Shrouded Masjid of the Witch Goddess

** Howl of Oblivion Campaign Page **

Unsettling Portent

A night of fitful rest leaves the spellcasters in the party drained and off-kilter the next morning.  Dreadful visions plague everyone, but leaves magicians and clerics unable to memorize spells for an entire day.  The party ignores this and continues on as normal.

The Funerary Temple

A little investigation turns up that this cult is based in the Funerary Temple of the Royal Graveyard in Yecha.  Borz and Khaine poke around a bit, and discover that it's a mostly public place.  Astonished, they continue to investigate until the learn the habits of the priests and guards there.

It seems it's a sanctified place to prepare the dead for burial, entombment or mummification depending on the faith.  Though it is tended by the clergy of Istus, all are welcome to use the temple.  When they learn this, they return to the Traveler's Inn for the rest of the party.

When the party next arrives at the Funerary Temple, they are asked only to wait until the priests of Istus finish their preparations for tomorrow's interments.  The temple is then cleared, and the party simply enters the temple preparation area.

Fane of the Red Witch

A half glimpse of a hatch closing leads to an investigation of the walls.  Borz is unable to find a hatch where he saw one, even with his stonecunning.  Khaine likewise couldn't detect a latch or spring, but Anverth recognized the enchantment immediately.  Following his guidance, the thieves were able to see past the illusion and simply push the hatch open.

Inside was a long, narrow hatch with a ladder that took considerable time and effort to descend.  Inside was a wizard in red, with a glass orb in the shape of an eye.  Behind him was a doorway blocked by a glowing rune.  Borz, the first one down, announced that he came in the name of Dumathoin, which provoked an attack by the wizard's giant glass eye.  It shot a gleaming magenta beam, but it didn't affect Borz, who began to engage with the staff-wielding fanatic.

A few moments later, the party finishes the descent.  Khaine and Iris are paralyzed by the glowing orb, but the rest of the party finish the wizard and his glass eye.  When it's cracked and destroyed, the glowing rune blocking the door flexes and dissipates.

Going through the portal takes a full-body dive, and once Borz is through to the other side he runs face to face with another acolyte of the Witch Goddess.  Mayhem ensues throughout the complex, with three more cultists meeting their fate as the party chases them throughout the complex.

A great fire that had been lit in the center of the complex suddenly extinguishes, and the far door opens.  The High Priestess Obertorop and her guardian, Rodeg the Revenant, enter the room and announce themselves.  She is impressed with the tenacity of the adventurers and demands to know why they are here.

When the party explains they are here for the Staff of Oroch-Vaan, she calmly states that the staff is not going anywhere due to it's relevance to the cult of Wee Jas.  However, she could offer an alternative treasure to them instead, if they agree to do her bidding and enter the tomb beneath the fane.  She explains that there is a portal to Limbo beneath, in the Second Tomb of Oroch-Vaan.  If it is not closed, it could have disastrous consequences after the omens the night before. 

The High Priestess explains that she has lost control over the automatons that roam the lower tomb.  The party would enter the tomb, proceed to the riftwell and close it after offering a prayer to Wee Jas.  The party says they will consider it, and move into the entry chamber to discuss things.  It's about then that they realize the mystic seal is back, and they cannot leave.

Jasidan guards begin to file into the fane from behind the revenant.  As the players debate, they gather the dead Jasidans slain by the party and bring them to the High Priestess.  Obertorop then begins to raise them. 

Obertorop states their reward will be anything they can carry back from the tomb, what they have already taken from the fane, forgiveness for their transgressions - and their freedom.  The party agrees to help the High Priestess.  She bids them take their rest in the barracks in the masjid, and later they will be escorted to the tomb.  

Warhammer Fantasy Battle

3rd Edition, baby.

Warhammer.  It's SRS BZNZ.

