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Forces of HORDES: Grymkin: The Wicked Harvest
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Forewarning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Once upon a time . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Chapter 1: Humanity Enslaved . . . . . . . . . . 10 Chapter 2: Rebellion against God . . . . . . . .18 Chapter 3: The Hells of Urcaen . . . . . . . . .2 2 Chapter 4: Birth of the Grymkin . . . . . . . . . 24 Chapter 5: The Old Witch . . . . . . . . . . . .3 0 Chapter 6: The Wicked Harvest Begins . . . . . .3 6
Defiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 The Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 8 The Dreamer & Phantasms . . . . . . . . . . . .5 0 The Heretic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 The King of Nothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Wanderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Zevanna Agha, the Fate Keeper . . . . . . . . .58
Nightmares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Cage Rager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Gorehound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Frightmare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Skin & Moans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Crabbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Rattler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Grymkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Dread Rots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Hollowmen & Lantern Man . . . . . . . . . . . .8 6 Mad Caps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Cask Imps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Murder Crows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Neigh Slayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
O
NCE
UPON a
TIME ...
O
nce upon a time, the Maker of Man—the Hunter of the Wurm, the gigantic Masked God Menoth—stalked Caen. In the shadow
that his looming shape threw on the still-forming world and after the passage of his burning footsteps, the first mewling men and women crawled forth from the foaming waters to seek shelter in lands that were new and untamed. Humanity watched as their towering Creator abandoned them to the hungry and thorny world, chasing after his ultimate prey. He did not hear as they called out to him and prayed for guidance. He simply left them behind. Perhaps Menoth did not want to hear them because he wished only to hunt the Great Beast that prowled in the tangled forests and flashed across the rocky peaks of the new world: the Devourer Wurm. It was the ever-changing beast that gave the wolf its fangs and the lion its claws. The Beast of All Shapes and the Creator of Man waged a neverending war with one another, both unable to overcome the strength of their opponent. Consumed by his desire to win this unwinnable war, Menoth had no time for trifling concerns like humankind. So the wild folk learned to live without their Maker, hiding in caves and cutting their own path through the snarled realm in which they had been left alone. They gathered into families and clans, and those clans grew into tribes. In time they were spread all across the land— living, hunting, and striving together against the unforgiving world. Humanity was freethinking then and uninhibited. Each and every one among them was able to hunt and love and die on his or her own terms. They wandered where they pleased, keeping only the possessions they truly needed to survive, having no interest in amassing great piles of useless things.
The Maker s fort, ti place and ta hi pear seking te Bea ’ fleh . He left his children hungry, forced t forage and hunt . Bu ey are They’v asee beter huners. d e flesh of eir prey as he nevr wi
These first people lived within the pulse and thrum of the primal world. Every day was a new opportunity to explore and experience Caen. They learned their strength and tested their cunning. All lived according to their own desires and needs. They told stories by moonlight, sang songs in the blackest depths of the night. Their spirits became strong because they had survived, wise because they had learned from one another, and fierce because the weakness was purged out of them by the uncompromising world. What they seized from the world they savored, and their songs rang out beneath the moons and stars. When they died, their souls left their flesh behind to be untethered and free.
Bone bone a nd blood
blood
unil te spiri soars
After a time, the glint of these released spirits and the raw vitality of the wild folk living on Caen drew the eye of the Maker away from his hunt. When he witnessed what his creations had become, the Masked God began to crave the pure essence lying hidden deep within their marrow. Menoth hungered for their souls. Menoth knew he could not simply reach out and claim them, for all of humanity had a buried strength that could rattle the oldest oaks and grind mountains down to powder. If these free people discovered that power, they might unite against him, or they might reject him in favor of other gods, such as the distant maiden who danced across the stars. They might even kindle their own power to become gods of their own making. Already many of these mortals had turned to the worship of Menoth’s foremost enemy, the Great Beast. He saw this jealously, as the hunters praised not his name but that of the Devourer Wurm. The hungry serpent would not hesitate to claim their spirits when they
passed from the world of the living to the land of the dead. Worst of all, beyond even these worlds a greater darkness greedily waited, and like ravenous spiders that hide between the walls, the dwellers in this outer darkness were eager to add human souls to their collection.
“ The Masked God began to crave the pure essence lying hidden deep within their marrow. Menoth hungered for their souls. ”
Chapter 1 Humanity Enslaved
F
earing the loss of his creation’s souls, Menoth devised a cunning
plan to convince humankind to willingly become his servants. In Urcaen, the land of spirits, he built a vast and breathtakingly beautiful city. All souls who could reach its gates would be welcomed inside to inhabit its streets and structures and there become an army beyond any conceived of by mortal minds. It was a city built to expand to accommodate all who could and would arrive across the vastness of time. Soon it was sprawling larger than a continent, bordered by high
Welcom t your e, welcome cag You hav beu!ilt it a your da ys .
walls of alabaster stone clad in bronze and shining gold. This city would become home to all the souls Menoth could lure to him. Some came to him unbidden, drawn to their creator by some inner need for his cruel neglect, but not enough to sate his appetites— not enough to guard the monumental walls and perform the necessary labors of his city, not enough to serve as soldiers and slaves in the endless war against his adversary. His greed and gluttony were boundless, and so he devised four clever gifts to draw his abandoned children back to him: the Flame, the Wall, the Sheaf, and the Law. Some would say any true and kind father would have given such gifts to them without a price or, better, would have simply helped them discover these gifts on their own. The Maker devised these gifts so the wild folk would worship him and abandon their uninhibited and primitive ways. He sought to instill in them a fear of the land and its beasts, a fear that would stay with them even beyond their deaths. Then when they died and their souls passed to Urcaen, all those who claimed the gifts would be trapped
in his city and become his eternal warriors. Their power would be chained to his purpose forever. Perhaps the Masked God thought of these gifts as a true blessing. He himself had never been comfortable in the unsettled places; even the wind and rain angered him. It may be that when he looked upon his forgotten children, he wanted to make amends for abandoning them for so long. But a god looks with a god’s eyes, not a mortal’s, and the Maker did not see how receiving his gifts could be a poison to their spirits, how it would chain them to one another and rob them of the freedom that made them clever and strong. In time humankind would hold dominion over one another and would desire more power still. Each bit of it they claimed would stain their hearts, until what had been a beating, hot-blooded muscle became a dark
of wha ingy shardoswhould be d A and charred chunk of coal. Menoth offered his poisoned gifts, and many a hea claimed them. His priest-kings were the first to taste the poison, and they joyfully distributed it to all who could hear their honeyed words. The first gift Menoth offered to his children was the Flame, and many said, “Feel! Now the cold wind will not bite when we lie down to sleep, and the light will drive back the shadows, for in the shadows we see so many hungry things eager to taste our blood.” And so they took the gift and built fires to chase away the shadows of their imagination. They constructed hearths of stacked stones and cut down trees to feed the flickering flames. They stopped wandering, for who would want to stray far from the light, warmth, and comfort of the hearth? Those who took the Flame soon forgot how to see by star and moonlight, deepening their fear of the night. Next, Menoth gave to them the Wall, and they said, “Look! Behind our walls, we are safe from the wolves in the nighttime and safe from our neighbors in the day, for who could breach a wall built of such stout and sturdy stones?” And so those who accepted this gift labored to build more walls, carving the land into pieces, and they fought to keep one another outside of the walls they called their own. Any who crossed these walls they named as trespassers and spies, and they killed such intruders for refusing to abide by the web of walls that Menoth trapped them in.
And then Menoth gave them the Sheaf, and they said, “Taste! Now our stomachs will no longer ache from hunger when we are clumsy hunters and our prey eludes us.” And so some of the people plowed vast fields and sowed grain, which they ate until they were fat and lazy, learning to prefer even mealy bread to the flesh of beasts hunted honestly and freshly killed. Those who toiled in the field became reliant on those who bore spears to protect them, and so they became servants to the lord with the most spears. The grain they harvested was taken from them, and thus were links added to the chain of slavery. Last, Menoth gave the gift of the Law to his people, and they said, “Listen! Now we no longer need to wonder if we are good or if we are evil, if we are wrong or if we are right, because Menoth has given us the Law. We must only obey!” Some among them learned the Law, surrendering the need and the right to think for themselves. They came to see how much better they were than the others, how only cruel punishment could hope to bring the wicked back to the path of the righteous. Some cemented their authority over the rest, gaining the power to decide who would live behind which Walls, who would be warmed by the Fire, who would feast well on the Sheaf, and who, by the Law, would be made kings and queens over all others. And those held in the highest regard were the priests who spoke praises to Menoth, who took credit for the bounty given them.
The Unchained and Unbowed Thus civilization was born and soon in turn gave birth to Icthier. Cinot, founder of this city, was in truth the first and greatest of Menoth’s lickspittles, a priest who did more than any other to further spread Menoth’s poison. All in Icthier would bow before him, surrendering their freedom, their thought, and their very souls. But not all those who were offered the Gifts were so eager to hand over their freedom. A few saw through Menoth’s promises; they knew that what he offered was poison. Decrying his gifts, they said, “Keep your Flame and your Wall, your Sheaf and your Law! You would enslave us in this life and in the next. You would steal our freedom and force us into your city to serve you. Look how it destroys those within
“ They knew that what he offered was poison. ”
it! They are senseless and fat, greedy and lazy. The only gift you offer us is the rot of corruption!” And so these few, brave, free men and women spurned the gifts of their Creator. The first to rebel was the Child. Menoth’s laws placed the parents above their children, and they were expected to devise and enforce petty rules about what was acceptable and what forbidden, what could be done and what shouldn’t. The Child hated these laws because they prevented her from doing what she wanted for no good reason at all. The Child chose to be defiant and would not obey. Her soul gleamed with the wild power of untamable innocence and the rage of youth. Her angry screams deafened any who would tell her what to do, so much that they couldn’t even hear their own thoughts. No wall or
Her cry wanstteoto rs: ce. dictate could contain her. Never would she accept the slaver’s chain. o m m fi a n u s e c a of D e There also came the Wanderer. The walls the people built were
t
made to keep others from wandering, to keep them out of certain places. A road served as a different sort of limitation, dictating a set and finite path chosen by whoever laid its stones. The Wanderer did not accept such constraints on his freedom. An individual should be at liberty to walk wherever he pleases, so the Wanderer moved with no regard for these barriers whether erected by mortal or god. He discovered he could blaze new and impossible paths that no other man could fathom, and when he dared follow them he could journey to places beyond imagining, even into the otherwise intangible stuff of dreams. As Menoth’s laws sapped others of their powers of imagination, one woman rejected the laws he wrote defining what is and what isn’t. The Dreamer wanted nothing to do with the reality Menoth had
created, and she refused to accept it. Instead she dreamed up wholly new realities to reside in, realities so vivid and vibrant that the world around her began to take on new and fanciful life in its envy of what she could imagine. All but last was a man who rejected not only Menoth’s gifts and the society that came with them, but all other people and everything in the world as well. He hated Menoth for his creation, hated humanity even more, and hated the way Menoth’s laws drew people together
and encouraged them to mind one another’s business. He wanted nothing more than to be left alone by all, to live as a hermit. His spite and enmity were so absolute that the very bodies of those who came too close to him would begin to wither and ache. Animals and plants would shrivel and die if they lingered in his presence. His desire for solitude became itself a force of nature, dividing him from all else. In time he sat alone on a barren plot of earth as the spiteful despot of his own empty realm, a self-satisfied King of Nothing. The defiance shown by these rebellious ones enraged Menoth. It was not just their rejection that galled him but also how, in turning their backs on their Creator so irrevocably, they had discovered the greater power residing within their own individual souls. If others also discovered this, the god would be undone. His plan had been so clever and his gifts devised so cunningly, but these petulant humans had tossed them aside without a thought. Menoth desired a tool to drag these disobedient creations back to his worship. Failing that, he intended to end their lives in a way so terrible that it would serve as a curse and warning to any others with the temerity to refuse him.
A g if o f
f ir
e And so Menoth kindled the power within the most devout of those of a differ buil en sour ce. who had accepted his gifts and abided by his laws, and these were elevated as priests and kings among humankind. They struck out across the world, emerging from their cities to put the torch to all of the Creator’s children who chose to act against him. The priest-kings and champions of Menoth led their armies and cleaved through the savages beyond the Wall. Their names were uplifted as golden pillars of the civilized. After Cinot arose Golivant, Khardovic, Thrace, Belcor, and Geth. But there was one who came before even Cinot, one who was erased and stricken from all records. He was first. He was the highest and became the lowest. His name is gone, replaced with a word that transcribes his very essence—Heretic. The Heretic was a priest-king who blazed like the first light of dawn, beating back the shadows in Menoth’s name. He carved a bold path along which were left countless hamlets that would one day grow into cities, and those cities would in turn grow into kingdoms. His light cast a long shadow that eclipsed even Cinot, whom he knew and
“ We are born of thine own flesh! Whatever ye can will, so can we! ”
instructed. Indeed, much that is credited to Cinot should be cast at the feet of the Heretic instead. By Menoth himself he was guided in erecting the grand city of Acrennia, and he soon expanded civilization to the north and west, spreading the fires of Menoth. As his legend grew, however, the Heretic saw the divine for what it truly was. Looking at his own self-supremacy and all that he commanded, he realized all mortals have within them a touch of divine power. He learned that his might had not been bestowed upon him by Menoth but rather that the god had simply kindled that which was always there within. The Heretic knew himself to be singular and special, and he began to dream that beneath the mask worn by Menoth was hidden a face identical to his own. But in this revelation he also saw the world as flawed and ill-made; Menoth’s gifts were but a gilded cage meant to distract humanity from the truth that they were all enslaved in death. If he truly was the inheritor of power to rival Menoth’s own, the Heretic knew he must reshape the world into a new
O nl y ne w eyes pierce suwchi d
form and shatter the chains of bondage.
ecepti Most of all, he saw that Menoth was not a just god. Menoth did not onpunish . the wicked, those who wielded his Gifts like weapons against their neighbors, nor did he reward those who selflessly cared for others with no material benefit to themselves. Instead the god rewarded only obedience, punished only defiance. The Heretic was the first to have the scales of deception fall from his eyes, but he would not be the last. From that point forward the Heretic refused to wield his power in the god’s name, bending it instead to his own purposes. He would not remain Menoth’s puppet, knowing himself to be his Creator’s equal—if not his superior. He harnessed his own divine might and stoked the spark of godhood within him to a roaring flame.
