Tallowreach
Tallowreach was a city of Sigmar's Empire destroyed by the Wyrmblight an illness, which transformed any who died from it into a zombie, created by the glow of the ominous Wyrmstar.[1a]
Contents
History
Age of Sigmar
The once proud mountain citadel of Tallowreach had long been protected by their high walls. But when the wan light of the Wyrmstar fell upon them, for eighteen days and nights, during the Time of Tribulations they could do nothing to save themselves, the endeavours of priests and apothecaries doing nothing to stave off the Wyrmblight disease created by the Wyrmstar.[1a]
Those who died from the Wyrmblight arose mere minutes later as revenants who immediately set upon the living with biting jaws and choking fingers. As the city descended into terror and undeath, its elders froze and failed to take any measures until it was too late. The citadel's isolation, once considered a blessing, now proved fatal as its citizens and soldiers had nowhere to flee to. The city eventually collapsed into ruin.[1a]
Yet even as the city burned and its dead ravaged the living, there were those who sought to make a tidy profit from the tragedy. Such as Arkanaut Admiral Khurngrim, commander of the Gilded Oath, though his greed would prove his undoing when he fell from his ship when it attempted to make its escape. Landing upon a dock infested with undead.[1a]
Quotes
For eighteen days and nights, the Wyrmstar hung above Tallowreach. It bathed the mountaintop citadel in its wan light, lending its people a sickly pallor and making metal and wood look rusted and rotten.
At first, the writhing celestial orb had been branded an ill omen, for it resembled a vast mass of squirming worms formed from pale green light. Though it was foul in aspect, it was at least distant and intangible, something not to be looked directly upon. Then the sickness started. An omen became a curse. A terrible wasting fever shot like wildfire through the settlers and soldiers that dwelt in Tallowreach. Though their mountaintop fastness had long protected them, all the high walls in the realms could not ward away the illness that soon became known as Wyrmblight, for it stemmed from the Wyrmstar’s glow. The apothecaries could do little. The prayers of priests had no effect. Worse followed. Those who died of the sickness did not stay dead. Within minutes of its demise, the corpse rose as a revenant, and set about the living with biting jaws and choking fingers. The elders of Tallowreach froze in horrified indecision, and by the time they took measures, it was too late. Day by day, Tallowreach consumed itself in a frenzy of sickness, undeath and terror, and the mountaintop isolation that had so long protected its people instead trapped them within a prison of their own making. Yet even as the city collapsed into anarchy, and the dead came to outnumber the living, there were those with the cynicism to see opportunity amidst the horror, and to turn a profit from it. Extract from ‘Accounts of the Darkening Hour’, by Augustus Vambedulin.[1a] |
Sources
- 1: Malign Portents short stories
- 1a: Wyrmstar