Clint Werner: Blood for the Blood God

One of the many tribes of the dark-haired Kurgan race, the Vaan are the most numerous of the tribes of the domain. Militaristic and highly disciplined, the Vaan have ever been willing servants of Khorne. Skilled tacticians and strategists, the zars of the Vaan approach war as a sacred sacrament, believing that carnage without victory is offensive to their god. The Vaan maintain legions of goblin slaves to work the extensive mines and forges that writhe beneath their land. Their warriors sport mail of blackened iron and bear weapons finer than anything born in the crude fires of their rivals. If not for the Tsavags and the Sul, the entire domain would long ago have fallen beneath the iron boots of the Vaan armies.

Another of the Hung tribes drawn by the promises of Teiyogtei Khagan, it is said that the Seifan are a people born in the saddle. They measure their wealth in the size of their herds, and they breed the fastest steeds in the domain, fierce animals fattened on flesh and blood. In battle, the Seifan employ scythe-wheeled chariots of wood and bronze. They do not favour any of the gods, but worship each in his turn according to the tribe’s need. Without concept of conscience or honour, the Seifan are dangerous enemies and equally dangerous allies. Their power in the domain lies not from sorcery or force of arms, but from an uncanny facility for playing one foe against another.

Inhuman beastmen, the Warherd takes its name from the ancient beastlord who swore fealty to Teiyogtei Khagan. Feral, savage monsters, the beastmen found themselves with few friends when the horde disintegrated in the aftermath of the king’s death. Driven into the mysterious wooded expanse of the Grey, the beastmen have long nursed their primordial hate for the races of man. Generations of dwelling within the lightless depths of the forest have rendered the beastkin all but blind, but the mutating influence of the forest has given them new senses in compensation. The beastmen have become the foremost of the terrors of the night, raiding the lands of even the strongest tribes, slaking their savage hunger for human flesh.

A tribe of Kurgans, the Gahhuks are deadly enemies of the Seifan, viewing the Hung horselords with a bitter enmity born of spite and envy. Horsemen themselves, the Gahhuks see the Seifan as their most immediate rivals in the domain and vie with the Hung for control of the grasslands. The hulking steeds of the Gahhuks bear little resemblance to the shaggy ponies of the Seifan and are bred for raw strength and power rather than speed and endurance. The Gahhuks practise a grisly death-cult, each man forced to slay a rival before he is accepted as a warrior of the tribe. The flayed skin of the vanquished rival is a token of the warrior’s status, stretched across a wooden frame and worn across the back when the warrior rides into battle.

Of the three Hung tribes who swore allegiance to Teiyogtei Khagan, the Veh-Kung have strayed the farthest from their origins as horsemen and nomads. Defeated by their rivals, the Veh-Kung were forced to seek sanctuary in the macabre Desert of Mirrors, a weird realm infested with the noxious power of Nurgle, the Plague God. Decimated by the invisible pestilence exuding from the crystalline landscape, the Veh-Kung swore to embrace the worship of the Crow God if he would spare their lives. Nurgle was as good as his promise, and no longer did the Veh-Kung die from the plague all around them. But the god did not spare their flesh and the Veh-Kung became debased, ghastly creatures.

Confronted daily by their decaying reflections in the crystalline spires of the desert, the Veh-Kung burrowed beneath the shimmering sand, carving a network of tunnels beneath the desert to hide not from the sun, but from their own hideous transformation. Now they eke out a troglodyte existence, scratching a starveling subsistence from their unforgiving home. The legacy of their ancestors and their origins upon the eastern steppes is a mocking memory that serves only to remind the Veh-Kung how far they have fallen and to heighten their despair.

The Muhaks are a tribe of Kurgans renowned for their immense strength, if not their subtle natures. Grotesquely swollen with inhuman growths of muscle, the Muhaks more resemble ogres than men. Infamous as cannibals, the Muhaks wear the skins of their victims as visible displays of their strength and power. Even among the fierce tribes of the domain, the Muhaks are seen as vicious barbarians, as dangerous as rabid trolls. No tribe has been spared the depredations of the Muhaks, but exterminating the brutes is a task that even the Vaan hesitate to consider, knowing the losses such a campaign would incur and knowing that the other tribes would be quick to exploit such weakness.