Monday 4 June 2012

Domovoi continue warlike expansion

The Domovoi had always been the most active of the tribes that made up the Kaalroen Empire. Towards the end of the 6th Century they embarked on a number of conquests to prove their worth. It is possible that this began in 573 when an up-and-coming Nurgle chieftain, Rustirus Puce of the Flyswatter tribe, openly mocked the Domovoi for a string of defeats they had suffered. The Domovoi were quick to anger, storming Puce's camp and adding his head to their trophy racks.

Whether or not the Domovoi felt they had something to prove they became far more active in the years following. When Cuitlaxaochitzin increased its attacks upon Kaalroen the Domovoi were first to rush to its defence. In a brutal fight they sent the lizardmen fleeing, setting back the Slann attempts to conquer Kaalroen for a number of years.

The frequency of their attacks upon the Holy Sigmarite Empire also increased. In the east House Volbeck, busy themselves with dealing with Cuitlaxaochitzin invaders, struggled to hold off attacks from the Domovoi. On two separate occasions the chaos raiders swept through the Osterland, pillaging farms and villages. The attacks were finally stopped when House Drazkharov sent aid to its Volbeck allies. The dark magics used by the Drazkharov army was enough to finally defeat the Domovoi, but the tribesmen returned to Kaalroen with both loot and honour.

Eastern HSE at war

For decades an enclave of lizardman warriors had hidden itself within the borders of the Holy Sigmarite Empire, conducting raids and spying missions for the Cuitlaxaochitzin Slann. They could not last forever without being discovered. Relations between the HSE and Cuitlaxaochitzin were already close to all-out war, and the Emperor needed little prompting in 577PC to order the enclave hunted down and exterminated.

The overconfident Slann sent their Ogre forces on a commando raid into the HSE to extract the lizardmen before they were found, believed the powerful force would be little challenged by anything the HSE could throw at them. But the warriors of House Volbeck proved sterner than most, bolstered by the dark magic that was by now ingrained into the HSE and ignored by the ruling classes. The Ogres were forced to retreat back to Cuitlaxaochitzin and in the months following numerous skinks were rounded up and executed within the borders of the HSE.

The east of the HSE was suffering increasing raids on farmlands and villages, mostly due to Domovoi attackers from Kaalroen. As House Volbeck was dealing with the Ogres from Cuitlaxaochitzin the chaos raiders took the opportunity to make an attack. House Volbeck's rear guard was defeated and the lords of Volbeck returned to find much of their outlying settlements looted.

It would take a few years to recover, but House Volbeck was eager to remind the Emperor of the good it had done against the Cuitlaxaochitzin Ogres and not the losses it had suffered. In 580 the lords considered their house strong enough and they went to war, attacking the Ogre Kingdom to the east under a flimsy pretence that they believed it was the Ogres who had raided them and not the Domovoi. Once again House Volbeck proved themselves worthy against Ogre foes and they looted enough treasure to return to the HSE and look like heroes.

The fourth High Elf Skaven War


Once more back at Boiling Peak Typhus began to receive reports from his Clan Eshin spies that the armies of the High Elves were mobilising. They were building up their strength at Ogregard in preparation for a full scale invasion of the Typhonian Enclave. Rather than wait for the Elves to attack Typhus ordered his own armies to muster behind the chain of forts that barred the narrow isthmus separating the two protagonists and prepared to meet the Elves in open battle.

With the Maemir Bay on one side and Caraloth Sea on the other there was little room for the two armies to manoeuvre and they met in a brutal head to head engagement. Typhus himself took to the field, blasting entire regiments of Elves into oblivion with the mutating power of his dark magics. The armies of the Elves were lead by their own Mage who responded in kind, both wizards unable to check the sorcerous might of the other. Fuelled by a hatred born of hundreds of years of constant and fruitless warfare the fighting was bitter and bloody with no quarter given or expected.

When the dust settled it was the Skaven hordes that claimed victory, breaking through the Elven lines to surround Ogregard and sack its surrounding townships. The fourth war between Mellvellon and the Typhonian Enclave had begun.