Serene Annihilation: Vulthoom, Rogue Necromancer

Come Thou forth, and follow Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry land, or in the Water: of whirling Air or of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God, may be obedient unto me!

-The Bornless Ritual

Vulthoom, to hear him tell it, came to Mordheim after narrowly escaping an attempt by his mentor to kill him.  The reason for this is not clear, but given Vulthoom's penchant for skullduggery it is likely related to precious items which suddenly went "missing."  That being said, Vulthoom has also told the story in the reverse: that it was he who tried to kill his mentor.

Either way, Vulthoom's knowledge of Necromancy is not complete.  Possibly due to his shady past - or, perhaps not.

Serene Annihilation: Sojourn, Pumpkinhead Eidolon

Grow, tiny seed,

you are gone to the tree.

Rise, till your leaves fill the sky,

until your sighs fill the air in the night.

Lift your mighty limbs,

and give praise

to the fire.

-Come Wayward Souls, Over the Garden Wall

With the corrosion of reality, more and more terrors seep into existence; larger creatures which were once unable to overcome the barriers between worlds - now stalk the benighted streets under their own power.  Sojourn is another example of the larger variety of Pumpkinhead which have been termed "Eidolons."

Serene Annihilation: Hate Triangle

What we need is hatred. From it our ideas are born.

-Jean Genet

The story between Thul, the Kairic Acolyte; Conan, the Barbarian; and Alestorm, the Dwarven Slayer is a tragic one.  It has ensnared all three in a triangle of hatred and destruction - from which only one will emerge alive.

Serene Annihilation: Alestorm, Fallen Dwarven Slayer

My talent was the uncompromising ability to feel spite.

-Grotesque, by Natsuo Kirino

 
Despite Mordheim's plummet into an ultimate abyss of insanity, it seems that certain fragments of reality - or, perhaps, a "world-that-was" - have dripped into the doomed city.  One of these living memories is Alestorm, the Fallen Dwarven Slayer.  Once a mighty thane, he was tricked into selling his soul to Tzeentch.  Although he escaped the chaos god, the Lord of Change's mark remains on him.  Alestorm has become a wretched husk of his former self, reduced to begging and creeping after anyone who will accept his services.  He is driven no longer by a righteous anger, only a hateful spite.  There is no redemption at the end of his journey, not even revenge awaits him - only murder.

Serene Annihilation: Thul, Kairic Acolyte of Tzeentch

I've often thought that there isn't any "I" at all; that we are simply the means of expression of something else; that when we think we are ourselves, we are simply the victims of a delusion.

-Diary of a Drug Fiend, by Aleister Crowley

With Mordheim's endless spiral into madness, it is not surprising that servants of the Lord of Change should appear with increasing frequency.  Thul is one of the first to breach the vortexes of insanity surrounding Mordheim to arrive since its schism with reality after the success of the Great Rebellion.   What is most disconcerting, is that Thul and his ilk seem to be in Mordhiem not to further the schemes of Tzeentch - which would at least imply the Lord of Change is behind the "dreaming" state of the city: they are in Mordheim to study the change wrought by the Great Rebellion.  Which begs the question: if Tzeentch is not behind it, who - or what - is?

Serene Annihilation: Sparrow, Elven Shadow Mage

Paint me as a dead soul...
The flesh, the image, the reflection
Let's complete the illusion
-John Balance

Few elves dare the depths of Mordheim, but those who follow the path of the Shadows are an exception.  Sparrow has plunged into the depths, seeking revenge - but now finds herself trapped along with everyone else in the continually-twisting labyrinth of madness and despair which is Mordheim.  After the schism in the Witch-Hunters, Sparrow joined Nightingale and her faction - perhaps out of racial unity, or perhaps out of pragmatism.

Serene Annihilation: Baba Yaga, Pumpkinhead Witch

Distributor of pain

Your loss becomes my gain

Anger

Misery

You’ll suffer unto me

-Harvester of Sorrow, by Metallica

As the facade of reality continues to crumble, more and more bizarre entities wriggle forth from the cracks.  Pumpkinheads, once merely unusual guests in the City of the Damned, now comprise a significant portion of its tenants.  Typically man-sized, larger specimens have been observed.  With the continued spiral into madness, even more varieties have emerged.  Baba Yaga is the first observed to have the ability to wield magic.  Her spells are darkly sinister and can suck the soul from a person, leaving him an aimless husk.  When wielded against others of her ilk, she can banish them completely - all while strengthening herself in grotesque, vampiric fashion.

