Dread Solstice

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The Dread Solstice is a global campaign based on the Malign Portents books, that started on 15th of February of 2018 and ran for 6 weeks, ending on 1st of April of 2018. Each week was dedicated to a dilemma that were resolved by players spending points that they've earned through battles on the tabletop or painting miniatures on three possible solutions; the Drake, the Skull and the Eye. Depending on the result it would change the next chapter of the history of the Mortal Realms,

Campaign Summary

As a plague of evil omens spread across the Mortal Realms, the rulers of the lands destroyed their naysayers and slew those who spoke of dooms to come. The unquiet shades loosed by these fell acts took their secrets to the great beyond by the thousand – and so summoned Lunaghast, Moon of Dark Secrets, from its erratic orbit through Shyish. Some whispered Lunaghast was the ghost of an ancient warpstone planetoid come to feast upon mortal sins, others that it was the fabled Bad Moon of the Greenskins, whilst still more shouted their secrets to the skies in the hope of learning hidden knowledge in return.

Nagash was pleased to see so many prophets slain, and his Great Work continued apace, but still, he needed more time. He awoke the Red Mist – a spiritual curse distilled from his most violent underworlds – and sent it through the Abyssal Fires to wreak havoc in Aqshy. This, in turn, brought the mighty lord Korghos Khul to war; his sphere-like fortress, the Orb Infernia, hovered low over the Great Parch. Only by working together did the races of that land construct a super-weapon to turn upon the orb – a chronomantic cannon that blasted the Orb Infernia back to a previous state of its existence, when it was still riven by war.

That grand act of chronomancy sent ripples through time that Nagash was swift to harness. Shyish is the End of All Things, including time itself, and by using a portion of the realmstone he had painstakingly amassed, Nagash coalesced that truth into a vast time-eating sphere known as the Black Void. Those armies that had counter-attacked Shyish in the hope of sacking Nagashizzar found themselves literally losing time as seconds, then minutes, then hours were stolen from them to further the building of the Great Black Pyramid. When Nagash sprung his trap – and a significant part of their hosts was pitched into the underworld known as the Great Oubliette – all seemed lost. But the Great Necromancer had underestimated the resolve of the mortal races. They fought so hard within that endless jail that they not only escaped that nightmarish underworld, but freed the souls of many incarcerated heroes in the process, from the Age of Chaos, the Age of Myth, and even the times before that.

Against the backdrop of this great victory, Nagash’s grand cosmological ritual nears completion – perhaps all he needed to complete it was a little more time...

Chapter 1: Cursed Omens

The lands are wracked with supernatural phenomena, affecting everyone from the lowliest beggars to the mightiest kings. But with this new era comes a new opportunity for conquest.

Week 1: The Time of Tribulations

Dark omens abound in every realm. Your soothsayers and seers read the stars, throw their runestones, and study the omens of the natural world before reporting back that a great doom haunts the horizon.

An ancient power is rising – that much, your seers have divined beyond a doubt. Since Sigmar’s Tempest broke across the Mortal Realms, the iron stranglehold of Chaos has been weakened. It is not only the God-King’s followers that have made use of that opportunity. None truly know that which destiny has in store.

All that is certain is that the lands you have fought so hard to claim are under threat. A lingering suspicion haunts your mind – perhaps, if you do not act wisely, you will lose everything you hold dear.

Conversely, if you make the right decision, you may benefit from the disquiet that simmers within every tribe and nation. In times of great upheaval, old kings are cast down and new rulers rise to prominence.

Many rulers are turning a blind eye to the rumours of supernatural phenomena in their domains – for these lands, ravaged by the dominion of brutes and tyrants, are no stranger to evil spirits and corrupted souls. But you know to trust your gut instincts as well as the warnings of your advisors.

What will you do to prepare for the tumultuous times ahead?"

Dilemma

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Follow the falling star
The stars themselves are the key. You use powerful spells or shamanic rites to manipulate these celestial bodies to your will.

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Seize the opportunity
Even an ill wind can fill your sails. Whilst hope is replaced with paranoia and superstition, you make the most of the growing madness.