I had always wanted a fantasy miniature collection, since I learned that such things were possible many years ago.  As a teenager, I was really into Marauder miniatures - but I was never exposed to wargaming back then.  It wasn't until I got older and had a job that I would learn about Warhammer 40,000.  Soon after, I would learn about the fantasy version of the game from friends made on the battlefields of the 41st millennium.  Maybe three years into miniature collecting proper (somewhere around 1998) I had my very first fantasy army - the Undead.

Fast forward many years, and I have many armies and campaigns under my belt.  Then something terrible happened to Warhammer.  I'm not really going to talk much about End Times or Age of Sigmar, because I hate them.  I like some Age of Sigmar models, but that's about it.  If I can't use them for something other than Age of Sigmar I'm not likely to use them at all.

A few years later, and Oldhammer is powerful.  In addition, many other games rose to fill the gap left by the death of Warhammer.  Some were good games, but they just don't have that down-home flavor of the Old World.  Still, as a community, Warhammer Fantasy players adapted.  The 9th Age began, for better or worse (YMMV).  The Warhammer Armies Project (yes, the actual WAP for many a year now) began an unofficial 9th Edition.

I have something like eight Warhammer Fantasy Armies.  I'm still building them, with old pieces.  However, Games Workshop must have felt the pulse of Warhammer deep in the muck of the Age of Sigmar.  Last year, they offered us a tease of something we desperately wanted - a return of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, proper.

A few articles have come out.  The announcement.  A map teaser.  The latest on...Bretonnians?

Games Workshop has let us know our caparisoned knights will be back on the table in an 'official' and 'supported' capacity soon.  Well, that's fine - the way it SHOULD be.  However, we've been doing this without Games Workshop's involvement for quite some time, because they literally ended the world with all of us still in it.  

For whatever reason, a large portion of the player base DID NOT end up in the Age of Sigmar.  So I guess they have to come back for us if they want our gold crowns.  For myself, I wanted to introduce Warhammer Fantasy Battles to the blog while Games Workshop is talking about it.  I'm most interested in the Oldhammer, but for current style games I'm all in on the Warhammer Army Project's 9th Edition.  You can find everything you need there for battles in the Old World, and I'll probably drop edition translations of old magic and items, and maybe characters or units we dig up from the vault.

For the Old World, I'm hopeful but wary.  I want this to be the definitive version of Warhammer, but Games Workshop doesn't really work that way.  We'll wait and see.  Until then, check your 9th Edition army books at the WAP, or find an army there and start raising the banners.  Hit me up if you need help finding models among the myriad of manufacturers now available!  It's a sea of choice!

Nemesis Nihilum: A Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Setting

Perfidium Roil

For nearly a half millennium, the Nemesis Sector has been engulfed by a powerful and ongoing warp storm known as The Perfidium Roil.  Born just after the turn of the 41st millennium, the small but powerful warp storm gradually grew until it swallowed three subsectors whole by roughly four centuries after it first arrived.  This was a great tragedy for the wider Imperium as all assets within the subsectors of Qualcrys, Kogendor and Vodom were marked as lost.  The Administratum, however, must trundle along.

However, within the Roil, the structure and power of the Imperium persists against all odds.

By some holy provenance, the people of the Nemesis Sector have been spared from the fates most suffer when swallowed whole by the warp.  Indeed, though the warp may have taken a large swath of space, it has been unable to fully digest any of it.  The Prophets of Revivum claim that Saint Locuria shielded the worlds of the Roil for their piety and devotion.  In either case, the space within the Roil seemed only a little more dangerous than outside.

At first, it seemed that the storm had merely blocked access to the wider Imperium, and even blocked the light of the Astronomican almost entirely.  However, the shrine world of Revivum seemed to shine for every world within the Roil - for at the Saint's Rest the Locurian Choir chanted invocations of faith around the clock, reaching out and lighting the way for the navigators of the Imperium's ships.  Though they could not escape, they could reach out to the other worlds taken by the Roil.

