Editing Nagash (section)

==[[Age of Sigmar]]==
{{Topquote|THOSE SOULS ARE MINE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!|Nagash bitching at Sigmar and co}}
{{Topquote|'''KING KONG, AIN'T GOT SHIT ON ME!!''' That’s right, that’s right. Shit, I don’t, fuck. I’m winning anyway, I’m winning… I’m winning any motherfucking way. I can’t lose. Yeah, you can shoot me, but you can’t kill me.|Nagash shortly before getting rekt by rats. Again}}

In the new setting, Nagash has achieved godhood, but not on his terms and with others who can challenge him. According to Black Library, after the End Times, Nagash was originally trapped by the Chaos Gods in "a crypt of forgotten moments, burying him in the weft of time itself"; we still wonder how it is that Sigmar managed to free him, as well as '''why''' he freed him, as it's obvious that apart from GW favouritism, there's no possible reason that Sigmar could've had that would justify all the shit that Nagash could (and did) do later. Once freed (and being the [[assholetep|asshole]] that he is), he immediately set up shop in the realm of Shyish, declared himself its king and tried claiming ownership of everyone that died (despite not running the place or providing its afterlives, but just being the biggest kid on the playground). He also planned to betray all of the other gods in the setting (who are at this point his allies), with his reasoning being that they were probably going to betray him sooner or later so he might as well be the first to do it. Given what happens later, it's not really a surprise that so many races chose to ignore his (unsubstantiated) claim to their people's souls.

For a while he was allied with the other incarnate gods in this new era, mutually tolerating Sigmar (not counting his planned betrayal), providing order, and occasional undead reinforcements. Morathi eventually found her way to the pantheon in her aelven form and, as is her style, tried to seduce the other members. Sigmar ignored her so she focused her efforts on Nagash. Nagash responded with an epic pimp slap that struck Morathi down, revealing her true serpentine form, which caused Morathi to flee in humiliation and rage. At one point, Alarielle, now the ruler of Ghyran, managed to strike a bargain with him to deal with some rampaging undead in the Realm of Life; Nagash could consider the undead-infested part of Ghyran his sovereign territory, in exchange he kept the undead contained to it. Nagash agreed to Alarielle's terms, likely with his finger bones crossed behind his back.

When the Age of Chaos rolled in, Nagash found that his territory was already rife with well established chaos cults. This was completely shocking to him, and only him because the evil fuck was so terrible a ruler that the onset of chaos was seen as an improvement by many of his subjects ([[FAIL|and they're probably right]]). How the fuck he missed all of these cults and had no clue there were Chaos worshipers in his realm is also a mystery, until you remember that his ego is so high that airplanes have to fly around it. And while it should be acknowledged that some of that ego is indeed well-earned, his inexhaustible arrogance has a tendency to just make him stupid when left unchecked.

When things were looking bleak, the various gods started going their separate ways to defend their own lands. [[Not As Planned|Surprisingly]], Nagash was the last one to abandon Sigmar and step out on [[Grand_Alliance:_Death|his own]]. [[Just As Planned|Unsurprisingly]] he did so in the most [[dick]][[Eldrad|ish]] way, kicking Sigmar's forces in the balls on the way out (and fucking over any hope the pantheon had of holding Chaos in check, meaning he also fucked himself over). This was the last straw, with Sigmar going back to being a barbarian god-king and roflstomping his way through Shyish to try and teach Nagash a lesson. They 'fought' twice, with Nagash running like a bitch both times before Sigmar could finish him. After working out his rage, Sigmar finally bothered to check his inbox... and found out that in his absence Chaos went "all your bases are belong to us!" on the realms. This made Sigmar head back and seal off his realm before working on [[Stormcast Eternals|his newest weapons]]. Nagash on the other hand tried fighting off the forces of Chaos (barely even having recovered from Sigmar's invasions), only to get his shit kicked in by Archaon (who destroyed his body). His armies were crushed, his territory was claimed by Chaos and without Arkhan he might've died permanently (which probably would've been better for everyone in the setting). From this point on, instead of trying to fight Chaos in any way Nagash just gave up and waited for somebody else to do it, only stepping back into the fray when Sigmar showed up with the Stormcast Eternals. This time he rejected Sigmar's request to team up against Chaos, figuring he can do just fine against them on his own, because that worked out so fucking well for him last time. He also later had a rematch against Archaon where he once again lost, his army was destroyed a second time, but instead of getting his body obliterated he chose to run like a bitch.

