Realm's Herald

[we-are-rogue]

assailant (detail) by BramastaAji

@we-are-dread-commando

[fantasy-inspiration]

https://www.artstation.com/konstantin

[realmsherald]

In the Realm of Shyish the Freeguild defended against the slow oncoming wave of filth that was the Maggotkin. With the Lord Ordinator by their side the men of Order fired salvo after salvo into their rancid hides, readying sword and spear for the crushing charge. After suffering many blasted wounds the heaving mass of Maggotkin slammed into the mortal lines, rusted swords and flails killing in swaths. Though a last desperate battery of artillery blasted the Great Unclean One into a smattering of gore, the Sigmarites could not withstand the putrid onslaught and soon the Maggotkin stood bloodied and victorious.

[realmsherald]

With a wet pop the portal vomited out Grothraught like a heavy lump onto the dessicated sands of the Shyish. Rising up from his unglamourous entry the Greater Unclean One surveyed the lands of death around him while his supplicants and worshippers fell in around him.

“The Rainfather spoke to me of Shyish” he said in a thick throaty rumble, “Seven nights of fever dreams all whispered of Shyish.” He lifted his rusted length of pitted iron and gazed upon his surrounding children, “Well, I am here my pretties. Let us see what all the fuss is about.”

With that he shambled forward, his Maggotkin always behind. Direction meant nothing, the cycle of life will take root no matter the soil and Grandfather would always guide his children’s gardening.

[realmsherald]

And that’s the end of this summer’s skirmish Shadespire campaign! A huge thanks for the guys running the Warhammer Store in Montreal, and all the people bringing in their mini’s for a quality warband battle.

Till the next fight!

[realmsherald]

Day 6 - The Bonestorm

Dawn’s weak light did not reach the weary warband that slowly stirred awake in the land leached of life, they had trouble remembering the smells and sounds of a waking dawn surrounded by leaf and blossom instead of endless burial grounds and breath choking arid sands.

With wooden limbs creaking and burial dust cascading off her, Lyliath was beginning to feel dead herself, and perhaps in Shyish they all already were, but even so she still heard the faint whisper of her people’s song on the wind and rose to hunt down the spined colossus that plagued her home.

Threading through the innumerable burial grounds to Shadespire’s last vestigial citadels, the warband finally saw the endless wastes that stretched on to infinity. Although the trapped shadeglass spirits whispered east Lyliath did not know if her already wilting brothers and sisters could survive the journey and the horizon looked to be confirming her fear, a great wall of dust miles high spread out before the city to the north, like ruptured veins of a fresh corpse, violet lightning shot through the billowing clouds looking ready to snuff out the last of it’s light.

At the edge of the city lay its last graveyard, a raised monument to its past glory and a gate sealing in the worst of the Encroaching Dune’s dangers. A tremor of heavy footfalls shook the gravedust slightly and an odd whirring sound floated on the air,  Lyliath watched the Kurnoth Huntmaster let loose his owl Sprite into the sky to spy out among the surrounding mausoleums.

Before long a resounding crack of gunfire and an outraged hoot echoed and the Seedkin then knew they were near the ill tempered stout bearded ones they came across once. Within a dozen paces the high walls receded and the warband caught sight of the two incoming throngs of warriors.

Lifted high on turbulent winds rose the bone strewn reliquary to Sigmar with the ever present armored sons beneath it. Beyond them whirred a contraption of Duardin design, the short burly warriors marching, some gripping iron rifles the rest, unforgivable axes, a few grumbling with battle lust and foolishly near naked.

Though the Duardin and Stormcast were ages long allies, the greed of Shadespire, the saturation of death, had made them all mad and like Lyliath they rushed to the altar, her warriors attempting to decipher a means to open the city gates, the needs of the others unclear to her.

Quickly Lyliath ordered her Hunters forwards, and the nimble Skinks to flank and begin picking off the golden warriors while the rest of her seedkin made for the courtyard. The storm began to encroach and overwhelm the three warbands and the courtyards enclosing walls offered sanctuary. She prayed to her distant Mistress and land.

The sound of Duardin gunfire, the hollow whistling blow darts and the strum of the man-length bow sounded and the Golden warriors fell, the winged Prosecuter crashing into a heap of tombstones, his body broken by gunfire and oakenstone. The smoking aircraft soon joining him, it’s crash through earth and debris shaking the graveyard and toppling precariously perched stone statues. Before long all three warbands ascended to the courtyard’s gates, fleeing the approaching storm. Foremost among these, riding through the crossfire the Vanguard Pallador charged into the open space.

