lore bits from AoS 3.0

-The Mortal Realms are on the brink of utter destruction. The fate of all the Mortal Realms will be decided by the valor of the pioneers and colonists of the Dawnbringer Crusades. They are marching to hellish wastelands to rebuild civilization anew. They are facing a myriad of terrible and mighty foes as they do so. While they do not lack the courage to face them, it's not always enough. And each battle saps a little of their souls.



-Sigmar does not speak of his arrival to the Mortal Realms. Alluding to the destruction of the World-That-Was risks igniting his thunderous wrath.



-The Mortal Realms are a set of realities crystalized from the scattered remnants of broken worlds.



-Sigmar shaped the primitive humans he found in the Mortal Realms in the image of his homeland. Sigmar's native tongue (Reikspiel) formed the basis of the Azyrite language.



-The Age of Myth was a paradise of unlimited potential and progress. Even Nagashizzar was considered a place of order and progress where strife and anarchy were distant memories. Though, few knew that it and other holdings of Nagash hid beneath them the inert forms of what would become the cornerstones of Nagash's New Order.



-Khorne is made stronger by every conflict. The recent eruption of violence and barbarism in Ghur has fed into his power.



-Since Tzeentch is the master of all change, he has a claim on ultimate power. After all, without transformation, the gods cannot bestow their gifts, Warriors cannot ascend to greatness, and the living cannot die. It's possible for Tzeentch to pull the string of his fellow gods if he wasn't lost to madness. He cannot see the past, present, and future all at once, nor can he fathom the consequences of his infinite schemes. Neither does he care that his plans conflict with each other; to Tzeentch, manipulation is the goal in and of itself.



-Nurgle cares most of all for the sickening inevitability of entropy.





-The Chaos Gods are powerful primordial and cosmic entities made up of coalesced emotions and concepts. They existed for as long as sentience itself. As long as emotions exist within the heart of mortals, they cannot truly be defeated.



-The Chaos Gods view the gods of the Mortal Realms as upstarts, Just pawns in their Great Game. Yet, the Chaos Gods are not invulnerable. Slaanesh found that out the hard way.



The Gods of Hysh cannot stray into Ulgu and vice versa. However, the gods of light and shadow can coexist and meet in the Hidden Glooming Uhl-Gysh.



-The Aelven Gods' trapping of Slaanesh resulted in them turning their backs on Sigmar at a critical time.



-Teclis knows that Slaanesh cannot be caged indefinitely. He realizes that the Aelven Gods must prepare for his eventual escape.



-The Chaos Gods have invaded many worlds. The Realm of Chaos bleeds into hundreds of realities and more. When the Chaos Gods found the Mortal Realms, they desired nothing more than to conquer them whole. They would drag them down and consume them in the Realm of Chaos, by doing so eradicating them from reality.



-The first daemonic incursion happened in the Realm of Fire, the result of Threx Skullbrans and Korghos Khul spiraling a series of honor duels into ongoing massacres. The bloodshed thinned the fabric of reality, allowing the daemons of Khorne to burst through.



-The savagery of Ghur appealed to Khorne. It didn't take much effort to tip the greenskin and human people's of that realm into brutal war. Instead of fighting for food or to prove dominance, the peoples of Ghur fought for the mere joy of it.



- Grungni's great works in Chamon could not last against the concentrated magics of Tzeentch. The splendor of that realm was turned impermanent.



-Chaos found little purchase in the Realm of Shadow thanks to the cunning of Malerion and the fact that daemonic power dwindles when not sustained by the dark energies that spawned them. However, not all servants of Chaos were lost and weakened in Ulgu. The Skaven thrived there, multiplying in the cracks in that realm's reality until they spread as far as the Shadrac Convergence, where Malerion's and Morathi's realm all but crisscross with one another. They would ultimately cause the Cathtrar Dhule.



-Every heaven or hell imagined by mortal minds manifest by the power of belief in the Realm's Edge of Shyish. Thousands of Death Gods ruled these realms. Nagash took great pains to become the lone god of Shyish by conquering afterlives he could find.



-The order and solidity of Shyish offended the Chaos Gods. It was Nurgle who first struck at Shyish, turning the underworld away from Nagash's rigid control and transforming them into places of unruly despair and desperate battle.



-Azyr, too, felt the touch of Chaos. Chaos tainted meteors and Warpstones rained from the heavens. Celestial beasts were tainted, changing in nature and form.



-on the surface, Chaos seemed to be an invading outside force. But the wise knew that it for what it was. Chaos came from within. It's the darkness in the hearts of every man and woman, for the Chaos Gods were the creations of the hopes, rage, despair, and lusts of mortal souls.



