Backstory
In the shimmering lands of Chamon, where rivers of molten metal shift like living serpents, a Tzaangor of uncommon intellect was born beneath an aurora of impossible colors. This creature, Aethyros, was marked from birth — his horns glowed faintly with inner fire, and his eyes shimmered with reflections of things that had not yet come to pass.
While his kin sought only slaughter, Aethyros sought understanding. He believed every mutation was not a curse, but a message — a glimpse of Tzeentch’s grand design. His destiny began when he uncovered a shard of Emberstone, a crystalline relic formed where the purest magical flames had cooled and solidified. Within its smouldering depths, he heard whispers that promised revelation, and a vision of a many-eyed being who asked:
“What is the flame’s truest form — destruction, or rebirth?”
Aethyros swore to find the answer, no matter the cost.
The Path of the Veiled Flame
Founding the Cult of the Veiled Path, Aethyros gathered a congregation of Tzaangors, mortal arcanists, and renegade magisters drawn by his prophetic visions. Through Emberstone, he learned to shape the mutable winds of magic like molten ore — to twist flesh, metal, and even fate into new forms. Yet the crystals demanded a toll, feeding on his vitality and whispering in the voice of Tzeentch himself.
As his power grew, Aethyros encountered an Ogroid Thaumaturge named Khar’vhal the Riftborn, a being of towering might and barely contained fury. The Ogroid sought control over his own chaotic gifts, while Aethyros needed strength to brave the mortal realms in pursuit of Emberstone. Their alliance was one of ambition and necessity — intellect and might united beneath the Changer of Ways.
Khar’vhal became Aethyros’s guardian and counterpart, the hammer to his mind’s flame, while Aethyros taught the Ogroid how to channel his rage into true sorcery. Together, they forged a pact: to gather thirteen shards of pure Emberstone and complete the Rite of Shattered Wings, no matter who or what they must destroy along the way.
The Emberstone Crusade
To complete his ritual, Aethyros must collect the remaining Emberstones scattered across the Mortal Realms. The most potent lie within the Ravaged Coasts of Aqshy, the Realm of Fire — lands scorched by ancient wars and bathed in eternal heat where raw magic crystallizes in the earth itself.
There, among magma seas and ruins of forgotten cities, the Emberstones burn with living flame, guarded by fire daemons, duardin war-smiths, and the cruel tribes of the Magmadroths. Aethyros and Khar’vhal now march toward those coasts, their warflock leaving trails of shimmering ash and twisted metal in their wake.
Each shard they claim burns brighter than the last, and with every victory, Aethyros feels the veil thinning — the Lord of Change drawing closer, watching, waiting to see if his servant’s flame will consume or illuminate.