“For the might of Sigmar!” he hollered, challenging all before him, his Sigmarite javelin shining and ready to pierce both Duardin and Sylvaneth.

“A might Grungi forged for em! Ye ungrateful gits!” roared back the Warden King, a frothing mug of ale raised higher than his axe. Within moments the charging Duardin flanked the mounted warrior while the long strides of the Sylvaneth encircled the other side. Both rider and beast struck out at their assailants, claw, beak and javelin laying low Duardin and Sylvan alike.

In an attempt to cut off the rider’s support, the scythe wielding Kurnoth Hunter stood defiant before the wall of approaching Sigmarites, curiously a new member strode alongside the Lord Relictor, an Aelf, brandishing a glaive and bedecked in the scalemail of the hallowed Pheonix Temples. Silently the fine featured new comer met the long swipes of the Hunter’s crescent arced blade and they traded blows that would have fell an Ogor, the Anoited seemingly not where the scythe slashed, while the rest of his allies began to encircle the raging Treekin.

Duardin still marched up to the courtyard, firing off shots and insults, and among all of this three of the four Skinks fell to the crossfire, the remaining lizardman, Tikstii Leafstep held his pipe close and ran under and across the brawling maelstrom, hoping to get clear and investigate his mistress’s needs with the altar.

On the chaotic fight raged, the Pallador falling beneath the onslaught of axe and oakenblade, the Kurnoth Hunter collapsing under hammer and glaive, brothers and sisters fell to Duardin and stormcast alike and Lyliath looked on in horror. Desperation and rage fluttered to life within her and she unleashed once again the Spites that called her body their home, among the clash of battle she roared deeper than any mortal, when the winged little beasts escaped her open mouth she abruptly began to cough and retch, the spites falling out of her stillborn and lifeless. She looked up in pain, wiping their broken forms from her mouth and saw the Anoited Aelf gazing at her, a look of arrogant superiority plastered onto his fine featured face.

With the throng of Duardin now all within the courtyard, it was looking grim. Near exhausted Lyliath stumbled away from the melee, leaving her Tree Revenant and the last remaining Hunter to end their foes and made her way to the altar. With one hand out on the cool stone she gathered herself for one last stand, grasping her scythe she began to sing a dirge of harvest, only to be interrupted by the fleeing blue form of a skittish Skink, as anger flared at his cowardice, three bolts of lightning arced from the Stormcast archers and struck her hard. Falling to one knee she held onto the stone, her lifesap leaking from the lightning sheard barkflesh, and sung the last of her song with every fading breath.

With closing eyes all she witnessed was of the encroaching arcane storm surrounding them all and the great bow wielding Kurnoth Hunter outnumbered and broken, slaying Duardin and Stormcast alike fighting to the last of his breath, just as she took hers.

[realmsherald]

Day 5 - Empowered by Death

For the first time in days, the suffocating high walls and narrow streets receded around the seedkin and skinks. Lyliath and her warband almost reached the outskirts of the fell city, and now  walked through the midst of the Thanatological Gardens. Like most things in this land of Shyish, one should expect everything to lead to death and only a fool would assume that a place called Gardens would in fact be anything near a life blessed sanctuary of nature and the Branchwych was not surprised to find the Gardens to be a sprawling graveyard instead. Each tomb opened to the grey sky and surrounded by mouldering papers, scrolls, and the tools of a mortician; scalpels, bone saws, clasps and shattered jars. Benches and podiums lay haphazard, looking much like the tombs they surrounded and Lyliath quickly understood that this was a place of learning. Dessicated remains of splayed out husks ranging from man, to aelf to even an enormous dried ogor corpse were exposed to the dry winds.

Though the warband made their way closer to the Ossific Swamp they also followed their apparent nemesi of this dessicated city for the day’s length. Compared to the lithe Sylvaneth and skinks, the Stormcast moved through the Gardens like hulking brutes, their winged Prosecutor staying low, the rest of the warrior’s gold clad armor doing nothing to muffle their heavy footfalls as they loudly roamed out to a small courtyard cleared of open caskets to make their camp. Their leader seemed single minded in his path, following some unseen guide that Lyliath only saw in glimpses at the side of her vision like a mirage or memory.

