Thorns of the Briar Queen
 Thorns of the Briar Queen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Grand Alliance | Death |
| Faction | Nighthaunt |
| Leader | Briar Queen |
| Members | Varclav the Cruel Ever-Hanged Chainrasps |
The Thorns of the Briar Queen are an Underworlds warband whose members are Chainrasps bound eternally to the will of the Briar Queen. She is a former prisoner of the Nightvault who has been freed by Nagash to kill all those who seek to plunder the Mirrored City of Shadespire.[1] On her command they flock to defend her or look for victims that she can sate her malice, using their spectral chains to snare and render them helpless against the spiteful gheists.[4]
Contents
Members
Briar Queen
The Briar Queen was once a death mage of formidable power, a great enemy of Shadespire whose undead armies breached the city walls and threatened to tear down all that the Katophranes had built. Only after unthinkable bloodshed was the Briar Queen defeated, captured and sentenced to an eternity of imprisonment and torment in the Nightvault, far beneath the city streets. Years passed, and this agonising existence slowly drove the Briar Queen to madness. Trapped for centuries in a cell of obsidian shadeglass, she was consumed by misery and despair, yet an ember of hatred for those who had condemned her to this fate still lingered. She was the perfect tool for Nagash to unleash upon those who dared to trespass within the Mirrored City. The Great Necromancer dragged her screaming essence from her crystal tomb and fashioned her inchoate malice into the dread form of a banshee, with her former mastery of necromantic magic still intact. Nagash’s final gift to the Briar Queen was an army of malicious spirits with which to see his will done[6], and was unleashed to menace lands inhabited by certain souls that have cheated the Great Necromancer. With the aid of her spectral army – the Thorns of the Briar Queen – she visits each of the Mortal Realms, always bringing back her target’s soul. Between missions the Briar Queen returns to Shadespire, for her need for vengeance there remains unsatisfied.[5]
Varclav the Cruel
Varclav the Cruel is the Briar Queen’s majordomo, an infamously sadistic gheist who was formerly the high-warden of the Nightvault until he himself was imprisoned for a string of vile murders.[6]
Ever-Hanged
Greatest amongst the Briar Queen's numbers is the Ever-Hanged, the spectral echo of a serial murderer, around whose neck still hangs the gallows-rope that ended his reign of terror.[6]
Chainrasps
Miniatures
Quotes
| By decree of the Great Necromancer, the souls of all trespassers within the Mirrored City are forfeit [3] |
Sources
- 1: Shadespire website, Warbands
- 2: Games Workshop Webstore Underworlds: Night Vault
- 3: Warhammer Underworlds: Night Vault Card: As Nagash Commands
- 4: Thorns of the Briar Queen warscrolls
- 5: Battletome: Nighthaunt (2018), pg. 19
- 6: Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault - Thorns of the Briar Queen, pg. 8