The Heretic raised his face to the heavens and bellowed at his Creator, “Ye have cast us in thine own image! We are born of thine own flesh! Whatever ye can will, so can we!”
Chapter 2 Rebellion against God Once we marched against the walls of Icthier But Menoth strode to battle impervious to our spears. He burned our flesh and spurned our souls And banished us to haunt these stones So linger now our spirits here. — Ancient Menite rhyme of Acrennia
S
pitting in the eye of god, the Heretic’s disobedient and defiant message spread like wildfire. Others throughout Acrennia were
drawn to him like moths to a flame, and in time the Heretic sparked the fires of a rebellion. Those who joined him were not merely the superstitious or cowardly but true individuals who wanted to returnto their lives free of Menoth’s demands and the gifts he thought to offer humanity. There were some who took to this rebellion with swords and spears, following the Heretic’s blazing path as he rolled over many of the villages he himself had once nurtured. His army marched on the first city, Icthier, ready to tear down the oppresssive edifice Menoth had made. Two of the defiant ones, the Child and the Wanderer, joined the Heretic as he prepared to destroy Menoth’s bastion. The others rebelled in their own ways. The Dreamer drew deeper into her chosen realities, spilling echoes of her dreams out into the world. The King of Nothing withdrew even further from all other living things, his aching need for solitude becoming so great that even others could feel it.
Menoth could not stand for this rebellion; he could not abide one of his own, to whom he had given such power and authority, rising up against him. So the Creator summoned his unfathomable power and let loose his fiery wrath. The Heretic’s city he smote with an earthquake, rattling the stones of Acrennia and cursing the land to be poisoned forever after. The leaders of the Heretic’s armies he burned to ash, condemning their souls to wander helplessly through the rubble of their city. The rest he bound in agonizing chains of burning brass and forced them to watch their champions receive divine castigation. For the Child, the Wanderer, the Dreamer, h t e King of Nothing, and the Heretic, he reserved his cruelest punishment. Oneby one he looked down on the Defiers as they demonstrated their refusalof the gift of civilization he had bestowed uponhumankind, and he proclaimed:
are these wh o da re re e? Who thisfu se who mclaims to beis my eq ua l? I am th e ma ke r of man . I am th e Gi ve r of th e Fl am e, th e Sh ea f, th e Wa ll , an d th e La w. Fo r yo ur ins ol en ce , y ou wi ll f ac e a wo rl d wi th ou t my me rc y—a just reward fo r de fi an t ch ild re n su ch as yo u!
“Who
”
And as Menoth smote the world, he cracked the barrier between Caen and Urcaen like the shell of an egg, opening an ever-widening fissure between the lands of the living and the dead. The Defiers looked down into the howling abyss, into the endless churning wilds of Urcaen, where spirit beasts tore at each other with their spectral talons and teeth. By the power of the Maker of Man, the Defiers were cast down, still alive, into the hell of Urcaen, a place of spirit where no living things had ever stepped. It was, and is, a world where their special gifts and extraordinary natures would avail them nothing, where the hungry spirit beasts of the Devourer Wurm would torment them with tooth and claw. There the Defiers would not age, nor could they die, for time did not flow as it does on Caen. Their tortured bodies would endure suffering beyond comprehension across an eternal cycle with no ordered cycle of day and night to mark time’s passage. But the Heretic, the last of the Defiers to plummet into the chasm, spat a proclamation at his Creator as he fell, a prophecy set against the rotten fruits of Menoth’s work, a curse from the accursed. Bound together with the others by his disobedience and refusal of Menoth, he issued a prophecy and declaration against Menoth’s great works:
Sin ce th is la nd was fi rs t tu rn ed St oo d fa stfo rontehetrbo uthuntthyatit awo ll umoldrtgralowme, n know ,
“
Choose ye wrong or choose ye right, Fe ed ye dar kn es s or fee d ye li gh t, At the end of your days, yo u sh all re ap wh at yo u so w.
”
And with the Heretic’s direful words, the five Defiers vowed to return to Caen someday. They knew the power of their own souls would eventually free them from their prison, and when that came to pass they would rattle civilization and snuff out its corrupt, black heart. They would punish all who accepted Menoth’s gifts to the detriment of others. They would reap a Wicked Harvest from humankind.
’s sing. el t spiri f d n a , w o n n ilds of Urca er goes Oh walkonte knf ows where te wander sing r blow N r, s vry fa a t e m i w h m a i c h s ow S foThr a h can har u ds of Urcaen , n ow. Oh walk tWe fiesl ha rap wha w s
Chapter 3 The Hells of Urcaen
T
he world of the dead was not made for the living. When first the
Defiers arrived in the infinite expanse of the spirit world, they were tiny, vulnerable things, unable to defend h t emselves against the hungry roaming spirits of that place. They tried to fight against the beasts of Urcaen, but even with thetalents they had honed in life theycould not hold back the agonies of hell. When they tired and could fight no more, the mercurial hunters of the spiritworld would fall upon them. Even the Defiers’ own thoughts betrayed them. When they collapsed in exhaustion from their endless running and hiding, they were overtaken by terrible nightmares. Given power by the essence of Urcaen, their nightmares had solidity and will, birthed whole and hungry from their minds. For unnumbered years, the Defiers had not a moment of peace. But though they were forgotten and abandoned to their fate, their inner resolution remained. Time in hell warped the bodies and minds of the Defiers. Endlessly they suffered at the claws, teeth, and blades of their tormentors. Their fears were given life anew to chew at their flesh and slowly took on new and stranger bestial forms. Torment was the Defiers’ crucible, burning away any weakness or fear they may still have had and replacing it with toughened scar tissue. Their minds grew inured to the terror and agony, though the only defense of a mind exposed to such things is to become uniquely mad. Each moment of suffering made them stronger, more able to withstand the coming tortures. Mortal ages passed on Caen, civilizations rose and fell, before they rose out of pain and fear and madness.
at Hear e r
moans, le, hear nge cage.
e clanki dread t s baleful baying, Hear te gofreorhdeoufnyd’ing ye must pay!
Through this process of spiritual destruction and rebirth, the Defiers learned to further harness and shape their unique powers. They learned to control the spirit world around them, treating the landscape of hell as a canvas for their dreams to work upon. They learned to shackle even their own nightmares and force them to yield to the Defiers’ incomparable wills. Though they were together, they walked their own separate paths through the darkness. As their minds and spirits had been remade by the trials of hell, the Defiers discovered that their bodies, the true flesh that clothed them, were subject to their own control. Spirit and flesh had become one. The pain the Defiers faced in Urcaen could only be deadened, not eliminated entirely, but in time they learned to endure, even as they planned their eventual escape. They were no longer condemned to hell: as they embraced their diverse powers, they became hell’s masters.
Chapter 4
T
Whispers
in te s d a r k t teir meanales oftheand-towolsd Birth of the Grymkin i mere stngs few now unders ories, d and— im and old hose who bore witness to the Defiers’ acts of rebellion, and those who watched as Menoth cast them into hell, remembered those five
ungovernable souls and shared stories of their disobedience. They retold the legends as cautionary tales to their children. In the light of crackling logs or swinging whale-oil lanterns, the Defiers’ stories spread in quiet whispers and drunken rants. Across the bogs and fields of the world, the legends of the Defiers grew and changed over time, as tales of those who foolishly stood like oaks against the burning wrath of a god. Grandmothers’ stories and fathers’ warnings came down through the generations like the white tendrils of a weed, taking firm root in the fertile soil of imagination. Generation after generation spun these tales, wheedling out fireside epics with their hushed words, always adding to the legend and embellishing it. Though they were told as warnings, in many of these tales was a hint of admiration for those who rebelled, drawn from long-buried dreams of lost freedom. Away in their prison, the five heard the tinny echoes of the tales that grew around them. They supped on those fables and mopped up each honeyed word with the crust of childish fears, rejoicing in the sweet flavor it offered them in their trackless confinement. The Defiers seized the stories with greedy fingers, pulling in each new-spun tale and holding it tight, basking in the comforting warmth it spread in their aching meat and frozen bones. In turn, they passed their own stories back to those able to hear them. Through dreams brought on by fevers, the Defiers whispered clarity into the minds of storytellers. To the unquiet imaginations of certain men they showed visions of the
hell they inhabited. And so, as the stories from above helped to shape and refine their appetites and bodies, they fed their own stories back to the world of the living to magnify their legends. As years went by and the stories grew and multiplied and changed, the Defiers caught sight of others doing what they never could: passing through the veil that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. These were the souls of the deceased, who took a road barred to the Defiers on the way to their afterlife. Each pious soul hoped to arrive safely in Menoth’s ever-expanding city in Urcaen, while others wandered lost and doomed in the trackless wilds, never to find their final reward. It was the wayward souls that drew the attention of the Defiers, especially the Heretic. By their very nature these lost souls felt inexorably drawn to the Defiers, their wandering paths not as directionless as they thought. Tales told of the Defiers on Caen had paved unseen roads to their realm in hell, routes of least resistance opened by the fears and doubts of those who were wicked in life and whose fates were already linked by the legends of the five. Men and women who had committed sins against their fellows feared facing the Defiers after death, and that fear forged an unbreakable chain pulling them to their inevitable punishments. Urcaen had never been kind to the impious—to the doubters, the lax, the selfishly cruel and the lazily greedy. Such souls arrived in the afterlife far from the realms of the gods and there became easy prey for monstrous creatures, forced to run from myriad horrors dwelling in the shifting expanse of Urcaen’s hell. In their terror they took what seemed the easiest path—down rocky hills, along cleared trails through chattering woods, following the banks of icy rivers. All of these paths took them straight to the Defiers, who waited for them in vast dreamscapes they had carved for themselves. Each of these wayward souls was seized and scrutinized, laid bare by the Heretic or another of the five who read the history of their lives and transgressions engraved into their very being. Lives were peeled back year by year like the layers of an onion, revealing secret hopes, deepdwelling fears, and long-buried regrets and humiliations. Examining these souls, the Defiers confirmed the truth of the conclusions they had drawn at the outset of their rebellion: mortals had been marred by the foul fruits that thrived in Menoth’s
“ Mortals had been marred by the foul fruits that thrived in Menoth’s civilization. ”
civilization. Drunkards, cowards, liars, cheats, the vain and jealous, all twisted by their shallow lives. The Defiers saw what each soul was truly made of, and with the power they had seized, they saw fit to pass judgment on them. The Defiers acted as a fractured mirror for the spirits before them, reflecting their iniquities. In those reflections the souls saw themselves as the wretched beings they were, having lived their lives at the expense of others. They had wielded the Gifts of Menoth like weapons, using them purely to better their own selfish lives. In the plight of their victims, the Defiers saw a reflection of their own unjust suffering at Menoth’s hands, and the righteous anger of the five helped to fuel their transformation. The essence of the wayward souls was reshaped to better match the sins within each. That which is dead cannot normally live again, but the powers of the Defiers allowed these spirits a different sort of afterlife, one that would eventually permit a return toCaen. Fueled by the Defiers’ judgments, They hav su ffered an d the natural laws that preserve a soul’s coherence were overwritten and s sha we a., replaced. This gave these spirits new and grotesque bodies and minds, utterly removed from their past lives. Hearkening to the old stories that cautioned against the very sins for which they had been judged, and guided by the Defiers’ mad dreams, these souls took on wholly new forms. Each was bound up with some old story or legend, a folktale or child’s rhyme. These became the grymkin. The Defiers discovered that grymkin were not as firmly bound to Urcaen as either the Defiers themselves or the ordinary spirits of the dead.Each time a new soul crossed from the land of the living into the realm of the dead, itspassage left a temporary pinprick in the barrierbetween these worlds. These small gateways soon closed of their own accord and were too small toallow the passage of anything in return, especially the powerful Defiers; inthis, their own magnificence betrayed them. Yet grymkin, with theirpeculiar and chimerical forms, could slip through the smallest pinprick with ease. Every time a dead spiritpasses, there is a small chance a grymkin will leap back into the world ofthe living, balancing the scales. The Defiers instructed the growing throng of grymkin to lie in wait for these small doors to open and toreturn to Caen at every opportunity. Sometimes many souls tumbled through at once, such as atthe height of
a great battle where death was thick,and a throng of grymkin could rush back through the other way. The Heretic studiedthese passages with a scholar’s eye. Nights when the moons were dark orthe stars aligned in certain ways let more powerful grymkinthrough, as did the deaths of innocent men and women who fell victimto Menoth’s cruel justice. More failed to cross than succeeded, but each who made itthrough was a small victory, a way for theDefiers to change Caen, however indirectly, and to pave the way for a greater reckoning to come. Grymkin used the wars of humanity to their own advantage, slipping through unnoticed like bilge rats stowing away inthe hold of a great ship. And so, over the long years of the Defiers’ imprisonment, numerous grymkin crossed over from Urcaen. Each was filled with a desire to bring mischief and danger to the world of the living,
r... to invoke fear and nightmares, to punish the wicked. They felt
d e an ord
s les ou e r it b w um ...n
compelled by their very natures to seek those whose souls had been marked by the same corruption that defined their own shaping. Each kind of grymkin hungered for a certain flavor of sin, a specific variety of blemish and weakness. Sin called to sin. Murderers sought out murderers and thieves sought out thieves. Some grymkin even possessed the power to transform others to become like them, spreading their nature like an infection. The seemingly capricious ways of the grymkin inspired yet more folk stories. Those who happened to witness the grymkin claiming their victims would share their tales, delighting in the madness and the macabre, savoring these dark parables of morality and punishment. In time, through trial and error, rustic peoples learned some of the rules grymkin must abide by, their often peculiar vulnerabilities. These too were shared from father to son, from mother to daughter, down through the years. As cities rose and grew, pushing back the dark forests and hidden places where the grymkin lurked, the truth behind these tales was slowly forgotten. But hidden within most nursery rhymes and bedtime stories were hints of truths about the grymkin, though not their srcins or deeper purpose. The grymkin sowed the seeds of the Wicked Harvest for centuries, seeds the Defiers and their army of nightmares would reap when the time was right.
