Friday, October 16, 2020

Background and Lore for the Khainite Shadowstalkers and the Scions of Flame

 

Getting into the lore and background of two new warbands, Khainite Shadowstalkers and the Scions of Flame.


via WarCom

Warcry is heading underground in its new core set, which takes your vicious skirmishes to the dread subterranean dwellings beneath the Eightpoints. The new set includes two warbands – the Khainite Shadowstalkers and the Scions of the Flame, and today, we’re going to learn a bit more about them. But first, a quick look at said Catacombs…

Varanthax’s Maw

Much of the action in Warcry: Catacombs takes place in and around a vast, infernal forge that lies beneath the Skullpike Mountains. It’s a sweltering, sulphurous domain, surrounded by a vast network of molten, lava-filled canals, cavernous chambers, and labyrinthine tunnels. It is to these claustrophobic halls that ambitious warbands are drawn from across the Eightpoints in search of glory, ancient relics, and the transmutational realmstone known as varanite, which is treasured above all else.

The Scions of the Flame

Seeking nothing less than to scour the Mortal Realms clean with an inferno of divine wrath, the Scions of the Flame worship Chaos in what they believe to be its purest form – that of the Ever-Raging Flame. They embrace the ‘holy’ fury of Aqshian magic, unleashing torrents of volcanic elemental flame to immolate those who would deny their truth.

The Scions of the Flame engage in archaic practices, consuming the blazing heart of magmavores and other fire-touched beasts in order to imbibe their molten power for the battles to come. The weak among them combust from within at the height of such rituals, while some become living torches, wreathed in magical flame and able to sunder the armour, flesh, and bone of their enemies like a hot knife through butter. The Scions serve Archaon faithfully, believing that he will lead them in a fiery apocalypse as his mighty legions slaughter their way across the Mortal Realms.

Khainite Shadowstalkers

Hand-picked agents of Morathi, Khainite Shadowstalkers are each branded with the shademark, a sorcerous pact that grants its bearer supernatural abilities while binding their souls to the Shadow Queen’s eternal servitude. Able to dart from shadow to shadow and land a killing stroke in the blink of an eye, Shadowstalkers are master assassins all.

Khainite Shadowstalkers can utilise the arcane pathways of the Umbral Web to travel vast distances in an instant, making it possible to hunt their prey regardless of where they might seek to hide. To be marked for death by the Shadowstalkers is to be doomed to die without warning, for few of their quarries ever see the danger coming before it’s too late.

The boldest of the Shadowstalkers even forge pacts with shadow daemons, becoming one with the darkness and bleeding nought but abyssal nothingness when cut. These deadly hybrids can even command the shadows of their prey to do their bidding, throttling their owner or stabbing them in the back with blades formed from their own twilight reflection.

It won’t be long before you can field these new warbands in your games of Warcry – they’re coming very soon! If you’d like to learn more about them and the setting of Warcry: Catacombs, make sure you pick up Black Library’s tie-in novel, Warcry Catacombs: Blood of the Everchosen, which will be released alongside them too. It even includes an exclusive challenge battle card to use in the game! With which warband will you brave the Stygian darkness beneath the Eighpoints?