Nadirite Blade

The legions of the Ossiarch Bonereapers carry weapons wrought not of steel but of bone, and chief among them is the Nadirite Blade. Nadirite is a substance conjured by the necromantic arts of Nagash's Mortisan artisans, bone that has been infused with death-magic until it takes on a black, glassy sheen and an edge keener than any mortal metal.

These blades are the standard armament of the Mortek Guard, the disciplined skeletal soldiery who form the backbone of every Ossiarch legion. A Nadirite Blade does more than cut; the death-magic bound within it drinks at the essence of the wounded, so that even a shallow gash saps the strength and soul of the victim. Warriors struck by these weapons feel their vigour draining away, and the dying find that their very spirit is claimed by the blade rather than passing on.

This is by grim design, for the Ossiarch Bonereapers wage war to harvest the dead. Every soul reaped by a Nadirite Blade is a tithe of bone owed to the necropolis, raw material to be rendered down and reforged into new soldiers for the endless legions. Thus the weapon serves Nagash twice over, slaying his enemies and gathering the stuff of which his armies are made. To fall to a Nadirite Blade is not merely to die, but to be conscripted, body and spirit, into the ranks of the Great Necromancer's tireless dead.