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Destroy the naysayers: 37%
How dare these stargazing fools spread dire rumours? You are not afraid of the darkness. Exile these bothersome prophets, or send their secrets to the grave.

Week 2: Hidden secrets have been laid bare. How will you respond?

So comes Lunaghast

The die is cast, and Lunaghast, the Moon of Dark Secrets, rises high. Across the lands, the doomsayers so intent on preaching of the evils to come overstay their welcome in every lord’s sanctum – from the high-vaulted strongholds of the free cities to the grisly throne rooms of the Flesh-eater Courts.

Though at first their escalating claims of danger and superstition were heeded, the constant naysaying now takes its toll. Even the most patient ruler takes umbrage as the cracks begin to show, and it is the messengers that bear these ill tidings that take the brunt of their displeasure.

One by one the seers and prophets are put to death – either exiled into monster-prowled hinterlands, murdered in violent displays of anger, or summarily executed for what their masters see as fear-mongering and plotting. Some are burnt at the stake, others crushed under heavy rocks, still more cut down by blade or savaged by claw. But regardless of the manner of their death, their souls are sent to Shyish in great number.

Their secrets die with them – or so it is thought. That hidden knowledge, borne by the departing souls of the wise, crosses the void to Shyish – and in doing so, attracts a celestial body that does not shed light, but absorbs it. For this is a moon that thirsts for secret knowledge, and more of that is loose in the cosmos now than ever before.

From the aetheric void comes Lunaghast, a moon of dark matter that absorbs the wisdom and secrets of mortals to fuel its own morbid curiosity. It brings with it a new wave of hysteria and fear, for when the light of Hysh glints from its surface, the moon appears to have a face – and it is terrifying indeed. Across the lands, betrayers and traitors find their powers bolstered – and no more than the Knight of Shrouds, who rides upon a wave of fear to win psychological victories before even a single blow is struck.

Those who pay homage to this new moon by screaming secrets into the night are granted a measure of its power. Some, the subterranean races of the greenskins amongst them, seek to draw it down to loom over the Mortal Realms for good.

What Next? Lunaghast has come to feed on the secrets of men, duardin and aelves, and the Mortal Realms will never be the same again. With the secret agendas of your kingdom being screamed from the peaks in order to appease this new celestial body, hidden machinations are laid bare and the status quo shattered beyond recovery.

Dilemma

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Avenge yourself
The abundance of uncovered truths allows you an unparalleled opportunity to settle grievances that have long gone unanswered. No perpetrator will escape your wrath.

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Dispose of those who know
Those who know your secrets must be destroyed, or your rule may be compromised beyond salvation. Send out your executioners, your assassins, your spellcrafters, and ensure that what belongs hidden remains so.

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Learn Every Secret: 35%
There has never been a better time to learn the eldritch mysteries of the cosmos than right now - for though Lunaghast greedily devours much of the knowledge brought about by these omens, a great deal is left for the taking.

End

Eldritch truths revealed

The decision to learn as many arcane truths as possible has proven wise. In the space of a few short nights, your magic users have found new cantrips, rites and incantations with which to tip the balance of power. Even as Lunaghast devours the secrets of the old arcane orders, its coming uncovers hundreds more.

Across the lands, those with sorcerous leanings stare long at the dark moon, reading every aspect of its skeletal face and gaining flashes of insight as they do so. Whether through the wyrdglass lenses of an arcane observatorium, the shimmering surfaces of Ghyran’s sacred lakes, the stolen eyes of a magical beast, or simply from the peak of a high mountain, the gifted and the cursed alike glean new insights with every passing night.

And Lunaghast stares back.

The truths that dark moon imparts are nigh impossible to reconcile. Over time, those touched by Lunaghast succumb to bouts of madness – or perhaps divine enlightenment, for to the layfolk of the realms, they can appear to be much the same thing. Only the strongest of wills can grasp the fact that everything they considered important, everything they strived for and everything they feared as utter disaster, is but a single speck of dust on a tapestry of fate that weaves across the cosmos and beyond. Ultimately, even the most devastating secret is meaningless in the face of infinity.