“ The grymkin sowed the seeds of the Wicked Harvest for centuries. ”
Chapter 5 od fre e new. oldpgrevn t t s Sh
The Old Witch
T
he key that would unlock the Defiers’eternal prison first began to take form long, long ago. In the earliest of days, far in the north
in the barren lands of ice and biting wind, something keen-eyed and razor-taloned lurked in a cave. It watched as Menoth walked the world and saw the first people ofthe north as they emerged from nothingness. When it was hungry it would sneak out in the night and snatch one of them, dragging the corpse back to its cave where it would drink the blood and chew the bones. After a time, the thing in the cave began to appreciate the northern folk for more than theflavor in their blood and meat. It began to savor the strength of their spirits and to relish the taste of their ambitions and dreams. Itlearned to appreciate the vintage of their fears. It saw the merits of influencing them. Gradually, this being took on a new form, one which more closely resembled humankind. Emerging from the shadows of the cave, it walked among the northerners as a stooped and weathered crone, garbed in a cloak stitched together from the time-worn hides of countless kills. It had come to learn the tongue of the northerners from their screams and their whimpering pleas. It learned the name the people whispered when they spoke of it, and it found the name pleasing: Zevanna Agha. In time they would come to know her simply as the Old Witch. She became a sort of steward of the northmen, bearing a strange affection for them and an unutterable link to their bloodlines. She saw how Menoth’s gifts could be put to another use, to make her favored northern tribes flourish. She encouraged them to build up their cities, though she cautioned them to always remain
rooted in the wild places. Almost alone of beings on Caen, she walked in both places comfortably. The Old Witch had seen the Defiers stand against Menoth and had listened to the Heretic’s pronouncement as they were thrown into the hells of Urcaen. The unmistakable ring of prophecy prickled at her ears. The Heretic’s words were more than mere words. The oath the Defiers swore that day was a pact that would be burned indelibly into their souls, fueled by their hatred for the corruption that spilled out of Menoth’s civilization wherever it grew. This act caught the attention of the Old Witch, but she is ever cunning, always scheming, devising ways to turn the fate of the world to her own ends. And so she stowed away the memory in her vast library of thoughts and dreams and left it there until a need for it arose in the world. That need came with the creatures of the outer darkness, things B lack sn
neither of the physical world nor of Urcaen but from a lightless
sw akes imm ent ing wine in a d, beings of shadow have long probed their fingers into the lands of the oce vas an t like living, offering promises and power in return for that which they oil
place beyond them both. Greedy for the power of human souls, these
covet the most.
Long after Menoth locked the Defiers away, a young woman called Thamar—who turned out to be not so different from the Defiers themselves—and her brother Morrow discovered the power to ascend as a god. When the Orgoth came and put the people of her lands to the whip and chain, Thamar was asked by her brother to make a pact with the sinister oathmakers dwelling in the dark beyond to empower her people with sorcerous gifts. The bargain she offered these entities demanded a payment that Thamar knew could never be paid—one which might threaten the very nature of the balance between Caen and Urcaen. Like the Old Witch of the north, this self-made goddess knew the Defiers waited in hell. She knew that when they ultimately escaped, they would be anathema to the degenerate humans the creatures of darkness need in order to
thrive. So, with the dark masters from beyond eager to bargain with her and unaware of the fate that awaited them should the Defiers one day be freed, the woman agreed to their terms. As decades and centuries spun forward, as the wheels of heaven turned in the sky, the dark masters did find people in the world who were as foul and greedy as they, and they made inroads into the world through shadowy pacts with these men and women. Such wicked humans were living testaments to the warnings the Defiers had uttered, proof in the flesh of the seeming flawed fruit Menoth’s gifts had wrought. While the weakness in humankind that Menoth introduced may have helped precipitate the dark masters finding open and vulnerable souls, the unfathomable threat stood clearly apart from Menoth. Even in hell the Defiers paid heed to the fragmented stories that reached their ears. They stirred, taking note of events in living history for the first time since their imprisonment, and they watched the influence of those bound to the darkness spread. In time, the number of those willing to pledge their souls to the dark masters swelled. The greed in their hearts, fed by the luxuries their power granted them, grew until they were willing to swear it all away for more power, more wealth, more comfort in life. Hiding at the fringes of the settled places, they worked in shadow toward their own ends, but all the while they gave their dark masters the opportunity to look upon the world of mortal men. With clear eyes, these inscrutable beings scouted the lands and prepared to claim the world and all human souls as their own. Zevanna Agha foresaw the darkness that was coming and knew that she alone could not stop it. As the number of its agents piercing the barrier between worlds grew, she knew she faced an apocalypse. The armies of humankind had grown vast, and they commanded weapons built of technology married to magic, but even the greatest mechanika and the mightiest champions would be inadequate to face the horrors shaped by the outer darkness.
The D
efiers like hungstir ry wiin eirwcoalvs ge.
So too would the armies of the wilds be insufficient. For too long they had torn at one another’s throats. They had learned to wield might and magic and to command terrifying beasts, but they were too easily distracted with old squabbles and schemes to help hold the darkness back. Instead, the Old Witch turned to the Defiers. If she threw open the doors of their eternal cage, whatever they had become, whatever emerged into the physical world once more, would tear at the roots of the Iron Kingdoms to find the corruption within. The murky border between civilization and the wilds was a common hiding place for wicked men and women working in the shadows. If the Defiers set loose their harvest, they were certain to claim the malfeasants who were the greatest allies the dark masters had on Caen. As the grymkin took their toll, they would provide a warning to others who might fall to similar corruption.
Se back te ick bcylock: ock
But it would be a painful harvest they claimed. The wicked would reap what they had sown as the Defiers punished them for their misdeeds. In unleashing them upon the world, Zevanna Agha would be injecting poison into a sick body in the hope that it would kill the deadly parasites within before it killed the patient. And despite the work of the Wicked Harvest, there would always be corruption in the hearts of humans. There would always be an abundance of foolish mortals seeking power. But the Defiers and their motley throng could slow the encroachment of the darkness into Caen and give her more time to prepare for its arrival. The Old Witch considered all of this, weighing the benefit of having such potent allies to fight the darkness against the trouble and chaos the Defiers would bring with them. Finally, she made her choice and threw open the doors of Urcaen. But the witch was canny and always made sure to stack events in her own favor, so she carefully set aside individuals who would one day help her drive back the Defiers and their children should their menace prove to be greater than their aid to her and her designs.
Chapter 6 The Wicked Harvest Begins
Z
evanna Agha scoured the world for clues about the Defiers to help her as she worked to set them free. She captured grymkin
and pulled them apart in her claws to discern their makers’ marks.
She camse many
She consorted with madmen who claimed that voices in the walls spoke to them unfathomable truths. She watched from a distance as witches danced and howled around blazing fires, holding crude
of us . . . totems of the Wanderer and the Child. She listened to the scattered prophecies of fortunetellers and sages, hearing within their divinations occasional seeds of truth. Everywhere she looked, she found scraps and hints left by the five. Piece by piece, the Old Witch pulled together her plan. With a host of minions she had cajoled, bribed, and manipulated, she would build a great device to rip at the warp and weft of reality. With it she could pull open a tear between the worlds. The most difficult piece of the puzzle was to find a means to communicate with the Defiers, to find the hidden patch of Urcaen they claimed as their kingdom. While she could force grymkin to obey her will, their capriciousness was so deeply rooted in their essence that they proved useless as messengers to reach their creators. She required a mortal conduit. The solution came in the form of a young noblewoman. Driven mad by loss and grief, Lady Karianna Rose resided in an institution for the insane. Her breed of madness had drawn a flock of invisible grymkin to her side. She treated the little things like her own children, who were now dead in the grave. The love she felt for her grymkin was genuine, and they would do anything for her in return.
Zevanna Agha whispered into Lady Karianna’s dreams. The hopes and fears spawned by these whispers affected her grymkin companions and were eventually perceived by Defiers, especially the far-roaming mind of the Dreamer. At times a death was required to allow a grymkin to return with a cryptic message to its greater masters, which seemed to the Old Witch a small price to pay. In this indirect way, these ancient and unknowable powers conspired through the sleeping babble of an insane woman. The Old Witch had other conspirators to assist with the completion of her great machine, foremost among them the founder of a secretive group dedicated to investigating the supernatural. The device they built combined Zevanna Agha’s cunning with the power of mortal ingenuity, and its completion enabled her to crack open a gateway to hell through which the Defiers could return to the world at long last. When the time was right, Zevanna Agha pierced a hole in the veil between worlds, and out of that portal strode the Defiers. They emerged with a deep and primal hunger that reached down to their very souls, a burning need to fulfill the promise they had made so long ago to reap their due from the debased hearts of civilized men. The world was much changed since their banishment, but the corruption they foresaw resided in every corner of the land. The Defiers had much work to do, but they would not be alone. The moment the five emerged from hell, every grymkin in the world felt an irresistible tug. They abandoned their mischief, leaving cruel tricks half-finished and clever traps unsprung, and journeyed to meet their makers.
DEFIERS There are no beings on Caen, living or dead, which are like the Defiers.
There is a p
lace where w e wi g Tha only e Defiers know.
They wait for us
far, far below —
And we sha ca tem maser.
ce their banishment to hell, the srcinal names of the Defiers have been lost to a fog of myth and superstition. Instead, they are most commonly identified by the fundamental
Sin
concepts that each represent: the Child, the Dreamer, the Heretic, the King of Nothing, the Wanderer. In backwater communities, however, and among other superstitious folk who for countless generations have told their tales, the five are called by myriad names. To the swampies of northern Cygnar, the Heretic is known as Father Stoneface, while to the Kossites of Khador he is gyordi listoy, or “The Proud-
Faced One.” Legends of the Defiers can be found in all corners of western Immoren, and the local stories about them are obscured by an accidental conspiracy to cloak the truth of their srcins in mystery.
The tales of their defiance of Menoth have been misattributed, altered, and reconfigured over
In the days that followed the banishment of the Defiers, those who viewed them as great spirits
thousands of years. Not even the Defiers themselves
or angry gods gathered together. Rural folk in
can recall the exact details of their lives or of the
some isolated regions see the five as dangerous
transition to their new existences. The pain they endured fractured their minds, and in scraping
and powerful beings and will attempt to placate them and avoid their attentions. Countless remote
up the pieces they have allowed fragments of the legends about them to join the disjointed mosaic
communities have modest shrines to one or more of the Defiers, garlanded with trinkets and offerings
of their memories. They choose for themselves
intended to ward off their wrath. These gestures
the parts of the stories they like and hold them as absolute truths. Even when their stories clash and
please the Defiers: the pleas of frightened travelers stopped at such a crossroad shrine or the cautionary
contradict each other, the Defiers cling to these
nursery rhymes cooed by a grandmother to her
tales. Since their wills can bend mortal memory and reality itself, separating truth from fiction with the
grandchildren might not be true worship, but the Defiers bathe in it as if such words were prayers.
Defiers is almost impossible.
The Defiers are both the authors of the Wicked
not one of them, not even the King of Nothing, is
Harvest and its singular masters. Each commands a
ever truly apart from the others. They can feel one
diverse legion of grymkin and a host of nightmares pulled from Urcaen into the world of the living. No
another’s presence no matter the distance between them, whispering into each other’s minds and
dissension exists among the ranks of the Wicked
dreams with but a thought.
Harvest—the will of the Defiers is absolute and incontestable.
united by purpose is the Wicked Harvest. Nothing
There is no true leader among the five. Though
The one pursuit in which they are absolutely can shake them from punishing the wicked among
the Heretic styles himself as the foremost of the Defiers, in truth they are equal in power over the
humankind, from forcing the corrupt to reap the fruits of their foul labor. But they are not united in
grymkin. They have little need to debate matters,
vision. Each defied Menoth in a unique way, and
for the eons they spent together in hell allows each one to know the desires of the others. They have
each desires to reap what is due according to his or her own whims. The Heretic despises the faith of
their own distinct plans and agendas, and they tend
Menoth most of all and wishes to see its choirs made
to give each other leeway even when they disagree. It is rare for them to truly work together, though
mute and its temples ground to dust. The Wanderer loathes the walls of human civilization more than
it is even more rare for one to stand in the way of another. When a conflict occurs, the one who
anything else and would see them flattened, and the Child would see all mortal children freed from the
disagrees with the others will go off for a time to
chains of their parents’ subjugation by making them
pursue his or her own agenda but will always return
orphans. The Dreamer, in her unbroken trance of
again. Urcaen forced them together for so long that
somnolent visions, secretly desires that all humanity
would join in her everlasting slumber. Hating all
of the wilderness, is an expression of willpower
creation and everything in it, the King of Nothing seeks to render Caen a vast field of nothingness,
over reality. Magic coaxes reality into doing the impossible, whether summoning a mystic storm of
devoid of man, beast, and his fellow Defiers alike.
ice or commanding the very earth to split asunder.