- rage and grief over the destruction of the World-That-Was consumed Sigmar. It got worse in the Chaos invasion of the Mortal Realms. He fought with passion and rage more than detachment and strategic prowess. For every victory he secured, the forces of order lost a dozen.



-Gorkamorka and Teclis were present in the Battle of Burning Skies. Gorkamorka rampaged and clubbed chasms into the rushing hordes of Chaos. Teclis banished countless Chaos filth.



-After the defeat at the Battle of Burning Skies, Sigmar continued to fight and fight long he did. He even brought the battle to the Allpoints, but slowly, his armies were decimated, and he was forced to abandon the other realms to damnation.



-Teclis would have weaved a great magical spell to destroy the Cythai had Tyrion not preached for mercy. News of their creator's desire to destroy them reached the Cythai. The terrified Aelven race fled to the depths of the oceans to escape both Slaanesh and their creator.



-Many more iterations of the Aelven race were created. Among them are the majestic and terrible creations of Malerion. The Lumineth were considered the most successful, at least by the Hyshian standards.



-The Age of Chaos lasted five centuries.



-Tzeentch manipulated the people's Spiral Crux into wielding magics too potent for them to control. By doing so, Tzeentch poisoned the heart of Chamon with the taint of Chaos, reshaping the realm forever. Now Tzeentch has more claim to the alchemical reaches of chamon than the Duardin Gods ever did.



-Ulgu fared better than the other realms. Only the Great Horned Rat and his followers thrived to the point of contesting the rule of the Malerion and Mortathi. Though the Horned Rat was the least of the Chaos Gods, his influence eroded reality in Ulgu. At the peak of the Age of Chaos, hordes of Slaaneshi daemons and followers infested the Realm of Shadow.



-Through Archaon's dark genius, he carved into reality the immortal truth that Chaos had claimed a victory that could never be undone. The ultimate victory of the Chaos Gods in the Mortal Realms neared completion. Unknown even to his trusted lords, Archaon wasn't doing it to be rewarded by the Chaos Gods. He was doing it to usurp them.



-Sigmar realized that he could not fight Chaos in the same way he did before. Instead of being the champion of mankind, he would be their terrible father. Instead of Ghal Maraz, he would wield the civilization of Azyr as his weapon. At the forefront of his new war are the Stormcast Eternals.



-The ability of Sigmar to hurl the Stormcast into the realms as lightning was a gift from Grungni



-The leading theory regarding how the Realmgates were set in the Mortal Realms connects them with the Slann and their masters. The Old Ones, through their mastery over the cosmos, created tiny bridges from one point of space to another. There are similar bridges and rifts in other worlds and realities. So some of those who walk the Mortal Realms have come from other realities.



-The first among the Seeds of Hope was the Living City. The speed of its founding was thanks to the Everqueen's magic.



-Greywater Fastness was founded as an industrial metropolis bringing technological wonders to the Realm of Life. However, its reckless use of realmstone and pollution of its ceaseless machinery made it a blight on nearby lands. The city was almost wiped out by enraged tree spirits until an argument was struck. The city was quarantined with one path in and out. Should the city expand its borders, the Everqueen will allow Pale Oak and the Dreadwood to tear it down until nothing remains.



-Hammerhal is the largest city in the Mortal Realms.



-Scores of other cities were founded. But for every city that survived the battles of Age of Sigmar, dozens were destroyed by the evils that yet still claim the Realms.



-The Forces of Order, Chaos, and Destruction converged on Nagashizzar to stop Nagash's ritual. The manipulations of the Changeling saw the former two fight against each other rather than complete their march into the city. So it was the forces of Destruction that smashed their way into Nagash's city. Had the three forces entered the city at the same time, history would have been different. The forces of Destruction were cut down by the guardians of the city; with their defeat, the way was open for Nagash to finish his ritual.



-The deadly and necromantic energies unleashed by the creation of the Shyish Nadir impacted even Azyr. For the first time in centuries, Azyr knew war.



-There might have been an argument that Sigmar did not wrong Nagash by creating the Stormcast since the souls he took to Azyr did not pass the threshold of death. This argument was nulled by the existence of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer. This was an entire stormhost created from the souls of long-dead warriors. They proved that Sigmar had nothing but contempt for Nagash's rightful rule.



-Few generations passed between the start of the Age of Sigmar and the casting of Nagash's ritual.