Though the men of Sigmar did not need rest for days at a time, venturing out at night in Shadespire was paramount to suicide and so they hunkered down and prepared for the weak sun’s last light to leech from the world and for night to settle over the broken spire horizon like a burial shroud.

Silently Lyliath’s warband crept around the encampment, keeping low to the tombs and within the shadows, the Spite Revenant’s eyes glimmered with a sick thrill, the enjoyment of the hunt outweighing the gloom of the surrounding crypt.

Darts then whispered through the night air all around the camp, one finding a sliver of space between plates and wounding a double handed hammer wielding Retributor, the poison failing to end him quietly, he shouted out in alarm and within moments hammers, javelins and swords were unsheathed and warriors readied for an assault.

Spying the wooden limb of a Dryad behind a crumbling column, a Liberator called out to his leader, the skull masked Lord Relictor.

“The demon-tree’s strike again my lord!, to the west they stalk!” He ran forward to the archway with a brother Liberator and guarded the entrance to their courtyard, the Judicators peering through the dark awaiting any yellow eyed creature to rear their head.

“Take the fight to them brothers! I tire of their trickery, show them the might of Sigmar!” Though he called out to his god, the light that flared from this staff was indigo with the hue of Shyish, Lyliath didn’t understand the true allegiance of the skull helmed leader, but cared not to learn as she ordered her followers to meet the charge in kind and within moments oakenstone met sigmarite in a shattering melee.

The shield wall of Stormcast held strong as her brothers and sisters fought, Tree Revenants gracefully slashing and the great Scythe wielding Hunter laying low any in his reach, but still they held.

As hammer blows broke Dryad and Revenant alike Lyliath held off her own scything assault, and reconsidered her brutal attack. Looking about she saw the Lord’s staff’s glow growing in might, either suffused by their god, or by the dead around them. She pointed her root gnarled hand out to the praying leader, needing to end him.

“Pierce his heart my Hunters and scaled kin!” she hollered and watched bows bend and blowpipes lift, as one the shafts of oakenstone tipped branches and addersap laced darts flew at the central figure.

Within the space of a breath the sound of cracking sigmarite echoed through the twilight lit graves.

Three nearly man-sized shafts protruded from the Lord Relictor as he fell to one knee, he then rasped out a call to retreat before dropping to the grave dusted earth before his flying brother lifted him like a Valkyrie of the old mortal myths.

They fled before her warband once more and Lyliath saw the golden hero fade out behind thick night fogs. She then called a halt to the hunt, night in Shadespire was still a fool’s venture and she would not waste more of her warband’s lifesap in this arid city of death, before finally journeying out to the swamps and meeting her final quarry.

[realmsherald]

Day 4 - The Soul Well

This time the dim pallid sun did not wake her, lying in the abandoned street, bonedust and sand settling on top of her like a burial shroud she was near dead to the world.

Instead, what woke Lyliath was the trembling of earth and questing roots that slithered out of the cracks in the dry ground they broke through. Motes of green light began to fill the street giving off a glow closer to the life tone colours of the Branchwych’s home realm.

As her eyes cracked open to take in the sight, Lyliath felt the presence of her Grovemother Urchii Seedscorn. As yellow leaves blossomed an ancient song echoed around her, one of need and haste, though wordless and heard only by the children of Alarielle, Lyliath understood the importance of continuing her quest and Urchii’s need of her.

As the motes of light breathed life back into her fallen sisters and brothers, two great and noble Kurnoth Hunters stepped from the Realm roots. Another archer, his greatbow gleaming in the pale light, the other wielding a massive scythe, it’s dark oakenstone blade curved viciously, his gnarled wooden hands clenching the shaft tightly eager to draw blood and wet this parched land. Behind them two more nimble skinks burst from an opening flower, chittering excitingly with the original lizardmen, Lyliath noticed their frilled crests losing colour quickly as the original recounted his shame from the day before’s failures.

Assembled once more the Tree Revenant that translated the stone sarcophagus, Taeras, explained where they may find the where the guild masters sold their wares and possibly where a gathering of their shadeglass trapped spirits may reside.

By the time the weak sun rose past its zenith, and the slanted shadows arched across the streets, further darkening the gloom, the Starseed Glade warband came upon the deserted market square.  