Some fail this test of the mind, and are driven insane by the shocking revelations they witness. Others pass through its sanity-blasting implications to reach new levels of mastery over the mental arts, and find their control of the secret forces of the realms enhanced. The invisible motes of magic that surround them dance to their tune, shaped like clay by the expertise of one who has transcended mortal understanding to become – at least in part – one with the aether. These souls are to be respected and feared, for they wield magic as easily as a master bladesman wields a sword.

Chapter 2: Ash and Flame

The Realm of Fire is haunted by the Red Mist, a terrible curse that has come from the nightmares of seers and prophets into reality. Can the warrior hosts of that land survive long enough to find a cure?

Week 3: The Red Mists Rise

In Aqshy, a terrible curse takes hold. Some say a lunar convergence has brought vitriolic humours to a furious flood tide. Others see Khorne’s hand in events, or an ominous convulsion of the lands themselves.

Whatever the truth, from the Venal Peaks to the Coast of a Thousand Eyes, Red Mists spread. Wherever folk gather, passions run ever higher until bloodshed erupts. From the resultant corpses rise red veils, bloody fog-banks rolling away across the realm.

Those who inhale the Red Mists gain great strength, eyes turning bright red while fury swells their muscles. Yet there is a price to be paid in sanity for these twisted blessings…

As the Red Mists spread, you find yourself upon the horns of a dilemma.

Should you steer into the storm? Should you embrace warrior might, empowering your armies to fresh feats of conquest but risking their damnation?

Should you pile and burn the dead, so as to destroy the vector of the Red Mists, stop their spread, and protect your lands?

Perhaps there is a third option, for those willing to enact the rituals; perhaps the ground can be consecrated, the wrath of the lands cooled and disaster averted?

What action will you take, as the Red Mists roll in?

Dilemma

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Steer into the storm: 39%
This is no curse, it is a gift! You seek out the Red Mists and bathe in their seething majesty, growing stronger with every bloody lung-full.

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Burn the dead
Destroy the source of the curse, and so destroy the curse itself. You harvest the fallen and set light to the carrion mountains that result.

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Ritualised repression
The wrath of the realm must be tamed. You practice potent rituals, consecrating the ground and sealing away the rage of Aqshy behind mystic barriers.

Week 4: Khul's vast daemonic orb rains down blood. What do you do?

The Orb Arises

Violence begets violence. Bodies carpet the lands like fallen leaves in the season of harvests, and the Red Mists billow thicker by the day. Armies of bloodthirsty lunatics clash with such ferocity that they end their battles wading in corpse-thick lakes of blood. Skull mounds rise higher and higher, and the booming laughter of the Blood God rumbles through the skies.

So is the offering prepared. So is the mass sacrifice made and the price of summonation paid. So is the vast and terrible Orb Infernia drawn down from above to cast its long and bloody shadow across the lands.

A hollow world long contested by Daemon Princes of the four Chaos Gods, the orb has always been a battleground. For centuries, the seraphon hosts of Lord Xen'phantica fought a cunning campaign that kept the daemon legions at one another’s throats, and the Orb Infernia locked in self-defeating conflict.

Then came Korghos Khul.

First, the Bloodbound warlord and his legions slew the Seraphon and ended their meddling. Then they turned their blades upon all who dared oppose them, until none but the warriors of Khorne remained. So was the Orb Infernia claimed by Khul as his personal stronghold, an entire world to be ruled in Khorne’s name.

Now that crimson orb hangs low in the skies, drifting with inexorable malice towards those places where the Red Mists churn thickest. Drawn to the slaughter, the reaving armies of the Blood God descend from the orb to strike at will, butchering friend and foe alike with mindless fury. The Red Mists are whipped into bloody cyclones at their coming, driving even the most steadfast warriors into a frothing frenzy of mutually assured destruction that pleases Khorne greatly.

Amongst this maelstrom of violence, the Darkoath Warqueen’s call to action carries all the further. Khorne’s will is clear in this crimson hour, and the Warqueen’s furious exhortations are met by eager bellows of bloodlust and hate. So does she hurl her warriors into the fray for the greater glory of the Dark Gods.

What next?: The Orb Infernia has descended to blight the skies of the Realm of Fire. Aqshy becomes a deadlier place than ever before, for the crimson winds of slaughter blow stronger beneath the Orb’s shadow. Yet even amidst such bloody-minded madness, opportunity waits for those with the wit and will to seize it.

