Nullstone Brotherhood
The Nullstone Brotherhood was a citizen-led sect of the Devoted of Sigmar based in the Free City of Excelsis. Despite it's initial intentions it was eventually subverted and secretly transformed into a Slaaneshi cult.[1a][1b]
History
Age of Sigmar
After the Uprising of the Cult of the Fated Path many throughout the Free City of Excelsis began to become embittered toward sorcery, magic, the practitioners of either, and all artifices made from by them. In their quest to purge the city of mutants and Tzeentchian cultists they began working closely with agents of the Order of Azyr.[1a]
When rumours that the verminous rat-men known as the Skaven were operating in the city began to circulate, the Brotherhood dredged through the sewers to find them. Many Skaven were dragged screaming from the Excelsian sewers and nailed to the front doors of the Brotherhood's temples, to prove the duplicitous servants of the Great Horned Rat were in the city. Though the corpses would always be gone by the next morning. Nevertheless, the Brotherhood's actions against the forces of Chaos gained them much support from the human citizens of the city.[1a]
Still, in spite of the Brotherhood's efforts, the city was still wracked by unease, only made worse by the ever-increasing number of portents of doom and destruction that beset the city. In the face of this mounting unease the Brotherhood, ever driven by puritanism, chose to widen their purges to include all practitioners of magic. New leaders rose through the ranks as the sect turned on Excelsis's magic users, a man from Lendu named Odo Maulgen being chief among them.[1a]
Under Odo Maulgen the sect began to attribute wealth, privilege, and narcissism as signs of the arcane, mirrors were confiscated en masse after being declared gateways to the demonic by the cult, and the city's aelves were brutally targeted. Odo and his followers made scapegoats of the aelves, blaming them for all the city's woes and fanned the flames of bigotry against them. Aelves began vanishing from the street, murdered by Odo and his followers.[1a]
This bigotry against Aelves brought the Brotherhood into conflict with the armada of Excelsis, comprised almost entirely of Scourge Privateers. The Privateers retribution was as brutal as the Brotherhood's methods, most notably those members of the Brotherhood who had been sited near areas where aelves disappeared flayed. Civil war seemed inevitable and horrific prophecies continued to plague the city.[1a]
Things worsened even more as agitated citizens began attacking and harassing Scourge Privateers, Wanderers, and even Lumineth ambassadors. Many riotous humans were killed by aelves in self-defense and retaliation, which only served to cause more humans to flock to the Nullstone Brotherhood. Around this time Maulgen claimed to be an agent of the White Reaper, heightening his already inflated credentials and authority, and none dared to gainsay him out of fear of the White Reaper.[1b]
After six magic users were burned in Punishment Square causing the Night of a Hundred Blidings, the Grand Conclave of Excelsis was convened by Grand Matriarch Yarga-Sjuhan. The proceedings were ready to call for the disbanding of the Brotherhood until impassioned pleas from Odo Maulgen and an agent of the Order of Azyr, Darrac Neve. In the end the Conclave agreed to allow the sect to continue its existence so long as Odo agreed to cease all disruptive actions. He agreed, only to immediately renew the abductions of aelves in secret.[1b]
Those aelves abducted by the Brotherhood were then dragged off to the much-maligned Crystalfall district, restricted to everyone except the Order of Azyr and Stormcast of the Sacrosanct Chambers. They were then placed within a grand ballroom within which the sect had placed all the mirrors it had confiscated. The aelves were then slain before the mirrors, a brutal ritual ordered by Odo Maulgen himself.[1a][1b] In this, and many of their other dark excesses, the Brotherhood was serving not Sigmar but the Dark Prince Slaanesh.[1b]
Eventually, the Witch Hunters Galen ven Denst and Doralia ven Denst began investigating the Nullstone Brotherhood. Their investigation eventually led them to confront the much-feared White Reaper, Lord-Veritant Sentanus of the Knights Excelsior. Who affirmed that he had never taken Odo Maulgen as an agent, nor had he even met the man, moreover he would personally make the man pay for his lies. But before the witchfinders and Stormcast could act, Skaven invaded the city.[1c]
While the Ven Densts and the White Reaper investigated the actions of the Brotherhood, a massive horde of Greenskins drew close to the city. The horde would eventually lay siege to the city in the devastating Siege of Excelsis. During this siege demented members of the Brotherhood still roved across the city trying to kill magic users, even heroic mages of the Collegiate Arcane attempting to defend the city.[1d][1e]
The investigation eventually led the Ven Densts and Sentanus to the Palace Excelsium, where they discovered that Odo Maulgen was merely a pawn of the daemons known as the Newborn. After a harrowing battle that cost the White Reaper his life, the daemons and their daemonettes were slain.[1g]
Doctrine
The Nullstone Brotherhood began as an orthodoxical sect of the Devoted of Sigmar. After the horrors of the Uprising of the Cult of the Fated Path the Brotherhood dedicated itself to purging the Free City of Excelsis of Tzeentchian cultists and mutants. They would later extend their brutal purges to include all servants of Chaos.[1a]
The anti-magic doctrines of the sect never truly served Sigmar, who became a god through the magic of Azyr, but instead served a darker entity.[1b]
They would drift from their original path and target not only those who chose to serve Chaos, but any and all practitioners of magic, and after Odo Maulgen's rise through the ranks of the sect they'd begin to target the city's aelven population as well.[1a][1b] Odo Maulgen's ascendancy also transformed the sect, for he was merely a puppet of the Newborn, into a brutal cult of excess obsessed with its own doctrine and self-righteousness, into a cult of Slaanesh.[1f]
Members
Members of the Nullstone Brotherhood were known to wear only sackcloth and hide, and shaved their heads. They were also known to bear many tattoos in the shape of hammers and comets, holy symbols of Sigmar, on their faces and necks. They were seen as frightening brutes due to their appearance and few would impede their zealous purges.[1a]
Notable Members
- Odo Maulgen: A massive and hairy man from the tribes of Lendu who rose to power within the Nullstone Brotherhood during the purges of magic users. He would guide the sect toward a darker, more brutal path than ever before. In reality Maulgen was merely a puppet of the Newborn.[1a][1b][1f]
- Nullers: Members of the sect who hammered Nullstone into their skin, in mimicry of Fyreslayers and their Ur-Gold Runes. These chunks of nullstone made them perfect for fighting against magic users.[1b]
Sources