Unsurprisingly Nagash didn't take kindly to Sigmar keeping the souls of his dead to remake into Stormcast Eternals; he claimed he'd never forgive Sigmar for his 'soul-theft' and whined that he'd been betrayed (ignoring that he'd planned well before this to betray everyone else and that the souls don't technically belong to him). He began plans to fight Sigmar's forces and take back what he saw as his, because that worked so fucking well the last two times he got his ass kicked by Sigmar, who at the time didn't have superhumans helping him. To add insult to injury Nagash is the reason the Stormcast Eternals degrade with each death, whenever they die Nagash sticks his skeletal fingers in Sigmar's pie to try and grab some each time; the bits of memory and personality that each Stormcast loses with each death and rebirth are the bits Nagash claims. It took a while, but Sigmar eventually learnt of this (actual) soul-theft. In response, Sigmar marshaled his forces and directed them to Shyish to find Nagash and/or liberate the souls.

The first expedition, led by Lord Celestant Tarsus Bullheart, found Nagash with predictable results. Nagash threw their message and Sigmar's offer back in their faces, and then attacked (Nagash struck first). When the rest of the Stormcast attacked Nagash, he killed all but Tarsus. Tarsus got up and noticed that the Stormcast's souls were being trapped by Nagash and that he was unable to return to Azyrheim and Sigmar. He mocked Nagash and hit him with a bolt from of his cape hammers, which hurt Nagash enough to distract him, the lapse in concentration allowing the Stormcasts' souls to escape. Livid, Nagash killed Tarsus with a wave of amethyst fire and imprisoned Tarsus soul, gloating to the imprisoned Stormcast about how he would torture Tarsus' soul and pry as many of Sigmar's secrets as he can from him.

Sigmar isn't the only one who pissed Nagash off however, the new book revealed that Nagash ''really'' wants aelf souls, as they can be manipulated more than most others, being more easily used in more complicated craftings like weapons of war, rather than just becoming more undead servants. He was unable to acquire them however, thanks to Slaanesh eating them all. Furthermore, when Tyrion and Malerion cut Slaanesh open Nagash sensed the souls spilling out, though once again (and perhaps, unsurprisingly) he wasn't able to get any; he was really steamed about that. He's also equally pissed at the Idoneth Deepkin who steal the souls of their victims, though he hasn't been able to catch them either. Furthermore there's a number of other factions who do whatever they want to their souls and the souls of their dead, and unless Nagash or his forces show up in person there's fuck-all he can do about it. When he does show up though, he makes sure to let everyone know it by punishing those who keep their souls in as dickish a manner he possibly can, although sometimes it fucks him over too (since Nagash is just the king of foresight), like altering a city so that the souls of anyone in it can't leave the city and preventing him from doing anything with them (Other than creating more Nighthaunt).

Nagash still likes his black pyramids, so much so he built many of them, turned them upside down (because why not) and made them all fly, in theory making them Skaven-proof although in practice they definitely are not. He also managed to get some use out of them, in the ''Malign Portents'' campaign he built a new inverted black pyramid and surrounded it with realmstone, think crystals that are literally magic in solid form. His plan was to cause all the magic in the realm to coalesce into the center, where he'd absorb it all to become the true master of death, giving him control over all the dead in all the realms, [[The End Times|because that worked so fucking well the last time he tried it.]] Unsurprisingly he got the exact same fucking outcome as last time, drawing all the magic to himself, finding he's not as awesome as he thinks he is, because just like last time, the ritual is corrupted (this time by the Skaven, who could have predicted they'd fuck him over) and having the magic spill back into the land, fucking things up for everyone in the setting (while his pyramid started spinning and [[FAIL|accidentally burrowed into the ground]]). During this ritual the Chaos Gods themselves show up to first get laughed at by Nagash, then laugh at Nagash, then get laughed at by Nagash again, who viewed his failure as success. As a by-product, souls everywhere coalesced into the Nighthaunt, under the dictations of Nagash's ironic sense of justice. The sudden influx of spooky ghosts resulted in Sigmar having to open up his special mage chamber, the ones formerly guarding his anvil-of-apotheosis. The failures in Sigmar's reforging process have become more common because of the Necroquake, making him more desperate to fix the flaw of reforging.

Out of all the deities in the setting, Nagash is easily the most impotent. While Nagash claims every soul for himself, and every soul has to travel to the Shyish underworlds, many of the other Deities do what they will with the souls of their people and don't give a shit about what he thinks. Necromancers are likewise free to do as they please because unless Nagash happens to be right there, he's not going to be affecting shit amd seems unable to enforce anything from afar. He still sticks his bony fingers into everything he pretends is his, see Shadespire, where they cheated death using shadeglass and Nagash weaved a great ritual to trap their souls in a prison of eternal torment.