-Nagash's ritual did not go completely as he planned. Skaven agents infiltrated the Black Pyramid. In acts of petty spite, they ate precious Warpstone and scratched out Nehekharan runes. Though they did not survive the magical backlash, their Chaos tainted bodies derailed the ritual resulting in the unleashing of magical power across the realms and the changing the nature of spellcrafting. Once again, Nagash had underestimated the Skaven and paid for it.



-It's speculated that this was engineered by the machinations of Tzeentch, who wanted to usher in an age of magic and increase his own power without drawing the attention of his brother gods to himself.



-Before the ritual of Nagash, spells would eventually be pulled apart and drawn into the Realm's Edges. This law of magic was broken. Now spells had no natural end. They would linger and become roaming forces of destruction dangerous to both their casters and victims.



-To seek an excess of power is to empower Slaanesh, no matter the method. The poisoned feasts of souls Morathi fed Slaanesh would bear strange fruit (The Slaaneshi Twins).



-Thanks to their new symbiotic connection with their home realm, The Lumineth and Hysh overcame the scourge of Shyish better than any other realm. They then carved Aelven runes of stability and sanctity into the landscapes counteracting the entropic influence of Chaos and stabilizing the realm. Though far from undone, the work of the Chaos Gods was stalled in Hysh.



-Vindicarum is the most faithful city, that was made it a target for Be'lakor.



-Kragnos would have slain Gordrakk had Skragrott not intervened.



-Kragnos rampage sparked a new age of war as the greenskins flocked to him. Thus the era of the Beast began. Sigmar knew the terrible power of the greenskin should they unite behind a single leader. So he sent his Stormhost to slay every warlord they could find before the greenskins could reach critical mass. It may be already too late



-The Realms are a mix of magical energy and physical matter shaped in the dim memory of what came before. The realms are united by the laws of reality.



-One of the laws that define the realms is that of innate coherence. Each realm is dominated by a certain type of magic that defines its form and nature.



-The realms were created slowly in the Aetheric Void. The result of magic clustering together and crystalizing before combining with cosmic dust, nebulae, and the remnants of the World-That-WAs.



-The Realmspheres are not fixed in space. They move in a stately celestial dance.



-One of Ulgu's moons, The Orb Duplicita, is a host to a race of Shadow Daemons that have a pact of nonaggression with Malerion and Morathi.



-Lunaghast is the skull-faced lone moon of Shyish. It's made of dark matter, and it feeds on secrets. It gives power to betrayers and madmen. It's the ghost of Morrslieb.



-Behind the veil of the Mortal Realms exists the Realm of Chaos. A nightmarish no-place that is home to the Chaos Gods and their daemons, where natural law and order don't exist. The Realm of Chaos bleeds into the Mortal Realms seeking to expand and grow larger. It remains to be seen if Sigmar can stop it from consuming the realms whole.



-Mores of magical energy can be found in every rock and leaf in the Mortal Realms. In the core of the realms, this magical energy is calm and thin. In the edges, they are concentrated and volatile. In the edges of the realms, a curse spoken in jest can kill. A wave of a hand can unleash a tidal wave of magic. The more you move away from the realm's cores, the easier spellcasting becomes.



-The Mortal Realms are not infinite, but to the mortal man, they might as well be. A man on a journey from the core of a realm to the edge can, in theory, reach his destination. However, he would have to spend his whole life walking, and in the end, he would be consumed by the wild magic on edge.



-If a mortal reaches the edge of Chamon, he could find himself melted into molten slag, transformed into a creaking metal golem, or turned into a pile of useless coins with his screaming likeness of minted on both sides.



-One of the draws of joining the Dawnbringer Crusades is that the land claimed by the Crusaders belongs to them and their family lines. This motivated the improvised citizenry to join up and brave the dangers of the Mortal Realms.



-The Crusaders drag with them Metaliths. These are naturally occurring floating islands present in the Mortal Realms.



-Once they secured the land they embarked to claim, the Crusaders use devices called Nexus siphons to channel the magical energies of the land's leylines into guardian idols. These idols create a spiritual barrier that holds back daemons and nighthaunts.



-Resources, buildings, and civilians are unloaded into the land from the Megalith.



-The majority of Dawnbringer Crusaders' settlements fail. For each one settlement that wins its right to survive, dozens are burned to the ground.



-Aqshy burns so bright that it appears as a second sun in the skies of the realms close to it.



-People navigate the realms using devices that point to the highest concentration of magic which is usually the edges of the realms. This means that due north always leads to the edge. South leads to the realm's core. East leads clockwise around the great disc of the realm. West is anticlockwise. This realm constant is reversed in Shyish. The device compass points to the core where the Shyish Nadir exists.