The true wealth of Shadespire made itself known here, not in ostentatious finery and ornamentation, but in the grand space the city left for trade. Though now only the remains of dust and broken heaps of once-treasure surrounded the warband, they spoke volumes of what once was, stalls and storefronts encircled the square in concentric overlapping lines where once tradesmen from all lands presented their goods. In the center of this grand space stood a pillar, part monument to the Master Merchants, their statues carved in obsidian, shadeglass arcana. If the tomb spoke true the merchant soul they searched for could have echoes of unlife within the fractured depths.

Lyliath approached the pillar, with wooden fingers she almost caressed the glass and as her eyes closed she attempted to touch upon what resided within.

As sudden as a summer storm a wave of purple tinged energy exploded outwards, pushing Lyliath back and engulfing the pillar in a shaft of indigo light that reached the heavens.

“I can still feel the souls speaking!” she roared over the overwhelming unlight. “Fan out! I must have our answers!”

Grave looking Kurnoth hunters and skittish Skinks then split and took position around the raging center, while her seedkin brothers and sisters stayed close to their leader, staying clear of the vortex of energy that seemed to drain the life of any that drew near.

As sure as moths to the flame the pillar of unlight called opposing warbands near and out of the alleys came the golden host of Sigmar once more, the same that wasted Lyliath the day before and now further bolstered with an avian riding Pallador, the blade of his javelin gleaming in the indigo light of the vortex.

The seedkin and skinks did not need to be told to attack, launching branch long arrows and a multitude of darts before the scythe wielding Hunter charged into the golden armored Stormcasts, the Revenants and Dryads at his heels and leaping at their thrice fold foes once more.

With his long legs eating up the distance to the golden host, the sickle bearing Kurnoth Hunter slammed into the gold-clad warriors and with a great swipe of his moon curved blade the Kurnoth Hunter ripped into the Retributor, needing to lay low the hammer wielding immortal like it was the season of reaping.

Though sigmarite was shattered the Retributor still stood and swung back in kind, lighting engulfed the hulking Sylvaneth warrior as the hammerer and his flanking brethren battered the treekin, breaking wood and limb the Kurnoth Hunter fell under their blows, his lifesap splattering their golden armor and soaking the dust dry ground.

The priest of Sigmar shouted out praise to his god while Lyliath’s Dryads and Revenants broke under their relentless assault, the massive bird-like beast raking claws across wooden bodies and breaking bark with it’s snapping beak. All the while arrows and darts volleyed into the melee, ineffectively ricocheting off sigmarite and surrounding bleached stone.

Before long the Branchwych’s guards were broken and the relentless Stormcast brethren were running her down. With one hand outstretched, reaching to the trapped souls within the shadeglass pillar she defended herself against their hammering blows, her scythe’s staff blocking strikes while her bittergrub snaked out in between hits to snap through golden plate.

Battered, broken, her bark shattered and leaking lifesap, Lyliath strained to hear the whispers within the cacophony of calling spirits and war frenzied Stormcast.

Magush Bruttleskin...cesspond of the Bonestahd.

The name of the merchant, the location of the Corpuswog, she was ready. With eyes opened in revelation, she erupted from the pillar’s unlight, breaking the deathly embrace and instead embracing her inner rage. Throwing back her head, the Branchwych let loose the swarm of inner spites once more.

Hundreds of flying, crawling, squirming miniature beasts spread out from her broken body and engulfed the Stormcasts. Sliding under golden plate, crawling into their masks, biting, stinging, burrowing. The surrounding warriors of Sigmar all fell to their knees frantically trying to pull off their armor but it was no use, Lyliath’s rage burnt like a bushfire and it consumed them till each brother either retreated or returned defeated to their god in a shaft of azure light.

Breathing heavy she rose from the floor, the Kurnoth archer helping her rise, the three skinks chittering around her, each lamenting their addersap dart’s lack of competence. Together the survivors walked out of the sprawling market square, Lyliath limping out towards the Thanatological Gardens and the city’s edge, bordering the endless wastes and the distant Ossific Swamp.

[realmsherald]

Day 3 - The Ancient Warlord

A rhythmic thumping stirred Lyliath from her meditation with the World Roots, her call for aid answered, but oddly, and weak. The dust of the abandoned building her warband took shelter in from the night shook with each thud that reverberated through the ruined city, falling upon their leaves from the gutted alcoves above, the remaining shards of stained glass shaking in the narrow gothic window frames.

She turned to one of her malevolent stalker kin, already the Spite was smiling mirthlessly, his fangs bared and eyes glinting like cut amber, he could feel an approaching battle as well as she and the Branchwych bade him to climb the heights of their shelter and discover what came.