Serene Annihilation: Gelatinous Cube

For the gray mass quobbed and quivered, and swelled perpetually; and from it, in manifold fission, were spawned the anatomies that crept away on every side through the grotto. There were things like bodiless legs or arms that flailed in the slime, or heads that rolled, or floundering bellies with fishes' fins; and all manner of things malformed and monstrous...

-The Seven Geases, by Clark Ashton Smith

In the depths of formless void, there exists a horror which is birthed from the awful blackness which, despite its emptiness, is not empty.  Formless nightmares wriggle from the primordial ur to crush their horrid bulk into the dreary world of the mundane.  Of these terrors, the most stable in form - if such a definition can be utilized - is what men call the Gelatinous Cube.

Serene Annihilation: Blood Golem

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.

-Dracula, by Bram Stoker

Day and night are meaningless in the City of the Damned: nightmares no longer obey the cycle of the sun.  From this radiant abyss sloughs the terror known as the Blood Golem.  With an affinity for magic, it seeks out those of the Craft and follows them, slobbering up their supernatural spoor.  It drips with ever-running rills of hot, steaming, red ichor - the leavings of its own abominable existence.  Strange shadows hobble behind it, and there are those who dare whisper it is not the only example of its kind.

Serene Annihilation: The Automaton

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

-Profiles of the Future, by Arthur C. Clarke

Born from the dreams of madmen, the Automaton clanks and whirs through the streets of Mordheim.  From whence does it come?  Some claim a mad dwarf built it, then was slain by it in turn.  Some say it is a statue come to life.  Some say it is a manifestation of lunatic gods.  Some say it is yet another traveler from another realm.  None have had time to ask when confronted with the spinning of its deadly black-powder gun.

Serene Annihilation: Atlas Gemini, Blue Whale Knight Colossus

Bound by the world all alone
Crushed under heavy skies
Atlas, Rise!

-Atlas, Rise! by Metallica

The spiral into an ultimate abyss continues.  Fortresses of dark nimbus occlude the sun, rising ever higher in stacks set alight with the azure agony of otherworldly lightning.  The sky becomes a labyrinth until it mirrors the shattered streets below; until city and sky become a single, inseparable maze.

The dream-surge continues.  Those things once frightful, swell to monstrous proportions.  This is an era undreamed of new gods and old nightmares long thought dead.

Atlas Gemini is the next evolution of the Blue Whale Knight Order; he is a portent of the impossible madness yet to come.

Serene Annihilation: Conan

Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

-Queen of the Black Coast, by Robert E. Howard

He comes to Mordheim with sword and axe in hand; possessed of gigantic mirth and gigantic melancholies.  Like all the other new and singularly nightmarish entities stepping onto the cracked flagstones of the City of the Damned, he is a mystery.  A walker, perhaps, between worlds.  A daemon made human.  A devil in iron.  Or simply a barbarian who is exceptionally skilled at the craft of his kind: slaying.

Serene Annihilation: Ganymede Widdershins, Blue Whale Knight Swordsman

The earth does not want new continents, but new men.
-Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne

With the success of The Great Rebellion, the mysterious Blue Whale Knights have become increasingly numerous.  Their strangeness, like their numbers, is also amplified. Origins shrouded in mystery, Sir Ganymede Widdershins has come to Mordheim.  Unlike his brethren - who are utterly silent - he has been known to speak.  His voice is thin and warbling, as though coming from a vast distance.  He never speaks of who he is or where he came from.  If he was once a man, he certainly is something else now.

Of course, like other of my work, this one was inspired by the amazing work of Bruticus.

Serene Annihiltion: Enoch, Pumpkinhead Eidolon

Come wayward Souls,
Who wander through the darkness,
There is a light for the lost and the meek.
Sorrow and fear,
Are easily forgotten,
When you submit to the soil of the earth.

-Come Wayward Souls, Over the Garden Wall

The world is changed.  Dreary hour by dreary hour passes with no distinction between dream and the waking world.  Something terrible is undone at the heart of existence.  Things which should not be now lumber easily through the streets.  Run in terror if you can, because soon there will be naught but terror remaining.