-Hammerhal Ghyra uses insects as not only a source of food but also as beasts of burden and war. They ride scarabs to war and use beetles as carthorses with the added benefit of flight.



-The landscape of the Ghur is alive, and it's in a struggle with itself for dominance. Mountain, hill, river, forests are all fighting one and another in an endless savage struggle. So it's an expectation for a mortal to sleep for the night and awaken to find the land around him has changed.



-The dominant form of life in Ghur are the Greenskins and the races of Destruction.



-Chamon is the strangest of all the realms. It hangs as a collection of landscapes in the Aetheric Void. Mortals describe it as appearing as a workshop of a god. After Tzeentch took over Chamon, this analogy holds truth, for he shaped chamon to be more fitting with his mad vision. Tzeentch finds the vast potential of Chamon most intoxicating.



-Much of Chamon is metallic through verdant areas and pure water exist in abundance, especially near the realm's core.



`-The Fluxers civilization in the Spiral Crux fought back against the Chaos hordes in the Age of Chaos using clockwork legions. Their automaton armies were ultimately crushed by the daemons. Their civilization was reduced from millions to a few thousands fighting a desperate battle for survival with only their faith in Sigmar sustaining them.



-The ritual gave Nagash the power he needed to regain ascendancy over Shyish.



-Most underworlds in Shyish were absorbed by Nagash's rule.



-If left unchecked, the Shyish Nadir may one day grow to consume all life in the Mortal Realms.



-The Land of Forgotten Gods acted as the meeting place oi many gods of death. They gathered in Castle Deific Mons to debate the distribution of souls. The castle now is silent and empty; the gods that once met here have long been devoured by Nagash in his quest to be the one god of Shyish. Worship of these gods persists still. Most notable of these gods is Morrada; a funereal deity worshiped by gravekeepers and mortuary priests. His worshipers claim that he alone escaped the clutches of Nagash. Scholars of Azye doubt this, but they cannot deny that Morrada's worshippers have the power to still departed souls and prevent them from slipping into the grasp of Nagash.



-Sparking and maintaining faith in Shyish is important for Sigmar's cause in Shyish. Intense faith can anchor landmasses and stop them from being pulled into the whirlpool of the Shyish Nadir.



-For all the efforts of the hordes of Chaos and the Skaven, the rule of Malerion over Ulgu was not usurped. Many regions of the realm of shadow haven't felt the touch of Chaos.



-While Aelves of Hysh live in symbiotic harmony with their realm, Malerion and his Aelves dominate Ulgu with dark magic.



-Malerion manifested first on Ulgu as a raging shade with an insubstantial form. His rage and bitterness coalesced a solid material form for him



-Malerion found his mother in the middle of a bacchanal with the Shadow Daemons of the Orb Duplicita. He would found out later that she struck an alliance with them.



-The Lumineth allow humans to settle Xintil. The Aelves have made efforts to make the region hospitable to mankind. Hyshian magic is dull there, and there are few geomantic spirits. This makes it suitable for humans in the reckoning of the aelves, for they believe that humanity would sully the more pristine regions of Hysh with their greed and crudeness.



-Few humans are allowed to the other Great nations of Hysh. However, they are still treated as honored allies.



-The Lumineth treat humanity's presence in Hysh as an experiment. They seek to elevate mankind beyond their small intellects and dull passions in order to guide them to becoming something greater. Not as great as the Aelves, of course, but they can surely be turned into more useful tools in the war against Chaos.



-No crusade can be launched in Hysh without the permission of Tyrion and Teclis. It seemed to many that the Aelven Gods are the ones that control the armies of the Hyshian Free cities, not Sigmar.



-The Lumineth act as the societal overlords of the Hyshian free cities, which they consider their wards.



-Teclis' and the Lumnieth's investment in mankind was vindicated when the armies of Settler's Gain proved to be instrumental in Nagash's defeat in Hysh. It proved, no matter how crude they are, humans were worthy of the arcane secrets granted to them.



-Teclis and the Lumnieth would see civilization rise again in the Mortal Realms, but it would be in their image. If other Order races are burned in Lumnieth's quest to save the realms, it's regrettable, but it's a price that he and his people are willing to pay.



-The stars of Azyr are not real stars. They are concentrated celestium crystals or distant geomantic phenomena



-Sigmarabulum, the ring around Mallus, was built through the combined efforts of Tyrion, Grungni, and Dracothion.