As he left Lyliath thrust her hand into the dry earth, questing for a touch of the roots. Within a moment the broken tile and grave dirt floor swelled and cracked as thick viney roots burst out. Ghyran had answered her plea and the wave of life giving energy in this death parched land revitalized the seedkin like a second wind. Breathing in the heavy aroma of pollen and warmth Lyliath opened them to see a flower quickly bud, it’s yellow leaves filling with vitality and blooming within an instant. Nestled in the center of the flower wasn’t a Sylvaneth like she was expected, but instead a small turquoise scaled lizard, it’s eyes glowing with the same life giving amber as her own. Clutched in its clawed hands was a long shaft of wood, festooned with feathers and beads. This was one of the Rootborn’s spawn and although starlight did not course through his veins like the Seraphon rumoured to stalk all lands in anathema to chaos, this mortal creature of old was just as fierce and loyal to life.

“Despoilers, brutes, Orruk.” whispered the Spite Revenant from above.

Lyliath grimaced, memories of axe wielding destruction to her land and people running through her ancestral memories. Bolstered with a new ally, no matter how meak, the warband strode out of the ruined building and into the street to meet the oncoming enemy.

Pounding down the narrow avenue came a ravenous band of Orruks, breaking the city’s funeral silence with their glotteral chanting and stomping, either by ironclad boots, foul bare feet or massive boar hooves. Charging in their forefront was a boar riding berserker, followed closely behind by an odd mix of iron plated and wild body painted savage Orruks, the former wielding massive blades that looked capable of chopping through a tree in one strike, the latter, carrying crude stone tipped bow and arrows, screaming and shouting incoherently to the trailing Warchanter. He ran behind his warband, shouting out prayers to his dual gods while holding aloft a stone sarcophagus, trailing graveyard dust.

The greenskins had not seen the silent seedkin or the nimble skink that climbed for a better vantage point, until an oakstone arrow sailed through the air wounding one of the warpainted savages. Screaming her own warchant the Sylvaneth charged forwards to meet the incoming brutes, slamming bark to iron and green flesh.

The treekin flowed seamlessly around the heavy bladed swings of the Orruks, lashing out in turn and finding little purchase against their hide. The noble hunter unleashing arrow after arrow to lay low the beast while Lyliath blasted the mortal off it’s mount in a blast of verdant energy. Though the swift Sylvaneth kept their foe at bay the Warchanter marched on under strain of his prize and would escape past Lyliath’s wooden clutches if she could not end his followers lives. It had seemed a sure thing until the Ironjaw Brutes cut deep into her Revenants, the skink above it’s addersap darts proving ineffectual against both iron and hide.

Desperate with the fear of more slain kin, Lyliath stirred the life within her, awakening the multitude of crawling slithering spites and fanning their malicious ire with the malignant rage the Branchwych felt while in this cursed city of the dead. Raising her head to the slate grey sky dozens upon dozens of spites swarmed out of her mouth, crawled from the cracks in her skin and poured from under her leaves and branches. The little beasts, struck out at the ironclad brutes, crawling beneath their armor, shredding into flesh, eyes and mouths. Before long the hulking Ironjawz collapsed all around her, their bodies ravaged and the swarm returning to hers.

Breathing heavy the Branchwych lifted her scythe to the Warchanter.

“Drop it, despoiler.”

With mouth agape, the bottom tusks protruding like the slain boar still bleeding out on the street, the Warchanter snarled, slamming the stone sarcophagus into the street’s cobblestones. He raised his Gorkstikk (or Morkstikk) in kind “Wood for cooking meat, soon witch.”

He then turned and stomped down a side alley, talking to himself in an incoherent grumble.

While Lyliath bade the skink to scout out for more perils awaiting them the remaining seedkin approached the sarcophagusand gazed upon it’s carved effigy, an armored woman in stone, with one hand grasping a sword that reached down to her plated feet, the other a scale, her eyes cut shadeglass but the spirit within dead and gone like the rest of the city. Ancient runes were carved around her, some in billowing scrolls surrounding the scale, others wrapping around the blade of her stone carved sword.

“Can you read this?” she asked of Oakenson, the wounded Kurnoth Hunter, oldest among her kin, his hand to his side holding in the leaking blood amber.

“No my lady, this mortal tongue escapes my knowledge.” he furrowed his brow at its arcane text.

