Scabrous Sprawl

From Age of Sigmar - Lexicanum
Jump to: navigation, search

The Scabrous Sprawl is a Jade Kingdom of Ghyran in the north of the Everspring Swathe.[1a] In the Age of Myth, it was known as the Harmonis Veldt, but the ravages of the Age of Chaos have caused its lush goldgrass steppes to become covered in regions of unhealthy terrain resembling scabs.[2a]

Description

In the Age of Myth, the Harmonis Veldt was a verdant landscape brimming with life magic. However, by the end of the Age of Chaos it had become a dangerous wilderness of swamps and low, craggy mountains.[2a][2b]

Inhabitants

Wildlife

The most famous animals of the Sprawl are the diaphonids that fly in vast swarms across its skies. These glowing insects feed on the daggerfleas that parasitize the gargants of the Sprawl and at times are so numerous that they block out the light of Hysh, their luminous swarms becoming the Sprawl's sun in its stead.[2a][2b]

Locations

Canyons

Chaos Dreadholds

Forests

Waters

Mountains

Realmgates

History

Age of Myth

  • The godbeast Behemat challenges Sigmar to a duel at Gorkamorka's urging. The God-King strikes the World Titan with such a blow that Behemat collapses unconscious in the Harmonis Veldt, and he slumbers so long that the land grows to cover him.[1b]
  • Tribes of gargants emerge from the slumbering Behemat's maw - now beneath Titansmawr Chasm beside Tor Crania - and spread throughout the Veldt. A crude society develops, with a Gargant King ruling the tribes from the Great Green Torc that floats above the Veldt.[2a]

Age of Chaos

  • Nurgle pours his plague rains across the Harmonis Veldt, and in time the land becomes so sick that it becomes known as the Scabrous Sprawl.[2a]
  • Many brayherds dedicated to Nurgle crawl from the festering wounds of the Sprawl and attack the gargant tribes. While the Beasts of Chaos are initially unable to overcome the gargants' might, eventually their ever-increasing numbers begin to wear the tribes down.[2a]
  • The Skaven, charged by Archaon with locating the soul of the Sprawl and corrupting it, burrow deep into the region. They build the Parasite Engines - vast, mechanical abominations each capable of carrying a warren-city of ratmen within its guts - to protect them from the gargants. They use these engines to dig deep into the earth, following ley lines in their search for warpstone and leaving glowing craters and underground ruin in their wake.[2b]

Age of Sigmar

Realmgate Wars

  • Sigmar sends the Celestial Vindicators and Knights Excelsior under Lord-Celestant Pharakis to the Sprawl. They find themselves beset by hordes of skaven, and the war becomes entangled in grinding battles of attrition.[2c]
  • The war for the Sprawl stretches on for years. The Stormcast Eternals soon learn to avoid assaulting the Parasite Engines directly and concentrate on securing and purifying the geomantic sites of power across the Sprawl. However, the skaven also wish to secure these sites, and so the Stormcasts are often forced into battle with Parasite Engines despite their attempts to avoid them. As each site is secured by one side or the other, the Sprawl seems to become more and more unstable.[2d]
  • Pharakis experiences a vision of Alarielle, who confirms what both the Stormcast and the skaven have begun to suspect: there is something vast slumbering beneath the Sprawl, and the war has caused it to begin to awaken. She tells the Lord-Celestant that the being whose sleep they have disturbed is Behemat and warns that it may be too late to save him; if the World Titan has been corrupted by Chaos, there will be no choice but to slay him.[2d]
  • The Everqueen's words spur Pharakis to launch an all-out attack in an attempt to capture and purify as many life-wells as possible to avoid the impossible task of slaying Behemat. The skaven respond in kind.[2e]
  • After his dracoth Melchoristan receives a message from Dracothion himself, Lord-Celestant Silus the Untarnished of the Hallowed Knights makes to strike at the Grand Umbilicus realmgate that connects the Sprawl with the Great Green Torc above in order to cut off the flow of Chaos reinforcements between the wars above and below. Brodd, the ruler of the remaining Sprawl gargants, is roused from his isolation in the Sweatswamp by the Stormcasts passing through, and leads a force of fifty gargants to crush the interlopers, be they from Sigmar's stormhosts or the legions of Chaos. However, Lord-Celestant Threccio of the Tempest Lords, Silus' co-commander, manages to bait the gargant into striking the Umbilicus with his pillar just as a host of Paladins strike it with their hammers from the other side, and the Grand Umbilicus begins to crumble.[2f]
  • Behemat awakens, rising from beneath the soil. The fighting around Tor Crania - now revealed to be the godbeast's head - comes to a halt as the sides attempt to escape the widening chasms. After a few futile attempts to strike at the rousing World Titan, Lord Pharakis calls for the Great Bolts to be summoned; he sees no other way to fell Behemat. The efforts of the Stormcast priests to control the Great Bolts proves wanting, scorching great gouges at random across the sprawl, but the Celestant-Prime arrives and harnesses the power of the Bolts within Ghal Maraz to strike Behemat down. Such is the force of the dead godbeast falling back to earth that the dust blocks the stars for a thousand days.[2g]

Sources