|
Hello all,
My gaming group is running an Age of Sigmar escalation league. As part of the league, we were asked to write up a short background. My army is Stormcast Eternals with an allied Skink Starpriest (because I had 80 points and wanted some magic!). The fluff is that the Stormcast are quasi-undead and come from Hyish. I decided to introduce the background through a short interaction between the main characters.
Here goes...
Kronus awoke to pain. Pain is no stranger to one of Sigmar’s chosen, but this was new. This was a dry, rasping pain. It was as though every muscle in his body was grating against its neighbors as he began to rise.
“One sees that a person has decided to be again.”
Glancing around for the source of the voice, Kronus was alarmed to find that his vision was blurred beyond usefulness. Again, the voice spoke.
“Rest. One will explain.”
“Who are you? What have you done to me?”, Kronus bellowed as he lurched forward, desperately sweeping his arms around.
The voice seemed to echo from multiple spots around him.
“Done? What has one done? One has rebound a person’s essence. No easy task! Lost, it was, but one is good at finding things.”
“Explain, or so help me, you will suffer Sigmar’s wrath!”
“One thinks a person needs to see in more than one way.”
A low chanting commenced and then Kronus felt his pain lessen. As he blinked, his vision began to clear. He looked around and found a small, hunched over form, bedecked in feathered decorations and covered in scales.
“I will not ask again. Who are you?”
“One is known as Tuk’ma. One is trapped in this place just as a person is. One will explain…”
What followed was difficult to understand and would be even more difficult to accept. Tuk’ma was a Starpriest of the Seraphon and part of a Saurus raiding party tasked with tracking a powerful necromancer through the realm of Hyish. Unfortunately, just as the Seraphon fought their way to his sanctum, the necromancer completed his foul ritual. With a scream and a blast of dark energy, the power binding the Saurus Warriors to this realm was undone. One by one, they blinked out of existence, unmade. Only by throwing up a reflexive mystical shield was Tuk’ma able to survive. Slinking away, and mysteriously unable to contact his masters, Tuk’ma followed the foul undead and tried to learn the exact nature of the ritual.
Despairing that he would never learn the truth, Tuk’ma finally found the missing piece he’d been desperately searching for. In the middle of a recent battlefield, he came upon a number of slain Stormcast Eternals. This was unusual in the extreme. Stormcast were known to disappear with a stroke of lightning when slain. It was unheard of to find their mortal remains. Knowing that this was a critical piece of the puzzle, Tuk’ma stayed and studied the bodies and surrounding area. After months of research, Tuk’ma realized the exact nature of the ritual. It had created a segment of Hyish that, for lack of a better explanation, acted as an anchor for souls, blocking them from moving on to other realms after death. This same effect was preventing Tuk’ma from returning to or communicating with his masters.
Realizing that the Stormcast had been unable to return to Azyr upon their deaths, Tuk’ma reasoned that their souls must still be nearby. Given Sigmar’s mark, Nagash would be unable to claim them as his own. From there, it was a complex, but achievable matter to locate the souls of the fallen Stormcast and rebind them to their corpses. While not ideal, it was Tuk’ma’s reasoning that he would need allies if he was to undo the necromancer’s evil.
“…and a person was the first to rise.”
Kronus sat in stunned silence. He had no reason to dispute the Skink’s story. As he stared ahead, he was pulled from his reverie by a deep inhalation and a creak of old metal. Another of the Stormcast corpses began to stir. Kronus turned to Tuk’ma and spoke.
“You have my thanks, Seraphon. Revive the rest of my men and…”
Kronus trailed off. Calling himself an Astral Templar no longer felt right. He had lost a small bit of what it meant to be a Stormcast Eternal when he walked out of his own grave without Sigmar’s guidance. Perhaps, this was a new beginning.
“Revive the rest of my men and the Gravewalkers will march by your side.”
|
