ECHOES OF IMPERIUM

Today I’m happy to present Kristian Simonsen from Secrets of the Void and his ghostly Skaven pack.

Twenty Years After the Revelation

The nameless skavenslave made his way back to Skavenblight, battered and beaten… above all utterly terrified. He could hardly carry the weight of the big snail shell fused to his back, if only he had not hid in the thing… He had nicked Scurvy’s map of Mordheim. A map showing not only that damned city, but also where the biggest warpstone deposit ever was situated. He hoped to buy his freedom with this map, he hoped to buy help to remove that damned snail shell with the map and above all he nurtured the hope that he might be able to hire his own team to go to the City of the Damned, if only he could sell the map expensively enough after he had it copied.

This slave without a name had been part of Scurvy’s team that went to Mordheim to investigate where the warpstone meteor had landed and secure as much of the warpstone as possible. For skavenkind of course, Scurvy wouldn’t dream of keeping it all for himself… Upon arrival at Mordheim Scurvy and his team was surprised that so much mutation and chaos was going on and that there were many other warbands there also fighting and searching for the warpstone. It quickly turned into a brutal campaign where only the strongest or most cunning could survive. Scurvy and his team entered the Pit, where the meteor itself had hit the city and where the biggest warpstone deposits of all could be found. Scurvy had no idea how to secure it all or how to transport it back to Skavenblight, there was so much of it. In and around the pit they met countless horrors, no matter how skillfully the skaven would hide and sneak. The horrors and demons were of the most damnably unspeakable nature the distilled stuff of a million nightmares. The monsters soon had eaten half of Scurvy’s slaves and our nameless slave lost his nerve and squirted his musk all over the place… One moonless night he stole Scurvy’s map of Mordheim and snuck of into the darkness. Being close to the Pit, he soon heard the strange grunting and keening wails of the monsters closing in. He also realized that Scurvy and his team must have found out that he had made off with the map, and be on his tail… On an abandoned square he found these big empty snail shells. He crawled into one to hide from pursuit. He hid there for a long time. He fell asleep.

Eventually he woke up and crawled out of the snail shell to a wet and dreary morning, Mordheim looked more twisted and dilapidated than ever. He found that he couldn’t extract himself properly from the snail shell! It was fused to his back! He began the long trek home to Skavenblight. The map securely in his belt. He almost died during his long travel with that heavy snail shell on his back. Forage was very hard, even stealing food from farms was difficult carrying that big thing on the back. The only thing that kept him alive during his long travel was his hope that the map would buy him freedom and riches.

Upon arrival at Skavenblight, they questioned him and tortured him trying to wring as much information out of him as possible. It came to his attention that it had been 2o years since they set out for Mordheim and no one believed that Scurvy or his team might still be alive… Once finished with the questioning, they took the map from him and put him right back in the endless ranks of slaves from where he came…

Mordheim 2019 is almost upon us and I am so looking forward to go to Helsinki and play the game! It has been great fun and a lot of creative development for me to make a series of figures for this game. Note my skavenslave here, he has a square base as opposed to the round ones we all use for the game in the summer. That is because he made it back from Mordheim and was put back in the ranks of slaves, from where he came. He is not coming back to Mordheim, he is a link between Mordheim 2019 and my own skaven horde and all the stories that are tied to that.

Scurvy and his team have been in Mordheim for 20 years now, increasingly frustrated that they can’t transport all that precious warpstone home, yet utterly unwilling to let it go. They toil endlessly harvesting the stuff, tracking it down, consuming it and pondering how to bring it home and keep it for themselves. They have long ago stopped eating ordinary food, only eating warpstone. They constantly sneak around Mordheim and ambush whoever that might carry even the tiniest amount of warpstone upon them. Something strange happened to Svurvy and his team eventually. Maybe it was the special properties of the kind of warpstone that people called Wyrdstone, though the skaven could not tell any difference. Maybe it was the long exposure to the wyrdstone, right there in and around the Pit where chaos reigned. Fact is that Scurvy and his team had handled far more warpstone than any other skaven! They had been exposed to it and consumed far more warpstone than any other skaven. They had hoarded an enormous amount of warpstone that they could not transport back with them, so they stayed with it and hoarded even more for 20 years!! Far, far more than any other skaven at any other time! Eventually Scurvy and his team started to evaporate! They gradually turned into warpstone fumes! They did not even notice themselves, they just kept fighting, stealing and hoarding their warpstone. Getting more and more spectral over time. Now they only eat warpstone. They float around soundlessly, being perfect adepts of clan Eshin. They are not quite dead, but they are certainly not properly alive either! They don’t mind just as long, as they can keep hoarding warpstone.

Assassin adept Scurvy.

Eshin Sorcerer Pontifex Greystab. The eyes and ears of the Seer Counsil on Scurvy’s mission to Mordheim.

Clawleader Twitch and the verminkin.

Trech, Queek and Ikit the Nightrunners. I know the rules state that I can only bring two, but these were made at an early point where I was sort of jamming with my concept and I hadn’t decided on weapon options either, so I made three, but will only play with the two of them.

Krrrt and Skrrt, the two black skaven.

Scurvy and his team. There are only 12 of them. If I can make it on time and fit it in the list, I will turn the number to thirteen!

I also made a lot of NPC’s for the game. Bear in mind that this project has been more than a year in the making, so I’ve had several periods of productivity, just enjoying to hit that Mordheim vibe and to create my own interpretation of it. One idea led to another and I would typically sit around building or painting one figure and spontaneously come up with ideas for another five! This is a classic example of ideas breeding more ideas! I have a lot more ideas for Mordheim figures than I will be able to make for Mordheim 2019. I am not even sure if I will have space in my luggage for all my NPC’s when I fly to Helsinki.

The Moon people, a collection of weirdoes that you might find in the streets of Mordheim… With these we can have civilians running around and interfere with whatever the warbands are doing. They can also just stand in the way and be used as scatter terrain.

The cult of the big heads. The one on the right ate a big chunk of warpstone!

The Night watch of the City of the Damned. He is walking around lighting the way with his warpstone lamp, carrying his home fused to his back. Always lamenting the days that were and his dead daughter.

That strange creature known as the Bellhop, roaming the streets of City of the Damned with the man pig…

The unknowingly possessed. These are a warband of mercenaries of the Empire. Eventually they became possessed, without noticing… In time they will be another Mordheim warband for me, here they are just roaming the streets…

Mama Misery and her harlots, the Nurglettes in front of what used to be the House of the Rising Moon, one of the finest pleasure houses in all of Mordheim. After the Cataclysm business went bad, but they still try to ensnare customers as they happen by… For some reason customers don’t come as willingly as before and must often be forced… The Nurglettes don’t really care, just as long as some patrons show up from time to time…

The entire collection of Moon People.

A collection of scatter terrain I made.

The house of the Rising Moon, my modest contribution to the gaming boards.

It has been a fantastic journey to delve in and immerse myself in Mordheim like this! The project somehow took on a life of its own and developed into far more than I had in mind at first. Mordheim does not end after 2019 for me, there is just too many ideas for figures and stories in my head, that will need to be realized sometime in the future. It goes to show how great a setting Mordheim is, we can just keep telling stories in it and come up with more figures that fit the bill. The Mordheim playing community is also still going strong now after twenty years. It is a small game with a big impact!

Thanks for reading

Kristian