Each Defier is an ageless creature of unfathomable power that borders on godhood.
The power of the Defiers approaches that of the gods in its ability to remake the very substance of the world, at least for a time.
They have transcended the limitations of the flesh to embody the nature of their individual defiance. Even their own bodies are a reflection of this
When the Defiers wield magic, they allow a shred of their nightmare reality to bleed into Caen.
essence, deceptive to behold. Some, like the Child
The Defiers’ twisted dreamscapes bubble and churn
and the King of Nothing, inhabit bodies that look weak and frail, but they nonetheless command a
to the surface like infectious madness. The trees curl around the five, and the ground heaves beneath
strength that can lay low the mightiest champions
their tread. Reality is reshaped into forms that are
of the living world. All of this is the unwitting gift of Menoth’s punishment. Urcaen burned away their
more pleasing and familiar to the Defiers, taking on the cast of their own individual patches of hell,
weaknesses. It molded and refined them. In the millennia of their imprisonment they learned how
softening to their subconscious desires and their conscious whims. To face one of the five, one must
to wield the power that resides in their souls, and in
first pass through an impossible world that obeys
so doing they magnified that power immeasurably.
only the fancies of that Defier.
Some of the Defiers, like the Dreamer and the Wanderer, had in their previous lives shown only a
Though this power is impressive, the Defiers are at their most terrifying when someone’s actions
timid echo of the forces that they would command
align with or violate the invisible, mystical rules
once they walked Caen again. What they did in those days was done by pure reflex and instinct, not
written on the Defier’s own souls. Like the grymkin they created, each Defier is bound up by their denial
design. All of them have since had the opportunity to embrace the true arcane strength in their souls.
of civilization. As they were shaped and reshaped in hell, as each of them embraced ever more tightly
They have tested and taught one another to coax out
their own identities and powers, these strictures
that inner strength. Now, each of the Defiers has the power to replace the fabric of the real world with
became ingrained deep in their very nature. The rules are countless and obscure, unknown even
things that are far more pleasing to them.
to the Defiers themselves, but if someone in their
All magic, be it the systematic arcane arts of the Iron Kingdoms or the unbridled sorcery
presence breaks these supernatural codes, a Defier’s power bursts forth to shake the world to its core.
The Old Witch is not counted among the Defiers, but she is similarly immortal and draws on ancient
To show their gratitude for loosing them from Urcaen, the Defiers have given the Old Witch
powers related to her nature and her ties to the
authority over a host of grymkin and nightmares.
northern lands. Her power also has rules known
She in return uses grand arcane devices to punch
only to her and can flare to greater strength under
holes through reality, allowing new armies of the
special circumstances. Like the Defiers, Zevanna Agha is a creature of legend and folktales, and her
Wicked Harvest to tumble into the world. Only the Old Witch has this power. Should Zevanna
clawed fingers touch the nightmares of humankind. Without her, the Defiers may have remained in
Agha ever turn her back on the Defiers, they know she could one day condemn them to Urcaen once
Urcaen, the promise of the Wicked Harvest forever
more—or worse, trap them on Caen with an ever-
unfulfilled.
dwindling host by their side.
ER THE DREAAM S MS & PHANT
by reality. unhindered aking life, w om r f d d ly, untethere un s SHE DRIFTS free he dream d unbo s d n a , r e m a e r She is the D an den nbid both u H er d rea ms are not lucid, but formless and ever changing and she FLOATS upon the swirling eddies of emotion they stir up. .
,
All things of the waking world are to her ju
st
DI STANT echoes, half-heard as she
She shapes the
passe
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bere
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and ha
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S
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ext .
ns.
er power to shape Among all of us, h and alter the world is second to none.
and
M om ent t om with ome out nt s eve he b n t res hin irth kin hap sP g sh in g HAN e alte it i TA S M nto rs t S and he wh v f an ery im sica fles tas ies ho lA , f the co N D S P E CT rru AC pt,
ULA
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NIGHTMARES The srcinal nightmare beasts were given flesh the very moment the first Defier dreamed in Urcaen.
Whence comes te Flesh of a nighmare? I makes is own .
merged from hell to stride alongside the Defiers is an army born of their darkest tormented dreams. Given bodies of flesh and blood, these nightmares are bonded to the ones they once preyed upon.
E
The horrifying capabilities of these beasts were honed by millennia of hunting their creators across the wastes of Urcaen before being bound to the Defiers’ will. Despite the fact that they now obey the Defiers, the physical bodies and essence of these supernatural creatures are a reflection of the deepest, most secret
fears of their five progenitors.
The generative power of living souls in the spirit
Twisted and mercurial in their earliest
realm caused the Defiers’ dreamstuff to solidify
incarnation, these nightmares had protean forms.
into bones and flesh, chains and teeth. Perhaps the nightmares gave the formless and hungry
They were shifting entities of shadow and noise that bristled with cruel weapons. Over time, however,
spirits of the void shapes they could adopt. Perhaps
they began to wear the skins of the Defiers’ worst
they needed no such aid to take living forms. Not
fears. Each new night of fevered dreaming imbued
even the Defiers could ever know for sure. All they understood was that each night of sleep brought
them with greater power and form. The Wanderer’s nightmares were filled with
with it a fresh host of horrors.
restraints and cages, so his dreams would bind and cage him. The King of Nothing had nightmares of
The Defiers’ mortal minds and therefore their dreams were strongly affected by the chaotic and
being trapped among babbling, mindless crowds, so
malevolent landscape of Urcaen’s wilds, which in turn are said to be a manifestation of the
his dreams were garbed with murmuring faces and pulled him in close. The Child dreamed of hungry
Wurm’s own dark dreams. Slumber brought only
shadows that chased her through the wilds and
nightmares born from the unyielding fear they experienced, and those nightmares were enhanced
ugly things that mocked her fears. The Heretic saw the masked face of the Creator glaring at him and
by the underlying malice and cruelty that permeated
remembered when he had felt compelled to rend his
the Devourer’s hunting grounds.
own skin in supplication. His proud hate was made manifest in a threshing beast of metal and flesh.
In the beginning, each Defier could recognize
Though the Defiers were exceptionally powerful
the beasts created by his or her own dreams. They
individuals, they struggled to fight the hellish
bore clear marks to tell of their srcin. As the nightmares hunted their creators and tortured
creatures that endlessly tormented them. The battle was futile. The nightmares were too strong, and
them over uncountable centuries, though, these
the five too fragile. And even if they did manage to
tormentors became the nightmares of the other Defiers as well. This mingling of each Defier’s own
destroy one of the beasts, the next night the Defiers themselves would give birth to a dozen more, worse
unique essence further strengthened and defined
than those that came before.
the nightmares. In time, the influence of a given Defier became less distinct. The beasts became an amalgamation of all the Defiers’ fears, empowered by the collective terror that inspired them. It was then that the Defiers realized the full horror of Menoth’s punishment. Though they could not die
They could
in Urcaen, they remained mortal and thus remained bound by mortal needs. No ephemeral food or drink
not escape...
in the spirit realm could give them sustenance, leaving them perpetually thirsty and starved. Their need for sleep ensured that hungry nightmares forever stalked the Defiers through Urcaen, chasing them from one haven to another. When one of the horrors they spawned caught one of the five, it tore viciously at flesh and soul, leaving deep scars that burned and ached for ages, even though their bodies healed with inhuman speed. No matter the severity of their wounds or the intensity of their anguish, the Defiers were denied the mercy of death’s release. The Defiers considered splitting up and going to the far corners of Urcaen, hoping that the beasts might leave one or more of them alone in favor of the others. But when they tried, they were harried and corralled back together, for the nightmares were stronger when they could draw on the sleeping dread of the whole group and thus desired the Defiers to remain united.
This was Menoth’s ultimate punishment, a fate worse than death, meant to be inflicted throughout all eternity upon the arrogant humans who had spurned him. For all his power, however, Menoth fell prey to the same flaw that had given rise to the Defiers in the first place: a belief in his infallible might and an underestimation of the power within their once-mortal souls. For while the Defiers were prisoners, he failed to realize how they would bend their minds to the task of escaping from his prison— how even this torment would itself, in the fullness of time, strengthen them.
Each of the Defiers would be needed to break
Sensing fresh prey, the nightmares turned on
free of their torments, though they did not at first
the Child and attacked her. Wracked with pain
acknowledge their mutual dependence. The Heretic saw that of all of them, the Dreamer suffered the
under their slashing claws, she howled defiantly for her new friend, calling out for it by name: “DOLLY!”
least from the nightmares. As the energy of Urcaen slowly and subtly altered the Defiers, she never woke and instead descended into a kind of constant
The Child’s cries caused the Dreamer to conjure up the Child’s desired companion—a powerful and terrible beast that utterly loved the Child as much as
sleepwalking reverie. Rather than the horrendous
the Child loved it. Fueled by a rage that echoed the
nightmares the rest of them birthed, she instead created weaker and less haunting dreams of
Child’s own, the monstrous Dolly waded in among the hungry nightmares and laid waste to them,
baffling shape, small and fragile nightmares that the horrifying things the others dreamed of would
breaking their bones and rending their flesh with its
feast upon as eagerly as the Defiers’ own flesh. The Heretic cast the Dreamer out. He believed
massive talons. As Dolly crushed and lashed at the host of nightmares to protect its beloved Child, the other
the constant stream of half-formed notions, daydreams, and tepid nightmares that formed
Defiers saw opportunity. The Wanderer snatched the King of Nothing and took an impossible step,
around her would draw the attention of the larger, hungrier beasts. These lesser dream-creatures
dropping them both amid the awful melee. The
would provide the greater nightmares with
Nothing weakened the nightmares, letting Dolly rip
nourishment as they clawed at the Dreamer’s flesh,
them apart with greater ease.
burned her with acid, fed their monstrous hatred by tormenting her floating, inert form.
The Defiers watched with joy as the nightmares fell. Even the Dreamer’s lips twitched in a lazy
aura of withering misery surrounding the King of
His plan may have helped abate his own
smile when the last of their collective torturers lay
suffering, even if it could not extinguish it. But he was not the only one working in secret. As the
vanquished on the ground. One by one, the Defiers
nightmares closed in on the Dreamer, they failed to notice the small form of the Child creeping up
most vulnerable and, seeing them in broken heaps,
on them in the dark. The Child had grown tired of fear and weary of pain. Over centuries, she had whispered in the Dreamer’s slumbering ear,
confronted their nightmares when they were robbed the nightmares of their power. And one by one, the Defiers leashed them through force of will. Though they remained manifestations of the
describing a companion who would keep her safe
Defiers’ deepest fears, they had been changed. They had become instruments to unleash those fears
in this awful, unforgiving world, a protector who
upon a world that had bent its knee to Menoth.
would do her bidding. Brazenly, she strode up to the nightmares as they descended on the Dreamer and taunted them to draw their attention.
Once the Defiers learned to control their
Even so, the nightmares sometimes revert to
nightmares, they had a weapon to fight back
their old behavior—it is, after all, indelibly writ on
against the wilds of Urcaen, to carve out a realm of their own within the land of death. The nightmares
their blood and bones. When one slips the leash and returns to its old ways, it wantonly slaughters
acted as the guardians of the Defiers’ home,
anything around it in a mad search for one of the
beating back the wild and shapeless predators of the spirit world.
five to attack, resuming its thousand-year-old hunt. The nightmares remain one of the only things
Though the nightmares heed the command of
that can cause lasting harm to a Defier. If there is
the Defiers, they still assume the shapes of their inception. Each bears a reminder of their creators’
anything left that the Defiers fear, it is the moment when a nightmare they thought they had enslaved
srcinal nightmares, of the dreams that gave them
turns against them.
life. To look on the form of these beings is to gain insight into the secret fears of the Defiers.
Some claim to have heard one of these nightmares hungrily whisper the name of a Defier—
Each nightmare is a reminder of thetorments
not the new name of Heretic, Dreamer, or Child, but
the Defiers suffered in hell;each stokes the flames of their rage at Menoth, who put themthere. They feel
the old one, the name a mother once murmured while rocking her babe to sleep. For despite all the
no kindness for Morrow or his worshipers either, as they enjoyed a safe and peaceful domain in Urcaen
power they command, despite their transformation from mortal flesh into their present forms, each is at
while the Defiers suffered endless torment. When
core still human.
the enslaved nightmares wade into the fray at ht eir masters’ behest, the Defiers can drinkdeeply of the emotions of carnage and fear that they produce. This draught is one of the few repasts that is refreshing to them, and it allows them tocontinue working their madness on the world.
And each still knows fear.
E G A C
Thundering and ponderous and ten timbers thick, this beast stuffs its cages with the bodies of the wicked for its masters harvest. Within this confinement their tocarmen and the ge rtsagemounr ft,erments the wine of their sweet terror to feed to the Defiers. ’
RA G E R
Drunk on the fear of the the Defiers sculpt the wowrlidcked, according to their dreams.
rom one prisoner to the next with no thought save a deep hunger to punish. Anyone caught The in itscagigebberatgesufr fsetomps rs a ffate worse than death as they are rtobodi rmeneteds arbeydtherainleaed,pimuscl ng, gaesmbolwitiheng,ringlaughi andngmingdsrymkin of the Wicked Harvest. Served up as a grymkin feast, thei till only old twisting. These prisoners are left to waste away in their cages, stripped of life and love and hope, bones are left behind.
GOREHOUND Keep away from the shadows, child, for the gorehound hunts far and wide at its master s bidding. As it stalks its prey, its long tongue tastes the air for the sweet taint of corruption. If you draw its attention, there is no hope of ’
escafpeastnoyoumamitterghtwher ht hidthee, nogormaehound tter how doesfanotr or flee.e Foryou youmigsee, how hs t travel on the roads of mortal men but on hidden pa wending between worlds. There is no wal that can slow it down, no gate that can keep it out.