After the initial sector-wide panic, the Inquisitors of the Nemesis Conclave soon convened and decided they would consolidate their power at the massive battle-station Praesidium Nihilus.  From here, they would direct the Imperium within the Roil and hold out until the Perfidium Roil eventually passed.  For the most part, they have succeeded.

Many Inquisitors of the Nemesis Conclave would come to agree with the Ministorum on Saint Locuria's protection. The Conclave has monitored the space within the Roil for centuries now, and have spotted several abnormalities that the Perfidium Roil exhibits when compared to other known warp storms.  These abnormalities are accepted and even utilized by the Imperium within the Roil.  

Firstly, the 'wall' of the Roil does open to the outer Imperium, but does so very seldom.  Even if it does, ships attempting to negotiate the Wall of the Roil are almost always lost to the warp.  Another alarming quality is that the wall of the Roil seemed to be closing in on the worlds of the sector from the very beginning, and soon tendrils of the Roil would block access between worlds on a semi-random basis.  Charting and monitoring these tendrils quickly became paramount importance within the Roil.

Even so, every so often ships from outside the Roil would be deposited within.  The forces of chaos would come from within the warp, but also every sort of xenos thrown off course within the tides of the Empyrean could find themselves in the Roil.  Even less often, Imperial ships would translate into realspace within the Roil.  It is in this way news from the outer Imperium is brought to Nemesis.

Cicatrix Maledictum                                                  

When the Cicatrix Maledictum ripped across Ultima Segmentum, it was a dire omen for the Perfidium Roils' Imperial strongholds.  Already pressured from every side as the Roil constantly hurled the forces of chaos against them, the arrival of the Great Rift was foreseen by every mystic within the Roil, just as it was across the Imperium.  The walls of the Roil closed in on every world, and just like everywhere in the Imperium the worlds of Nemesis were left alone against the dark.

...but they were already prepared for times such as these.

The Inquisitors of the Nemesis Conclave were able to piece much together prior to the coming of the Great Rift.  For inside the Rift, time flowed normally, but the Perfidium Roil soon earned it's name.  The Inquisitors quickly lost track of time, as their chronometers were always wildly off from any chronometers found on vessels translating from beyond the walls of the Roil.  Through auguries and divinations, along with brief contacts through astropathic ducts reaching through the wall when the Astronomican would shine through, the Inquisitors made a startling discovery.

The Perfidium Roil seemed to move what was within it both forward and backward through time seemingly randomly, relative to the larger Imperium.  They were able to predict the coming of the Rift, and though they were already cut off from the Astronomican they made preparations to endure the coming tribulations.

Noctis Aeterna

The Long Night has come...but there is a light in the darkness.  

The walls of the Roil have closed in upon the Imperium.  All communications between subsectors have been lost.  Communications between worlds is spotty at best.  From Praesidium Nihilus, the Conclave has endured and attempted to guide the defense and resurgence of Imperial might within the Perfidium Roil...but they are largely in the dark.  Each world will have to fight their own battle, lighting their own ways in the Long Night to come.

Nemesis Nihilum, Vodom Pocket

Era Indomitus

The Torchbearer ships eventually found their way to the worlds of the Perfidium Roil, now known collectively as Nemesis Nihilum.  The Indomitus Crusade is eventually discovered, but contact with the wider Imperium no longer occurs.  The Astronomican hasn't been seen at all in nearly a century, and the Conclave now counts cycles in this new Era Indomitus toward the end of the Long Night.

Recently, a new light has appeared within Nemesis Nihilum.  Hope springs forth once more from Revivum, and the Locurian Choirs of the Saint's Rest were once again heard upon the Empyrean.  The Navigators quickly attuned themselves to the psychic song, and learned to use it to jump short distances.  Even so, it was excessively dangerous now due to the sheer pervasiveness of the forces of chaos.

The walls of the Roil seemed to recede from each world, until they now enclose each individual subsector. Within these sectorum, wars rage to reconquer worlds from horrific invasions, incursions and insurrections.  The Imperium's current goal is to unite each sectorum after the retaking of each of it's worlds, a task easier spoken aloud than actually performed.

