Casket of Souls

The Casket of Souls is among the most sacred and terrible relics of the Tomb Kings, a great golden chest inscribed with the incarceration-hieroglyphs of the Mortuary Cult, within which are bound the shrieking spirits of those the god-kings condemned to eternal torment rather than the peace of the afterlife. Borne to war on the shoulders of skeletal bearers and tended by a Liche Priest who alone can work its wards, the Casket is opened only at the height of battle. When its lid is raised, the imprisoned souls pour forth in a howling, half-seen storm, their agony a weapon in itself, a wave of spectral torment that withers the living, unravels enemy sorcery, and blasts the minds of any who meet the gaze of the damned within. The priests wield it with grave caution, for the spirits hate their captors no less than the enemy, and a Casket carelessly handled may turn its anguish upon the very legion that carries it. Opened rightly, it is a scream made into a siege engine.