Editing Warhammer: Age of Sigmar (section)

== 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]].