“I know of it!” exclaimed a Tree Revenant, rushing to peer closer, “Or at least I have memories...of...knowing…” He looked inwardly with confusion at this, Lyliath knew of the ancient spirits that sung in the souls of her Tree Revenants, not truly Sylvaneth, not truly mortal they stood upon both shores of life and found moments of enlightenment from times from the World that Was, without truly grasping how or why.

Running his bark-flesh hand over the inscribed runes, “Those that encircle the blade tell of Duchess Nephasus glories in purging the Ghoul hordes east of this once-empire...But surrounding the scale, these runes tell of her exploits as a master merchant, dealing with denizens from all realms...as...investor...in the guild masters...of the Ossific Swamp!”

Lyliath felt her rage abate with the fluttering of hope, bending down she rested her own hand on the stone and felt a thrum of power unlike any other she felt in this parched land. Maybe she had spent already too long in this land of death, but the power within this sarcophagus felt powerful enough to waylay all others in her warbands path. With both hands her sharpened talon-like fingers prodded the edges of the lid, and before she could lift a light descended like an arcing comment and blasted her and her kin off their feet.

Blinking away the sudden light, the brightness almost alien in this gloom filled land she saw through sappy tears a golden angel lifting the sarcophagus effortlessly through the air on wings of light.

Roaring like a thousand leaves caught in a gale the Branchwych railed at her Hunter to lay the thief low.

As arrows flew through the air, striking off the Sigmarite armor or through the misty air more golden clad warriors broke into the streets. A Lord Relictor, just the same from the mad battle only a day before, slammed his bone festooned banner into the ground and called out to his god from under his skull crafted helm, looking to belong in his deathly realm more than any other.

“By Sigmar’s light! Smite these tree spawned demons!”

An answer to his prayers was quickly called and the sky opened to the white fire of Sigmar’s wrath and under lighting and hail the two warbands ran at each other, hammers to oakstone blade, sigmarite to bark.

While the two groups battered and fought, Oakenson continued to fire at the fleeing Prosecutor. With miss after miss the Kurnoth Hunter reached down to his Quiverling and plucked the last of the arrows, hearing the little beast whimper in failure. Last arrow notched, bending back the snapvine he let loose his shot and watched it connect with a resounding crack.

The golden Lord Relictor watched his winged brother plummet to the ground, his heavy body leaving a crater of debris, the sarcophagus slamming into the earth, miraculously unopened and still thrumming with power. Yelling out with a rage only brotherhood could muster he laid into Lyliath, his hammer slamming against her scythe over and over in ever quickening strikes, trying to block the incoming attacks the Branchwych tiring with each limb breaking blow.

Her body moving to slow to intercept a thundering barrage the hammer of silvered Sigmarite slammed into her chest and threw her out, leaving her senseless in the bonedust. Her remaining sisters and brothers fought on gloriously, sharpened talons and blades scoring hits and sending the Stormcast’s souls back into the the grasp of their god until only the Lord and the great noble Oakenson remained.

Bereft of any remaining arrows the Kurnoth Hunter ran at the immortal and the two exchanged titanic blows, all alone in a street devoid of life and hope.

With one last prayer to Sigmar on his lips a shaft of lightning broke through the heavens and struck Oakenson not unlike the tallest tree in a storm.

Falling senseless like his lady, the seedkin were devastated and covered in the dirt and dust of the streets while the goldclad warrior stepped over their near dead forms.

With a sliver of an opened eye Lyliath watched the immortal reach down and lift the casket’s lid, a dark unlight cascading over his leering skull mask, and though the Branchwych could not see it, she felt as well as any sense the Lord Relictor smile beneath his deathmask.

Her eyes then closed to unfeeling oblivion.

[realmsherald]

Day 2 - City of the Dead 

When the weak pallid sun broke past the horizon and the shades of black merely became shades of grey Lyliath night of singing to the World Roots bore fruit. In addition to her original surviving seedkin finding her throughout the night, she was greeted at dawn by the forms of a sister Dryad, a martial Tree Revenant and a stoic and noble Kurnoth Hunter, his man-height sized bow already strung with snapvine, the oakenstone arrow held loosely, but ready to be launched in a moment’s notice. Though this towering Hunter stood tall and proud, his Quiverling pranced and hopped around his legs and the rest of the seedkin group, chittering happily, the rootgrown arrows jostling about in his stump-like growth. 

Together the Sylvaneth moved out in search of shadeglass and answers in this life-forsaken city.

