The Ubersreik Five have been through some stuff haven’t they? Confounding the evil machinations of the Skaven at Ubersreik (even if they couldn’t quite save the city in the process). Then thwarting the Pactsworn alliance in the depths of Helmgart (again, a bit late to actually save the city, but who’s quibbling?). Little did they know that these weren’t isolated invasions of the kind the Empire has endured since its founding, but harbingers of a new and terrible age: the End Times, when the laughter of the dark gods finally swallows the world.
The Five have known for a while that something isn’t right, of course. Tzeentch, the Chaos God of Change, has been dabbling away with the causality of the mortal world, tangling fate and destiny into new designs for no other reason than because he can.
Divine Interventions
This isn’t to say that our bold Five have drawn the attention of the Chaos Gods … well, perhaps the odd curious eyeball from time to time. It’s more that they’re caught in the ripples as the dark brothers hurl stones into the pool of reality. They’re not alone in that. The wider world has problems of its own beyond marching armies and bloodthirsty warriors.
But nor have the Five been completely untouched. Other entities have manipulated our heroes for their own ends. The goddess Lileath - known to Bretonnians as the Lady of the Lake - anoints Kruber as one of her Grail Knights, even as Kerillian falls from her light and under the sway of the bleak Cytharai goddesses. Be’lakor, the Dark Master, deceives the puritanical Victor Saltzpyre into seeking the Citadel of Eternity - and then a Warrior Priest’s mantle - for reasons of his own. And it may yet be that Bardin’s embrace of the newfangled and oft-cursed engineer’s vocation is not so whimsical as it seems.
Now, as Geheimnisnacht draws near, it’s Sienna’s turn.
Death Unleashed
Since time immemorial, a network of elven waystones has channelled the eight Winds of Magic - the stuff of Chaos itself - into the Great Vortex at the heart of the high elven realm of Ulthuan. But as the End Times gather pace, this network is failing, and one being in particular seeks advantage in that calamity.
When Nagash, the Great Necromancer, conspires to yet another resurrection this fateful Geheimnisnacht, he has more in mind than a simple return. Reborn, he lays claim to the Wind of Death, becoming a veritable god … and in the process making his dark art of Necromancy more accessible than ever before.
As the End Times gather pace, countless wizards dabble in necromantic magic out of pride, desperation, greed or simple curiosity. Balthasar Gelt, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic will become the most prominent of these, wielding the dead as a weapon to contain the northlander invasion.
The Lure of Necromancy
The sorceries that empower Necromancy are hollowing and dangerous. But then all magic is corrosive to mortals, to greater or lesser degree. It’s why so much of even the simplest spellcraft is bound up in ritual and somatic conjuring - it gives a wizard a means to minimise their exposure and their risk. And of course, necromancy’s great power arises through the most selfish of means: the binding of other creatures (albeit dead) to one’s own will - and having absolute dominion over anything - much less (once) living creatures seldom ends well.
Given these physical, mental and spiritual pressures, it’s no wonder that Necromancers turn evil - or else go so mad as makes no difference. When the boundary of mortality becomes so blurred, death loses its meaning - especially the death of those who stand in one’s way. And death is … so much tidier than living. Skeletons don’t talk back. They don’t need food or encouragement. They simply await their next command. And is it really so evil to press the dead to service if it saves the living?
Such was certainly Balthasar Gelt’s logic during the End Times, and he was by no means the first. So many of the Necromancers who rose to bedevil the world first began as wizards driven by simple curiosity, only to be led astray, one misstep after another.
A Darker Path
Perhaps Sienna’s reasoning is much the same? Of all the Ubersreik Five, she’s the first to be appalled at the carnage and cruelty they encounter. More than that, though Saltzpyre has struggled to give her the benefit of the doubt, her impetuousness and her addiction to magic have always threatened to lead her down darker roads. Perhaps Nagash’s unshackling of the Wind of Death simply presented an irresistible opportunity?
Maybe - just maybe - a third party fanned those flames during her recent periods of absence from Taal’s Horn Keep? The daemon Be’lakor has manipulated our heroes at least since they returned to Castle Drachenfels. Is Sienna his latest toy? Or perhaps Sienna found a secret mentor, just as Gelt fell under the sway of Vlad von Carstein? Stranger things have happened in the shadow of the Chaos Gods.
Or is Sienna’s twin sister Sofia to blame? She’s always served as Sienna’s dark mirror, a soul free to act however she wished - to embrace all that magic has to offer - while Sienna strove for discipline. Did the Five’s battle to reclaim Olesya’s tower gather old resentments to the surface?
It may even be the case that Sofia’s influence is of a more direct kind … there is little more dangerous - or desperate - than a Necromancer’s spirit.
Whatever the truth, we’re going to find out together in the weeks and months to come.
The End Times have barely begun, and the Ubersreik Five have battles yet to fight.