If you hear a soft chiming in the night, the gorehound comes for you. A bell hangs from the beast s collar, and it is the gentle call of this bell that you when it comes for you in the dark. You alone wwililllheahearr its ringing, and if you listen too long it will drive you mad even before you ar and slashing teeth. e taken by its grasping hands ’
F RI G H
TM A RE
And every little boy and girl knows to be scared of the frightmare. Though the windows and doors may be locked up tight, the frightmare can peer through the smal est keyhole to see children hiding in their beds. At night you might hear it scratching at the doorpost as it tries to find a way in, or it might loose a hoarse and ugly shriek in the distance that can strip your skin and melt your bones.
upon freakish layer, al stuffed into a bit of The frightmare contains everything you should be afraid ofnd, thechilned. xLtayer es up to horrify you. The frightmare is flesh and held by brittle bones. Peel one face away a ess andoneuglybubbl writhing a screeching mother eager to punish her children, a toothlme rotting skin.old man, a nest full of spiders, a mass of poisonous serpents-all wrapped together in the sa
S KI N But also beware, my child, the wailing cries of the Skin & Moans. A cloak stitched together from the flesh of the cursed covers its gore-slick muscles and its jealous heart. Born without a face to cal its own and envious of what others have, it strips bare oss its pathose th wiunfth orwitcunaked,te enou curvighngtblo crades. Like a skil ed tanner, it selects only the best cuts of flesh to add to its bloody hide. It prizes the faces of its prey
& M OA N S most of all, stitching them into a gory drape. But its victims are not given the gift of death. Their sallow visages are left to moan and groan in a thin-voiced chorus as they fuel the creature s insatiable greed to add ever more to its macabre shroud. Should you ever hear its keening moan upon the midnight air, flee, my child! Flee with all your strength, lest it be your face the Skin & Moans wears. ’
CRABBIT slavering,
Beware idle fancies, child, for of all thehadows to tear flesh from bone, sharp-toothed horrors that lurk in the s upon them. not all seem as such when first you look
creamitungresalmocasnt beto workers have learned, evennditnheg imos ieldsng, see n thet afmusi As many unfortunate farmerseveandr seefielda sma bou t s bea h s ki n pi h, s lli deadly dangerous. If you games, hold back and be wary, and remember my words. invite you to join it in its
For if it be a crabbit, with ears that flop and claws that click, it will bounce and gambol and appear quite foolish . . . but only a fool would let it draw near. Its teeth s sharpandasititslovesappettheitetaste for sofoft piarnek aflesh, a naughty child s bones most in all the world. ’
R E L T T RA And should you stay safe the live-long day, child, listen close before you sleep: Rattle, clatter, clank. The sound of the chains that wrap the rattler comes ringing out in the deepest darkness of the night. As wrath binds up the hearts of men, so this beast of maddened hate is draped with unbreakable links. Lured by murder and rage,matstheerrsattcomma ler colnd.lectOnce s a blood y debtbyatwiitscked unleashed hands, this creature of chains and fury demands a grisly toll. Nothing can stop its slaughter but the death of every soul around, for only when all lie dead does the creature fal back to the darkness to await its master s next summoning. So swear, my dear, that from this day you inwianl gernevernor raalisoew your ragehatond rule your heart. Promise me that you will be kind and true to al you meet, and always hold your temper at bay. Should you falter and lash out with spite, you may be doomed to hear in the gloom the approaching rattle of chains and the scraping screech of metal ic claws. ’
’
GRYMKIN True grymkin first emerged out of Urcaen long, long ago—lost souls reshaped by the Defiers’ judgment.
S
ince the first true grymkin came into being ages upon ages ago, they have dwelled in
both Caen and Urcaen. They are the source of countless folktales, legends, and nursery rhymes— stories created by grieving families who lost loved ones to the mischievous and dangerous grymkin. Some of the most legendary among them are known by many names, and figures such as the bewildering Twilight Sisters and the enigmatic Lord Longfellow have haunted Caen for hundreds or even thousands of years. They travel from place to place to sate their never-ending desire to punish their human playthings. The longer a grymkin has dwelled in the world of men, the more legends will have formed around it and the more powerful and dangerous it becomes.
r a oul W a lot
The first grymkin were lost souls reshaped by the Defiers’ passing judgment upon them. Their powers, appetites, and even physical bodies are a reflection of the taint upon their spiritual being, the stain left by corrupt civilization. When the power of the Defiers caused the grymkin to be remade, their wicked ways sculpted their flesh to serve as a warning and a punishment to all who indulged in such sins. This warning is written deep in the body and soul of every grymkin, though few mortals who encounter them realize it. To those who are blind to their own corruption and sin, the acts of the grymkin seem haphazard, random, or simply mad. But each grymkin was molded by the burden of iniquity on a soul, punishing a spirit that had claimed Menoth’s gifts and used them for wickedness against its own kind.
Before the Old Witch loosed the Defiers from their prison to begin the Wicked Harvest, the grymkin on Caen were guided only by their own instinctive desires, shaped by the supernatural laws by which the Defiers remade their corrupted souls. Utterly without conscience, each grymkin acted based on its unique appetites. They reveled in tricking and tormenting the unwary traveler and the greedy banker, in bringing suffering to the glutton and the drunken lout. Random as they seemed, each grymkin collected its toll with great care. Usually they hunted on the fringes of society, drawn by the simple stories people told about them. Some still walked among the cities of Menoth’s creation, hiding in plain sight and picking their quarry with great discrimination. The grymkin choose their prey and imminent progeny based on certain sins sprouted from corruption’s soil. The dread rots—harvesters of the grymkin who transform their victims with a leering pumpkin head—were born from the iniquities of corrupt and greedy farmers of the Iron Kingdoms who would let their neighbors starve if they could not afford their goods. Murder crows were once corrupt bureaucrats, thieving from their neighbors through the larceny of graft. Hollowmen arose from those who abandon their fellow soldiers in wartime, while the grotesque piggybacks were
Dumb Ja c Head in ak Mus besack a ta
greedy gluttons who grew fat on the backs of others’ toil. The insane mad caps, drunken brewers
rum
of the Wicked Harvest, were alcoholics whose drunkenness and neglect caused the deaths of innocent victims.
BONE
SC LPoiogk own yRoAuCrKb! ac hat y k ou 'v becom e!
All of the grymkin are shaped by the macabre
would always induct a sinner into their own ranks.
and ironic stories that also guide them. These
The Defiers had given them the power to bring their
tales contain secrets reflecting the nature of the corruption that led to the grymkins’ genesis. But the
own kind into the flock, and so the first few grymkin in the world of men spread, passing the reward
stories also have within them the means of evading
and curse of their timeless existence to others
the fate of becoming a grymkin. These acts almost always require sacrifice. For instance, a farmer
throughout the centuries.
in danger of becoming a dread rot can avoid his
are the imps and gremlins. Imps of all varieties
punishment by destroying the crops that are his livelihood, and a glutton who faces transformation
are crafted from the weak and pitiful souls transformed in the presence of the Defiers. Their
into a piggyback can escape that fate by sacrificing his material wealth to live as an ascetic.
fate is to serve in the most mindless roles, given
For some sins, particularly those which caused
Perhaps the most horrifying of all grymkin
over to the most basic and rote behaviors, such as the drunken bouts of the pathetic cask imps.
harm to numerous others, the only acceptable
Gremlins arise from souls that have committed
sacrifice is one’s own life. Some grymkin, like the murder crows, will allow their prey to end their own
no sins, such as those of young children lost in accidents caused by the drunks who are in turn
lives to evade existence as a grymkin. When faced with the horrors of that fate, however, many find
condemned to become mad caps.
it a price easy to pay. Deep and untarnished piety
Harvest upon Caen, the grymkin were drawn
to one of the gods is the only reliable way to avoid
inexorably to their freed masters. From the
the grymkins’ reaping—though this entails what the Defiers would scorn as enslavement to a higher
corners of the world they came in countless numbers to act as the reapers of the Wicked
power. When face to face with the grymkin, even the most religious man may feel his faith quail and
Harvest, imposing their toll upon all of
crumble, for every mortal has hidden shames or forgotten darkness. The punishments the grymkin mete out are broad in scope. Some are content to simply harm or disfigure sinners for their misdeeds—lopping off the fingers of a pickpocket or stealing the voice of a loudmouth. Others require a more substantial punishment and are not content until they claim the lives of the transgressors. The first grymkin, who punished the worst sinners, would not be content with something as simple as death, however, and
When the Old Witch unleashed the Wicked
humanity’s corruption and iniquity.
HOLLOWMEN & LANTERN MAN As you walk the path of war, my son, be true and never stray. Stand with your commander and your brethren in the fray. Soldiering’s not easy; you will suffer, you will quake, But wayward soldiers doom themselves to a harsh and dismal fate. When a light shines on the battlefield, a kind and welcome glow, Beware, my cherished one, that is a way you should not go. A lantern may call out to you with warmth and seeming cheer, But if you walk toward it you will lose your soul, I fear. For there you will find waiting a baleful lantern man Who’ll draw you in with brightness and make you join his clan— The men who march forever, the men who’ve lost their lives, Pitiable souls who’ll never more see children, home, or wives. They say he’d been an officer who led his men astray, Who turned them from the foe they faced, as he his oaths betrayed. His company, good soldiers all, did nothing but comply, Abandoning comrades in arms—but he led them off to die. His lantern is enticing, its glow so clear and bright. It shines out in the deepest dark to push away the night. But he who hoists that lamp aloft is the dust of long-dead dreams. The lantern man makes promises whose truths aren’t what they seem.
He’ll lead you far from honor’s path and toward his fateful lie. He’ll lure you upon a frozen lake where you are sure to die. He’ll walk you through a blackened bog to be certain that you drown. He’ll shine his light into your eyes as you are sinking down. And once you perish at his hand, a hollowman you’ll become, Eternally in uniform and ready with your gun, A soldier who forevermore will fight a senseless war, A dusky shell of what you were, whom righteous men abhor. And now the lantern man must claim all those who war evade, So if you see him, my dear boy . . .
I beg you,
turn away.
mad caps Stoke the fires and heat the pot Bubble, bubble boiling hot The sweet elixir’s almost done To whet the whistle and please the tongue Ah yes, our drunken revelries Have brought on countless miseries But we have paid for what we’ve done For now we’re mad caps, every one! Add your voice and sing along Sing the mad caps’ brewing song More ale will soothe you, that we vow Drink it all, aye, drink it now! Never mind the things we do Just quench your thirst—it’s all for you You’re not afire, now don’t be daft Take a swig and wear the cask! Quick, go get her ’fore she’s gone Not that way—she’s there, moron! Plug your ears, boys, here he goes… BOOM! And one more sot is meat for crows. — Traditional brewer’s song of the Olgunholt
CASK IMPS
MURDER CROWS From the journals of Bolden Peterton, Professor of Mental Maladies and Diseases, Royal Cygnaran University While we may be wont to ascribe
Speaking with several townsfolk, I
the outrageous claims of those touched by madness to medical abnormalities, we must be careful not to judge too hastily. In a world where the avatars of gods walk among men, where ghosts are seen reveling on city streets, and where priests perform miracles daily, can we really diagnose with any certainty which madness is born of superstition and which is truly born of more sinister means?
learned this nervous wretch I bore witness to was a stark contrast to the man Oliver Sween had been prior to whatever affliction had befallen his feverish mind. Mr. Sween had been a personage of distinctive bravado, a man who commanded respect from anyone he met. Yet in a matter of mere weeks he had deteriorated into a simpering wreck. According to a local aldermen, Mr. Sween’s condition was no sickness but Consider, for instance, the curious rather an ancient punishment case of one Oliver Sween, tax for his abuse of his political collector for the hamlet of Galhold appointment; this official further on the northeast border of averred that a like retribution Widower’s Wood. I encountered had claimed the life of another Mr. Sween during a clinical round in Sween’s position, who was of the area for my book, Mental found dead hanging in Galhold’s Maladies and Malfeasances. When I square with a confession of first met him, Mr. Sween seemed embezzlement pinned to his chest overall in fine physical health for along with a statement that he was his age. However, he had been ready to “join the crows.” suffering from severe attacks of panic and a crippling anxiousness I later learned from Mr. Sween while outdoors. The man could the unnatural specters that scarcely venture twenty feet afflicted his mind were no vague, before becoming frantic and haphazard entities; indeed, the shouting at invisible beings he visions that tormented him was convinced were stalking him, perched on rooftops and tree limbs wherever he might go.
were very specific and growing more numerous by the day. He described their appearance as some grotesque cross between man and crow. These beings
stared down from hooked beaks with unblinking eyes, and their gaunt arms terminated in wicked metal talons. At the time
As the flock tore at him, I discerned through the swirling confusion of ink-black wings the shapes of what appeared to be
I found his description of these shades most peculiar and, to my professional shame, quite absurd.
men, yet I knew they were not. They had great sharp talons in place of hands, and hiding their faces were masks with hooked beaks and empty black eyes. These figures moved like spirits through the birds swarming around the town center, the tattered cloth of their cloaks remaining unnaturally still despite the chaotic beating of air around them. I will never forget the sound of Oliver Sween’s final bone-rattling scream as, I can only assume, his theretofore spectral tormentors finally laid their claim to him.
It was only days later that I discovered that what had beset Mr. Sween were far more than hallucinations. As dusk darkened to night, I heard the unmistakable cawing of crows outside the tavern where I took my supper. The sound grew progressively louder, until the world was drowned out by it. I rushed to the door to see what could be happening outside, but was physically arrested by the burly innkeeper. Suddenly I heard Mr. Sween crying out from beyond in the town square, soon followed by a panicked banging at the door. Mr. Sween screamed, begging us to let him in. Despite my protests, the innkeeper would not budge, and the door remained barred to the luckless tax collector. With no other recourse available, I watched from the frosted glass window to at least gain some sense of what transpired. my eyes, a massive murderBefore of crows set upon poor Oliver Sween, pecking and tearing at his flesh as he cried out in agony.