What course will you now follow?

Dilemma

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Worship that which is risen
A new demigod glowers down upon Aqshy and rains fury from the skies. Better to win the favour of Korghos Khul and to fight beneath his banners, than to face annihilation from on high.

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Flee the Crimson Shadow
The Orb Infernia draws closer by the moment, and its shadow stretches long. You must gather all that is precious to you and flee before its wrath!

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Fight fury with fury: 58%
Should the Red Mists be channeled through the ancient archeo-machinery known as the Infinity Gears upon the Firestorm Plateau, a weapon might be fashioned potent enough to bring down even the Orb Infernia.

End

Temporal Vengeance

As the Red Mists billow, an accord has been struck between those warlords brave enough to face Korghos Khul. You have vowed to play your part, gathering scholars, sorcerers and engineers, and setting them to this singular task: they are to harness the power of the Red Mists to power a chronomantic cannon, a relic from the Age of Myth.

The cost in lives has been dear. You have lost many warriors liberating captive savants, or escorting artisans across territories swarming with foes. More of your followers fall as they join their ranks to those who defend the weapon. It rises from a battlemented mountaintop amidst the cyclopean mechanisms known as the Infinity Gears, and it’s heavily armoured superstructure serves as an exceptional fortress from behind whose walls and firesteps you resist the barbarian hordes.

As Korghos Khul’s enemies gather, the blood-mad legions attack in ever greater numbers. Rumour spreads that the Orb Infernia has changed heading and is lumbering through the skies to destroy the weapon. Yet your efforts have borne fruit as, even as Khul’s worldsphere swells in the skies above, the conclave of engineers and sorcerers are successful.

The Red Mists form an ensorcelled cyclone that supercharges the weapon. The cannon spits a beam of temporal energies into the heart of the worldsphere. In an instant, all of Khul’s victories upon Orb Infernia are undone. His old adversaries, Lord Xen’Phantica and his seraphon, flicker back into existence, and the banishment of the defeated Daemon Princes is reversed. So begins a new war to control the Orb. At a stroke, Korghos Khul’s super-weapon becomes a battlefield that sails on into the distance, ringing with the clash of weapons and the howls of countless warriors.

It is victory, but at a strange and unsettling cost. Time-storms crackle across the Great Parch, allowing wizards to cast spells that age combatants to dust or heal heroes’ wounds as though they were never suffered. So begin the Wars of the Returned.

Chapter 3 - Hour of the Damned

The mortal races have responded in force to the morbid darkness that threatens to consume them, and invaded Shyish, the Realm of Death. In the shadow of Nagash’s citadels, battle is joined – though time is running out…

Week 5: The Black Void Hunger

Everywhere across Shyish, waking dreams plague those who have scried the future – yourself included, for your quest has led you to the heart of the Realm of Death. Every visionary, mage and wise man is haunted by the image of a vast black sphere that steals light, warmth and hope from all who witness it.

Yet only at night is its most profound consequence keenly felt. The Black Void, synonymous with oblivion in the mythic symbology of Azyr, hungers to devour all things – and in the Realm of Death, that rapacious nothingness begins to consume time itself.

It starts with a blink in time, a glitch in the chronology of events that few notice bar a slight feeling of disorientation. Perhaps, if the cities of Sigmar’s free people had not striven to find order in time as well as space, it would have gone unnoticed, at least for a while. But as the effects worsen, the clockmakers and arcanists of the Amethyst Realm notice their hourglasses suddenly filled with less sand, and that at midnight, their chronocogs and water clocks glitch as if ten minutes has passed without their notice.

And so it has. For in the dead of night, the Black Void feeds.

Stolen seconds turn to minutes, and then hours. As more and more time slips away, even the most primitive and bestial species become somehow aware that their lives are being shortened by an impossible force that preys on them from the Great Nothing.

Your people near the verge of panic as this realisation sets in. How will you address this terrible theft of time?

Dilemma

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Embrace the darkness
There can be no escape from the entropy and oblivion of Shyish. A mortal might fight it for a lifespan, but in the end, all will fall to its glacial curse. Unless, of course, the way to escape it is to find the time that it has stolen, and claim it for yourself...

