New skaven faction

Though the increasingly paranoid Typhus stayed plotting in Boiling peak the Skaven were not idle towards the end of the 6th Century. New clans and alliances were forming and new warlords emerged to try and win glory in the eyes of Typhus, or possibly break free of his tyrannical yoke.

In 586 rat-men poured from the tunnels around the Holy Sigmarite Empire city of Sudhafen. This was a dangerous time for the HSE as factional accusations and infighting was threatening to tear the once great land apart. The Emperor was unwilling to send troops to help Sudhafen, fearing an attack to the capital Sigmarheim. It was fortunate therefore that the Von Schaffernackes family of Hoffenland had recently formed a military guard of their own. Despite the presence of fearsome Skaven weapons of war and mighty rat-monsters the staunch defenders of humanity were able to repulse the attack and seal up the tunnels from which the rats had emerged.

A Skaven army bearing similar clan markings was seen in great force only a year later in the west, attacking Cuitlaxaochitzin. The confident Slann sent their skink hordes to deal with the invaders but the new clan seemed a wily bunch and managed to force the lizardmen to a standstill before returning to their tunnels. Neither side could claim a victory but Cuitlaxaochitzin now had to be wary and in Typhus' kingdom a new power was rising.

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.

Cuitlaxaochitzin campaign to rid Palurin of trespassers

The Slann of Cuitlaxaochitzin and the Elves of Mellvellon seemed like a natural alliance. Whilst dark forces were constantly massing both wished to see an end to chaos in Palurin. But the alliance was tense, the Slann objecting to the Elves magically birthing their own ogre warriors and generally treating themselves as superior.

The alliance was truly shattered when the Elves learned of the Slanns' final goal - that all other life was to be removed from Palurin. A step too far, the Elves protested but were thrown out of the Cuitlaxaochitzin cities. The argument lead to bloodshed, as the Slann sent their lizardmen to kill every Elf still in their borders. Though the Elves banded together they were ambushed by skinks and ultimately killed.

As the Elves were still reeling from their banishment from Cuitlaxaochitzin, the Slann sent their own Ogre mercenaries from Graag to the Holy Sigmarite Empire. if this was their latest step in their extermination policy it failed as Drazkharov force defeated the Ogres on the battlefield.
The Cuitlaxaochitzin ambassadors were thrown out of Sigmarheim by the Emperor's council. The lizarmden appealed to be able to speak with Emperor Dieter, but the lords on the council refused access to the fifteen year old boy-emperor.

Elsewhere otherwise were getting wise to the lizardmen plans. The Daemon worshiping kingdom of Rhan'k'andra, which was worryingly close to Cuitlaxaochitzin, knew it needed to build up its defences. It achieved this by looting Kaalroen territory, defeating a force of chaos worshippers there - much to the disgust of the Domovoi.

Domovoi on Campaign

In 562PC the Lizardmen once again travelled to Canabrin to further their aims of destroying the Chaos realm bit by bit. The Lizardmen were successful, but as ever were unable to press their advantage within the vast borders of the Kaalroen Empire, and their raid's effects were limited. The Domovoi were in any case concentrating their forces in the south, readying their forces for war against the Ogre Kingdom. The Domovoi hoped to make short work of the Ogre armies, leaving their two great cities ripe for plundering. In 562PC the battle of Cardenin Pass took place. The bitter struggle between the Domovoi and the Ogres went on for two full days before both sides withdraw exhausted and battered. The Ogres would not be easily beaten. Saluting their prowess in battle, the Domovoi took their host back to Novgorod, content to leave the Ogre Kingdom intact for now.

The Domovoi lords were becoming increasingly exasperated with their Skaven allies. Since its failed and aborted efforts of invasion against the Dwarves and High Elves the Typhonian Enclave had once more revert to its isolationist tendencies. Deciding that the duplicitous Skaven were not living up to their end of the bargain the Domovoi cut off their support for Typhus, declaring that until the Enclave could convince them of its good faith all further payments would be frozen. Typhus immediately flew into one of his notorious rages and boiled the Domovoi ambassador's blood within his body which caused a diplomatic incident, although in truth the Domovoi were fully aware of Typhus' character and always made sure to send their most expendable ambassadors.

The excuse given by the Skaven for their lack of action was that they had been busy creating new and more potent weapons of war with which to bring ruination upon their enemies. The Domovoi replied that if this was the case then Typhus simply must come to Novgorod and demonstrate these new super weapons. Accepting the challenge thrown down to him Typhus arrived in Novgorod in 562PC aboard his personal Zeppelin, a massive flying ship which did indeed impress the assembled observers. Typhus proudly unveiled his latest creation: a pack of barely restrained, blood crazed genetically modified rat monsters of huge stature and bulk. A tournament was immediately scheduled to demonstrate these new killing machines and Typhus declared that he himself would take to the field.

Whether Typhus actually did or not is still debated by the Domovoi observers. He was certainly sited before the battle begun, leading from the traditional place honour for Skaven commanders at the rear of the army. However, once the battle was under way there was no sign of him and he certainly didn't deign to intercede in the fighting with his magical prowess. As in previous tournaments the Skaven acquitted themselves well and emerged victorious after a long and bitter struggle, although it was cynically observed that the new Skaven “super weapons” were casually run down by chaos knights in the very opening stages of the battle.

The Domovoi reluctantly agreed to recommence payments to the Typhonian Enclave, but only on condition that the Skaven actually made war on their enemies rather than just make endless preparations and excuses. The tournament had impressed the Domovoi with the strength of the Skaven armies, but not with the reliability or sanity of its leadership, Typhus himself throwing a petulant hissy fit at the after battle banquet when he was told that the payments so far withheld would not be made.

Ancient civilisation discovered in the Nemir desert

In ages past, centuries before the warp gates opened and bought the current inhabitants to Palurin, the lands were ruled by a great empire. This civilisation had already fallen when the settlers arrived, and in many cases built their cities upon the ruins. Some Human and Elven scholars have begun digging into the past but the larger picture of who the ancient race was - and why they fell - is still a mystery.

But secrets do not lay buried forever. In 555 PC forces from Kaalroen had journeyed South, lead by a prophetic seer, to the Nemir Desert. There they began digging, unsure what exactly they were looking for. What they unleashed was a horde of skeletal warriors and giant walking statues. Despite being unprepared the Domovoi were tough warriors, and managed to crush the attackers. Uninterested in exactly who they had just defeated they looted the complex they had uncovered and returned north, assuming the matter settled.

What they had unleashed had not entirely been put to rest however. Over the next few decades the ancient warriors returned, rising from forgotten burial grounds and beneath ruined cities. In 559 an army rose from a previously undisturbed ruin to surprise a tribe of Kaalroen warriors and crush it beneath their bony feet.

The undead were less successful later. In 565 High Elves of Sein Craban noticed a distrubance in the arcane energies of their colony. Dispatching their magically-bred ogre force to the source, they found more of the ancient warriors rising from a previously unfound ruin. The ogres relished the chance to smash apart the skeletal invaders and put down the attack before it began.

The latest uprising came in 572 as a Dark Elf Dominion raiding force came across a seemingly directionless skeletal army wandering the coast. Though the undead enemies caused many casualties upon the elves, ultimately they crumbled to dust. Would the ancient race prove more of a threat in future, or would it remain a nuisance?