Mannfred's treacherous nature sees him occasionally devoted and also having a side job as [[Troll|Nagash's whipping boy]].

tl:dr; Nagash is Darkseid as a gigantic skeleton (he even has eye beams) and Shyish is Apokolips plus the afterlife.

[[File:Nagash VS Horned Rat.png|thumb|right|450px|"[[Star Wars|I find your lack of faith disturbing, Mr. Whiskers.]]"]]
Ignoring his epiphany about teamwork from the End Times thanks apparently to Archaon and Tzeentch realizing they could not defeat a united Death and Order and slipping stupid pills into his...well, not even that makes sense...whatever they did to make him go full retard, he fights the forces of Chaos alone, and ended up getting defeated personally by Archaon. Still unwilling to accept defeat and too proud to accept a place in the forces of Order, he is currently in the state he always seems to be in: gathering power, with his ultimate goal just out of reach. Some things never change.

Nagash still has the same old goals:
*Destroy everyone else, rule those willing to bow down to him.
*Eat Chaos, become supreme god of spooky. Because that worked so well the last time he tried it.

Despite his "betrayal", he still allowed some Undead to remain in Sigmar's service for a time. However Nagash DOES NOT LIKE what Sigmar is doing with the Stormcast Eternals. Nagash sees those souls as his and Nagash is unable to stop them from returning directly to Sigmar in order to be reborn unless Nagash personally kills them himself.

The first hint of a Death special character was The Silver Maiden from the Realm of Metal. In life she was Celemnis, a Swordmaiden of the Argent Sisterhood. Daughter of a powerful Wizard and one of the greatest heroes of a region called Anvrok, she used her own hair to create magical swords that could even harm incorporeal foes like spirits and Daemons. When Tzeentch's warbands invaded, they slaughtered the citizens of the city and brought her to their leader Ephryx. For refusing to fuck him, she was boiled alive in silver, causing her and many other spirits wielding her swords to remain in the Shattered City, bringing misery and death to anyone who doesn't belong. Spoooooooky.

Then the Sigmarines came and their undead chaplain convinced her they were the good guys and that it was pay-back time, so she proceeded to chop all the Tzeentchies down and show the Stormcasts where Ghal-Maraz was, swell gal.

Neferata's domain of Nulahmia (no, seriously, "New Lahmia") has fallen under siege by Slaaneshi because a Slaaneshi Chaos Lord has a thing for her (cue necromantic jokes). After defending Nulahmia, Neferata accepted help from Stormcast Eternals looking to renew ties with the Undead on Sigmar's behalf before Nagash crashed the party like the attention whore he is and altered the deal.

Notably, despite no non-Daemon soul escaping Nagash and the Undead being eternal now, the only characters from the entire Warhammer setting to return are Nagash, Mannfred, Arkhan, and Neferata. All the other Mortarchs are gone, as their models have been renamed to generic counterparts (cue cries out outrage from all the fans of [[Vlad von Carstein|Vlad]] and Krell). Finally, in an act that sent ripples of pain throughout the fanbase, the Tomb Kings faction and all their models were given the axe without even a sentence explaining their absence in Age of Sigmar (even "they died on the way to their home planet" would've been better than nothing). There has been a recent shoutout to the Tomb Kings; a ghostly figure trying to get the aid of a soldier mentions being an overthrown king and "lost Nehekhara" in his entreaty; which got a few fans excited over [[Settra the Imperishable|who it could be]].
 
So far Death is the smallest grand alliance alongside Destruction.

<gallery>
Image:Green Eyes Silver Maiden.jpg|The Silver Maiden. In the story, she's cool towards dudes in gold.
Image:Nagash VS Nurgle.png|"I'm back! And this time, it's personal."
Image:Nagash VS Khorne.png|Nagash and Mini-me/Arkhan.
Image:Realm Of Derp.jpeg|Before Malign Portents, this was all we saw of the Realm of Shyish. To say people were confused would be an understatement.
</gallery>

===Legions of Nagash===
Before the factions were fully fleshed out in 2E, a lot of stuff was clumped into a larger meta-faction called Legions of Nagash. This largely held the stuff that would eventually become part of the Soulblight army below, but it was also an all-encompassing faction for the Mortarchs and Nagash himself. As it goes without saying, this army has effectively been discontinued as there's nothing in it.