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Redouble your efforts: 41%
Time is literally running out! You see the Black Void as synonymous with the rising tide of death – perhaps, by sacking Nagashizzar, you can bring this curse to a swift end.

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Shore up and recruit
Even the Supreme Necromancer would not let time itself be devoured. You intend to bolster your forces and ride out the storm – and ultimately let this occult danger slide into distant memory.

Week 6: You are trapped in Shyish! How will you escape Nagash's clutches?

Lands of the Dead

There was no way you and your fellow warlords could have hidden the scale of these invasions forever. As ever more warrior hosts march upon the Prime Innerlands of Shyish, fleshless vultures circle high above the marching columns of your armies and skeletal jackals prowl the peaks of the dunes in the middle distance. Bolts and arrows drive them off soon enough, but they are always there, just out of reach.

Worse still are the dreams of the omen some call the Writhing Serpent, the skeletal, snake-like form that haunts the nocturnal cycle of Shyish. Some say it is a familiar spirit of Nagash himself, an omen of his dark will made manifest; others that it is the spirit of Nagendra, Father of Serpents, slain by Sigmar in the Age of Myth. Whatever its cause, it cannot bode well, and it slithers through the dreams of kings and paupers alike.

With Nagash aware of the fact that the warrior hosts of the living are acting against him, the armies of Nagashizzar are sent out in great number. You march on, defiant, only to find an army of the dead blocking your path almost as soon as you see Nagashizzar upon the horizon. You send your flanking forces wide, the main body of your army advancing slowly so as to draw the phalanxes of the dead into your trap.

Only when the sand underfoot begins to slip away does it become horribly clear that you are the one who has fallen for a lure.

The ground tilts alarmingly as the flowing sands turn to a rockslide, then an avalanche of dust that sends your vanguard tumbling into a chasm. You watch in horror as similar crevasses open all across the horizon, the screams of your rivals reaching you on the wind. Your warriors slip away into the darkness, and from there into another underworld altogether. These gaping fissures are gates into the infamous Great Oubliette, where Nagash keeps those who have wronged him for all eternity.

What Next?:A great portion of your force has been waylaid, claimed by an army-swallowing trap that has left your plans in tatters. It is possible your vanguard may never make it out again.

What will you now do?

Dilemma

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Rescue your people: 41%
There is no way you can let a swathe of your armies languish in Nagash’s prison for eternity. You plunge onward, hoping to free them and renew your assault.

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Lure in your enemies
You may have lost a portion of your forces – but by leading your rivals into the same trap, you can ensure they fare even worse.

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Strike a deal
You can see only one way to profit from this disaster – approach one of Nagash’s generals, and parley your way to the winning side.

End

The Great Jailbreak

As battle rages through the Prime Innerlands, Nagash casts ever more enemies into the Great Oubliette. Warlords and warriors alike tumble helplessly down hissing wells of grey sand, before plunging into the deeper darkness below. They stagger to their feet amidst endless stone corridors and whispering walls of shadow.

In his arrogance, distracted and set off balance by the sheer amount of foes hurling themselves at him from every side, Nagash has erred. More and more armed warriors mass in the corridors and halls of the oubliette until at last its guardians cannot hold them back. War rages through halls that have known naught but silence for thousands of years. Weapons are unleashed whose power even the arcane wardings of the oubliette cannot withstand.

Hundreds of cells are smashed asunder and the souls within released to recorporeate. Occupants trapped since before the Age of Myth emerge, blinking in the light. Ancient magisters and mages, disgraced vampiric aristocrats, snarling greenskin warlords, ice-hearted queens and Sigmar-touched heroes, blind loremasters, duardin kings and arrogant Skaven clan-lords; all of these and countless others burst from captivity and seek to make good their escape.

Anarchy reigns as battles are interrupted by the resurrection of beloved heroes, the return of long-lost loved ones and the sudden recorporeation of nemeses long thought slain. Some souls are trammelled once again, of course, but many more escape.