Among other things, Shyish consists of afterlives that are created by the beliefs of mortals of what happens after they die. Most people who die go to one of these places, where they remain until those places fade away (if the civilization they're from is destroyed) upon which they can just go elsewhere - except, since the Necroquake, many of those underworlds are being dragged to the epicenter of the ritual and are ripped apart into more raw magic, and more nighthaunt. Additionally, since Nagash has claimed dominion over Syhish, many of those underworlds have been twisted by his presence - pyramids, obelisks, and other monuments to his vainglory dot the various landscapes.

He might as well be a cartoon villain given how often he tries to repeat past events while forgetting their outcomes. Each and every time he seems surprised he's getting exactly the same results and then he holds a grudge because he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling Skaven/Chaos gods/Sigmar/Archaon. Luckily this never gets him down, since Nagash sees negatives as positives, his cowardice during the Age of Chaos was just him biding his time, his petty and unreasonable grudges are him punishing thieves who are stealing his (unjust) due. His planned betrayals of his closest allies were just him demonstrating how much foresight he has (aka, none) and his routine failures have just instilled in him the confidence [[Skaven|that he is never to blame for any of his mistakes]], so he carries no doubt in his unbeating heart that he will, one day, rule over everything.

Incidentally Sigmar considered Nagash his closest ally back in the 'good old days', in fact, they initially went on a super smash bros tour cleaning the still forming Mortal Realms from eldritch abominations which would have given even Chaos a run for his money. Arkhan the Black even believed that the two need to be reunited in order to beat back Chaos. Neither of the two gods seem keen on that idea, in Sigmar's case he gave up on forming an alliance after getting betrayed again by having an entire army of Stormcasts get wiped out during the Allpoints' Shyish gate siege because Nagash never sent the promised reinforcements, and in Nagash's case, he's a fucking moron.

Recently it's been retconned that when Nagash was helping create Sigmar's cities, he built secret underground tombs beneath them that nobody noticed in however long it's been from the age of myth until now. How the fuck they went undetected, even by the [[Skaven|race that literally burrows up into areas exactly like these]] has gone unanswered, but it's probably fair to blame shitty writing. In these crypts were super-skeletons made from several bodies, in effect being the prototype versions of one Nagash's designs that he'd later call the [[Ossiarch Bonereapers]]. This means that he planned to betray Sigmar twice when they were still working together, but don't think this means he's not still upset at imaginary betrayals against him. After the necroquake, Nagash would summon all of the undead in the crypts beneath the cities, and apparently, they all made their way to back to the realm of death, making one wonder what the point of building the crypts was in the first place. After they arrived he spent time perfecting his design, working them into their current appearances and distilling souls to ensure that the beings housing them were free of all negative traits (those being any he doesn't like), and once satisfied with the result he then unleashed them to collect more bones for him so that they can build him fancy bone cities and bone statues.

The latest development in Nagash's story comes courtesy of the second book of the Broken Realms saga, Broken Realms Teclis. In it, Nagash, buoyed by the power boost he got from the Necroquake and backed by all the undead raised in its wake sets his eyes on the realm of Hysh and sends an army of Nighthaunts there to try and conquer the joint human-aelf town of Settler's Gain only for Teclis to appear and spank the army good and hard and send the survivors running back to Nagash. A furious Teclis then astrally projects into Nagash's throneroom and tells him to knock his bullshit off, only for Nagash to tell Teclis "bitch I do what I want!" and dispel the projection. He then orders his three OG Mortarch's (the newer ones being off fighting Archaon in the Eightpoints) to seal many of the realm gates leading directly into Shyish to slow or stop any Hyshian retaliation, before sending them out through some one-way realm gates leading out into other realms with the intention of corrupting them on the other side into what are essentially black hole generators that will suck the other realms into the Shysian Nadir. Unfortunately for Nagash, his plans go wrong pretty damn fast. First Neferata's scheme in Chamon is accidentally uncovered by a random Kharadron Airship captain who manages to warn the rest of her people who then promptly launch an assault on Neferata's operation and force her to retreat. Then Arkhan fails not once but twice at his attempts to corrupt some Hyshian realm gates and gets stabbed and temporarily killed by a vengeful Eltharion for his trouble. As for Mannfred, his attempts in Ghyran also fail when his army gets too spread out dealing with a bunch of Nurgle troops and the combination of the fighting and the energy from the corruption ritual ends up alerting Alarielle and the local Sylvaneth to what's going on. Alarielle and company then fight their way through the two opposing armies and shut the ritual down, though Mannfred's internal monologue as he retreats reveals he knew his plan was doomed from the beginning meaning he's been playing everyone in this whole mess for his own unknown gains.