Qualcrys Sectorum

Once the administrative heart of Nemesis Nihilum, the Conclave directs the forces of the Imperium from this seat of power.

• Revivum - Arguably the most important system in Nemesis Nihilum for the Imperium, two inhabited worlds exist in this system.
• Devotia - Site of the Saint's Rest, from this civilized shrine world the Locurian Choirs fight back the walls of the Perfidium Roil and guide the Emperor's ships through the treacherous warp-scape.  Praesidia Nihilus is currently orbiting this world.
• Sempervivum - A fortress hive-world of great prosperity, the Sempervivum Immortals regiments of the Imperial Guard have long guarded worlds across Nemesis Nihilum.  
• Gaiatoria - Once a prosperous, civilized industrial world, Gaiatoria has fallen in it's never-ending war against heretic cults and renegades.
• Armamentarium - A powerful forge world with mighty hive spires across its' surface, this seat of the Adeptus Mechanicus within Nemesis Nihilum boasts the fealty of powerful Knight houses.
• Wayreth - A feral forest world, not much is known about what has happened to any Imperial citizens that may have been there.  Though rich in natural resources, the Mechanicus has not been able to devote much to obtaining them.

Kogendor Sectorum

Once the frontier of the Nemesis Sector, within the Roil it has become haven for the enemies of the All-Mighty God-Emperor.

• Tykon - The so-called Death-Tyrant of Tykon has subjugated the frontier desert world of Tykon Glados, and from this seat of power has threatened all nearby systems and sectorum.  Even now, his insane invasion schemes come to fruition as the ork fleets have pierced the walls of the Roil and have begun to attack the Vodom subsector.
• Incunabulum - A dead world swallowed by daemons, it's volcanic surface is blistered by the stains of chaos.  Eldar craftworlds have been sighted in the area and have refused all access to Imperial vessels.
• Lhuud - +++REDACTED++FORBIDDEN ACCESS++TERMINAL LOGGED++THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: All DAEMONS ARE FALSEHOOD. THEY ARE LIES GIVEN THE SHAPE OF CREATURES BY THE FELL POWER OF CHAOS+++

Vodom Sectorum

All eyes are on this subsector as it breaks into all out war across the entirety of its' systems.  The battle for Nemesis Nihilum in the Era Indomitus truly begins here, now.

• Xyphokeya - An important frontier system for the Adeptus Mechanicus, they have begun developing Xyphokeya III into a forge world proper.  However, the Death-Tyrant of Tykon has arrived with a massive ork invasion, putting it all in jeopardy.
• Magisterium - A civilized fortress world that is a hub of the Munitorum in Nemesis Nihilum, the rolling grasslands hide a terrible alien secret - a threat from the depths of time itself that the Imperial powers were not fully equipped to deal with.
• Omendalos - A death world of sulfur fields and noxious geothermal activity, the mines here were reserved for the worst of criminals.  Deep in the depths of these prison complexes, cults of the lost and sects of the damned plot with the ruinous powers of chaos to overthrow the Imperial powers.  These heretics have seized control of much of the infrastructure, but soon after Heretic Astartes were identified among the socio-cultists, the Grey Knights in Nemesis Nihilum formed into a full strike force and departed for this blasted hellscape.
• Jarakko - Not much is known about this feral jungle world, except to it's Astartes masters and the Adeptus Mechanicus.  What is known to the Inquisitors of the conclave is that it, along with Wayreth, is one of the best places to recruit Astartes within Nemesis Nihilum.  With the arrival of Torchbearer fleets, the chapters of Nemesis Nihilum must decide how they will secure their future.

The wars for Nemesis Nihilum have now begun.  Prepare yourselves, commanders.  You will be on your own from now on.  No matter what darkness threatens your crusade, let it not perturb or dissuade you.  You know what to do.  

Let your faith be your shield, and let your fury be your sword.  And most of all, remember this always in your hearts...

The Emperor Protects