By mid day the seedkin came across a curious geometrical glass orb resting on a pedestal, before the Branchwych could peer into its dark mirrored depths the sound of striking thunder once again sounded.  At this the noble hunter, Durakhorn stood tall and saw far. 

“Sister, the golden sons of Sigmar are holding the west courtyard…” he paused,  uncertainty furrowing his wooden brow. “By the grace of Alarielle they seem to be battling amongst themselves.”

“This cursed city must have ensorcelled their minds, the light of their god clouded under these dust skies, quickly, let us take what shadeglass we can and leave this damned courtyard.” Lyliath then looked to her fleet of foot Dryads, “Run to the shrines my sisters, discover how to unlock these artifacts of old, Revenants and Durakhorn we shall guard you, today we reap from afar.”

Together they fanned out creeping through the ruins and trying to keep from the notice of the golden hammer wielders. As Lyliath got near she saw the incredible sight, hammer blows reverberating off sigmarite like thunderclaps, arrows of lightning striking through light-lifted winged men, two skull faced fanatics screaming to their shared god for the power to smite their mirrored foe. Truly this was a land of insanity and as a scion of nature Lyliath could not abide by such chaos. 

Nodding to the Kurnoth Hunter he let loose his oakstone tipped arrow, she watched sail far and fast, striking one of the priests in the small of his back, breaking through the sigmarite with ease.  Crashing to his knees, his head raised to the sky Lyliath could hear a distant shout of Sigmar on the wind as his lightning bolt of a soul shot up through the sky. Within a heartbeat her nearest Tree Revenant pounced forward onto the rival priest, sword slashing into the golden armor and failing to strike through the protective plate. A resounded hammer blow quickly followed and was unlike those heard when the Stormcast battled one another. The sound of a wet crack reached the Branchwych and she saw her warrior crash backwards trailing the street’s bonedust in his wake. 

Raising her scythe in answer she was interrupted by the call of a Dryad, who held the glass geometrical orb aloft, its depths unreadable, yet a feeling of unlife stirred within. Lyliath saw that she had what she needed from this chaotic courtyard and still seeing the madness of the battling twin sons of Sigmar she did not want to descend into that same insanity. 

“May you return to the soil and become one with the World Roots my brother.” she said under her breath before turning from her need for revenge and fading back into the gloom of the bone choked alleys of Shadespire.

[realmsherald]

Day 1 - Clash at Dawn

Fog lay about the dead city thick when Lyliath and her seedkin emerged through the near wasted world roots. Within only moments of breathing the stale life leeching air Lyliath lost sight of her brothers and sisters. She wandered across the narrow alleys trying in vain to hear the song of Ghyran through what remained of the city’s desiccated plant life, hoping her seedkin were doing just the same.

A crack of thunder muffled by the cloying fog broke her concentration and she ran to the noise, her bittergrub snapping with a hunger for flesh, her scythe held high as she stalked the abandoned streets. Soon Lyliath came across the broken form of on her brothers, his chest caved in by a mighty blunt blow. A whisper of wind cut across the air and she looked up to see a flying light shoot across the dissipating fog, before the realization of what this being was settled in another hammer strike reverberated through the streets and she knew in her heartwood that another of her kin had been dealt a mortal wound. Knowing her golden foes had height over her she held tight to the surrounding walls like a vine and escaped their murderous gaze.

Through bone bleached streets Lyliath finally came across some of her brothers and sisters, before she can relay the dire news of their kin’s passing a new sound broke through the deathly quiet.

“By Grungi’s eleventh toe how many kegs o’ ale are ye going to owe me for this little jaunt you bearded Grot of a younglin. Right nothing but sand and bone in this here dried arse of a city.”

Seeing the glint of iron in the growing light of dawn, Lyliath’s amber eyes lit with an age old hate at the sight of an axe, not unlike any other slayer of countless sylvan kin. With a rage that simmered under her hardened bark hide like a forest fire unto itself, she lashed out touching upon the glimmering remains of Ghyran’s magic and sent bolts of coruscating energy to the closet of the unsuspecting Duardin. Green light blasted him off his stumpy feet and into the street’s sand drifts, his body as lifeless as the bones that surrounded him. Before his brother’s could raise their axes in retaliation the remaining Tree Revenant, Firgurn sailed through the air, the remaining mist trailing him like a cloak as he pounced on another, his outstretched claws slashing through the barrel chested Duardin, felling him in one vicious blow. With blood still running off the oakenstone bladed fingers the bearded folk turned and ran through the streets.