Meanwhile, while this was going on Teclis uses a hidden Realmgate into Shyish that Nagash was unaware of to launch a series of retaliatory strikes with the goal of showing Nagash wasn't as all-powerful as he made himself out to be and thus not only bring hope to the inhabitants of the realm of Shyish but hopefully spark a rebellion against the Necromancer god. Although the campaign turns out to be more difficult than expected Teclis succeeds in destroying the Ossiarch fortress known as the Triptych, purifying the land around it and freeing several of Nagash's cities from Ossiarch control before calling it a day and heading back home. Understandably enraged by all this, Nagash orders the remnants of Arkhan's Ossiarch forces in Hysh to destroy one of the local flesh-eater court enclaves so as to have bodies to rebuild their armies with. Nagash then wraps himself in captured Aelf spirits to shield himself from direct attack before personally accompanying more of his Ossiarchs (their numbers grown swollen with the dead of the invading force) to Hysh to link up with Arkhan's former forces before they all head over to Ymmetria to corrupt the great mountain spirit Avelanor, the greatest of his kind, and thus give the magical equivalent of a giant middle finger to the Lumineth. Teclis hears about this and backed by the moon spirit Celennar, an army of Lumineth, nature spirits, and other allies he heads to the mountain to intercept Nagash. After arriving at the chosen battlefield and throwing insults at each other for a bit Teclis and Nagash then throw down in an intense battle that leaves neither god unscathed with Nagash's Nine books incinerated and all his trapped souls (including the ones he claimed in the world that was) being blasted away by Teclis' magic, while Teclis ends up cut up by Nagash's blade and cursed by death magic. In the end, it is the Lumineth who claim victory though as the Lumineth manage to wear down the Ossiarch forces enough to leave Nagash vulnerable to a barrage from some magical laser artillery brought courtesy of the allied human mages of Settler's Gain. Teclis then magically chains Nagash against Avalenor's slopes before the entire Lumineth army dogpiles Nagash and beats the tar out of him until his physical form is destroyed and his spirit retreats to Shyish where he discovers he has been magically bound so that he can't leave Nagashizzar. Teclis then uses the last of his strength before passing out to carve a magical banishment rune in the sky of Hysh that's so powerful it not only banishes all traces of the Undead and their magic from the realm of Hysh it also ends up reverberating through the fabric of the Mortal realms itself and ends up finally quelling the power of the Necroquake.

As a result, Nagash is left without a body like he was during the Age of Chaos, but now he doesn't have his books. Though he can still directly interact with his Mortarchs, Morghasts and Vokmortion, he's gotten a bit scatterbrained, occasionally forgetting that Arkhan fell in Hysh. But he remembers what Teclis did -destroying his books, helping destroy his body and undoing the Necroquake, and he's '''REALLY''' mad at Teclis. There's going to be big changes when Nagash puts himself back together.

Things only continue to go from bad to worse for Nagash when [[Alarielle]] performs her rite of life and resurrects the Oak of ages, an act which unleashes a blast of life energy so potent it spreads throughout all of existence and forces back most of the death magic that had spread throughout the realms during the Necroquake (it also released the ancient god of destruction and earthquakes [[Kragnos]] and woke up the living content of Thondia in Ghur but that’s not important to Nagash). What is important is that it leaves Nagash even further weakened to the point he can’t ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL over his generals outside of Shyish. Something which stings Nagash something fierce especially once he finds out about all the souls Morathi stole from him to ascend as well as all the ones she gave to the Idoneth to make peace with them. Enraged at the theft of what he saw as his property but too weakened still to deal with the matter himself Nagash decides to summon Kurdoss Valentian, the Craven King, since while he’s competent he’s not one of his more powerful generals which is good since he won’t try to usurp him upon learning of Nagash’s weakened state. He then tasks Kudross to reclaim some souls specifically from Morathi since Nagash still doesn’t know where most of the Idoneth are located. Kudross thus summons his crossbow-wielding Craventhrone Guard and sets out to attack Har Kuron to reclaim some souls alongside Vayon of the Withered Quill, one of the dreaded Scriptors Mortis, and a merciless Nighthaunt army. They wait until the Daughters of Khaine are distracted with some of their big arena fights and attack the city from below killing a whole bunch of civilians. Unfortunately for the Nighthaunt the reaping of souls is cut short when the Daughters realize what’s going on and retaliate faster than anticipated with High Gladiatrix Yelena and company chasing the Nighthaunt back into the underground catacombs and eventually pushing them out of the city. Still the Nighthaunt did manage to claim a bunch of civilian souls so the whole effort wasn’t a total loss, especially since the attack definitely would piss off Morathi once she learned of it.