===[[Flesh-Eater Courts]]===
Strigoi and ghouls. Note that if you want a Strigoi Ghoul King, you still have to buy the Zombie Dragon/Terrorgheist kit or seek the internet for a good ol' Strigoi vampire. Fucking cheap sons'a... Hilariously the Varghulfs are also there, and heroes to boot.

In the new canon, the Ghouls and not-Strigoi began with [[Ushoran]] of all beings, who managed to survive the destruction of the old setting at the expense of anything vaguely resembling sanity and was imprisoned in something called the Shroudcage by Nagash. He escaped and created a kingdom of monstrous undead due to his madness being contagious, and gathered living beings from the Realm of Death to him. As a result, most of the Flesh-Eater Courts are actually still alive (Ghouls are not undead, but rather starving former peasants and soldiers that have been infected with Ushoran's delusions after consuming flesh from the feast of an Abhorrent Ghoul King where the courts foul powers gradually mutate them into Crypt Ghouls, with their appearance worsening over generations). Instead of being bestial monsters marauding the wilderness like werewolves, the Abhorrent Ghoul Kings are tragic figures like King Lear who see a court of magnificent marble and silk-wearing courtiers but instead are the scarred and tainted wearing rags. Also the Abhorrant Ghoul King grotesque appearance is explained as they are created from Ghouls instead of ordinary humans, thus why they look more primitive and repulsive, and that different strains of Ghouls present in the Flesh-Eater Courts is due to the Abhorrant Ghoul King feeding their blood directly to certain members. Thus creatingly more intelligent and/or more powerfull followers, with some of these select few eventually being given the true vampires curse and being turned into new Abhorrant Ghoul Kings who can found new insane/glorious kingdoms of their own.

Some are so delusional that some see Nagash as Sigmar, a benevolent golden deity. Some are in rebellion against him, on the side of the Carrion King. Some ally with Chaos, or other factions. Unlike the Warhammer Fantasy Strigoi who run around naked and can only used half-chewed bones and looted rusty implements as weapons, the Flesh-Eater Courts have a more Skaven-like degree of refinement but without the mad science. This is due to the Ghoul Kings being able to impose their own unique brand of insanity onto their followers, altering their perception of reality; in one story two Ghouls snarling and fighting with their claws over the entrails of an Ogre suddenly see each other as soldiers in arms, who address each other kindly and decide to share their "loot" as kinsmen as soon as their lord (who they see as a shining knight on a horse speaking with another knight) passes them. Another sees himself as a knight who has lost his sword and is forced to rely on his fists leading an army of men clad in bright livery who fight monsters, and completely ignores his own monstrous reflection in the eyes of his enemy as he tears into the neck of what is really a human begging for mercy. Thus the Flesh Eater Courts can never be persuaded that they are living a lie, as their delusion can alter itself to account for every possible situation that would otherwise reveal their true nature and appearance and all members of the court are bound to the same shared delusion. While there are a rare few who shake off the delusion, when they realize what they've done they're so traumatized they go insane and the delusion take over again.

Some manage to organize and even appear as somewhat pitifully trying to emulate what can be called "Bretonnian", but still only look like devolved creatures in tatters.

The Flesh-Eater Courts represent the only living faction in Death where the majority (barring the Abhorrant Ghoul Kings who are vampires, along with other savage vampires like Varghulfs who serve as champions/muscle) are technically alive and the only faction not directly under Nagash's control, as the Carrion King went rogue and vanished from the Realm of Death. All beings are welcome among them, and those who are foolish enough not to play along with their warped view of reality are likely to be viewed as enemies then become food that the Ghouls drag back to whatever cave, ruin, or giant corpse of a monster their Ghoul King thinks is his "palace". They have currently spread throughout the Mortal Realms and can be found almost everywhere, where they recruit from the starving, dispossessed or already cannibal (cannibal cults or tribes make excellent recruiting grounds for Flesh Eater Courts) portions of the population.