Not until dawn had broken the next morning did anyone dare step foot outside their houses and walk beneath the open sky. All that remained of Mr. Sween was a pile of bloodied rags and the macabre orbs of his eyes, pecked free from their sockets and left behind. Since that day I have paid special heed to the more fantastical claims of the unfortunates who have fallen under my care, and my library remains stocked with as many books on folklore as it is with books of proven medical science.
NE IG H S LA YE RS Clip,Cliclp,op,cloclp,ip,cliclp,op,cloyop,uryoeuyehesagrr us drawing near Our lances sharp, our steedsowarwe ide with fear Form your ranks and stand you ste ready ad y
Clip, clop, clip, clop, you ll die and '
— NEIGH
—
we will cheer!
SLAYER WAR CHANT
Twilight In
times gone by, a band of hi ghwaymen set upon a young and foolish lad as he journeyed to bow and scrape to his father’s lord. The callow fool escaped, but not before he caught a bullet in his soft belly. As the young man lay whimpering over his wound in the shade of a quaking aspen tree, two women—one a beauty, one a crone— approached him from the wild wood. They were the Twilight Sisters. “You were foolish to come out here alone,” said Heidrun, the young and beautiful sister. “They all warned you this would happen, that you’d stumble upon some fearsome beast or wicked men and just like that, your blood would be spilling out all over the cold forest floor. Even those who wished you well knew you’d soon see your end. “Saveenough. your dying words! your story well I’ve seen it aI know thousand times before. But your story need not end here, careless traveler. My sister and I have many gifts. We can restore you. We can heal your wounds and reverse this felicitous fate. We will require of you a small bargain, however, for our magic does not come without cost. “I will allow you to sip from my goblet of wine, and you will be restored to health. All I ask for in return is but a pound of flesh, or a limb—I care not which. That is all. A quick chop of the cleaver and you will be healed. A second chance at life! "So, do we have a deal?”
S isters In
times gone by, a band of highwaymen set u pon a young and noble boy as he journeyed to the house of his father’s lord. The youth escaped, but not before the cruel highwaymen had shot him in the gut. As the young mantwo laywomen dying—inone thea shade quaking aspen tree, beauty,ofonea a crone—approached him from the wild wood. They were the Twilight Sisters. “Oh, look at you, you poor unfortunate soul,” said Agrona, the old and ugly sister. “How dangerous this world is. How uncaring. Here you lie, a noble traveler just trying to get from one place to another, now bleeding your last upon the cold earth. “Hush! There is no need to spend any more of what precious life remains to you on words. My sister and I know your story well. We can see it in your bones and in the blood that pours from your wound. “But your tale does not need to end here, poor traveler. My sister and I have many gifts. We can restore you. We can heal your wounds and reverse this cruel fate. All we require is a small bargain, for our magic does not come without cost. “You may partake of my gruel, made of all that slithers and croaks, and you will be well again. All I ask for in return is a but a kiss—and that forever after you will love only me. “Is that not a fair exchange?”
p mI re mmil G
. ma I ere h t ub, uo y tops ot el ba e b t’ no wI e ye eno hti wtaht kni ht uo Y. rorri me ht ni na mel ttil , uo y gni hcta w m’ ? ma eye ere h, yas I dl uo hs r O e h T. rorri me ht ni ere ht er’ uoy eli h wpeel s t’ nac I. kcab e moc ot uoy rof ti a wI eli h we ka wa e mpee k spl e H. uoy rof tsuj e koj el ttil taht etor w . t hgi s y mya wa poocs dna dil e ht re dnu noops el ttil r uoy hs up ll’ uoy wonk I )!ti gni yas ot des u teg ts u m!eye !eye !eye( seye y mesolc I tne mo m evah uo y es uace b se ye y m deen uo y o D?fei ht e ye el ttil uo y, me ht tna wuo y yh wtaht sI. n wo r uo y sa wti e kil eye y mgni rae wuo y was
I I
I, eno tsri f e ht tog uo y wo h s’ tah T. e ye y mfo renroc e ht fo ?t uwoei vuofyo htcnti oacp ohtseervfa aH. mroorrfri dml reohtwneihtylttacekroi odl eoztatgnoat Wto?nnl uwfoerruaoc ye fbotesnuonm e ht gni r b noi tcel fer r uo y wa S. t hgi t pu de kcol ts uj y do b el o h wy m dna, ec af l ufi t uae b y mgni ri mda sa wI ne h were ht uo y wa S. wonk ?I di d, retfa e di s taht fo t uo ero mhc u mees t’ n di D. eri se d uo y tah wpu pooc s dna n wo d noops hctap en O?o wt e mevael uo y lli w, e ye re hto e ht e kat uo y f I ?ti si , e mrof hctap e ye n A. n wo r uo y fo e koj el ttil a —tfi g r uo y deci ton kool e mse ka mti yas neve t hgi M. ti e kil neve t hgi msei dal e mo S. e ye y mrevo hctap a hti wna me mos dnah a e b lli ts nac I. e m deni ur t’ nsah !eya -ey A. etari p gni ra d a e kil doog sa tso ml a si lli uq A. ne ht , resolc e mo C?esne p xe y mta ret hg ual r uo y ni atnoc t’ na C. moor e ht ni uo y rae h I. p mi el ttil , uo y rae h nac devo hs nep y me kil uo y wo h ees dna, p mi re mmil g el ttil , e mno pu gni peerc pee K. rorri me ht ni ere ht uo y fo re mmil g a ees nac I. efi nk a sa dl uo hs e ye re hto r uo y ere h w
I I I
WITCHWOOD Gaze not upon the Witchwood, child. Do not accept her gift. The ripe, red fruit is but a lure to draw you to her swift. Look to the tree behind her, such an old and angry thing. Its bark is like an old man’s scowl, and it bears a hempen ring. Within that knotted necklace, child, a witch did dance her last. Encircling her charming throat, it closed her life up fast. But not every witch that’s put to death will stay forever dead. Her soul, if innocent, may become tangled in rooted threads. And she may rise again to tempt those who caused her death, Whispering to them stories with a soft, alluring breath. Telling tales of friends’ betrayals, she beckons: come near, come near! So the tree can rend their bodies and drink the liquor of their fear.
T R A P P ER K I N
Its claws can rend a moonlit stone, its teeth can
slice through steel and bone
And any c hild w hose s oul it c laims shall n ever s ee the sun ag ain.
But if thine heart be free of sin, why should ye fear the trapperkin? For only those with evil’s brand are taken by its grasping hand. —Morridane folk rhyme d ome the quietest inhabite Thornwood Forest has bec he t in lge bo r Cze in of ld hi let c y The ham s in all of Cygnar. Ever of that wild place, perhap village in the great expanse Czerbolge is gone. This did not happen all at once, but night after night they vanished. Each morning, more mothers and fathers would discover crude wooden figures tucked in
beds where their sons and daughters had been sung to sleep. It took but two months to erase a generation from that village. The hollow-eyed villagers blamed the disappearances on “trapperkin,” small fiends drawn from local myth. These imps are said to
squ open impossible doors, doors that shou fles alid la ld not exi hb ir w st, letting sudden e them app h f o re Sto e ly and room ear s ries i l scr re, ac e n s t l . y i P n c a h a o t h o r p e e f e sleepin lple nts a i n g rd i n tra exp g child ss c ppe re h lan an d g t ren’s aun h rki atio o i l t d tan the ed b nh r e ns n y n a t t hav he n for a ve a i ng its p otio e be a ru rise the les, th n th aren en s n n e i at th r a t bef wa ts m s n r k eir a a tch in i y or pp e ore ay b e n d aw in o rk i ad e as t o n row ham the lea ay t the feed r ru reali nin o so ed t su ty th r. ral o ad go me po n at Cz ra com m it chi . Ye erbo t m h ld t uni t th eir lge i hat e re s em ties is n o pt y o , strick t a her o av s un e n by f the w o a iding the ise peris likely ir laughter a horror no one chil w ho l nd t by whi ives t ling hed in h eir c here c spers o am r ies; i f grym an ex ann t is a plain kin com a er t way e e in the own xcept night. (Excerpt from Czerbolge: The Town without a Child)
Lord Longfellow “Lord Longfellow’s Masquerade” from Tales of the Grym
There once was a young and handsome baron who lived in unmatched luxury. His lands were fertile, his family rich, and his household blessed with an abundance of good fortune. He dwelled in a sweeping estate and loved to host grand masquerades and galas to entertain his highborn friends. One year there was a great drought. The fields dried up to dust, and the baron’s peasants began to starve. The baron could easily have sold some of his finery to buy food for his desperate people, or opened his storehouses to give them a portion of what he kept, but he selfishly waved off their plight. “The peasants are fat from many years of plenty,” he said. “And my friends have come to expect my hospitality.” So the commoners continued to suffer. One night, when the moons hung bright overhead like dewdrops in a spider’s web and the peasant children cried in their beds with aching, empty stomachs, the baron hosted yet another great masquerade, more grand than any before, to mark the coming of his twentieth birthday. Lords and ladies from all around were in attendance, but none was commented on as much as the mysterious Lord Longfellow. Wearing a porcelain mask, a stylish hat, and a broad coat of fine silk, he was the very picture of a dashing rogue. “Who is this,” the baron wondered. “I do not remember inviting a Lord Longfellow.” So when his cheeks were hot from too much wine, he approached the mysterious gentleman and demanded to know his full identity.
“You insult me in my home!” the baron cried. “I make no apology for it,” the visitor said calmly. “You are a venal and useless man who has squandered his gifts and let others suffer for his vanity. Noblemen are the worst of all, for they hold themselves above all others.” Furious, the young baron challenged Lord Longfellow to a duel. The other guests clapped and walked to the gardens to watch the duel, but as they walked Longfellow pulled the baron aside and lifted his mask to reveal himself. His eight eyes glittered in the torchlight as his six twitching limbs played along the grips of fine pistols. “I am Lord Longfellow, and I’ve come to collect my toll. No living man has defeated me. If I gun you down, then my business is done and all the rest can go. Deny me this, however, and all the noble blood here will be spilled, but I will leave you be for the rest of your days. What say you, baron?” The baron gulped, then looked at all the plump and powdered faces of his gathered friends. Truth be told, he thought, their company was not that pleasurable, their conversation tedious and dull. To give his own life for theirs seemed not at all fair to him, and after a brief pause he gave his answer. Longfellow threw off his broad coat and tossed his mask aside. His gleaming pistols filled the air with fire and death, and in moments all the lords and ladies lay in pools of spreading crimson. Then Lord Longfellow was gone.
When the sun rose and the peasants saw what the baron had done in the night, they hauled him off as a murderer. His trial was swift and his punishment The answer came as a dry and dusty whisper, like dead leaves harsh. When the sun next rose, he was standing on the scraping on an old coffin lid: “I am Longfellow, the hungry gallows, ready to swing from a rope like a spider from lord of the shadows. I am the patient master of the web.” a silken thread. But before the trap door fell, the baron saw in the crowd a lord wea ring a silken cloak and a The drunken baron’s guts turned to water at the sound mask of porcelain. The roguish figure tipped his cap as of the voice behind the mask, but he could not show his the young baron fell . . . fear. He demanded to see Longfellow’s invitation. “I am invited by the weeping of the mothers and by the cries of their children,” was the rasping reply. “You have neglected your duty to those who depend most upon you.”
aw
ay
Lady Karianna Rose Once, when I was young, I lived by the sea with my daughter, my sons, and my husband. There each morning I kissed my husband’s brow and the cheeks of my children, for I loved each of them so much that my love was ink in water that bloomed over the pot to splash on the page of each day. Their prosperity was the whole of my heart. Had it been possible, I would have stopped the clock each second I was with them to prolong my bliss and elude the unknowable fortunes of the future. But I was too happy and they were too perfect, and so our blessed life caught the milky eye of cruel Fate. Wicked and jealous Fate could not abide our happiness: with a great fire fueled by its withered black heart, it stifled the laughter and joy of our perfect home. The flames melted gold, shriveled roses, cracked slabs of fine marble, though I cared not about these things. My heart shattered for my beautiful little family, trapped within and beyond my reach, and the screams I loosed as I threw myself at the fire would not blow it out. All I held dear turned to ash on the wind and blew out to sea. I was left with no husband, no children, no home. My aunts and uncles took me in, blubbering their condolences. At first they were concerned and caring, but soon they could not hide their consternation at my grief. They passed me from house to house, their stunted hearts unable to comprehend how perfect my children had been or what it meant to suffer loss such as mine. I wailed and shook and clawed at their jiggling throats to rip out the half-hearted pities, clawed at my ears to dig out their worthless words. In time they all tired of me and sent me from their sight, far from their hearths where I might be forgotten. Alone I drifted, my chilled heart empty, and I felt less than nothing as, finally, keys turned to lock me away, no longer an inconvenience to the world. I might have died in that place, so pure and crushing was my despair. It was then, in my cold and lonely prison, that an old woman came to my side and offered the respite I so desperately required. In place of what I had lost, she offered a new purpose to fill the void in the pit of me. She gave me new children to whom I could attend. They came to me then, the little lost ones, and I claimed them as a mother, and in exchange for their love offered my own devotion. For each child taken from me, I was rewarded with a hundred more, and even now they gather, for I am their solace in this world that cares for them not. They are so beautiful, my children, their laughter so magical, their tricks so very clever. They adore listening to my songs, and we play such games together as I never thought I would play again. Watch them now, dear. They have such a delightful game in store for you.
Patient Transcript 1335, Septen 7, 609 AR. As recorded by Dr. Alcott (found dead Septen 9, 609 AR).
