Talk:Nagash (Warhammer)

History
I've got my own version of Nagash's history - what do you think of this (it's not finished): UltimateNagash 08:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Nagash was born in ancient Nehekhara, brother of King Thutep of Khemri, and quickly became chief priest of the Mortuary Cult. So great was Nagash's paranoia of someone with more temporal power than he, Nagash entombed that person alive within the Great Pyramid of his father: King Khetep. That person was his own brother, Thutep. Thus Nagash was crowned Priest-King of Khemri.

He realised that although the Mortuary Cult couldn't die naturally, they could be killed by sword. So Nagash and his vizier, Arkhan, undertook dark experiments to find immortality. But this was all to change: a tribute from the northern city of Zandri contained three unconscious Druchii, the Dark Elves. Keeping them drugged and imprisened from over a decade, Nagash tortured and interrogated his prisoners so that he may learn all they had to teach of their own fabled sorcery.

He learnt most from the sorceress of the group, before tearing her eyes out with an obsidian dagger, that material which deadens magic, removing her tongue, arms and feet before placing an obsidian scold bridle about her head. For the knowledge Nagash learnt from her, she was rewarded by being entombed alive in Nagash's Black Pyramid.

This knowledge allowed Nagash to distil an elixir that would prolong the lifespan of those who drunk it, without the decaying of the body that so beset the liche priests. Soon Nagash's acolytes were allowed to sip from the cursed drink, practising their dark arts for over a decade, before declaring themselves gods to the populous that served them. Centuries later, Nagash's cursed pyramid was completed, with his acolytes dark magic consecrating the stone from which it was built on. From this moment, the pyramid would become a conduit for the winds of magic, binding them together and forming them into a great reservoir of black magic beneath the pyramid, the most power of magics.

But this black magic caused all animals and peoples for leagues around to sicken from unnatural plagues of the body, mind and spirit. Soon the cities of Lahmia, Zandri, Numas, Mahrak, Lybaras and Rasetra openly opposed Nagash, headed by King Lahmizzar of Lahmia. Thousands of Nehekharans were slain in the war, black magic scoured the the land, oases becoming so saturated in dark magic that they would be shunned for ever after. The war was a terrible one, lasting so long that it's originator, Lahmizzar, did not live through it. But this did not end the war: his sun Lahmizzash took his father's banner, and continued to bring war against Nagash and his followers for 30 years. Realising he was beaten, Nagash fled to the depths of his Black Pyramid. When Lahmizzar and his army came to search the Black Pyramid, no trace of Nagash himself was found...

He had fled to the foot of Cripple Peak, dying and returning to his body on his journey though the treacherous Salt Plains. Deciding to investigate Cripple peak itself, said to have been destroyed by a fallen djinn.

In reality it had been shattered by a rock of warpstone – the blackest of aethyr. Nagash explored the mountain, finding a lake where the great bulk of the warpstone had fallen. He took to drinking the lake, powdering and inhaling it, so that his mind became more keen in its arcane questing. The years wore on relentlessly, and the exposure to warpstone rent Nagash's body: his skin withered and cracked, becoming translucent in places, exposing veins and muscles. His nails grew and became diamond-hard talons, his entire body was mutated into a creature no longer, truly, living but not truly dead, although fully undead.

Within two centuries of living within Cripple Peak, Nagash raised an army of both living and dead, using the nearby tribes to worship him as god, while using their tombs to fuel his army of undeath. Cripple Peak was remade into the fortress city of Nagashizzar, and unbreachable keep, laboratory of alchemy, library of the sorcerous arts, an excavation of the cursed warpstone and a shrine to the pursuit of earthly immortality. It had become the capital to the obedient human nation the world had ever seen.

Soon the Skaven besieged Nagashizzar, determined to take the warpstone hidden beneath. Skirmishes were fought below the dark citadel, undead fighting skaven for decades. Nagash soon grew tired of these interruptions, and made a pact with the Council of Thirteen, those who lead the skaven: the skaven would gather thousands of slaves for Nagash, while receiving warpstone in return.

With such heavy and tireless mining happening all around Nagashizzar, the land crew ill, animals died, and Nagash's mortal servants sickened and wasted. Mutation soon arose, as did manifestations of daemons in the magic saturated air. His mortal servants not immune to these terrors, thus causing Nagash to bid his vassels to eat alive the decrepit and dead from their communities as a new form of worship to their lord and master. Thus Nagash's mortal servants became immune to the corrupting influence of warpstone.

Years passed, and the entire region around Nagashizzar had become a great and haunted desert, roving clans of cannibals it's only population. But Nagash did not care; for as long as they served him, dead or alive, as long as their only purpose was to serve him, he was pleased.

While Nagash grew strong in the north, his works were being purged in Nehekhara. Unfortunately for the world, not all of it survived destruction. The daughter of Lahmizzash, Neferatum, was tutored by one of Nagash's acolytes: W'Soran, and thus, secretly, declared that some of the texts of the Great Necromancer would be spared from the purifying flames. Placed in quartz chest, hidden with thousands of meaningless spoils of war.

Neferatum was soon sent back to Lahmia, and as soon as she returned she studied the dark texts of Nagash. Although she had begun with the intention of learning, soon she grew in resentment to the priesthood that forbade those note of their number to study arcane lore, and took upon studying those mysteries that even the priests of Nehekhara feared: the writings of the Arch Heretic, Nagash.

W'Soran was the only one sympathetic to Neferatum's sense of injustice, as he had always been. He whispered his lies to her, and she lapped them up as she wanted to believe them. They only wanted no-one else from studying the arcane because they wanted all the power for themselves, he declared, saying that that no arcane art was evil, unless you used it for evil. So Neferatem kept the existence of Nagashi artefacts secret from her court.

W'Soran then secretly made it known to the priests of the Mortuary Cult that the queen had Nagash's work, and was trying to emulate them. With no proof of such, the priesthood worked in more subtle ways, undermining her political power, creating distrust and resentment amongst Lahmia's populace. Soon Neferatum decided she had to play her hand: use the darkest of Nagash's magic. The liche priests retaliated and sent the ushabti against her. But she used her dark magic, bolts of crackling darkness, destroying the ushabti utterly. She then ordered all the priests to be killed.

Within five years of this, Neferatum saw Nagash as a god, misunderstood by the kings of Nehekhara, with her father as the worst. So she recreated all of Nagash's experiments, including the Elixir of Immortality. With W'Soran's improvements upon this fell drink, they both became Vampires.

Neferatum then created the Cult of Nagash, pretending to be a reformed Mortuary Cult, with the males allowed being W'Soran and his acolytes. And although Lahmizzash and his line of sons proved their mortality, Neferatum and W'Soran didn't age a day.


 * Too much fluff and non-encylopedic tone. GraemeLeggett 09:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree but, regardless, if it's your “own version”, then it definitely shouldn't be on here. - Heavens To Betsy 14:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I say own version because I wrote it - not someone else. That's all. Anyway, I'll remove it then, since it's not what Wiki wants... UltimateNagash 14:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

off the top of my head, according to 6th Edition, it say's that Nagash was still the Chief Priest when he captured the dark elves that had washed up on shore, and it was years later before he had enough power that he overthru his brother. Whippletheduck (talk) 15:40, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, the Liber Mortis was written by Vanhal, not Nagash. 97.85.48.248 (talk) 00:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Time of Legends
The history of Nagash on this page seems to be mostly items extrapolated from old army books and color text. With the advent of the Time of Legend Black Library series about him, I think the bio should be updated to reflect this new and much more detailed depiction of his history. Opinions? Legionaireb (talk) 16:39, 23 July 2010 (UTC)