In the Age of Myth, Sigmar freed the duardin war-god Grimnir from his chains, and Grimnir, who could not abide owing anything to anyone, demanded to repay the debt at once. Sigmar named a task worthy of a god: slay Vulcatrix, the Ur-Salamander, mother of every fire that gnaws at the roots of the realms. Their duel was mutual annihilation. Grimnir struck the killing blow even as the godbeast's death-flame consumed him, and god and salamander detonated together, raining molten fragments of divinity across the Mortal Realms. Where those fragments cooled they became ur-gold: a metal that is not truly metal at all, but the scattered body and rage of a dead god.
The Fyreslayers are Grimnir's children: duardin lodges who have made the recovery of that scattered god their eternal business. Their priesthood, the Zharrgrim, smelt ur-gold into runes and hammer them glowing-hot into the flesh of every warrior. A rune-struck Fyreslayer burns from within: muscles swell with a god's strength, wounds seal themselves, and the berzerker fury of Grimnir rises singing in the blood. To outsiders it looks like scarification and madness. To the lodges it is communion, each rune a syllable of their god spoken back into the world.
Because ur-gold is indistinguishable from common gold to any eye but a runemaster's, the lodges must gather all the gold they can, and so the Fyreslayers sell the one thing they possess in abundance: war. Their axes can be hired by any who pay, Sigmar's free cities one season and far stranger clients the next, and the trade has earned them a name for greed among those who mistake devotion for avarice. But no Fyreslayer contract has ever been broken. An oath sworn over gold is sworn on Grimnir's own remains, and a lodge would sooner see its magmahold burn than let such an oath fail.
Deep in their volcano-holds the Runefathers keep tally of every rune forged and every shard reclaimed, for the faith teaches that when enough ur-gold is gathered (or spent in glorious battle, for the doctrines quarrel on the point), Grimnir will be made whole again. Whether the god will rise from a vault of hoarded runes or from the sum of a million berzerker deaths, no two lodges agree. So the Fyreslayers fight on, measuring honor in gold and gold in honor, each generation hammering more of their god into their skin and marching out to die magnificently, one kept oath closer to resurrection.
Units
Auric FlamekeeperHero · InfantryA zealous keeper of the sacred lodge-flame, who stokes his kin into an inferno of righteous fury before the charge.
Auric HearthguardRanged · InfantryMagmapike-wielding sentinels of the Zharrgrim temple-forges, who bury the lodge's enemies under streams of molten rock.
Auric RunefatherLeader · MonsterThe lord of a Fyreslayer lodge rides to war atop a fire-breathing magmadroth, sweeping foes from their feet with a latch-key grandaxe.
Auric RunemasterHero · InfantryThe master smith-priest of a lodge, who divines the ur-gold runes and blesses his kin with the certainty of Grimnir's favour.
Auric RunesmiterHero · InfantryA fire-priest who calls magma from the deep earth, wreathing his kin in blessings and erupting them onto the battlefield from below.
BattlesmithHero · InfantryThe living memory of a lodge, bearing its icon of honour aloft so that every deed of valour is witnessed and remembered.
DoomseekerHero · InfantryAn oath-bound wanderer burning with runic power, sworn to a doom that waits somewhere beyond the horizon.
Grimwrath BerzerkerHero · InfantryA one-duardin army bearing more ur-gold than any warrior below the priesthood, sworn to fight until his final oath is spent.
Hearthguard BerzerkersElite · InfantryVeteran guardians of magmahold and Runefather alike, whose broadaxes and flamestrike poleaxes answer any threat to the lodge's blood and gold.
Hearthguard DoomseekersElite · InfantryDoom-sworn elites who have embraced their own deaths, wading into the thickest fighting to sell their lives at a ruinous price.
MagmadrothBehemoth · MonsterThe fire-drakes of the magmaholds: scions of Vulcatrix whose blood is magma and whose riders are the princes and priests of the lodges.
Vulkite BerzerkersBattleline · InfantryThe roaring heart of every fyrd: crested berzerkers whose paired axes and bladed slingshields reap a toll that only grows as their fury builds.
Characters
Bael-GrimnirMaster of FlamespitterRunefather of the mightiest lodge in Aqshy: a fire-tempered patriarch who leads Vostarg's fyrds to war from the back of the great magmadroth Flamespitter.
Gotrek GurnissonThe RealmslayerThe last Slayer of the World-that-Was: a doom-seeking duardin who outlived the ending of his own world and now stalks the Mortal Realms, too stubborn to die and too angry to stop.
VulcatrixMother of SalamandersThe primordial fire-serpent whose death-duel with Grimnir shattered a god and scattered the ur-gold across the realms.
Subfactions
GreyfyrdA grim, pragmatic lodge of Chamon that has spread its oaths across every Mortal Realm, hiring out more of its heroes than any other. Greyfyrd axes are dear to buy and worth the price, for the lodge's champions treat every fulfilled contract as another ingot toward their god's return.
HermdarTyrant-slayers and chain-breakers, the Hermdar lodge takes particular joy in contracts that end despots and free the enslaved. Their Zharrgrim preach that Grimnir's rage burns hottest against oppressors, and Hermdar fyrds have been known to fight for a pittance, provided the target deserves them.
LofnirA lodge of Ghur that venerates the magmadroths as sacred kin of Vulcatrix, raising more of the great fire-drakes than any other. Lofnir's droth-herds and their beast-bonded riders make the lodge's fyrds slow to muster and terrible to meet.
VostargThe eldest and most storied of the great lodges of Aqshy, whose war-histories are the measure against which every other lodge judges itself. Vostarg fyrds fight with the fury of the Realm of Fire made flesh: first to the charge and last to leave the field.
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