AoS Shadespire: Everyone Fights – No One Dies
Shadespire is a mirrored city that Nagash has trapped between shadow and light; between life and death.
Gather round, the tale of Shadespire is one of legendary lost civilizations, powerful magic, hubris, and the angry curse of an evil god. Though it is talked about in hushed whispers, the stories you’ve heard are true–the city is cursed by Nagash’s will, none may leave, none within may die. For those trapped within, the city is a shadowed reflection of what it once was, a grey wasteland caught between the realm of Light and Shadow. It is home to ancient magics and eternal struggle.
It begins with the Katophranes. A civilization of powerful Wizards who mastered a marvelous material called Shadeglass. Capable of trapping the souls of the deceased, Shadeglass could forever keep souls preserved. In this way, the wisdom and lore of the lord-wizards and master inventors could be kept readily available–stored within the depths of the ornate mirrors and flowing glass monuments that littered the city.
This wisdom and guidance helped drI’ve Shadespire’s rapid growth. In a few short years, the city transformed from desert outpost to mercantile metropolis. And with Shadeglass, the city could get more out of the living and the dead. Shadeglass golems, powered by the wills of the dead, would serve living retainers. A powerful artefact called the Faneway Mirror linked all Shadeglass in the city, and special devices could allow the living to interact with their fallen ancestors.
Naturally, this angered the Lord of Undeath, who set upon the city with a terrible vengeance, because Nagash is too jealous to see how a city of necromancers is pretty amazing in general, but especially for the self-styled lord of Undeath. So, in order to cut off his nose to spite his face, Nagash swept the city into shadow, snaring the souls of thousands in the Faneway Mirror. Cursed to an eternal existence, these souls can still be seen in the reflections of the brown Shadeglass. Even Nagash himself appears from time to time, though always half-glimpsed in the broken mirrors.
Now, thousands of years after the fall of the Katophranes, the city has begun to undergo a deadly transformation. Whole regions take the shape of the Great Necromancer’s dark dreams, for the citizens of Shadespire are now selling to appease Nagash, petitioning him for a release from their existence. And trapped among them, adventurers from across the Mortal Realms and beyond: a band of Storm cast Eternals, trapped when an expeditionary force from Azyr trotted to retake the Realm of Death and unearned the evil of Shadespire. A band of undead petitioners and rulers, who wish to serve Nagash are gifted weapons and powers beyond compare. A gang of marauding northmen, who revel in the slaughter. A bunch of orks, who looted the wrong city–or the right one, for a bunch of fighters who enjoy the unceasing cycles of violence and destruction.
No one in Shadespire is given the release of death by Nagash. As the years roll by, the trapped fighters look for an escape, even as they lose their souls. And their hope.
What fresh hell has Shadespire unleashed upon us all.. .