So are the ranks of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer hugely reinforced, Sigmar’s lightning spearing down again and again to snatch up heroic women and men loosed from millennia of hardship. So too do many races see the return of heroes enshrined since time immemorial in folklore and legend. None can say what fate the Mortal Realms will face in the dark days to come, and all attempts to unseat Nagash have failed, but at least the forces of Order, Destruction and Chaos alike will face the looming darkness with their greatest heroes restored to them.

You were an instrumental part of this great victory, warlord, and you stand taller in that knowledge. Let the shadows gather – you are ready.

Rules

In week 1 the Skull won, unlocking the following rules:

  • Hidden Truths of Lunaghast: Subtract 1 from the Bravery characteristic of enemy units while they are within 12” of one or more Knight of Shrouds from your army. In addition, subtract 1 from the Bravery characteristic of all models that do not have the Death keyword.
  • Balefire Blade: The first Knight of Shrouds in an army to receive an artefact of power can be given the Balefire Blade instead of any of the artefacts of power it can normally receive. This blade is alight with the burning souls of sacrificed prophets and seers who dared to challenge the wielder’s authority. Pick one of the bearer’s melee weapons. Add 1 to that weapon’s Damage characteristic.

In week 2 the Skull won, unlocking the following rules:

  • Test of the Mind: At the start of the first battle round, each player must roll a dice for each Wizard in their army that is not a named character. On a 1, that Wizard suffers D6 mortal wounds. On a 2-6, that Wizard can attempt to cast one extra spell in each of their hero phases.

In week 3 the Drake won, unlocking the following rules:

  • Wrath-storm Rising: Each unmodified hit roll of 6 for an attack made by a model that made a charge move in the same turn inflicts 1 extra hit on the target (usually this will be 2 hits instead of 1). Make a wound and save roll for each hit. In addition, the range of a Darkoath Warqueen’s The Will of the Gods command ability is changed from 12” to 18”.

In week 4 the Skull won, unlocking the following rules:

  • Chronomantic Magic: If this battle is taking place in Aqshy, Wizards know the Thief of Time and Temporal Healing spells in addition to any other spells that they know.
    • Thief of Time: Thief of Time has a casting value of 5. If successfully cast, pick an enemy unit within 18″ of the caster that is visible to them. That unit suffers 1 mortal wound at the end of each hero phase for the rest of the battle. This effect ends if the caster is slain.
    • Temporal Healing: Temporal Healing has a casting value of 6. If successfully cast, pick a friendly model within 4″ of the caster. All wounds allocated to that model are healed.

In week 5 the Eye won, unlocking the following rules:

  • Chasm of Doom: If your general has the Death keyword and this battle is taking place in Shyish, they can use this command ability. If they do so, pick an enemy unit within 24″ of your general and roll a dice for each model in the unit you pick. For each 5+ that unit suffers 1 mortal wound.

Persistent

These three artefacts were unearthed by your decisions during the Dread Solstice campaign and will remain available for you here until such a time as they can be published in a print book.

  • Realmwalker Greaves: A Mortal Slaanesh Hero can be given the Realmwalker Greaves instead of any of the artefacts of power it can normally receive. Realmwalker Greaves: While scouring the Shyish Innerlands for a way to lay low Nagash and harness the glory of the Dark Prince, the Great Pretender of Slaanesh created these ensorceled greaves so as to cross the chasms and fissures that opened to bar his path. The bearer can fly. In addition, if the bearer’s Move characteristic is less than 12″, treat it as being 12″.
  • Balefire Blade: The first Knight of Shrouds in an army to receive an artefact of power can be given the Balefire Blade instead of any of the artefacts of power it can normally receive. This blade is alight with the burning souls of sacrificed prophets and seers who dared to challenge the wielder’s authority. Pick one of the bearer’s melee weapons. Add 1 to that weapon’s Damage characteristic.
  • Runes of the Wrath-storm: The first Darkoath Warqueen in an army to receive an artefact of power can be given the Runes of the Wrath-storm instead of any of the artefacts of power it can normally receive. These arcane runes, worn by a warrior who was saturated in the Red Mists during the Time of Tribulations, can be used to harness the rage of the Aqshian wrath-storm.

Add 2 to the Attacks characteristic of the bearer’s melee weapons.

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