Today, I have something different – a guest post from Martin Orlando giving a State of the Mortal Realms address in his role as Sigmar Heldenhammer’s Personal Adviser. Give it a read to see where the tides of battle sit at this stage. You can find Martin and his excellently painted, Japanese inspired Stormcast on Twitter and Instagram.
One of my aims this year is to expand the lore section of this website. If you have a particular faction, race, city or realm that you are interested in and would like to share a piece with the AoS Community, let me know on Twitter or through this site.
Anyway, on with the proclamation.
The God-King’s Proclamation on the State of the Realms
Good evening citizens of the Mortal Realms, this is Sigmar Heldenhammer. I’m speaking to you live from the Sigmarabulum in High Azyr, and for the first time I am able to carry my voice to your hearth abroad on the wireless. This arcane marvel of science allows me like never before to cross the threshold of Realms and speak to you as if I were in your own home. I would like to take this opportunity to address the state of our Realms, for much has changed in recent years.
I regularly reminisce on a place you will only know of from fairy tales and legends, that place called the World-that-was. You may call it that, but to me it was Mallus, and it was my home. It exists today, as the broken red moon above Azyrheim. It may be hard to imagine, but in eons past it flourished with life. But it is no more. Archaon the Everchosen consigned it to oblivion. Few survived, and those that prospered did so by chance or the will of a darker power. My own rescue by The Great Dragon, the founding of the Realms, all of you know these tales, for there are many. But none more than I remember fondly that old world. You are not the descendants of my kin, but you are their successors. And as such successors, you have thrived in ways even I did not think were possible. Azyr is free of the great greenskin hordes which blighted our cerulean shores. Great cities have risen in Ghyran, Aqshy, and Ghur. And armies of free peoples press against the darkness like never
before.
These victories could not have been achieved without the valiant efforts of the men and women I address today in these heavenly halls. Stormcast Eternals, a weapon forged from everything I had lost, have traveled into the maw of Chaos itself to rid the realms of evil.From brave Vandus Hammerhand, who first struck Khorne at the Brimstone Peninsula, to Gardus Steelsoul who has traveled twice into the Garden of Nurgle, each and every one of you are exemplars or Order, and for that I thank you.
But despite our victories, and despite the tremendous progress we have made together, more threats remain. And as we discover new wonders in the vastness of the realms which were corrupted by Chaos in my absence, new threats will continue to reveal themselves. The Idoneth Deepkin, a race all but unknown to me until recently, has shown no love to our cities and towns abroad, for they cull man as easily as they do slaves to darkness. The High Priestess of Khaine has resurfaced in Ulgu after millenia in hiding, drawing cultists to her side by the thousand. Great mechanized cities soar across the sky, home to questionable privateers calling themselves the Kharadron Overlords. Yet even as I disparage these folk from my throne far removed from your struggles, know that I advise you to make peace if the opportunity arises. Life is plentiful, and it can thrive on many ways, even in those ways you may find to be unsavory. We have a greater common foe in Chaos, the destructive hordes, and now the Grand Host of Nagash.
From the days of the world-that-was, Nagash and I have known terrible conflict, and little if any peace. When the Realms were founded, the cosmos was vast enough to allow fair distance between our persons, but all is different now, rather unfortunate circumstances have brought us back to the relationship he and I were used to having. Far beyond the constraints of mortality and flesh, he seeks eternal dominion over all creatures, living and dead.He is beyond no tactics to accomplish his goals. Vampires have infiltrated the aristocracy, and kill for food in secret while spying for their shared master. Battlefields across the Realms become gardens for the deadwalker masters who raise new soldiers by the thousand. Whispers abound of these Malign Portents which plague the populace, who grow ever more frightened and superstitious as mad soothsayers interpret the signs as heralds of doom. In response to this growing threat, I dispatched several chambers of my Stormcast Eternals to pacify the Realm of Shyish once and for all. At their heels were any number of brave explorers and gloryseekers. This would turn out to be mildly insufficient.
I have seen the Portents as well. No place, however brilliant and full of light, seems free of fortelling doom. And I believed a more powerful action needed to be undertaken. In consultation with the Lord Commander of the Hammers of Sigmar chamber, he suggested that I, “could not solve all of my problems by opening another chamber”, to which I replied, “the hell I can.”
The Sacrosanct Chamber has been a weapon I deemed to only be used under gravest of circumstances, which I believe currently applies. As I speak, agents of the Sacrosanct Chamber are being deployed across Shyish. We know our mission. To stop Nagash once and for all, our armies must turn his soul-stealing sorcery against him. And by the divine might of the heavens themselves, our soldiers shall withstand their ceaseless hordes with hammer and shield. The time had come to act as never before. Our enemy is not like the followers of Chaos. It
does not know pain. It does not know rest. But it is similar to the forces of Chaos in that if we allow it a reprieve now, it will grow into something we cannot hope to overcome now or ever. Now is the time to strike. Now is the time to prove our worth as the defenders of Order, and smite the Undead menace once and for all!
Here ends the message.
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