Death Knell I remember the day clearly, the drab overcast and the steady rain. A bank of thick evening fog settled about the hills and crept into town on a slow breeze to caress the glass of shop windows and swirl over cobblestone streets. I was standing in the tavern doorway with ale in hand when I first heard the ringing of the death knell. It creaked down the main road, a rotting memory of aging wood. Taxed by its towering load, a knockkneed nag pulled the well-laden cart down the pitted street, threatening to topple its cargo at our doorstep. It hauled not just corpses, but coffins too, moldering and freshly pried from the earth. Feet propped upon the footboard, the hunched driver seemed a robber baron of the dead.
A strange little man, he rode with his hat pulled low and his slender knees pulled close, and it was his hand that held the slender pole from which hung the ornate bell. The bell tolled as the jostling cart crept down our thoroughfare. It rang out through the fog and encroaching dark, louder and clearer than a church bell, and I felt it in my bones. My body went cold as the cart passed me by, and the flowers upon the sills withered and died. Ahead of the teetering cart ambled a throng of little beasts with pointed ears and tiny claws, playing lively music for the dead. They made faces and danced jigs and offered foul gestures to mock the crowd that had gathered. My neighbors laughed at these little ones, and a good few followed the procession onward as it guided them to the end of town and beyond . . . never to return. For my part, a lump had grown in my throat, and I remained silent as the grave. My gran always told me not to laugh when the corpse cart rolls by, nor to speak, nor even to mutter or breathe, for the hunched driver upon his coach keeps his eye out for those living who might soon join the dead.
GREMLIN SWARM MINION GRYMKIN SOLO
GREMLIN SWARM SPD STR MAT RAT DEF 6 2 2 2 13 12
DAMAGE: PC 3
FA 2
ARM 1
CMD
5
BASE:
LARGE
MINION –This model will work for Ci rcle, Legion,
Skorne, and Trollbloods. GREMLIN SWARM INCORPOREAL STEALTH ANNOYANCE –Living enemy models within 1˝ of this
model suffer –1 to attack rolls. APPARITION –During your Control Phase, place this
model anywhere completely within 2˝ of its current location. MAN-SIZED –This model is treated as a small-based model and occupies the space from the bottom of its base to a height of 1.75 ˝. MISCHIEF –When an enemy warjack or battle engine begins its activation B2B with this model, roll a d3. On a roll of 1, the warjack or battle engine suffers –2 SPD that activation. On a 2, it suffers –2 to attack rolls that activation. On a 3, it suffers –2 to damage rolls that activation. SABOTAGE H ( ACTION) –Target enemy warjack or battle engine B2B with this model suffers d3 + 3 damage points and cannot have damage removed from it for one round. When damaging a warjack, choose which column suffers the damage.
110
Nothing in all the world attracts the attention of gremlins like the hiss and clank of a warjack treading across the battleeld. Mischievous and malicious to the extreme, these grymkin delight in rooting around in mechanikal constructs with the intent of causing as much damage as possible solely for their own amusement. More than one ’jack marshal has found his or her warjack inert or walking in loose circles only to nd a swarm of gremlins had taken up residence within the machine. The annoyance caused by gremlins is matched only by the sense of mystery surrounding them. As with other grymkin, extraordinary zoologists know little of their srcins and can make even less of their motivations. Rather than allowing themselves to be hired for use during conicts, gremlins are far more likely to simply show up at battles that include large numbers of warjacks or other mechanized weaponry. Rumor has it that during Ord’s Second Expansion War, a gremlin swarm tearing into the systems of ’jacks on both sides of a river skirmish brought the entire battle screeching to a halt. Gremlins are elusive by nature and are capable of vanishing into thin air at a moment’s notice. Even should an army discover an infestation, removing these tricksters from the machinery they inhabit can be nearly impossible. The only reliable deterrent for gremlins to date is the presence of cats, which can see through their invisibility and have a natural inclination to hunt them. It is for this reason that many mechaniks often keep cats within their ’jack shops and foundries. As the number of gremlin sightings continues to rise and the nations of the Iron Kingdoms produce more impressive and complex warjack technology, mechaniks serving in the eld may well begin adopting the same habit.
Games of the Wicked Some certain rules at least there must be among even such lawless creatures as these.
RULES & SCENARIOS The time of the grymkin being no more than stories and superstitions has passed. Thanks to the machinations of the Old Witch in freeing the Defiers from Urcaen, the true and terrifying might of the grymkin is poised to sweep through the Iron Kingdoms like a scythe through tender wheat. At the forefront of their unnatural army, the Defiers unleash their long-smoldering rage upon a world made rotten by the foul and corrupting gifts of Menoth. On the following pages you will find new rules for the Defier warlocks, two new Grymkin theme forces, and new rules for adding special terrain thematically linked to each of the Defiers, plus several exciting narrative scenarios that allow players to bring the cataclysmic dawning of the Wicked Harvest to their own tabletop. The section begins with rules on how to use the unique mystical powers of the Defiers known as Arcana. The Arcana rules are followed by two all-new Grymkin theme forces—Dark Menagerie and Bump in the Night—which allow you to play an army themed around how the Defiers lead a horde of Grymkin to war, whether as a force of destruction aimed at a single cause or as a gamboling throng of misshapen creatures set on punishment. Next, the State of War section provides rules for including special thematic terrain linked to each of the five Defiers in your games so you can truly experience the horrors of battling these malevolent demi-gods who bend reality to their whims. Finally, five new scenarios allow players to fully experience the strange and dangerous world of the Wicked Harvest. The first, “Grymkin in the Fog,” is a fourplayer scenario that tempts unscrupulous commanders with the ability to exploit a mysterious fog from which the grymkin are emerging—but beware, for when dealing with grymkin, nothing comes without a price. “Harvest the Wicked” is a non-standard scenario that puts players in control of either a small group of grymkin or a handful of tarnished souls who find their forest camp beset in the dark of the night. Will the grymkin reap their harvest, or can the wicked escape their fate…for one more night, at least? Rounding out the selection is “Baron’s Balance Due,” a linked campaign of three scenarios that showcases a typical grymkin approach to reaping their Wicked Harvest. Beginning with the grymkin’s initial secret attack on a corrupt baron’s manor, the campaign moves to the grymkin’s assault on the manor grounds and culminates in their attempt to reap the wicked baron and all who aid him. It’s time to muster your troops and march forth to battle, but know this: warfare will never again be the same now that the grymkin are afoot!
Grymkin Rules: Arcana The Defiers are beings like no others, striding the line between mortal and divine. They can make nightmares tangible and bend reality to reflect their twisted dreams. Yet there are constraints that regulate when the Defiers can inflict their supernatural judgments upon the sinners they confront. A Defier’s highest powers may seem capricious, but each is governed by unspoken and shifting rules which only they can fully understand. Instead of feats, Grymkin warlocks have Arcana cards. Arcana cards can be played at any time during a game in accordance with the rules on the cards. Each of a warlock’s Arcana cards can be played only once per game. A warlock can play only one Arcana card per turn.
There are two types of Arcana cards: regular Arcana cards and Trump cards. Each Grymkin warlock has one Trump card that can be assigned only to that warlock. The remaining Arcana cards can be assigned to any Grymkin warlock. Before either player’s deployment at the start of the game, a Grymkin player assigns each of his warlocks three Arcana cards and reveals those cards to the opponent. One of these three cards must be the warlock’s Trump card. The other two cards can be any non-Trump Arcana cards, but each card can only be assigned to a single warlock in the army once. In other words, no duplicate Arcana cards are allowed within an army.
GRYMKIN THEME FORCE
DARK MENAGERIE Each of the Deers has some special preference for how to unmake Menoth’s twisted civilization. When the opportunity to strike arises, a Deer gathers a dark menagerie of his or her worst nightmares in a terrifying show of force. Towering beasts of twisted esh and bounding swarms of frightful creatures gather together to enact the Deer’s will, leaving behind only a handful of demented survivors to spread word of the host of shadows that emerged from the night.
ARMY COMPOSITION An army made using this theme force can include only the following Grymkin models:
• Grymkin warlocks • Non-character warb easts
• Glimmer Imp solos • Gremlin Swarm solos
• Dread Rot units
• Lady Karianna Rose
• Twilight Sisters
• Death Knell battle engines
SPECIAL RULES • Gremlin Swarm solos in this army become FA 4. • For every full 15 points of warbeasts in this army, you can add one Crabbit lesser warbeast or Gremlin Swarm solo to the army free of cost. Free Crabbits do not count toward the total point value of warbeasts in the army when calculating this bonus. • Gremlin Swarm solos in this army gain Serenity. (At the beginning of your Control Phase, before leeching, you can remove 1 fury point from a friendly Faction warbeast within 1˝ of a model with Serenity.) • Each non-trooper model in this army that can gain corpse tokens begins the game with one corpse token.
GRYMKIN THEME FORCE
BUMP IN THE NIGHT The grymkin are not an organized military force. They do not come to battle in regimented formations; indeed, they attack with scarcely any perceivable order at all. When a mass of motley grymkin lumber to war in the service of their masters, they advance as a haphazard but terrifying horde. Descending upon a viceridden population, they indulge in their unique appetites as they demand their due of wicked humanity.
ARMY COMPOSITION An army made using this theme force can include only the following Grymkin models: • Grymkin warlocks
• Lord Longfellow
• Non-character warb easts
• Trapperkin solos
• Grymkin units
• Witchwood solos
• Cask Imp solos
• Death Knell battle engines
• Glimmer Imp solos
SPECIAL RULES • For every full 20 points of units or battle engines in this army, you can add one command attachment or solo to the army free of cost. Free command attachments do not count toward the total point value of units in the army when calculating this bonus. • Warrior models in this army gain Rise. (If a model with Rise is knocked down at the beginning of your Maintenance Phase, it stands up.) • Murder Crow units in this army gain Ambush. If you choose not to deploy a unit at the start of the game, you must still choose its prey as normal after deployment but before the rst player’s turn. (You can choose not to deploy a unit with Ambush at the start of the game. If it is not deployed normally, you can put it into play at the end of any of your Control Phases after your rst turn. When you do, choose any table edge except the back of your opponent’s deployment zone. Place the unit with Ambush completely within 3˝ of the chosen table edge.)
State of War: Defiers As beings of immeasurable power, the very presence of the Defiers causes the landscape to twist and shift to conform to their unconscious will. Once idle forests become infested with mischievous grymkin or awaken as silent predators, reality itself shifts and warps to create swirling portals of dreamstuff, and mysterious fogs seep up from the soil to warp minds and reveal the wickedness hiding within. For those brave—or foolish—enough to confront such challenges, the terrain charts in this section provide a variety of highly thematic terrain options to use in any game of WARMACHINE and HORDES that includes one of the Defier warlocks. The scenarios found on pages 121–127 indicate the exact quantity of thematic terrain to use for each scenario. When not using one of these scenarios, discuss with your opponent how many pieces of thematic terrain you wish to add to your table. Each set of thematic terrain is associated with a Grymkin warlock, specifically one of the five Defiers. For each of these warlocks being used in the game, roll on that warlock’s terrain chart. If no Defiers are being used in the game, all players should agree on which chart to use. After all terrain has been set up and both players have determined their army lists but before the starting roll to determine the first player, players can begin replacing terrain pieces with thematic terrain. Randomly determine one player to begin the terrain replacement process. That player chooses any piece of terrain on the table, excluding any piece that was added using these charts. The other player then rolls on the chart and replaces the terrain with the thematic terrain piece in such a manner that the majority of the new terrain piece’s area covers the area of the replaced piece. The second opponent chooses the next terrain piece to be replaced, and the srcinal player rolls on the chart. This process continues until the agreed upon number of terrain pieces have been replaced.
FOUR-PLAYER SCENARIO
GRYMKIN IN THE FOG
TWO-PLAYER SCENARIO
HARVEST THE WICKED
SCENARIO CAMPAIGN: BARON’S B ALANCE DUE
CAMPAIGN SCENARIO 1
SKIRMISH WITH THE TOWN GUARDS
CAMPAIGN SCENARIO 2
BREAKING & ENTERING
CAMPAIGN SCENARIO 3
THE BARON REVEAL ED!
THE BARON THE BARON ABUSE OF POWER –While in
this model’s command range, friendly Faction models gain Countercharge. (When an enemy model advances and ends its movement within 6 of a model with Countercharge and in its LOS, the model with Countercharge can immediately charge it. A model can use Countercharge only once per round and not while engaged.) HIT THE DECK! –This model cannot be hit by AOEs. If it would be hit by an AOE, it instead becomes knocked down. While this model is knocked down, ranged attacks targeting it automatically miss. SUCKER! –If this model is directly hit by an enemy ranged attack, choose a friendly non-incorporeal warrior model within 3of it to be directly hit instead. That model is automatically hit and suffers all damage and effects. VETERAN LEADER [FRIENDLY MODELS]While – in this model’s command range, friendly models gain +1 to attack rolls. ˝
˝
THE BARON
2 01 7 v1
TARNISHED SOUL SOLO
THE BARON SPD
5
STR MAT RAT DEF ARM CMD
5
6
5
13
14
5
HAND CANNON RNG ROF AOE POW
12
I l l us. by Josh N ewton © Privateer Press, I nc. Al l Rig hts Reserved. Al l faction names, l og warjack os, ®, warcaster® & warbeastare TM of Privateer Press, I nc.
1
—
12
CEREMONIAL SWORD RNG
0.5
POW
4
P+S
9
DAMAGE
PC 0
FA C
THE HERETIC Warlock
THE KING OF NOTHING Warlock
THE CHILD Warlock
SKIN & MOANS Heavy Warbeast
CAGE RAGER Heavy Warbeast
CRABBITS Lesser Warbeasts
RATTLER Light Warbeast
GOREHOUND Light Warbeast
DREAD ROTS Unit
HOLLOWMEN & LANTERN MAN Unit & Command Attachment
And he rang an iron dinner bell that pealed across the land. To its summons came great hordes of squealin g piggybacks eager for the fight.