-Be'lakor says that Sigmar and Mortal Realm Gods are false Gods. They are just ascended mortals swollen with power. Ultimately they are powerless against eternity. The true gods are elemental, immortal, and unknowable. They have existed for all time and yet never existed at all. With creation in their grasp, they crashed reality, and when it was remade, they gouged their claws deep again.



-When Sigmar took the most warlike spirits from Shyish's underworlds, he left many civilizations bereft of their greatest champions, causing them to fall beneath the blades of Chaos. The Underworlds Hallost and Ossia were particularly impacted by Sigmar's harvest, and its remaining people and spirits blame Sigmar for their near conquest by Chaos. For his part, Sigmar considered it a necessary evil for the fight against Chaos, was all. Sigmar will suffer no compromise no matter the cost.



-The Gods of the Mortal Realms know nothing of the godlike Olds Ones except for the fact that they came to the World-That-WAs aboard silver ships and that many of the races of the Mortal Realms are their creations.



-The Old Ones have disappeared long ago, likely due to the machinations of the Chaos Gods. The Slann continue to follow the Old Ones' Great Plan for all of creation. In doing so, they will bring about the defeat of Chaos.



-Some Slann look at the Dawnbringer Crusades with displeasure. The Seraphon warhosts were sent to destroy Crusades that strayed too close to nodes of geomantic power they cannot be trusted with.



-Most of the Sylvaneth, not all, are noble beings who believe in Order's cause. They kill only in necessity. If they war against the resurgent Sigmirite civilizations, it's only due to an unforgivable crime against nature. These kinds of conflicts, though, are rare. The Sylvaneth understand that they must, on occasion, play the part of capricious terrible forest spirits that men fear, but they are more inclined to coexist with other Order races.



-Morathi mistrust males. So only females might hold power in the Daughters of Khaine. Males are treated as slaves or materials for sacrifices. The rare males born with magical ability are allowed to join the Doomfire covens, where they are branded with runes of control.



-Shadowstalkers exist outside the strict hierarchy of the Daughters of Khaine. Their ranks are open for both females and males.



-Khorne was the ascendant Chaos God during the Age of Chaos due to the countless unimaginable slaughters across the realms. When the Age o Sigmar started, Khorne did not see the defeats of his minions as a loss. He welcomed a new epoch of war.



-The vast majority of the Great Parch remains in control of the Goretide and their fellow Khornate worshipers.



- Khorgos Khul seeks his nemesis Vandus Hammerhand, believing that the slaying of this mighty champion of Sigmar will elevate him to daemonhood.



-As the Era of the Beasts begins, Khorne ascension as the dominant power of Chaos is assured.



-Followers of Tzeentch are unaware that Tzeentch has no ultimate goal or they are too deranged to care. Though they have their agendas initially, they are doomed to be twisted to seek change for its own sake by the power of Tzeentch.



-More than any other Chaos Gods, Tzeentch has prospered from the return of civilization to the Mortal realms.



-What the other gods of Chaos achieve through fury, enthusiasm, and flair, Tzeentch achieves through cunning, subtly, and magical prowess. It's a strategy that rarely failed, and it could see him the ultimate victor of the Great Game given enough time.



-During the Realmgate Wars, Nurgle sought to capture and make the Everqueen his lover. Her continuous defiance has worn his patience. Now his followers march to undo her work with greater enthusiasm.



-The Great Horned Rat's power stems from paranoia, desperation, treachery, and corruption. If he has his way, he would see all of creation crumble into a barren wasteland



-The cultists of the Horned Rat, among the other races, see him as the God of famine, drought, self-destruction for the sake of it, and the demented mania that takes hold when one delights in the failures of others.



-The Great Horned Rat's position in the Chaos Pantheon is precarious. He strives to prove his might beyond a doubt.



-The only thing stopping the Skaven from achieving ultimate dominion is themselves. Their self-sabotaging nature thwarts their efforts to conquer the realms. However, should the Skaven unite as one, and this has happened before, they will be impossible to stop. The realms will be remade in their debased image.



-The Beastmen of Chaos have a claim to being the true masters of the Mortal Realms since before the Age of Myth and the coming of the gods, it was the Beastmen that ruled the realms as their hunting grounds.



-The Beastmen's rage stems from the sight of anarchy replaced with law and order. They are not in harmony with nature and the land around them. Out of spite, they would uproot forests, pollute oceans, and leave no stone atop another. The most extreme of their number rage against the realms themselves, desiring to reduce all of creation into primordial sludge.



-The Beastmen were the first warriors of Chaos to sense the awakening of realms, and they were the first to harness their power for their twisted ends.



-All Orruks are united by their instinctive contempt for civilization and the false unearned strength it bestows.