While technically part of Death, the Flesh-Eater Courts are too batshit insane to be considered loyal to any Grand Alliance- they draw from all of them, ally with all of them, and fight with all of them with no rhyme or reason. The entire rest of the Death faction is hunting down Ushoran, AKA Ushoran the Handsome, AKA the Carrion King, AKA the Rot-skinned King, AKA the Blood Rose Prince, AKA Sumeros the Summerking, AKA whatever new title his followers have given him this time. [[Cypher|He's been sighted everywhere, caught never]]. Any being with information is expected to report sightings to the Mortarchs, who dispense rewards accordingly.

===[[Nighthaunt]]===
Spooky Ghosts! They were originally another mini 3-model faction before GW decided to give them a huge model range for 2nd Edition. Essentially, when a mortal dies their soul goes to Shyish, and if they commit a particular grievance against Nagash, then their identity will be completely obliterated, and they will be subsumed into a Nighthaunt Procession. Before the Necroquake, Nighthaunt... Hauntings were far and few between, occurring mainly as a result of an excess of Death Magic and/or restless spirits not wanting to move on.

Then the Necroquake happened.

Tides of Death Magic completely swamped the realms, causing enormous amounts of Nighthaunt spirits to rise from the graves, taking out their anger and pissiness over being dead on the living. The fact that they're completely ethereal, can appear and disappear completely at choosing, and look pretty fucking terrifying to most mortal troops meant that these attacks were devastating. It was around this time Nagash recruited [[Lady Olynder]], a particularly powerful ghost lady, into being a Mortarch and thus leader of these Processions. Since then they've been spitefully killing the living at every opportunity, as most races in the mortal realms collectively begin to realise the scope of what Nagash has done.

===[[Ossiarch Bonereapers]]===
Nagash's newest creations, the Ossiarch Bonereapers serve as Death's vanguard force. Built from centuries' worth of harvested bone and infused with the soul animus of long-dead heroes, this army of skeletons possesses terrifying physical prowess and hundreds of lifetimes' worth of experience. But its true threat comes from its leader Orpheon [[Katakros]], Mortarch of the Necropolis and perhaps the greatest military strategist in all the Mortal Realms. Of course, [[Arkhan the Black]] also has his own legion considering his vast knowledge of necromancy.

Because of this, the Ossiarchs are considered the elite foot-soldiers of the armies of Death, considering how each one is armored and armed with weapons while not possessing any of the madnesses, grudges, or other distractions that comes with the other undead armies. These skellingtons are purely soldiers, scrubbed clean of whatever traits are deemed undesirable by their master and wholly dedicated to destroying his foes.

===[[Soulblight Gravelords]]===
The Vampire Counts. Do note that soulblight refers to the ''curse'' that turns them into vampires, the individuals are still called vampires. Of course, they still employ ordinary skeletons as disposable foot-soldiers and necromancers as lackeys to raise them.

There's loads of mansions held by vampires ruling their own little corner of the Realm they inhabit, though most of them still bow to the Skelepope. Their leader under Nagash's rule is our gal [[Neferata]], ruling her citystate of... [[Skub|Nuhlamia]], while Mannfred remains an ever-present schemer who plays whatever side suits his fancy. They've also gained a new special character called Prince Vhordrai, created with the Zombie Dragon kit; he attempted to overthrow Nagash but failed due to the fact that he didn't realize how fucking stupid this idea was. As a result, Vhordrai is bound by Nagash to [[Castlevania|a great castle that can appear in any Realm]] as a staging ground for military movement away from Shyish, leading his Blood Knight armies against his will. Warhammer Fest 2021 has revealed a few more lords such as Lauka Vai, who's a mutated vampire with a bat-like lower torso and a barely-restrained monstrous personality.