PIGGYBACKS Unit
GLIMMER IMP Solo
LORD LONGFELLOW Solo
CASK IMPS Solos
And wingthmobthemof strangest he wanderedsort,backof tounlstand thebrest a growi ikely andamongimpossi le things.
—
WITCHWOOD Solo
DEATH KNELL Battle Engine
A wicked crew for a wicked job, which reaping now shall bring!
PAINTING YOUR ARMY As a hobby miniatures game deeply rooted in lore and character, HORDES offers hundreds of distinctive and highly detailed models designed for maximum modeling and painting enjoyment. Each model is a canvas on which to unleash your own creativity and imagination. You can try your hand at emulating the P3 Studio scheme, or dive deeper into the Iron Kingdoms setting with an alternate paint scheme drawn from the lore and background of your Faction. Or, throw convention to the wind and create your own completely srcinal scheme. Whatever your choice, few things are as rewarding as bringing your army to life with your brush and some paints. When painting an army, as in life, the fun truly lies in the journey. And like every journey, the road to a fully painted force begins with a crucial first step—in this case, deciding how you want your army to look! The following pages contain color guides and quick tips to inspire you in your Grymkin painting adventure. We begin with models painted using our Wicked Harvest studio scheme, which is also featured in the model gallery on pages 128-131. This scheme is a great foundation to draw from with its desaturated natural tones offset by vibrant colors to evoke harvest-like reds and oranges. Next, we present two alternative approaches to painting your Grymkin models. The Wicked Harvest comprises a motley assortment of tricksters, folklore horrors, and living nightmares.
While all are part of the Wicked Harvest, they follow the commands of one of the five Defiers—or of the Old Witch of Khador herself, Zevanna Agha. Thus, each host of grymkin can have an individual look drawn from the whims and fantasies of the Defier who leads them. Possibilities include the ghostly glowing greens of the Dreamer’s Nightmare, with grymkin who serve the Dreamer during one of her restless dreams of Urcaen; the Heretic’s Host, which blazes with a blinding radiance to reflect his glory; and the cold, drab, ashen colors of the King of Nothing’s Bitter Pack. By combining ideas from the setting, the studio scheme, and the real world, you can create a unique look for your army that still feels right at home in the Iron Kingdoms. Finally, for those who really want to flex their creative muscles, we present a radically different paint scheme drawn straight from the imagination of one decidedly imaginative painter, followed by some great examples of wild invention to inspire your own unique creations. Choosing a more srcinal or whimsical approach aligns well with the Wicked Harvest’s aesthetic and can result in a truly eye-catching army, although such schemes rely on careful planning and a willingness to experiment to create a balanced yet visually striking effect. Regardless of whichforce, direction you this decide to provides take in apainting your own Grymkin we hope guide helpful spark of inspiration as you sit down with brush in hand to create an army as individual as you are!
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STUDIO PAINT SCHEME SKIN & MOANS
Eyes
Dark Skins
BASE:
BASE:
Carnal Pink SHADE: Piggy Purple Ink HIGHLIGHT: Murderous Magenta
Idrian Flesh Umbral Umber HIGHLIGHT: Khardic Flesh SHADE:
Teeth & Knives BASE:
’Jack Bone Bastion Grey HIGHLIGHT: Menoth White Highlight
Blood BASE:
SHADE:
Umbral Umber Skorne Red
HIGHLIGHT:
Wraps BASE:
Midlund Flesh Kossite Flesh Wash HIGHLIGHT: Ryn Flesh
Flesh
SHADE:
BASE:
Skorne Red Umbral Umber HIGHLIGHT: Menoth White Highlight SHADE:
Stitches BASE:
Thamar Black Greatcoat Grey HIGHLIGHT: Trollblood Highlight SHADE:
Painter's Inspiration Painting a Grymkin force is a challenging but rewarding experience. With a diverse selection of models ranging from the macabre to the whimsical, finding a singular element to tie your force together can pose some tough questions. For the studio scheme, we chose to focus on the eerie purple glow that distinguishes the unusual magic source of the Grymkin, along with a desaturated color palette to contrast with the other Factions of HORDES. In addition, a touch of bright color on models creates a contrast across the Faction, such as the forbidden bright-red apples of the Witchwood and the blazing orange tongue of the Gorehound. When all of these elements are in place, you will have a visually interesting and cohesive army for the tabletop. For more examples of Grymkin models with studio paint schemes, see the gallery on pages 128-131 or go to privateerpress.com.
134
STUDIO PAINT SCHEME Vines
DREAD ROT
Bog Moss SHADE: Battledress Green HIGHLIGHT: Ordic Olive BASE:
Pumpkin Bogrin Brown Umbral Umber HIGHLIGHT: Meaty Ochre BASE:
SHADE:
Eyes & Mouth Carnal Pink Piggy Purple Ink HIGHLIGHT: Murderous Magenta BASE:
Sack
SHADE:
’Jack Bone Bastion Grey HIGHLIGHT: Menoth White Base BASE:
SHADE:
Metal BASE: Pig Iron Leather Bootstrap Leather SHADE: Brown Ink HIGHLIGHT: Beast Hide BASE:
Cloth ’Jack Bone Bastion Grey HIGHLIGHT: Menoth White Highlight BASE:
SHADE:
Armor Wash Cold Steel
HIGHLIGHT:
Overalls Gravedigger Denim Exile Blue HIGHLIGHT: Underbelly Blue BASE:
SHADE:
SHADE:
TIP S AI N TIN G the Grymkin wi th a feow of w o th l g P le p the pur ea with Men You can create rt by basecoating the ar thinned-down ta S . of h simple steps ply a wash the glow wit ht. Next, ap White Highlig nta. Highlight the center of gy Purple Ink, ge Pig Murderous Ma lly, glaze the area with . Fina epest recesses de he t Carnal Pink. n i te ntra ce n o c o t t i allowing 135
"THE DREAMER'S NIGHTMARE" PAINT SCHEME SKIN & MOANS
Skin BASE:
Eyes
Ryn Flesh Battlefield Brown
SHADE:
Menoth White Highlight SHADE: Bastion Grey HIGHLIGHT: Morrow White BASE:
Blood or Rust BASE:
Umbral Umber Skorne Red
HIGHLIGHT:
Knives ’Jack Bone Greatcoat Grey HIGHLIGHT: Menoth White Highlight BASE:
Dark Skin
SHADE:
Idrian Flesh Battlefield Brown HIGHLIGHT: Khardic Flesh BASE:
SHADE:
Sickly Flesh Stitches
Meredius Blue Turquoise Ink HIGHLIGHT: Morrow White BASE:
SHADE:
Thamar Black SHADE: Bastion Grey HIGHLIGHT: ’Jack Bone BASE:
Painter's Inspiration No Defier has such uninhibited influence over the physical world as the Dreamer. In her surreal trance, reality warps moment to moment as she passes through vertiginous stages of shifting lucidity. Perhaps most terrifying is when the Dreamer moves from the gentler phantasms of her dreams to the trembling darkness of her nightmares. Her whole host of grymkin is remade into even more ghastly and terrifying forms, glowing with the spectral greens and whites of the landscape she inhabited during her half-remembered imprisonment in Urcaen. Light flesh tones and desaturated colors contrast sharply with the hellish green of the dream creatures made real, giving the army the feel of having wrapped themselves in the skins of those who oppose their master’s vengeance. The blood-spattered bone weapons further help to create a force terrifying to behold on the battlefield.
136
"THE DREAMER'S NIGHTMARE" PAINT SCHEME DREAD ROT
Vines
Pumpkin Meredius Blue Turquoise Ink HIGHLIGHT: Morrow White BASE:
Iosan Green Green Ink HIGHLIGHT: Necrotite Green BASE:
SHADE:
SHADE:
Eyes & Mouth Menoth White Highlight Bastion Grey HIGHLIGHT: Morrow White BASE:
Sack
SHADE:
Hammerfall Khaki SHADE: Gun Corps Brown BASE:
HIGHLIGHT:
Metal
’Jack Bone
Pig Iron Greatcoat Grey HIGHLIGHT: Cold Steel BASE:
SHADE:
Leather Bootstrap Leather Battlefield Brown HIGHLIGHT: Gun Corps Brown BASE:
Overalls
SHADE:
Cygnar Blue Base Exile Blue HIGHLIGHT: Trollblood Highlight BASE:
SHADE:
Pants BASE:
Cloth
SHADE:
BASE:
Cryx Bane Highlight Bastion Grey SHADE: Battlefield Brown
’Jack Bone Greatcoat Grey HIGHLIGHT: Menoth White Highlight SHADE:
INTING
TIP S
purple
PA models, choboasseecaoraetdedosrkin. Add s on your
ein he ty. To paint v ply it lightly onto t e down the intensi p n in a o k t s d n o r a t e t r r h colo colo a lig eins with in. f the skin a touch o n glaze over the v underneath the sk ng he You can t e the illusion of bei v color to gi 137
"THE EMBER HOST" PAINT SCHEME SKIN & MOANS
Dark Skins Idrian Flesh Caspian Flesh Wash HIGHLIGHT: Kossite Flesh Wash BASE:
SHADE:
Teeth
Ghostly Flame
’Jack Bone Bastion Grey HIGHLIGHT: Menoth White Highlight BASE:
BASE
:
SHADE:
Menoth White Highlight Wurm Green
HIGHLIGHT: HIGHLIGHT:
Yellow Ink
Knives
Wraps
Pig Iron Deathless Metal HIGHLIGHT: Cold Steel BASE:
Midlund Flesh SHADE: Caspian Flesh Wash HIGHLIGHT: Kossite Flesh Wash BASE:
SHADE:
Flesh
Stitches
Skorne Red Umbral Umber HIGHLIGHT: Carnal Pink BASE:
Thamar Black Hammerfall Khaki HIGHLIGHT: ’Jack Bone BASE:
SHADE:
SHADE:
Painter's Inspiration
-By Dallas Kemp
When painting my Grymkin force, I knew I wanted to add a bit of something to the sculpts. I settled on fire, as it would be an opportunity for me to learn how to sculpt fire while adding a unique twist to my army’s look. I imagine my force being the harbinger of a dark time on Caen when Menoth’s gift of Fire is extinguished, stolen and twisted by the Grymkin, leaving humanity to freeze. For inspiration, I turned to an old Privateer Press Insider (February 7, 2011) in which sculptor Brian Dugas discusses sculpting fire. After several failed attempts, I finally achieved an acceptable level of fire for my models. Moving on to painting, I used zenithal priming and copious glazing and washes. This sped up my base layers and created a dark, atmospheric appearance. I then went over the models with detail work to make them pop. For the green flame, I basecoated with Menoth White Highlight (thanks, Menoth!), then sketched with Wurm Green and Necrotite Green. Next, I used Yellow Ink to tone down the white and tie the greens together. Finally, I blended some Thamar Black over the tips. My Ember Host is now fully prepared to burn up the battlefield! 138
"THE EMBER HOST" PAINT SCHEME DREAD ROT
Ghostly Flame BASE:
Menoth White Highlight
HIGHLIGHT: HIGHLIGHT:
Wurm Green Yellow Ink
Pumpkin Menoth White Highlight Yellow Ink SHADE: Kossite Flesh Wash BASE:
SHADE:
Metal
Sack BASE:
Pig Iron Deathless Metal HIGHLIGHT: Cold Steel BASE:
’Jack Bone
SHADE:
SHADE:
Kossite Flesh Wash Hammerfall Khaki
HIGHLIGHT:
Wraps Cloth Exile Blue Coal Black HIGHLIGHT: Cygnar Blue Base BASE:
SHADE:
’Jack Bone Kossite Flesh Wash HIGHLIGHT: Hammerfall Khaki BASE:
SHADE:
I PS I NTI NG T w o od , like that fobr undwonsn. ad de P A of pearance to your o t Create the ap tree, by adding greys a grea es k a m y e od o the Witchw n mixed with Bastion Gr mmerfall Khaki w Ha een Battlefield Bro hlight the texture with g Battledress Gr base layer. Hi tion Grey. Use a wash of s together and s lor mixed with Ba Green to tie the co ood and Thornw dead tree look. t create a grea 139
GOREHOUND
by Dallas Kemp
THE HERETIC
GOREHOUND
by Dallas Kemp
by Laine Garrett
CAGE RAGER
by Gabe Waluconis
CAGE RAGER by Will Shick
WITCHWOOD
by Richard Anderson
PIGGYBACK
RATTLER
by Geoff Konkel
by Will Shick
WITCHWOOD by Jason Soles
PIGGYBACK
by Stuart Spengler
140
WITCHWOOD by Dallas Kemp
LANTERN MAN & HOLLOWMAN by Michael Archer
HOLLOWMAN
by James Arbuthnot
DREAD ROT
by Wendy Vermeers
CAGE RAGER
by Justin Cottom
CAGE RAGER by Dallas Kemp
RATTLER
by Stuart Spengler
RATTLER
by Dallas Kemp
SKIN & MOANS by Will Shick
LORD LONGFELLOW by Dan Roman
SKIN & MOANS by Michael Archer
LORD LONGFELLOW by Matt Razincka
SKIN & MOANS
by Michael Mulligan
141
VEIL
OF
MISTS
(The Wanderer)
ARTIFICE
OF
DEVIATION
(The Dreamer)
You may photocopy these templates for your personal and non-commercial use.
W ALL
OF
FIRE
(The Heretic)
BLACK WINGS
(Zevanna Agha, the Fate Keeper)
BURNING ASH
(The King of Nothing)
You may photocopy these templates for your personal and non-commercial use.