Looking down upon her slain foe, his body still burning flames of green, Lyliath saw grasped in his dead hands a shard of shadeglass, a curiously within it’s dark crystal depths, a bearded Duardin, haunted and fearful in it’s hopeless gaze.

The rush of victory and elation of her foes blood wetting her roots did not last long, within moments a braying howl was heard though the dust dry fog. Though her kin despised all wielders of the axe, the hatred they felt for the beasts that walked consumed them like a raging brush fire. Incensed Lyliath rushed into the fog filled streets, her dryad sister and tree revenant brother following close behind.

Stepping into another bone scoured street, its central fountain filled with sand, the statue on top honouring a long lost mortal, proud, arrogant, like all mortal men, Lyliath thought as she spared it a glance before a crudely made arrow flew through the fog and impaled the fleshlike throat of the tree revenant alongside her.

As Firgurn fell to the dust the braying was heard once more only this time all around her, suddenly a snarling Gor ran at her and the dryad Ashin, wielding a rusted massive axe, skulls and other fetishes swung about its matted fur and wretched leathers, but all Lyliath saw was the uncontrollable rage in it’s small eyes and met it with her own. She was here to stop Nurgle and all his servants, be they demon, man or beast and this wretch deserved her malice as much as any other. With hand outstretched, the tingle of life magic arched across her wooden fingertips and as that devastating energy was about to strike out at the wretched Gor the magic was wrenched out from her gasp. At that moment the Branchwych felt a new presence, it’s malign intelligence and sickly hate invading her mind and then she saw it, a Bray-Shaman, shrouded in rancid rags and cloths huddled by a dilapidated tower like some gutter beggar. With her touch to the magic of the world roots dampened by the shamans rotten power she could not stop the charging Gor and lifted her scythe to ward off the incoming axe blow.

The strike never landed, with a quick cracking sound akin to a thunder strike Lyliath witnessed her sister Dryad break in two, the great rusted axe cutting her from her neck to her hip, lifesap leaking thick over the pitted surface as the Gor frantically tried to free it. The Branchwych stared in horror while the light dimmed in Ashin’s eyes, and though she stood immobile her bittergrub sprite had no hesitation in lashing out at the heaving beastman, bladed mandibles snapping as the Gor backhanded the insect and roared in pain.

Sensing the approaching Bray Shaman, and the shouting and howling of more incoming snarling creatures Lyliath pushed back the Gor with her scythe, grabbed her wormlike sprite and ran back through the fog, getting lost through dust choked streets until the braying sounds of victory could no longer be heard.

[realmsherald]

                        Warhammer Skirmish - Shadespire Campaign

The Bone Harvest

Lyliath Rootspawn, Branchwych of the Starseed Grove has traveled the World Roots far from her home to branch into the desiccated lands of Shyish, realm of the dead. There she was sent by her Mother Urchii Seedscorn to investigate a rumour overheard by the chortling boasts of a repugnant Greater Unclean One back in her own home realm of Ghyran. For years the invading despoiler, Grothraught the Demon Prince had ravished her lands, his legion of Plaguebearers reaping all they touched with their bone-white blades. In his raucous boasts, the Greater Unclean One had revealed that these blades were unlike any other from the realm of Nurgle, and instead originated from the lands of bone and dust, Shyish. Grothraught, being once a mortal man himself knew what bounty one could claim through the arts of trade and in the bustling ancient city of Shadespire had sent his mildly infected envoys to barter with the Bone Merchants of the Ossific Swamp for a particular harvest from a gargantuan beast that nestled in those black mires, the Corpuswog. 

This ancient and ageless creature was only ever seen for the massive mound of its back that rested out of the water, larger than an island it’s back festooned with a forest of bone protrusions, like the quills of a hedgehog, only the length of a man. Grothraught would trade pestilent poisons that could rot even the petrified bones of a Morghast for this armory of bone bladed swords and with it had conquered swaths of forests in the name of his decaying god.

Though now too late to find the once-affluent merchantmen in the now dead Shadespire, Lyliath and her warband of seedkin must gather whatever shadeglass they can find, and with it see if any echoing memories remain of those merchants and harvesters. She hopes to discover how to find and slay the great Corpuluswog to both stem the tide of future harvests and inspect it’s corpse for a cure against the toxins that still rot the Starseed Grove to this day.